Of Shadows and Shoes

Rose Hips in the Rain
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

I HAVE A DREAM (Martin Luther King, 1963)
—David Humphreys, Stockton

In an ocean of prosperity the black man has often found himself exiled in his own land. Americans listen now, we stand once again on an ever renewing threshold which leads to the palace of justice. I have a dream, that one day all men will be judged solely by the content of their character.

______________________

Thanks, David. David Humphreys has been fiddling around—successfully, as you can see—with the 55-Word Tidbit prose poem form. You'll recall that he won a contest last month that was sponsored by The Stockton Record. He sends us this poem to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Black History Month. David will be hosting his monthly reading series at Barnes and Noble at 7 PM in Stockton's Weberstown Mall this Sunday, this time featuring Roger Naylor & Steven Wilson. And thanks to Katy Brown for yet another fine photo, this one to celebrate the Return of the Rain.


Boot camp:

Molly Fisk writes: The February Boot Camp begins in two weeks, Feb. 18 - 23, just in time for you to recover from Valentine's Day's excesses and get back to work! If you haven't heard of Poetry Boot Camp, here's the place to find out more about this six-day, on-line poetry intensive taught by me, Molly Fisk: http://www.poetrybootcamp.com. Not everyone is comfortable blazing through the writing of six new poems in six days, though, so I am also running a parallel (same time, same format) Revision Boot Camp, where you can bring poems you've already written and would like to work on. Drop me a line if you'd like to hear more about this.


Call for manuscripts for: WITNESS

A general issue to be published in the Fall of 2007
Reading January 1 - June 15
Submit to: Witness, International Institute of Modern Letters
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
P.O. Box 455085, Las Vegas, NV, 89154-5085
Information at: www.modernletters.org/programs/witness.html

________________________

night's attraction (a tritina)
—dawn dibartolo, sacramento

there is a divide wide enough for the soul of night,
eminent breath of longing love, notwithstanding the curious
the sky, to realize sun, resists a starry cry.

but to waste their blaze upon a soul-less cry
is a sacrilegious brightening of the black breath of night;
in shadows, dark touch does much to tease the curious.

and blissful surrender to the body of the curious
solely because the soul did cry,
is unwittingly being enslaved to night.

and of the night ~ and the curious ~ starry souls will cry.

_______________________

Thanks, dawn! dawn dibartolo responded to Joyce Odam's description of forms in the last Rattlesnake Review, and her poem is about shadows, too, so a poetry present is headed her way. Send me your poetry about shadows before midnight on Monday, Feb. 13, and I'll send you a surprise poetry present! E-mail to kathykieth@hotmail.com, or snail to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

And speaking of Rattlesnake Review, the next deadline is Feb. 15, just ONE WEEK from tomorrow! Get yer mojo on and send 3-5 poems (no bio/cover/prev-pubbed or simul-subbed) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Send photos and art, too. But do me a favor, please: get all your poems together before you send 'em—I HATE HATE HATE getting them one at a time.

dawn also sent me a poem called "Shoes to Fill"; watch for it in the next Snake. Meanwhile, here's another poem about shoes, this one by Charles Simic:

MY SHOES
—Charles Simic

Shoes, secret face of my inner life:
Two gaping toothless mouths,
Two partly decomposed animal skins
Smelling of mice-nests.

My brother and sister who died at birth
Continuing their existence in you,
Guiding my life
Toward their incomprehensible innocence.

What use are books to me
When in you it is possible to read
The Gospel of my life on earth
And still beyond, of things to come?

I want to proclaim the religion
I have devised for your perfect humility
And the strange church I am building
With you as the altar.

Ascetic and maternal, you endure:
Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned men,
With your mute patience, forming
The only true likeness of myself.

_______________________

By the way, I don't know what's the matter with Mozilla, but it didn't post Medusa yesterday. Safari is always quicker—like, instantaneous—but Mozilla is quirkier. My point is, I'm sorry if that's what you're using to access Medusa, and if you couldn't see it yet. (Obviously, if you're reading this, you found us somehow.)

And thanks for all the well-wishing re: my birthday yesterday.

