Art is Art

Francis Barraud's original painting of Nipper 

looking into an Edison Bell cylinder phonograph

THE VICTOR DOG
—James Merrill

(for Elizabeth Bishop)


Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez,
The little white dog on the Victor label
Listens long and hard as he is able.
It's all in a day's work, whatever plays.

From judgment, it would seem, he has refrained.
He even listens earnestly to Bloch,
Then builds a church upon our acid rock.
He's man's—no—he's the Leiermann's best friend,

Or would be if hearing and listening were the same.
Does he hear?  I fancy he rather smells
Those lemon-gold arpeggios in Ravel's
'Les jets d'eau du palais de ceux qui s'aiment'.

He ponders the Schumann Concerto's tall willow lit
By lightning, and stays put.  When he surmises
Through one of Bach's eternal boxwood mazes
The oboe pungent as a bitch in heat,

Or when the calypso decants its raw bay rum
Or the moon in Wozzeck reddens ripe for murder,
He doesn't sneeze or howl; just listens harder.
Adamant needles bear down on him from 

Whirling of outer space, too black, too near—
But he was taught as a puppy not to flinch,
Much less to imitate his bête noire Blanche
Who barked, fat foolish creature, at King Lear.

Still others fought in the road's filth over Jezebel,
Slavered on hearths of horned and pelted barons.
His forebears lacked, to say the least, forbearance.
Can nature change in him?  Nothing's impossible.

The last chord fades.  The night is cold and fine.
His master's voice rasps through the grooves' bare groves.
Obediently, in silence like the grave's
He sleeps there on the still-warm gramophone

Only to dream he is at the première of a Handel
Opera long thought lost—Il Cane Minore.
Its allegorical subject is his story!
A little dog revolving round a spindle

Gives rise to harmonies beyond belief,
A cast of stars. . . .  Is there in Victor's heart
No honey for the vanquished?  Art is art.
The life it asks of us is a dog's life.

_______________________

—Medusa

Beyond All Midnight

Camellia

MY GRANDMOTHER WAS A GIANT BIRD

My grandmother was a giant bird
Who lived in the South.  Sometimes
In the evening she would look through
The mirrors in our house, which was
The world between sunrise and sunset,
And she would weep and speak softly
To us.  Sing, she would say.  Dream,
She would say.  Vanish, she would say
And we would lose ourselves in the mirror
And see only our own faces and those
Around us.  It was like dreaming a river.

Now we have grown old and still
We notice how delicate the stars seem,
How captivating the plains are as they reach
Toward their own history.  The smoke from
Villages, far, far away.  There are ancient
Lands there, my grandmother would say.

She could construct shadows without
Begging the light for help.  She knew
Time personally and would talk to us
Of his inexhaustible shaping, as if he were
A sculptor, show us the lines around her eyes,
How her wings grew tired following him.

Please do not think you exist, she would say.
You will become bound by laws that can catch
At your memories and tear them from your mind,
Tear them from your eyes and all things will be
Removed from your hands.  You will not be able
To touch them at all.  They will be like paintings
Where the landscape remains caught for eternity,
The horses moving slowly up the sides of the hills,
A soft laughing in the distance, Dust rising from near
The horizon.

We would watch her attain the tree tops and tilt
Her head in our direction, not knowing if it were
Farewell or just the changing of the seasons.
We miss her secrets, how she spoke of dreams,
What she may have meant when she spoke of memory.
It has become lost beyond all recall.

_____________________

A ROIL

Whatever precision my words once had
Has fled, taking with them the street
Where I once spoke with the clarity
Flags possess when seen upon tall
Masted ships or a spire, scarcely
Visible across miles of plains,
Further out than the streets could ever
Be.  Beacons on this expanse of distance.

        (((0)))

We’ve seen them, sir, from the top
Of those tall trees you can make out
On the farthest horizon.  It took us
All day to cross to there.  We were
Overwhelmed by sky and there are
Winds, sir, great winds, tornadoes
Full of birds and a green dusty light
That did not did not want us to return to
Report, sir.  These instruments
Sought our souls, sir.  Even death
Seemed beautiful to us out there.

