What Star Do You Live On?

Photo of Maui beach by Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

SONNET
—Arthur Davison Ficke

There are strange shadows fostered of the moon,
More numerous than the clear-cut shade of day...
Go forth, when all the leaves whisper of June,
Into the dusk of swooping bats at play;
Or go into that late November dusk
When hills take on the noble lines of death,
And on the air the faint, astringent musk
Of rotting leaves pours vaguely troubling breath.
Then shall you see shadows whereof the sun,
Knows nothing—aye, a thousand shadows there
Shall leap and flicker and stir and stay and run,
Like petrels of the changing foul or fair;
Like ghosts of twilight, of the moon, of him
Whose homeland lies past each horizon's rim...

_______________________

Get your work out there:

Donald Anderson of Poet's Espresso fame in Stockton sends a couple of addresses of note and possible use. He says the first, http://www.stocktongov.com/arts/ "is where you find info about the Stockton Arts Commission's Writing Contests." Cool.

Donald's second tip for us is a note from Josh Fernandez, who says "The Woodland Daily Democrat newspaper has given me the go-ahead to revamp their Arts & Entertainment section, which means there will be a huge poetry contingent. I will be featuring a poet every week with a poem and a short bio. The poems should be reasonably small (20 lines?) and free of obscenities (family newspaper), however you can make them as edgy as you can and I will be the final judge. Not everyone will be published, in fact, the standards will be fairly high, so keep that in mind. If published, your poem and bio will appear in print and on the Web site. This will hopefully be a beginning to a more energetic and interactive poetry scene than we have now. I really encourage you to send me your poems." Send them to:

Josh Fernandez
Woodland Daily Democrat
Staff Writer
Ph: (530) 406-6233
Fax: (530) 406-6262
Email: jfernandez@dailydemocrat.com
Web: www.dailydemocrat.com

_______________________

Thanks for the tips, Donald! Poet's Espresso is a bi-monthly publication; check out the online version at www.rainflowers.org. They're looking for your work, too.


Today:

•••Weds. (2/28), 6-7 PM is the Hidden Passage Poetry Reading at Hidden Passage Books, 352 Main St., Placerville. It's an open-mic read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen.

•••Weds. is also the next deadline for Tiger's Eye: A Journal of Poetry. Google them up at tigerseyejournal.com and get the details. Co-Editor Colette Jonopulos writes: Will you tell Medusa's friends we are looking for ghazals? They get a free copy of the Tiger if they send us their ghazals to be printed in the blog. Send to: tigerseyetracks@yahoo.com

________________________

CHANCE MEETINGS
—Conrad Aiken

In the mazes of loitering people, the watchful and furtive,
The shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves,
In the drowse of the sunlight, among the low voices,
I suddenly face you,

Your dark eyes return for a space from her who is with you,
They shine into mine with a sunlit desire,
They say an 'I love you, what star do you live on?'
They smile and then darken,

And silent, I answer 'You too—I have known you,—I love you!—'
And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves
Interlace with low voices and footsteps and sunlight
To divide us forever.

________________________

And to close off Black History Month:

THE HARLEM DANCER
—Claude McKay

Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black, shiny curls
Profusely fell; and, tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze;
But, looking at her falsely-smiling face
I knew her self was not in that strange place.

________________________

What star do you live on?

—Medusa (who is currently surrounded by four feet of snow)

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

The Cycle of the Stars

STELLER TRAFFIC
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines

Blue stars of Steller’s jays
dot the redwood deck: pick
and choose among scattered
seeds for fat and flavor: push
each other around while they
ignore the outmatched juncos
who hang on the fringe, waiting…

Steller traffic trumps
everybody else: ageless as
the constellations in their
aggressive push to live, they
twinkle bright eyes at me: dare me
to try to interrupt
the cycle of the stars…

_______________________

Sunday (3/4), 6 PM: All are welcome when the PoemSpirits of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento assemble; the invited feature reader is Kathy Kieth. Attendees are also invited to bring a poem to read—your own, or one that you particularly like. Free and open to the public; open mic, light refreshments. We meet in the library/foyer of the UUSS, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sacramento, between Howe & Fulton Avenues, 2 blocks north of Fair Oaks Blvd. Contact: Tom Goff or Nora Staklis at 916-481-3312, or JoAnn Anglin at 916-451-1372.


Free Tigers!

Tomorrow (Wednesday, 2/28) is the next deadline for Tiger's Eye: A Journal of Poetry. Google up the Kitty at tigerseyejournal.com and get the details. Co-Editor Colette Jonopulos writes: Will you tell Medusa's friends we are looking for ghazals? They get a free copy of the Tiger if they send us their ghazals to be printed in the blog. Send to: tigerseyetracks@yahoo.com


News from Poets Lane:

Cynthia Bryant, Pleasanton Poet Laureate and doyenne of the online Poets Lane writes: Please spread the word I am still accepting your poems for the Gift of Words-Poems for the Iraqi People project at PoetsLane@comcast.net or you may send it to C/O Pleasanton Poet Laureate, P. O. Box 520, Pleasanton, CA 94566. Please include your full name, area code and phone number along with your e-mail if you have one. (I am receiving poems from all over the country as well as New Zealand, England, Scotland and Africa.) The Challenge: Write a poem for the Iraqi People, something that you want to express to their citizens. Anyone, any age, can write a poem and submit it to be included in The Gift of Words: Poetry for the Iraqi People. The deadline has been extended to May 2007.

Cynthia also suggests that you submit poems to some of her other categories. For example, choose one or more of her March themes (Aries, Daylight Savings Time, Springtime & Limericks) and send your poems to PoetsLane@comcast.net.


Today:

•••Tuesday (2/27), 8:30 PM (but get there early): the alternating-Tuesdays series at Bistro 33, 3rd & F Sts., Davis, presents National Book Award nominee Clarence Major. Free; open mic.

