God's Flashlight

Last week I wandered upstate and visited Poet Patricia Wellingham-Jones at her lovely estate in Tehama, outside of Red Bluff. She graciously invited some other poets, including Ray Dunn from Red Bluff and Joy Harold Helsing from Magalia. A wonderful time was had by all. Yes, there is a poetry life north of Roseville!—and maybe poets find each other even more precious when distances have to be traveled…

Anyway, here are two from Ray, who has been in every issue of the Snake since its inception:


THE BEST
—Ray Dunn, Red Bluff

You won't ever own
A ranch in Argentina.

You won't ever own
The Nobel Peace Prize.

You won't ever own
A home in Beverly Hills.

You won't ever own
A Picasso painting.

You won't ever own
The Los Angeles Lakers.

You won't ever own
The Hope Diamond.

But you should own
Something that is the best,

So what does it matter,
If it's only your love life?

_______________________

KENTUCKY HUNT—1935
—Ray Dunn, Red Bluff

Persimmons—black,
Ripe and sweet;
Ready for eating.

Hickory nuts—
Scaly Barks,
Big fat ones,
Down by the creek,
Beginning to fall.

Moon—coming
On full—hanging
In the sky,
God's flashlight.

Air—cold enough
To hear a dog barking
Ten miles away.

Last chicken eaten
A month back—nothing
To eat but sop and biscuits.

Possum hunting time;
Going possum hunting;
Fill the larder;
Fill the bellies;
Me, Maw, and the kids.

_________________________

Thanks, Ray! Also, Pat Simonelli sent me this letter; Pat lives in Citrus Heights and has an on-line journal, LitVision (www.litvision.org), which is very cool:

I'm a small press publisher (LitVision Press) out in Citrus Heights. We recently released our first book, Bukowski Never Did This: A Year in the Life of An Underground Writer and His Family, by Jack Saunders. Bukowski Never Did This is essentially a slice-of-life memoir, a combination of Novel and Diary entries with some very interesting poetry mixed in. It's about Jack's struggle to balance his writing vocation with professional career, while raising a family.

Jack is a Florida writer who's been writing novels nonstop for 34 years! He has a small "cult" following of underground readers, but has mostly been ignored by the mainstream. He's written over 265 books, 9 of which have been published...3 by small presses like mine, and 6 self-published. Please check us out at http://www.litvision.org/buk.html for reviews, excerpts, and purchasing info. I'd also like to chat with you and find out what's going on in the local small press scene, so even if you don't dig the book, please drop me an email!

Thanks,
Pat Simonelli
LitVision Press

________________________

—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. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

A Little Red

Medusa loves to hear about herself:


THE HIGH COST OF MEDUSA'S COIL
—Ellaraine Lockie, Sunnyvale

A little lonely in London after two weeks
of alien talk in foreign lands
I find an Internet-for-fee café
for some camaraderie
of the electronic kind

I click on Medusa’s Kitchen
with its ophidian allure
And decide to print
rather than pay ten pence a
minute to ponder

Not until I’m tucked into bed
in my Bloomsbury B & B
Do I compute 18 pages
at 40 pence a page
equates $14.25

______________________

And worth every penny, right??? SO COOL that you thought of us, though, all that way across the pond...

The new Poetry Now came from Sacramento Poetry Center; this is another happenin' weekend in TomatoTown. Tonight, Luna's Cafe will feature Angela-Dee-Alforque, together with the usual lively line-up of open mic'ers. 8 pm-ish, 1414 16th St., Sac. Info: 441-3831.

Barnes and Noble in Citrus Heights continues its open mic series tomorrow (Friday 11/4) at 7 pm, 6111 Sunrise Blvd., Citrus Hts.

Saturday (11/5), Escritores del Nuevo Sol will hold its monthly writing workshop and putluck, 11 a.m., La Raza Galeria Posada (15th & R Sts., Sac., second floor). Info: 456-5323.

Sunday (11/6), PoemSpirits presents Sacramentan Kimberly White at the Sacramento Unitarian Church, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sac., 6 pm (Rms. 7/8, around back). Info: 451-1372.

And Monday (11/7) the Sacramento Poetry Center will feature Catherine Fraga (HQ, 26th & R Sts., Sac.), 7:30 pm.

Bill Gainer writes from Grass Valley: Neeli Cherkovski has been awarded the 2004 PEN OAKLAND JOSEPHINE MILES NATIONAL AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING WRITING for his book, Leaning Against Time. Neeli is on cloud-nine and we here at R.L. Crow Publications can't stop spinning! The presentation ceremony is December 2, at the Oakland Civic Auditorium; you know we will be there! Congratulations to Bill's press for this outstanding achievement!

