Fragile Threads

Fish

—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

old grey suitcase
—charles mariano, sacramento

looking for Daddy’s letters
again
figured it had to be there,
where i haven’t looked, haven’t gone
in over thirty years

stuffed my life
into a small grey suitcase
locked it, then duct-taped around it
at least fifteen times

wasn’t expecting to go back,
maybe never
knew it was bad, very bad writing,
not just that though,
it was a period of heartache, agony
buried deep in the garage
under decades of junk

didn’t want to see it again,
should’ve burned it

perched strategically on top,
to mark the spot,
my Royal manual typewriter
with the words “write on”
scratched on the metal cover, 1969

opened the suitcase

and succumbed to the smell of years
volumes of stained, yellowed pages
poems, stories, letters
of a pitifully lost, unrecognizable me,
old wounds

searching for Daddy,
piles of dust and paper
fragile threads
of a damaged son,
who lost his father
then closed the door,

too quickly

____________________

AKIRA KUROSAWA'S BIRTHDAY (3/23)
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

In the art theater
at the midnight showing
we watch Yojimbo
and Roshomon
with subtitles
joining up
with your voice
of human long-suffering
as you lighten up
the silver screen,
Akira,
the world will not
forget you
every film striking us
as we watch
the throne of blood
with war's shadows
and the Seventh Samurai
our eyelids weeping
and lowered against
men's violence
in bygone centuries,
yet today, peace and
sayonara.

_____________________

FERLINGHETTI  STEPS OUT
—B.Z. Niditch

Ferlinghetti
is breathless
on shadowy earth
in San Francisco
and am realizing
there is a voice
of octaves
I heard in the 1980's
living inside me
enfolded in
a wish for words
and renewed
here in a coffee club,
trembling
like the Redwoods,
finding my own
lot of the poet's notes
somewhere buried
on the piano chair
by my sun glasses
veined with the one-eyed
scales of a beachcomber
remembering March 24th
is your day of birth.

____________________

A RENAISSANCE MAN
—B.Z. Niditch

A death may occur
at any funereal moment
as in the abstract life
of the painter, Igor
next door
who was a renaissance
man with sketches,
musical scores, carvings
as we uncover
fringes and fragments
of letters
and drawings
he left for us.

At all times of night
through the tint doors
of the kitchen
light beams
at all hours, shadows
an enigmatic figure
Igor
who once created
childhood
abstract art,

now still life.
 

Mel's Ride

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

VERNAL EQUINOX 2013

—Ann Wehrman, Sacramento

“The word equinox is derived from the Latin words meaning ‘equal night.’”


What were you doing
when spring came this year?
Earth loosened her scarf,
let breeze chap her cheeks.
Trees unfurled fat, green buds
almost overnight.
Light lingers now, days lengthen.
I drink morning coffee
by the open window,
sunlight warm, heater off.

Spring sneaked up on me this year,
as I busily strove and tidied,
surprised me like gray hair,
lines on my face.
Can the equal day and night
bring inspiration to my mind,
dry from earning crusts,
renew love in my shy, aging heart?

 

___________________

ROSE OF SHARON
—Ann Wehrman

Spring swells fuchsia in soft buds;
white blossoms glow on dark, wet branches;
rain-soaked pavement steams
with a warm, mineral smell.

I race through my classes,
the day’s chores,
only to stop,
suddenly unable to go on
for missing you.

Your face at twilight
watching me from the shadows,
the nervous, happy tone
as you first said my name aloud.

Spring brings a rainbow of flowers
as the redwoods shake off cold winter’s rain;
I nestle in hope of your love.

___________________

BLUE VIOLET
—Ann Wehrman

I stared at you
over that buffet,
perfectly arranged,
laden with tiny, handmade
chocolate tarts, elaborate
cakes trimmed with flowers.

Speechless, desperate,
I remarked that
violet stems taste sweet,
told you how Mom used to
lock us kids out, and
that's how I ended up
eating violets.

You said your Mom
used to shut you
out, too.
But then
you turned away.

__________________

COLD SPRING ANGEL
—Ann Wehrman

He lay on his back on the concrete,
damp spring night biting,
center of the quad,
filled days with students milling.
He lay on his back
on the concrete in the dark.

