As Another Week Scurries Away...

Michelle Kunert

When I think about it,
it could have been me
filling up arena stadiums on weekday school or work nights for a concert
in cities deciding to pay its ball players more than its school teachers
and especially even where their millionaire team owners tax its poorest citizens
With the all entertainment magazines using your latest image to sell tickets
Dare we ask: to create this idol visage along with your voice,
to change from looking like a geek or nerd into this ideal-looking fashion model
to statisfy your investors—how much did it cost or hurt to have plastic surgery?
But radio keeps advertising as if it were trying to evoke pity
for claims of getting dissed by a famous movie chick whom you hang out with in Hollywood
or that you keep growing with every birthday toward a dreaded thirty
But what do you care about what we little folk think
since didn't you brag on television interviews that to sell albums you decided to quit college
filling immature minds with dreams that they too can easily get rich becoming pop superstars
if not with just playing sports
Yeah if it had been me up on stage to sing,
I'd do a hell lot else than smile and look pretty
but wait, I couldn't say here it pays at all really to hit the books and study
I know a Baptist teacher who says if he had talent like yours,
he'd share more faith than merely ranting on issues of "philosophy"
but if people came to worship you, wouldn't that before God be blasphemy?
Yeah, though it’s the sin of vanity,
I'd still like to think it could have been me bringing in fans upon knees
saying they are not worthy though I am too just a human

______________________

Thanks, Michelle!


Tonight:

•••Thursday (5/3), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured reader; Open mic before and after.


Contest!

Cedar Hill Press is a small publisher located in a historic neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. Their goals and mission are to foster new talent and provide an accessible venue for all Artists. They’re sponsoring a writing contest for short fiction and poetry. Additional details about the contest are available at www.CedarHillPress.com, info@cedarhillpress.com, or from Margaret Ruble, Marketing Assistant, P.O. Box 24784, Cleveland, Ohio 44124.


May News from Cynthia Bryant of Poets Lane:

•••Poets Lane (www.poetslane.com ~ PoetsLane@comcast.net) is looking for poetry for MAY-Poems on Memorial, Mother, Flowers & Sonnets (check out the new poems).

•••If you need to rant in a poem about the injustices of life, send her a poem for Get it Off Your Chest (mental health poetry) page.

•••Question for That Would Be Telling! page: Which poet/writer turns you on or off and why? Or answer any of the other previous questions if you wish. Send your answers to PoetsLane@comcast.net

•••Poets Lane will be listing annual writing contests on the new Annual Contests page; if you have one coming up, please send the information to PoetsLane@comcast.net and Cynthia will post it on www.poetslane.com for you.

•••Put your face and name up with other rising poets and writers on Poets & Writers in the Know. Send your bio, picture and contact information to PoetsLane@comcast.net and add to your chances of getting to be known for what you do.

•••Cynthia is still accepting poems for the Gift of Words: Poems for the Iraqi People project at PoetsLane@comcast.net/ or you may send it 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. (She is receiving poems from all over the country, as well as New Zealand, England, Scotland and Africa.) New deadline is May 31, 2007. The Challenge: Write a poem for the Iraqi People, something that you want to express to their citizens. Who: Anyone, any age can write a poem and submit it to be included in The Gift of Words: Poetry for the Iraqi People.

Two other need-to-check-outs:

•••Getting the Poets & Writers e-newsletter? If not, sign up at pw@pw.pmailus.com. Helpful articles for free, right to your computer! Read naked!

•••Poesy from Santa Cruz continues to publish a fine small-press journal that includes poetry, photography, interviews, reviews and other poetry articles. Their goal is to unite Santa Cruz and Boston, poetically-speaking—West Coast and East Coast. The current issue includes Snake-pals Ellaraine Lockie and B.Z. Niditch, representatives from each coast. There are some copies in The Book Collector, or subscribe and support another quarterly comrade-in-small-press: $12/year; check made out to Brian Morrisey, P.O. Box 7823, Santa Cruz, CA 95061. Info: info@poesy.org/ or www.poesy.org. And submit poems to them, too! Deadlines are 2/1, 5/1, 8/1, 11/1.


And don't forget wee Snakelets!

Last chance to send in poems for this issue, due out in a couple of weeks. Send poems from your local youngsters aged 0-12. Now!

______________________

POEM OF MY JOB SORTING USED BOOKS
—Michelle Kunert

Why do they keeping donating stuff that Goodwill can't resell?
Can't they tell, can't they learn to discern
that nobody else wants already-used coloring books?
Anything growing mold on it is useless
It doesn't matter if it’s John Grisham, Stephen King, or Daniel Steele:
anything torn, damaged with food, coffee stains, or water melted together,
rotting away, or containing silverfish or roaches, might as well be burned
Even a cricket reluctantly left a donation box as if he was being evicted
by becoming warm and cozy in storage
Lucky bug met a lady who also cups up spiders to send them out
rather than squash all wayward creatures as pestilence
Any magazines can already be put in the recycle bins at home
But they think they are being so nice donating National Geographic
which used bookstores and libraries don't want anymore either
And so many of those college textbooks you spent so much for
go into salvage bins to perhaps be processed into toilet paper
however, they probably will keep piling in near the end of semesters
The best thing for all is to please at least get a receipt
‘cause you don't get any tax breaks for being a mystery dumper
And please put only books in donations marked as same,
not throwing in it "soft goods", including your dog-chewed slippers
But I hate discarding so many,
feeling somewhat like I'm in Bradbury's Fahrenheit Four Fifty One
especially standing up for The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
when the boss ruled to ditch it with the rest of the "pornography"
even though I see on the video shelves R-rated violent flicks
The SPCA's Spring book sale is a lot kinder
I saw it had a section dedicated to mature sexuality
someone there knows about making love instead of war
But when my shift is done at four
I must put it out of my mind as if it’s done and over

_____________________

—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.)


SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

Journals: Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; next deadline is May 15. The new VYPER #6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets 9 (for kids 0-12) is available; Snakelets #10 will be out this month. Last chance to get those kid's poems in!

Books/broadsides: April’s releases are SnakeRings SpiralChap #7 from D.R. Wagner: Where The Stars Are Kept, and littlesnake broadside #33: Swallowed By This Whale Of Time by Ann Menebroker. Both are now available at The Book Collector. SpiralChaps are $8; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com for ordering information. Rattlesnake Interview Series #1 with Ann Menebroker and B.L. Kennedy is also available (free) at The Book Collector (or contact Kathy Kieth).

Next rattle-read: May's releases will be Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a broadside by Julie Valin and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Malik and B.L. Kennedy. Come check all these out on May 9 at 7:30 PM at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.