An Imagined Life

Maureen Hurley

SUMMER ON BARRANCA CREEK, WEST MARIN
—Maureen Hurley, Oakland

(after Jack Gilbert's Summer at Blue Creek, North Carolina)

There was no hot water at my grandmother's
country home in the wilds of West Marin
though it was the only home we ever had.
After my grandfather died, we had only each other.
The neighbors were absentee city folk.
We were alone in our bee-loud glade on the hill.
Come Saturday night bath time, she'd fill
the big oval copper pan from the indoor tap,
gravity fed from the artesian spring he'd hand-dug,
and she'd lift and slide the coalscut onto the hob,
its charred wooden handles curled like the fists
of an anxious child awaiting punishment or delight.
I'd run my hand along the green enameled ankles
and ornate curved legs of the kerosene stove
as I lay half under the glass gallon jug that gurgled
and spluttered, glugged and belched like a cozy beast.
I loved watching twin blue flames lick and rasp
the copper, combusting into fiery dragon's blood.
I anticipated the momentary slide into warmth
where she'd scrub a week's worth of grit
and hard play from my skin, never imagining
that her loneliness would bathe my psyche
until I emerged from the baptism of bath to live
her dream of an imagined life worth living.

__________________

Thanks, Maureen! Maureen Hurley was raised in the wilds of west Marin and grew into her poetic self on Sonoma County backroads. A freak car accident landed her in the urban jungle, where she lives today near Lake Merritt in Oakland. She teaches Bay Area kids poetry and art with California Poets in the Schools and Young Audiences. She was awarded many artist-in-residency teaching grants from the CAC, NEA, and regional foundations. In March she read at Sacramento Poetry Center for CA Poets in the Schools' 45th anthology, What the World Hears; she's given readings in CA, MT, MA, FL, the Bahamas, the USSR and the Netherlands. Her poems (and photos) have appeared in many journals including Transfer, 14 Hills, Life of Crime, Poet News, Poetry Now, Louisville Review, Sing Heavenly Muse, California State Poetry Quarterly, Electrum, Tight, and Green Fuse. Maureen holds a MA/MFA in Creative Writing (poetry and playwriting) from San Francisco State University and a BA in Art Studio from Sonoma State University. Read more about her at mohurley.blogspot.com

Rattlesnake Press is proud to present Richard Hansen hosting as Maureen Hurley and Crawdad Nelson read this coming Weds., May 12, at 7:30pm at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.


This weekend in NorCal poetry:

•••Fri. (5/7), 2-4:30pm: Calaveras Station Literary Journal Release Party presented by California State University, Sacramento at CSUS University Union, Foothill Ste., 3rd floor. Please join us as we celebrate the writers included in this twelfth edition. Food and beverages will be provided. Journals will be available for purchase at $10 and readers will be glad to sign copies. Info: www.csus.edu/org/litjrnl

•••Friday (5/7), 6pm: SAYS SLAM FINALS will be held at the Mondavi Center for Performing Arts in Davis with HBO Def Poet ISE LYFE. Register at education.ucdavis.edu/projects-outreach/sacramento-area-youth-speaks; $15 per person or $5 youth/students. (Also check out workshops which will be held during that day.)

•••Friday (5/7), 8pm and Sunday (5/9), 2pm: A Russian Affair: The final production of this year’s Sacramento Opera is “A Russian Affair”, two operas (Eugene Onegin and Queen of Spades) by Tchaikovsky, based on the poetry of Aleksandr Pushkin. Community Center Theater, 1301 L St., Sacramento. Tickets range from $18-$130 and may be purchased at 916-808-5181 or www.sacopera.org/. (For more about Pushkin, click on his pic on the b-board at the right.)

•••Sat. (5/8), 12-4pm: Crocker Art Museum’s 125th Anniversary Event will include poetry readings, storytelling, flower arranging, cake decorating, an exhibition of 19th century black paper dolls, and performances by trick roper James Barrera, banjo-ologist Gordy Ohliger and Folklorico Latino de Woodland in The Ballroom at 216 O St., Sacramento—all for the low, low admission price of $1.25! Guests may also record birthday wishes and memories of the Crocker for a video project. Arrive early; there will be a big crowd! This is one of the last events before the museum closes for four months in order to move artwork into their new wing. It will re-open with another party Oct. 10. Info: crockerartmuseum.org/index.htm

