Cassiopeia
LITTLE HOUSES EVERYWHERE
—Ray Hadley, South Lake Tahoe
I was looking around my neighborhood
for these little houses that hold
electrical switching equipment.
A poet told me to do this.
He said they looked like fairy houses
or a house where an elf might live.
They were all around,
but nobody ever notices them.
They were there, of course, and when
you got close there was a humming sound
coming from inside.
No one was ever there. They must have
come at night to do repairs.
No sign of human activity, no
half a sandwich left on a gray board
above a meter, no forgotten cup
of a thermos.
They also looked like bath houses
where the children go to change clothes
before they go swimming,
rubber thongs across wet cement floors,
showers going on and off.
The houses yield nothing. Their secret
is kept as secret as the secret
of the starry sky.
Look, there's Orion, a few we recognize,
Cassiopeia. I always say out there,
one day, I'll learn the stars,
or one day see somebody go into
one of these little houses. Then,
I'll stop and ask what it is all about...
—Ray Hadley, South Lake Tahoe
I was looking around my neighborhood
for these little houses that hold
electrical switching equipment.
A poet told me to do this.
He said they looked like fairy houses
or a house where an elf might live.
They were all around,
but nobody ever notices them.
They were there, of course, and when
you got close there was a humming sound
coming from inside.
No one was ever there. They must have
come at night to do repairs.
No sign of human activity, no
half a sandwich left on a gray board
above a meter, no forgotten cup
of a thermos.
They also looked like bath houses
where the children go to change clothes
before they go swimming,
rubber thongs across wet cement floors,
showers going on and off.
The houses yield nothing. Their secret
is kept as secret as the secret
of the starry sky.
Look, there's Orion, a few we recognize,
Cassiopeia. I always say out there,
one day, I'll learn the stars,
or one day see somebody go into
one of these little houses. Then,
I'll stop and ask what it is all about...
__________________
Thanks, Ray! Watch for more of Ray Hadley's poetry in Snake 19, due out in mid-September. And watch for a littlesnake broadside from Ray, coming out in November!
Speaking of Lake Tahoe, go see Ray and other poets from the Lake Tahoe Writing Club one week from Friday (8/27), at 7:30 PM, when there will be an Open Mic Night at the Valhalla Grand Hall in Tahoe, just north of Camp Richardson on Hiway 89. Travel Hiway 50 to the "y" then take 50 north about 5 miles.
And the second edition of writings from the Lake Tahoe Writing Club is available, too. It's been renamed The Edge, and it’s 73 pp, perfect-bound with colored photographs. They are now accepting submissions for the next edition, by the way. Go to TahoeWritingClub.com or info@LakeTahoeWritingClub.com/.
Also in Snake 19, we shall have poetry from several members of the West Virginia Writers Roundtable. One of these poets is Barbary Chaapel, who has a new book out which is available at cburll@hotmail.com/. Here is a sample from it; thanks, Barbary!
OUT OF HER SKIN
—Barbary Chaapel
Overhead in the woodshed
Betwixt errant wisteria vines and rafters
She watches me.
It is a new moon day.
She is in the blue: eyes cloudy,
Milk beneath her skin.
She is uneasy, wills me to leave
Her alone in her homeplace
To slough in one piece, her skin and eye caps.
In my own house, I shed long stockings
With economy of motion, hang them
Over the wood and gauze screen, prepare my bath.
This evening we'll celebrate
With saucers of milk and banana,
Sacred marigolds scattered on the woodshed floor,
This freedom from loathing,
This paradigm,
Beauty beneath our skin.
__________________
This week in NorCal poetry:
•••Monday (8/18), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Nancy Wallace and Melen Lunn Fureby at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Refreshments and Open Mic. [See last Saturday's post for bios.]
Coming to SPC next Monday (8/25): Ann Keniston and June Saraceno.
•••Tuesday (8/19), 9 PM (and again on Thursday, Aug. 21 at 5 AM): The Moore Time for Poetry Television Show features Vocalist Yardley Griffin Jr., poet Candy, poet Mario Ellis Hill, poet Random Abiladeze and poet Angela Wilson. The show airs on Comcast Cable Ch. 17, or view it at www.accesssacramento.org (click on the BIG "Watch Channel 17" button).
