AN EXCHANGE OF GIFTS
—Alden Nowlan
As long as you read this poem
I will be writing it.
I am writing it here and now
before your eyes,
although you can't see me.
Perhaps you'll dismiss this
as a verbal trick,
the joke is you're wrong;
the real trick
is your pretending
this is something
fixed and solid,
external to us both.
I tell you better:
I will keep on
writing this poem for you
even after I'm dead.
_____________________
Tonight:
•••Saturday, May 19, 7-9 PM: Underground Poetry Series presents Sean Miller, Bill Carr, Layla Holmes and emcee Taylor Williams. Underground Books, 2814 35th St., Sacramento. $3. Info: 916-737-3333.
_____________________
IT'S GOOD TO BE HERE
—Alden Nowlan
I'm in trouble, she said
to him. That was the first
time in history that anyone
had ever spoken of me.
It was 1932 when she
was just fourteen years old
and men like him
worked all day for
one stinking dollar.
There's quinine, she said.
That's bullshit, he told her.
Then she cried and then
for a long time neither of them
said anything at all and then
their voices kept rising until
they were screaming at each other
and then there was another long silence and then
they began to talk very quietly and at last he said
well, I guess we'll just have to make the best of it.
While I lay curled up,
my heart beating,
in the darkness inside her.
_____________________
WEAKNESS
—Alden Nowlan
Old mare whose eyes
are like cracked marbles,
drools blood in her mash,
shivers in her jute blanket.
My father hates weakness worse than hail;
in the morning
without haste
he will shoot her in the ear, once,
shovel her under in the north pasture.
Tonight
leaving the stables,
he stands his lantern on an over-turned water pail,
turns,
cursing her for a bad bargain,
and spreads his coat
carefully over her sick shoulders.
_____________________
—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 (free publications): Rattlesnake Review #13 is available at The Book Collector; RR #14 will be out in mid-June. (Next deadline, for RR #15, is August 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. Next deadline is Oct. 1.
Books/broadsides: May's releases are Grass Valley Poet Ron Tranquilla’s Playing Favorites: Selected Poems, 1971-2006, plus a littlesnake broadside by Julie Valin (Still Life With Sun) and a Rattlesnake Interview Broadside (#2) featuring Khiry Malik Moore and B.L. Kennedy. All are now available at The Book Collector. Rattlechaps are $5; broadsides are free. Or contact kathykieth@hotmail.com or rattlesnakepress.com for ordering information.
Next rattle-read: Rattlesnake Press will present Sacramento Poet Tom Miner at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, on Wednesday, June 20 from 7:30-9 PM to celebrate the release of his new chapbook, North of Everything. Also featured that night will be a new littlesnake broadside (Cominciare Adagio) from Stockton Poet/Publisher David Humphreys, plus #3 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Jane Blue. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/ NOTE: For June, and for June only, our monthly Rattlesnake reading will be on the THIRD Weds. instead of the second one. There will be no readings/releases in July or August.