I felt the cold seep
through his cotton army jacket,
felt the skin of his back drink it in
like a drug,
like the lonely years.

She straddled him,
her back naked to the night
bra only covering white flesh,
tattoo an ebony trellis
lacing her hips,
straddled him snugly, riding.

Night wild around them—
icy stars glowing—
her black bob bowed,
white shoulders sloping.

My hungry eyes watched them
dance without movement;
he lay quiet, lost in a trance.

Yet I felt they were posing,
somehow had known I would walk by.
I’ve often seen him,
face like my lover from long ago.

I walked by in the night.
I couldn’t look away,
like watching an accident
or the birth of a child.
I couldn’t look away;
I walked the rest of the way home
with a full heart, thinking
somehow, this was meant for me.

__________________

EVE'S APOLOGY
—Ann Wehrman

security buzzes me in
dark, seamy room, packed bar
jukebox plays Pointer Sisters’ “Fire”

clutching a bucket
tissue-wrapped roses
I approach crowded tables

dancer takes her ramp
white girl, jailbait
gracelessly leans way back
grips the chrome pole
paints a new dimension
to my favorite song

Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” rides the charts
I knock on a trailer door
end of the block in Kokomo, Indiana
Massage blinks the sign

she buys all of my flowers
she has a child
she is only doing this
until her boyfriend asks her to marry him

rainy night, Indianapolis
small club, blacks only
completely out of place, I
squeeze between sophisticated, stoned patrons

in their center, on a dais
middle-aged woman dances
opens her thighs, shows me darkness
frightened, I turn away

years later, perhaps I understand
but still walk that ten-mile road of strip clubs
bucket of roses sloshing on my hip

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

HONEY

—Ann Privateer, Davis

Hello he
obligingly cooed
nice to see you, I'm
eager to dance, I
yearn for you.

_________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Ann Privateer

Many Turnings

BEYOND THE BORDERS

Above the fence line, beyond the borders,
a bird was singing,  “stone . . .  stone . . . ”

and the heavy day was drifting . . . drifting
. . . in my direction; and I was turning from

the window which was broken by the singing,
and the violence of love was almost worth

the danger.  How did I find myself here—
in this country—burdened by such gray

weather—burdened by your eyes which tore
the listening between us?  The bird followed

its song into the glass and we shattered—
one of us from pity—and the other from

the awful impact of the silence that resulted.

___________________

AN EARLY RAIN IN PARIS: 1924
        (After "The Traffic Problem In Paris"
         by John Jesse)
A slant of rain / deliberate slant / deliberate
rain / full force against the quickening
of the city . . .

            ~

Umbrellas and wet shoes / taxis in no hurry /
jay-walkers / across the wet Paris streets /
lights turning on in street lamps and windows . . .

            ~

Whatever is lifting is contagious:
wet faces / shining eyes / quick puddles /
that form and make shadowy reflections . . . .

___________________

GUARDING AGAINST DISTRACTION
          (After "Yellow Rose/Green Vase/
          Ghazal of the Vigil" by John Italia)

I am musing here on a single yellow rose
—a rose that lived four decades ago—

that lay its perfect head against
the rim of a wide bowl

turning emerald in the room light,
its curve reflecting back

the scene of the room,
but out of proportion . . .

I stop myself.
It is the rose here,

not the vase—                                                                          
one perfect petal

peeling away
from the rose

to unfold itself
into a crowded leaf—

though nothing seems to move.
Not even the light.

THE MEMORY PANELS

Look how they are broken by the mirrors, the belovéds and the lost. Walls of time—reshaping their images, have failed to change them. They are made permanent. Panels of light illuminate them now in all their inward starings.

                ~

Two dancers whirl out of the music, slowly vanish into their own remembering—cherishing, cherishing; the way they hold each other; the way they fragment with each turning; the way colors burn over them and reflect back into the gathering panels of the mirrors.

______________________

TIDE TURNINGS
          (After “Riptide” by Heidy Steidmeyer)

All that is grim, caught here on this long and shining beach in the warping moonlight—vague things gleaming in the distance—

a bird wing caught in the sand; the small look of something made of string; the curve of the wet land where it goes on and

on past the following night; the old deliberate way you glide along the water’s edge until you feel yourself disappear;

and why does it always seem at once so far away and so near—as if time and distance can be traveled simultaneously.

