Among the Lily Pads

 

—Poetry by Carol Louise Moon, Placerville, CA

—Public Domain Photos of Springtime Babies 

Courtesy of Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

CONSIDER SPRING
After Robert Francis’s “Squash in Blossom”

Consider the luscious
greening moisture of sleeves
that open into new leaves;
how the color green gushes

through spring until summer;
how the unfoldings turn golden,
each stem is hidden in a process
more somber now. As if, to be

truly a green-thumb one must
plumb the depths of uncertainty
about the insignificant, small
matters of a splinter revelation:

     the coming of winter
     after the drying out of fall. 

 

 

 

 

 

FRUITFUL DEBATE
     “among the lily pads
      and tall dark spears
      of listening grasses…”
            —"The White Dream"
                    by Joyce Odam


Among the lily pads
   of green a hoping blooms.
   Hearts of thoughtful men will
   entertain a hope to vanquish gloom

and tall dark spears
   of doubt and darkened fears.
   Men debate then fight a war
   of words. And, thus arises

in list’ning of the grasses
   an early sprouting of the buds
   of hope to conquer all despair.

 

 

 

 

 

HECTIC DAY

The sounds of industry
beckon me to the porch where
the neighbor’s leaf blower
wakes our sleeping dog,
stirring his lazing dream-walk
into a frenzy of bird chase.

The warm summer air
carries the scent of pine and
the threatening chatter of jay.

That brush pile should not be
burning, nor wafting its ominous
salute through the neighborhood.
But then who’s to say the sun
is not, itself, burning a hole
through my upper lip as I call
my dog inside to the safety
of our polyurethane couch,
where TV noise quietly speaks
of city riots and rising tides in
arctic lands. 

 

 

 

 

 

FROM THE BUTTON BOX

I’ve plucked out:

     3 matching pink plastic buttons,
     deemed to be triplets
     born to a fortunate mother

1 brass button with insignia,
     deemed to be a war medal
     cast aside by a wounded vet

6 white shirt buttons carded
     neatly to a small card,
     deemed to belong to 6 CEOs
     meeting roundtable-style
     to deliberate the limited range
     of democracy

7 purple moon buttons,
     which begs the question,
    “How many quarter moons
     are there per year?”

I close the button box lid and
saunter to the kitchen to make
a tuna sandwich. Tomorrow,
I will search the box again where
somehow I expect to find at
least two yellow fish-shaped
buttons that had escaped the
fisherman’s net. 

 

 

 

 

 

MISSION CART WHEELS

My fondest memories of childhood days
are visits to the old California mission
where still I see four old, abandoned
mission cart wheels, muddied and
leaning against the adobe north wall

as if someday these ancient carts
would be rebuilt and roll once again
along the cactus lined footpath.

Soon the smell of chocolate invades
my daydream. Today there are no
mission bells, no calls to prayer
in the fresco-adorned mission chapel,

just a hunger in my belly for four
fudge-striped cookie rounds. 

 

 

 

 

 

THERE I WENT, AFAR OFF

with shiny leather shoes whose soles
run up the back of my ankles,

ankles bound in fine knit and lace…
toddler legs toddling…
frilly skirt bouncing and waving

     as an old woman would wave a hankie
     to her suitor who chooses to ignore her
     as she sallies up to his gray face.

The face of a tired old, impotent man
in no mood for suiting or dating or dancing…
sitting, as he is, on rattan,

     glass of whiskey in his tobacco-stained
     fingers… his patent-leather shoes
     impatiently tapping.

The fedora, off his stern head, rests
on a tiny wooden tea table.
“Who,” he asks, “is this little snot nose?”

It was explained to me later
in the camellia afternoon
that he didn’t much like Grandma, either.

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.

—Kobayashi Issa

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Carol Louise Moon for sending us springtime hope and blossoms and all that good stuff!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!

