"Author! Author!"

  

 —Poems by Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

—Photos of the Fair Oaks Chicken Festival 

by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

THE PLAY’S THE THING

Every day
the same play.
The moment I rise,
the first act begins,
the same plot
all over again.
Only the characters,
only the scenery,
vary. Act after act,
no intermission,
no denouement,
it never ends.
Every night,
in the front row,
the same lady
in a plumed hat
stands and shouts,
“Author, Author!”
I smile, I bow,
what else can I do?
Finally I pull the curtain
and turn in.

_____________________

MAKES FOREVER SHORTER

When a bullet goes in
and doesn’t come out
you read about it
in the paper, hear
about it on TV.

A person takes a bullet
near the heart and learns
a surgeon can't remove it.
It's part of him forever.
Happens like a drive-by

shooting when a loved one
makes a comment no
apology can remove.
The loved one doesn't
know there’s a problem,

doesn’t realize lightning
through the cerebellum 
is by far a better option.
Doesn't let the victim linger.
Makes forever shorter.

 Space Chicken Sculpture

LEAVING THE STATION

Each morning
I step from the train
and march with the others

leaving the station.
The weatherman's warned of rain
so we're armed

with umbrellas,
our briefcases swinging.
Across from the station

there's an old hotel
high in the sky. King Kong,
everyone calls it.

In tall windows
old men appear,
disappear, reappear.

It is August in Chicago
and the old men wear
overcoats and homburgs

so no one can steal them.
They light cigarettes,
mumble and curse

at the daily parade
leaving the station.
Traffic is thick

but even in winter
no one looks up
since no one can hear them.

___________________

GROUNDS FOR SEPARATION

There's nothing wrong with you.
We both know this is true

but there's something wrong with me
and you know what that is.

It's the elephant in the room
standing on our mantel

trumpeting "I'm here!"
I'll call when I find out

what's wrong with me
and then I'll buy a yo-yo

a shiny one with rhinestones
the kind we had as kids

and we can try that trick
"walking the dog" again.

 Dancing Chickens at the Children's Pavilion

BRISK MAN FROM JAIPUR

Two men tall,
one from here
and one from there,

in raincoats
at a bus stop,
pace and stare.

One of them
is soaked in tea,
brisk man from Jaipur

who semaphores
an anthracitic glare.
To barter for a smile

an alien’s obeisance
he, no fawn,
refuses.

The other man,
white cane and dog,
doesn’t seem to care.

___________________

1956 STATE CHAMPIONSHIP REUNION

Great victories in youth,
some of them remarkable,
are recorded in a scrapbook

lost for many years
only to emerge decades later
when age affords the leisure

to rustle through a dresser drawer
and find a scrapbook underneath
an ancient uniform, some jocks and socks.

Cheers from games spring off the page
as do tall teammates dead for years,
their jump shots perfect, their laughter loud.

This will be the last reunion,
he knows that for certain.
The scrapbook will become

a game of none on none.
A doctor told him yesterday
he's dribbling out the clock.

 Gulliver's Pet Sculpture

TORNADOES IN THE PARLOR

Tornadoes in the parlor,
in the kitchen, in the bathroom, too,
churned every hour Dad was home.
He never worked
and with good reason.
Sis could tell you more.
She'd help Ma board up the house
when I'd walk out the door
and ride my bike around the block.
If you find Sis today,
she’ll tell you funnels
tore the basement, too.
So what, you say?
Well, Dad’s been gone
for seven years
and Sis is somewhere.
She needs to know
good weather here
is still a squall.

____________________

COMA

Sleet on the turnpike
in the middle of the night
but I keep driving,
both hands on the wheel,
nowhere to pull off,
and a yellow bus
comes over the line
and kisses my truck.
That's all I remember.
Now I'm in bed,
wired to things,
unable to move,
listening to a doctor
telling my wife,
"It's been two weeks,
no improvement."
He asks her nicely
if we should let him go,
the dimwit bastard.
If I could, I'd scream
but I can't even
wiggle my toes.

MY WIFE’S GARDEN

My wife likes to garden.
She’s crazy about roses,
lilies and daisies.
She says I should get out
in the garden and weed.
The roses, lilies and daisies
need more room to grow.

She says her garden would be
better if I would help out.
I’m tempted to tell her I’m not
fond of roses, lilies and daisies
but then I remember before
I met her 50 years ago
I spent some time with
a Rose, a Lily and a Daisy,
not all at once, of course.

Like my wife, they were
nice ladies and I hope they
didn’t marry those guys
they weeded me out for.
Their gardens were lovely
but none had gardens
as beautiful as my wife’s.
On a cool summer morning
I still like to sprinkle her garden
once she adjusts the nozzle
on this old hose.

__________________

NEARING THE FINISH LINE

Walking very slowly, ancient Wally's
right behind his ancient Molly who's
stepping down the garden path,
her first time out in weeks,

wobbly still on her new knee.
She's been housebound far too long,
leg propped up, reading books, gazing out
the window for some sign of Spring.