_____________________

TURNINGS

At any corner we stop for turning.
Life decision.
Many corners.  Many turnings.
        ~
Toward self, as toward a mirror
—mirror in the mind,
or in the inner eye of the mirror.
        ~
Text as guidance.  Mind, as need
for guidance.  Guidance as arrow
with direction toward target.
        ~
Failure to truly know what is believed
—everything according to forces
of time and place, and the instant.

_____________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for today's poems and pix! There are lots of readings in the Sac environs this week, so be sure to keep up with the calendar by scrolling down to the blue box at the right of this, our Daily Diary. And yesterday we unveiled a new photo album on Medusa's Facebook page: Southside Park by Annie Menebroker, Katy Brown and Kathy Kieth. Check that out for the pretty pix and for the info about the Royal Chicano Air Force, a long-time poetry/art Force in Sacramento. May the Force be with you...

Time for a new Seed of the Week, this one being in keeping with the season and Easter: Eggs. Birds' eggs? An abandoned nest? Or maybe something in a fertility clinic? Or maybe Easter eggs, the dying ritual, the hunt? Or maybe eggs in metaphor: seeds, new beginnings, food for thought? Send your hatchings, poetry, photos, otherwise, to kathykieth@hotmail.com No deadline on SOWs.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

IN A DREAM

—Joyce Odam

         “Some things Elude Art Forever”
                      —Marion Key Biggs

A small
white moth
fluttering
in my hand—

holding
its fragile
balance
against
my hand’s stillness—

turning itself
into origami
as I watch.
                        

(first pub. in Poets' Forum Magazine)

____________________

—Medusa

Spring Fever

Southside Park

—Photo by Annie Menebroker, Sacramento

SPRING FEVER
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Be amazed
after this long March
of winter's retreat
here along the Cape
writing a poem in silence
in your muted voice
at early daylight
in my Christmas
muscle shirt
my sister sent me
with an exercise routine
nearly forgotten
doing a half-mile run
along the acrid beach
among new tide marks
of a couple of turtles
who line up beside me
at the shore's edge
with my awkward body
of words on my lap
by the muffled noise
of shore birds
and the gulls' voices
so strong in the air
as a lobster boat
drenched with a new cache
of fresh fish passes by
the monster head
of a white whale
worthy of a line
in Melville's diary
is taken by my camera.

____________________

ROBERT FROST'S BIRTHDAY, MARCH 26
—B.Z. Niditch

For one born
in San Francisco
you were not that
quiet Yankee
that the world projected
for the t.v. show,
but with a melancholic
rather mature air
of a ticked off nature
whose words move us
in a satirical metrical flow,
with war shadows
always around you
and endless poverty
making you a bit angry,
you lit a radiant lamp
of poetry's fling
with myth and power
eventually showering us
with a marvelous thought
of spring
yet reminding us
we emerge from snow,
yet to the delight
of a bygone century
in whose love of words
we sought to know.

____________________

BACH BIRTHDAY (3/21)
—B.Z. Niditch

The cello springs
on tonight's lips
of Bach's shadow
outlives the body
in contrapuntal
words
of your fingers
stretched on time's
open memory
at arm's signals
set for listening,
we realize in song
what craft
moves the chords
of the ebullient notes
to sway us
on blue angelic clouds
a resurrected voice
out of counterpoint
at the podium,
briefing through
spoils of pages
by a now quiet
selfless metronome
hidden in echoes
of an ephemeral past
over fine strings
in those mingled hours
quivering in practice
in an absence of speech
at recollected silence
exposing a cantata
of sudden fiery flights
motioning to catch
the mysterious precision
over unsettled rhythm
now augmented
by courting gleams
of fanning applause.