But we attained the trees and
We climbed them just as evening came.
We saw the travellers in the distance.
We believe they are fleeing before us
As the hours of the day do.

There were scattered lights, constellations
We did not know and such quiet
One could hear a bird sleeping.

For the longest of moments
We did not know the way back.
The light was extremely fine.  It
Could have been used to polish
Mirrors.  We longed for music.

Yet we came back here
To help prepare the weapons,
To continue on past that dust,
To glory in these moments,
To come back to the places
Our ancestors have called out
To us.  Their voices are so faint.

They ride horses that flicker like
Ghost horses might and we must
Hurry on toward these places
Lest the jewels of the stories
Become lost in the dark,
Lest we forget the pain miracles
Like this demand, lest we become an
Inscription on a dusty tomb.

 Wolf, Moose

LEMON WOOD

When the doors were locked
They began to cut lemon wood
For its pleasing scent,
To construct a pleasing temple,
One seen only in the afternoon
On the most pleasant of days,
When its lovely fountains are part
Of all conversations, as the jasmine
Blossoms and the filtered light
Through the trees also become most pleasant.

There were songs rising as prayers
Into the surrounding jungle.
The eyes of the tigers looked
At the locked building.
They smelled the lemon wood
Ripped from the lumber
By the kerf of the saw.

I was told that I could not know
How this afternoon would end.
But I have heard the clack
The swords make,  I understand
The words of the songs.  I can tell
What, though fragile, might be eternal,
What might remain mysteries and
What might become clear.

The tigers sit just inside the dark.
This will be their last day.
We will not see them again.
They will all have died
By the time you read these words.

____________________

SPEAKING

I know these things by heart:
The elephant, a sailing ship, a hand,
The particular shapes of the moon.

This does no good as they are not
As they seem, but inform me of other things:
A giraffe, two, the tall letters f and f
In its name can look down at the elephant.
And the elephant; farther down, the hand.

The hand points to the sailing ship, but it
Is too far away to signal now that we
Have spent so much time trying to recall
How these same things are mentioned
In conversation and what they might
Be doing there.  I took the elephant
By the hand down to the sailing ship.

By the time this gets said, the sailing
Ship has departed the harbor, hands
Waving from around the shore.
A new vocabulary awaits just out of sight.

Door Guardian

THE CURSED

He remains inside the body of the rain,
Still upon his chocolate horse, still a fire
Within his brain.

The weather bends in upon him, stealing
His serenity, replacing it with pain
That pulls as if upon a sacred door,
That steals more with every step,
Until he is consumed with pain.

This is not the course as it was explained.
It is stiffer, full of nettles, laced with poisons,
Drained of all humanity, carved into dice,
Tossed upon the blackest shore,
An airless solitude carried through his veins.

You will see him beyond all midnight,
Not quite stable, not quite sane.
He pursues a dead horizon.
He still strives, but strives in vain
To find a cloak to hide his darkest
Stains, the deeds that made his blood
Run cold, so no humanity remains.

We pray a peace for you whatever your
Domain.  We will seek not to deter you,
Though you profane all we ascertain
For we cannot quit your presence
And we dare not speak your name.

____________________

THE MUSE, AMUSED

She braids labyrinths into her hair.
Her mouth quenches a thirst long in
The loins, painted into our souls
And those eyes, those eyes, seen by
Tigers from miles away.  They pierce
The deepest jungle and still know
To see the beauty of horses in the
Moonlight, on the steppes of
Distant uplands, drifting toward
Mountains.  Lightning touches itself
There too intimately to be spoken aloud.

Her lips find purchase in what words
We hear, but do not comprehend.  Her words
Are like wild things upon them and
We await a private pentecost to
Know them and what they might say.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

A VISION

The necklace of bones that is
Our skeleton.  We witness
A tree that fruits human skulls,

The long walkway that skirts
The river.  We watch ice move
By slowly in giant flows.

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's poetry and artwork. D.R. will be reading and signing his books at the UCD Bookstore on Monday, April 15, at noon.