She wants to trust her Wally when
she sends him out to check her garden
and he comes back bubbling to say
"Spring has sprung, my dear"

but Molly needs to see that for herself.
Wally may have missed a sprig or sprout
and it would not be the first time.
On a lovely day, many years ago

when they were young, didn't Wally claim
a patch of dandelions were crocuses?
So now Molly hobbles out on a silver cane
and leans slowly down the path

toward the first of seven gardens with
Wally right behind her, arms outstretched,
ready to catch her if she slips, a man 
wearied now by many weeks as caregiver.

He's a man of many years, most of them 
spent in a hurry until his stroke, a factor
that's a hallmark of their lengthy marriage.
Molly's always careful, Wally not so much.

In fact, he still roars into everything,
a second stroke waiting to happen.
But for the moment he forgets the present
as his memory darts into their happy past

and he whispers over Molly's shoulder,
"Let's take our time, my dear. 
Let's make Robert Frost a prophet.
Let's have many miles to go before we sleep."

Today’s LittleNip:

BARMAID OPENS AT DAWN (a senryu)
—Donal Mahoney

Pistols in holsters
very early this morning.
She’s wearing a bra

_____________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to Donal Mahoney and Michelle Kunert for this fine morning repast of poetry and photos! For more about this year’s Chicken Festival in Fair Oaks, go to www.seecalifornia.com/festivals/fair-oaks-chicken-festival.html/.

(Anonymous Photo)

 Celebrate the garden that is poetry—and those who work at

both! Don't forget that tonight is the release of Stan Zumbiel's 

new book, Standing Watch, at Sac. Poetry Center, 7:30pm. 

And scroll down to the blue column (under the green 

column at the right) for info about this and upcoming readings

in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Canvas of Peace

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
—Photos by Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento, CA

THE DISAPPEARED

Do you who love poetry,
which is like itself
the Logos, the Word
in all creation
from my children's chorus
accept an invitation
to hear a Beat poet out,
it is not weird
to think each day
of the disappeared
in Argentina, Chile, Brazil
or in the tundras
of the Russian Gulag
or under the boots
of the Stasi or Stalag
or in the still ashes
of the children in Germany
who had to wear a yellow star,
only God knows where
you are.

____________________

OCCUPATION

The secret police
hold your papers
and passport
in their valise
with Lieutenant Laurent
in his trench overcoat
as a client of the Occupation
pretending all is well
with support from Hell
in their death knell
of a utopia they invent
with their trains
and transportation
to concentration camps
for those who refuse
or are politically for freedom
and the target to resent
the innocent politicians,
as Jews and Christians
are put on trial
in Nazi-style stamped myopia
by government-spent guards
those bureaucrats who file into Paris
with belief in the names
from their own embarrassment
with reports of the secret police
pretending they are democrats
ignoring reality and fears
with the chip of spies
hidden in their eyes and ears
ending their free editorial world
which has blinded freedom
in the reality of war
turning in their friends
who are really their enemies
unwilling to apologize
yet full of sporting conviviality
from their fascist ally
whatever it meant to Germany
on those horribly taxing days
until the knock on the door
revealed their own reality
with their cavorting liberality
by hiding the gospel news
from their good neighbors
who help save minorities
true Christians and Jews
from deportation
like my brave family
to stand up to fascist authority
and wrote talented editorials
who were themselves taken away
forsaken like Jesus
on these memorial days
as Robert Desnos,
poet of liberty
is rounded up
for his words for democracy
by the Nazi death squads
with a Resistance argument
of those who wear a cross or star
in their own involvement
by throwing rocks at our humanity
from a love which alone
at this monument
will save us, for only God knew
who they really were.

KATHE KOLLWITZ TIME

The earth fills up
with your ashes,
as your shadow walks in
to your Berlin studio
drawing in sunlight
for your paintings
as you as a pacifist
and famous artist offer
a canvas of peace
we remember to
look back
at your folio
there is still blood
on the European snow.

_____________________

RESOLUTIONS

Resolutions do not last
they are as castaways
in the bottomless sea
as Ulysses flees his exile
when he has the chance
to return to Penelope's smile
as favored lovers
in Homer's considered romance,
resolutions are like revolutions
when at war with Troy
in tragic circumstances
that mostly annoy and do not last
for we are all castaways
when we lust
for sex is power
like King David with Bathsheba
he betrayed God's trust
whom he would deflower
he could never have success
without God and fate consulted
for a blessing,
we must address reality
suspended through adultery,
you would think humanity
would learn from mankind
from the wise Greeks
and devout Jews
extolling justice and mercy
but love hypnotizes to blind us
before we realize
what rationally we could refuse
as we rarely compromise
or cry out to reality
as Odysseus
who waits on the pagan Arete,
or are we any better
when we do no read
from Saint John's love letter
to escape our familiarity
in cognition with our fate
we make our poetic life
full of strife to complicate.

STRAVINSKY

With boundless music
of energy in adolescence
from solo practicing
Stravinsky's violin concerto
in a critic's connection
on the last of summer days
under the Evergreen trees
and greensward shrubbery
with me learning to conduct
on a score
at my soundproof studio
that my professor left me
his European notes
besmirched by Russian quotes
enjoying the sunshine
at the cleft of my window
with an enigmatic breeze
playing the twelve-tone scale
allowing me to be instructed
and audited
in my Leonard Bernstein
harmony and solfeggio class
that I will not fail.

