Some Blessed Hope

Wood Thrush

THE DARKLING THRUSH

—Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
    When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
    The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
    Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
    Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
    The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
    The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
    Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
    Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
    The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
    Of joy illimited;
An agèd thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,   
    In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
    Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for caroling
    Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
    Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through
    His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
    And I was unaware.

________________________

—Medusa

A Vocabulary For Later Days

Shoreline

EVENINGS

The evenings have all come at the same
Time.  We were reading quietly
In our rooms, some of us were forgetting
Archetypes.  Things as simple as dawn,
Swords, the fish beneath the ice.
Soon they were all over the place
As if that was all that remained.

Men and women sat on benches and steps
And wept to themselves feeling something
Unexpected had happened.

The evenings had always been here, hurrying
Back and forth across our lives,
In the mirrors of the days.

We were supposed to treasure them,
Find a haven for them, share
Them with friends as a kind of meal,
Sit across from them smiling
As inconceivable as this may seem.

______________________

TO SISTER

My dear sister, we have removed the body
Of our brother from the floor
To which he was welded by his blood
That never was supposed to escape his shell
But did and poured from his mouth
As he fell against the heavy door
To his quiet room of books and prayers
And small pages upon which he had written
Moments in his life that seemed to him
As possibly important or of some
Insight into how the world might
Be seen until that moment when the dream
Vacated its miles of rivers and streams
Through heart and lungs and muscles,
Flew past his eyes and frightened
A mourning dove crouched on the
Windowsill pecking at some insect on the glass
When he saw it lift its wings and abandon
Its small roost the selfsame moment he abandoned
His own roost.  The air lifting beneath
The gray dove’s wings and likewise coming
From his lungs one final time
Till every stream was dry and his shell
Lost its perfect spirit in a cry.

_______________________

TABLE MANNERS

Shall I make a pile of these skulls
That later someone may know the living
Came here once again, building
A vocabulary for later days,
After the battles had long been forgotten?

And the plow turns up leg
Bones and spines as we till
To plant the Winter wheat.

Would that all the land were pure,
All work an exact language
That allows us to speak to Paradise,

Finding it cool and comfortable,
Locked in its own literature,
Much too abstract for
Us to figure out, making more
Than the loaves of bread we make
From it, dissolving the flowers
Every blessed day brings to our table?

Spider Fantasy

FICTIONS

Yes you have seen this animal
Once before, maybe even more
But it was when you were young
And could believe it real,
See its claws and teeth,
Imagine it at night slipping
Through the forest, headed
For the light of the long house,
Peering in the windows, moving on the roof,
Pretending to be the lion or the
Bear and we convince ourselves;
No, nothing is there, just fear.
The crackling of wood in the fire.
You have captured all the shadows.

Yet it is back again tonight when you
Wear old age and understand
Bloodstains, have come to believe
All fictions are golden, even this one.

______________________

THAT THE MOON COULD TASTE

Of salt because of a line
I read from Borges after
Midnight when my skin would not
Let me sleep for itching and
The wind dead, dead around
The house caught in the middle
Of October and more than willing
To bring me down.  ‘We do
Not recognize you,’ say the days.

So much is unexplained at this time
Of year, pumpkins bright as so
Much punctuation, the wind
Writing with leaves in all the streets.

And now, the dark will prevail
Pushing hard into the day.  ‘More night,
More night,’ it says but I cannot
See who is speaking or to whom
And shy away from asking anything,
As from a hammer’s blow.
 

_____________________

DUST

I saw him just today and now he is
The past.  I saw him on his horse
As white as snow and his sword was silver
And flashed in the cold sunlight
Before noon, steam blowing
From the nostrils of that great horse
As it wheeled and turned as if
Part of the man himself.

Now he is shade.  Now his horse is shade.
Now the spirit that lived inside
That sword is also shade and they
Blow down the streets of dust
At this hour and I look to them
To once again be so perfect,
So brave in battle and green as trees.

But this talk grows old even
In its telling and looses itself
In our eyes as simply more dust.
What shall we call real?
 

____________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

1843

The first barn had been
There since 1843.
When it burned down
To the ground
You could still see it there
For years afterward.