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Even a Turkey Can Be a Peacock

photo by Marie Riepenhoff-Talty, Sacramento








PEAFOWL BLUES
—Marie Riepenhoff-Talty, Sacramento

Blue-green iridescent plumage—
enormously elongated upper tail coverts,
ornamented with an eye at each end
distinguish the male Pavo cristatus, peacock

from the female peahen with her short, dull
greenish-gray tail feathers—were these birds
capable of human emotions, you might expect
the peahen to envy the peacock—

quite the opposite— the peahen herself
perpetrates—perpetuates those glorious
homogametic ZZ hatchlings by adhering
to the sexy-son hypothesis; whereby

her magnificently endowed sons will be
more readily selected by the young
peahens following their courtship display.

Thank you, dull greenish-gray mother.

_______________________

Thanks, Marie! For several years, we had a resident peacock which was the light of my life. I still miss him. Marie writes: I am currently staying on Longboat Key, part of Sarasota, Florida. There are 50 to 60 peafowl that roam this Key; thus my inspiration. They are very curious birds. While they have wonderful plumage, at least the males, they make the most raucous, unpleasant sounds. I am staying alone in a cottage, circa 1895, and my first night here I was terrified when I heard their noise, which I could not identify. Since then I have been pursuing them for photographs. :-)

Today is my birthday, so I shall indulge myself by publishing another poem of my own:

TEASING OUT THE PEACOCK
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines

Sharp air of a February morning: sunny
slate-gray street lined with wild

turkeys: white frost-puffs pulling
dinosaur necks that bob, stoop,

comb suburban shrubbery, then
squawk and scatter at the rumble

of a garbage truck. . . Even a turkey
can be a peacock when the sun slants

over mahogany feathers: brief winter
light-coquette of a sun winking

its way through all this auburn:
combing for signs of spring: teasing out

the teals and the violets, ceruleans
and beryls, the verdigris: finally

releasing the harlequin dancer
that hides inside each of these

dark mountains of brown. . .

_______________________

Today Kathy Kieth would've been 61 years old, should she have continued to acknowledge birthdays, which she is not.


Mary Mackey on Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac":

Garrison Keillor is going to read "Chicken Killing" on "The Writer's Almanac" Feb. 15th and "My Methodist Grandmother Says" on "The Writer's Almanac" Feb. 16th. The poems, which are both from Mary Mackey's new collection, Breaking the Fever, are also going to be available on the American Public Radio website and in podcast. In the Bay Area, the show will be playing at 9 AM on KALW (91.7 FM). If you like, you can hear them as early as Monday, Feb. 13, by checking The Writer's Almanac web site. You can also check the schedule for other parts of the country, since different stations play The Writer's Almanac at different times.


Send me your shadows:

Send me your poetry about shadows before midnight on Monday, Feb. 13, and I'll send you a surprise poetry present. E-mail to kathykieth@hotmail.com, or snail to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Here's one from Taylor Graham, whose present is in the mail:

MUSEUM, AFTER-HOURS
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

In the bottom drawer of study-skins
a ruby-crowned kinglet (Regulus
calendula) dreams of flight.
Forever facing the windowless
west wall, a mustang (Equus caballus,
changed from E. ferus, wild –
brown hide drawn over polyurethane
foam) dreams his once-breakable
heart.
There is no moon tonight,
only a glow of monitors.
What good are lights
but to silhouette these forms
that no longer cast
a moving shadow?

_______________________

Thanks, TG!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

The Shadow Knows

(photo by Marie Riepenhoff-Talty, Sacramento)




WHAT DOES MY SHADOW TELL ME
—Marie Riepenhoff-Talty, Sacramento

My shadow is big-bodied with a small head.
That could be my seventy-one years—

if I did not know trillions of strands
of messenger RNA had been produced

by that brain in that head and seventy-one
years is insufficient to degrade it all:

the children; the husbands; the worry, the jokes;
the digestion; all that food and the diets;

the beauty; the dancing; breast cancer;
the colds; the healing; the fights and the poems.

It should be larger; huge; gigantic.
So what is my shadow trying to tell me?

Carry on.

