Songs of the Desert

Cactus Clock, Phoenix Botanical Gardens, Phoenix, AZ

—Poems by Michael Lee Johnson, Itasca, NY
—Photos by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento, CA

LITTLE DESERT FLOWER

Out of this poem
grows a little desert flower.
it is blue sorrow
it waits for your return.
You escape so you must from me
refuge, folded, wrapped in cool spring rain leaves—
avoiding July, August heat.
South wind hellfire burns memories within you,
branded I tattoo you, leave my mark,
in rose-barren fields fueled with burned and desert stubble.
Yet I wait here, a loyal believer throat raw in thirst.
I wrest thunder gods gathering ritual-prayer rain.
It is lonely here, grit, tears rub my eyes without relief.
Yet I catch myself loafing away in the wind waiting fate
to whisper those tiny messages
writer of this storm-welded wings,
I go unnoticed but the burned eyes of red-tailed hawk
pinch of hope, sheltered by the doves.
I tip a toast to quench your thirst,
one shot of Tequila my little, purple, desert flower.

 El Dorado Hot Springs, Tonapah, AZ

ALBERTA BOUND 

I own a gate to this prairie
that ends facing the Rocky Mountains.
They call it Alberta,
trail of endless blue sky,
asylum of endless winters,
hermitage of indolent retracted sun.
Deep freeze drips haphazardly into spring.
Drumheller, dinosaur badlands, dried bones,
ancient hoodoos sculpt high, prairie toadstools.
Alberta highway 2 opens the gateway of endless miles.
Travel weary I stop by roadsides, ears open to whispering pines.
In harmony, North to South
Gordon Lightfoot pitches out
a tune,
"Alberta Bound."
With independence in my veins,
I am a long way from home.

 Chairs, Phoenix Art Museum

HAZY ARIZONA SKY

Midnight,
Sonoran Desert,
sleep, baby talk, dust covering my eyelids.
No need for covers, blankets,
sunscreen, sand is my pillow.
Adaptations
morning fireball
hurls into Arizona sky,
survival shifts gears,
momentum becomes a racecar driver
baking down on cracked,
crusted earth—
makes Prickly Pear cactus
open to visitors just a mirage,
cactus naked spit and slice
rubbery skull, glut open
dreams, flood dry.
Western cowboy wishes, whistles, and movies
valley one cup of cool, clear, fool's desert gold
dust refreshing poison of the valley.
Bring desert sunflowers, sand dunes, bandanas,
leave your cell phone at home.

LION IN MY HEART

There is a heart embedded inside this male lion, I swear.
I eat leaves and underbrush, foliage of the forest, I belch.
Then I fall in love with birds, strangers and wild women.
Tears fall into the lush forest green below,
like Chinese crystal glass beads, shatter.
Then I realize it’s not the jungle, but I that am alone.
In the morning when the bed squeaks, both alarm clocks erupt,
I realize I’m alone in my jungle.
I hear the calls of the wild—
the streetcars, and the metro trains
wake me in my sleep in my jungle alone,
let me belch in my belly with my Tums,
let me dream in my aloneness I swell.
There is a heart embedded inside this male lion,
I swear jungle man, lion lover, and city dweller.

Today’s LittleNip:

SOLO BOXING
—Michael Johnson

Solo boxing, past midnight,
tugging emotions out of memories embedded,
tossing dice, reliving vices, revisiting affairs,
playing solitaire-marathon night,
hopscotch player, toss the rock,
shots of Bourbon.

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Michael Johnson and Cynthia Linville for today’s songs of the desert.

 —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.

The Claiming Air

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

To where it all begins,

at some edge
of some dreamed sea—
some cove of blue that draws me there
to sit enclosed, to hide in the blue shadow
of the blue air and listen to the white cries of
gulls—watch the patient crawling of the waves
—the solitude of loneliness one learns to love…

or was it real—
only some composite of time spent
beyond the measured memory that thrills and fails.

I’m here—I’m there—walking toward this moment,
—who I am—under the wide imperfect sky that
fills with its vast moodiness, moving so darkly,
laying swift blue shadow everywhere—and
the white gulls that sound so anguished,
though beautiful and low—and I keep
them with me to become at least their
curiosity—never having left—no
matter how many cities later...

I knew this place
—as well as my life—its long
unreachable distance—this shore beside this sea.

THE MECHANICS OF TIME
Cartier Mother of Pearl Clock. 1925

To open the puzzle clock that does not open,

to understand the mechanics of time

that has its own dimension . . .

    A harp plays of its own accord in

    a shuttered room; a soprano sings,

    surrounded by the stopped time

    of a white metronome. 

To open such a clock is to impose your

curiosity upon the moving gears and the

arrowed hands that turn in tireless turning . . .

