Trees Need Not Walk...

—Anonymous Photo

 

TREES NEED NOT WALK THE EARTH
—David Rosenthal, 1920

Trees need not walk the earth 
For beauty or for bread; 
Beauty will come to them 
Where they stand. 
Here among the children of the sap
Is no pride of ancestry: 
A birch may wear no less the morning 
Than an oak. 
Here are no heirlooms 
Save those of loveliness,
In which each tree 
Is kingly in its heritage of grace. 
Here is but beauty’s wisdom 
In which all trees are wise. 
Trees need not walk the earth
For beauty or for bread; 
Beauty will come to them 
In the rainbow— 
The sunlight— 
And the lilac-haunted rain;
And bread will come to them 
As beauty came: 
In the rainbow— 
In the sunlight— 
In the rain.

__________________

—Medusa, reminding you to head up to the open mic for poets and musicians at Poetry on Main Street in Placerville today, 4-6pm, at The Wine Smith, 346 Main St. 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.

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. 

Fruits of the Earth

 Earth Spirit

Earth Day, 2017
—Poems by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA
—Anonymous Visuals Courtesy of D.R. Wagner
 

FRUITS OF THE EARTH

Night decides to take over the conversation.
The shadows stir, the spiders begin
Their spinning toward the dawn.

Spring begins its work toward those
Seasons it will never see.  The exuberance
Of buds and bright flowers, the dazed
Spinning of elm seeds through the green
Air.  Soon there will be no room upon
The ground, for all will be growing.

We do not wait.  We dig the soil, find
The seeds of plants we want to see
In particular, begin the garden rituals.
We too become fruits of the earth,
Laboring toward the harvest, privileged
To entertain the dance through all the seasons.

The morning excuses itself from the night.
The night pales before her great might,
Calls the dark spider back to itself
And bides until the story changes once again.

 Girl With Watering Cans

LANDSCAPE

I am watching the evening insinuate itself
Into the conversation about the day.
Dinner time had no mention of her, there
Were still doves admiring the liquidambar trees.

The weather wanted to see things differently,
Clearing, then a haze and a confusion of cloud
Types culminating in a less than enthusiastic
Fury as the sun relinquished its part in the conversation.

The path went from the beach up a small creek,
But as it did, there were lots of trees in the canyon
Holding the creek.  Shadows were setting up
Night camps and small birds sought perches

To watch the show.  We watched the foot
Bridges ease into the landscape like rainbows that
Had lost their color and were waiting for the
Flare that would say evening was indeed here.

I will stand here until it is impossible to tell
One object from another.  There is little hope for
The moon tonight.  The evening begins to cup
The sun in its hands and starts to hide

It from view.  Why even talk about a landscape
Except that we remember the others who are
Unable to see this evening, who climb to sleep
Without these blessed thresholds to touch them.

Every leaf on every tree closes its lights down
And cries for us to remember it, stores the moment,
Blesses us with change, holds the dark off for a
Final moment and considers the entire world as one thing.

THE ARTIST

The darkness comes to my window.
Gazes in at me sitting with my hands
Clasped as if I were praying.  It doesn’t
Know what to say.

I dwell here now, where the sea has voices.
I am able to wear snow as a garment that moves
In swirls around my body.  I can be seen in the twilight.
I move like a samba.  I move like a tango.
I move like light on the river.
I have the memories of trees.
I am a gigantic sleep.
I call you with the high sounds of birds.

My lips speak the white verbs of the sky.
I lift stones that the sun may touch all things.
I am able to hear, to hear your voice calling
From sleep.  That which is real are the green
Chords lovers carry in their hearts.
I remind all with wave after wave
That will be your feeling as you pass
The gateposts to a city reaching ever higher.

There is never a need to touch me. 
I look out my window as the sudden rush
Water makes when it insists on being heard.
I give you the seasons as if this were my prayer.  

BROKEN

The idea of a black bird flying
Over a landscape of doors.
Everyone listening to the darkness
Owned by time and pressed into
A single voice that repeats a blur of oceans.

One is reminded of love.  A thick kind of moonlight
One is permitted to walk beneath, feeling with
The transparency that comes as memory removes
Its ways we preferred to use to recall the intimacy of touch.
A flicker across the tops of ocean waves, revealing nothing.

The mouth is spent recalling what was spoken in
Deepest ecstasy and discarded in the morning
As part of dreamt parable, no longer useful to anyone.

I untie my shoes and remove them.  My feet
No longer work well enough to get very far
Ahead of the broken parts.  I gather their shapes
Through a deep action of my will.  A voice whispers
To me that if I am lucky, I will not awaken.  I awaken.

 Unicorn

ROSAMUNDE

We most remember the incidental music
Written by Schubert, but she still lurks
Long after the play has died.  She remains
A princess and holds Schubert’s hand,
Forever unable to let go, less all the magic cease.