 DADA

Dada fantasists
are daddies or dandies
to me in my composite
of a surrealist poet
always close to my language
to cultivate,
able yet unsearchable
from a catholic cathartic state
in my Manhattan artistic sensibility
meeting at the Metropolitan
with Duchamp
Picasso, Braque, Gris, Mondrian
who create a metamorphosis
amid the Ash Can paintings
to share with me
with their charismatic
abstract opacity
together with the poets Apollinaire
Rimbaud, Verlaine and Baudelaire
to talk and walk with me
in their open exegesis,
here in the afternoon at the museum
as I sat alone in the corner
daydreaming for that one line
of geometric progression
doing my thesis and analysis
drawing in my enigmatic patterns
of my jazz riff poetry.

THE NEW YORK SCHOOL

Cousin Sonny
the success of the family
while at the New School
before he would go out
to Hollywood
introduced me to the artists
of the abstract expressionist school
the good poets O'Hara, Schuyler
De Niro, father of the actor
where I met them after his classes
together with the German exile
Hans Hoffman, whom the Nazis
axed for his modernism,
there I was in the younger set with
Koch, Larry Rivers, Jane Freilicher
Barbara Guest, passing glasses
to Nell Blaine in a wheel chair
from Gloucester
it's only the best company
for Sonny,
at raucous night parties
in Manhattan in my youth
where with a child's glove
I boxed in my own footing
dancing away with models,
twenty years my senior,
where I met Norman Mailer
who took me up the roof
of the loft's penthouse
to heal me of my fear
of heights.

A BLACK NIGHT RAIN

A black night rain
washed on the windshield
remembering the gutters
will have to be fixed
for the Fall
near the chrysanthemums
in our rose garden
as birds rest on a horse blanket
on places of twilight
I'm paring my green apple
on my way to the museum
to view the pre-Raphaelites
abstract expressionists
who are on display
noticing a man thumbing
along the country road
with a strong curving arm
waving for a ride
on his way into Boston
I'm picking him up
near the baseball field,
tells me he is Dr. Paul
who writes poetry plays
in the style of Eliot
wrote his thesis on Dickens
and came to hear me
at one of my seasonal readings
and knew I played sax
told me he wrote an analysis
of my verse in a literary journal
which he taught in his class
tells me confidentially
he loves to sail on the ocean
his wife Lara keeps kosher
because of health reasons
and they raise chickens
on their farm
has a son and daughter
living at the Berklee
College of Music in Boston
both studying jazz and voice
and invited me to read
at one of his classes,
Dr. Paul has a great fluency
of language,
as we enjoyed
each other's company
joined me at the museum
as the rain suddenly stopped.

____________________

Our thanks to B.Z. Niditch for today’s fine Autumnal Equinox breakfast of poetry, and to Carol Louise Moon for her photos. Carol Louise has been sick at some for quite a while, and she says her “cabin fever” caused her to look for interesting photo opportunities inside her house. These abstract geometrics and juxtapositions she found are very interesting, so thank you, Carol Louise, and we're glad to hear you’re recovering from your bronchitis.

Today is, indeed, the 2016 Autumn Equinox (10:21am ET), so the year is officially turning. For an interesting article about that, go to news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/autumn-equinox-explained-start-fall-spring-sun-earth-science/.

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

FOR ANOTHER VAN GOGH
—B.Z. Niditch

In today's soap opera world
gossips whisper to us
in a know-nothing alley
as a shivering man
below the rose's dooryard
may be a poet, composer,
scientist in his laboratory
or artist in his gallery
to bring forth
a new avant-garde dimension
or a quality of life invention
he may be another Van Gogh
who has lost one ear
but the crowd ignores
that he exists
prefers to swim the T.V. channels
for yet another show.

_______________________

—Medusa

 Celebrate poetry and the hope it brings us! 

And don’t forget to head down to Luna’s Cafe 

tonight for Poetry Unplugged, with its feature 

and open mic. Scroll down to the blue column 

(under the green column at the right) for info about 

this and other upcoming readings in our area—

and note that more may be added at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Truth is a River

The Smile of the Flamboyant Wings

—Painting by Joan Miró

—Today's Poems are by Neil Ellman, Livingston, NJ

THE SMILE OF THE FLAMBOYANT WINGS

(oil painting, 1953, by Joan Miró)
 

Better not to touch
the waves of a boiling sea
but skim above them
like an albatross
with flamboyant
outstretched wings
and move with the wind
sing of their victory
over time and tide
darkening the sun
with their feathery smile—
better to soar above the fray
than to feel the spray
of a malevolent sea.

 Hermitage

—Painting by Joan Miró

 

HERMITAGE

(oil painting and pencil, 1924, by Joan Miró)


Cloistered in my hermitage
surrounded by the toys
I have collected
in the hope that I would die
with them       my diversions
my trinkets       tin soldiers
animals stuffed like memories
in a pillow case
beneath the head of the child
I was       I am alone
as I watch them fade
their arms grown weak
and falling off—
what an irony it is
that they should die
and I should be alone
with their remains
in this my afterlife.

