Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Ojo Caliente!

Candles in Ojo Caliente, New Mexico
—Photo by Cynthia Linville


HE IS A FEVER THAT HAS GOTTEN INTO HER BLOOD

and will never quite go away.
Over and over again,
she is singing the longest silence.
Her shoes show signs of weariness,
invoking dust from a thousand jet ways.
Above the clouds is another country.
In her dream on the plane
she is kissing people
she doesn’t even know,
over and over again.
She doesn’t even know he is a fever.
She doesn’t know he is another country.

—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

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ECLIPSED
—Cynthia Linville

I am filling blank books with illegible secrets,
with what I’m hoping not to find.

I hold out my hands offering him . . . what?
Let him carry the burden of our silence.

I will not be an audience.
I will avert my eyes, walk away.

It all comes down to this:
even a grain of sand can cast a shadow. 

_______________

COME HOME, PLEASE COME HOME
—Cynthia Linville

A girl in pink glasses comes home to the suburbs—
row upon row of tiny box houses
tires rolled to the corner
an antenna where a tree once stood.

A couple kisses under a cosmetics ad
A cow walks alongside the road
Graffiti—
Estados Unidos ¿Por qué comen nuestros jóvenes?

Blood on the street—
one rescued
one body retrieved.
Time passes from silver gelatin to garish colors.

In the church a portrait of a former goddess—
blonde and gold
Our Lady of the Iguanas
Mexico.


Santa Fe
—Photo by Cynthia Linville



BABY FACE AT UNCLE BILL’S CABIN XI
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

baby you’re a baby
your poems are babyish
you lie in your sleeping bag
sulking like a baby
thumb in mouth
oh poor baby you
crying like a baby
Uncle Bill says you’re a baby
everyone says you’re a baby
you stomp around the window seat
waiting for night so you can roll up
in your sleeping bag
waiting for the Good Fairy
you’re a baby
grow up, baby face
get out there and pull some weeds
the vegetable garden is overgrown
all you want to do is eat the dusty tomatoes
you baby
even the tomatoes look like babies
look at their fat cheeks
red with sun
smooth as a baby’s bottom
and you, Baby Face,
at the bottom of the garden
sucking unripe baby corncobs
behind the kitchen door
chewing rhubarb stalks
don’t you know the leaves are poison?
rain or snow you snuggle up in your bedroll
just like a baby
you should be ashamed, baby
golly gosh and Christ Almighty
what Uncle Bill has to put up with
not worth mentioning, is it?
he took you in, you were all alone
ungrateful baby, you, sobbing over nothing
here! pull my beard and have a drink!
this rum is smooth as silk
or I have single malt…hunh???
which is it to be, Baby?   

_______________

The news reports on a three-month-old cat in Shanghi 
stowed away hidden on a freighter bound for L.A
The kitty apparently, just like people found doing the same, 
risked going without food or water for days
He too was probably seeking the promise of a better life in America
Now called Ni Hao ("hello" in Mandarin)
the cat doesn't need to worry about the immigration department 
nor finding work
The only impediment to his freedom now will be to get neutered
but finding a place to call "home" will probably be easy
Now this cat probably will psychically send a message 
to other Chinese cats to also make the journey
(and our trade ships might even find more cats coming 
"illegally" on board)
and Ni Hao sings, perhaps like in a Disney song, to the tune of 
that song in the "Little Mermaid"…
"Over the seas it doesn't matter the economy,
almost everybody there loves and adores kitties!
No need to hunt mice to eat
people in America can feed you till you're fat
and they will let you do anything you please
even sleep all the time if you want 
and no cat fears ending up being on some hungry person’s dinner plate”


—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento    

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THE CAMPAIGN
(Dedicated to our dead and wounded veterans)
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Slap on those bright, new
Shiny racing tires
Gas up with high grade
Tryouts, endorsements

Winning is everything
Faster, stronger, ahead of the pack
Watch that turn!
Don’t get burned!

You did it!!
You won!!!!!
Winner’s Circle
Kisses

Photo ops
Focus on sponsors’ names
Don’t show the tires
They don’t advertise there

Because used tires
Are soon thrown away,
Served their purpose
Dumped in some pile out back

Show the door and fender
Focus on sponsors’ names
Kisses
Focus on sponsors’ names…

_______________

Thanks to today's fine chefs, with a reminder that Cynthia Linville and the rest of Poetic Erotica will be reading at Mahogany tonight; check out the details on our blue board at the right. We also have a new photo album for Cynthia on Medusa's facebook page: Ojo Caliente!

For more about Michelle's poem, see www.sacbee.com/2012/07/12/4627754/chinese-kitten-stows-away-on-la.html

_______________

Today's LittleNips:

New tide rises
covers the shoal
footprints becoming extinct.


Snails will flow
over the cracks
trucks create in the blacktop.


Lovely hawk
glides over fields
then crosses the interstate.


—Michael Cluff, Corona

_______________

—Medusa



 —Photo by Cynthia Linville