    A violin cries to another violin 

    in the white room of troubled music;

    softly, they out-cry each other.

To open the clock is to allow yourself an

unearned answer; the face of the clock 

will haunt your questions . . .    

    The sunlight in the room shines across

    the carpet to the white piano where 

    taut hands lift from the final note

    and lay them quietly down again. 

 TOWARD

Up against the mountain

where the climb is high,

I hear the old sweet cry

of the crying bird.

It knows 

how I aspire

and why.

It flies aloft 

even as I 

climb 

below.

It’s not 

the wings 

I need,

I am 

too slow.

It’s not 

for reach.

The climb is all I know.

 

____________________

THE TURN
After“Turn in the Road” by Charles Burchfield, 1917

Green trees,

a woods, 

a gnarled tree 

holding up

a lowering piece of sky 

above a darkened building—

staring at the turn—the only direction

from the imposing distance,

two white clouds (or headlights)

that grow larger and nearer,

but through the trees—

an unnerving sound in the breaking silence,

almost a weeping (for the loneliness)

almost a cry (save me)

or something  darker (find me) 

from somewhere beyond the turn

that keeps turning.

 

 THE PIECES

: comes to her arms,
comes with his heart all weeping
having broken himself upon his life
and lost the pieces,

how he cries to her,
telling his long and pain-filled story
giving it sharp and deadly
edges,

making it deep, carving it in,
how can she listen?

 

___________________

THE WHITE PALLOR OF THE SKY

What of the white pallor of the sky
this day—this day without mercy, this
dimensionless day, this white-fog morning.

I test the skies with my gray look. How thin.
They could not hold me. I shall not fly
nor lift a dreary wing in agitation.

I may just sift against this day until I fit—
somewhere near or far—it does not matter.
I am in a drift.

Some wet bird lets a cry cut through.
I feel it reach
and offer back my silence.

Nowhere does sensation end; I am
all of it, the pale gray light, monotonous,
the few shapes wavering through.

The same bird calls. I open myself.
I let it through.

SIMPLE THINGS

Fragmentary. This old light out of older light. Repeti-
tions. Believe in it. Let it lead you into its farther self.
You can go as deep as you dare. Its name is night. It
has many stars. Count them. Take forever. A child sits
watching you, blowing soap bubbles into planets.
Wings without angels fly everywhere. Oh, this is such
a night. Go with joy, that old foe of sorrow. Tell the
child not to cry. The child does not listen. The child
rubs an old tear into its eye, watching you for pity.
You are both lost and at home in this night-city which
has opened up its wing for you. Do not try to under-
stand this—you are not here. The child has dreamed
you. Hold the child until you die.

__________________

THE POWER OF HEAVEN

This is the power
of heaven :
No prayer can fill it.
No death can bring it down.

It is God’s mind, unentered,
mystery of
light and dark,
continuance and
oblivion.

Stars make it far.
But far is
where we are from it.

Paths of sunlight
seem to reach;

the intangibles are what
we seek.

Oh, cry then,
into the claiming air
for whatever is there.

BREATH OF TIME        

The view is good from here.
Snow birds cry love to me.
The mountain peaks shine

and the sunlight pours down
on everything.
I hear the thin ring of bells

from valley churches.
I can even fly—soar
through all my dreams—

all explained. My body is light
and my mind
has never been so deep.

Love shines from within me
and touches everyone.
It is brief but good.

I feel a swarm of color
and am surrounded by sunlight.
I transform into all of it.

I have reached the magic number
of myself.
This year I celebrate.

__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

AN OLD NIGHT-CRY

—Joyce Odam

An old night-cry—sounding thin, sounding far.
I've been that far, that old—
reached—with nothing there tohold.
But why this night . . .? Why this bold . . .? 
                                                   
_________________

—Medusa, with thanks to and thanksgiving for Joyce Odam and today’s fine poems and photos!

 Forever Blowing Bubbles...

(Anonymous Photo)

Our new Seed of the Week is Bubbles. 

For Saturday Night Live’s take on Bubbles, go to 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKOb-kmOgpI/, 

but there are lots of meanings to the word, “bubble”. 

Go deep, go wide, and 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 SOWs than you can shake your bubble wands at. 

(Did you notice the bubbles in one of Joyce’s poems?)

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.