_______________________

Thanks, Marie! Marie Riepenhoff-Talty's poem has given me the idea for a new give-away: send me your poetry about shadows before midnight on Monday, Feb. 13, and I'll send you a surprise poetry present. E-mail to kathykieth@hotmail.com, or snail to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Winter is the season of long shadows, after all. Here—I'll throw my own hat into the ring:

LONG SHADOWS OF A WINTER'S DAY

reach across a country road: slim
fingers of a dead oak point south
toward warmer days. The storm

has left skeletons of paper and plastic
crucified on fences: ghosts of many
colors splayed on the wire: loose ends

struggling to break free. Fallen branches
force our car away from straight as we
weave around them toward the low

globe in the sky. Still, December sun
turns a cold shoulder even at mid-day:
flat and brassy, she conjures clouds

of many colors around her feet, sly
prestidigitation for her passing
show. But she has no staying power,

and before our car can make it home,
dark fingers of shadow have reached
clear across the road, stretching

for signs of spring . . .


—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines

_______________________

This week's calendar:

•••Tonight (Monday, 2/5), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice in Davis presents Tim Bellows and rattlechapper Shawn Pittard reading their poetry at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Road, Davis. There will be an open reading following the poets. This is a free event. James Lee Jobe will host. Call 530-750-3514 for details. Please check out http://uupoetry.blogspot.com for bios, sample poems, directions, and a map. [See Medusa's post last Weds. for more about Shawn.]

•••Also tonight, 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Judy Halebsky and Theresa McCourt at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Open mic; free. [See last Saturday's post for poems from these two poets.] Next Monday (2/13), attend the SPC Board meeting at 5:45 PM, then go to the Valentine’s Day reading (An Evening of Poetry Lovers) at 7:30 PM, hosted by Indigo Moor. Hear readings by notable poetic couples: Nora Staklis & Tom Goff; Christina & Art Mantecon; Erik & Terryl; Laverne & Carol Frith and more! Come and read with (or to) your poetic soulmate!

•••Thursday (2/8), 8pm: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe, 1414 16th St. Sac. Hosted by Geoffrey Neill. Open mic before/after. Free. Info: 916-441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com.

•••Also Thurs. (2/8), 8-11 PM: Vibe Sessions at the Cobbler Inn, 3520 Stockton Blvd, Sac. (next to Colonial Theater). Hosted by Flo Real. All ages. $5. Open Mic.

•••Fri. (2/9), 7:30 PM: All are invited to warm up to Valentine’s Day! Writers of the New Sun/Escritores del Nuevo Sol are sponsoring “Even Educated Fleas Do It!” An annual evening of Poetry, Fun and Chocolate featuring Art Mantecon & Christina Hayes Mantecon at La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd St, Midtown Sac. Cost: $5 or as you can afford. Visual Arts Exhibit: “What is This Thing called Amor?” Info contact: Graciela Ramirez 916-456-5323 or www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com

•••Sat. (2/10), 2 PM: Song of the San Joaquin, a Modesto-based poetry quarterly, will hold the reading of the Winter Issue at the McHenry Museum, 1302 "I" Street, Modesto. Admittance is free and light refreshments will be served. Poets will read their own works from the publication. More information: Cleo Griffith cleor36@yahoo.com or 209-543-1776.

•••Sat. (2/10), 3-5 PM: Patricity’s “In Spirit & Truth Series” at 61 Yuence Smoked BBQ & Grill, 9657 Folsom Blvd. Sac. (off Bradshaw). Features plus Open Mic. Free. Info: 916-361-2014.


Wow! Look at next Sunday!!! All this for you to choose from:

•••5 PM: Poetry Reading for Peace, featuring Jose Montoya and Julia Connor. The Book Collector, 1008 24th St. Sac. Hosted by James Lee Jobe. Open mic Follows. Free. Info: Richard@poems-for-all.com

•••7:00 PM: Poets Corner Presents Roger Naylor & Steven Wilson @ Barnes & Noble, Stockton Weberstown Mall, Stockton. Free; open mic. David Humphreys hosts.

•••2:30-4:30 PM: Poets on the Ridge Poetry Reading (Open mic) at Juice & Java, 7067 Skyway, Paradise. Info: 530-872-9633.

