Planter Stand?

Ballarat, California
(or what's left of it...)

WHAT REMAINS
—Kevin Jones, Fair Oaks

I.

We take it
Out of the yellowing
Cardboard
On special occasions,
Carefully unwrapping
The brittle tissue.

There
In the oiled
Box (could those
Be ivory
Inlays?), my
Old aunt’s most
Prized possession.

Over a century
Old, still
Glowing darkly,
The masterwork
Of some 19th century
Engineer.

We don’t know
What it is but
We’re pretty
Sure it’s broken.

II.

On Thursdays
I’d stay with
My grandparents.
As a ploy,
Perhaps, to get me
Into the tub,
My grandfather
Would take it out—
Collected
From gum wrappers,
Cigarette packs,
Over the years,
A ball of foil
So large, it
Would plug
The bathtub
Drain. Getting it
Out, of course,
Was another
Matter.

Bathtub drains
Must be a little
Larger these days:
Not a complete
Seal,
But extracting
The orb is still
An issue.


III.

Went to my cousins’
(Yes, those cousins)
Yard sale. They had
A table of rosaries,
Holy cards, missals,
Sick call sets, enough
For a medium sized
Store. Or
A small exorcism.
“You can’t sell these.
They’re blessed. It’s
A sin. Simony.”

Fear of God
Was not strong
In them. In the
Center of the table
Was an eight-by-
Ten glossy of
Uncle Eddie, in his
Best George Raft
Suit and face,
Venetian blind
Shadows behind him,
A B-movie
Interrogation
Room.
“You can’t sell
Uncle Eddie, you
Just can’t.”

Actually they could.

Gave me a good price
Though. It’s been
What, seventy
Years, Eddie?
Still lookin’
Sharp.


IV.

When my father
Died, we made
The arrangements,
Accepted the
Bag of his
Things, that plastic
Bag that has
No label, but
Shouts Dead patient’s
Stuff inside, and
Proceeded
Slowly
To the parking lot.
Halfway across,
An orderly running,
“You forgot this.”
My father’s
Wooden leg.
Though he had
No further
Use for it,
Hospital just
Couldn’t keep it.
Later a call from
The crematorium:
“Got this wooden leg.”
Um. Finally convinced
A Goodwill to take it.
And now it’s
Years later and
I’m thinking—
Planter stand.

_________________

Thanks, Kevin! Kevin Jones sends us his (as usual) whimsical take on life—this time on his father's wooden leg and other family heirlooms—giving us the seed for our Seed of the Week: What Remains. (I suppose we could've done it on wooden legs; maybe another time...) Send your What Remains poems to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadlines on SOWs. (Or, as they said in the crematorium, What remains...?)


Specials coming up next week in Sac:

•••Sacramento’s recent Poet Laureate, Julia Connor, will lead a free poetry workshop for ten weeks beginning Thursday, Sept. 3 at the Hart Senior Workshop, funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Info: Hart Center, 916-808-5462.

•••Wednesday (9/2), 5:30-7:30 PM: The Sacramento Poetry Center and the Sacramento Room of the Central Library present Sacramento’s Favorite Poem Reading, 2009. SPC Board Member Mary Zeppa writes: In 1999, all across the country, poets and lovers of poetry organized FPP events and invited “ordinary Americans” to come and read their favorite poems. On October 22, 1999, as a part of our 20th anniversary celebration, SPC held its first Favorite Poem Reading. On September 2, 2009, as a part of our 30th anniversary celebration, SPC will hold its second. This FPP event, which will take place in the Sacramento Room of the Central Library, 828 I St., Sacramento, will be the first of a series of SPC First Wednesday readings in the Sacramento Room. Robert Pinsky, the 39th Poet Laureate of the United States, believes that poetry is a vocal art, an art meant to be read aloud. We at the Sacramento Poetry Center (SPC) couldn’t agree more. This July will mark our 30th anniversary, 30 years of commitment “to reveal(ing) the rich and vigorous presence of poetry in contemporary life.”

The Favorite Poem Reading will be free and open to the public. The only restriction is that these poems must be written by someone other than the reader. Poems written in another language, along with an English translation, are welcome. In addition to reading a poem, readers are encouraged to say a few words about why they chose it. Each presentation will be limited to 5 minutes.

Because we want this reading, like the FPP archive and SPC’s first such reading, “to reflect the civic presence of poetry,” we invited eminent people in the Sacramento community to be readers. Ten of them (Carlos Alcala, Sacramento Bee; Jeffrey Callison, KXJZ; Marcus Crowder, Sacramento Bee; Clare Ellis, The Sacramento Room; Richard Hansen, The Book Collector; Muriel Johnson, California Arts Council; Sheree Meyer, Chair, CSUS English Dep’t; Don Nottoli, County Board of Supervisors; Suzette Riddle, California Lectures and Ray Tatar, California Stage) agreed.

And we want you (our own: the poets, the writers, the steady savorers of The Word) to come, to listen as only you know how to listen and, if you’re so moved, to read. We encourage advance sign-ups. Time permitting, we will also take open sign-ups at the event. Our plan is to alternate between our Featured Readers and our other advance sign-ups. Readers who sign-up on 9/2 will follow. If you’d like to be on our advance sign-up list, please let Mary Zeppa know by August 27.

