Treasure Trove

 The Cat of La Méditeranée

—Today's Paintings by Balthus

(Baltusz Kłossowski de Rola, 1908-2001)

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

A BALTHUS DREAM

A tableau of color
filled in my sequences
of a Balthus dream
knowing of the artistic relationship
of Rilke's friendship as a poet
between these critical innovators
elicited in the Swiss mountains
his paintings grow in demand
in credited creator's portraits
of Alice in Wonderland
this cat or kabuki
only few acknowledging
his matured genius
or understand you
like Giacometti,
Bataille or Camus
with a mind's eye to capture
what his later celebrity brings
in his divine nurtured rapture
from the nature of things.

 The King of Cats (Self-Portrait), 1935

A BEAT BARD

At old orchard
a Beat bard visiting Maine
tosses on his enfolded blanket
covering me at dawn
until the last sunset host
puts on the classical radio
next to the last
remainder-book bench
listens to a musical interlude
of an audible French soprano
as the poet reaches into the bin's
lower depth to search for ideas
in the deposit of a musical score
finding my right lyrical voice
of sheet music in a choice
of chromatic chord and time
setting for my poem
to a harmonic mood of feeling
from a context revealing
a jazz rhyme and rhythm
pledging to record a sonata
for my new composition
about Edgar Allen Poe
playing solo riffs on my sax
as we follow the hourly rising tide
on a mile-wide isle of beach
as sunshine loses direction
under the veil of a Raphael blue
pale ceiling hovering above
as dawn's clouds pass over me
in pure reflections reconciled
from all of natural creation
when Debussy is stirred
in the background
when plaudits of heavenly sound
take over a poet's words
as a small singing bluebird
sounds on beech trees
some of the wise poetry notes
in phrases of John Milton, Dryden
and Dante's paradise reach me
which welcomes my eye motes
at early sunrise as Poseidon waves
above from her passionate myth
at my laughter's attention
covering a daydream's voice
at my intention
of La Mer by Debussy
after the clarinet's echoes
leave my temperament
newly reborn out of love
with a French horn and strings
pass over violin, viola, cello
on their bridges
motioning our brave contentment
to acknowledge the sea-knowledge
without any singular boundary
along scales of a gorgeous ocean
in its tempo of colorful shapes
of humpbacked whales
as in open chorus of stars
praising creativity
in a dancing ovation of ingenuity
for all of us by an enthusiastic
five-star drum-roll rave
as the symphony's conductor
from our harmonies’ choice
of phrasing and melody
in moving the G staff and bars
of dissonance to console
in a cacophony that moves
our soul's capacity
more and more.

 The Street, 1933

JUNE NIGHT: 1990

We sat in the parlor
while on the piano
we played the sonata
of Mozart in D major
for two parts
and from wayfarer songs
of Gustave Mahler
composed from his heart
after being caught
by the Bay's spring rains
played some alto sax riffs
and tried my best
even as a romantic
on the sofa to relax
we sang melodies
against Sturm und Drang
and sought refrains
while we enjoy bluebirds
hanging by a hedge
near a cherry tree
knowing life is a gift
this June night
we rehearse Chekhov
of the Orchard
and in my own poetry words
of a bard's night verse
we acknowledge a kept love
even the cat slept tight.

 Still Life, 1937

THE DISAPPEARED ONE

June showers in a heat
fall into our picnic basket
it must have taken hours
when the barbecue flames
rose on the lawn
in the smoke by the gate
under the tent of crickets
this Sunday
we heard a Beat poet's
parched voice
fading from view
on the street between rains
reading of his experiences
in locating the names
of orphans from the Argentine
called "the disappeared"
of whom Jesus was one
were hunted and rounded up
by the military state
almost vanished
whom he saved
as a jazz brother invited
a young man who was famished
for a Spanish meal and wine
offered a kiss of peace
and we passed the plate
and he stayed overnight
until dawn.

 Girl and Cat, 1937

DUCHAMP: AN EXCHANGE

Paint exchanges phrases
as a poet of future tense
to deposit ready-made art
in an uninvited exhibit
from our language's sense
for society does not welcome
Duchamp's à la carte variety
thinking it shadowed solely
for faint fools or a joke
on their delighted part
as a Nude Descending a Staircase
once upon a tabled bench of rumor
arranged behind the stage
he defying all fabled ring of rules
in our century of cinematic scenes
or what is labeled a commodity
in stardust charismatic schemes
by denying all old drawing laws
with a new dramatic charter
amid the underground of humanity
of once a treasury toxic cause
in a barter sold for a modernity
from Marcel's strange
pleasure sounding manifesto
the calls of a hidden artist spoken
as if in a metaphor of dreams
until his wondrous exhibition
awoke to hit us mightier
than it seems anyone's ego
with a departing leisure of
good humorous glow
in the French neighborhood
on the cold walls of museums
only part of the viewing public
nervously understood the show.

