Abandoned Snowman
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE
in a spiral galaxy?
Under the soft electric glow that zaps
anything with wings at midnight,
wings that keep getting closer
house by isolated house—
remember how we drive this same
stretch of woods
like so many travelers
trying to get home before dark,
through hills where a lost dog
runs with the fear of doe in his feet.
Again tonight we arrive back
at our own front door, under no stars
but sky’s coupled pressure
building, released in heat
lightning. If there’s no freedom
for a shoe that’s lost its
mate, why can’t we just be joyful?
—Taylor Graham, Somerset
___________________
Thanks, TG! Taylor Graham is responding to yesterday's Seed of the Week, "Leftovers". She writes: OK, this is leftovers for sure. [Workshoppers in] Red Fox Underground have a nasty way of crossing out Foxes' favorite lines: "save it for another poem." So I gathered some of mine and here's what I got.
And David Humphreys sends us this response to last week's SOW about dogs. Thanks, David!
SHILOH
—David Humphreys, Stockton
I lost the first poem I wrote about the dog maybe
four years ago. Don’t know how it happened except
that it was so clearly out of his cocky prime I guess
I was just a little put out by the strutting sexual leer
of it, dog ears all perked up with his tongue lolling out
in a wide laughing grin mincing up to sniff out every
passing feminine bustle of attention, eyes rimmed in
handsome mascara theater, plume tail curling up behind
him like a feather in a Musketeer’s velvet hat. I must
have deleted it in some distracted irritation. Anyway,
here it is again, resurrected with all the odd details intact
as we both head out on our morning walk one more
time both of us a little heavier than we used to be, even
after 1200 miles further down the road.
Now, in just a few short years he has turned gray and slows
to a tired walk before we finish our two miles every morning.
Time is catching up with him as it has with all the others, one
named Tarawa, a jet black beauty that disappeared chasing
cattle in Colorado. Then came two lovely Goldens, Orion a
handsome dark male with a congenital heart defect and his
sister Chelsea a happy bright lighter female. I’ll miss all
of them before much longer and just have to go out and find
another to help me count the passing miles.
___________________
This just in:
•••Tonight, Wednesday (3/19), 9 PM: Rattlechapper James DenBoer will be reading at Bistro 33 as part of the Poetry Night at Bistro 33 Reading Series at 226 F St., Davis. Long-appreciated by local readers of poetry, James DenBoer’s work has appeared in a great variety of publications in multiple media. DenBoer has authored eight books of poetry spanning almost 40 years (including Black Dog for Rattlesnake Press), has appeared in another seven anthologies of poetry and literature, and has won awards and grants from the National Council on the Arts, the Author’s League of America, the Carnegie Fund for Authors and the National Endowment for the Arts. DenBoer’s most recent book, Stonework: Selected Poems, was published by Sandra McPherson’s Swan Scythe Press in the city of Davis. Open Mic follows the Featured Reader. Free and Open to the Public; hosted by Brad Henderson and Andy Jones. For more on James DenBoer, visit http://www.paperwrk.com/ or his rattlechapper page on rattlesnakepress.com/. JDB will be releasing another chapbook from Rattlesnake Press this June.
__________________
THE PRODIGAL
—Elizabeth Bishop
The brown enormous odor he lived by
was too close, with its breathing and thick hair,
for him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty
was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung.
Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts,
the pigs' eyes followed him, a cheerful stare—
even to the sow that always ate her young—
till, sickening, he leaned to scratch her head.
But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts
(he hid the pints behind a two-by-four),
the sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red;
the burning puddles seemed to reassure.
And then he thought he almost might endure
his exile yet another year or more.
But evenings the first star came to warn.
The farmer whom he worked for came at dark
to shut the cows and horses in the barn
beneath their overhanging clouds of hay,
with pitchforks, faint forked lightnings, catching light,
safe and companionable as in the Ark.
The pigs struck out their little feet and snored.
The lantern—like the sun, going away—
laid on the mud a pacing aureole.
Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,
he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight,
his shuddering insights, beyond his control,
touching him. But it took him a long time
finally to make his mind up to go home.
____________________
—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: News from Rattlesnake Press
The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.
Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, all available at The Book Collector or from rattlesnakepress.com/.
Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!
in a spiral galaxy?
Under the soft electric glow that zaps
anything with wings at midnight,
wings that keep getting closer
house by isolated house—
remember how we drive this same
stretch of woods
like so many travelers
trying to get home before dark,
through hills where a lost dog
runs with the fear of doe in his feet.
Again tonight we arrive back
at our own front door, under no stars
but sky’s coupled pressure
building, released in heat
lightning. If there’s no freedom
for a shoe that’s lost its
mate, why can’t we just be joyful?