Scheduled readings:
12:30-1pm: Victoria Dalkey hosts & reads
1:25pm: Cake cutting (and singing of “Happy Birthday”)
1:30-2pm: Lawrence Dinkins hosts
2:30-3pm: Cynthia Linville hosts as Chris Olander, Catherine Fraga and James Lee Jobe read
3:30-4pm: Cynthia Linville hosts as Dennis Schmitz and Viola Weinberg read

•••Sat. (5/8), 1pm: Celebrate the spring issue of the quarterly Song of the San Joaquin at the McHenry Museum in Modesto, 402 I St., Modesto, 209-577-5235 (www.mchenrymuseum.org). This is a free event and, of course, is open to the public. Info: Cleo at cleor36@yahoo.com

•••Sat. (5/8), 2pm: Citrus Heights Area Poets will hold a poetry open mic event in the Barnes & Noble Bookstore on Sunrise Blvd. near Greenback in Citrus Heights. Free!

•••Sunday (5/9), 1-4pm: An opening reception to meet-and-greet Artists Pete Eckert and Joe Finkleman will be held at the Davis Cemetery, 820 Pole Line Rd., Davis (www.daviscemetery.org), whose works will be displayed there through the month of May. The show may also be viewed during the office’s hours of 9am-3pm, Monday through Friday.

•••Monday (5/10), 7:30pm: Sacramento Poetry Center presents !X. The Sacramento City College Ethnic Theatre Workshop (now in its fifth year), with the direction of Professor Angela-Dee Alforque, integrates various forms of art (drama, music, dance, poetry, visual art) with race, ethnic and gender studies. This year, !X will present “Mis-Education Liberation.”

The goals of the Race & Ethnicity in Performance class and of the Ethnic Theatre Workshop are to develop artistic expressions of diverse experiences, encourage community development through participation in the arts and promote educational equity at Sacramento City College. !X has performed for the SCC Cultural Awareness Center &Student Center, Butch ‘N Nellie's Café, Sacramento Poetry Center, Luna’s Café, Ha-RISE-enz, Sacramento City Hall, California Dept. of Social Services, the California Dept. of Education, California Community College Chancellor’s Office, Mahogany Poetry Series, and the Crocker Art Museum. !X ensemble members include Mark “Kno Mo” Carnero, Maszaba Carter, John Castro, Amsalé Darden (Castro), Jocelyn Day, Debby Dixon, Chelsie Eugene, Victor Francis, Alicia “Lecia B” Garcia, Devon Alexandria Hazell, Akim Hurd, Jaquel Jackson, Jeremy Lim, Jacqeline Martinez, Diana Muhoro, Saidah Pires, Akash Saini, Elicia Sanchez, Essence Sellers, Tiffani “Lady Flawsy” Smith, Teddy, Denise Thompson, Ike Torres & Jose Torres II.

__________________

ALKALI DUST OVER DEATH VALLEY
—Maureen Hurley

Yesterday we watched dustdevils
whipping up from the alkali flats
and deserts of Badwater and Armagosso Valley
dissipate like a maya veil toward the east,
over the mountains of Las Vegas.

The dust turned the deep cerulean sky
into a pale shadow of its former self.
We gritted silica dust between our teeth,
tasted ancient salt on our lips
and though our eyes blurred and burned,
the sunset was a spectacular flash of fire.

The next day, the poet William Pitt Root
wrote from a neighboring state
how the dust blew in from the west
dimming even the sun.

I thought of Dorthea Lang's photos
and the Saharan dust cloud visible from space.
The sharqui and the shumali sandstorms of Iraq.
The lack of rain and snowmelt. The names of wind.

In this way, I realized how everything,
even distance and time
is right on our back doorstep.

__________________

ANSEL ADAMS' STUDIO
—Maureen Hurley

Summer afternoons, he'd step out
of the darkroom for a quick breath.
As he leaned against the doorjam,
he'd shove the bifocals up his forehead,
cup his hands, light a cigarette.

As he bent his head to the flame,
small twin suns reflected
on that Half Dome of his pate.

He gazed into the distance,
towards Tenaya and Cloud's Rest,
drew the smoke in deep,
his depth of field unfocused
with lens open wide.

Then he finished his smoke
flicked it into the bin and stepped back
into the shuttered darkness
to face Tenaya in the negative light.

For a moment water rippled in the pool
of memory, then closed in over that day
and sank to the depths like a stone.