Desire Car

Three Prom Queens and the New Moon

—Photo of Croatian Street by 

Eva West, Rancho Murieta

THIS CUP OF NIGHT
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

I wake up in the back of a fire engine. There doesn’t seem to be any emergency. No one is around, so I climb down, load my shopping bags full of vitamins into a cart, and go looking for my car.  I push the cart past people lounging by a swimming pool.  I am singing, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.”  I can make the cart go really fast uphill just by kicking my feet.

Now it is night and there are three prom queens in my car, two in the front seat, one in the back. I open the driver's door and shoo the front two out.  The one in the back is more stubborn.  I walk around, open the door, and say, "That means you too, Missy Higgins!"  I pick her up, dump her in the street, and drive off.

At home, one of my best friends is lying on my bed.  She has found my toy box and is tempting me with my favorite vibrators.  She wants me to make love to her.  We kiss, slowly, but then I have to re-park my car, I have to find my phone, I have to clean the house for guests.

I wander into the backyard and spy some other lady’s house in my garden.  I want to go live there, but she won’t let me.

____________________

DARKNESS

—Caschwa, Sacramento
 
She basked in
diminishing moonlight
not one to doubt the
deep night of
dwindling nothings
which lay ready to
fill in the spaces
between what she
assuredly knew
and what good
people have learned
from questionable
sources

new moon darkness
is the bumpy street
on which ideas
travel aimlessly
lacking even the
faint memory of
a guiding light

_____________________

ETC
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

He mends levees, she dresses trees.
She etches bees, he defends beetles.

She esteems chess, he gets treble clefs.
He deeps creeks, she sweeps breezes.

He erects steeples, she seeks betweens.
She bends nettles, he threshes weeds.

She greets new green, he evens edges.
He fledges wrens, she blesses sheep.

Then sleep.

—Photo taken in Croatia by Eva West

JESSICA KATHAN  

(In the style of Viola Weinberg)

—Jessica Kathan, Davis

I want to write about
the night we laid together
on the bridge near the reservoir

and how the passing hikers laughed and thought
we were high, but we were really only nervous
and in love, which now seems a petty distinction.

I want to describe how it felt
to kiss you underneath the barren August sky
trying and failing to remember to breathe

But whenever I try,
my bones become weak and my innards
heavy, with what I do not know.

I grow tired and recede
into the present. I put my pen
down, close my notebook,
turn off the flickering lamp,
and go back to sleep.

__________________________

do not tell me to quiet my thoughts, to
temper my intemperance.
I will consume the world and spit out
like chicken bones the parts I don't despise.

My heartbeats are war drums and my lungs
are bugles. My mouth sings the songs
of my mothers and my mothers' mothers.

do not tell me to ignore my bloodlust.

My limbs are weak and my mind is
riddled with fractures and rot. But
remember the words of your fathers.
The bear is most dangerous
at her weakest. do not tell me I am not the same.

My shoulders arch, my knees buckle, my head
drops like a cannon. My mouth forgets
the song, my heart abandons the beat.
do not tell me to breathe.

You do not see me. I am a wisp
of smoke, I am the defeat
of my mothers, I am consuming the world
and keeping every inch for myself.
 

(In the style of Viola Weinberg by Jessica Kathan)

___________________

I WALK AWAY FROM YOU FOR GOOD
(In the style of Billy Collins)

—Kamieko Kayoshi, Davis

Instead of fighting for us to still be together, I turned away and allowed you to slide out of my hands ever so nicely, and while I walked farther away from you, your heart now shattered in tiny, little pieces, somewhere far away, there I was, but instead of walking away, I fought for you, for us, for this ghostly relationship to still continue, only in another world, only in another time, another me that actually cared about you, those measly seconds of staying instead of walking away—those measly seconds of healing your heart instead of breaking it.

______________________

ANOTHER REASON WHY WE CAN'T BRING WEAPONS TO SCHOOL
(In the style of Billy Collins) 

—Kamieko Kayoshi

The teacher’s pet will not stop talking.
Every day, it’s the same old, high-pitch talk
that she talks every time she doesn’t agree with our TA.

The teacher’s pet will not stop talking.
I sit far away from her
and I go to sleep to escape this torture
but her voice slips into my dream,
talking, talking talking,

and I can imagine her debating with the innocent TA,
both standing on a podium as if debating whether to accept or reject 

the new health care bill.
I sit there chained to the seat in the audience
and all I could do was to listen to this non-stop talking girl.

