Death is a Lonely Business

—Poems by William S. Gainer, Grass Valley

—Photos of Locke, California by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

ADMIRING A MEMORY

Out on the porch
we keep a flower pot
with a little patch of grass
growing in it.
No, not that stuff,
the kind kids play on.
Every once in a while
I take the shears
and give it a mow…
spend a little time
cleaning up
the mess,
stand out in the drive
and admire my work. 

ANOTHER MAMMAL FOR THE PLATE

Barely anyone
eats whale meat
anymore.
But some still long
for its taste
and sometimes
you—
yes you,
even you,
wonder
if it’s
salty…

A BUM IN RENO

With a voice
gentle—

asked if I had a dollar.
I gave him two.

Then about the dime,
pointed
said, you dropped it.
I said, yeah.

Thanks
not much of a word
he said it twice—
his eyes
once more.

I told him,
be safe man.

He said,
it’s hard.

THE THIEF OF GOOD

A sloppy mishap
of what
could have been.

Living somewhere
between
myth maker
and liar
none of it true.

He’s grown old
becoming nobody
nobody
wants to be.

My sorrow is
introducing him
to truth—
only
to witness
its theft.

THE SAD-EYED GIRL

She quit shaving
her eyebrows
looks like Frida
now
except
with short hair
and boy’s shoes.
She’s still convinced
nobody loves her—
him, her,
anybody.
You want to ask
if anyone’s
touched it
yet,
but you don’t.
Still
for her sake
you hope
someone has.

THE LIST OF WHO CARES

At thirteen
she took a time out
pushing thirty now
still on it.
She drinks a bit,
smokes
enjoys a little of this
sometimes
sometimes,
some of that—
it’s a good place
to hide.

She thinks she’s
witty,
has an edge,
reads her poem
about her period—
it isn’t a poem. 
She collects wreckage
mostly her own.
Throws it back
at the world.
The list of who cares
lost.

Her teeth
aren’t what they
used to be.
Some nights
it’s the line,
the shelter:
a coffee,
a soup,
maybe a sandwich
for later
and a prayer
she doesn’t want
to hear.

She drinks a bit,
it’s a good place
to hide
from everything
she could have been. 

DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS
                             (for Lara)

Should go
but I’m not—

to
the service.

Wonder
what she
looked like
in green?

They won’t miss me.
If they do,
I’ll just tell them
I was home
alone
with my thoughts …

We never had
a lot to say.
Just friends
in passing—

mostly 
hi, bye,
how you been,
missed you.

The rest,
I’ll keep
to myself.

I think
she would have
looked
good
in green.

We’ll never know …

Today's LittleNip:

CHAIRS TO-GO

Saw a guy
walking downtown
carrying a chair
a kitchen chair
he was carrying it
like a surfboard,
except with legs
you know...
I imagine
he's ordering them,
the chairs
one at a time
To-Go...

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's contributors, both of whom have work appearing in the new issue of Rattlesnake Press's WTF!? which will be released tonight at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento, 8pm, hosted by editor frank andrick. Be there!

Snapshots

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

CAMERA THOUGHTS
(After “Traveling Without a Camera",
Alternative Lives by Constance Urdang)

So this is what you remember
of some time and place, coordinate and dim,

like twilight is in some filter-down time
that glows in moments

that match a mood—this way and that
of whatever resonates

with rich importance—
that camera click your eye demands

and tries to have, not to be named correctly
and only half remembered.

_____________________

IN THIS PHOTOGRAPH

I am eight years old. It must be winter. I
am wearing my winter coat and my new hat
with the red cherries pulled down close to my
face. I remember that I loved it. I am turned
aside a little toward the long-ago camera.
My bangs are too long. I think I am in Seattle.
My smile is very dear to me, even now, to be
that young and unused by life, trusting its path.
I don’t remember the day of the photograph—
why I had my coat and hat on. I think it was
one of those four-for-a-quarter picture-booths;
perhaps my mother and I were shopping. Why
do I feel such a pang of loneliness that I don’t

know where she is? All of a sudden I feel very
lost and abandoned. This is the first story.
 

