Getting Back on the Horse

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joe Nolan

—Poetry by Michael H. Brownstein, 

Stephen Kingsnorth, Robert Fleming, 

Joe Nolan, and Nolcha Fox

—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Joe Nolan,

Robert Fleming, Nolcha Fox and Caschwa

 

 

 

DAUGHTER
—Michael H. Brownstein, Jefferson City, MO

My daughter blossomed into a wild flower
Hummingbird, sparrow, honey bee
Nourishing herself in the wind.
My daughter flashed her new colors
Brighter than a flamboyant tree,
Its leaves relish golden red.
In a flash a rainstorm loses its tea
And my daughter alive and invasive,
Straight and lovely, finds a way to give it back.

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joe Nolan

 

 

A LOOSENING OF TEETH
—Michael H. Brownstein

It came from guns.
When you think it will hurt, it hurts.
When you think it will not hurt, it stops hurting.
The huge headlight heavy-metals into your eyes.
Even closed, you can see a brilliant violet with purple lines.
The man over you is giant.
Not basketball giant. Not sumo wrestler giant.
When he picks up his steel instruments, his hands are huge,
but he handles each of them with a tender gentleness.
When he scrapes against bone, you hear it loudly inside your head.
Does he?
He has many sharp tools and a coil of heavy string.
A long time ago, you read a piece of fiction
about cruel spies who captured someone they thought knew their secrets.
They tied him to a chair and began extracting his teeth one at a time.
Tell us, they said, what you know.
He did not know anything.
In the end, they let him live toothless and bloody.

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joe Nolan

 

FIRST PEOPLE
—Michael H. Brownstein

Spring was not real yet, just a break from winter.
Mountain snow tumbled deep and wind carved
rock. We did not know rain. Then: a tunnel of light.
We came. We were curious and cold and light
enveloped us and made us warm. Earth broke
at our tails and light burned them white.
Then: here was a strange naked creature
standing on two legs with no hair on the face.
Yet they knew us and they caught us.
We did not know the magic in our tails.
Together the first people and we made a circle
and the mountains answered with spring,
then summer, and now we know winter no more.

 

 

 

  —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Nolcha Fox 

 

This is the last time

you will see her, you can taste it in the soup
she made the way your mother made it,
and you know you’re leaving even as she
wears your shirt and smiles.
She thinks you’ll come back home,
but you’ll keep driving down a road
that leads to nowhere she can find you.
You wonder if you loved her.
You wonder if you were even there.

—Nolcha Fox
After Sarah A. Etlinger, “Mistletoe”

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joe Nolan

 

BACK ON THE HORSES
—Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Wales

While rag-and-bone men hollered round,
with cockney cries, words undefined,
and strapped an oat sack, muzzled feed,
stone water troughs bloomed flower beds—
for fewer cobs saw cobbled streets.

Through shires the fields of squires still worked,
when I acquired my hobby, horse,
as scene in ancient pagan rites;
equestrian was for the rich,
not for the likes of city tykes.

We mucked about, not mucking out,
for straw was for the pallet rest,
and yet I dragged that frilly pole,
placing that stake as raced, due course,
not straight, but round the bend, soon flat.

So slapping thigh in cowboy style,
unbalanced, one hand on the reins,
my culture context crossed the pond—
lone ranger masked by TV prompts,
but, hi ho, wood not silver birch.

From mainly spinal column, thick,
as executed, head on stick,
my parents upped the game, so I
became a rocker, swinging scene—
but how the mighty fallen down.

So do I get back on the horse—
you’re told so, falling from a bike—
or turn a trick by backing them?
I take the measure, cash in hands,
that hobby yet out of control. 

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Robert Fleming

 

MAN, THE HAIRY SNAKE
—Robert Fleming, Lewes, DE

like a snake a man sheds & makes hair everyday

 

 

 

 



SNAKE HAIKU

irresistible
carrion air attracts vultures
anaconda lunch

 

 

 

 

expedition end
final Amazon crossing
green anaconda

 

 

 

 

first yoga session
blood pressure two hundred mmgh
ate snake apple

 

 

 

 

 

final downward dog
swaying tail silent music
rattlesnake yoga

 

 

 

 

flower petal yeast
final bread slice digested
white snakeroot flower

 

 

 

 

WE GOT THE MEMO
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

“If it looks like a duck”
say no more, enough
we know the drill
and knowledge is king

unarmed black guy
distancing himself from
police, must be a fugitive
felon, shoot him in the
back multiple times
just to be sure

give a man a gun
he’ll shoot for a day
teach a man to shoot…
all of a sudden he is as
cock sure confident as
Custer that his gun’s
trigger is the key to
success

Sandy Hook, Uvalde, etc.
say no more, enough
we know the drill
and knowledge is king

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joe Nolan

 

 

 

BY SURF, BETRAYED!
—Joe Nolan

What “random factors”
Have in store,
Is more than mortals
Could restore
When water
From the ocean’s
Rising waves
Comes onto shore,
More and more
Than years before--
Betrayed!

