The Heart of Autumn

Linda M. Crate, Meadville, PA

autumn love 

 
autumn leaves
couldn't burn as brightly
as we did
when we startled leaves off of trees
in the burning heat of the sun
simply at our kiss,
and when we went inside
we shed clothing
like leaves
became one;
a beating heart, a burning soul
lost in where we began and where the
other ended
nothing in the world mattered
in that moment except
for the music made
together—
we were the heart of autumn:
sweat of september
and the heavy breathing of october and the
smirk of november before winter ever
had a chance to
fall.

 Neon Tree

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

gorgon glare 

 
i guess my first mistake
was falling for you,
but the second was letting you
see my naked soul
for you sought not to nurture it but to
rip the stars and dreams from their seams
taming them and me in the process,
and i'll never understand why
men fear strong women;
or why they're always seeking to put out
their fires instead of admiring their
flames
i will never understand what makes them think
we'd want their cages or pedestals—
once you looked me in the eyes
without fear or worry
look into them now and i will turn you
to stone.

 Bark

—Photo by Katy Brown

 
shakespeare's hero  

 
you weren't there for me
when i needed you
know i should have told you the
truth about the miscarriage,
but you were so happy i had to say
it was my period running late;
otherwise you would have hated me
more than you already did
and i loved you so much i was prepared
to handle that burned myself except
i couldn't because it hurt
far too much—
i don't say that i am a saint
because heaven knows i have flaws,
at least i don't pretend to be one
the way you do;
always an actor in this stage of life i cannot
help but wonder if you even remember
who you are anymore or have you
lost yourself irrevocably to
all the roles you've
played?

 Fallen Leaves

—Photo by Katy Brown

we just can't be strangers 

 
somewhere
beneath the fingernails
and teeth and
twined limbs we
lost ourselves
to each other,
and i gave it all to him
my naked soul along with myself
unclothed or burdened by
anything;
there was sweat and heavy breathing
and innuendos,
but what started as playful banter
ended as his tongue becoming
not a salve but a sword
severing every chord between us—

he told me that we should
be strangers:

but i remember his birthday,
the scent of his hair,
and digging my nails down his back
of cooking pancakes on the
griddle and making love in autumn;
visits to mantle lake and late
night walks together
through the snow;
i remember the lilies and the roses
and the lost child—

how do you tell your heart
to become a stranger with someone
you love more than life itself?

i couldn't do it
because between the conversations
and the sex
i lost too much of myself
to ever get it back or pretend it
never happened.

 Leaf

—Photo by Katy Brown 

 

i'll cut you down 

 
you left everything behind
except yourself
telling me we ought to be strangers
when we're just ghosts
because
a stranger doesn't have feelings for
someone they don't even know so
intense as i do for you,
and i know they're useless now;
you've married
to the girl you cheated on me with
no less—
i sacrificed everything for you
leaving my family behind
swallowing my pain of my miscarriage
alone so you wouldn't know
for your glee in that negative result was
so cruel that i nearly cried about
your reaction alone,
and i am not over all of it;
still furious that i allowed myself to fall for
a villain like you
believing you to be the saint you wanted
the world to see as you as
for allowing myself to be deceived—
why some men choose to be
monsters is beyond me,
but i am a monster slayer so remember
that well when you're in your
moment of triumph
because i'll cut you down. 

 Cactus

—Photo by Katy Brown

the pain still remains 

 
he's your past
they tell me
again and again and again,
but that doesn't make
it any easier to
let go;
i know even autumn must lose her leaves
but i cry even then because
there's a beauty in
holding on to every gorgeous thing—
can't say i've learned autumn’s
secret in letting go
because i know there is a time and season
for everything,
and i know not to look back;
but you won't stop
haunting me
in whispers of memories that refuse to let go
drumming on my head mingled with
their voices
"your past, your past, your past"—
but what am i past?
the pain still
remains.

___________________

Our welcome to Linda Crate this morning, and thanks for the fine poems, and our thank-you to Katy Brown for the beautiful autumn photos! Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian, native-born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville; she currently lives in Meadville, PA. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has three published chapbooks: A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press, June 2013); Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon, January 2014), and If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016).  Her fantasy novel, Blood & Magic, was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series, Dragons & Magic, was published in October 2015. Her third novel, Centaurs & Magic, was published in November 2016. Her poetry collection, Sing Your Own Song, is forthcoming through Barometric Pressures Series. Again, Linda, welcome to the Kitchen—and don't be a stranger!

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

____________________

—Medusa

 

 

Celebrate Poetry!

And plan to go down to Luna's Cafe

tomorrow night (Thursday) to hear

Patrick Grizzell at Poetry Unplugged, 8pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.
 

Something Like Contentment

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

A DAY OF GRAY, NO RAIN

a day of gray
no rain
the green leaves flutter
on the nervous tree

I feel the gray air
tighten
quicken

I feel my breath escape
but not me

I passed a dead cat
this morning
by my gray car’s wheels—

a glance only—
quick as its death
its mouth was bloody

my life is in this drama—
broken piece of  myself,
another whole piece, center—

when I drive home today
I will have forgotten
the dead cat . . .
the nervous tree . . .
the omen in the flat gray air . . .

maybe it will be
raining

__________________

FORECAST: RAIN BY MORNING

Where is the rain they said would come:
2:37 in the morning and I am still awake.
The night is dry and still.

