Medusa's Kitchen

Monday, December 14, 2009

The Honey of Peace

Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

TO THE STONECUTTERS
—Robinson Jeffers

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore-defeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and black to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.

_________________

Be sure to pick up your free copy of the new issue of Rattlesnake Review at The Book Collector; Tom Goff, our Historian-in-Residence, has a wonderful article in this issue about Robinson Jeffers, yet another great California poet. And remember, RR will be going on hiatus for a couple of issues, so focus your submissions on WTF or Medusa's Kitchen. For now.

This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Monday (12/14), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents The Squaw Valley Review Reading with Joe Atkins, L.A. Jones, Lawrence Kaplun, Theresa McCourt and Wendy Trevino at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. [See last Friday's post for bios.]

There will be NO SPC READINGS on December 21 or 28.

•••Tuesdays, 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center Workshop at the Hart Center, 27th & J Sts., Sacramento. Free; bring 13 copies of your one-page poem to be read/critiqued. Info: Danyen Powell at 530-756-6228.

•••Wed. (12/16 and every 1st and 3rd Weds.), 9 PM: Featured reader plus open mic at 10 PM at Bistro 33, 3rd and F Sts. in Davis. Free. Hosted by Andy Jones and Brad Henderson. Info: http://poetryindavis.blogspot.com/ or 530-756-4556 or aojones@ucdavis.edu/; schedule at http://www.bistro33.com/bistro33/.

•••Wed. (12/16, and every 3rd Weds.), 7:30 PM: Our House Art Gallery Poetry Night. Sign up for open mic by 7 PM. Located at 1004 White Rock Rd., Suite 400 (corner of Latrobe & White Rock Rds. in the Montano El Dorado Shopping Center), El Dorado Hills. Free. Info: http://ourhousegallery.com/ or 916-933-4278.

•••Wednesdays, 9 PM: Mahogany Urban Poetry Series at Queen Sheba's Restaurant, 1704 Broadway (17th and Broadway), Sacramento. $5 cover, all ages.

•••Wednesdays, 5 PM: Dr. Andy’s Technology and Poetry Hour, KDVS radio station (90.3 FM) or http://www/kdvs.org/.

•••Thursdays, 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers, with open mic before and after.

•••Thursdays, 7 PM: “Life Sentence” reading at The Coffee Garden, 2904 Franklin Blvd., Sacramento. Open mic.

•••Thursdays, 10-11 AM (replayed Sundays 10-11 AM): Mountain Mama’s Earth Music with Nancy Bodily on 95.7 FM. Music/poetry woven around a central theme deeply tied to mountains/earth.

•••Friday (12/18), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice will meet at the UU Church of Davis at 27074 Patwin Rd., Davis, for a special holiday gathering. There will be no featured reader, but instead, a read-around where we can share poems (our own or other poets), enjoy some holiday cookies and hot cider or wine, and the joy of poetry. Host Allegra Silberstein writes: This time it would be helpful if you send me an e-mail letting me know if you will be attending. Also, please let me know if you no longer wish to be on my mailing list. And in the midst of all our rushing about, may you find moments of quiet joy...

•••Sat. (and every 3rd Sat.), 10 AM: Writers of the New Sun/Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol potluck meetings at La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd St., Sacramento. Members of all levels support each other via readings, exercises, critiques and info, plus open mic; writing in Spanish, English or both. Call ahead to confirm: 916-456-5323.

•••Sat. (and every 3rd Sat.), 7 PM: Celebration of Word, Sound and Paint at Carol’s Books, 1913 Del Paso, Sacramento.

•••Sun. (and every 3rd Sun.): 3rd Sunday Poetry Workshop. Info: Rebecca Morrison or Nancy W. at oolalaparee03@yahoo.com/.

And two submissions deadlines tomorrow:

•••Monika Rose, Editor of Manzanita, writes: Volume 6 of Manzanita is inviting your original, unpublished work for inclusion in the new publication slated for spring 2010 release. Deadline is Dec. 15 by electronic submission only—see the web site for submission guidelines at www.manzanitacalifornia.org/.

•••Song of the San Joaquin is accepting poetry through December 15 for the Winter Issue. Info: Cleo Griffith, (209) 543-1776, cleor36@yahoo.com/. [Medusa also has a SSJ link at the right of this column.]

__________________

And now for an orgy of rondelets:

JUST OFFER IT UP
—Mitz Sackman, Murphys

Offer it up
Refrain from Catholic school years
Offer it up
Told to lift our chin, not blowup
The nuns' answer to all our tears
A response to our childish fears
Offer it up

__________________

DEEP SNOW’S FALLEN
—Chrys Mollett, Angels Camp

Deep snow's fallen—
Our earliest winter is here.
Deep snow's fallen—
Softer sound coyote callin'
Dripping eaves grow Icicle spear
And from its tip a perfect tear
Deep snow's fallen.