 Pierrot Lunaire

—Painting by Paul Klee
 


PIERROT LUNAIRE

(watercolor, 1924, by Paul Klee)
 
 
Pierrot performs a pantomime
of loneliness       at the midnight hour
his only companion the moon
without a light her own
but imitates the creases
and the secrets of his face
while he duplicates
her valleys and her seas
as if he knows the mysteries
behind her gaze.

Always apart       always lovers
in each other’s eyes and heart
they share an orbit around the sun            
that gave them union
and deprived them of their light.

 The Search for the Truth

—Painting by René Magritte



THE SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH

(painting, 1963, by René Magritte)
 

Truth is not a line
like a crow’s
from here to there
without a deviation
but a river flowing
to an unknowable sea
and meandering through
an impenetrable land.

Truth is (or was)
erratic        eccentric
as unpredictable
as a nighthawk’s flight;
it is what it is
or how it seems
to an inquisitive eye
through a telescope
or microscope
searching for something
that will never be      more
than illusion       and less
than the refraction of light
on bits of glass
at the far end of a kaleidoscope.

 The Last of the Mercenaries

—Painting by Paul Klee

THE LAST OF THE MERCENARIES

(watercolor, 1931, by Paul Klee)
 

                     I

In the War of Independence
he fought for the British side.

As a Ghurka boy from Nepal
he swore allegiance to the British Crown.

The French Foreign Legion recruited him
from the gutters of Paris and Dijon.

In Africa and Asia
he fought for anyone willing to pay.

                   II

He died somewhere
and lies without a coffin
or stone to mark the place
so far away from home
where no one knows his name.

 Intervision

—Painting by Roberto Matta Echaurren 
 
 

 INTERVISION

(painting, 1955, by Roberto Matta Echaurren)


You can see inside my soul
as if looking at an X-ray screen
and listen to my thoughts
as if they were spoken to you alone.

You can hear me speak the words
I could not speak
unless were placed upon my tongue
by another’s hands.

Intervision makes me seem
more real than I really am—
a shimmering image on a sheet of glass
a face without a name
with the substance of the air:
an empty substitute for a being.

_____________________ 


Our thanks to Neil Ellman for this fine ekphrastic breakfast that he has sent us this morning! Neil’s newest chapbook, Of Angels & Demons: The Art of Paul Klee as Poetry, now available from LuLu (www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=neil+ellman&type=) or Flutter Press (flutterpress2009.blogspot.com/search?q=neil+ellman).

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.

—Clive Barker, Days of Magic, Nights of War

____________________

—Medusa
 

 —Cover of Neil Ellman’s latest book

Celebrate poetry by reading, reading, reading, 

and then going over to the CSUS Writing Center 

 (Calaveras 128) today at 6pm for the “First Edition” 

of a new reading series, Sac State of Poetry,

 this one featuring Jason Shapiro, Stuart Canton,

and Phillip Barron, plus open mic. Scroll down to

the blue column (under the green column at the right) 

for info about this and other upcoming readings

in our area—and note that more may be added 

at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

What Does It Mean?

—Poems and Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THE BIRD OF LIFE
       
Somewhere in time a gold bird explodes.
It is all covered with fire.
It is falling into our burning eyes.
We can hear its bright wings screaming.
We respond with our mouths open and answering.
We can see its white eyes bore through crimson skies.
The clouds catch fire
and the cindered stars are reeling.
We stand in the color of this sight.
We have come together to celebrate this mourning.
Our hands are at our throats.
We can feel our pulses pounding in our fingertips.
We can see the great self
of the bird burn away, and we can see
what life is made of in its mysterious center.
The sky has caught fire.
We ignite in the infinite color.
The bird has been falling forever.
Every glinting fragment of it falls
into our rapidly beating hearts.

                                                
(first pub. in Galley Sail Review, 1967)
 
_________________

FALLING INWARD

Allow yourself one poem a day
Speak sadly of this.
Taste its meaning.

One day a poem will taste sadly to you,
test your crying, taste your tears.
Sweet tears for sadness,

one tear a day for sad remembering.
Tell someone,
or keep it to yourself for savor.

Savor one poem a day.
Write it yourself.
Do not give it meaning.

Let it grate—or soften
your hurt meaning.
Let it linger where it hurries—

to—or away. Let it go, then.
There is nothing to say in a poem.
Allow this.

Wing it with falling
if you fall inward.
How will this matter?

Do not ask a question.
Questions have no answers.
In a word is a poem. Begin it.

FRAGMENTATIONS
After “Some Questions” by Mary Oliver

First, it was a white page.
         Then a word fell on it,
                  like an accident.
       
Child of light
lives here, dressed in sugar,
with blue eyes she closes against my stare.
                                                  I know her.

The breathing wing
is fastened to a wire flown by a cruel child
who loves the broken bird—
the wind not strong enough to pull it free,
the sky too far—the love too strong.

      

All falling is slowed

into the illusion of falling,
like a mirror stealing your face for its own,
and you haunt yourself
   forever afterward

   
Half way through the word you remember
what it was you wanted to say.

It was a white page.
        A word fell on it,
             like an accident.

