All of Space is a Wave Transfixed

These are the editors of one of Modesto’s quarterly journals, Song of the San Joaquin, including (starting at top left and going clockwise) Dorla Shuman, nancee maya, Jim Shuman, Roberta Bearden, Ed Bearden, Cleo Griffith, Gordon Durham and Linda Prather.

Song of the San Joaquin is a publication of the Poets of the San Joaquin Chapter of California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc., and it accepts submissions of poetry having to do with life in the San Joaquin Valley of California, defined geographically as the region from Fresno to Stockton, and from the foothills on the west to those on the east. Deadlines are 3/15, 6/15, 9/15 and 12/15. For more information, write to Cleo at cleor36@yahoo.com or check out the archives at www.ChaparralPoets.org/SSJarchives.html/.

For more poems from the SSJ editors, check out the new Rattlesnake Review, now available at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or mail two bux to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726, and I'll mail you one. Copies are also going in the mail to contributors and subscribers this week.

Here are a couple more samples of the SSJ poets. nancee kinkaid maya's "Marysville" stood out for me because my mother was born in Marysville. They moved to Wheatland, where her father was principal of the high school. She and her dad picked peaches in the summer to earn extra cash; she ended up with life-long back trouble from going up and down the ladders.

James Shuman has served nobly for the past few years as President of California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc.

GONE
—James Shuman

San Joaquin spear lies useless
beside the bitter root and arrowhead;
fiddleneck and fillaree encroach
upon tidy tips, goldfields, lupine…
California poppies, owl’s clover, and butter cups
struggle and disappear in fields of nettles,
gone with the beauty and bounty of the
verdant central valley.

Native people no longer whisper their lessons
around hearthfires
nor follow the changing seasons
across meadows of buffalo grass to pine mountain heights;
no longer weave reed and willow baskets,
gathering piñon nuts and acorns
carefully, sparingly,
leaving ample for the little friends to find;
passing over cliffs, ravines, wild tributaries
of the Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers
back to the valley floor,
back to tule elk and kit fox,
back to cattails, bent grass,
valley oaks.

Another cycle fades into forgotten memories.
Mesquite and manzanita still prevail.

______________________

MARYSVILLE
—nancee kinkaid maya

summer of forty-eight
newly-transported from Seattle
we revel in the shimmering heat
in the irrigated peach orchards of Marysville
opening the gates
flooding heavy-laden trees
to the farmer’s fury…
climbing brittle cottonwood trees…
hiding in refrigerated boxcars
motionless on the tracks…
walking down alleys to the movies
on a hot afternoon
peering into dusty windows of
mysterious gold and scarlet
oriental buildings…
stealing trinkets, earrings, lipstick
from the five-and-dime
with my cohort in crime
the landlord’s daughter…
avoiding the step-father’s advances…
sister’s lunatic husband arrives from Texas
squatting across the street staring
until escorted out of town by the sheriff…
golden, frightening, exciting transition
sharpening budding skills of self-destruction
on the threshold of puberty
first summer in California

____________________

That's all Medusa will give you of the SSJ poets; we don't want to spoil the RR15 feature for you. But you might check out the SSJ archives at www.ChaparralPoets.org/SSJarchives.html/. And be sure to submit your poems to them! Next deadline is 12/15.

____________________

FLIGHT
—Jorge Guillén (1893-1984)

Through summer air
The ascending gull
Dominates the expanse, the sea, the world
Under the blue, under clouds
Like the whitest wool-tufts,
And supreme, regal,
It soars.

All of space is a wave transfixed.

White and black feathers
Slow the ascent,
Suddenly slipping on the air,
On the vast light.

It buoys up the whiteness of the void.

And suspended, its wings abandon themselves
To clarity, to the transparent depths
Where flight, with stilled wings,
Subsists,
Gives itself entirely to its own delight, its falling,
And plunges into its own passing—
A pure instant of life.

(Translated from the Spanish by Reginald Gibbons)



_____________________

—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: Journals: The new Rattlesnake Review, Issue #15, is available for free at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, or send $2 to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review (16) is November 15. The two journals for young people, Snakelets and Vyper, are on hiatus; no deadlines this Fall.

September's releases: The Snake returned with a bang on Wednesday, September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree, at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Also available at The Book Collector: a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick).

