Friday, March 04, 2022

A Gift of Uncluttered Air

 
—Poetry and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA
—And then scroll down for FORM FIDDLERS' FRIDAY!!



BEER CANS & PAPER PLATES
 
Surreptitious one-night camping spots
we had a knack for discovering—
so way-out somewhere, there’d be no trace
of humankind but some beer cans plugged
for target practice. We liked places
that folks couth enough to use paper
plates and disposable niceties
wouldn’t find. Cans—rusty or shiny—
we bagged for recycling. Where we liked
to camp, silence was ours, except for
coyote serenade. No streetlight,
no neon, just stars and moon. They kept
our secrets—or maybe we were their
secrets. Like them, on our way by dawn.
 
 
 
 


ALONG THE GOLD TRAIL

This place has changed by years,
just driving past this hill—
a chance trip going where?
this range of winter grass
and blue uncluttered air.
 
This place has changed by years,
native bedrock mortars
and earthmovers, here still—
but what’s that new stratum
lying aslant the hill?
 
This place has changed by years—
geologic, human—
is that stratum is cut-
bank for some rancher’s road?
Boulders keep their mouths shut.
 
This place has changed by years
but still it greens with rain
then dries to tinder-grass,
and overhead the hawk
flies clockwise as I pass.
 
 
 
 


CHANGEABLE WEATHER
 
Daffodils who raised
golden trumpets yesterday
bow down this morning,
as if they’re genuflecting
to the night’s hard frost.
Just wait, you tell me, watch them
rise back up to praise the sun.
 
 
 

 
 
INTO THE MIDDLE FORK
 
This road from crest to river bridge
it seems to wind forever down
with not a thought of reaching town.
 
The map shows tangled contour lines
beyond the road-edge sudden drop
no chance to turn around or stop.
 
No guardrail brake lights hairpin curves
road-bed devised by carving knives
reminder of our fragile lives.
 
At last the bridge between rock cliffs
this canyon like a river’s cup
the far side leads as steeply up.
 
The current under us is swift
the constancy of murmur-flow
is but a blink of melting snow.
 
 
 

 
 
HIGH RISE
 
How these sheets of plated glass yearn to be free sky
and water, ever shifting shades floating through
cloud ephemeral on endless aqua blue—
not tethered down to earth like us passersby.
 
 
 
 


UNASKED
 
Sara tells me the name of God
is spoken by breath taken in
and given back, as gracefully
a hawk sails on the gift of air.
 
 
 
 


Today’s LittleNip:

WORDS AROUND THE TABLE
—Taylor Graham
 
5 poets draw words—
5 words to spark their poems
these words taking flight.

_______________________

“…a hawk sails on the gift of air” and the poets' “words taking flight.” It must be Friday, as the smooth poetry of Taylor Graham tells us about spring daffodils and graceful hawks and she and her husband, Hatch, once upon a time picking up "beer cans and paper plates" (the recent Seed of the Week in Medusa's Kitchen) to leave their camp site as pristine as her poetry. Forms that TG has sent us today include the Senryu (“Words around the Table”); a Constanza (“Into the Middle Fork”); a Monchielle (“Along the Gold Trail”); Normative Syllabics (“Beer Cans & Paper Plates” and “Unasked”); a Choka (“Changeable Weather”); and a Cuarteto, last week’s Fiddlers’ Challenge that is also last week’s Ekphrastic challenge (“High Rise”).

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, there will be poems posted here from our readers using forms—either ones which were sent to 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 resources and for links to poetry terms used today.) 
 
 
 
Last Week's Ekphrastic Challenge
 
 
Here is Stephen Kingsnorth's response to last week's Ekphrastic Challenge, packed with description and rockin' rhythms as always. Thanks, Stephen!
 

GLASS STOREYS
—Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Wales, UK

How tastes change as the years mount up—
tomato hated as a child—
those brutal concrete slabs, cement,
protected now, as zeitgeist work;
sloped rooves sinking to the flat,
breeding pools for gnats and leaks;
and glasshouse, architecture prize,
brought office workers’ boil or freeze.

So winter brought some aches with panes,
spring some swing from mad March winds,
the summer, sunstroke of midday,
in autumn, desk books turning leaves.
Is glass for light, or sights as scene,
is outside decorating plain,
is washing windows left to rain,
or walking plank, men entertain?