 

 

 

 

Bird Talk

 

—Poetry by Linda Klein, Los Angeles, CA

—Public Domain Artwork

 

 

 

THE OSPREY

Gliding above a wide expanse of ocean,
his strong wings wave in circular motion,
fanning out in feathery grace
to slice the air and carry him to another place.

He flies with deliberate purpose,
yet as I watch, I feel his freedom and esprit.
Aggressive and sure soars the osprey,
white feet with sharp black talons droop.

He spots a fish and swoops,
zooms in ruthlessly and scoops
up his helpless prey, returns to his nest
to tear    apart    with beak and claws

his sustenance for the day.

 

 

 

Squares with Concentric Circles

—Painting by Vassily Kandinsky, 1913

 

 

EL PERIQUITO AZUL

Philip returned home from work one evening carrying a peculiar dome-shaped object under his right arm.  He placed the oddity on the dinette table and summoned his wife and their two children from various parts of the house.  Philip indicated the oilcloth-covered parcel to them with the look of a magician about to mystify an audience.  Removing the cover he revealed a parakeet with blue and gray feathers sitting quietly on a wooden dowel perch in the domed cage.

The bird took in his new surroundings, the curious family watching him, and he began twittering nervously.  Sally, Philip's wife, covered her mouth to hide a gentle laugh.  The children, Linda, 16, and Michael, 12, looked at each other and shrugged.  The parakeet was a gift for the two of them from Roberto, their father's fellow shipping clerk at Langevin Radio and Television Manufacturing Company, whom they had met a few weeks earlier, but they were at a stage where the little bird did not interest them.

Philip immediately hammered a hook into a corner of the dining nook ceiling and hung the cage chain from it, the parakeet excitedly fluttered inside.  Every day Philip's wife cleaned the cage and refilled the feeder box with seeds.  No one but Philip paid much attention to the parakeet.  He spoke to the bird and named him Azul, the Spanish word for blue, in honor of Roberto who gave them this cheerful gift.

Each morning, before leaving for work, he would remove the cage cover and whistle to awaken Azul.  Then he would say "Felipe" over and over again, trying to teach Azul to say his name in Spanish.  Azul would only chirp back at him.

In the evenings, after the family had eaten dinner, scarcely noticing Azul nor listening to his lonesome tweet, they all watched Philip open the cage door.  Azul would hop onto his finger, but never sit there more than a second or two before flying around the room wildly, as though desperate to find a way out.  Azul limited himself to the dining nook because all of the other rooms were dark.  Finally, exhausted, he would fly up to the ceiling, placing his thin legs on the molding, grasping it with his claws.  There he would nibble the white paint frustratedly.  Philip had to stand on the seat of a chair to remove the struggling bird with both hands and return him to his cage.  He covered the cage and Azul would become quiet.  This routine became Azul's life.  "Exercise,"  Philip explained with conviction.  "Even a bird needs exercise."

One morning, Philip removed the cover of Azul's cage.  His lips rounded, ready to whistle the wake up song.  Instead he just blew out air.  Azul lay still on the bottom of the cage, a small, plump pile of blue and gray feathers.

 

 

 

Terk Electric Prisms 

—Painting by Sonia Delauney, 1913

 

 

 

PROUD BIRD

"Squawk, squawk!"  He scratched and clawed.
There was no pleasing Algernon,
the captain's treasured pet parrot.
He had the run of the ship.
The crew believed he influenced all
the captain's decisions.
The handsome, green-feathered bird
was proud of his seafaring status.

He pecked at the cracker meal and
seeds in his dish, dissatisfied with
their lack of crispness, yet
he ate it all, squawking between bites.
He was attended by Mario, the cabin boy.
Mario approached the bird with caution.
Mustn't ruffle those feathers.
"Back off, Mario," Algernon warned.

"He speaks," Mario chuckled, coming closer.
"Hey, Al, finished with your feed, yet?"
He reached for the dish, only to have
the bird bite his index finger.
"Awk, Al, you son of the Devil,"
he cried out in pain, wrapping his bleeding
digit in a handkerchief and tying it
deftly with a sailor's knot.

