CLATTER OF RINGS
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento
Sounds do clutter
but when they clatter
it’s like the slither of smallness
that seeps on buttered bubbled hum.
I so want to wear the slickest red
smooth lipstick, the finest pearl
rounds, that will only do justice
to the tightest spit of gold.
It is me lady-like, who wants
the spear long heels to strut in,
that will click with my remark
which will sound my in.
And it’s that clatter of rings,
the soothment they bring,
a finery, ladies, that
oh, cannot be resisted.
_____________________
Thanks, Rhony! Yesterday’s William Carlos Williams poem hit a nerve with Taylor Graham, whose beloved dirt road is currently being paved against her wishes. Here is her elegy:
OUR ROAD
—Taylor Graham, Somerset
After all the years we’ve lived here
on a one-lane track of dirt scraped down,
and gravel scattered by five
households’ tires, today our road
is paved. A truck spreads hot-mix asphalt,
and a roller presses it in place.
They’ve brought bitumen up
from underground to black-ribbon
a road that used to beckon with cutbanks
grooved by deer hooves, and a gully
rabbit-run through berry brambles purple-
sweet in August. How many times
I’d turn aside, forget my hurry,
and explore the dusty fringes. But now,
no potholes, no washboard rumble.
We’ll travel faster, straight ahead.
On either side the oaks are drifting
October leaves. What do roots make
of man’s geology, that lays down
a new era on our road?
_________________________
Thanks, TG!
Today is Sacramento Poetry Day, and there are plenty of events to help you celebrate it this week [see Monday's post, “Hold Onto Your Wigs”]. Medusa will be gone, though, until November 1—sneaking off to the sea again—and while I’m gone, please get your poems together for the next Snake—deadline November 15. When I get back on the first, I’ll send out the November Snakebytes, which will tell you all about Allegra Jostad Silberstein’s upcoming reading/book release (In the Folds) at The Book Collector on November 9, at which time we shall also release the latest Snakelets, as well as Claudia Trnka’s littlesnake broadside.
November 1 is the deadline for Vyper, the journal for young people 13-19 years of age. Send 3-5 poems with name, address, e-mail and age on every page to 4708 Tree Shadow Place, Fair Oaks, 95628.
And of course October 31 is Halloween. I shall leave you with some Sacramento Poetry Day Halloween poems from a true Sacramento girl (born here, raised here, lived here 50 of my 60 years):
GHOSTS AND CHILDREN
—Kathy Kieth, Fair Oaks
own Halloween, sandwiched as they are
between the quick and the dead. Not quite
jelled, they flap like see-through bats between
Here and There, like holograms in some
elsewhere-kind of theme park, where they roller-
coaster/bumper car/ferris wheel all day, slipping
back and forth through reality cracks to bring us
bits of news and fresh pieces of other-worldly
pie. Just the other day, I caught one hanging
in my closet; but when I got out the broom, she
flipped back into her bed, pretending again to be
a mere child. . .
We earthenware adults had better stand aside,
especially on All Hallows’ Eve, or these spritely
creatures will bump right through us. . .
___________________________
GHOSTS DON’T EXIST
—Kathy Kieth, Fair Oaks
even though there is a big one living
under the bed: sleeping all day
down there between the dust motes
and the candywrappers: flipping
the corners of his quilt out
of boredom in late afternoon: lurking
just beyond the brave beam
of his flashlight. . . Of course ghosts
don't exist: it says so in musty
library books: in the tall legs
of grown-ups: in windy sunshine
and kids that tease: in the bland drone
of the TV flickering blue in the next
room after he goes to bed. . . Of course
ghosts don't exist: all that nightly
grunting and rustling is just
wind from the open window: thump
of his heart keeping time in
the dark: ragged edge of a dream
he can't ever quite shake free. . .
(appeared in Mobius, May, 2003)
______________________________
—Medusa (see you November 1!)
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)
Welcome to the Kitchen!—daily poetry from around the world (poetry with fangs!). Read our DIARY, the cream-colored section at the left, for poets local and otherwise. Then scroll down our GREEN AND BLUE BULLETIN BOARDS on the right for more poet-phernalia. And please feel free to be a SNAKEPAL and send your work, events and releases to kathykieth@hotmail.com—see "Placating the Gorgon" in the FUCHSIA LINKS right below here for info. Carpe Viperidae! Seize the Snake!
Pages
▼
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
A Solace of Ripe Plums
Here's a tough one from Phil Weidman. Brace yourself:
WRONG TURN
—Phil Weidman, Pollock Pines
After a cease-fire
three of us ambled down range
to check our targets.
Approaching the 50-yard line
we saw a rattlesnake
thrashing its muscular length,
struggling to defy gravity
as it slipped sideways down
the steep rocky bank bordering
the west side of the rifle range.
As it reached our level
it made a frantic effort
to climb the bank.
Knowing what would follow,
I walked to the 100-yard line
and heard the shot.
The head and six inches of its body
slithered under a large rock.
The rest of it, rattles whispering futilely,
twitched until a summer sun
put it to rest.
______________________________
*sigh*
I'm not sure how I feel about poetry contests—how can you compare two poems, they're not like bowling scores, for Heaven's sake—but some people seem to thrive on them. I do enter one or two a year, the latest being the Ina Coolbrith bake-off and jamboree this last weekend, where a number of locals did darn good—not the least of which was Joyce Odam taking the well-deserved Grand Prize. Also bringing home the bacon in our area were Allegra Silberstein, Anatole Lubovich, Don Feliz, Elsie Feliz, Carol Frith, Laverne Frith, Pat Nichol, Norma Kohout, Katy Brown, and, yes, Medusa. Sacramentans took home one-third of the prizes from this mostly-Bay Area event, a tribute to the poetry muscle of inlanders.
In this area, the Towe Auto Museum poetry contest deadline is coming up (November 15). Check out the guidelines on www.toweautomuseum.org, or call 916-442-6802, or see Katy Brown's "Snake Charmer's Bazaar" column in the last Rattlesnake Review (p. 25). And there's a Bay Area Poets Coalition contest deadline on Nov. 15, too. E-mail Poetalk@aol.com for guidelines.
If you can't hang with any of the multiferous goings-on in Sacramento this weekend [see "Hang on to Your Wigs" post yesterday], head up to Rush Ranch in Suisun for the Plein Air Painting and Poetry Workshop on Saturday (10/29), 10-4 pm, with Robert Chapla and Sherry Sheehan. $75, pre-registration required. Call 707-429-3529 or email aleta@lmi.net.
And register by Friday, Oct. 28, for the November 5 Friends of the Library's Focus on Writers Conference, which will feature nine workshops conducted by writers including Kim Stanley Robinson, Robin Burcell, and Blair Anthony Robertson. Info: 916-264-2880 or www.saclibrary.org/about_lib/friends_flyer.html.
Finally, congrats to soon-to-be Rattlechapper Jeanine Stevens (January, 2006), whose chapbook, Boundary Waters (published by the Indian Heritage Council of McCall, Idaho) is displayed in Tower Books on Watt Avenue. This is a dandy coup, indeed!—drift on over there and check it out (local authors' table by the front door).
TO A POOR OLD WOMAN
—William Carlos Williams
munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her
You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand
Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her
THE DEFECTIVE RECORD
—William Carlos Williams
Cut the bank for the fill.
Dump sand
pumped out of the river
into the old swale
killing whatever was
there before—including
even the muskrats. Who did it?
There's the guy.
Him in the blue shirt and
turquoise skullcap.
Level it down
for him to build a house
on to build a
house on to build a house on
to build a house
on to build a house on to...
_____________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
WRONG TURN
—Phil Weidman, Pollock Pines
After a cease-fire
three of us ambled down range
to check our targets.
Approaching the 50-yard line
we saw a rattlesnake
thrashing its muscular length,
struggling to defy gravity
as it slipped sideways down
the steep rocky bank bordering
the west side of the rifle range.
As it reached our level
it made a frantic effort
to climb the bank.
Knowing what would follow,
I walked to the 100-yard line
and heard the shot.
The head and six inches of its body
slithered under a large rock.
The rest of it, rattles whispering futilely,
twitched until a summer sun
put it to rest.
______________________________
*sigh*
I'm not sure how I feel about poetry contests—how can you compare two poems, they're not like bowling scores, for Heaven's sake—but some people seem to thrive on them. I do enter one or two a year, the latest being the Ina Coolbrith bake-off and jamboree this last weekend, where a number of locals did darn good—not the least of which was Joyce Odam taking the well-deserved Grand Prize. Also bringing home the bacon in our area were Allegra Silberstein, Anatole Lubovich, Don Feliz, Elsie Feliz, Carol Frith, Laverne Frith, Pat Nichol, Norma Kohout, Katy Brown, and, yes, Medusa. Sacramentans took home one-third of the prizes from this mostly-Bay Area event, a tribute to the poetry muscle of inlanders.
In this area, the Towe Auto Museum poetry contest deadline is coming up (November 15). Check out the guidelines on www.toweautomuseum.org, or call 916-442-6802, or see Katy Brown's "Snake Charmer's Bazaar" column in the last Rattlesnake Review (p. 25). And there's a Bay Area Poets Coalition contest deadline on Nov. 15, too. E-mail Poetalk@aol.com for guidelines.
If you can't hang with any of the multiferous goings-on in Sacramento this weekend [see "Hang on to Your Wigs" post yesterday], head up to Rush Ranch in Suisun for the Plein Air Painting and Poetry Workshop on Saturday (10/29), 10-4 pm, with Robert Chapla and Sherry Sheehan. $75, pre-registration required. Call 707-429-3529 or email aleta@lmi.net.
And register by Friday, Oct. 28, for the November 5 Friends of the Library's Focus on Writers Conference, which will feature nine workshops conducted by writers including Kim Stanley Robinson, Robin Burcell, and Blair Anthony Robertson. Info: 916-264-2880 or www.saclibrary.org/about_lib/friends_flyer.html.
Finally, congrats to soon-to-be Rattlechapper Jeanine Stevens (January, 2006), whose chapbook, Boundary Waters (published by the Indian Heritage Council of McCall, Idaho) is displayed in Tower Books on Watt Avenue. This is a dandy coup, indeed!—drift on over there and check it out (local authors' table by the front door).
TO A POOR OLD WOMAN
—William Carlos Williams
munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her
You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand
Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her
THE DEFECTIVE RECORD
—William Carlos Williams
Cut the bank for the fill.
Dump sand
pumped out of the river
into the old swale
killing whatever was
there before—including
even the muskrats. Who did it?
There's the guy.
Him in the blue shirt and
turquoise skullcap.
Level it down
for him to build a house
on to build a
house on to build a house on
to build a house
on to build a house on to...
_____________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Monday, October 24, 2005
Hold Onto Your Wigs!
THE BUNGLER
—Amy Lowell
You glow in my heart
Like the flames of uncounted candles.
But when I go to warm my hands,
My clumsiness overturns the light,
And then I stumble
Against the tables and chairs.
___________________________
This is one heckuva busy week on the SacaTomato Poetry Scene, maybe because Wednesday, October 26, is Sacramento Poetry Day!
Tonight, John Amen will read at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), sponsored by the Sacramento Poetry Center, 7:30 pm. Tomorrow (Tues. 10/25) Sutter LAMP Week (Literature, Arts and Medicine Program) begins at the Sutter Cancer Center, 7 pm. Tuesday's program will be Art Therapy with Peggy Gulshen; Weds. will feature Music Therapy with Theresa Konomos; Thurs. will be Dance/Movement Therapy with Nandi Szabo; and Friday (10/28) will be Pat Schneider, author of Writing Alone and With Others and founder of Amherst Writers & Artists. Register: 454-6802 or spannc@sutterhealth.org. [Medusa is, by the way, a Registered Music Therapist. Really. In my pre-poetry life.]
On Wednesday, ride up to Placerville to Hidden Passage Books for the monthly read-around, 6-7 pm. Bring your own poetry or somebody else's to share with a lively group of fellow poets while the skeleton under the floorboards listens...