ICE BLUE IN BLACK AND WHITE

She walked up the small gold hill in Seattle in
1932 in her dress that she called Ice Blue, and
there faced the candid glance of the camera. A
soft wind blew her skirt against her legs and her
cloche hat made an outline of shadow around her
face. She struck a pretty pose and became a
timeless focal point. The hill-grass froze in its
motion and a passing cloud held its shape.
Whatever was special about that day is professed
by the way she stood—in honor of the dress
perhaps, or to mark a place in time that would
soon be an old time held to an eye of memory.
There’s not much more to the story. Death took
its place beside her as death does when time is
recalled from some far year when all becomes
dear again. Ice Blue, she said, is the color of this
dress—or maybe that was another picture in another
year, and maybe she never bothered to go up
the small hill that day for a snapshot—or a struggling
poem this far in time away.

_____________________
                                      
MOOD CAMERA                     

(A Haibun)

I saw two swans, as if they were dreams,
drifting upon a wide gray water, with music
floating all around and distant time waiting
for them to be noticed; and as they stole my
attention, they stayed forever—so simply
and silently elegant with perfection, absorbing
the blending of the water, and the sky which
was lowering its soft twilight about them as
they drifted, one behind the other, upon their
peacefulness. There was nothing to startle them—
nothing of any presence to disturb—as a mood
camera slowly pulled away and finally lost them
as the water and the sky and the distance widened
into a sad perspective—removing me from them,
though I wanted to stay in the far soft focus and
blissful unawareness of their range.

                two swans on twilight lake
                  oblivious to Zoom Lens
                      pulling them away


(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 1997-1998)

OLD LOBBY
(After “Seated Man” by Peter Max, 1981)

He sits so long he is fading into his chair.
The room droops around him with a musty color.
The flowers on the wall wilt and are forgotten.

He never seems to close his eyes.
He and the windows stare at each other.
Someone comes in and gives a nod of greeting.

He shifts a little and disturbs his shadow.
He has to begin again.  He thinks in questions :
what time for this? what time for that?

His watch ticks in his pocket.
Someone comes down the stair and
goes out the door which closes with a wheeze.

A rain begins, as if on time.
He watches the rain stream down the window.
His reflection blurs.

His clothes begin to rumple.
His hat is getting wet.
He wishes he had his umbrella.

____________________

OLD LOBBY – II
(After a picture of a woman in the rain in
mask and ballet costume by David Pellettier)

A white-masked woman appears under
shrill white neon outside the door of the
old hotel. She stares at the man in the lobby,

waiting for him to notice her, though she
has outgrown herself—her white costume
too small and her satin shoes ruined

from the rain. She no longer knows
her face behind the blank face of the mask
or what the dance should be, if she

is there to dance. She seems surprised
to be there. She watches the mauve reflection
of the man shimmer between them

in the window—how the awkward flowers
on the wall shudder possessively toward him—
how firmly he seems fastened to his chair.

HISTORY’S OLD HOUSE
(Poe’s Mother’s House, 1930
From Facebook "Camera Obscura" page)
 
What next, a scene out of anywhere, but this:
The front door open upon a narrow stair next
to an alcove that looks like a tunnel. A gaping
window above the door. The whole building
held by stubborn gray brick, all wood frame-
work rotting. All that is needed aside from
the gloomy day is an unsolved mystery—even
a murder. It all fits: the musty smell, the webby
feel wherever you put your hand—even the
shadows that go only so far back to strike
against solid black interior. Even a small tree
growing out of a pipe outside the upstairs window,
thriving there. No one seems to have taken ad-
vantage of the vacancy. No For Sale, No
Trespassing, or Beware signs. Nobody there.
No former occupant to name. This is History’s
old house that fits no page of memory. Only the
tree seems to matter, growing there, looking into
the sunless window.

______________________

TO A PHOTOGRAPH

That look in your eyes,
and the touch of grey in your beard.

The intelligent wrinkling of your brow.
Close up.

Close up now to me.
As though listening.

The way you lean
attentively, as if about to speak—

though you—polite, are waiting for me
to finish this. Your white collar

throws a shadow on your face.
The darkened room

fits into the background.
One side of your face is

almost lost. There is a sway.
I feel it now. You mouth is so silent

and only my thoughts speak.
What if we might have loved—

—were ever real
to one another.