Freckles

—Photo by Taylor Graham

HERMIT DREAMS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

On his mountaintop all night the hermit dreams
his breath's unconscious prayer reaching
toward the stars while he lies in body-sleep
on hard ground, his long beard fingering
for root-hold in soil or rock, reaching toward
earth-center. So far above a landscape
pale by daylight in the haze of distance—
outskirts of people's lives—and by night, dark
as its king in his dim kingdom, the hermit
dreams stars scattered in bright cascades golden
as kernels of corn, six quarters ordered
by the king as return for hermit prayer, corn
to last an earth-year almost as sure as manna.
His story now ancient and ambiguous,
the hermit dreams and half-dreams what
eternity might be, beyond his cold mountaintop;
dreams his soul in prayer even as his lips
freeze wordless with winter; as his beard keeps
growing like earth-hunger.

_____________________

RIDDLES
—Taylor Graham

By night, Orion hunts.
Our sheep, bedded down in dark
under Stone Mountain, dream of grass and spring

even as heaven shunts
to a new season, an arc
in some grand pattern—a ritual fling

we give dates to, as if
we could bind it to our brain,
catch Trickster Life as the coyotes sing

of hunger. Puzzle-glyph
of flooding and blessed rain.
Will famished sheep eat thistle for its sting?

_____________________

A STAGE
—Taylor Graham

She wouldn't—couldn't—

read her words out loud. Shyness
put them down on paper,
clutched them there,
she thought. But they brought her
to the room, everyone standing
waiting. Read, someone
said. She began. Some words
got swallowed by mistake
and almost choked her.
Then a phrase, pulled into her
lungs, started tingling, expanding,
floated up the wind-pipe, became spoken air.
The audience breathed it in,
inhaled her poem. Gave it out again, magnified
twentyfold. As if it were a common dream
given words which weren't hers
anymore. Could this change the world?
Change her?

___________________

SHADOWS ON GRASS
—Taylor Graham

This morning after rain, three lambs
are dancing in the meadow under the violet-
green shadow of a swallow come home
for the spring. In the shadow of Stone
Mountain, I've lost an hour counting clover
leaves and filaree (don't call it clock-
weed) and listening to grasses whispering
a common dream of green-gold-violet
covering the earth. One lamb is floating
now as on that dream, lying in oak-
shade on the grass, reciting mantras
in the idiom of sheep, of endless time
that runs through sleep. And yet last night
I heard coyotes cry, their echoes shadowing
the dawn, shadowing the grass. And
now, in woods beyond this field, more
shadows cluster as earth and time
and weather go about Spring's business
of changing the world, changing
future into now, as present into past.
 

____________________

Our thanks to today's contributors, including Taylor Graham's LittleNip rendering of the Brevee, the current Form We're Fiddling With (see green board at the right of this). The photos of Southside Park are part of our new Facebook album (see the Medusa's Kitchen page on Facebook) which was put together by Annie Menebroker, Katy Brown and Kathy Kieth, to honor the bandstand mural painted there in 1975 by the Royal Chicano Air Force, which will be having an exhibit at the CSUS Arts Festival in April. The RCAF is a Sacramento artist collective with a primary focus on Chicano cultural awareness. These artist/poets are responsible for many local murals and public art installations, including the Southside Park amphitheater and the Downtown/Old Sacramento pedestrian underpass. The RCAF was founded in 1972 by, among others, José Montoya, (Sacramento's second Poet Laureate), Esteban Villa, Juanishi V. Orosco, Ricardo Favela, and Rudy Cuellar. In addition to the CSUS exhibit, there will be an Art History lecture, panel discussion, and reception on April 13. Scroll down to Medusa's blue box at the right of this and see "More Than a Week Away" for details. And don't forget to check out the mural photos!

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

BEFORE DAWN
—Taylor Graham

A growl
a howl—

turn on the light!
My sheep
asleep
deep in the night.

___________________

—Medusa

Tree trunk, Southside Park

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

For This Is Love

—Photo by Richard Hansen, Sacramento

A PRAYER IN SPRING

—Robert Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; 


And give us not to think so far away 


As the uncertain harvest; keep us here 


All simply in the springing of the year. 



Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,


Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; 


And make us happy in the happy bees, 


The swarm dilating round the perfect trees. 



And make us happy in the darting bird 


That suddenly above the bees is heard,


The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, 


And off a blossom in mid air stands still. 