Coming in October: Rattlesnake Press celebrates Sacramento Poetry Month on Wednesday, Oct. 10 with the release of Spiral, a rattlechap by Kate Wells; Autumn on My Mind, a littlesnake broadside by Mary Field; and Rattlesnake Interview Series #5 by B.L. Kennedy, featuring Sacramento Poet Laureate Julia Connor. Also released that night will be Conversations, Volume One of the Rattlesnake Interview Anthology Series, featuring B.L.'s conversations with eleven Sacramento poets—plus other surprises (and cake!). Be there!

The Rumors Are True, All True!

Photo by Barbara L. Brands

MY FOR-THE-SUN
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Back in style, and this time not for rain,
the parasol. The name in Italian means
“sunshield,” but for me, it’s always been
a “for-the-sun,” in my ersatz Spanish.
As butterfly is to moth, so this for-the-sun
is to Rihanna’s “Umbrella (-ella, -ella, eh eh eh).”

Who sparks this revival of ladies’ shade
in Sacramento? Board-and-care assistants
born in Manila, dismounting from RT buses
to unfurl colonial Spanish whispers?
Indian ladies needing more than their saris

to screen out the Valley heat hotter
than Mumbai in July? Women
of dignity, women of poverty shoulder
the literal umbrella, personal awnings
black as bankers’ bowlers on Blackfriars

Bridge. Others, perhaps richer, twirl
plum-color marvels quite
surrey-with-the-fringe, meringue
edges goffered and gussied up
for Gertie’s birthday. And you
—yes, you, good lady: I remember

you taking our class at Folsom Lake,
walking the few warm blocks to school
each June day under your fine paisley
sunblock. Give me my for-the-sun,

I’m tripping along with you all,
whirling my stretched-open silks
over a skeleton of springy sticks.
We’ll be singin’ and dancin’
just like Gene Kelly but without
the least little raindrop
that isn’t sweat.

_____________________

Thanks, Tom!


The rumors are true, all true! As you may've heard:

The Snake will awaken from his summer snooze tonight (Weds., 9/12), as Rattlesnake Press presents Sacramento Poet Susan Kelly-DeWitt at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, celebrating the release of her new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree. Also released tonight will be a littlesnake broadside, Blush, from Sacramento Poet Dawn DiBartolo, plus #4 in the new Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring frank andrick, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#15)! Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/.

______________________

CARNATIONS
—Theodore Roethke

Pale blossoms, each balanced on a single jointed stem,
And leaves curled back in elaborate Corinthian scrolls,
And the air cool, as if drifting down from wet hemlocks.
Or rising out of ferns not far from water.
A crisp hyacinthine coolness,
Like that clear autumnal weather of eternity.
The windless perpetual morning above a September cloud.

____________________

MOSS GATHERING
—Theodore Roethke

To loosen with all ten fingers held wide and limber
And lift up a patch, dark green, the kind for lining cemetery baskets,
Thick and cushiony, like an old-fashioned doormat,
The crumbling small hollow sticks on the underside mixed with roots,
And wintergreen berries and leaves still stuck to the top,—
That was moss gathering.
But something always went out of me when I dug loose those carpets
Of green, or plunged to my elbow in the spongy yellowish moss of the marshes:
And afterwards I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,
As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland,
Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,
By pulling off flesh from the living planet;
As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.

_____________________

—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).

Gold

dawn dibartolo, Mather

verse in July
—dawn dibartolo

the right words ~
aspirin turn of phrase
and dress the pain
in summertime
like that perfect
yellow cotton
i just coined yesterday.
i’ll wear it to the
carnival, flirt a little
with the breeze, let it
catch my hem and dance
as i give the past to the
quarter-toss toy booths
and assume
the stuffed animals
love me.

_____________________

gold
—dawn dibartolo

a box was delivered today,
and in baubles and florid earrings
i came to know my grandmother,
gone, but her spirit filled the room.
apparently, she was quite the lady ~
sister flash in hats, broaches
and ornate necklaces,
double and triple strand.
i didn’t know her,
and i admire her flair.
she was glitz & old-school class;
she was gossamer handkerchiefs;
she was silk scarves in jewel tones;
she was gold.

____________________

Thanks, dawn! Come hear dawn dibartolo read a few poems from her new littlesnake broadside, Blush, tomorrow night (Weds., 9/12) at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Also released that night will be Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new rattlechap, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree, plus #4 in the new Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring frank andrick, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#15)! Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/.