Only the house creaks with restlessness.
Silences move by like shadows
though I listen hard.

Trees do not shake their branches
though it is December.
Leaves do not fall.

Why is the year so quiet tonight:
I hear the pending—
it is like my breathing, so loud with sighs.

I thought a little rain
would be nice to help me sleep—
even this pen, loud across the page, agrees.

THE RAIN            

I would belong to the rain
but the rain has vanished
to its own season.
Where is the memory of such need.

When I was in the desert
crying all the dry words that I knew
the rain was far away and different.
I was a delirious shimmering.

Now I am in another need.
I am the only child of my only mother.
She has died and left herself alive in me.
I weep under the absence of the rain.
I cannot taste my grief.

When I am sad enough to heal
I will drape my house with
the sound of rain upon cold things
that hold and echo back,
all night in a dark imagining of this,
the force and resistance
that is in every grieving.

(first pub. as “Rain” in Bitterroot, 1990)

WHERE I WOULD BE
After “The Message of the Rain” by Norman H. Russell

Anywhere there is rain after a dry day of
long hot hours, with the slow clock
turning on its upside-down numerals,
as if time made no sense at all
and has forgotten
how to read or hold onto its private reasons
for winding around like that.

I would like to fill the town with rain,
for I like that sound,
and the wetness and the coolness,
and how it suits my thought of it
in summer, which has grown
long and tiresome, and I feel heavy as a stone
at the edge of watering, and all the
trees are dusty and whispering for rain.

AFTER ALL THIS TIME
After "Woman in Purple", Photo by Cristina Venedict

1.
Three stone steps lead up to a wide door. A woman in pur-
ple guards the stairs and the door. She has been hired for this.
She holds the secret word that must be said if you think you
know the conundrum.
           
2.
A woman in a long purple gown and long black hair is sitting
upon the bottom stair of three. She is not of this time. She
feels this is her home. She will not leave. She opens her arms
wide and rests them on the second stair.
           
3.
At first the wide gray stairs were empty.  The heavy wood
door would not open.  The tall dry weed at the left corner
of the building keeps scratching a groove in the cement
siding. The woman sits there now, in the purple twilight,
even though it feels like rain.
           
4.
This is not even a house. This is a façade from some beginning. 
Time leads away from it. It stands alone on the back supports.
The woman in purple seems to have faded into the closing
shadows.
       
5.
On closer look, one can see that the woman is painted there.
She has no expression. She has no season. She is the perfect
ending to a book, or the beginning of the next. Let us have
no more conjecture here. This is only the particular shadowings
of light and dark that form together, as are we.

A ROAD OF LIGHT

It is a road of light, going nowhere now;
to follow it is to become absorbed;
it dwindles out into a tired memory;

the house at the end has fallen in;
the tree has died,
and bones on the end of a chain gleam;

but the road shines with light
and you want to follow;
a bird sings out and you know

you can be happy there;
a smooth horizon trembles down,
flaring back for a moment along the road.

_____________________

SLEEP BREAK
(Wavelet)

The rain is streaming . . .
or else I’m dreaming . . .
       that almost-sound upon the pane—
       that soft wet sound that wakens me
       to such relief—it must be rain.
I lie, half-sleeping,
my soul in keeping,
       and feel some movement whisper by . . .
       some breeze that rustles in some tree . . .
       dry lightning-crackle in dry sky . . .
and   d i s t a n t     t h u n d e r . . .
I go back under. 

                          
(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 1997-98)

 

SOFT RAIN POEM

Blue mottled street
midnight
or so
stars
smearing down
to the pavement
where
shadows
             tremble
              tremble
till
the light
begins to shift into gray,
fusing with the grainy dawn.

___________________

Many thanks to Joyce Odam for sending us these fine poems and photos this morning! And our apologies to Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) for failing to put the “Whisperer” in the title of his “Cloud Whisperer” poem in yesterday’s post.  @#*&^%!!!

If you’d like to try a Wavelet (see Joyce’s “Sleep Break” above), here’s the pattern:

Iambic 12-line stanza, alternating
couplets and tercets (indented). Five-syllable
couplets in dimeter  with feminine endings—
tercets in tetrameter with masculine endings:

Syllables:  5, 5,   8, 8, 8,   5, 5,   8, 8, 8,   5, 5
Rhymed:   a  a    b  c  b    d  d    e  c  e     f  f

Our new Seed of the Week is Mysteries of December. Send your poems, photos and artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty to choose from.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THOSE WHO LOVE THE RAIN

—Joyce Odam

It’s rain—and rain again—from
Sunday to Sunday, the long skies
let down their grieving,

or is that only what we name it, for
some look out of windows and sigh—
and are enclosed in a sort of

something like contentment.

