Medusa's Kitchen

Welcome to the Kitchen!—daily poetry from around the world (poetry with fangs!). Read our DIARY, the cream-colored section at the left, for poets local and otherwise. Then scroll down our GREEN AND BLUE BULLETIN BOARDS on the right for more poet-phernalia. And please feel free to be a SNAKEPAL and send your work, events and releases to kathykieth@hotmail.com—see "Placating the Gorgon" in the FUCHSIA LINKS right below here for info. Carpe Viperidae! Seize the Snake!

Saturday, October 31, 2009

For All Souls

Photo by Art Beck

HALLOWEEN
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

She filled her hands
With winter light and November's
Crows, a cacophany of wings
Against the blue of early evening.

Children used to come here.
There were hills and copses and woods
Challenging the imagination with shadows
Caught alive in stories of the Fall.

The road ended at her mouth,
Full of weeds and drifting terrors
Searching for a body to accompany
During the dark evenings of the waning year.

Shaken, she reaches for the twilight
As if it were a vessel of some kind,
Easy on any sea, unmoved and with sails
Painted in the colors of forgetting.

To dream was to vanish into memory,
The twinkle of an eye,
The brush of a hand across a shoulder,
No place for sharing stories, whispering.

This time of year is full of stuff
Like this, fine of hand and bathed
In a crystal construct made of wood,
Made of fire, made of singing.

She was not given to understand
More of this than her hands covered
With the cool and brilliant light.
She wishes us luck as we continue

Toward the shoreline, the same light
Glinting off the water, infecting
Our minds, making everything in life
A challenge and the turning of the days
Borne on the backs of black birds
Exploding time with cackling and shrieking.

__________________

THE FALL FROM GRACE
—Art Beck, San Francisco

Something happened to us.
We sense it in our genes.
Whether it was the rebuff
of a secret garden

or an errant spaceship
marooned light years from
home on a hopeless
world—somewhere, somehow, long

ago, we lost something—too painfully
to recall. Something so lovely
our blood can’t forget.

Music remembers, wine
remembers, and lovers, like drunken
angels, console their helpless wings.

_________________

ALL SAINTS MORNING
—Art Beck

(for Al Masarik)

A lazy, open door Saturday.
The sly, Chinese waitress quietly
flirts with you in painful English
while the cook chops vegetables for the soup.

You flirt with the bacon on your plate.
Your bacon—you think—has already flirted
with disaster, has no further
interest in any of this. But outside,

over the chimneys,
a black Halloween balloon set
free the morning after
sails like the risen Lazarus
into a blue, unsuspecting day.

Behind the bar, under spotless glasses,
the rich purple bottles lounge in rows
like squads of fat cops fingering
their nightsticks, waiting to
march you off to lunch.
And who’s that walking past
the window on legs you can’t
take your eyes off?

What’s in the air that’s so
helpless and promising? Everyone knows
about spring, but that snappy copper
headed woman’s hair really needs
this hard, November, sidewalk light,
this especially anxious breeze to flutter

in that I don’t mind winter come
get me way. Even in November, something
in the blood can’t ever say no,
doesn’t care you can’t say why.

__________________

PARK BENCHES
All Souls Day, 2008
—Art Beck

Arranged this way in front of the empty bandstand
in the fog, they’re a convocation of ghosts each with its
own ID tag—the plaques sold by the forever needy City
to mourners abandoned by their dead.

Mother, father, sister, wife, child, husband:
each name inscribed in a brass sodality of sorrow,
whispering to the deaf, brash strollers who sit and ignore
the shocked begging mouths of a speechless wound.

But they’re beyond that now, internees imprisoned
in endless snow, or wincing in a sudden desert of wind
and dust. Their names are all they’ve left behind,

coins from the turned out pockets of the condemned.
If they lived once, they’ll always live, but always
hungry as anything that’s born will always be.

Today's LittleNip:

THE BURN
—D.R. Wagner

There are no stars in the sky tonight.
It is not because of the clouds.
The ego is so immense.
I feel I have called this to myself.

__________________

Thanks to D.R. Wagner and Art Beck for their musings on Halloween and about tomorrow, All Saints/All Souls Day.