Have Brain Will Travel

—Photos by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch, CA

THE EAGLE’S CRY
               30 years ago, Union Valley Reservoir
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

I readjusted my binoculars,
looked again across the inlet. What could I see
but a ragged mass of sticks—3 feet wide,
precarious—near the top of a great Ponderosa?
You were zeroing in with a borrowed
telescope. Mid-Sierra, summer-cold at dawn.
We set up camp the night before, hoping
for a glimpse of the rare sight: a Bald Eagle nest,
cause for celebration. Our national symbol
endangered in her homeland: habitat destruction,
illegal shooting, DDT…. I thought
I could decipher a nest from that ramshackle
platform so high up in the pine. Where
was the eagle? Out, hunting the lake for fish?
I imagined wings over ripples, deadly
flash of white, the sun just rising. I listened
for her high-pitched whistle-cry,
or a low kuk-kuk. How does she sing
to her baby?

____________________

GOLDEN?
—Taylor Graham

Ennui, you said.
The horsefly on a blade of grass,
a pious sheep across the neighbor’s fence.
Ground squirrels dash
under the circling of a hawk. Sun-glint
and glare that makes of this
pragmatic speckled rock
a pyramid of light. The sidewinder creek
no longer sandbed dry, but
brimming, leaping from last week’s
storm. Suddenly
everything is still. A winged
shadow passes—huge
as if close to the sun. Look,
way up high, dark speck of bird—eagle?—
gone, flying so fast upcountry
there’s not a sound. Not an echo
of ennui.
 

QUIRKS OF THE PLACE
—Taylor Graham

Will it rain today? Clouds of black tea.
We’ll hike the creek again, a moonscape
of rock and ghost-pine. Hints of how
the mountain was made. Serpentine belt
through granite and lava; a place shattered,

disjointed and complete in itself.
A place of Sierra shipwreck. The biker
who set off down the ridge—no
motorcycle malfunction—the hunter
whose head broke into birdsong;
no bear or cougar got him, but his own

familiar body. Metabolic quirks
as changeable as weather. And will it
rain? Waterfalls and boulders slick
when wet; sudden drop-offs into a creek
not steep but tricky. Thanksgiving-

cold, ready to storm. The most familiar
place becomes adventure in quirky weather.

__________________

ONES THAT GOT AWAY
—Taylor Graham

That lake caught in the hook of mountain
is full of the ghosts of fishermen—
the tales he tells around a campfire
against a chill of wading early snowmelt
in his memory. The memory
of someone gone, always hungry for a fish
that got away. He speaks of shadows,
reflections at the last of sunset
leaving only a forever flow.
One who slipped into the South Fork,
the reservoir, the pond, or else
gave up and went back home to die.
He’s imagined the mask: eyes
rippled by water-striders on a still surface.
He tells these stories to the embers.
By dawn he’ll be out again fishing. How
a man becomes what he longs for.
Hungry not for the taste of trout, but
the gleam of rainbow, that tug on the line.

HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL
—Michael Ceraolo, Willoughby Hills, OH

There was a 1950s Terran TV show
with the same title as this part of the poem,
a show with a hero who helped out
only those who sought his help,
                                               refusing
to impose himself on those who didn't

The show had a catchy theme song,
the rhythm of which the Seven adopted,
                                                          though
given the pace of technological change
the card was figuratively, not literal
                                                     But
the message got through just the same

Have Brain Will Travel reads the card of a clan
Knights without armor saving sullied land
Total reclamation when you call them in
Eco-redeemers are the clan of Paladins

Paladins, Paladins,
where do you roam?
Paladins, Paladins
far far from home

They travel on to wherever they must
Approval from creatures is their badge of trust
There are space-camp legends the astronauts spin
of complete cleanups by the clan of Paladins

Paladins, Paladins,
wherever you roam,
Paladins, Paladins,
you've made a new home

The new home was the reclaimed space,
again habitable for the natives of the place,
                                                              though
occasionally one of the Seven
might decide to stay after the job was done,
                                                                and
if that happened was immediately replaced
Too early in the poem to tell
if that will happen here

SUPERMOON
 —Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA

A scant few nights ago, we saw you, Moon:
wished you to become in truth
the Goddess-Hero forever promised Soon;
oh we breed Somedays like green youth.

Your brightness was a portent; you would swell
so blinding and silver, even the Sun
would cringe; moon-eagle high up with talons fell
swoop crying to outsweep the Hot One.

No, your great rising gave off no influence,
not so much as one long tide,
one dashing breaker’s commotion that torments,
that tortures even the seaside

out of accustomed shape. We looked next day:
the clouds hung hard upon the dawn
as pregnancies by their very swell may delay;
we fear the pushed-through fruit stillborn.

But no, the day-orb, although cloud-filtered silver
as if to make Supermoon double,
threw off sky-gray rags in one massive shiver.
We were back at the source of all trouble.