_______________________
 

—Medusa

 —Anonymous Rain Photo

Celebrate poetry! 

And head up to El Dorado Hills tonight, 5-7pm, 

for Poetry Off-the-Shelves at the El Dorado Hills library. 

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column 

at the right) for info about this and other upcoming 

poetry events in our area—and note that more 

may be added at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Love Letters in Disguise

Window Shopping

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch, CA
 

OFFERING
—Loch Henson, Diamond Springs, CA

 
He offered to go retrieve

a fresh garden worm to feed

our captive-bred finches.
My protest was illogical to him.
I won’t deny the birds the
pleasure of a freeze-dried

mealworm,
but I also rescue worms on rainy

days turning sunny, when they

are stranded in parking lots or

on sidewalks.
“I can cut it up small for them,”

he offered.
Please, don’t.
 

 Autumn Quilt

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock
 

MUSETTA'S WALTZ
—Robert Lee Haycock

Vermilion
But a handful
Incarnadine depth
Caravans of cigarettes
Heaven's anthem
Orchards dreaming
That penultimate tango

__________________

much obliged
—robert lee haycock

Sleeping in a storefront
I heard tell the stars
were dancing
painting poems
bullet holes on yellow signs
night's hard watches
unwanted tools
lights of darkening lamps
crowded into dreams
and blossoms on her breasts

__________________

love letters in disguise
(an erasure poem by Robert Lee Haycock
and ReBecca Gozion)

very nub of  love
i am right there
to hear your heart
below the moon
firstborn of many
hanging above
as we speak
as you wish
love letters
in disguise.

 Prince Charming

—Quilt by Kellie Willey

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

       
FIERCE
—Ann Wehrman, Sacramento, CA

lip of the field
laid bare to clay
now sprouts
brave, fresh pinpoints
of Kelly-green moss
tender sweet
pointillist carpet
defiant in mud
affirming their right to be

just above, ground swells
long swords of flat grass
sparkle with tiny dewdrops
clear, white
iridescent in sunlight
rich loam smell rises
from damp moss

raven catches my eye
landed near
fat nut clamped in his beak
he waits expectantly
but I’ve breakfasted
he nods, takes to air
obsidian wings lap
soft currents

___________________

CONTEMPLATING MORTALITY
—Ann Wehrman

fresh breeze like water
raindrops glitter
golden arcs
climb verdant sheaths of grass

trees dance in autumn gowns
moss green, russet, pumpkin, bronze
not yet denuded by stern cold
high winds tossing leaves to gutter

morning sky pearlescent, sweet from rain
yet clouds mass gray at the horizon
lush, late moments of the year to crumble
under winter’s black freeze

long autumn welcomes dormancy
sinks toward death
unafraid, certain of spring’s renewal

____________________

AFTER THE RAIN
—Ann Wehrman

The man peered out of his thumbprint-smeared spectacles, through the dusty window, at the sky. His sleek, black familiar slipped under his fingers, greedy for his touch, connecting the man to his own body. Mao, time to eat again, already? the man sighed, and stroked the miniature jaguar’s muscular flank as Mao rumbled in tenor affirmation. The man gazed out the window at sky splashed with maroon, gold, and orange, the infinite dome above deep midnight blue and black. The storm had come as he dreamt in his chair of his long ago love, and it had raged outside all around him—driving water, the house shaken by wild wind. The rain passed, leaving his yard laced with puddles, leaves, and sticks; branches down; small tree uprooted; stone bird bath full to its lip, flower petals and leaves on the dark water’s surface. Mao demanded again; the man tore away from the window, dusty on its inside, washed by rain outside. Sighing, the man keyed a can of Friskies wet.

 Lenticular Clouds Over Mt. Diablo

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock
 

SONNET
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA

The walls made one room, muted
sea-green, a chamber unfurnished.
Dream light from a window burnished

the faintly weirdly disputed
reality that rooted
in doorknobs scarred and tarnished.

The room might momently vanish,
yet you stood undiluted.
Your unclothed skin felt warm,

smooth ghost; your fingers hooked
my fingers, your bare shape
heat-haloed against cool form,

clean pane bereft of drapes.
Touch fathomed, where doubt onlooked.
Transpiercing by ectoplasms,

we closed and reopened chasms.

________________________

WHY I PLAY TRUMPET
—Tom Goff

Because if there is climax in this life,
the force that propels symphonic argument,
it burgeons by virtue of brass instruments
—the orchestra’s boldest beings, chief lawscoffs—

whilst nicequiet souls desire you kindly stifle
that giggle, piss out of, not into, that leaky tent,
desist from cracking those knuckles backwards bent,
make drunken fifes keep feet off our Duncan Fyfe.

Ephemerals of the trumpet kind?  Lives gnat-
short, our embouchure-facefuls of cheek pain
and lip-by-mouthpiece bruise; and yet the gain

to Mahler, Bruckner.  Danger heat, report
of arms, bell-clangor. Black antlers, fire-glow,
last lightning-cymbal to thunder-drum where we go.