Thérèse Dreaming

SYLVIA

Sylvia walked in a hallway
of pained light
through the window
it was always night
living for words
always in the shadow
of living out the hour
in her poetic insight
from an already blemished day
astonished at her nerve
at a man's wrath
Sylvia moved giving flight
on her own contemporary path
from a finely shaped mind
in a new confessional school
that others hardly would find
bared to be understood
and cast out with an icy cry
of harassed laughter
wishing to write her name Plath
on the encased blackboard
rejecting all chalk sounds
that would be erased
to reinvent her past,
no one knew who
was stalked after
such was her lot and rule
recognizing her own fame
she composed by the mirror
taking out her lipstick
not realizing any blame
and shut the door.

 The Room, 1952

IN A TREASURE TROVE

In a treasure trove
of living words
there is no border
to love or to define forgiving
it is already done
yet here we are in the sun
listening to Charlie Parker
deciding to explore nature
and reach a nest of birds
caught in dark branches
or here at the beach
we assure that inside
of a shell and rock
that a hurting turtle
is well protected,
we make our ways
through Platonic caves
until we motion
with a divine measure
that we will be connected
in a snorkel of wishes
through the ocean waves
to find and save the fish
from man's leaving plastic
and all sorts of nets and metal
to save part of our planet
below our earth's
geological shadow
we let go
from the diving board
and swim in our words
in a dramatic mile below
like Jacques Cousteau
surfing with
an environmental smile.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

I kill an ant

and realize my three children

have been watching.

—Kato Shuson (1905-1993)

_____________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to B.Z. Niditch for his poetry and inspirations today.

For more about the Polish-French modern classical artist Balthus (Baltusz Kłossowski de Rola, 1908-2001), cats, and Rilke, see taboofart.com/2013/09/28/balthus-at-the-met-god-i-miss-my-cat
 
To hear Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Cleveland Orchestra play Debussy’s La Mer, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOCucJw7iT8

 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.

Icarus and the Rattlesnake Hide

El Dorado Hot Springs, Tonapah, AZ

—Today's Photos by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

THE SEASONS
 —Marchell Lyon, Chicago, IL

Her hair is silver like birch leaves
Like confection sugar gray strands
Sparkle like a crown about her head.

She scans her face through goggles of the past.
The skin on her body is less tight than years before
She has more wrinkles around her eyes.

Still she sees the beauty nestled with time.
The valleys of her skin are where
The shadows of her youth hides.

Like you,
She judges herself
Within the contents of the seasons.

She has known her spring.
Newborn feathers have carried her
To the next stage of youth.

She has known her summer.
Her skin tanned with blissed,
Her eyes shining rivaling the sun.

Now that the autumn of all things
Has become her tangled reality
She sees what she sees without denial.

She revels in this season
Before winter’s haze settles in.
Marching cold bullets and bearing arms,

She looks at her refection
Through the windows of her soul.
She is not afraid. 

 Jerome, AZ
 

SONGS TO SARAH
—Marchell Lyon
 

        1.    Dream Child

Let me cradle you
In the arms of this fable
Let me dream of you
Cuddling you with kisses
My fantastic child of air

To my dream mother
I have yet to round your body
I have yet to see
Your smile as I wait
For you with a heart full of tears


       2.    Waiting for my Dream Child

From the clouds the image
Of you has descended from heaven
To rock slow each night
In this moonlit cradle that will
One day bear your sweet name

I am a candle
In your heart’s window
The thought of me
Glows underneath your skin
This light makes our souls shine


      3.    The loss of my Dream Child

A coffin of feathers
I have dreamed
Your ghost has run away from me
To be a shadow rained on
Born to a home without love

I’m not your star in Heaven?
Why do you weep, Mother?
While I wait swaddled by God
It’s just a matter of time
Before we meet face to face


     4.    Birth of my Dream Child

You curl in my body
My little hope and star
I’m finally someone’s mom
I welcome morning sickness
I welcome you to the world

What are all these colors?
From light I shade my eyes.
I cry. You come.
I snuggle at your breast listening
Our twin heartbeat forever one    

 Artichoke Blooming, Phoenix Botanical Garden

Phoenix, AZ
 

WHEN THE LADY SMILES
—Marchell Lyon

            (On seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time)

Through a thin grin
She manages liberation.
Forever freed from the bondage of her time.

Through sly smile
A forest fire of speculations huddled through the ages
In me, embers full with questions have found again the wind.

The lady has secrets, shrewd beautiful secrets.
She is a veil of laughter caught in midair.
She is either demure and sensual, an eye sore or an exaltation,

Her face is a maze full of strained expressive edges.
A false turn of conclusion, lost intrudes,
She sends my idle eye back to the beginning of the puzzle.

In her stately starched dress, she is never humble.
She is proud as a queen, cunning as a lioness on the hunt,
She is a mystery, an ecstasy captured in painted oils.

She is better vintage with time.
She will be forever ogled over.
Her name is her title.

______________________

FROM THE CHRYSALIS FALLING
—Marchell Lyon

A woman who in her stumbling found God’s grace.
From the sky she fell long before Icarus did,
Her eyes blinded by sunlight, her wings made of wax.

She is often without a compass to show her the way
Although she has paid her dues to be heaven-bound,
She has evicted herself from among the stars.
She is contented to stretch her wings but never does she soar.

