YellowBoat

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

YellowBoat

—Tom Goff, Carmichael
 
At one hugely important spurt in my growth I took to wearing a yellow plastic boat on my head. In public, everywhere. Bridge and conning tower made a mold to hold my oblong skull firmly inside. I thought it was magic: at age seven, even giggles drawn from the girls in church were signs of the power. Yellowboat perched atop my crewcut so like sunblasted grass; just to think of Fremont Church and the yellow headboat, prow over brow, is to remember all things nautically connected, our blackforest green and whitetrim house, and the boat, and the tomboy girl I loved. Pepe lePew, did he give Tom ze notion, loving la belle tomboy skunk fatal?

But to realize, in one sudden fluster: you don’t wear a yellow plastic boat on your head, no, not even if your seven-year-old blue Sunday suit and bowtie are immaculate; to see the disapproval-stones flung from church elders’ eyes! I wanted to run through the electric April grasses into a swimming pool and let the charge from the green blades burn me at first watery contact. Still in the Sunday suit, still the yellow boat for a hat, but floating deadboy and crisp. First embarrassment, first love, my whitish-blond girl adored, the gaggle of smart church girls ignored. One long blush for the thought that a yellow boat might crown me admiral.

I wouldn’t run headlong into an electrocuting pool, even had the gate to suburban death lain open. But still see me, pew-sitting, arms folded, not removing the viewblocking hatboat until Dad (who can: he’s been in the Navy) strips me of the yellow mass, deposing me as the long lightstream arrows kingly and softcolored through the stained glass windows.

_______________________

—Medusa

Watching Each Day Disband

THE PRINCESS IN THE WILDWOOD

Now I had always thought
The wildwood wild and tales
Of the wildwood king were tales
That were told to a child.

But they are not.  They come
Upon wind and the wing of the goose
On his way to the north
Where it will reign white,
The voice of the Winter
The tongue of the night.

And indeed a king found her
Tucked into a tree
And she did braid her hair
And she frightened a parrot
Who ventured out there in the wildwood
And that same bird was owned
By another, a king, who followed that parrot
Back to the wildwood king and married
The maiden and took her away,
Away from the wildwood and the king
Of the wildwood, so the story
Does say.

_____________________

3/ STAIRS

dream:  he touched his arm and worried
for about ten minutes quietly, the
air conditioner had shut itself off
continued running in his mind.

from outside the window summer held
a long evening in thick fingers and
played with it like a giant with a doll.

he listened to the men loading their guns
and cursing loudly to one another.

dream:  she had come to him late last night
and together they had filled the room with
the nets of their bodies and spilled wine.

it could not last much longer he told himself
looked at his hands and sat on the edge of
his bed.  not much longer.  the easy dusk

clouded purple and he removed his shirt.

______________________ 

STORIES ONCE TOLD...COMING HOME

They have all gone away, mother.
All your pretty boys have pulled
In the webbed wings of their arms
And are gone.

Past the lights that are triangles
Collected in the madness of nights,
Their wooden souls tramping out
Of their bodies and spilling
On roads that go nowhere;
So they race, so they run.

They have gone to where moons
Are the working day and suns
Slide like broken jack-o-lanterns
Tossed from a porch, candle
Still flaming.

Keep your photographs, mother
The pretty ones have gone away.

Sunset, Oct. 14, 2011

HOW THE STARS GET THEIR LIGHT
AFTER BEING HELD DOWN FOR SO LONG

When the trees came down
People discovered small
Plastic statues of cities
Caught in the branches.

The cities, how they gleamed
And were all purchased
By a man named Clarida Twipp
Who appeared from a train mouth
In the middle of October
Month and spoke to the loggers
In language they understood.

Bought them for a smile,
The old ones tell the story,
A smile and a crosscut saw.

The children in that place
Hunt frogs where the tree grew,
Dark frogs and the tiny
People upon which
They feed.