_________________

A VASE OF VARIOUS FLOWERS
—William Bronk

You might say, right from the start, the sadness is what
we are after,—the flowers fading and withering soon.
At any rate, those kinds that last too long
hold freshness for themselves but not our eyes.

How many kinds of pleasure though there are
in just these yellow roses, open pink
single asters, michaelmas daisies, calendulas,
verbenas: it is sad that they go.

Across the room from these, on another wall,
the picture of city buildings on a dark street
is not untouched by change, although it lifts
continually in the same and solider shapes.

Lovely and frail the flowers are; it is not sadness
we are after, but rather the prodigal's
ravenous spending, the cruel throwing away,
as though toward a lasting form,—as this picture, say.

__________________

THE REMAINS OF A FARM
—William Bronk

Here, where disaster overtook a plan,
the apples' cider goes every year to the ground.
The patient enterprise that someone began,
the house that rose from the hollow cellar-mound,
are done with now and gone beyond repair
except as the mind can reconstruct the intent
and, bringing the ruins together for a moment there,
discover on what the other mind was bent.
We see the things disaster failed to see
and know that a weaker force would have let them be.

_________________

Today's LittleNip:

WHAT GOES, WHAT STAYS
—William Bronk

The abstractions are what is left, after we die
of course, but before that, too. In a while,
if not now, it is all dismissed, dismissed.
Not to say it didn't happen, it did

in a sense, it happened, as one sets a stage
and something happens, can be said to. On stage,
we watch the abstractions, how they look, what
they seem to be, their presence. They are there.

_________________


—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

THIS SUMMER:

Now available: two new chapbooks from Joyce Odam:
Peripherals: Prose Poems (illustrated by Charlotte Vincent)
and Rattlesnake LittleBook #2 (Noir Love).
That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.

WTF!!: The third issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from
Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick,
is now available at The Book Collector,
or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #4 will be Oct. 15.
Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing,
to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW: Issue #22 is now available (free) at The Book Collector, or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Or you can order copies of current or past issues through rattlesnakepress.com/.
Issue #23 will be available at The Book Collector the night of Sept. 9.
Deadline is November 15 for RR24: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or
P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to add all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one, and please—only one submission packet per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

COMING IN SEPTEMBER:

Join us at The Book Collector Wednesday, September 9 at 7:30 PM
for the release of a new chapbook by
Susan Finkleman (Mirror, Mirror: Poems Of The Mother-Daughter Relationship, illustrated by Joseph Finkleman);
plus a new HandyStuff blank journal from Katy Brown (A Capital Affair);
a littlesnake broadside from Marie Reynolds (Late Harvest);
and a brand new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#23)!

_________________

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

The Gorgon Returns!

Photo by Bob Dreizler, Sacramento

MIDDLE GRAY: AN ATMOSPHERE
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

Electric blue neon snakes
Out of her mouth.
One step and everything twists
Out of its axis. Middle gray.

Summer used to be like this
Cool mornings. Fog rolls up
From the gorge and fills
The streets. Middle gray.

A blinking yellow light
Indicates what used to be
An intersection. Totally
Deserted now. Middle gray.

High above the streets a telephone
Insists that it is important.
Just as quickly it is silenced. Middle gray.

Previously we defended
Our right to communicate
Freely. All was lost
In the floods. Middle gray.

From the edge of town
Rockets arc into the air.
Deep trails of smoke
Stretch out behind them. Middle gray.

We change clothing. Middle gray.
Our identities are erased. Middle gray.
All transmission ceases. Middle gray.
Middle gray.

_________________

We ended with D.R.; we begin again (one day earlier than expected!) with D.R. May your middle-grays, if there are any, be changed to primary reds, blues, and yellows immediately!

Katy Brown exhorts us to check out this website for Britain's article in The Guardian on quilts and quilting, as per our last Seed of the Week: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2009/aug/21/festival-quilts/. Don't forget to watch for Katy's new blank journal coming out in September, with all its picture-prompts from the City of Sacramento: A Capital Idea.


This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Monday (8/24), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Mari L’Esperance and Rebecca Foust at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St. (at R), Sacramento. [See last Friday’s post for bios.]

•••Weds. (8/26), 6-7 PM: Upstairs Poetry reading at The Upstairs Art Gallery, 420 Main St. (2nd floor), Placerville. It's a poetry open-mike read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen. No charge.

•••Wed. (8/26), 8-11 PM: Mahogany Urban Poetry Series at Queen Sheba's Restaurant, 1704 Broadway (17th and Broadway), Sacramento. DJ Rock Bottom spins at 8, with open mic poetry at 9. $5 cover, all ages.

•••Thurs. (8/27), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers include Pat Grizzell, Bob Stanley, and Carol Louise Moon, with open mic before and after.

_________________

THE NOISES IN SPIKES
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

We walk tame dogs
down suburb asphalt.

Soft uproar: frogs,
grass-addled culvert.

Water standing in shallow pools,
the runoff of a dozen hoses.

