—Poetry and Photos by Taylor Graham,
Placerville, CA
—And then scroll down to
Form Fiddlers’ Friday, with Poetry by
Nolcha fox, Stephen Kingsnorth, Caschwa,
Christina Chin, and Uchechukwu Onyedikam
FOX CRY
What’s the wailing about? he wants to know.
However can words fill a scream gut-wrenched?
From down our gravel drive, a scream. Gut-wrench
as if gravel being ripped from bedrock.
Inside our gate, a heap of fox-den rock.
Earth-heave seismic waves—or is it traffic?
On a curve of two-lane, speeding traffic,
Gray Fox kit welded onto centerline.
Fox-nose splits headwind off the centerline,
ears pricked for flight, flank pressed into blacktop.
Vixen howls out her gut against blacktop,
against traffic that just keeps on wheeling.
As trucks and SUVs keep on wheeling
she wails for a justice that does not know.
THE LOSS OF EDEN
The Harvest Moon’s a sliver, a finger-
nail paring, a curved incision
on the night sky. It’s too dark to see
familiar landscape, roads cut into ridges,
half of a hill leveled for house
and garage. Headlights flash & gone
aimed for somewhere else—
freeway, interchange, cities that used
to be groves and meadow grazed
by wild creatures. It’s almost
Halloween, but the Grim Reaper
has been at it all year long, harvesting
species, in all the phases of moon.
WHAT’S THE COST?
The Haunted Forest poster
Grim Reaper beckons at edge
of highway, this accident-
disposed junction,
traffic speeding by....
I glimpse past the gate—
peaceful forest beckons
living tree by tree.
HAUNTED
They found the cabin solid, the sink rusty,
a toilet one wouldn’t want to use;
crack in a windowpane, door that wouldn’t
shut tight. The four-square space fit
for storage. Decades of binders—financial
deals long settled, old letters, photos
of ancestors gone, antiquated camping gear
that might serve in an emergency.
Ground squirrels moved under floorboards
and something kept shredding papers
for a nest. What’s spookier than skittering
feet on creaking wood, chill whistle
of October wind through cracked glass
and threshold, the haunting of documents
ripped by rodent teeth, a dissected past?
The old pair walked away.
RR TRACK WITH DOG
Her nose low, she moves at a brisk trot
stop! something worth sniffing minutely
something my human eyes can’t see
a black tent, someone’s homeless camp
in a dark stringer of oak and pine
brown towhee in a bush
corrugated metal pipe in low meadow
my dog alerts wild scent from a distance
is this where fox has her den?
madia still in bloom after a frosty night
what my dog grabs off the ground
a thing I couldn’t see or smell
it crunches in her jaws
small bone I grab out of her mouth
in the deep green cutoff,
blackberries once tempting
what’s left of berries now shriveled
fresh horse-apples signal autumn
cool enough to saddle up for a ride.
WHEN THE OWL CALLS
This morning in dark of a rainy dawn,
while my phone app on the back deck
listens for birdsong, I switch on a video
of owl sounds. Shrieks, whinnies, hoots –
spooky as Halloween—
and Shelby’s on the spot, receptor ears
at full pitch, my puppy going nuts.
Is the taloned night-hunter
about to descend? Owl calls must trigger
some madeleine response. It isn’t fear.
She’s trying to climb into my laptop,
a creature on the edge of wild.
And Otis? He knows the wild firsthand,
from birth. He doesn’t wake from
napping on the carpet, conserving energy
for this morning’s training in the rain.
_______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
CINDY THE MAGICIAN
—Taylor Graham
It’s just plain magic
when the dog goes crazy wild,
she simply says “aus!”
and he turns into the soul
of civility and peace.
_______________________
Taylor Graham says she “went nuts” with Halloween photos, and I say we’re all the better for it! This is such a colorful, fun season. Our thanks to Taylor Graham for the poems and photos today.
Forms TG has used this week include a Duplex (“Fox Cry”); a List Poem (“RR Track with Dog”); a Tanka that is also a Response to our Tuesday Seed of the Week, Magicians I Have Known (“Cindy the Magician”); a Boketto (“What's the Cost?”); and a Word-Can Poem that is also a Response to another Tuesday Seed of the Week, The Owl Who Waits (“When the Owl Calls”). Her poem, “Haunted” has a reference to our current Seed of the Week, Skittering Through the Woods. The Boketto and the Duplex were two of last week’s Triple-F Challenges.
In El Dorado County poetry this week, it’s not too late to sign up for another Capturing Wakamatsu workshop at Wakamatsu Farm in Placerville this Sunday morning, led by Taylor Graham and Katy Brown. Also, Lara Gularte and Sue Norman are facilitating on-going Veterans’ Voices workshops in South Lake Tahoe and Placerville. And for info about EDC’s regular workshops, scroll down to Medusa’s Kitchen’s http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html/. For more news about such events and about EDC poetry—past (photos!) and future—see Taylor Graham’s Western Slope El Dorado Poetry on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry/. Or see Lara Gularte’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/382234029968077/. And you can always click on Medusa's UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS (http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html). Poetry is Gold in El Dorado County!
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 challenges— Whaddaya got to lose… ? If you send ‘em, I’ll post ‘em! (See Medusa’s Form Finder at the end of this post for resources and for links to poetry terms used in today’s post.)
Check out our recently-refurbed 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 and other ways of poetry. Got any more resources to add to our list? Send them to kathykieth@hotmail.com for the benefit of all man/woman/poetkind!
