The River Ahead

DESTINY
—Judith Hurly Prosser, Cedar Ridge

She wrote.
She stopped.
She wrote.
She stopped.
Where's the flow?
She wants to know.
Blocked by unwillingness
To hear the Truth,
Experience the Power,
She hides out in work
And romance novels.
Some day soon
She'll break through the cocoon
And Be her Destiny.

_______________________

Judith was at The Book Collector last night, along with a healthy gaggle of folks who had traveled all the way down the hill from Grass Valley to hear Kowbell and Cirillo. Rhony Bhopla read from her new broadside, too. 'Twas a noisy night, with plenty of action; hope you were there. By the way, Richard Hansen had two new Poems-For-All on hand: poems by Todd Cirillo. They're free; pick up one of each at The Book Collector.

Friends of the Sac. Public Library will hold their big spring sale this weekend in the Friends warehouse at the rear of the Book Den, 8250 Belvedere, Ste. E (between Power Inn and Florin-Perkins Roads, just south of 14th Av.). Saturday: 12-5 pm (members 9-12) and Sunday: 10-4 pm. Everything 25¢ to $2!—books, records, videos and CD's. Info: 916-264-2880.

Click on the Poet's Corner Press link to the right of this column; when it comes up, click on the "New Audio CD2" at the far left of the page to hear NorCal poets reading, including our own Formalist-in-Residence, Joyce Odam!

Here are two poems from Taslima Nasrin, a doctor who was born in Bangladesh but who has had to take asylum in Sweden since the '90's, due to her liberal, feminist stance:

CHARACTER
—Taslima Nasrin

You're a girl
and you'd better not forget
that when you step over the threshold of your house
men will look askance at you.
When you keep on walking down the land
men will follow you and whistle.
When you cross the land and step onto the main road
men will revile you and call you a loose woman.
If you've got no character
you'll turn back
and if not
you'll keep on going
as you're going now.

_______________________

BORDER
—Taslima Nasrin

I'm going to move ahead.
Behind me my whole family is calling,
my child is pulling at my sari-end,
my husband stands blocking the door,
but I will go.
There's nothing ahead but a river
I will cross.
I know how to swim but they
won't let me swim, won't let me cross.

There's nothing on the other side of the river
but a vast expanse of fields.
But I'll touch this emptiness once
and run against the wind, whose whooshing sound
makes me want to dance. I'll dance someday
and then return.

I've not played keep-away for years
as I did in childhood.
I'll raise a great commotion playing keep-away someday
and then return.

For years I have't cried with my head
in the lap of solitude.
I'll cry to my heart's content someday
and then return.

There's nothing ahead but a river
and I know how to swim.
Why shouldn't I go? I'll go.

(Both poems were translated from the Bengali by Carolyne Wright and Farida Sarkar)

________________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Feathers and Tulip Stems

YOUR VOICE IS LIKE A FEATHER
(for my mother)
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

Mother, it is like wind
a small voice, covering big giant
seeds, full of the colors of holi.

You are the saint,
sweet milky barphi, setting
into my holy places.

My taste buds coat
with your essence, true, pleasant
:a petal on my soul.

Your anger, a symbol
of divinity, shortening
my breath with its tiny blows.

You are the softness of skin
layering light
hue of chai, mixing with sugar.

You, my daily clearing
with penetration of
your shiny illumination

_______________________

Thanks, Rhony! Premiering tonight at the Rattle-Read at The Book Collector is Rhony Bhopla’s littlesnake broadside, Tulip Stem, while Song Kowbell and Todd Cirillo will also be celebrating the release of their new rattlechaps: Song's Lick Your Wounds and Want Again, and Todd's Everybody Knows the Dice Are Loaded. Also to be had: TWO (count ‘em—two!) free, brand-new editions of VYPER!, the journal of poetry from poets 13-19 years of age. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. 1008 24th St., Sac., 7:30 pm. Info: 916-442-9295.

Rhony will also be reading at The Other Voice in Davis this Friday (5/12), along with rattlechapper James Lee Jobe (What God Said When She Finally Answered Me) in the Unitarian Church Library, 27072 Patwin Rd., Davis, 7:30 pm. Info: 530-902-4591.

