Dreaming Into Space

 

—Poetry and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

—And scroll down for Form Fiddlers’ Friday!

DUPLEX

We co-exist here in our separate rooms,
kitchen, oak shade, hallway, back-hill rockpile.

Kitchen to oak shade to back-hill rockpile—
I move through spaces of our fenced acres.

Do space and time describe fenced acres
to the fox, the doe who birthed her fawn here?

The fox, the doe and her gangly fawn; here,
the stunned nuthatch who crashed on window glass.

Nuthatch stunned, seeing sky in window glass—
problem of living so close to strangers.

A problem, seeing others as strangers,
ground-squirrel in our garden, doe leaping rocks.

Back deck, oak shade, fenced garden, fox-den rocks,
we co-exist here in our separate rooms. 

 

 

 

 

DREAMING INTO SPACE

When she asks for space / She is the future.
When she / Asks for a room, it is the end.
            —Alison C. Rollins, “Love in Outer Space”

Am I in school again, so late in life?
almost overdue with the assignment.
All these learned scientific pages
to digest, my brain is calcified, or
transformed to lead, to ooze. Instead I walk
outside my walls, dizzy—with words? Dizzy
under moonless sky. The ash-heap glitters
with reflected stars which are itself. Sky
pathed with galaxies, I’ve lost my way. Our
combustible Earth, the birth and death of
bodies heavenly or not. What shall I
write of dying into glory of light?

 

 

 

 

 

WAKING FROM STORM

If there were perfect
snowflakes—soft crystals of rain—
the caterwauling
wind blew them away, drove them
into the bark of
oak, if oak’s still standing, or
the jumble of twigs
small branches scattered in the
dark. We slept or woke
under the knock of rain on
the roof, the push-broom
sweep of wind across the deck.
If snowflakes, they were
silent as not-being. At
dawn I scanned for limbs
torn from oaks, downed trees across
driveway or collapsed
car, loose objects littering
the field. The land was waking
quietly to day-
light. Nothing damaged, nothing
lost. Did I dream the snowflakes? 

 

 

 

 

 

ON THE BEAUFORT SCALE

They fly unfeathered
but tethered, singing uncaged—
your gift of wind-chimes. 

 

 

 

 

BETWEEN COUNTRIES

I love the almost-dawn between
stars and birds, only the owl who
calls from mid-distance unseen.
To me? I’m alien outside my door,
wishing I knew the language better.
I shiver at the owl’s call, summons
to leave the cyber world indoors
that doesn’t seem to know me. 

from Jim Harrison’s “Another Country” 

 

 

 

 

IN BRIEF

cat
u n l a t c h e s
cabinet

dog
e n f o r c e s
order

cat
u n l e a s h e s
chaos

spider
c a p t u r e s
millipede

storm
e n g u l f s
house 

 

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

OUTHOUSE IN WINTER
—Taylor Graham

Cold inside thin walls—
crescent-moon graced door admits
six perfect snowflakes.

________________

Six perfect snowflakes have drifted in on us (our Seed of the Week last week), thanks to Taylor Graham. She has also sent us some forms: a Duplex (“Duplex”); a Blank Verse (“Dreaming into Space”): a Choka (“Waking from Storm”); a Response Poem (“Between Countries”); a Brevette chain (“In Brief”) and a couple of Haiku (“On the Beaufort Scale”, “Outhouse in Winter”). And a spider, being challenged by a millipede. Or vice versa; who knows what goes on in their tiny world?

Taylor also writes: "I’ve started a blog, Somerset Sunset, devoted to SAR (search and rescue) dogs—and poetry. It’s meant to preserve material from our (Hatch’s & my) now defunct Somerset Sunset website. (A new website is technologically beyond me; a blog is challenging enough.) Here are links (it seems that one works for some people, the other for others; feedback on what works for you is appreciated!):"
 
https://hatchandjudygraham.wixsite.com
https://hatchandjudygraham.wixsite.com/website

And now it’s time for…

 

FORM FIDDLERS’ FRIDAY!

It’s time for more contributions from Form Fiddlers, in addition to those sent to us by Taylor Graham! Each Friday for awhile, there will be poems posted here from some of our readers using forms—either ones which were mentioned on Medusa during the previous week, or whatever else floats through the Kitchen and the perpetually stoned mind of Medusa. If these instructions are vague, it's because they're meant to be. Just fiddle around with some forms and get them posted in the Kitchen, by golly! (See Medusa’s Form Finder at the end of this post for links to definitions of the forms used this week.)

