Tripping It Lightly

Graffiti

Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

PLACATE

—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Placate the Gorgon, goes the Court’s
prime watchword. See Her Grace
always as She meaneth to be seen:
pearl-bedecked, engowned in royal
raiment, indeed rainbow-gorgeous:
dresses, petticoats, stomachers, vestments
of peacocks’ eyes, of unicorns, cascading
virgin pearls, of hearts embroidered
all around with posies:  Always the same,
ever married to the realm.

But some there are who whisper
differently: why indeed these
poems, of Venus and Adonis, of
the Moon Queen lusting after her
dearest boy, who yet spurns her
whitest flesh and reddest hair? Why
then, more impish still, the murmurs
and speeches, of Actaeon springing
unawares on bathing Diana, seeing,
knowing, and gaping at what wonder
in the nude form of the world’s most
pampered huntress? And, seeing
the naked bather, he feels his head
grow horns, not cuckolds’ knobs,
but great thrusting stag branches
…useless to him as his side reddens
gored with arrows. What must it be

to know in an instant tremendous
royal truths, to be summoned
amid self-opening doors in clangors
of disconcertment—and there,
in her nightgown, seated at table
for cards, waiteth Her Majesty,
robe open, revealing white secrets

soon to blind the beholder
privy now to the dreadlock kinship
of royal nakedness and snake-headedness:
yet “she is lusty, fresh and moist, full of love
and life…and she can trip it as lightly
as a fairy nymph upon the sands and her footsteps
not seen, and much ado with red and white.”

Thus have I writ, William Reynolds,
a first-day’s purchaser of Shakespeare’s
Venus and Adonis, I a mere humble
citizen of London, speaking for many
too highly born or placed to risk free speech…

_____________________

Thanks, Tom—who has been thinking Shakespeare these last few weeks. And thanks to our other contributors, including D.R. for more of his cool photos (he's been down to Hearst Castle recently), Pat Pashby for the poem and LittleNip, and Jeanine Stevens, who has a new chapbook coming out from Finishing Line in December. More about that later.

Blogspot has made some changes in how we post, so bear with us as we get the hang of these. Things might look a little "different"/wonky. The good news is, though, that it looks like we'll be able to indent—crucial, for poetry! Michelle's poem about vultures is the first-ever-indented poem Medusa has ever published! (I used to use the "center" feature for hanging-over lines.)


More workshops:

•••Jannie Dresser is offering three workshops in the East Bay: sites.google.com/site/jdresserpoetryteacher/workshops-retreats

Poetry Soul-Diving
Sept. 29-Oct. 27
North Berkeley ($150)

Let a Formal Feeling Come
Oct. 3-Dec. 5
Albany/No. Berkeley area ($175)

Is the Music Over?
For poets who want more music in their verse, and songwriters who want more poetry in their lyrics.
Oct. 14-Dec. 9
East Bay location ($165)

For more info, check the website or email her at janniedres@att.net about these or the following:

•••California Coast Poetry Get-Away: I Have a Dream, Jan. 14-17, on the Sonoma Coast. Extensive workshop for inspiring your dreams, shaking-up your imagination, and regaining serenity after the busy-ness of the holidays. Practices include meditation, art-play, writing prompts. Accommodations include a full kitchen, hot tub, gorgeous views, places to walk or shop. Nutritious and yummy food (each participant will contribute food for one meal and help with clean-up), and comfortable sleeping arrangements (double-occupancy room with ample space for finding solitude). Reg. plus $50 due Oct. 1: sites.google.com/site/jdresserpoetryteacher/workshops-retreats

•••Closer to home: Sat. (10/2), 10am-4pm: Horse Wisdom Inspires Poetry, presented by Horse Wisdom and Healing Arts at Little Winds Equine Education in Davis. Participants will engage in experiential activities with the Little Winds horses and local poet Nancy Bodily, followed by a chance to express feelings/insights in a guided poetry creation session. $125 includes lunch; limited to 8 participants, no horse (or poetry) experience required. Info: littlewindsege.com

Michelle Kunert is concerned about the surfeit of vultures in the Land Park area; see yesterday's Sac. Bee. Well, we all gotta eat... I'm glad they take care of the nastier jobs for us, whatever their table habits. But yes, one does wonder why they take up residence in one's neighborhood. By the way, did you know vultures are the only birds with a keen sense of smell? You can imagine why this comes in handy.