________________________

RECITATIVE
—Tom Goff

Who’d ever have guessed, Walt Whitman,
that your irregular verse—wandering afoot, nay,
tramping, trampling, trampolining over all
conventions of rhyme & meter, following only your own
unmeasured illimitable pay-it-forward spin—
would prove so singable? Long after our
Protestant hymnals drone their last drone to our sleepy
sewing baskets, long after the nodding snore unawares
in the churchly aria, we feel your systolic pulse in the most
scintillant music—Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Sea Symphony,
ecstatic in Joan Rodgers’ surging cresting voice;
VW’s Dirge for Two Veterans; Howard Hanson’s
Song of Democracy, recorded at Eastman so Mercury-intimate
it torments (O student orchestra, O student choir—and what students!):
To hear this intimate fire, this antiphonal roar and plunge,
this caress of lovingly young voices, young instruments—it is
to sit in the “Living Presence,” at once gathering self
and dissipating self. The harmony of you, Walt, and us, naked
and daring to touch the Burning Bush, then coming away
as from all fatal meetings, both deeply singed
internally and outward whole, fresh and unburned
though tender the skin to the lightest touch…

_________________

BY THE BREADTH OF ONE HAIR
—Tom Goff

Scrubbing the floor, Jane Kenyon finds a hair,
an ancestral hair stuck in her half-full pail.
She thinks it quite transfiguring, as if there
all human continuance were stranded. Fail,
that argument would, with me. The brush I share,
rich with tresses sloughed from me & mine, grail
to Kenyon, oppresses me with stubborn care,
care the coarse hair I’d whisk aside, nay, flail—

the thought that what illness visited, and I suffered,
slightly, as one suffers the staylong guest,
could soon return to mingle with chemistry,
rob me of all that remains of my birth-crest,
denude my pate that once held strong sun buffered.
To accept, as in life, new weaves, new tapestry…?

And you, my real one, you whose tresses shine,
you came to my dream as ever, not utterly mine.
Pressed fingertip to my face, as by a hair’s breadth, soft, slight, fine…

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

I had a dream that Donald Trump resigned as President of the United States
     Trump went into a rage and then quit by walking out of the White House
     and he left no forwarding instructions on what to do until another election could be held
     I didn’t vote for him so I actually felt a sigh of relief
     and I was riding my bike around to see that plenty of people were just fine with that, too

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

______________________

Our thanks to today’s poets and to photographer Robert Lee Haycock for our fine Monday morning brunch on this beginning of Thanksgiving Week. Tom Goff’s “Supermoon” poem appeared on Facebook on Nov. 16. For today’s version, he says he changed “moon-hawk” to “moon-eagle” out of deference to Medusa’s Seed of the Week (The Eagle’s Cry).

Tonight, novelists Jordan Okumura and Doug Rice will read at Sac. Poetry Center, 7:30pm. I’m guessing that Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe will not meet, since I’m sure Art Luna must be closing the restaurant for Thanksgiving. On Saturday, Poetic License will have their read-around from 2-4pm in Placerville at the Placerville Sr. Center. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 —Drawing by Edward Gorey

Celebrate rainy days and good books of 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.

That Little Boy

—Anonymous Photo

A LITTLE BOY WHO WON’T GO AWAY
—Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO
 
He’s at least 70 now and has
never forgotten his childhood.
He lives with that child every day.
He relives that Thanksgiving Day
his family had parched field corn
for dinner that he can still taste.
Nothing else in the house to eat.

He remembers his church buying
clothes for him to wear to school.
And he remembers walking to class
through snow with holes in his shoes,
hatless and gloveless, in a windbreaker.
But he got high grades, studied hard
and won a scholarship to college.
He spent his life as a teacher, married
a fine woman and had a good life.

But that little boy never goes away
and has made him promise he would
do everything he can to see that
children in his community never
have to eat parched field corn
not turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
He's old now and retired but still
goes back to his old school five days
a week to see if some child has a need.
A Crossing Guard can always tell.

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Donal Mahoney for a wonderful beginning to a week of Thanksgiving!

This just in: Today at 5pm, Coffee & Poets will present a discussion and podcast with Sacramento poet Tracy Gourdine, led by Frank Dixon Graham. Head over to the Naked Lounge, 1111 H St., Sac.  to be part of the audience! Free. Previous Naked Lounge podcast interviews can be heard at etrigg.com/location/the-naked-lounge-1111-h-street-95814-sacramento-ca/289332/.

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

A Room Full of Nightmares

13th-Century Illustrations

—Poems by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA

—Visuals from a Variety of Sources Provided

by D.R. Wagner

WITHOUT PERMISSION

She was making her tea
With black water,
Like she could open up
The morning as if it were
The throttle of a motorcycle,
Engine quivering as she sat atop it.

She could tell you how to feel.
No one was fooling about any of this.
There suddenly seems no choice.

A room full of shipwrecks.
I used to know the names
Of the people who lived here.
They were fine folks.