For this is love and nothing else is love, 


The which it is reserved for God above 


To sanctify to what far ends He will,


But which it only needs that we fulfill.

___________________

A BROOK IN THE CITY
—Robert Frost

The farmhouse lingers, though averse to square


With the new city street it has to wear


A number in. But what about the brook


That held the house as in an elbow-crook?


I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength


And impulse, having dipped a finger length


And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed


A flower to try its currents where they crossed.


The meadow grass could be cemented down


From growing under pavements of a town;


The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame.


Is water wood to serve a brook the same?


How else dispose of an immortal force


No longer needed? Staunch it at its source


With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown


Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone


In fetid darkness still to live and run—

And all for nothing it had ever done


Except forget to go in fear perhaps.


No one would know except for ancient maps


That such a brook ran water. But I wonder


If from its being kept forever under,


The thoughts may not have risen that so keep


This new-built city from both work and sleep.

__________________

ASKING FOR ROSES
—Robert Frost

A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master, 


With doors that none but the wind ever closes, 


Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster; 


It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses. 



I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary; 


'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.'


'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy, 


'But one we must ask if we want any roses.' 



So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly 


There in the hush of the wood that reposes, 


And turn and go up to the open door boldly, 


And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses. 



'Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?' 


'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses. 


'Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!

'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses. 



'A word with you, that of the singer recalling— 


Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is 


A flower unplucked is but left to the falling, 


And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.' 



We do not loosen our hands' intertwining 


(Not caring so very much what she supposes), 


There when she comes on us mistily shining 


And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: it goes on.

—Robert Frost

____________________

—Medusa, who is hoping you will join with me in celebrating Robert Frost's birthday this coming Tuesday, March 26


And be sure to check out the "Entertainment" section of The Sacramento Bee for today's article about the Sacramento poetry scene: www.sacbee.com/2013/03/24/5282897/sacramento-poets-flex-their-word.html#mi_rss=Top%20Stories

Protecting Secrets

Calla

TRUSTING THAT THE HEART WILL KNOW THE WAY

We came upon a pale landscape plain
Made paler by the moon, white past
The white of death with bushes white,
Upon which horses roamed, whiter than the
Whole of what we saw.

For most of night we were a silent crew,
Tired from too many mountain passes,
Descents into forgotten valleys, then up
Again toward snowy peaks that gleamed
Like teeth and drifted white with snow,
Borne by the coarsest wind
That tore into our skin and face for days.

Yet here, upon this night, the landscape
All seemed careful to our eyes.
We knew that we belonged to another world

And took a curious comfort in our own
Shadows.  It was as if we walked upon
Detritus of some senseless time, that archeology
Could not undo or yet explain.

Still there was a sweetness there that
We felt resembled eternity or what
We thought eternity might be.  It trembled
And looked to protect secrets.

Our dreams and half-dreams flooded
With so many yesterdays we could, at times,
Move only by following echoes and paths
From one another’s memories.

These places did not depend on us
To reckon their distances and plains.
We finally trusted that the heart would
Know the way, bring our sweetest bliss
Back to our stories and our now frozen lips.

And so, we traveled on, imagining ourselves
Cold historians, transforming all we
Saw into fantastic tales that we
Could tell to one another, hoping
That each one would tell us who we were.

____________________

THE BREAKING OF THE MAIN

A refutation of time bubbling up
From a dark kingdom, filling the shoes
Of the traveller with blood, opening
The next day with fierce cuts that
Will take weeks to heal.

On the far side of the door we remain sleeping.
It is within thick shade we dwell,
Ambiguous and ancient.
One has not heard such words as these
Spoken at these thresholds since
All things dead tumbled on the land.

If it were a mirror, it would be
Faded, dim and darkened, but still
Able to reflect from its mica heart
Your own childhood, colored as one
Would color a coloring book, thick with outlines
You know by heart but are unable
To articulate without the edges.
Collapsing into the unsubstantial,
Becoming hollow shades, fountains,
Long dry from the lack of our
Wonderful bewilderment of first
Knowing the things of the world.

The main collapses.  This is no
Accident, no one picked an apple
From a tree and chased you with it,
Claiming it was your own blood.