_____________________

Hundreds of turkey vultures are roosting in Land Park,
   ironically, in the area's trees near 13th Ave.
  These birds are the strange relatives of storks
   yet can hunt prey as if they were wolf-pack hawks
   In public parks they eat helpless pond ducks and geese
   and leave around stinking piles of their excitement
   Yet laws still protect them as "endangered" species
   though they've adapted to living in urban neighborhoods
   unlike storks associated with birth and new life
   Carrion-eating vultures
   also tend to circle around dying creatures—
   Have they migrated out of our deserts
   waiting around for our city to also "die"?

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

____________________

SAMHAIN—SUMMER'S END
—Jeanine Stevens, Sacramento
                    
I walk past crumbling viaducts, check eel traps,
mostly empty by October, and from pit heaps,
I gather worn markers and knotted string.
On my amulet, three dragons leap against my chest.
Reaching my hut, I press palms on the etched
spiral over the door.  At the crossroads, villagers
set bonfires: hazel wood, alder, and oak, burning
off summer’s sour drosses. Torches blaze, sparking
branches sealed in first frost. Lazy ones who stay away
will sink in black mire, ice blocking pathways,
held captive by demons in winter’s darkest days.
I move closer, charcoal blackens my hands, cinders
scorch my hemline. Under my flaxen dress, I feel
the arch, the twist—curled metal warming my heart.

____________________

THE SANTA ANA'S
—Jeanine Stevens

In October, dry winds
charge in from the Mojave.
Some students, excused
from school, fight
the fiery ring
surrounding the Valley.
Embers smolder
all through Thanksgiving
when holiday garlands
already crisscross
the intersection—
a silver bell swaying
in the center.
Blistering gales return,
stripping young
banana leaves.
By evening, tinsel hangs
shredded and limp
from thick wires.

____________________

SHE WHISPERS SOFTLY AT THE OPEN WINDOW

as a fresh autumn breeze
flutters the curtains—
brushing her face and hair

and wind chimes
chant to the persimmons
urging them to blush orange

and scampering squirrels
chatter as they sample
each fruit for ripeness

and her Muse whispers back
on a puff of air.


—Patricia A. Pashby, Sacramento

______________________

GLOBAL WARMING, ELIZABETHAN STYLE
—Tom Goff

Ah, the riches of England! Hot fires
that scarcely heat huge coldstone castles,
those fires lit from the bounty of nearby
noblemen’s woods…Coal mines and tin mines
and lead mines, gold worshipped but largely
pirated from Spain, pearls dived for in Ceylon
and India snug in the lading of ships. What notion
of damage to the goddess Nature? Mast-making,
timbering the sides and bowels of ships…The vital
heat surges up smoking, as do the mighty lines
in theaters of lumber. Swans, mute swans,
decreed as royal as royalty: owing to what
prior abuses of arrow and gun? William
of Stratford supposed a deer poacher.
The hut-warming, huddling, bundling, crowding
drawing on colonies of flea and germ.
What will these humblest peasants
who dine on “coarsest cheat” say, if they know
this plaguey, aguey conglobulation of breed
and birth and starve and decay and fevershake

will so slim the Earth-wide populace,
those cities reduced, their fires banked,
as to cool and chill and snow over the faces
of hills and meadow and town? What
will they exclaim, knowing their grandsons
and granddaughters will beg their way from
farmstead to city, wearing snow jackets, 
ice leggings? What does it tell us that the Earl

of Oxford means to cut down all his woods
(he tells Lord Burghley) for coin to take him to Italy?
And yet, years later, can proudly claim that when
his ancestors held forests—now wrenched from him
by dubious legal means—the “woods were preserved,
the game cherished, and the Forest maintained
in her full state?”

Were Elizabeth’s nobles their own best canaries
inside the bowels of the Earth they’d dominate?
Did the Earl of Cumberland visit his proud holdings
down, where mining pairs would scrap like spouses,
one man to wield the pick, the other man flapping,
savagely driving away bad air with a rag?
Think of it, the lord and master bent low to inspect,
still gaily bedecked in his best gilded doublet:
he came, he saw, and then he—keeled over?

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for.   
 
—Earl Warren
_____________________

—Medusa

Pool, William Hearst Castle

Photo by D.R. Wagner

The Wild Geese Know...

