Who Among Us is Stamp-Worthy?

ASSORTED CHOCOLATES
—Ogden Nash

If some confectioner were willing
To let the shape announce the filling,
We'd encounter fewer assorted chocs,
Bitten into and returned to the box.

_____________________

Yesterday, Odgen Nash would've been 105 years old. Don't you wish you had your own postage stamp? Tell me; who among all the great (and lesser) poets in the world do you consider stamp-worthy?

THE WASP
—Ogden Nash

The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity.
He throws open his nest with prodigality,
But I distrust his waspitality.

_____________________

THE PURIST
—Ogden Nash

I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

_____________________

This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Tonight (Monday, 8/20), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Michael Cluff and Devin Davis at Headquarters for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Open mic afterwards. Michael Cluff is a full-time English and Creative Writing Instructor, as well as being the Assistant Chair of the Communications Department at Riverside Community College, Norco Campus in Southern California. He has been published in Epicenter, Dissident Editions, Pudding, Mosaic, Interpoetry, Muse, Rattlesnake Review, ZamBomba and Poetry Superhighway. He has published several chapbooks: Bones to Pick, Treacherous Pauses, Duck 'N' Cover, Moraines and Political Prisms. He also acts and directs in the Inland Empire area of So Cal, as well as co-teaching an adult improv class for the Rancho Cucamonga Parks and Recreation Department.

Devin Davis, once called "ink (or inc.)" in a seaside vision, has written over 2,000 poems. He likes concise verse. His work is printed in the Sacramento Anthology: 100 Poems, Sanskrit, Dawn, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Dandelion, Coe Review, Rattlesnake Review, numerous on-line journals and 35 chapbooks. Devin has read as a feature poet at bookstores, the steps of the California State Capitol, and at annual poetry events at the Crocker Art Museum. He has reviewed movies for a best-selling paperback guide and has written for Sacramento, Ca. arts & entertainment weeklies, and has worked for UPS and the State. Devin served in the U.S. Army. He visited Spain, Germany, Switzerland, France, and was last assigned to Ft. Bragg, N.C. as a photojournalist. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and history. He has hiked Mt. Whitney 3x, has three daughters, and is a testicular cancer survivor. Devin is a Leo.

•••Tuesday (8/21), 6:30-8:30 PM: Come join writers and artists for a free journaling workshop to open your creative channels at the Calaveras County Library in San Andreas, off of Mountain Ranch Rd. Presenter: Conrad Levasseur, poet and writer. The event is open to anyone, all ages. The workshop will focus on opening channels of creativity, using art and the written word to stimulate personal ways to express artistic desire. Keeping a multimedia journal can be used to record emotions, memories, creative ideas—as well as trigger hidden images and language repressed by our busy lifestyle and workaday world. Conrad Levasseur has developed a method that will pique interest in one’s own artistic talents and may assist the writer, artist, or anyone interested in expanding their artistic desires, to experiment with images and language.

Conrad Levasseur has conducted groups through over a hundred and twenty countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, the South Pacific, Indian Ocean and Europe. For sixteen years, he was West Coast Regional Sales Manager for Travcoa (Travel Corporation of America), designing and implementing global travel presentations around the United States. He directed Lodestar International Student Center’s summer program in Calaveras County for UC Berkeley’s International House. In the 1970s, Conrad was a Wild River Rafting and Wilderness Guide for ARTA (American River Touring Association) in California, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah. He directed an Environmental Speakers Program for the San Francisco Ecology Center and conducted walking tours of the city. Journal writing, poetry and art have been important mediums for him in helping to balance his outer explorations with his more inner ones. He has taught workshops in multi-dimensional journal writing, using these elements and others as a therapeutic way to put one’s business, or academic life, into a greater creative perspective. He has published seven books of poetry, and is currently working on several manuscripts. He and his wife, Margaret, moved with their three children from San Francisco to Calaveras County in 1981. The event is sponsored by the Calaveras County Library and Writers Unlimited. Info: 530-754-0577 or the library.
Light refreshments will be available.

•••Weds. (8/22), 6-7 PM: Hidden Passage poetry reading, 352 Main St. in Placerville. It's an open-mic read-around, so bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share, or just come to listen.