"Poor Mario!  Squawk, back off,  back off,"
Algernon screamed, his clucking was
somewhere between a laugh and a tsk.

                     *  *  *  *  *  *

The movie scene reminded me of my Uncle Al,
Albert, not Algernon.  How embarrassed
Aunt Doris and I were on the Caribbean cruise
each time Uncle Al chewed out the waiter.
At one meal my uncle picked up a handful
of green beans and flung them at our Mario.

Right after the flinging of the beans,
Aunt Doris suffered a bout of mal de mer.
Uncle Al remained to sign for our meals,
While I hurried Doris out on deck.
She bent over the railing, releasing
her undigested dinner, along with
an ample amount of bile, into the angry ocean.

I turned and there was Al behind us.
"Doris," he squawked, annoyed at her,
"What on God's good, green earth
is wrong with you now?"

 

 

 

 

 

INTERRUPTED ARIA

She sang hesitantly,
attempting to dispel her fear,
the way the heroine in an opera might
when she dreaded a mysterious villain at her door.

Her pale, tufted wings fluttered.
Her tiny body quivered from the flat,
yellow feathers on her small, round head
to her scrawny, pink, tri-toed feet.

Her eyes, black dots, darted
back and forth as the cage swung.
She trembled, toes clinging desperately
to her wooden perch,

while out in the hot, dry Mohave Desert,
approximately 165 miles away, near the towns
of Trona and Ridgecrest, the ground rumbled,
rupturing beneath a layer of ochre earth crust.

She clung to the perch to no avail.  Not strong
enough to withstand the force that struck
her home's foundation, the fragile creature tumbled
to the bottom of her cage as it fell to the floor.
She lay on her left side, one eye visible and staring,
Her body immobile, but for her quickened heartbeat.

A young man with hair the color of her feathers,
heard the clattering cage and rushed to retrieve it.
He opened the cage door and gently removed
a startled, upturned yellow fluff with his downy hand.

To soothe her, he patted her crown and hummed
until she responded to his mellow sound,
mimicking his comforting song.  A calm,
loving duet by tenor and soprano filled the air.

 

 

 

 

 

PENGUINS

It was December in Melbourne, summer there.  We left in the middle of the night, as if on a secret mission.  Bussed to a cold, windy beach, we stood exposed to the gale, atop a boulder, waiting and shivering.  The sun emerged slowly, dazzling in the haze.  Still we waited, wondering if on this day they would not march.  Perhaps they would remain in the shelter of the caves, and sleep through the frosty morn, leaving us with wasted expectations.

Other groups gathered, just as we, scattered, some nearby, some farther.  Finally, a joyous murmur from the others signaled the penguin's arrival.  Bashful birds appeared, on their way across the beach grasses, approaching the sea. Short legs and flat webbed feet moved with small, hesitant steps.  They seemed to be aware of watchers, and were fearful as they walked together.  It seemed like hundreds of them, huddled close in their somber black and white suits, a marvel of innocence, the parade of the little penguins of Phillip Island.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

In order to see birds, it is necessary to become a part of the silence.

—Robert Lynd

_____________________

Our thanks to Linda Klein for her poetry today! She writes, “These poems, although they are all about birds, are as different from each other, as are the birds they describe. ‘The Osprey’ has some inner rhymes and ending rhymes. It is an observance of the bird during his daily quest.”

Speaking of birds, Canary poetry journal’s Spring Equinox Issue 2021 is available from Hip Pocket Press at canarylitmag.org/.

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

To hear a canary sing, go to 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhmC4EazbaY/.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!

 

Snakes can sing, too!
 