__________________

A FIFTH OF BEETHOVEN
—Maureen Hurley

Yesterday I told my students a story
about Gustavo's crazy cockatiel,
how Kirk the musicman tried to teach it
the opening to Beethoven's Fifth
& how it couldn't get that last chord right,
no matter how much they both practiced,
how the note always fell flat, but the bird
would say entonces, or coño, and include
all the tape recorder clicks & whirrs.

Every time I went: DA-DA DAA Dum,
the class bird catcalled and wolf whistled,
dirty danced on his perch, bopped his head,
puffed out his orange cheek patches,
and crested like a Mohican. I was
explaining how some words fall flat,
the poet's job to seek the music of words,
was a matter of practice, like doing scales.
Unfortunately, the bird got so worked up
he catcalled the entire poetry hour.

I was hoping he'd just take the Fifth
(or maybe down a fifth) and shut up
before I threatened to squeeze
his sorry yellow ass into a tequila sunrise.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

As a housewife, I feel that if they kids are still alive when my husband gets home from work, then, hey, I've done my job.

—Rosanne

___________________

—Medusa

Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

An Imagined Life Worth Living

Maureen Hurley

SUMMER ON BARRANCA CREEK, WEST MARIN

          (after Jack Gilbert's "Summer at Blue Creek, 
                       North Carolina")

—Maureen Hurley, Oakland, CA

There was no hot water at my grandmother's

cabin in the wilds of West Marin

though it was the only home we ever had.

After my grandfather died, we clung to each other.

The neighbors were absentee city folk.

We were alone in our bee-loud glade on the hill.

Come Saturday night bath time, she'd fill

the big oval copper pan from the indoor tap,

gravity fed from the artesian spring he'd hand-dug,

and she'd lift and slide the coalscut onto the hob,

its charred wooden handles curled like the fists

of an anxious child awaiting punishment or delight.

I'd run my hand along the green enameled ankles

and ornate curved legs of the kerosene stove

as I lay half under the glass gallon jug that gurgled

and spluttered, glugged and belched like a cozy beast.

I loved watching twin blue flames lick and rasp

the copper, combusting into fiery dragon's blood.

I anticipated the momentary slide into warmth

where she'd scrub a week's worth of grit

and hard play from my skin, never imagining

that her loneliness would bathe my psyche

until I emerged from the baptism of bath to live

her dream of an imagined life worth living.

_________________________

HAND TOOLS

—Maureen Hurley

There was an old pruning saw

I favored that folded in two

with a wingnut hinge

curved handle and blade

two crescent moons

that hung from a rusty nail

on the wall of the back porch

of my grandmother's house.

The saw curved like a comma

and I could pull down hard

on it with my 12-year-old arms

and cut the slender branches

that threatened to pull me

from the back of my horse.

No one else to do it for me

I made do as best I could.

Like the time the Toby's Feedstore

driver delivered a ton of hay but

dumped it at the bottom of the hill

because he couldn't be bothered stacking it

assuming there was a man about the house

to take care of such ordinary things.

I was faced with hefting hay bales

a tenth of a mile up to the old barn

and the sky spitting, rain was coming.

No matter that it took me most of the summer

babysitting to earn enough money

to buy that ton of shining oat hay

for my old glue factory rescue horse.

I wailed, wiped my nose on my sleeve,

jabbed rusty hayhooks into a bale

and frogmarched it to the barn.

Then another, and another.

It was hard work for a child.

It was the only way I knew how

and I was never going to make it

before the rains came.

___________________

MY GRANDMOTHER’S HANDS

—Maureen Hurley

My grandmother’s hands

were torn and speckled with pigment:

fair northern flesh burned by the fierce California sun.

A rebellious knotted vein rose up like a stone.

Souvenir from a strand of barbed wire

strung to keep the deer out of the garden.

Her freckles were an archipelago of islands

adrift on a moon-milk sea.

They were Brendan voyagers in curraghs

headed for the New World

with a warrior phalanx of shields

raised up against a common enemy, the sun.

But they failed to protect her children—

when the melanoma set sail for that country

from which nothing ever returns.

I remember her wide spatulate fingers

that rubbed floursack sheets against the washboard,

that mended jeans, made dresses for first day of school,

and how I was ashamed they were not store-bought.

I remember the way she weeded the gardens,

dug up the praties, stacked wood for coming winter.

From her, I learned the survival of hands.

No caresses were needed because her love

was as fierce as the sun that burned her skin

as she labored in the garden or at the clothesline.

