Ghost Rosemary and Hollyhocks

Photo by Charles Mariano, Sacramento

BENCHMARK
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Ah, sweet bench, plunged in thicket,
monkeyflowers all around you, strange
importunate shadow-buds blossoming
Yucatan-fashion, overcovering your soft
concrete, itself abloom with sculpted relief.
How slow I’ve been to appreciate your charms,
though all that underseat shadow tells me
God can manipulate darks and lights like
stagehands at the Orinda Shakespeare Festival,
conjuring midsummer English glade-dapple
from scabbiest eucalyptus. This is why
we have poets and lighting techs. Alas,
I’ve been collecting what you might call
poetic bench-splinters, sitting here verseless,
even as your very back adorns mine,
pressing a nosegay into scapulas and spine.
But your pressure scars me only a moment.
Star thistle, I come! haunches peeling
away from memory, skinned of all floral trace,
leaving only so much ghost rosemary
as may spice my oblivious dough,
backthighs oven-ready, granular
with sitting, languid, benchmarked
& steeped in wistfulness and rue…

_______________________

Thanks to today's contributors, including Tom Goff, who is still feeling Shakespearean, and Charles Mariano for the photo, about which he says: ...regarding benches: My family and I had this one completed last week at the Calvary Cemetery in Merced.  My mother and my aunts, Adela and Ofelia, had the good sense to buy their plots years ago together, so there they are, side by side.  We have a large family (four aunts, five uncles), so visits to the cemetery are always a special occasion.

The idea for the bench came up at a gathering there last Mother's Day.  Everyone pitched in.  The inscription is a collection of words strung together by four cousins.  It was important to me, to make sure everyone was involved.  An emotional experience from the beginning, and especially at the end.  Truly, a labor of love.

This is our bench...

________________________

THREE HOLLYHOCKS
—Katy Brown, Davis

A cypress bench.  Three fading hollyhocks.
A lost letter.  A cypress bench.
Three magenta hollyhocks.  A red scarf.
Afternoon sunlight on an empty bench.
A garden of lavender tea roses.
Three pale hollyhocks in afternoon light.
A red scarf.
The low sound of bees in the rose garden.
A book of verse.  The deep hum of bees in hollyhocks.
A cold pillow.  A red scarf.
The low sound of bees.  A book of verse.
Antimacassars.  An empty fountain.
Drowsy hum of bees.  A book of poems.  A red scarf.
An empty bench. . . . three fading hollyhocks. . . . .

________________________

LINGERING
—Janet Pantoja, Woodinville, WA

Can't I stay a little longer here . . . 
in this place of quiet and tranquility,
where a great expanse of green
grass meets sandy beach along the
Columbia River, where cargo ships
go back and forth, tug boats and
tow boats push and pull barges
up and down river and a paddle wheeler
journeys to parts unknown?

Can't I just stay here a little longer . . .
where the wind caresses my face,
sail boats glide by with sails illumined
by sunlight glancing across the water, 
sunsets abound in an array of magnificent
cloud-art from a pallet of pastels and
burnt orange, the moon rises and falls
behind the far bank above the darkened
waters of the Columbia?

Can't I sit here a little longer . . .
to savor the sights and sounds
that fill my senses and give peace
to my anguished soul, watch kites soar
high on the breeze like hawks and seagulls,
observe great ships whose wakes cause
mini tsunamis that splash and roll along
the curves of the shore, contemplate
Nature's museum of driftwood art
displayed for miles along the beach—

cherish the last rose of summer?

Please . . .

        Can I linger . . .
                    a little longer . . .
                                . . . on the bench?

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

The means to gain happiness is to throw out from oneself like a spider in all directions an adhesive web of love, and to catch in it all that comes.

—Leo Tolstoy

_______________________

—Medusa

Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

Return to the Garden

Photo by Katy Brown

Crumbling stone and shadow

cast in the morning light
survive for a while.
Acres of weathered angels

keep silent vigil for spirits
no one remembers today.
On the far side of the weeping yew,

a family sings a song of deep mourning
beside a fresh grave.
They burn incense and scatter flowers.