When the debate was over and she was deemed as the victor, she is still talking,
standing in front of the TA just talking about nonsense,
her fists banging on the TA’s podium who is
surrendering his position on the new bill

while the audience just listen to
the aggressive, talking girl’s plea

that finally kicked me out of my slumber
and into the talking girl’s rant.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

SPRING FOR-GET-ME-NOTS 

(Poems written in the brief For-Get-Me-Not

form by Taylor Graham)

1. Gardens Day

Rake out Winter's
bitter splinters.

2. Sempervirens

From under snow,
oregano!

3. Dandelions et al

Beg weeds' pardon,
weed the garden.

4. Schinus molle

Pepper leafs out—
a spicy shout!

5. Spring Fires

These poppy days
gold's all a-blaze.

________________________

—Medusa

—Photo taken in Croatia by Eva West

Oh Black Chalice

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

THE BLACK CUP
—César Vallejo

The night is a cup of evil. A watchman's stinging
whistle pierces through it like a vibrating pin.
Listen, you little slut, how come, if you're already gone,
the wave is still black and burning me up.

The Earth spreads coffin edges in its shadow.
Listen, you little tramp, don't come back.

My flesh swims, swims
in the cup of shadow that keeps on hurting me;
my flesh swims in it
as in the swampy heart of a woman.

Star coal . . . I've felt
the dry frictions of clay
fall across my diaphanous lotus.
Ah, woman! For you
this flesh of instinct exists. Ah, woman!

So, oh black chalice, even now with you gone
I choke on dust;
and more desires to drink paw inside my flesh.


(trans. from the Spanish by Tony Barnstone and Willis Barnstone)

____________________

XXXIV
—César Vallejo

Finished the stranger, with whom, late
at night, you returned to words for words.
Now there won't be anyone who waits for me,
readies my place, good itself ill.

Finished the heated afternoon;
your great bay and your clamor; the chat
with your exhausted mother
who offered us a tea full of evening.

Finally finished everything: the vacations,
your obedience of hearts, your way
of demanding that I not go out.

And finished the diminutive, on behalf of
my majority in the endless ache
and our having been born like this for no cause.

(trans. by Rebecca Seiferle)

__________________

BLACK STONE ON A WHITE STONE
—César Vallejo

I'll die in Paris on a rainy day,
a day which I can already remember.
I'll die in Paris—and I won't skip town—
maybe on Thursday, like today, in autumn.

It must be Thursday, since today Thursday, as
I set these lines down, I've put my shoulder bones
on wrong, and never like today have I turned,
with all my road, to see myself alone.

César Vallejo is dead. Everyone beat him
although he didn't do a thing to them;
they beat him hard with a big stick and hard

also with a gross rope; witnesses are
the Thursdays and the crooked shoulder bones,
the lonely solitude, the rain, the roads.


(trans. by Willis Barnstone)

_________________

IN THAT CORNER WHERE WE SLEPT TOGETHER
—César Vallejo

In that corner where we slept together
so many nights, now I sit down
to take a walk. The bedstead of the dead lovers
was taken away, or something must have happened.

You came early for other matters
and now you're gone. It's the corner
where beside you I read one night
between your tender nipples
a story by Daudet. It is our lovers'
corner. Don't mistake it.

I've begun to remember the lost days
of summers, your coming and going,
small and fed up and pale in the rooms.

On this rainy night,
already far from them both, suddenly I jump up . . .
They are two doors coming upon, shutting,
two doors that come and go with the wind
shadow         to           shadow.


(trans. by Tony Barnstone and Willis Barnstone)

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

The arts (painting, poetry, etc.) are not just these. Eating, drinking, walking are also arts; every act is an art.

― César Vallejo

_____________________

—Medusa (so now you know where I got this week's SOW...)

—Photo by Katy Brown, who will be reading and 
displaying her photos along with 12 other artist-poets

at The Vox this Saturday at 13X13,

an event sponsored by Rattlesnake Press and WTF,

hosted by frank andrick.
The art pieces will be on display for the rest of April.