She kept us safe, and provided when no one else would.

As she knelt to pray in the Sunday pew,

the sun shone on that knotted vein

and it was so beautiful—the scarring and the freckles,

a skin painting of faith and tenderness.

_____________________

DUN I, IONA

    (after a translation from the Ohlone)

—Maureen Hurley

I dreamed you were a sliver

of light glinting on the curve of the sea.

On the machair, the rabbits

cleansed their scalloped sand porches

while amid the lambs, the hares stood sentinel.

I dreamed of you dreaming me

on the granite dome of Dun I,

... at the center of the island

between a rowan and an oak

in a crevice at the well of age,

the falcon's eye, a distant sun

dancing on the edge of the world.

_____________________

13TH WAVE

—Maureen Hurley

When I was a child at Venice Beach,

floating in the calm sea beyond the surf,

out of nowhere, rogue waves rose up

like translucent jade knives, formed crests

against the throat of the deep summer sky.

Out of my depth, I swam to greet them.

That was the drill if an Outsider appeared—

Swim to meet the wave before it broke you.

Dive through the crest to avoid its force.

Swim and dive, swim and dive. Deflect the blow.

Rise and fall, rise and fall. Far from land,

I watched the blond shore grow ever distant.

The waves played me—like the father I never had—

tossing me up to the roof of the sky. In terror,

I waited for the right wave to bring me in.

But I grew numb, the sea sapped my strength,

I was too far from shore for lifeguards to see.

When would my crazy mother—sleeping it off—

stone-deaf to my brother's wails, realize I was gone?

I was a child alone in a vast sea. Breathe. Breathe.

Out of nowhere I heard my grandmother's voice:

"Always count the waves," she said. "Find the set."

9, 11, 12—I counted, but couldn't find the pattern.

Then, on the horizon of a wave, the fin of a dolphin.

A break in the set. He looked me in the eye. "Now!"

We caught the 13th wave toward the safety of shore.

I lay facedown in the sand, too tired to be amazed,

or say "Bye." Who'd believe a child's tale, anyway?

I said nothing about the waves and the sea that day.

It was my secret—a matter of survival, at best.

______________________
 

TO MY POETRY STUDENTS

—Maureen Hurley

            —The foundation of every state

                  is the education of its youth.

First, do not be offended if I don't remember your names.

My children are as varied as the voices of the wind.

Do not assume that because I don't call you by name,

that I do not know you. For I remember all of you,

the poems you write & all your faces shining

with the first faltering words of hope.

Do not rage against the wind or lack of memory

as if the sun had risen prematurely at daybreak

painted with rosy yearning, only to find the clouds

had forgotten how to properly mourn the tragedies

of a world drowning in the vagaries of the heart.

For once I stood alone with the voices of the wind,

my own song hanging at the end of its chord,

like Edvard Munch's silent scream echoing off the canvas,

a nocturne of loneliness, an etude seeking rebirth

before I called it poetry, before it called for me.

Sleep returns lost memory in minute increments

of time swaddled in the supplication of blue solace

unburdened by prayer or the length of the road

set adrift in the traceless grasses' slow current.

To love words requires only the longevity of a mind

that is part redwood, & part bristlecone pine

& a threshold for a mouth that is part estuary,

& part river to address the worded islands of the world.

Remember to write of what is visible and seen;

pay homage to the slender names rooted in oak,

lichen & moss, reed & bracken fern, lupine wolf & moon.

Treat your poems like long lost kith and kin.

Then, someday when you can forgive their waywardness

they will be Diogenes' lanterns on dark, restless nights.

______________________

Our thanks to Maureen Hurley for today's poetry! Mo will be reading at the Sacramento Poetry Center this coming Monday, June 18, with Chris Olander. Scroll down on the blue board at the right of this column and click on the link to hear Mo read to her poetry students, and while you're there, click on the photo for more about Rattlechapper Chris.

Poet & artist, Maureen Hurley has won many grants, awards and fellowships including 8 California Arts Council grants and two KQED SPARK artist grants; she holds a MA in Creative Writing, but owes a thesis on her MFA at SFSU. As an artist in residence, she teaches Bay Area kids poetry & art through California Poets in the Schools and Young Audiences. She grew up in the wilds of West Marin and currently lives in Oakland near Lake Merritt. 