(first pub. in Rattlesnake Review)

    (For my colleagues of the Golden State Brass;
    thanks to Bob Stanley for inviting us
    to perform at Burnett and Mimi Miller’s
    SPC fundraiser)

Reflections of Liberty Station 

—Quilt by Sandra I. Mall

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

PROGRAM NOTES
—Tom Goff

No words will shape our ears knowers of notes,
yet we sink back upon decoders, meaning-carriers,
these pamphlets charged, like verbal fire-boats
to drift into musical seawalls, burst the barriers
between us uncomprehenders afraid to listen
and that nerve-wracked, eager orchestra,
about to incite the deep sine-waves to glisten,
brighten the audible beams atop this pergola. 

These essays are, and are not, guarantees
the performance or composer will prove wholesome.
They are, and are not, stories as we read stories,
more like pledges, promises of structure,
signals that fist or caress—impassioned, fulsome—
all delicacies or overbrimming glories,
with hopes of suspensions yielding into ease.
This contract, both parties must honor, must not rupture.

Each verb-heavy manifesto a semaphore gesture,
an understanding a language, without that language.
Yet some—Jane Vial Jaffe; Donald Tovey;
Arnold Bax, his programs laced with prose poetry—
can initiate, reconcile, swathe fit vesture
around rich music with notes that do not sandwich
the vital essence in moldy verbal buns,
nor do they omit choice anecdotes or puns;
the heard and the said compare notes without anguish.

Sometimes, when I languish, jaded with olden tunes,
I fret in the darkened auditorium,
wishing someone would relight the electric moons,
and then, oh happy me in the scriptorium,
my ears would buzz music, the eyes flick program notes.
A parade, with bands to match my mountain floats.
At the old-time singalong, I’d thrill to wallow
in doubly warbling, two bouncing balls to follow…

[If I the listener drift a moment idle,
do I read, in mind, mine or another’s supertitle?]

___________________________

BAX: SYMPHONY SONATA
    (heroic piano sonata later reconceived as Bax’s First Symphony)
—Tom Goff

Sweet one, you should hear the pianist Michael Endres
play the difficult music of Arnold Bax.
He transcends mere pianists: he dwells among airbenders.
His technique, his musicianship: no lacks.
Sweet, you should hear Michael Endres play the tour
de force, the Symphony Sonata. Pyramids
of sound, tone clusters, he wolfs down, devours
only to request more. Ask, and he here unlids
double trills in all fifty fingers, arpeggios
that sigh and rise, subside again, all touch
as tender as I’d touch you. Abruptly there he goes
from Irish wonderlands green-golden, such
is his gift, to erecting, assaulting citadel gates
as Mussorgsky’s Kiev embraces, iron with fates.

Triumph ensues: the siege succeeds: surrender
in Firebird strains. You may bow, love, to the airbender.

 In Memory of Lee 
—Quilt by Mary Fish

—Photo by Michelle Kunert
 

CLOUD WHISPERER
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

We looked up into the sky
Canvassed the clouds
And came up with the usual
Conclusions about formations

We wanted to believe that
The puffiest clouds
Like the tallest trees
Were storehouses of history

But something was different
As if countless grandpas in heaven
Had conspired to blow smoke rings
To send us a message

And so here were these odd clouds
Like Mother Nature playing a joke on us
Casting shadows that
Defied the laws of physics

They would not only block the sun
But they seemed to reach out
And seek out darkness
Deep in the souls of men

Corral those men in that darkness
Confine them there
Long enough to diminish
Even their memory of the sun

Then the rains came, clouds cleared
Sunlight once again warmed the Earth
Unseen by those mired in darkness
Searching only for more darkness

____________________

A WORK OF ART
—Caschwa

Starting to write a poem
With a group of words
Collectively symmetrical
Hardbound in a lexicon
Chipping away the pieces
That don’t fit

Flotsam, jetsam, dust
Debris, hubris, ego
Nomenclature
Politics, religion, sex
Foreign expressions
Technical talk

Name the 13 colonies
Which one was nudist?
Don’t say we weren’t doing that
The ancient Greeks did it
And we founded our
Democracy on their design

Change the station
I get terrible headaches
From squeaky high violins
Or trained operatic voices
Give me Whitney Houston
Or the Girl From Ipanema

I just can’t tolerate any of
Those elevated pitches
Sharpened like a
Guillotine blade
Ready to take
My head off

Maybe it was from
One of the head injuries
I suffered in my youth
Before the experts knew
What to look for
Or how to find it

The outdoors is besieged
With sharp edged plant parts
Maybe from palm tree trunks
They gather on chair seats
And cup holders

I sweep them up
With my cordless leaf vacuum
Again and again
They have become a permanent
[Damnit! Ctrl-P print instead of Shift-P initial cap]
Part of the atmosphere

Clear my throat
Flush the toilet
Run the garbage disposal
Wash my hands
Get rid of it
All of it
Still here

______________________

Thanks to today’s many contributors for fine poems and pix, chewing on recent Medusa themes such as Bubbles and After the Rain as we plow into December!

