* * *
—Poetry by Michael Dwayne Smith, Apple Valley, CA
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Medusa
TRANSCENDENTAL SUMMER SURF
Used to keep FM radio on
so I was never alone. Like
people in the room who loved
what I loved, intense but calm,
always talking about what’s important—
end the war, legalize grass,
get people together—
then spinning records that spoke for us:
broken heart, broken spirit, plain flat broke.
Planets float like songs in airwaves,
bacon and eggs and coffee waft from the kitchen.
I wander around, dial numbers
on a phone, tilt my good ear
this way and that, and all this to
catch a frequency that never dies,
notes and syllables, birthing screams
and deathbed moans, sex like you’d have it
on the deck of the Titanic
as she drifts downward, vibrating low into the
waiting arms of icy-blue-eyed-blond-white Jesus.
Used to keep FM radio on
so I was never alone. Like
people in the room who loved
what I loved, intense but calm,
always talking about what’s important—
end the war, legalize grass,
get people together—
then spinning records that spoke for us:
broken heart, broken spirit, plain flat broke.
Planets float like songs in airwaves,
bacon and eggs and coffee waft from the kitchen.
I wander around, dial numbers
on a phone, tilt my good ear
this way and that, and all this to
catch a frequency that never dies,
notes and syllables, birthing screams
and deathbed moans, sex like you’d have it
on the deck of the Titanic
as she drifts downward, vibrating low into the
waiting arms of icy-blue-eyed-blond-white Jesus.
SLOW STUDIES
Flush with the idea of ripening
we rode our bikes to school and
floated in crowded pools, chlorine
in our hair and mouths.
Warmth and sweetness swayed
beneath palms, stupid ideas about
love swapped between us with tiny
kisses, and some mornings
were green, others rosy, until a heat
wave of afternoon touch, until light
from the sky died into imagination
and nibbles and fumbling
next to one another, me a stack of
firewood, you a small brush fire out
in the field behind the drug store
waiting, waiting with a
moon’s eye on me, me skinny-legged,
all uncertain future, alone with the
thought of your blossoming flame,
hotter and hotter by degrees,
lips lining a fruited bowl for my bird
tongue, trill of chats and robins our
soundtrack, some Al Green mixed in,
a little hand-in-hand to begin,
then a language revealed by flesh,
texture, scent, aroma of plum flower,
everything pink and bruise, and it’s
my birthday, naked in this
marooned spring of ripening, and
we burn it all down to feel ourselves
squeezed from the wet womb of
an inferno we’ll never contain.
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
PHILIP LAMANTIA
Trot in on the horse I taught to trust me.
My hands on the reins are life-sized. Today
we will explicate the wheel, a raven, and,
down by the river, an ancient cottonwood grove
hiding the ghosts of sage Mohave women.
The bird is an Object of Love, i.e. a trickster.
The women are real for long periods of time.
The wheel was invented by mildly recessive
dormant genes. You could be clothed in lizard
skins, if you so chose, if you had a rock band
in the ‘60s maybe, or if you simply saw your
self through that lens. Let’s follow the money:
fried chicken with the Senator at the church
luncheon. More money: three virgins stealing
liquor for a thirst that cannot be quenched.
More: gifted clouds mimicking good wishes
and kindly old gods with pet mythical beasts.
ABOUT DIVINITY
Stephen Dunn said, So much that’s worthy
occurs by accident. A book from the Bible I
love? The one with the two-for-$5 coupon. Great
googly-eyed-gore-whores across Your Land and
My Land want a crucifix burning in your yard—
that’s everyone’s Uncle Jack, and Starla from
Accounting, too, looking for a confederate in life.
Read left to riot, top to bound. My Psychic is a
video game champ named Divinity. She says she
traded a gender for a bag of magical dreams. Plus,
the girlfriend resents me living with them. Divinity
laid her head on my chest, said she saw me once,
before we met, in a ghetto reverie and, “No, you
didn’t make it out alive.” Queen of Cups, reversed,
the treachery of hearts. Divinity is sexy spiritual,
but she lacks the sand to handle what life grants
her. The critic who just read this poem writes,
“The poet knows how to use death,” as if Dr. Death
isn’t using the poet like a snack bar named Desire.
Stephen Dunn said, So much that’s worthy
occurs by accident. A book from the Bible I
love? The one with the two-for-$5 coupon. Great
googly-eyed-gore-whores across Your Land and
My Land want a crucifix burning in your yard—
that’s everyone’s Uncle Jack, and Starla from
Accounting, too, looking for a confederate in life.