—Taylor Graham, Somerset
___________________
Thanks, TG! Taylor Graham is responding to yesterday's Seed of the Week, "Leftovers". She writes: OK, this is leftovers for sure. [Workshoppers in] Red Fox Underground have a nasty way of crossing out Foxes' favorite lines: "save it for another poem." So I gathered some of mine and here's what I got.
And David Humphreys sends us this response to last week's SOW about dogs. Thanks, David!
SHILOH
—David Humphreys, Stockton
I lost the first poem I wrote about the dog maybe
four years ago. Don’t know how it happened except
that it was so clearly out of his cocky prime I guess
I was just a little put out by the strutting sexual leer
of it, dog ears all perked up with his tongue lolling out
in a wide laughing grin mincing up to sniff out every
passing feminine bustle of attention, eyes rimmed in
handsome mascara theater, plume tail curling up behind
him like a feather in a Musketeer’s velvet hat. I must
have deleted it in some distracted irritation. Anyway,
here it is again, resurrected with all the odd details intact
as we both head out on our morning walk one more
time both of us a little heavier than we used to be, even
after 1200 miles further down the road.
Now, in just a few short years he has turned gray and slows
to a tired walk before we finish our two miles every morning.
Time is catching up with him as it has with all the others, one
named Tarawa, a jet black beauty that disappeared chasing
cattle in Colorado. Then came two lovely Goldens, Orion a
handsome dark male with a congenital heart defect and his
sister Chelsea a happy bright lighter female. I’ll miss all
of them before much longer and just have to go out and find
another to help me count the passing miles.
___________________
This just in:
•••Tonight, Wednesday (3/19), 9 PM: Rattlechapper James DenBoer will be reading at Bistro 33 as part of the Poetry Night at Bistro 33 Reading Series at 226 F St., Davis. Long-appreciated by local readers of poetry, James DenBoer’s work has appeared in a great variety of publications in multiple media. DenBoer has authored eight books of poetry spanning almost 40 years (including Black Dog for Rattlesnake Press), has appeared in another seven anthologies of poetry and literature, and has won awards and grants from the National Council on the Arts, the Author’s League of America, the Carnegie Fund for Authors and the National Endowment for the Arts. DenBoer’s most recent book, Stonework: Selected Poems, was published by Sandra McPherson’s Swan Scythe Press in the city of Davis. Open Mic follows the Featured Reader. Free and Open to the Public; hosted by Brad Henderson and Andy Jones. For more on James DenBoer, visit http://www.paperwrk.com/ or his rattlechapper page on rattlesnakepress.com/. JDB will be releasing another chapbook from Rattlesnake Press this June.
__________________
THE PRODIGAL
—Elizabeth Bishop
The brown enormous odor he lived by
was too close, with its breathing and thick hair,
for him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty
was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung.
Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts,
the pigs' eyes followed him, a cheerful stare—
even to the sow that always ate her young—
till, sickening, he leaned to scratch her head.
But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts
(he hid the pints behind a two-by-four),
the sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red;
the burning puddles seemed to reassure.
And then he thought he almost might endure
his exile yet another year or more.
But evenings the first star came to warn.
The farmer whom he worked for came at dark
to shut the cows and horses in the barn
beneath their overhanging clouds of hay,
with pitchforks, faint forked lightnings, catching light,
safe and companionable as in the Ark.
The pigs struck out their little feet and snored.
The lantern—like the sun, going away—
laid on the mud a pacing aureole.
Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,
he felt the bats' uncertain staggering flight,
his shuddering insights, beyond his control,
touching him. But it took him a long time
finally to make his mind up to go home.
____________________
—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: News from Rattlesnake Press
The brand-new Rattlesnake Review (#17) is now available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail this week and next. And if you aren't any of those but would like me to mail you one, send two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.
Also New in March: Attracted to Light, a chapbook by Ann Privateer; Eclipse, a free littlesnake broadside by Jeanine Stevens; and Conversations Volume Two of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, all available at The Book Collector or from rattlesnakepress.com/.
Coming in April: We will mark the Snake’s fourth birthday by throwing the Fourth Annual Birthday Bash at The Book Collector on Wednesday, April 9, including a buffet at 7 PM, followed by a reading at 7:30 PM. That night, there will be three history-making releases: Ann Menebroker’s new chapbook (Small Crimes); Ted Finn re-emerges with a new SnakeRings SpiralChap of his poetry and art (Damn the Eternal War); and Katy Brown inaugurates her blank (well, not really) journal series for our HandyStuff department with her MUSINGS: Photos and Prompts For Capturing Creative Thought. Please join us to celebrate four years of [your] poetry with fangs!