I sit here writing to you, looking at your eyes
which are looking at me. That look. That look.

THE WRISTWATCH

Time is important to him—he hikes his sleeves
to show his watch with the large gold face
and band as he folds his arms across
his chest and barely smiles.

Soft-focus leaves flicker against the backdrop
sky as he stands in his dark suit and tie
and looks to the side and waits
for the camera click.

He seems shy, a bit reserved—reluctant to be
caught like this—candid and approachable.
But his face is unreadable.  You will
have to buy his book.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

IF THE PICTURE HADN’T BEEN
CROOKED I WOULDN’T HAVE
SEEN THE CROSS  ~

how strange
the picture hangs

the orange sky
and the birds pul-

ling the right side
down

the black ground
cannot adjust

and the crucifixion tree
in the corner star-

tles its branches out
to keep from falling

_____________________

—Medusa, thanking Joyce for today's fine and fancy fare about What My Camera Sees. This week's Seed of the Week is Ice. The North Pole? Whiskey on the rocks? Or metaphoric—cold shoulders, the silent treatment, walking on thin ice. Send your poems, photos and art work about Ice (or any other subject) to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadlines on SOWs, though.

As The Camera Rolls...

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
—Photos by Denise Flanigan

AN AUGUST PICNIC

The chatter will cease
by the blue lake
as everyone wants
their picture taken
and after my binoculars
are put away
after watching the larks
high on the green mountains,
and taking out my camera
shy children evaporate
and scatter on the fields
a boy batter hits a single
in a homemade diamond
adolescents make a date
others complain about
suffocating in the sun.

________________________

CAMERA OBSCURA

In Edinburgh
with my uncle
doing publicity
for a new film,
being entertained
by the band
Camera Obscura
in 1968
my Aunt Lena
dressed in Highland
designer jeans
with bagpipe prints
in the background
puts lotion on us all
for the sun was lambent
at the Princes St. gardens
seen from our lens,
we were told
that old Aristotle
understood the principle
of the camera obscura
and the Chinese scientist
Shen Kuo invented it,
then we meandered
though the hilly countryside
among the Scottish primrose
and heather moorland
awaiting our flight
back to Hollywood and Vine.

_______________________

‪CAMERA STORE‬

With our saucy saucer eyes
in black sunglasses
after a restless series
of Hollywood bed nights
my uncle asked me
to take the pictures
of a starlet and get them
developed before
a screen test
and Ithaca
with her new stage name
the big studio guy
chose for her audition
which was changed again,
wanted to tag along
with her poodle
named Puff Puff
entered the store
(she already told my uncle
of her high-strung history
with rapid crushes
so as a former boy scout
I was already prepared
for anything)
when the pictures
came on the counter
Ithaca had a fit of such anger
at how she perceived herself
ripped up all the pictures
not only of herself
but those of others
in yellow envelopes
then breaking anything
of glass in sight
the L.A.P.D. were called
and she was taken
to the police station
and questioned,
then my uncle
called in a psychiatrist
later she became a star
even has her name
in Hollywood's Walk of Fame
and I had to promise
never to reveal her name.

______________________

ON BROADWAY

Attending
my first Broadway play
(I am a Camera)
my eyes transfixed
over the stage
close to the orchestra pit
intensely listening
to the sounds and language
of the reputed actors
speaking to us
on a bedazzled matinee
here in a full house
in my short pants
and blue tie
bashful in my voice
with a memorable recall
of lines held in check
as my steady hands
open the program
reading the asterisks
and naming every star
in all their disguises
after the curtain call
watching my uncle
agitated for the review
he had to turn in
for the midnight Times
drink his disquieted beer
explaining in German
the novel's plotting themes
to another patron
with a Harvard education
in drama and film
with his zealous nephew
trying to catch all of it
with a new-found courage
wanting to write
his own first act
as twenty years later
we are back here
in the Cold War days
watching Cabaret
based on these Berlin stories
with Liza, Garland's daughter
and Joel Grey backstage
wanting autographs
with my first play
set for off-off Broadway.