Watch!  This song rocks back and forth
Like a lullaby or an elegy, caused
Only by a faint recollection
Of gardens and patios, of the order
Things seem to take as we
Walk through the outskirts of our
Lives seeking a refuge we can barely
Retain, even with the best of dreams.

______________________

A WOUNDED SOLDIER

This is not my war, he thought
Finally resting on the brown hills.
He had deep wounds in his shoulder
And fell in and out of dreams.

They came like breezes with the sound
Of cicada wings flying close to his head.
There would be knights and green vales
To calm him and he did not know
What plains he looked upon and no longer
Recognized the Spanish countryside.

He awakened to a short man
With kind brown eyes
Washing his wounds and dressing them.
Before he fell back to his last gift, sleep,
He asked the man, in Spanish,
Who he was?

Quien eres?
Mi nombre es Sancho.
Tengo que montar.
Yo sirvo a un caballero
Va a estar bien. Sonando.

You will be well. Dream on.
The soldier was full of music.
He could hear it at the end
As he caught up with the two riders.

Bird of Paradise

PAPER CLIP
        for Meg Pokrass

Certainly stranger things have happened and I suppose, even more fantastic things as well, but this seemed so real.  Even the car felt real, even if it was a crapola invention.

A racing striped, super fast model all nastied out with licorice black racing slicks, a crazy jagged lightning bolt painted across the hood and a super fancy, super tricked-out interior with more treats than could be imagined.

Truly we are inhabited by the most incredible of beings, capable of dressing us in leotards, making us dance, making a choreography turning any moment into the most brilliant of pauses, an ah that is impossible to paper clip to consciousness.

Bring it all on, music of everything from a flurry of cat hair seen in the light of the afternoon, across the room in a dance of dust, lint as a language of movement never seen before.  On a diet such as this we grow and glow, unable to make choices when confronted by such beasts:  Cocoa or coffee, tea or pure dreaming, slender musings of vehicles even more powerful than these cars that race though the imagination.

We reach up and consume the juicy fruit such pleasure brings, touching ourselves, knowing we cannot quiet or quell such an eroticism no matter what we do.  Shhh.

_____________________

A GIFT OF KNIVES

A gift of knives.  A gift of blindness.
The smell of blood.  The taste of blood
Inside the mouth.  The way the lights
Of the railroad station look as if
They had something more than an electric
Glow to them.  Someone is crying.
I make a call on my phone to see who
It might be, but no answer came.

The fire in the pampas began just as the day
Began to lose its way, backing up to allow night.

The animals came ahead of the fire,
Until there was a stampede of shadows
Backlit by the greatest of flames.

I stepped from the landing boat, looking
Toward the town.  There were lights
In the bars and the houses showed a
Yellow-gold glow through their shades.
It made the entire street pulse.
I knew the reason we were here.

The fire on the pampas could be seen
On the far horizon.  Soon the animals
Would be here.  There was only the town
Between them and the sea.

I felt for my knife.  This would
Be all that I needed.  I would be gone
Before any fire could reach this place.

There was no waiting.
I ran down the side of the road
And began making a list.

The last thing I noticed before
The whole thing began was the sound
The ship’s bell made.  I turned
To look at the ship.
It was beautiful.
I thought it was a candle.
The gift of knives.

______________________

THE LIMIT

We send the word out once again,
As Noah sent one bird after another.
Black bird.  White bird.  Finally
Bringing back a twig with green
Leaf upon it and the sun shone
For thousands of years since and no one
Has found anything more powerful
Than this music that greets the
Combining of letters.  We, say.

Meaning has its own trucks and finds
Itself out in history searching for images
Where there are only cool abstractions
Built of letters, market places.

I will dream you a market place.
Here you may use your intellect
To unravel a theater, if you care to,
Caravans full of flickering violet light.

We dream paths through Yeats,
Or Frost, or Browning, Emerson, Baudelaire.
We search for them and soon
We are not able to discern what woods,
What bird, what limit, ‘there was a ship’, quoth he.

