They Needed No Roses

HORSE SENSE LEARNED FROM A
PHILLY WITH HAYFEVER
—Carl Bernard Schwartz, Sacramento

Don’t trust anyone.
Don’t touch anything.
Don’t forget to wipe your shoes.
Don’t think you’re better than I am.
Don’t accept gifts from strangers.
Don’t come near me with that cold.
Don’t count your eggs before they’re hatched.
Don’t disturb the occupants.
Don’t fail me again.
Don’t drink and drive.
Don’t tell me, let me guess.
Don’t chew with your mouth open.
Don’t stop now, we’re not there yet.
Don’t leave yet.
Don’t have a cow.
Don’t stare.
Don’t call me before noon.
Don’t ever use that tone with me.
Don’t mind me, I’m just joking.
Don’t believe a word of it.

____________________

Got any Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hydes in your life? Your boss, maybe, or parents or spouse or dog or... we've all got a flip side, a dark side—how often do you let yours out? This week's SOW is Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde; write about that monster within you or someone else, whether it pops out as an abuser or just an occasional cranky-pants. Send those musings to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

And yes, our post office is still in action, despite the fact that the Knotty Pines Lanes roof next door to it sank under the weight of all this %*#&^$* snow (and our bank was evacuated because its ceiling was creaking!) So far no creaking at the Kieth house—other than my joints—but our new dog, Chibi, is definitely a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde!

____________________

YELLOW BIRD
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

grabbing my elbow, Monica,
with your long fingernails
a pecking bird with skinny hands
couldn’t shake you away
pecking at my arm
grasping
telling me all that you hated
your mother clutching her stomach, her head
giddy as a May bird

we walked to and from school, Monica
you my friend I didn’t want
sharpened beak of a friend
clawed like a bird
I couldn’t turn you away
others had, why couldn’t I?

now become the yellow bird of my dreams

your birthday party, your 12th—
I was the only classmate who came
other birds were there
your cousin who sang like a nightingale
your raucous aunts picking over their finds
your red-headed robin of a mother,
your brother speckled as a buzzard
Monica, you little yellow bird
dancing in the dirt
pecking away at my arm
gouging marks in my skin
my skin lately like dried leather
little yellow bird long dead,
your pecks still on my skin
pecking
pecking my arm

____________________

MIDNIGHT WORDSMITH
—Don Feliz

I woke and reached to touch you.
You were in the next room with
hundreds of books sharing words

with poets and authors, where
poems came from sunrise roses
I planted outside your window.

Often poems needed no roses. You
wrote about anything and every time,
images in your mind’s eye. When

you returned to bed after writing four
or five poems, we both could rest—until
Death read your poems and wanted more.

____________________

FLOWER OUTLOOK

—Don Feliz, Sacramento

Your kitchen window is mine now—
the garden view and our daughter’s
window next door. She signals to me
with a flashlight, invites me to share
a meal with the rest of our family.

Buds explode into scarlet blooms
on the camellia we planted ten years ago.
One floats in your crystal centerpiece bowl
on my table. I hope you still can enjoy it—
from where flowers never wilt.

____________________

COMING TO OUR SENSES AGAIN
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

When I touch you, all is mystery.
Ripples through the skin
Unlock one thousand doors
Within, stretches a history
Almost too much to pin
Down, to clutch, fingertips
Whorling, whirling, waking to
Knowing angels, breathing in the wind.

When I see you, see you,
See you clearly, really see
You there, before me, morning
Wound round you, nearly
Pushing up, neat as a hemline,
Every time I see you, me, we, thee,
These, together without sound,
Dancing eyes in the field of delight.

When I hear you, speaking,
Singing, loosing the girdle
Of language, untying the verbs
That wind around us
Like the ghosts of kings,
Full and with their million stories
Moving on your lips, alive again.
A music flaunted by time.
Your mouth moving to shape the fields
Where words are the kingdom and sound
The castle keep.

When I smell you, in the room.
Nothing in the room.
Proust tells us that when we find
A memory from smell alone,
It is the most powerful.
It is the one most kind,
The true bone from which
The flesh is grown to grace
Again. Rooms of you fill and fall
Away to empty space.
A chemical disturbance of the mind.
Nothing in the room, in the room,
When I smell you.

