Fade to White

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

FADE TO WHITE

Nina Simone—
is she real, or movie-real.
How do you save your heroine
who is doomed—
never see her again,
nor remember the name
of the song.
You are
but a tune
for her to hum.
Do not write her name
on your lips.
There is nothing left to prove.
She loves the winter rain.
She will move across the screen
in between the commercials
of your life—that true refrain.

____________________

SCENE FROM A MOVIE: A VOYEURISM

It doesn’t mean she didn’t think about it—
walking home with the stranger who

had shared an hour with her in the
coffee shop—two casual moments—

sharing time—and that it was cold,
and had been raining—only an

interesting detail of the story—
he was so courteous, a little bit sad, 

and she was restless, with a sadness
of her own, and their voices

intermingled in the clear night air,
their slow footsteps sounding

in unison on the wet sidewalk,
and at the corner he held her elbow

as she stepped down, and she looked
at him sideways, and you could almost

read her thoughts, and her smile
was the smile of someone who had

made a careful decision, and they said
goodnight, and there was no ending. 

SEEING THE MOVIE TWICE

She slapped me. She slapped me on
my stinging face. Face of rage. Face
of weeping. Face of denial. She said
I lied, and she slapped me.

_________________________

FROM THE TRAVELS

Faded signs would never name the towns.  It always    
rained, and there was no one to give directions.  The     
sole café was sad—like in the movies—or in the   
Hopper paintings.

A child always stood in the road behind us, bouncing
a red ball in the shadows between the few thin trees
that stretched toward each other across the lane. 
A woman always appeared in an open doorway,
watching us leave.

                                                         
(first pub. in Parting Gifts, Winter 1998-99) 

SESTINA FOR CHARLES BOYER

I don’t pretend to know those words in French—
I’ll not pronounce them here, I don’t know how,
but I still love the sound of them—the way
they charm the voice and titillate the ear,
so sensual against the listened mind,
romantic and believable as love.

And I have always been in love with love.
I loved a movie star once. He was French.
For years he held the heartstrings to my mind,
an adolescent misfit, learning how
to suffer love in secret, with an ear
for tragic love, for drama’s tragic way.

When talking to myself, the slowest way
home from the movie’s dark, and sad with love,
imagining his voice thrilling my ear…
imagining him saying things in French…
imagining him adoring me—of how
he would discover me…I filled my mind…

And I was leading lady in my mind.
Of Mayerling; I almost lost the way
to treasure life—oh, I can say it now:
the fatal sacrifice…ill-fated love…
their suicide, so gloomy, and in French…
tense background music building in my ear…

romantic nonsense? I turned my deaf ear
to that—I knew my inner mind,
but never knew of kisses that were French,
or opportune seductions in the way
infatuations take the place of love.
I simply loved, no one could tell me now.

But I was shy—it would not matter how
I make-believed—it was for my own ear,
those lines that spoke my passion-stricken love
with eloquence known only in my mind.
That maudlin tragedy has gone its way
but I still spark to accent that is French.

How did I hold so long, in this old mind,
that ear of remembrance, haloing the way
love was a movie star—so sad—so French.


(first pub. in The Poet’s Guild,  November/December 1996)

UNDER DARK

In the dark are other darks—luminous
and round—hollow and deep— ringed
with full moons and the echo of dogs.

The lure of late movies on TV.
The sleep of no sleep.
All the ache and buzz of night thoughts.

The turning of time
which is desolate and round
on its one-way clock.

The repetition and persistence
of the days.  The whistle that
will not reach to hush the barking.

And the other who is not asleep in
the house but roams about in the
gradual under-sound of other sound,

well past the October midnight
which is still summer—
well past all that is empty and unfound.

________________________

And it was snowing

in the blue window lit by
candlelight, soft and

directionless, but in a slow
flurry, and it was late,

past second chances,
or reconciliations,

something to add to
the drama—

what was left unfinished 
or never begun. 

Was it real snow,
or wishful illusion.

Nights are
allowed their secrets. 

Movies and life
are much alike, but for

certain mood-music 
and turns of expectation.  

MOVIE REVIEW: DON JUAN DEMARCO
(Johnny Depp, Marlon Brando, Faye Dunaway)

Don Juan sits down at the table with the pretty girl
who is waiting for her date to arrive. He strokes
her fingers, telling her which parts of her hand

are erotic to his mind. His mask and costume
are not out of place here. His intensity is real—
as is his momentary love for her.

She, of course, surrenders in less time than it
takes to tell of this, and of course we leave out
the details. After, Don Juan thanks her and leaves.

Her escort walks up just then and Don Juan
wafts through the crowded room in a flourish
of disguise. 

Now he’s on the roof of his suicide, waiting for
his worthy opponent to accept his challenge—
but it’s famed psychiatrist Marlon Brando

who comes up the side of the wall instead and
says he believes who Don Juan says he is.
They will change each other—or will they?

(in the course of analysis)

Don Juan will remain Don Juan, no matter who
the world says he is, and Marlon Brando will
retire with his belovéd to a garden in Paradise.

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

OLD MYSTERY

I want bead curtains to hang in my doorway
like those in old movies, tinkling softly
when someone brushes through.