Our nimble SnakePal, Tom Goff, has sent us two poems today: a Sonnet and a Double Dactyl. First, the sonnet:


THRUSH MUSIC—HARK!
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA

You speak of how we first met some time ago.
You rainbow salient details through a speech-prism
Till my face reddens now with what you know.
But music is more your poetry; lyricism
Peeps through canopy you’ve leafed with free verse.
Life’s a nest swept of ambient invaders.
Your notes are notes a most serene bird can nurse
As she guards fledgling peregrines the raiders,
The feral cats, the competitor birds left.
Sing what you will; I’ll get by heart your song
If only my sense of pitch with benign theft
Can track your voiceprint in its pouring-on
Strange avian skein, improvisatory onrush,
As Amy Beach made keyboard music
of the hermit thrush. 

 

 

 

DOUBLE DACTYL INAUGURAL
—Tom Goff

Ramala Momala,
Kamala Harris’s
Stepdaughter Ella can
Wiggle eyebrows.

Alternate waggles of
Superciliositous
Tease at the former Veep:
Instagram wows. 

 

 

 

Caschwa (Carl Schwartz) and Taylor Graham (see above for hers) both got the point of last Friday’s Fiddlers’ Challenge, the Brevette. It’s very important to make the stretched-out verb in the middle be descriptive, like “parachute s l o w s descent”. Can you see it slowing down? I suggested last week that poets make a Brevette chain instead of the too-brief single poem. “Shorts from Schwartz” is a very cool title, and a bit of a tongue-twister. Here are Carl’s Shorts:


SHORTS FROM SCHWARTZ
—Caschwa

parachute
s l o w s
descent


appetizer
t e a s e s
tongue


mare
p r o t e c t s
foal


faire
o f f e r s
awards


cheater
f l u n k s
test


heater
h u m s
warmth


hail
c r o w d s
pail


poet
s e i z e s
moment

 

 

 

Carl has been making up forms again, and here is his formula for this one:

What it is:
3 quatrains, rhyme scheme abab, cdcd, efef
Acrostic—first word
Acrostic—first letter
 
What it is not:
Serious

DMV (Deep Moving Verbs)
—Caschwa

poetic newbies with learner permits,
license to kill, yes, master the skill, no
excuses just crush whomever one hits
all the world a target since long ago

strange events intervene where grammar lives
elocution, execution, break rules
however shiny be the positives
egregiously improper language drools

lame adjectives subbed in for strong adverbs
phrasing without any thoughts or a plan
may I sell you my collection of herbs?
expire tomorrow, eat all that you can

 

 

 

 

Here is his Haibun:


INVENTORY
—Caschwa

we had a big ass revolt
to get rid of a bad ass king
they called it an experiment
we know it as progress

our lab coats off
calibration tools aside
we are ready to live our lives
and enjoy the progress

insurrection did travail
Democracy must prevail
we will charge and convict offenders
the result will be progress

count all toes each day
in case one of them’s Pluto
and taken away 

 

 

 

 

And here is a Skeltonic Verse, also from Carl:


SPINES FOR SALE
—Caschwa

before the day was done
that one good man with a gun
was forsaken, overtaken
not by wasteful consumption
but a volcanic eruption
of the taste of corruption

we can win the fight over mold,
face viruses with vaccine gold,
find good answers for cancers
and come near facing our fear

while some of our highest
ranking public officials
high in the clouds above
threat of dismissals

put their spine up for auction
wanted it gone like a toxin

who would see it missing?
with all the snakes a’hissing!

__________________

And many thanks to our SnakePals for their brave fiddling! Would you like to be a SnakePal? All you have to do is send poetry—forms or not—and/or photos and artwork to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post work from all over the world, including that which was previously-published. Just remember: the snakes of Medusa are always hungry!

__________________

FIDDLERS’ CHALLENGE!  

See what you can make of this week’s poetry challenge, and send it to kathykieth@hotmail.com! (No deadline.) This week's challenge is a
Fantasy: a three-stanza, structured, syllabic poem of 20 lines, rhymed: abccaba deffed gghhiii: poetscollective.org/poetryforms/#F

__________________

MEDUSA’S FORM FINDER: Links to poetry forms mentioned today:

•••Acrostic: literarydevices.net/acrostic
•••Blank Verse: literarydevices.net/blank-verse OR www.masterclass.com/articles/poetry-101-what-is-the-difference-between-blank-verse-and-free-verse#quiz-0
•••Brevette: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/brevette.html
•••Choka: poetscollective.org/poetryforms/choka OR poetscollective.org/poetryforms/choka
•••Duplex: www.readpoetry.com/try-this-trio-3-poetic-forms-to-push-your-writing
•••Fantasy: poetscollective.org/poetryforms/#F
•••Haibun: www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/haibun-poems-poetic-form
•••Haiku: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/haiku/haiku.html
•••Response Poem: creativetalentsunleashed.com/2015/11/18/writing-tip-response-poems
•••Skeltonic Verse: www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/skeltonic-verse-poetic-form
•••Sonnet Forms: blog.prepscholar.com/what-is-a-sonnet-poem-form

_________________

—Medusa

 

 

Lamb Baaath

 —Public Domain Poem Courtesy of 

Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

 

 “who would see it missing?
with all the snakes a’hissing!”