•••2-5 PM: Billed as "Between the Sheets," a romantic poetry and prose reading at the Leger Hotel in Mokelumne Hill on Sunday, Feb. 11, poets, authors, and the public will entertain us and those special someones for the Valentine week coming up in February. Included will be featured poets and writers involved with Manzanita who have prepared some sensual and romantic poetry and prose for a delicious, sizzling afternoon. Generous open mic time will be provided for the public to read and share favorite love poems, love notes, and nuptial poems—original fare or those by favorite authors. Humorous, sexy, rollicking, serious, heartfelt, sensual poetry and prose will be solicited and shared. David Sackman will accompany writers on stand-up bass for sultry rhythms. Benefit entrance: $5.00 per person. Additional: $15.00-25.00 range for a special Valentine menu from 5:00 on following the event, prepared by the talented Leger Hotel chef. Bonus highlights: creative and fun sensations available from a chocolate confectioner, winery samplings, samples from other vendors, and an afternoon love fest of words. There will be author book signings and chat time during the break. Event hosted by Writers Unlimited (publishers of Manzanita), an affiliate of the Calaveras County Arts Council, and the Leger Hotel. For inquiries and reading reservations, e-mail mrosemanza@jps.net or phone: (209) 754-0577. Open mic signups via e-mail or phone are best to guarantee optimum mic time. Antoinette May will be reading some pleasureable excerpts from her new book, Pilate's Wife.

•••4 PM: Joyce Odam and Kathy Kieth will be reading in Crockett at the Valona Deli Second Sunday Poetry Reading, 1323 Pomona St., Crockett. Open mic follows; come for poetry, stay for jazz from the Terry Henry Trio. Info: David Alpaugh, 925-682-0457. [See yesterday's post for a lovely picture of Joyce!]

________________________

RED SKY AT NIGHT
—David Anderson, Lincoln

A red aurora borealis
hung over Whitney's hill
above the fruiting orange trees.
Strange to see it fill

the north sky at this mid-latitude
in an unseasonal chill.
The radiance did not pulse.
It entwined the night, stock-still,

an insubstantial phosphorescence
strung among the sails
of row after row of bent light,
the lower edges of tall red veils.

It stopped the scudding waves
across low atmospheres,
drenched the air with unheard music
and filled the sky's weirs.

Our eyes were confounded with ruddy light.
Our bare arms and legs, chilled.
Orange blossoms suffused the air,
left us light and glory-filled.

________________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Small Grains of the Brotherhood

Joyce Odam and Danyen Powell
Photo by Katy Brown

COUPLETS 20
—Robert Mezey

Don't be afraid of dying. The glass of water
Is quickly poured into the waiting goblet.

Your face that will be of no further use to mirrors
Grows more and more transparent, nothing is hidden.

It's night in the remotest provinces of the brain,
Seeing falls back into the great sea of light.

How strange to see that glittering green fly
Walk onto the eyeball, rubbing its hands and praying.

Don't be afraid, you're going to where you were
Before birth pushed you into this cold light.

Lie down here, next to Empedocles;
Be joined to the small grains of the brotherhood.

_______________________

Joyce Odam and Kathy Kieth will be reading in Crockett next Sunday, Feb. 11 at the Valona Deli Second Sunday Poetry Reading, 1323 Pomona St., Crockett, 4 PM. Open mic follows; come for poetry, stay for jazz from the Terry Henry Trio. Info: David Alpaugh, 925-682-0457.

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Incroyable

Theresa McCourt



FRIENDSHIP
—Theresa McCourt, Sacramento

From across the ocean,
the one who knew my dead,
who walked beside me
through wet fields
on those Sundays
we had to escape,

writes

. . . it is comfortably warm here
when it looks so cold
and inhospitable outside . . .

Beyond my own window,
the sky is now white and flat,
but in this weathered cottage,
my small heater hums.

________________________

ALCHEMY
—Theresa McCourt

From the beginnings of the world
his arrival and her welcome
have been prepared. They have always
known each other.
(From "Her First Calf," Wendell Berry)

It's the time after reading, cosy on the couch,
when our son asks me to carry him, belly-to-belly.

For months we've played this game,
yet the words I recite still give life:

My tummy's so heavy . . . .
The baby's moving so much tonight!

He giggles, shifts some more, as I bear his 40 pounds to bed,
shelter him completely under his thick, Spider-Man quilt.