—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW:

RR23 is now available free at The Book Collector,
and contributor and subscription copies
have gone into the mail—you should've received yours;
let me know if you haven't.
You may also order a copy through rattlesnakepress.com/.
Deadline is November 15 for RR24: 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 add all contact info,
including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa
are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa,
or for either one, and please—only one submission packet
per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

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. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or
write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

NEW FOR OCTOBER:

Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento:
A new chapbook from Brad Buchanan (The War Groom)
and a new Rattlesnake LittleBook from
William S. Gainer: Joining the Demented.

WTF!!: The third issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from
Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick,
is now available at The Book Collector,
or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #4 was Oct. 15;
it'll be released at Luna's on Thursday, Nov. 19.
Next deadline (for Issue #5) is Jan. 15.
Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing,
to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Now available from SPC or at The Book Collector:
Our new anthology,
Keepers of the Flame: The First 30 Years of the Sacramento Poetry Center.
Editor-in-Chief Mary Zeppa and her helpers have put together
many, many documents and photos
from SPC's 30-year history.

COMING IN NOVEMBER:

Join us on Wednesday, November 11
for a new chapbook from Dawn DiBartolo (Secrets of a Violet Sky);
Rattlesnake Reprint #2, this one from frank andrick (Triptych);
plus our 2010 calendar from Katy Brown (Wind in the Yarrow)!
That's 7:30 PM at The Book Collector. Be there!

_________________

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.

Friday, October 30, 2009

October Country

Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

HAUNTED
—Mitz Sackman, Murphys

Haunted, October Country
Spirits of the past
Uncertainty of the present
Possibilities of the future
Ghosts are here now
Shouting in words I don’t understand
Dressed in a rainbow of colors
Invading my dream world
With vivid imagery
That makes no sense of nonsense
Where is understanding
What are these ghosts
Uncertainties of the present
Spirits of the past
Haunted, October Country

__________________

MINE OWN GHOSTS
—Mitz Sackman

Things that go bump in the night
That hoary old line
Do not describe my ghosts
Mine are liquid memories, soft focus
Shimmering images floating in my mind
Backgrounds unclear
Context unknown
Ghosts flowing swiftly from my past
Running through my fingers
That can never quite grasp
They slide on by
A message for me from my past
I pause to reflect
Why now, what can it mean?

___________________

This weekend in NorCal poetry:

•••Fri. (10/30 and every last Friday of the month), 8-10:30 PM: TheBlackOutPoetrySeries inside The Upper Level VIP Lounge, 26 Massic Ct., Sacramento (located inside of Fitness Systems Healthclub, by Cal State Skating Rink; exit Mack Road East to Stockton Blvd and then make a left on Massie, right past Motel 6). Open mic. $5.00. Info: 916-208-POET or fromtheheart1@hotmail.com/.

•••Sat. (10/31, and every last Sat. of the month), 7-9 PM: Poetry From the Heart presents TheShowPoetrySeries at Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St. (off 35th & Broadway), $5.00. Info: 916 208-POET or fromtheheart1@hotmail.com/.

•••Sunday (11/1), 2 PM: Cleo Fellers Kocol will be speaking about the fascinating history of the Comstock Lode & Virginia City, Nevada, as well as reading excerpts from her novel, Fitzhugh's Woman. The novel, which blends fact and fiction, is set in Virginia City during the 1860's. 12 Bridges Library, 485 Twelve Bridges Dr., Lincoln. Free.

•••Mon. (11/7), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Richard Spilman, SPC Book Manuscript Winner for 2009 [Judge: Dennis Schmitz] at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. Richard Spilman was born and raised in Normal, IL and holds a BA from Illinois Wesleyan, an MA from San Francisco State and a PhD from the State University of New York at Binghamton. His collection of short stories, Hot Fudge, was a New York Times Notable Book in 1990. He has published poetry in over thirty journals, most recently in New Letters, Oxford Magazine, The Southern Review, and DoubleTake.

_________________

WRITERS... BEWARE OF
SHAKESPEARE'S GHOST
—Richard Zimmer, Sacramento

Mary Margo, a writer of mysteries, is on
a book tour. Her latest book, Mr. Death,
has her on edge. The characters she creates
seem so real, she can’t get any sleep.