Ah, we are dreaming again.  A band
Of sunlight bounded by the sea below
A scud of clouds, darkly gray, above it.
We are certain of this.  A dream of geometry
That brings us to the verge of fear
Lest this be true, lest we doubt
What we see.  A sword.  A room
Full of such sorrow words shrink
Away from it, unable to introduce
Comfort, nor the sun, nor the moon, handfuls
Of stars thrown in for measure.

Nothing is much use to us.  Mystery
Remains staring at itself in the mirror.
It carries sacks filled with the hours,
And even more words which have become
Unreadable, of no use.  We are unable
To learn from them.  They are wet,
Shredded by the waves, trying to describe
A beach, a shoreline, your face even.
Still we send them each day.  A blur
With no accounting for anything,
Aware only of their lovely journeys.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

A ROSE AND BORGES

Jorge Luis Borges who is dust,
I have come here to ask as you did
Of those same roses gone from even
The memory time had of them,
The self-same favor you asked
For Milton, the very final rose
You held, in your own labyrinthine
Garden with so many bushes of roses,
In colors seen by magic, that you held.
That it too will live here, in between
Your fingers, unseen, except in this poor poetry,
“Gold and blood-covered, ivory or shadowed"
Your rose, dear Borges, invisible.

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's poems and pix! D.R. will be reading at Luna's Cafe this coming Thursday night, 8pm. Be there!

Roses, Bolinas

For All Who Listen

—Anonymous Photo

PASTEL CHICK
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

This fat pastel chick
looking toward the edge of paper
with an egg-shaped eye
of black-dot yolk,
with its little orange wing
of many tiny red hearts stuck on,

whose two pointed match-stick
legs don't hold him up, but rather
sink into a plush red cardstock,

is just the kind of greeting card
I'll buy and keep for myself.


(first pub. in Rattlesnake Review, 2009)

___________________

SWEET PEAS UP CLOSE
—Carol Louise Moon

Jack Creek Road's alight with many sweet peas.
Most run along the fence at shoulder height.
We smell them as they move within the breeze
and see them as they glow in springtime's light.
Farther down the road, a fragrant sight
that looks a lot like cotton candy pink.
But here, up close, we see in folds of white
what looks to us to be a red eye-wink.
The painter's brush of white—a center of red ink.

_____________________

SPRINGTIME GLORIES
—Carol Louise Moon

I love this bright elusive
month of May;
more sun than shadow
on the cedar path.
The air a breath of songbird;
grasses play.

The towering elm
is home to local hawks.
They spy the cedar waxwing
and the jay.
I'm thankful for the glories
found these days.

SAPPHO DELIGHTS IN LADY SLIPPERS
—Carol Louise Moon

Yellow are the slippers amid the sunlight.
Laced in rich brown ribbons
they puzzle me now.
Does a fairy wear these shoes?
Does she lead me
past the wide meadow?

__________________
 

AWAITING THE VISITATION
—Tom Goff, Carmichael
 
We’re the red-garbed invisibles of the word.
And someone, days, weeks, months—or years?—ago,
has locked us in with a stern, stout iron key.
Here in our chamber, we subsist on bread,
one miraculous bread loaf for us all,
splitting itself unseen, and all we know
is that it feeds our scant ranks royally.
But we can’t exit this room until the bird,
a dove-white bird, all ecstasy, has fled;
that is, the bird-winged smoke, white smoke, lifts free,
supplanting that smoke burned from danker straw,
until we fear the chimney will not draw.
Beneath the bright-plumed miracle, white ash,
the minder of our door turns the dark key:
the blackness that fingered into our throats, the pall,
is gone; the fresh air of life returns, panache
is ours again, our once-dulled robes of the Lord
drink up dawn color. Good again as our word,
we are—and for all who listen, we are the Word.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Is it so small a thing
to have enjoyed the sun,
to have lived light in the spring,
to have loved, to have thought,

to have done?

—Matthew Arnold

_________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's contributors, including the LittleNip from Patricia Pashby

—Anonymous Photo

Fresh Like a Crocus

—Photo Enhancement by Richard Hansen, Sacramento

VERNAL TIME
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

My clock and watch
spring forward
with a click of the wrist
in rehearsal of the season,
quick as saying
abracadabra
or hocus pocus.