Snake Reviewer-in-Residence B.L. Kennedy will be mighty busy this week, as well; on Thursday he will host Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe (1414 16th St., Sac.) at 8 pm, which will feature Donald Sidney-Fryer and Chi Cheng of Deftone fame. Chi has a spoken word album entitled Bamboo Parachute. Then on Friday, Bari will host Part One of A Tribute to d.a. levy at Luna's Cafe, 8-ish, featuring frank andrick, Gene Avery, Art Beck, Chi Cheng, Todd Cirillo, Judy Halebsky, Phillip J. Nails, Crawdad Nelson, Linda Thorell, Charlene Ungstad, and Julie Valine. This $5 event is a benefit for T.A.G. (The Archives Group).
Then on Saturday (10/29), B.L. will host A Tribute to d.a. levy (Part Two) at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), 8 pm, featuring Bill Pieper, Rebecca Morrison, Sabrina Mathers, Robert Grossklaus, Laverne Frith, Carol Frith, Chi Cheng, Gene Bloom, Art Beck, Gene Avery and frank andrick. $5.
Back to Friday, 10/28: Rattlechapper Susan Kelly-DeWitt (The Land) will be the featured reader at The Art Foundry (1021 R St., Sac.), 7:30 pm. $5. Also on Friday, Los Escritores will sponsor a Day of the Dead Celebration to honor the lives of the 2005 Fallen Chicano Heroes: Bert Corona, Rodolfo (Corky) Gonzalez, Lalo Guerrero, Carlos Cortez, Gloria Anzaldua, Octavio I. Romano, and Phil Goldvarg. Donation: $5 or as you can afford. Where: La Raza Galeria/Posada Bookstore; 1421 R St., Sac. (upstairs). Info: 456-5323.
We need to break here for some poetry!
THE LETTER
—Amy Lowell
Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper
Like draggled fly's legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves?
Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor
Spattered with moonlight?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them
Of blossoming hawthorns,
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.
______________________
AFTERGLOW
—Amy Lowell
Peonies
The strange pink colour of Chinese porcelains;
Wonderful—the glow of them.
But, my Dear, it is the pale blue larkspur
Which swings windily against my heart.
Other Summers—
And a cricket chirping in the grass.
______________________
Okay. Back to next weekend: At the same time as the d.a. levy tribute on Saturday, The Show will present The Big Clean Mouth Slam for $50, hosted by Petri Hawkins-Byrd (the baliff on Judge Judy) at Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St., 7-9 pm. Tickets ($5): Underground Books or fromtheheart1@hotmail.com. Info: Terry Moore, 455-POET. And then on SUNDAY:
Poems-For-All presents Jordan Jones and Eric Paul Shaffer at The Book Collector (1008 24th St., Sac.), 4 pm, free. Join them for a Sunday afternoon reading as they read from their latest books of poetry published by Leaping Dog Press. (www.leapingdogpress.com) Info: 442-9295.
And this doesn't even include the regular reading series (Mahogany at Sweet Fingers Jamaican Restaurant, 9 pm Weds.; Poetic Light Open Mic at Personal Style Salon, Thurs. 8-10; or Gwen's Caribbean Cuisine on Thurs. at 7 pm). If I've left anybody else out, let me know.
Let's let Amy cap it off:
A DECADE
—Amy Lowell
When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.
_________________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—Amy Lowell
You glow in my heart
Like the flames of uncounted candles.
But when I go to warm my hands,
My clumsiness overturns the light,
And then I stumble
Against the tables and chairs.
___________________________
This is one heckuva busy week on the SacaTomato Poetry Scene, maybe because Wednesday, October 26, is Sacramento Poetry Day!
Tonight, John Amen will read at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), sponsored by the Sacramento Poetry Center, 7:30 pm. Tomorrow (Tues. 10/25) Sutter LAMP Week (Literature, Arts and Medicine Program) begins at the Sutter Cancer Center, 7 pm. Tuesday's program will be Art Therapy with Peggy Gulshen; Weds. will feature Music Therapy with Theresa Konomos; Thurs. will be Dance/Movement Therapy with Nandi Szabo; and Friday (10/28) will be Pat Schneider, author of Writing Alone and With Others and founder of Amherst Writers & Artists. Register: 454-6802 or spannc@sutterhealth.org. [Medusa is, by the way, a Registered Music Therapist. Really. In my pre-poetry life.]
On Wednesday, ride up to Placerville to Hidden Passage Books for the monthly read-around, 6-7 pm. Bring your own poetry or somebody else's to share with a lively group of fellow poets while the skeleton under the floorboards listens...
Snake Reviewer-in-Residence B.L. Kennedy will be mighty busy this week, as well; on Thursday he will host Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe (1414 16th St., Sac.) at 8 pm, which will feature Donald Sidney-Fryer and Chi Cheng of Deftone fame. Chi has a spoken word album entitled Bamboo Parachute. Then on Friday, Bari will host Part One of A Tribute to d.a. levy at Luna's Cafe, 8-ish, featuring frank andrick, Gene Avery, Art Beck, Chi Cheng, Todd Cirillo, Judy Halebsky, Phillip J. Nails, Crawdad Nelson, Linda Thorell, Charlene Ungstad, and Julie Valine. This $5 event is a benefit for T.A.G. (The Archives Group).
Then on Saturday (10/29), B.L. will host A Tribute to d.a. levy (Part Two) at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), 8 pm, featuring Bill Pieper, Rebecca Morrison, Sabrina Mathers, Robert Grossklaus, Laverne Frith, Carol Frith, Chi Cheng, Gene Bloom, Art Beck, Gene Avery and frank andrick. $5.
Back to Friday, 10/28: Rattlechapper Susan Kelly-DeWitt (The Land) will be the featured reader at The Art Foundry (1021 R St., Sac.), 7:30 pm. $5. Also on Friday, Los Escritores will sponsor a Day of the Dead Celebration to honor the lives of the 2005 Fallen Chicano Heroes: Bert Corona, Rodolfo (Corky) Gonzalez, Lalo Guerrero, Carlos Cortez, Gloria Anzaldua, Octavio I. Romano, and Phil Goldvarg. Donation: $5 or as you can afford. Where: La Raza Galeria/Posada Bookstore; 1421 R St., Sac. (upstairs). Info: 456-5323.
We need to break here for some poetry!
THE LETTER
—Amy Lowell
Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper
Like draggled fly's legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves?
Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor
Spattered with moonlight?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them
Of blossoming hawthorns,
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.
______________________
AFTERGLOW
—Amy Lowell
Peonies
The strange pink colour of Chinese porcelains;
Wonderful—the glow of them.
But, my Dear, it is the pale blue larkspur
Which swings windily against my heart.
Other Summers—
And a cricket chirping in the grass.
______________________
Okay. Back to next weekend: At the same time as the d.a. levy tribute on Saturday, The Show will present The Big Clean Mouth Slam for $50, hosted by Petri Hawkins-Byrd (the baliff on Judge Judy) at Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St., 7-9 pm. Tickets ($5): Underground Books or fromtheheart1@hotmail.com. Info: Terry Moore, 455-POET. And then on SUNDAY:
Poems-For-All presents Jordan Jones and Eric Paul Shaffer at The Book Collector (1008 24th St., Sac.), 4 pm, free. Join them for a Sunday afternoon reading as they read from their latest books of poetry published by Leaping Dog Press. (www.leapingdogpress.com) Info: 442-9295.
And this doesn't even include the regular reading series (Mahogany at Sweet Fingers Jamaican Restaurant, 9 pm Weds.; Poetic Light Open Mic at Personal Style Salon, Thurs. 8-10; or Gwen's Caribbean Cuisine on Thurs. at 7 pm). If I've left anybody else out, let me know.
Let's let Amy cap it off:
A DECADE
—Amy Lowell
When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.
_________________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
The Bare Tree
THE BARE TREE
—William Carlos Williams
The bare cherry tree
higher than the roof
last year produced
abundant fruit. But how
speak of fruit confronted
by that skeleton?
Though live it may be
there is no fruit on it.
Therefore chop it down
and use the wood
against this biting cold.
____________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—William Carlos Williams
The bare cherry tree
higher than the roof
last year produced
abundant fruit. But how
speak of fruit confronted
by that skeleton?
Though live it may be
there is no fruit on it.
Therefore chop it down
and use the wood
against this biting cold.
____________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
A Weekend Fit For a Jaunt
PROSPECTING
—A.R. Ammons
Coming to cottonwoods, an
orange rockshelf,
and in the gully
an edging of stream willows,
I made camp
and turned my mule loose
to graze in the dark
evening of the mountain.
Drowsed over the coals
and my loneliness
like an inner image went
out and shook
hands with the willows,
and running up the black scarp
tugged the heavy moon
up and over into light,
and on a hill-thorn of sage
called with the coyotes
and told ghost stories to
a night circle of lizards.
Tipping on its handle
the Dipper unobtrusively
poured out the night.
At dawn returning, wet
to the hips with meetings,
my loneliness woke me up
and we merged refreshed into
the breaking of camp and day.
_____________________________
Lots to do out of town this weekend—a beautiful one for traveling! Head over to Modesto this afternoon, where the Central California Art Association & Mistlin Art Gallery will sponsor a poetry reading/booksigning and reception at 4 pm (1015 J St., downtown Modesto). Gillian Wegner will be reading from her book, Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other (In the Grove Press), and arriving from the Bay Area to join her are poets Helen Wickes (Lives of Clouds) and Murray Silverstein (Any Old Wolf) (both books forthcoming from Sixteen Rivers Press). All three poets were recently anthologized in Cloud View Poets (Arctos Press), which will be available for purchase and signing.
Then Sunday, ride over to Napa to hear Patricia Wellingham-Jones and Joel Fallon [see Monday's Kitchen] at Copperfields, 3900 Bel Air Plaza (Hwy 49 & Trancus St.), 3-5 pm.
And Monday the Sacramento Poetry Center presents John Amen at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), 7:30 pm. John is the author of two books of poetry, and is founder and current editor of The Pedestal Magazine (www.thepedestalmagazine.com or www.johnamen.com). See the current Poetry Now for two of his poems.
Myself, I’m headed over to Oakland today for the 86th Annual Ina Coolbrith Circle National Poetry Day Banquet. As you probably know, Ina Coolbrith was the first Poet Laureate of California, and the Circle continues to meet and to sponsor poetry contests in her honor.
REFLECTIVE
—A.R. Ammons
I found a
weed
that had a
mirror in it
and that
mirror
looked in at
a mirror
in
me that
had a
weed in it
_____________________
WINTER SCENE
—A.R. Ammons
There is now not a single
leaf on the cherry tree:
except when the jay
plummets in, lights, and,
in pure clarity, squalls:
then every branch
quivers and
breaks out in blue leaves.
_____________________
MOUNTAIN TALK
—A.R. Ammons
I was going along a dusty highroad
when the mountain
across the way
turned me to its silence:
oh I said how come
I don’t know your
massive symmetry and rest:
nevertheless, said the mountain,
would you want
to be
lodged here with
a changeless prospect, risen
to an unalterable view:
so I went on
counting my numberless fingers.
______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—A.R. Ammons
Coming to cottonwoods, an
orange rockshelf,
and in the gully
an edging of stream willows,
I made camp
and turned my mule loose
to graze in the dark
evening of the mountain.
Drowsed over the coals
and my loneliness
like an inner image went
out and shook
hands with the willows,
and running up the black scarp
tugged the heavy moon
up and over into light,
and on a hill-thorn of sage
called with the coyotes
and told ghost stories to
a night circle of lizards.
Tipping on its handle
the Dipper unobtrusively
poured out the night.
At dawn returning, wet
to the hips with meetings,
my loneliness woke me up
and we merged refreshed into
the breaking of camp and day.
_____________________________
Lots to do out of town this weekend—a beautiful one for traveling! Head over to Modesto this afternoon, where the Central California Art Association & Mistlin Art Gallery will sponsor a poetry reading/booksigning and reception at 4 pm (1015 J St., downtown Modesto). Gillian Wegner will be reading from her book, Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other (In the Grove Press), and arriving from the Bay Area to join her are poets Helen Wickes (Lives of Clouds) and Murray Silverstein (Any Old Wolf) (both books forthcoming from Sixteen Rivers Press). All three poets were recently anthologized in Cloud View Poets (Arctos Press), which will be available for purchase and signing.
