Apple Valley, CA
—Artwork Courtesy of Public Domain
FIRST PERFECTLY, THEN ROTATING
Large scale emotional experiment here:
moo softly when they call your name.
Does the moniker Pavlov ring a bell?
You won’t like poverty, either.
Movies about women made by old men.
Repeat—ego death, ego death, ego.
I humbly apologize for any inconvenience.
If I throw a stick, will you fetch it?
But you’re saving so many animals,
you say, though you’re just an epic stoner
(it’s when you feel best as a human,
what about the rest of your life, though).
Let’s make you a schedule so hectic
you’ll never need anything normal again.
My god, giving up is beautiful. Like
waxwings floating across a toxic breeze.
For me, transcendence by brute force.
Live in the existential trash of questions.
Large scale emotional experiment here:
moo softly when they call your name.
Does the moniker Pavlov ring a bell?
You won’t like poverty, either.
Movies about women made by old men.
Repeat—ego death, ego death, ego.
I humbly apologize for any inconvenience.
If I throw a stick, will you fetch it?
But you’re saving so many animals,
you say, though you’re just an epic stoner
(it’s when you feel best as a human,
what about the rest of your life, though).
Let’s make you a schedule so hectic
you’ll never need anything normal again.
My god, giving up is beautiful. Like
waxwings floating across a toxic breeze.
For me, transcendence by brute force.
Live in the existential trash of questions.
THERE’S NO LIMIT TO THIS WOMAN’S
ABILITY TO DECONSTRUCT
A FREQUENCY OR SHAPE
ABILITY TO DECONSTRUCT
A FREQUENCY OR SHAPE
Drove all night to Sparkle,
West Virginia, a town I just made up,
in a fictional rental car.
Couldn’t remember her name.
She’s got a fentanyl-patch-addicted,
ex-cop foster daddy, a real
down-with-Jesus fellow who wears
tangerine eye shadow,
is filled with a violent contentment,
bounding as a jackrabbit,
slashing like an Exacto knife,
all nervousness and chatter trapped
in a damp sweater his
grandma knitted him on her deathbed.
His daughter, adorable in her floppy
felt autistic rainbow hat,
used to pinch me hard and say,
My heart’s been paralyzed, but my
synaptic willow tree’s been redeemed,
then she’d turn the TV up to a
scream. Justine. Justine, where are you?
NOT YET
And we’re eating fur, silky, sticky
with flesh, tendons strings for the
keyboard of our teeth
when afternoon comes to rest as a
coy bitch, we in her lap, fall
swirling leaves into paper sonatas,
us cloudy and wet, drenched in lush
errors which fill Cathedral Lake
with our overlooked regrets,
not washed, not clean, not free, not
yet done, still hunting, still
feeding on mangy coyote elegies.
And we’re eating fur, silky, sticky
with flesh, tendons strings for the
keyboard of our teeth
when afternoon comes to rest as a
coy bitch, we in her lap, fall
swirling leaves into paper sonatas,
us cloudy and wet, drenched in lush
errors which fill Cathedral Lake
with our overlooked regrets,
not washed, not clean, not free, not
yet done, still hunting, still
feeding on mangy coyote elegies.
END OF THE LINE
What is the molecular structure for
disappointment? Ouroboros?
Still-born calf? Feels like a reptile
trapped in the bottom half of my body.
It’s like I caught my own semen
up to no good. Bad, bad tadpoles,
sprung from the volcano, headed
downstream with nowhere to hide.
No safe pouch, no egg, no future.
I can’t find the seams to throw this
fastball I owe, right over the plate,
swing and a miss, maybe a foul tip
if I keep my shoulder down.
Not touching any bases either way.
Not big and beautiful, not old-time
religion, not down by the creek
with a dog, not driving a school bus
at sunset, not inventing moons or
frogs, not progenitor, not a cherry
on top, not peeling young sunburnt
skin, not apologetic, not even a smile.
What is the molecular structure for
disappointment? Ouroboros?
Still-born calf? Feels like a reptile
trapped in the bottom half of my body.
It’s like I caught my own semen
up to no good. Bad, bad tadpoles,
sprung from the volcano, headed
downstream with nowhere to hide.
No safe pouch, no egg, no future.
I can’t find the seams to throw this
fastball I owe, right over the plate,
swing and a miss, maybe a foul tip
if I keep my shoulder down.
Not touching any bases either way.
Not big and beautiful, not old-time
religion, not down by the creek
with a dog, not driving a school bus
at sunset, not inventing moons or
frogs, not progenitor, not a cherry
on top, not peeling young sunburnt
skin, not apologetic, not even a smile.