The day has barely dawned and already I fear
The blue of a morning that will bring a poison
To the fragile skeleton that threatens to keep
Our princess away from her promised life.

We have never seen the play.  What remains
Is beyond words.  It holds our imagination.
When given the mirror, the silver falls away…

Only the spirit grieves.  We begin the dance.
The body offers its lips.  We ascend the throne.
I ask you to dance.  We are given a black wolf
To make of it what we will…   Our own Rosamunde.  

A STORY IN STANZAS

Headline: “A crystal box filled with music, c. 1000 A.D.”

The sound would be lost
At once were the box opened.
It is impossible to record the music.
It seems to create an empathy
In the listener as a Paraclete would.

For each listener, called ‘voicers’
By those who study this event,
The experience of the music
Is significantly different.

This is known:  The music
Is always melodic, memorably
So.  Rhythm is patterned.
Certain passages repeat themselves,
Yet, this is extremely rare.

Oftentimes the music generates
Usually abstract visual information,
But also occasional narrative, as in myth.

Animals, from insects to birds,
Mammals, reptiles, amphibians, seem
To hear these sounds with ease.
They oftentimes pay long attention to
The sound.  All have been seen moving
To the rhythms seemingly generated by it.

Some researchers believe particular
Mating behaviors in many species
Have been initiated or changed by
Exposure to this music.  Much more
Research is necessary to prove this.

It is said that people who have encountered
This phenomenon have recorded their names
In a document upon doing so.  This document,
While testified to, has never been verified.

The box has moved frequently
Since its discovery.  It is liable to appear
Almost anywhere.  It has been seen and
Heard off the Australian Great Barrier Reef
As well as in the Himalayas and the jungles of
Peru, Southeast Asia and South America.

No one knows how the box comes to
Move or where it may appear.
Its appearance has always had the quality
Of a mystical event about it.
In the past seventy years it has been seen
Very infrequently and very briefly.

One other box was known and was opened.
It shattered immediately and caused great
Disturbances in the Earth’s
Magnetic fields and impressive light patterns
In the ion layers of the atmosphere.

Its existence is usually denied except
In poetry and certain fairy tales.

If you encounter this box, contact
Creatures that sing or listen to
Recreate your own experience
That others may know these songs.

 Vegetable People

Today’s LittleNip:
 
GARDEN
—D.R. Wagner

Focus shifts so easily.
This morning
I was looking at an iris, newly opened.
It seemed the most beautiful of things.
Now I look up to see you walking into
The garden.
It seems the most beautiful of things.

Mushrooms

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s poetry and visuals on this Earth Day, 2017! Note that there is a new photo album on Medusa's Facebook page, this one by Katy Brown of last Saturday's Sacramento Voices reading. Check it out at www.facebook.com/Medusas-KitchenRattlesnake-Press-212180022137248/.

And yesterday's Sacramento Bee had an article about Mahogany Urban Poetry Series and other Sacramento readings: go to www.sacbee.com/entertainment/article145561759.html/.

 Celebrate Poetry! And don’t forget Amy Rogers 

at Writers on the Air at Sac Poetry Center today, 

beginning at 10am, or the Arts in Nature Festival in 

Georgetown, beginning at 9am (poetry at 11), or

the Q&A with April Ossmann, hosted by Kate Asche, 

beginning at 1:30pm in Kate’s downtown studio. 

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.

 Glider

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.
 

Crazed by the Honey

—Poems by Donal Mahoney, Belleville, IL

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

HONEYDEW SHERBET

Down the patio walk,
white stones, through the garden,
under the trellis toward me
yellow frock, yellow hair
rising and falling

I lie in my lawn chair,
spoon honeydew sherbet, sip
pink ade from a tall glass,
cubes circling

She is almost upon me
I look up and I tell her
I have sand, sea, skies, laughs,
all paid for and nothing
nothing at all to do.

__________________

VERTIGO WITH A TOUCH OF SYNCOPE

I look in the mirror and I'm not there.
Where did I go? I don't know
so I look around and see my wife
with the dogs and kids.
Not one of them sees me.
Recliner's empty. So's the bed.
I must be somewhere; I always am.
Barber claims he saw me yesterday
and I won't need another trim
for a month or more.
Dentist says I have no teeth to fix,
that I should keep gummin' it,
so why would I go there?
Maybe I'll call my sister who knows
nothing about me now.
We haven't talked in 20 years.
When no one's in the mirror
they sometimes find me
behind the couch chompin'
on a Dagwood sandwich
but this time it's different.
Where am I? Heaven? Hell?
Somewhere in between?
I hear Hoagy on the piano
playing "Georgia on My Mind."
Text me on a cloud
if he plays "Stardust."
The drinks will be on me
for everyone in the house.