Speaking of Bay Area poetry, the latest issue of Ginosko is now available at  www.amazon.com/ginosko-short-fiction-poetry-anthology/dp/1936373289/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339256584&sr=1-3&keywords=ginosko

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

The thing to remember about fathers is... they're men. A girl has to keep it in mind: They are dragon-seekers, bent on improbable rescues. Scratch any father, you find someone chock-full of qualms and romantic terrors, believing change is a threat, like your first shoes with heels on, like your first bicycle... 

—Phyllis McGinley

____________________

—Medusa

Chris Olander

—Photo by Maureen Hurley

Happy Feels Like A Poem

Robert Burns' Desk

—Photo by Maureen Hurley, Marin County

JEAN
—Robert Burns (1759-1796)

Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,
I dearly like the west,
For there the bonnie lassie lives,
The lassie I lo'e best:
There wild woods grow, and rivers row,
And monie a hill between;
But day and night may fancy's flight
Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair:
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
I hear her charm the air:
There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green;
There's not a bonnie bird that sings,
But minds me o' my Jean.

Burns House, Dumfries, Galloway

—Photo by Maureen Hurley

________________________

Happy Birthday, Bob! Today is Robert Burns' birthday, and you can celebrate with the rest of us at The Book Collector tonight, 6-ish til 9, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Poetry, food, libations and good cheer—it'll all be there, so you be there!

Dawn DiBartolo sends us her musings about wishing she could write a poem, so let's take her up on that for our Seed of the Week: If I Could Write A Poem. Send your yearnings to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline on SOWs. And thanks to the rest of today's contributors!

wish I could write a poem
(after reading Joyce Odam)
—dawn dibartolo, citrus heights

I wish that I could write
like the music of the day
dancing in the shadows
with my tired woe.

and I wish I could write
that the winter moon, sagging
low and sallow on the horizon,
is the light by which I see
into myself.

and I’ve dreamed of writing
tomorrows in a white gauze expectant
of the healing wounds inflicted
by the falls that are always
accompanied with a rising; I rise.

I wish that I could write
red-red valentines and whole-
heartedly sing the falsetto melodies
of the foolishly enchanted.

the chilled sun of January
flirts with my spring emotion
and my inks bleed to be heard.
it's been a lifetime, but
happy feels like a poem.

_____________________

ADRIFT
—Carl Bernard Schwartz, Sacramento

Once you have cold symptoms,
you take anything you can
to deal with it.

Same thing goes for Kleptomania.


The secret to being a
Sacramento Kings fan
is to embrace the game
of Solitaire on your
home computer.

It doesn’t matter if you
make a wrong move,
or lose far more than you win.
You can just start over.


People in authority cannot
all be trusted…
Especially those wayward
souls in the California Youth
Authority.


I don’t suit up and play football
or by tickets for stadium seats,
but I’m looking forward to Super Sunday
for the good company and wonderful eats.

_____________________

Argyll, Scotland

—Photo by Maureen Hurley

OSTINATO
—Ann Wehrman, Sacramento

rain gaze meeting mine
shocks, yet I return
famished, parched, I
dive into the bay of your eyes,
your life brushes against me
realize I love you
hearts’ affirmation
constant ground bass
counters the coming
cataclysm, visible from here
I run toward the cliff
cry I love you
words held in my mouth
wind in my face smothers
race side by side
regardless of the
depth of the gash
we must span

__________________

VOCALISE
—Ann Wehrman

tightly corseted, blue blooded
conscience loosened
by middle-aged, abstainer’s mocktail
late dinner blends seamlessly into midnight snack,
deep bowl of granola, raisins, milk,
look no further, on the desk,
beneath fingers flying under excess’s influence,
it all comes out, at least begins to
work its way out of her throat,
slides down, rhythm of the sea,
confessional, spills out,
not quite last call, no bartender’s towel
lapping at the edges of her
almost unconscious revelation;
here at home, it’s discreet, respectable,
brutally alone, love locked within her
proud heart, may never see him again,
unable to tell him, I want you, I love you,
fingers spill over keys, tears drip,
the radio quietly accompanies

____________________

ENHARMONIC EQUIVALENCE
—Ann Wehrman

despite all this love,
it's not me you hold,
at least not tonight

two notes seem the same,
but consider the difference
between A flat and G sharp
the infinite space
between here and there
does not, in truth, zero divide zero…

the actual name of God is still unknown
thus, we cannot speak it aloud

there is a difference
between what we have felt,
and your lips meeting her flesh,
between my body moving
as I conjure yours, and
her body and soul trembling
under your fingers

___________________

HIDDEN
—Ann Wehrman

(After David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars)


Inside my tree, worms writhe,
bugs catch in my hair.