Then Sunday, ride over to Napa to hear Patricia Wellingham-Jones and Joel Fallon [see Monday's Kitchen] at Copperfields, 3900 Bel Air Plaza (Hwy 49 & Trancus St.), 3-5 pm.
And Monday the Sacramento Poetry Center presents John Amen at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), 7:30 pm. John is the author of two books of poetry, and is founder and current editor of The Pedestal Magazine (www.thepedestalmagazine.com or www.johnamen.com). See the current Poetry Now for two of his poems.
Myself, I’m headed over to Oakland today for the 86th Annual Ina Coolbrith Circle National Poetry Day Banquet. As you probably know, Ina Coolbrith was the first Poet Laureate of California, and the Circle continues to meet and to sponsor poetry contests in her honor.
REFLECTIVE
—A.R. Ammons
I found a
weed
that had a
mirror in it
and that
mirror
looked in at
a mirror
in
me that
had a
weed in it
_____________________
WINTER SCENE
—A.R. Ammons
There is now not a single
leaf on the cherry tree:
except when the jay
plummets in, lights, and,
in pure clarity, squalls:
then every branch
quivers and
breaks out in blue leaves.
_____________________
MOUNTAIN TALK
—A.R. Ammons
I was going along a dusty highroad
when the mountain
across the way
turned me to its silence:
oh I said how come
I don’t know your
massive symmetry and rest:
nevertheless, said the mountain,
would you want
to be
lodged here with
a changeless prospect, risen
to an unalterable view:
so I went on
counting my numberless fingers.
______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Inkwells of the Heart
CREAKY LIDS LIFT
—Patricia D'Alessandro, Sky Valley, CA
from inkwells of the heart
when poets dip for ink
against the war
a gentle man named Samuel
who, with his wife protects
women against the violence
of men in Washington,
whose "sacred intervention"
collected 30,000 poems
against the war in Iraq
that Dr. Carlos Williams would approve
as leader of humanity
against all wars
so that the time for melting guns
to plowshares
is now prime.
____________________
Thanks, Pat! Ex-Sacramentan Pat D'Alessandro keeps in touch with the Sacramento poetry community via her poems and doodles and other artistic doings. Watch for more from Pat in the next Rattlesnake Review, due out in December (deadline for submissions: November 15).
ITEM
—William Carlos Williams
This, with a face
like a mashed blood orange
that suddenly
would get eyes
and look up and scream
War! War!
clutching her
thick, ragged coat
A piece of hat
broken shoes
War! War!
stumbling for dread
at the young men
who with their gun-butts
shove her
sprawling—
a note
at the foot of the page
__________________
WHEN THE WAR IS OVER
—W.S. Merwin
When the war is over
We will be proud of course the air wil be
Good for breathing at last
The water will have been improved the salmon
And the silence of heaven will migrate more perfectly
The dead will think the living are worth it we will know
Who we are
And we will all enlist again
________________________
Well, okay—maybe not all of us...
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—Patricia D'Alessandro, Sky Valley, CA
from inkwells of the heart
when poets dip for ink
against the war
a gentle man named Samuel
who, with his wife protects
women against the violence
of men in Washington,
whose "sacred intervention"
collected 30,000 poems
against the war in Iraq
that Dr. Carlos Williams would approve
as leader of humanity
against all wars
so that the time for melting guns
to plowshares
is now prime.
____________________
Thanks, Pat! Ex-Sacramentan Pat D'Alessandro keeps in touch with the Sacramento poetry community via her poems and doodles and other artistic doings. Watch for more from Pat in the next Rattlesnake Review, due out in December (deadline for submissions: November 15).
ITEM
—William Carlos Williams
This, with a face
like a mashed blood orange
that suddenly
would get eyes
and look up and scream
War! War!
clutching her
thick, ragged coat
A piece of hat
broken shoes
War! War!
stumbling for dread
at the young men
who with their gun-butts
shove her
sprawling—
a note
at the foot of the page
__________________
WHEN THE WAR IS OVER
—W.S. Merwin
When the war is over
We will be proud of course the air wil be
Good for breathing at last
The water will have been improved the salmon
And the silence of heaven will migrate more perfectly
The dead will think the living are worth it we will know
Who we are
And we will all enlist again
________________________
Well, okay—maybe not all of us...
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
In a Light Dress Laughing
LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS AT SUNRISE
—W.S. Merwin
When it is not yet day
I am walking on centuries of dead chestnut leaves
In a place without grief
Though the oriole
Out of another life warns me
That I am awake
In the dark while the rain fell
The gold chanterelles pushed through a sleep that was not mine
Waking me
So that I came up the mountain to find them
Where they appear it seems I have been before
I recognize their haunts as though remembering
Another life
Where else am I walking even now
Looking for me
______________________
Andy Jones, Host of "Dr. Andy's Poetry and Technology Hour" on KDVS (90.3 FM in Davis, Wednesdays from 5-6, http://www.kdvs.org) writes: You may have heard recordings of James Ragan reading his works, or you might know him as a dynamic speaker who has performed before heads of state here and abroad. In any event, the Davis Downtown Business Association is taking a risk to fund a reading by an out-of-area poet, and we are hoping that this investment in the arts pays off for all of us by bringing people to Davis on a Friday night, and by encouraging local civic and business organizations to fund more local poetry events. So, I invite you to attend this free event with live jazz Friday, or to stop by the Sacramento Barnes and Noble on Arden on Saturday, and thus see this "Ambassador for Poetry" in action.
Friday, Oct, 21, 7-9 PM: Davis, CA. Internationally-acclaimed Los Angeles poet, Fulbright Fellow, screenwriter, and Director of the Professional Writing Program at University of Southern California James Ragan will perform his work at the City of Davis' first annual Downtown Poetry Night. Live jazz and a book signing will follow the reading. This event is FREE for all. Downtown E Street Plaza, Davis. Info: 530-756-8763, Laura Cole-Rowe, DDBA.
Or on Saturday, Oct. 22, 12-2 pm, Ragan will be featured at a reading and author signing at the Arden Fair Barnes & Noble, 1725 Arden Way, Sac. This event is also FREE for all. Info: 916-565-0644, Laini Harris, CRM.
For more on the Davis event, see http://www.davisdowntown.com/ddba_events/poetrynight
For more on James Ragan, see http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/mpw/faculty/ragan.php.
WHEN YOU GO AWAY
—W.S. Merwin
When you go away the wind clicks around to the north
The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls
Showing the black walls
The clock goes back to striking the same hour
That has no place in the years
And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes
In one breath I wake
It is the time when the beards of the dead get their growth
I remember that I am falling
That I am the reason
And that my words are the garment of what I shall never be
Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy
______________________
COME BACK
—W.S. Merwin
You came back to us in a dream and we were not here
In a light dress laughing you ran down the slope
To the door
And knocked for a long time thinking it strange
Oh come back we were watching all the time
With the delight choking us and the piled
Grief scrambling like guilt to leave us
At the sight of you
Looking well
And besides our questions our news
All of it paralyzed until you were gone
Is it the same way there
_____________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—W.S. Merwin
When it is not yet day
I am walking on centuries of dead chestnut leaves
In a place without grief
Though the oriole
Out of another life warns me
That I am awake
In the dark while the rain fell
The gold chanterelles pushed through a sleep that was not mine
Waking me
So that I came up the mountain to find them
Where they appear it seems I have been before
I recognize their haunts as though remembering
Another life
Where else am I walking even now
Looking for me
______________________
Andy Jones, Host of "Dr. Andy's Poetry and Technology Hour" on KDVS (90.3 FM in Davis, Wednesdays from 5-6, http://www.kdvs.org) writes: You may have heard recordings of James Ragan reading his works, or you might know him as a dynamic speaker who has performed before heads of state here and abroad. In any event, the Davis Downtown Business Association is taking a risk to fund a reading by an out-of-area poet, and we are hoping that this investment in the arts pays off for all of us by bringing people to Davis on a Friday night, and by encouraging local civic and business organizations to fund more local poetry events. So, I invite you to attend this free event with live jazz Friday, or to stop by the Sacramento Barnes and Noble on Arden on Saturday, and thus see this "Ambassador for Poetry" in action.
Friday, Oct, 21, 7-9 PM: Davis, CA. Internationally-acclaimed Los Angeles poet, Fulbright Fellow, screenwriter, and Director of the Professional Writing Program at University of Southern California James Ragan will perform his work at the City of Davis' first annual Downtown Poetry Night. Live jazz and a book signing will follow the reading. This event is FREE for all. Downtown E Street Plaza, Davis. Info: 530-756-8763, Laura Cole-Rowe, DDBA.
Or on Saturday, Oct. 22, 12-2 pm, Ragan will be featured at a reading and author signing at the Arden Fair Barnes & Noble, 1725 Arden Way, Sac. This event is also FREE for all. Info: 916-565-0644, Laini Harris, CRM.
For more on the Davis event, see http://www.davisdowntown.com/ddba_events/poetrynight
For more on James Ragan, see http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/mpw/faculty/ragan.php.
WHEN YOU GO AWAY
—W.S. Merwin
When you go away the wind clicks around to the north
The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls
Showing the black walls
The clock goes back to striking the same hour
That has no place in the years
And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes
In one breath I wake
It is the time when the beards of the dead get their growth
I remember that I am falling
That I am the reason
And that my words are the garment of what I shall never be
Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy
______________________
COME BACK
—W.S. Merwin
You came back to us in a dream and we were not here
In a light dress laughing you ran down the slope
To the door
And knocked for a long time thinking it strange
Oh come back we were watching all the time
With the delight choking us and the piled
Grief scrambling like guilt to leave us
At the sight of you
Looking well
And besides our questions our news
All of it paralyzed until you were gone
Is it the same way there
_____________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Heads Up!
Poetry Now lists Los Escritores as meeting tomorrow night; actually they're meeting Friday, Oct. 28 in a Day of the Dead Celebration to honor the lives of the 2005 Fallen Chicano Heroes: Bert Corona, Rodolfo (Corky) Gonzalez, Lalo Guerrero, Carlos Cortez, Gloria Anzaldua, Octavio I. Romano, and Phil Goldvarg. These men and women were in the forefront of the struggle for recognizing Chicano culture and identity. Donation: $5 or as you can afford. Where: La Raza Galeria/Posada Bookstore; 1421 ‘R’ Street, Sac, upstairs. Info: 456-5323. Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol (Writers of the New Sun) is a literary community, established in 1993, that especially honors the literary and artistic cultures and traditions of Chicano, Latino and Indigenous peoples. Members write in Spanish or English, or both. All activities are open to the public. For information on the Escritores anthology, Cantos y Cuentos, go to their Website: http://www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com/
The other heads-up is a reminder that tonight's Urban Voices reading at the South Natomas Library will start at 6:30 pm instead of 7. Come hear Todd Walton.
ALL THINGS CAN TEMPT ME
—William Butler Yeats
All things can tempt me from this craft of verse,
One time it was a woman's face, or worse,
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land,
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,
I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet sing it with such airs
That one believed he had a sword upstairs,
Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.
_____________________
AN APPOINTMENT
—William Butler Yeats
Being out of heart with government
I took a broken root to fling
Where the proud, wayward squirrel went,
Taking delight that he could spring;
And he, with that low whinnying sound
That is like laughter, sprang again
And so to the other tree at a bound.
Nor the tame will, nor timid brain,
Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb
And threw him up to laugh on the bough;
No government appointed him.
_________________________
A COAT
—William Butler Yeats
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eye
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.
______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
The other heads-up is a reminder that tonight's Urban Voices reading at the South Natomas Library will start at 6:30 pm instead of 7. Come hear Todd Walton.
ALL THINGS CAN TEMPT ME
—William Butler Yeats
All things can tempt me from this craft of verse,
One time it was a woman's face, or worse,
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land,
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,
I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet sing it with such airs
That one believed he had a sword upstairs,
Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.
_____________________
AN APPOINTMENT
—William Butler Yeats
Being out of heart with government
I took a broken root to fling
Where the proud, wayward squirrel went,
Taking delight that he could spring;
And he, with that low whinnying sound
That is like laughter, sprang again
And so to the other tree at a bound.
Nor the tame will, nor timid brain,
Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb
And threw him up to laugh on the bough;
No government appointed him.
_________________________
A COAT
—William Butler Yeats
I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eye
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.
