The Rainbow Kites of Our Minds

Bug-Eyed Jack

—Photo by Ronald Edwin Lane

BUG-EYED JACK
—Ronald Edwin Lane, Colfax

Bug-Eyed Jack hopped from grass to path, paused, sat back, boxer-pawed the air, looked right, looked left, looked straight ahead and sniffed, listened, relaxed, licked paws, both front and back, and then boxer-pawed again and paused, and then licked the fur around his derriere. A magpie flew past and Bug-Eyed Jack stood erect and boxer-pawed his threat, “Don’t mess with this hare, or I’ll boxer-paw your ears.” I doubt very much if he would have flashed paws at a hawk or a fox, but he was a tough old hare I’ll grant him that, or he wouldn’t have lived for so many years. He then inchwormed up the path, shifting weight from front paws to back, to then stand erect, pause and sniff, flash boxer-paws and lick. And I could tell he truly had a lucky foot, for Bug-Eyed Jack’s right ear was notched and shorter than the other, the result of a brush with death, where this hare barely escaped by the tip of his ear.

____________________

THAT OL’ CAROUSER SUN
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

The Sun looks refreshed this morning
after a full night of carousing on
the other side of the world.

His ogle strikes a note of curiosity,
for which I wonder about his
pandering among the stars.

Has he encouraged a galaxy rave
with careless talk of light speed? Has he
drunk the gin of meteor showers? Who’s

to know, except residents on the other
side of the globe? —they, too busy
carousing in their nap-dreams to notice.

_____________________

DYING (non-syllabic Pleiades)
—Carol Louise Moon

Dreaming has its advantage:
dancing, like toe dancing. My
deceased father never saw me
dance, but now in my
dreams takes a center-stage seat
directly in front and watches my
“Dying Swan.” His eyes guide me.

____________________

DREAM-LIKE QUALITY
—Carol Louise Moon

What is to be known of the honey-comb?
A frightening look at over-crowding.

They come to this tribal gathering in robes,
wearing slippers, newsprint on their thumbs.

Coffee farmers. Coffee roasters. Coffee filters.
Coffee beans and water. Steam rises.

Affection awaits the cat, whose attitude, carefully
adjusted, has decided to stay off this couch.

Thoughts couched in good intentions are fruit
falling from an over-ripened tree. Prunes.

It is summer, yet the weather remains cool.
I’ve not switched the calendar page; still April.

Tomorrow, let us fly the rainbow kites of our
minds, entangling kite tails.

The poet has written another ghazal…
another day of poetry… in her dreams.

_____________________

—Photo by Ronald Edwin Lane

BEYOND THE GRAYSCALE
—Ronald Edwin Lane

Color blind, blind to color, black and white, white and black, so cold, so narrow, so phony, so dull, so less than ordinary, this view, this focus, this sameness, plainness; in a world so insanely colorful and gorgeous.

____________________

ORPHEUS OF THE WAVES
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

A bed swirls in eddies of dark water
blind as music. Umbrellas bob like whitecaps
on the current, the rain drawing every-
thing downstream. All night, rain shook the roof,
swirled new waterways to sea.
We waded waist-deep in the flood, tides
of a perilous other-language.
And on that midnight emptiness of water,
a bed floats—white sheets
unwritten; pillows fluffed, as if eyes
of the dead or the just-born
weighted with coins. A few bright words
among the debris that clogs
the culverts, overflows the road. Small
branches, a chair, a hat-rack on the current.
You tell me, even our spirit is caught
in the tide. But look—a pump-
organ rides the waves, holding its sheet-music
tight. And that bed—a flame-lily rises
on its birth-stem loosed
from bedsprings; floating on loss.
Most fragile of flower-trees
springing from the ear. Gift of words
borne on the water's drone.
Blessed rain bearing the burden of song.

________________________

PAPER PROOF
—Taylor Graham

That Bighorn ram by dawnlit sky—
I had no lens to aim that high,
to fix his image. Just my eye.
It all passed by. It all passed by.

How capture in a word, a line
the shiver of a full-moon shine—
a crimson trail-side columbine—
to make it mine, to make it mine?

That passing thought I sought to nurse—
was it a blessing or a curse?
Blank paper is an empty purse
without a verse, without a verse.

