Fort Bragg
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
NEW WEATHER
—Carl Sandburg
—Carl Sandburg
Mist came up as a man's hand.
Fog lifted as a woman's shawl.
Fair weather rode in with a blue oath.
One large cloud bellied in a white wind.
Two new winds joined for weather.
Splinters of rain broke out of the west.
Blue rains soaked in a lowland loam.
The dahlia leaves are points of red.
Bees roam singing in the buckwheat.
Russet and gold are the wheatstraws.
Forgotten bells fade and change.
Forgetful bells fill the air.
Fog shawls and mist hands come again.
New weather weaves new garments.
_____________________
DEEP SEA WANDERING
—Carl Sandburg
deep sea was the wandering
deep brass the dripping loot
deep crimson the bloodspill
lyrics begotten on lush lips
and many a hawser they saw
rotting rope and rusting chain
and anchors many lost anchors
______________________
DREAMING FOOL
—Carl Sandburg
I was the first of the fools
(So I dreamed)
And all the fools of the world
were put into me and I was
the biggest fool of all.
Others were fools in the morning
Or in the evening or on Saturdays
Or odd days like Friday the Thirteenth
But me—I was a fool every day in the week
And when asleep I was the sleeping fool.
(So I dreamed.)
____________________
CHILD FACE
—Carl Sandburg
There are lips as strange and soft
As a rim of moon many miles off,
White on a fading purple sea.
"Was it there, far-off, real,
Or did my eyes play me a trick?"
A finger can be laid across it,
Laid on a little mouth's white yearning,
Only as a white rim of moon
Can be picked off a blue sea
And sent in a love letter.
Once a child face lay in the moonlight
Of an early spring night.
______________________
—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 Review14 is now available at The Book Collector; contributors and subscribers should have received theirs by now. If you're none of those, and can't get down to The Book Collector, send two bux (for postage) to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 and I'll mail you a copy. If you want more than one, please send $2 for the first one and $1 for copies after that. Next deadline, for RR15, is August 15. VYPER6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets10 (for kids 0-12) is also at The Book Collector; next deadline is Oct. 1.
Books/free broadsides: June's releases include Tom Miner's chapbook, North of Everything; David Humphreys' littlesnake broadside, Cominciare Adagio; and #3 in B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, this one featuring Jane Blue.
ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is sleeping! There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August. Then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. Also coming in the Fall: new issues of the Review, Snakelets and VYPER [see the above deadlines], plus more littlesnake broadsides from NorCal poets near and far, and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October).