(first pub. in Brevities, October, 2009)

________________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for today's lovely breakfast of poems and photos; Joyce loves the movies, and she's got a huge pantry full of movie poems, a few of which she shared with us today to help us end up the current Seed of the Week: At the Movies. Our new SOW is Roots—those of trees, heritage, origins, hair, teeth... See what you can whip up on the subject of Roots, and send the results (poetry, photos, artwork) to kathykieth@hotmail.com/. No deadline on SOWs, though.

And don't forget to send your poems and visuals about Sacramento to Medusa, either, to help us celebrate Sac. Poetry Day (Oct. 26) with Medusa's Marathon Mega-Post that day!

—Medusa

Fantasies Redux

—Photos by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

DORIAN THE MOVIE
—Jeanine Stevens, Sacramento

    (After The Portrait of Dorian Gray,
     from a story by Oscar Wilde)       

He was handsome, young and new,
hair a slick wave and cravat studded with pearls.
I focused on the floral tea cozy,
expensive china cups and pastoral scenes
in gilt frames. Life progressed,
people loved him. Others grew old,
puffy, veins like slow
rivers rose thru papery skin.
Dorian remained in beauty,
but evil and scary, a face so immobile
I could peel a scrap of sea scroll
from his cheek. He turned people away;
they didn’t count. He didn’t age,
no children or wife to give worry.
Everyone said, “Sort of a miracle.”
With each evil act the portrait wrinkled,
sprouted age spots. Baggy eyes
and slack jaw tore at the canvas.
He hid the hideous rendition,
yet, in a moment of pride, recovered
his cracked image. The portrait abruptly
switched to Technicolor,
flesh shriveled, sagged beyond
recognition, paint became
blood. Some screamed;
a woman wept. It seemed his soul
got lost in pigment and brush strokes,
soul turned inside out to wash
away blackness, like the label in a seam:
“Instructions on how to launder.”
Out of the confusion of childhood,
I tried to link Dorian to stories
in my 4th grade reader.
Having just finished Aesop’s Fables,
I wondered about the moral,
could think of only a few: don’t be
mean, don’t grow old, don’t trust beauty,
and don’t get your portrait painted.

____________________

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE REDUX
—Jeanine Stevens
   
In that decade, everything was Swedish,
songs of a summer night, wild strawberries,
and Marianne and Johan in the six-part
disintegration of a marriage.
I gave my class in “Family Studies”
the option of attending (with critique),
or a term paper on communication.
I was surprised so many came, but
after all the J Street Theater was the first
to serve espresso in little cups.
Long agonizing sequences
of Sunday dinners at Marianne’s
parents required an entire day of squabbles
and blame. Incapable of marriage
by their own admission, Marianne and Johan
do not separate. Neither satisfied
but too insecure to leave.
“Emotional illiterates,” he said.
Eventually they parted ways.
I hadn’t thought much about Bergman
lately until a film in this new century,
Sarabande, featuring Marianne and Johan
together again as friends (I think).
She visits (never found out why).
The final scene, he comes to her bed
with wet PJ’s. Please directors, let us have
our memories, hopes and fantasies,
or is this another kind of caring
I have yet to learn.

Gargoyles in Santa Cruz

CROCODILE TEARS AND THE COWBOY MATINEE
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Somewhere between home and the All-Western
Afternoon at the Wanee Theater, Stevie Krumtinger
Lost his quarter for the show.  Lost his dime
For popcorn too.  Stevie was nine, and
Did not seem to handle
Personal disaster well.
He set up a wail outside the box office
That would have scared the chaps off
The Sons of the Pioneers.  A man came
Up, handed him a quarter: “Here, little
Boy.  Enjoy the show!”  But Stevie
Continued to snivel—he was a good sniveler—
“P-popcorn?”  Guy tossed him a dime and
Walked off.  Suddenly all smiles, Stevie led
The way to the ticket line.  His act worked
For two or three more Saturdays before
Folks caught on.  But by then, he’d saved
Enough for a couple of boxes of Milk
Duds.  Some Frosty Malts as well.

THE VOCABULARY OF MOVEMENT
—William S. Gainer, Grass Valley

Modern dance,
must be
an acquired taste.
At the end
of the performance
all I could think
was—
those girls
really need
to wash
their feet.

__________________

CROSSING THE WATERS
—William S. Gainer

They’re saying
Jesus
walked on water.
That ain’t nothing.

I drove across
the Mighty Mississippi
in a rented Ford
automobile,
fifty feet
above it all.
So yeah—
I’m available
for taking your
prayers.

Don’t be surprised
if it takes a while
to get back to you
though,

like Jesus,
I’m a busy guy.

___________________

WAITING FOR THE FLOOD
—William S. Gainer

The water's always
wetter
than you thought,
deeper too.

But hell,
if it’s going to
rain
all you can do
is wait for the flood.
Sometimes it comes,
sometimes
no.

And it’s always wetter
than you thought
and most times
deeper too.

With luck
you can keep a toe
on the bottom,
the chin up
high enough,
and find a hand
to pull you out …
but, sometimes
no.