He wiggles within his makeshift womb,
thrusts a hand—fingers splayed—into the room's half-light.

Then his eyes peek over the rim, deepen with all he wants.
At last, I say. Our beautiful baby!

He re-enacts his cries in the night, while I hold him to my heart,
pour forth all the welcome his first arrival did not have.

_______________________

Thanks, Theresa! This coming Monday, 2/5, Theresa McCourt and Judy Halebsky will be reading for the Sacramento Poetry Center at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Free; open mic.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get Judy's lovely face to download for me, so you'll have to come to the reading to find out what she looks like. Meanwhile, here is a poem from her. Judy also has a littlesnake broadside available (Almost Turning Over); send me an SASE and I'll mail you one.

FOLKSONG (TRANSLATION)
—Judy Halebsky, Sacramento

In Portuguese they have a specific verb
for throwing something out the window

That was after, right now I’m making your shadow
tracing your movements
catching the sharp edges
the consonants, cross outs, catch phrases, latchkey, house key
wearing its shape into the change purse of my wallet
I’m keeping it there in case I need to go back
unlock those four summers, the piles of stones, pass my fingers over the Braille of incomplete sentences

the fields near your house in Connemara
are this lush misty green with mazes of stone walls
four feet high like an outline of city windows
not walls to make rooms or to mark off space
just walls as a place to pile the stones

in Japanese there is one character
that means searching for something
and a different character
that means searching for something that you lost

I try to imagine farming in those little boxes
with no openings for a plow
no doorways, no spaces for coming or going
he’s writing us in 500 word news clips
he’s typing us in squares across the field

incredible is the same word in French and English
when you say it in San Francisco it means unbelievably wonderful
when you say it in Quebec City it means unbelievably wicked

letters for me still come to your house
they won’t bring me back or let you go
they write out the words: ice floe, glacier, granite
drainpipe, folksong, doorway

_______________________

Thanks, Judy! For more info about both of these gals, check on the SPC link to the right of this.

The Sacramento Bee celebrates its 150th anniversary today by re-printing its very first issue, Vol. 1, No. 1, which appeared on Feb. 3, 1857. Things have changed—lay-out, for one thing, font size (yikes!), a disgusting article on the back about the high price of Negroes (welcome to Black History Month). Another thing that has changed is that this first issue published a poem in the first column of the front page, "Agatha" by one "Mrs. J. Walworth Smith". First column, first page... Poetry for the People.

________________________

Today, Gertrude Stein would have been 133 years old. This is from Rooms:

A light in the moon the only light is on Sunday. What was the sensible decision. The sensible decision was that notwithstanding many declarations and more music, not even notwithstanding the choice and a torch and a collection, notwithstanding the celebrating hat and a vacation and even more noise than cutting, notwithstanding Europe and Asia and being overbearing, not even notwithstanding an elephant and a strict occasion, not even withstanding more cultivation and some seasoning, not even with drowning and with the ocean being encircling, not even with more likeness and any cloud, not even with terrific sacrifice of pedestrianism and a special resolution, not even more likely to be pleasing. The care with which the rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong, the care with which there is a chair and plenty of breathing. The care with which there is incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain.

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Dive Deep & Bar the Door

(Patricia Wellingham-Jones with Java)




FASHION-SHOW HAIRDRESSER
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Tehama

She twines her fingers
through long hair
so rich and thick
every male in the place
feels his palms grow damp
Readies models just past
their Barbie dolls
Takes those living
clotheshangers
beyond their pony tails
into Medusa-like twists
crowns of plaited silk
aureoles of ribboned filaments
Creates medieval
rock’n’roll braids

_______________________

Thanks, PWJ! Patricia Wellingham-Jones is a SnakePal from 'way back, loudly supporting us from Issue #1, for which she not only sent in poems, but badgered her friends coast-to-coast into sending us poems too—some of which remain contributors to this day. She kindly consented to publish Rattlechap #3 with us (Voices on the Land), a project which was fraught with difficulties, since that was the first book we did on laser printer rather than copy-shop. (It took forever for me to get the hang of the new machine, which was itself fraught with problems.) Patricia is also the author of Mill Race Café, a littlesnake broadside which came out in 2005, in addition to many chapbooks, broadsides, and other poet-phernalia. She is also active in her area, workshopping with other poets. For more about her writing, her publishing company (PWJ Publishing) and her interesting background in, among other things, handwriting analysis, go to www.wellinghamjones.com, either directly or through Snake Faves on rattlesnakepress.com.