 

 

Little Nests of Words

 

Apophthegm as in Daffodil

—Poetry and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA 

TITLES LIKE THIS

belong to poems—
come to you
first or last,

a little nest of words,
perfect for what’s
coming to you,

easy, or
with difficulty,—
like something

erratic—
something
peripheral—

that word that keeps
getting in the way,
as if it would, could, lead you astray.

 

_______________________

 

CIRCULAR

I go to the moon
for the first dream—
how far and round.
I fit.

I lie down and sleep.
A round dream enters my mind,
like a moon. I fall,
then fly.

After I have flown/fallen
a great distance, I enter your sleep
as a dream. How curious—
to know you like this.

 

 

 

Centerpiece

 

DREAM OF DESPAIR
After “Ah vastness of Pines” from Pablo Neruda's
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

You held me and loved me.
This I know
from my first memory of you

though you looked away,
and looked away,
at something of your wanting,

I never woke from my sleeping
for this dream was perfect
and I did not want to leave it.

You are holding me still—
looking away from my quietude
into your restlessness,

though I am what you are looking for.
I am your dream.
Why did you dream me?

 

_________________________

UKULELE  

My first love had a ukulele that I longed to play,
secretly I tried to learn. But the sound went through
the walls, and down the halls, till the landlady made
me be quiet.

I sang to my first love—and love sang back. We
became a duet—even composed a new song that he
played on his ukulele.

My first love has stayed young. I became old. How
incongruous is that! Or maybe he is dead now—
grieved by another. Maybe he has given his ukulele
to a son.

 

 

 

Valse des Fleurs

 

 

FIRST DANCE

They measure for the dance. He is old and she is young.
It’s an old story. Music blares and smoke wreathes.
The girl’s mother is drunk again, dancing on the bar.
The girl does not want to remember this. How old was she?
She thinks back : what year? They measure for the dance.
She must repeat the memory : a vague figure, smothering
her up close, he breathes in her hair, she follows like a doll.  
Her mother is laughing in the background. They measure for
the dance. Mothballs—she remembers mothballs—his suit—
and sweat—the stumble-drag of music. The music is hardly
necessary. The dance is the thing. He is dancing her up close,
saying something lewd. She is young, caught in the clumsy
tangle of the dance. She wants to be sophisticated. Older.
Like her mother. Her mother is crying in a chair. She thinks
back : Mothballs. Sweat. Measure for the dance. She follows.

      
(prev. pub. in Parting Gifts, 2027)     

___________________

HEART IN FIRST DRAFT…

If I am
the heart of love,
why do I pain, why do I suffer—

I who am old and young,
in myself,
in my heart,

what is my memory
that I ask these questions.
I who am lonely and complete.

My heart beats, and I live.
I am all metaphor now—
of my distance, my body is there

where my heart is,  
near me,    near me,    in me,
like a river.  

I do not know the truth of this.
I ask, and I answer,
but I do not know.  

 

 

 

Emotion

 

                                                                 
SIGNS OF LIFE AT THE EDGE OF WINTER

I wait for spring at this sad edge of winter—wait
like a leaf that has no metaphor but me—I am
the thought that made it real, it was never there.

I needed its symbolic presence saved from what I
knew was not enough—just some thought to chew
upon. This is the time of year such thoughts intrude.

Insomnia. Regret. All those reasons. I wait for birds
to sing at my dark window— wait for the light to
lengthen—wait for signs that all is well with me.

This is the stubborn edge of one more winter,
counted, hoped upon, and gotten through. And spring
is what I want to transfer to, as if I, too, deserved

another crack at life’s old metaphor I have yet
to figure out. But still I watch for signs—first
swellings on the trees—first blossoms—first sigh

not a sigh of sadness, regrets to lay aside and not
sort through. I feel the slow year turn in my
direction—bud by bud—and clue by subtle clue.

__________________

The haunted flowers,

shining in her garden,
leaning toward her
weeping among them,

her tears would water them
she was their griever
they loved her—

taking her daily sadness
to them like lost confessions,
they thrived on this,

moaned softly
in the breezeless air—
they were her duty,

she was their despair—
these nameless—wretched—
haunted—flowers of ancient Eden.