                                           
(first pub. in Galley Sail Review, 1967)

How can I see a waterfall
in
mind
and know
the depth of its fall—
from where
and into what,
or even imagine
the cold sound
and harsh spray
of its surging
shapes and colors
feel its force
and direction
that gathers into sound
to make a visual
of its roar
or silence?
Here, is abstract—
only my words create
this waterfall, in a
broken place now,
and filled
with such endless falling.

_________________

OBTRUSION (A Pirouette)

Once in the evening light
a speck appeared—wavered,
and grew: a falling bird
falling through my sight.

I did not want to know.
I did not want to know

this was death in disguise
finding the window of
my eye. The air gave way.
I watched the bird fall by.

PATTERN IN MESH


that  curve  in  the window-

screen — a gray finger-wave

against  the  pale  skull  of

the  sky — such  a  precise

pattern — caught  on  the

morning  window — at

just  the  right  angle —

I  turn  my  head  from

side  to  side  to  make  it

move — the  art  of  caught

light — a  falling-into-place

of  things — I move  it  back

and  forth, staring, mesmerized.

THE WEDDING PARTY

They will dance in the arms
of promise,
slow and sensual
in public shyness;
they will whirl softly
to a tune that will be theirs
for a memory
that they will weep to later.

But for now
her white dress will wrap around him
as they twirl;
his arm will hold her from falling;
the others will join in,
press near
and move away in unreality.

Soon they will slip away
into the life,
into the beginning;
they will slip away
to a car with cans and shoes
under a feast of rice-blessings,
under a wave of floating wishes;
they will blur away in a dust of hurry;
the child in her body
will be sleeping, sleeping;
they will drive away
into a few
or many years.

                                       
(first pub. in Pudding, 1995)

________________________

WEDDING
After “The Wedding” by June Jordan

They are caught in the long drift down together—
they are caught—trembling like two leaves in
a gold wind—warm in the light. They shine.
They almost love. They are caught in the
long drift down. They flutter softly to
the music—graceful and slow, as if
there was only this sweet falling—
no tree to memorize—no earth
to fall to—no grief to know.

WE HEAR THE FALLING
                
Like discord
under lovely sound
we listen . . .
bird and man
     share all such
     metaphor
     as soul
     migration
     wind in throat
     Phoenix-song
and deep within ourselves
as through the lift of wings
we hear the falling.
                     

(first pub. in Small Pond, 1957;
also Frog Perspective, Mini-Chap, 2002)

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

AWRY

We are at once alone and not alone,
oblique with sorrow,
caught in a seam.

You dance toward the center,
I catch your falling.
What does it mean?


(first pub. as a Poems for All #907;
also in Brevities, 2004)

____________________

Many thanks to Joyce Odam today for her riffs on the Seed of the Week: Falling. Her “Obtrusion” is in the form of a pirouette; if you’d like to try one, the pattern is a ten-line poem with a turn-around in the middle. That’s three stanzas in the pattern of 4 lines, 2 lines (the turn) 4 lines; each line is six syllables.

Our new Seed of the Week is Feathers. Send your poems, photos and artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for more SOWs than you can shake a pencil at.

And there’s a bonus SOW at the bottom of this page.

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about upcoming readings in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 

 Bonus Seed of the Week: Celebrate words by 

putting together some of these tricky ones

into a poem

to flex your writing muscles!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa. 

Lessons of Bone

Shootout on Main Street

Opening Ceremonies, World Gold Panning Championships,

Placerville, CA, Sept., 2016

—Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville

DON’T MISS IT
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

Way back in history before we
Had devised a word for “ancient”
We had become the chosen

An enterprising group of
Entrepreneurial extraterrestrials
Saw a nice, flat place to set up

Their giant RV and 5th wheel
Once a millennia sales spectacular
Right here on Earth

They advertised this big event
With all kinds of lights in the sky
And even let their kids bring

Flying saucers and leave
messages in the rocks and fields
It was all for fun

When the notions of 5th wheel
And flat place had bounced off
The humans for a while

Brain logic took over and the
Concept of flat earth cosmology
Would dominate for centuries 

PEACH
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento, CA

       after a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
   


Severed fruitfulness, disregarded
fragility.  Fuzz fallen, like little wing
hairs.  My lips tight, dared by
prospect of the dullish bruise
squeezing brown juice onto my
tongue; a sort of madness—
unable to eat a whole peach
because           a small dark patch has
evolved on what I love in purity, gifted
by the brown creased hands of the farm
laborer, who promises to pluck each
tidy yellow ball with concern and care,
and does so.  Yet, maybe, something
squeezed it, bumped, or heaven forbid,
it was thrown against a crate, jammed
in the corner, and now, I face this
little fruit.  But, all at once, as if awakened,
I see the flesh—clean and light, with
tiny tart red lines, peeled, cut, and sliced. 
I see my mother’s hands at work as I
save the peach.