Slight, high-pitched racket ricochets, then cools;
as Marco (Polo!) chirps or creaks

glimmer then shiver into silence,
chips of blue-willow china broken,

these antiphons in frogspeak pose
a question: when are spaces islands,

where is mainland in the suburbs?

Swift will-o’-the-wisps of sewage bog,
saboteurs disguised as frogs

in flicks of bentgrass, undercoring, undermining

sidewalks’ archly blended love-curves,
constants we’ve left off refining.

Hear if you can the noises in spikes,
in crowns of listless green, through cracks.

_________________

THE COMMA I JUST
HEARD ABOUT
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole

I must "search"
for what comma
was put in / left out
of which message
received or sent by
President Roosevelt or
Emperor Hirohito that
may have prevented the
Pearl Harbor attack!

__________________

NINTH-BIRTHDAY BLINDFOLD
(the old-fashioned way)
—Claire J. Baker

We led Jason round & round,
then let him go. He groped,
came upon a rocky wall;
bent down, fingered flowers;
lingered on a bird bath,
turned & touched a maple tree.

Arms held straight out
far from the donkey target,
the birthday boy weaved
to left & right, found objects
more exciting than if he
could see. And so did we.

_________________

THE VISITOR
(for Betsy)
—Claire J. Baker

A hummingbird flits
along the nursing home
sliding-door glass
as if a new kind of air
can be penetrated
with patience.

The whizz-kid whirrs
up-down, side-to-side
plying the unyielding door.

Not knowing what to say
to a friend too young
to be here, I describe
the explorer who wants to
zoom rainbows all through
these sterile rooms.

_________________

Today's LittleNip:

There are three things, after all, that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind. It is most important of all to reach the heart of the reader.

—Robert Frost

_________________


—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

THIS SUMMER:

Now available: two new chapbooks from Joyce Odam:
Peripherals: Prose Poems (illustrated by Charlotte Vincent)
and Rattlesnake LittleBook #2 (Noir Love).
That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.

WTF!!: The third issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from
Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick,
is now available at The Book Collector,
or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #4 will be Oct. 15.
Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing,
to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW: Issue #22 is now available (free) at The Book Collector, or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Or you can order copies of current or past issues through rattlesnakepress.com/.
Issue #23 will be available at The Book Collector the night of Sept. 9.
Deadline is November 15 for RR24: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or
P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to add all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one, and please—only one submission packet per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

COMING IN SEPTEMBER:

Join us at The Book Collector Wednesday, September 9 at 7:30 PM
for the release of a new chapbook by
Susan Finkleman (Mirror, Mirror: Poems Of The Mother-Daughter Relationship, illustrated by Joseph Finkleman);
plus a new HandyStuff blank journal from Katy Brown (A Capital Affair);
a littlesnake broadside from Marie Reynolds (Late Harvest);
and a brand new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#23)!

_________________

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Let Us Sing The Hard Songs

Photo by Stephani Schaefer, Los Molinos
[Quilting Bee?]

CIGARETTE BUTTS
—SLiC, Sacramento

They smoulder;
a faint light
fighting to survive
in the gutter.

They all start
fresh and new,
carefully made
by nature and man

Standing tall
with potential—
eager to give themselves
eager for a spark

But they're burned,
inhaled and exhaled,
their use sucked out
till they're just a stub—

Still they burn;
the lust for air continues
till they are flicked aside
and the cherry falls off.

A glorious American Spirit
covered in dirt, ash, and spit;
the flame is not quite gone
but resignation sets in.

People walk by
and step on them
the city tries to
wash them away

no one wants to see
a dying light
or an empty shell


(first appeared in SLiC’s new
chapbook, Last Call)

__________________

DISAPPPOINTED
—SLiC

Drinking Jack—
missing Jameson.


(first appeared in Last Call)

__________________

Thanks, SLiC, for a coupla poems; Stuart read "Cigarette Butts" at last night's premiere of WTF3 at Luna's Cafe in Sacramento, and he'll be reading again tonight at the Vox (see below). The new WTF should be available for free in The Book Collector in the next day or so. Next deadline is October 15.

Thanks also to Steph Schaefer for yet another wonderful photo, and to Emmanual Sigauke and D.R. Wagner for a few poems to tide us over until Tuesday. Yes, Medusa is turning off the light in her kitchen for a few days. Hopefully, it'll come back on again when she asks it to, and not have her Internet access cut off for a week or so like last time she tried to briefly tiptoe out. Meanwhile, like D.R. says, let us sing the hard songs...


Coming up in NorCal poetry:

•••Friday (8/21), 7:30 PM: A Bay Area Poetry Reading to celebrate the release of Sometimes in the Open, an anthology of poems from Sacramento Poetry Center’s Sacramento Poetry Press (2009) that includes many of the Poets Laureate of California cities and counties. To be held at Mrs. Dalloway's Literary & Garden Arts, 2904 College Avenue Berkeley. Info: 510/704-8222 or www.mrsdalloways.com/. Hosted by Former California Poet Laureate Al Young and Sacramento Poet Laureate/Sacramento Poetry Center President/Poet/Editor of Sometimes in the Open Bob Stanley, with featured readings by Al Young; Robert M. Shelby, Poet Laureate of Benicia; Connie Post, former Poet Laureate of Livermore; Mary Rudge, Poet Laureate of Alameda; Martha Meltzer, former Poet Laureate of Pleasanton; Albert Flynn DeSilver, Poet Laureate of Marin County; Rod Clark, former Poet Laureate of Pacifica; and Christina Hutchins, Poet Laureate of Albany.