And today, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would've been 200 years old!

from FRAGMENTS
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

December 18, 1847

Soft through the silent air descend the feathery snow-flakes;
White are the distant hills, white are the neighboring fields;
Only the marshes are brown, and the river rolling among them
Weareth the leaden hue seen in the eyes of the blind.

______________________

from IN THE COLISEUM
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All things must have an end; the world itself
Must have an end, as in a dream I saw it.
There came a great hand out of heaven, and touched
The earth, and stopped it in its course. The seas
Leaped, a vast cataract, into the abyss;
The forests and fields slid off, and floated
Like wooded islands in the air. The dead
Were hurled forth from their sepulchres; the living
Were mingled with them, and themselves were dead,—
All being dead; and the fair, shining cities
Dropped out like jewels from a broken crown.
Naught but the course of the great globe remained,
A skeleton of stone. And over it
The wrack of matter drifted like a cloud,
And then recoiled upon itself, and fell
Back on the empty world, that with the weight
Reeled, staggered, righted, and then headlong plunged
Into the darkness, as a ship, when struck
By a great sea, throws off the waves at first
On either side, then settles and goes down
Into the dark abyss, with her dead crew.

________________________

Happy Birthday, Hank!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

What's Perfection?

Photo by Marie Riepenhoff-Talty, Sacramento

PLASTIC CLOWN
—Marie Riepenhoff-Talty

Perfect—tears cannot smudge the make-up;
pain contort the face or fold the body.

Giant floppy shoes do not dance.
No blood runs in the veins nor does a

heart pump or lungs expand; nor a
billion thoughts a day in a teeming brain;

ridere non, il pagliaccio;
no soul; what’s perfection?

_______________________

Thanks, Marie—a vivid image for a gray Monday.


This week in poetry:

•••Tonight (Monday, 2/26), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center will feature Julia Levine and Kate Northrop at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sac. Free; open mic.

•••Tuesday (2/27), 8:30 PM (but get there early): the alternating-Tuesdays series at Bistro 33, 3rd & F Sts., Davis, presents National Book Award nominee Clarence Major. Free; open mic.

•••Weds. (2/28), 6-7 PM is the Hidden Passage Poetry Reading at Hidden Passage Books, 352 Main St., Placerville. It's an open-mic read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen.

•••Weds. is also the next deadline for Tiger's Eye: A Journal of Poetry. Google them up at tigerseyejournal.com and get the details.

•••Thursday (3/1), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. Open mic before/after, free. Info: 916-441-3931.

•••Thursday (3/1) is the first session of "The Universe and Other Words" writing workshop at Cache Creek Nature Preserve. It will meet on Thursdays from 10 AM-12 PM, from March 1-April 19. I don't know if there are still slots; check with Rae Gouirand, Writer-in-Residence, at rae_gouirand@yahoo.com.

•••Thursday (3/1) is also the deadline for Poets Corner Press's Annual Chapbook Poetry Contest. Camille Norton, winner of the National Poetry Series Contest, will judge. The First Place Award of $500 will be announced June 1, 2007. Send your manuscript of 24 text pages of poetry with $20 reading fee, check or money order made out to:

Poets Corner Press
8049 Thornton Rd.
Stockton CA 95209

Further info: http://www.poetscornerpress.com/Competition.html#poet

•••Thursday (3/1) is also the deadline for VYPER, the journal of poetry from people 13-19. Send poems, photos, art to kathykieth@hotmail.com, or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

•••Also Thursday (3/1), 7:30 PM at University of the Pacific in Stockton, in Wendall Phillips (WPC) 140: Marilyn Chin, a figure whose work has helped define Asian American poetry, will be reading. Take I-5 South, get off at the Alpine exit and take a left on Alpine all the way to Pershing, where you go straight across and into the back entrance of UOP. Go past the stadiums and into a parking lot that is straight ahead of you. Then walk through the parking lot and Wendall Phillips will be a brick buidling on your left. Reception and book signing will follow.

•••Sunday, 3/4, 6 PM: All are welcome when the PoemSpirits of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento assemble; the invited feature reader is Kathy Kieth. Attendees are also invited to bring a poem to read—your own, or one that you particularly like. Free and open to the public; open mic, light refreshments. We meet in the library/foyer of the UUSS, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sacramento, between Howe & Fulton Avenues, 2 blocks north of Fair Oaks Blvd. Contact: Tom Goff or Nora Staklis at 916-481-3312, or JoAnn Anglin at 451-1372.


Celebrating the life of Leah Zeff DenBoer:

Thursday, March 8, 2007
Between 5-8 PM

Sacramento Poetry Center
1719 25th Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

In lieu of flowers the family is
suggesting donations to
Sacramento Peace Action

For additional information
please contact (530) 867-4293

_______________________

THE GERANIUM
—Theodore Roethke

When I put her out, once, by the garbage pail,
She looked so limp and bedraggled,
So foolish and trusting, like a sick poodle,
Or a wizened aster in late September,
I brought her back in again
For a new routine—
Vitamins, water, and whatever
Sustenance seemed sensible
At the time: she'd lived
So long on gin, bobbie pins, half-smoked cigars, dead beer,
Her shriveled petals falling
On the faded carpet, the stale
Steak grease stuck to her fuzzy leaves.
(Dried-out, she creaked like a tulip.)

The things she endured!—
The dumb dames shrieking half the night
Or the two of us, alone, both seedy,
Me breathing booze at her,
She leaning out of her pot toward the window.

Near the end, she seemed almost to hear me—
And that was scary—
So when that snuffling cretin of a maid
Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can,
I said nothing.

But I sacked the presumptious hag the next week,
I was that lonely.

