Between Animal and Flower, Like Medusas...

I FEEL THE DEAD
—Sophia de Mello Breyner

I feel the dead in the cold of violets
And that great vagueness in the moon.

The earth is doomed to be a ghost,
She who rocks all death in herself.

I know I sing at the edge of silence,
I know I dance around suspension,
Possess around dispossession.

I know I pass around the mute dead
And hold within myself my own death.

But I have lost my being in so many beings,
Died my life so many times,
Kissed my ghosts so many times,
Known nothing of my acts so many times,
That death will be simply like going
From inside the house into the street.

_________________________

Sophia de Mello Breyner is a Portuguese poet, born in 1919, who began publishing in 1944 and has received the Grand Prize in Poetry of the Portuguese Society of Writers. These poems today were translated from the Portuguese by Ruth Fainlight and published in The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, ed. by J.D. McClatchy, Vintage Books, 1996.

I think we all feel the dead these days; James DenBoer writes that everyone seems out of sorts, as we all reverberate with the troubles of our tribe. There are plenty of opportunities to help. Richard Hansen writes that "Tuesday's Hurricane Relief Benefit at HQ raised $890! Astonishing..." Founder J. Greenberg says "I also wanted to add my personal thanks to those of you in the poetry community who performed, attended, and donated. Thank you Bob Stanley, Rhony Bhopla, Crawdad Nelson, Robert Roden, Gene Bloom, Sandi Wasserman, Annie Menebroker and every other poetic spirit there!"

James Lee Jobe is reading here, there and everywhere this weekend. Catch him tonight (9/9) at The Other Voice in Davis, Unitarian Church, 27074 Patwin Road, Davis, 7:30, hosted by the irrepressible Allegra Silberstein. Tomorrow night, he will read with Susan Kelly-DeWitt and Sandra McPherson to celebrate Charlie McDonald's new book, El Sobrante: Selected Poems 1975-2005 from Swan Scythe Press at The Avid Reader, 617 Second Street, Davis (Info: 530-758-4040), 7:30.


DAY OF SEA
—Sophia de Mello Breyner

Day of sea in the sky, made
From shadows and horses and plumes.

Day of sea in my room—cube
Where my sleepwalker's movements slide
Between animal and flower, like medusas.

Day of sea in the sea, high day
Where my gestures are seagulls who lose themeselves
Spiralling over the clouds, over the spume.


_______________________

BEACH
—Sophia de Mello Breyner

The pines moan when the wind passes
The sun beats on the earth and the stones burn.

Fantastic sea gods stroll at the edge of the world
Crusted with salt and brilliant as fishes.

Sudden wild birds hurled
Against the light into the sky like stones
Mount and die vertically
Their bodies taken by space.

The waves butt as if to smash the light
Their brows ornate with columns.

And an ancient nostalgia of being a mast
Sways in the pines.

_____________________

One more:

THE FLUTE
—Sophia de Mello Breyner

In the room's corner the shadow played its little flute
It was then I remembered the cisterns and sea-nettles
And the mortal glitter of the naked beach

Night's ring was solemnly place on my finger
And the silent fleet continued its immemorial journey.


___________________________

Thanks, Sophia!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.

Fromming Our Feelers

HOW TO MEDITATE
—Jack Kerouac

—lights out—
fall, hands clasped, into instantaneous
ecstasy like a shot of heroin or morphine,
the gland inside of my brain discharginig
the good glad fluid (Holy Fluid) as
I hap-down and hold all my body parts
down to a deadstop trance—Healing
of my sicknesses—erasing all—not
even the shred of a "I-hope-you" or a
Loony Balloon left in it, but the mind
blank, serene, thoughtless. When a thought
comes a-springing from afar with its held-
forth figure of image, you spoof it out,
you spuff it off, you fake it, and
it fades, and thought never comes—and
with joy you realize for the first time
"Thinking's just like not thinking—
So I don't have to think
any
more."