It’s just how
floods work,
always wetter
than you thought.

 View from the Train

MY BOY SCOUT DAYS—
—William S. Gainer

I remember those days,
too many rules.
You weren't supposed to
use a firearm
unless accompanied
by an adult.
Could lead
to some very awkward
situations.

I was trying to make it through
the fire-starting class,
get a merit badge
hang it on my sash
act like I was
somebody,
but the troop leader
was of the opinion
that the three of us,
me
and two of my brothers,
enjoyed the quest for combustibility
a bit too much.
We didn't even get to keep
the waterproof matches.

These days
my camping experiences
are pretty much confined
to the Travelodge, a rented car,
and the waitress
pouring
the morning coffee.

I'll probably go to my grave
never having started
a fire
with two sticks
and a string.
Christ, the emptiness
of it all ...

___________________

THE LOUDEST MAN IN THE ROOM

raises his voice
brags
failure,
compliments change
for not having feet,
good for having no ears
and the conspiracies
for keeping him
from becoming king.

The loudest man
in the room believes
one of us
somewhere—
one of us
cares
about his
demand 
for mediocrity—
acceptances
of it.

The loudest
man
in the room
is just—loud.


—William S. Gainer

____________________

SHOPPING FOR A DREAM
—William S. Gainer

Maybe they have
something else,
something
that will take you places,
places
where the women
glide,
pull their faces
close
outline your lips
with whiskey-dipped
fingers—
offer one last
kiss
before never
saying
goodbye …

___________________

YOU'LL HAVE TO ASK,
"WHY, WHY DID THEY ..."
—William S. Gainer

Yeah,
there was another woman—
Patzie.
They wrote love poems
to one another.
Some true, some not,
they had fun.
She got sick, took a while,
gone now.
She was a little older,
him—banged around some,
it showed.
Time
gave them about
that much,
not much,
about as much
as you can squeeze
between two fingers
when they’re pinched
tight—
not much.
Yeah,
they used to write
love poems
to one another.
He still does.

___________________

ME AND MRS. MAGOO
—William S. Gainer

It’s me and Kae St. Marie,
the odd dreams again—
I’m like Mr. Magoo
her, Mrs. Magoo.
We’re at Disneyland,
checking out
the restrooms,
“Oh, this is nice.”
“Look, they got soap!”
We’re up to 13 now,
still working on it.
I’m sleeping good
though,
Mrs. Magoo too.
 

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

‪I have wondered how things would've been different in America‬
‪if Christopher Columbus had been funded to explore by the English instead of Spain‬
‪It probably wasn’t beyond the new rule of the Tudors in 1492 ‬
‪to think of international colonizing for their crown and country‬
‪For one thing, the English likely wouldn’t have brought slavery to the “New World”‬
‪English had indentured servitude, but people could buy themselves out of it‬
‪However, Spain at the same time kidnapped and stole people from Africa to be slaves‬
‪The English thought of themselves as superior to Africans‬
‪but the idea of buying and selling Africans would have been disgusting to many‬
‪Also perhaps Henry VII also would not have Columbus arrested and shamed in 1500— ‬
‪Queen Isabella was one mean, bloody betraying bitch who started the Inquisition as well as expelled Jews‬
‪If the America's first colonizers had perhaps been funded instead by the women of the Tudor household‬
‪California's Capitol Building today wouldn’t have Isabella's statue‬…

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

_________________

—Medusa

Berkeley Municipal Pier

The Heart Lives On

CHAPLINESQUE
—Hart Crane, 1889-1932

We make our meek adjustments,
Contented with such random consolations
As the wind deposits
In slithered and too ample pockets.

For we can still love the world, who find
A famished kitten on the step, and know
Recesses for it from the fury of the street,
Or warm torn elbow coverts.

We will sidestep, and to the final smirk
Dally the doom of that inevitable thumb
That slowly chafes its puckered index toward us,
Facing the dull squint with what innocence
And what surprise!

And yet these fine collapses are not lies
More than the pirouettes of any pliant cane;
Our obsequies are, in a way, no enterprise.
We can evade you, and all else but the heart:
What blame to us if the heart live on.

The game enforces smirks; but we have seen
The moon in lonely alleys make
A grail of laughter of an empty ash can,
And through all sound of gaiety and quest
Have heard a kitten in the wilderness.

______________________

—Medusa

Great Eternal Ships

The Phantom of Locke

—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA

A PEAL OF BELLS

The silhouettes seemed to unroll
As if dropped from the hands of angels.
The evening, unhemmed and still wrinkled,
Grinds the last of the day flat, leaving
An off-key kind of tango between here
And the stars.  Plenty of room for walking.

It was the sweetness of the whole thing
That baffled me.  For a few moments I felt
I could slip the season on like a garment,
Dance toward the moon, amazed at the music
Of it all.  The entire scene coupled to what
It is that burns hot in our hearts when we
Can no longer game at naming what our bodies
Touch and revel in that dusky embrace.

I will wait here on this hill above the sea.
I will lift my soul like a crown to the wind
That drives me to these blue heights
Where I think I am able to see the heart
Itself, pass through the streets in covered
Carriages, plying the ephemeral into bells
Carried through time as splendid memories.