All dead now.  Little
Songs right in the middle
Of their heads.
Birds on the eaves of their roofs.
Their beautiful children gone.

Cormorants on the piers,
Unable to swallow the fish
In their throats.
At one time they could speak.
Now the fishermen are gone.

I will never again
Be allowed to speak to you.
We are apologists for the sea.
What do you want from us?
Many of us shatter before we are able
To speak about any mysteries.

There is more.  Go buy candles.
Place them as high on the cliffs
As you are able.

We shall tell the sailors
Of your kindness when
They come for us.

 Sad Rabbit

 

FAITH

Just before I woke up I saw three men
Sewing the edges of what seemed to be
A dream.  I was going to ask them if that
Was what they were doing, but the light
Suddenly shifted and I was back standing
On the edge of the same pile of rocks
That seemed to be leaning out over the town.

I thought I would walk down to the spring,
Get some water.  But I did not know where
Any spring was located and my head was
Beginning to fill with all sorts of ideas that
People had mentioned to me if I ever found
Myself out in a place like this.  The ropes
Holding the day up were beginning to haul
The whole thing down.  The barns were losing
Their red to a deafening gray.  I knew I would
Need a light of some kind very soon.

When I got to the the first of the great oaks
I saw lights flickering in the lower reaches
Of the trees, where they bent to touch the earth.
This was how things were supposed to look,
I told myself.  Even sound had an aura about it.

It was as if faith in life and in the beautiful,
In friendship, and kindness and love and all
Those things I had been told when I was young
Could really be true here on earth.  That was
When I knew I was dreaming.  Someone
Pulling on the sleeve of my coat, hungry,
Afraid to ask for anything more than a mouthful
Of food, not even a lousy cigarette, or a piece
Of hard candy might be asking too much and
They were not going to get it from anyone in
This bloody country.  It was a mother, somebody’s
Mother, but she too was pulled back into the night.

I reached my horse just at the edge of the long
Meadow.  I felt I might be able to come back, to see places
Like this again.  To know there was a place where
Love would go better than listening to a head filled
With the noises of hurt and want.  I love you, the
Great oaks whispered to no one in particular.

How about that? …to no one in particular.
 
 

 Crows
 

CROWS

Two crows put on their masks and light their eyes.
They have been here many times before.  We know
Them by their voices and the crackle, cackle or their
Arguing.... “We are not hungry,” they say and land upon
The heads of the dead, pecking at their eyes.  “They
Do not need them now and they are such delicious
Grapes and look the jack-o’-lanterns have no eyes
At all.”  They are total masks, a smear upon a vegetable
Designed to help us understand the dead in a particular
Way.  We will come to your house and beg and you will
Give us sweets.

The trees along the driveway fill with black bodies,
Squawking and shitting on the lawns and concrete.
They use the red to color their eyes and watch us
As we make our way from house to house, dancers
In their fantasy as we think them players in ours.

 Japanese Dish

“EVERYDAY HAS THE SHAPE OF THE NITE
WHAT IT COMES OUT OF.” —Ridley Walker

You must forgive me
If I forget the night.
I’ve managed to keep it
Outside with the Spring
Of the frogs that have
Settled into it.  April
Sounding like a fantasy,
Birds in the air,
Pictures in the wind.

I struggle to make myself
Understand it, but it is too late
And the day has leaked
Itself all over me
Staining my clothes with
Memories that are not mine.

A drift of ghost-
Schools of small fish
Cascades into my
Frontal lobes like
Waterfalls of songs.

Please help me here.
There is no place left
To go and I can see
The dogs circling the fires.
How long have we lived here?

Wishing and chasing the light
Into our own hearts,
We grow old by the
Fires next to the fences
Erected to keep us
Away from all that
Has failed the land.

I spend my life thinking
Words that could head
Away from these and wade
In the chill of morning,
My hands burnt and
Bleeding.  Prayer shaft
Of light that bores into
Our souls.  Help us.
Help us.  Help us.
That becomes the chant
Of the frogs in Spring,
The whining of dogs
Left alone, the
Stumbling through
Night after night
Obliged to continue
Living beneath the
Detached dome of
Time.  Our very breath
So precious we
Can barely say
These words.

 Lantern Symphony
 

HER
        (for Neruda’s clock)

When she rose from the sea it was not within sight of land.
The white-lipped foam passed back into the great blue.
The vestments of the deepest ocean had nothing to proclaim.
All of time was waiting for room where understanding could help
Its pitiful argument for constant change, but there was no argument
Coming.  The swells returned to whatever they were doing before.

There was no difference.  There was no scanning of a horizon,
Frozen or tropical, it made no difference to whatever had life.
There was not a finger raised, no scent of sea or cry of sea birds,
No ship, no vague information that could be given to the moment.