______________________

ANOTHER ANNIVERSARY
—Taylor Graham

How shall we toast, tonight? you ask
as if we had some hidden cask.
Your smile, clear water in the flask—
beloved mask, beloved mask.

______________________

Photo by Taylor Graham

DOWN YONDER GREEN
sonnenizio on a line by Patrick Kavanagh
—Taylor Graham

From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven
we walk out in a world insanely green,
greener for this storm soaking thirsty ground
so new springs gush out of placid green slopes
bearing spring-green debris downstream along
with last summer's rubbish mud-green, clogging
the green current that swirls eddies to block
our culvert. In green slickers we're raking
water; and wondering at God's green ways:
good earth promised along with green thistle;
mowing hay under charcoal-green thunder.
As sheep lie down to rehash their green cuds,
you bend to pick, from the green-growth between,
one leaf of miner's-lettuce heart-shaped green.

_____________________

—Photo by Ronald Edwin Lane

THIN LINE GRIP
—Ronald Edwin Lane

Outside, a heart beats, still, free within a cage of cold steel wires, gripped, in the tick tack toe struggle, of a day of the dull and the sharp, of the light and the dark, of a yin yang winter-spring morning, holding on for life.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

THEY COULD HAVE JUST
SENT A BLANK SHEET
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

My favorite rejection slip
Was handwritten,
Scribbled on the back
Of a Marine Corps
Recruiting brochure:
“Dear Kevin,
We’d rather
Go out of business
Than publish
Any of your crap.”

____________________ 

—Medusa

 —Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

Be sure to check out our newest photo album on 

Medusa's Facebook page: St. Patrick's Day Parade 

in Old Sacramento by Michelle Kunert

The Art of Losing Leaves and Time

Photo by Joyce Odam

A PLACE LIKE THAT
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

Yes, a place like that.
A chair in the light.
An unwinding place
free from thought or claim.
Somewhere unreachable.
Dreamed-up or real.
No matter.
Just a place to be unreal in
if you are not real.
A chair to hold you—heavy or light
—like a rocking boat that can drift away
into the edge of a passing current.
Simply lift and follow—
or inward-stay
unraveled
while a leaf drifts by,
or a bird sits watching from a tree,
shivering with happiness at a small breeze.

_____________________

DEATH OF A LANDSCAPE
(after “Draft of a Landscape” by Paul Celan)
—Joyce Odam

Razed. Stricken. Dug up and abandoned.
Memory’s neglect. Graves.
Small histories of small lifetimes.

Look for whatever you have lost
here somewhere. What is this place?
What has brought you here?

It is cold. It has no welcome.
It is a place without expectation.
You wander its terrain.

Ruts and stones, here and there a weed.
So that’s what you came to learn:
the tenacity of weeds; the patience of stones;

the caution of ruts. The horizon
cannot be reached, nor the end of day.
The sky is a separate thing.

You wish for a bird, and a bird flies by.
You are creating this.
Your own landscape.

_____________________

THIS ENJAMBMENT OF THOUGHTS
—Joyce Odam

It is almost too much to know:
this white page of silence
the sound of the room
this enjambment of thoughts;

oh what to do, what to do
about anything . . .

perhaps if lethargy
wraps its white arms
around me
in my serious desolation . . .

white web quivers in the considering mind
whole days
pass
I make one slow movement toward myself . . .

is like a mirror . . .
is like relief . . .

somewhere a perfect spider keeps redesigning
what is most important . . . the soft body of
light is finally caught in the patient web
and struggles there, half-heartedly.

_____________________

Daphne

—Photo by Joyce Odam

FROM DANGEROUS COUNTRY
—Joyce Odam

Somewhere in the
complexity of loneliness
you wander like a discoverer
picking the darkest flowers.

The vase that I am
waits to receive
what you believe are gifts
from a safe country.


(first pub. in The Orchard, 1975)

_____________________

BLUE DOORS
—Joyce Odam

I think I’ll go away—
find me a new place to be—

somewhere blue,
with a blue door—a blue seashore

on one side—
and a blue mountain on the other;

between these, will be
the blue door, one to each side

of a small blue room,
where I will be, in a blue center.


(first pub. in The Listening Eye, 2004)

____________________

TWO LIVES
—Joyce Odam

Two agonies of prose create themselves
in words for the long winter.

