In the Days of the Scare

Wakamatsu Lake, Placerville, CA

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

ASK THE BIRDS

Shelter in Place!
But a new spring sun’s out, shining.
Shelter in Place?
A room is such a crowded space,
our breath and fears commingling.
Outside, the birds build nests, singing
shelter in place.

IN ANOTHER TIME

In those days of the scare, when anyone
with cough or runny nose was suspect
of contagion, an old man went invisible
in oak woods shelter, devising
music of a hollow limb, knot-holes
and wooden pegs—
or so go the remembrances,
how a breeze would listen to his ersatz
tune, and the blazing fever-sun
unstuffed its knapsack of glowing
embers as it slipped away down the sky.

AMERICAN MIGRANT               

On the move, this hot mid-morning, a man
on road-shoulder, head-down against sun-glare
and two-way traffic speeding faster than
the plunge of life. Was there a shelter where
he started? All he’s got: backpack, and tan
as sunburn fields with no water to spare.
Like the others I’ve seen, face set as stone
and capsuled in the air he breathes, alone.

BEYOND THE OUTLET

Queen of camo
goes quiet, quite
concealed in all

sorts of weather—
in windstorm and
swelter of sun.

Has she shelter?
a homey hut,
hovel or hedge?

Briefest vision
in visqueen, to
vanish, to vex.

Queen of camo
questioning our
quaint, quick queries.

UNCOUPLING

Glimpse of coyote by fox-den shelter rocks, in focus then disappearing, gone among deadfall up the creek. Coyote sable as my shepherd-dog blending sun and shadow. We have no sheep now. Let coyote be apparition vanishing to creek, where once coyote brought a lamb to ground this very time of year, of almost spring.

Canny coyote
the shape-shifter locks my eyes,
goes invisible.

TOPSY TURVY ROCKER

Cat capsized in his
platform rocker by rowdy
dog—an avalanche
of cushions, pillow and throws—
new cat-shelter discovered.

Today’s LittleNip:

SHELTER PLACE
—Taylor Graham

We’ve lost our signal,
wi-fi’s dead—quiet! walk out,
free air—breathe deeply.

____________________

Thank you to Taylor Graham today for talking so smoothly about our Seed of the Week: Shelter. This is what Taylor says about her post: “Here are various kinds of shelter poems. ‘American Migrant’ is an Ottava Rima (not Ottawa Lima as my spell-check insists); ‘Beyond the Outlet’ is a Novem; ‘Ask the Birds’ is a Rondelet, plus Tanka, Haibun, Haiku.” For more about the Novem, see www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/novem-poetic-forms/.

____________________

FORM FIDDLERS’ FRIDAY! 

It’s time for more contributions from Form Fiddlers! Each Friday for awhile, there will be poems posted here from some of our readers using forms—either ones which were mentioned on Medusa during the previous week, or whatever else floats through the Kitchen and the perpetually stoned mind of Medusa. If these instructions are vague, it's because they're meant to be. Just fiddle around with some forms and get them posted in the Kitchen.

In the letter Taylor Graham sent me with her poems this week, she wrote the message below as a single paragraph—which I decided was actually a prose poem. Being stuck in my tower here, I started fiddling with it and ended up with the following line-breaks and a title. Two-person (and more) poems are another way you can feed your muse as you while away spare time. (If you don’t like what I did to Taylor’s poem, just write it out as a paragraph and take away the title.)


ESSENTIALS
—Taylor Graham
(with fiddling by Kathy Kieth)

Wireless home phone's dead,
Hatch's ATV quit,
my weed-eater died.
                                  But
morning came again, on
schedule; I left my
shelter-in-place
and bought a new weed-eater.

This time of year, it’s
an essential.

_____________________

There is a Japanese two-person form called a Renga (see www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/renga-poetic-forms/). In brief:    

•••One poet writes the first three lines in 5-7-5 syllables.
•••Second poet writes the next two lines in 7-7 syllables in a way that communicates with the first three lines.

•••Note on Renga Chain: To make a chain, the two (or more) poets will go through the same process above by linking five-line stanzas. While each stanza should stand on its own, they should be linked by some common factor, such as shared images, subject, words, etc.

Here’s my beginning to a Renga Chain. Anyone want to add to it? (Send your two-line [7-7] response to kathykieth@hotmail.com/.) C’mon; don’t leave my dandy Renga dangling…


RENGA FOR COCO

My poor chihuahua—
Too hard to Shelter in Place!
So much fun elsewhere…

______________________

Carol Louise Moon has sent us a poem today about the pandemic in a far different style. About it, she says: “Here is a Gertrude Stein-style poem about our friends in Italy. Also similar are Skeltonic poems and rap—lots of alliteration, with the poem of narrow lines tumbling down the page. It's better to use repetition rather than line-end rhymes when composing a poem of a sense of urgency.” (For more about Gertrude Stein’s poetry style, go to www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gertrude-stein/.)


OUR HEARTS GO OUT TODAY
—Carol Louise Moon, Placerville, CA
 
A cough, a cough, a cough
a sneeze, a wheeze, a thrust
virus through the throat,
an air slip.          A sip of tea.

A mask in place—a race,
a race with time and chime
a wince of face, a sip of wine,
a ticking clock, a doc, a doc—

Oh please, a doc, a nurse,
your purse, your pills, your
nurse, your wills in times of ills.

Again the cough, the failing
mask, the trace of truce,
the lunge of lung and plunge,
the plug, the eyes, the eyes.

And now the “Ayes” have it—
positively positive. So bad, so
bad, so back to bed—the dread,
the dread. We heard the word,

through mouth and truth,
the lung, the spit, the pit,
the town goes down.

A base concern,
and now the urn
and so it goes,
so round and round.

____________________

Thanks, Carol Louise! Good work capturing the mood of the times.

Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) has also fiddled with some forms this week. Here is a Triolet, a form which translates as “repeat a buncha lines”:
 

IT IS TIME (Triolet)
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

bring out the golden parachute
and shelter funds far offshore
pause the labor and enjoy the fruit
bring out the golden parachute
give the poor a one finger salute
double, triple, lock the door
bring out the golden parachute
and shelter funds far offshore

• • •

About the next poem, Carl says, ”Here is a Rispetto that is sometimes iambic, sometimes trochaic, pentameter. That conflict is part of the message”:
 

PENNIES A DAY
—Caschwa

oh what you can buy for only pennies a day
if only those pennies had not already been spent
on inflated prices for everything including the hay
which makes it real hard to afford even one lonely cent

the whims and fancies of the top one percent spenders
allow them to paint an image that God Himself renders
but when workers unite and are too big to fight and spoil
we know the witch’s brew has come to a boil

__________________

Bonus LittleNip:

LET’S HUNKER
—Caschwa

this is a Happy Day
to Hunker Down
with a Hot Dish
on your Heavenly Divan
and take a Hard Dekko
at Heated Debates,
Hackneyed Drama,
Harmonica Duets,
and Horse Droppings
in High Definition

__________________

Fine fiddling today by all our contributors, having fun with words and the sounds they brings us! Keep on sending poems to the Kitchen; the snakes of Medusa are, well, you know…

__________________

—Medusa

 

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