Let's end with a little whimsey:


A RED HAT
—Gertrude Stein

A dark grey, a very dark grey, a quite dark grey is monstrous ordinarily, it is so monstrous because there is no red in it. If red is in everything it is not necessary. Is that not an argument for any use of it and even so is there any place that is better, is there any place that has so much stretched out.

___________________________

—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. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

A Winnah

It was requested that Medusa print some of the Sacramento prize-winning poems from the Ina Coolbrith contest we hammered recently, so here are two from Don Feliz:


LIGHTING RUBE GOLDBURG'S FIRE
—Don Feliz, Sacramento

air cools at sundown,
shrinks balloon

which slips from tube,
releases cage door

for cat chased by dog,
that jumps off board

which falls and unwinds
string releasing weight

above cigar lighter
igniting paper fuse

igniting prepared
campfire kindling

_________________________

DINING OUT IN THE DARK CITY
(San Francisco 1950)

Friday after school I dress up in
slacks, a new shirt and sports coat.

Mom wears her best dress, high-
heeled shoes, white gloves. Dad

looks dapper in his suit and tie.
We drive through city streets

between the dark canyons of
tall buildings, parking before

dark. We walk past closed
offices, open bars and clubs,

to the International Settlement—
one block of night life and bright

lights, crowded with excitement-seekers
and sellers. Inside Lucca’s, candle-

light creates glowing islands at each
table. A tuxedoed waiter serves

antipasto. With an Italian accent
he describes specials and offers

menus listing pasta, veal scaloppini,
and chicken cacciatore. He pours wine,

even for me, and we pretend we are
in Naples, or Florence. Walking back

to our car in the now-dark alley, we
look into an open basement window

and see rows of Chinese women bent
over sewing machines, piles of cut-out

fabric pieces, stacks of finished shirts. A
single light bulbs swings in the smoky air.

___________________________

Thanks, Don!

—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. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

I'm Ba-a-a-a-ck...

QUETZAL
—Carol Frith, Sacramento

A snake? I've forgotten how to write
a serpent. Quetzal, with your feathered scales
and brother to the moon? A god, not quite
a snake. And I've forgotten how to write
about the moon, who slept with you, her light
a memory that all light somehow fails.
Bright snake, I've forgotten how to write
about you... Quetzal with your feathered scales.

______________________

Today is Carol Frith's birthday. Carol, who regularly takes top honors and who co-edits Ekphrasis with her husband, Laverne Frith, is one of the premier poets of Sacramento. T.S. Eliot is her favorite poet; hear the last section of Tom's "East Coker"—fitting food for thought on any birthday:


Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

________________________

Happy Birthday, Frannie-Alice! I am so sorry I keep running off to the sea...

—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. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

All That Nightly Grunting & Rustling

CLATTER OF RINGS
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

Sounds do clutter
but when they clatter
it’s like the slither of smallness
that seeps on buttered bubbled hum.

I so want to wear the slickest red
smooth lipstick, the finest pearl
rounds, that will only do justice
to the tightest spit of gold.

It is me lady-like, who wants
the spear long heels to strut in,
that will click with my remark
which will sound my in.

And it’s that clatter of rings,
the soothment they bring,
a finery, ladies, that
oh, cannot be resisted.

_____________________

Thanks, Rhony! Yesterday’s William Carlos Williams poem hit a nerve with Taylor Graham, whose beloved dirt road is currently being paved against her wishes. Here is her elegy:


OUR ROAD
—Taylor Graham, Somerset

After all the years we’ve lived here
on a one-lane track of dirt scraped down,
and gravel scattered by five
households’ tires, today our road

is paved. A truck spreads hot-mix asphalt,
and a roller presses it in place.
They’ve brought bitumen up
from underground to black-ribbon

a road that used to beckon with cutbanks
grooved by deer hooves, and a gully
rabbit-run through berry brambles purple-
sweet in August. How many times

I’d turn aside, forget my hurry,
and explore the dusty fringes. But now,
no potholes, no washboard rumble.
We’ll travel faster, straight ahead.

On either side the oaks are drifting
October leaves. What do roots make
of man’s geology, that lays down
a new era on our road?

_________________________

Thanks, TG!

Today is Sacramento Poetry Day, and there are plenty of events to help you celebrate it this week [see Monday's post, “Hold Onto Your Wigs”]. Medusa will be gone, though, until November 1—sneaking off to the sea again—and while I’m gone, please get your poems together for the next Snake—deadline November 15. When I get back on the first, I’ll send out the November Snakebytes, which will tell you all about Allegra Jostad Silberstein’s upcoming reading/book release (In the Folds) at The Book Collector on November 9, at which time we shall also release the latest Snakelets, as well as Claudia Trnka’s littlesnake broadside.

November 1 is the deadline for Vyper, the journal for young people 13-19 years of age. Send 3-5 poems with name, address, e-mail and age on every page to 4708 Tree Shadow Place, Fair Oaks, 95628.