* * *
Last Week’s Ekphrastic Photo
Poets who sent responses to last week’s Ekphrastic photo/artwork were Nolcha Fox, Stephen Kingsnorth, and Caschwa:
Ooooooo, BABY
—Nolcha Fox, Buffalo, WY
Baby wants to run away.
Her food is soft and runny.
She’s tired of soggy diapers
and the smell of clingy poo.
When kids descend upon the house
to grab a bunch of candy,
she follows them on walker
dressed like someone
else’s granny.
* * *
FRAME UP?
—Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Wales
Here framed the generation gap,
though not contrasting photographs,
but composite, that wraps it up
with cosy cardy, buttoned up,
and spectacle of glasses chain;
this chubby stance of walking frame.
Both chasing daisies in their way—
the young for chains in meadow play,
or ’mongst the stones in cemetery,
while granny plotting underground,
and planning sod’s lore cover up—
so push those very flowers up.
There layabouts from babes to old
combined for some in seventh age—
see some seem old before their time.
Has scene been framed, a set up cast
as advert for that tubular,
for could she lift it in her stride?
I contemplate—what makes her aged—
is it the optics, stye of frame
that never would be faced by child?
Anomalies unsettle us,
dependent time continuum—
though I must go now, change the clocks.
* * *
WHO DONE IT?
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
Okay, who put these silly reading glasses
on my face when I specifically requested
Red Baron fighter pilot goggles?
* * *
Here is an Inverted Terza Rima from Joyce Odam’s archives; she first discovered the form in Poets’ Forum Magazine:
WHITE ROSE, RED ROSE
—Joyce Odam
Brush touches canvas. Something knows,
or seems to know, what must evolve;
the mind envisioning a rose.
The artist knows what will involve
the vision and selects pure white,
proceeding on this firm resolve.
Brush tries to bring the rose to life,
turns shape and color to a smear,
turns early effort to a blight.
No brush nor artist can be seer.
The rose itself wants to be red
The finished painting makes it clear:
Surely the canvas is to blame.
The white rose, sacrificed, and bled,
gives up its purity. It wanted fame.
Poets Forum Magazine, Inverted Terza Rima
Rhymed: aba cac dcd ede fef
(prev. pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 11/19/19)
* * *
Here are some Tan-Renga for the sesson from Christina Chin (Malaysia) and Uchechukwu Onyedikam (Lagos, Nigeria):
MIST-EERIE
—Christina Chin (plain text) and
Uchechukwu Onyedikam (italics)
ascending into dawn
hissing through the garden
a barn owl
its shadow stitches
the mouth of the dead
~ ~ ~
an interior—
dim lanterns
surrounding pangolins
armoured backs carve
runes in the dark
~ ~ ~
at the doorstep
without announcement
the doorbell rings
a striking thing—
a swan
* * *
Here is a Haiku from Carl Schwartz (Caschwa):
POINT TO PONDER
—Caschwa
What happens when the
Slovak Orchestra must play
up-tempo pieces?
* * *
Here is Carl’s Extended Sonnet:
THE RISE OF PETTY
—Caschwa
It’s Sunday, time to wear the finest suit
at church must sit in awe and do as told
sure, heard it all before, they are that old
pretending that they really give a hoot
When services are over, all will leave
the steep and looming gable far behind
their footsteps showing shoes with gleaming shine
the pinnacle of what they have achieved
A restaurant awaits this crowd with glee
shepherd with herd of sheep that cannot think
forbidden fruit, temptation to the brink
orders entered one by one, key by key
The shepherd (either gender) states his case,
his taste for tea is zero, nothing suits
the flock stays silent, their opinion moot
before they can think, the thought is erased
None in the flock can have second helpings
unless almighty shepherd holds thumbs up
except when empty swallows water cup
a refill is brought in by angel wings
It’s Monday, the laundry calls out for help
get out of bed and rush into some clothes
silence ill curses and stifle those oaths
dirt and stains wait like a forest of kelp
* * *
And SOME kinda form from Carl (abab/cdcd/efef). Extra credit if you get which form it is:
SHORTCOMINGS
—Caschwa
Can’t speak any French
or swim like a fish
judge without a bench
meal without a dish
new year’s resolutions
an exercise in pain
the problem, not the solution
the deficit, not the gain
winning cards in penny poker
casino style ups the betting
no payout for just a joker
richer we will not be getting
__________________
Many thanks to today’s writers for their lively contributions! Wouldn’t you like to join them? 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!
Today's Ekphrastic Challenge!
Make what you can of today's
picture, and send your poetic results to
kathykieth@hotmail.com/. (No deadline.)
* * *
—Artwork Courtesy of Public Domain
A reminder that the Frannie Dressersix-week Zoom workshop,“Writin’ With Critters”starts today at 10am. For info about this and otherfuture poetry happenings in Northern California and otherwheres, click onUPCOMING 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 onthe 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.Poets’ bios appear on their first MK visit.To find previous posts, type the nameof the poet (or poem) into the littlebeige box at the top left-hand sideof this column. See alsoMedusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of the blue column on the rightside of this column to findany date you want. Miss a post?You can find our most recent ones byscrolling down under this daily one.Or there's an "Older Posts" buttonat the bottom of this column.(Please excuse typos in older posts!Blogspot has been through a lot ofincarnations in 20 years!)Would you like to be a SnakePal? Guidelines are at the top of this pageat the Placating the Gorgon link;send poetry and/or photos and artworkto kathykieth@hotmail.com. We postwork from all over the world—includingthat which was previously published—and collaborations are welcome. Just remember:the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—for poetry, of course!
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