Whole Foods Festival
Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

AUTUMN MEDITATION
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

we drove the country road
past fields gone to seed
between towns
a tree here and there
lean branches bent over us
low fog pressed weed fragrance
closer to earth
Fall littered the ditches
a golden leaf glittered unseen

you were telling me about Shiva
Saraswati and Narayana
I said are we lost
don’t worry, you said
we are one with Buddha

Autumn’s dead leaves
scurried past us
then a stoplight
we rode to the far side of town

where is the living Buddha?
is he lost?
no, you said

we drove
we saw the word café
lit up in scarlet neon
like blood running through
transparent tubes

inside it was sweating-hot
drums beating
couples dancing
horns blaring
Buddha was there laughing
he took me in his arms
whirled me around
I was warm and safe
leaning against his big round belly
like a fiery old stove

__________________

Thanks, Pat, and thanks to our potpourri of poets today and every day! Pat has another little bit on catfishgringoriver.blogspot.com

The new issue of Gail Entrekin's Canary is online at www.hippocketpress.org/canary.cfm in honor of yesterday's Fall Equinox.

And Sacramento Poetry Center has announced the winners of its 2010 Poetry Contest for a Single Poem. Indigo Moor was the the final judge for this year’s contest, and he selected:

1st Place
David Moody [Vacaville, CA] (Crossing the Equator)

2nd Place
Katie Quarles [Rocklin, CA] (Note to Self)

3rd Place
Rachel Jenkins [Davis, CA] (Transformer)

Honorable Mention:
Shadi Gez [Faairfield, CA] (Fields)
Ellaraine Lockie [Sunnyvale, CA] (Evolution)
Ray Hadley [S. Lake Tahoe, CA] (A Good Trick at the Zoo)
Gordon Preston [Modesto, CA] (The Library)
Katie Quarles [Rocklin, CA] (The Garden)
Carolyne Whelan [Pittsburgh, PA] (Ode for Traveling Solo)
Kathleen McClung [San Francisco, CA] (Nephew Blurred)
David Moody [Vacaville, CA] (A Mouthful of Stars)
Laura Hilton [Auburn, CA] (And Can You Love Me)
Allegra Silberstein [Davis, CA] (Magnolia Blossoms)

Winners can contact Sandra Senne [sennesk@yahoo.com] 916-979-9706 for more details.

_________________

Pale shade of old cream,

light settles across the Vaca Hills this evening.
A thread of the new moon sinks
in a crescent of pearl beside the evening star.
The air, different now,
smells faintly of smoke and ozone

—the start of autumn.
Flights of geese sketch runes
in the darkening sky, fleeing southward
from rumors of ice building in the high winds.
They appear unseasonably early.

For the last few weeks, the violet evenings
have been stitched with migration.
The birds have not rested in the bypass.
Somewhere there is going to be a hard winter.
The wild geese know it.

The crows form a river of darkness,
heading toward their nightly roosts in walnut trees
outside of Davis. They will not move on
when the weather turns cold and wet.
They seem to take the shortened days in stride.

The light is changing.
There is a new scent on the evening breeze.
The air feels different, like an antique shawl,
settling on the valley.
The wandering geese have known for weeks.


—Katy Brown, Davis

__________________

AUTUMN'S HERE
—Richard Zimmer, Sacramento

Summer’s pleasures are gone.
The cloudy days of autumn
and winter are coming on.

Autumn descends, bringing
with it endless drifts of
yellow withered leaves.

Long autumn evenings
have no cheer, no warmth,
no butterflies, no bees.

__________________

CHANGING SEASONS
—Carl Bernard Schwartz, Sacramento

Fall’s fanfare trumpets its way
across the closing chords of
Summer’s cool demise, and I
choose to listen to Stravinsky’s
Le sacre du printemps.

I love the feeling of the piece,
though my understanding of
French is about the same as a
tadpole’s conscious comprehension
of metamorphosis.

Maybe the changing of seasons
triggers hormonal surges. In any
event, it brings about feelings I just
don’t understand. What better to
represent that than Cercles
mysterieux des adolescentes?

Picture Igor S. break dancing to the
strains of Jeu de rapt …….or not.