•••Thursday (8/23), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured Poets: Kelly Richardson and April Jenkins. Another Poetic Luna’s double feature of intensive interactions! Hosted by B.L. Kennedy.

•••Saturday (8/25), 7 PM: “The Show” presents Michael Guinn, frank andrick, Simoetry, Cleo Cartel, The Forgotten One and Five Stunners reading their poems while house band LSB provides live music. Wo’se Community Center, 2863 35th St., Sacramento. $5. Info: 916-455-7638.

•••Sunday (8/26), 11 AM-3 PM: Poets with Trees reading at The Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, 45 Shelly Dr., John McLaren Park, San Francisco. Bring a picnic lunch and something to share. Read poems of your own or those by favorite poets. Donations for use of the park will be accepted. For more info, go to web page: http://www.clarahsu.com/hotel.html or contact Dan Brady

•••Sunday (8/26), 6 PM: Borders presents another book-release party for Sun Shadow Mountain, a book celebrating an extraordinary spectrum of poets and artists! Sun Shadow Mountain is a paperback book of 38 poets, artists, and photographers: talent from Stockton and elsewhere—rising and established stars who will enthrall and quench. The book is available through orders at Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com, or in person at Borders in Stockton. Be stunned by the voices of rising and established stars! Come and enjoy an evening of fun & entertainment at Borders Cafe, 10776 Trinity Pkway, Stockton (just off 8-Mile Road). Free.

_____________________

OLD MEN
—Ogden Nash

People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when...
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.

____________________

THE ABSENTEES
—Ogden Nash

I'd ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross
For giblet gravy and cranberry sauce,
Two treats which are held in reserve by the waiter
Till you've finished your turkey and mashed potater.

______________________

The Lord in His wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why...

—Ogden Nash

______________________

GLOSSINA MORSITANS, OR, THE TSETSE
—Ogden Nash

A Glossina morsitans bit rich Aunt Betsy.
Tsk tsk, tsetse.

____________________

Enough with the bad puns already. Tune in tomorrow, though, for more about flies...

And don't forget that there are poets reading out at the State Fair, too. I've been lax about posting these; check the schedule for the Fair.

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. (See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/.)

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadsides from dawn dibartolo ("Blush"), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is November 15.

What Silence Is

Poetry
Painting by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

SILENTIUM
—Osip Mandelstam

Nobody knows what silence is.
Silence is words and music.
It's the thing that links all things alive,
the link that lasts forever.

Let me open my mouth and let nothing come out,
silent as an unborn baby.
Let me be a perfect crystal note
that lasts unchanged forever!

Do nothing, love, don't ever change.
Change only words to music.
And let my heart of hearts grow still
as a life I can barely remember.

_____________________

—Medusa

Thoughts, Sunning

Cleo Griffith

FLATTENED
—Cleo Griffith, Salida

I hunger for high-spindly heels,
spangled straps and pleated bows
remembering the way it feels
escalated to my toes.

Spangled straps and pleated bows —
resplendent Catherine Zeta-Jones
escalated to her toes
without a worry of old bones.

Resplendent, Catherine Zeta-Jones
can dance and shimmy nights of play
without a worry of old bones
or stumbling on the straight-away.

To dance and shimmy nights of play
in something more than tennis drabs
where stumbling on the straight-away
I’d flail and find a hand to grab —

oh, something more than tennis drabs —
remembering the way it feels
before I sought a hand to grab,
I hunger for high-spindly heels.

_____________________

Thanks, Cleo! Cleo Griffith is an active participant in Modesto poetry events and has been widely published. Past publications include The Aurorean, Iodine, Blind Man’s Rainbow, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Iconoclast and Quercus Review. She is Chair of the Editorial Board for the local poetry quarterly, Song of the San Joaquin, a member of the National League of American Pen Women, and serves on the Modesto Culture Commission. Along with Roseville's Cleo Fellers Kocol, Cleo Griffith is also one of the "two Cleos" who publish books of poetry together.

Watch for an upcoming feature on the Song of the San Joaquin folks in Rattlesnake Review 15, due out in mid-September.