___________________

POCKETS

I used to keep stars
In my pockets.  I heard
That poets could do that
And not get burned.
They cannot.
 

__________________

MOON IN A WINDOW

The full moon got caught
In a single pane of glass in the
Upstairs bedroom window.  The
Last I looked, it was still there,
Bumping the mullions
Like an object in a video game.

__________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner, who unfortunately remains under the weather, for today's culinary delights! And please remember to check Medusa's Facebook page for another new album, this one of the Late Peaches release by Michelle Kunert. Don't worry if you missed the release of Late Peaches: Poems by Sacramento Poets (edited by Bob Stanley); there's another one tonight, and another one November 8. See www.sacramentopoetrycenter.com/late-peaches-poems-by-sacramento-poets-oct-18-oct-20-nov-8 for more, or scroll down on our blue board at the right.

Atrium

Instinct for Combustion

October is National Book Month—

see www.nationalbook.org/nbmcelebrate.html

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

(see also Cynthia's photo album on Medusa's Facebook page)

NOT ALL OF PARADISE IS LOST

             To Man Ray

—Andre Breton

Weathercocks turn into crystal

They protect the dew with blows from their crests

Then that charming emblem the thunderbolt

Descends on the banner of the ruins

The sand is nothing but a phosphorescent clock

That says midnight

With the arms of a forgotten woman

No place of refuge turning in the countryside

Erected where the heavens advance and retreat

It's here

The harsh blue temples of the villa's head bathe in the 

                                           night that traces my images

Hair hair

Evil grows stronger nearby

But what does it want from us

____________________________

PRIVATE

—Andre Breton

Wearing a hooded beige cape, he frolics on the satin

poster where two paradise feathers replaces his spurs. She

with her special joints above the air, divides the song of

the radiant species. The hawthorn grows over what's left

of the bleeding motor: then the first deepsea divers fall

from the sky. The temperature has suddenly grown

milder and every morning nimbleness shakes out its

angel hair on our roofs. Against evil spells, what good is

this little bluish dog with its body trapped in a solenoid of

black glass? Just once can't the expression for life trigger

one of the aurora borealises they'll use to make the table

cloth of the Last Judgment?

___________________________

A MAN AND A WOMAN COMPLETELY WHITE
—Andre Breton

Deep in the parasol I see the marvelous prostitutes

Next to the streetlamp the color of the forest their clothes

        a little out of fashion

They carry around a big piece of wallpaper as they walk

The kind that always breaks your heart on the old walls of

        a house being torn down

Or else a white marble seashell fallen from a mantel

Or else those strings of necklaces that get all tangled up in

        the mirrors behind them

Their great instinct for combustion seizes the streets

        where they stand

Like grilled flowers

Their eyes raising a wind of stone in the distance

While they are swallowed motionless at the center of the

        whirlwind

For me nothing equals the meaning of their random

        thoughts

The coolness of the stream where their little boots dip the

        shadows of their beaks

The reality of those wisps of mown hay into which they

        disappear

I see their breasts putting a dot of sun in deep night

And whose rise and fall is the only exact measurement of

        life

I see their breasts which are stars on waves

Their breasts in which invisible blue milk weeps forever

(The Breton poems were translated from the French by Bill Zavatsky and Zack Rogow.)

Blue Meanie

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

AUTUMN SONG

—Paul Verlaine

Violins complain

Of autumn again,

     They sob and moan.

And my heartstrings ache

Like the song they make

     A monotone.

Suffocating, drowned,

And hollowly, sound

     The midnight chimes.

Then the days return

I knew, and I mourn

     For bygone times.

And I fall and drift

With the winds that lift

     My heavy grief.

Here and there they blow,

And I rise and go

     Like a dead leaf.
 

(trans. from the French by Louis Simpson)

_________________________

TEARS FALL IN MY HEART

—Paul Verlaine

                  "It rains softly on the town"

                         —Arthur Rimbaud

Tears fall in my heart

Rain falls on the town;

what is this numb hurt

that enters my heart?

Ah, the soft sound of rain

on roofs, on the ground!

To a dulled heart there came,

ah, the song of the rain!