I brought nothing to offer for you.
And for the first time,
I could not feel you in the early light.

When I look at how far the headstones
have washed out over the once-unbroken grass,
I realize those were the ones

who would have remembered more about you.
The burden of remembering rests with me;
and, I fear, you are mostly shadow, now.
 

—Katy Brown, Davis

_____________________

Get your submissions together for today’s deadline (!) for the Winter Tule Review, then head on down to Luna’s Café (1414 16th St., Sac.) tonight to hear Trina Drotar, Sandy Thomas and Martha Ann Blackman. Get your beauty rest, though, because you’ll be wanting to be fresh for the Big Doin’s By The Bay this weekend, including the first of this year’s Litquake events in SF on Friday, then back across the bridge to Berkeley for Watershed on Sat. (start with the walk in the a.m. led by Chris Olander and others), then The Nature of Art Festival (Art in Nature) in Oakland on Sunday. Info about all these goodies on the b-board, of course.

A substantial list of print journals that accept online submissions (and thanks to Molly Fisk for this) can be found at networkedblogs.com/8tSfo


Census of Poets and Other Artists in El Dorado County:

During the month of October, artists of all genres (including poetry), arts organizations/businesses and other arts venues are asked to participate in ED County’s first Arts Census, sponsored by El Dorado Arts Council and the El Dorado County Office of Economic Development. If you fit into any of these artistic or business categories, contact Deb Jensen at djensen@eldoradoartscouncil.org to take an Art Census interview (four short questions, takes about 15 min.). They want to know how many “practicing” artists there are in the County, and how they can be better served.

They also need volunteers to help take the census; training will be this coming Saturday (10/2) at ArtSpace, 459 Main St., Placerville. Contact the arts council at 530-295-3496 or email EDAC@eldoradoartscouncil.org for further info about volunteering.

____________________
 

Somewhere on the periphery

of music and poetry
she draws a circle of quiet
around her world,

embracing the solitary—
the sighing brook,
the secluded niche,

the sleepy sun stretching
as forgotten yellows soften
into warm lazy days.

Someone dances barefoot—
a stunted heart opens.

—Patricia A. Pashby, Sacramento

____________________

THE EMPTY BENCH
—Carl Bernard Schwartz, Sacramento

We came across an empty bench
that sat alone in the bright sun
among shrubs hiding rattlesnakes,
poison plants, and yellow jackets
too close for comfort.

Given design by creatures who
regularly transcend the mere act
of sitting and waiting, this bench
was not just for resting one’s weight,
or for lifting weights, or for
watching for the next bus, or for
herding people in an institutional
setting.

This was a thinking man’s bench
that those in the know would no
more dare to crouch upon than a
Ming vase, or an expensive gadget
from Silicon Valley.

There were no fancy velvet ropes or
thoughtful signs to steer onlookers
away, just the hope and the sometimes
false assumption that others would have
the common sense to appreciate a piece
of art for the spectacle that it is, and not
pry behind the lens to find a golden egg.

And so the empty bench is still with us
today, in our memories, alongside the
cherished images of loved ones who
have passed away.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

STILL...

Our long history leads us
where we need to go,
whispers

fall to your knees,
remember the simple act
of grass growing;

envision raindrops
standing still in the sky.
Return to the Garden.
 

—Claire J. Baker, Pinole

_____________________

—Medusa

Photo by Carl Bernard Schwartz

Benched

A BENCH IN A ROSE GARDEN
—Richard Zimmer, Sacramento

What we have been makes
us what we are.
—T.S. Eliot

Henry, an old man, sat on the same
park bench every day. It was next
to a rose garden. He enjoyed the
company of people passing by.

Then one day Henry passed on
and was no longer on the bench.
People still walked by. Nothing
was any different.

Kafka told of a man, Gregor, who
turned into a giant insect because
of a troubled life. Maybe Henry’s
untroubled life had turned him into
the bench he’d sat on…

and he’d become a metaphor of him-
self. The bench should now be called
Henry, because, like Gregor, he’d
become something else.