IN MANHATTAN

In Manhattan
on a sleeping car
playing sax
with infinite riffs
of stress and weariness
from a sensational felicity
near my exercise room
at the Chelsea
the ex camera rolls
after our readings
near the Y
buying a Lunch poem
from Frank O'Hara
at the Cedar Bar
and seeing Andy
in his "Flesh"
and talking to
his once-shaved extra
demanding shock
treatment
with cosmetic speech
in an all-night party
skipping out early
with my notes
for future poems
and leave the Big Apple.

______________________

HUGH MacDIARMID'S DAY
(Aug. 11, 1892-Sept. 9, 1978)

Close to the black lungs
of many miners down deep
into the bare earth's surface
from brutalized
back-breaking work
and rundown disease
you probed and swallowed
with your speech in tongue
from gorges down the lowlands
and lovely highlands
of the Scots' language
with class in struggle
for justice
never forgetting
a handshake or common touch.

______________________

LOUISE BOGAN'S BIRTHDAY
(Aug. 11, 1892-Feb. 4, 1970)

When presented with Medusa
Louise Bogan's first collection
lyric hours
never stopped for me
as her timeless hair
of a venomous Gorgon
full of snakes
and the feminine flowered
within a serpentine speech
knowing what
you suffered
the breakdown in language
of mind and body
as you remain
on the top shelf
of my bookcase
I made out of pinewood
next to my elephant lamp
of Alexander the Great
created at night's electricity class.

______________________

WILLIAM BLAKE'S PASSING
(August 12, 1857)

Awake, awake
as a young visionary
William Blake
hinted he saw Ezekiel
the unique prophet
under a still tree
filled with angels
forsaking time
abdicating his fate
for the zest of a higher cause
as painter, illustrator
knew his aching life was
not a piece of cake
but in his moving tongue
and Soho space
created his own mystique
on feverish plates
and colorful prints,
we pause today
never to forsake you
for you are not dead
knowing you are greater
within your own clever laws
in the quest for your Creator.

AN ALFRED HITCHCOCK NIGHT

Every August 13
Alfred Hitchcock,
(your birthday)
I put on one
of your film noirs,
facing down
on my television set
with your brilliant camera lens
in place for a good evening
as you say,
my imagination rises
with the sound
from loaded gun ranges
of the accuser
victim and perpetrator,
not knowing the ending
or pretending not to know
as one year, loud birds
off the water entered over
my white porch slate roof
I was working on,
as our eyes
suddenly from the shock
of the loud bird calls
became blameless
and our voices
of mortal scream and speech
reached the neighbors
who finished the movie
and the homemade popcorn
with us.

_______________________

WHY SPEAK OF OTHERS
(for Robin Williams)
 
To speak other lines
as a stand-up comic
when you need help
that entwines
your own sorrow
is to go beyond
the unfazed reality
looking the other way
from your flesh and blood
in a circle of darkness
until the sun's tomorrow.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

In a poet's conception we ourselves became a camera lens perceiving images.

***

A poet reads a reflective phrase for the lens; the camera will not return his gaze.

—B.Z. Niditch

________________________

—Medusa

Flowers Unforeseen

LINES TO ACCOMPANY FLOWERS FOR EVE

who took heroin, then sleeping pills
and who lies in a New York hospital


The florist was told, cyclamen or azalea;
White in either case, for you are pale
As they are, "blooming early and profusely"
Though the azalea grows in sandier soil
Needing less care; while cyclamen's fleshy tubers
Are adored, yes, rooted out by some.
One flourishes in aridness, while the other
Feeds the love which devours.

But what has flung you here for salvaging
From a city's dereliction, this New York?
A world against whose finger-and-breath marked windows
These weak flares may be set.
Our only bulwark is the frailest cover:
Lovers touch from terror of being alone.
The urban surface: tough and granular,
Poor ground for the affections to take root.

Left to our own devices, we devise
Such curious deaths, comas or mutilations!
You may buy peace, white, in sugary tincture,
No way of knowing its strength, or your own,
Until you lie quite still, your perfect limbs
In meditation: the spirit rouses, flutters
Like a handkerchief at a cell window, signalling
Self-amazed, its willingness to endure.