Tears without reason

in the disheartened heart.

What? no trace of treason?

This grief's without reason.

It's far the worst pain

to never know why

without love or disdain

my heart has such pain!

(trans. from the French by David Curzon)

________________________

WOMAN AND CAT
—Paul Verlaine

They were just playing, lady and cat,

Their sport was a marvelous sight:

White hand, white paw, tit-for-tat,

In the shadow of gathering night.

She tried to conceal (to little avail)

Beneath gloves of the finest black net

A set of deadly agate-hard nails

Honed sharper than razors can whet.

And sweet as sugar, or so it seemed,

The other tucked claws away too;

But let's give the devil, as ever, his due . . .

And suddenly in the boudoir, where

A froth of laughter had filled the air,

Four dazzling points of phosphor gleamed.

(trans. from the French by John S. Major and Katharine Washburn)

________________________

THE YOUNG FOOLS
—Paul Verlaine

High-heels were struggling with a full-length dress

So that, between the wind and the terrain,

At times a shining stocking would be seen,

And gone too soon. We liked that foolishness.

Also, at times a jealous insect's dart

Bothered our beauties. Suddenly a white

Nape flashed beneath the branches, and this sight

Was a delicate feast for a young fool's heart.

Evening fell, equivocal, dissembling.

The women who hung dreaming on our arms

Spoke in low voices, words that had such charms

That ever since our stunned soul has been trembling.

(trans. from the French by Louis Simpson)

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

SHRIMPS

—Nguyen Van Lac

They are no lords, no marquesses or dukes.

Yet they all brandish swords and sport long beards.

They splash in water, popping their red eyes,

quite unaware their heads are full of shit.
 

(trans. from the Vietnamese by Huynh Sanh Thong)

________________________

—Medusa

Three Ways of Looking At—Was That Clouds, or Blackbirds?

—Photo by Taylor Graham

AT LEAST THREE WAYS OF LOOKING AT CLOUDS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

She said the sky was full of cloud-fish
yesterday, which was an ordinary afternoon
made fairytale by a poet's eyes.

He spoke of sky as a page of ancient
script, secret elemental texts
for a mind deciphering beyond its words.

Today, the sky is fire in all its faces—
spark, then flame above ember
igniting everything so even the trees sing.

________________________

AGAIN TONIGHT

you're a voyager down passages
of dream without a map, blind tunnels
branching only to reconnect—
you've come this way before, last night
or forty-seven years ago, these same
midnight caverns, perpetual eclipse
without a headlamp. You never meant
to go underground. Voice of winter,
ceiling hung with stalactites
sharp as questions. From somewhere
deeper, sweeping flight of fire-cats.
Here's a nether locker room
of thunder-wolves, toad-tongues,
where they keep the nightmare
changes: outlandish, ugly, or just
plain strange. Shift of planes
and spaces in and out of time. Will
light never penetrate your brain
down here? How is it, then, that night
at last disbands,
and every dawn you come awake
again, out of the unconscious
passages?

—Taylor Graham

_________________________

MEDITATION WITH DOG
    for Piper
—Taylor Graham
 
I stroke her chest. She smiles, and veils her eyes
to amber slits in pupils dark as dream.
Fingers on fur—sparks, static. Old dogs rise
to memory, living still, or so they seem.

Gone; never coming back. Some say,
only Man lives in God's immortal scheme,
while dogs must die at end of Dog's brief day.

She smiles. See how her muzzle's turning gray.
I stroke her chest. Her heart in mortal guise
still opens doors. She'll find a passage-way.

_________________________

BLUE BUICK BLUES
—Taylor Graham

The old car sat there rusty waiting on the drive.
Waiting, like old men just survive.

The old man sat there on his front porch humming.
Used to be a drummer, banjo, maybe vibes.

Nowdays barely still alive. Like the old car
sitting there, just a thing he used to drive.

But how the wind would fiddle with the stick
and croon. Something big was coming soon,

was gunna blow, and who to light the fuse?
Fireworks for wedding, or last day of school,

fireworks for wrecks that no more run the road.
Lovers passed in whispers, the bride just glowed.

