—Poetry and Photos by Taylor Graham,
Placerville, CA
—And then scroll down for
Form Fiddlers’ Friday, with poetry by
Nolcha Fox, Stephen Kingsnorth,
Joe Nolan, and Caschwa
MUSHROOMS IN AUGUST
It’s the wrong season
for florally headdressed gents and ladies
in bygone bonnetries and cavalier chapeaux.
And yet, here’s one lying on the fair-
grounds lawn, felled it seems, but
apparently alive. A fungus, in its
questionable state of scientific classification.
Flora or fauna?
This one is simple, white-capped,
no frills. But in a dry month it gives us
hope for fungi futures, as mosses and lichens
hold fast to our trees—some of them
already dreaming of dropping their leaves.
DANCE WITH PADLOCK
I line up numbers till they’re right
and can’t imagine what went wrong.
The lock should open like a song.
Instead it stays shut brassy-tight.
I line up numbers till they’re right
for dancing with a summer’s throng
of bees and birds. I’d step along
if just this lock would see the light.
I line up numbers till they’re right.
Dead silence is the loser’s gong.
This ornery lock is stubborn-strong.
If I could I bust it with sheer might—
I line up numbers till they’re right...
PARALLEL LINES
A steep hill separates me from neighbors
I’ve never met, who moved here a year ago.
A buried water line has sprung a leak
bringing us all together over a problem.
FRUITS OF THE TRAIL
Beside the trestle we begin our August walk
by a wall of bramble, berries ripe, plump and juicy.
As my dog chews tips of marsh-grass, I pick
blackberries. Ambrosia! If I stayed here snacking,
would I become a Greek spirit of the clouds?
We move on, away from RR track, a dirt path
edged with berry-tangle and summer’s dead
sticker-weeds. What’s this? an empty can
of sliced peaches in light syrup. This is no place
for a picnic. We move on, thankful for shade
of oaks. On rising ground, the berries
are tiny but sweet. A fringe of wild plum trees—
pale-gold fruit too high to pick, and a single
fallen plum. Bramble presses against
the path and plumps its berries. I can’t resist
as August can’t last forever—Otis
is bored with just standing still
and my fingers red-stained with sweet.
TO WHOEVER BOUGHT & LOST IT
Vanilla sheet cake tumbles from its box,
landing face-down on gravel. There’s precious
little you can do to resurrect it
for your mid-afternoon get-together.
So you leave it where it lies, for the birds
if they’re on a sugar diet. Walking
my dog around strip-mall fringes, I work
on “leave it!” Otis is a snacking fiend—
crumbs & chicken bones—& here’s ambrosia
lying on the ground. Excellent training
opportunity! Will he go berserk
for cake with icing & sprinkles? Can I
be confident that leash this handler’s words
will get the better of my dog’s desire?
“Leave it!” And he stops, turns & looks at me.
OTIS NEEDS A DOG FRIEND
At
the
rescue
place we meet
Belle, Freya, Indy.
Who will be Otis’s partner?
Shy little Indy is race-car
red, a lady who
can keep him
chasing
for-
ev-
er.
_______________
Today’s LittleNip:
OFF RED HAWK PARKWAY
—Taylor Graham
Golden Shovel on a line by Stuart Kestenbaum
Hawk soars above the cars
eastbound, westbound on
rising and falling arcs, different
trajectories, speeds—above paths
the natives trod centuries ago, the
ways of red sunrise and sunset to dark.
________________
Shrooms in August! Otis needs a dog friend! Wasted cake! Snarky lock! And a leak up the hill! Taylor Graham has had an eventful week, and many thanks from us to her for writing about it, as the hunt for an Otis-pal goes on.
Forms TG has used this week include some Blank Verse (“To Whoever Bought & Lost It”); a Golden Shovel (“Off Red Hawk Parkway”); a Response Poem to a previous Medusa's Kitchen Ekphrastic photo (“Mushrooms in August”); a Bell Curve Fib (a Fib with a reverse Fib under it—“Otis Needs a Dog Friend”); a Jueju (“Parallel Lines”); and a Dansa (“Dance with Padlock”), as well as a couple of Responses to our current Tuesday Seed of the Week, Ambrosia (“Fruits of the Trail” and “To Whoever Bought & Lost It”). The Dansa and the Fib were last week’s Triple-F Challenges.