A BABY ASLEEP AFTER PAIN
—D.H. Lawrence

As a drenched, drowned bee
Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower,
So clings to me
My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears
And laid against her cheek;
Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm
Swinging heavily to my movements as I walk.
My sleeping baby hangs upon my life,
Like a burden she hangs on me.
She has always seemed so light,
But now she is wet with tears and numb with pain
Even her floating hair sinks heavily,
Reaching downwards;
As the wings of a drenched, drowned bee
Are a heaviness, and a weariness.

______________________

Today, D.H. Lawrence would've been 122 years old.

And David Humphreys sends us this—thanks, David!

COPPER STAPLES
—David Humphreys, Stockton

You are rolled out of the Operating
Room, copper staples holding your
open heart wound together in the iodine
stain of a post surgical morphine numbness.
You are shock stunned senseless as a prize-
fighter knocked out cold as meat locker beef
puffy with your bruised swollen lip and broken
jaw. Cracked open like a boiled red lobster tail
you don’t come around for days plugged in to
your robot of beeping life support, surrounded
by your angels of worry, blessed as you have been
with children and the weary hero of their arrival.

______________________

—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).

The Pearl is the Poem

Susan Kelly-DeWitt
Photo by Mike Kelly-DeWitt

MS. SISYPHUS
—Susan Kelly-DeWitt, Sacramento

1.

Two gargantuan women appear
in the sky—one a swimmer,
the other a diver. (Or are they
the same woman split in two,

twinned?) Vapor women,
aspirin white, adrift in a heaven
of bandages… The diver dips

lower, drops like a plumb
through the shifting currents
toward the river. The swimmer

pushes something enormous before her
like a giant mole with a boulder.
I name her Ms. Sisyphus,

watch her scissor her mountain
of twilight with big cloud feet.


2.

Once when we were poor (my father
serving time in an actual state) our weekly
treat was to buy hamburgers and eat
them in the parking lot on Kalakaua
Boulevard, behind a drive-in theater
where, fenced out, we watched the movie
without sound. Every Saturday Elizabeth Taylor,
Deborah Kerr or Betty Davis floated
like rare butterflies across the screen.

We gazed like Plato’s shades
at the silent shadow-beings made
entirely of projected light.

This was our version
of plenty.


3.

The diver rifts in midair;
one tulle fist rips. Ms. Sisyphus’
gigantic shoulder muscles puff
up like crinolines, pucker
then twitch. Her arms pull
apart, loose stitch by loose stitch.

She twists to look at me as she
unwinds: Her skull’s unlaced.

_____________________

Thanks, Susan! "Ms. Sisyphus" is from Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new rattlechap, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree, which will be released at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, this Wednesday, Sept. 12, at 7:30 PM. Also released that night will be a littlesnake broadside, Blush, from Sacramento Poet Dawn DiBartolo, plus #4 in the new Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy, this one featuring frank andrick, and a brand-new issue of Rattlesnake Review (#15)! Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else's. More info: kathykieth@hotmail.com/.

Susan Kelly-DeWitt is the author of seven previous chapbooks and a full-length collection, The Fortunate Islands (forthcoming from Marick Press). Her work has been featured on Writer’s Almanac and Verse Daily and has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She currently teaches for Sacramento City College and for the University of California, Davis Extension.

See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from Susan's book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.

Yes, that's right; I can now say (with 90% confidence, depending on the wiles of the printer) that Issue #15 of the Snake will be coming out this week. The Plan is to start mailing tomorrow to contributors and subscribers, and if you're either (or neither) of those and you're at the reading Wednesday, you'll get yours then. Anyway, that's The Plan...


Also this week:

•••Tonight (Monday, 9/10), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center will feature Sacramento Poet Laverne Frith at HQ, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Laverne Frith has been co-editor of Ekphrasis for ten years, with chapbooks from Talent House and White Heron Press, and a chapbook, Drinking The Light, recently released from Finishing Line Press, plus a Pushcart Prize nomination. Laverne was runner-up for the 2004, 2005, & 2006 Louisiana Literature Prize In Poetry. His poetry has been accepted or appeared in Poetry New York, Christian Science Monitor, Sundog, Comstock, Montserrat, California Quarterly, Song of the San Joaquin, Dalhousie, Perihelion, Architrave, Maryland Poetry Review, Sonoma Mandala, New Laurel Review, Permafrost, Main Street Rag, New Zoo Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, Kimera, etc. He has won honors and awards in a number of poetry competitions. Open mic to follow.