On the day, the old car groaned. Old man didn't
come outside. A day of fireworks denied—

no bomb, no bloody chase. Just a grand subside,
the old man humming before he died:

You gotta live and love the song
before you try to improvise.

Pepper Tree

—Photo by Taylor Graham

OCTOBER WALK
—B.Z. Niditch
 
Echoing birds
in a black and blue sky
head South,
our sleeves rolled up
in first frost
on a sleepless road
elm trees turn barren
from green and song,
a solitude
from the telephone pole
except for grackles
and a dozen sparrows
taking in an east wind
with sunshine
briefly engaged
reflecting mirrors
by my ankles
near the pond.

_____________________

PUBLIC GARDENS
(Boston 2012)
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Our eyes turn crystal
in slanted sunshine,
submerged swan boats
move us
under friendly elms
murdering a croissant
and Orange Julius
in October's sleepy hollow
of parking acorns
by a loveless bench
I'm reading index cards
for an English exam
to an always late student
who passes
with a gentleman "C."

_____________________

EARTHQUAKE ON OCTOBER 16
—B.Z. Niditch

My neighbor
by the window waves
to a poet
correcting an adverb
before dinner
suddenly
on a Fall evening
in New England
my lamb dish
starts to shake
and droplets
from my wine glass
land on the tablecloth
by the knives and forks,
the phone rings
my neighbor tells me
an earthquake
has been confirmed
there is a slight weight
quivering on my chest cavity
which trembles 
at the after shock,
asking for silence
and the St. Francis poem.

______________________

Thanks to TG and BZ for today's seasonal poems and photos (including BZ's earthquake, to which I told him we Californians are no strangers!). In addition, they both have blues/jazz poems, which are appropriate to the upcoming Davis Jazz Festival which begins tomorrow night—scroll down to the blue board for details. 

Blue board, green board—Bob Stanley's name is all over the place as he finishes up his PL term and releases the Late Peaches anthology this week and next. I've also posted a link to him reading his "City of Slow Rivers" poem in our "Sounds For Sore Ears" Fuchsia Link at the top of Medusa—check it out, along with all the other wonderful poets who can be heard on those links.

Tonight and this weekend will be busy in our area. Traci Gourdine will even be reading twice! Again, all the details are on the blue board (below the green board); don't miss a thing!

But don't neglect your own fame and fortune, with all these readings going on! Our Submissions section of the green board has just been spiffed up with lots of new opportunities to get your work out into the big wide world. Don't be shy—get it out there!

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

NEVER-SLEEPING CITY
—B.Z. Niditch

That nervous blind
conundrum of a sax
on side streets
voicing the blues
here at midnight
drawn
in packed clubs
living in the torque
and tongues of Bird
a stranger sweeps
by open doors
with a fugitive face
of a runaway
ashen with pale voice
among the chaos,
she asks me to dance
"the pocket"
near the fire escape
her trodden steps
in unfamiliar corners
absorbed by whispers
in vigilante beats
against the graffiti wall
of a lost sax
taken up by flashlights
of mercenary love.

______________________

—Medusa

 Cover, Late Peaches Anthology

[See the green board for details]

When I Was a Tiger...

Tim Kahl talks about Bob Stanley at the

Sac. Poetry Center tribute to him last Saturday

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

THE AUDACITY OF NATURE
—Roger Langton, Louisville, Colorado

Energy is not evident
in the backyard.
It must have been stolen
and used elsewhere.
The grass is like a shag rug.
The plants are dry and
droop almost to the ground.
In spring there was great hope
that this year the garden would
become a masterpiece of
horticulture. In the planter box
a mother rabbit gives birth while
cats pace back and forth
in front of the window.
A long grape vine with abundant
leaves stretches outward,
navigating its way
through the neglect,
producing little grapes that
will not grow larger. Lack of effort
makes a mockery of a once
hopeful spring while the vine
displays the audacity of nature.