__________________

Photo by Michelle Kunert

Today's LittleNip:

...Unless you do something in the world, you can have no real business to transact with man; and unless you love and are loved, you can have no intimate relations with them. And you must transact business, wire-pull politics, discuss religion, give and receive hate, love and friendship with all sorts of people before you can acquire the sense of humanity.

—George Bernard Shaw

__________________

—Medusa

The Beehive Sweetens

Bloom
Photo Enhancement by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

AUTUMN
—Bella Akhmadulina

Not working, not breathing,
the beehive sweetens and dies.
The autumn deepens, the soul
ripens and grows round;

drawn into the turning color of fruit,
cast out of the idle blossoms.
Work is long and dull in autumn,
the word is heavy.

More and more heavily, day by day,
nature weighs down the mind.
A laziness like wisdom
overshadows the mouth with silence.

Even a child, riding along,
cycling into white shafts of light,
suddenly will look up
with a pale, clear sadness.


(translated from the Russian by Barbara Einzig)

___________________

AUTUMN EQUINOX
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

She walks the way the wind goes,
the way the hearts of crab-apple leaves
bend, changing color.
Timing is light and shadow playing
with meaning. Lottery
of unexpected fortunes. The great
wall of fieldstone stands
like a messenger between slope
and circumstance. She rubs a finger
over the wall’s face. Stone
always bears a message.
She’ll follow its shadow until wall
becomes a snake moving
across stubble-grass, an arrow.
Until it tells her something.

__________________

PREMONITION
—Taylor Graham

So particular, each morning. None
quite like the last. Today, oceans of sky
swell with titanic clouds,
and the speckled lamb faces away
from wind, a blizzard of fallen leaves.

This morning, what is fenced field
but an extension of the way-out-there,
where before dawn, coyotes
called. A grassy swale is no bunker
against such weather.

The ewe lamb shakes her ears
and hunkers down. Tribal memory
of winter coming. What does she know
of one more time, another season;
months before any thought of spring?

___________________

AUTUMN HITS BOTTOM
—Carl Bernard Schwartz, Sacramento

Help, I have fallen! cried the
brown leaf to the green.

I wasn’t ready to descend,
life to end, no time to mend.

Its pleas reached only
the space in between.

Ha ha, I have risen! puffed
the green leaf to the brown.

My life is now fulfilled,
more to build, forever thrilled.

Then a breeze blew the green
leaf straight to the ground.

___________________

THE SOUND OF RAIN
—Bella Akhmadulina

The sound of rain like a lute—
such strumming on the roof!
To the pedestrian in the Square of Arising
I say, Be very kind!

I tell a boy, Be wild!
Leaning to his curly head
I say, Loosen the string,
Free the green balloons!

On the street where the public chatters
I come upon a white dog—
with a compassionate look
the dog fixes me in its gaze.

And in a store I discover a miser
in the palesness of a face.
He admires a bottle of cologne,
but the price tag has him sweating.

I say to him, Don't be a pig, cure yourself,
Buy something expensive
and take it to someone you love.

But I'm not very successful.
Among the boys and girls,
the grownups who look like me,
an ice-cream cart rolls in.

And so, I walk at sunrise.
I notice the long shadows.
I notice the surprise
of people who look at me as I pass.


(translated by Daniel Halpern with Albert Todd)

__________________

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones
There's something in this richness that I hate.
I love the look, austere, immaculate,
Of landscapres drawn in pearly monotones.
There's something in my very blood that owns
Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,
A thread of water churned to milky spate
Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.

I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom's breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.


—Elinor Wylie

___________________

—Today's LittleNip:

WIND AND SILVER
—Amy Lowell

Greatly shining,
The Autumn moon floats in the thin sky;
And the fish-ponds shake their backs and flash their dragon

scales

As she passes over them.

___________________

—Medusa

Photo by D.R. Wagner

Rose-Colored Dreams

Little Red
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

The autumn made colors burn
In the noise of swift wings
We spoke about winters inscribed on waiting lists
Of migratory birds who bang their wings like shutters
Then grow heavy calling the earth.

The autumn confused its colors
Your eyes were tired of being dead
We spoke of the great trees that wander

without moving

Of the remoteness of crowds
Of your last dull scream

I spoke to you peacefully under a layer of summer
Horizontal like stagnating planets
and now they have asked me to draw you
I sketch you with quivering leaves


—Vénus Khoury-Gata
(translated by Willis Barnstone)

___________________

Autumn officially starts tomorrow (9/22); let's make the Seed of the Week an easy one: Autumn. Send your autumnal thoughts to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Anytime—autumnal or not...


