A PHOTO-WOVEN FRAGMENT
—Photo and Poem by Taylor Graham, Placerville
Navajo weave in wool of
desert
colors, sand and sunrise;
a hat-band sweat-rimmed;
a day-pack with its zipper
failed from too much cramming
of needs and delights on
long hot trails, rock-rims
at sunset—artifacts left
to earth.
______________________
LADY LUCK
—Taylor Graham
She promises the winning
number
then deals the great
disasters, railcars planes
pipelines
charring entire zipcodes
and discoloring
summer-blue skies as seen
from space.
She steadies the ladder as
you
climb to sweep the roof,
or else she
lets that ladder slip.
She's the voice on the
phone
that found your lost
dog. Maybe you didn't lose
a dog,
but you've got one
now. It gazes in your eyes
and reads your mind. What
kind
of luck is that?
_______________
CHASING OUR LUCK
—Taylor Graham
Five days on the road
north down-canyon,
climbing into heat (July)
a hundred miles to dry-
grass slopes long stripped
of pine for smelting
ore but we missed the
casinos, Ms Luck
was setting gold as sunset
west
about as far as we could
drive without getting
lost in interchange, a
town dug into time
and hills a stone's arc
short of Golden Gate
we turned back east
upcountry granite
holding luck like foxglove
hidden by a snow-
melt stream, downslope to
liveoak shade
at last back home. We
rubbed mirage and road-
dust from our eyes and here's
a glass of ice
with sun tea. Here's the
chair where over years
we tossed down
saddle-blanket day-
pack dog-leash and your
old Stetson hat.
So lucky to be home.
_______________
FRAGMENTS OF FUCHSIA
—Michael Cluff, Corona
—Michael Cluff, Corona
Would be a delicacy
to observe in a male betta
fish
but even more of a blue
moon
in his mate.
The sedan of such
a colour would be
red eye-catching and
grandiose
especially to the brooding
patrol officer.
A job interviewee in such
a tie
ends up tinted
magenta dangerous
and is black-balled
forever.
Such a pants pair
would inhabit the
artificial
green cyan of a mini-golf
course
the type Uncle Oscar
inhabits weekend.
Found above an adobe
desert diner
at sunset adds flavors to
a dish
of yellow squash,
raspberry parfait
and a dungeon daffodil
horizon.
_______________
LADY LOTTO LUCK
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento
Even though I never gamble or
play the California state Lotto
it bothers me that the Lotto
was basically forced to "pull" a "politically incorrect" T.V ad
which was produced to promote the "Black
Scratcher" theme
There's this sexy-looking
brunette woman dressed in black motorcycle leather
She walks up to a guy at a
bowling alley and slaps him in the face for scratching a winning Lotto ticket
How metaphoric, of course, in this case of being
"struck by Lady Luck"—
it's like saying it would be a
blessing along with a "curse"
A message a woman would give a man at a gambling table:
"You shouldn't waste
money playing in the first place, but by chance you won something anyway,
...so don't take it for granted
now, or me either"
or likewise a man's
"sadistic" fantasy of being stricken from an otherwise beautiful
woman
Yet probably with a more
"comedic" approach no one would have stood against it
like for instance if instead
they had gotten rock star and actor "Jack Black" to receive the
slap—
the star of such stuff as
"Nacho Libre" bugs his eyes in surprise out growling
"Ohhhwoooow..."
Yet supposed
"feminist" groups such as California Legislative Women's Caucus complained
it promoted "domestic violence"
even though our
nations' problem is about men beating up women rather than the other way around
For this, one has to
wonder about this governmental Women's Caucus who claims to look out for all of us
which probably also hates any
man who dares take pleasure engaging with a woman in any kind of
"dominatricks"
even if it wasn't
prostitution and in a "soft porn" kind of way with consenting adults
(ironically these women
on government boards tend to turn into the very frumpy hags they feared in the
1960's and 1970's!)
So thanks to our
"well-meaning government" the controversial ad got censored
though meanwhile the
French and Europeans for years have had ads and movies with portrayals of women
slapping men
The ad got re-released
with Lady Luck instead "blowing a kiss"
of course those running
the Lotto don't ever "love" its players like that
especially since its winners can't get free money without also paying up
a lot of tax
_______________
A HARD ROW TO HOE
—Caschwa, Sacramento
If you get all your
foodstuffs
From big box supermarkets
And online ordering
You might miss it
If you have ever actually
Farmed fields of crops
You know exactly
What that means
As do those living in
Norcal
With California concrete
Soil in the backyard
Who try to garden
Lesson Plan for
teachers:
1) Explain what a hoe is,
In
the agricultural sense
2) Show videos of hoes in use
3) Simulate the hoe with fingers
in a shoebox garden
4) Only hand out hoes to children
whom you would trust with rifles
_______________
Thanks to today's contributors for weaving together our various themes: our Seed of the Week, Lady Luck, our recent riffs on fuchsia, and Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) says his poem today was taken from some Medusa thoughts he found inside our FUCHSIA LINKS. Taylor Graham's photo caption, by the way, is the poetry form called a Weave, which is our current Form to Fiddle With.
You can see Judy (Taylor) Graham tonight in Placerville at the Poetry in Motion read-around; see our blue bulletin board at the right of this for details. There is a lot going on tonight, including Verse on the Vine in Folsom, and—this just in—Cynthia Linville and Anna Sprowl at Shine Cafe in Sacramento. Details on the b-board.
And we have not one, but TWO new photo albums on the Facebook page of Medusa's Kitchen: Winemaking with Katy Brown and King of the Mike by Michelle Kunert. Check 'em out!
_______________
Today's LittleNip:
For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.
—Ernest Hemingway
______________
—Medusa
John Walker and his miniature carriage horse, Indy
Art in the Park fundraiser, Carmichael, July 2012
—Photo by Michelle Kunert