______________________

LITTLE ROCK
(In memory of Christopher Hitchens)
—Roger Langton

it's a strange little
rock we live on
far out in the suburbs
where the traffic subsides—

the constant turning
streaking around the
light that makes the plants grow
it goes on until our star
has had enough
the living creatures
seldom think of this—

the one second of
life is all they have and all
they will ever have
stories are made up
to make it seem worthwhile
while real answers come slowly
the primates who live
in houses don't know much,
the turtles, snakes, and tigers
know more, no one
will listen to them
most who lived here are gone
more are leaving every day
no answers will be certain
when the rock turns to ice

______________________

WHEN I WAS A TIGER

it was common to be at ease,
not being prey to any creature.
Disease and old age played with me
but knowing nothing of these things
there was no fear.
Lounging within the tall grass
after a sufficient meal
made me sleepy. I slept.
The clouds turned black,
drops of water got me up
and sent me hurrying
to secret shelters.
The white clouds posed
no threat to my slumber.

As a man there is less ease.
But wanting to go
back to my tiger self
produces no results or imagination.
There are too many
primates similar to myself,
hunting replaced by a supermarket,
constant noise,
eyes stinging with pollution,

too many inventions
that kill my natural ways.
I am a man participating
in his own extinction.
I look for the tigers
but they and the tall
grass are gone.

—Roger Langton

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

I think one of my new neighbors got a "bengal" cat they let outside
      The morning I discovered him, he just glared at me through my kitchen window
       he was like a tiger caught prowling his rounds
       and seemed ready to tell me to keep my distance or else 
      Yet among the things I noticed (other than his glowing eyes) was his spotted coat pattern and size
      Such "hybrids" bred from the Asian leopard cats are not only bigger and more muscular
      (unlike the cats that have been domesticated for over three thousand years)
      these cats' behavior might reflect that they aren't really that far from their wild ancestors
      I sure hope he's "neutered"—

      but am still frightened that this cat probably not only goes hunting song birds in the suburbs
      but probably for thrills beats up on the weak, fat house cats who mainly just lie out in the sun    
          

—Michelle Kunert

________________________

PASSAGE
—Michael Cluff, Corona

From t-shirts and zoris
to paisley ties, vested suits and wingtips
the story of Max's life
is success in reverse.
The nice nuances of childhood
have been raped and shaved
into harsh trajectories of credit and cant.
The fiscal has tenderized the physical spark
of jollity he once displayed
in ring around the rosies
atop Huckleberry Hill
into jaundiced ennui,
pachyderming palaver,
amber-encasing emissions
of Pavlov jargon and socially accepted
jugular gargles and gulps.
He can't miss what he can't
now remember.

________________________

Thanks to today's chefs for their tasty fare! Bob Stanley may be "graduating" out of being Sacramento Poet Laureate (the passing of the baton happens officially on Oct. 26), but he'll still be busy as President of SPC, along with the anthology which is being released over the next few weeks. Scroll down the blue board at the right of this for details; the October 26 date is under "More Than a Week Away" because it's, well, more than a week away...

Bob will be on the airwaves TODAY! He writes: I'll be on KXJZ radio [Wednesday] morning between 10 and 11; I think you can find it streaming live at www.capradio.org/news/insight  Beth Ruyak of Insight interviewed me today about the new anthology that we're releasing this week. There's also a new video that the station produced to go with one of my poems ("City of Slow Rivers")—they said that would be posted tomorrow as well.

And we have a new photo album on Medusa's Facebook page! Cynthia Linville has sent us pix of the weird and wonky Urban Ore shop in Berkeley. Enjoy—and thanks, Cynthia!

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

The hours slowing down
workshift should be ending now
clock becomes frozen

—Michael Cluff

________________________

—Medusa

Straight-Out Scribes were in town

for last Saturday's SPC event!

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

Into the Mouths of Cagebirds

YELLOW PICTURE WITH LONG
BLACK LINE

passing the
country by train . . .

yellow blur of
time between towns . . .

fields growing up around
the legs of stationary cows . . .

farm houses low behind
fluttering clotheslines . . .

the thin and narrowing sounds
of the train whistle . . .

small figures shading their eyes
and staring . . .

the imaginary sounds of shrill dogs
barking . . .

the ineffectual fences tilting off
into windy distances . . .

and the near fences holding their birds
from entering or leaving . . .

the telephone poles, too dizzy for counting
the hypnotic lulling, as if this were a forever . . .

transparent window-faces pulling the scenery by . . .
passing the country by train . . .   a long time ago . . . .

