FamilyPhoto sent in by David Humphreys (right)
RAVENS IN BARE BRANCHES
—David Humphreys, Stockton
A chill on uncovered hands, chin, nose
and cheeks, red yellow brown leaves
piling up alongside the gray street, haze
filling the background with a soft veil lace
curtain into an interior distance. Half a mile
further on parrots mutter, still in their treetop
roosts. In a few days our families will reunite
again, another year gone and harvested and you
will see them all grown a little older with a touch
more gray at a temple or children more mature,
any signs of age or infirmity like a needle in
time’s tablecloth. Ask them all to join you with,
“Bless, oh Lord, this food to our use and make us
ever mindful of the needs of others.”
—David Humphreys, Stockton
A chill on uncovered hands, chin, nose
and cheeks, red yellow brown leaves
piling up alongside the gray street, haze
filling the background with a soft veil lace
curtain into an interior distance. Half a mile
further on parrots mutter, still in their treetop
roosts. In a few days our families will reunite
again, another year gone and harvested and you
will see them all grown a little older with a touch
more gray at a temple or children more mature,
any signs of age or infirmity like a needle in
time’s tablecloth. Ask them all to join you with,
“Bless, oh Lord, this food to our use and make us
ever mindful of the needs of others.”
WAITING FOR THE OTHER SHOE
("Ultimate Power Corrupts Ultimately")
to drop dead in its tracks like an enraged and
endangered rhinoceros brought down by some
lovely work of painstaking colonial homeland
industry, tooled to a micrometric perfection now
transcended by a super human nano dimensioned
world craft and workmanship that is presently so
revered with an astronomical sterling value, you feel
perhaps a bit relic and discarded, more precisely like
a garroted shaved head street walker whore fascist
collaborator. How is it that you can calmly wake each
morning to await the afternoon delivery of dividends
checks and balances secure in the principle embodied
in the inert carcass lying still warm at your feet with its
long curved aphrodisiac horn, a principle of lead and brass,
.600 Nitro Express, H & H, side by side, brought to you
clearly now in reverie from your father’s receding era of Sears
Roebuck Christmas Catalog teddy bears and whale bone corsets.
—David Humphreys
____________________
THE LAST GREAT KILLING
—David Humphreys
(His clothing was white as snow,
and the hair of his head like pure wool;
his throne was fiery flames,
and its wheels were burning fire.)
—Judgment of the Ancient One, Book of Daniel, 9
The last century watched newsreels of horrendous
conflagrations and atrocities beyond description
in safe American movie theaters. What brought
this about and who has never read “Flanders
Fields” or “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”?
Who will remember now as another approaching
storm swirls bleached with skulls stacked in catacombs
beside blood stained fields green with forgetfulness,
nuclear winter long with dark eternity?
What sweet child will bring us flowers
to fill with laughter warm afternoon hours?
______________________
Thanks, David, for sending us poems!
This weekend in NorCal poetry:
•••Saturday (11/24), 7-9 PM: The Show features Neo-soul artist Kevin Sandbloom (kevinsandbloom.com), Praise Dancer Tangela Campbell, House Band LSB, House Vocalist Chris Bush. Wo’se Community Center, 2863 35th St., (off 35th & Broadway), Sacramento. $5. Open mic, all ages. Info: 916-208-POET.
•••Monday (11/26), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Brad Buchanan's Creative Writing Class from Cal. State University, Sacramento, at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Open mic will follow.
______________________
One more from David Humphreys:
A FEW DAYS LATER
—David Humphreys
Early this morning there was a column of smoke
rising just to the north as I started out with the dog.
The smell of it was strong and followed us all the
way around our circuit. When we first saw the cloud
I wondered if I should call the Fire Department but
then decided to wait for the sirens. This is the time
of year when controlled burning happens in the valley’s
fields. The sirens didn’t start though and by the time
we made it home the cloud had moved off and dissipated.
I heard the geese before I looked up and saw them
in a long uneven V. It just takes a few days for another
set of trees to come into full color and the golden yellow
was next to another house around an unexpected corner.
Down on the south street, El Camino, we walked into the
sun and two birches were ablaze in dark shadows. Beyond
them a big Cat back hoe was banging broken up asphalt from
the grade school’s parking lot into a dump truck. Its oversized
loader jaw was a metal Tyrannosaurus in the toothy serrated
dawn, colder than yesterday, warmer than tomorrow.
_____________________
Thanks, David!
—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).
SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:
Rattlesnake Review: 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. Issue #16 will be out in mid-December; its deadline of Nov. 15 has passed. Next deadline (for Issue #17, due out in mid-March) is February 15. (Sooner than you think!)
New in November: On November 14, Rattlesnake Press released Among Neighbors, a rattlechap from Taylor Graham; Home is Where You Hang Your Wings, a free littlesnake broadside from frank andrick; and A Poet's Book of Days, a perpetual calendar featuring the poetry and photography of Katy Brown. These are now available at The Book Collector, from kathykieth@hotmail.com, or on rattlesnakepress.com/, as is October's Conversations, Vol. One of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series.
Coming December 12: The Snake is proud to announce the release of Metamorphic Intervals From The Insanity Of Time, a SnakeRings SpiralChap from Patricia D'Alessandro; Notes From An Ivory Tower, a littlesnake broadside from Ann Wehrman; and a brand new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#16). Come celebrate all of these on Wednesday, December 12, 7:30 PM at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's.