______________________

ONE-SIDED CONVERSATION

I have taken off the costume
And I’m standing by the well.
Still you swear that you don’t know me
And you send me off to hell.

It’s not a case of being sorry.
It’s not a case of anything.
When they told us ‘come tomorrow’
They never told us what to bring.

So I brought only things of wonder
Like waking up and singing and
Objects made of blue,
But you brought hearts and flowers
And streamers for the dawn.
By the time they were unloaded
Almost everything was gone.

I can’t stay here any longer.
It’s made me want a cigarette,
An ear to tell a tale to,
A scar I can’t forget.

It says something on my skin
That speaks of pain and pleasure
I can hardly now recall.
I don’t remember breathing.
I don’t remember it at all.

I struggled to the surface.
You said this was the lake.
I cannot remember saying that
I’d go there, there must be
Some mistake.

Still, I want to talk to you
And you tell me to go ahead,
But this quickly turns to shadow
And I’d be just as quickly dead.

So I’m leaving it like a song undone.
I won’t finish what you say.
I’ll cover up the scars with cloth
And disappear, you now can stay.

_______________________

THE CLOUD SPINNER

I’ll not find myself in my bed again
And sleep will come no more
For I will stand at the starry gate
And lay hold of the ancient lore.

And time it cannot know my name
Lest it loose its own to the roar
Of the seas that over against the storm
Push all hinges from her doors.

And I’ll come to claim the children of wind
And bend the lightning’s moor.
Pure so pure my own heart shall be
It will chase all fire before itself

And never give rest to my soul
But rend my garments with bleeding hands
Spill all charms upon the sands,
Tangle all the golden strands,
Spin the clouds into wastelands
And cause dark spirits to disband,
As I command, as I command
For I am burning, I am the brand
And I have given all to so withstand
Anything that causes me rest
That I may see morning stand
Before the sun each and every day
And watch each day disband.
 

______________________

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, who reminds you that the deadline for the next issue of Rattlesnake Press's WTF is this coming Monday, Oct. 15. Also due on 10/15 are submissions for the Jack Kerouac Poetry Contest: see the "Submit, I say!" section of our green board at the right of this for details.

And thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's poetry and pix!

The Moment

Beginning to Row

Lake Huron

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

SINGING BEACH
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

It is October
and my orange kayak
is docked
near a tourist ship
of fake pirates
with a skull
and cross bones flag
on the mast
hearing the shanty
voices telling tall tales
of misadventures
for treasure
on the high seas,
the sand itself
starts to sing out
as a sweatshirted poet
is on board
in the only other vessel
on cold New England waters.

____________________

GLANCES
—B.Z. Niditch

Waiting on the Cape
for a beach umbrella
on miles of dunes
from the shore rain,
a few scarfed tourists
stare at my promise
to take out the kayak
in the frozen waters
on Columbus Day,
as a Woods Hole science class
glares at anemones
by the cloudy bay,
my photographic memory
jolts all impatience
of the weather prediction
for a poet's voyage
over the Atlantic,
with my red eye
from insomniac nights
that will not close
until I begin to row.

____________________

NORTH SHORE
—B.Z. Niditch

Dazzled by
the light bathed waters
rippled in luminosity
under sun soaked dawn
in the home harbor
of Rockport,
heavy sea breezes
lift you up
on a beach chair
leaving my life jacket
on the orange kayak
in meshes of the Bay
moored by the sail boats
glistening and intoxicating
your latitude of memory.

Jetty Joint

—Photo by Katy Brown

TWO ON GREEN MOUNTAINS 
—B.Z. Niditch

The horizon is cold
for an October
blazing with first light
of hungry dawn maps
over the quarried side
of the Green Mountains
we are laughing on rocks
under the long grey sky
to peer into crags
of a dislocated future
it starts to rain
on the lonely crevices
drizzling on our glasses
for Octoberfest
in gestures
and wild rumors
of a windy storm
written over clouds.