________________________

THE WHITE COWS

now all the cows
give frozen milk from
golden icicles

they turn their heads
and look this way
with slow brown eyes that
have stars in them

the barn is made of
holiness
winter and
death

they live there
breathing their continual
soft blue breath

            
(first pub. in Epos, 1973)
 

_______________________
 

THE LAST DAY OF THE FAIR

Walking through the barns
among the huge horses,
the immense cows,
in the farm exhibit
the last day of the fair . . .
           .
Watching the Chinese acrobat
do handstands
on top of six chairs
placed on four green bottles . . .
           .
Watching the sketch-artist
do her last
quick portrait of the day,
too late
to take a number.
           .
Eating a two-dollar hot-dog
while watching the
shivering twilight divers
dive into their
little vat of water . . .
                   
(first pub. in Tule Review, Premier Issue, 1993)

CANZONETTA 

(After Canzonetta by Isabel Gardner)

As if Chagall painted us—wing by wing
through giddy soar—rhapsodic at first,
in blissful drift, as if one could sing
forever love’s first hymn—that praise
that wings and wings in manic daze
above the common world in burst
     of fantasy—impatient to amaze.

Oh, that is how we were. We knew
the floating animals and barns
were sweet illusions—all that blue
and that safe current, how we stayed
in blissful soaring, unafraid,
aloft like clouds where nothing warns—
     such buoyancy of trust—the pact we made.

We fell, of course—the wounded ground
recoiling from our fall, the light
that tore away with the same sound
that Loons emit on sad lakes
of all the grief that grieving takes—
commiserate to its own plight
     when such illusion fails, and thus forsakes.      

_______________________

CANADIAN SNAPSHOT

in the gray places of old barns
with the timeless statue-horses
grazing forever the way they are
their heads bent down to
shadowed grasses
the way my camera found them
and never let them change

this is the way we remember
joy and sadness
those separate pangs
of having been somewhere once
and never again
no matter how true the phantasy
we know what we know and
what we see with yesterday’s eyes

a moment of composition
and everything remains indelible:
those horses never move
those barns never lose another board
the same light falls through
and the moment of the wind is caught
bending the anxious trees and the
grass and the horses’ manes
those clouds are held forever
against a flat sky

I am going back to see it all again
and I expect it to be the same:
those horses at last will
lift their heads and look at me
when I stand in the same place
and finally let them startle
and run away in the field…
I will let everything continue

______________________

THE POET, COMING HOME

How strange to come from places so far
on these horses of sleep
who bend their necks down
now that they are home.
And we must live here
on their farms
and be their owners.

What of our distances, we wonder,
and there are none.
We are the newly-arrived,
though our names are on the
gates that need painting
and sag from disrepair.

In the houses that
we do not want to enter
are endless things to do.
Weeds grow from the rugs
and there is dust on all the dishes.

But we are loyal to duty.
Like joyful trust
we fly into the mouths of cagebirds
who are hungry from singing
and we feed them our words
which is all we are.

                                
(first pub. in Kudzu, 1979)

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

OF BARNS

one tumbled down
leaned to the earth
and died
its shredded roof
uprooted
and the failure of
its walls
surrendered
hanging on
to clinging air
that sighed and entered
sighed and left
and nothing felt
the fragile moment
or the yield of history
that slipped away
except
the light
(first pub. in Poet News, 1992)

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Joyce Odam for today's fine poems and pix! Joyce is talking about our previous Seed of the Week, the photo of the abandoned barns. Our new SOW is more ambiguous: Passages—either literal (secret ones, or caves, or doorways) or figurative (rites of passage, seasonal changes, and so on). And please note that we have a new feature on our green board: SOW-pix, a weekly photo to tickle your ekphrastic noodling!

Sweet Past Picking

Jellyfish Clouds

—Photo by Katy Brown

SKYFISH CLOUDS

—Katy Brown, Davis

Tendrils of virga trail from jellyfish clouds
in the sky above the Yolo bypass.
A cirrus sailfish, bright against the horizon,
plunges over the Vaca Hills
toward the distant Pacific.