_________________________

SITTING UNDER TREE NUMBER TWO
—Jack Kerouac

But the undrawables,
the single musical harp
rainbow's blue green
shimmer of a cobweb—
the line of a thread swimming
in the wind, blue &
silver at intervals that
appear & disappear—
7 songe along the rim
tying to the plant
as birds twurdle over
those massy fort trees
populous with song
—imaginary blossoms in my
eye moving across the
page with definite oily
rainbow water holes &
rims of beaten gold,
with toads of old
silver.
Golden fast ant back
in the hay now fromming
its feelers thru the
thicket of time then
darting across mud looking
for more trees—
A little ant bit my ass
& I said Eeesh with
my wad of gum— I
itch & pain all over
with hate of time
tedium. Save me!
Kill me!

________________________

Thanks, Jack!

Kids wanted! Snakelets, the journal of poetry from kids 0-12, has a deadline coming up OCTOBER 1, and we desperately need poems! Send whatever you have to 4708 Tree Shadow Place, Fair Oaks, CA 95628 or hotmail it to kathykieth@hotmail.com. (Notice that the age limit is now 0-12, instead of 0-16. We separated out the teens; they now go into Editor Robbie Grossklaus's VYPER, ages 13-19, deadline November 1.)

Rattlesnake Review #7 is rolling off the presses all this week, and contributor copies and subscriptions will go into the mail early next week. Snakes will appear at The Book Collector starting Saturday (1008 24th St., Sac.), or catch me at Jim Jobe's reading in Davis Friday night at the Unitarian Church, 7:30. I will also be down in Stockton Sunday at Robbie Grossklaus' reading at the Barnes & Noble in Weberstown Mall, 7 pm. Pick up your copy and find out why snakes don't have penises...

More Kerouac:


POEM
—Jack Kerouac

I demand that the human race
ceases multiplying its kind
and bows out
I advise it

And as punishment & reward
for making this plea I know
I'll be reborn
the last human
Everybody else dead and I'm
an old woman roaming the earth
groaning in caves
sleeping on mats

And sometimes I'll cackle, sometimes
pray, sometimes cry, eat & cook
at my little stove
in the corner
"Always knew it anyway,"
I'll say
And one morning won't get up from my mat

_______________________________

And one more:

TO EDWARD DAHLBERG
—Jack Kerouac

Don't use the telephone.
People are never ready to answer it.
Use poetry.

_______________________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.

Plague!

CHANGING SKINS
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

At home alone on her volcanic islet,
Medusa sheds her snake-skins, lock by lock
by blinded lock. Who dares to look
on the opaque stare of each viper-eye
as the milky blue scale peels off?

Don’t come to call; Medusa isn’t in a mood
for company. She doesn’t feel sleek
and bronzed this morning, but itchy and
irritable. It’s a bad-hair day.

If you happen to be sailing by,
you might spy her shadow gliding among
the lava ridges, searching for a petrified
spot to let her tresses loose
in shivering waves across the rock,

till snake-skin translucently slips free.
Don’t look here for safe harbor,
don’t pause to trim your sail.
Just set your course for deep blue sea.

________________________

Oh, dear—does it show?

This last week the waters around Medusa have receded to reveal a plague of publishing errors—mostly of the annoying typo-gnat ilk, but a few that are worse—such as completely leaving Kate Wells' poem out of Snake 7! :-( Virtually every Snake publication lately has had errors that can't be ignored, for one reason or another. I have no illusions about mistakes; they WILL happen, and, like the deliberate error in a traditional Japanese garden, they remind us of our fallibility. Still, this is over the top, even for me.

The answer is clear: Medusa is fried at the edges. I expected to take more time off this summer than I did, and some extra things have come my way. As an ex-healthcare professional, I know the symptoms of burn-out all too well. Fortunately, September looks like an easy month, and I know how to put out the fires.

One of the ways to combat burn-out is by tapping into the support of friends, and Medusa and the whole Snake crew is hugely blessed in that regard. Yesterday I went up to Pollock Pines and met with the Tuesday@Two crew (see Snake 7)—and what a lovely group that is! Once a week they meet and read poetry, write poems, and generally check on each other under the pines and over the coffee of Pony Expresso. I came away renewed and slightly less fried.

And then I went to the Hart Center Tuesday Night Workshop, a mainstay of my life for several years now, although I've taken a two-month hiatus of late. Again, a lively crew that gets together to touch base and to delve into each other's poems. Friends.

Then, when I got home at 11, there was a stack of e-mail, including Taylor's Medusa poem, and a whole bunch of grandkid poems that Allegra Silberstein had taken the trouble to (1) get them to write for Snakelets, and (2) email me after workshop. (Snakelets REALLY NEEDS poems for the October issue, by the way.) Friends.