She carries a cup of tea across the floor
to a break in the conversation.

He takes the cup.

Somewhere, a shuddering tree—one leaf,
then all.

_____________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for today's fine fare! Today we're taking our Seed of the Week, This White Page of Silence, from one of the lines in Joyce's poem, "This Enjambment of Thoughts". Is the silence hanging there because you can't think of what to write—that blank page that stares back at you, sometimes for hours? Is it a "Dear John" letter you can't muster up the courage for, or a letter of resignation, or something more sinister? Or is it more of a metaphor: a future you want to carve out for yourself, maybe, or something you wish someone would say to you, or a sense of being lost? Anyway, fill up that page and send it to kathykieth@hotmail.com. But there are no deadlines on SOWs, so take your time, or maybe go to "Calliope's Closet" under the Snake on a Rod in the green board over at the right of this column for SOWs aplenty from the past. And forms, too.

The latest issue of Ekphrasis, the quarterly journal edited by Sacramento poets Carol and Laverne Frith which "addresses individual works from any artistic genre", is available. This issue has a poem from Sacramento poet Jane Blue. Go to www.ekphrasisjournal.com to obtain a copy.

_____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

A MEMORY OF TREES
—Joyce Odam

Somewhere trees of dark design
droop into sorrow to refine
the art of losing leaves and time . . .

the art of losing leaves and time
drooping with sorrow to define
the dying trees of dark design.

____________________

—Medusa 

 Photo by Joyce Odam

Of Ides and Tides and Coq Au Vin

Rain through the windshield

—Photo by Taylor Graham

HALL OF MIRRORS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Each surface is the perfect blue of sky
before the swarm of insects—
floaters, you call them—and the bright
sliver-moon inverted behind
the eye before the retina casts off

flashing on its own. Can you read
the script projected backwards
in the dark, across the room? It retreats
in time to each reversal,
each beautifully serif'd reflection,

the roadmap that brought us here
folded softly back into
mercury; where the X is a lake
for drowning. That's
what mirrors do, capturing us in image

as if it were our selves. Look
at yourself cut triptych in rippled glass
that abstracts your face
and gives it back forever changed.
Script ancient, unreadable.

______________________

CUT INTO PARTS AND FOLDED
—Taylor Graham

I unfold your book as if it were your
self in three parts—the bathroom mirror
hinged to cut your face in half—

as this morning I folded my knees,
wrists, shoulders into yoga-form foreign
to my living figure—origami

swan or cricket, beetle that only lives
an hour. Out the window, cigarette smoke
folds into fog; a century-plant

blossoms as metaphor.
This window a plate of broken glass
you meant for mirror—you

who no longer have a body. Only this
book, origami of yourself. Image by
image, I unfold from swan.

______________________

ESSENCES OF MARCH
—Taylor Graham

We've gotten past the Ides
and last night's weather-tides—

storm runoff gushing hence,
rushing our pasture fence.

Black boots slick with water—
rain suits the creek's daughter.

Old Willow's deep in bud,
sheep meditate their cud;

the world is rainy-green
skirled with voices unseen.

Wild mustard on the banks—
child of fortune. Give thanks.

_____________________

MAINTENANCE MAN
—Kim Clyde, Sacramento

For twenty-five years
And more
He kept his secret wish
Hidden.
Locked away behind
His crooked smile.
So charming.
So disarming.
Those electric blue eyes.
He told of adventures
In distant places
In my old green plaid coat.
His arms warmed
In the sleeves
Where the ghosts
Of my own
Lingered still.
The “Chicago Coat”
He calls it.
To keep out the winds
Of change
Against the day
He hoped to meet again
The girl he did not
Get to kiss
So long ago.

______________________

AN ERUDITE DREAM TO BE ELSEWHERE
—Michael Cluff, Corona, CA

"Use the simple words—
it will come across faster
and all will get it,
that's what you want
don't you,"
Mr. Matthews told
no one in specific

they had all left
their defiled desks
to crowd the window
overlooking the quad
to see the ice cream truck
slide by on Tucket Drive.

He undid his top
dress shirt button
and pulled hard on his tie
striped in gold, blue, black and white
and dreamed
of cream brulée
and coq au vin
in the Lesser Antilles.

He could never
afford the Greater,
at least in thought.