She is a caterpillar still clinging to her tree.
A seed still dreaming, delaying spring,
And from the chrysalis falling.

A woman postmenopausal is a moth
Who arrives at a second life.
She becomes a new kind of silken serpent.

She is still herself, although she wears a new armor.
She is delicate, raising from the ash, a little less melancholy,
Each step she takes is enough to avoid all flames.

She is always on the watch for a green place to land.
When she finds none, she settles for a swanky retirement village,
Near enough, but not quite out to shore.

_______________

NEWLYWEDS AT DAWN
—Marchell Lyon
 
Ecstasy lingers at dawn.
A shirt spreads its cotton wings and carpets the floor.
The house is nude to all but awaking sounds.
Too many poems in her mind fade and persist.

A shirt spreads its cotton wings and carpets the floor.
A woman wakes, stretches about with energy and with grace.
Too many poems in her mind fade and persist.
In every room, morning muse warms the house.

A woman wakes, stretches about with energy and with grace.
From where he slumbers, morning coffee calls to him.
In every room, morning muse warms the house.
It is as if Mozart calls in flash symphony as sun plays between the blinds.

From where he slumbers, his thoughts dripping with dew.
His kiss, a dawn elixir on her blush face and soapy fingers.
It is as if Mozart calls in flash symphony as sun plays between the blinds.
The spell of love plays off the curtains—is it only a breeze? She is not sure.

His kiss, a dawn elixir on her blush face and soapy fingers.
Ecstasy lingers at dawn.
The spell of love plays off the curtains—is it only a breeze? She is not sure.
The house is nude to all but awaking sounds.
 

Giraffe, Jerome, AZ

A VERSION OF HAND WASHING
—David Wright

Here is a game we might call:
"Welcome to Hell".
Place a Bible beside your bed, ready for God.
Who cares if your reason screams "traitor!"?
Pascal said it so well:
"The heart has reasons reason will not know."

Ten minutes later, disgusted at your weakness,
Stash (quickly) that Bible and place
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" on the precise spot.

God is now dead, you are a
Free-thinker in a new, limitless world.
There is a "herd", and a despicable "they".
We're not one of them, we are awake.
Awake!

Then, self loathe the absurd elitism,
Stash (quickly) that "Thus Spoke...",  and place your
Bible on the precise spot.

Repeat this endlessly.
Repeat this for thirty years, and
Get back to me so we can compare notes.

_________________

LA MIRADA HIGH, '74
—David Wright

an oppresive
tyranny of mediocrity.
a double-wrapped Twinkle.
molester teachers.
an opposition to free thought.
with big flat pasty feet, the moniker:
"Matadors".

_________________

ANITA DISAPPEARED
—David Wright

So I wrote my thesis for my
Biology Degree about the relationship
Between semi-permeable cell walls and
Nightmares.  They would not accept it.

So I found employment with the taxi company, and when
With a fare, that
Old meter went "click”,
About then I started writing poems which
Easily found homes in the
Small presses, nothing more but
Nothing less.

And my friend Jim, from high school, became an oceanographer.
And my friend, Mike, from high school, became
Vice President of marketing for Microsoft.
Barry joined the Navy.
And Anita, my first kiss, disappeared,
Nobody can find her.

I strongly felt if we could just bolster those cell walls we might
Block nightmares and other unpleasantness.
And what else is modern life about than
Making everything pleasant?

 Ruben at Harlow's, Sacramento, CA

RATTLESNAKE HIDE
—David Wright

He jumped on the wildest of the horses and in
Minutes he rode off on it
Heading true West, his inclination and destination.

The diamond ring he wore shined and caught the eyes of
Two bounty hunters, Dennis and Frank White.

Before they caught up it became night, and
He made no fires.  There would be no
Pay day for Dennis and Frank, not that day, not at
His expense.

Though he had charmed the wild horse he had worse luck with a wild
Rattlesnake that saw right through his pretense, and
Bit him on the ass, which left a
Scar he would wear all his days.
Yet he survived.

Those are the facts.
For motive or meaning
Consult the wise.

 El Dorado Hot Springs, Tonapah, AZ

MY RAIN TO BEAR
—David Wright

My rain.
They've had enough fun
at my expense.
They've exhausted all their
fuels, blasted out the coal and
fouled the seas.

Back to my rain, stumbling
out of the blue-movies movie house,
Drunk, on fire, with a hard-on,
Ready for some kind of kill.
Enraged.  Debauched.
Beaten down again.

Rocking, standing before my
balcony window, hearing the party below.
A window smashed, cops come, flashing lights,
back seat of the cop car like so many nights.

My rain, a
squatter's rain, a
gypsy's rain, a
rain to uncover hidden crimes and
wash away the gods.

MY RAIN, a girl's tongue in my ear,
her Beetle's purring, her old man
watching from the stadium seats.
MY RAIN, a brutal farewell to happy endings and
hopeful starts.
MY RAIN, broken toys scattered and reeking of
Daddy's beer, daddy's whiskey, daddy's cigarettes.