But we were there with our fleshy instruments and eyes filled
With vitreous humor, more sea than seeing, a skimming of the
Way to the retina from the lens that tries so hard to convince
Us of the world with electrical changes and images such as this.

On the far beach, heaps of kelp near the water line and clouds
Of sand flies and midges, the grumbling of the waves upon the shore.
We will keep returning here to hear the story one more time and pour
Over the marks upon the sands, pour out our deepest thoughts,
Harvest the vision of her rising from the sea and disappearing
As perfectly and completely as these words do even now.

 Marionette

 

‘“THE SEA HAS ENOUGH TROUBLE
WITHOUT BOTHERING ABOUT WHAT
HAPPENS TO US.”              —Kenneth Patchen

There was a terrible smell coming from a giant
Of a man in a red coat.  He was walking away
From the downtown, weeping.  Behind him
Were bodies of soldiers and a line of horses
Seemingly confused about where they were going.
As we neared them we realized they were all blind.

I found myself able to be many people at one time.
This seemed to be the only way I could avoid
These creatures.  They claimed to be human beings
But human beings never behaved like this, or so I had
Been told.

Arm yourselves with love before they get too close.
Belts of light.  Learn the terrible language of the seas
So they cannot get any closer;  place your arms
Around one another to protect against the winds.

They will want to misunderstand us.  They will not understand
The meaning of words like compassion and kindness.
There will be dark faces in our streets.  They will tell
Us we are in hell.  That will be a lie.

Choose something golden, like your heart.
Hold it high and walk ahead of all.  We are the light.

 Angels

THE OBVIOUS HOMAGE TO MY GRANDMOTHER

My grandmother was the most beautiful
Woman in Niagara Falls, NY.  I wasn’t
The one who said this.  It was a friend
Of hers who, when I met her, was already
In her 70’s and was incredibly beautiful herself.

My grandmother played the piano
With a sure stride hand, melody loping
Along and a pretty, open voice that owned
Every song and made the afternoon sun
Do little dances in the dining room.

She had four children, half of which were
Twins and half of which were males and
The twins were one of each and as beautiful
As she was.  They won a beautiful baby
contest in 1920 and she had the photographs
To prove it.  One of them was my mother.

Everyone loved my grandmother.  During
WWII she ran a little snack bar at the beach
On Lake Ontario with her beautiful daughters.
There was dancing and strolling and the boys
Coming and going as they left Fort Niagara
To go to Europe, many of them never returning.

She was Christmas and Easter and the Fourth
Of July and when she died she pushed the nurses
Away as her heart was stopping and made them
Leave her to die as she wished to die.  I was there
In the room with my grandfather and my mother,
Her daughter and her youngest son and she died
In the afternoon, with the afternoon sun
Still doing dances all around her, even there.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

There are so many little dyings
How do we know which one of them
is death?

—Kenneth Patchen

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s poems and the visuals he has found!

 —Anonymous Photo

 Celebrate the ballet that is 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.

Arranging Things

Waiting to Fall

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

—Poems by Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

A CHIPMUNK CHORTLES HIS APPLAUSE

She’s not young, his wife.
They’ve been together 40 years
but when she gardens in her shorts

and he’s lying in his hammock she's
a lovely sight to see so when she
hears a noise, she turns and asks

what was that and he says
just an old chipmunk chortling
his applause for all these years.

_________________

A PART OF YOUR HEART

The guillotine dropped
between you and a friend
over coffee and small talk.

The first time it dropped
it was someone who said
something that took

a part of your heart.
Years later you wonder how
a silly comment like that

could doom a friendship
that had bloomed for years.
But you raised the blade again

in case someone else took
another part of your heart.
And, of course, someone did.

The blade’s back up and ready
but you know you’ve dropped it
too fast and too often.

 Apples

THE CONSTANT DINOSAUR

Some day soon
Wall Street giants
will walk on their hands,

never sit or sleep.
They will eat
with their feet

as nostrils drip
and neckties droop.
With toilets extinct

they will launch
missiles that blot out
the sun and moon

while in the dark
the constant dinosaur
of greed will roam

the avenue and eat
the little people 
one chomp at a time.

______________________

WHAT THE DOCTOR DOESN’T SAY

It’s a simple procedure
I’ve done for years
many times a day.

You'll go home this afternoon,
take it easy over the weekend,
go back to work on Monday.

Insurance covers the cost.
No one has a problem
except the fetus.

 Red Ripe

A MOUNTAIN ON THE LAWN

You have the back rent
and come home from work
and find everything in a mountain
out on the lawn with the kids
sitting on the curb crying
unable to get in after school.

