Dust & Doghair

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

DON’T CALL IT LUNACY

Come inside this new world.
Yes, it’s a clutter, a chaos of words
in the making. An Eden before the fall
to understanding; before gate and door,
space with room for dust and doghair.
Let it be, doors and windows open
to weather. Take off your mask
and breathe. Don’t try to im-/ex-press
what’s in and out; lungs and lips
know without language, which
keeps growing from inside.
Don’t call it lunacy.
Roof is sky and earth is floor
just as you’ve known unknowing.
This is a room of your evolving
world, your poem.

PANPIPES IN PANDEMIC (Cornish Sonnet)

Main Street’s so quiet in fresh morning light—
folks with essential errands walk apart.
A man sits piping tones of second-sight.
I stop—a safe six-feet away. He plays
the Andean reed-flute like half a heart
gone journeying. He’s rapt, his gaze

opening distances of mountain under sky,
the last notes unfading but moving on
as if on wind, or wander-feet. They fly
and silence is a question without words.
In haunted space where everything is gone
except a homeless-homing call of birds

Main Street’s so quiet in fresh morning light,
opening distances of mountain under sky.

POEMS IN SEQUESTER (Unrhymed Pantoum)

          for Arts in Nature Fest, past and future

Like a leftover dream of green April:
a dozen poet friends beside the trail
by blackberry bramble and wild-rose pool,
cedar-bark tepees in meadow beyond—

a dozen poet friends beside the trail
sharing poems to beat of Patti’s drum;
cedar-bark tepees in meadow, beyond,
recalling ancient people of this land.

Sharing poems to beat of Patti’s drum
and the whisper-song of Gail’s recorder,
our poems for this willow blooming spring
recalling ancient people of this land—
   
the whisper-song of Gail’s recorder
by blackberry bramble and wild-rose pool,
our poems for this willow blooming spring
like a leftover dream of green April.

APRIL IN PANKU

Field’s sequestered in weeds—
sun-dew sparkled, good enough reason
to postpone mowing….

Neighbor comes, not to visit—
saw your ATV stuck,
socially-distanced he pulls it out.

Covid can’t stop grass greening.
Crow caws: get mowing!
You think sequester means vacation?

AVOID CROWDS (Haiku Sonnet)

sun, soil, solitude
away from the lunacy,
the press of people—

shelter-in-place, field
and woods, comfort of four walls
and roof in a storm—

grocery shopping crowds
smaller, masked, anonymous,
kept 6 feet apart—

hands washed, out the door,
freeway then back roads,
you can breathe again—

masked hawk drones the woods
on hunt—solitary, free

STILL LIFE IN BLUE-PURPLE (Ekphrastic)

Just past the school’s closed parking lot,
blackberries grow rampant in a small ravine,
new green foliage reaching for bankside cedar
and—look, periwinkle twining among thorns.
But what’s that other purple-blue? a big roundish
bump embraced by bramble. It’s a ball….
Who lost it? A fixture now: nobody’s going to
retrieve it, resolve some long-forgotten game
of toss and catch. Is it lonely? Does it howl
at night when the moon’s a searchlight,
the full Moon of Lost Blue-Purple?

Today’s LittleNip:

TOILET PAPER LUNACY (Boketto)
—Taylor Graham

         in time of corona

Shoppers are hoarding,
grocery shelves left bare. Even
cakes shaped like rolls
of TP sell as fast as
they get baked, sell like TP.

And that oil portrait:
TP roll in golden light—
lovely lunacy.

____________________

Thanks to Taylor Graham for today’s poems and photos—fine fare for Form Fiddlers’ Friday, and definitely fitting for the on-going pandemic. Or is that pandemonium? Or, as Tom Goff called it yesterday, Pandemicomium?

Tune in to James Lee Jobe’s online reading tonight, 7:30pm at youtube.com/jamesleejobe/. Tonight will feature the works of Yang Jian, Han Shan, Miyazawa Kenji, and Wang Wei, among others.

For upcoming poetry readings and workshops available online while we stay at home, scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

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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. 