____________________

This weekend in NorCal Poetry:

•••Saturday (8/18), 7-9 PM: Underground Poetry Series presents Tchaka Muhammad, Rebecca Morrison, Taifa Jamari and Supanova. Underground Books, 2814 35th St., Sacramento. $3. Info: 916-737-3333.

•••Saturday (8/18), Noon-4 PM is the 12th annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, to be held at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, Berkeley. Since 1996, thousands have gathered together with environmental and literary groups to celebrate writers, nature, and community at the annual Watershed Festival. For an update on the "State of the Planet," join National Book Critics Circle Award-winning poet Robert Hass, reading at Watershed from his poem of the same name. This year's event also features famed Beat poet Michael McClure with saxophonist George Brooks, Montana Poet Laureate Sandra Alcosser, author/cultural historian Rebecca Solnit, Poetry Flash editor/poet Richard Silberg, poet/naturalist Maya Khosla, student and youth poets from River of Words and California Poets in the Schools. Voices of the Watershed Poets, curated by Nevada City poet Chris Olander, presents Guarionex Delgado, Grace Grafton, Indigo Moor, Margo Pepper, Chad Sweeney, and Jennifer K. Sweeney. Smooth Toad, country blues music with G.P. Skratz, Hal Hughes, and Jean Robertson, will play throughout the afternoon. We Are Nature open reading (sign up on site). Environmental updates provided by Kirstin Miller of Ecocity Builders and Kirk Lumpkin from the Ecology Center. Info: poetryflash.org/.

•••Also Saturday (8/18), 7:30 PM: Nevada County Poetry Series presents Harold Roy Miller, Willis Lamm and Ken Gardner for an evening of cowboy poetry. Center for the Arts, 314 Main St., Grass Valley. $10 general, $1 ages 18 and under. Info: 530-274-8384, ext. 14.

•••Sunday (8/19), 2-5 PM: Poetry, hip-hop and R&B event featuring Larry Ukai Johnson-Redd, Candy, Rob Anthony, Claudia Epperson, Noah Hayes, Izreal and Sene. Culture Collection, 6391 Riverside Blvd., Sacramento. Free. Info: 916-427-7715.

•••Saturday (8/18) & Sunday (8/19): Tuolumne Poetry Festival in Tuolumne Meadows (past Yosemite) at the rustic Parsons Memorial Lodge. It's free! Dorianne Laux, David Mas Masumoto, and Kay Ryan are featured poets, and Shira Kammen (violin and vielle) is the musician. There are lodges within an hour of Yosemite, so that's your best bet for overnight, as the camping cabins in the area are usually booked months in advance. Or make it a day trip—! You have to hike in: parking along the main road is fine all day, and then the hike up to the Parsons Lodge is about a half-hour on a good trail, uphill the last stretch, but not too strenuous, as you're in the meadow near the Tuolumne River. Workshops are next to the river in the outdoors, so dress accordingly. No dogs or pets on the trail. Info: www.nps.gov/yose/parsons for the complete Parsons Memorial Lodge Summer series schedule, or e-mail Monika Rose (mrosemanza@jps.net).

•••Monday (8/20), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Michael Cluff and Devin Davis at Headquarters for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Open mic afterwards.

_____________________

LIKE MY THOUGHTS SUNNING
—Cleo Griffith

If I ran all my sentences together in a tight line
across an ebony page, put them all in white light
like my thoughts sunning in the park
pretend this makes them meaningful
to that man in a gray suit staring
and the horse in a stable
neighing as though to urge me
gallop, gallop across the flat black field
hurdle over the tight light lines…

The man’s gray suit becomes
a blanket across the horse’s back
and I ride, ride out of the sudden crevice up into
the black field again,
glints of white letters
spark from the hooves of my mount
sentences run together in a tight white line:
my thoughts,
sunning.

______________________

THE CONCRETE WALL
—Cleo Griffith

As though it is a script,
again today these two men stand
looking at the concrete wall,
lining, surveying, discussing.

Hands up and about, voices nearly to shouts,
day after short vacation day
these two men walk around
the concrete wall.

I lean back in my motel chair, lower them
beneath my window sill,
window closed against their voices,
and see the ocean break into white ridges,

but, now one man stands on the balcony across,
bends over, long hands making lines
above the concrete wall.