________________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

Even Herons

Photo by Katy Brown, Davis



This rooster
struts along as though
he had something to say
—Anonymous

~~~

The barnyard rooster
tries to act like a lion
by preening his feathers
—Kikasu

~~~

They have learned
to visit at mealtimes—
baby sparrows
—Tayo

~~~

The warbler
wipes its muddy feet
on the plum blossoms
—Issa

~~~

As the sea grows dark
the voice of the duck
faintly whitens
—Basho

~~~

Even herons
after six in the evening
fly two by two
—Anonymous

______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

Thunder Rumbles Kettle Drums

David Humphreys, Stockton

BLIZZARD
—David Humphreys

It comes down in heavy feathers
to a deep cushioned room,

floating to a thick quilted womb
light flakes chilly on ice face and hands

piling up powder for a skier's dreams.
You know exploding trees of eastern ice

in sunshine warm blue mornings but
this close knit blanket wraps you sleeping.

_______________________

Today's featured poet is David Humphreys, who sends us another snow poem. Thanks, David! Not all publishers allow/make time for their own poetry, but David remains diligent about his, and is a regular contributor to the Snake and to Medusa. And we appreciate it.

I asked DH for a bio, and he said to refer you to poetscornerpress.com for info about him and his busy publishing enterprise. In fact, Medusa has a link to his site; just click on it over there at the right of this column.


Readings this weekend:

•••Tonight (Sat., 2/24), 3 PM: The Central California Art Association & Mistlin Art Gallery announce a poetry reading at the gallery, 1015 J St., downtown Modesto. This earlier start time is to accommodate the many readers scheduled to read in celebration of the "Gathering of Voices", an ongoing poetry series, by Tina Arnopole Driskill, which appears each month in Stanislaus Connections. A donation to the gallery is strongly encouraged. A "pot luck" reception will follow at 5 PM. The public is welcome.

•••Also tonight, 9 PM: "The Show" Poetry Series at Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St., Sac. (off 35th & Broadway). $5. Info: 916-455-POET.

•••Monday (2/26), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center will feature Julia Levine and Kate Northrop at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sac. Free; open mic.

_______________________

THIS AND ANOTHER THING AS WELL
—David Humphreys

This and another thing
are notes fluid in a sudden

flock and feather dip and
swerve, trills and ripples

shimmering, hearts beating a
loud history down all the ages.

Peace is found in the ember
lit smoke of dragon ship fires,

sonata wind in bending grass.
Out in the world, fallen soldiers

fill the flower fields, catacomb
bones from a truly great explosion.

Rosin on cello bow, reed in oiled
woodwind, the world whirls in

galaxy tempest. The world sighs
in sifting sand, whispers a nuzzling

fur of comfort and affirmation.
Courage bristles a scimitar thorn.

Ash billows. Thunder rumbles,
kettle drums and cymbals crash.

_______________________

MY SON'S BIRTHDAY
—David Humphreys

Remembering such a time of pride and joy.
Look at him now tall and fine taking you
straight back in a bright lightning to your

own wedding day waltz with your new bride;
one two three, one two three, swung round
and round. A traffic torrent rushes sizzles

in the rain soaked street outside. Rosin on cello
bow, reed in oiled woodwind, the world whirls
in galaxy tempest. The world sighs in sifting sand,

whispers a nuzzling fur of comfort and affirmation.
Courage bristles a scimitar thorn. Ash billows.
Thunder rumbles kettle drums and cymbals crash.

And if he is suddenly taken away as he might so easily
be by some hit and run or soldier's finishing truth of
honor I will fold up these wings and become my next

dark shadow, tunnel digger mole of retribution. I will
rain rage upon mine enemies, beware.

______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

The Beautiful Life is Brief

...and several inches later...
The Snake House, February 23, 2007
[Note tulips, still blooming away...]

A NOTE FROM NEVADA COUNTY—
UP BY DONNER
—William S. Gainer, Grass Valley

The dog’s gone
and the cat’s
turned up missing.
We got ropes
tied to kids,
just in case.
It’s coming down
two inches an hour
and getting deep.
All the weatherman
can add
is,
“Find someone to love
and hold on to 'em
tight!"
It’s snowing ugly
out there,
no relief in sight.
But don’t worry about us,
we’re boarding up the windows,
stoking the fire,
hoping the dog makes it
and the hell with the cat.
If worse comes to worse,
we’ll eat the kids—
it’s been done before.

What???

Thanks, Bill! Watch for more of William S. Gainer's poetry in the next Rattlesnake Review (Lucky 13), due out March 14, or pick up his rattlechap at The Book Collector. And the cat's not missing, Bill; he's just smart enough to stay out of the snow. Speaking of CoolCats:


CoolCat Gallery presents Kitty Corner Poetry Night tonight from 6-9 PM:

Richard Hansen writes: Fresh creative blood in Midtown! A new art gallery has opened in Midtown on 24th St., just down the block from The Book Collector. Check out the website (www.myspace.com/coolcatgallery) for details on the current exhibit, plus they have a poetry reading tonight (Friday, Feb. 23). Bring your own poetry, stories, comedy bits, or just come to listen and be inspired by poetry and the current art exhibition. CoolCat Gallery, 918 24th St., Sac. Info: (916) 446-4430, or email jensten9@yahoo.com.


Feel like camping?

Monika Rose and the Manzanita people have been busy! They have several poetry events scheduled for the next few months. Right now they’re working on getting a group together for a Camping/Writing Retreat for June 25-July 2 in Big Trees. Working title: Open Sky Writing Retreat. For info, write to Monika at mrosemanza@jps.net.
_______________________

GOOD AND BAD WEATHER
—C.P. Cavafy

It does not bother me if outside
winter spreads fog, clouds, and cold.
Spring is within me, true joy.
Laughter is a sun ray, all pure gold,
there is no other garden like love,
the warmth of song melts all the snows.

What good is it that outside spring
sends up flowers and sows greenness!
I have winter within me when the heart hurts.
The sigh blots out the most brilliant sun;
if you have sorrow May resembles December,
tears are colder than the cold snow.

________________________

IN THE EVENING
—C.P. Cavafy

Anyway those things would not have lasted long. The experience
of the years shows it to me. But Destiny arrived
in some haste and stopped them.
The beautiful life was brief.
But how potent were the perfumes,
on how splendid a bed we lay,
to what sensual delight we gave our bodies.

An echo of the days of pleasure,
an echo of the days drew near me,
a little of the fire of the youth of both of us;
again I took in my hands a letter,