When I taste you, mouth to
Mouth or drawing with the tongue
To find the salty landscapes there,
There is suddenly no room for
Sense to be other than the
Slippery buds unveiling where
All love has wrung itself
From pore to pour against
The door of teeth, the core
Pretends at cooling, but melts
Before the lips and celebrates
Such food that is ourselves.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

AN ALLY
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole

Take this to your comfort,
homeless friends:
the night too is homeless—
suspended over dawn & day,
using its energy to accept
whatever the stars & moon
give away.

____________________

—Medusa (with thanks to today's contributors!)

Michelle Tea at Sister Spit reading

California Stage, March 2011

—Photo by Trina Drotar, Sacramento

The Bears of Harmony

Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

THE DANCE CLOTH
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

You had just found the fabric—
the airy cloth for your dance;

you described how it would rise in the air
and stay—it was that light—

how it would flutter down,
and rise again, in the hands that held it—

how the hands would sway it up and down
in the sea-waves it would be.

Later I saw the dance,
and yes,

the cloth was that light,
and it held in the air like you said.

____________________

TO AN UNSEEN BIRD SINGING AT NIGHT
—Joyce Odam

Pretty Bird, Pretty Bird, where is your cage—
not this tree of rain, not this room of poem.

Bird of childhood, I found your feather
and saved it. It is purple and blue.

The rain has left it scraggly.
I remember you.

_____________________

SIXTH SENSE
—Joyce Odam

Something waits to be found. I feel it,
slow myself to be ready.

I sense the presence
all around. Whatever lurks

outwaits me. It is
the edge, and I am the center.

I feel it follow,
as if I am a spiral, turning.

How will I know if I am caught?
There is only the idea—

the sensation. It is still,
and I am moving outward—inward.

____________________

NOT WHAT I LOOKED FOR
—Joyce Odam

I have sent
sorrow after sorrow
into memory—and found mirrors
that kept sending them all
back to me.


(From Hidden Oak Poetry Journal, 2003)

_____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

FABLE
—Joyce Odam

In the book's forest
live the bears of harmony
who dream beneath trees
amid the gold butterflies
and other wraiths of heaven.

_____________________

—Medusa

Thanks to Joyce Odam and Michelle Kunert for today's contributions. Joyce sends us these "found" poems (our SOW) with the following caveat: I agree with your comment that "all poems are 'found' poems," and send I accordingly. I was going to begin with the same comment, saying: "I proclaim that all poems are found poems and recognized as poems... " (but you beat me to it).

 Photo from the Antiquarian Book Fair

by Michelle Kunert

Even Less Than Solo

THE ACROBAT
—Wislawa Szymborska

From trapeze to
to trapeze, in the hush that
that follows the drum roll's sudden pause, through
through the startled air, more swiftly than
than his body's weight, which once again
again is late for its own fall.

Solo. Or even less than solo, less, because he's crippled, missing
missing wings, missing them so much
that he can't miss the chance
to soar on shamefully unfeathered
naked vigilance alone.

Arduous ease,
watchful agility,
and calculated inspiration. Do you see
how he waits to pounce in flight; do you know
how he plots from head to toe
against his very being; do you know, do you see
how cunningly he weaves himself through his own former shape
and works to seize this swaying world
by stretching out the arms he has conceived—

beautiful beyond belief at this passing
at this very passing moment that's just passed.

______________________

—Medusa

Googlefiddle

Photo by D.R. Wagner

MEMORY OF RICHARD

Huckleberry heart,
your sketches cartooning life,
playful and diverse,
a silent, stoic artist . . .
my poet extraordinaire.
               ~~
Love of poetry
brought us together one day.
I enjoyed your verse
and we began a journey . . .
lost in love of poetry.



—Patricia A. Pashby (first verse)
—Richard A. Zimmer (second verse)

____________________

NorCal poets will be saddened to hear that Richard Zimmer passed away this week. His friend and fellow poet Pat Pashby wrote us this beautiful letter:

Richard lost his battle a few days ago. He put up a good fight since November 4 when he was admitted to Mercy General with heart failure. He was in and out of the hospital, in rehab at two nursing homes and in an assisted living facility before a series of infections took him. His immune system could not fight them.


I have sent along a Somonka: an epistolary love poem made up of two tankas and written by two authors that was made into one of her "bookmarks" by Joyce Odam back in April 2004. I wrote the first verse and Richard wrote the second those many years ago in Joyce's Wednesday class [at the Hart Center in Sacramento].


