Twenty on the Dot

 Celebration!

—Photo by Caschwa
* * *
—Poetry by Caschwa, Keith Snow,
Jeanine Stevens, Charles Mariano,
and Stephen Kingsnorth
—Photos by Caschwa and Jeanine Stevens
—Public Domain Visuals Courtesy
of Joe Nolan and Medusa

 

 

LET’S CELEBRATE!
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

that we can breathe air in
and out again

wiggle our toes
and smell like a rose

eat all we want
use any font

write things that rhyme
just any old time

speak with no curbs
grow our own herbs

love all our neighbors
help with their labors

sleep well at night
surpass our old height

honor the worth
of life here on Earth 

 

 

* * *

May 29, 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of Medusa’s Kitchen, so we sent out a call for celebratory poems on any subject. Here’s what some of our SnakePals came up with: 

 

 

 

 —Artwork from West Turkey Courtesy of Jeanine Stevens

BOG JUMPING
—Jeanine Stevens, Sacramento, CA

Every turn of the road, our driver sings
familiar Irish tunes, some folk,
others from film scores.
Arriving at one spot, the earth thick
like licorice studded with various colors.
We learn this is the only place
a carnivorous bug survives.
I check my parka for signs of a nibble.
The ground is soft and spongy.
A sign says we can jump, try out springiness.
You and two older men who eat oysters
and beer each night for dinner,
have a great go of it, rising, bouncing,
not even loosing balance. Driving through
a heavy mist we stop at Yeats’ grave,
“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
On our way again, we arrive at Westport,
Matt Molloy’s pub owned by one
of the Chieftains. A classic setting,
numerous ales, whiskeys, locals
on drums, flutes and hot fiddles.
One woman in our group, very conservative,
sedate, freckles, begins tapping her toes,
posture relaxing like a marionette;
she reaches for two spoons (intended for
bowls of Irish stew with Guinness extra stout),
hikes her skirt and measures out a mean beat.
Amazing we find such joy, respond
to rhythms mirroring our own heartbeats.
Even at 75, grandfather could do an Irish jig,
a high-stepping fling at a barn dance in Indiana. 

 

 

 

 —Artwork from West Turkey Courtesy of Jeanine Stevens

ECLIPSE: A Villanelle
—Keith Snow, Harrisburg, PA

This villanelle was from a prompt to use song
lyrics for the repeating lines:

The first one there says to second one,  
there is more darkness all around.
Little darling, here comes the sun.

Our brand new day has just begun.
I’m glad your feet are on the ground.
The first one there says to second one

We first must walk, then learn to run,
to where, joy and happiness abound.
Little darling here comes the sun

The harbinger of a celebration
Like a king, being fitted for a crown
The first one there says to second one

Don't let doubt limit your own expectation.
You're not meant to be just earthbound.
Little darling, here comes the sun.

Rising star, seeking attention.
Beyond clouds her light can be found
The first one there says to second one
Little darling, you are the sun!

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joe Nolan
[This photo also happened to be a recent 

MK Ekphrastic Challenge.]

CELEBRATION OF LIFE
—Charles Mariano, Sacramento, CA

whenever i see images of trains,
any trains,
i find myself staring
long and hard

i see trains differently
than most,
‘specially now,
decades later

like this old train pic
chugging at me
outta the fog,
it has an eerie, ghostly quality

i see and hear,
a frightening replay

it’s 4am, and i’m 18,
a hot summer night in Merced
driving with the windows down
by myself,

sleepy as hell
and prob’ly a tad buzzed
i somehow, someway,
hit that damn train
on G Street

my eyes blinked awake
to this surreal, slow-motion scene,
a monstrous view,
a thunderous, screeching noise

the train
nicked the front end,
bumped the car sideways,
suddenly, to the left of me,
gigantic metal wheels
sliding closer…

instinctively,
i let go of the wheel,
scooted to my right,
snaked out the window
and rolled hard on the rocks

i sat there stunned,
the world trembling, pounding
all around me,
as i watched the tail-end
of the train
finish crunching the car

scary, but kind of funny
at the time,
when telling friends
not funny anymore

as miracles go,
this qualifies 

 

 

—Public Domain Illustration Courtesy of Medusa

THE RECIPE
—Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Wales

A candle on the birthday cake
for waxed or waned poetic drafts.      
Observe, reflect, protest if tasked,
indeed the themes unlimited   
as illustrate community
with rhythm, pulse, beat heart, drawn breath.

Here’s language, glyphs to mark out codes,
their sounds demanded of our mouths;
might words fulfil a double rôle,
casting spells, witchcraft our thought
though take their toll on working through—
can any term so fully grow?

Poor name for unrhymed lines which speak
more loudly oftentimes, called bank;
prefer the posers as parade,
those pausing with a question mark?
Our dreams turn mares to trash the worst;
daydreaming hopes to realise

I owe so much for challenge range,
the prompt to eye, for me I blink,
seeds rarely out of sight and mind,
as pics on pixel roundabout;
a service for the layabouts
whose minds alert though limbs desert.