 Wells Fargo Wagon
 

THE EXPERIMENTAL BEAGLES
—Tom Goff

, Carmichael, CA      

       The University of Missouri is defending its research
       practices after a national pet-adoption group publicly
       decried an experiment that led to six female beagles
       being euthanized.
                    —Associated Press



Their eyes, restored from the needle-stab and the acid,
gaze brownly benign at the naked mage laid flaccid,
the bringer of fire and wire and microchip
clamped wrist and ankle to the stonelike slab
where man-loosened gusts perform their unstable lab
test on skin: the knout of tornado, each windwhip a steel tip.
Mid-lightning, tricolor and lemon tails wag; they nose
the one who once mutilated their gazes, flung
them euthanized to their gehennas in kennelless rows.
One laps the human’s god-mask; the others’ tongues
peep from dewlapped mouths that salivate
at a banquet relinquishing eagles’ beaks and fate
have bequeathed them: feasts of man-liver the dogs gulp down,
their gusto appareling in a draining gown
of lappable red the frame of the torturer,
basting with love and appetite the skin-bronze
of doctor her, the ivory of scientist him. Great yawns
full-throated, full-bellied, almost satiate;
till revival comes dark-eyed and licking, the gut of the warder
supplying the pack’s communion, sweet limitless larder… 

 South Africa

RECORDER
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

Did I come to hear songs of the dead?
Crow rattled from a cottonwood losing its leaves.
Tarnished coin, it sounded like a handful
of buttons. On the fringes, a camp in a landscape
of saffron, ochre, scarlet of fall, a makeshift
home. Humans busy about their everyday
but somehow proud, beautiful. Always moving,
you humans, Crow said, reciting a long history
of migrations, the myth as bedrock of history.
Centuries of dust over bone to find where
you came from. Lessons of bone. Legend makes
fools of you all, he said in Crow, taking joy
in mimicking the guttural Raven. Where you
came from. Where will you go? These campers
gone by morning, the impermanence of all.
Cottonwood losing its leaves. Wind made wood-
song of their fall. Crow flew off to a piney
ridge, the green that stays. From the wander-
camp a recorder’s wavering song.

_________________

SILVER
—Taylor Graham

From a distance it looks like smoke
under clear autumn sky. A sound of bells
keeping rhythm with wind through the trees
like fluting. Who’s dancing? But
you weren’t answering.
You’d turned a different track 
out of sight, your mind curving away
to last night’s dream: a cabin
on hillside that kept running down to sea.
Everyone you’d ever known
was there but no one talking. Beware
of dreams. Just follow
the bells and flute, the silver rising
of smoke over a feast of singing dance.

FALLING
—Taylor Graham

He went to hunt the Grizzly, found it,
fought it; he was left for dead.
Horrifically clawed. But carrying the bear’s
hide, he returned to his village.
This is legend, tribal chief making friends
with all but the slave traders
who crossed the river; saving his people
from the pox, alcohol, and war.
This is legend. He kept his bear scars
to the end of life. He lives in the meadow
still, wandering among cedar tepee
replicas. I come in the quiet after crowds
to listen. He’s talking with ravens,
the creek, the wind, ripples on the pond.
They teach him healing with secrets
of air, water, rocks and stars
which go on falling and rising forever.

____________________

WILD GAME
—Taylor Graham

It isn’t illegal
yet
this penchant for pilfering
another poet’s
words even phrases
calling it influence/being
inspired by
borrowing playing with
not petty theft but word-lifting
a line-dance of sounds & meanings
a game of words dancing
with another poet
as near as
2 friends trading verses
or distant as sailing Homer's
wine-dark sea
this communal dance of 1
trying a new step
to songs of the ages of
this morning


(after “Poaching” by Loch Henson; see Medusa’s Kitchen 9/11/16)

A GOOD DAY
—Taylor Graham

The river keeps remaking its banks, revising 


its map, eroding away; releasing gold.

You’ve come to dip your pan in the current, 


snowmelt from upcountry, its till of bedrock.

Gold-rush river reflects in your eyes 


as you move upstream. Shovel and bucket,

pry-bar, sluice-box and pan. Your dog 


splashes in the waves, finds a way through

blackberry, alder and willow to a secret 


the river knows. You learn to read

the water, where it slows, how sand gathers 


downstream of boulders. You’ll spend

hours. Shake, dip, and swirl, until you’re 


getting down to color. Past mica’s glitter,

garnets and lead—and at the bottom, 


heavy gold specks in black sand. At last,

the color that settles in your pan is sunset, 


ripples moving down-current to find

a dark door the river cuts through granite. 


You’ll say to sundown, It was a good day.

Pack your gear, load up—wet dog and all. 


Head home under gold flecks of stars.


(in honor of the World Gold Panning Championships, 2016,
held in Placerville, CA Sept. 11-18)
 
_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE ART OF FALLING
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA

By February
It covered all of Illinois—
Glare ice, black ice.
Everyone fell.  Though
Two things to keep
In mind: tuck palms and
Elbows as you went down;
Roll.  The other, try
To fall with grace, as though
You intended it, as though
Balanchine choreographed
It.  Most people
Achieved Pinky Lee

_____________________

Our thanks to today’s poets for their fine Monday brunch in the Kitchen—including some musings on our Seed of the Week, Falling—and to Taylor Graham for her photos of the opening ceremony for last week’s World Gold Panning Championships which were held in Placerville (www.eldorado2016.com/). This year’s theme: Parade of Nations. For her description of the ceremony, at which she read a poem as El Dorado County Poet Laureate, go to www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry/?fref=ts.  And see Medusa’s Facebook page for a new photo album by TG, pictures of the actual Championship events themselves at www.facebook.com/pages/Medusas-KitchenRattlesnake-Press/212180022137248?fref=ts.

