Up, As in Barking

—Poems and Visuals by Smith

Cleveland, OH

MY TREE BARKS

My bark is worse than my bite
although once my bite was worse than my bark
back when I was but burgeoning bark on tree
but it was a dogwood tree
so I was bark bark
and became known as Bark Bark Smith
and little dogs pissed on me.

It was a good life
warm and wet
before I matured into tendril stock
which warps and weaves
in woof woof wonder
which is why
I'm now known as
Bark Bark Woof Woof Smith
the One Who Never Whimpers.

 Dark Matter

NIGHT FRAGMENT

As has been said
The night weighs upon the city
In tired, fat insolence.  Rats scurry.
Old papers flap down empty streets.
It is an ugly season. Full.
Day slouches in, in shameless anonymity
Devoid of great chained excuses of being
Avoided has been of god, notion and country.
Unfocused without, we hunt worms within
To bait further cold excretion of reason, rationale.
Refuse refusing our naked nothing.
Cautious.
Strip steal by night.

 HB vs. JC

WHEEL DEAL

There's something wrong with this world
I mean I wash the dishes
and more dirty dishes appear
I clean cat box of clayed shit and clumped piss
and more's magically there
every day I defecate
yet defecate the next
dedicated to re-release I guess
I eat in morning noon evening in-between
again and again
I drink water piss it out drink it in
again and again
in never ending script
get up
run the rat wheel
walk the rat wheel
sit the rat wheel
be the rat wheel
resolve to better
fall to fail
it gets cold I put on sweater
it gets hot I put on sweat
is there a seek in cycle
or learning in loop
something actually done
accomplished
improved
or are they just waiting for me to see the light
already seen in previous scene
done played
paid
replayed
repaid
is this but screen test
or something real
I mean what's the deal?

 Break of Dawn

LIGHT LUCIFER LOST

O listen now thou mad, thou meek
Receive and mourn these words oblique
Hear me—for I, Lucifer, speak

God’s impotent envy me from heaven hurled
Manwards toward this god-forsaken world
Where you in reward were Eden expelled
And I, once majestic, upon my belly felled

So I reigned in hell in favor a god
Forever, until upon me science trod
Then even from hell was I disbelieved
And from formal evil my duty relieved

Now no heaven holds atomic aplomb
Nor profits in neutered gamma ray tomb
Knowing crucified wish is unworkable womb.

 Jung

PREY HAS NO NAME

We fish with human face
such depths of want
and need
heart drums beat
to pulse blood hope
in womb warm wonder

Lying lizard in the sun
in spring full breadth
of coiled light
our brain bridged push
mute witness
for those who died
in black and white
before elective gray

 Rainwalk

THE CORPORATE MEAN

The promised land of milk and honey
Hides the men of scars and shame
Who came they say to slay their dragon
Yet slayed to stay the same

Sleep creeps like Jason’s wool
Down shelf enchanted eyes
Devolved from Mammon’s muse
These self-selected wise
Inside their phantom rooms
In fairy tale castles
Devoid of viable dooms
As integrated assholes
They sway
Illusion’s lies
 

 Sufimoon

NATIONAL DEBT

Huddled beneath behind
Green metal stalls
The tile encrusted
Yellow, he sews an
Empty money bag
To his crotch, watches
His reflection mirrored
In regimented urinals
   five six seven
Decaying down the wall
Cradling his existence
Fraying five to seven
In staid erotic fear
Small spider woven
Through uninforming ears
Tired of heaven he sews
His money to his crotch
He huddles

 Blue Note Smith

FURTHER, DOWN THE LINE

You know I love my coffee
and I do sing me some blues
but I ain't got no ennui
cuz I done paid my dues

I toured with Loose Lips Lemon
who wailed way down home blues
one back bar and shack at a time
when he wasn't in detention

We played late with Bawdy Betty
and Sweet Lip Louie Lime
and Floozy the Fair and her Fountain Fine
as well as with Radical Rhyme

We'd low moan our way way down the jetty
high wail it back up the line
tapping tomorrow for yesterday's wine
whatever our setting or clime

I beat Fad Fauxbert playing bad aces
and Red Rogue's own shadow mime
man we'd wail in the strangest of places
do us a couple lines

Always drinking moonshine lightning
playing both black and white
play right through the fumble and frightening
to thump that back beat just right

Man would we move making the show glow
mount music to rise the high tight
making them dance both for the so slow
as well as the fast coming fight

Drinking toking snorting too
swing n sway n play right through
thumping pumping out heat beat
making sure you're moving feet

Hump and bump and blowing blues
bringing joy of song sound through
wailing high through cloudy sky
to lessen lie of daily why

Let that sweat roll down your chest
your mess of hair all falling round
Memphis blues beat often best
to funk the junk with southern sound

Oomph the truth with cry of life
strut the stuff of story time
boot the boogie through your strife
rock in ready reeling rhyme

Dance and play your sins away
growling guttural swaying say
inner music outward bound
whip to wonder music loud

So dip your double dipsy doodle
fly your full fuel freaking flag
do the funky punky poodle
prance in pure your pagan pride


To hear a bit of werewolf blues, 2014, words by Peter Ball (1949-2015) and music by Smith (word & voice), go to www.reverbnation.com/mutantsmith/song/20771163-furthur-down-the-line/.
 
_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

CAIN IN ISOLATION
—Smith
 
There lies a sorrow beneath this yellow
odor which rises on two legs and mocks
what little man remains behind.  Shallow
selfish greed of love and lover's talk
of trust in self made shadows mere shadow
of hallowed spell disguised by holy frock.

Varied the means of divination, certain
though time and dark demons conspire, despair
by this hand shall never rend the curtain
nor set wraiths cull delusions of lone fear.
What is, is, beyond lamenting, Canaan
isolation.  Love and love alone stands bare.

____________________

Many thanks to Smith (Steven B. Smith) for today’s tasty poems and visuals! Don’t forget that Keynote Poets Honor Barbara Smith tonight, 7:15pm at Stellar Studios in Sacramento. 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 Poetry!

—Photo by Smith

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. 
 

The Last Rainbow

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

—Anonymous Photos

MARCH WINDS

March winds
tuck at you

from the ocean
toward daybreak

watching
the humpback whale

from my kayak
anchored off shore

free himself
from being entangled

in fishing nets
on his twisted body,

a rescue ship sails by
with several hands clapping

at the sea
escape.

THE BACK ROAD

The back road
near a large scented field

Two are playing tennis
another chess

on a Sunday
a few souls are restless

Amusement
seems endless.

STREETCARS

Green and orange
streetcars

drive and rattle
by the traffic lights

You ask yourself
why the hurry

in the muffled dawn
and take a breath.

RESCUE OF A BIRD

Wings flapping
in my hand

by the shore beach's
edge of crocus

in a recognition
one of us will forget

the silent watch
in the sun.

A FOOTPRINT

A footprint
in the grass

on a contemplative day
congratulates us

for getting through
the greensward valley

just to find a flower
for this incandescent hour.

DEREK WALCOTT PASSES
(1930-2017)

Derek loved the sun
even when the snow

was on the ground,
now in poppies and ashes

we remember the sounds
in breakers of the Caribbean

by a first spring on hedge groves
or waking at the last rainbow.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
IMPROVISATION #432
THE WALL

—B.Z. Niditch

The city wall
is scribbled with graffiti

You write
a futuristic poem

about your past
in the abyss

signalling
the anxiousness

of your own
metamorphosis.

________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to B.Z. Niditch for today’s wonderful poetry! For more about the life and last week's death of Poet Derek Walcott, go to www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/derek-walcott-a-mighty-poet-has-died/.

 Celebrate poetry, and remember that 

Poetry Unplugged happens at Luna’s Cafe tonight 

in Sacramento, 8pm. Also tonight, there will be a 
Women in the Arts panel discussion 
at Crocker Art Museum, 6:30pm, headed by 
Kathrine Lemke Waste, President of American Women Artists.
(See www.crockerart.org/event/1178/2017-03-23/.) 
Scroll down to the blue column 

(under the green column at the right) for info about other 
upcoming poetry events 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.

The RIb Cage of the Creature

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

—Poems by JD DeHart, Chattanooga, TN

Here is a Simple Test

you can administer any time you like.
Just add water, then vinegar.
Drop in a dash of pepper.
Now measure your sense of growing
impending doom.
Now compare that to a friend.
Ask them how they feel about the end
of the world.  Are they making plans?
Have they written anything down?
Some cultures don’t.  It’s like putting
your head in the sand.  It’s like pretending
you don’t have a head, that there is no
sand, that sand is not a thing.
Sand is a thing.  I have seen it.  I pick it out
of my clothing at the beach.
The beach is also a thing.  Here is a simple
test.  See how many people you trust.
Is that number dwindling?  Welcome to the
club, baby girl.

__________________

FRENETIC

A playful sense
of insane energy, electric
connection, like kissing
an open flame,
hair standing on end
from the open socket,
threatening and soothing
comforting and unsettling
in the same buoyant
kinetic moment.

__________________

UNNAVIGABLE

These waters are choppy,
these waters are harsh,
like slush was given the ability
to stand up and walk around,
a soup that impedes motion.
Wind rushes by, distorting vision,
throwing balance out of its delicate
kilter, wiping away identity.
All balance is delicate.
When I started, there was a beacon
light, I am only now just beginning to
see it again, throbbing through a veil.

 Old Window

STUDY OF BALANCE

See how the ballerina,
poised, raises one leg,
crushing existence.

See how the world turns
on its axis slightly before
slipping into the sea.

Notice how the talk
began covered with kindness
as a fabrication, then became
a loathsome denigration.

Walk the balance beam.
Don't look down too often.

____________________ 

IN A CHOIR

I was in a choir once,
not a performer, not a singer.
Struggling to find my true
adult voice.

I sat listening to people sing
around me.  When it was finally
time to try, I was ‘way too deep
because I thought you were supposed
to sing in your range.
I did not really know what a range was.

I spent weeks singing and trying to lift
pianos because the director
thought that helped improve the
diaphragm.  I listened as we worked
for a miraculous tenor that never
seemed to take hold.

Even today, every song I try to represent
exists in a low rumble.

 Bicycle Parts

PLIGHT OF A PERFECTIONIST

It is quite something indeed
to realize that all points
of life offer some
semblance of disillusionment

If you expect the ceiling
to be so high, people to putter
around kindly, and every
object to be made of marble.

_____________________

SLEEP’S NOT COMING

Turn again
on the side that isn’t so
sore.  Restless.  Yearn,
yawn.

Outside, the neighbors
are all silent in their caves,
inside the light is flickering,
must keep it down.
Must keep it down.

I work through the discourse
in my mind.  I work through
the day in my mind.
There is hardly any day left
untouched by the end of
the night.

My fingers are tired, but
the steady-moving stream of traffic
drags me on.

 No Left Turn

REQUIEM

Out of fine ash bones
I build a new world.
This is the rib cage of the creature,
an ancient story.
Adam, apple, Eve, tree,
and serpent.
Where did we come from?
I heard that 75% of what makes
us human is shared by all
with some minor variations.
Rising out of an obscured
past, a hidden continent, we
roamed, loved, fought,
and conquered.  Forging new
features out of old memories,
telling the same story over
and over until it beat in our
hearts and ran through our
veins.  Until it became us,
we became it, woven into
our shared narrative.

_______________________

NICE TO KNOW AT LAST WHAT IS MEANT

Yes, it’s nice to become
acquainted with sound
and reason of other beings,
makes one feel like one belongs
to an invisible club—
the lines were always drawn,
but it’s helpful to know they
were not imagined.
It's remedy for the sanity.

Finally nice to know what is
meant by all these chuckles,
to get the inside joke,
to speak the vernacular, try
it on like a glove on the tongue.
Practicing in the mirror
three times this morning alone.

There now, doesn’t that feel better,
or does it make matters worse,
now with a heavy mouth?

__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

AXIS POINT
—JD DeHart


Here I sit at the spinning
center of the universe.
Well, it's just a room.

Conversations go on all
around me, but I sit listening
to my mind.  Wondering.

I am the spoke in this wheel,
except I really don't think
I turn much of anything here.

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to JD DeHart today for his fine selection of poems, and to Katy Brown for her fine visuals!

 —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.

Coming Home From My Darkness

—Poems and Original Artwork 
by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

SLEEP MOTEL

Here is the map to nowhere. If you must go there,
follow carefully the marked way. When night comes
to your need to rest, the little towns you pass will
sleep behind their simple names. All windows will
be dark, as if night were the end to everything. There
is a place you can stay that has one vacancy—it always
has. And the next day’s travel will not hurry you. This
is timeless country. Sleep is made of night sky, black
and bottomless. You can stay on if you want to.


(first pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2013)  

___________________

DREAM SOURCE
Haunted Hotel del Salto Columbia

Many stairs climb this dark. Many levels
of climbing to reach the sunken door at
the high wall with the tanglesome ivy and
the long sheer fall. Glinting windows give
no welcome. This is from your dream—
the old dream where the precipitous stairs
beckon, though they are rickety now with
a thin, deceptive rim of light along the
railing. Let nothing sway you. You must
keep climbing. The dark is as dark as dark
can be. This is your now or never. There
is something familiar here—something
familiar, but without love. Only the far-off
crying, that formless something that you
must rescue out of yourself.

BEFORE YOU
After “In A Cheap Hotel” by Elizabeth Bishop,
The New Yorker, 2006

It was cold. A winter love. A love I made up
because I was full of words. Full of words for
the loneliness, and for the love. Love that was
not mine, but only wanted.

Winter was always worst—cold and lonely
and full of grieving. I was nowhere I wanted
to be—another strange town with no memory
in it. How could I live there? A neon light
kept blinking its all-night comfort. I slept for
the dreams which released me.

Morning was gaunt. Not enough heat in this
hotel. Not enough sleep—Pity walking by
the door without knowing.

I would not welcome.

Where were you then that I could not find you?

SUBSTITUTIONS

Little sad heroes of life, with their fine
hands and leanings, come dragging scarves
to their brides of goodness, with dark holes
of light in their eyes to see by.

But they get lost on the stairs; get confused
by the shadows of the halls; they mix up the
numbers of rooms.

They come to the Hotel of Pity with old blue
rain of promises instead of years, coming to
their brides on romantic knees—to cajole
them—tell them how lovely—lisp promises.

__________________

ASSIGNATION

They love in the winter, when the room is warm,
when soft light holds them from the walls. They
lie entwined, the room rumples and asleep, like
them. The radio plays absent music; a curtain
flutters—warns. They stir—open their eyes, but
sleep is too heavy and takes them back. The slow
door opens, the unlocked shadow forms over them.

LOBBY                     
After Edward Hopper’s Hotel Window, 1956

In the hotel of wrong decision she waits in her red hat
and dress, her legs crossed prettily in black high heels—
posed for her own imagination—staring out at the night
which is staring back through her reflection. I think she’s
my mother; patient as always, haughty in red, sitting
there in her camel coat with the fur collar draped over
one shoulder. She thinks it will rain.

I remember her clearly—notice the wet smell of the air—
the black couch—the pale yellow wall—the blue rug—
the white pillar outside the window. When did her hair
go white, I wonder. She doesn’t seem to notice I’m there.
I’m outside the power of my observation. Her mind is
planning ahead—her purse hugged guardedly on her lap—
all her important papers in it. I get the feeling she’s
leaving for good this time. I haven’t been born yet, and
she’s already old.

Someone is changing our history—someone who is late—
or not coming—someone she already regrets. Perhaps
the night is not there—or the dim effort of light that illu-
minates this tableau of vague transition. Perhaps it will
rain and she will return to her room. She’s in control of
my existence—this woman I want to weep for—seem to
know—fear for the uncertain direction of her future. 

THE HOTEL MIRROR

Askance on the wall, the long mirror
faces me, but without my face, though
still holding the lamp, the tilted ceiling,
the edge of the bedpost, a bit of my
shoulder. I can see, but not be seen. If
I turn a little to the left, then I am there—
in the mirror—looking curious: a face
across the room, in glass dimension,
amused, playing peek-a-boo with myself.
I shift and cut my face in half at the gold
frame. The lamp stares, casting its own
shadow up and down. I wave to myself—
a foolish woman looking for her humor.
The lamp flaunts its brassy base and plays
its own amusement game of glint and
shimmer : tilting its shade a bit to its satis-
faction, the mirror takes the action for its own.

_________________

THE HOTEL OF CONTINUATIONS
                        
The wall in the hall has a way in and a
way out. The wall stretches along itself
unhampered by the doors.

No one walks there. The hall
is too long. A shadow tried once,
but kept fading into the wall.

The carpet is quiet and vacuumed.
the baseboard has no scratches.

The rooms behind the door
have always been empty.
They are only for the stories.

It was always long ago.

It is always now.

I think I lived there once,
but only my mother remembers
and she won’t tell me.

That is me playing at the end of
the hallway with the toys
I still keep hidden for protection.

I think I remember.

 Drawing, One Continuous Line

SLEEP STRATUM
           the white pallet the moon
           spreads across the leaves
           is like a fairytale
           turning dark at the edges
                                — Lloyd Van Brunt

You hear yourself weep softly in the night. 
You hear night answer with its own release.

The room of misery opens out
into a sad endlessness.

You feel yourself enter the permission
of the dark.

You are unhealed.
You are unfound.

Nowhere is there light,
though light surrounds you—

elsewhere—in some soft memory,
like a sheet.

It hums with direction—melts against
the cold enclosing shadow, and goes out.

MOON SIREN 

Why fight for sleep when the whole moon is
shining white and near through the window,
when words are waiting to become your poem,
the one you try to grasp out of such moments

as this—the clock anonymous with numbers
that mean nothing except how they trouble you
—move you forward into more of them.

How easily it is to give mind to such intrusion
of the spirit which strives to know itself.

A siren, and the moon shudders a little bit more
into the dawn; a siren, a little howl from
somewhere in the night—near or far,
it makes no difference, the trailing
echo swallows sound, turns it
into brimming silence;
a siren, more like the
pulling of distance,
both fading now.
A shadow blots
out the moon.

___________________                                        

Today’s LittleNip:

SLEEP

—Joyce Odam

Everything here is memorized: the glowing wall behind
me with its calendar, the crack in the night that turns into
a window.

I am a shimmer of light come home from my darkness;
the bright air illuminates me; curtains billow in, and I am
wrapped in dusty lace.

A sleep thread catches on me—pulls—and I unravel.

__________________

Our many thanks to Joyce Odam for these wonderful atmospheric poems about cheap hotels and the ghosts that reside there, and her lovely, haunting artwork as well. Our new Seed of the Week is (partly stolen from Joyce’s poem) Wrong Decisions. 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.

Bay Area Editor Gail Entrekin writes that the new issue of Canary is now available at canarylitmag.org/.

Errata in yesterday’s post (since rectified): The Women’s Wisdom Anthology is Lift It Tenderly, not Lift It Gently, and the Soft Offs don’t have a hyphen in their name.

—Medusa

Celebrate poetry, and the courage to write it where we find it!

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.

Do Not Bite a Ghost

—Anonymous Photo

HOW TO GET A GHOST TO MOVE OUT OF YOUR HOUSE
—Michael H. Brownstein, Townsville, N. Queensland, Australia

Do not bite a ghost. They are chalk
And have no taste. You can add sage, salt,
Pepper, even garlic. It will make no difference.
Do not clean everything everyday.
Ghosts are blindsided by dust in light.
They cannot stand camouflage or invisibility
But remember to remove all of the cobwebs.
Every ghost is a collector of spiders and flies.
If these rules are not enough,
Go on living. Forget about them.
They will move someplace else.
Ghosts have an obsession to be remembered.

_____________________

SLEEPING WITH GHOSTS
—Michael H. Brownstein
 
Some Sundays they dream in nightmare
And other nights dark and light,

A shimmer of shadow against white walls,
Cold fingered and cold breath,

A simple outlook and a simple memory
In need of a following.

They are generous creatures by habit
Willing to share covers, curtains, and wind

But never sheets or pillows.

____________________

A CHANGE IN THE WAY WE BREATHE OXYGEN
—Michael H. Brownstein

This story is about three men tied to a cave,
black bear no longer once upon a time,
the two brothers, coyote and wolf,
and the beginning of the flight of urban legend.

I tie a knot to two other ropes,
then I tied three knots to five ropes in all,
but still the balloon is too heavy to fall from the sky
and the cloud-eating dragon hides well in the blue sky.

This is not a tale of love lust and greed—
everything turns brown on the other side of things
and nothing else stays green for long.
Discover something new.

 —Photo by Taylor Graham

PERMANENT RESIDENTS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

By the week, the price was right. You couldn’t
afford a hotel downtown. The lady assured
you, this motel wasn’t haunted—now, those old
buildings on Main Street, they all had their
stories. With or without ghosts, quirky as Gold
Rush. History naturally gives birth to ghosts.
You checked in. A suite, she called it:
bed and TV, tiny bath; kitchen microwave;
table big enough for a desk, two chairs. You only
needed one, but a writer needs a desk. Carpet
worn down to hardwood. The whole space dark
with lights turned on and curtains wide.
You unloaded duffle bag and computer; ready
to write. This motel has permanent residents,
but no ghosts. You heard a meow. No cat.
Opened the door, surveyed the landscape.
Empty. Just your VW parked out front. Where
were the other residents? Motel fringed with berry
bramble under a steep dark hill dense-green.
You walked that way. Meow grew fainter,
farther, twining into bramble. Blackberries ripe.
You picked a handful through thorns. Your
hands stained purple as old-time carbon paper.
Sweet, seedy. The cat commenced, persistently,
a long drawn wail-meow, again. Again.

______________________

PLAYED OUT
—Taylor Graham

After all the hoopla fanfare and nostalgia
of bygone days—the golden empire of black-
stetson’d gamblers, prospectors with their picks
and pans, a mock shoot-out on Main Street—
after all that noise, he walked till the sidewalks
quieted, the hills went dark above town.
And then the moon, one perfect silver coin.
He kept on walking to his cheap motel
between the last streetlight and the home-
less camp. And sometime after midnight
he listened while an old ghost roused
to the hour to tell how it really
was in the good old days.
Or maybe that ghostly sound
was just the owl.

 —Photo by Taylor Graham

HIS WORLD
—Taylor Graham

He drew a map of the world – this child
who can’t tell left from right and
keeps transposing letters. He gives the continents
names of his own devising, ancestries
of kings and beasts who never lived.
His landforms vaguely familiar, their outlines
subtly askew from what’s in the atlas,
as if a mind-quake stretched and twisted bedrock
in its bed. Not static, to stop the infinite
resolving, tilting, tiding, breaking up
of continents and coastlines. His map is alive,
as his wings are sails. “Here
be the dragons,” he says, unventured
lands and seas of his imagination, that deep
blue-green labyrinth. He wants to
venture there. Sometimes, when you’re
just collecting your keys or caught in rush-hour
traffic, that map sails into your head,
Unknown that lies across great tiding waters.

_____________________

PARADISE
—Taylor Graham

Your new neighbor was afraid of adders.
We only have rattlesnakes here, you told him,
and gopher and garter snakes but they’re
our friends. He didn’t believe you.
Said he moved here because it was supposed
to be paradise. Shouldn’t be any snakes
in paradise. Such ideas he has
of how the world works – but are you
responsible for his phobias and doubts? Fear
is infectious, you said, and ferocious.
He started chasing all the snakes off his land,
through stockwire fence, onto yours.
The garter and gopher snakes settle in your
garden, rattlers in safe crannies under natural
heaps of rock. All as it should be in paradise.
You watch your step on the rocks.

 Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

       When my parents went on family vacations with my brother and I
       Hotel rooms just are never designed for parents traveling with a boy and a girl
       Of course my brother and I just couldn’t share the second double bed they’d give for four
       My brother and I tried it once and it was horrid
       and we fought that whole night
       being as we never shared a bed at home and had our own rooms
       So my Dad instead often flipped a coin
       in regards to who would get the bed and who’d sleep on the floor
       If a sleeping bag hadn’t been packed
       Dad would have to split the bed in half
       Unlike the top mattress
       often the bottom box spring would obviously not have been cleaned recently
       as well as hard to sleep on
       and my brother and I would have to fight about that too

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

 —Anonymous Photo

THAT CHEAP MOTEL
—Kathy Kieth, Diamond Springs, CA

Somehow I always end up
in a cheap motel: you know the one,
on the edge of town between the tracks
and the Interstate, dank rooms with pea-
soup paint peeling back from some crooked,
faded print—a seascape, maybe,
with yellowing lawn furniture and geraniums,
someplace far from here—

These pea-soup paper walls bulge
with borrowed sounds: shards of sibilants
cut right through that dingy seascape.  Scored
mostly for soprano and bass, muffled lumps
of snores and sex and crying babies bump and bang
around my soup-can room as if the ocean
on the wall has roared to life.

I have stayed in ritzier digs, with valets
and free shampoo, and soda machines
that actually work.  The cool brass and glass
in such still places reflect only silence; no faded
prints hang in those empty rooms.

So I’m heading back up the Interstate to
the cheap motel.  I guess I miss
those seascapes. . .

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE CLOUDED MORNING
—Jones Very (1813-1880)

The morning comes, and thickening clouds prevail,
    Hanging like curtains all the horizon round,
Or overhead in heavy stillness sail;
    So still is day, it seems like night profound;
Scarce by the city’s din the air is stirred,
    And dull and deadened comes its every sound;
The cock’s shrill, piercing voice subdued is heard,
    By the thick folds of muffling vapors drowned.
Dissolved in mists the hills and trees appear,
    Their outlines lost and blended with the sky;
And well-known objects, that to all are near,
    No longer seem familiar to the eye,
But with fantastic forms they mock the sight,
As when we grope amid the gloom of night.


For more about Jones Very, go to www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/jones-very

________________________

Our thanks to today’s contributors! The cheap motel theme seems to have brought out our ghosts, who have, as Michael Brownstein says, an obsession to be remembered, Halloween or not. Certainly my ghosts do…

April is National Poetry Month, and Nevada County will kick it off on Saturday, April 1, with the First Annual Sierra Poetry Festival, with keynote address by Cal. PL Dana Gioia plus many other poets, open mics and slams, discussions, workshops, youth voices, Poetry Place Vendor Fair, food from Briarpatch Food Coop. The Festival will take place at the Sierra College Nevada County Campus, 250 Sierra College Dr., Grass Valley. For more info (including complete schedule & registration), go to events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07edk2jt1h1fd798db&llr=z6oetldab/.

Manzanita Writers Press is ready to publish their Out of the Fire Anthology, which is being published to “heal the community after the life-changing effects of the Butte Fire, and to create a lasting record of the event”. In order to fund the publication, they have organized a Kickstarter Campaign: for a donation of $25 or more, you will receive a copy of the anthology after it is published. Go to www.kickstarter.com/projects/100235310/out-of-the-fire-anthology; there are several levels of donation. Deadline to meet their goal is May 8. For more info, go to manzapress.com/.

This week's poetry in our area begins tonight at Sac. Poetry Center with readers from the Women’s Wisdom Art Anthology, Lift It Tenderly, 7:30pm. Thursday at 8pm, it’s Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe, with features and open mic. On Friday, 7:15pm, Keynote Poets Honor Barbara West at Stellar Studios, 202 23rd St., Sac. Saturday at 2pm, Poetic License read-around takes place in Placerville at the Placerville Sr. Center, and then that evening, the Soft Offs present their annual “moetry” (music and poetry) fundraiser for Sac. Poetry Center, 7:30pm at SPC.

This Sunday at 1pm, Poetry on Main Street—a new venue in Placerville—will hold an open mic at The Wine Smith, 346 Main St., Placerville. 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. (They almost always are…)

And check out Medusa’s new photo album on Facebook, this one by Michelle Kunert of last Saturday’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Old Sac, at www.facebook.com/Medusas-KitchenRattlesnake-Press-212180022137248/. (Love the green poodle!)

—Medusa

Celebrate Mondays—and the Spring Solstice!

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.
 

Home-Coming

HOME-COMING
—Léonie Adams (1899-1988)

When I stepped homeward to my hill,
   

     Dusk went before with quiet tread;


The bare laced branches of the trees
   

    Were as a mist about its head.

Upon its leaf-brown breast the rocks
   

    Like great grey sheep lay silentwise,


Between the birch trees’ gleaming arms,
   

   The faint stars trembled in the skies.

The white brook met me half-way up,
   

   And laughed as one that knew me well,


To whose more clear than crystal voice
   

   The frost had joined a crystal spell.

The skies lay like pale-watered deep,
   

   Dusk ran before me to its strand


And cloudily leaned forth to touch
   

   The moon’s slow wonder with her hand.

_________________

—Medusa, reminding you that Patrick Grizzell and D.R. Wagner will be reading in Placerville today, 1pm, Love Birds Coffe & Tea Co. on Smith Flat Rd. 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.

For more about Léonie Adams, see www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/léonie-adams

Stopping the Infinite

Beach Art

—Poems by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA

—Visuals Provided by D.R. Wagner

AT BREAKNECK SPEED

His face gave nothing away,
Maybe a couple of small wrens
Hanging upside down from the fine
Branches of a birch tree in Winter,
Dining on seeds, but that was about it.

At any moment you may be given
To understand something that
Will push darkness aside and
Allow all to stand on the upper deck
Totally stopping the infinite,

Plundering it for even more ideas.
Wandering deeper and deeper
Into the labyrinth, hands in
Pockets, whistling a South American
Tune, expecting nothing, watching
The great power of the waves.

We went inside, put some water
On the stove for tea, a perfect moment.

 Fantasy Landscape

THE THROES OF DESPAIR
             (for Alvaro Mutis)

The town lay dying on the edge
Of the river flowing black, flowing dark brown,
Shining as the widow spiders do, teardrop
Abdomen, reflecting red as its hourglass.

People were begging door to door.
In a back room someone was shouting
Orders but no one seemed to care.
It was like a dog barking against
The street, a lethal eruption with no one
To notice it.  These streets know infection
All too well.  A stage lit up.

“You boys aren’t going anywhere soon,”
A voice said.  It was saturated
With a ferocious conviction that
Didn’t seem to be directed at us at all.

We let it float by, a companion who
Had forgotten our names, dissipating his
Passion in bad ideas and somehow feeling
We must be responsible for all his doubts,
Perplexities and dull memories.
We excused ourselves and went outside.

“I can’t stand the noise the living
Make,” said Lev.  Three gray birds
With brilliant ruby patches on their
Wings shot past us as we disembarked.
“We call them clock birds because
They tick when they are eating the
Purple fruit that grows high on the
Trees.  Keep your eyes on them.  You
Could learn something if you’d care to.”

After a while, this all begins to look
The same.  I’ll wait for you at
The end of these words and we
Can travel a bit further together.
I’ll be going away from the sea for
Awhile.  You might enjoy the journey.
The jungle is so different and there
We will be unable to have an agenda.

Birdfeeder

BASKET CASE

Music in a basket, taken to make a room
And then a dwelling and then a palace.
It has proven itself to be no
Architecture for living.  There is no
Inside.  The rooms are beautiful
But without doors.  There is only
Sound at the end of an arm or a
Stepping across a threshold trying
To direct the forward motion of the whole
Thing.

We live in the crescendos and
Diminuendos.  Legato to the
Edge of the cliffside
To see the view and there,
To once again discover the
Woven basket,
Capable of any season,
Full of song and placed beside
The clearest water of a Spring.

 Slough

SPRING FIRE

Bring the traces of the evening
To the edge of the page
To light the words.

The insects that can make noise do so.
The air is electric buzzing and stridulations.

I am able to understand
The frogs and the crickets.
They know their songs well.

I forget the words to mine.
“What did you say, brother?”

It was a poem.
It burned its way out
Of my mouth.

 Dogs

STORM FOOTED

She bewildered the angels.

Here was a heaven made
of light.

She sang songs about dogs
Who knew each other but had
No idea they dwelt in different songs.

Drifting stars,  always forgetting
To tell each other such important information.

I called myself to be here, addressing her
From deep in a place from which no one
Could make me move.
I thought I had hidden myself.

How could I know I was a book?
That I was being read at night
Under someone’s covers.
The words flickering under a flashlight.

 Dogs 2

A WISH

If this is a language
Then I will speak
Of love and of war and
Of silly things and poverty
And wealth and luck
And dreams, of animals
That fly but are not real,
Of children born with
Perfect wings that we
May never see but still
Know they are there
And lips that kiss your lips
And trusted strong belief
That, even though these
Be pure words, you
Will know them there.

Fox and Bee

Today’s LittleNip:

STILL THERE

—D.R. Wagner

Carried in from the car,
Feigning sleep, just to be carried.
Almost too old for any of this.

The pure moment of it all.
Being held.

 Lantern

______________________

 

Our thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s poems and photos! D.R. will be reading tomorrow at 1pm with Patrick Grizzell in Placerville at Poetry at the Mine, to be held at Love Birds Coffee & Tea Co., 2021 Smith Flat Rd. (off Hwy 50). And today at 4:30pm, Laura Rosenthal and Sue Daly will be reading at Sacramento Voices, Sac. Poetry Center. 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.

—Medusa

 D.R. Wagner and S.F. Poet A.D. Winans

Celebrate Poetry—and poets!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.