—And then scroll down for
Form Fiddlers’ Friday!!
TEA AND POETRY
In garden of the historic
Silk and Tea Colony they’ve come
to celebrate the ritual
of tea in dainty cups—
this event planned so long. Will it
rain? Our poems handy if we’re
asked, our eyes more focused on sky,
in peril of downpour.
Paste this in the random scrapbooks
of the mind, memory windblown
savor of tea and words let loose
into the chance of cloud.
NOVEMBER 5
I taste for words on wind. I’d
read them as I walk. Why hide
the promises wind never
keeps? If ever it would bide.
KALEIDOSCOPE SCRAPS
gray tones of a faded photo
imperceptibly reconstituting
as you rotate the fragments,
the past becoming present
imperceptibly reconstituting
into future, a sense of threat;
the past becoming present,
features shattered into dust,
into future. A sense of threat,
with shiver-angels at midnight,
features shattered into dust.
Star to ash; twist; another star
with shiver-angels at midnight,
snow, sand, dust, and ash—
star to ash; twist; another star
scattering ever-new patterns.
THE MUSE’S SCRAPBOOK
WONDROUS FUNGUS
Blushing Rosette (Abortiporous biennis)
It grew from the trunk of an oak—an old
live oak on the backside hill—without my
knowing. Scouting that hillside for firewood,
I spotted its landing far below the green-
mossed trunk of its birth, with fungal fragments
leaving a trail downslope as it rolled, like
an elf’s ball for bowling down the woods, or
pixie headdress grown too large for a sprite
to bear. Bear (black) droppings not far away.
There must be mystery here to solve, if
I had time and woods lore. But I must find
firewood before it gets dark on this hill,
sparking ever wilder imaginings
than wood spirits dancing the fairy rings.
FOUND ON THE INTERNET
“You need a hunting license to set a mouse trap
in California.”
Dare we set a mousetrap with-
out a hunting license?
Law dreamed up by a bureaucrat?
Remember our nightmare year
of mice raiding cupboards,
pantry, living at ease, and fat!
We set bait, they stole the cheese
and never tripped the trap.
So were we criminals for that?
We need no hunting license
now. Well within the law
(if such there is), we got a cat.
Today’s LittleNip:
HILL WALK
—Taylor Graham
Underfoot, the oaks’
scrapbook: twigs and dead leaves—
pages and pages.
_____________________
Good November morning, fallen leaves and all, and thanks to Taylor Graham for poetic news and photos from the foothills! Forms she has used this week include the Pantoum (“Kaleidoscope Scraps”); Carl Schwartz’s Forbidden Desires (“Found on the Internet”); a Haiku (“Hill Walk:); a Welsh Englyn Cyrch, one of last week’s Triple-F challenges (“November 5”); a Ryūka chain (“Tea and Poetry”); and a Smith Sonnet, another of last week’s challenges (“Blushing Rosette”). For more photos of last week’s tea ceremony at Wakamatsu Farm in Placerville, see TG’s Western Slope El Dorado poetry on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry/.
Tonight (Fri., 11/11), 7-8:30pm, el gigante presents An Evening With Doug Rice plus open mic on Zoom. Click UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS at the top of this column for details about this and other future poetry events in the NorCal area—and keep an eye on this link and on the Kitchen for happenings that might pop up during the week.
And a moment to remember those men and women who are veterans of this country’s service, especially those who gave their lives.
Now it’s time for . . .
Form Fiddlers' Friday!
There’s also a newly dusted-off page at the top of Medusa’s Kitchen called, “FORMS! OMG!!!” which expresses some of my (take ‘em or leave 'em) opinions about the use of forms in poetry writing, as well as listing some more resources to help you navigate through Form Quicksand. Got any more resources to add to our list? Send them to kathykieth@hotmail.com for the benefit of all man/woman/poetkind!
Welcome to our kitchen,
decked out in pristine white.
No fingerprints or footprints
mar any shiny plane.
That’s why we go to restaurants,
and take off all our shoes,
to keep our kitchen just like new,
and we don’t have to clean.