Today is, by the way, Patricia's birthday, an otherwise-happy event which is colored this year by the very (two weeks ago) recent passing of her husband, Roy. Happy Birthday, PWJ, and here's hoping for some peace and poetry in the coming year.

MASK
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Masks fill the guest room closet
grins and leers and glaring eyes
hang in tiers on all three enclosing walls

Toddlers shriek in their parents’ arms
children refuse to sleep in that room
teens shudder on walking through the door

Waves of spirits with cast-off bodies
slither through stale air
Children know their own faces

could hang on those walls
Layer after transparent layer
over the person hidden inside

_______________________

ADVICE FROM A BEAVER
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones

So, dim one, I come
from my lodge, from gathering
alder bark for the winter.

The water in our creek
has almost stopped flowing.
Your water is nearly blocked up too.

If you don’t give that body
some rest, your poem juices
may decide not to flow.

The thing you call a muse
may stay underwater with me.
Just think what a beaver
with muse could make happen.

It’s time for you to retreat
to your lodge for a rest, to chew
on some green sticks,

slap water with your tail
a few times, dive deep
and bar the door.

______________________

Happy Groundhog Day! Hopefully, Punxsutawny Phil won't get eaten by a cougar but will see his shadow and, as Pat says about the beaver above, Dive Deep and Bar the Door so we can all get some more rain.

Taylor Graham writes: Tom Goff's poem [yesterday], and the mountain lion news, got me thinking about my old poem based on an event not far from here. I refurbished it, just a bit, and Medusa may use it if she wishes:

AN HOUR IN THE COUGAR'S GRACE
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

You swore the angels all have cat's eyes
in that place you happened into,
where you couldn't backstep out.
Braced against tree bark, you recalled
the scaffolding of nerve and bone

and memorized the lines of your hands,
and listened to the padding of an angel,
the breath of an angel with retractable claws
and mercies:

the hungry angel of this place so far
from heaven. You passed your life there
praying out its seconds, until at last
he left. And you stay, even now,

blest (you say) that you came there,
more blest than spared.

_______________________

Thanks to both TGs, Tom Goff and Taylor Graham. Today The Sacramento Bee says the cougar sightings along the American River may be bogus, that there are no tracks or other signs, and that the deer carcass that was found most likely died of disease. Still, I'd like to think that the big cats still do walk among us, slipping in and out without leaving any trace...

Also: Taylor Graham reminds us to send poems in response to her challenge in the last issue of Rattlesnake Review: write a let's-pretend/what-if poem of 36 lines or less and send it along with snail address to: piper@innercite.com or to Graham, P.O. Box 39, Somerset, CA 95684, "fun poetry" in subject line. Likewise, Katy Brown issued a challenge in that same issue, looking for poems about looking at things with new eyes. Write to her at Poetrybazaar@aol.com. And if you took a plunge and wrote one of the forms suggested by Joyce Odam, send those to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com.

______________________

This weekend:

•••Sunday (2/4), 6 PM: After Loss: Companion Spirit: The PoemSpirits of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento are pleased to announce the next featured reader: Jan Haag, a full-time, tenured professor in the Journalism and English departments at Sacramento City College. A prolific news reporter, copy editor and essayist, Jan also advises on student publications, especially Susurrus, the award-winning SCC literary journal. She turned to poetry, publishing Companion Spirit (by LAMP Press) after the loss of her husband, and with her subsequent involvement in the Sutter Writers Program. Co-Host Tom Goff will also offer a brief presentation on the writings of Michelangelo. These monthly presentations are free and open to the public. Place: Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd [north of Fair Oaks Blvd., between Howe and Munroe/Fulton], Main Building. Free; refreshments provided. Open mic: You are encouraged to bring a favorite poem to share, yours or another’s. This monthly event is presented by UUSS members Tom Goff, Nora Staklis, and JoAnn Anglin. For info on reading, contact: Tom or Nora at 916-481-3312; or JoAnn at 916-451-1372. For info on UUSS: www.uuss.org

•••Next Monday (2/5), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice in Davis presents Tim Bellows and rattlechapper Shawn Pittard reading their poetry at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Road, Davis. There will be an open reading following the poets. This is a free event. James Lee Jobe will host. Call 530-750-3514 for details. Please check out http://uupoetry.blogspot.com for bios, sample poems, directions, and a map. [See Medusa's post last Weds. for more about Shawn.]