•••Also tonight (Monday, 9/10), 6:30 PM: Manzanita poets get-together in San Andreas: bring work to share, if you like. Meet at the Arts Council gallery office in San Andreas. Refreshments available. News about Glenn Wasson's book coming out at the end of October!

The Manzanita folks will also be going to the California Poets Festival on Saturday, September 22, 10 AM to 4:30 PM. This year’s featured poets include Robert Hass, Francisco X. Alarcón, Ellen Bass, Victoria Chang, Wanda Coleman, Jane Hirshfield, Diem Jones, and the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society of San José. This all-day outdoor festival will will also include a small press fair and a food fair. It will be held at History Park San José, 1650 Senter Road, San José. Open to the public and free of charge. Co-sponsored by Poetry Santa Cruz and Poetry Center San José.

Monika Rose writes: If you would like to carpool from Calaveras County, please e-mail me soon, and we'll try to organize it. Manzanita staff members have to be in San Jose by 8:30, so it's an early rising for us and strong coffee and tea with crumpets to go. We will have volumes of Manzanita available if you'd like more copies (Volumes 4 and 5 will be discounted at 10.00 each for the fair).

•••Thursday (9/13), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento. Featured readers, with open mic before and after.

•••Friday (9/14), 7:30 PM: Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol presents their Annual all-Spanish poetry reading, featuring the work of the controversial Spanish poet, Rafael Alberti, and the students of the Sac State Foreign Languages Dept. Emcee is Dr. Fausto Avendaño. Contributing to the evening will be Graciela Ramirez, Jim Michael, and musician/composer Alfredo González. Open mic to follow. Cost: $5 or as you can afford. La Raza Galeria Posada, 1024 22nd St., Midtown Sacramento. Info: Graciela Ramirez (916-456-5323) or website: www.escritoresdelnuevosol.com/

•••Sat. (9/15), 10 AM-5 PM: The Eighth Annual Sonoma County Book Festival will take place in Old Courthouse Square, Santa Rosa, with more than seventy booths showcasing independent booksellers and publishers. Sonoma County presents the oldest and largest general interest book festival in Northern California. Admission is free and includes readings, panels and activities for all ages. Throughout the day, poets including Kay Ryan, California Poet Laureate Al Young and Francisco X. Alarcón will read on the main stage of Old Courthouse Square. At noon, Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, will introduce The Big Read Sonoma County and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, followed by the young winners of the bilingual essay contest reading from their “Which Book Would You Save?” essays. In addition to this full day of poetry, the Festival also offers a Teen Poetry Slam at 1:00 p.m. at the Target Young People’s Tent. The Target Young People’s Tent will host events all day, with readings, a “Let’s Talk about Writing” panel and a Fantasy Hour. The spacious white tent offers young people the chance to sit or sprawl on the grass on the Square’s east side and the chance to win free books. The Art Bus will once again join the Book Festival to help celebrate creativity and the literary arts. This fully-equipped mobile art studio will park close to the tent. A unique element to the Festival’s kick-off of The Big Read Sonoma County will be a group of modern day troubadours walking around reciting passages from their most cherished books. Maxine Hong Kingston will introduce Veterans of War; Veterans of Peace, the winner of the 2007 Northern California Book Reviewers Special Award in Publishing. For a full list of authors, panels, times and locations visit www.socobookfest.org.

•••Sunday (9/16), 7 PM: Another book release party for Sun Shadow Mountain, this one to be held at Java Aroma, 1825 Pacific Avenue, Stockton. The book, Sun Shadow Mountain, contains an astounding banquet of poetry, prose, photography and artwork taken from 38 poets from California and abroad. Visit www.sunshadowmountain.com/.

_____________________

H.D.
Hilda Doolittle in the '30's

SEA VIOLET
—H.D.

The white violet
is scented on its stalk,
the sea-violet
fragile as agate,
lies fronting all the wind
among the torn shells
on the sand-bank.
The greater blue violets
flutter on the hill,
but who would change for these
who would change for these
one root of the white sort?
Violet
your grasp is frail
on the edge of the sand-hill,
but you catch the light—
frost, a star edges with its fire.