To start with, Sue Crisp and Carol Louise Moon have each sent us an Abecedarian (poets.org/glossary/abecedarian):
 

BY THE SEA
—Sue Crisp, Shingle Springs, CA

A zure skies loom bright, above the warm sandy
B each.  Toes wiggle down into the gritty grains
C olliding with seashells and other hosts from the sea.
D igging a little deeper, there is the cool wetness of beach
E arth, renewed with each motion of the surf.  Its
F ragrant scent fills the senses.
G ulls wheel overhead.  Those ashore, raucous with clacking bills,
H ungry for tidbits often thrown by beach-goers.  They are
I nstantly aware of even the slightest fallen crumbs.
J ackals of seashore, they feast on handouts and carrion.
K ildeer, on stilted legs, skitter to and fro with the surge of the surf,
L ooking for minute crustaceans washed ashore.
M ussels cling to outcroppings of weather-beaten rocks, showing at
N eap tide, their shells glistening in the sunlight,
O nly to disappear with the change of tide.
P elicans, keen of eye, fly low over the water’s surface,
Q uick to dive at the first sighting of prey.
R afts of coots float serenely in the midst of sea-life activity.
S un rays sparkle atop tiny surface ripples, while
T erns, in noisy colonies, wheel above their ground nests.
U rchins, in colors of purple, reside in small tide pools with a
V ariety of other colorful sea life,
W aiting for the turn of the tide to return them to the sea.  While there are no
X erox copies in the sea and seashore-driven life, they all
Y ield to the way nature has designed them, in a lifelong effort to reach their
Z enith.
 
* * *

OLD WORLD IBIS
—Carol Louise Moon, Placerville, CA

An Arctic crossing made by
Bubulcus ibis: How did this
cattle egret do it,
daring to uproot from Africa,
expanding to a foreign land,
foraging with new found
grazing animals?
How, indeed.

In any case, they
just showed up
knowing they’d survive,
landing in South America (1880)—
maybe by boat, then
nesting again
on Florida’s shores (1954)—
Perhaps by wing?

Questions of their origin
remain. Once in North America they
spread quickly across the continent.
Their expansion is still
underway to this
very day, with a
wide-range migration. Many
X’s would mark a map where
young egrets have ventured,
zealously settling in.

____________________

Caschwa (Carl Schwartz) has been wearing his pencil stub down to the nubbins with form-fiddling this week, starting with a Sijo (www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/sijo-poetic-form):

NOJO SIJO
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

I readily admit, I was dumbfounded by her fragrance
surrounding me like a cloud, countless droplets of innocence
I was quickly left standing, in large pools of my ignorance

nobody alerted me that it would be this complicated
data was not compiled to quantify falling in love
who could have predicted this? now I am alone!

____________________

And a sonnet:
 

UNPAID BILL
—Caschwa

there comes a time when poets lose their sense
abandon all the rules that were in place
when Shakespeare rises from the grave intense
not paid his due, the world will fall from grace

you lost your mate, your job, your car, your house
but life can glow and shine as bright as gold
your words and thoughts will help you, once aroused
let magic guide your hands to tales untold

aim not your words of ill to hit the graves
or spring the trap of blaming just yourself
a happy thought gives strength like metal staves
or keeping candy close by on the shelf

a jotted note or ode, quickly written
will guide Cupid’s arrow to the smitten

* * *

Carl has thrown down the gauntlet again to other readers of Medusa’s Kitchen. He says: “I loved those two-line responses fellow Snake Pals put on the Rengas, so why not try that with a sonnet?  It would be delightful to see how our preeminent pool of poets would apply two lines that pose a turn or twist to these three quatrains I wrote to begin the sonnet":


IN PLACE [finish this off with two rhyming lines, 10 syllables each]
—Caschwa

a shell, a bra, out on the beach lie free
my feet did not the feel of coins disclose
all waves alike, like apes when you they see
a clap, a roar, big wet around the toes

my car, alone, at rest in place, garaged
perhaps that means some luck my way will come
accounts untouched, today no funds dislodged
lo not a choice a ride to try to bum

some things inside my head around they spin
my limbs and neck like so much aching feel
but nonetheless I manage still to grin
my hopes and prayers soon will all congeal

[    ]
[    ]


Or, this week, if you’re of a mind to, try a Haiku Sonnet, such as Taylor Graham’s “Avoid Crowds” poem above. The form is pretty easy to figure out, yes? Or the Cornish Sonnet, like her “Panpipes in Pandemic” (poetscollective.org/everysonnet/cornish-sonnet).
 
_____________________

And Carl has also sent us one of his tongue-in-cheek comments on the joys of working with forms:
 

PERVERSE
—Caschwa

a persnickety person
forbade a pervade parade
pulling permission for any
possible rhyme or perchance any plausible meter,
thus was born free verse

and then they took a gun and shot some blanks
which rang inside my head and persevere
what will I do with gunshots in my brain?
I’m perturbed that perhaps they won’t catch that perilous perp

_____________________

Thanks to all of our contributors today for their fine fiddling! Keep at it—I can hear your music from here.

—Medusa (today’s title comes from a description of Medusa’s cave)
 

 —Public Domain Artwork

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.