____________________

RETRO or DEPRIVED?
—Chrys Mollett

Thanks, no TV
No fancy connection or dish.
Thanks, no TV
No day soaps or talk shows for me—
Just dip into my mind and fish.
My whole life's fairly retro-ish.
Thanks, no TV

____________________

EARLY WINTER!
—Chrys Mollett

Early winter—
Two nights running, we've had hard frost.
Early winter—
Garden's lovely all a-glinter—
I Should have covered, strawed and mossed.
But precious plants I've surely lost.
Early winter!

____________________

AFTER A CANDLE
—Chrys Mollett

Imprint of flame—
Deep and glowing, seems far away.
Imprint of flame—
Into a slowly blending frame
Scarlet fingers against the grey
Blinking afterlights still at play.
Imprint of flame.

__________________

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS
—Patricia A. Pashby, Sacramento

Hear Marley’s Ghost
above the seasonal groundswell.
Hear Marley’s Ghost
as the dispirited play host,
stumbling headlong under the spell
of the clamorous Xmas bells.
Hear Marley’s Ghost.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Slow day yesterday; most of it I spent reading and watching the huge flocks of goldfinches and juncos on the deck—refugees from Tahoe, I’m guessing. The rain kept bringing down huge chunks of melting snow—thunk! At one point—thunk!—I looked up to see a tiny owl—not much bigger than the songbirds—sitting in the snow, clutching a junco. An owl? Daytime? Apparently a Northern pygmy; they are "partly diurnal" says my bird book (not much night-hunting right now, I’d wager!). S/he flew away, still hanging onto the meal.

So who do I empathize with: the cold, hungry little owl, or the hapless junco?

I’m gonna go with the owl. It must be so much harder to find food when you’re a predator than when you’re an eater of seeds…

—Kathy Kieth

Northern Pygmy Owl

__________________

—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

The Thread of Dreams,
a new chapbook from Sacramento's
Carol Frith, is now available at The Book Collector,
1008 24th St., Sacramento.

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW:

Issue #24 is now available (free) at The Book Collector
or may be ordered through rattlesnakepress.com—
or send me 4 bux and I'll mail you one.
Contributor and subscription copies
will go into the mail this week and next.

After this issue, Rattlesnake Review and most of our
other print projects will be taking
a few months off for remodeling—but not Medusa's Kitchen,
WTF (see below) or the 2nd Weds. reading series (except for January).
Watch this spot for further developments!—I suspect that the break
will be short-lived and will engender lots of activity,
including calls for submissions
to some exciting new projects.
Don't miss 'em!

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46:
Snake Secrets:
Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press
(and lots of other places, besides!):
A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process
so as to make editors everywhere more happy,
thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published.
Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or
write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

WTF!!:

The fourth issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from
Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick,
is now available at The Book Collector,
or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Next deadline (for Issue #5) is Jan. 15.
Send 3 poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces
(500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred)
or, if you’re snailing,
to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
No simultaneous submissions, previously published work,
bios or cover letters.
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

_________________

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 (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Quilted

MAKING
—Phyllis Webb

Quilted
patches, unlike the smooth slick loveliness
of the bought,
this made-ness out of self-madness
thrown across their bones to keep them warm.
It does.

Making
under the patches a smooth silk loveliness
of parts;
two bodies are better than one for this quilting,
throwing into the dark a this-ness that was not.
It does.

Fragments
of the splintered irrelevance of doubt, sharp
hopes, spear and splice into a nice consistency as once
under the pen, the brush, the sculptor's hand
music was made, arises now, blossom on fruit-tree bough.
It does.

Exercise
exegesis of the will captures and lays
haloes around bright ankles of a saint.
Exemplary under the tree,
Buddha glows out now
making the intolerable, accidental sky
patch up its fugitive ecstasies.
It does.

From the making made and, made, now making
certain order—thus excellent despair
is laid, and in the room the patches of the quilt
seize light and throw it back upon the air.
A grace is made, a loveliness is caught
quilting a quiet blossom as a work.
It does.

And do you, doubting, fractured, and untaught, St. John of the Cross,
come down and patch the particles and throw
across the mild unblessedness of day
lectures to the untranscended soul.
Then lotus-like you'll move upon the pond,
the one-in-many, the many-in-the-one,
making a numbered floral-essenced sun
resting upon the greening padded frond,
a patched, matched protection for Because.
And for our dubious value it will do.
It always does.