______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
A Flight of Small Cheeping Birds
WILLOW POEM
—William Carlos Williams
It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen not
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loath to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river—
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground.
_________________________
Poems by locals Ann Privateer and Jane Blue appear on the new online journal, Mamazine ("Where Mamas can get real and get happy!"), edited by Sacramentans Amy Anderson and Sheri Reed. It looks great!—check it out at mamazine.com.
Keep digging those teenagers out of the woodwork; the deadline for VYPER is coming up. Send 3-5 poems from poets 13-19, names on every page, to kathykieth@hotmail.com by NOVEMBER 1.
THE LONELY STREET
—William Carlos Williams
School is over. It is too hot
to walk at ease. At ease
in light frocks they walk the streets
to while the time away.
They have grown tall. They hold
pink flames in their right hands.
In white from head to foot,
with sidelong, idle look—
in yellow, floating stuff,
black sash and stockings—
touching their avid mouths
with pink sugar on a stick—
like a carnation each holds in her hand—
they mount the lonely street.
_______________________
TO WAKEN AN OLD LADY
—William Carlos Williams
Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffetted
by a dark wind—
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested,
the snow
is covered with broken
seedhusks
and the wind tempered
by a shrill
piping of plenty.
____________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—William Carlos Williams
It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen not
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loath to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river—
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground.
_________________________
Poems by locals Ann Privateer and Jane Blue appear on the new online journal, Mamazine ("Where Mamas can get real and get happy!"), edited by Sacramentans Amy Anderson and Sheri Reed. It looks great!—check it out at mamazine.com.
Keep digging those teenagers out of the woodwork; the deadline for VYPER is coming up. Send 3-5 poems from poets 13-19, names on every page, to kathykieth@hotmail.com by NOVEMBER 1.
THE LONELY STREET
—William Carlos Williams
School is over. It is too hot
to walk at ease. At ease
in light frocks they walk the streets
to while the time away.
They have grown tall. They hold
pink flames in their right hands.
In white from head to foot,
with sidelong, idle look—
in yellow, floating stuff,
black sash and stockings—
touching their avid mouths
with pink sugar on a stick—
like a carnation each holds in her hand—
they mount the lonely street.
_______________________
TO WAKEN AN OLD LADY
—William Carlos Williams
Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffetted
by a dark wind—
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested,
the snow
is covered with broken
seedhusks
and the wind tempered
by a shrill
piping of plenty.
____________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Monday, October 17, 2005
Give the Devil Enough Rope...
DEVIL'S ROPE
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Devil's rope
that's what the old timers called it
in the late 1800s
while taming the West
Those rugged men
in their fencing wars
found a dozen ways to wind wire
To make sure sheep, cattle
and stockmen got the point
they added barbs
Pooler Jones was sold
by the pound, a straight rod
with double twist barb
Deckers Parallel's
two single wires carried a C barb
The WF Johnson Corn Planter
featured a long trip wire
with button tied in
Uphams Snail Barb twisted
its hooks around twisted wire
Hodge's Spur Rowel borrowed
from the horses for a double strand and inset
Kelly's Thorny Fence sported
a double arrowhead barb, thorny indeed
The Burnell Four Point twisted two barbs
in a double twist wire, all points armed
Scut's "H" Plate used a crimped H-shaped barb
Curtis Twisted Off Set held small barbs
set in a tight double twist
while Reynolds Necktie no man
would wish to wear next to his skin
The Brinkerhoff Factory Splice
twisted broad bands between wicked
large double barbs—pity the hide
caught on those spikes
Crandal made a zig zag double twist
with arrow-shaped barb
and even the miners in Virginia City
had their own cable
Today developers carve up the West
with chain link and plastic
_______________________
Patricia Wellingham-Jones will read with Joel Fallon at Copperfield's in Napa (3500 Bel Aire Plaza, Hwy 29 & Trancus Street, 707-252-8002) this Sunday (10/23), 3-5 pm. Patricia, a former psychology researcher and writer/editor, is a three-time Pushcart nominee. Her work is published in numerous chapbooks, anthologies, journals and Internet magazines, including a rattlechap (Voices on the Land). A resident of Tehama, she has a monthly poetry column in East Valley Times and has been featured poet in several journals. Patricia is also publisher of PWJ Publishing and edits and produces books by invitation. Her website is www.wellinghamjones.com.
Joel Fallon went to sea at seventeen, enlisted for the Korean war and spent most of his military life overseas: Korea, Japan, The Philippines and Germany. He retired from the Army in 1970 to build boats, but soon returned to Germany as a Department of Army civilian employee and spent another 20 years overseas. Now "really retired," Fallon lives in Benicia, California where he practices T'ai Chi daily, gardens and writes. Joel has written six chapbooks and regularly reads in the Bay Area.
The Central California Art Association & Mistlin Art Gallery announces a poetry reading/booksigning and reception this Saturday (10/22), 4 pm, 1015 J street, downtown Modesto. Gillian Wegner will be reading from her book, Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other (In the Grove Press), and arriving from the Bay Area to join her are poets Helen Wickes (Lives of Clouds), and Murray Silverstein (Any Old Wolf) (both forthcoming from Sixteen Rivers Press). All three poets were recently anthologized in Cloud View Poets (Arctos Press), which will be available for purchase and signing. (Info: Gordon Preston, 523-8916)
Lots of local doin's this week, too:
Tonight: Sac. Poetry Center presents Claudia Epperson, 7:30 pm, HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac). Info: 441-7395. Claudia has worked in the education field for more than 30 years; her book, The Warrior King Women Long For, was recently published by The Zoe Life Publishing Co.
Tuesday (10/18): Third Tuesday Poetry Series presents Alfred Arteaga and Eve West Bessier, 7 pm, La Raza Bookstore, 1421 R St., free. Info: 743-5329.
Wednesday (10/19): Urban Voices presents Todd Walton at the South Natomas Library, 2901 Trexel Rd., Sac. Note time change: this reading now begins at 6:30 pm instead of 7:00. Also Wednesday: Mahogany Urban Poetry Series presents Sharkie Marado at Sweet Fingers Jamaican Restaurant, 1704 Broadway, Sac, 9 pm. $5 cover. Info: 492-9336.
Thursday (10/20): Poetry Unplugged presents Julie Reyes at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac, 8 pm. Also Thursday: California Lecture Series presents Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, American Book Award winner, poet and bestsellling author, in conversation with Jeffrey Callison, Capital Public Radio Host of "Insight". 7:30 pm, Crest Theatre, 1015 K St., Sac. $23.
______________________
More from Patricia:
PAINT JOB
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones
She rises out of moss-stains,
wooden decks and worn concrete.
The old overgrown cottage
glows in new paint
like a young woman
coming into her prime.
She is gorgeous in her fresh
and flouncy new skirts.
Same hues as before—rich blue
with trim the color of redwoods—
her satin finish picks up the light,
bounces it around.
Chimney proud as a cocked hat
with greenleaf feathers
she winks her sun-flashed gabled eyes
at the friend whose finger rests
on a rainbow trout doorknocker.
Walls expanding in satisfied sighs,
front door open in a wide smile,
she settles with flower-strewn lap
on her patch of earth.
_______________________
Thanks, Patricia!
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Devil's rope
that's what the old timers called it
in the late 1800s
while taming the West
Those rugged men
in their fencing wars
found a dozen ways to wind wire
To make sure sheep, cattle
and stockmen got the point
they added barbs
Pooler Jones was sold
by the pound, a straight rod
with double twist barb
Deckers Parallel's
two single wires carried a C barb
The WF Johnson Corn Planter
featured a long trip wire
with button tied in
Uphams Snail Barb twisted
its hooks around twisted wire
Hodge's Spur Rowel borrowed
from the horses for a double strand and inset
Kelly's Thorny Fence sported
a double arrowhead barb, thorny indeed
The Burnell Four Point twisted two barbs
in a double twist wire, all points armed
Scut's "H" Plate used a crimped H-shaped barb
Curtis Twisted Off Set held small barbs
set in a tight double twist
while Reynolds Necktie no man
would wish to wear next to his skin
The Brinkerhoff Factory Splice
twisted broad bands between wicked
large double barbs—pity the hide
caught on those spikes
Crandal made a zig zag double twist
with arrow-shaped barb
and even the miners in Virginia City
had their own cable
Today developers carve up the West
with chain link and plastic
_______________________
Patricia Wellingham-Jones will read with Joel Fallon at Copperfield's in Napa (3500 Bel Aire Plaza, Hwy 29 & Trancus Street, 707-252-8002) this Sunday (10/23), 3-5 pm. Patricia, a former psychology researcher and writer/editor, is a three-time Pushcart nominee. Her work is published in numerous chapbooks, anthologies, journals and Internet magazines, including a rattlechap (Voices on the Land). A resident of Tehama, she has a monthly poetry column in East Valley Times and has been featured poet in several journals. Patricia is also publisher of PWJ Publishing and edits and produces books by invitation. Her website is www.wellinghamjones.com.
Joel Fallon went to sea at seventeen, enlisted for the Korean war and spent most of his military life overseas: Korea, Japan, The Philippines and Germany. He retired from the Army in 1970 to build boats, but soon returned to Germany as a Department of Army civilian employee and spent another 20 years overseas. Now "really retired," Fallon lives in Benicia, California where he practices T'ai Chi daily, gardens and writes. Joel has written six chapbooks and regularly reads in the Bay Area.
The Central California Art Association & Mistlin Art Gallery announces a poetry reading/booksigning and reception this Saturday (10/22), 4 pm, 1015 J street, downtown Modesto. Gillian Wegner will be reading from her book, Lifting One Foot, Lifting the Other (In the Grove Press), and arriving from the Bay Area to join her are poets Helen Wickes (Lives of Clouds), and Murray Silverstein (Any Old Wolf) (both forthcoming from Sixteen Rivers Press). All three poets were recently anthologized in Cloud View Poets (Arctos Press), which will be available for purchase and signing. (Info: Gordon Preston, 523-8916)
Lots of local doin's this week, too:
Tonight: Sac. Poetry Center presents Claudia Epperson, 7:30 pm, HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac). Info: 441-7395. Claudia has worked in the education field for more than 30 years; her book, The Warrior King Women Long For, was recently published by The Zoe Life Publishing Co.
Tuesday (10/18): Third Tuesday Poetry Series presents Alfred Arteaga and Eve West Bessier, 7 pm, La Raza Bookstore, 1421 R St., free. Info: 743-5329.
Wednesday (10/19): Urban Voices presents Todd Walton at the South Natomas Library, 2901 Trexel Rd., Sac. Note time change: this reading now begins at 6:30 pm instead of 7:00. Also Wednesday: Mahogany Urban Poetry Series presents Sharkie Marado at Sweet Fingers Jamaican Restaurant, 1704 Broadway, Sac, 9 pm. $5 cover. Info: 492-9336.
Thursday (10/20): Poetry Unplugged presents Julie Reyes at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac, 8 pm. Also Thursday: California Lecture Series presents Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, American Book Award winner, poet and bestsellling author, in conversation with Jeffrey Callison, Capital Public Radio Host of "Insight". 7:30 pm, Crest Theatre, 1015 K St., Sac. $23.
______________________
More from Patricia:
PAINT JOB
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones
She rises out of moss-stains,
wooden decks and worn concrete.
The old overgrown cottage
glows in new paint
like a young woman
coming into her prime.
She is gorgeous in her fresh
and flouncy new skirts.
Same hues as before—rich blue
with trim the color of redwoods—
her satin finish picks up the light,
bounces it around.
Chimney proud as a cocked hat
with greenleaf feathers
she winks her sun-flashed gabled eyes
at the friend whose finger rests
on a rainbow trout doorknocker.
Walls expanding in satisfied sighs,
front door open in a wide smile,
she settles with flower-strewn lap
on her patch of earth.
_______________________
Thanks, Patricia!
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Like An Elephant's Tail
Six from Dogen (1200-1253):
The moon reflected
In a mind clear
As still water:
Even the waves, breaking,
Are reflecting its light.
***
A white heron
Hiding itself
In the snowy field,
Where even the winter grass
Cannot be seen.
***
If you ask,
What is Buddha?
An icicle
Hanging
From a mosquito net.
