The Weed-Eat Step

 

Galahad

—Poetry and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

GALAHAD

Before dawn I find my way down the hill.
No trodden path through chill-dew
miner’s lettuce lacy with tiny white stars
as if sprinkled from a shaker, innocent
of roots. There he is—bright white
in dim first-light on April green, motionless
at my upper gate. As if dropped from
sky, although I said yes, he’s welcome
to my pasture.
Has he spent the night there, farthest
from the gate to his home
where he’ll return when grass is grazed,
turning summer-brown and flammable?
His owner comes to grain him
at the lower gate, but here he is, gazing
into impenetrable time and space. Nothing
lasts forever. For now, the future
is a great white horse in my pasture. 

 

 

 

Galahad with his Pal

 

 

 

SERENDIPITY

A barter between neighbors,
chance of the unexpected—my pasture
gone wild for lack of grazing, their horse
gazing at our fresh, untasted green.
Water trough and halter
cinch the deal and, as if dropped
out of April sky,
the blessing of a great white horse
gracing our land. But wait.
There’s fiddleneck pushing up
through green, toxic
to horses, and mustard too.
My morning meditation shall be
ridding the field of golden fiddleneck,
and pulling out mustard by the roots.
Oh serendipity, I’ll cook
up those mustard greens for supper. 

 

 

 

Fiddlenecks

 

 

FIDDLENECK DANCE

O hum
of bees about
fiddleneck’s golden crown—
music!

Fiddle-
neck’s banner year—
4+ acres to whack.
Let’s dance!

Tall my
partner, and tough,
but I know the Weed-
Eat Step!

This dance
of a single
morning in April—now
cut short. 

 

 

 

 


EARLY MORNING COOL-IT

Indeed, my morning deed is eating weed,
each seed of flame’s desire—red-flag pyre,
hills on fire. I must mow where wind would sow
sparks to glow and burst, destruction’s thirst. 

 

 

 

LEATHER CHAPS

They’ve taken me from my place
on the rocking chair—next best thing
to riding a horse. I shared the ride
with a Navajo blanket that might serve
under a saddle.
He’d toss his Stetson on me
when he came home from some special-
occasion trip—in a car, not a horse
anymore. Those days are many moons
gone now. When he’s gone too,
I wonder who will keep me
in a special place, to remember? 

 

 

 

Loki

 

OUT OF PARADISE

Can I help it if Loki barks at Sirius?
She can’t get a whiff of his butt, not even sniff noses.
And this atmosphere (or lack of) doesn’t retain
canine territorial markings. At least
she doesn’t bark at the Lion, the Ram, the Great Bear.
We’re chilling out here, somewhere in Orion.
I remember spring, summer, fall.
Loki longs for a footprint to prove a human
journey across space as we defined it on Earth
(you know, what used to be open space)—
a scent-trail to follow. We’re hanging
from my rappelling harness rigged to Orion’s belt,
waiting for a space ship to pick us up, for lack
of helicopter. The search boss needed
a better logistics chief on this mission. Lost
hunter on outskirts of Paradise our dispatcher
said. I thought he meant California. 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

SIALIA
—Taylor Graham

Little bourgeois bird
hunched on the fence’s top wire—
just a plain dull bird
till flying with spring sunlight
flashing its sky-blue neon.

__________________________

Taylor Graham has sent us more of her adventures with Galahad, the "white horse in green pastures" of our recent Seed of the Week. And she has sent us some poetry in forms: a Personification Poem (“Leather Chaps”); an Aquarian chain (“Fiddleneck Dance”); a Tanka, and a poem from a prompt: “finding yourself in outer space near a star” (“Out of Paradise”).

Tonight, 5pm, The Blue Collar Gospel Hour presents Poetry Hour featuring Catfish McDaris online: Facebook info: www.facebook.com/events/609852629971075/?acontext={"event_action_history"%3A[{"mechanism"%3A"your_upcoming_events_unit"%2C"surface"%3A"bookmark"}]%2C"ref_notif_type"%3A"event_calendar_create"%2C"source"%3A"29"}

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.)

Claire Baker sends us this Haiku, with the following note: “this Haiku title (a no-no [in Haiku]) is a little boost for James Shuman, who is trying to get California Federation of Chaparral Poets going again. I did take his fine workshop.”

AFTER JAMES SHUMAN’S WORKSHOP
AT CFCP VIRTUAL CONVENTION
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole, CA

One frog does not leap
into marsh pond, yet we hear
that green Bashō splash!

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Louise Moon has sent a Pleiades, as promised in yesterday’s post:

 

ISLA
—Carol Louise Moon, Placerville, CA

Islets, not eyelets—islets
indeed. We let our mind’s eye
import these little islets
in, around Queen Charlotte Sound.
Indigo blue waves under
inert gray clouds portend an
influx of rain we hope for. 

 

 

 

 

 

Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) bravely tackled last week’s Form Fiddlers’ Challenge, the Vers Beaucoup. The phrase in quotes is from the Shadow Poetry website:


IN THE SHADOWS
—Caschwa

“a poem for created by” a poet’s eye, acid high
as the big, blue sky, wearing shrouds of cumulus clouds
numb to the crowds of pooping birds and stinky herds
instead of words it rained similes and apostrophes

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a Monostitch from Caschwa:

HOPE  

springs don’t break like the shocks did.

CHARITY

begins with the same letters as “cheat”.

FAITH

healers vacuum the dust of settled science and toss it out. 

 

 

 

 

 

And a Waltmarie:


PREP STEPS
—Caschwa

one seizes a moment of truth to
repair
to the sitting room, though the chairs are
broken
though not unusable like flooded
bridges
and you know the light is good
before
delving into a long treatise on consummate
failure.

____________________

Many thanks to our SnakePals for their brave fiddling! Would you like to be a SnakePal? 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:

Tyburn: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/tyburn.html

____________________

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

•••Aquarian: poetscollective.org/poetryforms/aquarian
•••Haiku: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/haiku/haiku.html
•••Monostich: briefpoems.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/slates-one-line-poems-monostich
•••Personification Poem: www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/personification
•••Pleiades: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/pleiades.html
•••Tanka: poets.org/glossary/tanka
•••Tyburn: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/tyburn.html
•••Vers Beaucoup: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/versbeaucoup.html
•••Waltmarie: www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/waltmarie-poetic-forms

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

—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.

 

 It’s not that often that
snakes ride horses…