She goes down to the hotel bar for a glass of
wine. A stranger approaches, asking for an
autograph. He talks about the main character
in her book, called Mr. Death, who wears
a paper crown and says he rules the world.

Then staring at Margo, the stranger says,
Your imagination has bodied forth forms
of things unknown, giving them shape
out of an airy nothingness…

Then frowning, says, My time now has ended.
I am but a spirit that you have created, and
am melting into air…into thin air…

With that the stranger disappears. Margo
looks down at his bar stool and sees only
a paper crown. Quickly she drinks her wine.

___________________

HAPPY HALLOWEEN
—Richard Zimmer

Now comes the haunting hour,
the sun is setting in the west.
Halloween has arrived.
Trick-or-Treaters start their quest.

On that day in late October,
children hurry all around—
little boys in vampire garb,
little girls in witch's gown.

Climbing stairs for Gummy Bears,
sticky things for them to eat—
chocolate bars and candy corn,
the rewards are truly sweet.

All about the moonlit night,
happy children knock on doors.
Back home by pumpkin's light,
candy pours on front room floors.

__________________

MUSIC STORE GHOSTS I
—Chrys Mollett, Angels Camp

Two brothers were parting out the family home.
They hauled in a large window box
with someone's old violin.
In a carved gilt frame.
The old instrument rests at an angle—
Almost ready for play—
And its beaten-up bow
Nicely placed across the strings
With a weathered copy of Ave Maria.

The framing job's worth more than the poor fiddle—
So I won't unseal the capsule
Which holds the scent of years ago.
It's on display atop a hutch in the music store
Where it catches its own selective dust.
Locked away in a gilt frame—
This piece of a home now gone—

I should come up with a better story.

__________________

MUSIC STORE GHOSTS II:
PAPER GHOSTS
—Chrys Mollett

People bring them in by the (heavy) boxful.
Choir selections
Grandmama's organ music
A raft of cello exercises
The lifetime collection of an opera buff.
Hits from the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's
Big band numbers simplified for living room dabblers.

Turn of the last century hits
with crumbling corners and darkened pages.
Some of the beautiful cover artwork is priceless.
But for a music store owner, priceless is a problem:
Without many hours of cataloging,
I can't direct even an interested buyer
to the right box
Or to an easy corner for sitting and browsing.

This week it was 2 boxes of banjo stuff
from the widow of an old friend of mine
He helped design my house, and my parents' home too...
I'm particularly honored with this gift.

I'm a last resort recipient of these paper ghosts.
It's me or the thrift store down the street—
or worse—the landfill.

With vagrant pieces, I've carefully folded
and cut snowflakes the size of salad plates
and hung them with string from the ceiling.
Like a fantasy paper winterland.

___________________

MUSIC STORE GHOSTS III:
IMPROMPTU
—Chrys Mollett

The parlor was once filled with music.
Mama passed her father's gift on
To her young daughter
Who's now asked to play
For family and friends after supper.

She doesn't want to.
She knows her fingers will stumble
on that one sticky part she hasn't mastered yet.

The guests' toes become an unwelcome metronome
pushing her on through the piece.

But as a percussive finale,
Grampa lets out a belch from his chair.
End of parlor concert—
and everyone is satisfied.

__________________

Photo by Katy Brown

Today's LittleNip:

JUDGED BY THE COMPANY ONE KEEPS
—Anonymous

One night in late October,
When I was far from sober,
Returning with my load with manly pride,
My feet began to stutter,
So I lay down in the gutter,
And a pig came near and lay down by my side;
A lady passing by was heard to say:
"You can tell a man who boozes,
By the company he chooses,"
And the pig got up and slowly walked away...

__________________

—Medusa

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Various Other Scary Thoughts

Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

GIRDERS
(October 27, 2009)
—Claire J. Baker

Thousands followed the telecast
of Bay Bridge crashed rod
("big around as an arm"):
we saw a huge metal box(?)
likewise crashed on this
extremely windy evening—
("only one minor injury").

Fifteen minutes later,
camera still zoomed in
on bridge bed, static scene,
restlessly my eyes rode
turbulent waves under
& beyond tick-tack-toe
girders.