_____________________

RIVER OF LIFE
—Cleo Griffith

I feel the dryness like a fissure across my head,
no internal spring rises to my stale mind.
My skin crinkles, my eyes stare dry,
and stare, and see only
dryness.

Sun burns up the rain.
My scalp detaches, tissue-y, from the brain
but it is not my head that breaks me —
my chapped old hands cannot recall
the soft blood of your sweet veins,
coolness of your touch.

The fissure grows: I am all dryness
parched
without your flowing liquid to sustain me.
You never knew the brittleness of my soul,
never guessed you were the river of life.
I am wan, a withered leaf
floating forever on the memory
of your deep moisture.

__________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. (See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/.)

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadsides from dawn dibartolo ("Blush"), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is November 15.

Melting Into the Perfect Light

Ted Hughes, 1930-1998

PERFECT LIGHT
—Ted Hughes

There you are, in all your innocence,
Sitting among your daffodils, as in a picture
Posed as for the title: 'Innocence'.
Perfect light in your face lights it up
Like a daffodil. Like any one of those daffodils
It was to be your only April on earth
Among your daffodils. In your arms,
Like a teddy bear, your new son,
Only a few weeks into his innocence,
Mother and infant, as in the Holy portrait.
And beside you, laughing up at you,
Your daughter, barely two. Like a daffodil
You turn your face down to her, saying something.
Your words were lost in the camera.

And the knowledge

Inside the hill on which you are sitting.
A moated fort hill, bigger than your house,
Failed to reach the picture. While your next moment,
Coming towards you like an infantryman
Returning slowly out of no-man's-land,
Bowed under something, never reached you—
Simply melted into the perfect light.

______________________

Today, Ted Hughes would've been 77 years old.


This weekend in NorCal poetry:

•••Tonight (Friday, 8/17), 7:30 PM: Escritores del Nuevo Sol/Writers of the New Sun presents A Poetic Presentation in the Two Voices of Susan & Joe Finkleman, entitled “Visions & Views”, at La Raza Galeria Posada Gallery, 1024 22nd St., Midtown Sacramento. Cost: $5 suggested, or as you can afford. It's poetry, it's drama, it’s jazzy, it weaves musical improv with spoken word—it's Joe & Susan Finkleman! Stylistically, no two poems are structured the same, but each features the interweaving of two voices, two views and two visions, with music subtext. Instrumental accompaniment by: Francesca Reitano and Sharon McCorkell. Info: 530-220-0535 or www.visionsandviews.com/. Also available: The Rattlesnake Press book of Susan and Joe’s two-voice poems, illustrated with Joe’s vibrant watercolor paintings; the Finklemans also have CDs of their work available.

•••Also tonight, 7 PM: Our House poetry reading features Sacramento's Ann Menebroker and Grass Valley-ite William S. Gainer. Free; an open mic follows. Our House is located at 4510 Post St. in El Dorado Hills Town Center; from Sac., take the Latrobe exit off to the right (south) and turn left into the shopping center; Our House is on the southern edge. [See below for a sample of Rattlechapper Bill Gainer's poetry.]

•••Saturday (8/18), 7-9 PM: Underground Poetry Series presents Tchaka Muhammad, Rebecca Morrison, Taifa Jamari and Supanova. Underground Books, 2814 35th St., Sacramento. $3. Info: 916-737-3333.

•••Saturday (8/18), Noon-4 PM is the 12th annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, to be held at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, Berkeley. Since 1996, thousands have gathered together with environmental and literary groups to celebrate writers, nature, and community at the annual Watershed Festival. For an update on the "State of the Planet," join National Book Critics Circle Award-winning poet Robert Hass, reading at Watershed from his poem of the same name. This year's event also features famed Beat poet Michael McClure with saxophonist George Brooks, Montana Poet Laureate Sandra Alcosser, author/cultural historian Rebecca Solnit, Poetry Flash editor/poet Richard Silberg, poet/naturalist Maya Khosla, student and youth poets from River of Words and California Poets in the Schools. Voices of the Watershed Poets, curated by Nevada City poet Chris Olander, presents Guarionex Delgado, Grace Grafton, Indigo Moor, Margo Pepper, Chad Sweeney, and Jennifer K. Sweeney. Smooth Toad, country blues music with G.P. Skratz, Hal Hughes, and Jean Robertson, will play throughout the afternoon. We Are Nature open reading (sign up on site). Environmental updates provided by Kirstin Miller of Ecocity Builders and Kirk Lumpkin from the Ecology Center. Info: poetryflash.org/.