And of course October 31 is Halloween. I shall leave you with some Sacramento Poetry Day Halloween poems from a true Sacramento girl (born here, raised here, lived here 50 of my 60 years):


GHOSTS AND CHILDREN
—Kathy Kieth, Fair Oaks

own Halloween, sandwiched as they are
between the quick and the dead. Not quite
jelled, they flap like see-through bats between
Here and There, like holograms in some
elsewhere-kind of theme park, where they roller-
coaster/bumper car/ferris wheel all day, slipping

back and forth through reality cracks to bring us
bits of news and fresh pieces of other-worldly
pie. Just the other day, I caught one hanging
in my closet; but when I got out the broom, she
flipped back into her bed, pretending again to be
a mere child. . .

We earthenware adults had better stand aside,
especially on All Hallows’ Eve, or these spritely
creatures will bump right through us. . .

___________________________

GHOSTS DON’T EXIST
—Kathy Kieth, Fair Oaks

even though there is a big one living
under the bed: sleeping all day

down there between the dust motes
and the candywrappers: flipping

the corners of his quilt out
of boredom in late afternoon: lurking

just beyond the brave beam
of his flashlight. . . Of course ghosts

don't exist: it says so in musty
library books: in the tall legs

of grown-ups: in windy sunshine
and kids that tease: in the bland drone

of the TV flickering blue in the next
room after he goes to bed. . . Of course

ghosts don't exist: all that nightly
grunting and rustling is just

wind from the open window: thump
of his heart keeping time in

the dark: ragged edge of a dream
he can't ever quite shake free. . .

(appeared in Mobius, May, 2003)

______________________________

—Medusa (see you November 1!)

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. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

A Solace of Ripe Plums

Here's a tough one from Phil Weidman. Brace yourself:


WRONG TURN
—Phil Weidman, Pollock Pines

After a cease-fire
three of us ambled down range
to check our targets.
Approaching the 50-yard line
we saw a rattlesnake
thrashing its muscular length,
struggling to defy gravity
as it slipped sideways down
the steep rocky bank bordering
the west side of the rifle range.
As it reached our level
it made a frantic effort
to climb the bank.
Knowing what would follow,
I walked to the 100-yard line
and heard the shot.
The head and six inches of its body
slithered under a large rock.
The rest of it, rattles whispering futilely,
twitched until a summer sun
put it to rest.

______________________________

*sigh*

I'm not sure how I feel about poetry contests—how can you compare two poems, they're not like bowling scores, for Heaven's sake—but some people seem to thrive on them. I do enter one or two a year, the latest being the Ina Coolbrith bake-off and jamboree this last weekend, where a number of locals did darn good—not the least of which was Joyce Odam taking the well-deserved Grand Prize. Also bringing home the bacon in our area were Allegra Silberstein, Anatole Lubovich, Don Feliz, Elsie Feliz, Carol Frith, Laverne Frith, Pat Nichol, Norma Kohout, Katy Brown, and, yes, Medusa. Sacramentans took home one-third of the prizes from this mostly-Bay Area event, a tribute to the poetry muscle of inlanders.

In this area, the Towe Auto Museum poetry contest deadline is coming up (November 15). Check out the guidelines on www.toweautomuseum.org, or call 916-442-6802, or see Katy Brown's "Snake Charmer's Bazaar" column in the last Rattlesnake Review (p. 25). And there's a Bay Area Poets Coalition contest deadline on Nov. 15, too. E-mail Poetalk@aol.com for guidelines.

If you can't hang with any of the multiferous goings-on in Sacramento this weekend [see "Hang on to Your Wigs" post yesterday], head up to Rush Ranch in Suisun for the Plein Air Painting and Poetry Workshop on Saturday (10/29), 10-4 pm, with Robert Chapla and Sherry Sheehan. $75, pre-registration required. Call 707-429-3529 or email aleta@lmi.net.

And register by Friday, Oct. 28, for the November 5 Friends of the Library's Focus on Writers Conference, which will feature nine workshops conducted by writers including Kim Stanley Robinson, Robin Burcell, and Blair Anthony Robertson. Info: 916-264-2880 or www.saclibrary.org/about_lib/friends_flyer.html.

Finally, congrats to soon-to-be Rattlechapper Jeanine Stevens (January, 2006), whose chapbook, Boundary Waters (published by the Indian Heritage Council of McCall, Idaho) is displayed in Tower Books on Watt Avenue. This is a dandy coup, indeed!—drift on over there and check it out (local authors' table by the front door).


TO A POOR OLD WOMAN
—William Carlos Williams

munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand

They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her

You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand

Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her


THE DEFECTIVE RECORD
—William Carlos Williams

Cut the bank for the fill.
Dump sand
pumped out of the river
into the old swale

killing whatever was
there before—including
even the muskrats. Who did it?
There's the guy.