__________________

Thanks to Claire Baker for the comment on the Bay Bridge misfortune; praise be that no one was killed or seriously injured. All this so close to the Loma Prieta anniversary... And, as Claire says, all those turbulent waves waiting like sharks underneath!

Our ghost-a-thon continues today with more wonderful poems from Ann Menebroker and D.R. Wagner, plus another seasonal ditty from Tom Goff. Enjoy!

PATROL GUARD
—Ann Menebroker, Sacramento

I never believed
in ghosts—
not even in the dark
when strange noises
flagged down my mind.
Let the sound
walk across the road
to the other side.
I'll be the patrol-guard.
Everything just
wants to get
on its way.

__________________

SEEING THE COLORS
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Near Sierraville, nestled in ultramontane,
a corridor, really, of thin-sliced-amber leaves,
a tumbling, mountain-air-slicing Steller’s jay
performs a feat that, reversing field, deceives:
as if the pool or swimming hole were the diver,
he plunges, a black-headed shard of sharp blue water
who disappears in ripples, breaking surface
just where the hillside, hide-tawny, still summer-sere,
transforms into lake, skin human, but more clear.

***

In Sattley stands an upright Victorian farmhouse,
compact but grand amid ambient grazing cows:
fresh-painted walls butter, trim bronze or brown,
besprent and besprinkled with autumn, down
in a tumbledown goldfall,
stuffing rain-gutters, sticking to windvane and pediment,
thickening the blue air like epithets,
pasted to gables in scatters of brass medals,
a perfect storm of epaulettes.
High in the soon-to-turn-snowy Sierra Valley,
a not yet mudtrod largesse of lonely, windfall
of autumn letters, right up Rilke’s alley.

***

Descending seven thousand feet of mountain,
we navigate an ominous chicane
where black and blacker spectral trees malinger
thrusting up flat yet far-too-real fingers.
Will we ever be released from this devil’s arcane?
And then we round a turn, and a fiery dell
reveals itself: the glimmer itself’s a swale,
but piling light upon sunset light in orange.
This archangel glow that beckons and beacons orange
stays us for fifty miles or more. Without fountain
spray or waver it renders itself a strange
spiritual geology thrust up
to counter the Range of Light with a Range of Twilight.
The one smooth height diminishes in cherry,
intenser of flavor than any ever tasted,
and clinging far longer in the cup.
And before it has wasted,
we’ve long since entertained a hope, very
faint hope, that if compelled too soon to go,
we might well be climbing the peak confected of alpenglow.

___________________

B.L.'s Drive-Bys: A Micro-Review by B.L. Kennedy

The Ghost Light: Master Works of Science Fiction and Fantasy
by Fritz Leiber
Berkley Books
368 pp, $7.95
ISBN: 0-425-06812-9

I know very few people who would argue that Fritz Leiber is not, hands down, a master storyteller in American Literature. His admirers include Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, John Jakes, and Peter Straub. The New York Times wrote of Leiber’s work as “fastmoving, ironic and delightful”. The author Paul Anderson has written “Perhaps no other modern writers except James Branch Cabell and Vladamir Nabokov have gotten such fun out of the human tragicomedy; and they, for all their wit, have never had Leiber’s uninhibited gusto.” The Ghost Light is an overview of Fritz Leiber’s career as a writer. It includes some of his finest short stories, a new novella, and his autobiography. What makes this book so special can be put in just two words: Fritz Leiber. I don’t think I need to say anymore, other than to highly recommend that you go out and find a copy of this book.

—B.L. Kennedy, Reviewer-in-Residence

__________________

ANOTHER HALLOWEEN
—D.R. Wagner

The moon is unsteady; trusting its light
To the stars it cowers behind clouds
Not allowing beams or dreams
To release themselves from its foggy
Journey. The voice is gone.

From the jungle floor we are able
To see those stars with proper names.
We do not greet them nor they us.
From here they seem cold. Distance
Is such a detached maiden, full of thoughts
That have nothing to do with our petty concerns.