So why am I telling you all this? Just to remind you that poetry (like publishing) can be a solitary excursion, for sure, but it doesn't have to be—at least not in OUR area. We are SO lucky to have so many people interested in it around here; take advantage of it! Go to readings, workshops, or start a group of your own—fire season is always lapping at the edges of all of us, burn-out wise. Friends can be a healing salve. And a big THANK YOU to mine—including dear Judy Taylor Graham who is so very supportive of the wiles and whims of Medusa, and who wrote her today's poem. (Medusa is a bit of an egomaniac, I must admit...)

Speaking of friends in poetry, a friend of slam poetry in Sacramento, Angela Boyce, passed away from respiratory disease at the age of 30. Angela was responsible for forming the first official slam poetry team in Sacramento. Read more about her in The Sacramento Bee Metro section today.

Yesterday we mentioned Snake Pal James Lee Jobe's reading in Davis Friday at the Unitarian Church (7:30); James, Susan Kelly-DeWitt and Sandra McPherson will also be reading Saturday (9/10) from Charlie McDonald's new book from Swan Scythe Press, El Sobrante: Selected Poems, 1975-2005 at The Avid Reader in Davis, 617 Second Street, 7:30 pm. Info: 530-758-4040. Charlie is, as you know, ill with cancer, and his friends are bouying him up by sharing his wonderful poetry with us.

Now I'm going to go fix some of those mistakes—but don't be surprised if I let a few of the more minor typos go...

Here, by the way, is the poem that was the subject of the Labor Day Contest:


THE DAY IS DONE
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

_______________________

Thanks, Hank! A MOST appropriate poem for today...

—Medusa

PS—THIS JUST IN: Taylor Graham writes this morning: I just can't keep this to myself, even though I suspect I dreamed the whole thing up. Got an email this morning that I actually won a chapbook contest!! After all the finalist and 1st runner-up business, and all the entry fees and disappointments... finally! Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize from Texas Review Press. I'm so excited I almost threw up.

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.

We Got Poetry, Oh Yeah!

Busy week! Get out your blackberries...

This Tuesday (9/6), HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.) is hosting a benefit, starting at 8pm. There's no cover, but there will be a donation jar; all proceeds go to the Red Cross for the victims of Katrina. Some of the performers will include The Devil's Troubadour, Bob Barango, Poet Robert Roden, Art rockers dRAW PiNKY, and LAS PESADILLAS. Also, Bob Moricz will be screening the trailer for his new feature film, PALACE OF STAINS!!! Jay Greenberg be playing a few tunes as well, and Richard Hansen, publisher of the Poems-for-All chapbook series and proprietor of The Book Collector, will be your master of ceremonies.

On Thursday (9/8), Gilberto Rodriguez will interpret works by the French poets at Luna's for Poetry Unplugged, 1414 16th St., Sac., 8 pm. Free.

On Friday (9/9), the Nevada County Poetry Series will present Gail Entrekin, Luke Breit and David Meltzer at the Center for the Arts, 314 W. Main St., Grass Valley, 7:30. $5; refreshments and open mic.

James Lee Jobe will be reading at The Other Voice series in the library of the Unitarian Church in Davis, 27074 Patwin Rd., this Friday (9/9) at 7:30 pm, hosted by Allegra Silberstein (530-753-2634).

Bloom’s Day Celebration Sat., Sept. 10, 8 pm: Tribute, Roast, and reading of all things Bloom. As in Gene Bloom. Gene will present what he wants when he wants. It’s His Day! Includes the reading/performance of works by the Sacramento-based Poet, Gene Bloom by James Lee Jobe, Robert Rodan, Barbara Noble, Gilberto Rodriguez, Richard Hansen, Rachel Savage, Robert Lozano, frank andrick, plus these poets will present some of their own original and tribute work. And even more! Special musical guest Jay Greenberg. Hosted by Richard Hansen.

