Blue Danube Dancers, 25th Annual Strauss Festival
July 2012, Elk Grove, California
—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento
ASKING THE TIDE TO STOP
—Taylor Graham, Placerville
Layers of dream. The boy
was dancing
in silk black trousers
with a crimson stripe.
hip to ankle, a strip of
red
inlaid
so it flashed as he leaped
and twisted, twirled and
dark silk swirled,
he was red-legged hawk in
air,
and all the young girls
watching,
clapping, swaying to the
dance.
Tomorrow
he'll march off to war, to
battle across
the river, to trample
haystacks under boots—
seedheads flying golden
into air, then stomped to
dust
by troops as the horses
flee from the fields.
Stripping off
layers of dream. The boy
dances crimson
slashes flashed by
sword-light,
gunfire light, each red
stripe not cloth but
blood in spurts and drops,
in tides
of war.
What does the dream
mean, and how to make it
stop?
_______________
VISIONS OF BRICK
—Taylor Graham
Under the soft blue stone
of heaven,
the way from field to
garden is paved with shining
stones, a place dreamed by
a poet
with rhetorical follies
and similes of ponds.
Not far from here were
brick-works,
just out of sight of these
poetic vistas. Bricks blue-
black as the under-nails
of girls who labored
without hope of metaphor
in their lives.
But here is the home of
the poet,
his shining stone. Today,
it's the landscape's
skeleton surviving. In the
end, a poet's
music flutes through
bones.
—Photo by Taylor Graham
DON'T
WALK ON THE RUG
—Caschwa,
Sacramento
Don't
you dare walk on my
Rare,
expensive, antique
Turkish
rug!
I'd
rather you
Walk on
my people,
Tread
on their rights
Make
inhumane gestures
Put
respect out of reach
Twist
the facts
Confuse
the issues
Manipulate
spin
Prosecute
the truth
Ship
jobs overseas
Burn
the American flag
Make
English hard to find on ballots
Defy
the Constitutional ban against royalty
Do
whatever else you want to do
But
leave the damn rug
Hanging
on the wall
As a
beacon of hope and pride
_______________
BEFORE AUTO A/C
—Michael Cluff, Corona
The inside of the old
Oldsmobile
even in the Illinois night
was drenched near-deadly
by the swelling smell of
sow
hogging the road above of
us
and infiltrating inside
the interior
of the five-packed car.
In the early sixties
interstate travel was on
highways
sometimes just two lanes
in rurality
and being Jewish
this encounter
will living swine
just enforced
via the olfactory
what I just started
to read about
as a smaller kid.
Swan Boat, Strauss Festival
—Photo by Michelle Kunert
Before the air conditioner
came back on
Mr. Franks
had stripped off
his blue glen-plaid sports
coat
and his green, blue
and black striped tie
and his black penny
loafers were
sighted across the room
under his chipped
pre-Vietnam era desk.
The class
continued the history
final
and the gunshots
coming out of Mr. Franks'
battered soul
recalled to him
the delta, hot
summer nights just
outside Saigon
with fatigues
as drenched as his now-
yellow pit-stained
white dress shirt
was now
and then...
—Michael Cluff
THE WAY A WEEKDAY MORNING SHOULD GO
—Michael Cluff
Looking at the red numbers
and not recognizing they
exist
beyond the basics of 7, 0
and 4.
Showering after shopping
for coffee, bananas and
arugula
a bagel with the full
cream cheese
between.
The water paddling
the skin and memory
nicely for more than
minutes
the need for deodorant
replaced by the want
for its smooth and even
application.
The Internet gandered at
and work e-mail to be
viewed
at my determination of a
later date
clean a betta tank
in a manner respecting
the baby male
for today.
Then gazing at the
hibiscus
and begonia on the second
floor
when the sun
like me
decides to peek down
at the outer world
all in our own time.
Betta Fish
_______________
Our thanks to today's artistes for their fine work! We are proud to announce a new album on Medusa's Facebook page: photos of near-by Locke which were taken by Cynthia Linville.
Our thanks to today's artistes for their fine work! We are proud to announce a new album on Medusa's Facebook page: photos of near-by Locke which were taken by Cynthia Linville.
The Kitchen itself has a new page in the FUCHSIA LINKS at the top of the blog: Interviews and Articles is just what it says—interviews and articles! Check it out for a link to a new interview of Mary Mackey as her books go Kindle.
_______________
Today's LittleNip:
In the world of lying
clocks I dwell
unsteady in solid knowledge
and happy some dead-
lines may not be met
—Michael Cluff
_______________
—Medusa
Several local writers have stories in
this new anthology from Harlequin:
Jennifer O'Neill Pickering, Trina Drotar,
Maryellen Burns. Order it at
or