The Jueju (https://poetsonline.org/prompt.html) is a Chinese poem of four lines. The description says, “The first line contains the initial phrase; the second line, the continuation of that phrase; the third line turns from this subject and begins a new one, but the fourth line brings the first three lines together.”
El Dorado County poets will be here there and everywhere this week! If you’re in Berkeley on Saturday, El Dorado County Poet Laureate Moira Magneson will read with other Sixteen Rivers Press poets, 3pm. Then Poet Laureate Emeritus Lara Gularte will present a workshop in El Dorado Hills on Thursday, 5:30pm. And the Thursdays at Two Poetry Group (with Taylor Graham) will have a reading in Georgetown on Friday, 5pm. Plus, info about El Dorado Country’s regular workshops is listed on Medusa’s calendar (if you scroll down on http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html/). For more news about such events and about EDC poetry—past (photos!) and future—see Taylor Graham’s Western Slope El Dorado Poetry on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry. Or see Lara Gularte’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/382234029968077/. And you can always click on Medusa's UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS (http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html). Poetry is Gold in El Dorado County! 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, there will be poems posted here from our readers using forms—either ones which were sent to 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 challenges— Whaddaya got to lose… ? If you send ‘em, I’ll post ‘em! (See Medusa’s Form Finder at the end of this post for resources and for links to poetry terms used in today’s post.)
Check out our recently-refurbed page at the top of Medusa’s Kitchen called, “FORMS! OMG!!!” which expresses some of my (take ‘em or leave 'em) opinions about the use of forms in poetry writing, as well as listing some more resources to help you navigate through Form Quicksand and other ways of poetry. Got any more resources to add to our list? Send them to kathykieth@hotmail.com for the benefit of all man/woman/poetkind!
* * *
Last Week’s Ekphrastic Photo
Poets who sent responses to last week’s Ekphrastic photo were Nolcha Fox, Stephen Kingsnorth, and Joe Nolan:
WHAT’S HIDING IN THE PIPES?
—Nolcha Fox, Buffalo, WY
The bathtub water wouldn’t drain,
so we called Plumber Joe.
He said the pipes were far
too small to handle such a flow.
We filed out, we knew that Joe
preferred to work in private.
Suddenly, he screamed and ran
in front of a huge wave
that carried sharks and polar bears,
some penguins, and a whale.
We applauded as the wave
got hold of Plumber Joe.
Water now flows freely,
and he didn’t leave a bill.
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Stephen Kingsnorth
POLAR BARE
—Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Wales
A puzzle, as this mass of fur
can swim and swirl, curl through freeze flow,
a bullish bear with paddle claws.
trapped bubbles raising in that twirl.
Soon polar bare, without a float,
floe ice needs check before dissolves.
Aerated lift through aqua blue,
a tinted hint of hunting whale
as flyby flesh, fresh living dead,
beluga, bearded seal, nest eggs -
some kelp side salad in the mix
for opportunist, well fed swell.
Though packed lunch melting, deepfreeze seep,
to cap it all with warming thaw;
reminded of that childhood sweet
four Peppy paws, precarious,
confused, as lad, by bear and fox,
so searching Aesop, fable there?
So slow go slide, slice under tongue,
mint burn, brand Fox’s, glacier,
was lumpen shape, long sucking chance,
the sort forgotten, pocket dust,
more, lining lost, loose exit stitch,
that gooey paste, held twist-wrap face.
A north pole logo, berg afloat,
best held in check as cheeky bump,
until so little, tongue-search slick,
then nowhere, nothing to be found;
’twas soon I took another, gum,
but clear that pack would soon be gone.
Translucent block, boiled treat, absurd,
a sign of contradiction, stored
in greaseproof, quarter pound, weighed out.
To Dad, a beacon, hilltop sign,
bright flame, dementia’s rambling land,
that pepper flood of hot ice, fire.
* * *
GREETINGS FROM A POLAR BEAR
—Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA
Fancy meeting you here,
You beautiful seal!