***
Magpie building
Its nest on his head,
While a spider's web,
Like tiny crabs,
Covers his eyebrows.
***
The world—
Like an elephant's tail
Not passing through the window,
Although no one is there
Holding it back.
***
Contemplating the clear moon
Reflecting a mind empty as the open sky—
Drawn by its beauty,
I lose myself
In the shadows it casts.
_______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
The moon reflected
In a mind clear
As still water:
Even the waves, breaking,
Are reflecting its light.
***
A white heron
Hiding itself
In the snowy field,
Where even the winter grass
Cannot be seen.
***
If you ask,
What is Buddha?
An icicle
Hanging
From a mosquito net.
***
Magpie building
Its nest on his head,
While a spider's web,
Like tiny crabs,
Covers his eyebrows.
***
The world—
Like an elephant's tail
Not passing through the window,
Although no one is there
Holding it back.
***
Contemplating the clear moon
Reflecting a mind empty as the open sky—
Drawn by its beauty,
I lose myself
In the shadows it casts.
_______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Sometimes Whistling
THE PIECES OF MY VOICE
—A.R. Ammons
The pieces of my voice have been thrown
away I said turning to the hedgerows
and hidden ditches
Where do the pieces of
my voice lie scattered
The cedarcone said you have been ground
down into and whirled
Tomorrow I must go look under the clumps of
marshgrass in wet deserts
and in dry deserts
when the wind falls from the mountain
inquire of the chuckwalla what he saw go by
and what the sidewinder found
risen in the changing sand
I must run down all the pieces
and build the whole silence back
As I look across the fields the sun
big in my eyes I see the hills
the great black unwasting silence and
know I must go out beyond the hills and seek
for I am broken over the earth—
so little remains
for the silent offering of my death
______________________
B.L. Kennedy's Urban Voices reading series next Wednesday (10/19) at the South Natomas Library, 2901 Truxel Road, Sac., has had a time change. The series has been running from 7-8 pm; now it has switched to 6:30-8 pm. This is a definite plus, allowing more time for readers and conversation. This month the reader will be Todd Walton.
This Saturday (10/15), Underground Poetry Series features the Black Men Expressing tour at Underground Books, 35th & Broadway, Sac. Info: 455-POET. $3. Sunday (10/16) the Poems-For-All Sunday Afternoon Series features Donald Sidney-Fryer at 4 pm, reading from his latest book, Songs and Sonnets Atlantean (The Third Series). Then Monday, Sac. Poetry Center presents Claudia Epperson and her new book, The Warrior King (HQ, 25th & R Sts., Sac, 7:30 pm).
_______________________
WIRING
—A.R. Ammons
Radiance comes from
on high and, staying,
sends down silk
lines to the flopping
marionette, me, but
love comes from
under the ruins and
sends the lumber up
limber into leaf that
touches so high it nearly
puts out the radiance
_______________________
BEES STOPPED
—A.R. Ammons
Bees stopped on the rock
and rubbed their headparts and wings
rested then flew on:
ants ran over the whitish greenish reddish
plants that grow flat on rocks
and people never see
because nothing should grow on rocks:
I looked out over the lake
and beyond to the hills and trees
and nothing was moving
so I looked closely
along the lakeside
under the old leaves of rushes
and around clumps of drygrass
and life was everywhere
so I went on sometimes whistling
________________________
Medusa will be taking a short rest tomorrow; see you Sunday.
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—A.R. Ammons
The pieces of my voice have been thrown
away I said turning to the hedgerows
and hidden ditches
Where do the pieces of
my voice lie scattered
The cedarcone said you have been ground
down into and whirled
Tomorrow I must go look under the clumps of
marshgrass in wet deserts
and in dry deserts
when the wind falls from the mountain
inquire of the chuckwalla what he saw go by
and what the sidewinder found
risen in the changing sand
I must run down all the pieces
and build the whole silence back
As I look across the fields the sun
big in my eyes I see the hills
the great black unwasting silence and
know I must go out beyond the hills and seek
for I am broken over the earth—
so little remains
for the silent offering of my death
______________________
B.L. Kennedy's Urban Voices reading series next Wednesday (10/19) at the South Natomas Library, 2901 Truxel Road, Sac., has had a time change. The series has been running from 7-8 pm; now it has switched to 6:30-8 pm. This is a definite plus, allowing more time for readers and conversation. This month the reader will be Todd Walton.
This Saturday (10/15), Underground Poetry Series features the Black Men Expressing tour at Underground Books, 35th & Broadway, Sac. Info: 455-POET. $3. Sunday (10/16) the Poems-For-All Sunday Afternoon Series features Donald Sidney-Fryer at 4 pm, reading from his latest book, Songs and Sonnets Atlantean (The Third Series). Then Monday, Sac. Poetry Center presents Claudia Epperson and her new book, The Warrior King (HQ, 25th & R Sts., Sac, 7:30 pm).
_______________________
WIRING
—A.R. Ammons
Radiance comes from
on high and, staying,
sends down silk
lines to the flopping
marionette, me, but
love comes from
under the ruins and
sends the lumber up
limber into leaf that
touches so high it nearly
puts out the radiance
_______________________
BEES STOPPED
—A.R. Ammons
Bees stopped on the rock
and rubbed their headparts and wings
rested then flew on:
ants ran over the whitish greenish reddish
plants that grow flat on rocks
and people never see
because nothing should grow on rocks:
I looked out over the lake
and beyond to the hills and trees
and nothing was moving
so I looked closely
along the lakeside
under the old leaves of rushes
and around clumps of drygrass
and life was everywhere
so I went on sometimes whistling
________________________
Medusa will be taking a short rest tomorrow; see you Sunday.
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Various Forms of Ruination
HORSES ABOARD
—Thomas Hardy
Horses in horseclothes stand in a row
On board the huge ship, that at last lets go:
Whither are they sailing? They do not know,
Nor what for, nor how.—
They are horses of war,
And are going to where there is fighting afar;
But they gaze through their eye-holes unwitting they are,
And that in some wilderness, gaunt and ghast,
Their bones will bleach ere a year has passed,
And the item be as "war-waste" classed.—
And when the band booms, and the folk say "Good-bye!"
And the shore slides astern, they appear wrenched awry
From the scheme Nature planned for them,—wondering why.
__________________________
James DenBoer gave a great reading last night at The Book Collector from his new book Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons and from other work and translations that he is currently absorbed in. Thanks, Jim! And congratulations! I'll send anyone a free copy of his rattlechap if they'll send me a poem about black eyes.
I really will send you a book if you send me a black-eye poem. Honest. Not all poetry contests are on the up-&-up, though. Check out the Wind Publication website (windpub.com/literary.scams/) for links to descriptions of questionable sites, with explanations of their dangers and why they are hazardous.
I'm still typing up Snakelets, the journal of poetry from kids 0-12, if you have any spare kid/student/grandkid-poems lurking about. Halloween can be the inspiration, or...? Get 'em to me by the end of next week. And while you're at it, try to inspire the teens, too (13-19), for the Nov. 1 Vyper deadline.
And the deadline for the grown-up Review, (Snake #8), is only about a month away (11/15), so git crackin'. Don't let the columnists do all the work, either—if you have an idea for a prose article, now's the time to suggest it to me so we can get it going in time. Or, if you don't have a specific idea, but feel like writing something, I have several ideas for interviews and other coverage simmering on the back burner that you might pursue. Remember, Sac is a bubbling cauldron of poetry life, and the Snake has only scratched the surface so far! Help your community by using your considerable writing skills for the good. Sometimes we don't use or appreciate what we have:
THE RAMBLER
—Thomas Hardy
I do not see the hills around,
Nor mark the tints the copses wear;
I do not note the grassy ground
And constellated daisies there.
I hear not the contralto note
Of cuckoos hid on either hand,
The whirr that shakes the nighthawk's throat
When eve's brown awning hoods the land.
Some say each songster, tree, and mead—
All eloquent of love divine—
Receives their constant careful heed:
Such keen appraisement is not mine.
The tones around me that I hear,
The aspects, meanings, shapes I see,
Are those far back ones missed when near,
And now perceived too late by me!
________________________
THE RUINED MAID
—Thomas Hardy
"O 'melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"—
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
—"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"—
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.
—"At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon', and 'theas oon', and 't'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"—
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.
—"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"—
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.
—"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"—
"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.
—"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"—
"My dear—a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined." said she.
_____________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—Thomas Hardy
Horses in horseclothes stand in a row
On board the huge ship, that at last lets go:
Whither are they sailing? They do not know,
Nor what for, nor how.—
They are horses of war,
And are going to where there is fighting afar;
But they gaze through their eye-holes unwitting they are,
And that in some wilderness, gaunt and ghast,
Their bones will bleach ere a year has passed,
And the item be as "war-waste" classed.—
And when the band booms, and the folk say "Good-bye!"
And the shore slides astern, they appear wrenched awry
From the scheme Nature planned for them,—wondering why.
__________________________
James DenBoer gave a great reading last night at The Book Collector from his new book Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons and from other work and translations that he is currently absorbed in. Thanks, Jim! And congratulations! I'll send anyone a free copy of his rattlechap if they'll send me a poem about black eyes.
I really will send you a book if you send me a black-eye poem. Honest. Not all poetry contests are on the up-&-up, though. Check out the Wind Publication website (windpub.com/literary.scams/) for links to descriptions of questionable sites, with explanations of their dangers and why they are hazardous.
I'm still typing up Snakelets, the journal of poetry from kids 0-12, if you have any spare kid/student/grandkid-poems lurking about. Halloween can be the inspiration, or...? Get 'em to me by the end of next week. And while you're at it, try to inspire the teens, too (13-19), for the Nov. 1 Vyper deadline.
And the deadline for the grown-up Review, (Snake #8), is only about a month away (11/15), so git crackin'. Don't let the columnists do all the work, either—if you have an idea for a prose article, now's the time to suggest it to me so we can get it going in time. Or, if you don't have a specific idea, but feel like writing something, I have several ideas for interviews and other coverage simmering on the back burner that you might pursue. Remember, Sac is a bubbling cauldron of poetry life, and the Snake has only scratched the surface so far! Help your community by using your considerable writing skills for the good. Sometimes we don't use or appreciate what we have:
THE RAMBLER
—Thomas Hardy
I do not see the hills around,
Nor mark the tints the copses wear;
I do not note the grassy ground
And constellated daisies there.
I hear not the contralto note
Of cuckoos hid on either hand,
The whirr that shakes the nighthawk's throat
When eve's brown awning hoods the land.
Some say each songster, tree, and mead—
All eloquent of love divine—
Receives their constant careful heed:
Such keen appraisement is not mine.
The tones around me that I hear,
The aspects, meanings, shapes I see,
Are those far back ones missed when near,
And now perceived too late by me!
________________________
THE RUINED MAID
—Thomas Hardy
"O 'melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"—
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
—"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"—
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.
—"At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon', and 'theas oon', and 't'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"—
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.
—"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"—
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.
—"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"—
"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.
—"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"—
"My dear—a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined." said she.
_____________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Black Eyes, Again
The Grahams in Somerset have come across with two black-eye poems [see yesterday]; serendipitously, Hatch is (1) recovering from eye problems, and (2) wrote a black-eye poem at last Saturday's Sac. Poetry Center Writers Conference (which Peggy Hill will be recapping for us in the next issue of Rattlesnake Review). Hats off, Hatch and Taylor!
BLACK EYES
—Hatch Graham
No wrinkled memories overcome my darkness.
The bubble in my eye gathers light and swirls colors.
Psychedelic pictures swarm like struggling salmon
swimming upstream to spawn,
dark red blood cells feed on a sea of blue.
The gaseous bubble gathers residue from the operation.
Dendritic patterns like rivers from a spy plane
reveal the capillaries.
Platelike formations like the grand canyon
reflect light from caves and caverns.
Ultimately, distorted telephone poles and
landscapes askew emerge.
Only the black patch prevents nausea
or unreasonable stumbling—
The only bright spot remaining are the doctor’s words,
“It will get better.” We’ll see
whether magic signals change from memory.
AFTER RETINAL SURGERY
—Taylor Graham
From inside the black-eye socket
you watch a deep-purple globe
outlined in brilliant white,
eclipse of the sun
by an unnamed planet
whose millions of creatures,
tiny as mites or red-blood cells,
swarm over this darkest
orb, the solar system
of your eye.