Morning, Locke

DO NOT FEAR, MY LITTLE ONE

Suddenly the cage fell away.
The morning light sheared
Across the beast.  His fur glowed
As if a weight were lifted from it.

The water kept rising.
We had struggled to escape
The flood but had been given
Poor directions and now the water
Was chest-high and we were becoming
Terrified.

Good memories of our homes, the room
With the sailing ships in it.  The spanker
Boom hanging over the edge of the water.
We begin to hear dreams going through
Their death flurries.  We always thought

The beast with its radiant wings, iridescently
Bright, soaring, would remain contained.
And now it is beginning to rain,
Pocking the surface of the sea.
We begin to think the future will be like this.
We will drown or fall prey to the beast.

Do not fear, my little one.  Do not fear at all.
I will hold you high above the flood.
You shall not hear the dark beast’s call.
He will not smell your heart's deep blood,
You will not fail or fall beneath his thrall.
We are the great eternal ships that have always
Lifted high above the flood, and so shall we now.

And saying this, we saw the beast find a far horizon.
The flood then fell away from us, we could see
Beyond that which was impossible before.
Such a deep dawn then came upon us with thunder
In the craw of the escaping night, glorious
And far, far, away from what we knew as memories,
Leaving us at the edge of forgetting even as we spoke.

Key Street, Locke

BOUND BY A DREAMING

Ramon brought the book with the outside
In it to the twilight chamber this evening.
We had not seen the book in many years.
It is kept with the night library in the cliff tower.

When it is opened, it shows the places
Around our far islands as if they were real.
The waves crash, the birds fly, smoke rises
From the villages, animals run in the streets.

The glow produced by the book fills the room
With a light so soft it seems made of the light
Sails dream ships hold to the wind when they speak
To us in our hearts at the gates of the twilight
Beyond the woods of Ichy where we stole rods.

I began one of the old songs as we watched
The enchantment of magical places begin
To occupy our blood once again.  It was a balm
That made the images seem more than alive.

“Our conversations this night must not include
Anything that will advise the others that we are here.
Tonight we are as cats in the changing of the world.”

We are bound to the book by dreaming.  It is brought
That we may find our ways across unknown lands,
The wild and the hostile.  We are warriors of the light.
With the book we can see the deep pools in the river.

Ramon kept us at the book for most of the night.
Then, he took a handful of pebbles and threw
Them with great force at a small bush just outside
The glow.  A beautiful music came from the bush.
Then a woman in white came forth and toward us.

Ramon bowed to her and handed her the book
Which she closed, and she went 'round the bush
Faster and faster until all was a blur.

“We know enough now to continue,” Ramon said.
We felt well-armed and guarded by an unknown
Presence when we left for the islands in the morning.

 Water Dragon

FORSYTHIA YELLOW

She wore a dress of forsythia yellow.
Her eyes had a green-gold hue.
She looked like a dream on my pillow.
And her mouth it tasted like dew.

Her words were bright forsythia yellow.
She promised to always be true.
She spoke with the honey of Autumn’s mellow.
Her lies sounded perfectly true.

I wrapped my heart in forsythia yellow.
I gave it without a clue.
She told me that I was her fellow.
Each kiss made my world anew.

Do not believe in forsythia yellow.
Like Spring it can never be true.
She took this heart from my pillow,
Tore its wings, stole my breath and she flew.

        *

And though I may say
That I must look away,
I will dance and will bow
And will play.

Yes, I’ve fallen in love with forsythia yellow
That mixes its yellow with blue.
Only a fool forgets forsythia yellow.
For the green it becomes never is true.

All that green that surrounds all forsythia yellow
Is a heart that will never know bliss,
Just a kiss and away runs forsythia yellow
And all that is left is the wish.

DO NOT THINK I AM A SPIDER

I have never been here before.
Can you hear me?
I hope you can hear me.

There is a little room not far from here.
I could meet you there if you tell no one.
I will bring guardians.  I will bring the sounds
Of footsteps.  I think we can forget everything.

Can you hear me?  You live in another time.
There is another fate for you, isn’t there?
I can see you in the murals and on the walls.
You don’t know that I am speaking to you
As if you were a heaven full of exaltations.
I will wait in the center.  Do not think I am
A spider, something dangerous.
I am an instrument needing music.

Let me make a night for you of gold and flowers.
Can you hear me?  I will make it before November
Does its lingering at the mirror to convince us
The Winter will surely come.  We know that,
Don’t we?  Bear with me here.  I will not harm you.

Are you feeling better now?  This ash is our own
Past.  I have nothing to do with time.  I mean,
What do we have?  I have never been here before.

____________________

THE SONGS OF THE DEAD

I was living here before the earthquake
And tsunami.  There is only rubble here
Now.  This is no longer a place.
The dreams have been pounded out
Of the things we knew.  Now the sea
Is flat. There are no longer rooms
In which we can be safe.

What is amazing is that the sea is flat.
The tsunami wrenched it awry and covered
It as far as one could see with gyres of debris.