MY RAIN, standing by my lovely backyard roses,
my mother's ashes and my father's ashes
inches beneath the damp soil.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

TAKING FLIGHT THE SUMMER OF '72
—David Wright

I tried wishing on a star but my
Hopes were dashed when it was
Really just a distant car on a hill, and
The pill I took an hour ago began
To fade.  We had it made back in '72
When a more gallant star blew right across our eyes
And our skies were malleable to our
Own point of view.
They will forget us.
They will
Never catch
Us.

_________________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to today’s fine contributors for a hearty breakfast here in the Kitchen!

 —Anonymous Photo

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
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The Rhythm of the Road

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

HER FATHER’S FUNERAL

Now she is dressed for
the funeral,
conservative in brown; her

hair is a wild entanglement
though she
combs and combs it down; the

sun is singing—she will
get through this day of
relatives and sighs.  She never

cries.  Her stocking gets a run.
The clock takes so long
to pass the appointed hour, its

hands hanging on to every
moment.  She stares at
the room.  It will be over soon.

LOSS

Wearing the light now
you are illuminated and
your edges shine.

All around you
is a path
that winds softly under your feet.

You are turned
both toward me
and away from me.

I can see you are transparent.
The mist of your presence
is very fragile.

I want to touch you,
but you shudder.
I am afraid I might break you.

You become filled
with energy
and compress.

You enter shadows
that escort your darkness
into their hiding place.

Where
are
you?

________________________

MOOD-WORKS

Good-Mood Daddy
dances up
puts his arm
around his lady
hums her name
in voice so pretty
breathes her fragrance
struts his claim
purrs he loves her
all she hears.


(first pub. in Poets' Forum Magazine, 2006)

MY GRANDFATHER’S VIOLIN

The violin speaks in the voice of my
grandfather.  It occupies a space
of its own, its music far away

in the minds of dead listeners.
I listen, but cannot hear
what they heard.

I envision the touch of its wood
and follow the curves of its design.
It boasts no word like Stradivarius

I think it may have been a fiddle.
My memories collect in its silence.
Maybe it no longer exists—

like my grandfather. 
I hear it now,
It strains over me with tears,

with such a deep anguish
that I weep in return for what
is becoming a loss that never was mine.

______________________

THE USED BOOK AS A SYMBOL OF LOSS

In July of 1994, Paul Tsunami
bought a book at Barnes & Noble . . .

in August of 1994
you died . . .

Paul Tsunami bought a Stephen Dunn book
in Barnes & Noble, called Between Angels,

in August, you died, between angels
and non-angels, believed and not believed.

If there is a connection here,
I have forced it so.

I don’t know who Paul Tsunami is
and how I chanced upon his book,

marked down in a used bookstore
somewhere between 1994

and the year
two thousand and one—

seven years dead.
I paid $4.50 for an $8.95 book—

half of the value closely enough figured.
Haphazard, like death.

Precise,
like the need to catalog events and needs—

to put things in place
when the mind is groping for distraction.

UNDERTONES

At once I know them,
by their weeping.

Voices abandoned by souls,   
by fathers, by time itself.

Why do I love them still—
patiently, in spite of—

these haunted voices.
I listen.  Whisper.  Answer?

_______________________

SUCH A BLUE MOMENT,

A little streak of light—
a flash—
the size of a small blue mouse
at the peripheral,

but it wakened you from
a momentary stupor
where you lost something of value
but cannot say what it was.

Something slipped 
sideways
and between—
something innocent and dear.

You almost felt the love it bore away,
like a small regret.
It caught you by surprise.
You want it back.

It took the time you needed to reclaim it
like a lost beat of your heart—
a flutter of thought that
escaped into heart’s loss.

MAMA’S LITTLE CAR

Her left arm was always more tanned
than the other from resting it
on the window edge as she drove.

I would get carsick from watching
the scenery too close.  Don’t look
at scenery so close, she’d say.

As long as she had her little car,
we had the freedom to come and go,
come and go, come and go.

And back and forth we’d go: between
rainy Washington… Oregon…
and sunny California.

My California arm, she’d laugh,
with her left arm out the window—
fast wind tangling her hair.  She’d sing.

I’d fall asleep in the back seat—
listening to the car engine—
feeling the rhythm of the road.

The car would break down somewhere
but she’d always manage to get it
started—or find someone who could. 