__________________

BECOMING ONE WITH THE PINE
—Kevin Jones, Fair Oaks

Spent so much time
On the bench in
High school football
I began to take root.

Coach (I swear)
Had to free me
With an ax
At season’s end.

“Don’t worry, kid,”
He apologized, “next
Year will be different.”

“You mean I’ll play?”
“No, we’re getting
An aluminum bench.”

__________________

STRANGER
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

That young man slouched on the park bench—
a bright autumn day with red and amber leaves
not yet shaken from the maples—what is he
thinking, eyes half closed? What tune insinuates,
so now one boot begins to tap the first beat
of a rhythm—is it a song of cabbages, or kings?
So young a man, his music must be a different
language, or one I’ve forgotten years ago.
But look, he isn’t slouched at all, maybe just
letting October sun and breeze meet him
here on a park bench.

__________________

FINDING HER WAY
—Taylor Graham

Where will she go in this maze
of city? You said goodbye
to her sitting on a bench by the steps
to underground, the subway,
its steel security, its quick connections.
There are taxis, buses. Or will she
measure distance by the whim
and flimsy of two gimpy legs? She can’t
walk first-class anymore. No airbags
under armpits or the arch of foot.
Life is no more carnival, no joy ride.
But she’s still got tunes in her pocket.
Will she hum herself to some
intersection you never dreamed of?
Second childhood remembers
so many songs.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

WHAT KEEPS
—C.D. Wright

We live on a hillside
close to water
We eat in darkness
We sleep in the coldest
part of the house
We love in silence
We keep our poetry
locked in a glass cabinet
Some nights We stay up
passing it back and
forth
between us
drinking deep

___________________

—Medusa

Out-Singing The Birds

Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

sleep frags
—charles mariano, sacramento

wish i could be like these guys in the paper, talented, confident, able to leap tall buildings.  cursed early with low self-esteem, couldn’t shake it.  rode the horse anyway.

a full moon hangs with the sun in the morning light.  inspirational sight.  a garbage truck slams a dumpster, rattles the building.  opportunity, is a small, cracked window. 

read about a guy who died recently, and what he left behind.  house, money, lots of toys.  realized i didn’t have jack.    

keep finding crazy notes to myself on scraps of paper, scribbled months ago.  notes like, Confessions of a Cockroach Boy, Pendulous Breasts, or, There’s a Bullet in my Burrito.  somewhere back there, this was important.

a horn blasts loudly behind me.  realized i was idling at a green light.  gestures were exchanged.

last nights troubling dream kept me rolling unevenly.  something about desire and death, or both.  strangled my ass all night, woke up tired. 

starbucks:  “black coffee, two advils, and water for my horse”  

__________________

Thanks to today's contributors, including CM for the frags, Carl for his poems and well-timed opinions of politics, D.R. for the bench photo, poems and LittleNip, and Sam the Snake-Man for the Toad and Toadstools/mushrooms that sprang up under our redwood and are HUGE.  

Our Seed of the Week is D.R.'s photo of a bench. Tell us about it. Is this where the lone monk meditates? The lovers tryst? The kidnappers make the drop? Or is it just where you have your morning coffee while you write? Send poems/art/photos about it to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline on SOWs. For a complete list of all the SOWs we've ever known, click Calliope's Closet under the Snake on a Rod on our b-board, the skinny blue box over there on the right.

__________________

ACROSS THE POND
—Carl Bernard Schwartz, Sacramento

Hair pins and bobby pins
from coast to coast were
earnestly busy making
cross hairs and firing pins. 
We were at war with
enemies from across the
pond.  Enlist!

Sophomores and juniors
were swept from their
homes and schools and
delivered to death’s door
step, where they got a
crash course in setting
priorities.  We prevailed
in battle.  Hooray!

Some came back with
more stripes on their
sleeves, with tallies of
hitting the target, more
is better.  Others were
brought back missing
life or limb, and many
never made it back at
all.  We’re so proud!