Closer, a night bird tells the darkness
Another secret, crazing the place where we sleep
With lines of sound. Fear begins to rise from
Its shadowy rooms, tells us we should be afraid,
Of what we have no idea. Just be afraid
Comes the message. Halloween arranging

Its crested headpiece in orange and yellow,
Glaucous whites and using the wind as voice,
Begins the season's tales. We have heard them
All before and we have never heard them.

“Wait for the moon to return,” someone whispers.
“She will be round and huge and full. We will be able
To see everything the night conceals clearly.”

Perhaps this is a good idea. Things fly quickly
Just above our heads. We smell the cinnamon of
Autumn rising to the top of the night.
Someone calls our names.
We never recognize the voice.

Photo by D.R. Wagner

Today's LittleNip:

CALIFORNIA HALLOWEEN
—D.R. Wagner

Bright orange CALTRANS
Trash bags piled on the side
Of the freeway: Seasonal garbage.

__________________

—Medusa

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Ghost-Talk

I DID
—Ann Privateer, Davis

Did you ever carve a pumpkin
feel its slimy seeds slither
between fingers and hands?

Did you ever light a candle
watch it flicker inside
the orange cavern?

Did you ever keep a jack-o-lantern
on the porch until it changed
into a blackened web?

Did you ever wonder why
there are never twins
in the pumpkin patch?

__________________

BY DAY AND BY NIGHT
—Ann Privateer

Pumpkins by day
are safe enough
for baking a pie

but by night they
become sinister
bodies of fright

lined up on an old
abandoned road
luminaries

congregate
with no place to go
telling scary tales.

_________________

EARLY EVENING GHOSTS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Fog filters everything outside
but gray-black of the great oak rooted
snag-silhouette at the edge
where earth drops off to nothing.
A stiff-barked skeleton still standing,
the ghost of Patience.

All day we burned lamps and stoked
the stove while fog dismantled
what we know of solid ground.
This evening, ghosts of the old year
cold, not quite transparent,
gather around our fire.

_________________

HALLOWS EVE
—Taylor Graham

I listen in the dark to noises muffled
by the house. The wind
shuffling leaves and ancestors
in windfall heaps. Maybe an owl too far
away to say it’s not coyote, or
crazy Aunt Hermione in her starched
old-lady sheets. It’s Halloween.
Time to carve a toothless face in autumn’s
harvest. An acorn hits the roof.
Then something sloughs across beam
or shingle. Flatfooted
ghost, featureless as night thoughts
slipped to dream. By dawn-light,
who will that be
behind my mask in the mirror?
What will I find in the lint
of a pocket’s seam?

___________________

A NEW CHAPTER FOR THE HANGMAN'S TREE
—Taylor Graham

I’m walking down Main Street, past the Bell Tower
with its ghosts of three girls murdered, 1984,
to the Hangman’s Tree saloon, built on the stump
of the old hanging-tree. Shielding my eyes
against late sun, I look up at mortise-and-tenon joints
holding rafters and beams in place since 1853.
The lynch-effigy that for hung so long from a rafter
is gone—offensive to modern sensibilities.
A chill wind is window-shopping down Main Street,
speaking in ghost-talk to the dead. A gust peeks
into the old saloon, survivor of earthquake, fire,
flood. Can it survive our notions of progress, our
building codes and declarations of “hazard to public
safety”? A bit of reinforcing here and there,
a new roof, a paint job—it’ll be good for another
150 years. Tear down the old building’s ages,
where will the ghosts go?

___________________

END OF THE ROAD
—Taylor Graham

Here’s a teddy-bear slipper,
worn the evening she disappeared,
just down the street from this dead-end
on the east edge of town, cistern
for a city’s waste—floral couch sagging
into mire among shards of amber glass
(plinkers’ target practice); a headless
doll; chicken-wire on a frame;
a crimson agate in a spill of broken rock.
Footprints hardened into soil, none
small enough to be a child’s.
Anise and wild celery, willow bent
over standing water.
On ponderous wings a heron rises
from the cattails, long legs
trailing behind. If it could tell us
what it’s seen—no, it’s gone
without a sign.

