Black Candy & Kafka Land

 

—Poetry and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

—And scroll down for Form Fiddlers’ Friday!

 

 

 

FABULOUS TRANSFORMATION

He woke at shore’s edge of his
bed. A night’s sleep had
sailed him to Kafka Land—not
as monstrous beetle,
but white mouse—was that really
his mirror image?
How could he ignore the twitch
of whiskers astute
to a feline presence just
down the hall? a sound
like flint on fieldstone. No doubt
his cat, Black Candy,
pulling stuffing from the couch
with sharpened claws. He’d
read Kafka in his youth and
knew this could not be resolved. 

 

 

 

 

ELEVEN TRICKS

You speak of nostalgia for the elves
good or bad, light or dark, bringers of
sickness or inspiration on a
walk in the woods. Nostalgia, you say,
in our linear progression of
time, no more circular, so things once
lost are gone forever—like the elf
you kept in a Mason jar. Oh what
became of it when you started school?
You say elves are gone now from our woods,
leaving only broken branches and
their moss-green coats laid atop rocks to
dry in drought—this world they’ve left to us.
Under oaks, a pit for rusty cans,
blue-burned glass—are those your elves dancing? 

 

 

 

 

THE HEN’S ART

Our fabulous golden goose, you say,
who lays candy eggs. But she’s a chicken,
not a goose. No candy—eggshell caskets for tiny
deck chairs and deer heads—transformations
of an elf, you say. Clever images, but
no good for the skillet. She’s the last hen left,
we had the others for supper. Chickens don’t pay
on this fieldstone point of land at shore’s edge,
where ground squirrels steal the eggs and glutton
on layer-feed. Astute critters, they know
which eggs are edible, and ignore the ones
with poultry art. Fit for a dollhouse—deer heads
and deck chairs, never a couch. Worthless
fowl-stuff. Poems the wind blows away
as soon as they’re out of your mouth. 

 

 

 

 

 

SNOWPEAS

Push my cart toward Produce. I searched the internet, found a recipe. I’ve got most everything, just need a couple of essentials. What? no snowpeas fresh or frozen? I leave my cart to grab a big bottle of soy sauce; mine’s getting low. Back to my cart and—miracle—a little bag of snowpeas right on top. Now what am I forgetting? The main ingredient! Cat-tails. I imagine them pale and stiff, plucked but for a few dark hairs, boney, lying like skinned rattlesnakes ready for the skillet. No, I just couldn’t—canned chicken will have to do. At checkout, I explain I don’t know where the snowpeas came from. The nice lady checks her inventory, finds no snowpeas, lets me have them for free. The moral:

make sure your black cat
is safe at home / don’t go shop-
ping based on a dream. 

 

 

 

 

CAROL FOR 2020

Of this old year we’ve reached the twelves
and lost a bunch but have our selves.
We’re barely hanging from the shelves….
Is it the elves? Is it the elves?

There’s a bleak landscape all around
where dead leaves fall to frozen ground.
On leafless boughs what have we found?
The north wind’s sound, the northwind’s sound.

So bundle up and come outside.
We’ll sing along—the wind’s our guide
as Geminids through darkness glide
and stars abide, and stars abide. 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip(s):

ON THE PATH
—Taylor Graham

Walking
talking
stalking
hawking—
recall poems, walking-talking words
while the black cat’s stalking hawking birds.

* * *

FALLING LEAVES
—Taylor Graham

Mutter
Shutter
Stutter
Flutter
In slight breeze they mutter, stutter, call
to sky, to earth—flutter, shutter, fall. 

 

 

 

 

 

Good morning as we wake up from Dream Time, of which Taylor Graham speaks this morning, along with black cats and magic geese and Those Naughty Elves, our recent Seed of the Week. Forms from Taylor today include: Normative Syllabics (“Eleven Tricks”); a Choka (“Fabulous Transformation”); a Monotetra (“Carol for 2020”); two Tyburns (“On the Path” & “Falling Leaves”) plus a Haibun “Snowpeas”).

And now it’s time for …

FORM FIDDLERS’ FRIDAY! 

It’s time for more contributions from Form Fiddlers, in addition to those sent to us by Taylor Graham! 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, by golly! (See Medusa’s Form Finder at the end of this post for links to definitions of the forms used this week.)

In addition to the forms Taylor Graham has sent us, Jennifer Fenn of Fresno has checked into the Kitchen with two EIEIO’s, a form which was “invented” by Carol Louise Moon of Placerville, CA, as you’ll recall. Welcome back to the Kitchen table, Jennifer!