If I have my way
You'll soon be my next meal.
* * *
Joe and Caschwa (Carl Schwartz) have sent Ars Poeticae today:
MUSES ONLY WHISPER
—Joe Nolan
How many poems
Have I thought to write,
Delayed
And forgot the lead-in lines?
Muses only whisper.
If you delay, you deny.
Come again, another time?
You’d better try
Harder than that
To get whispers into writing
Before they float away.
* * *
I WILL SEND YOU A MASTERPIECE
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
It will take shape slowly
first I need to draw from the infinite
wisdom of everyone who is smarter
than I am, digest as best I can, and
and then manufacture happiness by
throwing old ideas, old drafts, old
too-good-to-be-true promotions,
and amazing skunk odor lotions into
the proverbial dumpster, whether it
takes the form of a metal bin or a fire
pit, or deleted text, or if the statute of
limitations has expired.
(No skunks were harmed in the
creation of this message)
* * *
Here is a First Word,/First Letter Acrostic poem from Carl:
STEADY ME
—Caschwa
Very distorted
Erratic visions of
Rapid paced
Turning around
Inside a calibrated
Gyroscopic balanced
Orbit
* * *
This is a Found Poem from Carl:
TOO MUCH, TOO SOON
—Caschwa
(In the US, final exams are typically given starting in middle school (grades 6-8) and continue through high school (grades 9-12). While the exact grade levels and subjects may vary by district, core academic subjects like math, science, English, and social studies often have final exams.)
Today, we have jumped ever so quickly
from dreamy stories told by cute elves
to life-death active shooter drills for kids
who cannot cross the street by themselves.
these are clearly final exams, no
matter what their shape or form,
money is the most important of all
so we mustn’t cross the norm
Sandy Hook, Uvalde, were lessons
that the sale of guns and ammunition
were more important than safety itself
revenue streams: the highest tradition
keep that money going to Congress
we’ve given them our final orders
sales of guns must go on unabated
no matter whom we let cross our borders
* * *
And Carl has created a new form, which he is calling an “Imagine That”. Here are the bones of the form:
aabbb
ccdddd
eefffff
gghhhhhh
IMAGINE THAT
—Caschwa
If below this line you find
another line of similar kind
it gets like counting waves at sea
but after 7 is a 3
something wrong, what could it be?
if Mother Nature falls apart
we’ll lose the beat of every heart
the grandness of a precipice
even the snake, its signature hiss
you swat a fly but barely miss,
your fresh baked pie its legs soon kiss
there is no end we can predict
the jury’s hung, cannot convict
spring forward if you have the time
to top that pie of lemon lime
you’re put in jail, there was no crime
it’s all made up, not real, sublime
we hope to live to reach our prime
at last you stop to go to bed
it’s King size, stretches past your head
waves and snakes and pies make dreams
you won’t remember, it just seems
each star above sends you bright beams
constellations, stars in teams
literature, just reams and reams
many choices, coffees and cream
____________________________
Many thanks to today’s writers for their lively contributions! Wouldn’t you like to join them? 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!
__________________
TRIPLE-F CHALLENGES!
Today's Ekphrastic Challenge!
Make what you can of today's
picture, and send your poetic results to
kathykieth@hotmail.com/. (No deadline.)
* * *
—Artwork Courtesy of Public Domain
For info aboutfuture poetry happenings in Northern California and otherwheres, click onUPCOMING 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 onthe 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 nameof the poet (or poem) into the littlebeige box at the top left-hand sideof this column. See alsoMedusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of the blue column on the rightside of this column to findany date you want. Miss a post?You can find our most recent ones byscrolling down under this daily one.Or there's an "Older Posts" buttonat the bottom of this column.(Please excuse typos in older posts!Blogspot has been through a lot ofincarnations in 20 years!)Would you like to be a SnakePal? Guidelines are at the top of this pageat the Placating the Gorgon link;send poetry and/or photos and artworkto kathykieth@hotmail.com. We postwork from all over the world—includingthat which was previously published—and collaborations are welcome. Just remember:the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—for poetry, of course!
Now let’s see… how does thatFibonacci thing go, again…?
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