____________________

—Medusa

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Rabbit Up Our Sleeves

Patricia A. Pashby

POMEGRANATE
—Patricia A. Pashby, Sacramento

It hangs huge,
taking in the sun, bending the branch
of the dwarf tree
to the ground.

She frees it one day,
cutting through the tough skin,
drinking the red, tangy juice,
eating the tart seeds
and getting super-antioxidized.

She mixes several cocktails,
using the juice of the pulp
to make grenadine syrup
and before long...

is that Solomon singing
in the orchard of pomegranates?

__________________

Thanks to "Pash" for today's feature. Pat Pashby began writing poetry in 1999 when she joined the Wednesday workshop at the Hart Senior Center in Sacramento. She has recently been published in Midweek Musings Anthology, Straws into Gold, Poets' Forum Magazine, Rattlesnake Review, and Brevities. Her poetry was also published in a littlesnake broadside called Potpourri from Rattlesnake Press, and she frequently contributes to Medusa's Kitchen. Her roots remain in New England, but her five children and three grandchildren reside on the West Coast, so here she is. She spent many years with AT&T working within the operator services management team.

Rae Gouirand is starting another workshop series in Davis called Creative Nonfiction. She writes:

The tradition that ties together Annie Dillard and “Eat, Pray, Love” has room in it for all meditations on the ties between personal and universal experience. The contemporary essay is a literary force unto itself connecting fiction’s storytelling impulse with the music of poetry and journalism’s concern with the truth. Its lyric potential, its investigative spirit, and its structural innovation provide an enormously fruitful and exciting ground for writers to explore their own potentials and interests as artists. As a group, we read the most awesome texts that are written today, confront exercises that stretch us constantly, and take hugely supported risks into our own projects, whether they are book-length memoirs or one-at-a-time pieces. We embrace a workshop philosophy that empowers writers to ask their own questions, and supports all projects-in-progress as worthy—and as a result, are a genuinely bonded and intimate group of artists who help one another actualize our own best writing. This workshop—which has been operating continuously since 2004—is expanding this winter to include a second section for new members*, and remains the only intensive, year-round, community-based workshop for serious nonfiction writers in the area (though we enjoy exploring poetry, fiction, and other projects produced by members of the circle, and regularly question our own genre distinctions). Snacks happen. Meets in Davis.

About the instructor: Rae Gouirand received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2002, and has taught writing in Davis, Sacramento, and Woodland for the last six years. Her work has appeared most recently in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, The Kenyon Review, and the anthology, Best New Poets 2009. The winner of recent fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Santa Fe Art Institute and a 2009 award from the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation for outstanding work by emerging poets, she serves as Writer-in-Residence for the Cache Creek Conservancy, and is currently at work starting a literary press devoted to the spirit of stolen moments.

Section I: Sundays, January 10 – April 18, 2010, 4-6 PM (new section)
Section II: Sundays, January 10 – April 18, 2010, 7-9 PM

Course fee: $250. (*New members pay a reduced course fee of $225 if they submit their registrations by 12/20/09.) To register: Email Rae at rgouirand@gmail.com to indicate your interest, and she’ll forward you the official registration form and answer any questions you might have.

__________________

COLUMBIA COUNTY, OREGON
—Patricia A. Pashby

In early April the swallows come north to build their
mud shelters high in the rafters of the old barn and
comb the farm for nesting matter. All year she gathers
snow-white feathers from her guinea hen.

On a breezy day she heads to the high meadow with
her wicker basket overflowing with feathers and flings
them skyward to catch a puff of air. The swallows see
the white plumage floating in the wind and snatch
them as they drift, pluck them from each other.

They dash to the barn with their spoils, then swiftly
rejoin the feather frenzy, By dusk every feather has
disappeared, the ground brushed clean.

High in the shadowy rafters among the cobwebs—
Mud nests, vibrant with whiteness.

__________________

HAIKU OF AUTUMN FRUIT
—Patricia A. Pashby

A gift from Japan, this fruit from Honshu;
Asian grace when served
with a dash of cream—sake too;
now with soft underbellies, an hors d'oeuvre

for squirrels and birds—a buffet
of red-orange wrinkled balloons
dangles on bare branches, in disarray,
cling by wintergreen collars—marooned.

Blushing, pumpkin-shaped
persimmons hang like lanterns
awaiting moonlight.

__________________

TEA TIME IN THAILAND
—Patricia A. Pashby

And would it have been worth it, after all,
after the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
among the porcelain, among some talk
of you and me...
—T.S. Eliot

High Tea on the veranda
of the Railway Hotel—
steaming brew and warm scones
served on delicate Asian china.

Sinking into oversized wicker,
silk pillows at our backs—
mother and daughter, lingering
until the tea is cold.