and I read and reread till the light was gone.

And melancholy, I came out on the balcony—
came out to change my thoughts at least by looking at
a little of the city that I loved,
a little movement on the street, and in the shops.

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

Our Latest Bivouac

Apparently it does snow in Pollock Pines. Sam took this picture out our back window just a few minutes (and inches) ago. Here's one of the front, when it first started:


Please bear with me for one more poem about moving; I figure this is the last I'm going to think about it. Two months is enough time to perserverate on anything, let alone a house:

STARLINGS ON THE ROOF
—Thomas Hardy

"No smoke spreads out of this chimney-pot,
The people who lived here have left the spot,
And others are coming who knew them not.

"If you listen anon, with an ear intent,
The voices, you'll find, will be different
From the well-known ones of those who went."

"Why did they go? Their tones so bland
Were quite familiar to our band;
The comers we shall not understand."

"They look for a new life, rich and strange;
They do not know that, let them range
Wherever they may, they will get no change.

"They will drag their house-gear ever so far
In their search for a home no miseries mar;
They will find that as they were they are,

"That every hearth has a ghost, alack,
And can be but the scene of a bivouac
Till they move their last—no care to pack!"

_______________________

Today:

•••Thursday (2/22), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. presents Chris Olander and Bill Carr. Open mic before/after, free. Info: 916-441-3931.

And today, Edna St. Vincent Millay would've been 115 years old:

FATAL INTERVIEW XLVII
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

Well, I have lost you, and lost you fairly,
In my own way and with my full consent.
Say what you will, Kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess: but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish—and men do—
I shall have only good to say of you.

______________________

SONNET XLI
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast:
So subtly is the fume of life designed,
To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,
And leave me once again undone, possessed.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,
I shall remember you with love, or season
My scorn with pity,—let me make it plain:
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.

______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

May You Sleep Undisturbed

Lichen
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

WAXWINGS
—Robert Francis

Four Tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berrybush
in sun, and I am one.

Such merriment and such sobriety—
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk—
was this not always my true style?

Above an elegance of snow, beneath
a silk-blue sky a brotherhood of four
birds. Can you mistake us?

To sun, to feast, and to converse
and all together—for this I have abandoned
all my other lives.

________________________

What's up with the Snake? Mid-month bulletin:

•••Brigit Truex's new rattlechap, A Counterpane Without, is now available at The Book Collector; pick one up there for $5 or send me $6 and I'll mail you one. On March 14, we shall celebrate the release of Skin Stretched Around the Hollow by Steve Williams; more about that later.

•••Wendy Patrice Williams' new littlesnake broadside, I Brake for Wildflowers, is available for free at The Book Collector or send me an SASE and I'll mail you one. March's littlesnake broadside will feature Sacramentan Brad Buchanan.

•••The new issue of Snakelets, the journal of poetry from youngsters ages 0-12, is available for free at The Book Collector. Next deadline is MAY 1.

•••Deadline for VYPER, the journal of poetry from people 13-19, is MARCH 1! Send me poems, photos, art. There are still some copies of the last issue available for free at The Book Collector.

•••The deadline for our flagship Rattlesnake Review has just passed, and the last of the acceptance letters will go out today. This will be another stellar issue, with lots of poetry, interviews of Todd Cirillo and D.R. Wagner, reviews, and the usual chicanery from our columnists-in-residence. Watch for it to appear (free) at The Book Collector; debut is at the March 14 rattle-read. Next RR deadline is May 15. There are still some copies of the last issue available at... you guessed it... The Book Collector.

•••Medusa's Kitchen always has room for your poetry, art and photos; no deadlines, just keep feeding them gluttonous snakes. Lately we've been posting a visual a day, so send those along, too! The varmints of Medusa are always hungry..............

•••Save the date! April 11 is the Snake's third birthday, and we're having a party at The Book Collector with all the attendant hoopla, including a buffet, a reading/release of a new spiralchap of poetry and art by D.R. Wagner, and a littlesnake broadside by Ann Menebroker to celebrate the launch of B.L. Kennedy's new Rattlesnake Interview Series (Annie is #1). More about that later, too.

_______________________

THE UNKNOWN CITIZEN
—W. H. Auden

(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)


He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be

One against whom there was no official complaint,

And all the reports on his conduct agree

That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,

For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.

Except for the War till the day he retired

He worked in a factory and never got fired,

But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,

For his Union reports that he paid his dues,

(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)

And our Social Psychology workers found

That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.

The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day

And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.

Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,

And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.

Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare

He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan

And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,

A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.

Our researchers into Public Opinion are content

That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;

When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.

He was married and added five children to the population,

Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.

And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

_______________________

Today W. H. Auden would've been 100 years old.


LITTLE EXERCISE
—Elizabeth Bishop

Think of the storm roaming the sky uneasily
like a dog looking for a place to sleep in,
listen to it growling.

Think how they must look now, the mangrove keys