These are all the songs of the dead and are sung
At every chance.  The wind says where
To stand to get the best acoustics.

What is amazing is that the songs never stop.
“Dropping from the veils of the morning.”
I find myself walking in a dream.
I am a white deer.  I am supposed to meet someone.
They have gone to sea and have been gone a long time.

I remember seeing the buildings shaking, tumbling.
I recall hearing the tsunami coming toward the shore.
I remember the dead riding on the lips of the tsunami.

What is amazing is that these words are here at all.
The sea is flat.  The songs fill the air.  I stand
With my feet in the water at the edge of the sea.
Beyond all of this, I imagine you reading these words.

PAST ALL CHANCE

You tell me this is a mirage, something
Constructed of vibrations of light over
Sands too hot to touch with the hand.

No.  It is not.  The heart gets torn like this.
There is little we can do about it.
It is like a chord played on a guitar.
We dream inside each other's dreams.

We are a fire there, a glory, a gift
That does not depend on any mythology.
Our task becomes that of the first who named.
I have wanted you for a long time.
Even the weather entrusts itself
To this task as if it were an ocean
Bidden to carry us past all chance.

I wonder how many things I am,
Beyond a skeleton and blood and muscles?
This becomes an engraving, a scent upon
The wrist, a dream dreamed long ago,
Made to live on plains and mountains
Where time has no dominion or memory.

I sit looking at what rises from the desert heat.
It does have rooms in my memory, unfolds
Without time or poetry.  Perhaps you are right.
Everything shimmers in the heat of the day.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

—Carl Sandburg

______________________

—Medusa

Morning Glory

Like a Spring Lamb Dancing Comes...

Dry

—Poems by Taylor Graham, Placerville

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis

A VENUE, A WAKE

At first light down by the creek
there sits this early morning
a judge-bird. No. Two, perched low
on the rocks. A third
vulture atop a ghost-pine.
I ease the space
between us. I want a better view,
I want to know
what brought them.
If I step too close, too fast….
One bird lifts off,
settles higher. Five, six
more in ponderosa. Another pair
in an oak that leans across
the way.
I’m losing
count. Two more sail in,
dawn shining through their wing-
fingers.
In green-
grassy swale, a departed deer,
spirit-slipped in the night,
and now fifteen undertaker-birds.
They’ve come
to make death clean. 

 Zebra Dragonfly

HOW DID IT END?

It’s like a movie I saw once
and mostly forgot as soon as I left
the theater. A sidewalk café,
a table for two; she’s sitting alone
with her tea and its leaves of fortune.
A stranger pauses at the empty
chair, says something in a foreign
lilt I can’t quite catch. The film
moves through the stations
of romance to its conclusion, which
I’ve forgotten. Endings are
unsatisfactory as in any fairytale.
But still, they end; lights
come on, everyone exits. All I
recall of this story is glycerin cake—
something I’d never heard of.
Is it soap, or a confection? Google
leaves the question unsettled.
An empty chair.

 Golden Ripples

HALFWAY UP

The rubble-people stoop against the wind,
gathering stones that once were wall shaken
down by whims of earth. Once a hall
with tall windows serene from its height gazing
out on sky—gone. People as if chastised
for ancient guilt, people in boots or without.
It’s almost winter—a young boy asks
if it will be endless cold, famine, bitter wind
that sings through gaps of wall. His sister,
the one they call a little slow, wails
as if she intuits the answer. And still, stone
by stone the people improvise
rebuilding a wall, knowing, like a paragraph
that keeps repeating in a book, it will
come down again. That whistling—is it wind,
or the piping of their breath, or birds
so close to sky? Maybe echoes rising from
the plain, that has no hills for climbing.
Up here, they keep on climbing
with stones that always come back down.

 Two Crawdads

FROM THE HISTORY OF SILENCE

Getting those chariot horses in harness
was like fitting lightning into a sonnet—
electric tension, a matched pair of blooded
stallions flashing at each other warning-eyes.
The golden cart no cookie-cutter design;
engineers had to research and dream every
detail. Consider weight, balance, deep
weather; how to navigate sand like dry river-
beds. The horizon rises blue-lilac as exhaust,
it rumbles the lungs, beats thunder. Wheels
hum with wind, the horses breathe histories
unknown to the compilation of large
words. This is but a replica, an image;
the horses shoulder to shoulder unrhymed.

THE HAUNTED CELLAR

Here’s a great gathering for the making
of words. Under the funky hanging lamp,
a white-haired gentleman is about
to recite an ode. Above his head, a rumble-
thunk as if spirits were moving
furniture. And why not? Over a century
this house has welcomed receptions,
memorials, tragicomedies, all
the pains and common joys of life—how
could there not be ghosts called back
to remember, and remind? Nary a crumb
forgotten under the deepening
of starless nights and full-moon hauntings.
A young lady sets down her glass;
threads her way to the front of the room,
knocks her head on that lethal hanging
lamp, and bursts into song.
Who’s next in line? Check your clipboard.
The ghost has signed up for the open
mic, and all this is his poem.