Thank you again for doing the Broadside in his honor. It meant so much to him. I miss him so much, such a wonderful friend for eleven years. But his memory remains in his writings on Medusa and Rattlesnake etc. He had a special way of seeing things.

Thank you, Pat, for keeping us informed. Richard's littlesnake broadside, A Bench Called Henry, is available at The Book Collector, or write to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com and I'll send you one, free.

____________________

DOUBLE ENTRY
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

outside her window
they’re strangers
sky
sun
tree
leaf
grass
dog
tongue
biscuit
hand

in Betty’s studio
cerulean sky
cadmium clot of sun:
they land on her canvas
above a burnt sienna tree—
cobalt slipper of leaf
tiptoes across the shaggy grass
little spotted dog stands ready
venetian red tongue forked out
for his bone-shaped biscuit
in a forward-stretched ochre hand
all acquainted
inside Betty’s brush

____________________

ECSTASY
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

Tell me how I look.
Tell me if I’m a car wreck.
Tell me if I’ve paid the price.
Tell me if you hear this.
Tell me if this whole thing is wrong.
Tell me if we’ve made up our minds.
Tell me if we’re only dreaming.
Tell me if we’re out of doors.
Tell me if we’re making love.
Tell me if the plane is going down.
Tell me if we’re drowning.
Tell me if we’re really doing it.
Tell me if there is blood.
Tell me if you can smell this.
Tell me if it is night.
Tell me if we are frozen solid.
Tell me if we are not moving.
Tell me what our half-life is.
Tell me where to put this.
Tell me if this heat is our bodies.
Tell me where the exit is.
Tell me if we are high.
Tell me where the spaces are.
Tell me if we are boys or girls.
Tell me if the lights are on.
Tell me if you believe we can stop it.
Tell me if this is religion.
Tell me if we are traveling.
Tell me we’ve lost our way.
Tell me if it is morning.
Tell me if you speak any language at all.
Tell me if we’ve been poisoned.
Tell me if this is all blurred.
Tell me if this is for here or to go.
Tell me if we are kissing.
Tell me if we are lightning.
Tell me if the pressure is too much.
Tell me if I’ve been lying.

This is as pure as anything.
This is a cloud.
This is not a machine.
Let’s do this again as soon as possible.

_____________________

GOOGLE STORM ADVISORY
(apologies to Elizabeth Bishop)
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Across the Google map, storm warnings fling
more radiant colors than any known
to the ancient paper map-makers. Central Coast,
green faintly blued; in one small zone, chartreuse.
Pink pinkens the Sierras, southern Cascades
wildest pink, like seaview flowerbox blooms in Carmel.
But oh! delight to be of the Central Valley: tawny
orange all through our sodden lowlands. More radiant,
yes, than paper colors are the Google Mapmakers’
onscreen colors. More delicate, not so much.
Indelicately, then, come strong rain, hail, snow!
Fling apricot-hued tents over our field floods.
Smother our unbegun rice shoots
with the fakest of virtual fruit leather!

____________________

GOOGLEFIDDLE
—Tom Goff

Fiddling on Google as usual, I savor, even in silence,
click-fingering the link to the Szymanowski First
Violin Concerto, which I love: especially as Youtubed
with a talented then-sixteen-year-old Scottish fiddler,
Nicola Benedetti. Oh for a bow as adroit
as my mouse, or for the words ipmoic supplies
in the comment-string: I think that Szymanowski's
music is very challenging for the listener. It has
many influences—the lyricism of a Chausson,
the perfume of a Debussy, the harsh realities
of a Bartok. It is troubled and troubling music.

God of poets and musicians, I beseech thee
pound me into perfume, grind me against
the harsh realities, above all stamp me
troubled and troubling; don’t much care
whom I trouble, but someone, quick. Is this
not to be fiddlestring and tightrope, the bow
my inner Wallenda shakily crossing plangent E,
resonant D, A, and nude vibratoless G? Is this
not also to be rosin, cake scraped across
horsehair gradually waferthin unto death?

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

Have you forgotten the way to my hut?
Every evening I wait for the sound of your footsteps,
But you do not appear.

—Ryokan (trans. from the Japanese by John Stevens)

____________________

—Medusa

An Evening Sky

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

Google Me Up, Boyfriend!

Photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento

FOUND LOVE ON GOOGLE
—Robin Gale Odam, Sacramento

love actually lives—is causing chaos
love like woe—children sing it
love me if you dare—the dare of dares
love never fails—love or bread
love poems—short and long
love quotes emotions
love quotes life
love quotes—you know it’s love when...
love remains
love song—about falling
love song—write you one
love the way you lie
love under cover—thoughtful and compelling
love verse—love vs lust
love words—abstract
love xanga quotes—love him no matter what you say
love yourself
love your love the most
love you forever
love zen—the tao of love, passion, internet sacred text

_____________________

Thanks to Jane Blue for the beautiful photo to brighten up this gnarly weather-week, and to today's other contributors. We're still talking about "found"/found on Google poems—or anything else, for that matter. (We poets can't be responsible for what the Muse insists upon...)

Two items of note: You may've noticed Olga Browne's Pleiades poems in yesterday's post. Here's an open invitation to anyone interested in writing Pleiades (the 7-line, same-cap-letter-starting-each-line poems) to join a new circle forming with Olga, Carol Louise Moon, Janet Pantoja and others, called the Moon and Stars Pleiades Circle. They'll write Pleiades and send them through the mail to each other for critique, advancing the cause of Pleiades through-out the world. E-mail Carol Louise at dadsdesk@hotmail.com if you want to join.

Second, Kim Rosen, author of Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words from Hay House, will be presenting a poetry concert on Friday, April 29 (7-9pm) and a workshop in Davis on Sat., April 30 (10am-6pm) at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Rd., Davis. Fee of $95 includes both; $75 for students w/ID and sr. 62 and over. $10 discount for reg. postmarked by Apr. 15. Space is limited to 20; Allegra Silberstein thinks there are only a few spaces left. Info/reg: contact Kirk Ridgeway (530-231-5679) or www.uudavis.org; click on "Programs" then "Saved by a Poem.pdf" For more about Karen Rosen, go to www.kimrosen.net

____________________

I GUESS IT'S OVER
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

I can quit worrying
I can breathe
I can eat ice cream
I can understand evolution
I can log in
I can find the attachment
I can dance
I can go-go
I can pay everything off
I can hear a thrush
I can look for the golden compass
I can write

______________________

ON THIS ISLAND
—Taylor Graham

island uncharted
island for a shipwreck
island of migratory birds
island with one piece of paper
island paradise
island not yet privately owned
island of endless horizon
island of 52 moons
island of logic slipping to absurd
island of few choices
island without language
island of talking tides
island of infinite words

______________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

DISTANCE
—Robin Gale Odam

riding in silence
staring into separate dreams
words too far away
or too close
it used to be different 

Remember

—Photo by Robin Gale Odam

______________________

—Medusa

Congrats to Taylor Graham and family for the addition of three spring lambs: Tsuni, daughter of Sophie (born the day of the tsunami); Speckles (daughter of Freckles) and Ms. Rivet (daughter of Rosy).

Why?

Valley Hail

—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

why space search predictions
—geoffrey neill, sacramento

why is the sky blue
why is a raven like a writing desk
why did i get married too
why do dogs eat grass
why is my poop green
why do dogs eat poop
why are women like parking spaces
why do cats purr
why am i so tired

___________________

FAIRYTALES
—Olga Blu Browne, Sacramento

Factual and descriptive
fabulous and remarkable.
Fables written for children
feature characteristics
fierce and faithful heros
familiarized in history
facilitating the truth.

___________________

Thanks, Geoff Neill, for the "found" poem (see this week's SOW), and thanks to today's other contributors, including Olga Blu Browne, who was born and raised in Colorado, then moved to California in 1967. Both her sons were born here, but moved to Colorado. She did go to college for a short time; now she has taken some workshop classes with Joyce Odam and Norma Kohout at the Hart Center for over a year. Her poetry has appeared in Brevities and DADs DESK. She also enjoys doing her poetry at Luna’s Café (Poetry Unplugged) open mics, and we’ve seen her at The Book Collector readings, too. She says she has been writing for over 40 years, and loves it as much now as she did in the beginning.


WRAPPED
—Olga Blu Browne

Love in limelight, heart wrapped in cellophane.
Blood flows backwards, my breath comes harsh.
Touch is faux, memories mere tokens.
Death is welcome. My tomorrow is gone.

__________________

KINDLE
—Olga Blu Browne

Kindle the fire, once was the heart.
Kinship alliance no more.
Keepsake a mere token of what was.
Knowledge of when to walk away.
Key may be the solution.
Kindled the fire, once was my heart.