 

 

 

Mood

 

SPRING FERVOR

This worried sky, this field of yellow grass,
this birdless hour,

and that lonely man, lonely or not,
taking a simple walk through fields of swollen light—

oh, here the season changes—maybe not this day
or moment, but soon—

soon as the rustling starts and builds
and the sky overwhelms the shadow-heavy earth

and the man heads home, and may not make it,
this blending man, caught

in the roil of swarming shadows that move in and out,
this man, at one with everything, storm caught.

 

 

 

Thank You Sun, Thank You Rain

 

 

 

REPROACHES
After “Year’s End”
     by Ted Kooser  

go where you must
—it never changes,
wait in the sameness,
no mirrors correct us

                ~

it is still dreary here
accept it, we like it that way
—have nothing to change, or want
to do over, we are not travelers
          
                ~

you will come back to the same old roses
holding the fence up, but we are painting
the screen door first because of the rust
—mauve like the sunset

                 ~
       
when the year turns, we will turn with
a sigh of relief to give it blessing,
as if we had made some determination
—you, of course— not here to tell of it

________________________

ITINERARY

This is the first difficulty,
the one disguised as snow,
a landscape of vast patience—
no other way to go.

The road that is monotony
becomes as hard to follow
as any dire-felt tunnel
claustrophobia would hollow.

What else remains is endurance,
those paths we limp upon
with stones, and ruts, and dwindles—
way-laying everyone. How rhyme

one’s time with timelessness !
—enunciate its clock !
avoiding its time-tables !
with talk    and talk    and talk.

__________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE CHILD OF SPRING
—Joyce Odam

Here I come with my words in a bonnet to
filing at winter across the warming weather
. . . white rose petals . . . strewn by me . . .
anxious to be liable for all this joy you are
feeling from the poetries . . . .

___________________________

Yes—lots of joy from Joyce Odam’s poetries today, ushering in spring and definitely liable for all this joy! Thank you, Joyce!

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

___________________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Spring Fever

—Public Domain Photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

Heavens to Mergatroyd!

 

—Poetry by Joseph Nolan, Michelle Kunert, Caschwa (Carl B. Schwartz)

—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

SAILOR-BOY AND DOLPHINS
—Joseph Nolan

By sharing joy,
Joy will increase
By greater and
Greater measure,
Until joy will
Never cease!

Increase, increase,
Increase,
Until joy will
Never cease!

How much joy
Can you take?
How much can
You let your heart ache
Before it
Explodes with joy?

I used to know
A sailor-boy
Who went
Onto oceans
To sail them.

On his way
To where he went,
He’s scoop up
All the old
Spent nets
To try to spare
The dolphins,

Who, otherwise,
Might be caught
In an absence of purpose
From what man had wrought,
To show his kindly care.

It was all that he could dare
In front of the other sailors. 

 

 

 

 

 

POST-HARVEST REFLECTIONS
—Joseph Nolan

I vaguely recall
September and all
The labor that
Went into harvest.

Diseased limbs of trees
Failed to produce
Like a sluice in
A dry river-bed.

They’ll be pruned
Before Spring
To let more new
Green buds grow.

This was always a saying,
“The frail will pass
With the changing of seasons.”

Like the changing of guard
At Buckingham Palace
With fur hats
On top of their heads. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHRINKS ON SALE
—Joseph Nolan

My co-worker told me
She goes to a shrink,
As her insurance may allow.
 
I used to think
Anyone who goes
Must be crazy,

But now I know,
It’s only twenty-a-visit,
The deductible cost.

So, for her,
It’s not much loss.
She never pays
The regular cost.
If she did,
I’d know she was crazy!

But at twenty-a-shot,
She can go a lot
And it’s not much more
Than a double-hot
Latte at Starbuck’s.  