The thing to cling to is the sense of expectation.
Who knows what may occur in the next breath?
In the pallor of another morning we neither
Anticipated or wanted! Eve, waken to flowers
Unforeseen, from someone you don't even know.
Azalea or cyclamen . . . we live in wonder,
Blaze in a cycle of passion and apprehension
Though once we lay and waited for death.


—Carolyn Kizer

_____________________________

—Medusa, whose heart goes out to those who live in despair.

The Drawer of Dreaming

—Poems and "Behind Locke" Photos 

by D.R. Wagner, Locke

LOOKING FAR TO THE NORTH

Long lines of colored lights
Have come down to guide us.

This has not happened in years.
Ramon says he can recall
The names of the lights
But is reluctant to say them.

When spoken aloud there are wars
On the edges of the sound,
Yet we must find our way back
To the center where we can
Once again pull our bodies
From the dreaming and move
Through the rooms that now
Can only be seen as flashes of lightning
Before our eyes.  We must speak.

I try to be as specific as possible.
I try not to say your name.
I can see the rockets course
Across the sky as if the lights
Knew this was a promised gift,
An agreement made with us
Long before we began to understand
What might be the names of these lights,
Despite the reluctance of Ramon
To speak them aloud.

Artillery blazing just above the ridges.

_________________________

THE CHARMS OF THE GATE KEEPERS

They kept charms in that room
That would create masks
Out of very ancient languages.

Echoes perhaps, but more
A looking out on gardens
And explaining myths in terms of breathing
Or in terms of what a particular
Temple seemed to offer in solitude
That only served as a mask
For letters from the beloved
Never delivered because of flood
Or dust storms where nature
Occupied all possible meaning.

Just outside the door I could
Hear them talking about the fact
That we were over here, poking around,
Discovering pressed flowers
That informed weapons,
Murder, the echo, that bit
Against our idea of what a panorama
Might truly be, our eyes
Looking past all the landscape, finding
Tapestries in the eyes of our lovers. 

MORNING WALK

They have found the room but will not
Tell us where it is located.  “You should be
Dead to move the keys here,” they report.

But we play piano and press upon vibrating
Strings to pull this stuff up into the light.
This is not of the dead at all.
These keys cause music to move in the head.

The morning light hugs the telephone wires
And the tree leaves.  It knows us.  We do not
Have to stay in this room.  Tell us again of the mountains.

I have broken the drawer of dreaming.  It is now possible
To see them fluttering across the eyes as we walk along
The trails near the river.  We can feel the breeze
Against our faces and know we are of the divine ones.

Put your hands together and blow gently upon them.
You may hear our voices rising from that enclosed space.
We will be able to meet here as often as we wish.
We will create more rooms than they ever thought possible.

_________________________

I HAD THE THICK OF DREAMING

I had the thick of dreaming
And the Chinese vase
That pulsed about the room
With a delight in noting everything
Unto the last detail.

It spun circles to deceive me
But I am of the water
And can listen to the bells of suicide
Without a thought to shadows
Or the perfect bliss of memories.

Still, I would abandon all of this
For the sight of fishermen lifting
Their nets high from the sea
Or to listen to the voices of the wolves
That pierced the quiet in some other
Time. 

Could I unlock even one
Secret from this trove, driven
In by moonlight, somehow divine.
Or for the ability to feel your tongue
Inside my mouth searching for that sure
Eternity that holds such a decorated vase.

SHE HAD MADE AN ARRANGEMENT WITH RUST

To keep me from talking too long.
For years I believed everything I was told,
That all who spoke were philosophers.

I would crouch in a corner and wait
For night that I might leap
Upon its back and wrestle it to the ground,
Trying to stop the dreaming
And become insomnia.

I am still here in the room waiting
But the night never arrives.  I sleep
With my eyes wide open.

I can no longer believe memory.
I have been awake much too long.
I have forgotten my name or if I have blood.
This whole thing is a construct
That defines what you love and becomes
Silence once again.

A collection of moments
Found in the presence of other
Moments, lifted from a thousand
Breaths and tumbled out across
The floor as a crystal glass might
Look, shattering on slate and sliding,
Pieces everywhere.  One could cut
The bottom of one's foot just
Entering the room.

Moonlight on the edges of each
Moment, trying to draw them closer,
But they are as flocks of birds
Across the Autumn sky,
Calling each to each but compelled
To continue long after these
Words stop and able to look
Down upon perfect lakes
Reflecting clouds.