With suspension of belief
that winter
is unlimited
when life suddenly
opens us up
so youthful again
and fresh like a crocus
outside my rock garden
once chock full of snow,

Dazzles us with sunshine
and refreshes our soul
dismantles our minds
remakes our image,
restores our spirit
has our bodies be content,
birds dip in the quick water
receive my bread
have these words
consent to please
who made it all.

___________________

COUNTERPOINT: SPRING
—B.Z. Niditch

Outside lemony laughter
of a worm-sick garden
on scented springs
of my bed
with undiminished notes
a seasoned exile
with a guitar of songs
in my fingertips hearing
the still rain
of an open-air parasol

no one but the unknown
but inexhaustible bird
from the night woods
hears echoes calling
from tiny rain drops
configuring scales
in perpetual motion
with open airs

dawn born
of a cloud's cover
forging a signature
that jumps out
like augmented chords
of the hyacinth
as bright juniper
uncovers first light

little spring
of pressing yourself
with astral chords
undulates with music
from our leafy eyes
since the first cry
of red earth
on the setting sleep.

__________________

STREET PEOPLE
—B.Z. Niditch

Crowds at dusk
with spring here
at the last rainbow
of some Friday night
won't dry out the city,
with a lighter arm
of short shirtsleeves
tasting the smoke
among the barbeques
in fires of hot stoves
by skinny rows
of street people
listening to my alto sax
on the loudspeaker
along with a Beat poet
near the waterfront
breaking glasses
of wine with waves
for tourist friends
on a boardwalk of trees
where crows try to rest
on park back benches
and a new born
on his father's shoulder
goes berserk with laughter.

 

—Photo Enhancement by Richard Hansen
 

EQUINOXIOUS
—Caschwa, Sacramento

On the first day
of Spring I set out
happily for my
daily commute
on the freeway

and encountered
unusually heavy
traffic that was
equal parts
bad and worse

a big accident on
another freeway
created a cloudburst
of cars that rained
on my freeway

"Share the road"
loses much of its
appeal in stop
and go traffic
Humbug!

___________________

SCHOOL BELLS
—Caschwa

All over this nation there are commissions made
up of people who firmly believe that a student's
sensory experiences shrink as their brain grows
and so they have accordingly designed programs
of what and how to teach schoolchildren as they
matriculate from sparkling kindergarten kids to robots

they take some of the dullest, driest subjects ever
pondered by the most brilliant brains and make those
the core of a curriculum that is sure to send most real
kids to deep sleep, kids who are horribly hungry for
activity are forced to sit still, their eagerness sadly
confined to seeking out ways to ditch class

What if we were to turn that upside down?
make performing arts and athletic competition
the core subjects, such that English, Math
and Science are put in the role of a pep squad
whose primary function is to support the football
team, especially when the team is sorely lacking

expose kids to Shakespeare on the stage before
they are ever called upon to merely recite
the words and analyze the characters or plot,
remake the library into a pantry, the raw resource
of choice for students of culinary arts where the only
fine imposed is for bringing back something old

displace standardized testing with events
the outcome of which students can readily
see, hear, taste, touch, and smell, and rank
students not by how close they come to perfection
but by the degree to which each has individually
embraced their challenges and overcome them

Above all, we must forever eliminate that terrible
practice of using the same bell to start the school
day as is used to end it because it greatly
diminishes recognition for one's efforts:  if the early
event of starting something worthwhile and the later
event of finishing it get the same old bell, why bother? 

___________________

WISHING WELL
—Caschwa

It used to be an ashtray
back when smoking was
as common as cream
inside coffee shops

and then laws were passed
to sequester nicotine from
caffeine indoors, so the glass
tray was retired from service

and recycled as a penny jar
on the counter by the cash
register, in case a patron
came up a few cents short

then customer after
customer who did not
feel the immediate need
to pinch their pennies

would enjoy the conspicuous
sound of dropping a few from
their change into the ashtray
while silently wishing they

would never find themselves in
that impecunious predicament
where they truly needed each
and every one of those pennies
 

__________________

—Today's LittleNip:

Nature asks us for attitudes of the beatitudes.

—B.Z. Niditch

__________________

—Medusa
 

—Photo Enhancement by Richard Hansen