Philosophers, Professors, Prophets & Reverends

Al Young, Calif. Poet Laureate Emeritus,

reading at Sac. Poetry Center last Monday (Feb. 17)

to help celebrate Black History Month

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento
 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR A WRITER'S MEDITATION
—Jennifer O’Neill Pickering, Sacramento

It might be you forget where you are. It might be you enter 

a dark room or one drenched in light furnished only with a 

prayer pillow, a desk with pen and paper, with the blue glow 

of the computer, the comfortable chair. You’ve not meditated 

for a long while but sit, release your breath. Thoughts cross 

your threshold; it might be you say “not now" or it might be 

you say nothing. You see a word spelled out on a great white-

board, or a blackboard, or virtual screen.  Your mind has an 

eraser; your mind has a delete key that makes any other word 

disappear. It might be you are here now, and not there and not 

ahead of where you are or behind where you already were. 

After a time, your thoughts travel where consonants and vowels 

chain, words gather, linking breathy sentences.

_______________________

TWENTY SIGNS OF A COLD WINTER
—Jennifer O’Neill Pickering

sparrows chirp under full moons


the dog’s hair thickens at the nape of her neck


cats refuses to go outside

roses drop false blooms 


grey mouths of sky


swallow dark fruit of crows

spiders nest in corners of the house


crickets appear on the hearths 


pigs gather sticks.

there is an abundance of acorns


pipes burst before they can be wrapped


dreams lengthen



heavy fogs in August


frequent halos around the sun


we take to bed earlier and wake later

raccoons sport bright bands 


rats strum the rafters 


we crave brandy in spiced cider



ants drink from kitchen faucets


mice pilfer the hoosier cabinets


cheeks ripen in the morning cold.

Will Alexander reading at SPC last Monday

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

NIGHT AT A FOUR-WAY STOP
—Celeste Hackenberg, Davis

Yarn bombs are hand-knit jackets of excess yarn—

           loose ends bunny-looped like laces dangling
                                  old, empty shoes over power lines.

Graffiti is a lower case g stenciled and sprayed—

           between the Han and over Dr.
                      decreasing property value,
                      & substituting plain with urban.

Graffiti is not a message written on a leaf,
or paper littered in a floating bottle.

Words carved in a tree could be controversial,
depending on how many, what kind, and how deep.

Mechanical lights hang in pre-programmed sockets—
changing on fixed timers,
                                                 while obedient cars
                                                 wait impatiently.

Night is the only chance to break—
The sky dark, red and empty.

_______________________

FAITH , FATE & STRENGTH
—Sage Robbins, Sacramento

Fascinating,
The way my fears finger their way into my dreams.
Satisfying,
To watch sunlight dance on the grass that I keep green.
Scumbag disguised as a Sleazeball
Isn't any better than
A Creeper masked as Dirty.
A dream job isn't any better
Than one that lets you sleep.
The only way to increase your wealth
Without more worry
Is to spend the most on charity.
Little lies are told
By those who will also tell large ones.
Lofty goals are achieved
Only by those most selfless.
Thus, no reason to retaliate.
To each their own.
Have faith in fate.
Tending my own garden,
Watching art awaken,
Reveling in childlike wonders,
I find beside me allies.
The more times I get up to open the door,
The more gifts I find have arrived.
I'll strive to live with certainty.
Step with strength and a smile.
Poets are philosophers,
Professors, Prophets and Reverends.
But only because we're more like
An ancient trade-bound family
Than we are polite, informal friends.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

A RATIONAL OBSESSION
—William S. Gainer, Grass Valley

If you are going to hang pictures
you have a responsibility
to keep them
straight.

Got it?

_____________________

—Medusa, thanking today's contributors—all these poets will be part of the new issue of Rattlesnake Press's WTF, due to premiere tomorrow night (Thursday, Feb. 20) at Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento, 8pm. Editor frank andrick will host, and he has plenty of surprises lined up!

And thanks to Michelle Kunert for the swell photos of last Monday night's reading at SPC. For more photos of some other recent readings in our area, see Michelle's latest album on Medusa's Facebook page.

