Elsie and Don Feliz at The Great Wall of China, 2007
TAXIS IN BERLIN, 1961
—Elsie Whitlow Feliz, Sacramento
All taxis are black. All are Mercedes.
You must be careful of taxis in Berlin.
Take one with a solid line at the base
of its windows. Taxis with dashed
or broken lines can whisk you into
the Russian Sector from where you
might never return. Remember your
Russian family’s escape. You are
surrounded by the Red Star, and your
Babashka in California prays for you.
__________________
RENTED ROOMS
—Don Feliz, Sacramento
The landlady asks to see
a photo of my wife who’s
still at home in Mill Valley.
She says she wants to be
a second mother for us,
share her kitchen and
upstairs bathroom.
Lt. Williams approves
my move off post. I mail
a plane ticket costing
four months’ pay, then
wait for love’s arrival.
_________________
February is Love Month!
A week from today, on February 13, Rattlesnake Press will roar to life again after winter hibernation, with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap from Don and Elsie Feliz entitled To Berlin With Love, about their adventures in Germany during the building of the Berlin Wall. Also released that evening will be a new littlesnake broadside from Carlena Wike (Going the Distance), as well as Volume Two of Conversations, a new volume of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—this one featuring interviews and poetry from Victoria Dalkey, Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Julia Connor, Ted Finn, Phil Weidman, Jose Montoya, Joyce Odam, Chris Olander, Josh Fernandez, Terryl Wheat, and B.L. Kennedy. In addition, Ann Wehrman, who gave us December’s littlesnake broadside, Notes From The Ivory Tower, but who was unable to read from it at December’s rattle-read (due to a band concert; she’s a music major at CSUS), will be there to read from it for a few minutes this month.
But that’s not all!! In addition to the above, another of our area’s fun couples will be handing out a free special publication, and a third set of Sacramento’s sweethearts will be bringing wine… You REALLY don’t want to miss this grand Valentine’s return of the Snake!
Elsie Whitlow Feliz was born and raised in San Francisco, where her mother’s family settled after fleeing Stalinist Russia. Surrounded by the magic of Potrero Hill, views of the Bay Bridge, ships coming and going into the harbor and always the lights of the City, she knew she’d travel, dreamed of Japan and China. Growing up in the 1940s, she learned about war from refugees and soldiers returning from war. War has been a lifelong study for her. She has studied French, German, Russian, and Japanese, looking for clues about war. In 1960, she married and followed Pfc. Don Feliz to West Berlin, where she attended the Goethe Institute and the Free University of Berlin. She saw how the Berlin Wall changed the lives of many. There were still shell marks on some buildings and some were still in ruins. She graduated from San Francisco State University with a major in Economics. Although she didn’t plan it this way, her family lives next-door, just the way her Russian Babashka thought things should be.
Elsie is a member of Zica Creative Arts and Literary Guild, Chaparral Poets, First Friday Poets, Sacramento Poetry Center and the River Park-Elk Grove Writers Group. Her poetry has been published in Rattlesnake Review, Brevities, Drumvoices, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Chrysanthemum, San Fernando Poetry Journal, The Poet's Guild, Inky Blue, Mediphors, Poetry Now and the anthologies, We Speak for Peace and The Gathering. She has two chapbooks: Cornered and Tea With Bunya. She is the founder and former co-editor of Free-Wheeling, an annual poetry journal published by the Towe Auto Museum.
Don Feliz was born in Santa Rosa and grew up in Fresno and various Bay Area counties. After graduating from San Francisco State University, he enlisted in the U.S. Regular Army in 1960 to serve in Germany, the only assignment area where he and Elsie could be together. He was selected for the Berlin Brigade before the Berlin Wall was built midway through his two-year overseas tour. He has lived in Sacramento since 1968 and started writing poetry in 1995. Don’s poems have been published in Brevities, Poet’s Forum Magazine, Rattlesnake Review, and The Gathering (the Ina Coolbrith Circle 2005 and 2007 Anthologies). He is a former co-editor of Free-Wheeling, an annual poetry journal published by the Towe Auto Museum in Sacramento.
__________________
Calendar additions for tonight and tomorrow:
•••Wednesday (2/6), 9 PM: Poetry Night hosts Andy Jones and Brad Henderson are pleased to announce that the esteemed poet, novelist and Sac State Professor Mary Mackey will be the featured performer at Poetry Night at Bistro 33. Mackey has published five volumes of poetry, a novella, and eleven novels. Her works have sold over a million copies and have been translated into eleven foreign languages, including Japanese, Hebrew, Greek, and Finnish.
Mackey’s nonfiction and memoirs have appeared in various anthologies. She has reviewed books for The San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the American Book Review, and a variety of other publications; has lectured at Harvard and the Smithsonian; and has contributed to such diverse print and on-line publications as The Chiron Review, Redbook, and Salon. [See B.L. Kennedy's Conversations, Vol. 1, for an interview of Mary Mackey.]
Poetry Night takes place on the first and third Wednesday of every month. After the featured performer, an open mic will give new and experienced poets and performers an opportunity to share their work. Admission is free, and all are welcome to join the evening of literary performance at 226 F St. in the old City Hall building. For more information, contact Bistro 33 at (530) 756-4556.
•••Thursday (2/7), 8 PM: The John Natsoulas Center for the Arts (521 1st St., Davis) welcomes Joe Wenderoth. The heralded author of the poetry collections, No Real Light, Disfortune, and It Is If I Speak; the epistolary novel, Letters to Wendy’s; and the collection of essays, The Holy Spirit of Life: Essays for John Ashcroft’s Secret Self, will perform his work—poems, songs, and short silent film clips—in the darkened third floor of Davis’s most majestic gallery. Viewer Discretion is Advised. No-host bar.
__________________
AN HOUR WITH THEE
—Sir Walter Scott
An hour with thee! When earliest day
Dapples with gold the eastern gray,
Oh, what can frame my mind to bear
The toil and turmoil, cark and care,
New griefs, which coming hours unfold,
And sad remembrance of the old?
One hour with thee.
One hour with thee! When burning June
Waves his red flag at pitch of noon;
What shall repay the faithful swain,
His labour on the sultry plain;
And, more than cave or sheltering bough,
Cool feverish blood and throbbing row?
One hour with thee.
One hour with thee! When sun is set,
Oh, what can teach me to forget
The thankless labours of the day;
The hopes, the wishes, flung away;
The increasing wants, and lessening gains,
The master's pride, who scorns my pains?
One hour with thee.
__________________
—Medusa (cark?)
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).