_____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

SPIN
(It’s the day after St. Patrick’s Day.
What are all those snakes doing on my lawn?)

 —Caschwa, Sacramento

Long before Nobel’s invention
Which could be used for
Good or bad intention
There were serpents galore

Pure evil hidden in the grass
Ready to bite your ass
They were cast the most lowly class
Unless wrapped around a cross

Now the healing symbol ethereal
Discarding that old skin to the site
Ancients stowed biohazardous material
Soil by dark, skinfills by light

Then we have the ouroboros plight
Fated to eat its own tail
A graphic image of wrong versus right
And a plethora of vowels for sale

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's chefs in the Kitchen, especially to newcomer Kim Clyde (Kim Richerson)—welcome!

Photo by Taylor Graham

Paying the Piper

Illustration of The Pied Piper of Hamelin 
by Kate Greenaway

THE PIED PIPER
—Stephanie Hoogstad, Cottonwood, CA

Adorned in Technicolor—
an emerald cloak, a ruby shirt,
and sapphire pants—
they all think he’s off,
a bum, a ne’er-do-well, a loon,
And the way he prances through the streets,
twiddling on his playful pipes,
does not improve their thoughts of him;
They try to keep their children
from his sight,
for surely he must be crazy
and dangerous to act this way.

The children see him playing
and dancing his way through their town,
and yet they see nothing wrong with him;
He is their hero,
their guiding light,
and they yearn to follow him,
to dance with him into the night,
to neglect their studies
for just one day;
All they want to do is play
with this strange man from a distant land,
who just wants to play as well.

He wants to be seen,
he wants to be heard,
he wants to be loved,
and for so long he’s yearned
to hear the applause
and to know his work is loved,
but try as he might,
he cannot be satisfied,
for he knows what they think,
the adults of these towns;
He knows they think he’s crazy
or lazy
or nothing more than a simple clown;
He knows they fear him
and don’t approve of his ways;
He knows he’s the grasshopper
and that those ants will never appreciate
his art,
which he only makes
to bring them joy
so that they will love him;
If only he had seen
how the children adore him!

Finally the day came
when he could no longer take it,
and he played his flute
right out of town;
The children, they loved him,
and couldn’t bear to see him go,
so after him they went,
except for the blind, the lame, and the deaf;
The way they followed him,
they seemed to be under a spell,
so their parents blamed him
and tried to find him, to hang him
for the theft of their children,
but they found no trace of him,
for this multicolored musician
had danced off into the sunset.

He leaves them one message,
these uptight adults:
give respect to those
who bring you art,
be they writers or painters or the simple flute player;
More simply said,
always pay the piper.

_____________________

—Medusa

 Illustration by Kate Greenaway

(for more about The Pied Piper of Hamelin, go to 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin
For more about Kate Greenaway, go to

 www.ortakales.com/illustrators/greenaway.html)

A New Dress

Patrick Kavanagh, 1904-1967

MEMORY OF MY FATHER
—Patrick Kavanagh

Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.
That man I saw in Gardner Street
Stumbled on the kerb was one,
He stared at me half-eyed,
I might have been his son.
And I remember the musician
Faltering over his fiddle
In Bayswater, London,
He too set me the riddle.
Every old man I see
In October-coloured weather
Seems to say to me:
"I was once your father."

____________________

PEACE
—Patrick Kavanagh

And sometimes I am sorry when the grass
Is growing over the stones in quiet hollows
And the cocksfoot leans across the rutted cart-pass
That I am not the voice of country fellows
Who now are standing by some headland talking
Of turnips and potatoes or young corn
Of turf banks stripped for victory.
Here Peace is still hawking
His coloured combs and scarves and beads of horn.

Upon a headland by a whinny hedge
A hare sits looking down a leaf-lapped furrow
There's an old plough upside-down on a weedy ridge
And someone is shouldering home a saddle-harrow.
Out of that childhood country what fools climb
To fight with tyrants Love and Life and Time?

_____________________

SHANCODUFF
—Patrick Kavanagh

My black hills have never seen the sun rising,
Eternally they look north towards Armagh.
Lot's wife would not be salt if she had been
Incurious as my black hills that are happy
When dawn whitens Glassdrummond chapel.