lying out there unresponsive to the lightning
in dark, coarse-fibred families,

where occasionally a heron may undo his head,
shake up his feathers, make an uncertain comment
when the surrounding water shines.

Think of the boulevard and the little palm trees
all stuck in rows, suddenly revealed
as fistfuls of limp fish-skeletons.

It is raining there. The boulevard
and its broken sidewalks with weeds in every crack,
are relieved to be wet, the sea to be freshened.

Now the storm goes away again in a series
of small, badly lit battle-scenes,
each in "Another part of the field."

Think of someone sleeping in the bottom of a row-boat
tied to a mangrove root or the pile of a bridge;
think of him as uninjured, barely disturbed.

__________________________

There's a storm headed our way; may you sleep, undisturbed, in the bottom of your boat.

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

Contemplating the Tiger

CHEZ JANE
—Frank O'Hara

The white chocolate jar full of petals
swills odds and ends around in a dizzying eye
of four o'clocks now and to come. The tiger,
marvellously striped and irritable, leaps
on the table and without disturbing a hair
of the flowers' breathless attention, pisses
into the pot, right down its delicate spout.
A whisper of steam goes up from that porcelain
eurythra. "Saint-Saëns!" it seems to be whispering,
curling unerringly around the furry nuts
of the terrible puss, who is mentally flexing.
Ah to be with me always, spirit of noisy
contemplation in the studio, the Garden
of Zoos, the eternally fixed afternoons!
There, while music scratches its scrofulous
stomach, the brute beast emerges and stands,
clear and careful, knowing always the exact peril
at this moment caressing his fangs with
a tongue given wholly to luxurious usages;
which only a moment before dropped aspirin
in this sunset of roses, and now throws a chair
in the air to aggravate the truly menacing.

________________________

Frank O'Hara's tiger is mentally flexing. Mine, more often than not, snoozes in the sun...

Speaking of tigers, the next deadline for Tiger's Eye: A Journal of Poetry is February 28! Google them up at tigerseyejournal.com and get the details. This is a classy poetry journal, unlike the tacky Snake; send for back issues and give yourself a treat.


Got teenagers?

How about the one down the street who's always dressed in black and carries a notebook? The Sacramento Poetry Center's first-ever high school poetry contest deadline is March 31. Prizes include publication in Poetry Now or VYPER and scholarships to the 2007 SPC Writers' Conference on April 21, plus winners will get to read their poems at SPC.

If you snail: no name on poems, separate cover letter with name, address, phone and email address and poem titles, as well as the name of your school to: Sacramento Poetry Center, 1719 25th St., Sac. 95814.

If you email: Send above info in body of letter, with "SPC HS Contest" as subject line. Send each poem as a separate attachment (MS Word document, no name on them) to: poetrynow@sacramentopoetrycenter.org. Use that address for questions, too.

By the way, SPC Board Member Brad Buchanan is looking for donations of your recent books or chaps to be distributed in connection with this SPC contest. Please email Brad at Buchanan@saclink.csus.edu to participate—or for further info. And watch for Brad's littlesnake broadside, too, coming out in March.

_______________________

Here's a poem from David Humphreys, who's just a teenager at heart, himself:

EXCERPT WITH CELLOS, VIOLAS AND VIOLINS
—David Humphreys, Stockton

Your original narrative theme gains and carries
the strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion,
thunderous kettle drums of mountain meadow
wild flowers. What you find in symphonic extremes
is whispered ardent love so shouted out from rafters
of screaming sky at one end of a sultry sunset into
another warm dawn in a convex lens. Contemplate
the concave opposite, see your sinphonia as a flight
of migrating snow geese against dark clouds, caribou
fur flowing river unison over melting permafrost.
Hear a piccolo moving with cellos, violas and violins
to a solo bassoon and flute concerted and collective,
mountain gorillas, darting doves, herds of antlers,
an abundant celebration of so many living vital things.

________________________

TO THE HARBORMASTER
—Frank O'Hara

I wanted to be sure to reach you;
though my ship was on the way it got caught
in some moorings. I am always tying up
and then deciding to depart. In storms and
at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide
around my fathomless arms, I am unable
to understand the forms of my vanity
or I am hard alee with my Polish rudder
in my hand and the sun sinking. To
you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage
of my will. The terrible channels where
the wind drives me against the brown lips
of the reeds are not all behind me. Yet
I trust the sanity of my vessel; and
if it sinks, it may well be in answer
to the reasoning of the eternal voices,
the waves which have kept me from reaching you.

________________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

Travel with Grief

Angst
Photo by Irene Lipshin, Placerville

A JUNGLE NIGHT
—Nguyen Chi Thien

A jungle night—it rains and rains, roofs leak.
Shivering with cold, we hug our knees, trade stares.
The pale blue dot of fire on an oil lamp.
The can for piss, the can for shit.
The bed with stinging bugs.
A prisoner's New Year's Eve, in Sixty-one.

________________________

This week in poetry:

•••No reading tonight at Sacramento Poetry Center. Next week will feature Julia Levine and Kate Northrop.

•••Thursday (2/22), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. presents Chris Olander and Bill Carr. Open mic before/after, free. Info: 916-441-3931.

•••Saturday (2/24), 3 PM: The Central California Art Association & Mistlin Art Gallery announce a poetry reading at the gallery, 1015 J St., downtown Modesto. This earlier start time is to accommodate the many readers scheduled to read in celebration of the "Gathering of Voices", an ongoing poetry series, by Tina Arnopole Driskill, which appears each month in Stanislaus Connections. A donation to the gallery is strongly encouraged. A "pot luck" reception will follow at 5 PM. The public is welcome.

•••Also Sat., 9 PM: "The Show" Poetry Series at Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St., Sac. (off 35th & Broadway). $5. Info: 916-455-POET.


Cache Creek returns:

The Universe and Other Words
Cache Creek Nature Preserve Poetry Workshop, Spring 2007
Thursdays 10 AM – 12 PM, March 1 – April 19
Rae Gouirand, Writer-in-Residence
rae_gouirand@yahoo.com

Rae Gouirand, who has facilitated workshops at Cache Creek in the past, writes: I'm happy that I can finally write and announce the first poetry workshop I'll be leading this year in the 2007 series at Cache Creek Nature Preserve in Woodland: "The Universe and Other Words." We begin March 1st.