Today torpedoes and
heroes are sandwiches we
consume to feel good.  It
is popular sport for people
in the press to second
guess military strategists,
and even assign a route
for the commander in
chief to take, as if he is
a milkman.  Wave that
flag so they can see it
across the pond!

__________________

THE BIG BUZZ
—Carl Bernard Schwartz

An immaculately groomed
celebrity dog stops to relieve
herself and immediately
dozens of dizzy flies descend
on the mess like a slate of
pompous political candidates
seeking contributions.

Moments later, a shaggy stray
stops and relieves himself. 
All the flies rush over to the
fresh mess. 

What’s the big buzz this
November?  Same old.
 

___________________

BLANKET
—D.R. Wagner

A drifting in the heart.  Long
Sounds that find no solace.  No matter
Where they go they remain wanderers.

We will find them on the shores of the lake
After storms that rip the lining of the night
Easily from its darling moon.

Someone must have seen where the careful
Touch has gone, where the sandals cut
The crust of the morning away from the bread
And no hand, oh pretty creatures they are,
Could move move as brutally, tearing the stars
Down from the black lion of night,
All kindness gone, its blue cart tipped
On its side in the crowded streets.

No one wonders any longer
Dammit all anyway all they ever
Wanted were blankets to keep warm
And just a touch of a hand,
Someone to say, “Do not be afraid at all.”
 

__________________

WHITE
 —D.R. Wagner

We were talking about how happy
The new snow made us feel.
That whiteness on white and the world
White as well.  No wind and the light,
The magic light that made all things
Possible.

When we lived in Kenmore, New
York the winter had to line
Up across the lake in Canada
And march down the winds
To do its lovely trick.

Out here in California the lens
Tends to cloud over like a wind shield
On a car driving in the mud,
Rain and dust.  Two curved
Views of the world never quite
In agreement with each other,
As we dive through whatever
Season it declares itself to be.

We will gather all we can of white
In sugar, teeth, cake icing,
Clean paper, plastic forks, gym
Socks and soap bubbles and try
To tell others about this loveliness.

Only the babies will understand
What we have to say.  But
We will say it anyway.

Sometimes the pain screams
Such a brilliant white light across
Our brains we forget everything
We were going to do or say.
So much for that sway snow
Had for carrying us away.  Quietly.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

Four geological eras had to pass so that human beings would be able to outsing the birds and die for love. 

—Gabriel Garcia Marquez, from a speech on peace and disarmament he gave in Ixtapa, Mexico in 1986

___________________

—Medusa

Toad and Toadstools in Our Front Yard
(or are they mushrooms?)

Photo by Sam the Snake-Man

Autumn's Expectation

Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

FIRST SOFT RAIN: SEPTEMBER
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

Tonight I hear rain
as I have heard rain before.
I use a blue pen to say this.
I use a blue page to write upon.

Is the rain blue? Or only my blue thought
of rain? Or some blue memory that returns
with rain? My night window shines.
The street lamp wavers like a soft wet music.

The sound is a pleasant sound,
an October sound;
as yet the leaves have not left the trees.
Will they turn restless now or want to linger?

Must I always measure rain with words;
must I ever know what it says to itself,
or to glass,
or the other sound of things?

It has its own wet voice; it has its own silence
when it listens to my listening, when I stop
what I’m doing just to feel the experience of
first rain that evolves from Autumn’s expectation.

The news predicted it with a percentage figure,
as did my knees,
my hot eyes
upon the late and swelling evening skies.

________________________

Thanks, Joyce and D.R., for today's offerings!

Some of you may have seen a post on the b-board saying that Francisco Alarcón would be reading at La Raza this Friday. T'ain't so, I'm afraid; hopefully he'll be reading on October 29.

________________________

THE LEAVES

—Joyce Odam

(after a Max Tharpe photo)

The leaves are too many;
the boy’s hands
are too small.

There is
a slowness around him
that he tries to fill.

But the leaves will not wait. 
They say,  Now!  Now!
And they fall.