•••Also Saturday (8/18), 7:30 PM: Nevada County Poetry Series presents Harold Roy Miller, Willis Lamm and Ken Gardner for an evening of cowboy poetry. Center for the Arts, 314 Main St., Grass Valley. $10 general, $1 ages 18 and under. Info: 530-274-8384, ext. 14.

•••Sunday (8/19), 2-5 PM: Poetry, hip-hop and R&B event featuring Larry Ukai Johnson-Redd, Candy, Rob Anthony, Claudia Epperson, Noah Hayes, Izreal and Sene. Culture Collection, 6391 Riverside Blvd., Sacramento. Free. Info: 916-427-7715.

•••Saturday (8/18) & Sunday (8/19): Tuolumne Poetry Festival in Tuolumne Meadows (past Yosemite) at the rustic Parsons Memorial Lodge. It's free! Dorianne Laux, David Mas Masumoto, and Kay Ryan are featured poets, and Shira Kammen (violin and vielle) is the musician. There are lodges within an hour of Yosemite, so that's your best bet for overnight, as the camping cabins in the area are usually booked months in advance. Or make it a day trip—! You have to hike in: parking along the main road is fine all day, and then the hike up to the Parsons Lodge is about a half-hour on a good trail, uphill the last stretch, but not too strenuous, as you're in the meadow near the Tuolumne River. Workshops are next to the river in the outdoors, so dress accordingly. No dogs or pets on the trail. Info: www.nps.gov/yose/parsons for the complete Parsons Memorial Lodge Summer series schedule, or e-mail Monika Rose (mrosemanza@jps.net).

•••Monday (8/20), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Michael Cluff and Devin Davis at Headquarters for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Open mic afterwards.

_____________________

A GOOD PLACE TO BITE
—William S. Gainer, Grass Valley

I always liked
the soft part
of the thigh;
the inside,
just below
where the leg
and the body
come together.
It's a good place
to start
when considering
the tender meat.

_____________________

A POSTCARD FROM MEXICO
—William S. Gainer

I heard you quit your job
and went to Mexico
to stay with Ellen and Diane.
I was hoping to hear from you,
maybe just a card.

I went by your mom's
and asked about you,
she said you told her
it still hurts,
but that it's warm down there
and you're working on your tan.
She said,
you met a guy named Carlos,
from San Diego
and that it might work
but if it doesn't,
it doesn't matter.
She said,
"He's just
what you need—
now."

Let me know
the next time
you're passing through.
I'll buy you lunch:
Chinese.
I always liked watching you
mess with your chopsticks
and licking the sticky
from your fingers.

Yeah, I still think about you—
a lot
and miss you—
awful.

So if you're free
maybe you can just
drop a card;
they still deliver
from Mexico,
don't they?

_____________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. (See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/.)

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadsides from dawn dibartolo ("Blush"), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is November 15.

Salute to Elvis

Charles Bukowski, 1920-1994

TRAPPED
—Charles Bukowski

don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin;
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.

she's long ago
forgotten me.

she's trying on a new
hat
and looks more the
coquette
than ever.

she is a
child
and a mannequin
and
death.

I can't hate
that.

she didn't do
anything
unusual.

I only wanted her
to.

_____________________

THE ESCAPE
—Charles Bukowski

escape from the black widow spider
is a miracle as great as art.
what a web she can weave
slowly drawing you to her
she'll embrace you
then when she's satisfied
she'll kill you
still in her embrace
and suck the blood from you.

I escaped my black widow
because she had too many males
in her web
and while she was embracing one
and then the other and then
another
I worked free
got out
to where I was before.

she'll miss me—
not my love
but the taste of my blood,
but she's good, she'll find other
blood;
she's so good that I almost miss my death,
but not quite;
I've escaped. I view the other
webs.

____________________

Today Charles Bukowski (that Hound Dog) would've been 87 years old. I think Elvis would've liked Bukowski's poetry, don't you?