You spend the night in the car
with your wife and the kids.
They’re all scared
and you wonder what
to do in the morning.
You can’t go to work with
everything on the lawn.
Neither can your wife.
What about the kids
and school?

Storage costs money
but that’s your back rent
or maybe rent for a new place.
How would you move
all that stuff anyway?
Who would help?
You tell your wife
everything will all work out,
both of you knowing
it’s all just begun.

___________________

ALL-NIGHT GROCERY STORE

It tears the stomach out of Roy
to see old folks shopping
at an all-night grocery store,

ancient couples,
on canes and walkers
in their eighties and nineties

hanging on to a cart
almost as wobbly as they are
up and down the aisles piled high.

They place a few small cans
in their cart next to a
loaf of day-old bread.

We know the poor will
always be with us.
But why in America

do we have so many?
And why do we fat folks
just stare and stand by.

 Winter Squash

A NEW NEIGHBOR OVER THE FENCE

I understand what you mean
when you say you’re alone
and hope someone rings your
bell day or night but that's
not the case with me.

You say you'd be happy to see
a Fuller Brush man at the door
if the company still has salesmen
or a man sharpening knives
although I haven’t seen a man
pushing a whetstone cart through
the neighborhood in years.

I’d be careful, Ma’m, giving
a stranger a knife to make it
sharper than it already is.
Being alone is tough enough
unless you’re a recluse like me.

We wouldn’t be talking now but
I had to take the garbage out.
My wife always did it until she
passed away a few years ago.
The autopsy was inconclusive.

If a Fuller Brush man or a guy 
sharpening knives rings my bell,
he won’t come to see me again.
I have a whetstone in the attic
and sharpen my knives as needed.
But thanks for letting me know
you’d like to have visitors.
if I ever feel like talking,
I’ll certainly ring your bell. 

________________

BILL’S SOCKS

Hillary was at the podium
setting the record straight
for people who have a problem
with the tone of her voice.
She said when Bill was
President some folks said
she should have stayed home
and matched up his socks.
No way, fans in the crowd
booed their response.
But in a city far away
a husband at home
watching on TV
leaned over on the couch
and whispered to his wife
he’d bet anything
Monica would have put
those argyles together.

 Pomegranates

A RICE CAKE AT MIDNIGHT

Midnight in San Francisco.
Yoshiko is 93
and she can’t sleep
so she sits in her recliner

and nibbles on a rice cake,
sips cold tea, and thinks
about her parents who died
in flames in Nagasaki.

She came on a boat to live
with her aunt in San Francisco
and still wants to know why
they bombed Pearl Harbor.

She used to ask her aunt
and the teachers at school
but no one would ever say why.
She will ask until she dies.

__________________

ICE CREAM HONEYMOON

On a sunny day
in Harvard Yard
blonde from Norway weds
son of chieftain
from Rwanda after
both receive degrees
with high honors.

They drive off
in a silver Porsche
touring America
on their honeymoon
until they're stopped
in a small town.
A taillight's out.

The officer says
"You're the first
salt and pepper 
I've ever ticketed"
and the bride says
"Sir, we're your first
hot fudge sundae."

_________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ARRANGING THINGS

She’s at a flower show
miles away
arranging roses
in a vase
very carefully.
Soon judges
will decide.

I’m at home
miles away
arranging words
on a screen
very carefully.
Soon I
must decide.

_________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Donal Mahoney and Katy Brown for today’s fine poems and photos!

“What are you celebrating?” “Poetry!!” 

(Anonymous Photo)

Tonight at 7:30pm, Sac. Poetry Center presents the release of 

Soul of the Narrator, a seventh chapbook by writers 

involved in Team Haag, Jan Haag's writing groups. 

Or you could head over to Davis, where The Other Voice 

presents Jeff Knorr and Troy Myers, 7:30pm. 

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green 

column at the right) for info about these and other 

upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that 

more may be added at the last minute.

 

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

Arranging Things

Waiting to Fall

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

—Poems by Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

A CHIPMUNK CHORTLES HIS APPLAUSE

She’s not young, his wife.
They’ve been together 40 years
but when she gardens in her shorts

and he’s lying in his hammock she's
a lovely sight to see so when she
hears a noise, she turns and asks

what was that and he says
just an old chipmunk chortling
his applause for all these years.

_________________

A PART OF YOUR HEART

The guillotine dropped
between you and a friend
over coffee and small talk.

The first time it dropped
it was someone who said
something that took

a part of your heart.
Years later you wonder how
a silly comment like that

could doom a friendship
that had bloomed for years.
But you raised the blade again

in case someone else took
another part of your heart.
And, of course, someone did.

The blade’s back up and ready
but you know you’ve dropped it
too fast and too often.