It’s bright outside, and
you don’t want me there.

Snuggle within old blankets and leaves;
your love—more real than reality—
fuses my core.

Lightening blackens, scours,
followed by rain.

My face peers out through matted snarls;
you walk by without a nod.
I cower, rot, within this hollow trunk,
niches in its bark packed with wild, bitter loam.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

When you lose,
don't lose the lesson.

—Dalai Lama

____________________

—Medusa

Robert Burns, 1759-1796

Repent Nothing

Photo by Maureen Hurley

I WAS BORN WITHIN SIGHT
—Maureen Hurley, Marin County

I was born within sight of the ocean
but a nervousness dances within
when I stray too far from the coastal hills of my birth.
The slopes of Mt. Barnabe sheltered me.
The long arm of the ridge wrapped itself
around our house holding us in from the world.

Afternoons I'd ride the crest of the ridge
testing the odor of pine and bay.
Sweet lethe, the crickets sizzled
in the rattlesnake grass
shaking a soft rhythm in the breeze.

______________________
 

Thanks, Mo, and thanks to Carl Schwartz for his shopping "excursions"; see below.

It's not too late to sign up for tomorrow night's Seasonal Open Mic featuring Medusa's Kitchen readers and their poems of the season (winter, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa—whatever "the season" is to you, your own poems or somebody else's), five minutes each. If you'd like to read, please let me know (kathykieth@hotmail.com). That's at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac., 7:30pm, where we'll be featuring Ron H. Peat of Auburn, reading from his new book of poetry from Xlibris, and a new littlesnake broadside from Rattlesnake Press: A Bench Called Henry, from Sacramento's Richard Zimmer.

It's Seed of the Week Day. This week it's Self-Portraits. Send your SOWs to kathykieth@hotmail.com; no deadline. Mo Hurley's poem qualifies, don't you think? Here's another example:

______________________

SELF-PORTRAIT

—So Chongju

Father was a serf, seldom came home at night.
At home my gradmother, old as

The shriveled root of leek,

And a blossoming date tree.

Big with child, Mother wanted just one apricot.

I was a mother's son with dirty fingernails

Under a lamp by the mud wall.

With bushy hair and staring eyes,

I am said to resemble Grandpa on Mother's side,

Who in 1894 went to sea and never returned.

For twenty-three years the wind has reared two-thirds of me,

And the world has become a more embarassing place.

Some have read a convict in my eyes,

Others an idiot in my mouth.

Yet I will repent nothing.

At each dawn, brightly assailing,

The dews of poetry settled on my brow,

Mixed with drops of blood.

And I have come this far panting

Like a sick dog with his tongue hanging out

In the sun and in the shade.

(translated from the Chinese by Peter H. Lee)

_______________________

KANT SPEL RYTE
—Carl Bernard Schwartz, Sacramento

I needed a vacation from civilization
to do some writing without all the
usual distractions.  A shopping trip
was in order to gather necessary
provisions, including of course
jumbles of generations of
dictionaries:

crossword puzzle
foreign language
Oxford English
unabridged
technical
abridged
rhyming
spelling
college
pocket
picture
online
slang
law

Now I’m ready to leave town!

_______________________

PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY
—Carl Bernard Schwartz

can be an insufferable burden
on those who like to read.
Intellectual property lawyers
have locked up a significant
amount of worthwhile reading
matter with the prohibition:

No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form…
without permission in writing
from the author.

A person whose mind captures
images like a copy machine
cannot just pick out a book
and start reading it, even while
shopping.  They must follow
the mandate to get written
permission ahead of time!

Thank goodness for bibles
and poetry readings.

_______________________

UP ABOVE INTELLIGENCE
—Carl Bernard Schwartz

beyond the reach of the
librarian’s ladder, on a
precipice higher than ceilings
or rooftops, or even clouds

is a kind of savvy that defies
any material quantification,
that is not passed down from
father to son nor shared online.

It’s just that you get it or you
don’t, and many who do lord
it over those who don’t, as if
they are the chosen ones who

have been bestowed a royal
privilege to be shepherd for the
common man, those lowly,
pitiful, ignorant subjects.