Or head over to Santa Rosa for the Sixth Annual Sonoma County Book Festival. More than 24 poets will join 80 other nationally acclaimed and locally treasured authors, independent booksellers, publishers, and readers of all ages on Saturday, September 10, in Old Courthouse Square, downtown Santa Rosa. 10 am-5 p.m. Free. California State Poet Laureate, Al Young, will announce Sonoma County's new Poet Laureate at 12:30. Young will read at 12:45. Other readers includes Sacramento's Josh McKinney (reading at noon), as well as Ellen Bass, Gillian Conoley and many others.

And then Sunday, ride over to Stockton as Poet's Corner presents Robert Grossklaus, Barnes & Noble in Weberstown Mall, 7 pm. Info: poetscornerpress.com

Josh McKinney will also be reading at SPC (HQ, 25th & R) next Monday, 7:30.

We got poetry, oh yeah!

Oh sure—we all know about that "Hog Butcher of the World" business. But have you read poems from another side of Carl Sandburg?


BEE SONG
—Carl Sandburg

Bees in the late summer sun
Drone their song
Of yellow moons
Trimming black velvet,
Droning, droning a sleepysong.


PAINTED FISHES
—Carl Sandburg

Green fishes on a red-lacquered tray
Are worn bringing a sea of beer
From draught-faucets to oak tables.
Between bartenders and customers
They are losing their green fins.


MARGARET
—Carl Sandburg

Many birds and the beating of wings
Make a flinging reckless hum
In the early morning at the rocks
Above the blue pool
Where the gray shadows swim lazy.
In your blue eyes, O reckless child,
I saw today many little wild wishes,
Eager as the great morning.


POPPIES
—Carl Sandburg

She loves blood-red poppies for a garden to walk in.
In a loose white gown she walks
and a new child tugs at cords in her body.
Her head to the west at evening when the dew is creeping,
A shudder of gladness runs in her bones and torsal fiber:
She loves blood-red poppies for a garden to walk in.

___________________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.

Carl, the Working Person's Poet

THE WORKINGMEN
—Carl Sandburg

In the dusk of the dawn they go
A hundred thousand feet sluffing the sidewalks
Setting a dull-rumbling hum up the streets of the city.

__________________________

MILL DOORS
—Carl Sandburg

You never come back.
I say good-by when I see you going in the doors,
The hopeless open doors that call and wait
And take you then for—how many cents a day?
How many cents for the sleepy eyes and fingers?

I say good-by because I know they tap your wrists,
In the dark, in the silence, day by day,
And all the blood of you drop by drop,
And you are old before you are young.
You never come back.

________________________


MUCKERS
—Carl Sandburg

Twenty men stand watching the muckers.
Stabbing the sides of the ditch
Where clay gleams yellow,
Driving the blades of their shovels
Deeper and deeper for the new gas mains,
Wiping sweat off their faces
With red bandanas.

The muckers work on...pausing...to pull
Their boots out of suckholes where they slosh.

Of the twenty looking on
Ten murmur, "O, it's a hell of a job,"
Ten others, "Jesus, I wish I had the job."

_____________________

For my husband, the Artist-in-Residence:

HALSTED STREET CAR
—Carl Sandburg

Come you, cartoonists,
Hand on a strap with me here
At seven o'clock in the morning
On a Halsted street car.

Take your pencils
And draw these faces.

Try with your pencils for these crooked faces,
That pig-sticker in one corner—his mouth—
That overall factory girl—her loose cheeks.

Find for your pencils
A way to mark your memory
Of tired empty faces.

After their night's sleep,
In the moist dawn
And cool daybreak,
Faces
Tired of wishes,
Empty of dreams.

______________________

Finally, leave us not forget the working girl:


HARRISON STREET COURT
—Carl Sandburg

I heard a woman's lips
Speaking to a companion
Say these words:

"A woman what hustles
Never keeps nothin'
For all her hustlin'.
Somebody always gets
What she goes in the street for.
If it ain't a pimp
It's a bull what gets it.
I been hustlin' now
Till I ain't much good any more.
I got nothin' to show for it.
Some man got it all,
Every night's hustlin' I ever did."

________________________

Geez, Carl—sounds like you didn't like work any more than the rest of us. Let's end on a cheerier note:


THE WASHERWOMAN
—Carl Sandburg

The washerwoman is a member of the Salvation Army.
And over the tub of suds rubbing underwear clean
She sings that Jesus will wash her sins away
And the red wrongs she has done God and man
Shall be white as driven snow.
Rubbing underwear she sings of the Last Great Washday.