My lingering glass of iced coffee
wrings condensation out of the last
hours of a humid day.
Water-drops carve streams
down the side—miniature rivers
falling to the sea. 

The improbable skyfish float
over a pond—double there
to skim the surface:
escaping the deep ocean
to explore the deeper sky.

________________________

owl is back
book-ending the day
my pre-dawn alarm
calling out
as he tucks his head
under a dusty velvet wing
my signal to
out the light
surrender my book
as he lifts his wings to hunt—

in dreams
we hunt together
silently
over the sleeping landscape
glistening city
lonely delta
we soar
red in tooth and claw
till gold cracks the horizon
and night
calls it good.


—Kim Clyde, Sacramento

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LOTS OF WORDS
—Caschwa, Sacramento

there's nothing like a good old mud fight
to keep the blood circulating
racing to where it is needed the most
it is the rhythm and flow of poetry

unlike old mountains and stagnent ponds
and sailers lamenting the doldrums
lacking movement, frozen still in time
locked in a room with no doors

encountering complex jigsaw puzzles
patiently building the frame, then filling it in
ending up with a complete picture
lacking movement, frozen still in time

people who just kind of "get it" are
locked in a room with no doors
racing to where it is needed the most
ending up with a complete picture

here's nothing like a good old mud fight
and sailers lamenting the doldrums
patiently building the frame, then filling it in
to keep the blood circulating

________________________

GERMAN GRAMMAR CAKE
—Caschwa

To the forest he raced
because why, I forgot
perhaps something he saw
then again, maybe not

if you could in your heart
my story believe
the verb at the end will
explain and not cleave

but oh, the wait, endless wait
through modifiers and such
has one grasping for action
so elusive to clutch

like children being good
for a long ride in the car
the burden wholly on them
a vacation not to mar

when will we
on this long drive
to some place fun
ever arrive?

Laverne Frith

reading at Poetry With Legs,

Shine Cafe, Oct. 2012

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

SUPERVILLE                   
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

A statue stands in lieu of tree.
No more leaf-wild breezes through green
shadowed forest—the forest's gone.
The statue's raised its fist to fall
on where we used to walk, and call
shadowed forest. The forest's gone,
no more leaf-wild breezes through green.
A statue stands in lieu of tree.

_______________________

PRINCESS OF WILDWOOD
—Taylor Graham

Into uncharted territory this foggy October
Saturday, travelers rushing to get home
before dark, even the wind is in a hurry.

Spilled wine at the wooden tables. You pass
on by. Beyond pavement, stone steps
down to where they put the statue in place

of a tree. You find the boundary fence;
walk on through, till tires are a muffled rasp,
the far ridge is clouded purple

and pines are pirouetting like you never
saw a grown tree dance. Dried-up
pea-vine tangles its golden strands around

ancient burn-circles fading into earth.
One grapevine's surviving wild.
Taste its dusty-blue; sweet past picking.

Shadows disappear in flight. From
somewhere in wildwood steps the princess,
where she's tucked herself safe away

from strangers. What riches here? Native
trees rise rooted in soil. You've given
your name to the voice of wind and winter.

______________________

AT JACK'S LANTERN
—Taylor Graham

Toward evening they gather
at the watering hole—Wood Duck, Elven
Princess, Lumberjack with crosscut
saw—for enchantments in a ripple-glass.
Masks, webbed wings of arms; a half-moon
veil, red-plaid flannel trunk—a cedar tree
blazed to show the way. Costumes
reveal the scars, each with ancient lore
once shared among the species under stars
and sun. Song undone, except when
the fabric between spirit and costumed
body wears so autumn-thin.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

College professor
vested suit and paisley tie
peace unfulfilling

—Michael Cluff, Corona

______________________

—Medusa, with reminders that TODAY is the deadline for both WTF and the Jack Kerouac Poetry Contest! See the submissions part of the green board at the right for details. (And no, you need not be a Luna's reader or even attendee to be published in WTF...)

Dale Pendell reading at Shine

Oct., 2012

—Photo by Michelle Kunert