* * *
HANG OUT
—Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth,
Wrexham, Wales
Tap brass unfurled, fixed handles, hooks,
just as the fold, sink towel laid,
too-clean straight lines, shelves minor stack.
Shade cat is curl, laid straight band-tail
towards still bolster, striped at length—
hid head and paws behind the drawers,
still, stuffed for fear of show-home breathe?
Blinds, concertina, no squeezed note,
for plant alone, green growth from globe,
though that so slow no dust dare move.
Who hangs out here but notice-board,
too shy to live, exposed in light?
But would I swap it for a day
spent in Assam’s Regal Hotel,
as neighbour, cobbler, Bata shoes,
head-hunting Nagas in the hills?
Our water, bucket from the well
with plaited vines to hang our clothes,
and dog nearby to watch for rats,
a pair of oxen out the back.
No curtains to inhibit view
of jungle growth beyond the bars,
where webs, spun skeins, avoided best.
Who hangs out here but regal folk?
* * *
Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) sent an Ekphrastic response that is also a Welsh Cyrch A Chwta, a recent Triple-F challenge:
AGNOSTIC KITCHEN
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
our little house has a small
galley kitchen, off front hall
not one window, none at all
it doesn’t sense daylight’s call
season is eternal Fall
adorned like a shopping mall
one hundred-watt LED
puts the brightest spot on wall
* * *
Joyce Odam has sent a poem in Normative Syllabics:
When you are counting
the long thin hours
of the day—the long
thin day that becomes
filled with the naggings
of the mind in its
wanderings—failing—
precious time that is
not for the wasting,
the static measures,
when life's wonderments
can fill the mind with
all the time you waste . . .
* * *
Claire Baker has sent another of her Stepping Stones; this one ends with a surprise:
In
corner
of right eye
a fluttering
has me wondering:
Blown leaves? My pet sparrow?
* * *
Here is an Ars Poetica from Stephen Kingsnorth. “How should I step back from my verse…” he says. Great question!
SOLILOQUY
—Stephen Kingsnorth
How should I step back from my verse,
despite the piled rejection notes
that tell, my precious all alone,
voiced recall speaks to no ear else?
As though a love song spurned again,
an unrequited candle burn,
my heart poured out remembering,
sum trivial red letter day.
Did others never know it too,
that capture in my addled brain,
its passing insignificant,
mere figment in importance stakes,
couch case for psychoanalyst,
a pleasure, pain yet unresolved?
Or simply failure to convey?
A chime that rings no bells elsewhere?
Maybe for readers unimpressed,
but I express what long stored up,
a therapy, life’s treasure chest?
And if that so then I’m at peace,
a complement to what I’ve been,
so I’ll not trouble those content
with piece that hovers in my soul,
of rôle call that I know was blessed.
Yet should we keep it to ourselves,
that storybook which all unfold,
not least as age allows review,
whose rhythms sound, if only few?
Its only worth if lightens lode,
it’s only worth if lightening load
and I think poems to be read,
in visit, return, time again.
It is this clarifies my mind,
with language of my common speech,
the koine of Greek street indeed.
So lift the pen or tap the keys,
call up the shades and wights that passed,
a storeroom packed experience,
hope you might find the label sought,
unpack it, though you only one.
* * *
And Caschwa sent this form which he says is a Nonce; it’s also Normative Syllabics:
powerful, destructive
sweeps far and wide, leaving
nothing at all standing
just like mowing the law
___________________
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!
___________________
TRIPLE-F CHALLENGES!
•••Soliloquy: https://smartblogger.com/soliloquy-examples
AND/OR tackle yet another Welsh form:
•••Englyn Byr Cwca: www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/englyn-byr-cwca-poetic-forms
•••See also the bottom of this post for another challenge, this one an Ekphrastic Photo.
MEDUSA’S FORM FINDER: Links to poetry terms mentioned today:
For more about meter, see:
____________________
See what you can make of the above
photo, and send your poetic results to
kathykieth@hotmail.com/. (No deadline.)
***
—Photo Courtesy of Public Domain
For upcoming poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
in the links at the top of this page.
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.