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT DO YOU NEED?
—Joseph Nolan

Could you tell me what you need?
Clearly and simply,
As if we just had short time,
Like you were bleeding
To death on a battlefield,
With only minutes to go—
What would comfort you so!
In your final, painful folding?
Do you know?

What would you say?
If you only had moments
To give away
What you had kept below,
Underneath your skin,
Privately kept within,
Waiting for moments when
Telling would no
Longer matter,
And you could be free and let go?
Do you know? 

 

 

 

Cannabis

 

 

 

Though I got a job with Pride Industries in Sacramento, I look for other possible prospects online
       I am tired of folding boxes all day even though I have a university degree
       so the only thing I would really want would be to be in charge in some way
       and that doesn’t seem to be coming along, even with the Covid pandemic this past year
       One of my peeves, though, is I that I get emails from Indeed: help wanted for “Budtenders” for the legal cannabis industry
       Now I voted for legal cannabis (marijuana) in California for both medical use and for recreational use for those 21 and older
       but I’m wary of the fact that cannabis is still federally illegal
       That means at any California dispensaries, federal authorities can still come to make raids, seizures and arrests
       I must confess that I can’t afford to end up in jail and lose everything for selling cannabis
       which is why I’ve asked Indeed not to send me any more positions like that
       but of course, after this pandemic, the legal cannabis industry is one of the few main ones that have survived and thrived 

 

 

 

Coronavirus with Tendrils

 

 

 

When hearing electronic clicks in the women's bathroom stall next to me at work
     I said “Hey—‘toilet texter’—remember to disinfect your phone!”
     Indeed toilet texting is among those gross habits people got into even before the Covid pandemic
     It’s just one issue that one doesn’t even need to be a “germaphobe” to be discussed
     Just because the fecal matter collected onto a phone surface from unwashed hands often isn’t seen
     It ought not to be “out of sight, out of mind” for possible transference of germs that can cause illness   
     Consider that people surely shouldn’t allow a phone not regularly sanitized to touch their face—it’s bad enough that they smear all over their hands and face the tissue they just used to wipe their butt 

 

 

 

  

 

 

WHEN EVERYTHING STARTS*
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

*calendar notation: Jewish and Islamic holidays
begin at sundown the day before they are listed

as does the preparation of many high school
students who have assignments due or tests
scheduled on the following day 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BACK TO BOOKS
—Caschwa

(after reading Tom Goff in Medusa’s
Kitchen, March 20, 2021)


I will retrieve an old
book from the shelf
blow the dust off
away from myself

sit down and relax
in one of my rockers
not have to accept cookies
or disable blockers

look at which pages
I choose to select
turn them at my pace
like music I direct

keep lexicon handy
for words I don’t know
not 8 scrabble points for “foin”
but real meaning to bestow

it’s nice if it has chapters
but an index I’ll eschew
my eyes enjoy some order
while my mind steers clear from glue

 

 

 

 

 

 

WAIT TILL NEXT SEASON
—Caschwa

thousands of viewers seated
media with cameras and audio,
officials at the ready
the game is about to begin

this is the rubber game of the series
winner take all
both teams line up opposite each other
daring and glaring

it is the buttons versus the buttonholes
each sailor knows exactly what to do
they have practiced this innumerable times
it only takes one being out of place
to deny the whole team the championship

the action starts! thirteen buttons
count them, from top to bottom
skillfully slid out of their buttonholes
a brief pause for a call to nature
then it’s right back to work

everything closing up smoothly until
what’s going on there with number 6?
something’s out of place, just a little bit
heavens to Mergatroyd!!!

     couldn’t get past five
     Houston, we have a problem…
     we’re stuck in orbit

 

 

 

 

 

  