•••Friday (8/20), 6-9 PM: Poetry at the Vox meets this time at 1931 H St. (at 20th), Sacramento, featuring SLiC, Laura Bauman, Shawn Pittard, Traci Gourdine, Bill Carr, Sibilla Hershey, and Ann Privateer. Hosted by Cynthia Linville at clinville@csus.edu or http://voxsac.com/. Free.

•••Monday (8/24), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Mari L’Esperance and Rebecca Foust at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St. (at R), Sacramento. Born in Kobe, Japan and raised in California, Guam, and Japan, Mari L’Esperance’s first full-length collection, The Darkened Temple, was selected by Hilda Raz for the 2007 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry and published by University of Nebraska Press in September 2008. A chapbook, Begin Here, was awarded a Sarasota Poetry Theatre Press Chapbook Prize and published in 2000. L’Esperance’s poems have appeared in several literary journals, including the Beloit Poetry Journal, Many Mountains Moving, Poetry Kanto, and Salamander and in Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry by Sage Cohen (Writer’s Digest Books) and are forthcoming in the anthology, When the Muse Calls: Poems for the Creative Life, edited by Kathryn Ridall. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, graduate of New York University's Creative Writing Program, former New York Times Company Foundation Creative Writing Fellow, and recipient of residency grants from Hedgebrook and Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, L’Esperance lives and writes in Oakland, California and is training to be a psychotherapist.

Rebecca Foust was born in Altoona, formerly one of the country’s great railroad towns, located in the Allegheny Mountains in western Pennsylvania. Her teen years were spent in nearby Hollidaysburg, a tiny town surrounded by farmlands and forests, quarries and strip mines. After attending Smith College and Stanford Law School on scholarships, She practiced law in San Francisco for ten years. She lives now with her husband and three teenagers in Northern California. Before starting Warren Wilson’s MFA program in 2008, her work was in advocacy and as a grass roots political organizer for parents of children with autism and other learning disorders. Her recent poetry is widely published or forthcoming in small press journals including Margie, Nimrod, Poetry East, North American Review, The Hudson Review, Alehouse Press and Women’s Review of Books, earning awards including two Pushcart nominations in 2008. Her chapbooks, Dark Card and Mom’s Canoe won the 2007 and 2008 Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prizes.

•••Weds. (8/26), 6-7 PM: Upstairs Poetry reading at The Upstairs Art Gallery, 420 Main St. (2nd floor), Placerville. It's a poetry open-mike read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen. No charge.

•••Wed. (8/26), 8-11 PM: Mahogany Urban Poetry Series at Queen Sheba's Restaurant, 1704 Broadway (17th and Broadway), Sacramento. DJ Rock Bottom spins at 8, with open mic poetry at 9. $5 cover, all ages.

•••Thurs. (8/27), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers include Pat Grizzell, Bob Stanley, and Carol Louise Moon, with open mic before and after.

__________________

GAMES
—Emmanuel Sigauke, Sacramento

Two boys, one girl,
A cave: joy in the blanket
Of youth.

These frequenters
Don't see the fury of the bees
Whose hive they always invade,
Only today
The swarm has a plan.

Two boys, one girl—
The chase,
Cave mouth too tight
For the younger, bigger,
Slower boy
On whom the bees will feast
Once they discover
He is the only culprit.

He dims; then a week later
Recovers, not willing
To tell this to anyone
But to shelve it
In the cabinet of experience.

Soon, the three return
To their playground
And the bees brew fury anew
The sweeter their hive becomes.

And this time it's two girls
One boy
And a splinter of memory
As the older boy from before
Has grown too harmful
To mix darkness, cave, and honey.

__________________

SECRET CALLER
—Emmanuel Sigauke

Once, we pretended
To be one, walked side by side,
like we had been sculpted
to fit in each other's grooves.

Those days, one or two,
when we were husband and wife—
are why I call you
from a restricted number.
Sorry, I always hang up.

___________________

THIRD WIFE
—Emmanuel Sigauke

Jetro arrived in a yellow, coughing
Mazda, driven first to Mototi Primary
where he circled the soccer ground
till the teachers asked about rides to town.

He laughed, shook their hands
and took off, leaving a trail of dust,
which caught up with him
on the dirt road to Mototi, his village.

Its thunder roused the villagers,
who laughed at the yellow thing
to which they stampeded
when they saw it belonged to Jetro.

Jetro jumped out,
opened the passenger door
To reveal a woman
who fanned herself and sniffed the air.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” he asked.
The villagers drew closer
To look at yet another new one,
Who sat, cooling down.

__________________

THE HARP IN THE CIRCLE
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

The hard songs come through
Holes in the night sky,
An impending electricity of purpose
Gathers into patterns, constellations
Remembered from dares we took
As children, stories around
The night time fires;
The stars, reminders of our bone,
Dust congealed within our sorry bodies.