A LEATHER BAG

Oh little precious one,
I have your beautiful song
Inside this leather bag I keep
At my side.  I know what the sound
Is made of and the currents of your heart,
Winding and unwinding throughout everyday,
Every night of my life as I sit on the sofa
Listening to my breathing, learning to keep alone.

Each day the afternoons line up near the edge,
Close to the window that overlooks the sea.
A dark sea.  A bright sea.   Light clipping the wave tops.
Bodies of silver fishes and even great whales lift
In these seas as I occupy the windows.

I will go to the trouble to dream of you
But it is very difficult for me to do.
I am stubborn as a metaphor, as an idea
The infinite infuses itself with whenever
I think of you.

This song can find ancient lands that are
But a few years old, peaceful mazes cloaked
With the mingled blood we have brought to these rooms.
Is this all really the same sea?  Are these seasons
The same again and again?  Do we see with marble
Eyes as a statue might when it weighs the dawn
On its pure white stone?  What wants to be remembered?

I do want to hold you in my arms but I will keep
This leather bag almost as a comfort, a magic fantasy.
I have kissed you when I did not fear to open my heart
To you and I could meet you in our breathing together.

Now, there is only the hazy light that inquires
If this was a dream and how long and what kind.
The garden wears down to a depth I can no longer
Enter.  I cannot follow you into the muddy water,
A darkness that is continuous, that assures me
Oblivion wishes to come to live in my house, my own house.

Oh little precious one.
Oh glorious shadow that is now anonymous
With my darkening agonies.
How do I move away from this glorious burden?
This flame now seen in mirrors that I carry
On my belt, so full of you.  What to save?

Today's LittleNip:

FASTER THAN ICARUS

Usually the surface is moving
Too fast to tell where the poem is going.
One could as easily see a gibbon
Swing from tree to tree
Making its peculiar sounds
As notice that pain was what
Was really going on and that blood
Was spurting from a broken vein
Cut by a cruel remark
Rather than a placid landscape
Far from the road, showing trees
Dappled with light and languid
Sloughs obeying a morning tide.

Do not let the deceptions deter
You from a search for deeper meaning.
Just because you can see
Someone dancing a beautiful tango
Does not mean that we have
Already left the aircraft
And are falling toward the earth
Faster than Icarus, hoping the parachute
Will open and we will land safely
Out here where the morning breeze
Is cool upon the skin and that we
Are safe walking where one is seldom
Able to walk, all the while talking
About the dazzling beauty of being here
On earth, inhaling and exhaling.

_______________________

—Medusa, reminding you to check the readings on the blue board (under the green board) at the right of this column. Today is a busy day, with Poetic License in Placerville at 3pm, Sacramento Voices at 4:30, and Going to the Moon in Locke starting at 6pm. Tomorrow is busy, too, with the Women's Writing Salon in Grass Valley and Mosaic of Voices at the Avid Reader in Sacramento. And Monday is the Sable & Quill Anthology reading at Hot Poetry in the Park, 7pm. Lots to do; take advantage of it!

The Meat of Living

A giant spider dances along with S.F.'s Velocity Circus

Sacramento  Banana Festival, August, 2014

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

HERE IS THE FACE THAT I CALL BEING ALIVE. And here is the other face, that one that I call death. Together they make the mask that I call water, or air, the mask that I call earth. This is the wind on a day so dry that I cannot make tears. This is the sound of my mother weeping, a sound that breaks my heart. This face will not come off in my hands. I am wading out into the river. One step follows another. The water comes over my knees, my hips, my chest. I am not the man that I thought I would become, but at least I am not the man that I was afraid of becoming. Here is my face, look closely. There is no damn lie in it. Goodbye. Now I am swimming away.

—James Lee Jobe, Davis

________________________

A MAN WITH A PIANO SINGS ABOUT GOD'S LOVE. His beard is long and pointed, and with my third eye I can see the angels loving him, so I love him, too. His face is handsome, and there is a sort of kindness in voice. From his heart, a long, dark hand reaches out to heaven. That hand touches me as well. Where is the sorrow that brought me here? Where is the faith that failed me? Each note sustains me, the verses return me to The One. Life, you reward me at times when I least expect it. Life is the river, and that which we name God is the boat.

