THE CAT
—Jane Blue, Sacramento
I love the feral tendencies of the cat.
She crouches over the toilet bowl to drink
of Sacramento river water, waiting
for me to leave the room before lapping
as though I shouldn’t catch her
at her real life.
An alien language exits her pink fanged mouth
when confronted with another of her species,
who understands immediately
and slinks away.
I am stymied by her gestures, her infrequent
inarticulate mewing, a kind of pidgin-English.
At her feeding bowl under the philodendron
jungly in filtered light, she scurries away
when my shadow looms. Eagle! Hawk!
How is this? She’s lived all her life in houses.
She had a human woman for a mother.
Once in the deep of night
she shape-shifted onto my pillow
and I extended a hand to displace her.
Those diamond pupils widened and she struck
like a snake, shrieking. I have
a ragged, tooth-shaped scar, a purple tattoo.
She has branded me with her wildness.
_______________________
EVERYONE KNOWS THAT CATS HAVE NINE LIVES
—James Lee Jobe, Davis
Eastbound on Stemmons Freeway in Dallas, 1966,
a calico cat dragging a three-foot leash came flying
out of the window of a car cruising in the slow lane.
The airborne feline sailed across the next lane
where a car missed it by the length of a whisker.
The Calico arched its back like in some caricature
from Halloween, and that dangerous leash dragged
behind during the painfully long skid, all four feet
on the asphalt, across lane number three.
In the fourth lane the cat passed under a pickup truck
pulling a boat on a trailer, and slid unmolested out
of the other side. By the fifth and final eastbound lane
the beast, whose feet must have been raw, began to run,
straight across the all too brief median strip
and into the fifth lane of westbound traffic,
causing a fast sedan to swerve and spin out.
In a full sprint, so fast that the leash flying behind
stood straight out, this creature of misfortune passed
under the eighteen-wheeled tractor-trailer
driven by old J. L. Jobe, my father, with me,
his wide-eyed ten year old son keeping a death-grip
on the passenger seat. In the side mirror
I could see that the cat survived, again untouched,
as it cleared the right side of the trailer, this feline
of mixed fortune, dodging another car in lane number three
as that driver locked up his brakes, the smoke
of the burning rubber rising up, causing
the car behind to do the same. The cat lucked out
with an empty lane two, and the driver in the slow lane,
like us, had seen the whole bizarre incident
and gave the Calico room. It scampered
into the evergreen underbrush between the freeway
and the access road, its mad dash a success.
Old J. L. looked at me, eyes showing white all around,
and in a feigned innocence exclaimed,
"You know, I bet he used up eight of those lives!"
_______________________
Thanks, Jane and Jim! Send me a cat poem of yours before midnight on May 31, previously published or not, and I’ll send you a free copy of Song Kowbell’s new rattlechap, Lick Your Wounds and Want Again. Or, if you have that one, I’ll send you something else. E-mail your poems to kathykieth@hotmail.com.
This week's poetry events; let me know if I've missed something (or screwed something up):
•••Tonight (5/29), Sacramento Poetry Center will have its usual fifth-Monday Open Mic at 7:30 pm, hosted by Bob Stanley. That's at HQ, 25th & R Sts., Sac. Free.
•••Wednesday (5/31), Mahogany Poetry Series will hold its final event at Sweet Fingers Jamaican Restaurant, 1704 Broadway, Sac., 9 pm, $5. Hosted by Khiry Malik Moore and DJ Rock Bottom. Info: 916-492-9336.
•••Thursday (6/1), Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. The Sacramento Slame Team, plu Open Mic., 8 pm. Info: 916-441-3931.
•••Saturday (6/3), Escritores del Nuevo Sol’s monthly writing workshop meeting/potluck is open to all, 11 AM, at La Raza Galeria Posada, 15th & R Sts., Sac., second floor. Info: Graciela, 916-456-5323.
•••This Saturday (6/3): Open Mic Poetry and workshop at Lola's Loca Mochas, 2860 North California St., Stockton (cross-street Monterey Ave., next to Alpine Market), 1 pm. Poets and Songwriters welcome! Free.