Scroll down to the blue box at the right of this for details

of the Vox reading and the other wonderful events

taking place this weekend.

Cups of Dark

—Photo by Taylor Graham

PATENT
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Barb-wire was born under the sign of Aquarius;
no, Pisces. Wrong, it was Sagittarius with his
patented, twisted-metal arrows. The question is,
whose patent? I've got a tablet with too many
answers, interminable letter-by-letter names
and dates which we must twist to our meaning
by the stars. In what year did the progenitor
finish nailing his twisted, stinging wire to each
fencepost in a line to carve the whole green
blooming field into quarters, that wild deer
must leap to find free range as Earth spins
in her unpatented planetary motion; and cattle
must churn their allotment of grassland to mud;
and only pollinating bees and birds might pass
unimpeded? And yet, once I found a swallow,
driven by fierce spring wind, impaled on a barb.
I believe they've yet to patent a fence that could
hold the wind.

__________________

PAST THE DEAD-END BARRICADE
—Taylor Graham

Where my dog led, I followed
off the trail trodden with boot-prints
giving up to mud; through wet meadow,

grasses growing taller for the recent storm,
each stalk filled with rain so it could muscle
higher, take over the vacant fringes

not yet leveled for a labyrinth of walls.
Some scattered buttercups played at sun,
but they were very small. The sun itself

a messy glow above overcast, almost an after-
thought like the miles of meadow that
used to be, winding through miles of woods.

This place so small now on the map.
My dog led past grinding-rocks of a people
gone and, in the mist and midst of meadow,

a sewer manhole far from the nearest
survey-stake. Only oaks stood higher
than the grasses, their heads

obscured like temple-heights in cloud.
Spring without its colors.
My dog seemed to know the way.

____________________

A CUP OF DARK
—Taylor Graham

Morning coffee. Then at dawn
I walk the wild north corner
where stunted oaks are leafing out
above the creek, where once
I found a lamb gutted by coyotes.
Mornings I go searching
what's left over from the dark.
In the oak-tops, a flash-
surprise of band-tailed pigeons,
as sun fills our small
cupped valley with light.
From a black oak, the nesting
hawk will feed her brood. Hunger
hunts the morning.

—Photo by Taylor Graham

POND OF COMMON WOODS
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

Coots-of-soot
troll rock-moss pond;
old brood owl hoots.

Pond frond growth
crowds grotto-form rocks.
Fronds on stalks bow low
on soft moon-glown sod.

Cork-color frogs
cross brown hollow logs
from sod to pond—
from pond to log.

Fox prowls to or fro,
looks long for toys of
fool's gold moths.

Wood storks groom.
Dogwoods bloom.


(Only the vowel "o" has been allowed in this poem.)

______________________

THE CRYSTAL BELL
—Carol Louise Moon

Not the copper cowbell
under the brown cow's neck,
nor the church bell
high in the tower
of my Methodist youth,
but this bell
of other significance.

This crystal-handled crystal
bell in the den
of my beloved aunt
tings with the same gaiety
of her voice—
sound waves of the clapper
striking crystal against crystal,
calling the faithful together.

____________________

WIND SONGS
—Carol Louise Moon

When the piccolo bird song rises, my hair
seems to grow a little faster, a little stronger.

My eyes and ear lobes seem to vibrate gently
with the inhalation of flute breath.

There is a deep river in my ear that hears
the song of the bassoon, its haunting melody.

My feet feel securely anchored to the floor
when receiving clarinet news.

But it's the French horn greeting that wraps
affectionately around my heart.


(first pub. in The Word Place, 2011)

____________________

WHEN RIVERS COLLIDE
(Written in the style of Pablo Neruda)
—Jessica Levin, Davis
 
When the tides roll in,

They collapse on one another,
Enveloping each other in a dark vacuumed embrace.
I wished I could save them from themselves,
But time was a grim enemy,
And I did honor their memory in sanctimonious prayer.

But what I could not tell you

Was how they called my name,
Their desperation kisses on my face,
Their tears a calming wind that melded into my skin,
Their soul mended my heart as theirs broke.
Shattered glass surrounded them and pierced their lives away.

