—Anonymous Crow Photos
PARADISE IN ASHES
—Katy Brown, Davis, CA
Paradise falls in ashes in my front yard,
white specks of rose bushes and dreams,
kitchen curtains, picture frames,
old love letters, woolen slippers, bills
—combustible lives, overrun by fire.
Houses burn all the time. Businesses
catch fire from faulty wiring, and
fields char in wildfires. But this whole town
was reduced to crackling rubble in 24 hours.
Its residents evacuated, escaped, missing or dead.
The internet is flooded with images
of missing loved ones, pets, neighbors.
Reports of the dead climb with each hour.
The smoke first rose, driven upward
by the heat of the fire, then sank
to settle in a heavy fog down burned streets.
The relentless smoke pours
from the ridge into the canyonland
and sinks into the vast Central Valley,
blotting out the abscessed sun.
The ashes of Paradise filter through the smoke,
drift onto the changing leaves of my birch,
drop onto the wilting petals of the last rose.
I try not to think of the flames, the terror,
the confusion of fire and smoke, cooling now.
_________________
FALLING LEAF
—Ann Privateer, Davis, CA
A leaf bird comes in
For a landing
Pressing diagonally
In charcoal gray
The sky Fashions
The sky Fashions
Happily massing
Its way toward
Setting after a jubilant
Free fall, ebullient
And effervescent
To mark the day.
Setting after a jubilant
Free fall, ebullient
And effervescent
To mark the day.
DO THEY LIGHT ME UP?
—Mary Lynne McGrath, Sacramento, CA
Those blond women on TV
wearing red blazers
standing behind flag-decked podiums
do they light me up?
those women who got elected
and who thank Trump for all his help,
who promise to tackle the really
big problems in this country—
do they light me up?
Are they living in the world of
Christian hypocrisy
with the right to pick which sins to rebuke
and which to ignore—
which human beings to help and which to demonize—
do they light me up?
Who is at home watching their kids?
Scrubbing their toilets,
washing their dirty sheets,
who helps them make time for
meetings of Republican women for Trump?
do they light me up?
If light equals heat, they do light me up.
I am hotter than a pistola!
APOLLO’S GIFT
—Michael H. Brownstein, Chicago, IL
My dear Cassandra, I must punish you. From this day on, you
will only speak the truth, but no one will ever believe you.
—Apollo to Cassandra after she broke one precept
or another
My name is Cassandra,
But you believe me to be someone else,
And, yes, I am a woman.
Listen! My eyes are green,
My hair black,
Greeks do hide in the belly of the horse.
I live here, behind that wall,
My bedding, that corner.
I need not latch my door
Nor do I need clothing during sleep.
Legs gapped open, I wait for you.
Always.
LONGING AGAIN FOR SUMMER
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
Anathema
Becomes thee,
In the pale, faint frost of
Spring upon the lawn!
Someday, soon,
We’ll all be gone
And who will thee,
Remember,
Next September,
October,
November,
When leaves
Have shorn
The trees—
Gone frozen
Into Winter,
And snow is
On the lawn?
Through frosted windows
We shall watch and wonder
Why time moves in cycles
And betrays
Every finer motive
Of warmer months and days
And leaves us longing
In the cold
For longer, warmer
Brighter Summer days.
________________
BRIGHT-COLORED LEAVES IN FALL
—Joseph Nolan
Something
I couldn’t remember,
I lost
A long time ago.
I tried to recall
The meaning, and all,
But it slipped away
Like dead leaves of Fall.
Oh, so many colors
In piles upon the lawn!
But my feelings, it seems
Are blunted,
Like affection
For plastic fawns.
I drift among the bright Fall colors
And make my way
In bright or shade,
And think about
The way I’ve lived
And the life
That I have made.
And I feel no remorse.
Most of the time,
I had no recourse,
But to be the way I am,
And have been.
So I let leaves fall
Wherever they may
And keep walking
Down the road.
IN CROW
—Joseph Nolan
A crow that came
Did not long remain.
She cawed at me
From her tree
In Crow.
I did not know
What she cawed to me.
After she had cawed
All she meant to caw
She flew away.
It’s like this every day
In Crow.
________________
HOW’S YOUR ANTAKHARANA DOING TODAY?
—Joseph Nolan
How’s your antakharana doing today?
Have you checked under the hood?
I’m sensing a strange rotation
At the juncture of your manas and buddhi.
Sometimes this can occur
From entertaining conflicting
Viewpoints from media-generated propaganda,
Especially when combined with fitful,
Desperate, dissatisfaction with the status quo.
If this problem continues, you should bring it in
And have our under-the-hood experts run a code check.
It only takes a little while, and it can prevent
Detachment of the juncture, when the two parts
of your antakharana might otherwise end up spinning off
Counter-rotationally in different directions,
Which, as I am sure you know, is bad for your mind!