___________________

NAUGHTY
—Olga Blu Browne

Nefariously wicked
native is primevil
natural characteristics
negligent and careless
name unknown
nasty quite roguish
notorious reputation

____________________

SENSUALITY
—Olga Blu Browne

Sensuous and exciting,
sensitive yet unruffled
single females unite.
Sophisticated and worldly,
spectacular and striking.
Strength is unmeasurable.
Subservience?—NO! No more.

__________________

BLOOD ROSE
—Olga Blu Browne

A rose, a rose, beautiful to see
A true delight to your eyes
yet not easy to possess.

The thorns of that stem that
brace the velvet petals are
unbearable to hold.

Still, most women dream of getting
their first rose. It matters not the
blood drawn for that rose,

only that they got their first rose.
Perhaps an omen will unfold. For
love points like a cut rose,

with blood drawn for that first
rose.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

REACHING THROUGH LANGUAGE
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

Take a word, and bless the word alive.
Make it sing, and never let it hide.
Wear it like a talisman—wear it
all your life.  And when it binds—
ah, when it binds—cut it with a knife.

___________________

—Medusa

Olga Blu Browne

They Could Be Canaries

Photo by Katy Brown

YELLOW TULIP TREE
—Katy Brown, Davis

The
bare tree
hung with — what?
— yellow post-its
from Spring announcing
I’ve been detained this year.

____________________

YELLOW TULIP TREE 2
—Katy Brown

They could be yellow ribbons
or post-it notes —
these tags among the limbs.

They could be canaries
or yellow budgies
— everyone knows a flowering tree

is white or pink or magenta
— never yellow — never yellow tulips:
but there it is

like a blue rose or purple daffodil —
a little yellow tulip tree
on an unremarkable street in River Park.

____________________

YELLOW TULIP TREE 3
—Katy Brown

While all around the other trees
shed white and pale pink petals
like snow or parade confetti

the little yellow tulip tree
casts slips of gold across the lawn
turning River Park into El Dorado.

____________________

Thanks, Katy Brown, for the pic and the riff on the wee yellow tulip tree! Retirement seems to suit you! Actually, I recommend it for everyone...

And thanks to today's other contributors, including Pat Hickerson and Michelle Kunert for continuing to celebrate spring, and to Mike Cluff for a "found" poem (see Seed of the Week). Also our thanks to Chris Piper for our very first Charlie Sheen poem; Chris, fearing for his reputation, seems to think his poem doesn't rate a real Medusa posting—maybe in the "Ticklers", he says. So we've set up a whole section of Ticklers (see the VERY BOTTOM floor of the Kitchen) for an on-going section of Charlie Sheen poems—and feel free to contribute! What better way to pay tribute to a bad boy in the throes of making an ass of himself? We'll leave 'em up 'til he comes to his senses...

____________________

FOUND POEM: Bargain Books, March 11, 2011 Catalog Pages 36-7
—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

The idea that most of medicine is based on sound
secrets of creating realistic-looking portraits of your favorite
                                                                      people
The Upper Mississippi River Valley swamps
hard work, strong values and a genuine care for both employees
to establish the truth of what happened
standards ensure instant success:
a deceased president and 140 of the most
carpeted Oregon's high plains with hundreds of dead sheep.

____________________

SPRING…FINALLY
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

rainy March morning
ripens for the birth of April
poppies and mustard will crest the fields
she and her dog Lily bound along the road
dew-speckled, mud-spat
running to meet the new dawn
a robin twits past them, chirps
Lily stops—
digs in to sniff the tender air

____________________

EVERY TREE IS A “POET TREE”
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

Not just Shel Silverstein can tell you so—
about how trees can give and inspire,
trees being earth's greatest creations,
cycling photosynthesis for air to breathe.

Trees throughout cultures symbolize life
retold in the leaves of pages trees make,
such as the legend of the first people
eating the fruit of a "tree of knowledge".
Their choice awakened them to new reality,
creating a fall from their dreamish existence
(for a whole different beginning).

Other things trees are about
include love, wisdom,
rebirth, strength, redemption,
friendship, bounty and encouragement,
branching out for the heavens of "Father Sky",
their roots linking into "Mother Earth"
and connecting as if all are one.

If trees could talk
each would have its own story
in songs with poetry.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip:

OUT OF TOUCH

Born in a glass room

Pampered

Sheltered and groomed

—Ronald Edwin Lane, Colfax

_____________________
 

—Medusa