At the heart of this writing workshop, we’ll examine modes of definition (meanings, word roots, metaphor and substitution) as well as the concept of minimalism—what spareness has to do with art, with the line, with story, and with the project of using language as a system to define subjects. Our goal will be to develop a wider range of approaches to the word as site of interest, departure, and return while pursuing new writing projects that stretch our comfortable lexicon. Writers from all levels of experience are welcomed and encouraged—we will take up both very basic and more nuanced questions about the writing we read as well as the writing we create, and we value the perspectives of all interested minds. This class will offer participants the opportunity to connect with other writers, gather response and feedback, familiarize with a diverse selection of exciting contemporary writers, and develop new work from writing assignments. Each week, we’ll discuss readings presented to the group in order to sharpen and focus individual concerns and points of interest, and then we’ll dedicate a block of time to writing on site at the
Preserve, using the landscape as a stepping-off point for imagining our own new pieces. Though we might share some new work at the end of some class meetings, we will be focusing primarily on nurturing and producing new work rather than on gathering feedback, and participants will be working independently a good part of the time.

The workshop is free to the public and open to all writers and those interested in exploring writing, thanks to a special grant from the Teichert Foundation and the support of Cache Creek Nature Preserve. To register, send an e-mail to rae_gouirand@yahoo.com with your name, email address, and phone number (please do not contact the preserve directly). I'm happy to provide directions or facilitate carpools to the Preserve for anyone who needs them—CCNP is just a few minutes northwest of downtown Woodland.

Please mark another save-the-date on your calendars as well: A Day in April, a day-long retreat at the Preserve site for writers, artists, dancers, yogis, musicians, hikers, and all other interested parties. Come celebrate our corner of the world and enjoy creative community with friends and family on Saturday, April 21st in honor of Earth Day.

_______________________

THE MODEL CHILDREN OF THE REGIME
—Nguyen Chi Thien

The model children of the regime
seemed darlings when they came to jail,
toddling around without their pants:
the prison blouses covered them
down to their feet.
But as time flies, they've reached the age of ten.
With noses in the air,
they're regular terrors now.
When gape their mouths,
curses come gushing out and spare no one.
And they can kill
for a potato, a cassava root.

_______________________

from SUNDRY NOTES
—Nguyen Chi Thien

25

The Party holds you down and you lie still.
When all are equal—scholars, dunces, beasts—
the paramount, hair-graying question is:
two meals, oh for two meals!


68

Short measure get all sentiments in jail,
where friendship weighs less than a cigarett,
where loyalty, like a report card, spreads thin,
where self-respect a spoon of rice knocks down.


_______________________

TRAVEL WITH GRIEF—GOODBYE TO JOY
—Nguyen Chi Thien

Travel with grief—goodbye to joy!
For baggage you have sweat and dust.
Some pocket money: poems and sweet dreams.
A dark, foul car—enjoy the smell.
Above the train a red flash glows:
somewhere, a storm is running wild?

_______________________

Today's poetry was translated from the Vietnamese by Huynh Sanh Thong.

Watch for a showing of rattlechapper Irene Lipshin's photographs, coming to the Cozmic Cafe in Placerville on March 17.

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

Be Melting Snow

Snow in Pollock Pines, 2005
Photo by Phil and Pat Weidman

BE MELTING SNOW
—Rumi

Totally conscious, and apropros of nothing, you come to see me.
Is someone here? I ask
The moon. The full moon is inside your house.

My friends and I go running out into the street.
I’m in here, comes a voice from the house, but we aren’t listening.
We’re looking up at the sky.
My pet nightingale sobs like a drunk in the garden.
Ringdoves scatter with small cries, Where. Where.
It’s midnight. The whole neighborhood is up and out in the street
thinking, The cat-burglar has come back.
The actual thief is there too, saying out loud,
Yes, the cat-burglar is somewhere in this crowd.
No one pays attention.

Lo, I am with you always, means when you look for God,
God is in the look of your eyes,
in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,
or things that have happened to you.
There’s no need to go outside.
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.

A white flower grows in the quietness.
Let your tongue become that flower.

________________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

Romance, Mate, and Procreate

Owl Patrol
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

IF THE OWL CALLS AGAIN
—John Haines

at dusk
from the island in the river
and it's not too cold,

I'll wait for the moon
to rise,
then take wing and glide
to meet him.

We will not speak,
but hooded against the frost
soar above
the alder flats, searching
with tawny eyes.

And then we'll sit
in the shadowy spruce and
pick the bones
of careless mice,

while the long moon drifts
toward Asia
and the river mutters
in its icy bed.

And when morning climbs
the limbs
we'll part without a sound

fulfilled, floating
homeward as
the cold world awakens.

_______________________

•••Tonight (2/17), 7-9:30 PM, attend a Black History Month celebration: "The Main Event" features the Black Men Expressing Tour, "Brothas to the Sistas" love poetry reading, poets Ranon Maddox, Ike Torrez, Ashleigh Schweitzer, Frank Withrow and He Spit Fire, plus a dance performance and gospel music with Vadia Hubbard and Yardley Griffin Jr. Guild Theater, 2828 35th St., Sac. $10. 916-455-7638.

•••Also tonight, 7-9 PM: Underground Poetry Series at Underground Books, 2814 35th St., Sac. (35th & Broadway). Hosted by La-Rue, $3, open mic.

•••Monday (2/19), there will be no reading at the Sacramento Poetry Center, due to Presidents' Day.

And I see in The Bee today that Russ Solomon is opening a new record store in the old Tower on Broadway. Land O'Goshen...

_______________________

DANCE
—Beth Green, Sacramento

Come, let us dance
Not a tango or rhumba
but the waltz.
The waltz glided into the world
from Vienna, popular where
Johann Strauss orchestrated the 3/4 time
to closeness of partners sliding
across waxy floors.
Even children dipped, swayed, turned and
twirled in green pastures
or asphalt streets,
wherever there was a void.
Animals and insects waltz close
together—romance, mate, and procreate.
This dance, language of togetherness
offers fun, laughter, and pleasure.