WE BROUGHT OUR UMBRELLAS
—Caschwa

thunderstorms were forecast in the valley
so we brought our proper rain gear on a
routine visit to the HMO to talk with a
doctor and pick up a prescription refill
that was ready and waiting

doctor visit done, refill in hand, we
approached the building exit to return to
our car and at first we saw some rays
of sun, maybe we could get home
before rainfall, as usual, routine

as we began to step outside, gazing at
a partially sunlit sky, our eyes were
popping out of our heads, startled by
humungous walls of inky black clouds
threatening imminent danger and peril

and then it hit us…little inconsequential
bits of hail dropping onto our heads, like
seeing one or two ants at a picnic, we
took the hint and didn’t waste any time
getting into the car

and then it hit us harder, and harder, a
veritable broken dam of hail hurtling
onto our windows and gathering in piles
on car tops and walkways and every-
where one might look

windshield wipers and defroster on at
their highest levels, timidly begging the
hail to disappear as we slowly navigated
to leave the parking lot and merge onto
the street to drive home

the one good thing was that the intensity
of the hail, with more than enough
decibels to mute the car stereo, seemed
to instill discipline in the other drivers who
shared the lanes much better than usual

in the eight or so miles to reach home, all
there was to see was greater and greater
piles of hail, defining and owning the land-
scape, we skipped our usual iced tea stop
at the drive-through and proceeded homeward

our driveway was wet but thankfully lacked
any accumulation of hail, so we powered up
the garage door, pulled right in, and parked
our little snowball in that shelter; then I scraped
off clumps of excess hail into a bucket, and

     melted back into
     usual, customary,
     commonplace, routines

_______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

MANY FORMS OF BEAUTY
—Joseph Nolan

There are many forms of beauty
And each deserves its share
Of honor and of glory
After wear and tear
From worry by the world.

There are many forms of beauty
And many made more pure
By battery by gauntlet
So many must endure.

________________________

Good Monday morning and many thanks to our three sassy poets this morning, along with Joseph Nolan’s photo-finds to go with them. We’re into Spring now; maybe that means things are looking up.

Tonight on Zoom, 7:15-8:30pm, Sacramento Poetry Center’s Socially Distant Verse presents Straight Out Scribes Staajabu Staajabu and V.S. Chochezi at us04web.zoom.us/j/7638733462  (Meeting ID: 763 873 3462; passcode: r3trnofsdv/). Facebook info: sacpoetrycenter.org/event/socially-distant-verse-featuring-straight-out-scribes/?fbclid=IwAR0G0Mso5s68W_mVIr8MqhSyUgH4uGq_6mSPXHvpsBPslNZX85eouB_oxcw/.

________________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Quote by Gabrielle Hamilton

 

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

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Luminous Wheel

 

—Poetry and Photos of Puget Sound by Douglas Cole, 

Seattle, WA

 

DARK CARNIVAL

I use your business cards as bookmarks—that way you ride with me for sure. Let someone else explain the equation of that without confusing heart, matter, spirit and thought. On page seventy-three, this cloud parts, and there’s the door to your magic shop, the mystery telephone on an upper shelf—you can call any time, you can call the dead, you can call yourself in another head—ugly dolls and tarot packs, glow-in-the-dark skeletons, a safe space for the off kid in the dusty aisle patting his own shoulders and mumbling his locker combination and on occasion pieces of particle theory dialogue he heard in a movie. I love there’s always access, here, new volumes, old tomes stacked high and rare collectables in the back, rooms I haven’t the lives to explore going off and additions on the way. Everything from ragged science fiction, esoterica, philosophy and good old standards, even The Gold Tooth and more coming, and you, homuncular in your bric-a-brac, still sullen but with a glint of never-ending wonder in your eye. 