I understood how their roses became poisonous lechers,
And how passion and love turned them into stark demons of the night.
My heart clenched in my chest, just watching,
How they wait for guidance from the stars when I saw the rain fall.
I saw tragedy strike.

I know that emotion, the height of an exhilarating flight,
For each moment you can fall, you can die.
I see how I can change this sadness,
Sadness and loss that wear down the walls of age.

But to me it means nothing, for my soul, my life,
Will never be changed again.

_____________________

Our thanks to today's fine contributors! Jessica Levin's poem is particularly pertinent in view of the recent exhumation of Neruda's body; if you haven't been keeping up with that, check out the New York Times article which I have placed a link to in the green box at the right of this. While you're looking at the green box, note the new submissions opportunities I've posted, including a couple of high-profile contests. Any contest that offers money is highly competitive, but don't let that scare you off. Someone has to win, and NorCal poets are among the best in the world! Give it a shot—the big winner might be you!

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

NIGHT'S CUP
—Taylor Graham

The elders—jays, woodpeckers,
ravens—accuse the morning.
It's April. Winter should be over.

Empty out the trash, wash
the dregs from the cup, rinse
it with chillest well-water.

Redemption of wet-green leaves.

_____________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Richard Hansen, Sacramento

One Small Length of Sea

COMPREHENDINGS

How many beginnings are allowed . . .
how do we sculpt air into recognition . . .

like Picasso’s wide, fast sweep of signature
caught by camera . . . ?

Air is the substance for breathing.
Let’s not get technical here.

The trees breathe for us.
It’s something like that.

And the electrical impulses:
Dramatic sky.  Mind at peak.

Awareness.  Expectation.
Even a little fear—hostile and dangerous.


(first pub. in Broomstick, 1980)

_____________________

COMMENTING ON YOUR NEWS

you say your mother
is coming to take care of you

she will wash all the dishes
and watch your sons

she will not tell lies
or get drunk

you will pay her rent
like a good son

and you and your wife
will go on a honeymoon

how the days will thrill
to your goodness

you are looking forward
to her arrival

______________________

A LAST FLOCK OF BIRDS

Behold this sunset,
how your eyes love it:
the lowering of light
the lengthening of shadow
the softening of color.

Notice the feel of the air
and the sounds that renew
into it, like beginnings
instead of endings.

This was a day you spent
without knowing its cost.
But now it has come down
to this hour. And you watch
the light go at the horizon.
And you feel the sadness
again for each day’s dying.

Where are the birds,
you start to ask . . .
and a last dark flock of them
flurries up in silhouette
and crosses the sky in the
last light and startles you . . .
and you don’t see where
they settle.

THE NEW ENERGY

Here runs the child—
a blur in his notion of the world,

too quick for camera
in his catching of the moment,

even his eyes a blur
as he runs past—

one foot on ground,
one foot in air.

Behind him, the still world
catches back a skip,

makes room for him,
lets him through—a blur.

                     
(first pub. in The Aurorean, 2007)

_____________________

THE WALK BACK

today because it was April
I walked one mile alone
down by the sea
looking for someone that I knew
a day ago
or two
or
three

but
however I count days
or measure
one small length of sea
after
such loss
winter stays in me

I could have brought back
a dead bird
a shadow from the windbreak wall
my own sent cry
or grief

but instead
I brought
this ugly stone
a piece of driftwood with
a rusted
nail
and
me


(first pub. in Squeezebox, 1995)

___________________

THE RECONSTRUCTED MEMORY
(After "Memory", 1937 by Agnes Pelton)

Let’s take this apart, discover it,
wonder is for wonder :

A pure white vase over-
spills with rose petals, floating off.

The vase gleams from within
with contained light.

A new-born sea erupts from its base,
teeming with new realities.

The white vase becomes white heat
no longer able to contain form.

Was it always meant to spew roses?
Create stars? Why is it familiar?

Memory: white flare, white burst
of energy taking shape,
fragile with illusion. . .

Memory: Needing to find you
in the swarm of thought, even now
able to define me.

Memory: Contrived image now,
talking on its own memory. . .
memories. . .on and on. . . beyond mine. . .

___________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for today's fine poems and pix as she riffs on our current Seed of the Week, A New Day. Time to launch into the new one: The Night is a Cup of Evil.