These kings and queens do not,
cannot radiate a beacon of light
or blaze a trail to follow, they
only leave a gaping black hole

that poses an ever-present
danger to those fortunate
enough to have even a little bit
of that precious knowledge

who dare to harbor words and
thoughts that might take them
to a place that is up above
intelligence.

_______________________
 

XYLOPHONE ART
—Carl Bernard Schwartz

A series of wooden slats
each closely resembling its
neighbor, but each answering
to a different name and
producing a different result

TV remotes and garage door openers,
straight edge and serrated knives,
spouse number one and spouse number two,
front seat and back seat,
pickle halves, spears, and slices
the moment before you opened your mouth and
the moment after the bomb was dropped

A tap on the slat creates a tone
that does not exist alone
it is one part of an arrangement
like a chorus of voices
or a vase of flowers
synthesized, synchronized

Next in line, please…
What do you want on your sandwich?

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

HAVING DIED
—Kim Kwangsop

The general becomes a sword

The sovereign becomes a mausoleum

The rich become a fence

The poor become stones and sand.

I would become a cloud,

in the arms of a favoring wind

travel a thousand miles,

rain on the grasses burning

on a tomb.

(Translated from the Chinese by David R. McCann)

________________________

—Medusa

Self-Portrait (The Desperate Man)

—Painting by Gustave Courbet

Diogenes' Lanterns

 Argyle, Scotland

—Poetry and Photos by Maureen (Mo) Hurley
(1952-2024)

HAND TOOLS

There was an old pruning saw
I favored that folded in two
with a wingnut hinge
curved handle and blade
two crescent moons
that hung from a rusty nail
on the wall of the back porch
of my grandmother's house.

The saw curved like a comma
and I could pull down hard
on it with my 12-year-old arms
and cut the slender branches
that threatened to pull me
from the back of my horse.

No one else to do it for me
I made do as best I could.
Like the time the Toby's Feedstore
driver delivered a ton of hay but
dumped it at the bottom of the hill
because he couldn't be bothered stacking it
assuming there was a man about the house
to take care of such ordinary things.

I was faced with hefting hay bales
a tenth of a mile up to the old barn
and the sky spitting, rain was coming.
No matter that it took me most of the summer
babysitting to earn enough money
to buy that ton of shining oat hay
for my old glue factory rescue horse.

I wailed, wiped my nose on my sleeve,
jabbed rusty hayhooks into a bale
and frogmarched it to the barn.
Then another, and another.
It was hard work for a child.
It was the only way I knew how
and I was never going to make it
before the rains came.

 

 

 

 

 

MY GRANDMOTHER’S HANDS

My grandmother’s hands
were torn and speckled with pigment:
fair northern flesh burned by the fierce California
sun.
A rebellious knotted vein rose up like a stone.
Souvenir from a strand of barbed wire
strung to keep the deer out of the garden.

Her freckles were an archipelago of islands
adrift on a moon-milk sea.
They were Brendan voyagers in curraghs
headed for the New World
with a warrior phalanx of shields
raised up against a common enemy, the sun.
But they failed to protect her children—
when the melanoma set sail for that country
from which nothing ever returns.

I remember her wide spatulate fingers
that rubbed floursack sheets against the washboard,
that mended jeans, made dresses for first day of
school,
and how I was ashamed they were not store-bought.
I remember the way she weeded the gardens,
dug up the praties, stacked wood for coming winter.

From her, I learned the survival of hands.
No caresses were needed because her love
was as fierce as the sun that burned her skin
as she labored in the garden or at the clothesline.
She kept us safe, and provided when no one else
would.
As she knelt to pray in the Sunday pew,
the sun shone on that knotted vein
and it was so beautiful—the scarring and the freckles,
a skin painting of faith and tenderness.

 

 

 

 

DUN I, IONA
    (after a translation from the Ohlone)

I dreamed you were a sliver
of light glinting on the curve of the sea.
On the machair, the rabbits
cleansed their scalloped sand porches
while amid the lambs, the hares stood sentinel.
I dreamed of you dreaming me
on the granite dome of Dun I,
... at the center of the island
between a rowan and an oak
in a crevice at the well of age,
the falcon's eye, a distant sun
dancing on the edge of the world.

 

 

 

 El Dorado Del Mar, San Felipe, Mexico

 

13TH WAVE

When I was a child at Venice Beach,
floating in the calm sea beyond the surf,
out of nowhere, rogue waves rose up
like translucent jade knives, formed crests
against the throat of the deep summer sky.