__________________

HORSE ECONOMIES
—Taylor Graham

Indio, California, c 1951. 7 yrs old.
I had 20 cents.
1 plastic horse cost 10 cents (no tax);
2 plastic horses, 20 cents plus tax.
My parents taught me thrift.
I bought 1 plastic horse, buckskin (10 cents).
Then I bought another plastic horse, black (10 cents).
No tax.
I’ve always been low-finance,
I’m a poet.
I still collect horses,
the kind that canter in my mind.

__________________

Thanks to Ann Privateer and Taylor Graham for today's post. We're talking about ghosts this week, for some reason... Send your ghost poems to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. You know they're hanging around out there, just waiting for you.........

Photo by Ann Privateer

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

A cold autumn night—
I clutch my white robe;
The bright, clear moon covers the sky.

—Ryokan

__________________

—Medusa

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Ghosts & Children

HALLOWEEN NIGHT IN NATIONAL FOREST
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

Painting on your mask (to blend in with the trees)
you unmask yourself, become transparent:
aquiline nose, high cheekbones melt and
(stubble and worrylines gone)
you become The Pan
almost, here in the forest.
Ex-army scout, you expertly lead the way.

With slipping steps down steep leafy ground
we find our knoll in the dim flashbeam,
stop, and listen to the night
barely daring to breathe —
we two, the only humans for five miles, you say.
Under this oak-canopy
you toss away dead branches,
smooth the dirt with your boot.
Then (we take off our shoes) I cast the circle
by incense and candlelight.

We hum and chant and sing together
our separate songs,
we hum and chant and breathe together
and in the echoes
we sing and chant
until our pulses drum together.
Beads slithering over, slithering over maraca
snake-rattles chills up my spine.
The spirits looking on must gather
just beyond our circle
(the white-painted boy, the old Indian guide)
in racoon rustlings,
almost giving glimpse of themselves
but not

except for the Shadow Woman who dances with me
to your primal conga drum, so big
she reaches beyond the trees, touches the stars:
snake-arms undulating, stomping feet lift high,
hips swaying with bear-like grace —
At first just my reflection, then separate
she comes alive,
beckons me into her Shadow World.
I am frightened and have to look away.

"It's that fear that holds us here in this world," you say.

__________________

Thanks, Cynthia! Our Seed of the Week is Ghosts. Got any ghosts lurking around the corners of your life, hiding under the armoire? Ever lived in any houses you just couldn't quite warm the chill out of, either literally or metaphorically? Everybody has a ghost or six hanging around. I personally have too many to count.

Send your ghostly poems to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline on SOWs.

THE AMBIVALENCE OF GHOSTS
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines

This house is a mess: old stories litter
the carpet—toothless and arthritic,
they are, but still hobbling around
the couch, muttering and hunkering
under the coffee table. But I'm used to

these sad old tales—some of them
have been with us for years. It's the ghosts
that really mess up this place: flashing us
around corners, popping out from behind
the armoire, rustling and rattling

with the rats in the attic. It's those tiresome
ghosts that can't make up their minds
whether to stay or go: whether to cozy
under the quilts or back-flip up
the chimney: rude, smelly intruders

who won't let us eat or sleep or watch TV
without having to listen to their cater-
wauling, their whoo-ing and pointing
of fingers, their constant night-nattering
back and forth with those same, tired

stale old stories. . .

_________________

THE GHOSTS OF SLEEPLESS NIGHTS

mewl around
the doorway: mumbling mould

of threats and imprecations:
murmurous memories

of long midnight passages through
plotless dreams and hot, scratchy

blankets of dread. Close your door
and lock it; still those ghosts

slide underneath to choke
the warm creature of your

sleep: bring with them the green
stench of all those might-not-be’s:

the endless errors of omission:
sharp-edged skeletons still

clattering down the hall…

—Kathy Kieth

__________________

GHOSTS AND CHILDREN

own Halloween, sandwiched as they are
between the quick and the dead. Not quite
jelled, they flap like see-through bats between
Here and There, like holograms in some
elsewhere-kind of theme park, where they roller-
coaster/bumper car/ferris wheel all day, slipping

back and forth through reality cracks to bring us
bits of news and fresh pieces of other-worldly
pie. Just the other day, I caught one hanging
in my closet; but when I got out the broom, she
flipped back into her bed, pretending again to be
a mere child. . .

