THE PRISONERS
—Robert Hayden
Steel doors—guillotine gates—
of the doorless house closed massively.
We were locked in with loss.
Guards frisked us, marked our wrists,
then let us into the drab Rec Hall—
splotched green walls, high windows barred—
where the dispossessed awaited us.
Hands intimate with knife and pistol,
hands that had cruelly grasped and throttled
clasped ours in welcome. I sensed the plea
of men denied: Believe us human
like yourselves, who but for Grace...
We shared reprieving Hidden Words
revealed by the Godlike imprisoned
One, whose crime was truth.
And I read poems I hoped were true.
It's like you been there, brother, been there,
the scarred young lifer said.
______________________
Calendar addition for this week:
•••Thurs. (8/30), 7 PM: Writers Read at the Colored Horse Studio in Ukiah is pleased to welcome Dan Roberts as featured reader for the opening of the Fall season. Roberts is a poet, artist, and radio producer who has lived in Mendocino County for 30 years. He was born in Oakland, went to high school in Berkeley, and graduated from UC Davis in 1970 in Creative Writing and Modern European Literature. He read poetry in Davis, Sacramento and Berkeley from the late 1960s on. He produced the Wild Sage Poetry radio program on KZYX for ten years, has taught as a California Poet in The Schools for over 20 years, and has published two chapbooks of poetry, Hunting For The Sun At Night (1989) and Heresies (1991). His paintings and photographs have been exhibited around Northern California since the 1970s. He currently produces an internationally syndicated radio program, “The Shortwave Report”, as well as music/poetry (RhythmRunningRiver) and youth programs (YouthSpeaksOut!) on KZYX. He has raised three children while developing a homestead in the mountains northwest of Willits. The featured reading will be followed by an open mic. Refreshments available. Donation requested. Colored Horse Studio is located at 780 Waugh Lane in Ukiah. Info: (707)275-9010, (707)468-9488, (707) 463-6989 or check online at www.coloredhorse.com or poetryflash.org/.
And coming up next week:
•••Weds. (9/5), 7:30-11 PM (doors open at 7): On the Road… Again: Luna’s Café presents A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Publication of On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Readers include Matt Amott, Todd Cirillo, Josh Fernandez, Patrick Grizzell, Robert Grossklaus, B. L. Kennedy (reader and host), Megan, Jackie Schaffer, D.R. Wagner, Terryl Wheat. 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Free.
Coming in November: Sign up for a weekend of poetry:
Every year for the last 21 years, people of all walks of life have gathered at Westminster Retreat, a lovely old estate near Walnut Creek, California, to enjoy poetry. Sponsor of the event is the Great Books Council of San Francisco, a not-for-profit affilliate of the Great Books Foundation. “We are not experts in poetry — just friendly people who enjoy reading and discussing poetry," says Brent Browning, chairman of the event. This year they will discuss “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, plus poems by D. H. Lawrence, Robert Hass, Robinson Jeffers, William Shakespeare, Billy Collins, and others. The event will take place Saturday and Sunday, November 10-11; the cost is $150 per person, which includes four meals, housing, a party, and all the reading materials. Contact Theda or Oscar Firschein, registrars, at 650-854-3980 or oscarf1@earthlink.net/. (If no response, call Brent Browning at 408-353-6340.)
_____________________
"FROM THE CORPSE WOODPILES, FROM THE ASHES"
—Robert Hayden
From the corpse woodpiles, from the ashes
and staring pits of Dachau,
Buchenwald they come—
O David, Hirschel, Eva,
cops and robbers with me once,
their faces are like yours—
From Johannesburg, from Seoul.
Their struggles are all horizons.
Their deaths encircle me.
Through target streets I run,
in light part nightmare
and part vision fleeing
What I cannot flee, and reach
that cold cloacal cell
where He, who is man beatified
And Godly mystery,
lies chained, His pain
our anguish and our anodyne.
_____________________
SOLEDAD
—Robert Hayden
(And I, I am no longer of that world)
Naked, he lies in the blinded room
chainsmoking, cradled by drugs, by jazz
as never by any lover's cradling flesh.
Miles Davis coolly blows for him:
O pena negra, sensual Flamenco blues;
the red clay foxfire voice of Lady Day
(lady of the pure black magnolias)
sobsings her sorrow and loss and fare you well,
dryweeps the pain his treacherous jailers
have released him from for awhile.
His fears and his unfinished self
await him down in the anywhere streets.
He hides on the dark side of the moon,
takes refuge in a stained-glass cell,
flies to a clockless country of crystal.
Only the ghost of Lady Day knows where
he is. Only the music. And he swings
oh swings: beyond complete immortal 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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).
SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:
ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in 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/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.
Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review (16) is November 15.