Gorgon Fountain
Photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento
Photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento
DEFINED BY POSITION
—Kate Wells, Placerville
My blue only blue
by white-bright stars—
sunlight held low in the west.
I’m held high in the east,
minor key blue,
flats and sharps undefined
until major key’s charity of light.
Without stars, sun, light—
what am I
in the dark? Am I blue?
Am I blue in the dark?
_____________________
Thanks, Jane, for the photo (Medusa loves pictures of herself, of course), and Kate, for the poem. Watch for more of Jane Blue's wonderful photography and poetry in Rattlesnake Review Sweet 16, coming out in mid-December—speaking of which, the countdown is on NOW for tomorrow's deadline! Send 3-5 poems, plus photos and/or art to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No bio/cover letter necessary, but no simultaneous submissions or previously published work, please.
Today's poetry is from Kate Wells and Susan Kelly-DeWitt, both of whom will be reading this Friday night at Our House Gallery and Framing in El Dorado Hills (7 PM). Our House is just a couple of freeway exits past Folsom on Highway 50; take the Latrobe exit south and then swing into the shopping center on the left; Our House is on the northern edge. Both Susan and Kate have recently released chapbooks from Rattlesnake Press; for more poems and to see their lovely, lovely faces, go to the Rattlechaps page on rattlesnakepress.com/. (Jane Blue's, too!)
Tonight!!!
Rattlesnake Press and Taylor Graham will be releasing her latest chapbook, Among Neighbors, tonight (Weds., 11/14) at 7:30 at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento (between J and K Sts.). Come hear Taylor read, along with frank andrick, who will premier his new littlesnake broadside, Home Is Where You Hang Your Wings, PLUS the added treat of Katy Brown's new perpetual calendar, A Poet's Book of Days, the first in the Rattlesnake HandyStuff Series! All this AND refreshments AND a read-around (bring your own poems or somebody else's!). Be there!
_____________________
HIGH SCHOOL BOYS
pad through the halls
all smiles and sharp eyes
bows strung too tight—
teeth flash
in fluorescent light.
They stalk the quad,
Chemistry book a shield for one,
another reinvents the atlatl
with his yogurt spoon and pencil.
They are muscle and bone. Veins
run with a hundred thousand
years of gazelle hunts, counting coup.
One hundred thousand years of manhood
folded into plastic chairs, bubbling
answer sheets with all too sharp
Number 2 pencils.
—Kate Wells
_____________________
FIRE SEASON
—Kate Wells
When sour-sweet smoke
layers the canyon. Sun red.
Moon red.
I become nine years old—
crawl under blankets of smoke—
locked in the living room.
Humid Texas air
saturated with Parliament 100’s.
I go school with their breath
on me, in me.
Clothes and hair.
When fire season comes.
_____________________
GORGEOUS GEORGE IN HONOLULU
—Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Sacramento
When it stormed we wrestled
gargantuan leaves, winds that pummeled
up from the Pacific, thrashing skies
that pinned things under.
Even the immense tendons
of banyans grunted, knuckled.
On a night like this my father fought
the Pontiac home in a torrent, triumphant
after winning his bet—with two gold-plated
bobby pins, “Georgie pins” in his pocket,
a gift from Gorgeous George himself,
a strand of the famous bleached blond
hair still tangled in each of them.
Red Smith said “Groucho Marx is prettier.”
But, in his pink satin robe with sequined
epaulets, the Star Bulletin called him
“a hunk of peroxided beefcake.”
His antics irked the crowds: A show-off
with curly ringlets. A muscle-man with a prayer
rug and valet. A chunky Apollo who misted perfumed
antiseptic into the ring before a match, “to remove
all germs, sweat and other obnoxious remnants.”
I remember the photo of George
at the beauty parlor, all wired up
into a permanent wave machine:
He looked like a golden tree of life
with electric branches.
______________________
NIGHT IN MANOA VALLEY
—Susan Kelly-DeWitt
This could be our secret topography:
the way the white ginger dared us
to look from grandmother’s porch to see
night in Manoa Valley—Cassiopeia
above the banyan tree, Andromeda
and Cepheus; the milky ribbons
of stars at 21°, and the enormity
of the moon’s tropic flare.
It was night in the Manoa Valley
but we were so young, so unaware
of the fragrant stars freely
blooming along the fence there,
paired indelibly
with night in the Manoa Valley.
