Like Two Elephants Playing Chicken

Oh, wait!—wrong bird...

SAFE IN THE HILLS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

All
the wild
turkeys have
disappeared—all
eight of them. I’d watch
them promenade our swale,
do the turkey circle-dance,
and peck our bit of lawn. They’re gone.
Turkeys keep good calendar, they know
it’s time to take Thanksgiving vacation.

___________________

THANKSGIVING
—Allegra Jostad Silberstein, Davis

We
are one
in kinship
saying thank-you
each in our own way
feasting with gratitude
love and a vision of peace:
all religions can meet this day
our fallible natures nourished and
in the crowded heart comes a kind of flight

__________________

Thanks to TG and Allegra Silberstein for more responses to this week's Seed of the Week: Thanksgiving. Send me a Thanksgiving poem and I'll post it. But send me a Thanksgiving etheree, and I'll mail you Katy Brown's new 2009 calendar, Beyond the Hill. What's an etheree? See the fine examples above; I think you can figure out the form from them. (Hint: count the syllables in each line.) This SOW has a deadline, though: to get your free calendar, your etheree(s) must be sent by midnight (e-mailed or postmarked) Monday, November 24. Addresses are below.

And another TG sends us a thistle poem: Tom Goff, who says he was inspired by yesterday's thistle photos, particularly the tall silhouette taken by Katy Brown. Thanks, TG, and thanks to rattlechapper Steve Williams, too, for his wonderful poetry below. All of today's poets will be represented in Snake 20, due out Dec. 10.


THISTLE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Tall drink of a silhouette, atop it a bristle-
spider. Bee-with-a-prickly-aura. Spine beetle.
Abdomen, set to expel egg,
spin web, anti-gravity, This End Up.
Say, rather, an egg cup
on a stem, itching to emit a yolk-gold
worth an emirate—and not cold.
Symmetrical insect legs,
little bent leaf-sneers,
gracile spears,
thrust up from the calyx. In the covert
thin thicket, a rich blackforest green,
then—since the background’s a clearing, overt—
that tending-to-radiant
sheen,
that urge
of voltage-spike spring meadow
in mid-surge,
ascending day-gradient
in Key Lime
proclaiming, Sunlight! This’ll
fix all things for all time!
Quoth the flower: Here I am, thistle
triumphant! Only a dark upswept braid
looms in the backshadow,
lurking, tensed and dirklike, in the glade…

__________________

ELEPHANT PARTS
—Steve Williams, Portland
(with apologies to Michael Nesmith)

Saturday night deep in the Ford years
(after the pardon and before Squeaky points
her swastika at the elephant),
Portland Wrestling is on channel 12.

The old armory is dim; the creak of folding
bodies into chairs; cinder block walls ooze
tobacco tar. Lonnie Mayne grapples
with Dutch Savage, their arms link
their foreheads together.
Rotunda men scrum rugby style
in a boxing ring. They separate, debate,
bounce into ropes and rush
each other like two elephants playing chicken.
Beer belly slams beer belly
tusks lock into tusks,
trunks twirl and the cuss of men
suck and spill their brew.

The announcer barely raises
his cliché but startles the referee
who’s been careful not to wrinkle his sweater.
This is a grudge match.
These two don’t like each other.

At home in the flood plain, Joanne always watches,
hopes for her husband’s favorite to win.
She wants to know in advance
whether to load the chicken’s gun.
Will he pass out in bed or rush
into her arms—her nipples pierced
by sharpened tusks.

__________________

DIVORCE
—Steve Williams

You are the scale and blister of Jock Itch
advancing down my inner thigh, surround each leg hair.
I am on my back, splayed, split and played.
I molt and leak, stack scabs under my finger nails.

You are fertile sweat, mushrooms shining like cream
where thigh meets pelvis again and again.
I wallow in the char of your glory loam.

This is lichen that crumbles the rock into emerald
and lime hyphae where nothing else can live. I am pricked
by your root hair, clothed in your truffles.

At our daughter’s birth, you screamed
for the Epidural to work and I pounded the wall
waiting for the doctor. This marriage is a truffle dog
dropping the root treasure for a piece of bread
and a pat on the head. Today, he died.

At the drug store, I browse past the Icey Hot pads,
the knee braces, the crutches and canes. Here are the creams—
firefighters and their hoses.
One hand rakes the inside of my pocket as the other
examines the four weeks of treatment on the package.
I drop cash on the counter and take my medicine home.

This is not a sickness but rather a hazard of locker rooms,
sharing towels and floors, an unbalanced bed,
an unwillingness to exterminate the necessary rot.

__________________

PARACHUTES
—Steve Williams

Desk Clerk: Are you here for an affair, sir? ~The Graduate

Mrs. Robinson pulls the strings
of her garters, peels stockings down the thigh,
caresses the back of her knee, floats them into a puddle
of sniper rot. Parachutes find it difficult to fly

in Saigon where another corporal is fragged
by his own race. Yet the nylon bed-sheet
curtains the camera, refuses to confess it is white.
She plays spy-game roulette and all her slugs drop

into the chamber of your apathy. You are in Berkeley
and the Asian war has yet to be shot
in living color. This is the cancer
of booze, that twist of tobacco smoke but not the acid test.

Rizzo, you die on the next bus and Joe Buck will soon
be coming home in a fucking wheelchair. The pill
has screwed the odds in her daughter’s favor.
Go ahead, Lenny. Assassinate yourself. Seize the day,

fold your taffeta sail into the back
of Ben’s speed, Elaine. You’re flying downwind
through a tie-dying afternoon while our parents
swing to the jazz of improvised youth.

I want to tell you all to jump off of the bus,
to tuck and roll in the dirt, kiss the worms,
weave bullet proof silk and wrap the dead
before they die too soon.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.

—Mark Twain

__________________

—Medusa


SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

Rattlesnake Review: Deadline for the current issue (#20) has passed (it was Nov. 15); that issue is currently rattling around in the SnakePit and will be released at The Book Collector reading on December 10, then mailed to contributors and subscribers in mid-December. Next deadline is February 15: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to include all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of Medusa are always hungry!

New for November: Now available at The Book Collector, or from the authors, or through rattlesnakepress.com (or—heck—just write to me and I'll send 'em to you): a new rattlechap from Red Fox Underground Poet Wendy Patrice Williams (Some New Forgetting); a littlesnake broadside from South Lake Tahoe Poet Ray Hadley (Children's Games); our 2009 calendar from Katy Brown (Beyond the Hill: A Poet’s Calendar) as well as Conversations, Vol. 4 of B.L. Kennedy’s Rattlesnake Interview Series, featuring conversations with Luke Breit, Gail Rudd Entrekin, Traci Gourdine, Taylor Graham, Noel Kroeplin, Rob Lozano, Crawdad Nelson, Monika Rose, Will Staple, Mary Zeppa and nila northSun. And don't forget to pick up your copies of B.L. Kennedy's new SpiralChap of his poetry and art, Luna's House of Words, as well as the anthology of poets, art and photos, La Luna: Poetry Unplugged from Luna's Cafe, edited by frank andrick.

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Write to me and I'll send you one. Free!

Coming in December: Join us at The Book Collector on Wednesday, December 10, for the release of a new chapbook from Danyen Powell (Blue Sky Flies Out); a littlesnake broadside from Kevin Jones, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#20)! That's at 7:30, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's.


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 SOWs; 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.