Host Justin Desmangles reading at SPC last Monday

with bassist Harley White

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

The Ever-Changing Moon

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

YOU USED TO BRING
TALL FLOWERS HOME

I haven’t had a flower
since I bought the vase,
which is to say,
I guess,
it never comes out even—
none of it:
the want—the have,
the plan—the fate,
the energy—the chore.

You used to bring
tall flowers home
to fit
the mayonnaise jar.
That was a need—
this vase.
That’s how it goes.
I haven’t had a flower
since I bought the vase.


(first pub. in Portland Oregonian, 1971)

______________________

THIS SIMILE… THESE SIMILES…

1.
Japanese Irises
Propped Against Stripped Wall :

Ruin against ruin ,
what will survive here ,

among words ,
broken into sentences

thrown against walls in little shouts
and whimperings . . .

how long will it take—life against death
—survival against destruction ?

Weeds or flowers in their own struggles
and surrender . . . Oh, that I can lose myself .

2.
Oh, that I should
turn against myself like that—
in such confusion and desire—
in all the ways of self-destruction.
Who will help me . . . ?

3.
Here we are, hidden in white,
a surrender of mercy and fear—

that we will be found
trembling beyond description—

our own cries for help
that even we ignore .

4.
It is the whole of it—
the entire arrangement : words
on white page, the description
struggling to be known by any other way .

5.
layer
    over
        layer

crumple
    against
        smooth

tone
    under
        tone

of realization

6.
Petals :
sweet mouths of flowers
sweet eyes of flowers
innocent and loved

entering and entering
this harsh existence
of life and its welcome

oh, and oh, how fragile

7.
Sorrows :
Each sad little death bears such burdens
of regret. How can we bear them all ?
They haunt us : each fallen bird and
dying flower , given this small tribute of words

8.
Moiré—
the moiré of darkness,
lying in wait .

9.
Someone I Loved :   
Whose face is this ,
staring out of the darkness—
whose memoried face , eyes hidden,
mouth in a tight silence—
still not revealed through this dim memory ?

10.
To return
    is to go where . . . ?

It is you—
    this memory-world

so full of shreds
and blurs—its dark receding .  

         
PATHS,

to and away
from the edges and the center,
paths, lined with flowers,

garden full of old thoughts,
all the paths,
followed by love,

never contemplate the
untaken with the taken,
we are forever wandering thus,

full of impulse
and leisure   
no haste,

the garden is small,
directional and random
we dare-not pass the edges:

sidewalks—strangers—endings.

______________________

PASTORAL WITH YELLOW FLOWERS

She wanders, indistinct, among the flowers,
bending toward a thin-stemmed yellow bloom.
To pluck or leave it there? She hesitates—

deciding yes or no, and looking down.
Her feet are mired in shadows like the hours;

Behind her, the old sea starts to change its colors,

and soon will come the ever-changing moon.
But there is one bright flower left to beckon.

It gathers in the last light of the day.
The sea behind her sighs and churns its colors.
The sky drops down and sends the light away.

______________________

FRENCH FLOWERS

The flowers love her best when they are
dying—French flowers made of red silk
in a satin bedroom of a dark lady sighing
from her crushed bed of shadows. The
wall hears and moves in—the other wall,
too—until the window, with its strange old
light, holds them away from each other and
lets the flowers die.  It is a sadness made
of red silk—dusty with dying—and the dark
lady weeping to herself in the fascinated
mirror of the child who is hiding in this poem,
day-dreaming this story about the red flowers.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

ALLEY FLOWERS

the
disbelief
of flowers
in alley light, how
their delicate colors
intensify to an eeriness
from tenuous window light—
how they envy themselves . . .

and

the loneliness of alleys, except for
the flowers by the end house
where the sidewalk begins,
how they lean, glowing
back toward the one
high window-light
staring down
at them

______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Joyce Odam for today's poetic delights! Super Bowl, Olympics—sports are getting all the headlines these days, so write about 'em—our new Seed of the Week is My Favorite Sport! If figure skating can be a sport, why not poetry? Cooking? Needlepoint? Sex? You decide what is sporting and tell us about it, then send your winners to kathykieth@hotmail.com/. Or make up your own SOW. No deadlines around here, though—the snakes of Medusa are always hungry!

 

Lives We Live With

 

Ladybug on My Cabbage

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

PRAIRIE BREEZE

—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

In grassy fields with lots of gnats
where prairie longspur sing and nest
and bask in warmth of summer seas,
she gathers daisies in her dress
and presses them against her breast,
crushing each with gentle ease
releasing petals to the breeze.