SCHAFFUNG

Here’s a poem in German about sheep, Schafe.
And just now my small flock, led by Sophie
the con-artist, passes my window, nibbling
grass and forbs. With clever ewe-teeth she takes
a little bite (ein Bisschen, like my bisschen
Deutsch), greens protruding from lips as fluent
as fingers. And here comes Cowboy
my German Shepherd Schäferhund who has no
thought of herding sheep, but only reading
the morning news on a wind that’s just
arrived at the door of our landscape, the Land-
schaft of our outskirts of discovery. This
poem got me thinking about schaf’s small flock
of root-letters. Sophie my Schafe disdains
roots, she goes for the succulent leaves,
the flowers, the poetry—poetry being
a Schaffung, a creation. Just so, I don’t try
to reason such things out. Instead, I’ll
take a walk, and see if a poem like a spring-
lamb dancing comes.

THE NIGHT’S MIND

It comes in the open window
like a brown fox. I’ve never seen a fox
that color. Did it climb a high branch,
then make a leap of faith like a small child
before slipping over the sill to fall
asleep in a corner forgotten by the lamp?
It glows there without a moon.
Impossible to feel alone, with a creature
that exists here as a typing exercise,
the quick brown, like finding
the keys for “eel” and savoring that
repeated feel of “e” before it moves on
as all things do. Even this night-fox
will leave before morning—not angry
but because, in the impermanence
of all things, it must.

 Zombie Shed Door

DOOR IN THE TREE

There’s a point between late
and forgetting everything, dropping essentials

as you stop to write a poem—
let’s say, to a tree. Imagine it becomes a myth

of something you lost years ago—the land
of childhood slid off your map

as you sat at breakfast, not even seeing
cardinals at the feeder or the young neighbor kid

being drawn up a snow-hill to flash
screaming and sledding down. No more

rider of fairy-steeds. Just look at this framed
photo, you astride a sacred-cow

whose rumen sounds like clock-work.
But back to that poem you wrote, then wedged

in the crevice of a gnarled old tree—wrinkled
just like you are—as if that crevice

might be a door you can’t quite see yet.

As if a poem might know the secret word.

Today's LittleNip:

VISITATION                       

It passes
over—El Greco
silhouette
in flight. Dark
on this gray December sky.
A great blue heron

on approach—
descent. I’m holding
breath, heart wing-
beat to land
with Heron, who now stands thin 
in winter stubble,

our muddy
field. Arrow-crested;
bill-neck-legs
perfect fine-
nib penstroke. It fixes me
with its reedy eye.

_______________________

—Medusa, thanking today's cooks in the Kitchen, and noting there are only 15 MORE DAYS until SACRAMENTO POETRY DAY on October 26! Be sure to get your poems, artwork and photos about Sacramento to kathykieth@hotmail.com in time for MEDUSA'S MARATHON MEGA-POST on that day—and you don't need to be from Sac. to play along, either.

Starting Points

Steve Marsh Glass Electrical Insulators Collection

—Photos from Folsom Historical Museum, Folsom, CA

by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

WHAT WE HAVE

We have a starting point
in life shaped for us
like a geometric sculpture
of Giacometti,
climbing up hills
like Sisyphus
but forced down
by stones and rubble
that give us trouble,
we have darkened sea
with a lark's cry at noon
but we weigh diving
into a day's just surviving,
you make a run
on the starting line
in your life's marathon
but time may run out
even here on the lawn.

________________________

DON'T MENTION IT

The possibility
that the street
you walk on
collapses in a sink hole
or a meteorite hits
like a glacier
on your noonday
and you miss work
in the inferno,
or "Death in Venice"
becomes a reality show
from the riverbed flood,
or your old wounds
of your expressive words
open up as you meet
your ex-lover
by the city walls
running for your lives.

_______________________

RAINED OUT

Rained out on Sunday
for your
official performance
but still the numbers
of patrons arrive
and you do not care
what the media
or your manager says
and you open the hall
with extra keys
find an electrician to do
lights and a friend
to pass out the programs
call up the critics
get up on stage
until the initial dawn
and blast your sax.

 from Charity George Collection

BELLADONNA WEEKEND

In "Little Italy"
watching the film
Il Sorpasso
after the cast party
having orange pasta
at 3 A.M.
with two guys
disputing Nietzsche
and Che
waiting for the Sunday
papered-over reviews
of my play,
expecting to rise
up and jog in Central Park
on my belladonna weekend
from your nightshade
in a better mood.

______________________

ON BOARD BZ'S SHIP

Beyond the home harbor
you hear the morning call
of birdsong reaching high
over the sound barrier
by reefs on the ocean,
a ship's noted passenger
hears the brief melody
and composes
a jazz sonata for oboe
in b flat major
attends its premiere
in Paris,
also listening on board
a poet writes his lyrical epic
based on that one-note
theme in his word play,
a Polish artist washes
the canvas of modernism
after hearing
the airborne winged singer
in the impalpable wind,
yet what of the canary
who escaped its cage.