Touched with grace for a moment,
They are able to form a mouth,
Then a music, then a welter of instruments.

We hear them as animal voices,
Frogs and loons, crow talk,
The coughing of a cat,
Slap of fish on quiet water.

Oh let us sing the hard songs.
Songs of goodbye and of parting,
Of winds on the moors and
Mists moving across bogs
Where plants eat meat,
Dreaming they are gods,
Where love flees a room
Dense with violins and clarinet
Laments. Pieces of loves across
Ages of time; dead ancestors
And friends turn from our embrace
To ride the night sky forever,
To pour through shining holes in the night sky.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

A FEW WORDS
—Emmanuel Sigauke

Trash these half-cooked thoughts
& let doubts pout
like wounds into inquiry.

Save reason from the territory
of the ordinary; a little rigor,
duration you never imagined.

A day may set after
you have conceived one or two
words to tell the world. Even where it

wouldn't matter to anyone,
let words—with their doubts— burrow
their way to the core.

__________________


—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

THIS SUMMER:

Now available: two new chapbooks from Joyce Odam:
Peripherals: Prose Poems (illustrated by Charlotte Vincent)
and Rattlesnake LittleBook #2 (Noir Love).
That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.

WTF!!: The third issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from
Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick,
is now available at The Book Collector,
or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #4 will be Oct. 15.
Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing,
to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW: Issue #22 is now available (free) at The Book Collector, or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Or you can order copies of current or past issues through rattlesnakepress.com/.
Issue #23 will be available at The Book Collector the night of Sept. 9.
Deadline is November 15 for RR24: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or
P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to add all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one, and please—only one submission packet per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

COMING IN SEPTEMBER:

Join us at The Book Collector Wednesday, September 9 at 7:30 PM
for the release of a new chapbook by
Susan Finkleman (Mirror, Mirror: Poems Of The Mother-Daughter Relationship, illustrated by Joseph Finkleman);
plus a new HandyStuff blank journal from Katy Brown (A Capital Affair);
a littlesnake broadside from Marie Reynolds (Late Harvest);
and a brand new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#23)!

_________________

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Useable Art

David Gay

YOU
—David Gay, Sacramento

Picture yourself standing in a circle, shoulder to shoulder with others,
and me displayed at the center. See me, know me, assemble
me with your curious imagination until you have my naked
form, and certainly could glue me together if ever I fell apart.

Still all you’ve seen is yourself. The me that stands in the center,
shoulder to shoulder with no one, can see what you cannot.
I see what covers your eye. The silver film that caulks your eye
reflects your eye to itself. Only I can see, only I’m unbound.

I see you standing naked, shoulder to shoulder with no one,
a cloud your only cloak, and everything you cherish
trembles in my hands, a fledgling in my fingers.
Take it. Why would I give this back to you? On altruistic

impulse? Bah. If that alone could move me, you’d ever
be limed in your caul. I give this back to scrape you free,
to show you look like me: naked, wet, afraid, lost, unloved,
dying, dirty, unbelieving, questioning new and ancient

lies. Our gods have left the building. Only the cold remains.
Our truth is in each other. So let our eyes meet and stay.

___________________

Thanks, David! David Gay grew up near the American River in Carmichael. He graduated from San Francisco State with an English Lit degree back in 1990. More recently he studied poetry under Molly Fisk and Susan Kelly Dewitt. Nowadays he works as the Web Manager for the State's Department of Personnel Administration. His poetry has appeared in Rattlesnake Review and on Medusa’s Kitchen. Occasionally you can catch him reading at the open mic at Luna’s Café. Recently he read at the Best Minds of My Generation Allen Ginsberg Tribute hosted by B.L. Kennedy. David's married to the award-winning, ever-witty Sacramento poet, Lytton Bell.

__________________

ALARIC
—David Gay

Looking down in the infant's eyes, the king declared,
This is my son, but what would hatch from those tiny hands
or what scenes of ruin pass those blue windows
the king could never guess.

I have a problem placing the holocaust of empire
on the shoulders of one woman-born prince
when I picture him in diapers, nursing, grasping
with tiny hands for baubles.

The columns of ancient Rome did not shake
when his ambitions first swelled to colossal proportions,
that man of living stone, that two-fisted tornado
with two huge hands and an army.

No. At first Rome spread wide for him, whispering lascivious oaths
in his German ear, promising slips of girls slight as boys
and baubles like frozen stars to juggle from his fingers,
if his army were ready for pain.

And he became their solution, battling their foes
on the cheap, red with blood, drunk with wine, rubies
for his fingers, his eyes distracted by girls
slender as Roman oaths.

After he won, they laughed at their human solution,
their barbarian, calling him fool, for he knew not law,
and laughed at his rough, crude talk, his raw thirsts and superstitions,
his mingling of Christ with Odin.

But forty years earlier the king couldn't guess what hell
his son would ring the Romans with, what darkness
he'd cast for centuries on praetor and plebe alike,
nor could the king have cared.

This is my son, this is my son, this is my son!
The words rose to the roof beam
like a cry pealed from forty thousand tongues.
I can still hear them today.