 

 

 

 

FOG
—Jennifer Fenn, Fresno, CA

Every day, there's been no sun.
In this white soup, we drift.
Even at noon, it's not quite done.
I wish the sun would find a rift.
Of course, I won't soon get that gift.

* * *

DUCKS

Each one swims across the lake
in pursuit of crumbs of bread.
Every morsel they will take.
I make sure each duck gets fed,
on webbed feet as they tread.

 

 

 

 

 

Pinole Poet Claire J. Baker very kindly sent us a Double Cinquain (a Cinquain Sequence) on a subject about which I bet few of us have ever written:


A BRINKS’ DRIVER FANTASY
—Claire J. Baker

Today
I got up nerve
to ask an armored-car
driver if he could in truth spare
a dime;

he turned
& blinked a wink
to prove he was in time,
knew pickles. Surprise, he had two
nickels!

 

 

 

 

Caschwa (Carl Schwartz) has sent us a sequel to last Friday’s “Big Dig”, his poem in Ottava Rima form (remember the potatoes?):


LOOSE SOIL  
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

time to dig for spuds, I grabbed a garden thing
to help reach down real good below the soil
which was beginning to show some hardening
so of course I let metal do the toil
all in all I won’t need any pardoning
didn’t break any rules according to Hoyle
found some pecans squirrels had left for wintertime
I put them back, as I only take what’s mine 

 

 

 

Watchit, Buster!
 

 

 Here is an Octo from Carl:


UNTITLED
—Caschwa

not entitled to be titled
born to bourgeois family tree
straining to pay for the vowels
minimum wage, not salary
retired senior on fixed income
straining to pay for the vowels
born to bourgeois family tree
not entitled to be titled

 

 

 

 

 

And here are three Tyburns from Carl; the Tyburn was last Friday’s Fiddlers’ Challenge:


BAREFOOT
—Caschwa

Stumble
Humble
Rumble
Fumble
Had careless Stumble, ate Humble pie
Got Rumble seat, to Fumble and cry


***

Hearken
Darken
Broken
Spoken
We hearken to hate, darken God’s love
Leave quite broken words spoken above

***

Sunburn
Heartburn
Clyburn
Tyburn
Sunburn staccato, heartburn arco
Clyburn loud, Tyburn not in Turco

 

 

 

 

 

“Turco” refers to Lewis Turco, the cataloguer of poetry forms, and his many books about same.

And here is a poem Carl wrote, an Ekphrastic one based on the public domain photo of an angel holding a child which appeared in Medusa’s Kitchen last Wednesday (12/14/20) [see above]:


AIRPORT RULES
—Caschwa

lady, you’re going to have to take off
those shoes, and the child’s, too

doesn’t matter that you brought your
own set of wings, rules are rules

look back in history, I’ll bet you my
whole vinyl record collection you won’t
find any angels wearing shoes

thanks for being reasonable, now pick
up your items from the conveyer belt
and move over to the area indicated
on your boarding pass…

___________________

Many thanks to our SnakePals this week for their brave fiddling! Would you like to be a SnakePal Fiddler? All you have to do is send poetry—forms or not—and/or photos and artwork to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post work from all over the world, including that which was previously-published. Just remember: the snakes of Medusa are always hungry!

__________________

FIDDLERS’ CHALLENGE!   

 

See what you can make of this week’s poetry form, and send it to kathykieth@hotmail.com! (No deadline.) This week's challenge: Found Poem (www.writersdigest.com/personal-updates/found-poetry-converting-or-stealing-the-words-of-others OR poets.org/glossary/found-poem).

 

__________________

MEDUSA’S FORM FINDER: Links to poetry forms mentioned today:

•••Choka: poetscollective.org/poetryforms/choka OR poetscollective.org/poetryforms/choka
•••Cinquain: poets.org/glossary/cinquain OR www.poewar.com/poetry-in-forms-series-cinquain

•••EIO (or EIEIO): a five-line poem where the ends of lines rhyme in the scheme of A,B,A,B,B. The beginning words of each line begin with E,I,E,I,O. (Carol Louise Moon)

•••Ekphrastic: notesofoak.com/discover-literature/ekphrastic-poetry
•••Haibun: www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/haibun-poems-poetic-form
•••Monotetra: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/monotetra.html
•••Normative Syllabics: hellopoetry.com/collection/108/normative-syllabic-free-verse OR lewisturco.typepad.com/poetics/normative-syllabic-verse
•••Octo: poetscollective.org/poetryforms/octo
•••Ottava Rima: www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/ottava-rima-poetic-form

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Composing in the 21st Century

—Public Domain Photo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 Finding a Poem . . .