Area readings start off this week at Sac. Poetry Center with the American River Review crew from American River College, releasing their 30th issue, 7:30pm. Tomorrow (Tuesday), Poetry Off-the-Shelf, a poetry read-around, meets at the El Dorado Hills library, 5-7pm. And of course Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe meets on Thursday, 8pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

SENTENCED TO BUBBLE
—Caschwa

Too much free time
On busy hands to spend
Much better spent
Putting knots in a rope

The truth didn’t suit me
So I gave it a bend
But straight truth bent
Doesn’t help one to cope

I pursed my lips
A bubble to send
Done, it was sent
Mouth washed of soap

One never knows
How all of this will end
Perhaps it has ent
New words give us hope
 

_____________________

—Medusa

Celebrate poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Beautiful to the Bone

Firebird Cloud

—Poems by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, Ca

I WANT A PELICAN

The one I dreamed last night: a nestling
leathery of skin before feathers. I reached to
touch it and found it breathing.
I want to watch its wings unfold, that mystery/
magic. I want to hold flight
in my hands, working up my arms all the way
to the shoulder; strength rising to free
a pinched tendon.
I want to feel the Pelican’s joy
as it leaves the nest, joins the migration, soars
over Desolation headed north for its summer
sky, but capable of any season;
carving the wind so high that Pelican
is just a shimmer of sunlight
as I stand on the hill, lifting my arms
goodbye.

 Morning Glory

RAIN-WASH

Wet meadow beckons. Lupine pod—its blue
long gone—and mules-ears rattle leaf on bone.
It’s fall. Were we expecting something new?
Late sun turns granite into glitter-stone.

You won’t walk far, but set up camp. And I
might hike the trail to see what birds still fly,
and how the creek runs still, expecting ice.
We come still strangers to this paradise.

 Sleeping Piggies

WINDFALL

It’s been raining to make my arm ache.
We’re getting older. But miles from here, kids
are playing a game of Gold Rush, gathered
in an old schoolhouse, drawing luck from a bag.
Already they’ve learned names of exotic places
I visit all the time: Hang Town, Gold Hill. 
Each child has a poke of gold-painted pebbles
that diminishes by windfall or misfortune,
things that could happen to a miner: finding
a nugget while sweeping the saloon floor,
or eating a bad piece of meat and getting sick.
Or having an arm wear out, I might add.
The kids are having a blast. After the pebble-
fortune game they get to hike a creek-trail
and pan for gold. This morning, I get to walk
out after rain, following my dog up the same
hills where forty-niners found misfortune
and windfall. How lucky can I get?

 Asian Pears

LIBRARY TRANSIT

In this room full of books bound for time
we wish for a migration, word to meaning, magic.

A scout intuited the way through
these canyons, ridges, over summits rimmed in rock.

The book of the last chieftain, the book
of trails, imagine a path open under blue sky.

Time passes free-flowing among clouds.
Listen to the tension. Ideas, ions—lightning.

Leaf Reflections, Wind on Land Park Pond in Sacramento

AFTER RAIN

Who can gauge the half-life
of creek-bank trembling like a bridge
that’s lost its keystone?
Our dogs police the raw perimeter
as waters swirl with broken
branches down, past whirlpool
at the culvert. The flood’s running
for a bus stop miles down-
current, and I listen to the torrent’s
dialog with earth.
How to decipher the code?

 New Moon in the Arms of the Old Moon

THE STARS AT IHOP
    5000 ft elev, off Hwy 50

High above the fog, the night sky’s
unimaginable except in dreams of astronomers.
I dreamed about you last night, beautiful
to the bone, smile composed of stars.
You know all their names. I checked the Clear
Sky Chart, it should be a great night
for viewing, for visiting with friends we never
see anymore, brighter than the sun.
Remember how city light-pollution messes up
star-gazing in our lifetime. Come with me.
Sun going down behind us, we’ll head
up toward the Crystal Range; Ice House Road,
to a place we trained our dogs once
after the big fire, before the pines grew back
so tall. Now we need this IH Observing
Plateau for really seeing stars—
the ever-changing universe. Best to go
as a group? people warn about things that
slither, creep, go bump in the night.
With our dogs, we don’t worry. Come along.
The sky’s clear as ages ago, ageless
heavens wide open with unimaginable
smiling stars.

________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Taylor Graham and Katy Brown for wonderful poems and pix on this first Sunday in December.

 

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Still Dreaming

Living Room with Afternoon Light

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

THE FOG BANKS

Huge numbers, almost unimaginable
Except by the dreams of physicists.

The sun crashes into the end
Of the day, dragging its luggage
Back on itself.  The purple
Mountains that seem shining.

We can see, in crystalline visions,
The eyes of the Saint of Travelers.
We walk proudly into the fog
Banks, depositing, sitting, cutting
Our way to the head of the line.

There is the line itself waiting for us
To reach out and grasp it.
The casket of a mere bagatelle,
A clicking of the tongue against
The roof of the mouth.  We shout
Our way into our densest dark, blowing
Our deepest horns in warning.

Winter Light Over the Garden, Locke, CA

THE FOG ABOVE THE GARDEN

Running a finger across the edges
Of the teeth.  The tension in the migration
Meanings have when coupled to the imagination.

A gate closing.  A small inferno sounding
Against an ever-changing universe of stars,
Compasses and a scrawl of words almost
Lost when confronted with something important
To do.  An hour when little else could be expected
But language designed to transport enduring dreams
Against the air.  “I would like to ask you something.”

If the light is broken and if the paladin is but
A water clock, will you always ride with death?
Will your story always be that of speech
Such as this, all gold, all sunsets, all magic,
That cannot be undone, a ring inviolate.
Will we forever be strangers from each
Other’s blood and will our brothers and our sisters
Be only the fury of the waves, the rain, a failing
Sun, until there is no more?

And if this is so, may I ask to have,
At least, one dance with you, one waltz,
One final glance into the light, unblinking,
Dancing from house to house, still dreaming?

 Geisha at the Foot of the Falls, American Falls

Niagara Falls, NY

(petit pointe, 625 stitches/sq. in cotton/cotton canvas)

TALKING TO YOU

Walking beneath red and even
Blue Japanese lanterns that reflect
The light from the umbrellas
Back toward themselves and the morning,

It is too beautiful.  Somewhere
Near, a toad begins complaining about
The hour and keeps it up for awhile.

I don’t know why I should continue
To talk to you, except that the morning
Is chill but not too chill

And I have an ache in my foot
From having stepped on a piece
Of glass and the coffee hasn’t
Quite finished brewing yet.

The neighborhood is quiet.
The sound of cars is far enough
Away to sound like a waterfall
And the streets are still damp from
Last night’s rain.  And it is Autumn.

Just checking over that list now
Doesn’t bring me any closer
To finding a reason to keep talking
To you, but for now it will have
To do.  I wish you were here.

 American Falls From Goat Island

(petit pointe, 625 stitches/sq. in cotton/cotton canvas)

THE ONE

This is the one.
The operation where they take
your leg away and cast
it into the darkness.
This is the one.
The fishbone stuck in the throat.
The cyst as big as the moon.
The horrible lists in the back
of old books.
This is the one.
Your life memorized from the windows
of a bus.  Everyone practiced and obvious
around you.
This is the one.
The floor littered with eggs.
Glass in your bed.
The gene pools bubbling like hot springs.
This is the one.
The hands unable to clasp.
The father and mother undone in ecstasy.
The coronation of ambient dreams.
The visitation of hollow rooms to
the frontal lobes.
This is the one.
The one we have waited for.
The children in the flaming school bus.
The piles of animals on the roadside
and corners.  The houses searched.

Nights when no one whistles,
we hear the wings of birds
as they fly low overhead.
We are unable to look up.
Sound clanks down the roads.
Red voices and flames surround it.
We look at our funny clothes
and ask one another—
This is the one.
This is the one.

 Lion Dance, Locke, CA

THE HAND LIFTED TOWARD THUNDER

Only the span of the hand raised
Against a late weather, the sun down,
Night knowing what it must do,
Drops of water are deflected as a ceremony.

The hand cannot stop the thunder.  Thunder
Clings to the outline of the fingers
Like the sea to the shoreline.

Every cranny delineated by the lightning,
The moment carries with it.  Still, thunder
Comes against it, forged perfectly
As jewels and ornaments, weapons and shields
Are forged.  So quickly,

Mercury bringing it,
Hephaestus smithing.  Two brothers
Against the hand for a moment and
Discontented with the silence of words
Inclines thunder toward the world
And explodes in meaning even before
We realize with what we are dealing.

 Broken Gate (Model)
 

A SONG ABOUT HUNGRY GHOSTS

They put all their pity in the mouth of the poor.
They said that your children aren’t there anymore.
They closed down the barroom.  They nailed up the door.
They don’t care about the parts that are sore.
They’ve sent all the blind ones outside to explore
And they can’t see the skin for the bleeding.

There’s been nothing quite like it, but they’ve said that before.
They’re hanging at doorways and laughing with whores.
They broke all the windows on all of the stores.
They made all the dancers lie down on the floor.
They said every apple is bad at the core
And they can’t see the sharks for the feeding.

They said, “Let it rain.  Oh hell, let it pour.”
They always have nothing.  They always want more.
They’ve injured the injured.  They ripped and they tore.
They ripen their hatred inside hearts that can’t roar.
The things that mean nothing are like clothes that they wore
And they can’t see the beasts they are breeding.

They dig holes in souls of the meek but they don’t know what for.
They crush dreams in machines and then eat up the gore.
They have legends of fire and pain is their lore.
They are shunned by the dying and cursed furthermore.
They hang banners from windows that show only locked doors
And they can’t see that everyone’s leaving.

        (Chorus)
    (use whenever needed)

Oh they’re ghosts, yes they’re ghosts
Who live always in fear.  They won’t take a body.
They want yours, yes, my dear.  They will wrack it
And wreck it and make you haul their gear and they
Wish only to make you their mirror.