 Apples

THE CONSTANT DINOSAUR

Some day soon
Wall Street giants
will walk on their hands,

never sit or sleep.
They will eat
with their feet

as nostrils drip
and neckties droop.
With toilets extinct

they will launch
missiles that blot out
the sun and moon

while in the dark
the constant dinosaur
of greed will roam

the avenue and eat
the little people 
one chomp at a time.

______________________

WHAT THE DOCTOR DOESN’T SAY

It’s a simple procedure
I’ve done for years
many times a day.

You'll go home this afternoon,
take it easy over the weekend,
go back to work on Monday.

Insurance covers the cost.
No one has a problem
except the fetus.

 Red Ripe
 

A MOUNTAIN ON THE LAWN

You have the back rent
and come home from work
and find everything in a mountain
out on the lawn with the kids
sitting on the curb crying
unable to get in after school.

You spend the night in the car
with your wife and the kids.
They’re all scared
and you wonder what
to do in the morning.
You can’t go to work with
everything on the lawn.
Neither can your wife.
What about the kids
and school?

Storage costs money
but that’s your back rent
or maybe rent for a new place.
How would you move
all that stuff anyway?
Who would help?
You tell your wife
everything will all work out,
both of you knowing
it’s all just begun.

___________________

ALL-NIGHT GROCERY STORE

It tears the stomach out of Roy
to see old folks shopping
at an all-night grocery store,

ancient couples,
on canes and walkers
in their eighties and nineties

hanging on to a cart
almost as wobbly as they are
up and down the aisles piled high.

They place a few small cans
in their cart next to a
loaf of day-old bread.

We know the poor will
always be with us.
But why in America

do we have so many?
And why do we fat folks
just stare and stand by.

 Winter Squash
 

A NEW NEIGHBOR OVER THE LAWN

I understand what you mean
when you say you’re alone
and hope someone rings your
bell day or night but that's
not the case with me.

You say you'd be happy to see
a Fuller Brush man at the door
if the company still has salesmen
or a man sharpening knives
although I haven’t seen a man
pushing a whetstone cart through
the neighborhood in years.

I’d be careful, Ma’m, giving
a stranger a knife to make it
sharper than it already is.
Being alone is tough enough
unless you’re a recluse like me.

We wouldn’t be talking now but
I had to take the garbage out.
My wife always did it until she
passed away a few years ago.
The autopsy was inconclusive.

If a Fuller Brush man or a guy 
sharpening knives rings my bell,
he won’t come to see me again.
I have a whetstone in the attic
and sharpen my knives as needed.
But thanks for letting me know
you’d like to have visitors.
if I ever feel like talking,
I’ll certainly ring your bell. 

________________

BILL’S SOCKS

Hillary was at the podium
setting the record straight
for people who have a problem
with the tone of her voice.
She said when Bill was
President some folks said
she should have stayed home
and matched up his socks.
No way, fans in the crowd
booed their response.
But in a city far away
a husband at home
watching on TV
leaned over on the couch
and whispered to his wife
he’d bet anything
Monica would have put
those argyles together.
 

 Pomegranates

A RICE CAKE AT MIDNIGHT

Midnight in San Francisco.
Yoshiko is 93
and she can’t sleep
so she sits in her recliner

and nibbles on a rice cake,
sips cold tea, and thinks
about her parents who died
in flames in Nagasaki.

She came on a boat to live
with her aunt in San Francisco
and still wants to know why
they bombed Pearl Harbor.

She used to ask her aunt
and the teachers at school
but no one would ever say why.
She will ask until she dies.

__________________

ICE CREAM HONEYMOON

On a sunny day
in Harvard Yard
blonde from Norway weds
son of chieftain
from Rwanda after
both receive degrees
with high honors.

They drive off
in a silver Porsche
touring America
on their honeymoon
until they're stopped
in a small town.
A taillight's out.

The officer says
"You're the first
salt and pepper 
I've ever ticketed"
and the bride says
"Sir, we're your first
hot fudge sundae."

_________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ARRANGING THINGS

She’s at a flower show
miles away
arranging roses
in a vase
very carefully.
Soon judges
will decide.

I’m at home
miles away
arranging words
on a screen
very carefully.
Soon I
must decide.

_________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Donal Mahoney and Katy Brown for today’s fine poems and photos!
 

“What are you celebrating?” “Poetry!!” 

(Anonymous Photo)

Tonight at 7:30pm, Sac. Poetry Center presents the release 
of Soul of the Narrator, a seventh chapbook by writers 

involved in Team Haag, Jan Haag's writing groups. 

Or you could head over to Davis, where The Other Voice 

presents Jeff Knorr and Troy Myers, 7:30pm. 

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green 

column at the right) for info about these and other 

upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that 

more may be added at the last minute.



 

 

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