Sacramento's loss (Don't Be Cruel):

Sad news for Sacramento: Our first Co-Poet Laureate, Dennis Schmitz, has purchased a condo in Half Moon Bay and will be moving there with his wife, Loretta, in a matter of days! They put their Sacramento house on the market, it sold in a very short time, the condo deal went through, and shazam! The Schmitzes are outta here, on to a new life by the sea.

Dennis was my teacher at CSUS for a year; without him, there would be no Snake empire and no Medusa. Many other poets in these environs and beyond will attest to Dennis's generosity of spirit and gentle teaching skills that shaped our confusion into coherence and our random words into poems. Good luck to you and Loretta, Dennis. Enjoy your well-won retirement, but don't forget to come back and see us!


Hoax or not; whadaya think? Cheatin' Heart?

There's an article on page A10 in The Sacramento Bee today about one Sam Porpora, now 92 years old, who re-furbed Edgar Allan Poe's grave at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. Porpora now claims that the midnight visitor—the mysterious figure who left cognac and three roses at Poe's grave every year (since 1949) at midnight on his Jan. 19 birthday—was a promotional gimmick thought up by Porpora and some tour guides. Porpora says he never expected the hoax to be bought into world-wide. Opinions are mixed as to whether the visitor was merely a publicity stunt or not; what do you think?


Tonight at Luna's: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

•••Thursday (8/16), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured Poets: LOB Instagon and Murray, a double-feature pairing of Nor-Cal and So-Cal Poets—respectively, Sacramento’s Poet-band leader LOB Instagon and So-Cal’s Poet, Publisher and Next Mag. Empire maven Murray. Hosted by frank andrick; thanks also to Poets & Writers, Inc. Andrick adds: While many people celebrate August 16th as the day Elvis died, we at Luna's are celebrating LOB Instagon and G. Murray Thomas! Elvis may be dead—or not—but LOB and Murray will prove that Poetry and Rock are alive and kicking. Murray has come all the way from So-Cal to team up with former bandmate LOB, who now makes Sac. his home. You can of course expect the unexpected, but no one—not even them—knows what's gonna happen as they set their literary word jewels, steeped in the sound-and-noise-improv tradition. Soooo, be there be there be there please to catch a unique evening at Poetry Unplugged @ Luna's. Have a cool drink or two of your choice, bring a poem or two if you want to take part in the much-awarded Luna's open mic. See you there, and please come early for assured prime seating. We go SRO sometimes! ;-)

____________________

And what better way to commemorate the death of Elvis than with a Pantoum? Did you know Maurice Ravel wrote a piano trio called "Pantoum"? Tom Goff sends us this:

PANTOUM ON RAVEL'S "PANTOUM"
Piano Trio in A Minor, second movement
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

You only need a piano, violin, cello
and the musicians able to play them
in a style dashed with passion, vigor, speed,
with a page turner for the pianist.

And the musicians able to play them
will make song like a crossbow’s angry bolt;
With the page turner for the pianist
we see four sides to this contrapuntal quarrel.

We’ll make song like a crossbow’s angry bolt,
says the woman with the fiddle.
We see four sides to this contrapuntal quarrel:
In plucks of aggressive pizzicato,

says the woman with the fiddle,
in rapport with the suave cellist grounded by an end-pin:
more plucks of aggressive pizzicato.
Then the bowed beautiful octaves, pentatonic,

in rapport with the suave cellist grounded by an end-pin.
Polytonal waves of chromatic piano lash at the pilings,
then the bowed beautiful octaves, pentatonic,
long-limbed mahogany, but in places turned curt splinters.

Polytonal waves of chromatic piano lash at the pilings,
as the ankle-deep page turner scrambles to time the turn.
Long-limbed mahogany in places turns curt splinters;
the violinist’s sharp elbows, the cellist’s simian armlengths.

As the ankle-deep page turner scrambles to time the turn,
the keyboard plummets from vociferous bouncing bass to a deep gong.
The violinist’s sharp elbows, the cellist’s simian armlengths,
must sway and soften to the minor key’s dark black.