   ~~~ 

Later—from her wheelchair—she’d laugh
and sigh: you know what I miss most . . .?
It was driving my little car . . . .

WORD BY WORD

I felt the time turn in the distance, and the glow
wait to be dawn, and I heard the drone of the first
plane fly over the day, and I felt a connection.
And I stopped in the middle of a word to say another
word; and I felt a whole scenario change in my head.
And I felt a distance gather me, and I gave up my
poem to the distance. And I thought I heard a rustle
of rain, and though I listened as hard as I could,
it was not the rain, but my listening that I heard.
And I felt the moment—like a power that I had to
know its moment. And I grew greedy, and looked
around for more, but I had to pay for that with a
loss. And I want to tell you about that, too, but I
looked up at the clock, and the thin scrap of paper
under my pen was coming to its own end. And I
guess what I want to say is not to be said—not
now, and maybe never—but I’ll take what I can
of it and be thankful for all this awareness that
lets me grope on, word by word.

_______________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for today’s fine, fine poems and photos, winding up our current Seed of the Week: Fathers. Our new Seed of the Week is Passages. 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 more than you can shake a pencil at.

_______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

OF WORDS
—Joyce Odam

          “although they are / only one breath…” 

                                      —Sappho

I have as many as I need

yet fumble for those lost—

the ones that held poems back
from completion.

Words have no substitutes
for themselves,

else why this futile search—
the way love searches

for love
when love can’t be found.

________________________

—Medusa
 

—Anonymous Photo

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.

Mid-Year Perspective

—Photo by Ann Privateer, Davis, CA

PERSPECTIVE
—Ann Privateer

breaking the formula
free to hang out

I ride the tunnel
outside of town

pull into a lot
with old vehicles

from a low place
I see the street above

a traffic light on red
climb with my bike

to cross, but once
there, water swirls

past abandoned trains
creates another barrier,

I am alone on the edge
a trapeze artist in the sky.

 Elizabeth Burbank's Glass Vase Collection

Luther Burbank Home & Gardens, Santa Rosa, CA

—Photos by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

AT LAST
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

I recently announced
My retirement
From state service

Many thankful co-workers
Wished me well
“You will be missed”

That is good to know
While dodging the stones
Thrown by others

In whose eyes
I am now a baby tooth
Long overdue to fall out

To make room for a
New, bigger and better
Tooth to emerge

Clean out your cubicle
Promptly, thoroughly
Now is not soon enough

Write out, review, and edit
All those procedures
You taught yourself

So your replacement won’t have to
Suffer a learning curve packed with
Trial and error

I will do what I can
Until I leave
Now is not soon enough

 Fountain, Luther Burbank Gardens

—Photo by Michelle Kunert
 

AN EGG OF SORTS
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

Purplish-black ‘n’
blackish-purple.
Egg ‘n’ plant
‘n’ plant an egg
‘n’ watch it turn purple.

And black out the
black part, ‘n’
admire the purple
while rolling it
in the sun.

Round ‘n’ round,
But it doesn’t spin too well.
Oh, well.

An egg plant
from the ground
in the sun—
What fun
to own and admire
an eggplant!

 Pony Express Re-Ride, 2016

RE-RIDE
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

         Sacramento CA to St. Joseph MO

That old barn—unpainted, losing its boards
to let light shine through—might once
have been a station on the Pony Express.

I drive on past. The old post office. Nicker
of a horse waiting under saddle—pinto
flicking his ears, listening for distant clatter

of hooves. I’ve driven miles on hints and
hunches. I’m just in time. From west
on the county road—a lank, pale palomino.

Rider slips to the ground, swaps the mail-
bag; new rider swings astride her pinto,
not a moment lost. Horse and rider are off,

a shadow moving at Pony-pace along
galloping roads that encroach where horses
used to run. An image through the dust,

leaving childhood memories scattered
on the shoulder of a two-lane. Mid-June
approaching dusk. The future slipping away.

Peavine

—Photo by Taylor Graham

AFTER THE BURN
—Taylor Graham

We’ve come to see a moonscape,
mid-Sierra forest since the fire. We’ve
crossed the river that runs clear again,
flickering June dawnlight
after winter storms. Now we’re climbing
familiar switchbacks. On both sides
of the road stand ponderosa snags
like splints to hold the mountain
together. Ash and char. And fireweed!
with peavine binding the hillside
in vibrant pink presented like sunrise
after a dismal night. But it’s
fireweed I love. One of the first plants
to come back after inferno; here,
a whole blooming meadow of flaming
pink, the lobes of each corolla
open like a blessing.

 Shasta Daisies, Luther Burbank Gardens

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

MAGPIE ON STREET
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA

Too black to be pavement,
too white to be pavement stripe.

Pressed feathers: only the wind stirs them.
Beak halves so wide-parted, not since
the hundred-degree June heat,

or since this one so opened them, hatchling who pled
by force of hunger for vermiform bread.

But that was among siblings, all pressed
squabbling breast-and-wing-shoulder.
Now the spread gold beak sticks straight up.
The black eyes beg to molder.