Mountain Democrat Looking For Ghost Stories!

Send 500-750 words about seances, possessions, friendly/unfriendly ghosts, or any other Halloween tales by Oct. 8 to Mike “The Crypt Keeper" Rafferty, c/o The Mountain Democrat, 1360 Broadway, Placerville for possible $50 restaurant gift certificate and inclusion in their Halloween Special Edition.

__________________

RED FOR THE LONELINESS
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

(After Dreams and Illusions by Dolores Mitchell)


You sit alone in a pall of blue smoke,
wearing red so you can remember
why you are here—

to be loud with others who are alone,
where conversations blur into
the bluish air—

heavy and languorous.
You stay where there is music
in the cold loneliness

that connects you to others.
You can almost
hear

the music
through the din. But you
let it fade and let your dreams

take over—
your rose-colored dreams
you still expect to save you.

___________________

ONE WHO WAS LOVE

came through my life and left a wound for memory,
and left a love—bitter and sweet—and went away

and left a sleep to fill with dreams that wreathed
like smoke—and turned to pleasure—and to pain;

one who was love—composite now—became unreal,
was never real, was never love.


—Joyce Odam

__________________

QUAVER
—Joyce Odam

At last I was able to write the poem though it lived in the
forest of itself. It had long beautiful leaves like fingers.
It stroked the surrounding branches for the sensation
of love. It quavered with words, and it spoke,
though I did not understand it.

~

What is the use of it all, I asked the silence, but the silence
only offered more silence and I understood. But, why?
I whispered to the solace. But the solace was
stroking the grief of another. Thus was I
chastised for my jealousy.

__________________

THE GIFT OF SACRIFICE
—Joyce Odam

(After Love without Hope by Robert Graves)


The anonymous young bird-catcher
lifts his tall hat to the girl
to let his larks escape
to sing around her as she sidles by . . .

and as I steal this,
I go to the heart of the scene:
the young girl, proud with disdain,
or shy with the power she must have . . .

the gush of freedom for the larks
as they relive the air and learn never
to fall for such darkness again
as the tall black hat of the bird-catcher . . .

and they sing free,
for themselves and each other—
not even aware of the impulsive purpose
they serve, or the sacrifice they complete:

the futility-gesture
that serves only the poem—not love.

__________________

TEARS
—Joyce Odam

They were never for this symbol—
not the tender image of a poem,
softly jeweled by glint of light

on a smooth face—but smear
of dark feeling—salty to the taste,
making wet stains upon some pillow.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

POEMS
—Joyce Odam

Though I am all poem,
words fall through me . . .

Though I am a net,
I cannot catch them all . . .

__________________

—Medusa

Raindrops
Photo by Katy Brown

Peeking/Peaking at Halloween

the last winter
—charles mariano, sacramento

talked to this
wealthy
older lady
nearing
her last winter

the pain
in her voice,
her eyes,
echoed loneliness

she asked me,
“have you seen
my only daughter?
have you spoken?”

her big house
so impressively grand
steeped
in sadness

forty years ago
her daughter
under a hail
of angry words,
walked out

“forty years
of damned
suffering heartache,”
she said bitterly,

“now
it’s just me,
and this big ass
lonely house”

_________________

Thanks, cm, and the rest of today's contributors. SnakePals Patricia Hickerson and Catfish McDaris have been having a conversation. Go to catfishgringoriver.blogspot.com to see what she’s been telling him.

Residents of the Valley Floor tend to flock to Camino and Apple Hill in record numbers during the Fall. A word to the wise: the crowds peak at Halloween. This weekend was relatively light (the traffic can be AWFUL). So I’d advise you to get up here in the next week or two (weekdays are much better, too), if you’re inclined toward the apple: www.applehill.com

A Starry Night Poetry Series in Lodi is doing some interesting things—especially their youth offerings for the next two months—and their website has advice for poets of all ages about how to present poetry in public. Go to www.astarrynightproductions.com/poetryseries/poetryseries.htm and click on “Advice” up in the menu at the top, and then scroll down their website for info about youth readings in Oct. and Nov.


Workshops coming up:

•••Mon. 9/27, 7-9pm: “In the Body” Poems: Writing Poems About Our Body’s Response to the World We Live In, taught by Connie Post, Sebastopol Center/Arts, www.sebarts.org/. $15. 707-829-4797
•••Starts Weds. 9/29, 6-7pm, 10 sessions: New Voices (free poetry writing workshop) with Past Sac. Poet Laureate Julia Connor at S. Natomas Library, Sac. Free, but must register: cal.saclibrary.org/eventsignup.asp?ID=27173


And submissions:

•••The Tiger’s Eye editors write: We are currently reading submissions for issue #20 of Tiger's Eye. 10 years!! The next deadline is February 28, 2011. We are offering a Fall special, a read-through of your chapbook with comments and suggestions that will make it submission-ready, for $50. Contact us at tigerseyepoet@yahoo.com or visit us at tigerseyejournal.com
•••Bay Area Poets Coalition presents its 31st annual Maggi H. Meyer Memorial Poetry Contest. Go to www.bayareapoetscoalition.org and download the info. Deadline is November 15.
•••Another deadline, more imminent: Sept. 21 (tomorrow!) to submit poems for The Jack Kerouac Poetry Prize: culturalactioncommittee.com/2010/07/the-jack-kerouac-poetry-prize

I hope you scrolled down to the veryveryveryvery bottom of Medusa’s skinny blue b-board box and saw D.R. Wagner’s arresting photo. Here’s a fitting poem:


ZEBRA
—Isak Dinesen

The eagle’s shadow runs across the plain,
Towards the distant, nameless, air-blue mountains.
But the shadows of the round young Zebra
Sit close between their delicate hoofs all day,
where they stand immovable,
And wait for the evening, wait to stretch out, blue,
Upon a plain, painted brick-red by the sunset,
And to wander to the water-hole.

___________________

quick draw
—charles mariano

nudged my keyboard
slightly to the side
and found pieces,
shavings
under it
and thought,

“man,
pounded these keys
so fast, so hard,
knocked the skin
clean off!”

typed this note
at my usual
blinding blur,

then checked again

_________________

THE MONSTERS
—William S. Gainer, Grass Valley

They carry their knives
for other reasons—
leave scars
in passing—
it's a thing
they just
like to do,
like carving,
"I love you"
in a picnic table,
only
with a little more
pain.

__________________

WAITING AT THE MISSION
—William S. Gainer

The only thing
he carries,
a pillow—
stooped,
as if with
weight,
defends it
as if it has
a porch, doorbell,
a lawn
to mow...

__________________

THE STONECUTTER'S BALLS
—William S. Gainer

I want the comment
on my headstone
to simple read:
“Beat Ya”

Actually,
I want it to read:
“Beat Ya—now fuck off”

But I’m not sure
the stonecutter
has the balls
to go done
in immortality
with me
like that...

so, maybe
we should just put
fuck off...

_________________

YOU LOOK GOOD TODAY!
—Carl Bernard Schwartz, Sacramento

If you ever want to get shot down
just greet someone with the warm
expression, “You look good
today!” Often as not, the suddenly
glum recipient will act as if you had
said “You look good toady!”

Instead of gracefully accepting
that they radiate an air of
pleasant perception, they will
brashly interrogate you as to your
ulterior motives, rudely question
your position to make such a
judgment, and force the issue
“Compared to what?”

That’s why some people stay away
from other people and just surround
themselves with household pets.
When you compliment any of your
pets by saying, “You look good
today” their singular response will
be, ”That reminds me, it’s time to eat!”

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Riches are over-estimated in the Old Testament: the good and successful man received too many animals, wives, apes, she-goats and peacocks.

—Margot Asquith

__________________

—Medusa

Alice Gainer
Photo by Bill Gainer

That Tempting Tic

Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

SINGING ALOUD
—Carolyn Kizer

(after Po Chü-I)


We all have our faults. Mine is trying to write poems.
New scenery, someone I like, anything sets me off!
I hear my own voice going on, like a god or an oracle,
That cello-tone, intuition. That bell-note of wisdom!

And I can't get rid of the tempting tic of pentameter,
Of the urge to impose a form on what I don't understand,
Or that which I have to transform because it's too grim as it is.
But age is improving me: Now, when I finish a poem

I no longer rush out to impose it on friendly colleagues.
I climb through the park to the reservoir, peer down at my own

reflection,

Shake a blossoming branch so I am covered with petals,
Each petal a metaphor...

By the time we reach middle life, we've all been deserted and

robbed.

But flowers and grass and animals keep me warm.
And I remind myself to become philosophic:
We are meant to be stripped down, to prepare us for something

better,

And, often, I sing aloud. As I grow older
I give way to innocent folly more and more often.
The squirrels and rabbits chime in with inaudible voices.
I feel sure that the birds make an effort to be antiphonal.

When I go to the zoo, the primates and I, in communion,
Hoot at each other, or signal with earthy gestures.
We must move farther out of town, we musical birds and

animals,

Or they'll lock us up like the apes, and control us forever.

__________________

—Medusa

Easier Made Than Kept

Stone Wall, Cumbria
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

beginning @ the end
—Dawn DiBartolo, Citrus Heights

“language is a translation of grace…
tethered to conviction, one says moon, one emotion…”
~ Noah Eli Gordon


and the beginning
was the end;
distended promises
were easier made
than kept.

indebted to the dream,
we let go the frayed rope,
severed the tether and
coasted into separate bloom.

after all, life
is a seed
worth sowing and
promise is just a ‘ho.

__________________

Thanks, Dawn (and Katy)! In addition to this weekend’s poetry readings, Fall festivals abound! The Chicken Festival and the Teddy Bears’ Picnic have nothing to do with poetry per se, but as I’ve said before, getting out into the world of sights and sounds and smells (and wee tots) can stimulate the Muse, sometimes—especially when the weather is oh-so-fine.

The following three announcements have just come to my attention; two of them have to do with bears—which aren’t so cute when you live in the hills and they rummage through your garbage, having their own picnic… Apple season is in full swing up here in Camino and thereabouts (they had their own bear visit last week, and he was a big’un). While you’re in the hills stocking up on all things apple, check out the Teddy Bears’ Picnic (today!), then swing by Books ‘n’ Bears for their monthly read-around; this month’s theme is “First Love”. More info on the b-board, of course:

•••Sat. (9/18), 11am-3pm: 12th Annual Teddy Bears' Picnic at Rainbow Orchards, 2569 Larsen Dr., Camino, sponsored by Lane Florence LLC, Rainbow Orchards and Rotary Club to benefit Family Connections El Dorado. Free admission. Games, entertainment, petting zoo, Teddy Bears' Parade, bounce house, face painting, Gift Basket Raffle, Meal Deals on food; all-access wristbands, $5.

•••3rd Sat., 3pm: Poetic License meets at Books 'n' Bears, 6211-A Main St., El Dorado. Bring poems or come to listen. Monthly themes. Info: 530-621-1766.

•••Sat. (9/18), 12-2:30pm: Behind the Story: Author Thoughts at the Salida Regional Library, Stanislaus County Library. Meet local authors of many genres (including Stanislaus poets Sam Pierstorff and Gillian Wegener) and hear them speak about their books and how they got started writing.

__________________

poetry without hops
—Dawn DiBartolo

I keep expecting
a poem to just
jump out at me,
grab me by the hand
and pen in eloquence
the depths of my soul

yet I cannot write
that the sleepy summer silence
was all that greeted me
in the stuffy halls
of my awakening this morning

I cannot write
that traffic buzzed a cacophonous
ruckus so that I rolled up
my windows to better hear
the songs I didn’t know
playing on the radio

I cannot write
that August has betrayed me,
betrayed us all and left us
to the long shadows of autumn
way before our time

I cannot write
that boredom and tedium
have switched strategy
and, rather than abandoned to word,
I am prey to madness.

___________________

to love Cain
—Dawn DiBartolo

I am Cain.

and even before the blood,
I am Able.

“you know your place…”
a vacuous phrase

that means “don’t ask”
but assume

beyond what is actually said.
wounding, yes

but within the mark,
I am able

to love Cain.

_________________

a poem
—Dawn DiBartolo

when something
moves you,

dissect it ~
find the heart;

interject illusion,
or voyage

at a whim ~
words become

this being
of its own skin.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

FRAGILE FRAGMENT
—Patricia A. Pashby, Sacramento

Ah, solitude
quiet
calm
repose
peace.
Enter
loneliness
piercing the heart.

__________________

—Medusa

Literate, Well-Read Teddies