With much recycling underway,
is my window formed from waste,
nightjars, pipettes, kestrel beer,
sparrowcork, screw-top wine,
leaded, stained, in the clear,
tumbler from the circus ring,
mirror, lens as magnified,
convex, concave man in woad?

And is glass blown or made from dune,
same skyscraper, sandpaper grain,
test-tube, shopfront, globe crystal ball,
jewel fake, grass snake, splintered flask?
Here I see hints of colour tints—
those in greenhouses, don’t throw stones—
but watch those birds, flight overhead;
is it a bank, deposits made?

______________________

Caschwa (Carl Schwartz) sent what he calls a “reverse Haiku”, using Tercets in the form 7/6/5, with a rhyme scheme of axa. (More about the Haiku later; see below.) Up in which I grew?
 
 
 

 
 
BEFORE SMART PHONES
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

the world up in which I grew
had questions aplenty
good answers but few

libraries, the finest tool
to cultivate the facts
determine the rule

prepositions: don’t end with
one never will grow up
is that true or myth?

grammar school teachers gave us
adverbs to modify
adjectives with lust

turned us loose with “l” and “y”
to quickly enhance words
grade was do or die

humps, bumps, and undulations
regulate traffic speed
testing our patience

internment camps, built to hold
Japanese poetry
emotions untold

backyard, wringer washer and
incinerator to
burn away the bland

* * *

Carl’s “Batpow” is what he calls a “pungent Acrostic”—read the first word of each line, going down, for a secret message:
 
 
 

 
  
BATPOW
—Caschwa

(how others may see us,
until we fix things better)


blacks have been freed from slavery, or
are they only running around loose with
the false idea that they are equal? whose
property is a government based on consent
of the people, that was founded by
whites, but oh, those Amendments!

* * *

And here is Carl’s Haibun about graupel. You may’ve already written about graupel, actually, without using such a fancy name—especially if you live in the Mid-West. (How much graupel is a "surfeit of graupel"?) Joy-riding on snowflakes!
 
 
 

 

SURFEIT OF GRAUPEL
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

chilling in the sunlight, joy-
riding on snowflakes, sharing
radiant whiteness all around

embodying all the glorious
magnificence of a holiday sale
that clusters freshly scrubbed

shoppers together a bit too
closely next to rapidly erected
displays of merchandise along

aisles and aisles of pleasant
images with not so subtle cheery
suggestions evoking the heartfelt

comment “just what I’m looking for!”
the shopping cart soon filled with
glittering me-to-you feelings which

more than transcend mere material
measurements that attempt to
quantify a surfeit of graupel

the smile is greater
than the sum of little grins
happy, healthy folks


____________________

Many thanks to our SnakePals for today's 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:

•••Cascade: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/cascade.html

See the bottom of this post for another challenge, this one an Ekphrastic one! And our Resource of the Week (below) has a hidden challenge in it, too…

____________________

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

•••Acrostic: literarydevices.net/acrostic
•••Cascade: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/cascade.html
•••Choka: poetscollective.org/poetryforms/choka AND/OR poetscollective.org/poetryforms/choka
•••Constanza: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/constanza.html
•••Cuarteto: poetscollective.org/poetryforms/cuarteto
•••Ekphrastic Poem: notesofoak.com/discover-literature/ekphrastic-poetry
•••Haibun: www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/haibun-poems-poetic-form
•••Haiku: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/haiku/haiku.html
•••Monchielle (moan-SHELL): www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/monchielle.html
•••Normative Syllabics: hellopoetry.com/collection/108/normative-syllabic-free-verse AND/OR lewisturco.typepad.com/poetics/normative-syllabic-verse
•••Senryu: www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-write-senryu-poems#quiz-0
 
 
 

 
 
RESOURCE OF THE WEEK:

•••Matsuo Bashō ~ Selected Haiku: (haikuoftheforest.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/matsuo-basho-selected-haiku): Such wonderful use of words to describe the natural world around us, even in English! Pick some and write Haiku responses to them.

__________________

—Medusa
 
 
 
 Today's Ekphrastic Challenge!

 

See what you can make of the above

photo, and send your results to 

kathykieth@hotmail.com/. (No deadline.)
 

***
 

—Public Domain Photo 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 




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