What “invisible worm,” having just slunk in
through that wide yellow mouth to the heart,
slips back out the beak onto street,
knowing no food to be found?

 Luther Burbank's Favorite Sheet Music

Luther Burbank Home

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

HOW TO PITY A TERRORIST
—Tom Goff

How can we offhandedly speak of the love
so many proclaim unconditional?
Or can we yet believe that that love is all
the prompt a terrorist needs to turn true dove?
Eric Hoffer, the philosoph who’d shove
boxes and bargeloads for a living, did call
fanaticism a floating or free-fall
into mania left and right, regardless of

which creed or banner. Each looks just as good:
so pick what’s on hand, ISIS, neo-Nazi, Baathist.
But something seethes in the gaze: a singeing rage,
a burning-glass beam, sears dragons into the blood…
Till we widen the young gaze from its narrow gauge,
how do we know how to pity a terrorist? 

 19th Century Coffee Grinder

Luther Burbank Home

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

AFTER ORLANDO
—Tom Goff

I drive to work while In Memoriam
Patrick Pearse stings keenly from a CD,
then ache for something frangible to slam
against the guns-for-all-the-citizenry,
open-carry idiocy at play;
remembering only then that violence
is primate-level, reptile-brain display,
or that all tender rue just shy of silence
is gold my elders once would recommend,
I mumble my solution: when you find
Amendment Two spells gun rights without end,
you lay claim to all its terms; the contract binds:
so, honor to you, our guardians in all strife;
you’ve signed up for the militia—and for life.

 Blossoming Spineless Cactus

Luther Burbank Gardens

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

________________________

Our thanks to today’s fine cooks in the Kitchen! (Carl Schwartz—Caschwa—is due to retire July 13!) Our poetry week begins with the second half of Cal. Lawyers for the Arts’ workshop, this one on “Understanding Self-Publishing”, 11:30am at Avid Reader at Tower in Sacramento. (Reg in advance to save money: www.calawyersforthearts.org/event-2228835/). Tonight will be Sac. Poetry Center’s Hot Poetry in the Park at Fremont Park (not at SPC) as you celebrate the Summer Solstice outdoors. Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café takes place each Thursday at 8pm. Next Sunday (6-8pm), Sac. Metro. Arts Commission and Sac. Poetry Center present California Poet Laureate Dana Gioia and Poetry Out Loud winner Chigozie Maduchukwu as part of the Remarkable Artists series at Crocker Art Museum (Setzer Auditorium), 216 O St., Sac. Info and reg. at events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ecooi99a2b037bdc&llr=5nnautdab 

Scroll down to the blue box (under the green box at the right) for info about these and other upcoming readings in our area—and note that other readings may be added at the last minute.
 
____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Consider me


As one who loved poetry


And persimmons.

—Masaoaka Shiki (1867-1902)

_____________________

—Medusa

 Summer Solstice, Stonehenge

—Anonymous Photo

Celebrate poetry on this Summer Solstice 

by reading “11 Things About the June Solstice” at

www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/facts-about-june-solstice.html/

before you head out to today's CLA publishing workshop

and tonight's reading in Fremont Park.

 

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.

The Man in the Moon

Ostin Moon

—Photo Courtesy of Carol Louise Moon
 

OSTIN MOON
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento, CA

The Man
The Moon
Keener of Jazz
New Orleans lover

Toe Tapper
Dapper Dan Man
Crooning tunes
with the Moons

A wellspring
Ameri  -  can
Facts of history
Ask him any

Bowl Full of Jelly
Spinner of black platter
You melody my mind
and keep me mellow

Bearded jolly man
Lover of my mother
I miss you
You are with me still

 

Carol Louise

—Photo Courtesy of Carol Louise Moon 
 

OSTIN B. MOON I
—Carol Louise Moon

He was always my father
this wonderful, muscular man
but he wasn’t always from New York.
He was only from New York since
the war, this traveler.  He was in
France during the war as a medic,
this medically knowledgeable person.

I knew him from the time I was born.
In his bed he would throw me into
the air and balance me on his knees
until I laughed.  He had a wonderful
sense of humor, this jovial guy.

He was a magician in my school days,
this tricky beer-bellied man.
Coins disappeared and reappeared;
days of mystery and wonder.

I knew him and loved him, and held
his unsteady hand on the day he died—
this peaceful man, this Wonderful.

 Ostin and Carol Louise

—Photo Courtesy of Carol Louise Moon

A BOX OF CHOCOLATES
—Jeanine Stevens, Sacramento
                 
Five older sisters moved away
to the city. One returned
with a cardboard box
of bittersweet chocolates,
“old fashioned drops”
they were called: pink, white
and yellow cream centers.
He saved that box
under his bed, sniffed the empty,
crinkled brown paper cups,
even sucked them
till all flavor disappeared
into splintered walls.
The youngest of ten,
there were many things
he didn’t understand,
so he dropped the family’s
toothbrushes down the toilet. 
He played with matches,
didn’t mean to burn the barn
with horse and cow inside.
Then, the Ohio River left
its banks once too often,
and tornadoes played
heavy games on the roof.
They moved to the city.
He became allergic to chocolate.

 —Anonymous Photo

SOUNDS OFF
—Loch Henson, Diamond Springs, CA

The interior life of the
introvert contains more
music in the silence than
expected.  Tomes of tunes,
and a library of esoteric reading
helps populate the outside spaces,
