The Last Two Roses
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
RAKING LEAVES
—David Humphreys, Stockton
That time of year again, end of October,
and our council of walnuts
lining the driveway
has begun to wear itself out in orange.
Lou's ash trees next door
are a lighter yellow that will
be dazzling against dark clouds
and I am often sad now as if the old man
that I may one day become
has secretly walked up behind me
to touch me on the shoulder.
Last month, I said a final good-bye
to another lost friend.
To hell with death though. It's just leaves
falling in the wind, wet smelling ground rot.
As the rake scrapes concrete and rattles the grass,
I build leaf piles beneath fall's crackling bonfire.
(Previously appeared in Perihelion, Web del Sol)
_____________________
Thanks, David! David Humphreys sent us a Fall poem in response to Medusa's challenge: Send me your poems and/or photos, artwork, whatever about Autumn and I'll send you a free copy of Susan Kelly DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. E-mail them to kathykieth@hotmail com or snail them to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 by midnight next Weds., October 3. And of course thanks to Katy Brown for yet another wonderful photograph. Here are a couple more from David:
GOD BLESS THE KENNEDYS
—David Humphreys
There are thunderstorms in New England, yacht club
birgies blowing in another year of excess, Wall Street
acceding complicit in another apparent trend of margins
The afternoon wears the tanned face of a trip to the shore.
You wonder where it will all end but then you return
to your crossword puzzle and summer novel even though
you know they would all leave you in a minute penniless
and alone in New York’s dark-lit canyons at the same time
you are acutely aware of the bowlines, sheets and genoas
that are so much a part of the lexicon of strenuous leisure.
You remember of course, as nearly everyone does, the touch
football of the last century and the croquet and badminton
that are still played on the well kept lawns of family gatherings.
To the south, across the soft lit eastern haze, your honeymoon
restaurant on Nantucket is still “The White Elephant” with
its sand and beach grass atmosphere of seersucker white and
pale blue grays in yellow Bermuda shorts swinging slowly in
a hammock as the “Tiger Tunes” sing in an icy crystal cut glass
harmony and suddenly you also know that you will never ever
forget that article that referred to the way the President had
been turned into a throw rug by Lee Harvey Oswald’s sniper rifle.
_____________________
NUT CASE
—David Humphreys
It may never have occurred to you how emotional
a teenage girl may suddenly blossom florid as a
Gladiola of summer following June’s jasmine bloom
perfume. She is developing an extended stamina of
personal identity after all, along with a number
of other rather mysterious things, all apparently
essential to that which sometimes flowers amazing,
cool and, oh my, well, if only she could say it
without blowing into little bits and pieces. The
Dad in all of this must listen closely, pay attention,
nod in supportive understanding, judicious and rock
solid as the granite quarry he was hewn from in the
remote Precambrian soup kitchen from which he has
only recently emerged, waddling up out of the surf
with his ladle and scuba flippers much as an elephant
seal in an uncanny yet subliminally divergent dream.
_____________________
—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:
Journals: The latest issue of Rattlesnake Review (#15) is available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or send $2 to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Next deadline is November 15. The two journals for young people, Snakelets and Vyper, are on hiatus; no deadlines this Fall.
September's releases: The Snake returned with a bang on Wednesday, September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook about growing up in Hawaii, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree, at The Book Collector. Also available now: a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series (#4—frank andrick).
Coming in October: Rattlesnake Press celebrates Sacramento Poetry Month on Wednesday, Oct. 10 (at The Book Collector, Home of the Snake, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM) with the release of Spiral, a rattlechap by Kate Wells; Autumn on My Mind, a littlesnake broadside by Mary Field; and #5 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor. Also released that night will be Conversations, Volume One of the Rattlesnake Interview Anthology Series (a collection of B.L.'s conversations with eleven Sacramento poets)—plus other surprises (and cake!). Be there!
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
RAKING LEAVES
—David Humphreys, Stockton
That time of year again, end of October,
and our council of walnuts
lining the driveway
has begun to wear itself out in orange.
Lou's ash trees next door
are a lighter yellow that will
be dazzling against dark clouds
and I am often sad now as if the old man
that I may one day become
has secretly walked up behind me
to touch me on the shoulder.
Last month, I said a final good-bye
to another lost friend.
To hell with death though. It's just leaves
falling in the wind, wet smelling ground rot.
As the rake scrapes concrete and rattles the grass,
I build leaf piles beneath fall's crackling bonfire.
(Previously appeared in Perihelion, Web del Sol)
_____________________
Thanks, David! David Humphreys sent us a Fall poem in response to Medusa's challenge: Send me your poems and/or photos, artwork, whatever about Autumn and I'll send you a free copy of Susan Kelly DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. E-mail them to kathykieth@hotmail com or snail them to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 by midnight next Weds., October 3. And of course thanks to Katy Brown for yet another wonderful photograph. Here are a couple more from David:
GOD BLESS THE KENNEDYS
—David Humphreys
There are thunderstorms in New England, yacht club
birgies blowing in another year of excess, Wall Street
acceding complicit in another apparent trend of margins
The afternoon wears the tanned face of a trip to the shore.
You wonder where it will all end but then you return
to your crossword puzzle and summer novel even though
you know they would all leave you in a minute penniless
and alone in New York’s dark-lit canyons at the same time
you are acutely aware of the bowlines, sheets and genoas
that are so much a part of the lexicon of strenuous leisure.
You remember of course, as nearly everyone does, the touch
football of the last century and the croquet and badminton
that are still played on the well kept lawns of family gatherings.
To the south, across the soft lit eastern haze, your honeymoon
restaurant on Nantucket is still “The White Elephant” with
its sand and beach grass atmosphere of seersucker white and
pale blue grays in yellow Bermuda shorts swinging slowly in
a hammock as the “Tiger Tunes” sing in an icy crystal cut glass
harmony and suddenly you also know that you will never ever
forget that article that referred to the way the President had
been turned into a throw rug by Lee Harvey Oswald’s sniper rifle.
_____________________
NUT CASE
—David Humphreys
It may never have occurred to you how emotional
a teenage girl may suddenly blossom florid as a
Gladiola of summer following June’s jasmine bloom
perfume. She is developing an extended stamina of
personal identity after all, along with a number
of other rather mysterious things, all apparently
essential to that which sometimes flowers amazing,
cool and, oh my, well, if only she could say it
without blowing into little bits and pieces. The
Dad in all of this must listen closely, pay attention,
nod in supportive understanding, judicious and rock
solid as the granite quarry he was hewn from in the
remote Precambrian soup kitchen from which he has
only recently emerged, waddling up out of the surf
with his ladle and scuba flippers much as an elephant
seal in an uncanny yet subliminally divergent dream.
_____________________
—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:
Journals: The latest issue of Rattlesnake Review (#15) is available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or send $2 to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Next deadline is November 15. The two journals for young people, Snakelets and Vyper, are on hiatus; no deadlines this Fall.
September's releases: The Snake returned with a bang on Wednesday, September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook about growing up in Hawaii, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree, at The Book Collector. Also available now: a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series (#4—frank andrick).
Coming in October: Rattlesnake Press celebrates Sacramento Poetry Month on Wednesday, Oct. 10 (at The Book Collector, Home of the Snake, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM) with the release of Spiral, a rattlechap by Kate Wells; Autumn on My Mind, a littlesnake broadside by Mary Field; and #5 in the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor. Also released that night will be Conversations, Volume One of the Rattlesnake Interview Anthology Series (a collection of B.L.'s conversations with eleven Sacramento poets)—plus other surprises (and cake!). Be there!