__________________

HMO
—Patricia A. Pashby

She went to a urologist
who sent her to a proctologist
who sent her to a gastro-enterologist

who sent her to hypnosis
for a deep-seated psychosis
caused by actinic keratosis.

__________________

RABBIT UP MY SLEEVE
—Patricia A. Pashby

I wait to cross the boulevard then walk—
walk with the light and enter Disneyland
where shattered dreams repair themselves. I mock

the tears that penetrate my heart—hold hands
with Sleeping Beauty as the Prince's kiss
awakens her from sleep at his command.

No sullen streets to spoil my days of bliss—
no fears that stop my playful make-believe.
Is it too late to be the child I miss?

I trace those baby steps, don't want to leave
so choose to stay—sip consommé
with Hatter, Cheshire, Rabbit up my sleeve.

For just awhile I catch my child at play;
then heave a sigh and lay my dreams away.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Use a mirror in difficult times.
You will see both cause and resolution.

—Deng Ming-Dao

__________________

—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

The Thread of Dreams,
a new chapbook from Sacramento's
Carol Frith,
is now available at The Book Collector,
1008 24th St., Sacramento.

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW:

Issue #24 is now available (free) at The Book Collector
or may be ordered through rattlesnakepress.com—
or send me 4 bux and I'll mail you one.
Contributor and subscription copies
will go into the mail this week and next.

After this issue, Rattlesnake Review and most of our
other print projects will be taking
a few months off for remodeling—but not Medusa's Kitchen,
WTF (see below) or the 2nd Weds. reading series (except for January).
Watch this spot for further developments!—I suspect that the break
will be short-lived and will engender lots of activity,
including calls for submissions
to some exciting new projects.
Don't miss 'em!

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46:
Snake Secrets:
Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press
(and lots of other places, besides!):
A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process
so as to make editors everywhere more happy,
thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published.
Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or
write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

WTF!!:

The fourth issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from
Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick,
is now available at The Book Collector,
or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Next deadline (for Issue #5) is Jan. 15.
Send 3 poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces
(500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred)
or, if you’re snailing,
to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
No simultaneous submissions, previously published work,
bios or cover letters.
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

_________________

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 (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Friday, December 11, 2009

I Kid You Not

MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN
—Tom Kryss

An old slightly unshaven man staggers into Radio Shack
near the beginning of December, stares at the latest toys,
with his hands in his well-creased aviator’s jacket; he is
removing his spectacles from inside the Argyle when
the clerk shows up at his side and asks whether he can
be of assistance. It turns out the old guy is in the market
for a global positioning device, and the clerk lights up
and assures him that he’s come to the suitable place.
They’re over at the glass counter now, where several
possibilities are spread out, and the client has taken one
in his fingers and, bewildered, seems to be searching for
the battery compartment; the clerk mentions that this
particular model operates on natural light, even so little
as might be encountered in darkness. Ideal, says the
old man, I’ll take it. Will that be charge, sir? The old
guy reaches into his inner coat pocket and produces
several clean crisp bills which the clerk looks at strangely
as if he’s never seen one prior to now. Of course, he
corrects himself, the cash register confirms the purchase
with a rather pleasant electronic ring, and would the
customer care for some wrapping? Uh, too late, he is
already out the door, walking away down the sidewalk
with the device held in front of him, a promise of snow
in the air. Sometimes I receive Jack Paar on old signals
beating back, I dunno, from eternity or the planet Xenon;
five minutes ago he had interrupted one of his guests to
tell a story of his own, somehow related, and now he is
wrapping it up, the audience, indeed the guest himself,
hanging on every nuance, and there is no punchline, no
fitting way to bring this to an end; he wipes his brow,
gently, paranoically, a tick, and from out of nowhere, in
that reassuring stutter he has kept under wraps until this
moment, I hear him say, for the one thousandth never
to be forgotten time, "I kid you not."

__________________

This weekend in NorCal poetry:

•••Monday (12/14), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents The Squaw Valley Review Reading with Joe Atkins, L.A. Jones, Lawrence Kaplun, Theresa McCourt and Wendy Trevino at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Joe Atkins, an alumna of CSUS & UCD, lives in Sacramento. Currently he is a freelance writer and homeowner. He enjoys Facebook, Twitter, blogs, hulu, netflix, movies, bookstores, MP3s, concerts, drinking, poker, his spouse, his cat, and google/excel spreadsheets.