Yesterday's post, "Transformations", had to go through two transformations after it was posted. As usual, I posted it, then had breakfast, then got to thinking that I needed to list Robert Haycock's blog, both on Medusa and on Facebook, so at about 8am I did that. Then I zipped down to Roseville and picked up Sam's computer, which was getting a hard drive transplant; when I got back, Robert had emailed me, saying "Gee, thanks, for posting the keen and dandy Facebook album I sent you, but I can find no record of those two photos that you posted on Medusa today..." Eek! My apologies to Richard Hansen, whose photos those really were. So if you checked into Medusa after noon, you got the right stuff. Otherwise, my apologies to all concerned. And don't forget to check out Robert's photos on Medusa's Kitchen's Facebook page!

There's plenty of "stuff" to check out on Medusa's green board (have a look-see at Kate Asche's refurbed website, e.g.) and on the blue board below it. Tonight is quiet, poetry-wise, but then all heck breaks loose, with readings at all times of day on Weds., Thurs., Saturday. What a gift the NorCal poetry scene is! Be sure to take advantage of it.

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Today's LittleNip:

So I whisper to the words

Imploring them,     repeating them,
becoming intimate with their meanings,

though that is not important to know.
I want,    I need,   

their texture—
their silent directives.

Old muse of me
hurts to want so much of them,

thinking them necessary to use for language:
that precision,    that tone,    that undertone.

___________________

—Medusa
 

Transformations

Apollo

ARCHAIC TORSO OF APOLLO
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

We never knew his lost though famous head
where the eye-fruits kept ripening. Strange,
how his torso keeps glowing like candelabra dialed
to dim from deep inside, while his gaze

holds firm and gleams. Otherwise the bend
of the breast couldn’t blind you, nor could a smile
thread its way through a twist of loins, nor wind
into that dark segment where the seed attends.

Otherwise this stone would remain distorted,
defaced at the shoulders’ transparent shearing  off,
and wouldn’t glimmer just like a wild beast’s skin,

and wouldn’t be breaking out now from its borders
so like a star: for there is no place upon
it that can’t see you. You must transform your life.
                                                                  

(Translated by Tom Goff)

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TOWARD A NEW LIFE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

(for Dana Gioia on the occasion of his visit to
Folsom Lake College, April 11, 2013)

You must change your life.
—Rainer Maria Rilke


Have you ever known one thing that’s made you change
your life, the way the poet Rilke says
we should? He means that someone who’s arranged
a lifestyle for convenience—one who plays
at eating well, or making love, or thriving
monetarily—all of a sudden sees
a broken statue in a museum surviving
over the thousands of years, is abruptly seized,
scruff-shaken roughly. Knees wobble. Time slows.
She’s stunned by the power of art to bring us low,
to make our routine seem petty, hazed by confusion,
to strip us of pride in going, getting, spending.
And then to replenish, by something like transfusion,
our hearts’ first blood. Our souls start faintly, gently mending.

Nota Bene

No poet I know of can more strongly employ a
voice in the summons to art than Dana Gioia.

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THE SPIN FACTOR
—Caschwa, Sacramento

The whole universe is spinning, orbiting,
revolving, rotating at different speeds in
different directions and that is all just a
background for the where and the what
of everything that is to be encountered

backgrounds are spun as spiders spin webs:
they become pathways and the chief
means of orientation.  Disruption of the
background may force starting all over
and rebuilding it from the beginning

like gyroscopes on different types of
aircraft, each individual has a spin factor
that gives them a background custom suited
to their particular tastes and needs, so they
can assuredly forge ahead and deal with
change that clings to a constant background

a student with ADHD, for example, may
feel he needs to have the TV on in order
to focus on his homework, while a person
with a high level of autism may engage in
some form of rote repetitious behavior to

create a background for his own purposes;
here, even if they shout, that utterance is
not necessarily intended as part of a
message, it may be just a comfortably
predictable part of the constant background

many people enjoy playing solitaire, no
risk, no gain, just for fun.  This again is a
background activity.  Do solitaire players
and professional athletes share some of the
same thoughts while they play the same
game over and over and over again?

—Photo by Richard Hansen, Sacramento

FIRST SIGN

—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
(In memory of the poet 

Thomas Merton)

First sign of birdsong
of the morning
early sun waves to us
along meandering waves
under the bay water bridge
six swans emerge
unscathed from winter
on the first spring dawn
a poet on a pilgrimage
like young Francis to feed
and name the birds
in every peace garden
uniting all worshipers
the source of Zen
or Cabala
where life grows
even from my soul
like new buds of wild roses
over the dune side
of the emerging green,
pardon us now
for not taking care
of the earth,
we ask for numinous love
knowing the vine and trees
will sprout from above.

___________________
 

A NEW DAY VISION
—B.Z. Niditch

Visions in the liquid
of a new day vision
as a poet moves
his wheels
arriving in a labyrinth
of a recollected time
with scribbled sheets
of sleepwalking papers
in his back pocket
of a borrowed motorcycle
by first light
abandoned by wind
near the bay side
of a crystal blue ocean
as buzzing seagulls
rise by crags
of the beach gazebo
trying to stay awake
after a jazz gig
taking out the kayak
waterlogged
from a winter storm
in the snow of time past
eluding waves
listening to low tide
with a keen ear
of discursive voices
below the airy sky

________________
 

APRIL FIRST GHOST
—B.Z. Niditch

Lost with a fever
of home harbor waves
searching for my kayak
alone as breakers
lying on my hurt elbows
curved in a swagger wreck
of my solitary existence
full of its ocean self
East wind in monotonous cry
like an April first ghost
revolting against
past winter storms
but wildly determined
as any Greek sailor poet
to find my orange painted
machine even in the mouth
of a whale,
listening to calling gulls
who accompany me
like Jonah or Odysseus
to find my cubicle of treasure
even under sand and rocks
and here under white stones
anchored and ready to sail
after a mad work out
and a quicksilver jog
in knots of six A.M.
from a stealthy welcome.

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A NEWBORN
—B.Z. Niditch

A newborn rises
with three neon butterflies
near bogs and grass
along a row of sumac
she sings out
with a serenity
and tenderness
in her white outfit
as grandmother puts her
in a downy stroller
rocks back to back,
they call her "Spring"
with deflated green eyes
watching a budding earth
by the line
of skaters at frog pond,
what time spent
in luminous harmony
each astonishing moment
from the penlight sunshine
in her sleeveless dress
to play with her emerging
younger sister
appropriately named "Summer."

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APRIL STEPS OUT
—B.Z. Niditch

April steps out
of its breathless
shadowy earth
on common ground
near the blue hills
and am realizing
there is no bread
in the freezer
my winter treasure
has been squandered
lost in rain and fog,
still the wish
for first light
on your threshold
of your welcome mat,
or to hear Coltrane
in a coffee club,
showers fill my hands
on the cold porch,
trembling like the trees
in a past landscape
of Corot,
finding notes
in a foreign tongue
on the piano,
and all familiar stuff
of nature,
the dead birds wings
on watery grass,
school children on ice
on the indigo pond
in the palest dawn,
windows with writing
in red ink
by my sunglasses
and diary
with a voice of memory
for what we are really
searching for.

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Our thanks to today's contributors: Tom Goff, who will be hosting Dana Gioia at Folsom Lake College this coming Thursday; B.Z. Niditch, whose mention of Thomas Merton inspired me to post a Merton poem yesterday; Caschwa (Caschwa's mention of autism reminds us of the MIND Institute benefit tonight); Richard Hansen for his poem and photos; and Robert Lee Haycock for his wonderful photos of bridges posted today on Medusa's Facebook page. For more of Robert's photos, see bobbyhaycock.blogspot.com

This is the Mother of All Poetry Weeks in our area, and you don't want to miss a thing! So scroll down to the blue board (under the green board) at the right of this column for details a-plenty!

The Entrekins, who publish (among other things) Canary, send us a notice of grants available for writers: check it out at www.cciarts.org/quick_grant.htm

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Today's LittleNip:

WHAT I AM
—Richard Hansen, Sacramento

I am a Heart
Heavy or Light
Laughing or Crying
with
Sorrow or Joy

___________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Richard Hansen