_____________________
The carrot this time is a free copy of James DenBoer's new chapbook, Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons, which will be debuting tonight at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac., 7:30 pm. Send me a poem about black eyes and receive a copy in the mail.
And come on by the reading tonight to pick up your copy of the new Fangs anthology, the latest littlesnake broadsides (Kowbell, Cirillo, Kieth), and even the latest Poetry Flash (B.L. Kennedy gave me a big stack of 'em).
Tomorrow night (Thursday): Poetry Unplugged features Kimberly White at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac., 8 pm. Or go to Poetic Light Open Mic, Personal Style Salon, 2540 Cottage Way, Sac., 8 pm (info: 470-2317). OR— go to an Evening of Poetry at Gwen's Caribbean Cuisine, 2355 Arden Way, Sac., 7 pm (info: 284-7831).
Let's close with another invocation for rain:
THE GIFT
—Edward Abbey
There was a dry season in a dry country:
barren clouds above the mountain peaks,
blue delirium over the cliffs,
a hot wind moaning through the trees
of a dying forest...
We waited, we all waited
for the soft and silver rain
to come and ease our thirst.
We waited, while our hearts
withered in the heat.
The first promise of a new season
came at evening in the form of evening light
(like the light in your eyes, your hair, your smile,
the soft glow on your arms).
The aspens shivered with hope.
The yellow pines stirred their heavy limbs.
The cliffrose opened its flowers
and a strange fierce joy sang through my heart,
in tune with the winds
and the ecstasy of the earth
and the singing of the wild and lonely sky.
______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
BLACK EYES
—Hatch Graham
No wrinkled memories overcome my darkness.
The bubble in my eye gathers light and swirls colors.
Psychedelic pictures swarm like struggling salmon
swimming upstream to spawn,
dark red blood cells feed on a sea of blue.
The gaseous bubble gathers residue from the operation.
Dendritic patterns like rivers from a spy plane
reveal the capillaries.
Platelike formations like the grand canyon
reflect light from caves and caverns.
Ultimately, distorted telephone poles and
landscapes askew emerge.
Only the black patch prevents nausea
or unreasonable stumbling—
The only bright spot remaining are the doctor’s words,
“It will get better.” We’ll see
whether magic signals change from memory.
AFTER RETINAL SURGERY
—Taylor Graham
From inside the black-eye socket
you watch a deep-purple globe
outlined in brilliant white,
eclipse of the sun
by an unnamed planet
whose millions of creatures,
tiny as mites or red-blood cells,
swarm over this darkest
orb, the solar system
of your eye.
_____________________
The carrot this time is a free copy of James DenBoer's new chapbook, Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons, which will be debuting tonight at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac., 7:30 pm. Send me a poem about black eyes and receive a copy in the mail.
And come on by the reading tonight to pick up your copy of the new Fangs anthology, the latest littlesnake broadsides (Kowbell, Cirillo, Kieth), and even the latest Poetry Flash (B.L. Kennedy gave me a big stack of 'em).
Tomorrow night (Thursday): Poetry Unplugged features Kimberly White at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac., 8 pm. Or go to Poetic Light Open Mic, Personal Style Salon, 2540 Cottage Way, Sac., 8 pm (info: 470-2317). OR— go to an Evening of Poetry at Gwen's Caribbean Cuisine, 2355 Arden Way, Sac., 7 pm (info: 284-7831).
Let's close with another invocation for rain:
THE GIFT
—Edward Abbey
There was a dry season in a dry country:
barren clouds above the mountain peaks,
blue delirium over the cliffs,
a hot wind moaning through the trees
of a dying forest...
We waited, we all waited
for the soft and silver rain
to come and ease our thirst.
We waited, while our hearts
withered in the heat.
The first promise of a new season
came at evening in the form of evening light
(like the light in your eyes, your hair, your smile,
the soft glow on your arms).
The aspens shivered with hope.
The yellow pines stirred their heavy limbs.
The cliffrose opened its flowers
and a strange fierce joy sang through my heart,
in tune with the winds
and the ecstasy of the earth
and the singing of the wild and lonely sky.
______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Black Eyes & Black Dogs
Yesterday I dropped a 15-lb steel bar on my eye. At such times, of course, one turns to poetry—first for the stream of invective, then for more measured reflection. Robert Lowell comes to mind:
EYE AND TOOTH
—Robert Lowell
My whole eye was sunset red,
the old cut comes throbbed,
I saw things darkly,
as through an unwashed goldfish globe.
I lay all day on my bed.
I chain-smoked through the night,
learning to flinch
at the flash of the matchlight.
Outside, the summer rain,
a simmer of rot and renewal,
fell in pinpricks.
Even new life is fuel.
My eyes throb.
Nothing can dislodge
the house with my first tooth
noosed in a knot in the doorknob.
Nothing can dislodge
the triangular blotch
of rot on the red roof,
a cedar hedge, or the shade of a hedge.
No ease from the eye
of the sharp-shinned hawk in the birdbook there,
with reddish brown buffalo hair
on its shanks, one ascetic talon
clasping the abstract imperial sky.
It says:
an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth.
No ease for the boy at the keyhole,
his telescope,
when the women's white bodies flashed
in the bathroom. Young, my eyes began to fail.
Nothing! No oil
for the eye, nothing to pour
on those waters or flames.
I am tired. Everyone's tired of my turmoil.
__________________
Okay, I exaggerate. Thanks to the miracles of ice and anti-inflammatories, I don't even have a shiner, and I definitely didn't take to my bed. Too bad: I had trotted out all the cliches and lined them up on top of my computer. "You shoulda seen the other guy...!"
Still, let's celebrate the shiner. Send me a poem about black eyes—real or metaphorical, your own or someone else's—and I'll send you a copy of James DenBoer's new chapbook, Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons. A Black Dog for a black eye—seems like a good trade.
One more from Lowell:
I. MOTHER AND SON
—Robert Lowell
Meeting his mother makes him lose ten years,
Or is it twenty? Time, no doubt, has ears
That listen to the swallowed serpent, wound
Into its bowels, but he thinks no sound
Is possible before her, he thinks the past
Is settled. It is honest to hold fast
Merely to what one sees with one's own eyes
When the red velvet curves and haunches rise
To blot him from the pretty driftwood fire's
Facade of welcome. Then the son retires
Into the sack and selfhood of the boy
Who clawed through fallen houses of his Troy,
Homely and human only when the flames
Crackle in recollection. Nothing shames
Him more than this uncoiling, counterfeit
Body presented as an idol. It
Is something in a circus, big as life,
The painted dragon, a mother and a wife
With flat glass eyes pushed at him on a stick;
The human mover crawls to make them click.
The forehead of her father's portrait peels
With rosy dryness, and the schoolboy kneels
To ask the benediction of the hand,
Lifted as though to motion him to stand,
Dangling its watch-chain on the Holy Book—
A little golden snake that mouths a hook.
(from "Between the Porch and the Altar")
_______________________
Thanks, Bob!
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
EYE AND TOOTH
—Robert Lowell
My whole eye was sunset red,
the old cut comes throbbed,
I saw things darkly,
as through an unwashed goldfish globe.
I lay all day on my bed.
I chain-smoked through the night,
learning to flinch
at the flash of the matchlight.
Outside, the summer rain,
a simmer of rot and renewal,
fell in pinpricks.
Even new life is fuel.
My eyes throb.
Nothing can dislodge
the house with my first tooth
noosed in a knot in the doorknob.
Nothing can dislodge
the triangular blotch
of rot on the red roof,
a cedar hedge, or the shade of a hedge.
No ease from the eye
of the sharp-shinned hawk in the birdbook there,
with reddish brown buffalo hair
on its shanks, one ascetic talon
clasping the abstract imperial sky.
It says:
an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth.
No ease for the boy at the keyhole,
his telescope,
when the women's white bodies flashed
in the bathroom. Young, my eyes began to fail.
Nothing! No oil
for the eye, nothing to pour
on those waters or flames.
I am tired. Everyone's tired of my turmoil.
__________________
Okay, I exaggerate. Thanks to the miracles of ice and anti-inflammatories, I don't even have a shiner, and I definitely didn't take to my bed. Too bad: I had trotted out all the cliches and lined them up on top of my computer. "You shoulda seen the other guy...!"
Still, let's celebrate the shiner. Send me a poem about black eyes—real or metaphorical, your own or someone else's—and I'll send you a copy of James DenBoer's new chapbook, Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons. A Black Dog for a black eye—seems like a good trade.
One more from Lowell:
I. MOTHER AND SON
—Robert Lowell
Meeting his mother makes him lose ten years,
Or is it twenty? Time, no doubt, has ears
That listen to the swallowed serpent, wound
Into its bowels, but he thinks no sound
Is possible before her, he thinks the past
Is settled. It is honest to hold fast
Merely to what one sees with one's own eyes
When the red velvet curves and haunches rise
To blot him from the pretty driftwood fire's
Facade of welcome. Then the son retires
Into the sack and selfhood of the boy
Who clawed through fallen houses of his Troy,
Homely and human only when the flames
Crackle in recollection. Nothing shames
Him more than this uncoiling, counterfeit
Body presented as an idol. It
Is something in a circus, big as life,
The painted dragon, a mother and a wife
With flat glass eyes pushed at him on a stick;
The human mover crawls to make them click.
The forehead of her father's portrait peels
With rosy dryness, and the schoolboy kneels
To ask the benediction of the hand,
Lifted as though to motion him to stand,
Dangling its watch-chain on the Holy Book—
A little golden snake that mouths a hook.
(from "Between the Porch and the Altar")
_______________________
Thanks, Bob!
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Monday, October 10, 2005
The Leaves Are Getting Busy
SMALL SONG
—A.R. Ammons
The reeds give
way to the
wind and give
the wind away.
___________________
Tonight the Sac. Poetry Center will present Cherryl Smith, Edythe Schwartz, Connie Gutowsky and Anthony Scoggins, reading to celebrate the release of Ms. Smith's book, After Being Somewhere Else. 7:30 pm, HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), free. Info: 441-7395.
James DenBoer will read at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac. this Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 7:30 pm, to celebrate the release of his latest chapbook from Rattlesnake Press: Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's.
OR, that same night, you might attend the potluck and reading to celebrate the life and work of the late poet and activist, Phil Goldvarg (6 pm, La Raza Galeria Posada, 1421 R St., Sac.).
Also released at Jim's rattle-read Wednesday will be littlesnake broadside #17 by Song Kowbell: Watching the Rabbit. Song is an emerging poet from the Grass Valley/Nevada City area who will be reading at Luna's Cafe Nov. 17, and who will be releasing a chapbook from Rattlesnake Press next Spring.
Also reading at Luna's Nov. 17 will be fellow GV/NC poets Todd Cirillo and William S. Gainer, both of whom have rattlechaps in the offing—Bill for December, and Todd for next Spring. Both poets also have published littlesnake broadsides, as well, which are currently available free at The Book Collector and will also be available at the 11/17 reading at Luna's. littlesnake broadsides are intended as a brief introduction to poets: longer than a poem or two, shorter than a chap. November's broadside will be from Sacramentan Claudia Trnka; more about that soon.
Here is a wee smidgeon of Bill Gainer's fine work:
THE LEAVES ARE GETTING BUSY
—William S. Gainer, Grass Valley
It’s Fall
and the leaves
are getting busy,
hiding the corpse
of summer
and we all know
what that means—
it’s going to rain...
it’s going to rain...
The days are getting
short,
nights
long
cold
and we all know
what that means—
the moon’s taking charge,
the creatures that howl
are coming out,
it’s getting dark.
Even the angels
look
to hide.
But no place is safe,
it’s Fall
and the leaves
are getting busy
and we all know what that means—
the rain,
the dark,
the creatures that howl,
the moon taking charge,
the leaves getting busy.
And we all know what that means—
the leaves getting busy...
it's going to rain...
it's going to rain...
it's going to rain...
____________________________
Thanks, Bill! Your mouth to God's ears... our friends in the foothills are anxious for an inch or two of rain to end the fire season up there.
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—A.R. Ammons
The reeds give
way to the
wind and give
the wind away.