Lisa Jones (L. A. Jones) co-edited The Squaw Valley Review 2008 and is the Interview Editor for Poetry Now. Her work has won local prizes, is forthcoming in Tule Review, and published in Tea Party, Convergence (on-line), Poetry Now, and Qarrtsiluni's Journaling the Apocaplypse (on-line and print anthology). She has a Ph.D. in sociology, but is most proud of her studies with Camille Norton, Kim Addonizio, Susan Kelly-Dewitt, and the great staff at Squaw Valley and the Napa Valley Writer's Conference.

Lawrence Kaplun co-edited The Squaw Valley Review 2008. He was raised in Los Angeles and currently lives in San Francisco, where he works for the California Academy of Sciences. His poems have appeared online in Limp Wrist Magazine.

Theresa McCourt won an Albert and Elaine Borchard Fellowship in poetry in October 2008, and in November 2008, graduated from the Artist Residency Institute through the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission. Her credits include a 1st place in the 2007 Maggi H. Meyer Memorial Contest, and publications include Peter Parasol, mamazine.com, Poetry Now, Rattlesnake Review, and Toyon.

Wendy Trevino lives and writes in San Francisco. Her work has previously appeared in Makeout Creek and Faultline and is forthcoming in the super-fun journal, West Wind Review.

There will be NO SPC READINGS on December 21 or 28.

•••Citrus Heights Area Poets will not hold an open mic event at Barnes & Noble on Sunrise in December; host Margaret Bell will be attending the 17th annual cowboy poetry festival in Monterey that weekend. The Citrus Heights program for poets and poetry lovers will resume in January, so please mark your calendars now and plan to be there on January 9 at 2 PM.

•••Fri.-Sunday (12/11-13): 11th Annual Monterey Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival at the Monterey Conference Center. Info: www.montereycowboy.org/.

•••Sat. (12/12 and every 2nd and 4th Sat.), 10-11:30 AM: Sacramento Poetry Center 2nd and 4th Sat. workshop with Emmanuel Sigauke and Frank Dixon Graham. South Natomas Community Center (next door to S. Natomas Library), 2921 Truxel Rd., Sacramento. Bring ten copies of your one-page poem to read/critique. Info: grahampoet@aol.com/.

__________________

SOME SEASONAL RONDELETS
—Margaret Ellis Hill, Fair Oaks

Another year
Comes to a close too soon. I know
Another year
Will begin slowly but I fear
The hours will quickly come and go.
Older indeed, but watch me glow
Another year.

***

The season’s here
For holiday bustling and more
The season’s here.
A time for family and good cheer
For gift giving, and hugs galore
And tales of Christmases of yore
The season’s here.

***

Happy New Year
most everyone makes with a toast
Happy New Year
And may all be true that you hear.
(I wonder what resolves will most
Likely be kept, which ones a boast.)
Happy New Year.

__________________

THE GEESE IN WINTER
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

A string of geese—
a sense of lonely deja vu;
a string of geese,
and I could feel the mind’s release
and nothing mattered but the view—
the phrase of light that filtered through
a string of geese.

__________________

DISTANCE SONG
—Joyce Odam

Teach me your song,
winds that have known the farthest seas,
teach me your song.
Out of the east you bring along
a nightingale’s tune that distance frees,
leaving me stirred and on my knees.
Teach me your song.

__________________

FROM THE WINTER HYMNAL:
Rondelet of Frost
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Winter hones love:
let the lustral chill signify
winter hems love’s
green inside her plush ice-lined glove.
May all sharpest sounds magnify,
soft pine-sheathing snow dignify:
winter sings love.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

The butterflies are fluttering, but you feed off fear as if it's a high-energy candy bar. It keeps you alert and focused...you know you can be hammered by something unexpected, but you count on your experience, concentration, and instincts to pull you through. And luck.

—Charles Elwood Yeager

Come here! Hurry! There are little animals in this rain water...Look! See what I have discovered!

—Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek

__________________

—Medusa

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Ondelay With Rondelets

And yet still, despite the snow,
they have all they need...

CANCER WARD (R.I.P. RACHEL)
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

Now exhaling
I prepare to leave your war zone
where a squad of soldiers, nine of them,
and their leader, the staff sergeant,
whom I once saw resolute, immovable,
with effective rearguard action
in the wake of breastplates shot off—

I now see wasted, radiated by nuclear attack
silenced amid the residue
of their uniformed body parts
leaving a gallant shadow at the front
that official policy cannot explain away…

their valiant action and the embattled response
of the past year
have left you cratered, half blind, disarmed
unable to stand at attention
salute numbers

only now
after all this time
have they succeeded in defeating you.

__________________

Thanks, Pat. NorCal poets will be saddened to hear that Patricia Hickerson has lost her daughter. Pat writes: My daughter Rachel died yesterday (Tuesday) of cancer after a two-year battle. She, too, was a poet. We self-published a book 30 years ago (Daughter and Mother), which is now for sale on Amazon and Alibris. Our thoughts are with you, Pat.