__________________

B.L.'s Drive-Bys: A Micro-Review from B.L. Kennedy:

Glint
by Robert Grossklaus
Polymer Grove
plymrgrv@mac.com
$2

Robert Grossklaus is a poet; that I will say, hands down. I have long been a fan of his work, his unique utilization of image and line balance. Robert also happens to be one of the more introspective poets on the Sacramento scene. He writes short, to-the-point philosophical bloodspilt toybox images that tend to wrap themselves around the reader’s throat like a tightened noose. I love Grossklaus' work. I love his flight between title, word, image, word because it all seems almost numerical in its patterns. Do I recommend Glint? You bet your blue ass I do. So hop down to The Book Collector or write to the publisher and get a copy of this chapbook. You will not regret the purchase.

—B.L. Kennedy, Interviewer-in-Residence

__________________

WTF3 unveils herself tonight at Luna's!

Join us tonight, Thurs. (8/20) at 8 PM for Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento for the premiere of Issue #3 of WTF, the free quarterly journal of Luna's folks (and others) from Rattlesnake Press. Featured readers from this issue, plus other goodies hosted by frank andrick. Open mic before and after. Come get your free copy! Next deadline is November 15; see below for details.

__________________

OLD PATCHWORK QUILT
—Mitz Sackman, Murphys

I run my hands over
This quilt from the family
Made by my grandmother
Back in the early 1950s

Small squares of cloth
From Grandmother’s
Dressmaking
Carefully pieced
Meticulous stitch
By meticulous stitch
Creating memories
In this colorful top

Grandmother brought it
On Wednesday
To the quilting bee
A potluck lunch
Four hours of work
That afternoon
Busy hands
Busy mouths
Playing children in the yard
Twelve women
In tiny stitches
Attach this top
Now a finished quilt

An effort of many hands
An American tradition
Family history
Writ in a creation of beauty
One-of-a-kind
Useable art

__________________

EGRET
—David Gay

The palm trees shade the bungalows in this iconic
golden sunset of the last honeyed day of summer.
It's almost enough to rock you back to the idyllic
pre-Gold Rush days of icy black water flying from stone

to stone. Not a waste sewage treatment plant
in sight. It's almost enough to sock you back between
your teeth to think how many people huddle here now,
how many peak demand air conditioners they've got

blowing now, and not a windmill in sight.
It's almost enough to talk you back into the good
old days when you could muddy your toes down
by Arcade Creek and sing under Garfield bridge

where the giant white egret once flew.
And not a bastard in sight to blame
you when you reach right up the trail side
to pluck berries of cherries, plump and warm,

unburden the boughs of wild dwarf pears,
or pinch the plum-laden branches above
the scum-laden stream where tadpoles swarm.
No one to blame when you scratch

your arm striving to tease blackberries
off the vine or take clusters of grapes, some pine
nut-shaped, bunched on the college fence.
Where did he go, that giant white egret?

The valley elderberry longhorn beetles
made a stunning recovery when he left.
In the last twilight before night settles in
I'll tell you where he's gone. I am him, I am him, I am him.

__________________

GRATEFUL
—David Gay

the music stopped when I turned
off the radio after you left this morning
and I drove past the graveyard where my mom
will be buried beside my dad

I saw the August sun burn cement
with an ochre filtered through ashes
I saw the air heave cremation against the sidewalk
I saw the runoff puddle reflect a new grammar

I want to learn a new grammar, a lingua franca
a skeleton key for this damned mausoleum
of state-owned cubicles and paper cuts
where I'm 5/7ths dissolved in a monkey suit

telling myself I got 'em all fooled from 9 to 5
they think I'm one of them but I'm not
and yet by Death's own trowel I swear
I've fooled myself much worse

I'm a 555 phone number
I pitch people out of work with a grin
and a flick of my Garcia tie
while my fading soul claws up cadavers

scrambling to unearth my joy
because I have nothing
to say and know
just how to say it

inevitably at the end of the day
I remember the language
you taught me from your lips
and the music begins again

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves—that's the truth. We have two or three great moving experiences in our lives—experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time that anyone else has been caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

__________________


—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

THIS SUMMER:

Now available: two new chapbooks from Joyce Odam:
Peripherals: Prose Poems (illustrated by Charlotte Vincent)
and Rattlesnake LittleBook #2 (Noir Love).
That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.

WTF!: The second issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick, is now available at The Book Collector or through rattlesnakepress.com, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #3 (which will be available at Luna's Cafe on
Thursday, August 20) was July 15; next deadline will be Oct. 15. Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing, to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW: Issue #22 is now available (free) at The Book Collector, or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Or you can order copies of current or past issues through rattlesnakepress.com/. Deadline is August 15 for RR23: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or
P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to add all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one, and please—only one submission packet per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

COMING IN SEPTEMBER:

Join us at The Book Collector Wednesday, September 9 at 7:30 PM
for the release of a new chapbook by
Susan Finkleman (Mirror, Mirror: Poems Of The Mother-Daughter Relationship, illustrated by Joseph Finkleman);
plus a new HandyStuff blank journal from Katy Brown (A Capital Affair);
a littlesnake broadside from Marie Reynolds (Late Harvest);
and a brand new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#23)!