(from Sea Garden, 1916)

____________________

Today, Hilda Doolittle would've been 121 years old.

And finally, Katy Brown has been watching Medusa's pearl fixation over the last two days, so she sent us this one of her own:

ars poetica
—katy brown, davis

all that work
night after night
in icy, sandy beds —

sealing off glass-sharp intrusions
between soft, pulsing interiors
and inadequate armor —

all those layers and layers
of gleaming lies
to cover the jagged little secrets

not even a remorseful
ocean can dislodge the
imperfections of the past

after all, the pearl
always becomes the poem
of the oyster

____________________

Thanks, K.B.! Check out the new Snake for Katy's column on the ekphrastic side of poetry.

—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).

There's That Pearl Again!

Nymphs and Satyr
Painting by William Bouguereau

WHERE EVERYTHING IS MUSIC
—Rumi

Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.


(Translated from the Persian by Coleman Barks, with John Moore. On September 30, 2007, Jelaluddin Balkhi (Rumi) would've been 800 years old!)

—Medusa

The Pearl Has Vanished

DISCOVERY
—Yuan Mei (1716-1797)

I walked by chance
Into the western courtyard.
There I saw
A single orchid
Newly blown.

Who will spread
The tidings?
What bee
Will learn the secret first
And hasten
To the spot?

____________________

AN ELEGY
—Yü Hsüan Chi (844-871)

Among the pale-pink blossoms
Of the peach
I see again your lovely face,
And in the wind-stirred leaves
Of the willow trees
Is the curve
Of your slender brow.

The sun sinks slowly
In the western hills
And the moon climbs
The eastern sky.

The pearl has vanished
In the dragon's cave
And leaves no trace behind.

_____________________

IMPRESSIONS OF A TAOIST MONASTERY
—Yü Hsüan Chi

Priest robes
Cut from finest silk,
Many-colored
As the sunset glow.
Great clouds of incense
Rising
From behind curtains
Of bright brocade.

Hibiscus blossooms
And leaves;
The slender trickle
Of a mountain stream.

Stop!
Listen to the oriole's songs.
Open wide the cage
And let the crane fly free.

Sleep overtaking me
In the great hall;
Rain at nightfall,
Then sleet and snow.

_____________________

NIGHTFALL
—Yü Hsüan Chi

Red peach blossoms
And all the colors
Of spring
Are everywhere.

On each house
The moon shines down
Through the leaves
Of the willow trees.

Adorned and robed
Some sit in their halls,
Awaiting the coming
Of night.
Some sit apart
In the women's court,
Dreaming sweet dreams
Of love.

In the pool
Beneath the hibiscus leaves,
The fishes dart and play;
A rainbow arches the heavens;
Sparrows twitter and call.

In this world
Both sorrow and joy
Are dreams.
If mingled,
Would they be more?

_____________________

Yü Hsüan Chi was a famous poetess of the T'ang dynasty in China. She became the concubine of the famous Li I, but was driven out by his wife, so she sought refuge in Taoism and entered a convent. The last years of her life are veiled in obscurity, but at the end, accused of murdering a serving maid, she was condemned and beheaded when only twenty-seven years old.

Today's poems are translated from the Chinese by Henry H. Hart in A Garden of Peonies, Stanford University Press, 1938.

—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:

Chapbooks/readings: The Snake returns with a bang on Wednesday, September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree, at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.

Also coming September 12: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review (16) is November 15.

Amazement Called Love

Art Paper
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

A CONFESSION
—Czeslaw Milosz

My Lord, I loved strawberry jam
And the dark sweetness of a woman's body.
Also well-chilled vodka, herring in olive oil,
Scents, of cinnamon, of cloves.
So what kind of prophet am I? Why should the spirit
Have visited such a man? Many others
Were justly called, and trustworthy.
Who would have trusted me? For they saw
How I empty glasses, throw myself on food,
And glance greedily at the waitress's neck.
Flawed and aware of it. Desiring greatness,
Able to recognize greatness wherever it is,
And yet not quite, only in part, clairvoyant,
I knew what was left for smaller men like me:
A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud,
A tournament of hunchbacks, literature.

