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.)