_____________________

BIRDS ON WING
—Carol Louise Moon

Several nights I heard the black-billed
magpie sing.  The bluish notes filled
spaces in between; the whitish stars
glowed faint besides.  Plucky nightjars
snatched up greenish bugs on wing.
With gaping mouths, they did not sing.

____________________

NOSEGAYS
—Carol Louise Moon

Notable herbs with potent spells
nosegays of lavender, thyme and mint.
Never enough time;
not enough men.  The women
needle-and-thread sachets.  The
name of a sweetheart comes to mind:
Nearer my god to thee, it is hoped.

____________________

CRAPE MYRTLE

—Carol Louise Moon

 

     After Tomas Tranströmer's "CONTEXT"
     "Look at the grey tree..."

Her leaves hold fast to limbs
of cosmetic leathered bark.
Her roots are hidden deep
beneath the soil.

You are welcome here,
welcome to breathe in your own
release. Do not inquire
of the myrtle regarding her roots,
nor volunteer achievements,
your failings underpinnings of
desire, regret.

You can only guess
what she must be standing on.

Rim Rock Red

—Photo by Taylor Graham

LOVER OF STONES
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

I keep ending up here among boulders,
a maze of game-trails on the hill’s
precarious backside. Sun’s overtaken
by shadow. It’s a place of its own magic,
full of treasure. A heap of old tin cans
glows red with rust, expiating
shade of old history, dried blood. Here’s
a lost pocketknife washed from soil
by last week’s storm; bottles
burned blue as sky.
The year’s first lizard skitters
from under a rock. A leafless oak
blossoms with a hundred blackbirds
singing their early-calling
sweetest song, filling this stony
place with the first chorus of spring—
whether we deserve it or not.

____________________

 UNDER HYAKUTAKE
—Taylor Graham

The moon played its etudes
above clouds which became falling snow.
We were camped
a long dirt way from the county road.
Something woke me at midnight,
as if music, yet I heard
nothing but snow on tent-flap, a ripstop
breeze. Amazing illumination,
the landscape glowed under one bright
eye, door to a universe:
the comet
didn’t move, but stared down
through snowclouds diffused in falling
snow. The music, frozen breath
of a girl-ghost singing
her cold, everlasting childhood.
           The sky dawned

clear, the comet gone.

____________________

THE JOY OF RAIN

—Katy Brown, Davis

From his heart, a thimbleful of exaltation
bursts into the dappled winter morning.
Doubled in the surface of a puddle,

the jay casts forth joy
with every drop of water
that he shakes from his wings.

He settles into the bath, splashing
it over his back, over his head
then shakes the water from his feathers.

He is a greedy bather, uncaring
that a camera watches behind the glass door.
Rain.  Rain and the water that collects:

—the ground breathes gratitude;
trees sigh in relief; and this little bird
sloshes and splashes in utter joy.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

We have two lives,
the life we learn with,
and the life we live with
after that.

—Bernard Malamud

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's contributors, including the LittleNip brought to us by Charles Mariano; Katy Brown's poem about the bathing blue jay which she captured in photos that we posted on Facebook recently; and Michelle Kunert's photo of the ladybug in her garden. Michelle has been busy with her camera—see Medusa's Facebook page for her latest album, this one of readers in three recent Sacramento area poetry events. And while you're there, check out Katy's blue jay!

For more NorCal poetry events, including what's going on tonight, scroll 'way down past the green board to the right of this column to our blue board, which lists what's on the menu for this week and weeks to come. 

Hayutake, March, 1996

—Photo by Rick Scott and Joe Orman

Glacier Park

Glacier National Park

IN THE PARK

—Maxine Kumin

You have forty-nine days between
death and rebirth if you're a Buddhist.
Even the smallest soul could swim
the English Channel in that time
or climb, like a ten-month-old child,
every step of the Washington Monument
to travel across, up, down, over or through
—you won't know till you get there which to do.

He laid on me for a few seconds
said Roscoe Black, who lived to tell
about his skirmish with a grizzly bear
in Glacier Park.  He laid on me not doing anything.  I could 

feel his heart
beating against my heart.
Never mind lie and lay, the whole world
confuses them.  For Roscoe Black you might say
all forty-nine days flew by.