_____________________
—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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. 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).
—Kate Wells, Placerville
My blue only blue
by white-bright stars—
sunlight held low in the west.
I’m held high in the east,
minor key blue,
flats and sharps undefined
until major key’s charity of light.
Without stars, sun, light—
what am I
in the dark? Am I blue?
Am I blue in the dark?
_____________________
Thanks, Jane, for the photo (Medusa loves pictures of herself, of course), and Kate, for the poem. Watch for more of Jane Blue's wonderful photography and poetry in Rattlesnake Review Sweet 16, coming out in mid-December—speaking of which, the countdown is on NOW for tomorrow's deadline! Send 3-5 poems, plus photos and/or art to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No bio/cover letter necessary, but no simultaneous submissions or previously published work, please.
Today's poetry is from Kate Wells and Susan Kelly-DeWitt, both of whom will be reading this Friday night at Our House Gallery and Framing in El Dorado Hills (7 PM). Our House is just a couple of freeway exits past Folsom on Highway 50; take the Latrobe exit south and then swing into the shopping center on the left; Our House is on the northern edge. Both Susan and Kate have recently released chapbooks from Rattlesnake Press; for more poems and to see their lovely, lovely faces, go to the Rattlechaps page on rattlesnakepress.com/. (Jane Blue's, too!)
Tonight!!!
Rattlesnake Press and Taylor Graham will be releasing her latest chapbook, Among Neighbors, tonight (Weds., 11/14) at 7:30 at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento (between J and K Sts.). Come hear Taylor read, along with frank andrick, who will premier his new littlesnake broadside, Home Is Where You Hang Your Wings, PLUS the added treat of Katy Brown's new perpetual calendar, A Poet's Book of Days, the first in the Rattlesnake HandyStuff Series! All this AND refreshments AND a read-around (bring your own poems or somebody else's!). Be there!
_____________________
HIGH SCHOOL BOYS
pad through the halls
all smiles and sharp eyes
bows strung too tight—
teeth flash
in fluorescent light.
They stalk the quad,
Chemistry book a shield for one,
another reinvents the atlatl
with his yogurt spoon and pencil.
They are muscle and bone. Veins
run with a hundred thousand
years of gazelle hunts, counting coup.
One hundred thousand years of manhood
folded into plastic chairs, bubbling
answer sheets with all too sharp
Number 2 pencils.
—Kate Wells
_____________________
FIRE SEASON
—Kate Wells
When sour-sweet smoke
layers the canyon. Sun red.
Moon red.
I become nine years old—
crawl under blankets of smoke—
locked in the living room.
Humid Texas air
saturated with Parliament 100’s.
I go school with their breath
on me, in me.
Clothes and hair.
When fire season comes.
_____________________
GORGEOUS GEORGE IN HONOLULU
—Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Sacramento
When it stormed we wrestled
gargantuan leaves, winds that pummeled
up from the Pacific, thrashing skies
that pinned things under.
Even the immense tendons
of banyans grunted, knuckled.
On a night like this my father fought
the Pontiac home in a torrent, triumphant
after winning his bet—with two gold-plated
bobby pins, “Georgie pins” in his pocket,
a gift from Gorgeous George himself,
a strand of the famous bleached blond
hair still tangled in each of them.
Red Smith said “Groucho Marx is prettier.”
But, in his pink satin robe with sequined
epaulets, the Star Bulletin called him
“a hunk of peroxided beefcake.”
His antics irked the crowds: A show-off
with curly ringlets. A muscle-man with a prayer
rug and valet. A chunky Apollo who misted perfumed
antiseptic into the ring before a match, “to remove
all germs, sweat and other obnoxious remnants.”
I remember the photo of George
at the beauty parlor, all wired up
into a permanent wave machine:
He looked like a golden tree of life
with electric branches.
______________________
NIGHT IN MANOA VALLEY
—Susan Kelly-DeWitt
This could be our secret topography:
the way the white ginger dared us
to look from grandmother’s porch to see
night in Manoa Valley—Cassiopeia
above the banyan tree, Andromeda
and Cepheus; the milky ribbons
of stars at 21°, and the enormity
of the moon’s tropic flare.
It was night in the Manoa Valley
but we were so young, so unaware
of the fragrant stars freely
blooming along the fence there,
paired indelibly
with night in the Manoa Valley.
_____________________
—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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. 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).