feeding the work within.

Who is this man, who gifts a distracted
teenage girl books about Joseph Campbell
and “The Goddesses In Every Woman”?
There is patience to plant
such seeds in an overgrown garden,
and trust in the nature of growth
to bring forth flowers
and fruit at the proper time.

Is he perhaps surprised
to see that his efforts over years and
years on many fronts have created
an unexpected vista of orchards 
within his community?

The stands of trees, which could
lack carefully planned and planted
rows, still bear an array of fruits
to refresh and sustain others on
their own journeys.

 —Anonymous Photo

FOR FATHER’S DAY, FOR RAY LEWIS WHITE
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA

Wasn’t quite my father:
Though he was,
Long ago, in academia,
And in those
Impractical times,
Gave me so much.

I am talking about
Ray Lewis White,
Nobody’s father.
My grad school mentor.
The Great White,
The Great American
Literature scholar.
Was 400 pounds,
Wet or dry, didn’t
Much matter.
But when he moved,
Which was seldom,
It was as though waters parted.
When he spoke
About modern American
Literature, you heard Orson
Welles.  And you listened.

He was The Man.  I shared an
Office with him
For five years.  His was
The Word: Sherwood Anderson.
Hemingway.  Fitzgerald.  His
Kind rumblings defined.  It.  All.

What he thought of my poetry,
I’ll never know.  Probably not much—
A small smile, and “Let’s get
Back to Hemingway in Cuba
Now, dear boy.”

I could go now, and
Probably should.
I’m pretty sure
What I’d find there:
Papa.  Yes.  And Ray Lewis,
The Finca Viga tour is for you.

 —Anonymous Photo

MEMORY STORAGE
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

Ask Grandpa, the father says.
His little girl wants to know when the Pony
Express is coming through. History re-enacted
155 years after the fact. She’s horse-crazy,
it’s in her blood. It passed her father by,
while he was tinkering with an old Ford, or
programming a dinosaur computer.
But Grandpa has stories. Ten-day treks
over the backside of the Sierra
on a long-legged sorrel, granite and scree.
Will he volunteer for this ride
out of history? Never too old, he says,
to feel his creaky bones settle into the stride,
work the years away on the back
of a horse. Will Grandpa do it this year?
the girl wants to know. Her dad can monitor
progress—station to station, the slick
switch of riders, mochila and mounts—
at home on his computer. But how
could Grandpa’s memory be stored there?

____________________

A FATHER’S DAY
—Taylor Graham

They didn’t come prepared—bare shins, sneakers.
The man’s got a puppy, a young son in tow.
It’s spring, morning’s a wind full of questions.

Past the ball-field, grass narrows then forks
into overgrown trails. Which to take,
when one ventures in shorts and sneakers?

The pup leads a way, sniffing pine duff,
brambles, a feather. Where are we going?
the boy asks. Morning’s a wind full of questions.

What can a father say? He’s only just heard
of a hidden pond, blackberries ripening—
and they’ve come here bare-shinned, in sneakers.

Brambles scratch. The boy finds cedar tepees.
Who made them, how long ago? The pup’s off
testing a morning-wind full of questions.

Indians summered here, but now they’re gone.
Where does anyone go? A father knows—
venturing with boy and dog, with bare sneakers
on this morning’s wind, full of questions.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

First autumn morning


the mirror I stare into


shows my father's face.

—Murakami Kijo (1865-1938)

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today’s fine chef’s for their cookin’ in the Kitchen, and a happy Father’s Day! 

Celebrate the poetry of Dad’s Day by taking 

somebody's dad to today’s open mic at Nello Olivo 

Tasting Room in Placerville, 2pm. Scroll down to 

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

for info about this and other upcoming readings in our area.

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.

Half-Understood Truths

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

2:30 AM

The bees are awake.
This is not a dream.
The night is thick with June.
Their libraries of flowers are open
Even as the winds are still this night.
I listen to them through these walls.

They explain the moonlight
As something so simple as exclamation.
It is like our own breathing.
They dance directions in the moonlight

As I take your tongue
Into my mouth and listen
To the directions from your heart.

An owl passes our window,
Almost a sacrament on the night.

Our chests fill with the language
Of the bees.  We hum with
Greater peace than the world
Has ever known.

You move your arms around me.
They have become perfect wings.

_____________________

THE POLICE

A tiny room filled with weapons
Used for art.  A certain
Cadence one can carry into
The street.  It will glitter.
It will even have a shadow
And will carry a memory for you
That will allow you to explain
Why you are here, on this street,
At this hour, wearing these clothes.

It might be even just enough
To keep the police from shooting
You to death because they may
Recognize a vague mirror.
Something they
Can recognize, a fountain,
A particular sunset.  The sound
Of one of their children
Crying from a tiny room,
Somewhere in the future, behind this
Mask of words and half-understood
Truths.

 Gardens, Locke, CA

ABOVE THE WORDS

Already the poem no longer belongs to me.
Its road of miracles shows wondrous horses
Shining with brilliance even in the darkest of nights.

My voice shakes above the words.
It is no longer witness
To the weather, or the moon,
Or this silent scratching upon
Whatever beach this is, catching