Him in the blue shirt and
turquoise skullcap.
Level it down
for him to build a house

on to build a
house on to build a house on
to build a house
on to build a house on to...

_____________________

—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.

Hold Onto Your Wigs!

THE BUNGLER
—Amy Lowell

You glow in my heart
Like the flames of uncounted candles.
But when I go to warm my hands,
My clumsiness overturns the light,
And then I stumble
Against the tables and chairs.

___________________________

This is one heckuva busy week on the SacaTomato Poetry Scene, maybe because Wednesday, October 26, is Sacramento Poetry Day!

Tonight, John Amen will read at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), sponsored by the Sacramento Poetry Center, 7:30 pm. Tomorrow (Tues. 10/25) Sutter LAMP Week (Literature, Arts and Medicine Program) begins at the Sutter Cancer Center, 7 pm. Tuesday's program will be Art Therapy with Peggy Gulshen; Weds. will feature Music Therapy with Theresa Konomos; Thurs. will be Dance/Movement Therapy with Nandi Szabo; and Friday (10/28) will be Pat Schneider, author of Writing Alone and With Others and founder of Amherst Writers & Artists. Register: 454-6802 or spannc@sutterhealth.org. [Medusa is, by the way, a Registered Music Therapist. Really. In my pre-poetry life.]

On Wednesday, ride up to Placerville to Hidden Passage Books for the monthly read-around, 6-7 pm. Bring your own poetry or somebody else's to share with a lively group of fellow poets while the skeleton under the floorboards listens...

Snake Reviewer-in-Residence B.L. Kennedy will be mighty busy this week, as well; on Thursday he will host Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe (1414 16th St., Sac.) at 8 pm, which will feature Donald Sidney-Fryer and Chi Cheng of Deftone fame. Chi has a spoken word album entitled Bamboo Parachute. Then on Friday, Bari will host Part One of A Tribute to d.a. levy at Luna's Cafe, 8-ish, featuring frank andrick, Gene Avery, Art Beck, Chi Cheng, Todd Cirillo, Judy Halebsky, Phillip J. Nails, Crawdad Nelson, Linda Thorell, Charlene Ungstad, and Julie Valine. This $5 event is a benefit for T.A.G. (The Archives Group).

Then on Saturday (10/29), B.L. will host A Tribute to d.a. levy (Part Two) at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.), 8 pm, featuring Bill Pieper, Rebecca Morrison, Sabrina Mathers, Robert Grossklaus, Laverne Frith, Carol Frith, Chi Cheng, Gene Bloom, Art Beck, Gene Avery and frank andrick. $5.

Back to Friday, 10/28: Rattlechapper Susan Kelly-DeWitt (The Land) will be the featured reader at The Art Foundry (1021 R St., Sac.), 7:30 pm. $5. Also on Friday, Los Escritores will sponsor a Day of the Dead Celebration to honor the lives of the 2005 Fallen Chicano Heroes: Bert Corona, Rodolfo (Corky) Gonzalez, Lalo Guerrero, Carlos Cortez, Gloria Anzaldua, Octavio I. Romano, and Phil Goldvarg. Donation: $5 or as you can afford. Where: La Raza Galeria/Posada Bookstore; 1421 R St., Sac. (upstairs). Info: 456-5323.

We need to break here for some poetry!


THE LETTER
—Amy Lowell

Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper
Like draggled fly's legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves?
Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor
Spattered with moonlight?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them
Of blossoming hawthorns,
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.

______________________

AFTERGLOW
—Amy Lowell

Peonies
The strange pink colour of Chinese porcelains;
Wonderful—the glow of them.
But, my Dear, it is the pale blue larkspur
Which swings windily against my heart.
Other Summers—
And a cricket chirping in the grass.

______________________

Okay. Back to next weekend: At the same time as the d.a. levy tribute on Saturday, The Show will present The Big Clean Mouth Slam for $50, hosted by Petri Hawkins-Byrd (the baliff on Judge Judy) at Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St., 7-9 pm. Tickets ($5): Underground Books or fromtheheart1@hotmail.com. Info: Terry Moore, 455-POET. And then on SUNDAY:

Poems-For-All presents Jordan Jones and Eric Paul Shaffer at The Book Collector (1008 24th St., Sac.), 4 pm, free. Join them for a Sunday afternoon reading as they read from their latest books of poetry published by Leaping Dog Press. (www.leapingdogpress.com) Info: 442-9295.

And this doesn't even include the regular reading series (Mahogany at Sweet Fingers Jamaican Restaurant, 9 pm Weds.; Poetic Light Open Mic at Personal Style Salon, Thurs. 8-10; or Gwen's Caribbean Cuisine on Thurs. at 7 pm). If I've left anybody else out, let me know.

Let's let Amy cap it off:


A DECADE
—Amy Lowell

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.

_________________________

—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.