_________________

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Quilt Riffs

MITERED MEMORIES
—Shawn Aveningo, Rescue

My mother is like a quilt,
A beautiful, handmade heirloom quilt.
A lifetime of experiences
Mitered together with love.
Some of those times were joyous
While others were rough
(just like that first sewing project of young).
But the heart-shaped medallion of her quilt
With its warm hues bursting
Into an array of blossoms,
Shines forever strong.
And just like a precious heirloom
She passes these things unto me.
Through her love, support, advice, and listening,
She has helped me patch together my own quilt.
And like that wonderful old quilt
My mother has kept me warm.

__________________

GUILT WORKS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

She points at the new sign on the store-front,
downtown Main Street. Quilt Works. “Whatever
kind of work,” she asks, “does Guilt do?”

“You know,” he says, “those old hand-made
comforters of torn-up clothes, what grandmothers
and mothers used to always keep around.”

“I know about scraps and rags you’d best be
rid of. Things you’d rather forget. But guilt—
do they actually sell it? Who would buy?”

“Not Guilt—the sign says Quilt.” “Same thing,”
she says. “Layers of old mistakes stitched
one on top of another. Just try to sleep under it.”

_________________

DIVORCE QUILT
—Taylor Graham

The anger comes out through the fingers,
these threads forced through fabric,
the needle’s prick.

And yet, she wouldn’t have dreamed the colors.
Crimson, black, a fire guttering; storm cell
building up to thunderhead.
And that’s only the first quilted square.

The next one, heavy gray wool,
complexion of a man who chokes
on T-bone cooked just right.

This square commemorates
the empty bed: a patch of flowered
flannel sheet, roses nestled in forget-
me-nots, with her stitching
X’ed across each petal.

The labors of a year, that’s how long
it took to work hurt
into the measured squares.

___________________

QUILTING
—Margaret Ellis Hill, Fair Oaks

Once a month, Sally Little, Permelia Jones,
Nancy Manley, Mary Ann Hiter and Maude Gaither
settle in a circle on cushioned porch chairs
at my Aunt Lettie’s. Braced with sweet tea,
cookies and a few hours, they thread and ply
needles that staple fabric squares together
with tiny stitches. The gossip begins
as if a dowdy flock of birds gather—
twittering and fussing, discussing a meal
while scratching gravel to find the most
juicy tidbits to fill the mind while fingers work.
They must look forward to these afternoons,
each for the joy of the working on something
concrete or to fancy scandalous senarios.
I have to smile; they forget about the young girl
pretending to sleep on a porch swing nearby.

___________________

DREAM QUILT
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Quilts were never the fashion in our house,
not for the Kentucky transplants on Mom’s side.
If, therefore, I want a quilt, I’ll have to sew one.
What would it have? Patches of old loved things discarded,
now that old photos transform into appliquès:

we’d see the great bed once more, of cherry wood?
Mahogany? hand-fitted, taken to pieces first
to reach Kentucky, then again to reach California.

Then, stern and primitively rendered portraits
of Methodist ancestors, Robinsons, Taylors, Glascocks,
and on Dad’s side, a panopticon of Creightons
and Goffs and assorted church-founding Presbyterians,
on Nora’s side would be Omas and Opas, one
Opa a proud large-animal veterinarian of Riga
reduced by emigration to poultry inspector,
another turned humble but loving Nebraska farmer:

placed piecemeal on a soft quilt atop new beds,
woven reversibly-irreversibly into the fabric,
these dozens of eyes of Old Ones following
us every toss and turn would endow our dreams
with dream-eyes, eyes that are spares, prosthetic rolling
glass to insert and be seen through, seeing true darkness.

What else? We’d see the temporary centaur shapes
of Mom and Grandma in skirts atop affectless burros
clambering down the Grand Canyon, or else in Mexico;
the leaf-straying heaps of photo-album snapshots
with Moctezuma’s plumed crown, Carlotta’s necklace,
and a blue-rebozoed Oaxacan woman in a lithograph
who broods massive and iron-faced over a tile-roofed town:

the rust shapes of tricycles, the dead forms of pets
Jeoffrey, Milo, Frisky, Chicken Henry,
a Latvian birch forest to escape the strafing
only to see one’s wooden bowls half-starved:
so many swirling life-shapes stilled to cloth,
they might be small shabtis taking up the burden
of sleep-sojourning Pharaohs, or the armed clay vassals
of Chinese emperors, thousands of deaths ago.

The AIDS quilt on display
in Washington, D.C.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

If you could make a quilt to represent your life, what would some of the squares be—from the past, present, future?

__________________


—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

THIS SUMMER:

Now available: two new chapbooks from Joyce Odam:
Peripherals: Prose Poems (illustrated by Charlotte Vincent)
and Rattlesnake LittleBook #2 (Noir Love).
That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.