Read left to riot, top to bound. My Psychic is a
video game champ named Divinity. She says she
traded a gender for a bag of magical dreams. Plus,
the girlfriend resents me living with them. Divinity
laid her head on my chest, said she saw me once,
before we met, in a ghetto reverie and, “No, you
didn’t make it out alive.” Queen of Cups, reversed,
the treachery of hearts. Divinity is sexy spiritual,
but she lacks the sand to handle what life grants
her. The critic who just read this poem writes,
“The poet knows how to use death,” as if Dr. Death
isn’t using the poet like a snack bar named Desire.
REVELATIONS IN THE SUN
When you think of order, do you think of
Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders? If the present
is made of God, Canadian bears say yes to
the now. Teachers pants these theories, pass
them off as suburban car window mooning,
cheeks squarely admiring their undermined
authority. Jimmie talks about Jesus all day
and is mowed down by a hammered priest,
as Lu, the diner waitress, seats a Pollyanna
family escaping 115 degrees of Barstow heat.
Delirium is a bridge. Pleasure is cold water
running under it. It’s strange to see the birds
veer away from Jimmie’s church, the brain-
washed congregants too long avoiding neatly
trimmed grass and naked bellies in the park.
This country used to orbit freedom leashed
to dilemmas. You are jigsaw pieces of that
painting over the bed in the Vegas Motel 6
room way back in the ruins of 1994, and by
transubstantiation, you can be the toad of
your choice: croak now or later, your call.
When you think of order, do you think of
Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders? If the present
is made of God, Canadian bears say yes to
the now. Teachers pants these theories, pass
them off as suburban car window mooning,
cheeks squarely admiring their undermined
authority. Jimmie talks about Jesus all day
and is mowed down by a hammered priest,
as Lu, the diner waitress, seats a Pollyanna
family escaping 115 degrees of Barstow heat.
Delirium is a bridge. Pleasure is cold water
running under it. It’s strange to see the birds
veer away from Jimmie’s church, the brain-
washed congregants too long avoiding neatly
trimmed grass and naked bellies in the park.
This country used to orbit freedom leashed
to dilemmas. You are jigsaw pieces of that
painting over the bed in the Vegas Motel 6
room way back in the ruins of 1994, and by
transubstantiation, you can be the toad of
your choice: croak now or later, your call.
BONNIE MEANS ETERNITY
Drinking buddy Jeff says there’s nothing fun
about “just being himself,” like he’s got some
miracle on back-order, and anyway how would
he know what to do with it. How can I escape
being me, or we, more properly. So many selves
I love to be—the way birds are connected by
song. An otherwise beautiful obsession in an
unhealthy landscape, I like being certain in her
hands (Bonnie), and I like nothing less or more
blindly (Bonnie). I like rain that can’t pronounce
her name (Bonnie). I like a tender mouth filled
with ingenious riddles (so Bonnie). I won’t wait
around too long. You coming or not? Listen
close, all the driveways in this desert town are
cracking in the sun, down here in this has-been
ocean, where middle-class neighbors have lost
their minds, and local meth-heads ain’t gonna
solve shit, but maybe, just maybe, one sublime
afternoon before I go, making love in tall, wet
spring grass (oh, Bonnie), some primo weed.
_______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
HOLY FURY
—Michael Dwayne Smith
These days I sublimate my rage
with origami, secrets, maybe alchemy,
or at least a quick breath between notes,
Jim Morrison’s voice on the radio, on stage,
as if God had something to be grateful for,
there, where the secrets are stored
behind irons of passion, first heart, archangel.
_____________________
—Medusa, with thanks to Michael Dwayne Smith for today’s fine poetry!
“Planets float like songs in airwaves…”
For info about future
poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
during the week.
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.
Find previous four-or-so posts by scrolling down
under today; or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column; or find previous poets
by typing the name of the poet or poem
into the little beige box at the top
left-hand side of today’s post; or go to
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of
the blue column at the right
to find the date you want.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
send poetry and/or photos and artwork
to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
during the week.
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.
Find previous four-or-so posts by scrolling down
under today; or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column; or find previous poets
by typing the name of the poet or poem
into the little beige box at the top
left-hand side of today’s post; or go to
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of
the blue column at the right
to find the date you want.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
send poetry and/or photos and artwork
to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