—James Lee Jobe

 Acrobats from S.F.'s Velocity Circus

Sacramento Banana Festival, August, 2014

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

THAT WHICH YOU TOUCH IS NOT A DREAM
—James Lee Jobe

The first peaches of the year, so ripe that they leap
From the tree into your cupped hands;
They are fuzzy acrobats, sticky, complete.

The weight of the old cat asleep in your lap;
You can still feel her body for awhile
After she gets up and stalks away complaining.

The feel of brand new Chuck Taylor sneakers
With the sidewalk under your feet, and the meat
Of living is laid out before you like a banquet.

Her lips on yours for the first time, red, easy
And slow, her arms tight around your neck,
Warm, and your arms around her waist,

The feel of her skin on yours, the mist
Of her breath in gasps, her hair in your face
With the summer scent of jasmine.

In the country of dreams there are borders
That you cannot cross, walls that you can see,
But cannot touch.

In the country of being alive,
Touch is lovely,
Touch is sweet.

________________________

VAMPIRES
—James Lee Jobe

—for Robert Lee Haycock—


And from the tracks of deer in the mud
Of the riverbank we find a way back to earth,
From the outer reaches of space.
It took a long time. So what?
There will always be people who tell us
That there are limits; those people are Vampires.
They drink the poetry right out of our blood.
They want to get fat from the failures of others.
How many rivers are there on earth? It doesn't matter.
Feel the depression made by the hoof of the deer.
Outline it with your finger. You own today,
My friend, and you own tomorrow, too.

 Swinging Monkeys from S.F.'s Velocity Circus

Sacramento  Banana Festival, August, 2014

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

                                            Overcoats

are not well suited to the

                                            highway.

A jacket does much better

 
                                — what the hell —

no sense having your

                                coattails

longer than your

                                story.


—Tim Harper, Elk Grove

________________________ 

           In a late night thunderstorm
                                                          on Ile Saint-Louis,
                hard and hungry she
                      came at me.

                   A jungle beast
               all quick pounce and
                     bared teeth;

                      then slow
                in a glacial creep,

                 inching upon me
                 as only a woman
                                             can

        while outside, with every crack,

                          GOD

           bellowed our passion for us.

                 Small, hot irons of
                         hands
       pressed hard upon my shoulders,
                  she looks down
           with eyes deranged suns;
                bursts forth a lava
                         moan
      brighter than the lighting outside
         to rip the edges of the dark.

             And in that light I see,
               between her breasts,

                        a single
                         rivulet

                       of sweat.


—Tim Harper
                                                
______________________

Today's LittleNip:

I was dreaming about you last night,
    when Vince Lombardi walked in.

            “Getoutthereandhit’em,kid”

                    he said.

“The only hard part about playing football with
                            clouds
                    is the
                        tackle”.


—Tim Harper


________________________

Our thanks to today's contributors, including James Lee Jobe, Tim Harper, and Michelle Kunert's photos. Tim Harper was born in Brooklyn, New York in the mid-1940s, which meant he was destined to be a gangster, cop, priest or writer. In the ‘50s he ran into the poetry of e.e. cummings and his fate was sealed. Becoming a fan of the “Beats” and people like Brautigan and Snyder, he began to write. After several tours in southeast Asia as a Special Forces officer, Harper returned to school at Texas State University and wrote several cycles of poems on the experience of war, as well as that of the ‘60s. A collection of this work was published as Coattails, a book so out of print that even he hasn’t got a copy! Harper chose to leave poetry from his public work, instead writing prose in commentaries and essays. During the ‘80s and '90s he read his prose mostly at veteran’s events with his friend and Special Forces brother the late Steve Mason (“Johnny’s Song”; “A Human Being”), who at the time was America’s Poet Laureate for veterans! In the '90s, Harper also returned to Paris and, as a result, began writing poetry again. He currently lives in Elk Grove, California, and he will be reading with D.R. Wagner and Robert Lee Haycock in Locke tomorrow at Moon Cafe Gallery on Main Street, 6pm. 

_______________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Michelle Kunert