WTF!: The second issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick, is now available at The Book Collector or through rattlesnakepress.com, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #3 (which will be available at Luna's Cafe on
Thursday, August 20) was July 15; next deadline will be Oct. 15. Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing, to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW: Issue #22 is now available (free) at The Book Collector, or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Or you can order copies of current or past issues through rattlesnakepress.com/. Deadline is August 15 for RR23: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or
P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to add all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one, and please—only one submission packet per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

COMING IN SEPTEMBER:

Join us at The Book Collector Wednesday, September 9 at 7:30 PM
for the release of a new chapbook by
Susan Finkleman (Mirror, Mirror: Poems Of The Mother-Daughter Relationship, illustrated by Joseph Finkleman);
plus a new HandyStuff blank journal from Katy Brown (A Capital Affair);
a littlesnake broadside from Marie Reynolds (Late Harvest);
and a brand new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#23)!

_________________

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Stitching The Pieces Together

QUILT
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

May night
opaque sky
body sunk
rumbling waters

from a redwood hot tub
high in the San Gabriel hills
the Angels’ city spreads out below
money’s black satin quilt
pinned down by diamonds
far-flung lights
sharp points on the map

once when May night
came to the Kentucky highlands
white butterfly blossoms
sat on the dogwood branches
women with gnarled fingers, furrowed faces
circular quilting bee in the kitchen
where sugared apples steamed
women whose hot tubs
were for washing clothes

my life pieced together
New York to San Francisco
with frantic stops here to there

like the crazy quilt of scraps
left over from silk dresses
my grandmother once began
she died before it was finished
I carry it with me
now tattered and mottled
by climate change and age

__________________

It's SOW Day—for our Seed of the Week, talk to me about quilts—literal ones or figurative. Family heirlooms, quilting bees, torn ones covering tools out in the shed, the AIDS quilt... What's a "crazy quilt"? Did someone make you a quilt for your dowry? Send quilty thoughts to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. And thanks, Pat Hickerson, for the inspiration! And thanks, Peggy Hill, for more poems (see below).


Song of the San Joaquin deadline:

Song of the San Joaquin is accepting poetry through September 15 for the Fall Issue. Info: Cleo Griffith, (209) 543-1776 or cleor36@yahoo.com/.

__________________

CLIMBING IN AND OUT OF SLEEP
—Margaret Ellis Hill, Fair Oaks

The brain waves curve
around the body’s roadways
giving notice that paths of sleep
are not asphalt-paved smoothness,
but wind around about hills and valleys
with spurts of thought jutting out
from the sides and forward,
illusions of darkness or sudden jolts
from stop signs and warning lights.
Reluctantly muscles rouse, prepare
the body to move and stretch before
resettling under the bridge of blanket
for deeper dreams that lead towards day.

__________________

BETWEEN THE LINES
—Margaret Ellis Hill

Great Aunt Helen hid the box amid rafters
This vivacious but prim lady claims
My sister and I found tissued leather gloves inside
Certain decorum and courtesy for young ladies
Besides old dresses and family stories to be forgotten
Mandatory: One never speaks loudly for any reason
The soft silk that rests above a silvery stocking
Pitch should be soft and pleasing
Suggested days at a cabaret not afternoon teas
Bristle at anything except a hairbrush
The pink beaded bag held a lavender sachet
Never ask about or snoop in forbidden places
And a picture of a tall handsome man
Keep your skirt well below your knees
With a broad smile and behind him
Laugh with your mouth covered, say little
A sign that read: Rooms, 25 cents a night.

__________________

DAYDREAMS ON A HOT DAY
—Margaret Ellis Hill

Above me spreads the hot, blue mid-day sky,
and I watch birds swing solos in the heat.
Their wings, unfurled, appear to wave hello
as they sail on inland ocean’s plains.

But I cannot escape earth’s snare. My feet
adhere to asphalt roads and certain paths.
Only a steel body soaring high above
gives me glimpses of how freedom feels.

Yet, my boat can ride with sea and sky
the waves will play duets of water and air.
It’s then I loose the shackles of earth’s draw,
to touch the day like birds I see—and fly.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Poetry is a series of explanations of life, fading off into horizons too swift for explanations.

—Carl Sandburg

__________________


—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

THIS SUMMER:

Now available: two new chapbooks from Joyce Odam:
Peripherals: Prose Poems (illustrated by Charlotte Vincent)
and Rattlesnake LittleBook #2 (Noir Love).
That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.

WTF!: The second issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick, is now available at The Book Collector or through rattlesnakepress.com, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #3 (which will be available at Luna's Cafe on
Thursday, August 20) was July 15; next deadline will be Oct. 15. Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing, to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW: Issue #22 is now available (free) at The Book Collector, or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Or you can order copies of current or past issues through rattlesnakepress.com/. Deadline is August 15 for RR23: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or
P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to add all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one, and please—only one submission packet per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

COMING IN SEPTEMBER:

Join us at The Book Collector Wednesday, September 9 at 7:30 PM
for the release of a new chapbook by
Susan Finkleman (Mirror, Mirror: Poems Of The Mother-Daughter Relationship, illustrated by Joseph Finkleman);
plus a new HandyStuff blank journal from Katy Brown (A Capital Affair);
a littlesnake broadside from Marie Reynolds (Late Harvest);
and a brand new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#23)!

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Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.