_____________________

WHY A POET

Why do words
fall on my countenance
just as the dancer
of Swan Lake
awakens her feet
at her nightly performance
reaching a Russian
surreal painter of light
like the Dutch Vermeer
mastering his brush strokes
on a canvas
he must complete,
like a jazz musician
Benny Goodman
or Louis Armstrong
words fall on me
as a Beat
every day of the year,
the poet-like bird song
as a spirit breathes
with such ease belongs
as a prophetic seer.

 from Melissa Lauritzen Collection

ON LOCATION

Move your arms
said the French director
like the Renaissance statue
of David by Michelangelo
let your voice resound
in the range of an Italian tenor,
your body
like a lion, stud or stallion,
your earthy eyes
like Valentino
every nuanced expression
as in Eisenstein's Potemkin
with romantic poetry lines
understudied by Wordsworth
Byron, Shelley and Pushkin.

______________________

IN A PAWN SHOP
(Oct. 7, 1849, Poe's passing)

In a pawn shop
in New Orleans
among famous named
and unread Poe volumes
and library antiques
when you unashamedly
need a leak
waiting for the auction
to begin
your weak nerves begin
to be in shreds
as Poe begins to speak
in heady whispers
and then out loud
in the midst
of a Gothic horror
of the boisterous crowd
and what if critics think
that my accent
is like his
as the business starts
my breath swirls
and my heart beats
a million times
as if there was my rhyme
with a raspy verse
of his reciting in time,
none leave the premises
or want to think
of an arbitrary curse
or a detective's crime
this being the anniversary
of Poe's death
as an old inspector
in a raincoat
from the basement
holds up the first book
of his to sell
and all goes well
for a hour or two
as the room empties
its traffic of retinue
yet here is Poe
or a facsimile
resting in an armchair
by me.

Hippo in Cup

Charity George Collection

DU FU'S VOYAGE
(712 -770)

Reading to himself
in the flying wind
as absent air
releases snowflakes
on the bittersweet earth
to find his own body
in a soft glance
captured as first light
between passages
in slow traveled lines
of pleading verse.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

LI PO'S WORLD
(701-762)

Our lives
in gestures of rivers
make their eternity
only through words.

_____________________

—Medusa

Clare Ellis Pin Back Collection

What I Meant To Say...

 On the Western Edge

—Photos by Robert Lee Haycock

BREAD AND BUTTER
—Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch

Across a lake of mud on a cardboard raft 
I search for my headstone among mannequins and marbles.

"I'm hurt.  I'm hurt.  I'm hurt."  The television will not leave off.    
At gunpoint the caretaker brings me out of the closet where I hide myself.

I was never supposed to be here. 
Du pain.  Du beurre.

She sleeps and I cup her breast in my hand.   
Venus is far too bright.

______________________

GULLIBLE'S TRAVELS
—Robert Lee Haycock

Out in the middle of the garlic fields 
Boutiques had sprung up filled with 
Things nobody could afford to buy 
I swear there was never a harbor 
Here when I was a child

The hotels were empty and the streets 
None of the clocks could agree on 
Just what time it was or why 
The moonshine flowed free 
And I was in trouble

Funicular trains ran all night long but 
They made you seasick so walking 
We found a shortcut over the hills 
Too many times we came upon 
Invisible cities in the dark

Down in the valley the people carried 
Water to the trees in cupped hands 
We tried to make a home there 
The abalones we planted 
Never seemed to thrive

Hibiscus, Strawberry Tree, Sycamore

WHAT I MEANT TO SAY
—Robert Lee Haycock

The train never stopped here before
All these little houses following us
Across the hills all through the night
Around that bend is a familiar place
I've never been but down by the lake
You tie our horses to an electric fence
That doesn't belong there anymore
The light is coming and we mustn't
Go further on this branching trail then
Our bones will dance out of the ground

___________________

REHEARSAL
—Robert Lee Hackcock

Candies are strewn across purple table cloths with promises not to touch them yet
We sew our own eyelids shut singing old words to new melodies
We try not to laugh but there will be no more flowers
And for all that only the Dog star remains faithful

 Shall We Stroll?

ROLLING ROCK, EXTRA PALE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Killer, statutory rapist, craftsman of ambushes, and king
of traps who could chain even the slippery black-crowned
linchpin of death. Complex man, vital, ambitious,
leash-holder of ancient Greek wardheelers, master builder,
a Robert Moses of Corinth only a Frank Bidart
could do justice to…plotting moral filth and deviousness
deep inside your Augean stables, your punishment
is what taxes all your cunning, bankrupts your
ingenuity because it voids all ingenuity: you hoist
and heave that mother boulder every daybreak up Hell-Hill,
till it’s had all it can take and chases you, Indiana Jones,
downslope. You being you, each new day finds

a new scheme, a new invention timely as Poetry Daily
for heaving that load of stone up over the last crumbled
lip of ledge summit, just so it can tumble down unsplit
into the tombstone valley, then shudder to rest,
an Abu Simbel in the basement of useless accomplishments.
Yesterday, you wore a new groove across the previous day’s
rock-hefting groove, and for your trouble cut only rut.
Today, let your back and gluteus take the whole weight,
while with free fists you scrabble for the charcoal, saltpeter,
and flint just out of reach. You’re after

the last-chance blast that just might power the thing
up and over. One shot, like Captain Kirk battling
the scaly green alien. You, sir, are the Wile E. Coyote
of self-outwitters, feckless inventors with boxes from
Acme. But all this time, you’re getting paler than pale
ale, just rolling that ghost rock up those ever-sneering
crags and steeps and steppes. Did I mention that,
devil though you are, you are the patron saint
of the repetitive-motion-injured? Ponder that,
while you’re shoving that big lump up that last
carpal tunnel.