Thanks also to all of you who were able to attend our reading and holiday party last night, and who contributed to the only open mic Rattlesnake Press has ever had. It was an evening of good poetry and good community and good cheer, a wonderful kick-off to the 2009 holiday season.

If you weren't able to be there last night, be sure to drop by to pick up one of Carol Frith's new chapbooks and a free issue of the latest Rattlesnake Review, which will help elucidate the coming Snake-brake/break that I'll be taking for the first part of 2010. Yes, most of the Snake's print projects will be going on sabbatical—but NOT Medusa's Kitchen! We'll keep cookin' here in cyberspace every day as usual, so keep feeding the moody Medusa's always-hungry snakes with poetry, poetry, and more poetry. (Photos and art, too!) I suspect, in fact, that the break will engender lots of activity of its own, including calls for submissions to some exciting new projects—so stay tuned.

Oh—and pick up one of Katy Brown's 2009 calendars while you're at The Book Collector—a steal at just $5! Blank journals, too. Great stocking-stuffers.

And thanks to Taylor Graham and Carol Louise Moon for today's rondelets, our Seed of the Week. Send your rondelets to kathykieth@hotmail.com; no deadlines on SOWs. The rondelet is seven lines: lines 1, 3, and 7 are the same (4 sylllables). The other lines are 8 syllables: lines 2, 5, 6 rhyme with each other, and line 4 rhymes with the refrain. C'mon, it's easy: look at all the repeated lines! (And it's French: say rhonda-lay...)

1. xxxA
2. xxxxxxxb
3. xxxA
4. xxxxxxxa
5. xxxxxxxb
6. xxxxxxxb
7. xxxA

_________________

STONES
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

Stone upon stone
this one builds herself a fortress.
Stone upon stone
she builds up walls where shrubs had grown
and fills her room with emptiness,
and builds her heart with nothing less—
stone upon stone.

__________________

BAILEY'S POND
—Carol Louise Moon

She loves this pond,
the quack of ducks this time of day.
She loves this pond
echoing rocks, wispy green fronds,
the great white fount—its misty spray,
rippling dance of noon's sunrays
upon this pond.

___________________

XMAS-CRAZY
—Taylor Graham

Are you drowning?
Shopping dazzle, just three days more.
Are you drowning
in the orgy that’s downtowning?
Compound-apparatus galore.
Don’t miss the mall, each tinsel-store.
Are you drowning?

__________________

SNOWBOUND
—Taylor Graham

This stunning snow.
The power’s out, the phone as well.
This stunning snow—
our dark house, icicles aglow.
We’ll shovel out a shiver-cell
as light’s transformed by winter’s spell,
this stunning snow.

NoTail Kieth (age 21)
and her own personal snow-repellent device

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Newton's passage from a falling apple to a falling moon was an act of the prepared imagination.

—John Tyndall

[The same could be said of working with forms and other structured challenges in poetry. The prepared imagination...]

__________________

—Medusa

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Into the Dragon Mist!

Joanna Rosinska

HANGING OUT IN THE HOSPITAL CAFETERIA
—Joanna Rosinska, Corvallis, OR

Ever since I could remember needing
a mood altering experience
I would head for the nearest hospital cafeteria.

Just as Maud (of Harold and Maud)
would attend funerals,
I’d go for pre-mortal drama
of body parts in gruesome collages
of the buffet.
For starters, a mound of hardboiled eggs arranged on a tray,
a proof of cataracts in eggs
rimmed with lashes of parsley.

I start vapidly:
some embryonic lentil soup
of nondescript color
Aww, main courses:
grilled, chicken pecs?
cadaverously dark turkey slice?
or someone’s meatballs today?
All deliciously obscene; what a choice…

In the line with me
there are people for whom food is …not an object.
They are parked here to tend to their loved ones.
I know nobody in this hospital;
this makes for a perfect incognito adventure.

My palms get sweaty thinking
of the normalcy of body parts here,
human or other,
and that the hospital workers
are desensitized to them.
In fact, I am certain that here
pathologists eat their lunch
nonchalantly, among corpses,
in the basement morgue,
while the cafeteria serves animal and plant body parts….
Food for thought, that is;
jiggling cherry jelly
from a brain-shaped mold,
dishes of vanilla pudding:
swaying globs adorned with lung-like halves of walnuts
custard bars topped with apricots split
and pressed
in gooey creamy bog
buttocks up.