My hills hoard the bright shillings of March
While the sun searches in every pocket.
They are my Alps and I have climbed the Matterhorn
With a sheaf of hay for three perishing calves
In the field under the Big Forth of Rocksavage.

The sleety winds fondle the rushy beards of Shancoduff
While the cattle-drovers sheltering in the Featherna Bush
Look up and say: ‘Who owns them hungry hills
That the water-hen and snipe must have forsaken?
A poet? Then by heavens he must be poor.'
I hear and is my heart not badly shaken?

____________________

PRIMROSE
—Patrick Kavanagh

Upon a bank I sat, a child made seer
Of one small primrose flowering in my mind.
Better than wealth it is, I said, to find
One small page of Truth's manuscript made clear.
I looked at Christ transfigured without fear—
The light was very beautiful and kind,
And where the Holy Ghost in flame had signed
I read it through the lenses of a tear.
And then my sight grew dim, I could not see
The primrose that had lighted me to Heaven,
And there was but the shadow of a tree
Ghostly among the stars. The years that pass
Like tired soldiers nevermore have given
Moments to see wonders in the grass.

_____________________

CANAL BANK WALK
—Patrick Kavanagh

Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal
Pouring redemption for me, that I do
The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,
Grow with nature again as before I grew.
The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third
Party to the couple kissing on an old seat,
And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word
Eloquently new and abandoned to its delirious beat.
O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web
Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,
Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib
To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech
For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.

_____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

Everything that we inherit, the rain, the skies, the speech, and anybody who works in the English language in Ireland knows that there's the dead ghost of Gaelic in the language we use and listen to and that those things will reflect our Irish identity.

—John McGahern

____________________

—Medusa, who resolves to read more Irish poets in the year to come...

And here's a little bit of St. Pat's/Medusa humor for you: www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/03/st-patrick-and-medusa-on-a-blind-date.html

Labyrinth of Oblivion

Changes in the Water

—Photo Enhancement by D.R. Wagner

A BLUE TRANSPARENT LAKE THAT WAS OUR LIVES
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

There, right where the clouds are
Coming apart, see, it’s blue, a perfect
Blue like drowning or almost drowning,
When the stillness comes upon one believing
You have made a wish, trying to convince
You that it really has something here,
Something you will want. It will teach
You to remember, so it says, so it says.

I trail my fingers in the river as the boat
Moves down the river. See, just up ahead
The night is putting that cloud in our way
So we think that it is dressing. You point
Out the stars and we do not notice that
The sky has turned completely black.

I start to weep but you tell me there will be more
Stars shortly and perhaps a moon. Swarms
Of insects fly around the lantern you have lit.
“Don’t worry,” you say, “They will not bite you.
They have only come to see the light. Soon
They will fly to the stars.” I don’t believe you,
Deciding that this is all a mirror and I am on
One side of it and you are on the other.

Finally, nothing is reflected. I believe I can
Hear you breathing and gaze hard at the glass.
It is like we have been cut in half and no one
Has noticed this, least of all ourselves.
I begin to sing you a song. It is very beautiful
But we do not even speak the same language
And you are unable to know what is being said.

The moon is about to rise. You hold my hand,
Point to the dark at the tops of the trees
Where it is just coming into view. The clouds
Make it look red for awhile, then an intense yellow.
Right then: We decide we both have been dreaming.

______________________

I FEEL LIKE MIDNIGHT
—D.R. Wagner

The keen edge of a blade opens
The corners of my mouth and steam
Works my face. My eyes close again.

I am the labyrinth of oblivion.
Emptiness is my show. Nothing
Is the road I tread upon knowingly.

I am blind as blind as music
Caught on the night’s arc and tracing

The contours of my face, the skin,
The quietness of a room filled with
Milton and Borges listening to Blake
Open and close the doors to the rooms

In his house. He rumbles from
Room to room referring to them as clouds
He has conquered, perhaps happy, perhaps
Not at all. All of this is a gray wilderness.
I crouch in the corner hoping to hear
At least a few words burning bright
In the forest of the night.

____________________

TAVERN MUSIC
—D.R. Wagner

They brought me a dinner plate of broken glass.

I could see the ship offshore
Signaling with lights. The wind
Began to speak up, tossing white
Birds across the top of of cliffs, pushing
Them very close to the ground. They made
Screeching noises and tried to arc toward
The seawall or the shelter of the trees.