And the boys’ face
wears a gathering smile
for the leaves are

everywhere—just as he is,
with his swift evolution—
with the arrogance of

his joy and power, for he will
reach into the falling leaves
and catch them all.

_______________________

SNAPSHOT, UNDATED, BUT LONG AGO
—Joyce Odam

Smiling face
next to my smiling face
I have forgotten who you were.

Our arms about each other’s waist
show we were close.
Our free hands share a wishbone.

There is no background of house
to give a clue, only the uncut lawn
of someone’s yard.

A man’s long shadow
leans from the camera—so—
it was afternoon…

the tree says autumn, windy…
our skirts shape to our bodies…
we were pretty…

It saddens me that I
forget who you are, if your wish
happened, or if mine…

                            
(first appeared in Harp Strings, l995)

_______________________

THE SINGER AND THE SUNG
—Joyce Odam

Behold me now in autumn.
Love after love
I drift through something golden.
Name it anything.
I die with the sun
and live again in leaves.
In the blue corners of my shadow
I wait for rain.

I fathom to your eyes.
You feel me dancing.
You would dance with me
but the light is hollow.
You ask if I am real
and I answer you with laughter.
You close your eyes
and I slip behind them.
You call me sadness.

I come to you again
when you are
tearing from the trees.
How faceted you are,
holding your corners up to the wind,
giving me the bright happiness
of your tears.

At last I know you.
You are the rain.
I tell you how it is to be
half golden—half blue shadow
and you keep breaking into
silver pain.
I turn my body into silence,
but you have found
where I keep my love
and you are singing.

                        
(first appeared in The Small Pond, 1971)

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

TOO LATE

—Joyce Odam

One brief look and she is gone.
Try to follow and be lost

in a swirl of leaves
and scented breeze of autumn.

She is only what is thought
And you are turning into winter.

(after "Still to be Neat" by Ben Johnson)

_______________________

—Medusa

Photo by D.R. Wagner

365 Poems

Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

365 POEMS
—Ann Stanford

They will be floating from my mouth like doves
like bright scarves from the sleeves of the magician.
Look, I am spinning five of them over my head.
It has been a bad dream when I
forgot to twirl one like a flag every day,
to walk into town like a parade
with flutes and drums, with timbrels.
They will be chariots drawn by lions.
They will be gazelles and leopards.
They will fly around me like a flock of birds.
They will be my traveling companions.
They will gnaw at me day and night
like minnows, or devour me whole like the whale.
I will stand among them as among trees of a forest,
calling, these are all mine!
They will tell me secrets.
Wherever I go like the roll of drums,
salvos of guns, rockets kindling the air,
they will arrive day and night.
I will beg them to go away.
They will torment me like gnats,
swoop by like hawks at noon, bewilder my dreams at evening.
They will say, welcome home.

______________________

—Medusa

Bougainvillea and Scuppernongs

Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

I linger
malcontented
tripping dung beetles
away from their assumed masses
towards the glare
of a cracked neon plate
of words
declaring bankruptcy is not here to stay

it has read so a year now
every since I parked
my decaying carcass here
the brown wingtips
now grey lichen and moss abounding

—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

_____________________

Richard Hansen writes that he’ll be back from Scotland this weekend! Of course he’ll need some time to adjust to life on this side of The Pond, but we’ll keep you posted about the progress of The Ophidian.

Also in the ‘Way Cool Dept., frank andrick’s computer woes are resolved, thanks to Josh Fernandez, so he’ll be able to get the WTF#7 info to me in time to release it at Luna’s Café on Oct. 21. This also means we’ll be able to get back on schedule, so the deadline for WTF#8 will be Friday, Oct. 15. Go to www.rattlesnakepress.com/wtf.html for submission guidelines.