The keyboard’s plunge from vociferous bouncing bass to a deep gong
relies on the subtle power of the gently wristed hammer,
must sway and soften to the minor key’s dark black
night as a flower needs the light-free hours to close and recover,

relies on the subtle power of the gently wristed hammer
inside its petals, readying for the dawn,
night leading the light-free flower to close and recover,
and then the two-fisted power again: day’s first sunbolt.

Inside the music, readying for the dawn,
the keyboard, the fiddle, the cello between the legs,
and then the two-fisted power again: day’s first sunbolt
infuses the trio’s blood with reddened flame.

The keyboard, the fiddle, the cello between the legs
limn a style dashed with passion, vigor, speed,
infusing their trio’s blood with reddened flame.
You only need a piano, violin, cello

—and a page turner for the pianist.

Elvis Presley, 1935-1977

_____________________

—Medusa (Love Me Tender)

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com).

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is still sleeping! There will be no readings/releases in August, then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. (See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/.)

Also coming in mid-September: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadsides from dawn dibartolo ("Blush"), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick) and an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review is November 15.

The Woods Are With Us

Photo by Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines

NEIGHBORS
—A.R. Ammons

How little I have really cared about nature: I always
thought the woods idyllic and let it go at that; but,
look, one tree, the near pine, cracked off in high wind,

dry rot at the ground, and coming down sheared every
branch off one side of the sweetgum: one tree, trying
to come up under another, has only one bough in light:

an ice storm some years ago broke the tops off several
trees that now splinter into sprouts: one sweetgum,
bent over bow-like to the ground, has given up its

top and let an arrow of itself rise midway: ivy has
made Ann Pollard's pine an ivy tree: I can't regain
the lost idyllic at all, but the woods are here with us.

____________________

VOLITIONS
—A.R. Ammons

The wind turned
me round and
round all day, so
cold it planed
me, quick it

polished me
down: a spindle
by dusk,
too lean to
bear the open dark,

I said, sky,
drive me
into the
ground here,
still me with the ground.

_____________________

Today (Wednesday, August 15) is the next deadline for Rattlesnake Review! Send 3-5 poems, photos, artwork, whatever to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No cover letter, bio, prev-pubs or simul-subs. RR15 will be out in mid-to-late September.

_____________________

BREAKING OUT
—A.R. Ammons

I have let all my balloons aloose
what will become of them now
pricked they will show some weight
or caught under a cloud lack
ebullience to feel through

but they are all let loose
yellow, red, blue, thin-skinned, tough
and let go they have put me down
I was an earth thing all along
my feet are catching in the brush

_____________________

WHITE DWARF
—A.R. Ammons

As I grow older
arcs swollen inside
now and then fall
back, collapsing, into
forming walls:
the temperature shoots
up with what I am not
and am: from
multiplicities, dark
knots, twanging twists,
structures come into sight,
chief of these
a blade of fire only now
so late, so sharp and standing,
burning confusion up.

___________________

HE HELD RADICAL LIGHT
—A.R. Ammons

He held radical light
as music in his skull: music
turned, as
over ridges immanences of evening light
rise, turned
back over the furrows of his brain
into the dark, shuddered,
shot out again
in long swaying swirls of sound:

reality had little weight in his transcendence
so he
had trouble keeping
his feet on the ground, was
terrified by that
and like himself, and others, mostly
under roofs:
nevertheless, when the
light churned and changed

his head to music, nothing could keep him
off the mountains, his
head back, mouth working,
wrestling to say, to cut loose
from the high, unimaginable hook:
released, hidden from stars, he ate,
burped, said he was like any one
of us: demanded he
was like any one of us.

______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

Journals (free publications): Rattlesnake Review14 is now available at The Book Collector; contributors and subscribers should have received theirs by now. If you're none of those, and can't get down to The Book Collector, send two bux (for postage) to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 and I'll mail you a copy. If you want more than one, please send $2 for the first one and $1 for copies after that. Next deadline, for RR15, is August 15. VYPER6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets10 (for kids 0-12) is also at The Book Collector; next deadline is Oct. 1.

Books/free broadsides: June's releases include Tom Miner's chapbook, North of Everything; David Humphreys' littlesnake broadside, Cominciare Adagio; and #3 in B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, this one featuring Jane Blue.