An old yellow freighter moving in front
Of our ship suddenly burst into flames.
The sound of the explosion reaching
Us seconds later, an afterthought
The destruction no longer cared to own.

These Italian seaside villages perched
High above the sea seemed so far
Away from the conflicts. A bell
Called Angelus and stopped everything
for a few minutes.
“And she conceived of the Holy Ghost.”

The rosy boys sat down next to me.
“Are you going to eat that glass?’ they asked.
“No, I answered. It was mirrors
I called for my dear friends.”
“But this is the mirror,” one of them
Said, sweeping his arm across the scene.

“I’ve had better dreams than this,”
I replied. “I am outside here. I was
Previously never outside. I feel I am here
Only because someone else could not
Use this space at this time.
It is no more a mirror than the
Night is a mirror to the day.”

By the time night had settled in, the
Freighter was blazing away without
Sound, throwing light on the wave tops.
We could hear music coming from a tavern
Near the edge of the harbor.

“I think we should get down there,”
I said “They may need our help.”

The plate of glass glistened slightly
As we lit our torches.

It has been three days since
These events occurred. We have
Seen no one since that time.
When we reached the harbor
There was no one left at home.
The music had stopped altogether.
We slept there only one more night
Then slipped back into the forest
Pretending to be the rain. Within
Half an hour we were the rain.
We continued for almost a week this way.

____________________

TWO GHOSTS TALKING
—D.R. Wagner

We forget that we were breathing.

Those same evenings pull their shadows
Along behind them and stretch them out
Against what remains of the light.

Sitting down on the curb, you light a cigarette.
The smoke is barely a color any longer.
“Remember when we used to come
Here on those clear days in the Winter?
You would talk about the great hunks
Of ice moving down the river. You
Said it sounded like a symphony just out-
Side of hearing, but should we
Draw closer a whispering, grinding,
Cracking would replace the music we
Could hear from the top of the gorge?”

I admitted I did say those things and thought
About them for many years afterward.
Now that the city has all but burned
Down I had forgotten them,
Forced to think about getting food.
Keeping warm, and having a safe place
To sleep had moved the music away
From me. I could still hear the ice
Complaining as it always did.

"I just wanted you to know that even
Then I could hear the same thing,
But I thought it was just you riding
Inside my head, like I couldn’t
Have thought like that all by myself.”

“I always suspected you did,” I said.
But the night had arrived and I
Could no longer see you at all.
Just the red eye of your cigarette.

“Why tell me now?” I asked.
“Now, because I listen to the streets,
No one lives here any longer. No dogs
Barking, no birds singing. It is so
Quiet I can hear that music
When no one is there. Except tonight
Here you are and it’s night and we no longer
Have any real bodies.”

___________________

THERE MUST SOMEWHERE OUT THERE
—D.R. Wagner

Crushing stars with my hands.
Dust settles on the window sill.
From far away we can hear the
Breathing of great armies.

They gather the clouds to the horizon.
We can only stand and watch as
They bear down on our small parade.

Some time in the late hours
I tell you that I love you.
You hear me but think this
Sounds like the wind only.

The rain begins. I shove the
Stars into my pockets. The rain
Soaks through my trousers,
My pockets glowing, green and red.
Sparks collect on my tongue.

There must be somewhere out there.
I search for your hand and we move
Toward the buildings. I hope all of time
Can have this aspect about it. Touching you.

____________________

LONG HANDS
—D.R. Wagner

Morning has long hands filled with rain.
Its mouth is full of hissing
Down the street, dull gray reflections
On duller window panes.

Morning here is like morning in
The mouth of fog. It becomes
Hard to tell what one is going to do
With such vast grayness, such
Sameness fondling the day.
Load up the car, drive away.

Every city looks the same.
Everyone’s name has the same
Tonality, a breakdown of fiddle
Music and flat picked guitars.

A single gull carves an arc
In the mist. It is only visible
For a moment. One value exchanges
Itself for a lighter one, then a darker
One, fog moving close to the ground.
Then, finding no place to rest, closes.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip(s): 

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success—but only if you persist.

—Isaac Asimov 


Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.

—H. Jackson Brown Jr.