Over the Gardens, Locke, CA

THE CERTAIN STILLNESS OF THE SKY

Lost in the waltz, the wind skirls briefly,
Opening the morning hours toward ten
O’clock and examining the branches of the trees
Almost as if it were inspecting every leaf.
The trees shutter and toss their crowns
Back and forth across what may be real
Music after all.

There have been the clouds, every day
For weeks now, mountains of them,
Never tired, constantly flying by, excited
By the air and how the sky holds them,
Letting them be free, but still, in its blue
Dream of atmosphere.

There was a chalice suspended
In the air tonight.  It glowed with
Silver light and the moon rose
Just above it and centered itself
Over the cup.  The animals dropped
To their knees and the barnyard
Was still for a time except for crickets
Singing to one another.  It was lovely
And had never happened before.

Now, wandering the hills in this moonlight,
I find myself at the base of an oak tree.
The grass in this place has been cropped
By sheep for one hundred years.

Except for the hiss and pop of the night
As it rises to the moonlight in an erotic
Dance, I can remember little except
For saying, “Hello hills.  Hello moon.
Hello trees and hello,” to this huge
Stillness as I press myself deep into
The earth, pretending I too am planted
Here, hard against this night, able only
To give praise, “Hallelujah, Hallelujah.”

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

CELLO

There were cellos in the room.
Many of them, leaning against the chairs.

A yellow Winter light had poured itself
Into the room, flooding it with longing.

Perhaps if he sat very quietly someone
Would return and the music would begin again.

A few house wrens made their ticking noise
Just outside the windows.  It was a tiny sound.

A tree branch rubbed against the glass,
Wind-driven, but somehow also musical.
This would have to be enough.

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s fine poetry (still dancing!) and photos.

 Celebrate poetry! 

And if you’re down SF-way today, drop in to Alley Cat Books 

to hear William O’Daly, Arturo Mantecón and musician 

Arturo Balderrama, with translations of Neruda, Francisco 

Ferrer Lerín, and Leopoldo María Panero, 7-9pm. 

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column 

at the right) for info about this and other upcoming 

poetry events in our area—and note that more may be 

added at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

A Tumbling Jumble of Stars

The Future Man

—Painting by Paul Klee, 1933

—Poems by Neil Ellman, Livingston, NJ

THE FUTURE MAN

(after the watercolor by Paul Klee)


The future man will have two heads
each with a single eye
one for seeing just beyond his nose
the other to see inside.

He will have two brains
so full of knowledge and formulas
that only one can’t hold it all
and filled with sparking neurons  
to make some sense of it all.

One finger on each hand of seven
that press the buttons
that start the engines
that make things work—
and help him think
and multi-task.

His skin will be of plastic
(or a composite)
covering aluminum bones
veins with artificial blood.

He will be more robotic than man
and will have no name
other than a number
on his certificate of made.

The future man will be like us
but not.

 Alfa Morphology

—Painting by Roberto Matta Echaurren, 1911
 

MORPHOLOGY

(after the painting by Roberto Matta Echaurren)

Every shape has a name—
the circle, square, octagon
and heart

Every morph of every bird and fish
every tree and carnivore
a name to call its own.

Every letter in every word
makes its mark
with loops, bars and shoulder strokes.

Every person whoever speaks
a single word
proclaims their name and form.

Everything that has no name
has no shape, no meaning,
no purpose or intent

in this cosmic slag
a tumbling jumble of stars
without a name.

_________________

ENDLESS FLESH

(after the painting by
Roberto Matta Echaurren)


One into another
and then another
in a daisy-chain
of flesh
on top of each other
beside, behind,
entwined
a succession
of nakedness
sublime, rapturous
they have lost
themselves
in each other’s arms
in another reality
outside themselves
inside
as if they were more
than flesh alone
and more
than this instant
in the dark
but less.

 Untitled From an Ethnographic Museum

—Collage by Hannah Hoch, 1930

FROM AN ETHNOGRAPHIC MUSEUM

(after the collage by Hannah Hoch)
 

It barely matters
where her statue was carved
what nation gave her a name and voice
she speaks the naked truth
in a monarch’s face
from her pedestal in a museum 
encased in glass
as if she had never died.

 Nekropolis

—Painting by Paul Klee, 1929 

NECROPOLIS

(after the watercolor by Paul Klee)

(City of the Dead, Cairo, Egypt)


I live in this necropolis
(if life it is)
among a million souls
my neighbors and friends
with no other home but a tomb.

There are antennas
above our leaking roofs,
children are born,
play and die too soon,
the markets sell
aish, pita and eggs
and the sewers flow
like rivers along the streets
with names
as even do the rats.

Life goes on in the City of the Dead
half alive, one foot in the grave
the other in the mud
I am no more alive than dead
without a future or a job.

__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to painting, and… stop thinking! Just ask yourself whether the work has enabled you to ‘walk about’ into a hitherto unknown world. If the answer is yes, what more do you want?