•••Sunday (6/4), attend the Friends of the Lincoln Library Book Bonanza, from 9 AM to 9 PM at the Barnes and Noble on Galleria Blvd. in Roseville. Youngsters will read their prize-winning poems from 2-4 pm, and there will be an open mic at 4 (call Sue Clark at 916-434-9226 to sign up), including Sondra Bozarth, an award-winning poet and author of A Scattering of Cats. Other events throughout the day will include author presentations, artist appearances, and a Children’s Story Time with Francis Newman at 11 AM.
•••Also this Sunday (6/4), get ready to cut, tear, paste, scribble, color. Think Postcards — At the Library! All are welcome to create artistic poetic postcards at the Central Branch of the Sacramento Library, 818 I St., Sac., at 2 PM. Presenters Poet JoAnn Anglin and Visual Artist Kim Scott will bring the large postcards that will be your ‘canvas,’ and also stamps and decorative materials and tools. This is one of two dozen workshops being held as part of the mail-art project, Think Postcards, one of the projects of Sacramento’s Poet Laureate Julia Connor. More info on it can be found at http://www.sacculture.com/grants_poet.htm, the website of the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission (SMAC). Come be creative, then mail your completed postcards in to the Commission to be considered as part of a later Public Art display to be presented by SMAC’s Art in Public Places Committee.
•••Next Monday (6/5), The Sacramento Poetry Center is helping to launch Kathleen Lynch's new book, Hinge, at the weekly poetry reading at 7:30 PM at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.). Hinge is the winner of the 2004 Black Zinnias Poetry Award, the journal published by the California Institute of Arts and Letters.
That's all I know about—an unusually sparse week! Guess you'll have to get out your books and read, get out your pens and write...
This might be a good time, then, to talk about the Hart Center Tuesday Night Workshop. I don't mention it much because, for the last year, it's had so many people in it that publicity seemed counterproductive. Those numbers ebb and flow, though, and these days there's room for new poets. Sponsored by the Sacramento Poetry Center, with space provided at no cost by the Hart Senior Center (916 27th St., Sac.) every Tuesday night from 7:30-9 pm, this workshop has been in operation for—what?—15 years or so, with some of the members having been involved almost that long. Danyen Powell ably facilitates the evening, in which any poet who wishes to attend can bring 15-18 copies of a poem for workshopping—which means we all pour the light of our attention onto it and come up with whatever comments we have about form, presentation, content, etc. If you'd like to attend, you're more than welcome, but you might want to contact Danyen first (530-756-6228). The group meets every Tuesday except the two around Christmas—though you might want to check about July 4.
Something else about the Tuesday night workshop: There's no long-term commitment; give it a try and see if it works for you. Or, for those of you from out-of-town, if you're in Sacramento this summer or any time, come on by! Bring copies of current poems and let us have a look at 'em! It would be good to see you.
It seems like Medusa should mention Memorial Day. I've chosen something which I hope is neutral, apolitical:
MINIATURE
—Yannis Ritsos
The woman stood up in front of the table. Her sad hands
begin to cut thin slices of lemon for tea
like yellow wheels for a very small carriage
made for a child's fairy tale. The young officer sitting opposite
is buried in the old armchair. He doesn't look at her.
He lights up his cigarette. His hand holding the match trembles,
throwing light on his tender chin and the teacup's handle. The clock
holds its heartbeat for a moment. Something has been postponed.
The moment has gone. It's too late now. Let's drink our tea.
Is it possible, then, for death to come in that kind of carriage?
To pass by and go away? And only this carriage to remain,
with its little yellow wheels of lemon
parked for so many years on a side street with unlit lamps,
and then a small song, a little mist, and then nothing?
(Translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley)
_______________________
Remember Emily Dickinson's carriage?
Oh—and one other thing: Today (5/29) is Medusa's birthday—she has been cluttering up the cyberwaves for one year! Happy Birthday, old gal, and a big thank-you to those of you who read us and to those of you who send poems, which are all still posted in the Archives. (Help us celebrate this momentous occasion by sending cat poems!)
—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. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)