We earthenware adults had better stand aside,
especially on All Hallows’ Eve, or these spritely
creatures will bump right through us. . .

—Kathy Kieth

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Struck by a
raindrop, snail
closes up.

—Yosa Buson

__________________

—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW:

RR23 is now available free at The Book Collector,
and contributor and subscription copies
have gone into the mail—you should've received yours;
let me know if you haven't.
You may also order a copy through rattlesnakepress.com/.
Deadline is November 15 for RR24: 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 add all contact info,
including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa
are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa,
or for either one, and please—only one submission packet
per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

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. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or
write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

NEW FOR OCTOBER:

Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento:
A new chapbook from Brad Buchanan (The War Groom)
and a new Rattlesnake LittleBook from
William S. Gainer: Joining the Demented.

WTF!!: The third issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from
Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick,
is now available at The Book Collector,
or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #4 was Oct. 15;
it'll be released at Luna's on Thursday, Nov. 19.
Next deadline (for Issue #5) is Jan. 15.
Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing,
to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Now available: Rattlesnake Press's new anthology,
Keepers of the Flame: The First 30 Years of the Sacramento Poetry Center.
Editor-in-Chief Mary Zeppa and her helpers have put together
many, many documents and photos
from SPC's history, and the resulting anthology is available
from SPC.

COMING IN NOVEMBER:

Join us on Wednesday, November 11
for a new chapbook from Dawn DiBartolo (Secrets of a Violet Sky);
Rattlesnake Reprint #2, this one from frank andrick (Triptych);
plus our 2010 calendar from Katy Brown (Wind in the Yarrow)!
That's 7:30 PM at The Book Collector. Be there!

_________________

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.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Happy Sacramento Poetry Day!

STORM

As the storm brews
The pond rests
Reflecting the anger
Of the storm
With calm

—Ronald Edwin Lane, Weimar

__________________

A WINTER TRANSLATION
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole

Walking in withered woods, we wonder
how bare limbs can comfort us
or what we can offer dripping trees

in a gray-on-gray terrain.
Our roots quake. We tremble.
Fog obscures the way,

mistletoe chokes branches,
mushrooms glare, toads gloat,
no birds sing, yet ferns

filagree over our boots.
The foggy wall crumbles, reveals
a path into a clearing.....We have

journeys to plan and complete,
lyrics near our hands and
beside our feet; music to extract

out of storm and stone—
a winter landscape to translate
into a language of our own.

__________________

This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Tonight, Monday (10/26), 7:30-10 PM: Rattlesnake Press's release of the new SPC anthology, Keepers of the Flame: The First 30 Years of the Sacramento Poetry Center, HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento (in the California Stage complex at 25th and R). By a delightful piece of serendipity, the celebration will take place on (by then Mayor Anne Rudin’s proclamation) Sacramento Poetry Day. Editor-in-Chief Mary Zeppa and her helpers (Emmanuel Sigauke, Kate Asche, Charlie McComish and Richard Hansen) have put together many, many documents and photos from SPC's history, and the resulting anthology (and SPC's 30th anniversary!) will be celebrated tonight. Libations and light refreshments will be provided. And, in the spirit of the occasion, the walls of SPC will display a sampling of photos, posters and “artifacts” from the Center’s first 30 years.

•••Tuesdays, 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center Workshop at the Hart Center, 27th & J Sts., Sacramento. Free; bring 13 copies of your one-page poem to be read/critiqued. Info: Danyen Powell at 530-756-6228.

•••Weds. (10/28), 6-7 PM: Upstairs Poetry reading at The Upstairs Art Gallery, 420 Main St (2nd floor), Placerville. It's a poetry open-mike read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen. No charge.

•••Wednesdays, 9 PM: Mahogany Urban Poetry Series at Queen Sheba's Restaurant, 1704 Broadway (17th and Broadway), Sacramento. $5 cover, all ages.

•••Wednesdays, 5 PM: Dr. Andy’s Technology and Poetry Hour, KDVS radio station (90.3 FM) or http://www/kdvs.org/.