____________________

DRAWING LANDSCAPES
—B.Z. Niditch

Drawing landscapes
from an easel
facing the sea
by roots and veins
of hundred year elms,
dawn limbs
cover the painter
on October's first light,
egrets and sky birds
circle by the bay
as shadows from dunes
yard arm nature.

____________________

VAN GOGH
—B.Z. Niditch

Bend your good ear
to me, Vincent
put down your easel
on the kitchen table
calm yourself
with some chamomile
on this Fall day,
your face needs
more color
in the Holland air
of the fields,
your brother Theo
is to arrive
to hold up your arms
and give you alms
for your have not eaten
or slept alone
in a starry night,
your skin is the yellow
of your painting,
you long for love
and sunflowers
of the Dutch countryside,
ask for grace
at the table
for every artist
if he would confess it
is hungry,
thirsty for the wells
of good nature
and poor in spirit.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

DIARY TO THE PERPLEXED
—B.Z. Niditch

No texting, kid
while driving,
better to play sax
or write
your diary
for the perplexed,
forget the violent videos
as teen life seems
always in jeopardy,
choose to read the Bard,
or the poems of St. Frank
the world can skin
you alive,
get with the words
of love
and survive.

__________________

—Medusa

Grate with Stones

—Photo by Katy Brown

This Web of Dreams

Exhibit, California Museum: 
Creating Freedom: the Art & Poetry 
of Domestic Violence Survivors

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

2nd HONEYMOON

—David Iribarne, Sacramento

That night you swam naked in the pool
Street lights shined your body
making its shadow ripple within the water.

You were so erotically beautiful
as you lifted your arms
above your head
stretching them to touch the sky.

I imagined heavenly creatures
were watching as was I.
Watching you in the cold water
stoking your smooth breasts
following your hands
as it went down to your navel
then to your sweet spot
and down your thigh
waves made in the water.

You closed your eyes
the moon showed its light upon you
as you put your hand out towards me
as if you’re handing me a sexy gift.

The water dripped from your body
making you glisten.

No more could I watch from afar
I moistened my skin
bare with the pool's body
swam closer to you.
I was so drawn to you.

I ran my hands over your smooth skin
starting from the top of your head
down to the contours of your face
lazily and slowly down to your breast
stopping there 'cause indeed
that was your best feature.

I took a deep breath
and closed my eyes
made fantasies about us.
I breathed out as my hands traveled down
to your hips and you laughed
as I tickled your love handles.

This is what you and I craved.
It was a quiet and silent night
but our minds were racing

My hands continued their journey
to a world we had so missed
and been absent from for a while.
Too long.

This was our sexy movie
This was what gave us goose bumps.
This is what had been missing from
our bedside table.

Sacramento Archives "Crawl", Oct. 2012

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

YESTERDAY
—Olga Blu Browne, Sacramento

Midnight whispers and primitive rituals, where
memory turns to legend, and the wind is still
against a silent heart, remembering shadows
of yesterday and the sounds of love.

_______________________

MEMORIZING YESTERDAY
—Olga Blu Browne

This the closing hour between distance
and death.

Where twisted words cause imaginary
wounds.

There memory bridges the gap
between breaths.

Living in fear. Memorizing yesterday.

______________________

ANTIQUE MAN
—Olga Blu Browne

Forgotten oceans, mortal tastes
memory by memory,

the antique man stares at an empty
doorway

where the winter moon rises beyond
barren branches,

listening for sounds he cannot hear,
silence is endless.

______________________

DARKNESS
—Olga Blu Browne

Dusk prowls beneath this web of
dreams, where silence echoes from
within, listening for the shadows,
shadow, shadows woven of darkness

_____________________

THE TRAGEDY OF THE ROUND BARN
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

My grandfather liked
To go for rides
In the country.  He’d
Stow a pint of Kessler’s,
And a gunnysack
For whatever I’d
Collect, and we’d
Go off down the
Dusty backroads
Of central Illinois.