Unnaturally pink butterflies on the tablecloths
no longer hold appeal of innocence of consumption for me.
Each visit to body-part buffet awakens a predator in me.
I devour the quiescent eye-like, boiled, hard eggs, with pars-lashes
engulf the “jiggly” things
and suck in tomato-sauce-drowned linguini,
like limp jugular veins.

I wonder if they also admit vampires to hospitals.
Obviously, yes!
no identification stamps of the foreheads
of those doomed for their sorry impulses…
A high risk group, one may say, living their sickly lives.
Do they ever die of AIDS?

What if this man with elongated face behind me
is one of them?
His teeth tucked under his lips, he drools
while looking at drips of melting cherry jelly…

I can’t remember when I started putting on a robe
and darker glasses before coming here.
All just to blend in,
so my eyes darting shamelessly around the platters of
recently deceased organs
will not draw anyone’s attention.
I feel my hands trembling as I load food on my tray.
I’m keeping my head down,
and trying to stay calm.
I really cannot afford
to be kicked out
of this hospital
as well.

__________________

Joanna Rosinska, a native of Poland, has been a lyricist, musician, playwright, stage director and journalist. She currently writes poetry and short stories and creates cartoons and soundscapes (multilayered performances of poetry in voice and sound). Her particular interests in poetry and cartoons are nature and surrealism. Her poems and a short story have been published in several small Northwest publications. Joanna lives with her husband, two dogs and a horse in Corvallis, OR. She is an avid dressage rider. She also trains dogs and is working toward becoming a dog behavior consultant.

Cartoon by Joanna Rosinska

Thanks, Joanna, for today's feature! Joanna is part of a writing group called the Dragons that meets in Oregon; Sacramentans will remember some of its other members, Be Davison Herrera and Colette Jonopulos, both of whom used to live in Sacramento. The Dragons whipped up a treat for readers of Rattlesnake Review; pick up your free copy of our new issue at the reading tonight (The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM), when we will let the new Snake out of his cage—plus a wonderful chapbook from Carol Frith: The Thread of Dreams. Be there!

And we're having a rare Open Mic tonight, too. If you'd like to read a "seasonal" poem, let me know and I'll put you on The List. Anything from Thanksgiving through New Year's, including all the holidays, the solstice, the weather...

Thanks to Richard Zimmer for his rondelet, our Seed of the Week (see below). There was a wee error in my description yesterday; a rondelet is seven lines: lines 1, 3, and 7 are the same (4 sylllables). The other lines are 8 syllables (yesterday I said 7, though the "map" below was correct): lines 2, 5, 6 rhyme with each other, and line 4 rhymes with the refrain. So, to wit:

1. xxxA
2. xxxxxxxb
3. xxxA
4. xxxxxxxa
5. xxxxxxb
6. xxxxxxxb
7. xxxA

Send your rondelets to kathykieth@hotmail.com. C'mon, it's easy: look at all the repeated lines! No deadlines on SOWs. Here's Richard's fine example:

RONDELET FOR EMPTY DAYS
—Richard Zimmer, Sacramento

On empty days,
when things all seem to take too long,
on empty days,
take time to stop and change your ways,
fill your life with a dance and song...
the carefree way to right what’s wrong,
on empty days.

__________________

MARCHING ON THE WEATHER STATION
—Joanna Rosinska

Fall is hanging in a delicate November balance.
We, the Western Oregonians, realize
the coming of the inevitable.
I hold sunny thoughts every chance I get
to postpone the deluge.

In the higher, eastern planes
folks think of holidays,
national or religious
at this time each year.
But not here!
The freedom of expression
granted to weather here
culminates in precipitation
that’s more like dreary libation!

After years of acquiescing to rainy seasons
I began to will the dry spells
but with limited success.

My friends and I hold dry thoughts collectively
all the way through December.
We even refuse to sweat.
It may be unreasonable, of course
to expect no rain until March,
but postponing November downpour
has been our goal for years.

In vain, we’ve asked the frogs,
the holders of the earth’s water rights,
to hold back rather than give back.

Each year there are more of us joining
in hopeful chanting for a break in the rain.
Some of us tried to dance
the sacred Rain Dance backwards,
since none among us has ever heard
of any anti-rain jig.
Still, the Rain-Spirit remains indifferent.

For Sun Dance with chest piercing
we don’t have the guts.

So this year, I took the matter into my own hands:
I invited my dry-winter loving friends
to march with me for drier weather.
We will march on a local weather station!
Shoulder to shoulder,
ready for anything
armed with demands.

We will take over the weather vane,
the rain gauge, and the barometer, if necessary
Onward!
Into the mist!