—Wassily Kandinsky

__________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Neil Ellman for today’s fine ekphrastic poetry!

 Paul Klee in his Weimar Studio, 1925

Celebrate the unknown worlds that all the arts—

including poetry—lead us into!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

A Slow Flight of Blackbirds

Sunrise

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

—Photos by Stacey Jaclyn Morgan, Fair Oaks, CA

DECEMBER DAYS

You've suspected
the wind of the pine trees
will soon be white
inspected in the morning air
awaking from an echo of snow
as flakes are falling
like the stars all night
over the covers of tree limbs
yet a poet is here
on December days
painting words
by these meadow woods
along the ephemeral Cape's shore
my back to the wind
anchoring my orange kayak
in the narrow home harbor
circling the four sparrows
with my camera
often hanging out
for hours
by the birch branches
amid the gallow birds
who land on the leaves
of steep waters
my voice in deep memory
of trampled grassland
amid wild flowers
over these soft islands.

 Peas

SOME LIVE

Some learn to live
for their own self
for a discovery
to earn their wealth
or share
others surrender
their soul to chance
or to the state surveillance
and think to pretend
they have no control
in stealth
over their own fate
enjoying the body
covering up good meal
with food and drink
to marvel in a baking sun
with a hot toddy
they think at carnival
in this neighborhood
to make a good deal,
some live for the Lord
to praise His pardon
yet hoping for a reward
others are mechanical
who build and grow
a botanical garden
among the Capistrano birds
who visit
Baldassare's mysterious
underground in Fresno
others reveal their words
to share a wondrous sound
of a poet composing
with lines of everlasting verse
that you will know
will immediately set to jazz
when you have found the notes
from a related soprano sax
blown in an understated universe
as you relax with hope
Aries on your horoscope
says it's is a fire sign
now well known
from a series of quotes
that you can tell
has its pagan origin
in a Picasso-like design.

 Grazianos

WHERE WERE YOU, NOVEMBER 22, 1963?

A neighbor asked me
where were you, bz
the day JFK
was assassinated,
now remembering that day
November 22, 1963 with Zane
an American science student
waiting for me at Orly
only to put on the T.V.
in Paris
hearing of JFK's assassination
now your  new roommate
was being delivered
a dear John
and embarrassing note
on a dead letter head
believing his love life
was over
but not his anger
quoting Rimbaud
dropping his lover's quote
in the river bed
of the Seine
feeling like she was just
a mistress for a semester
or was Zane just
one of her clients.

 Mantis

JUAN SANCHEZ PELAEZ’S TIME
(Passed away Nov. 20, 2003)

Juan Sanchez Pelaez's time
in the America's fields
of nature and words
no longer
hidden among seminars
of younger poets
when poor angels sing
behind a mountain of stars
when poor angels sing
by twelve bells
of a deserted church
and a mandolin plays jazz
in the rain-soaked wind
down winding streets
of favellas
as ten children are hiding
from the general's round-up
on the roads of beggars
who locate their brides
in rustic villages
from an earth's heat wave
welcoming all missing
brothers and sisters
in their own languages
betrayed by the world
dying of thirst or hunger
as their young mother
with a pawned black shawl
from her husband's funeral
in Caracas
brings her apple seed scent
of her life's broken promises
along with her ashes
in a soup tureen
played with torturer's
repaired tire wheel
in a tambourine painted red
used a revolutionary parade
in memory of the dead.

 Chalice #2

WITH MY TELESCOPE

Resting with my telescope
by my snowy window
hopeful of my lecture
at a colleague’s seminar
on Thursday next noon
prepared at my studio attic,
sticking here
amid the cool woodsy air
hoping to view
a shadowy star
about the harvest moon
yet I'm thinking about
what Picasso said,
when discussing culture
for our arts colloquy:
"You become what you are."

 Hey! Broccoli

NO LONGER

No longer a stranger
to the framed hour
in a ferment of words
from my painted language
at this gated
Cape Cod village
amid the indolence
of a snow shower
watching the sky
by the tall dune meadow
now playing tunes
on my soprano sax
in my once scorched mouth
on the back porch
trying to relax as I watch
a slow flight of blackbirds
as castaways range
in the hidden unnamed furrow
will migrate to the South.

 Ron Napping

Today’s LittleNip:

ABANDONMENT

Here but in the fever
and favor of God
hearing the abandonment
of the vanished cry
among vanquished and lost
in their banishment
amid the souls of the slain
calling from the heaven sent
hovering over rain
hidden from
the celestial inward fires
uncovered by
elemental spirits
and desirous
of the poet's consolation
in sighs of ephemeral lament.

__________________

—Medusa, with thanks to B.Z. Niditch and to Stacey Morgan for this morning’s wonderful feast in the Kitchen!

 Celebrate poetry!
And tonight you have three choices: Poetry Unplugged at

Luna’s Cafe presents the 4th annual “Too Naughty for Santa” 

erotic poetry, 8pm; The Funk N Poetry Event in Old Sac,

 8-10pm; or Joshua Clover in Davis, 8pm. Scroll down to 

the blue column (under the green column at the right) 

for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in 

our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.