I was raised on the Old Testament.
In it God talks to Moses, Noah,
Samuel, and they answer.
People confer with angels.  Certain
animals converse with humans.
It's a simple world, full of crossovers.
Heaven's an airy Somewhere, and God
has a nasty temper when provoked,
but if there's a Hell, little is made of it.
No longtailed Devil, no eternal fire,

and no choosing what to come back as. 
When the grizzly bear appears, he lies/lays down
on atheist and zealot.  In the pitch-dark
each of us waits for him in Glacier Park.

______________________

—Medusa

Property of the Moment

—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke

LIVE: ACOUSTIC

I am caught in the darkness
Near light but still unable to see
Where it is I am.  The blear of night
Stumbling close by my footsteps.

If I put my hand on the wall, I know
I am near light but there is no light.
The illuminated globe of the world glows
Just beyond the door, should there be a door,
And, of course, we always hope for a door.

         *
I saw you standing at the back of the room.
We had just finished playing the song about
The dawn during the snowstorm and how
The sun had moved through the falling snow.
Everything became a kind of gold that we did not
Know how to describe, so we made the music
Within it.  There was one bird, he had a damaged
Wing and flew in circles around us making a wonderful
Sound.  The lyrics were based on those circles.

I found my hands upon your shoulders.
I thought I was still in the music.  Golden
Lights flew along the edges of my vision
Inside my eyes, yet still high above it.
       
        *
I walked all the way to the end of the road
Where the waterfall began.  It was nearly
Twilight and the waterfall was a lilac and hyacinth,
The color of heartbreak or someone you love
Walking away and you, knowing you will not
Be seeing them again.  I suppose there is
A music there but it is stolen by cellos and keyboards.
Given to a corner where we notice the quality
Of the light, the people crossing the room,
The way their conversation had its own agenda
And there we were, together once again, waiting
As we are now.  I lean close.  Listening to your breathing.

____________________

BUTTERSCOTCH

One expects the endings to collect at the door
But these look so plain together without
Their particular speech bubbles filled with a traffic
That swirls around them, locked in some kind of terrible
Dance, pulling at the curtain, sailing through it all,
Searching for a new course of something sweet,
Shall we say like butterscotch or comforting like toast.

But no, here they are, clustered around the stage door,
Wearing our clothes, using our gestures, inflecting our voices.
They demand we be their portrait, a diagram built of pipes and endings,
Smearing their flaccid discoveries on our consciousness,
Driving it to the showers to cleanse the shit of their appropriated
Lives from our actions, bowing to us as if we had granted this. 

 Side of House, Locke

WHERE THEY LEFT THE BROKEN PARTS

We were standing as close to the edge of the waterfall
As we could get and still walk the earth.  Our luck held
As long as our memory, until it became so intolerable
We could only see our situation through the eyes of a poet.

We kept using up our years gazing into the maelstrom.
Any part of sameness held contradiction, like a Summer’s
Night, cricket sounds, the voices of frogs, so near
We imagined that words were something that has been
Sent to us as impermanent as something to be desired.

We had no secrets.  You must have seen us holding the branches,
The trees extended over the edge of the place, a door to another
Universe, one without heroes or the treachery of ancient legends
To carry us over the brink.  We became the property of the moment.

It seemed enough, no, more than enough, like a gunman
Demanding all attention or the mouth of a lover busy with its
Ministrations and explorations, impossible to ignore.

The entire construct vanishes even as it stands in the light.
Something buys a part of the morning, a feeble objectiveness
Composed of the beginnings of conversations; the conditions
For an argument begin to torment us as we try to raise a song.

Finally, we become spectacle.  A raft of fresh green and perfect
Blue.  The mad rush of water capturing every color the light throws
At it.  It all begins to disintegrate around us.  We find images
Showing its presence in old postcards and an occasional lantern
Slide.  When we research what may have happened to all of it,
A single image, an engraving, shows a horse being pulled away
From the edge of the waterfall, one man pulling feverishly
On the reins.  The rest, a story in a tourist guidebook already old.