_______________________

INTO THE GLACIER
—John Haines

With the green lamp of the spirit
of sleeping water
taking us by the hand...

Deeper and deeper,
a luminous blackness opening
like the wings of a raven—

as though a heavy wind
were rising through all the houses
we ever lived in—

the cold rushing in,
our blankets flying away
into the darkness,
and we, naked and alone,
awakening forever...

_______________________

Those of us who know frank andrick will be saddened to hear that his mother passed away at home last week. We'll be thinking about you, frank!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

The Now-Time That Never Runs Out

Tim Bellows

IN SILVER — THOUGHTS. NIGHT RUNNING, RENO HILLS
—Tim Bellows, Gold River

sun — thick, sweet orange — has gone down
back of the frozen-black forest. brightness

of night planets comes on — pearls
trembling to ignite. dark trees,

edge of the field. branches
reach in air fit for dreaming. alders

embrace their own stillness and root down
to the black shine of water a mile deep.

I could grunt out notes jarred by footfall in this
striding out — no end in sight, my feet splashing snow,

my crown reaching into dark stars they say
bend light far away. into the silver-white quiet

of optimistic stars. into their happy plans for us all.

_______________________

Thanks, Tim! Tim Bellows writes: I’m a Writing Teacher and Poet devoted to wilderness and contemplative travels. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, I’ve published work in over 200 literary journals and in A Racing Up the Sky (Eclectic Press) and in Sunlight from Another Day — Poems In & Out of the Body (AuthorHouse). And I managed to earn two nominations for the Annual Pushcart Prize. I teach college English in Northern California, and continue to string words together and publish around the country. My poems appear in the Desert Wood anthology (University of Nevada Press), two issues of Midwest Quarterly, three issues of Modern Haiku, and other periodicals such as Interim, Embers, Wisconsin Review, Damaged Wine, The Small Pond Magazine, Portlandia Review, South Coast Poetry Journal, Phoebe, CQ, and Potomac Review. I’m also a contributing author to Angel Cats: Divine Messengers of Comfort (now in its fourth printing), and editor and founder of Lightship News for poets/writers — tips and insights on the divine dimension of word-craft. (Subscribe through sky999.blogspot.com). Also see golden.timbellows.com. If you’re “an unabashedly spiritual poet in an increasingly cynical world” (Todd Temkin), this is your site.

_______________________

•••Tonight (2/16), 7 PM: Our House will feature William O'Daly, reading poems by Pablo Neruda as well as his own. O'Daly's latest book of Neruda translations, Still Another Day, was a finalist for a 2006 Quill Award. An open mic follows; there is no charge. Our House Gallery & Framing is located at 4510 Post St. in El Dorado Hills Town Center; take the Latrobe exit south and turn left into the shopping center.

•••Saturday (2/17), 7-9:30 PM, attend a Black History Month celebration: "The Main Event" features the Black Men Expressing Tour, "Brothas to the Sistas" love poetry reading, poets Ranon Maddox, Ike Torrez, Ashleigh Schweitzer, Frank Withrow and He Spit Fire, plus a dance performance and gospel music with Vadia Hubbard and Yardley Griffin Jr. Guild Theater, 2828 35th St., Sac. $10. 916-455-7638.

•••Monday (2/19), there will be no reading at the Sacramento Poetry Center, due to Presidents' Day.

________________________

NOVEMBER RAIN,

something nudging me
in a short, light sleep. where we
meet under white sky. ah, the flash
of poses and signals from the final bird,
standing straight and yellow, flexing legs,
raising wings—indications

of our last easy breath and flight
as the whole flock of us
leaves the sharply angled branches,
rises and peers all around the sky,
making discourse and good gossip.

the gods between somewhere and nowhere
have gone back into their blue mountains.
we’re their outriders, without friend or society.
only our sweet phantoms of affection
keep company. we watch for all things

disincarnate, rushing up
over the western ridge, stampeding
along the icy tops of clouds.
in a short, light sleep

—Tim Bellows

______________________

FOUR A.M. AGAIN
—Tim Bellows

Something nudging me, white light in the end
of sleep. Sheets no longer holding me under their lost
white skies. Here I am, signaling earth’s last bird
as he stands, straight and yellow on his sharp-angled,
dusky branch. Yes, I have something to say!
About primitive times to come. The amber light

of dream-and-wake prompts me to explain how
even the sun cannot live forever. How the moon’s
to be eaten by soil-scooping, dinosaur-large machines.
Finally I give my talk. Oops—auditorium only of echoes,
but I’m saying I will live in the now-time that never runs out,
time of a sky-gliding hawk that moves; that never moves.

I prophesy myself prompted to happy ways, standing in one spot,
scrubbing out pots. All is well. Busboys jack around like
so many rooks, pile dishes in my metal sink. I scrub
in service to the wider knowledge of hawk and grebe.
Their sightlines nudging me to wrestle the pots clean—
my hands and arms covered with ridiculous suds.

Oh well, what am I worth? I’d
scrub pots clean in every diner in the world.

_______________________

Thanks again, Tim! Watch for more of Tim's work in the next issue of Rattlesnake Review (Lucky 13!), due out in March. (Did you make the deadline yesterday? If not, throw yourself on Medusa's mercy and get it in NOW!)

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

Lola Smacks Her Snaky Lips

Lola drawing by Sam the Snake Man Kieth

Happy Valentine, Lola, dear —
tender nothings for your dainty ear —
cherry-sweet kisses for your snaky lips
and sapphire belts for your slender hips —
chocolate and brandy and sweet love songs
to keep you purring all night long.
You're one hot mama, Lola, my pet
wishing you the best Valentine yet!

—Katy Brown, Davis

_______________________

Thanks, Katy! Valentine's Day was indeed excellent for the Snake family, given that we had a reading with good friends and good poetry. Drop in to The Book Collector and pick up a copy of littlesnake broadside #31, rattlechap #31, and the new Snakelets #9.


The poetry continues:

•••Today (2/15) is the deadline for Rattlesnake Review (Lucky #13!); send 3-5 poems plus art and/or photos to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No bio/cover/simul-subs or previously-pubbed, please.

•••Today (2/15) and Friday (2/16): Garrison Keillor is going to read "Chicken Killing" on "The Writer's Almanac" Feb. 15th and "My Methodist Grandmother Says" on "The Writer's Almanac" Feb. 16th. The poems, which are both from Mary Mackey's new collection, Breaking the Fever, are also going to be available on the American Public Radio website and in podcast. In the Bay Area the show will be playing at 9 AM on KALW (91.7 FM). If you like, you can hear them as early as Monday, Feb. 13, by checking out their website at Writer's Almanac web site. You can also get the schedule for other parts of the country since different stations play The Writer's Almanac at different times.