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Tonight in Davis:

•••Friday (9/7), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice in Davis is pleased to open its 2007-08 season with a presentation by the poets and writers from In This Quiet Light, a book of writings by the Worship Associates of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Davis. The group meets in the Sanctuary of the church located at 27074 Patwin Road. Along with other writers, the poets featured are Ray Coppock, Ruth Hall, Nancy Jungerman, Alexandra Lee-Jobe, Bryan and Rebecca Plude, and Carlena Wike. Refreshments will be served after the reading.


This weekend: The party goes on:

•••The Friends of the Sacramento Public Library is sponsoring a fundraising book sale Saturday (12-5 PM) and Sunday (12-4). Book Den, 8250 Belvedere Ave., Sacramento. Books, CDs, records, 25¢ to $2. Info: 916-812-9199.

•••Sunday (9/9), 2:30-4 PM: Open mic poetry reading at Juice and Java, 7067 Skyway, Paradise. Info: 530-872-9633.

•••Monday (9/10), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center will feature Sacramento Poet Laverne Frith at HQ, 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Laverne Frith has been co-editor of Ekphrasis for ten years, with chapbooks from Talent House and White Heron Press, and a chapbook, Drinking The Light, recently released from Finishing Line Press, plus a Pushcart Prize nomination. Laverne was runner-up for the 2004, 2005, & 2006 Louisiana Literature Prize In Poetry. His poetry has been accepted or appeared in Poetry New York, Christian Science Monitor, Sundog, Comstock, Montserrat, California Quarterly, Song of the San Joaquin, Dalhousie, Perihelion, Architrave, Maryland Poetry Review, Sonoma Mandala, New Laurel Review, Permafrost, Main Street Rag, New Zoo Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, Kimera, etc. He has won honors and awards in a number of poetry competitions. Open mic to follow.

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WHEN AFTER A LONG LIFE
—Czeslaw Milosz

When, after a long life, it falls out
That he takes on a form he had sought
And every word carved in stone
Grows its hoarfrost, what then? Torches
Of Dionysian choruses in the dark mountains
From when he comes. And half of the sky
With its snaky clouds. A mirror before him.
In the mirror the already severed, perishing
Thing.

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PROOF
—Czeslaw Milosz

And yet you experienced the flames of Hell.
You can even say what they are like: real,
Ending in sharp hooks so that they tear up flesh
Piece by piece, to the bone. You walked in the street
And it was going on: the lashing and bleeding.
You remember, therefore you have no doubt: there is a Hell for certain.

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ACCOUNT
—Czeslaw Milosz

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,
Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,
Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle's flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,
The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,
The time when I was among their adherents
Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.

But all of them would have one subject, desire,
If only my own—but no, not at all; alas,
I was driven because I wanted to be like others.
I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.

The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it's late. And the truth is laborious.

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A PORTRAIT WITH A CAT
—Czeslaw Milosz

A little girl looks at a book with a picture of a cat
Who wears a fluffy collar and has a green velvet frock.
Her lips, very red, are half opened in a sweet reverie.
This takes place in 1910 or 1912, the painting bears no date.
It was painted by Marjorie C. Murphy, an American
Born in 1888, like my mother, more or less.
I contemplate the painting in Grinnell, Iowa,
At the end of the century. That cat with his collar
Where is he? And the girl? Am I going to meet her,
One of those mummies with rouge, tapping with their canes?
But this face: a tiny pug nose, round cheeks,
Moves me so, quite like a face that I, suddenly awake
In the middle of the night, saw by my side on a pillow.
The cat is not here, he is in the book, the book in the painting.
No girl, and yet she is here, before me
And has never been lost. Our true encounter
Is in the zones of childhood. Amazement called love,
A thought of touching, a cat in velvet.

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—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:

Chapbooks/readings: The Snake returns with a bang on Wednesday, September 12, presenting Susan Kelly-DeWitt's new chapbook, Cassiopeia Above the Banyan Tree, at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. See the online journal, Mudlark, for a hefty sample of poems from her book; that’s http://www.unf.edu/mudlark/. And read more about Susan at her nifty new website, http://www.susankelly-dewitt.com/. Click on "Chapbooks" for a sneak preview of Cassiopeia's cover.

Also coming September 12: The new issue of Rattlesnake Review (15), plus a littlesnake broadside from dawn dibartolo (Blush), and a continuation of B.L. Kennedy's Rattlesnake Interview Series—including #4 (frank andrick). Next deadline for Rattlesnake Review (16) is November 15.