•••Also next Monday (2/5), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Judy Halebsky and Theresa McCourt at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Open mic; free. [More about this tomorrow.]

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Honoring Our Brothers & Sisters

photo by Katy Brown, Davis


JAZZONIA
—Langston Hughes

Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Lifts high a dress of silken gold.

Oh, singing tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

Were Eve's eyes
In the first garden
Just a bit too bold?
Was Cleopatra gorgeous
In a gown of gold?

Oh, shining tree!
Oh, silver rivers of the soul!

In a whirling cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.

________________________

Today Langston Hughes would've been 105 years old.

Tom Goff of Carmichael writes: You've read, I take it, about the woman who fended off the mountain lion in the park not too far from San Francisco. I admire her, but I wondered what [Robinson] Jeffers would have to say about the animal...this, in something like the RJ style:

HONOR THE MOUNTAIN LION
—Tom Goff

Will the injured man forever see, feel, only
broken images, disjunct hindquarters, tensed neck, incisor-
studded mouth, as victims of certain head traumas perceive shape?

(Exaggeration of ways we ourselves see; only the flash of a haunch
in the grass and gravel of Bannister Park…and yetÑüthe revealed beast,
back to a fence, skin taut upon skull, glaring force at us open-mouthed
in our car near Volcano.)

The woman fought well, she who jabbed
at a mountain lion with a log four inches in diameter,
with a ballpoint pen snatched from the pocket
of her bleeding husband, aiming sharpness at the eyes,
blunt force at the muzzle, of the strange, implacable
tawny-skin. The lady blameless, as we humans

count fellow humans blameless; the loving pair were simply
walking in a park redwood-blessed; so does the judge
decide with clear impartiality, though it is his
class of citizens that profits by the opinion, the dictum.
Nothing nobler than that the woman should protect
her mate, even when the instinctual message thrilling
her legs was surely to run. Did the mountain lion

have a legal basis upon which to proceed? Did it petition, rail
of encroachment, of boundaries, rights, permissions to hunt?
There being no tribunal under the trees, the cougar
sprang from hiding, from behind a fat boulder, from
behind a stout pine or fir, charged with one noble truth

its blood, its artful teeth, its fifteen-foot-vertical-leap legs,
must respect, must come running for:
savagery ungovernable, need sprouting fangs and flashes
from deep yellow unfathomable eyes. It too had a mate
or a sibling. Honor also the mountain lion.

________________________

Thanks, Tom! Particularly pertinent, since there is also a mountain lion wandering along beside the American River right now; last sighting was about a mile from our old house near the Hazel Avenue bridge. Can't we all just get along?......


Bay Area Poets Coalition winners:

BAPC (www.bayareapoetscoalition.org) presents The Maggi H. Meyer Memorial Contest 27 Winners Celebration on Saturday, February 3rd, from 3-5 PM in the Dining Hall at Strawberry Creek Lodge (senior housing complex), 1320 Addison St., Berkeley (Addison is one block south and parallel to University Ave. between Acton & Bonar St.; parking on the street, NOT in the S.C.L. parking lot). Open reading follows; microphone available. All winning poems will be read (winners present will be invited to read their poems). Awards will be presented at the event or mailed to the poets who are not able to attend. Congratulations to Contest 27 Winners Al Averbach, C.W. Buckley, Rafaella Del Bourgo, Ellen Peckham, Ross Plovnick, Marian Shapiro, Theresa McCourt, Jeanine Stevens & Patricia Wellingham-Jones. The last three winners are Valley people and Snake-pals; Medusa will have more to say about Theresa and Patricia in the next couple of days. As usual, Valley people snag awards in these high-fallutin' contests...

________________________

APRIL RAIN SONG
—Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

______________________

I, TOO
—Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)