________________________

Tomorrow: another side of Carl.

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.

Heart's Blood & Wistaria Blossoms

BLAME
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

Don’t call it global warming; it’s the hand
of God, not man. It’s hurricane and flood
that devastate our people and our land.
Don’t call it global warming. It’s the hand
that plucks the April fragrance from a bud
and flings it on disaster’s empty sand.
Don’t call it global warming. It’s the hand
of God, not man, makes hurricane and flood.

____________________________

Thanks, TG. Click on the "Comments" line at the bottom of yesterday's Medusa to see info about next Tuesday night's SPC benefit for the victims of Katrina. And keep sending your poems about it—or about anything, actually...

Had some responses (TG was the first) to the "identify the poem and the poet" contest yesterday; while you're looking at yesterday's post, check out those mysterious lines of poetry and see if you can get yourself a free copy of Ron Tranquilla's An Ocean-Front Hotel Room—our Labor Day contest.

Snake 7 is on the cusp of done; copies should start appearing this week.

More Amy Lowell, who was quite A Woman of Substance, in both the mental and the physical sense. A critic once said that one would think such a large woman would not have sexual feelings—a comment for which he has gone down in history, the poor, misguided twit... Here are some of her "blood" poems, a favorite image:


IN TIME OF WAR

Across the newly-plastered wall,
The darting of red dragonflies
Is like the shooting
Of blood-tipped arrows.


GRANADILLA

I cut myself upon the thought of you
And yet I come back to it again and again.
A kind of fury makes me want to draw you out
From the dimness of the present
And set you sharply above me in a wheel of roses.
Then, going obviously to inhale their frangrance,
I touch the blade of you and cling upon it,
And only when the blood runs out across my fingers
Am I at all satisfied.


ABSENCE

My cup is empty tonight,
Cold and dry are its sides,
Chilled by the wind from the open window.
Empty and void, it sparkles while in the moonlight.
The moon is filled with the strange scent
Of wistaria blossoms.
They stray in the moon's radiance
And tap against the wall.
But the cup of my heart is still,
And cold, and empty.

When you come, it brims
Red and trembling with blood,
Heart's blood for your drinking;
To fill your mouth with love
And the bitter-sweet taste of a soul.

______________________

Thanks, Amy—wherever you are.

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.

How Can We Not?

SO SAD
—Song Kowbell, Penn Valley

Locked in a room of
painting fumes
mixing with tears
of desperation for
a people....
my people.....
poor, black
standing on rooftops,
locked in attic coffins.
Feeling of helplessness
overwhelms me
as paint covers
the history of my home.

_______________________

Thanks, Song. How can we NOT respond to what's going on in the South? I was with poet friends last night, and we just couldn't seem to stay away from the subject. But we're writers; we process through our pens. Send me your poems.
(Song, by the way, is a search-and-rescuer, although apparently she isn't going down South at this point.)

Two post-scripts to the mention of Robbie Grossklaus yesterday: (1) he will be reading at Barnes & Noble in Stockton next Sunday, Sept. 11, at 7 pm, and (2) this weekend is his anniversary, so he and Sabrina are off to Big Sur.

If you, on the other hand, are still in town, there are three big (non-poetry) events going on: the Greek Food Festival at the Convention Center; Gold Rush Days in Old Sacramento; and Chalk It Up, Sat., Sun. & Mon. 10-6, Fremont Park (16th & Q), sponsored by Hoppy Brewing Co. to benefit Children's Arts Education. Not just for kids! "Treat the artist in you to a personal square for a $10 donation", which includes chalk. Also includes food, kids' crafts, craft vendors, music—and beer!

Let's have a contest! Identify the poet and the poem from these lines and win a free copy of Ron Tranquilla's new chap, An Ocean-Front Hotel Room.


And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs
And as silently steal away.

________________________

Let's close with a poem from D.H. Lawrence:


AT THE WINDOW
—D.H. Lawrence

The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters
Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter;
As slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters.

Farther down the valley the clustered tombstones recede,
Winding about their dimness the mist's grey cerements, after
The street lamps in the twilight have suddenly started to bleed.

The leaves fly over the window, and utter a word as they pass
To the face that gazes outwards, watching for night to waft a
Meaning or a message over the window glass.
______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets.