When I Was a Crane

—Poems by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
—Original Art by Joyce

FILLING THE WOOD BOX

the swans are crying unto the northwest
in bright sunlight
the ragged V of them
pointing the way through winter

you hear them see them first call me out
to say See! and we stand watching
turning like figures of a wind-vane
our hands in salute to shade our eyes

the swans stretching out their long bodies
are making such strange little cries
my innermost Oh! leaps up in sadness for them

the wind has glitters of ice in it
the swans have found their way over
morning is sharp as glass upon us
                                 

(first pub. in New Salt Creek Reader)

WEB OF SUNLIGHT
               “Your own shadow sits in silent study”
                                     —Charles Simic
 
You sit in your yellow shadow in brazen sunlight,
haunted by the dark eyes of my watching. You
glow for me, now that you are aware of
my staring. You almost burn with the
shimmer of blindness—how can I
turn away?—I have yet to love
you. The light forms around
you with such fierceness.
I must penetrate the light
with my possessive eyes.
You emanate and draw me
in. Now I am in the blaze with
you—the web of sunlight holding
us together till I am merely a vibration and
you are a stunning presence waiting to absorb me.

________________

MORNING GHAZAL

Somehow the dream does not hold past the dreamer.
Her relinquished sleep is in shreds.

Morning is acute with gray light through which
a dark invisible bird is somehow singing.

The trees quiver apart and shadows flutter out . . .
nothing is as certain as such astonishment.

A black cat walks across the pavement,
avoiding the lines. Perhaps it is a superstitious cat.

The dogs from next door begin their tedious barking;
there are no more roosters in the neighborhood.

In the kitchen, the windowsill figurines
begin their daily routine of watching her.

A telephone rings from so far away
it takes one ring too few for her to reach it.

MELODRAMAS

stories of love
that’s what they are
stories

and the
readers and watchers
believe the stories and
fall into their spell

changing their expectation
to the plot direction
of the stories

_________________

COPING

she is nude
in the open window of her life
making a face at the world
laughing at its outrage
shouting obscenities at it
when it dares to presume upon her
with its eyes

she is older each morning
watching herself grow heavy
before the daily mirrors
watching herself
the way life watches art

her sensitivities are wound
like wings in web
she flails and struggles
she stays calm
she thinks her way out of
her predicament

each day she admires another layer
her laughter shines like
dew upon the web
her clever escapes
are what she sings about


(first pub. in Dusty Dog, 1991) 

BLUE WOMAN
After Georgia O’Keefe (blue woman)

There are many like you :
woman without strings,
woman estranged
from the old notions of ownership.

You move in feather-light
and blaze of color,
twisting yourself into a dance
free of metric direction.

Color swirls around you,
alive with your power.
You are becoming new shape
and song—your own.

Stillness waits,
watching your intensity
like a mirror waiting to catch you.
though you are beyond mirrors.

___________________

OH VANISHING SMALL FIELDS

When I was that crane, stand-
ing in my perfect balance, in
a shallow field-lake, and the
stillness held me—forever,
that long moment—as long
as a glance, and a gray wind
ruffled against me as I stood
watching my ruffling shadow,
and I let myself be taken by
the admiration of others watch-
ing me—I knew I was doomed.
I knew I would have to lift,
suddenly and alone, into time’s
sad distance, would have to
leave my perfectly balanced
shadow behind and never return
to this one last field of
swayed and deciphering grasses,
that I would startle and feel
my own life hollowing-out
as the small field disappeared—
where would I go?  How would I
not grieve for this?  For all
my life, I had been taken ser-
iously as a thing of beauty—
to view from afar—in passing.
Is that not still true, oh, van-
ishing small fields?  Is that
not still true?


(first pub. in In the Grove, 1999)

ON WATCHING A CROW
CROSS THE STREET

It’s bird in flight
we marvel at—
not bird on ground,

in hop,
in strut,
in awkward walk—

the pecking motion
of the head—but bird in
sky—on wing—outspread

__________________

TIME’S OWN CHILDREN

In the painting, the children are asleep in the quiet
afternoon. They lie across each other like tossed dolls—
two rumpled girls, having worn themselves out talking
and giggling. And now the hour loosens its light around
them and they stir; they realize I am watching them,
though I have been sitting here, drowsily, making sketches.
It is as if they knew I would come and find them there. It is
how they look at me. They rise from their sweaty pillows
and move, dream-like, toward me, their eyes holding my
eyes, their faces strangely serious, and when they reach me,
they take my hands and draw me back with them toward
the shaded porch. But we must hurry, for a border is closing
in around us—a feeling only, for the yard stretches clear to
the formless and spacious end of itself. I do not speak to
them for I do not want to break the curious spell of their ac-
ceptance of me. They pull on my hands to get me to go
faster—the day’s light is changing and they seem alarmed.
Insistently tugging, they keep looking up at me, and I realize
they are pulling me from a familiar distance that has separ-
ated us until now. I move without sensation. For a moment I
wonder if I should be afraid of them. Now we have reached
the house—still not having spoken—where they pull me in-
side the old screened porch where we lie down together—
three time-blessed children, asleep in the quiet afternoon.

SIMPLE THINGS

Fragmentary. This old light out of older light. Repetitions.
Believe in it. Let it lead you into its farther self. You can
go as deep as you dare. Its name is night. It has many stars.
Count them. Take forever. A child sits watching you, blow-
ing soap bubbles into planets. Wings without angels fly
everywhere. Oh, this is such a night. Go with joy, that old
foe of sorrow. Tell the child not to cry. The child does not
listen. The child rubs an old tear into its eye, watching you
for pity. You are both lost and at home in this night-city
which has opened up its wing for you. Do not try to under-
stand this—you are not here. The child has dreamed you.
Hold the child until you die.


(first pub. in Blue Violin, 1999)

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

TWO SLEEPERS
—Joyce Odam

two sleepers
          by owl-edge        
                        eye between

watching the night
         move through them        
                        like dreams

____________________

Many thanks to Joyce Odam for today’s fine poems and pix! Her swans, her crane and her crow (and is that an owl in the LittleNip?) triggered thoughts about the meaning of wings, so our new Seed of the Week is Wings. The more you list, the more you can think of: birds, butterflies, bugs, airplanes, angels. Icarus. Zeus. The Internet (cyberwings). Paul McCartney’s group. Mendelssohn’s “On Wings of Song”. Surely you can think of more!—though of course your mind will leap out of this boring daily concrete into the soaring metaphoric. 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 plenty to choose from.

—Medusa

Celebrate your poetry!

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
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The Watchers

—Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

THE WATCHFUL OAKS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

They stood over what was once
a literary society’s dance and social hall.
The town’s not mythical, just hard to pinpoint
on a road that twists and dips to creeks and
rises under overhanging oaks—tall, graceful
Valley Oaks. How could the town exist
without its oaks? They watched as the building
rose more than a hundred years ago—hall
for dances with a live band. They
watched as literary society gave way
to post office with a zipcode. At last, one
of the great old oaks crashed down
on the building in storm, and another tree
with it. Still, the mail must go through,
while all around, mythical oaks
stand guard and cloak what man has done,
so you’d hardly know it’s a town.

____________________

THIS MORNING
—Taylor Graham

short of hurricane,
not quite berserk it blew clear
into living bones

whistle like willow
in a wind weaving branches
baskets of water

logic a wool scarf
knit up tight to press the throat
in a ribbing itch

one ancient live oak
split open laid its half-self
down across the drive

a bird blew by in spite of
its wings—we held breath like wind 

HORSE WATCH
—Taylor Graham       

Parents would shake their heads,
wonder when we’d grow up and get serious
about serious stuff. We loved
dogs and anything with hooves, and
words that rhymed or not, but made sense
in a westwind sort of way.
We rode our imaginations bareback.
We never grew up.
But now it’s come to this—
no cowboy-poetry for the town’s old-west
event. Let’s meet on Main Street
anyway, watch for the teams coming
down the mountain; stand on the corner,
ears tuned for hooves on pavement
drumming the heart.
We’ll read horse poems
to each other and anybody else
who cares to listen. And as we watch
the first big black Percheron
come into view—a wagon-teamster’s Pegasus—
we’ll be flying 17-hands-high on horses
of our never-grown-up dreams.

NIGHTMARE—JANUARY 19, 2017
(After William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming”)
—Ann Wehrman, Sacramento, CA
 
whirling and whirling, black circles on gray
move out of the forest
out of time, from past or future
cannot know, dare not say
turning, progress ever closer
from far away, arrival imminent
vortex of death

powerless in its path
I beat on the door 
immense stone building
enter a shop inside, approach clerk
choke on my message—
no time: shelter, duck, cover 

BEHOLD
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

Today a very learned public servant
Who shed light where he walked
Respectfully gave up his chair
To an older, whiter, businessman

Whose obsession with power
Cast the shadow of a hostile takeover
Dimming the typically hopeful tones of
An inauguration speech

Oh, is that what it was?
Four years of this?
Electoral College
Blah, blah, blah

If his unartful political being
Has to eat humble pie
He will top it with liberal scoops
Of his favorite ice cream

Just one voice in a larger-than-life
Choir of self gratification
Good job!  You’re the best!
Relax, you’ve earned it!

While he is busy
Knocking down sand castles and
Stripping beach babes naked
All for the fun of it

We can be hard at work
Educating voters
Rebuilding our dreams
Awakening the force

Today’s LittleNip:

The orphan boat of my heart
Crosses the unsteady, undulant
Ocean of Time.

—Ping Hsin (trans. by Kenneth Rexroth and Ling Chung)

_____________________

Our thanks to today’s fine contributors! Taylor Graham sends us her haiku sonnet (“This Morning”), an intriguing combination of forms which she found on Robert Lee Brewer’s blog, Poetic Asides, which he does for Writer’s Digest; see www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides, which includes every-Wednesday prompts. Note that she and Katy Brown will be holding the Wakamatsu workshop this Sunday in Placerville—the one that was postponed earlier this month due to weather.

Area poetry events begin tonight with Marcelo Hernandez Castillo and Rose Martinez (plus open mic) at Sac. Poetry Center, 7:30pm. Also tonight, the monthly Poetry in Motion read-around takes place in Placerville, 6-7pm. Then on Friday at 7:30pm, Carlena Wike and Susan Kelly-DeWitt will read at The Other Voice in Davis, plus open mic. Then another of Placerville’s read-arounds, this one called Poetic License, will meet at the Placerville Sr. Center from 2-4pm on Saturday, and on Sunday, the American River Conservancy in Placerville will host “Capturing Wakamatsu: A Poetry Workshop” from 10am-12noon with Taylor Graham and Katy Brown. (This event was moved from January 8 due to weather.) Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

And speaking of Trump (were we?), check out www.steinershow.org/podcasts/e-ethelbert-miller-art-in-the-time-of-trump and see what you think.

____________________

—Medusa

 Celebrate poetry, which brings order out of chaos!

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When Time is a Cave

—Photo by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THE CHOREOGRAPHY IN WINTER
(After “Arctic Heart” Poem Cycle by Gretel Ehrlich)

—Joyce Odam
 
She is the dancer made of light.
He is the shadow to which she molds.
Both are the same movement,
entwined and separate.

Folds and folds of soft blue envelop them:
the sky and the sea; the blue earth into which 

they evolve.

Softly the music follows like the echoes of old 

voices, the lost sad cries, and the repetitions.
   
These are the hands of air reaching toward other 

self—endlessly there; they open
and close like mouths of wordlessness.
   
This is the grope of silences worn over
hearts of joy and hearts of sorrow.
Nothing will ease the tension of love.
It is the dance.

She goes toward a motion in the dark.
He follows. It is another blue.
Another cloth of time.
It hangs still, then billows.
   
The living creatures of sorrow appear
and are vain. They want their turn.
They flow and lift in exquisite precision.
   
They steal the dance; and the ones
who cannot dance steal them.
It is an agony of souls
who have found each other.

Light is the ghost here, repeats itself
until the floating is memorized
and the sensation is known,
even as the next movement begins.
   
The blue cloth does not end; it is 
the mother of weeping;
it contains all there is of invisible music
that comes from everywhere.

She is weariness that does not exist.
He is the alter-energy. Together they
form a continuation even as the stage
becomes what they escape from
and what they escape to.
   
Put the two bodies together now
before they dissolve past recognition—
blue ice and white ice—black ice—
the scar of their experience,
or is this only another recognition?
   
A ghost face with bleak eyes looks in to
the room where they dance. It is a dream. The 

face is an old bone sculpture.
Its presence is inevitable.
They dance to it and around it.
   
Mirrors do not live here.
They long ago lost their meaning
became the continuous blue
through which another color insinuated.
   
The ache of cold waits for them to
end this futility. She will refuse it—
contorts to suggest the agony of self.
   
There is a trust to remember;
it borrows light to repair light.
The curtain tears again.
Light will mend it.
Nothing pours in but more blue.
It is the music.
   
Love is the experience;
they give it to one another,
tell it again all winter, when time is a cave, when 

there is nothing but
the one word to say to each other.
   
Now their motion swirls like echoes,
though they are motionless.
Light pours around them, melting.
The vast blueness extends beyond silence. Time 

quivers and is gone. Applause.
 

_______________________

—Medusa (thanks, Joyce!)

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Joining the Endless Tides

D.R. Reading at Sac. Poetry Center

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

CANTICLE DESCRIBING WONDER

Who was it joined the hurricane
To the canticle describing wonder?
Clipping it to centuries long gone
And a hand constantly thought of
As a tree pulled from a landscape
Martyrs might enjoy, notes torn away
From the piano, working temporarily as birds.

A glittering air formed of an immense poetry
Where nothing appears but a singular
Consciousness in the form of an umbrella,
A green mind, then changed by metaphor
To a clear spot in the forest loaded
With medieval trappings and a presence.

A bell-like sound across the square
Where we sit on green chairs
And pretend to be waiting for something.

We watch the hurricane unlock itself
And deliver a blank wall of pure rain.
We have forgotten all about words.  We join
Hands and sway side to side, humming.

 Balcony in Locke, CA
 

HOLES IN THE SKY

When I pressed myself toward waking
I discovered that some of the rooms
Of my dream had been eaten away,
Large chunks had gone missing.

The parts with the steep steps leading
To the sea, the twilit room where the
Lady sat crying, holding the long-tailed lamb,
The hills where one could see how large
The fires were as they swept toward the towns,
Nothing on earth able to stop them.

A hunger was left in my bones because of this.
I could hear a historic wind wind through my skull
As I reached for coffee, searched to find where
The window looking upon the fields had gone.

Holes in the sky, something peering through
Them from speechless realms, carrying weapons
The likes of which I had never seen before,
Clouded with forgetfulness and trailheads that
I had seen once in youth that had been stolen,
Used to make fires to cook food upon, the smell
Of roasting meat swelling the morning air.

And now this, an aching within my body
Overarching all but the eyes of the highest
Hawk, the screeching bird, seeking thoughts
Smaller than voles to feed upon, and I tried
To run back to the sheds of sleep and the coolness
Of streams hurrying down the hillsides
Eager to see the sea, to join the endless tides.

Birding on the Delta with Stuart Walthall

ONE ROOM IS A HOUSE

Creeping out among the branches
To know your name, I am above you now.
This is like breathing.
The support we feel when
We recognize our name on
A list of things that may be
Eternal, a whispering in a hallway
That we do not understand.

We watch the lightning strike
The trees in the garden,
The fountain.  Oh who will tell
Me if I am dreaming?

I look through the long lists of the saints.
They had no idea at all if they were
Dreaming.  I discover my face
In a book of rare engravings kept by
The captain of a long-ago disappeared ship.

 Decoy
 

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

A primitive land that leaves
Nothing much behind.  It owns
The Winter sky and displays it
In the dance a willow tree
Chooses to describe a wind.

I would try flight but who would
Understand?  Even the birds do not
Know why, and it is not everything
To them.  Huddled close to a tree
Trunk, knowing when the wind departs
It will once again be time to find
Seeds just beneath the snow.

They have black heads and blacker eyes
And carry maps made of their bones
That tell them where to go.

So I, come here late and without guile
Still detect a primitive ecstasy in
The noises of the crows, the impatience
Of the weather, the scolding I endure
From all imagination for calling this reality. 

 Alley in Locke, CA

A POSSIBILITY OF BREATH
                               for W. Stevens

This space between here and the clouds
Seems careless but for fleeting beauty
And a wharf for docking weary eyes
To something not covered with the dust.
A dreamt majesty that doesn’t
Stare but remains an argument
That there is a sweet, staring
Distance between all things.

Waking as we do from whatever
Uncertain depths we
Direct ourselves in so-called sleep,
We find the wide heaven,
This sparkling haven where we no
Longer need make choices
But use the energy we have gathered
To quell time’s complaints about
Everything that is not dead,
Forgetting even our own names,
Living here without bodies to see
“The low owl plummet, rising of the morning.” 

 Parmigianino

SUNLIGHT

I am sunlight on the surface of the ocean.
I too am the ocean itself,
Streaming to the very bottom
And tracking all that moves within me.

I am the tears of children.
I am the fjords leaning deeply into
The land.  I can see the high cliffs.
I am the the songs of the beasts within my body.

And I can speak their words.
And I can know their language.
And I can move with storms.
And I can move with romantic calmness.
And I can carry the burden of the loveliest
Of breezes within my wave troughs.

I can capture the light of the lighthouses and guide
The ship and soul back to the rooms
Away from the wind to sit before
The fire while night rages against
Everything, and I can tell you of these
Things, for I am the sunlight on the surface
Of the ocean.

___________________

Today’s LIttleNip:

BLUE
—D.R. Wagner

I will tell you all about blue,
But there is little to say
For the ocean and the sky
Say everything for me and I
See it on the smoke rising
From the fires toward evening,
And yes, floating in your eyes. 

_________________

D.R. is ill right now, so he sent us photos and asked that we post some of his earlier poetry. These poems appeared on Medusa in 2012.

Don’t forget that Aiesha Jones and Carol Frith will read this afternoon at Sacramento Voices at Sac. Poetry Center, 4:30pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Celebrate!

(Anonymous Photo)

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
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$uper$eeking

Earth Orbit

—Poems and Visuals by Smith, Cleveland, OH

STATUS REPORT 129

I take in the mourning moon
the fog moon
the snow moon
the beaver moon
after the blood moon
after the blue moon supermoon fool moon
prepping brain for winter
purging body for soul
service for the solstice
sacred for the sign
of shedding wayward potions
and the unkind mind

 Circuit Diver

SISYPHUS ENOUGH

It's an everyday thing
or less
this eating
this sleeping
this cleaning washing
going coming
the coming gone
up and down and down and up
even love is built day by day
then rebuilt
as hope is used
then recharged, re-fused, re-used

In every way
the circle eats itself
then excretes itself to re-eat
in endless repeat
day by day

 Storyboard

LIFE WITH WIFE 2

So strange,
I'm sitting quiet in my chair
and this beautiful young woman walks by,
stops,
leans over, kisses me,
and walks on.
This has been happening for 11 years now.
I wonder who she is,
and how she got in?

 Igotdabluez

CHARITY

We don't have much
Not enough for mouth to month
But wife gives of what we have
To others with less

The poor are more gracious than the rich
Who give bigger
From their greater
Yet matter less

There's pain in giving
There's pain in not giving
She's priming the pump
Betting on living

 Quantumfluxcat

SCAT BOX

Going through 1500 poems
left from the untossed or lost past 53 years
I see a lot of dead Smiths
castoff skins
-- drunk Smith
-- mainline Smith
-- cocaine Smith
-- Nyquil Smith
-- celibate Smith
-- fat Smith
-- smash Smith
all true at time
but lost left outgrown
or simply re-known
yet those dead shed snake skin Smiths
often unworthy insensitive sly
selfish weak wandering
needed to be
to get me to me
further down the line
those thens to these nows
just as imperfect present be
grows better future me
cuz me now
know me ow
and wheres and whens need fixing.

Of course knowing ain't doing
and moving ain't done
but doing the pruning
lets in more sun.

 Pastimperfect

WAITING AT THE STATION

Reading bad man news
when lone train moan
faint from the Flats
whispers in my ear
"There's a better way down the line
if only you would go."

Been hearing that same wail
since it crept up the mountain
of my youth.

"Come down the track
where you'll fit in
where they'll like you
where you'll like you
where life makes more sense."

Been saving for my ticket ever since.

 Futuresight

$UPER$OLD

"True light is in the funnel"
sang sweet Alice as she fell
on one too many mushrooms
in the darkroom of the dell
past the pourous tunnel
to the land of $uper$ell.

"Best not affect the cave,"
the Caterpillar coos
simper smile slipping
in dripping dollar drool
the latest of new lies
supplied from $uper$ly.

Instead I count my blessings
seek not their golden touch
no slum within my messing
my inner light's too much

There's money in the mountains
much more money in the sea
supposed to seep to seeker
in this land of money tree
not wise to be a meeker
in this game of $uperBe

Best bow to golden beacon
than hang amongst the meek
who know not what they beckon
as they walk these hungry streets
unbowed before the bacon
down here in $uper$eek


... with lots of echo - 5:54, 2012, Peter Ball music, Smith word&voice. Hear it at 
www.reverbnation.com/mutantsmith/song/14394020-uperold 

 e10

____________________

Today’s LittleNip(s):

LIVIN’ OLD LIES

I says’m as I sees’m
Seize not what sold as sum

Hadn’t done, wouldn’t be
Do what told be gone

~ ~ ~

LIZARD BRAIN WANTS!

I'm down to strong grass
and strong coffee
and I'm out of grass.

Time to sage the soul.

_____________________

Our thanks to Smith (Steven B. Smith) for his poems and visuals as he continues to recuperate from spinal surgery.

Sacramento Poet Susan Kelly-DeWitt writes to say that Mudlark publication just went live online with her Tectonics, a group of eleven of her poems. Check it out at www.unf.edu/mudlark/posters/kelly-dewitt.html/.
 
—Medusa

 Oaxaca Mary by Smith

(Celebrate!)

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Crazy Songs Under the Stars

 Robin
—Anonymous Photos

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

EXPECTATIONS

Forgetting it's dawn
with its daily tasks
and the hands at five A.M.
on my grandfather clock
I leave for Vermont
feeling alive
carrying my sax
along these woods
of leafed Maples
not with a condemned look
at any frog or toad
where pines, mimosa,
phlox run by Skylight
Pond Trail head
near Goshen Brook Road
but who asks anything more
as we climb ever closer
in the morning fog
to the Green Mountains
and relax in nature
where bees are whirling
by the Evergreen trees
and a phalanx of birds
are basking in the sun
after the fog lifts
from a gaunt sky, clouds
and when first light is done
by riverbeds
feeling famished
I play riffs on my tenor sax
our fearless crowd is to dine
with some plain cheese Danish,
and almond croissants
with bottles of red wine
delivered to other tourists
watching robins rise
over our heads
until we are finished
standing nearby to visit
a poet from Montreal
at the French restaurant cafe
near an ice fishing pond
amid these waters of Vermont
as birds fly in branches
amid a breeze from Birch trees
as our crowd is searching
near by a park bench
thrilled at a dog rescue
of a slippery shih tzu
by Lake Champlain
when our prayer wishes
will not delay but rock true.

 Hermit Thrush, Vermont State Bird
 

JUST ASKING

Just asking for the sun
to shine
on the barely naked trees
masking snow
in the dead wintry air
taking my leaves
visiting a Vermont poet
in a skilled lettered occupation
with her toddler moving
by her unwilling wheelchair
thanking her this winter
for a standing invitation
that’s still
in my pea jacket pocket
since the spring
yet understanding
Andrea's deep regret
of how she fell
feeling sleepy
over at the ski hill
looking for a locket
in the January thaw
of shadowy white
deposits from the sky
we are both wanting
a cheese croissant
and a cup of red wine
near these ski riverbeds
in Stowe at an early hour
we're swaying
with a prayer's echo
by a Bay's tree branches
and a single geranium
on the glassy window
over her balcony
by a bell tower shadow.

RESCUE ON CAPE COD

Whether turtles
stranded on the beach
up from islands
within our reach
lost in the cold waves
or a humpbacked whale
there is no furlough
on Cape Cod
now back from the gazebo
as we sail on a boat
or kayak
to a rescue
as we leave the dunes
to care for
injured animals
or floating mammals
with our first aid kits
and tourniquets
in our fingers and bones
as a God squad
shapes us
by a chorus of birds
stirring us with energy
under a jagged sun
to free mammals, animals
and humpback whales
as our goal
by creatures without hope
held by human string
and enfolded rope
with new photos
spotted and featured in sight
we save our own souls
as nature would direct
creatures to rise alive
upon or beneath the sea
as if it were our lives instead
in our own paradise to atone
for years of human
cruelty and neglect
with a new liberty
as understood
and to select those barely alive
with their underwater lungs
from our neighborhood
now with hope
to survive and thrive
who would be hung
by string or rope.

 Seabirds, Cape Cod
 

PLYMOUTH HARBOR

Catching a glimpse
of a humpbacked whale
in a heavy mirage of winds
which seem to increase
as we sail in my kayak
with a friend
from Greenpeace
memory logs in
Plymouth's home harbor
in my ghostly blog
writing on Melville's dialogue
in a reign of dreams last July
among dunes, seaweed, dunes
the green waves shiver
over sandstone streams
shaking mean time
from an unfolding abyss
along scattered shoals
at a day's disappearance
only my memory saves me
of this dancing whale
as in a living metamorphosis.

 Blackbird
 

AN AESTHETE'S NARRATIVE

A now-neighboring aesthete
after a rainstorm
shoulders his knapsack
who was once
a day-laboring teenager
telling me of his late father
a carpenter from Montreal,
I was waiting for his arrival
at the backpack bench
as this young foreign body
washes his feet in a pail
and waits to be warm
before he enters my kayak
waiting to sail
and to catch a glimpse
of a humpback whale
wants only to speak French
in my company
he tells me how he lives
outdoors in the sun
blinded by a student memory
from the loss of his parents
in a car accident
as he recalls the incident
in his own poetry
from a sorry state of mind
speaks of his recent visit
to a museum in D.C.
and of the fiery brilliant orange
in a Turner portrait
and landscape at the Tate
with its flaming fire
catch an innocent
prophetic vision
abdicating the enigmatic light
in his blinded eyes
catching me aware
as he unwinds
by the sandy shadows at sea
watching a lonely cormorant
diving near me
knowing we are all in exile
barely within reach
of a prudent survival.

 Cormorant
 

OUT OF CHELSEA

Out of Chelsea
walking by a bathhouse
out of the closet
of noted poets
by daddy's safe deposit
after picking up his savings
putting on a blue collar
not giving a damn
remembering his brother
coming back home
as a paraplegic in ‘Nam
and his apoplectic ravings
against Uncle Sam
near graffiti walls of sex
somewhere in the Sixties
in the day of Andy
and Candy Darling
a daring Catullus
leaves the hotel
pink and sandy-eyed
and tells us
of his miracle Jesus dream
last summer
on Fire Island
amid class, race
and gender wars
in the rouged
and roughed-up face
by a losing type
of skinhead thugs
in striped pants
after Mark left the Fugs
to all-night dance
and speak of a rendered
identity politics
to last for a dialectical
and diabolical
inherited and
unmerited generation
as Mark leaves the mezzanine
after shaving
heads for a local café
wishing for lox
on a bagel
with dark coffee and cream
leaving the price of mammon
for a slice
of Scandinavian salmon
to discuss Hegel
amid texts of Marx
meeting a companion
wanting to start
and sacrifice for
yet another little magazine
with bz on the cover
asking me for epigrams
of a Shavian nature
and spittle grams of dope
gratified in his own name
to satisfy his own status
and nomenclature
from an ex-lover
who lost hope
last night listening to Handel
in the laundry rooms
with his clothes stolen
by a wounded Achilles
amid a hundred Trojans
by candle light.

 Chickadee
 

A SEASONED REFUGEE

A seasoned refugee
roughened up
from five continents
feels free enough
to repent in the dunes
asking for a blanket pardon
by Franklin Gardens
amid blackbird cacophonies
and Mahler's
last symphonies
by the past icicles
of a gazebo
life excuses him
for a lost bicycle
in the circling of obscurity
of a country snowstorm
under once-warm
fallible umbrellas on the beach
having a vanilla sundae
as ravishing gulls amuse
with mysterious wings
within reach by the seaweed
the lighthouse shines
hiding its shadows
by oak picnic canopies
as a child hunts
for coral shells
over the indigo shore
a lone chickadee sings.

 Raven, that Trickster...

NOBODY LIKES MARCH

Nobody likes March
as a demon trickster
in a trickery of subterfuge
as he quickly emerges
from a dorm
under the huge canopy arch
at a stormy time of gloom
standing up at a wedding
by a bedding bride or groom
beckoning into an intrigue
of subtlety in conception
in his duplicity of narrative
from an isolated livable sense
of pretense with chicanery
to outlive any sense of fraud
in his every unjust sentence
as he adjusts us in a charade
and berates repentance
of he who hates God
before every lining-up
of the people to parade
in a façade and berate
before a steeple
at the firing squad,
or over any earthly altar
leaving him or her
reeling in their sins,
or needing to take spring on
with catatonic winds
by forcing a few flowers
out of the dew's emerging
to sprout on a meadow's earth
than decreeing a new snow
from a weather report
or asking, masking
making or mistaking
for an early hour
at the widow's windowsill
by hanging onto shadows
of a sleeping pill
and having a stillbirth
as the sky
is abstaining of rain
of an isolated March
from the calendar
yet frostily leafless
of dead-branch birch trees
as bird feathers rise
in a lurch up to the stars
quickly as a breeze lies
across the river barges
to gather up a frosty leaf
in Satan's astonishment
to admonish and abolish
belief in every man or woman
what every demon wishes to do
as he drowses to entwine,
not renew you in the Bible
for he hates the Divine Word
in his span's spectrum libel
with strife in his spectrum
to kill off life
in a continuum of the Son
which inspired John Milton
the Puritan
as earth overturns earth
upward to heaven
from graves’ greensward paths
once luminous with snow
I'm feeding the birds
with my last crumbs
which saves us
for a March reading
until this past semester
of Sylvia Plath to review.

IT'S NOT EASY

It's not easy
in a legacy
to combine history
with the literary élan
of a novel's plan
but Umberto Eco
and Doctorow
succeeded
in their celebrity span
like Osip Mandelstam
whose birthday
is this January
all in a shadow slipping
by the Neva
from their hour
are now gone
but not fallen
like pollen in the breeze
from a spring flower
near the Birch and Elm trees
but alive in their words
discovering the red-winged
blackbird by river beds
or at the search and urging
of a swan who survives
by my cello playing
a dirge from memory
or this melody
of Saint-Saëns.

PAUL GOODMAN IN PROVIDENCE
(1911-1912)

He found this guy
a local actor to interview
for his magazine,
his pocket was
without two cents
waiting at a bus stop
in Providence
who is actually thirty
who sleeps in a mezzanine
in any free balcony
with a bong
but really younger
singing a crazy song
under the stars
will quickly vanish
from his last note
on his Spanish guitar
about love's forgetfulness
why the world is wrong
caresses a teddy bear's skin
likes his own voice within
he may not find again
or not pick a fight
with another brother
in shoes, shorts and sneakers
forgetting the clocks
when love is in the air
not to lose the night
with music he wants to share
as a sociologist of love
once abused
for a twisted love or just used
in a maladjustment
(who can guess)
you wanted many things
(not to brag)
begun by Susan Sontag
seeking some truth
in your happenings
with killer innocence
as a mask of Platonic youth
is taken off and a jazz riff
of beauty released to duty
if who but Paul Goodman
minding his own business
is picking up pebbles
by June's tall sand dunes
along six coppery miles
seeking that call of a smile
in a peaceful photograph
or writing
that lasting paragraph
risking a sleepwalk
in bands of a vanilla cup
of grass
for a thousand hours
in guilt of his own failings
watches this young man
as a ghost of his own past
almost fall
from the span of railings
in this pale-skinned night
when everything came off
in tunes
that he could sing out
from the love and laughter
ever after Walt Whitman
you are not alone
his small voice recalls
playing with a campy fire
on the rocks and stone
in a constant bone up
of a dauntless desire.

__________________

Our thanks to B.Z. Niditch for his East Coast poems and his many mentions of birds, giving us the excuse to post photos of them.

Lots of poetry in our area tonight: Third Thursday at the Central Library features a poetry read-around (bring poems, preferably not your own), 12 noon; Straight Out Scribes are featured at Luna’s Cafe, 8pm; and in Davis, 8pm: Writers Resist in Davis: A Poetry Night of Protest at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st St., Davis. Bring short examples of poetry/prose showing resistance against censorship, discrimination, injustice, prejudice, sexism, racism, homophobia, ageism, scapegoating, religious intolerance, and various forms of corruption. Click pic for more info about Writers Resist. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
Twilight whippoorwill…
Whistle on, sweet deepener
Of dark loneliness

—Bashō Matsuo

___________________

—Medusa

 Celebrate your song!

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.

Deserted by the Muse

—Poems by Michael Marrotti, Pittsburgh, PA

—Anonymous Photos

WRITER’S BLOCK

I've been fucking
like a teenager
spewing cum
like a rock star
the winning
lottery ticket
is within my grasp
I can ditch
the title of loser
by society's standard

Swapped my bus pass
for gallons of gas
more horses
than I can count
have enabled me
to move ahead
in the rearview
mirror is where I
used to reside

Good news
from the private eye
he's detained my mind
who I've lost long ago
reconciliation
saying goodbye
to the hiatus

Telling similar lies
to three
different women
all eager
for my attention
can often be
confusing
but at the end
of the day
after one too many
blowjobs
I've figured
some things out

Everything I thought
would bring me
complacency
has sucked me
dry of all
the necessary juices
required to breed
a new generation
of taxpayers
and dissuade them
from leaping
off of bridges

THE REMEDY FOR WRITER’S BLOCK

I retained my mind
after years of hiatus
in a indistinguishable
form of what it once was

This canvas is barren
I should feel elated
living in this
social utopia
the meaning
is lost

No hurdle in sight
except this dead-end
way of thinking
one less asshole
provoking me
to violence
fractured fingers
prohibit the writing

Chasing
my own shadow
nostalgically speaking
dialing 911
what's the emergency
no inspiration

An ideal time to smile
who wants to have
more fun than me
if that was a possibility
this impediment
has superseded
the enthusiasm
I have for living

When the ink
has reached its limit
dried up
like a sedated vagina
I'll scale the border
as I split this personality
dismiss my women
revert to masturbation
drag a keen blade
up my wrist
in the shape
of a smile
and use this blood
to express
these belated feelings
 

WRITING FOR YOURSELF ISN’T ENOUGH

Recording music
no one will hear
the passion
keeps on rolling
in tune
with the record

This
is not
in vain

Writing poetry
no one will read
the ink keeps spilling
emotional discord
down on the page

This too
is not
in vain

Once the writer
becomes
disenchanted
by the lack
of praise

Throws
in the towel
refuses
to go in
for another
round

The writer
has sacrificed
his greatest gift
to society

'Cause
of a broken ego
ineffectual need
to cure himself
of his own pain
 
 

ANOTHER POET ON A MISSION

I could write
shit all day
and make
it stick

Churn out
the most
beautiful
verse and
not hear
a word

I could write
like I truly
didn't mean it
those words
would find a
common core

Two steps
forward
or five steps
back
isn't going
to sign
me up
for a
significant
moment

This is
what it is
I'm under
no delusion

Nothing will
be changed
nothing will
be taught
 

REJECTION

How many
rejections
can one
Gmail receive

Just saying no
may be easy
for them

But with these
black market
discounts I
find it incredibly
hard to bypass

Maybe if they
were under
the influence
of a mind-altering
transcendence
staggering
in my direction
this poem
would be
published

Kindred souls
making credit card
payments

The black market
would flourish
as consumers
said arrivederci
to boredom

I send my
regards
to my dealer
green eyes
never deny

Being under
the influence
is often
influential

This submission
is down the toilet
at one with my
first narcotic shit
of the day
 

THE DECLINATION

This declination
is as meaningful
as the content
of this poem

A rejected gift
of self-expression
second-hand words
travel on to the
discarded bin
of wasted effort
what's a man to do
when he feels like
a fool

Another
subjective entry
that wasn't
good enough
to make the cut
or strong enough
to seal the wound
I use these words
to nullify the angst
no eviction without
a confirmation

Somehow
I still feel
as though I'm
making a difference
I delude myself
I keep on writing

We're all just specks
on this digital format
out for reformation
when apathy is watching

____________________

Our thanks to Michael Marrotti for his colorful take on the dilemmas of a writer! About himself, Michael says he is "an author from Pittsburgh, using words instead of violence to mitigate the suffering of life in a callous world of redundancy. His primary goal is to help other people. He considers poetry to be a form of philanthropy. When he's not writing, he's volunteering at the Light Of Life homeless shelter on a weekly basis. If you appreciate the man's work, please check out his book, F.D.A. Approved Poetry, available at Amazon."

______________________

Today’s LittleNip(s):

If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to ­music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.

[The Guardian, 25 February 2010]”
― Hilary Mantel

* * *

Discipline allows magic. To be a writer is to be the very best of assassins. You do not sit down and write every day to force the Muse to show up. You get into the habit of writing every day so that when she shows up, you have the maximum chance of catching her, bashing her on the head, and squeezing every last drop out of that bitch.”

― Lili St. Crow

* * *

“Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
"Fool!" said my muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.”

― Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella

___________________

—Medusa

 —Celebrate poetry!

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.