So trusting mortals
Cordial, trustingly,
Up to the sand, the beach,
For love of beauty,
Hoping to be free,
In the ambit of beauty,
The soothing of the surf,
In ears, a-night—
What dismal mayhem!
When surf turns into fright!

 

 

 

  —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joe Nolan

 

LOVE’S KARMA
—Joe Nolan
 
You have your own life.
You might kiss me, but
Exceptions are the rule.

I know you love me,
But not enough
To make a vain exception.

Absence is the loss,
Wandering
Against the toss
Of love into the wind.

We needn’t feel guilt
If we sinned.
God will keep the count.
We can’t escape our karma.
There’s no forgiveness.

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joe Nolan

 

 

 

BEFORE AN ARTIST’S DEATH, AN ASTRAL FAREWELL
—Joe Nolan

It might be something like this:
Close enough to show up
In a dream, together,
But not connected enough
To meet in-person
In this life.

When it’s your time to depart this world,
You might, in a dream,
Walk down a large avenue,
Surrounded, both sides, by stone walls
And the many people who’ve loved you,
From a distance,
But never met you,
Would be there, sitting atop
The bordering walls of the avenue,
Waving to you,
Saying “Hello!” and “Good-bye.”

And you would be waving
And saying “Hello!” and “Good-bye!”
And in the excitement
Of getting to see you,
Your fans would not realize
This was their once and last time to see you,
Before you would leave this world,
Too young, too young, too young!

______________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

He fell off

the saddle, drowned in distraction
from bad booze and call girls.
Ashamed and admonished,
he turned toward his purpose, but that
was a horse of a color he feared.
Horses aren’t happy with big-city living.
Instead of remounting, he traded
his horse for a cab.

—Nolcha Fox, Buffalo, WY

______________________

Taylor Graham and some of our cohorts up here have been doing rain dances, clearly with a big payoff, but things in Cali have turned from Night on Bald Mountain to Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Yikes! Buckets and buckets of rain… Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) sent some photos of his neighbor’s palm tree, just one of many casualties of this weekend’s storms:

 

 

 

 —Photo by Caschwa

 

Welcome back to the Kitchen to Robert Fleming, who has sent us his “Mandusa” series (man and Medusa—get it?). I did say think out of the box, didn’t I….? Thanks to him and to our other fine contributors today! Be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week; this past week’s was “Back on the Horse”.

Sacramento Poetry Center’s “Poet News” is back in action; check it out at https://www.facebook.com/sacpoetrycenter/. All the news that’s fit to print—and then some! But because of the wild & unpredictable weather we're having, tonight's reading with Anthony Xavier Jackson and Max West is being RESCHEDULED to Monday, February 6.

This week is also action-packed in NorCal poetry, with Poetic License read-around in Placerville this morning at 10:30am, and Rivertown Poets Zooming with William O’Daly and Indigo Moor tonight at 6:15pm. Second Tuesday Poetry in Modesto is online with Susan Cohen and Sacramento’s Brad Buchanan (tomorrow, 7pm; RSVP for Zoom link), and Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe (in person, open mic) takes place on Thursday at 8pm. Saturday is busy, with Brad Buchanan again, this time in person at Sacramento Poetry Alliance with Gary Kruse and open mic (4pm), then Sac. Poetry Center presents its Celebration and Reading for Dennis Schmitz and the release of his final book, Our Music, at 6pm. Click UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS at the top of this column for details about these 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.

Applications are being accepted for the June 19-25 Community of Writers’ Summer 2023 Poetry Workshop, Olympic Valley, CA (formerly Squaw Valley Writers), this year featuring poetry staff members Kazim Ali, Victoria Chang, Forrest Gander, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Brenda Hillman, Evie Shockley and Special Guests Robert Hass and Sharon Olds. Info/apply: https://communityofwriters.org/workshops/poetry-program/.

And Nolcha Fox has a new book out, Memory is that raccoon, from Amazon. See https://www.amazon.com/dp/9395224622/?fbclid=IwAR036gs5fUQD7EGVeisE1G1iytczSTQxpEek-oWIplOdQfyULv6KH9bPP8E/.
 
____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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LittleSnake Yoga