AND—Rhony and Bob Stanley have agreed to take over Poetry Now, the Sacramento Poetry Center monthly journal of poetry, news and reviews. They are working frantically to get an issue out for June, bless their hearts.

Today (5/10) is also the deadline for submissions for Squaw Valley. This year, Squaw Valley Community of Writers (July 22-29) will feature Robert Hass, Harryette Mullen, Sharon Olds, C.D. Wright, and Dean Young. Check: info@squawvalleywriters.org or 530-470-8440 for info, or www.squawvalleywriters.org.

One more calendar item for Saturday (5/13): There will be a Think Postcard! workshop in Winters at 10 am at the Winters Branch Library, 201 First St., Winters. So there are two postcard workshops that day: one in Winters and one at the Crocker Art Museum (see last Monday's Events post).

A new voice heard from—new to our environs, anyway:

FUMBLING
—Joe Tetro, Bakersfield

I reach up
with stunned hands,
fumbling
for the scribbled fashioning
of my own face,
and there—
among the ruins—
I fumble
for the scraps
of a child
buried in the bedrooms
of my bones...who
cries out
in the empty darkness
for words
of approval
I've never spoken.

For such favors missed
I fumble...as if such
fumbling had a meaning

________________________

Thanks, Joe! Watch from more poetry from Joe Tetro in the next Snake—deadline is, by the way, THIS MONDAY (5/15)!!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

If I'd Taken Up Archery

INDOOR ARCHERY, DAYTON, NEVADA
—Ray Hadley, South Lake Tahoe

If I'd taken up archery instead of poetry
I think I would have had greater success,
certainly more encouragement
in my progress.

If I'd take up flower arranging, I'd find
that the bouquets I would have put together
would usually last longer than the life
of my poems.

Baking sourdough bread would have been
a useful art to learn, keeping the yeast
growing on a dark, kitchen shelf,
watching the dough rise and form a crust.

Too often my poems come back in the mail
marked account closed, insufficient funds.

I love being alone in the indoor archery range.
Late at night, there's no one at the counter.
A yellow light spills out the front window
onto an empty parking lot.

Every sound echoes through the brick building,
against the neutrality of its concrete blocks.
Its metal doors are rolled down and locked tight.

The old warehouse was some place where they
used to paint cars, decorating
the sides of vans with ocean sunsets.

The ringing phone goes unanswered
while I shoot arrows into a bale of straw.
I like making tight clusters and pulling them
out of the red bulls-eye and the yellow
and blue circles that surround it.

It's all paid off, the breathing exercises,
the weight lifting, the miles running
through the city park. I've developed an eye,
and learned to let go in the quiet part of my breath.

Poetry, on the other hand, is often a waste of time.
It's too much like the practice of law,
adversarial in its very nature and far too public.

A good poem is often like an arrow
hitting a bulls-eye in an empty warehouse.

There's the soft thud and twang of the shaft
hitting the straw, the blur as it settles down
so you can see the feathers distinct again.

The sad thing is, that if I were to take up archery,
I'd only be doing it to get a poem.

Only after I close, turn off the light, drive away
from the warehouse isolated at the edge
of a small Nevada town do I see any poetry in it.

Moonlight illuminates miles of sage behind a wire
fence running along a two-lane highway.

All the way home I keep making these lopping shots
with broken and bent arrows, arrows with missing feathers,
sent flying into a field of sage, where I,
assuming the role of a poet, work the moonlight fields,
harvesting a crop of lost arrows.

________________________

Thanks, Ray! Ray Hadley is on the staff of Ash Canyon Review, which came out of a group of Tahoe poets and has so far published one issue (Summer of 2005). Rattlesnake Review #10 will feature some of the many poets who reside in Far Eastern California/Lake Tahoe environs, including Ray and the Ash Canyon poets. The first issue included Sacramentans Laverne Frith and Catherine French, and other notables such as David Lee ("Pig Poet" and the first Poet Laureate of Utah), Ellen Bass, and Simon Perchik.

Here is another EastCal poet, Michael Kiriluk, an Ash Canyon poet in absentia who says he used to live in Carson City but has now moved to California to “pursue the Muse and my grandson through the poison oak”:

WITHOUT A NET
—Michael Kiriluk, Sonora

He caught butterflies on his tongue,
gathered them gently
into the grotto

of his mouth, their lurid colors
brightened by his eager breath.
He drew butterflies

across the flutter
of his mouth, the taste, ephemeral
in passing, light

as amber pollen, staining
the dry chrysalis
of his lips, yellow,

the musty scent of pupa, long
past. He caught butterflies
on his sticky

tongue, their wings, folded
rainbows, soft as vulvic
promise, honey-sweet to his longing.

Chained in captive reverie, never
to follow the sun, he caught
butterflies on his tongue.

_______________________

Thanks, Michael!

Looks like the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission is looking for a few good men—oops, people—to serve on one of its six community advisory committees, including the Art in Public Places Committee and the Poet Laureate Committee. Members meet about two hours/month. See www.sacculture.com for applications; deadline is 5/15. Info: 916-566-3992.

Molly Fisk writes: The May Boot Camp begins in a week if anyone would like to celebrate spring with a garland of six new poems. The dates are Sunday, May 14th to Friday, May 19th (a good Mother's Day present for any mom-poets you know). To register, and find out more about Poetry Boot Camp, visit: http://www.poetrybootcamp.com. (There's a poet signed up for this camp who lives and works at the South Pole!) I'd also like to let you know that the workshop in Utah IS going to happen. This is for writers of all kinds, not just poets: Writing in Place: Utah's Red Rock Country with Molly Fisk. Daily Yoga with Marilyn Kriegel.
Boulder Mountain Lodge Boulder, Utah, Aug 28—Sept 1, 2006, $375. This will be a workshop of writing and critiquing new writing in the morning and playing in the afternoon, with after-dinner talks, discussions, and a public reading we'll put on at the local Anasazi museum (don't freak out, reading is optional). There will be yoga
sessions at least once a day, led by my close friend Marilyn Kriegel,
if you're interested. The surrounding country is incredible: http://www.utah.com/nationalsites/grand_staircase.htm—and the food is amazing (and award-winning!) If you're interested in this writing/yoga/hiking/gorgeous landscape workshop, let me know as soon as you can: http://www.poetrybootcamp.com. Then send me your payment of $375 by June 1st. (If you need to negotiate other arrangements, let me know.)

Closing with one from rattlechapper Jeanine Stevens (The Keeping Room), whose chapbook is available at The Book Collector:

LITTLE FLOWER
—Jeanine Stevens, Sacramento

a garden wedding
beyond the brick
walk, under the
rose arch covered
with a climbing
Joseph’s Coat
—a halo of orange,
yellow, red—the
net skirt scratchy,
patent leather shoes
pinch toes—then,
pale Cosmos brush
against her leg,
to remind her
—she slows her
steps, moves soft
as satin, knows
she carries blessings
in her basket.

(Previously published in Ruah)

_______________________

Thanks, Jeanine! Jeanine got smart and sent Medusa a fistful of previously-published poems that were just sitting around snoozing. Remember my comments about "Are you missing a bet?" by not sending me prev-pubbed poems that could be out there working, instead of resting on their laurels? Get 'em off their lazy butts; poems can have many appearances in their lifetimes. Even after they're published, they can go into chapbooks, into other journals (online and print) that accept prev-pubs, onto the Fair Medusa for all to admire......

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Of Prisons & Cochineal (& Po-Events, 5/8-14)

652
—Emily Dickinson

A Prison gets to be a friend—
Between its Ponderous face
And Ours—a Kinsmanship express—
And in its narrow Eyes—

We come to look with gratitude
For the appointed Beam
It deal us—stated as our food—
And hungered for—the same—

We learn to know the Planks—
That answer to Our feet—
So miserable a sound—at first—
Nor ever now—so sweet—

As plashing in the Pools—
When Memory was a Boy—
But a Demurer Circuit—
A Geometric Joy—

The posture of the Key
That interrupt the Day
To Our Endeavor—Not so real
The Cheek of Liberty—

As this Phantasm Steel—
Whose features—Day and Night—
Are present to us—as Our Own—
And as escapeless—quite—

The narrow Round—the Stint—
The slow exchange of Hope—
For something passiver—Content
Too steep for looking up—

The Liberty we knew
Avoided—like a Dream—
Too wide for any Night but Heaven—
If That—indeed—redeem—

________________________

Jane Blue writes: I can't resist responding to the Neruda poem [see yesterday’s post]. The following was written after I taught at Folsom. It's in a ms. I call "A Way to Heal," some of which was in The Persistence of Vision in a shortened form. It's a bit complex, mixing Dickinson and Neruda. (What a great, great writer he was!) My translation is by Alistair Reid, but the line you have as "I may move, passing out of windows," I have as "I may move in and out of windows." [Ed. note: we later discovered we were working from two different translations.] We write about what we know, and prisoners write about prison. Emily Dickinson, in poem #652, wrote, “A Prison gets to be a friend—” She was at the height of her creativity then and knew what her gift demanded: a small, quiet room like a cell, and no ordinary social discourse.

XVI. “A Prison Gets to be a Friend”
—Jane Blue, Sacramento

As I was driving there, a pall
of exhaust hung over the rolling hills
that cradle the prison—
in class we didn’t talk about
what it meant to be cooped up
in a woman, and we didn’t talk
about the woman who died in a fire
that morning, behind the bars
she’d had fastened over the window-
eyes of her house nine years before
to keep out burglars; then fog
came up and I didn’t expect
to feel what I felt walking by
that house in the gloom: voyeur
as men sifted through rubble
on her lawn, laughing, the exterior
like my own facade unchanged
since the last time I passed by
but instead we talked of Neruda
and translation, and the lines:

"I may move in and out of windows,
and hearing me, eyes may lift themselves,
asking, ‘How can I reach the sea?’"

_______________________

Thanks, Jane!

Main Street Rag has announced its 2006 Poetry Book Award Winners; First place goes to Salt Memory Poems by Jennifer K. Sweeney of San Francisco, and First Runner-up is Playground of Flesh by Neil Carpathios of Massilon, OH. Among the other eight finalists/runners-up is our own local poet, littlesnake broadsider and SPC Board Member Indigo Moor, for his book, Tap-Root. All of the finalists will be offered book publication. Congratulations, Indigo!

This week’s calendar; let me know what I missed:

•••Tonight (Monday, 5/8), at the Sacramento Poetry Center, students in American River College Professor Michael Spurgeon’s Literature and Composition class will perform a re-enactment of the famous Six Poets and Six Gallery reading, which first took place fifty years ago in October, 1956, and where Allen Ginsberg first read “Howl”. Sac News & Review sez it’s at 7 pm, but there’s no mention of a time change on the SPC website, so I strongly suspect the usual 7:30 pm. HQ, 25th & R Sts., Sac.

•••Weds., May 10, Song Kowbell and Todd Cirillo will be reading at the Rattle-Read at The Book Collector, to celebrate the release of two new rattlechaps: Song's Lick Your Wounds and Want Again, and Todd's Everybody Knows the Dice Are Loaded. Both poets are from Grass Valley and are active in the Nevada County Poetry Series. Also premiering that night is Rhony Bhopla’s littlesnake broadside, Tulip Stem, plus TWO (count ‘em—two!) brand-new editions of VYPER!, the journal of poetry from poets 13-19 years of age. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. 1008 24th St., Sac, 7:30 pm. Info: 916-442-9295. (Rhony will also be reading at The Other Voice in Davis on Friday—see below for details.)

•••Weds. (5/10) is also the deadline for submissions for Squaw Valley. This year, Squaw Valley Community of Writers (July 22-29) will feature Robert Hass, Harryette Mullen, Sharon Olds, C.D. Wright, and Dean Young. Check: info@squawvalleywriters.org or 530-470-8440 for info, or www.squawvalleywriters.org.

•••Thursday (5/11), Poetry Unplugged features Michelle Tea, Cheryl Klein, Tara Jepsen, Mark Ewert and frank andrick at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac., 8 pm. Info: 916-441-3931. The current Sacramento News & Review has an article about San Francisco poet/novelist Michelle Tea; check it out!

•••Friday (5/12), The Other Voice in Davis presents Rhony Bhopla and rattlechapper James Lee Jobe (What God Said When She Finally Answered Me) in the Unitarian Church Library, 27072 Patwin Rd., Davis, 7:30 pm. Info: 530-902-4591.

•••Saturday (5/13): Renowned poet and translator Lillian Vallee is the featured poet for the Spring Issue of Song of the San Joaquin, and she will read her own work on Saturday at the McHenry Museum, 1402 "I" St., Modesto. The 2 pm program is free, and many valley poets will gather to read their poems from the newest edition of Song. Info: Cleo Griffith, (209) 543-1776 or cleor36@yahoo.com.

•••Also Saturday (5/13): There will be a Think Postcard! workshop in Winters at 10 am at the Winters Branch Library, 201 First St., Winters.

•••It’s not poetry, but on Saturday (5/13) the Crocker Art Museum Art Book Fair will be held in the outdoor courtyard of the Museum from 10 am to 4 pm. Free admission and activities, including hands-on bookmaking and story time; “How to Build Your Art Library” with Richard L. Press; a Think Postcard! workshop; and a special reading by Rachel Rodriquez, author of Through Georgia’s Eyes, a portrait of artist Georgia O’Keefe. All this, plus unique and limited-edition books from specialty publishing houses! That’s at the Crocker Art Museum, 216 O St., Sac. Info: 916-264-5531.

•••And Sunday (5/14), take your mother to hear Donald Sydney-Fryer read the poems of the great California Romantic Poet, George Sterling, at the Poems-for-All reading at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac., from 4-6 pm. Info: 916-442-9295.

______________________

I, too, have been inspired by Emily Dickinson recently. Can you remember her poem that I am referring to here?

CALLA LILIES
—Kathy Kieth, Fair Oaks

ivory teacups
reach for spring
rain: curl around

tissue-wings of butterflies
rainbows of tree frogs
and

Emily’s rush
of cochineal, fresh
from Tunis…

________________________

One more note: Collette Jonopulos informs me that her Tiger’s Eye: A Journal of Poetry co-editor, JoAn Osborne’s, mother passed away last week. We’ll be thinking about you, JoAn. By the way, Collette’s blog is tigerseyepoet.blogspot.com.

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

How Can I Reach the Sea?

POET'S OBLIGATION
—Pablo Neruda

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.

So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying "How can I reach the sea?"
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.

(Translated from the Spanish by Alastair Reid)

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Last of the Moonshine

THIS FALL MOON, OCTOBER 2004
—Margaret Ellis Hill, Wilton

Watch her blink
to reveal the sienna eye shadow—
an actress giving me
a slow-motion lesson in seduction.

She slices the sky on a set path,
returns to a stark stare that merely
brightens the night. I wrap
my sweater tighter and head home.

_______________________

THE PERIGREE MOON
Arcata, California; December 1999
—Ann Wehrman, Sacramento

Midnight blue sky swells rich and dark;
stars glow.
My hands, wiser than my fears,
open the door.

I step out tonight in my robe,
drawn by the last full moon of the century.
From my porch,
I taste the sea, just a few miles away.
The rare balm of the air caresses my skin.
I gaze up into a star-filled night
even more beautiful than Van Gogh's.

The moon, full at perigee,
shines in silver clarity,
anointing my exhausted nerves.

I breathe deeply,
surrounded by the twinkle of planets and stars,
and thank God for the beauty of this moment,
this universe,
this night sky with a full moon.

_______________________

Thanks, Peggy and Ann!

•••Today (Saturday 5/6) there will be a Think Postcard workshop at the Center for Contemporary Art on 1519 19th St., Sac., 3 pm. Info: www.sacculture.com or 916-566-3986.

•••Tomorrow (Sunday 5/7): Families, couples, individuals—all are welcome this coming Sunday at 6 pm to create artistic postcards at the last PoemSpirits gathering until October. The current Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor is the feature, followed by this fun creative activity—one of two dozen workshops being held in April, May and June as part of the mail-art project, Think Postcards. (More info on this project can be found at http://www.sacculture.com/grants_poet.htm, website of the Sacramento Arts Commission.) PoemSpirits will provide postcards, stamps and other materials and tools; you are invited to bring personal mementos, lists, scraps, found items, etc., as you wish, to add to your creation. They will meet in the Lounge/Foyer of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sac. (2 blocks north of Fair Oaks Blvd, between Howe and Fulton Avenues). No fee. Snacks available. All welcome. Info: Tom Goff or Nora Staklis, 916-481-3312; or JoAnn Anglin, 916-451-1372.

•••And tomorrow is the last day of the SPCA Book Sale to honor its 40th Anniversary: more than 10,000 new and used books at Marketplace at Birdcage, next to Longs Drugs in Citrus Heights. 10 am-8 pm today, 11-6 Sunday.

One last moon poem:

TIDAL LOCK
—Amy Whitcomb, Sacramento

The full moon
calls out,
arrested in suspension,
obeys its masters,
the tides—
the pull is distant
and persistent.

Tonight, I tuck in
to the forces
of the universe,
taking comfort in
tidal lock.

Always the same side
facing us;
On the night sun
rests one cloud
and two pairs of eyes.

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Moonkiss

MOONKISS
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

Press your butt against

rolled up car windows, singing:

kiss my shiny moon.

_______________________

lol, as the young'uns say! Rhony certainly does put things into perspective about all this mooning around. Still, the give-away continues: send Medusa (kathykieth@hotmail.com) one (or more) of your moon poems by midnight tonight and receive a free copy of Todd Cirillo's new rattlechap, Everybody Knows the Dice Are Loaded, to be released at The Book Collector on Weds., May 10 at 7:30 pm.

Coincidentally, Rattlesnake Press will be releasing a littlesnake broadside, Tulip Stem, from Rhony Bhopla that same night. Here is another of her poems, only slightly more refined.... :-)

ANEW
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

A break in a nerve
is like hot starving flesh

Mimics the beckoning sex addict
who walks in circle around hot repulsive women

Arms dive, sensually and misshapen
lacking continuity, floating in a hiss

Still managing a new start
out of blissful inconogruence.

________________________

Thanks, Rhony! Rhony is a Sacramento Poetry Center Board Member and Editor of Bliss, Journal of Erotica.

If you go to poetrymagazine.org online, you log onto the website for Poetry. However, if you log onto poetrymagazine.com—that's dot-COM—and scroll down, down, down, watching the left side of the screen, you'll come upon a hidden treasure—five poems by our Taylor Graham in Poetry Magazine! Check it out!

Finally, two Mexican poets to help us celebrate Cinco de Mayo:

THE WASHERWOMAN
—Veronica Volkow, Mexico

She feels her hands, scabrous as fish,
blind fish striking against the rock,
incessantly against the rock for years and years;
she watches the night pierced with eyes,
humid, slippery glances,
the mute faces shifting, disappearing,
brilliant glances of girls,
the dazed look of exhausted mothers.
The day ends and people return to their houses
and water runs from the faucet monotonously as a song,
the water has lost the shape of pipes,
lost the memory of its mountain source
and has pounded out its course,
besieged by obstacles
like the feet, like the eyes, like the hands.
She looks at shadows people drag along,
shadows on the walls, corners, the streets,
fugitive ink that marks the beaten roads,
desperate roads, laborious,
looking for only, perhaps, a fidelity.

(Translated from the Spanish by Forrest Gander)

________________________

THE KEY OF WATER
—Octovio Paz, Mexico

After Rishikesh
the Ganges is still green.
The glass horizon
breaks among the peaks.
We walk upon crystals.
Above and below
great gulfs of calm.
In the blue spaces
white rocks, black clouds.
You said:
Le pays est plein de sources.
That night I dipped my hands in your breasts.

(Translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bishop)

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)