____________________

Our thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's good taste and fine vittles. D.R., Katy Brown and Caschwa (Carl Bernard Schwartz) have a new album, "Wearin' O' the Green", on Medusa's Facebook page, by the way, in honor of St. Patrick's Day tomorrow.

And the Poet Laureate hunt has begun again, with a deadline of May 12. For more info, go to sacmetroarts.org/poet-laureate.html 

—Medusa

 Paper Narcissus

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

The I'ds of March

mescalito’s horse—in the realm of two suns, 
two realities, one world

—Art and Caption by Dave Boles, Grass Valley

____________________

Caesar:
    Who is it in the press that calls on me?
    I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
    Cry "Caesar!" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.

Soothsayer:
    Beware the ides of March.

Caesar:
    What man is that?

Brutus:
    A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

—Wm. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar: Act 1, scene 2, 15–19


Soothsayer warned Ceasar, "Beware of the ides of March"
Today in English that would be the contraction, "I'd"
Often when it comes to the spring season
it comes to "I'd rather be, or I'd like to..."
rather than dull tasks and deeds that need to get done
One thinks how soon one can go instead to many outdoor recreation activities
preferably the kind that distract rather than exercise the mind
After struggling and surviving storms of winter, we might think we deserve such rewards
But we also might feel too comfortable
and say "whatever" and let things happen as they may
and carelessly not look out for the "Brutus" holding a knife in our own lives
When we think "I'd", we often forget others
and then, when we least expect it,
get stabbed in the back with the blade of reality


—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

____________________

caveman
—charles mariano, sacramento

ran into a friend
this morning
who asked where i was going
“Starbucks,” i told her

“why don’t you save money,
brew at home?”
she asked

“i like to go out and get it,
plus, grab a newspaper,”
i added

“nobody buys the newspaper
anymore,
it’s all online” she said

“i know,
but i like to unfold it,
put my feet up,
smell the ink”

she looked at me,
like i was from outer space,

“you know,” she said
“you can read the newspaper,
even watch movies, on your cellphone”

“don’t have a cellphone,” i said

she looked at me
a long,
mournful gaze
to a dying friend,

then shook her head
disconnected me
from life-support

_____________________

last leg
—charles mariano

remember back
way back,

when i walked in a room
turned heads
no, not like a
fine-looking babe

i’m a dude
a guy,
one of those

it was more like
who’s that?
intrigue, mystique

all eyes
on me
while i
played it cool

now
no one notices
i’m there
and if they do
it’s like,

“who let that creep in?”
or,

“i thought he was dead”

____________________

Capturing the esoteric and magical world of Yaqui Knowledge, 
birds fly by, antelopes prance and nature blooms under the 
watchful eye of a rising Nagual Phoenix. 
Be careful of the knowledge you wish for, 
it might just be the knowledge you need.
—Art and Caption by Dave Boles

 ____________________

NORCO #14
—Michael Cluff, Corona, CA

If I were
a member
of the large people,
the Brobdingnagians
from Gulliver's Travels,
I could easily ride
the smiling rocking horse
on Third Street
just outside of the shadow
of Interstate 15 South.

But of
course,
I can't
being the mature adult
I have now achieved
at least on the outer shell

but after work
one day....

I would not mind
riding away
even if stationary
all the while.

___________________

ANOTHER DREAM OF BEING ELSEWHERE
—Michael Cluff

Cornell refused to leave
his internal nightlife behind
waking up
on the Ides of any month
was just too much
for his Elizabethan soul
but March was always much worse.

Madame Trickeono
at the shabby sideshow
on Besthoff Place
plied him so well
so minutely
she finally had him
move to New England
to escape Shakespeare
and shadows from a shifting set
of nightmarish prophecies,
portents or placebos.

She and Lulu the Lion Lady
moved into his bungalow
on St. Patrick's Day
since luck appears
in many formats
and appearances.

____________________

PI DAY: 3.14.12
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Birthday greets
To
Albert Einstein

***

Just trying
To
Be rational

***

Not only
Nerds
Can enjoy this

***

Nothing will
Stop
PiDay poems

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

—Bill Cosby

____________________

—Medusa, who suggests you go to www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/beware-ides-march for more about the Ides

in the heart of the lotus can be found the magic of all things. 

listen to the vibrancy of the colors as they dance across your mind

—your spirit knows the way.

—Art and Caption by Dave Boles