Photo by Kathy Kieth
MORNING
—Mary Oliver
Salt shining behind its glass cylinder.
Milk in a blue bowl. The yellow linoleum.
The cat stretching her black body from the pillow.
The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small, kind gesture.
Then laps the bowl clean.
Then wants to go out into the world
where she leaps lightly and for no apparent reason across the lawn,
then sits, perfectly still, iin the grass.
I watch her a little while, thinking:
what more could I do with wild words?
I stand in the cold kitchen, bowing down to her.
I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.
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This weekend in NorCal poetry:
•••Sat. (5/10), 8 PM: Canadian duo Allison Russell and Awna Teixeira mix poetry with jazz, gypsy, folk, punk and Cajun music. Sutter Creek Theater, 44 Main St., Sutter Creek. $18 advance, $20 day of show. 209-267-1070.
•••Sat. (5/10), 2-4 PM: Culture Collection presents La-Rue, Rodzilla, Claudia Epperson, Adrian Jasper, ImmoBrne and vocalist Sidney Nicholas. 6391 Riverside Blvd., Sacramento. Free. 916-208-7638.
•••Monday (5/12), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center and presents Rebecca Foust and Elizabeth Krause at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Rebecca Foust was born and raised in Altoona, formerly one of the country’s great railroad towns, located in the Allegheny Mountains in western Pennsylvania. She attended Smith College and Stanford Law School on scholarships and practiced law for ten years and now lives with her husband and three teenagers in Northern California. She has published work in Atlanta Review, Dos Passos Review, Margie, Marin Poetry Center Anthology, Nimrod International Journal, North American Review, and Taproot Literary Review and is currently in the low residency M.F.A. Writing Program at Warren Wilson College. Elizabeth Krause, who had been attending American River College, will be attending the University of Iowa in the fall. She is the current layout and design manager for Poetry Now and is the master of all that is Finno-Ugrian. Did I mention she makes a mean potato salad?
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PORCHES
—Marie J. Ross, Stockton
Porches
painted white, the faces
of peace and tranquility,
sun draped with humming
birds twitting.
Morning breaks,
strong brewed coffee down
the esophagus, burnt toast,
a loud shout,
the porch abandoned.
Mid-afternoon,
summer vitality, laughter,
lounge chair awaits on vestibule,
lemonade then respite.
Twilight,
verandah swing clangs it’s chains,
hand holding,
moon weaves silver magic, eyes meet,
lips kiss,
porch the avenue to wedding bells.
Same chains,
the shuffle of older feet stroll the threads
of wood, the porch swing, swings slower,
harder to balance, slippers scuffed,
yet, even
in the cool brisk breeze of time passed,
memories rise like Lazarus, locked in white
paint of tranquility.
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Thanks, Marie! Marie Ross sends us this response to our Seed of the Week, porches. Country gal Mary Oliver knows all about porches and what can go on behind them:
THE MURDERER'S HOUSE
—Mary Oliver
Now small boys come to stare across the garden
Where flowers cast their petals day by day
Over the ground, and search the wind for winter,
And no one comes to chase the boys away.
This is a house of dark and mumbled fame.
Driving along at night, sometimes I've seen
A thin light burning deep within the rooms,
And thought how when the violent pass, how few
They leave to shed their tears upon the scene.
This is our failure, that in all the world
Only the stricken have learned how to grieve.
Safe in our cars, we pause along the highway
As one by one the leveling seasons fall;
And one by one we drive away, rejoicing
In such a distance as could strike us all.
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THE HOUSE
—Mary Oliver
Because we lived our several lives
Caught up within the spells of love,
Because we always had to run
Through the enormous yards of day
To do all that we hoped to do,
We did not hear, beneath our lives,
The old walls falling out of true,
Foundations shifting in the dark.
When seedlings blossomed in the eaves,
When branches scratched upon the door
And rain came splashing through the halls,
We made our miinor, brief repairs,
And sang upon the crumbling stairs
And danced upon the sodden floors.
For years we lived at peace, until
The rooms themselves began to blend
With time, and empty one by one,
At which we knew, with muted hearts
That nothing further could be done,
And so rose up, and went away,
Inheritors of breath and love,
Bound to that final black estate
No child can mend or trade away.
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Today's LittleNip:
What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing about the origin and destiny of cats?
—Henry David Thoreau
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Medusa
MEDUSA'S WEEKLY MENU:
(Contributors are welcome to cook something up for any and all of these!)
Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendar
Tuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOW; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. (Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell?) When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.
Wednesday: HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing. Favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorite tools.
Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy. Send books, CDs, DVDs, etc. to him for possible review (either as a Drive-By or in Rattlesnake Review) at P.O. Box 160664, Sacramento, CA 95816.
Friday: NorCal weekend poetry calendar
Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily munchables for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ever-hungry poetic souls.
And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!
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SNAKEWATCH: NEWS FROM RATTLESNAKE PRESS
Coming May 14: Join us on Wednesday, May 14 for the release of Among Summer Pines by Quinton Duval; a littlesnake broadside, Before Naming, by Stephani Schaefer; and Volume Three of Conversations, our third book of interviews by B.L. Kennedy, featuring Art Beck, Olivia Costellano, Quinton Duval, William S. Gainer, Mario Ellis Hill, Kathryn Hohlwein, James Jee Jobe, Andy Jones, Rebecca Morrison and Phillip T. Nails. That's at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM.
Also in May: Deadline for Issue #18 of Rattlesnake Review is May 15. Free copies of Issue #17 are available at The Book Collector, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
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). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.