The latest issue of The Dirty Napkin is online, with SnakePal poets Cleo Griffith and Gillian Wegener plus others: thedirtynapkin.com


Davis PL Allegra Silberstein sends us this announcement from Kurt Ridgeway:

•••Mondays 10/4, 12/6, 2/7, 6:30-8:30pm: The Well of Poems workshop open to Unitarian Universalist church members and the community-at-large at the UU Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Rd., Davis. Free. This is an opportunity for a deepening conversation about poems meaningful to your life. Each person will bring a poem (or two), read the poem, relate any story associated with the poem, and reflect on the poem’s significance to their life story. This can be ANY poem, yours or someone else’s. The intent is to invoke a dialogue through the power of poetry and perhaps provide each other with some greater understanding and appreciation of the human journey.

• Open to poets and non-poets
• There will be no critiquing or writing poems
• Poems are to be no longer than one page
• Optional: Bring 10 copies of the poem(s) you present

Facilitator Kirk Ridgeway (530-231-5679 or klridge@comcast.net) is a worship associate at UUCD. In Pleasanton he was co-chair of the Annual Poetry, Prose & Arts Festival, was Poet Laureate, and values the oral poetic tradition. Register at register@uudavis.org or (530) 753-2581, x104.

____________________

NOT SO BAD 
—Michael Cluff

(for Jose Saramago)

 

Crouching on a newer island
where California once was,
Bruce waits
for a tide
that never comes.

Sagebrush and yucca blossoms
aren't enough
the chalky stream
is starting to run low to
lower to lowest.

Helicopters will fetch him up soon
and Margo as well
he suns himself
under the Hollywood sign
while she scampers by
on a camel
freed from the zoo.

Waves of heat
caper kilometers away
and Catalina is closer
than it has ever been before.

______________________

ZERO DOG DAYS
—Michael Cluff

I heard a painting talk
in the cadence and inflection of a Spanish fern
and the Doric pillar was unreceptive
until the moon went auburn.

Stellar cauliflower
was a nice touch
on the edge of a Elgar piece
tetanus will always wilt the lily.

Anger was the fourteenth concept
in the muskegon's gall
and he, the zero dog,
kills only when the wind is to his back.

Applaud sauce
holds a daylight advantage
but pink earshells
caused, once again, against dirigibles.

Weight
wait
gone
none
pone
pounce.

____________________

MEADOWBROOK PARK, May 2009
—Michael Cluff

Joab glares non-stop
at me while picking the inside
at a week-old pork and beans can,

I am ashamed of myself,
I have been reduced to this,
it hurts more
breaking kosher rules,
yet it does not really matter.

"I am Minsk,"
he stammered,
"I thought it would be better here.
It is not
the hand of poverty
is just as heavy.

"My coat should be so thick
the newspapers I cover my feet
at night between twelve and two
with what I can not read.

"Unemployment rides my back
like a mad wolf on the edge
of the brown forest."

I am mute,
another sleeper here
cut my tongue out
a week ago
he does not recall doing so—

I do not either

I think.

_____________________

Lucy and Ron are playing footsie
underneath the mosaic-topped table,
she's gay and he isn't
it makes life more intriguing.

Irma finally came back
she's been gone for about a year,
she has a blue streak in a forelock
it just makes her look fatter.

Gilbert wants to rewrite the world
it never measures up to his standards
which are lower than he suspects.

Sondra isn't saying so much
that's not quite like her,
the usurper of anyone's power,
she controls all such situations.

April then slaps Peter
hard across the groin,
he'd rather be with Irma
rolling on her bedroom floor.

The fountain isn't running
it always shuts down in hot weather,
Ron wonders what April and Sondra look like
naked in the airport lobby
days when Rick flies in alone.

And the gunman lurks in the bougainvillea
right inside the aspe door.
Father Milo saw him leave there quickly
and Gilbert, fetal, dead on the coldest stones.

Lucy plants a scuppernong
for Gilbert within a month
and moves away from Ron and all
except Sondra and Peter who are no more.


—Michael Cluff

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Never in the history of humankind have we had so many means of communication, yet we remain islands. There is little real communication between the members of one family, between the individuals in society, and between nations. We have not cultivated the arts of listening and speaking. We have to learn ways to communicate again.

—Thich Nhat Hanh

_____________________

—Medusa

Under Our Redwood Tree

Photo by Sam the Snake Man