Thanks also to Tom Goff for his heart-wrenching poem about experimental animals. Last week I was talking about writing poems that scare you, and poems about animal suffering are definitely that for me. (Tom says this poem surprised him with its intensity!) Don Feliz’s poem posted last Friday about the death of his partner is another example. l It’s not easy to write about the hard stuff—thanks, guys.

This week’s poetry in our area begins at Sac. Poetry Center tonight, 7:30pm, with Martha Ann Blackman releasing her new book, The Memory Within, plus a reading by Jeffrey Kingman and an open mic. Wednesday will introduce the “First Edition” of Sac State of Poetry, readings from the CSUS poetry community, this one featuring Jason Shapiro, Stuart Canton, Phillip Barron plus open mic, 6-7pm in the Writing Center (Calaveras 128) at CSUS. Thursday will be Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe, of course, with its features and open mic, 8pm. On Friday, Sac. Poetry Center presents a book launch reading/celebration for Stanley Zumbiel’s new book, Standing Watch. On Saturday, Sacramento Voices will mark its fifth anniversary from 10am-4pm by celebrating the international event, 100K Poets for Change, and on Sunday, Mosaic of Voices will feature Reyna Grande and Maceo Montoya at 3pm (instead of the usual 2pm). For more about 100K Poets for Change, go to www.100tpcmedia.org/100TPC2012

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming readings in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

And congratulations to Sacramento’s Laverne Frith and to Allegra Silberstein of Davis for winning book awards this past Saturday from Artists Embassy International at Dancing Poetry in San Francisco!

_________________

—Medusa

Celebrate new books, including Martha Ann Blackman’s 

latest, The Memory Within, a collaboration with designer 

Laura Jane Coats—a prose poem about the importance of 

knowing our connection to all things.


 

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa. 
 

Beginning

—Anonymous Photo

BEGINNING
—James Wright (1927-1980)

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.  
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying
Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.

___________________

—Medusa, reminding you that Mosaic of Voices presents Penny Kline and Arturo Mantecón today at Avid Reader at Tower, 1600 Broadway, Sac., 2pm.

For a list of “poems to read as the leaves change and the weather gets colder”, go to Poetry Foundation’s www.poetryfoundation.org/features/articles/detail/68561

A Handful of Buttons

—Painting images today are by TJ Owens
—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA

LITTLE MOVEMENTS

What, the way the coast comes upon us.
We topped a ridge of wild roses and nasturtiums
And the ocean was there forever, white teeth
Of waves crashing into dark rocks.  The explosive
Music or water against the end of land.

The arrow never reaches the mark.  It is sightless
In its sleep through the air, sliding though centuries
Of dust, a kaleidoscope of once-spangled time left
Blowing through gossamer webs, the light entertaining
Itself over and over again, bouncing light to the bottom
Of the well.  I use the reflections to show you violets

Very nearly the shape of the world.
We put our ears to the great stone walls.
We can hear the ages trapped in the granite.
I chance to look into your eyes.  I can hear
Great distances far behind their amazing depth.

____________________

WE MAY DIE FOR LOVE OF THESE THINGS

These were soldiers.  We have found
The bones.  What do we know of such things?
Ramon has found a handful of buttons,
Some rotted cloth, a dagger, rusted and silent.

In the tales of battle, there were two black swans.
They once had names.  Let me call your name.
There were portents.  Three cats, tales of Maine
Morgor from the old books, when armies fell
Upon one another and what were tears then?

Nothing, my sweet children.  Do not trouble with war.
What comes into your house will be brave.
Let no bad work come to stain your walls.

I got up this dawn and made some coffee.
The sounds of the killing went through my body.
And now, here on the lip of the morning, bones.
Bones so old they should teach us lessons.
Broken shields, skulls smashed beyond dreaming.

We cannot stay here.  The fires rise up around us.
We tell these children, “Know the faces of your companions.
Know the way they formed words in their mouths.
Take joy in the language that they speak.  Learn
The breathing they bring to your spirit.
We may die for love of all these things
That you may know them without blood."

The sweet smell of pine trees just as dawn
Comes before us.  We arm ourselves and go
Toward what we think is beautiful and proud.
We are the fools of legends, dead
Within all of the stories.  Lost to you.
Bones like these, white and without
Any song at all.  A handful of buttons. 

THE SONGS OF THE DEAD

I was living here before the earthquake
And tsunami.  There is only rubble here
Now.  This is no longer a place.
The dreams have been pounded out
Of the things we knew.  Now the sea
Is flat.  There are no longer rooms
In which we can be safe.

What is amazing is that the sea is flat.
The tsunami wrenched it awry and covered
It as far as one could see with gyres of debris.

These are all the songs of the dead and are sung
At every chance.  The wind says where
To stand to get the best acoustics.