TINY URNS
I bounce from one mind camp to another
(there are many), camps within camps even,
some I’ve pitched a tent in for years, but
the one among them in my mind today
is spartan, packing light: minimalism—
to be free from my obsessive compulsions,
to be clean, polished, unafraid to toss an it
(or you) in the trash for happy-go-lucky
garbage collectors to chuck in the back of a
smoke-chugging truck. Still, as I don’t keep
diaries, I’m riven by a need to leave a map
behind me: books, music, clothing, bar
ware, DVDs, low art, removable hard drives,
photos, and yes, friends. One can try to off-
load onto doctors, partners, pals, sobering
drunk rabbit-hole conversations in a tavern,
one can try every spring dragging in sad
cardboard boxes to coax hordes of ghost
tears out of drawers and closets, one can try
to enjoy dandelion tea, ignore brain glitch,
creeping ache, one can tongue every bitter
root or leaf one finds, dream the iron taste
of childhood blood, coma through booms
and torrents, un-hear the word cancer, cough,
stretch, so for now my poems are holding,
like tiny shiny urns of radiant pre-dementia.
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.
—Henry David Thoreau
___________________
Michael Dwayne Smith is back with us today, and we’re always glad to have him and his fine poetry. Be sure to pre-order his new book, Shaking Music from the Angry Air (Sheila-Na-Gig Inc., https://sheilanagigblog.com/), for a pre-order discount of 20% through August 15th, 2025. The page for info, blurbs, purchase is:
https://sheilanagigblog.com/shop-sheila-na-gig-editions/michael-dwayne-smith-music/. Congratulations, Michael, on your latest project!
I bounce from one mind camp to another
(there are many), camps within camps even,
some I’ve pitched a tent in for years, but
the one among them in my mind today
is spartan, packing light: minimalism—
to be free from my obsessive compulsions,
to be clean, polished, unafraid to toss an it
(or you) in the trash for happy-go-lucky
garbage collectors to chuck in the back of a
smoke-chugging truck. Still, as I don’t keep
diaries, I’m riven by a need to leave a map
behind me: books, music, clothing, bar
ware, DVDs, low art, removable hard drives,
photos, and yes, friends. One can try to off-
load onto doctors, partners, pals, sobering
drunk rabbit-hole conversations in a tavern,
one can try every spring dragging in sad
cardboard boxes to coax hordes of ghost
tears out of drawers and closets, one can try
to enjoy dandelion tea, ignore brain glitch,
creeping ache, one can tongue every bitter
root or leaf one finds, dream the iron taste
of childhood blood, coma through booms
and torrents, un-hear the word cancer, cough,
stretch, so for now my poems are holding,
like tiny shiny urns of radiant pre-dementia.
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.
—Henry David Thoreau
___________________
Michael Dwayne Smith is back with us today, and we’re always glad to have him and his fine poetry. Be sure to pre-order his new book, Shaking Music from the Angry Air (Sheila-Na-Gig Inc., https://sheilanagigblog.com/), for a pre-order discount of 20% through August 15th, 2025. The page for info, blurbs, purchase is:
https://sheilanagigblog.com/shop-sheila-na-gig-editions/michael-dwayne-smith-music/. Congratulations, Michael, on your latest project!
Michael will be reading for Sheila-Na-Gig from his new book next Friday, August 15, 7pm EST, 4pm PDT). For info on signing up to hear his reading, go to https://sheilanagigblog.com/2025/05/26/save-the-date-connie-johnson-sheila-na-gig-reading/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMDXOVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHk_e9tuIR8X36X9M5Ox3j30ZgchnsxZ1XilDJcU6d-NwQrUDa06lfluihiMc_aem_fDQY6j5s8YgNJjZ6WtiyfQ/.
___________________
—Medusa
A reminder that
Susan Cohen and Jeanne Wagner
read today, 4pm, at
Sacramento Poetry Alliance;
and The VIP Affair Show
takes place in Sacramento
tonight, 8pm.
For info about these 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.
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.
Poets’ bios appear on their first MK visit.
To find previous posts, type the name
of the poet (or poem) into the little
beige box at the top left-hand side
of this column. See also
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom
of the blue column on the right
side of this column to find
any date you want.
Miss a post?
You can find our most recent ones by
scrolling down under this daily one.
Or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column.
(Please excuse typos in older posts!
Blogspot has been through a lot of
incarnations in 20 years!)
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
send poetry and/or photos and artwork
to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
Susan Cohen and Jeanne Wagner
read today, 4pm, at
Sacramento Poetry Alliance;
and The VIP Affair Show
takes place in Sacramento
tonight, 8pm.
For info about these 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.
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.
Poets’ bios appear on their first MK visit.
To find previous posts, type the name
of the poet (or poem) into the little
beige box at the top left-hand side
of this column. See also
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom
of the blue column on the right
side of this column to find
any date you want.
Miss a post?
You can find our most recent ones by
scrolling down under this daily one.
Or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column.
(Please excuse typos in older posts!
Blogspot has been through a lot of
incarnations in 20 years!)
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
send poetry and/or photos and artwork
to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
as a coy bitch. . .”