___________________
Tonight the Sac. Poetry Center will present Cherryl Smith, Edythe Schwartz, Connie Gutowsky and Anthony Scoggins, reading to celebrate the release of Ms. Smith's book, After Being Somewhere Else. 7:30 pm, HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), free. Info: 441-7395.
James DenBoer will read at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac. this Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 7:30 pm, to celebrate the release of his latest chapbook from Rattlesnake Press: Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's.
OR, that same night, you might attend the potluck and reading to celebrate the life and work of the late poet and activist, Phil Goldvarg (6 pm, La Raza Galeria Posada, 1421 R St., Sac.).
Also released at Jim's rattle-read Wednesday will be littlesnake broadside #17 by Song Kowbell: Watching the Rabbit. Song is an emerging poet from the Grass Valley/Nevada City area who will be reading at Luna's Cafe Nov. 17, and who will be releasing a chapbook from Rattlesnake Press next Spring.
Also reading at Luna's Nov. 17 will be fellow GV/NC poets Todd Cirillo and William S. Gainer, both of whom have rattlechaps in the offing—Bill for December, and Todd for next Spring. Both poets also have published littlesnake broadsides, as well, which are currently available free at The Book Collector and will also be available at the 11/17 reading at Luna's. littlesnake broadsides are intended as a brief introduction to poets: longer than a poem or two, shorter than a chap. November's broadside will be from Sacramentan Claudia Trnka; more about that soon.
Here is a wee smidgeon of Bill Gainer's fine work:
THE LEAVES ARE GETTING BUSY
—William S. Gainer, Grass Valley
It’s Fall
and the leaves
are getting busy,
hiding the corpse
of summer
and we all know
what that means—
it’s going to rain...
it’s going to rain...
The days are getting
short,
nights
long
cold
and we all know
what that means—
the moon’s taking charge,
the creatures that howl
are coming out,
it’s getting dark.
Even the angels
look
to hide.
But no place is safe,
it’s Fall
and the leaves
are getting busy
and we all know what that means—
the rain,
the dark,
the creatures that howl,
the moon taking charge,
the leaves getting busy.
And we all know what that means—
the leaves getting busy...
it's going to rain...
it's going to rain...
it's going to rain...
____________________________
Thanks, Bill! Your mouth to God's ears... our friends in the foothills are anxious for an inch or two of rain to end the fire season up there.
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Sunday, October 09, 2005
May You Rise & Go Through
TERMINUS
—A.R. Ammons
Coming to a rockwall
I looked back
to the winding gulch
and said
is this as far as you can go:
and the gulch, rubble
frazzled with the windy remains
of speech, said
comers here turn and go back:
so I sat down, resolved
to try
the problem out, and
every leaf fell
from my bush of bones
and sand blew down the winding
gulch and
eddying
rounded out a bowl
from the terminal wall:
I sat in my bones' fragile shade
and worked the
knuckles of my mind till
the altering earth broke to
mend the fault:
I rose and went through.
___________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—A.R. Ammons
Coming to a rockwall
I looked back
to the winding gulch
and said
is this as far as you can go:
and the gulch, rubble
frazzled with the windy remains
of speech, said
comers here turn and go back:
so I sat down, resolved
to try
the problem out, and
every leaf fell
from my bush of bones
and sand blew down the winding
gulch and
eddying
rounded out a bowl
from the terminal wall:
I sat in my bones' fragile shade
and worked the
knuckles of my mind till
the altering earth broke to
mend the fault:
I rose and went through.
___________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
The World is What He Says...
THE BOY IN THE BRONZE AGE (Virginia, 1969)
—James DenBoer, Sacramento
The world is what he says, now and again. Words: bird, river, cottonwood, frost, garden. How to say things with words or without them. There is no choice to make. My friend Irish Jim lives with his tribe in two old boxcars; woodburning stoves puff white from their roofs; all the children in one big bed. Gulls float backwards on the cold-melt river in March. Even the simple-minded like me know there is more than saying, no matter how pretty. In fact we have not said it loud enough to be heard from far above the river-bank, across the brown garden to where we stand. Bronzeback, my sister says. A fish in the Susquehanna. A name in a boy's mouth in another century.
___________________
James DenBoer will read at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento on Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 7:30 pm, to celebrate the release of his latest chapbook from Rattlesnake Press: Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's.
Also released at the reading that night will be littlesnake broadside #17 by Song Kowbell: Watching the Rabbit. Song is an emerging poet from the Grass Valley/Nevada City area who will be reading at Luna's Cafe November 17, and who will be releasing a chapbook from Rattlesnake Press next Spring. [see below for a wee taste of Song's music] So stop by the reading and pick up these new offerings from The Snake—including Fangs #1.
OR, that same night, you might attend the potluck and reading to celebrate the life and work of the late poet and activist, Phil Goldvarg (6 pm, La Raza Galeria Posada, 1421 R St., Sac.).
Before Wednesday comes Monday, though, and this week the Sac. Poetry Center will present Cherryl Smith, Edythe Schwartz, Connie Gutowsky and Anthony Scoggins, reading to celebrate the release of Ms. Smith's book, After Being Somewhere Else. 7:30 pm, HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), free. Info: 441-7395.
Some songs from Song:
TODD
—Song Kowbell
Baggy pants,
sloppy shirt
you stroke that
beer bottle
like an old pro,
a familiar lover.
Watching you
as coyote
watches rabbit
before her meal
I deem you
a possibility.
TONIGHT
—Song Kowbell
even the sound
of my pony's hooves
pounding the earth
below me
can't quiet the noise
of missing you
ELECTRIC KISS
—Song Kowbell
clouds to the west
were burning up
the sky above
licking the electricity
from the air
his mouth
a storm
I longed
to be in
___________________
Thanks, Song!
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
—James DenBoer, Sacramento
The world is what he says, now and again. Words: bird, river, cottonwood, frost, garden. How to say things with words or without them. There is no choice to make. My friend Irish Jim lives with his tribe in two old boxcars; woodburning stoves puff white from their roofs; all the children in one big bed. Gulls float backwards on the cold-melt river in March. Even the simple-minded like me know there is more than saying, no matter how pretty. In fact we have not said it loud enough to be heard from far above the river-bank, across the brown garden to where we stand. Bronzeback, my sister says. A fish in the Susquehanna. A name in a boy's mouth in another century.
___________________
James DenBoer will read at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento on Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 7:30 pm, to celebrate the release of his latest chapbook from Rattlesnake Press: Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's.
Also released at the reading that night will be littlesnake broadside #17 by Song Kowbell: Watching the Rabbit. Song is an emerging poet from the Grass Valley/Nevada City area who will be reading at Luna's Cafe November 17, and who will be releasing a chapbook from Rattlesnake Press next Spring. [see below for a wee taste of Song's music] So stop by the reading and pick up these new offerings from The Snake—including Fangs #1.
OR, that same night, you might attend the potluck and reading to celebrate the life and work of the late poet and activist, Phil Goldvarg (6 pm, La Raza Galeria Posada, 1421 R St., Sac.).
Before Wednesday comes Monday, though, and this week the Sac. Poetry Center will present Cherryl Smith, Edythe Schwartz, Connie Gutowsky and Anthony Scoggins, reading to celebrate the release of Ms. Smith's book, After Being Somewhere Else. 7:30 pm, HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), free. Info: 441-7395.
Some songs from Song:
TODD
—Song Kowbell
Baggy pants,
sloppy shirt
you stroke that
beer bottle
like an old pro,
a familiar lover.
Watching you
as coyote
watches rabbit
before her meal
I deem you
a possibility.
TONIGHT
—Song Kowbell
even the sound
of my pony's hooves
pounding the earth
below me
can't quiet the noise
of missing you
ELECTRIC KISS
—Song Kowbell
clouds to the west
were burning up
the sky above
licking the electricity
from the air
his mouth
a storm
I longed
to be in
___________________
Thanks, Song!
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Friday, October 07, 2005
Whimsey, Part Deux
A modest young fellow named Morgan
Had a hideous sexual organ;
It resembled a log
Dredged up from a bog,
With a head on it just like a Gorgon.
from "Three Limericks" by Edward Abbey
__________________________
WHAT? Such disrespect for Gorgons! Medusa is not amused.
JANUARY, 1952—MAJORCA II
—Edward Abbey
This body of mine—
bawdy, vile, full of bones,
odd noises, smells, bass tones,
glands, organs, jelly-sacs,
vapors, rheums, humors, packs
of fat, oil and grease; a bag
of bubbles, tricks, with a flag
of hair on top, a crotch of hair
and dangling sex below where
the bag divides and stands upright.
Is this, Narcissus, my inheritance,
wobbling muscles on a stagger-stance,
and all the eyes' fond roving,
a lip to touch and nothing more,
the mouth of Heaven's whore?
Mother, Jesus, Mary, Earth, Jehoshaphat,
I want rather more than that!
____________________
You got that right, Ed...
Register now for the Sacramento Friends of the Library's Focus on Writers conference Nov. 5, featuring nine workshops conducted by writers, including Kim Stanley Robinson, Robin Burcell and Blair Anthony Robertson. Deadline to register is Oct. 28. Info: 916-264-2880 or www.saclibrary.org/about_lib/friends_flyer.html.
An old aging roue known as Drew
Looks back on his youth in sweet rue;
In the years of his might
He could do through the night
What it now takes him all night to do.
from "Three Limericks" by Edward Abbey
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Had a hideous sexual organ;
It resembled a log
Dredged up from a bog,
With a head on it just like a Gorgon.
from "Three Limericks" by Edward Abbey
__________________________
WHAT? Such disrespect for Gorgons! Medusa is not amused.
JANUARY, 1952—MAJORCA II
—Edward Abbey
This body of mine—
bawdy, vile, full of bones,
odd noises, smells, bass tones,
glands, organs, jelly-sacs,
vapors, rheums, humors, packs
of fat, oil and grease; a bag
of bubbles, tricks, with a flag
of hair on top, a crotch of hair
and dangling sex below where
the bag divides and stands upright.
Is this, Narcissus, my inheritance,
wobbling muscles on a stagger-stance,
and all the eyes' fond roving,
a lip to touch and nothing more,
the mouth of Heaven's whore?
Mother, Jesus, Mary, Earth, Jehoshaphat,
I want rather more than that!
____________________
You got that right, Ed...
Register now for the Sacramento Friends of the Library's Focus on Writers conference Nov. 5, featuring nine workshops conducted by writers, including Kim Stanley Robinson, Robin Burcell and Blair Anthony Robertson. Deadline to register is Oct. 28. Info: 916-264-2880 or www.saclibrary.org/about_lib/friends_flyer.html.
An old aging roue known as Drew
Looks back on his youth in sweet rue;
In the years of his might
He could do through the night
What it now takes him all night to do.
from "Three Limericks" by Edward Abbey
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
A Whole Lotta Poetry (& Some Whimsey)
Whoa! Poetry's a-poppin' in Sacramento in October: that's fer sher! This weekend, alone, there's a huge plate that's spilling over: the SPC Writers' Conference (The Poetic Experience) this Friday and Saturday, for starters—beginning with a reading Friday night which will feature many fine Sacramento poets. Also on Friday is the Davis series, The Other Voice, featuring Carlena Wike, Sibilla Hershey and Theodore Gould (Davis Unitarian Church Library, 7:30 pm. Info: 530-753-2634). Or you can head over to the J Street Cafe in Sacramento to hear, among others, Beth Lisick, Tara Jepsen, Gene Bloom, Barbara Noble, Becca Costello, Chad Williams, Star Vaughn and frank andrick. (8 pm, Info 209-577-8007.) And that's just Friday!
Then on Saturday, The Poetic Experience continues with workshops and readings (info: 916-451-5569). Or head up to Grass Valley as Wordslingers presents Ex-USA Poet Laureate Robert Hass in a poetry workshop from 2-4 pm, and a reading at the Center for the Arts at 7:30 pm. (Info: 530-272-5812)
At 8 pm on Saturday, the same poets who read at the J Street Cafe will read at Hidden Passage Books in Placerville, 8 pm. (Info: 530-622-4540). Also on Saturday is the Patricity in Spirit in Truth open mic at Queen Sheba's restaurant, 1537 Howe Av., 3-5 pm (Info: 916-920-1020).
