TWO LIVES AND OTHERS
—Winfield Townley Scott
Beyond the field where crows cawed at a hawk
The road bent down between oaks, pines, and maples:
Maples skimming the air with terra cotta.
The oaks spat acorns over scurries of squirrels.
Moss crunched stiff underfoot, and overhead
The sky was gradually freezing, white across blue.
We hurried our walk through shadows, yet it was
A noticeable sort of afternoon:
We honored a faded robin and considered
The importance of the color gray on bluejays.
A woodchuck, all an urgent clumsiness,
Made his tumbling run, then he saw us,
Plunged, hid, and screamed his whistle of fear.
Round the next bend to twilight we went past
A solitary house, one room lamplighted,
An old man at supper alone facing the wall.
If he was aware of us he gave no sign.
We circled home, that last day before snow.
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Welcome, Autumn! Time for a giveaway! Let's make this week's Seed of the Week an easy one; I've got books to give away! Send me a Fall poem that you wrote yourself and I'll send you—free—Pat Grizzell's new rattlechap, Thirteen Poems. This SOW has a deadline, though: midnight (emailed or postmarked) Friday, Sept. 26. Email to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com or snail 'em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.
LEFT BEHIND
—Donald R. Anderson, Stockton
We leave behind the chips,
the half-drunk soda cups,
the cigarettes still smoking
their way into the amber summer sky.
And yet I can't seem to leave them behind.
They seem needed to be cared for,
put in their proper places.
The papers need sorting,
filing, filtering,
put neatly on the shelf.
The recyclables need to be reused.
The cups I wait till the last second
to rinse and reuse,
but still,
everything fits into place.
They need me.
But I can't turn back time,
and no matter how much I care,
you are the one for which
I just... can't... find a place.
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Thanks, Donald, for your response to last week's SOW: The Things We Keep, The Things We Leave Behind.
Donald sends us this notice: Come out this Sunday (9/28) to the SF MoMa's closing celebration of the great mexican artist, Frida Kahlo: "Pasión por Frida!" SF MoMa's Frida Kahlo Closing Exhibition, curated by Rene Yanez. There will be a FREE performance featuring Jennifer Barone, host of WordParty poetry & jazz dressed as Frida Kahlo and reading original poems about Frida, along with many talented Frida look-a-likes performing live music, painting, dancing and more at SF MoMa in the Schwab Room, 151 Third St., SF. Info: www.sfmoma.org/.
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TREES STANDING BARE
—Marvin Bell
Those that do are not ashamed
to stand without leaves through the winter.
They know that loneliness
is not a clover pasture
or a stand of oak and hickory. They know
that the green of a pine
is all we will know of green,
and that all we will know of the dark
is sleep's forgetfulness.
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THE NEST
—Marvin Bell
The day the birds were lifted from my shoulders,
the whole sky was blue, a long-imagined effect
had taken hold, and a small passenger plane
was beating the earth with its wings
as it swung over the bean fields toward home.
A fat car barely traveled a narrow road
while I waited at the bottom of a hill.
People around me were speaking loudly
but I heard only whispers, and stepped away.
You understand, I was given no choice.
For a long time, I was tired of whatever it was
that dug its way into my shoulders for balance
and whispered in my ears, and hung on for dear life
among tall narrow spaces in the woods
and in thickets and crowds, like those of success,
with whom one mingles at parties and in lecture halls.
In the beginning, there was this or that...
but always on my shoulders that which had landed.
That was life, and it went on in galleries
and shopping plazas, in museums and civic centers,
much like the life of any responsible man
schooled in the marriage of history and culture
and left to learn the rest at the legs of women.
In furtive rooms, in passing moments, the sea
reopened a door at its depth, trees spoke
from the wooden sides of houses, bodies became
again the nests in the naked tree.
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THE SELF AND THE MULBERRY
—Marvin Bell
I wanted to see the self, so I looked at the mulberry.
It had no trouble accepting its limits,
yet defining and redefining a small area
so that any shape was possible, any movement.
It stayed put, but was part of all the air.
I wanted to learn to be there and not there
like the continually changing, slightly moving
mulberry, wild cherry and particularly the willow.
Like the willow, I tried to weep without tears.
Like the cherry tree, I tried to be sturdy and productive.
Like the mulberry, I tried to keep moving.
I couldn't cry right, couldn't stay or go.
I kept losing parts of myself like a soft maple.
I fell ill like the elm. That was the end
of looking in nature to find a natural self.
Let nature think itself not manly enough!
Let nature wonder at the mystery of laughter.
Let nature hypothesize man's indifference to it.
Let nature take a turn at saying what love is!
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DEW AT THE EDGE OF A LEAF
—Marvin Bell
The broader leaves collect
enough to see early
by a wide spread of moonlight,
and they shine!, shine!—
who are used to turning
faces to the light.
Looking up is farthest.
From here or under any tree,
I know what will transpire:
leaves in their watery halos have
an overhead-to-underfoot career,
and thrive toward falling.
In a passage of time and water,
I am half-way—a leaf in July?
In August? I take no pity.
Everything green is turning brown,
it's true, but then too
everything turning brown is green.
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Today's LittleNip:
C. was amazed, she said, by how [John Berryman] could make poems out of so little—"bits of string and thread, and some dust from under the bed."
—Marvin Bell
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—Medusa
SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:
Now available at The Book Collector in Sacramento, and (soon) from rattlesnakepress.com/: Thirteen Poems, a new chapbook from Patrick Grizzell; #2 in Katy Brown's series of blank journals (Musings2: Vices, Virtues and Obsessions); a free littlesnake broadside (Wind Physics) from Jordan Reynolds; plus Issue #19 of Rattlesnake Review (also free!). Contributor and subscription copies of RR19 will be going into the mail this week. Next deadline for submissions is November 15.
Coming in October: October’s release at The Book Collector on Weds., Oct. 8, will feature a new rattlechap from Moira Magneson (He Drank Because) and a littlesnake broadside from Hatch Graham (Circling of the Pack). That's at the Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s.
Then, on Thursday, Oct. 30, 8 PM, Rattlesnake Press will release two SpiralChaps to honor and celebrate Luna’s Café, including a new collection of art and poetry from B.L. Kennedy (Luna’s House of Words) and an anthology of Luna’s poets, artists and photographs (La Luna: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café) edited by Frank Andrick. Come travel with our Away Team as we leave the Home of the Snake for a brief road trip/time travel to Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento to celebrate Art Luna and the 13 years of Luna's long-running poetry series. Who knows what auspicious adventures await us there?
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.......!
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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.