______________________

SHIT ANIMALS

The house we lived in in the Fall was the one the guests used
in the Winter.  Papa said we had to come here to get the place
ready.  After all, we were to be the landlords for that season,
and by clearing the brambles away from the windows and
trapping the gophers that had made such a mess of the lawns,
we could make good use of the lull before the people from
America came here with their horrible children who always
ran around in the snow stark naked, screaming snide remarks
about how backwards we all seemed, and our failure to
understand their idioms.

We knew they were not quality people and Sammy and my
sister Dorothy who we called Dot would blush whenever they
were in their presence.  Still they radiated a sense of some
great failure waiting to be uncorked.

Mama always said we must pray the rosary for these people.
Yes, they brought us money for the season, but they were snide
and those adults with their drinking, their sack-like bodies,
wearing those disgusting purple and red-violet slippers to all
the meals, always teetering on the edge of the stairs, about to
come crashing down.  They would uncork five or six bottles
of wine even before the meal had begun, and would want more
before the meal was half over.

Sammy told me he wished the dogs would eat them during the
night.  Then we would not be the ones who were made to feel
failure every time we turned around.  "Shit animals" is what he
called them.  "Eat, drink, sleep and shit is all they do," he said.
“Don’t use those expressions,” mother would chasten us.  It
wasn’t that she disagreed.  She just wanted us to show more
quality than these people could ever do. 

Once I heard her tell Papa that they were "shit animals".
I was up in the night to go to the bathroom and I could hear
Mama and Papa talking in their room.  “Sammy called them
‘shit animals’ and that is what they are, Lars.  I smell them even
before they come into the room.  I can’t stand to do this every
year.”

I know we had no choice.  I vowed never to let them touch me,
which they always seemed to want to do.  I told Sammy and
Dot never to allow them to touch them either.  There was no
argument.  I could hear Sammy saying "shit animals" quietly,
over and over again as we went into the kitchen for the broom.
It was his turn to sweep the stairs.

 Winter Garden

A COUNTRY

Most devoted is this wind,
Unhurried but persistent
In its naming of the land.

“What country is this?”

“The Winds.”

These soft animals of childhood walking
In the last of the twilight.

“Is this where the seasons come from?”

“Look, there is death.  Even his horses
Are beautiful.  He has such multitudes
Accompanying him he barely notices."
To death it is all music,

We can see eternity, getting dressed.
It is wearing purple this morning.
It washes its hands in blood
As if it were a secret.

The power of the wind never lessens.
It carves our faces even as we
Stand still gazing at the battlefields.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

A CRACK

He said the fence came right
Up to where he was dreaming,
Slapped him in the face before
He could even wake up,
And was gone.  But it made
A mistake.  It withdrew too quickly.
He could see the crack it made
When it whipped itself back,
There was light getting in.
It pulled him toward it.
He could see The Battle of Hastings
Going on in that mistake.

It was as perfect as any
Instrument could be.
He could care less about the future.

______________________

—Medusa

Intoxication, That's What It Is!

OPEN UP
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Open up
any unfolding chatter
that speaks of love
send off that card
full of homemade hearts
it does matter,
even if that poem
is in barely visible words,
it's the refreshed thought
that memory scatters,
or the fudge cake
so what is it falls apart
and crumbs splatter
on the floor,
think hints of spring
and fluttering blue birds
in a thrushes' song note
something effusing occurs,
when the envelope
is unsealed in a flower
or a tinted ring
or when a printed letter
gets to another door
there is still that faint voice
in a personal greeting
from St. Valentine, for sure.

__________________

ON VALENTINE'S DAY
—B.Z. Niditch

I met you after a hike
in the Seventies
by chance
through Andorra
on Valentine's Day
in the late Seventies
between Spain and France,
you sing heavy metal
psychedelic rock
playing bass and guitars
in a Metallica dance,
playing with precision
speed, power and zest
at all hours of the clock,
you needed no rest
or siesta
by any sea dock
like this navy guy
in this landlocked country,
with your high energy
and laughter
you prefer musicians
with machismo
like punk Led Zeppelin
or Poison masculinity,
like the guys you run after,
yet by a trellis and vine
with humanity's glow,
being quickly possessed
that love was mine
come what may or show,
to Flora,
a sexy Spanish girl
this boy throws a rose petal
and starts to blush
from a faint hand
and in a whirl
of a kiss
vanish out
of your hairy band
all heavy metal
on St. Valentine's day
was my crush.