“See that round barn
Over there?” He
Asked. “Yep.”
“Tragic story. Simply
Tragic.” “What
Happened?”
“Man ran himself
To death in there once.”
“How come?”
“Was trying to find
A corner to take
A dump.”

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

IN SOLIDARITY
—Ann Privateer, Davis

We gathered in solidarity to right a wrong
by police on an unforgettable Friday—
pepper spraying students in our community.
Seven thousand strong showed no apathy
stood up against a magnitude of injustice—
people on the quad to cry, to sing, to listen,
took a stand, shared their anguish
with the world over what went wrong.  

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's contributors, and a reminder that the California Museum exhibit continues through Dec. 10. David Iribarne has two poems in it, and several other Snake Pals have poems and art there also. Details are on the green board at the right of this column.

Bob Stanley, still working away. Be sure to show

your appreciation for his hard work as Poet Laureate at

the Sacramento Poetry Center this coming Saturday, Oct. 13.

The Weavers Continue

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

EQUINE PROPERTY, PRICE REDUCED

—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Call it poor hygiene—

the old barn hasn't been mucked out
in years. Just take a sniff, it still smells
of the under-parts of horse.
Nor have time and weather been its friends.
Cobwebs dawdle in corners,
the first storm of the season waits
in ambush—termination dust.
Don't buy this place, just let it be.
In every warping board and rusty nail
is a secret text
the land writes mysteriously.

___________________

BOUND FOR MARKET

—Taylor Graham

The piglet on the young girl's lap
sits thinking as she takes her nap,
and counts crosses by the road
where travelers laid down their load.
Humans wonder at each cross.
Pork chops know that life is loss.
The piglet on the young girl's lap
sits thinking as she takes her nap.

___________________

USED-TO-BE HOMESTEAD
—Taylor Graham

As sunlight dwindles in the west
the hawk recalls an oak-tree nest.
Oaks are all uprooted now.
No good-mornings, calf to cow.
Arthritic in every beam,
the old barn shudders in dream
as sunlight dwindles in the west.
The hawk recalls an oak-tree nest.

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

WHO LET THE DOG OUT?
—Taylor Graham

Our trickster puppy, slipping out the door
shadowing or shall we call it
chasing sheep of late September?
Not a fleecy cloud in blue;
the sky so noncommittal,
like ancient gods named Thor or Loki.
What can we count on
when there's scratching at the door?
What can we count on?
Like ancient gods named Thor or Loki,
the sky so noncommittal—
not a fleecy cloud in blue
chasing sheep of late September
shadowing. Or shall we call it
our trickster puppy slipping out the door?

__________________

BECOME THE CHANGE
—Taylor Graham

Here we've all come together,
poets with words to change the world
for good. And here you are

out-of-the-blue yelling at that
girl—for what? Her words. Were they
too soft or subtle for you?

Not enough tinder-spark, or smoke?
No explosion, riot, blowing
the old bad world to smithereens?

She's walking away now,
her words packed carefully back
into the satchel of her mind,

ready for the winds of change
to carry beyond
anywhere your yelling could reach.

__________________

THE WORK OF THE WEAVERS

—Taylor Graham  

A length of line, a knot, a word. With ancient
craft, she weaves a net to hold our night-sky
starry in its place: Arcturus, Sadr's swan-space.
    Through a loom's warp, the second
shuttles her spindled yarn—live, grazing sheep
for fleece; an old shepherd-dog (the woof).
                     The third—he weaves
a frock of all this, so finely-textured of history,
roses, star-spume rivers over rock.
     Sometimes, one will leave the loom
unattended. With a key-tap, another of the three
sneaks into the room
                   and shifts the pattern: a slight
switch in color-scheme, image, theme—as any
true weave requires one small glitch,
        a nick, a crevice to let sky's-
light shine through; a loose end, half-rhyme,
fingerhold for metaphor, a farther flight.

___________________

Our thanks to Cynthia Linville for today's pics, taken at San Francisco's Musee Mechanique. Cynthia will be reading tonight at Verse on the Vine in Folsom with Poetica Erotica (featuring Cynthia, Lytton Bell, and Shawn Aveningo). Thanks also to B.Z. Niditch for the LittleNip, and to Taylor Graham for the poems. TG is writing to our Seed of the Week as she fiddles with our current form, and she and Katy Brown and D.R. Wagner continue to talk to each other through their poetry—and we are all the richer for it! Well-published poet (Judy) Taylor Graham is a long-time SnakePal, and it's always a pleasure to post her poems; we've been doing it since the early days of Medusa, when she was one of the first of local poets to take a chance on this Gorgon and this wonky bloggy website.

Taylor Graham and Cynthia Linville are also among the many poets whose work appears in the new Ophidian—that's right! It's finally done, and can be seen at issuu.com/poems-for-all/docs/ophidian_two  Our thanks to Richard Hansen for his beautiful design, and for finishing it up so close to his surgery. 

You can also see Taylor Graham tonight at Poetry Off-the-Shelves, a monthly read-around that takes place in Placerville. This is a busy night in area poetry, with Poetry Off-the-Shelves, Poetry With Legs at Shine Cafe (featuring Laverne Frith and Dale Pendell), and Verse on the Vine. You'll have to make a choice, but you can't lose either way with our fine area poetry! As always, see the blue board at the right for all the details.

___________________ 

Today's LittleNip:

AFTER RILKE

—B.Z. Niditch

Brother of flame
remembers you
to mourn the past,
sister of fire
puts a wreath
for the future for us
on an unknown field
called poetry. 

__________________

—Medusa

 —Photo by Cynthia Linville

[See museemechanique.org for more about

San Francisco's Musee Mechanique]

The Last Golden Fish

FISH POND IN MOONLIGHT

The night fish
swim in their dark pool
and are lovely for

themselves
as I imagine them
nudging to the surface

then drifting back down
in pattern 
after silver pattern

with only
the bright moon
to illuminate them until morning

when they
become just part of the
rippling movement of the shadows.

_____________________

FOSSIL

Peel the light away.
Oh look! Oh look!
A little fish

swimming free of
its capturing stone into
the wet astonishment.
            *
Touch the impression
it made… how your
hand throbs…

how its eye remembers…
how long it took
to release itself…
 
_____________________

CURIOSITY
(After a child’s drawing)

The red fish fly around the spinning sun
in the painted water:
blue… blue…

truest blue. The sun grows dizzy
and melts at the edges;
the water spins,

until it begins
to froth from the fishes’ mouths.
The red fish swim

—mouth to tail—
to  mouth—in a blurry circle,
a red fish whirlpool—

whirl—the red fish are caught—
caught in their red momentum.
They don’t know how to stop.

All is blended—blended now.
Everything freezes
into a churning circle of blue thought.

THE LAST OF THE BLUE THINGS
(Based on 'Elves and Animals Near A Translucent Pond with Water-Beings' by Antonio Giraurdier)

There are many shining colors here, despite the illusion of night. A soft glow of orange light streams down from the moon and spreads like a ripple. An underwater flower sways in the emulated air current.

                                              ~
           
A Water-Elf sits on the bank and looks at himself in reflection. His bright sleeves billow, nibbled by curious fish. He is no longer real, but this does not seem to bother him. He imagines what he knows, and it is so. He cradles the last of the Blue Things to his heart. They nuzzle against him with affectionate sighs.

                                              ~

This is the dreamscape of the floating child who enters this world that opens up to him as he slides down the tones of a fading lullaby into what he sometimes remembers. He watches himself drift upward from the watery shimmer.

                                              ~
       
There is a smile so sad on the face of the Water Elf that the child wants to ask what is the matter. But the Elf does not seem to notice the child—he is rocking his arms and crooning to the Blue Things. The curious child floats nearer.  It is the Water Elf who has created the dreamscape—and himself—and the sleeping Blue Things—and the dreaming child.

_______________________

MOON-FLECKS ON DARK WATER

The invisible white fish
in the lake at night

with only the moonlight
pointing

to where 
the invisible white fish live

apart 
and with each other;

you imagine them: silver ripples
that move in unison—

that have no shadows—
that are invisible.
 

______________________

THE MAZE FISH
(After ‘Composition’ by Victor Vaserly)

Inside the maze
the golden fish swim to the edge
then swim away

to follow the jagged curve
and return again
to where they began.

Inside the maze
they ignite the golden darkness
they exist in—exaggerate themselves—

in a constant waver of motion
they follow and expand, as if they know
there is a way out, but trust what is familiar.

_______________________

Our thanks today to Joyce Odam for the poems and pix, finishing up our current Seed of the Week: My Favorite Fish. It's appropriate that she send us photos of feathers, because of course birds are just fancy fish with wings.

Look to the green column at the right of this one for our new Seed of the Week, which is a photo. Send your seedy musings to kathykieth@hotmail.com and remember—there are no deadlines on SOWs. Calliope's Closet in the Fuchsia Links at the top of this column will give you more seeds that you can shake, well, whatever you're shaking at them....

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

THE LAST GOLDEN FISH
—Joyce Odam

Legend says an ancient golden fish
survives in the icy moonlight
of winter in a lake as
wide and deep as lost time
where it still searches
for another
as golden
and as
old.

(Nonet form first pub. in Poets' Forum Magazine)

_______________________

—Medusa

Quadannual Fish and The Trickster Loki

MY FAVORITE QUADANNUAL FISH (OCTOBER 4)
—Michael Cluff, Corona

The puffer takes precedence
in these election years
(as if there aren't any non-voting years nowadays),
the more attacked it feels
the bigger and more inflated it becomes.
I would rather watch it
at ratcheted debates
since the animal does so
to survive
through poison sometimes
while bipeds
balloon to impress, wheedle,
and confuse via honeyed catch/buzzphrases
no matter what stripe
or hue they don.

_______________________

I don’t know how I got turned around,

walking backward through September.
This month, choreographed by
The Trickster Loki—
slipping around me.
I’m facing receding days and hours—
I can’t see what’s coming:
those lunch dates,
those deadlines.
The near-past is all that scrolls by.
It is as though some celestial compass

has whirled around and left me rootless.

It is as though some celestial compass,
the nearby-past, is all that scrolls by.
Those deadlines,
those lunch dates:
I can’t see what’s coming.
I’m facing receding days and hours
slipping around me.
The trickster—  Loki!
This month: choreographed by
walking backward through September—
I don’t know how I got turned around.


—Katy Brown, Davis

______________________

WHEN CHANGE COMES

It begins with throwing roses in the street;
by pulling the tab on a can of milk
for a child in a homeless shelter.

It begins when one young woman
chooses to learn to read;
when one young man protects his sister.

It begins with a cleric who leads a crowd
of marchers into the square―
preaching that we are more alike than not.

It begins with mothers
who teach their children to be tolerant
of playmates who are different.

It begins when divisive speech is challenged
for the explosive fuse it is; when bullies
and bigots are called out and named.

It begins when the right to express any idea
you want comes with the responsibility
for violence you intend your words to ignite.

It comes when the generals of armies
and the soldiers of every nation
wage peace instead of war.


—Katy Brown

_______________________

PHASES
—Caschwa, Sacramento
 
New
Powdering the delicate bottom
of Today's LittleNip
putting it to bed
and us too

Waxing crescent
Fresh baked, served
glowing, savory, sweet
wish there was more
to share

First quarter
Framed on the tree behind
the old lemonade stand
someday hopefully
a first dollar will follow

Waxing gibbous
Ending a hot, humid day
a sweaty gargoyle
reflects the glare from
your high beams

Full
The flip side
of the Vacancy sign
shown to unwelcome
visitors

Waning gibbous
Gravity still dictates
the body's contours
post Liposuction
that didn't go well

Third quarter
Big box retail
going green
half is lit, half is dark
bring your own flashlight

Waning crescent
As dawn turns to day
not much is left
of this famous icon
of outbuilding doors

________________________

SEASONS GREETINGS
—Caschwa

the bare yellow moon
slid from behind clouds
and stole the pumpkin's identity
holding a knife to its face

threatening to carve stark
silhouettes all over the landscape
a large mouth with jagged teeth
terror personified with no voice or bite

beginning the day being rudely yanked
from a plush pumpkin patch
now orbiting the Earth, higher and wiser than the owl
spending all the day overlooking the farm

—Photo by Roger Langton

WHAT'S IT LIKE
TO BE DEAD?

—Roger Langton,

Louisville, Colorado

In a dream I ask
my mother, "what's
it like to be dead?"
She tells me to go ask
my father, he has
more experience.

I search for my father
but can not find him.
The other dead tell
me they have never
heard of him. They
point to a scarred man
and say that nobody
knows his name.

I go over to this
man and ask him
if he has a name.
He answers, "Frank."
It's my father's name but
he doesn't seem familiar.
I ask him anyway:
"what's it like to be dead?"
He replies, "It's like
not being alive."
Roger Langton

_____________________

FLASHBACKS

—Roger Langton

first eight years
16th Ave.
up and down
the driveway
kitten was run
over there
large dining room
leading to basement
the Lionel train fell
off the track
stains from coal shoot
pushed into a fish pond
walked home for lunch
radio loud
heard "jack armstrong,
all american boy"
checked garbage cans
for treasure
pearl harbor scared
all of the kids
set fire to a weeded field
kid hit in the mouth
by a sling shot
was pushed over backwards
in the school yard
the classroom airplane
looked large at age five
walked along the creek
offered a cigarette
ate at coon chicken
tiny store at end of block
little post office
to buy plate blocks
newlyweds died in yosemite
visited grandparents
drove by the prison
and orphanage
was baptized
moved to california

______________________

THIS DAY IN HISTORY
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

They pulled you over for no reason
you could say in either language;
took away your ID, your registration.

You gripped your pencil like a last hope,
wrote down his badge number, uniform
name. He smiled as he tore up your paper.

Dead-ended, right there on the street
deserted as a field beside a ditch
ten miles east of town, where on this

day or another they found a dozen lined
up dead. Or maybe hundreds,
in the forest of another language altogether,

at the end of a rutted wood-lot road
where boys had to dig a ditch of their own
dialect. End of the road, in a scrub-

arroyo or a marshy bog, a grassy hill
overlooking their lives. Lights
of a city shuttered. You were lucky to

get away. No matter the accent
or the words, a whisper is a prayer.
History repeats itself every day.

______________________

SHARE THE ROAD
—Taylor Graham

This Sunday morning, early—
October just beginning
to shiver willows between road
and creek. Around a bend,
a dozen wild geese take off from pasture,
so close and low, I see their
underside of wings. Dark asphalt.
And suddenly,
dawn opens like a flower
behind the hills.
It zings the web of powerline, gold
filament. As the road climbs,
the flower's a willow tree
bouqueted in light.
The two-lane straightens out
ahead, blinding
Sun, so who could tell
where it's leading, but clasping
golden centerline.
Beckoning. Share, it says,
this Sunday morning
glory.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

THREE WEAVERS
—Katy Brown

A crumpled sky, a stone door—
and voices, low on the other side.
It has been too long in coming—
this reunion of friends:
my journey plotted
by Sadr, the yellow super-giant
in the heart of Cygnus.
One of us listens to the winds;
one speaks with the nation of wolves.
I name the stars.
After so much disconnected time,
the three of us once more gather
to weave the world.

______________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Roger Langton