RUN WITH IT
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
(Response to “Fly Me To The Moon” by Smith,
Medusa’s Kitchen, Oct. 2018)
When a dangerous felon is missing or a
loved one is lost, off the grid, we send in
specially trained dogs to whisper clues.
Maybe if we worked to understand the
silent signals of mutant mutes they could
be of help in much the same kind of way.
Outside all the refinements of speech, text,,
and technical gadgets,,, let a mutant mute
survey the surroundings, respond to what
they sense, and softly give us just those
signals we need to locate someone.
_____________________
ONE HUNDRED YEARS
—Caschwa
We used to have some reliable
institutions that we thought were
worthy of our trust, but lately there
have been just too many glaring
“exceptions”.
Call the police to report a crime…
the line is busy and/or you are put
on hold, and then when they do arrive
they manhandle everybody, including
the caller.
It will take a hundred years to earn
back my trust, and I am already a
senior citizen, so shove it!
Hospitals are known sticklers for
procedures, protocols, perfection…
then they use the wrong blood in a
transfusion, amputate the wrong
body part, or treat one patient with
another’s medicine.
It will take a hundred years to earn
back my trust, and I am already a
senior citizen, so shove it!
People swear under oath to tell the
truth, or to be true to their spouse, or
to abide by the Constitution…
and then they clearly do not.
It will take a hundred years to earn
back my trust, and I am already a
senior citizen, so shove it!
The USA is the land of equality,
owing to the efforts of many who
gave their lives to make it that way…
then we gave money a bigger voice in
how we treat each other than two-and-
a-half centuries of honoring the choices
of the People.
.
It will take a hundred years to earn
back my trust, and I am already a
senior citizen, so shove it!
When any number of people die
from toxins or sharps that are found in
packages of food or medicine available
for sale, a huge recall is launched to rid
the market of these deadly items…
when dozens of people are killed by
gunfire, they don’t recall the guns or the
ammo, but just issue a PSA advising us
to steel up for the next attack.
It will take a hundred years to earn
back my trust, and I am already a
senior citizen, so shove it!
THE GREAT PROBE
—Caschwa
Digging more deeply than prior
testimony, unearthing “alimony”,
the metaphor to conjure up all
forms of financial persuasion,
collusion, and/or tax evasion
no stone left unthrown, and soon
we will have the official report that
will exhaustively address all of
those questions, plus the added
bonus of these other issues burning
in the Kitchen:
Enticing hot-lips riddles of relationships
The history and mystery of royal families
City boy attempts to hop in the sack with
the Old Farmers Almanac
Sticking one’s thumb into different worlds
of wisdom
Colorful mix of myths and truths on display
at the carnival booth.
___________________
IT IS NOT THE DEMOCRATS,
It’s the autocrats
who are sending us their tired,
their poor, their huddled
masses yearning to
breathe free, the wretched refuse
of their teeming shore.
—Caschwa
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
BREATH
—Michael H. Brownstein
If the tree between buildings breathed
Animosity among its leaves.
If skin color were different kinds of air.
If photosynthesis contracted itself
Through song. Why does the mudslide cover
That river and not the one nearby?
How can a Florida catfish breathe on land
And a human underwater?
In the exchange of gases, what is a tree?
_____________________
Our thanks to today’s multitude of contributors, including newcomer Mary Lynn McGrath (don’t be a stranger, Mary!). And special thanks also to Katy Brown for her poignant poem about the fire in the town of Paradise in Northern California. The Snake has friends up there, such as Maria Rosales in Paradise (though she has been vacationing in Mexico), and those in Magalia—and here’s hoping they’re alright.
Poetry in our area begins tonight at Sac. Poetry Center with two Toms: Tom Hedt and Tom Goff, plus open mic, 7:30pm. On Wed., the Placerville version of Poetry Off-the-Shelves takes place at the El Dorado County library on Fair Lane in Placerville, 5-7pm. On Thursday, Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento will present featured readers and open mic, 8pm. And on Friday, The Other Voice in Davis will have an all-open-mic night at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Patwin Rd. in Davis, 7:30pm.
Saturday, the Crossroads Reading Series returns, this time with Mary Mackey and Davis Poet Laureate James Lee Jobe at the South Natomas Library on Truxel Rd. in Sacramento, 1-3pm. Also on Saturday, there will be a presentation of readers from the Fall edition of Song of the San Joaquin at the Stanislaus County Library on I St. in Modesto, 2pm.
And on Sunday, Poetry in Placerville presents Phil Weidman and his new book, Rungs of the Ladder (edited by Dave Boles, Cold River Press), 1-3pm at Love Birds Coffee and Tea on Broadway in Placerville. (Today, by the way, is Dave Boles’ birthday!) Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
—Medusa
Celebrate Poetry—in human or in crow!
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.