____________________

AT THE FLOWER SHOP DOOR
—B.Z. Niditch

My hands touch
the flower shop door
in the breezy morning
off Martha's Vineyard
over a Christmas wreath
with torn-off leaves
of laurel Evergreen
under the wooden awning
in a yard awash with snow,
it's turned now to rain
and twice removed
on the earthy floor
and has to go,
taken away near an oak
tree trunk
by a guy who seems high
or coldly shaded
without a coat
and slightly drunk by beer,
does choose a bouquet
a card with hearts
with a rose-red petal,
and drives away
with broken mechanical parts
on a pear-colored car
with a boat above
bringing me back
with nostalgia
hearing Metallica's
loud heavy metal.

____________________

LOVE'S MYSTERY
—B.Z. Niditch

We are at the flower shop
this early morning
the valley sun follows me,
cards with hearts commingle
for an hour under the table
with letter or distant cable
is it possible to enable
a Muse for
love's mystery,
as nature shows
by rocks up on the sea
a swan slides by
under branches of wistaria
near the snowy pine tree,
suddenly by the dock
a Canadian red robin's wing
wakes me up to sing,
making this wintry day
full of secrecy,
now in a cafe cafeteria
my hands hang by my sax
and am offered a free drink
of a large glass of latte
then a touch of Burgundy
to relax,
losing all reason or reality
this week of a winter season,
with a smudge of cool rain
on my overcoat
reminding me February 14th
has a Valentine of cordiality
which may remain remote.

 Blossoms

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

A THOUSAND ROSES
—B.Z. Niditch

Let a thousand roses
be intoxicating
to my distant Valentine,
days of mine do lengthen
with so few wishing words
of love to strengthen
but now at this moment
let rows of wild rose petals
find you out in the sand
by an hourglass shadow
over the mountain or sea
to retell in a world's letters
wanton love stories
by my betters
that we not be exiled
or stop to compose;
in Virgil's Aeneid's Italy
Amor makes Dido
with Aenaes be enraptured,
recalling how magnificently
Troy is captured,
or like Dante falling
for his beloved Beatrice
at his legendary land,
let a thousand roses
drop from my hand
in this nosegay shop.

____________________

TO MS. AND MR. POEM
—B.Z. Niditch

Your memorable face
sometimes escapes me
yet on this grey rainy
February day when hands
receive a bouquet
and a heart-edged card
at your door
from an old love
called Ms. or Mr. Poem
who never ceased
to remember us
with wild flowers
at the ice pond,
we still picture you
in a school yearbook
or at the prom,
by a water cooler
or near a river
for an informal picnic,
playing tennis, golf,
at a first or last job
in life's startup,
or when we shivered together
muffled in our new coats
we purchased together
even when your laughter echoes
in the crunchy snow
on cross-country skis,
or on unploughed fields
hearing foreign tongues
wanting to be home,
or sensing you
by redwood trees
or near a cat whom we nursed
back to health,
today a poet's radiance
revives again in one act
of random kindness
not staged except by love
from many chanced horizons
now turned into our memory.

_____________________

VALENTINE
—D.R. Wagner, Locke

                       for Lisa

The bridge always seemed to glow
At that time of the evening.  The lights
From the businesses along the river
Were mixing their reflections in the river
And one could still see all the way
To the far side of the woods where what
Remained of the sun was putting its wonderful
Coat away until the morning.  We were hoping
For a few late-calling birds and we got them.

I was told this place was its own magic
But with you in it, it was Valentine’s Day.
The moon about to practice its etudes,
Coasting across the night sky without missing
A beat, scratching the tops of the trees just
To wonder us as we walked here together.

O do not let anything impure or violent
Into this place for at least a few hours.
For a time let it not perish but be filled
With the gifts of love and its nourishing flame.
Keep the chaste ornaments of our lips
Touching each other, a country of wonder.
Our arms able to hold each other.  Birdsong
Filling all the things we know, a house like
No other, keeping the light of childhood
Close as the blue and yellow flowers
Of the field are close.

And to think I might never
Have said any of this if it wasn’t for your
Body against mine and your quiet breathing
On my chest. 