Waves like tears, voices
Heard only in sleep.

Still, I can see you.
Even without time collected
Around you.  You are more
Than breath to me now.

We are as intimate as lovers
In a carriage, in an unknown city,
Plying the streets all of the night.

The clatter of our horses hard
Against the cobblestones as we
Make love to one another, again and again.

Street lights flashing past, falling
On our naked flesh.

____________________

EVENING

I do not tire of the lights
Coming on in the villages as evening
Prepares itself for its song.

The cello explains this as well.
As does the river with its
Flickering water.

Summer is within me.   My thoughts
Are longer than these evenings.
Even the shadows are confused.
They can hardly find their way
Through the curtains.

I have a song for this breeze
But sorrow has come to find me
Before I can begin to sing.

The passing day.

 Student Artwork

LOVEMAKING

A perfume rises from our bed.
We are young again and will
Never grow old.  We know
All about what happens
With time and its chalices.

We can soothe just by looking
At clouds.  Our thighs
Are wild in excitement,
Turning around each other,
Easy as mists through the canyons.

I move my hands over your hair,
Your face, your body, green
As June and full as July.

There is a clear water
Upon which we can walk
Without drowning.  We can
Never drown.

We make love into the Autumn,
Becoming more beautiful
As the days grow shorter
And bright with maple leaves.

 Student Artwork, 2

WHISKEY

The night is bottomless.
I pull myself to my feet,
Drink a little whiskey.  My body
Starts to tell me another tale
Of its tribulations, but I am
Listening to Celtic harp music
And carry starlight above the
Dance of the bass.  I bow to
The night.  I bow to my body.
I bow to this music.

The music says, finish the whiskey.

_______________________

A CAGED SILENCE

The moon waxes
Toward the end of June.

I am unable to lift
My pen to write the poem.
Time has let me see
The future slipping, away, away.

I have no idea what
It will bring.  No one
Else speaks of it.

 Shadow, Me in Garden

A DREAM OF GATES

No place.  No time.  The sea
Is a sea of gates.  We walk
Through them, amazed that
We have bodies.

A little room entered
Through a round gate.
There are one thousand
Candles burning just beyond it.

I slip through
A blue gate, in the night
And find my way to your
Bed in the dark.
Your body opens to me
Like a gate.

A gate made of fire
Opens to a gate made
Of ice, to a gate made
Of clear winds, to a gate
Made of love.  All open
With whispered kisses.

 Grapes Before Sunset, Locke

“THE MONTH WAS A MOON OF ROSES”
                            —Oscar Milosz

The songs had washed up
On the beaches as in
Childhood dreams.

Some were still humming,
Vested in seaweed,
Insomnias of so many
Dark houses, so many
Bits of memory.

A rattling of keys.
Broken staffs.
One can barely hear
The sound of one’s own
Footsteps.  The singers,
Servants of the song, have
All disappeared.

Wipe your tears.
Dance a waltz on the sand.
In a little while it will all
Sound like waves and rain,
Rain upon the ocean.

 Mike and Eva West, Bolinas, CA

A PRINT SHOWING US ALL FORGETTING

It has been twilight for so long that
The birds have abandoned the sky
And mutter their small songs
Like question marks carved in water.

At times I hate to think
That this is all dreaming.
But it is soft and drowsy,
A kind of story within which
The sound of a fly landing
On an apple can be heard
Behind the golden rhythm
Of voices heavy with even more
Stories sliding toward eternity.

We decide maybe it is a harp
That sounds this way and runs
Its tongue across the music
The frog chorus makes.

The soothing of great anguish,
When we begged favors of this moment.

The entire earth
Seeming to be
Our very own breathing.

 Across the Garden

CRYSTAL BIRD

They told me there was a crystal bird
Who would come to me when
I slept and drape its lovely wing
Over my body so I did not have
To sleep alone.

And it would say, “Peace.  Peace.”
And cities would rise from the mist.

It is the habit of night
To behave this way.
It stands on its flight of stairs
And allows us to know
That morning is somewhere
In the obscure gardens
Within which we sleep.

Even now a breeze comes
Like a beating heart.

Oh sleep a little, it urges.
It is midsummer now.
You may rest with the sound
Of the fountains and the many
Songs of the air.

These words carry them there.
They gather on the sill of our dreaming.

You are no longer alone.
You are no longer alone.

________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

GREAT SORROW
—D.R. Wagner

Tears are never old.
They fall into the sea
And are no longer tears.
Still they fill the sea.

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s fine poems and pix!

 Paper Carving, Cars

(Anonymous Photo)

Celebrate poetry today by heading up to Placerville 

for the Poetic License read-around from 2-4pm, then
down to Sac. for the Tomcats (Tom Hedt and Tom Goff  
at Sacramento Voices, 4:30pm. Tonight, it’s 
a rare opportunity to hear the After Hours Crew 
for one night only: Todd Cirillo, 

Bill Gainer, and Julie Valin in Grass Valley 

(see this nice article about them in The Union at 

 www.theunion.com/entertainment/22479783-113/the-after-hours-crew-performs-saturday-at-151). Scroll down to the blue box (under the green box 
at the right) for info about these and other 
upcoming readings in our area.

And do note that the second half of the  

CLA publishing workshop is this coming Monday 
at 11:30am, this one on the legalside of self-publishing. 

See www.calawyersforthearts.org/event-2228835 
for info and to reg.

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.