What is amazing is that the songs never stop.
“Dropping from the veils of the morning.”
I find myself walking in a dream.
I am a white deer.  I am supposed to meet someone.
They have gone to sea and have been gone a long time.

I remember seeing the buildings shaking, tumbling.
I recall hearing the tsunami coming toward the shore.
I remember the dead riding on the lips of the tsunami.

What is amazing is that these words are here at all.
The sea is flat.  The songs fill the air.  I stand
With my feet in the water at the edge of the sea.
Beyond all of this, I imagine you reading these words.

____________________

THE SILVER BELL

“… a static line that danced now
and then like a drunken cemetery.”
                              —Richard Brautigan


The dream was running on tiny silver rails
That looked like railroad tracks
But were much closer together,
As dreams don’t need a very wide track.

Of course it curved away, out of sight
Long before it came to the horizon.
No one would notice it but me anyway
And I’m only telling you this so you
Can get to the part where the clouds
Begin to bring in all their luggage,
Plop it down near the mountain
That is on fire and then go out for more.

They aren’t doing much of anything.
At first they look like smoke
From the fire and the next minute
Like they are going to pour rain
Like nobody’s business.

You probably noticed there aren’t
Any people in here except me.
That is because the dream was about
A beautiful silver bell and I haven’t
Got to that part yet.

The wind picked up and got so
Strong it lifted the tracks off the ground.
I was running as fast as I could
To grab at the tracks and pull
Them back down to the ground
So the dream wouldn’t get interrupted.

Just as I made the top of the curve
I saw it hanging in the air like
A harrier falcon, except it wasn’t
A bird at all or anything like it.
It shone beyond my entire imagination.
Just hanging below all those clouds
And just above the tracks,
The most beautiful silver bell
You have ever seen.

WHAT THE CROW SAID

I will not talk to you just because
You are talking to me.
I’ve heard a lot of what
You have said regarding
Crows in general.

None of you people
Have any idea of what
We do everyday.

We often do the final
Job, when the buzzards
Aren’t interested or the
Work is too much
Of a bother for them.

We find you interesting
At best and a real pain
Most of the time.

We do belong to the night.
You’ve noticed our beautiful
Color.  All us black birds
Belong to the night.

We are here to remind you.
When you remember things
You may now know
It is because of us.

Look up to the morning sky.
Look up to the evening sky.
We pass in great numbers.
Beware of what you dream,
Should we visit you there.

UNDER THE WIND

The Night has somehow developed
Its own mind and chooses to occupy
What small room I call my own here.

A second-story apartment, small
By many standards, above a former church.
Tonight I am filling it with Rachmaninov’s
Vespers, a choral work that recalls liturgy
With a chorus unaccompanied by instruments.

And now the Night wants a piece of this.
Nothing personal, I am sure.
It loops in through the open windows
This cool and autumn fragile evening
And begins naming the nameless,
The things Night can never know well,
Morning, afternoons, worlds lost in equations
Made by weather and the soft sound crickets
Make in late September, their own kind of vespers.

A glow that has nothing to do with the moon.
Nameless, it finds its way into this room,
Moves through it, in windows, out of windows,
Never bothering to consult the wind about anything.

I will greet it.  I am alone this evening.
Lost in the impermanence of all things.
Contemplating why the Night might want
To behave in this manner, quickening
My blood, causing me to go down the stairs
To the outside and stand inside its body,
Full of stars and broken clouds.

I give myself a prayer.
I will call it sunrise.
I will move to greet it. 

 Rapids near Horseshoe Falls, the Niagara Falls, NY

THE HUNGERING BOX

Near the end of the story
We could see that here was fire
On the mountains.  The air itself
Was a gray-blue shroud tossed
Over our heads, a demon,
A full-rigged ship of clouds and smoke.

We struggled to complete the story
Before it was too late.  I was not brave.
I could see my shadow on the ground.
It too looked like smoke.  I thought of killing
Myself but I could not leave my shadow
Here alone.  The waters began to overtake
Me.  I would not wait for the end of the story.

The whole story is dripping with blood,
A mythology canonized by yesterdays,
Hints of nothingness, whispered over
And over again without end.  Only
The fire persists as the ashes fall
From the sky, as the ocean too
Becomes a gray mask, its own oblivion.

 Terripin Tower near the Niagara Falls, NY, early 1900's

Today’s LittleNip:

Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself and listen to it.

—Richard Brautigan

____________________

Many thanks to D.R. Wagner for whipping up a mighty fine breakfast for us this morning! The painting images he sent us are by TJ Owens, an artist who lives in Walnut Grove part of the year and in Sauve, France the rest of the year. The series is called "D.R. Wagner, Stuart Walthall and TJ Owens on Stuart's front porch". For more about TJ and his art, see www.saatchiart.com/tjowens

—Medusa

D.R. Selfie

—Celebrate poetry, and the fine poets who surround us 

in our community! This afternoon, head up the hill to 

Placerville for Poetry Off Main, featuring Cynthia Linville 

and Chris Olander, plus open mic, at the Fausel House Gallery, 

3-5pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green 

column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming 

readings in our area—and note that more may be 

added at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.