•••Wednesday (8/20), 9 PM: Poetry Night at Bistro 33 presents B.L. Kennedy. Kennedy has been an active voice in Sacramento poetry since 1976. He is a graduate of California State University, Sacramento with Master’s Degrees in both Creative Writing and Performance Poetry. He also attended the Naropa Institute's Jack Kerouac School Of Disembodied Poetics where he studied with Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Robert Creeley and others, eventually earning an M.F.A. in American Literature and Creative Writing. He is the author of 25 books of poetry and Director of the documentary film, I Began To Speak, an informal history of poetry in Sacramento. Kennedy has been responsible for three poetry marathons and the production of Landing Signals: An Anthology Of Sacramento Poetry. He was born with attitude in the Bronx, NYC, digs Jazz, and is one of the hosts of the long-running Poetry Unplugged reading series at Luna’s Café in Sacramento. He also serves as Reviewer-in-Residence and Interviewer-in-Residence for Rattlesnake Review—watch for his “BL 418 Buzz” in each issue, his "B.L.'s Drive-Bys" (micro-reviews) each Thursday in Medusa's Kitchen, and Volume Four of his Rattlesnake Interview Series, Conversations, due out in November. In addition, watch for his new tribute to Luna's Café, due out October 30. (More about that later!)
Poetry Night at Bistro 33 takes place on the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 226 F Street in Davis. The featured reader begins at 9 PM, and an open mic follows the feature. All Poetry Night events are free and open to the public. The hosts of Poetry Night are Brad Henderson and Andy Jones.
•••Thursday (8/21), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers with open mic before and after.
•••Sunday (8/24), Noon to 4 PM: Poetry in the Trees in San Francisco. Picnic and poetry reading at the Jerry Garcia amphitheater. For detailed information and a photo of the amphitheater, go to clarahsu.com/hotel.html/ or contact Clara Hsu, 301 Gambier St., San Francisco, CA 94134-1341, tel: 415-244-1317, http://www.clarahsu.com/. This year they will be featuring four Bay Area Poet Laureates: Albert Flynn DeSilver of Marin, Penelope La Montagne of Healdsburg, Martha Meltzer of Pleasanton, and Connie Post of Livermore, as well as open mic before and after the featured readers.
__________________
NOCTURN CABBAGE
—Carl Sandburg
Cabbages catch at the moon.
It is late summer, no rain, the pack of the soil
cracks open, it is a hard summer.
In the night the cabbages catch at the moon, the
leaves drip silver, the rows of cabbages are
series of little silver waterfalls in the moon.
__________________
SKETCH OF A POET
—Carl Sandburg
He wastes time walking and telling the air, "I am superior even to the wind."
On several proud days he has addressed the wide circumambient atmosphere, "I am the wind myself."
He has poet's license 4-11-44; he got it even before writing of those "silver bugs that come on the sky without warning every evening."
He stops for the buzzing of bumblebees on bright Tuesdays in any summer month;
he performs with a pencil all alone among dun cattails, amid climbing juniper bushes, notations rivaling the foot tracks of anxious spiders; he finds mice homes under beach logs in the sand and pursues inquiries on how the mice have one room for bed-room, dining-room, sitting-room and how they have no front porch where they sit publicly and watch passers-by.
leaves drip silver, the rows of cabbages are
series of little silver waterfalls in the moon.
__________________
SKETCH OF A POET
—Carl Sandburg
He wastes time walking and telling the air, "I am superior even to the wind."
On several proud days he has addressed the wide circumambient atmosphere, "I am the wind myself."
He has poet's license 4-11-44; he got it even before writing of those "silver bugs that come on the sky without warning every evening."
He stops for the buzzing of bumblebees on bright Tuesdays in any summer month;
he performs with a pencil all alone among dun cattails, amid climbing juniper bushes, notations rivaling the foot tracks of anxious spiders; he finds mice homes under beach logs in the sand and pursues inquiries on how the mice have one room for bed-room, dining-room, sitting-room and how they have no front porch where they sit publicly and watch passers-by.
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
I am here all morning with the familiar
Blank page in front of me, I have perused
An american anthology for stimulation
But the result is not encouraging as it used
To be when Walter Lowenfel's falling down words
Like ladders excited me to chance my arm
With nouns and verbs.
But the wren, the wren got caught in the furze
And the eagle turned turkey on my farm.
(from "In Blinking Blankness: Three Efforts" by Patrick Kavanagh)
__________________
—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's Up With Rattlesnake Press
The Snake will be snoozing through July and August, leaving Medusa to carry on alone. Then on September 10, we shall burst back onto the scene with Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); a littlesnake broadside (Wind Physics) from Jordan Reynolds; plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (deadline is August 15). Meanwhile, look in on Medusa every day, and, for heaven's sake, keep sending stuff! The snakes of Medusa are always hungry...
Medusa's Weekly Menu:
(Contributors are welcome to cook up something 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 (sometimes): 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 future issues of 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 ravenous poetic souls.
And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far and in-between! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!
_________________
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.