•••Tonight, head on over to Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac., 8 PM, and see what's up with Poetry Unplugged, including open mic before and after.

WINTER'S FINEST
—Elizabeth Parrish, Stockton

Fishing vessels
Are dusted with snow
The harbor shows traces of ice
Pilings on the pier
Are laden with candles
Pine trees carry
Heavy cream
Houses huddle in the chill
Docks shrug
With the tide
All appears tranquil,
Smoke emanates from chimneys
Winter wears its finest pearls
Seagulls scour the beach
And the sun rises slowly.

______________________________

BIRDS IN WINTER
—Elizabeth Parrish, Stockton

Two elegant egrets
Skirt the pond
With its thin layer of ice
Like frozen sculptures
Pausing for a catch
They peck at the layer,
Wading with hip boots
While the last
Of the creamy cherry blossoms
Fall like confetti.
It's too cold for spring,
Yet daffodils
Add golden cups of sunlight
To the frost,
Impervious to the chill.
Then the egret squawks,
Skimming across the pond,
Beckoning the spring
Jewels to open,
While I perch
On the iron rail,
Like a flightless bird
Wishing to dive into
The depths of summer.

___________________________

Thanks, Elizabeth!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

To Be Half a Couple

FROST
—Devin Davis, Sacramento

lots of robins
—the beating wings...

a couple are
sitting together on a limb,

warmer
in dawn sun.

but it's dusk,
just west of us;

and these birds were
facing orange stone
to the north—

they're dying leaves,
attached to a branch.

...i am wrong,
about many things.

________________________

Thanks, Devin!


Today:

•••Tonight (Weds., 2/14), 7:30 PM: Rattlesnake Press is proud to announce the release of Brigit Truex's new rattlechap, A Counterpane Without, and the release of littlesnake broadside #31, I Brake for Wildflowers by Wendy Patrice Williams at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Also coming out tonight: Snakelets #9, the journal of poetry from kids 0-12. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. Info: kathykieth@hotmail.com

•••Also tonight, 8 PM: The UC-Davis Creative Writing Program presents Emily Norwood, Gabrielle Myers, Crystal Anderson at Café Roma, 3rd & University Sts., Davis.

________________________

More shadow poems, this one a slightly-creepy Valentine poem about a snake, from Wayne Robinson:

HIDING IN SHADOWS
—Wayne Robinson, Lodi

Hiding in shadows, like a viper in the cold
Only hunger will make this night time creature bold,
Walking in the dark side of the moonlight
A silent stalker creeping through the night.

In shadows hiding, looking through the door
Watching the girls dancing across the floor.
The night, the shadows, is for loving,
The viper in me is still hiding.

To be a partner, to be half a couple
To have someone special with long hair to pull
While twisted, coiled in beastly embrace
Stripping socks and colored under-lace.

Hiding in shadows, fearful, a rejection magnet
Only watching, eyeing, is any kind of outlet
For passion tied like strings in a baseball,
For a soundless voice with no one to call.

Dreams of Fred Astaire ability,
Owning two left feet in reality
With too much desire for anyone to know,
So I slither, a shadow within a shadow.

_______________________

Thanks, Wayne! I like the "rejection magnet" concept. And what was that about under-lace........?

Michelle Kunert sends us a Valentine poem. Like me, she seems a bit ambivalent about the whole thing:

VALENTINE CARD FOR AN "X"?
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

Once again, it is time for marketers to push "weddings"
building up the ideas of parties in young crush-strucken heads
along with the rings and other stuff that should be the last things to think about
when it comes to relationships, whether to tie the knot
without stopping to think that half of those bonds end up on the rocks

So I saw in a store that sells many of these retail fantasies
under a symbol of a big golden crown,
one card poking out of the display slot, a card with a big white X
As I pulled it out, it said, O, I love you
I put that back to spot another with a big black dark X
It turned out it said, This an X-rated card for you, Valentine
I said out-loud this isn't fair
because really I wanted to find a Valentine's card for an X!

I was hoping the Peanuts one with Lucy raising her fist on it could help me somewhat,
but quite the contrary.
I said, Don't they have one with a heart with a stake in it?
To say Cross it and hope to die, that I'm better without X
that I'm better without his lies
and his friends whining to me how he was a "good" catch.
I will beat my chest and cry
(though I am to forgive and forget)

And I thought a fine overture would be Sinead O'Connor's "Damn your eyes"
but instead store music playing reminds me of another "X"
if you can call the male diva I once fell for
even though he wasn't nearly as big a name
I learned from that experience with "Michael" it's the kind of love
that you know in public you don't and can't get intimate with
no, you learn you have to follow behind them or in their entourage
no you can't have them ever to yourself the way you want
no matter how much you desire them
and say nothing about all the other women
and when he says you've embarrassed him
(or you know he says it when he gives you stinky looks)
you can't argue a thing with him; he's the Godfather or Mussolini, "Capish"?
but you are to raise them up on high like they are Jesus,
'cause their god is the stormy seas they want to walk upon
instead of walking the narrow plank with the ordinary rest of us
even when they depend on where they wanna go from standing upon your back

So one time I met another woman auditioning for a local play
who claimed she was going to become a stand-up comedian
had picture buttons decorating her purse of who she said was her idol
please girlfriend, get real—don't you understand you're already too outspoken
Please, if your mouth always spouts what you think
don't commit suicide with your career
or rather don't sentence your life to being Mrs. Joshua Groban
(not to bash Italian opera and arias though, and dang that guy sounds good)
or some other guys who brag they live to take the strength that belongs to you for themselves
But oh how our complex is, that we're attracted to those men with such a power fix

Oh, Valentine's Day should be like when you were kids
give every boy and girl you knew an innocent card you bought in bulk from a pack
just like when all of us were equal and love wasn't used against one another on account of sex

_______________________

Thanks, Michelle!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)