Joanna Rosinska

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

—Robert Benchley

__________________

—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW:

Deadline was November 15 for RR24; join us
for its unveiling and get your free copy at
The Book Collector on
Wednesday, December 9.
After this issue, Rattlesnake Review will be taking
a few months off for remodeling—
watch this spot for further developments!

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46:
Snake Secrets:
Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press
(and lots of other places, besides!):
A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process
so as to make editors everywhere more happy,
thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published.
Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or
write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

NEW FROM RATTLESNAKE PRESS:

A new chapbook from Dawn DiBartolo
(Secrets of a Violet Sky);
Rattlesnake Reprint #2 from frank andrick
(PariScope: A Triptyche);
plus our 2010 calendar from Katy Brown
(Wind in the Yarrow)!

Now available from SPC, rattlesnakepress.com
or at The Book Collector:
Our newest anthology,
Keepers of the Flame:
The First 30 Years of the Sacramento Poetry Center.
Editor-in-Chief Mary Zeppa and her helpers have put together
many, many documents and photos
from SPC's 30-year history.

WTF!!: The fourth issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from
Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick,
is now available at The Book Collector,
or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Next deadline (for Issue #5) is Jan. 15.
Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing,
to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

COMING IN DECEMBER:

The Thread of Dreams,
a new chapbook from
Carol Frith,
will be premiered at
The Book Collector on
December 9, 7:30 PM,
along with the new issue of
Rattlesnake Review.
Be there!

_________________

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 (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

A Morning Filled With Roses

Photo by D.R. Wagner

RONDELET FOR AN EARLY THAW
—Carol Frith, Sacramento

It’s cold enough
to snow. You tell me that. I know
it’s cold enough
for ragged ice to form that’s rough
along the eaves. We’re in a slow
deep freeze. Hold me now, just so—
it’s cold enough…

__________________

Thanks to Carol Frith and D.R. Wagner for the pix and poems! Join us at The Book Collector tomorrow night (Weds., Dec. 9 at 7:30 PM) to help us celebrate the release of The Thread of Dreams by Carol Frith, as well as a new Rattlesnake Review—the last before our hiatus. And if you'd like to read your own or someone else's seasonal poem (anything from Thanksgiving to New Year's, the solstice, or even winter weather) tomorrow night, let me know. Help us make a community of voices...

To mark the occasion of Carol's chapbook, let us all write rondelets for our Seed of the Week! This'll get your heart pumpin': Seven lines: lines 1, 3, and 7 are the same (4 sylllables). The other lines are 7 [this is an error; it should say 8] syllables: lines 2, 5, 6 rhyme with each other, and line 4 rhymes with the refrain. So, to wit:

1. xxxA
2. xxxxxxxb
3. xxxA
4. xxxxxxxa
5. xxxxxxxb
6. xxxxxxxb
7. xxxA

Send your rondelets to kathykieth@hotmail.com. C'mon, it's easy: look at all the repeated lines! No deadlines on SOWs.

__________________

REMEMBERING THE JUNGLE
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

If we could only
Remember how the
Words worked, the ones
That helped change the seasons
So that no one would notice
Until time itself had piled
Up snow or leaves or
Rain upon rain into the center
Of a month, but we
Could not. Here faces were burned
Off, limbs were regarded
As cord wood, milk spilled
From mouths. We could not
Begin to disguise our disgust
Of the shape dreams made
On the walls of our villages.
Someone said the wands had been
Taken from the area long ago.
Still, we could see lights in the jungle
Night occasionally. They were music.
They were our voices.
We thought they were our homes on fire.

__________________

A MORNING FILLED WITH ROSES
—D.R. Wagner

Bullets dream the taste of flesh.
The parting of the skin to red
Fountains and the splinter of bone.

Saints speak with tongues made of fire.
The names of God split with desire’s
Sweet tooth pulled up against the spine.

The night is away from home.
I have seen where it goes,
How it borrows morning
From the dream. Listen to this wind.
It clots just below the sky,
Squats on the tops of hills,
Staring down at its own rivers
Deep, like blood.

Look here. A hand dips down
Into a palace of feeling.
Perhaps it is someone loving someone
We might not have noticed except
That the hand squeezes drop after drop of blood
From the wells from which we drink.
This kind of language is full of pretty
Things like this. Come out here with me.
The sun seems about to move from
Behind those trees, to wake up the birds.
If we are so perfect just this once
We can watch the bullets pick their way
Through the body. The smell of gunpowder
On the air. A morning filled with roses.

Photo by D.R. Wagner

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Man's inescapable impasse is that he himself is part of the world he seeks to explore; his body and proudrain are mosaics of the same elemental particles that compose the dark, drifting dust clouds of interstellar space.

—Lincoln Barnett

We literally are stardust.

—John L. Hitchcock

__________________

—Medusa