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is sleeping! There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August. Then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. Also coming in the Fall: new issues of the Review, Snakelets and VYPER [see the above deadlines], plus more littlesnake broadsides from NorCal poets near and far, and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October).

Along the Road

Photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento

HIGHWAY 99E FROM CHICO
—Raymond Carver

The mallard ducks are down
for the night. They chuckle
in their sleep and dream of Mexico
and Honduras. Watercress
nods in the irrigation ditch
and the tules slump forward, heavy
with blackbirds.

Rice fields float under the moon.
Even the wet maple leaves cling
to my windshield. I tell you Maryann,
I am happy.

____________________

OUR FIRST HOUSE IN SACRAMENTO
—Raymond Carver

This much is clear to me now—even then
our days were numbered. After our first week
in the house that came furnished
with somebody else's things, a man appeared
one night with a baseball bat. And raised it.
I was not the man he thought I was.
Finally, I got him to believe it.
He wept from frustration after his anger
left him. None of this had anything to do
with Beatlemania. The next week these friends
of ours from the bar where we all drank
brought friends of theirs to our house—
and we played poker. I lost the grocery money
to a stranger. Who went on to quarrel
with his wife. In his frustration
he drove his fist through the kitchen wall.
Then he, too, disappeared from my life forever.
When we left that house where nothing worked
any longer, we left at midnight
with a U-Haul trailer and a lantern.
Who knows what passed through the neighbors' minds
when they saw a family leaving their house
in the middle of the night?
The lantern moving behind the curtainless
windows. The shadows going from room to room,
gathering their things into boxes.
I saw firsthand
what frustration can do to a man.
Make him weep, make him throw his fist
through a wall. Set him to dreaming
of the house that's his
at the end of the long road. A house
filled with music, ease, and generosity.
A house that hasn't been lived in yet.

____________________

Thanks to Sacramento's Jane Blue for the photo! She says she risked life and limb on the freeway to get it.

Tomorrow (Wednesday, August 15), is the next deadline for Rattlesnake Review! Send 3-5 poems, photos, artwork, whatever to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No cover letter, bio, prev-pubs or simul-subs. RR15 will be out in mid-to-late September.

Rattlechapper and ex-Sacramentan Steve Williams sent in his submission, along with the following: We are one of two poetry sites that will be included in an article in the upcoming Poet's Market 2008, due out this month. Constance [his lady friend and the mistress of the site] is quoted fairly extensively, and we are thrilled to be listed in the 'poet's bible.' That's www.wildpoetryforum.com/. Check it out! There's a direct link on the "Snake Faves" page of rattlesnakepress.com/.

______________________

THE ATTIC
—Raymond Carver

Her brain is an attic where things
were stored over the years.

From time to time her face appears
in the little windows near the top of the house.

The sad face of someone who has been locked up
and forgotten about.

_____________________

HUMMINGBIRD
(for Tess)
—Raymond Carver

Suppose I say summer,
write the word "hummingbird,"
put it in an envelope,
take it down the hill
to the box. When you open
my letter you will recall
those days and how much,
just how much, I love you.

______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.)

SnakeWatch: Up-to-the-minute Snake news:

Journals (free publications): Rattlesnake Review14 is now available at The Book Collector; contributors and subscribers should have received theirs by now. If you're none of those, and can't get down to The Book Collector, send two bux (for postage) to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 and I'll mail you a copy. If you want more than one, please send $2 for the first one and $1 for copies after that. Next deadline, for RR15, is August 15. VYPER6 (for youth 13-19) is in The Book Collector; next deadline is Nov. 1. Snakelets10 (for kids 0-12) is also at The Book Collector; next deadline is Oct. 1.

Books/free broadsides: June's releases include Tom Miner's chapbook, North of Everything; David Humphreys' littlesnake broadside, Cominciare Adagio; and #3 in B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series, this one featuring Jane Blue.

ZZZZZZZ: Shh! The Snake is sleeping! There will be no Snake readings/releases in July or August. Then we return with a bang on September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. Also coming in the Fall: new issues of the Review, Snakelets and VYPER [see the above deadlines], plus more littlesnake broadsides from NorCal poets near and far, and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including an anthology of interviews to be released for Sacramento Poetry Month (October).