•••Thurs. (10/29), 8 PM: d.a. levy reading at Poetry Unplugged, Luna’s Café, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Ten poetic voices (frank andrick, Robert Grossklaus, Genelle Chaconas, Michael Grosse, Sage, Miles Maniachi, Lawrence Dinkins, Gene Bloom, Charlene Ungstad) taking liberties, as per d.a.’s own directions, with the works of poet d.a. levy on his birthday. More than a tribute, beyond a birthday celebration, and no mere enactment, but something else—something that you’ll have to come to experience. Plus, the Poetry Unplugged Open Mic is in full swing this evening, also, so please come to listen, come to read. Hosted by B.L. Kennedy. $2 cost or one-drink minimum.

•••Thursdays, 7 PM: “Life Sentence” reading at The Coffee Garden, 2904 Franklin Blvd., Sacramento. Open mic.

•••Thursdays, 10-11 AM (replayed Sundays 10-11 AM): Mountain Mama’s Earth Music with Nancy Bodily on 95.7 FM. Music/poetry woven around a central theme deeply tied to mountains/earth.

__________________

THE OWL'S BOOK
—Claire J. Baker

I wonder what field guide
the owl reads, turning his
head full circle
as if to ponder meaning
behind meaning...

maybe death is the
primary thrust
behind
an owl in wait
on a frozen branch.

I could end here, but
Mary Oliver's mice
freeze in the field and
rabbits shiver under
angora-like fur.

Angora.
Saying it slowly
in the snowy silence
feeling the warm fur
I want to live all the more
not be a juicy tidbit
in anyone's mouth.

__________________

THE INDIAN WAY
—Claire J. Baker

Thanksgiving keeps most people
inside warm walls,
feasting.
No one hikes the lake trail.
We fasted, now we
celebrate wildness.

Our bootsteps
echo from the hills
cozy sounds around the lake.
Waterfowl feather the sky
fanning our cheeks—
cheeks cold as bay leaves,
feet warm as underwings
of birds; bones stiffen,
eyes water, chilled noses drip,
winter breath comes shorter.
But blood beats happily.

Water-sparks resemble wings.

__________________

Be sure to check out Sacramento Bee's Books and Media section today for a beautiful collection of poems from local people. Thanks to Carlos Alcala for helping us celebrate Sacramento Poetry Day!

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Poetry is a statement of a series of equations, with numbers and symbols changing like the changes of mirrors, pools, skies, the only never-changing sign being the sign of infinity.

—Carl Sandburg

__________________

—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW:

RR23 is now available free at The Book Collector,
and contributor and subscription copies
have gone into the mail—you should've received yours;
let me know if you haven't.
You may also order a copy through rattlesnakepress.com/.
Deadline is November 15 for RR24: 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 add all contact info,
including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa
are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa,
or for either one, and please—only one submission packet
per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

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. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or
write to me (include snail address) and I'll send you one. Free!

NEW FOR OCTOBER:

Now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento:
A new chapbook from Brad Buchanan (The War Groom)
and a new Rattlesnake LittleBook from
William S. Gainer: Joining the Demented.

WTF!!: The third issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from
Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick,
is now available at The Book Collector,
or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #4 was Oct. 15;
it'll be released at Luna's on Thursday, Nov. 19.
Next deadline (for Issue #5) is Jan. 15.
Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing,
to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Then gear up the flivver for a ROAD TRIP on Monday, Oct. 26 at 7:30 PM
as we all travel over to HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento
for Rattlesnake Press's release of the new SPC anthology,
Keepers of the Flame: The First 30 Years of the Sacramento Poetry Center.
Editor-in-Chief Mary Zeppa and her helpers have put together
many, many documents and photos
from SPC's history, and the resulting anthology (and SPC's 30th anniversary!)
will be celebrated that night. Be there!

COMING IN NOVEMBER:

Join us on Wednesday, November 11
for a new chapbook from Dawn DiBartolo (Secrets of a Violet Sky);
Rattlesnake Reprint #2, this one from frank andrick (Triptych);
plus our 2010 calendar from Katy Brown (Wind in the Yarrow)!
That's 7:30 PM at The Book Collector. Be there!

_________________

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.

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