Out of my depth, I swam to greet them.
That was the drill if an Outsider appeared—
Swim to meet the wave before it broke you.
Dive through the crest to avoid its force.
Swim and dive, swim and dive. Deflect the blow.

Rise and fall, rise and fall. Far from land,
I watched the blond shore grow ever distant.
The waves played me—like the father I never had—
tossing me up to the roof of the sky. In terror,
I waited for the right wave to bring me in.

But I grew numb, the sea sapped my strength,
I was too far from shore for lifeguards to see.
When would my crazy mother—sleeping it off—
stone-deaf to my brother's wails, realize I was gone?
I was a child alone in a vast sea. Breathe. Breathe.

Out of nowhere I heard my grandmother's voice:
"Always count the waves," she said. "Find the set."
9, 11, 12—I counted, but couldn't find the pattern.
Then, on the horizon of a wave, the fin of a dolphin.
A break in the set. He looked me in the eye. "Now!"

We caught the 13th wave toward the safety of shore.
I lay facedown in the sand, too tired to be amazed,
or say "Bye." Who'd believe a child's tale, anyway?
I said nothing about the waves and the sea that day.
It was my secret—a matter of survival, at best.

 

 

 

  El Dorado Del Mar, San Felipe, Mexico

A FIFTH OF BEETHOVEN

Yesterday I told my students a story
about Gustavo's crazy cockatiel,
how Kirk the musicman tried to teach it
the opening to Beethoven's Fifth
& how it couldn't get that last chord right,
no matter how much they both practiced,
how the note always fell flat, but the bird
would say entonces, or coño, and include
all the tape recorder clicks & whirrs.

Every time I went: DA-DA-DAA Dum,
the class bird catcalled and wolf whistled,
dirty danced on his perch, bopped his
head,
puffed out his orange cheek patches,
and crested like a Mohican. I was
explaining how some words fall flat,
the poet's job to seek the music of words,
was a matter of practice, like doing scales.
Unfortunately, the bird got so worked up
he catcalled the entire poetry hour.

I was hoping he'd just take the Fifth
(or maybe down a fifth) and shut up
before I threatened to squeeze
his sorry yellow ass into a tequila sunrise.

 

 

 

 
TO MY POETRY STUDENTS

            —The foundation of every state
                  is the education of its youth.

First, do not be offended if I don't remember your
names.
My children are as varied as the voices of the wind.
Do not assume that because I don't call you by name,
that I do not know you. For I remember all of you,
the poems you write & all your faces shining
with the first faltering words of hope.
Do not rage against the wind or lack of memory
as if the sun had risen prematurely at daybreak
painted with rosy yearning, only to find the clouds
had forgotten how to properly mourn the tragedies
of a world drowning in the vagaries of the heart.
For once I stood alone with the voices of the wind,
my own song hanging at the end of its chord,
like Edvard Munch's silent scream echoing off the
canvas,
a nocturne of loneliness, an etude seeking rebirth
before I called it poetry, before it called for me.
Sleep returns lost memory in minute increments
of time swaddled in the supplication of blue solace
unburdened by prayer or the length of the road
set adrift in the traceless grasses' slow current.
To love words requires only the longevity of a mind
that is part redwood, & part bristlecone pine
& a threshold for a mouth that is part estuary,
& part river to address the worded islands of the
world.
Remember to write of what is visible and seen;
pay homage to the slender names rooted in oak,
lichen & moss, reed & bracken fern, lupine wolf &
moon.
Treat your poems like long lost kith and kin.
Then, someday when you can forgive their way-

wardness
they will be Diogenes' lanterns on dark, restless 

nights.

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley

______________________

Today’s Kitchen is devoted to Maureen (Mo) Hurley, who passed away this summer. Mo visited the Kitchen for a while back in 2010-2012 with her photos and poems, and I thought it would be an appropriate tribute to bring some of those back, fine as they are. Rest well, Mo—we all miss you.

For more about Mo, go to https://www.adobecreekfuneralhome.com/obituary/maureen-hurley/.

______________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 

 Mo Hurley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that the final
ForestSong will take place in
Lotus, CA today from 1-5pm.
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.

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.

Find previous four-or-so posts by scrolling down
under today; or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column; or find previous poets
by typing the name of the poet or poem
 into the little beige box at the top
left-hand side of today’s post; or go to
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of
the blue column at the right
 to find the date you want.

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!