 I Can See Her Lying Back in Her Satin Dress

‪YES, IN 1974 I KISSED THAT GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH. ‬

—James Lee Jobe, Davis

Her dog watched us,
Making sounds like an accordion.
The sky was an orange blanket,
Draped over the world,
Smelling like automobile exhaust.
Marijuana may have been involved.
I said something to her
That I wanted to sound hopeful,
But it didn't give the girl any hope at all.
No, I no longer remember her name,
But she liked to he move her head a lot
When she kissed, too much, in fact.
I was confused.
I tried to match the head movements,
And it became a weird head moving contest.
Later I kissed her somewhere else
And she moved her head then, too.
I know because I peeked.
I thought that this might deserve an unusual poem,
And forty years later, I tried to write it.

____________________

I KNOW WHY THE MOON CHANGES SHAPE. The moon is an interesting fellow. He is doing a dance for the amusement of the stars, to the music of cherries and death. You might touch this music and shape it like clay, like a dream, like a financial plan that you will abandon. The moon has lucid dreams in the daytime, wide awake, and sometimes peeks around the corners of the sunlight. Peekaboo. Look up and maybe you will see him in the air, far off. Breath this air. The music is playing, the moon is once again changing, the earth spins. The universe expands all of the time. Why? Because the universe hears the music, too. Cherries and death. Cherries and death.

—James Lee Jobe

 The Other Side of No Tomorrow

YOU ARE HOLDING THE FACE OF THE MOON IN YOUR HANDS. You are tracing the arc of her lips with your most gentle finger, your slightest touch is a caress. This is the church of faraway dreams, the temple of her private smile. This is the night with a breath of fresh snow. Your life is a trance, and that which you think of as your own soul is the wind, peacefully blowing a hole in the sky. She is the moon, and you cannot hold her for long, and being wise, and being quite kind, you let her go. Yes, she rises up to heaven, where she shines for you.

(in memory of Kenneth Patchen)

—James Lee Jobe

_____________________

IN EVERY CAVE, A DRAGON
—James Lee Jobe

       (for John Jungerman 1921-2014)

Have I known sorrow and death? Of course.
This is, after all, a life. I am grateful
For death. Death reminds me
To live. Death touches every life,
And as we age, it touches us
More and more often. To live a long life
Is to bury many people that we love.
We are mortal, that is the curse
And the blessing, both. One
Travels with the other, like twins,
Not identical, but fraternal and close.
But listen, every pain increases
The next pleasure. You lose a loved one,
And love those who remain even more.
After the snow melts, there is Spring.
Life is not infinite, but love is.
The heart grows with need, if you let it,
If you find the strength to embrace the sorrow.
For although you cannot walk away
From the darkness, you can walk through it,
And come out on the other side.
For there is another side, every cave
Has its dragon and its treasure.
Wounds can heal, storms will pass.
The rough road can be smoothed.
In love, there is courage,
And in courage, love.
This is life, and this is free will.
What will you choose for yourself? 

 Up and Down

I COULD DIE FOR THE BROWN EARTH OF YOUR EYES.
—James Lee Jobe

I could remove my own eyes
And slip them into your pocket,
To go wherever you go,
To be wherever you are.

Or would my tongue be better?

I could pray for the softness
Of your voice late at night,
When the storms pass
And I am reminded
Of how I love the tumult
That comes from being a human
In this fractured and storied world.

Prayer is a blessing in itself.

When you enter the ocean,
As perfect as a fish,
The salt water welcomes you
The way that I welcome you to my arms,
Perfect and complete and whole.

You are also as perfect as the ocean.

This is the story that we populate.
The beginning of our tale
Was written long ago
And the end hasn't been written at all.
We live this way, welded
To each other, entwined like rope.

This is the story of a long marriage.

I could die to make your funeral complete.
I could die to beat of my loyal heart.
I could die to embrace the sweetness of your grave.
I could die to laugh at your fruit trees and tomatoes.
I could die to sweep the sky of clouds and fear.
I could die for the warmth in your feminine soul.
I could die for the brown earth of your eyes.

But I choose to live, here,
For one lifetime,
With you.

 Upstanding

Today's LittleNip:

GIFTS
—Robert Lee Haycock

My dreams are much
Too loud and full of smoke
Chinese opera and putty noses
Blood everywhere
But everyone brings gifts
Offering to help
Call the knacker's cart
If only I knew where I am

_________________________

—Medusa, noting that the Cal. Poets in the Schools conference meeting at IONS Earthrise in Petaluma this weekend still has slots available. Visit www.cpits.org/events.htm for registration information and complete workshop descriptions or contact Tina@cpits.org; better yet, just call Tina at 415-221-1401 to register.

 Waxing Waving