Or you could travel down to the Bay Area for one of the multitude of events down there, including Litquake with Jerry Brown, Daniel Handler, Armistead Maupin, Michael McClure, Amy Tan, and more (17 events, 250 authors): www.litquake.org—AND—Living Word Festival continues this weekend: an annual performance poetry festival sponsored by Youth Speaks, which in recent years has focused on pushing the genre into new creative directions: http://www.youthspeaks.org.
Then, if you're not thoroughly exhausted, Brad Buchanan reads on Sunday from his new book from Poets Corner Press, The Miracle Shirker (7 pm, Weberstown Mall in Stockton, info: 209-951-7014).
And that's just the next three days! Yikes!
Meanwhile, Sacramento Poet Jane Blue sends us a little whimsey, which I (and I suspect all of us) could certainly use right now:
PASSION
—Jane Blue, Sacramento
Today I've named myself Apassionata, Drama Queen.
Yesterday it was Bawling at the Movies.
There was a man in the newspaper, Heart
Hurts, because of ancestors' bones exposed
in the trenches dug for new commuter rails.
I would like to have a life so connected. My grandmother
asked me, "Do you think you were born
with a silver spoon in your mouth?" So I became
Born With Silver Spoon In Mouth. My mother
compared me to the Princess and the Pea.
I should have changed my name to Princess Pea Pod
but it was only later that I realized
sensitivity to that legume under the mattress
meant I was a princess. (Daddy's Lost Princess.)
At sixteen I was She Who Wears Floral High-Heeled Keds.
I was Changes With the Wind.
Now some call me Blue. I'll change my name again
to Tupelo Turning Red or Dogwood Turning Crimson.
Once I was Fall in Maryland, and Pregnant,
Drinking Gin on the Porch.
This afternoon I'm Woman Following Man Down the Street
Admiring His Ass.
From an exercise in Poemcrazy by Susan Wooldridge
________________________________
CAN'T GIVE YOU UP, COME BACK TO ME
—Jane Blue
I’m a honeydew melon, didn’t you know?
I come from a house of straw
in the melon field. They didn’t know.
They thought the walls were wood and stucco,
they thought the house would last forever,
the house of the velvet sofa
and the lady chair. I spun through the rooms
singing abracadabra. I made myself up.
I was a harvester
of words, Precambrian
equisitum, horsetail growing on river banks
full of silicon, which became good
for scrubbing pots. They didn’t know.
They lived in a contraption
of old ideas, can’t give you up. Cornflower
come back to me. They mow you down
you come back up, azure eyes in the melon field.
I would be the lady chair
that nobody sat in, I would be kick and waltz
but never march. My drum was
rapture. No one knew. Lavender
on the dresser, how secret it was.
I come from a place of secret lavender.
I’m a honeydew melon, didn’t you know?
from an afternoon with Susan Wooldridge
_______________________
Thanks, Jane!
In Snake news, Fangs #1: Snake Poems from the Snake is free at The Book Collector; the last few contributor copies go out next week. The deadline for Snakelets (the journal of poetry from kids 0-12) has been extended to the 10th; get 'em in NOW. (Joyce Koff from LA saved our bacon with a whole sheaf of poems from her students—THANK YOU, Joyce!) Vyper deadline is Nov. 1; please submit poems from teens (13-19). James Den Boer will read next Wednesday (10/12) at The Book Collector, 7:30 pm, to release his new rattlechap, Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons. Also being released that night is Song Kowbell's littlesnake broadside, Watching the Rabbit.
Anything else?
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Then on Saturday, The Poetic Experience continues with workshops and readings (info: 916-451-5569). Or head up to Grass Valley as Wordslingers presents Ex-USA Poet Laureate Robert Hass in a poetry workshop from 2-4 pm, and a reading at the Center for the Arts at 7:30 pm. (Info: 530-272-5812)
At 8 pm on Saturday, the same poets who read at the J Street Cafe will read at Hidden Passage Books in Placerville, 8 pm. (Info: 530-622-4540). Also on Saturday is the Patricity in Spirit in Truth open mic at Queen Sheba's restaurant, 1537 Howe Av., 3-5 pm (Info: 916-920-1020).
Or you could travel down to the Bay Area for one of the multitude of events down there, including Litquake with Jerry Brown, Daniel Handler, Armistead Maupin, Michael McClure, Amy Tan, and more (17 events, 250 authors): www.litquake.org—AND—Living Word Festival continues this weekend: an annual performance poetry festival sponsored by Youth Speaks, which in recent years has focused on pushing the genre into new creative directions: http://www.youthspeaks.org.
Then, if you're not thoroughly exhausted, Brad Buchanan reads on Sunday from his new book from Poets Corner Press, The Miracle Shirker (7 pm, Weberstown Mall in Stockton, info: 209-951-7014).
And that's just the next three days! Yikes!
Meanwhile, Sacramento Poet Jane Blue sends us a little whimsey, which I (and I suspect all of us) could certainly use right now:
PASSION
—Jane Blue, Sacramento
Today I've named myself Apassionata, Drama Queen.
Yesterday it was Bawling at the Movies.
There was a man in the newspaper, Heart
Hurts, because of ancestors' bones exposed
in the trenches dug for new commuter rails.
I would like to have a life so connected. My grandmother
asked me, "Do you think you were born
with a silver spoon in your mouth?" So I became
Born With Silver Spoon In Mouth. My mother
compared me to the Princess and the Pea.
I should have changed my name to Princess Pea Pod
but it was only later that I realized
sensitivity to that legume under the mattress
meant I was a princess. (Daddy's Lost Princess.)
At sixteen I was She Who Wears Floral High-Heeled Keds.
I was Changes With the Wind.
Now some call me Blue. I'll change my name again
to Tupelo Turning Red or Dogwood Turning Crimson.
Once I was Fall in Maryland, and Pregnant,
Drinking Gin on the Porch.
This afternoon I'm Woman Following Man Down the Street
Admiring His Ass.
From an exercise in Poemcrazy by Susan Wooldridge
________________________________
CAN'T GIVE YOU UP, COME BACK TO ME
—Jane Blue
I’m a honeydew melon, didn’t you know?
I come from a house of straw
in the melon field. They didn’t know.
They thought the walls were wood and stucco,
they thought the house would last forever,
the house of the velvet sofa
and the lady chair. I spun through the rooms
singing abracadabra. I made myself up.
I was a harvester
of words, Precambrian
equisitum, horsetail growing on river banks
full of silicon, which became good
for scrubbing pots. They didn’t know.
They lived in a contraption
of old ideas, can’t give you up. Cornflower
come back to me. They mow you down
you come back up, azure eyes in the melon field.
I would be the lady chair
that nobody sat in, I would be kick and waltz
but never march. My drum was
rapture. No one knew. Lavender
on the dresser, how secret it was.
I come from a place of secret lavender.
I’m a honeydew melon, didn’t you know?
from an afternoon with Susan Wooldridge
_______________________
Thanks, Jane!
In Snake news, Fangs #1: Snake Poems from the Snake is free at The Book Collector; the last few contributor copies go out next week. The deadline for Snakelets (the journal of poetry from kids 0-12) has been extended to the 10th; get 'em in NOW. (Joyce Koff from LA saved our bacon with a whole sheaf of poems from her students—THANK YOU, Joyce!) Vyper deadline is Nov. 1; please submit poems from teens (13-19). James Den Boer will read next Wednesday (10/12) at The Book Collector, 7:30 pm, to release his new rattlechap, Black Dog: An Unfinished Segue Between Two Seasons. Also being released that night is Song Kowbell's littlesnake broadside, Watching the Rabbit.
Anything else?
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Escape
Back from the sea. If you would know my state of mind, read these two poems:
MY MERMAID
—Kenneth Fearing
My darling spurns the tea cup's waves.
Terrac'd on tiptoe to watch her swim.
Valiantly she dives to the dark naves
That shadows build on floors of sea.
There around the oval moon
Of a monstrous silver spoon
Wander the lonely whales of tea.
My mermaid! These lagoons are rife
With both mirage and disenchantment...
She goes down to find the dim
Scorpion at the heart of life,
Glowing from a coral dungeon.
But, in the cosmos of the cup,
The moon stirs round! and she darts up,
Fearfully gains the tea cup's brim,
Dances in sunlight on the rim.
______________________
ESCAPE
—Kenneth Fearing
Acid for the whorls of the fingertips; for the face, a surgeon's
knife, oblivion to the name;
Eyes, hands, color of hair, conditiion of teeth, habits, haunts,
the subject's health;
Wanted or not, guilty or not guilty, dead or alive, did you see this man
Walk in a cerain distinctive way through the public streets or the best hotels,
Turn and go,
Escape from collectors, salesmen, process-servers, thugs; from
the landlord's voice or a shake of the head; leave an afternoon beer;
go from an evening cigar in a well known scene,
Walk, run, slip from the earth into less than air?—
Gone from the teletype, five-feet ten; lost from the headlines,
middle-aged, gray, posed as a gentleman;
A drawling voice in a blue serge suit, fled from the radio, forehead scarred.
Tear up the letters and bury the clothes, throw away the keys,
file the number from the gun, burn the record of birth,
smash the name from the tomb, bathe the fingers in acid,
wrap the bones in lime,
Forget the street, the house, the name, the day;
But something must be saved from the rise and fall of the copper's club;
something must be kept from the auctioneer's hammer; something must be
guarded from the rats and the fire on the city dump;
Something, for warmth through the long night of death;
something to be saved from the last parade through
granite halls and go, go free, arise with the voice that pleads not guilty,
Go with the verdict that ascends forever beyond steelbarred
windows into blue, deep space,
Guilty of vagrancy, larceny, sedition, assault,
Tried, convicted, sentenced, paroled, imprisoned, released,
haunted, seized,
Under what name and last seen where? And in what disguise
did the soiled, fingerprinted, bruised, secondhand,
worn-down, scarred, familiar disguise escape?
No name, any name, nowhere, nothing, no one, none.
__________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.
MY MERMAID
—Kenneth Fearing
My darling spurns the tea cup's waves.
Terrac'd on tiptoe to watch her swim.
Valiantly she dives to the dark naves
That shadows build on floors of sea.
There around the oval moon
Of a monstrous silver spoon
Wander the lonely whales of tea.
My mermaid! These lagoons are rife
With both mirage and disenchantment...
She goes down to find the dim
Scorpion at the heart of life,
Glowing from a coral dungeon.
But, in the cosmos of the cup,
The moon stirs round! and she darts up,
Fearfully gains the tea cup's brim,
Dances in sunlight on the rim.
______________________
ESCAPE
—Kenneth Fearing
Acid for the whorls of the fingertips; for the face, a surgeon's
knife, oblivion to the name;
Eyes, hands, color of hair, conditiion of teeth, habits, haunts,
the subject's health;
Wanted or not, guilty or not guilty, dead or alive, did you see this man
Walk in a cerain distinctive way through the public streets or the best hotels,
Turn and go,
Escape from collectors, salesmen, process-servers, thugs; from
the landlord's voice or a shake of the head; leave an afternoon beer;
go from an evening cigar in a well known scene,
Walk, run, slip from the earth into less than air?—
Gone from the teletype, five-feet ten; lost from the headlines,
middle-aged, gray, posed as a gentleman;
A drawling voice in a blue serge suit, fled from the radio, forehead scarred.
Tear up the letters and bury the clothes, throw away the keys,
file the number from the gun, burn the record of birth,
smash the name from the tomb, bathe the fingers in acid,
wrap the bones in lime,
Forget the street, the house, the name, the day;
But something must be saved from the rise and fall of the copper's club;
something must be kept from the auctioneer's hammer; something must be
guarded from the rats and the fire on the city dump;
Something, for warmth through the long night of death;
something to be saved from the last parade through
granite halls and go, go free, arise with the voice that pleads not guilty,
Go with the verdict that ascends forever beyond steelbarred
windows into blue, deep space,
Guilty of vagrancy, larceny, sedition, assault,
Tried, convicted, sentenced, paroled, imprisoned, released,
haunted, seized,
Under what name and last seen where? And in what disguise
did the soiled, fingerprinted, bruised, secondhand,
worn-down, scarred, familiar disguise escape?
No name, any name, nowhere, nothing, no one, none.
__________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.