Medusa, snakes, where myths abound,
as samples, Sam, hiss, pitch from pit;
care, kitchen wrangler shows so much.
As older, Greenman takes the stage,
for lifetime creeds embrace more lores;
this cookbook scores, my current star.

A global network of the versed
in creativity of words
when most curated, confidence
that editors find worthy style,
but here no judgement, recipe,
one’s dish accepted, tastebuds fired.

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Medusa

SIMPLE GIFTS
from this land enabling us the better to cope!
—Stephen Kingsnorth

Trace gifts for anniversaries,
from paper whereon poetry,
the first of verse, before my time,
a site unknown for many years.
Real thread that runs from classic forms
first cotton; wool, to fluffy stuff.
Hide meaning, words as leather work,
that parchment for the valued codes.

Flax linen for the fourth estate,
a journal in poetic cause.
For fifth, the Greenman in the wood,
that kieth of unexpected spell,
there rooted in a Gaelic grove,
the Celt where elements the creed.
Here’s candy six, the sweeter mix
of every style and mood—with pics!

Cat’s Cradle, for the seventh, wool,
imagination’s building sight.    
Enhanced taste is number eight,
when salt is sprinkled, verse rehearsed
Our nine is copper, Verdigris,
green tarnish which the reader coats    
Ten, Tinman on the yellow brick,
though/for where verse leads, another guess.

A rainbow may be somewhere hid,
tipped treasure at the coloured dip.
Steel speaks of strength, though tariffs too,
so here’s to site where no fees due
(eleven not an easy word,
accommodated at some cost.)
Silk luxury the dozen prize,
as lace reprise for baker’s count.

While ivory and crystal teens      
bring china, twenty, total toll.
Magnificent, provided food,
as we, at kitchen table, filled. 

 

 

 

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Medusa

 

 

 POETRY
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

“What a mighty voice it requires in the poet, to keep
his lines strange, and rolling like waves, and brave
like the sun.”             –John Crowe Ransom


These words that celebrate from me,
these words that grieve,
these words that sing or weep . . .

These words that come from their
own places—of their own volition,
that I take, and call them mine . . .

How they cluster—how they form—
too fast, or too resistant—depending on
their own need or inspiration . . .

Which of us needs the other more—
my reach, or their release. Oh, words,
words—we are the path to one another.
I will write while you speak. 

—Public Domain Illustration Courtesy of Medusa

Poetry is as powerful as a Dragon~

and just as tough!

DRAFT
—Robin Gale Odam, Sacramento, CA

Breathless, the poet scribbled
with sharpened pencils—breathless
in the turning of the hour, in the hour of
gleaning, in the placing of the flourish.

Fragile curls of pencil lead and broken
points lay scattered over pages of
endings.


(prev. pub. in Brevities, July 2018;
Song of the San Joaquin, Fall 2018;
Medusa’s Kitchen, 12/27/22; 7/18/23; 11/16/24) 

 

 

 

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Medusa

WRITTEN BY MOONLIGHT
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole, CA

May you and I read within
each other deepness
only a chosen few will reach.

Let us be open, not wear a mask,
sensitive to fantasy and reality,
aware of the other’s shadows,

hurts, triumphs, beliefs, quirks.
When we disagree, may we
withhold unkindness.

How luminous when we met,
our pages turning as one.
Yet in their own time and space.

You are a young romantic poet—
I, an elder-elder.
May we keep sharing our poems.

 

 

 —Public Domain Illustration Courtesy of Medusa

And some affectionate thoughts about the thousands of poets who have visited the Kitchen in more than two million posts:

They Talk to Me in Poems—

steady stream of missals
handed to me carefully—
tightly chiseled or scratched on the back
of a matchbook: shiny, expensive

journal poems tied up in ribbons or
soft mumblings on a microphone or
ethereals in flimsy cyber-strings of
e-mail: picture poems or quotes

from somebody else: submissions or
just weekend ramblings: bottle-
messages stuffed in the mailbox or
crumpled on the coffee table: flat

smack up against a deadline or
strung out one-at-a-time for
months and months: casual notes
(if you really want this) or please-

please-please swallowing the lines…
They talk to me
in poems: how it hurts and
where it hurts and when

it feels better: who they lost and how
it ended and why why why.  They
talk to me
talk to me

talk to me: carefully crafted or
spilled
splattered
sparkling—an endless, sweet, sweet

cacophony of heart songs
spent clear across
each fluttering page…


—Kathy Kieth, Diamond Springs, CA

 

(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 5/1/22)

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

—Thomas Gray

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today’s poets for their celebrations! Here’s to another twenty years~

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Illustration Courtesy of Medusa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A reminder that

Lara Gularte will present

a workshop in El Dorado Hills

tonight, 5:30pm.

For info about this and other
future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
 during the week.

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Would you like to be a SnakePal?
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