 

 

 

 

 

ON BECOMING

Will I ever get home, he thinks, a ticket in one hand, Gladstone with notebooks in the other—these things quickly evaporate, but the contents remain accessible through remote-viewing. So much for your secrets. We’re all doing a fan-dance with the truth. He walks through the gray wall of clouds calling themselves attorneys and escrow holdings, fortunes made and lost, bridges meant to last a century or more, air full of shadow you need an archeology degree to sift through, brushing off selves like dust—here, says the attendant, your aneurism has arrived. He hands over his ticket, takes the jewel he thinks he’s hidden all these years and exposes it to the light—a nova couldn’t explode that loudly or that big nor open so many doorways in and out of every paradise decorated like spring. Here, he says, after revealing everything, take some of this fire. I have enough to spare. 

 

 

 

 

 

BACKWARDS REVOLVED THE LUMINOUS WHEEL

I got your book in French. I don’t read French, but I’ve been Tarzaning the Latin roots and bushwhacking my way through it like a temple explorer, a Naturalist in the wild—cataloguing as I go. I know, I should be working. I’m in a lull, you see? Somewhere between the Buddha garden and the wine dark sea. I know you hate that pretentious shit, coffee spills, empty boxes, armies of workers clearing out your recycling as punishment, strictly as punishment for what the haze-maker can do. What’s the value of a diamond now except for its flaws? There is something so retro—beaux arts and steampunk in a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang sort of way about these glasses and your laughter, I mean, it’s like you’ve grown into that Empire chair, your body at least. I sense what you’d call your brain hanging from a hook light in the garage with drills and band saws. Explains the million-mile stare. But your book! Your book! I see you in there character slumming, running lines, hovering between the period and the scene. I do. These glasses are amazing. Neither snow nor sleet nor dark of night, time, distance, death—I understand. I’ve made a few heavens myself. In fact, I’m in Zone Eight now. I mean, what can I say? I love the undulations, the footnotes, biographical and historical references. Even the symbol of the heron turning into a lighthouse: that was pure genius. I always knew you had it in you. 

 

 

 

 

PRAIRIE DOGS

I know you’re counting down the number of afternoons you can junk out or pick the right criterion bubble to hide a century on the head of a pin or the basket of un-labeled dreams, pop one in and go. I know how it all flowers coming out of the sewer and how the sea says Ah Ha with your mouth as we rise from your eye with antibodies falling off like ash. I know I know, you say as you come around, a whole age can go underground or mad and follow a shoe over a cliff or a commercial into a war.
Aren’t you tired of the chaos, the road bathrooms with broken handles and all the grainy reruns? I am holding the cloud door open and that’s not screaming you hear coming out of the white tile burn, it’s a big cheer for the team marching towards the goal.

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

PRAYER FOR FISHING
—Douglas Cole

There is a perfect hour to rise and ask
the ocean for food, to give us a life.
Think of it, as we stand on the dock
at the edge of the sound, wanting death
to drop a body and attach it to a line
deep under water, one we can carry back,
hold high and say, See, we’re not
the dirtbags you thought we were. 

 

 

 

Douglas Cole

 

 

 

Douglas Cole has published six collections of poetry, a novella, and The White Field, a novel. His work has appeared in several anthologies as well as The Chicago Quarterly Review, The Galway Review, Bitter Oleander, Louisiana Literature and Slipstream. He has been nominated twice for a Pushcart and Best of the Net and received the Leslie Hunt Memorial Prize in Poetry. He lives and teaches in Seattle. His website is douglastcole.com/. Welcome to the Kitchen, Douglas, and don’t be a stranger!

Today (Sun., 3/21) at 3pm: Lincoln Poets Club holds its open mic online, along with guest poet Jerry Steinman on Zoom: us02web.zoom.us/j/8281685839/. Meeting ID: 828 1685 8339; passcode: 40179. Host: David Anderson.

Also today a, 3pm: Poetry Flash and Moe’s Books in Berkeley present Indigo Moor and Maxima Kahn online. Info: www.facebook.com/events/903003200451690/?acontext={"event_action_history"%3A[{"mechanism"%3A"search_results"%2C"surface"%3A"search”}]}/. See the featured books at bookshop.org/lists/poetry-flash-readings/.

__________________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Douglas Cole

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!