_______________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

POEM WRITTEN ON A FLOWER SHOP CARD,
DELIVERED WITH A BOX OF DEAD ROSES
—Katy Brown, Davis

Lilies are white
roses are red
You said you'd love me
until you were dead.

Looking for a hitman now.
XOXO

               *****

Valentine's is a special day
when love comes out to play
petty dealings and the daily fray
disappear under its heady sway.
Please therefore, do not delay
get your love a dainty nosegay
if you do not, start to pray
that your amore does not go away
into another garden's aromatic sway
and possibly, just possibly be led into clay
encrusting  the heart against you who then will stray.


—Michael Cluff, Corona

_____________________

—Medusa, wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day, whatever the state of your love life!

Flowers Everywhere...

—Poems and Photos by Martie Odell-Ingebretsen, Sacramento

 ANOTHER DAY IN THE LIFE OF A FLOWER DELIVERY GIRL

Today I dressed in feelings
covered my hair in a net of hope
and let it fall over my shoulders

I walked out into the morning
with shoes like dirt so sturdy yet giving
because I felt like I was moving through time
and it was not wasting
tapping my shoulder with directions

Shoulder pads of compassion saw me
down the corridor of age
where wheelchairs directed the day
and death was fragrant in the looks
that watched me for recognition
and when my smile touched the air
it sprinkled across those faces
like candy sprinkles on cake

At a house on the street of weeping I knocked
and waited with impatience dotting my I
but when the door opened to tears
my red dress melted across the porch
and my arms ached with cotton sleeves of understanding
even the flowers that I pressed across the threshold
folded as pain fell into their light

I would have stayed with the comfort
that I felt tight around my chest
but I knew that she could see the sign stranger
hanging around my neck and her grief needed a friend

Besides I still needed my wheels of fortune
to take me over the hill to somewhere else
when around the curve to last stop
the whole thing fell over
and the water of life leaked onto the floorboard
and followed me with a trail to a tall and stately building
bedraggled and not even apologetic I asked for a drink
to help me go back to where I had been

So all things considered and a telephone call
I guess I could call it a day
and to find the doorbell with no sound
was the way it was more often then not

but the clincher was the going around and about
and up and down to a bell that I could not ring
not in my ordinary clothes
not without flowers in my hand
and my heart on my sleeve.

FROM THE FLOWER SHOP DIARY

He came into the shop, slightly dumpy
and looking at the floor,
then a glance at the plants,
when his eyes went to the orchid
with a spike of lavender attached in rows,
then I saw how his spirit rose.

He thought he wasn’t him of vibrant core, before,
thought he was not good enough for her adore,
not something enough to smile at, for sure,
but I did just then in his direction
and I pretty-pleased him to see the flower
wanting bloom was he,
and with a card I watched his eyes reflect
on what to say and how the meaning went,

then he gave it to me with trust he’d found
to say, with love,
no words are more profound

ODE TO A FLOWER SHOP

There are baskets and baskets
and vases galore
there are stuffed teddy bears
sitting plump on the floor

There are tulips in colors
that you haven’t fathomed
and ones that are feathered
like birds, just imagine

There are daffodil faces
so perfectly cast
that they warm up the room
like the sun on the grass

There is purple hydrangea
full and robust
and dainty pink roses
for sweetness a must

A flower shop blooming
so full of perfume
that it wears ode to springtime
to freshen the room

Do you like blue of iris
with nostalgic heather
we have it here
no matter the weather

A flower shop’s magic
is in smiles that it brings
to be part of the music
makes everyone sing.

ROSES ROSES SCATTERED PETALS 

Homes with shaded vestibules
filled with greenly moist profusion,
windows filled with lives unspoken
like a photo of strife or comfort,
hear the chaos feel the peace.

See the polished hardwood floor,
table inviting with four chairs
flowers picked so fresh and sweet
from a garden of straight lines.

In a second floor apartment,
smell of cigarettes hangs heavy,
woman opens with three children,
table filled with unpaid bills.

Hospice smiles and cool walls
silked with flowers everlasting,
doors the color of pale skin
gently tended by special hands.

Inside this Spanish living room
with the feel of ancient class,
groomed and spreads across my vision
away from my insistent clutter.

Roses roses scattered petals,

another day in the life
of a flower delivery girl.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

—Henri Matisse

_____________________

—Medusa