THREE WOMEN WAITING
FOR THE MORNING BUS

One, a nun, has
her transfer in her hand.
She's silently praying.

Another, a hooker, has
her income in her purse.
She's lighting a cigarette.

Another, a mother, has
her mind on her children.
She's going to work.

None of them knows what
they share this morning:
ova ripening.

_________________

A POEM FOR CATHOLICS

Natural Family Planning
has its ups and downs
so to speak but it often

works quite well.
But when the calendar
says not tonight

I ask my wife to please
go in another room
with that banana.

JESSE HAD A LISP, YOU SEE

Jesse was a common man
he never made a lot of money
he had a troubled marriage.

His wife left him for another man
he never saw his kids again.

Although he never wrote a book
he read hundreds of them
trying to solve riddles in his life.

But Jesse had a lisp, you see,
and others liked to laugh.

After he died last week
the undertaker poured his ashes
over the edge of an ocean cliff.

He liked to watch eagles dive
and carry away big fish.

Jesse was a common man 
as are we whose whole is
greater than our parts.

But Jesse had a lisp, you see,
and others liked to laugh.

__________________

A SCHOOL BUS IS COMING

On weekday mornings
on a quiet corner
three moms with small  
sons and daughters
wait for a school bus
they hope is coming

The children laugh
play a game of tag
three moms are silent
three feet apart

One reads a book
another smokes
the other checks
her cell phone

The bus pulls up
the kids pile on
and rush to windows
to wave good-bye
the moms all wave
as if in sync

The bus takes off 
makes its turn
three moms
walk home
three feet apart
down the block
without a word

three moms
with children gone
are free at last
white, black and brown 

A DAY IN THE COUNTRY

The cur dog
tethered to a stake
across the road
runs back and forth
barking all day
then breaks free.
He’s off and running
down the road, happy
as a dog can be.

Across the road Willie
in his rocker on the porch
cheers the dog’s escape
and tells his wife
knitting in another rocker
that he’s a cur dog, too,
tethered to the Earth
but only for a spell.
He’ll break free as well,

something he has told her
many times before in
50 years of marriage.
Despite his fantasies
she loves him still
and fills his pipe,
sticks it in his mouth
and lights it as he did
for himself for years.
Then she tells him we'll
do what the dog did, Willie.
We’ll bark all day and see.

___________________

A DROP-OFF PROBLEM

We have a drop-off problem in America.
We must decide which restroom
one can use when nature beckons.
So far, tumult reigns among the people.

If we declare both genders equal
as well as every variation within the two
everyone can share the same restroom 
and stand or sit as necessity requires.

But some find this approach offensive
and if they win, perhaps we should
evaluate what some Third World folks
have used peacefully for centuries.

They dig a hole behind the bushes
and stack some leaves nearby.
No need to have a plunger.
When so moved, just drop by.

A QUESTION FOR DYLANN ROOF

Dylann Roof defended himself
in the sentencing phase of his trial
after he was convicted of killing

nine people during a Bible study,
the nine people who welcomed him
after he walked into their church.

Had I been the judge I would have
asked Mr. Roof to approach the bench
for a private consultation and I’d have

said the court knows you’re sane
because you were certified to stand trial
and you have said insanity is not

the reason you killed these people.
You said it had to be done and you did it.
Mr. Roof, are you possessed?

__________________

A KNOCKOUT AT THE END

My parents were
far from preachy.
They went to church
separately and I went
to the children’s service
separately as well.

But as a family we
went to many Irish wakes
that enabled me
last New Year’s Day
to look death in the eye
when my daughter died
after a long fight to live.

I’m old enough now
to listen for the bell signaling 
my own last round with death.
Hard to believe I've made it this far.
I may even lead on points
but any bookie will tell you
death by a knockout at the end.

BULBS ALIVE

A doctor by day
Ralph spends his nights
ordering tulip bulbs

from Holland
beautiful and rare
to arrive in autumn

to plant and think about
for months ahead until
spring arrives and the

tulips become a rainbow
beautiful in his garden.
Ralph talks about tulips

at the office every day
where he pulls small bulbs
from the gardens of patients.

Unlike his tulips
those bulbs don’t grow,
never become a rainbow.

___________________

QUICKSAND OF THAT GOOD WOMAN

Earlier than ever this morning
I wait for copy to vacuum.
It must be free of error
and the deadline is near.
But what matters today isn’t news
about war, poverty or race riots
ripping the city.
What matters today
is the warm quicksand
of that good woman
under me again,
taking me in.
Let her writhe,
let her tug at her knees,
let her legs go off
in every direction.
Let her take what I have
and lunge for more.
I’ll be here forever,
a bee crazed by the honey
buttering her thighs.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip(s): Two Senryus:

A WESTERN IN NEW YORK
         
Sagebrush on Broadway
a Big Mac wrapper tumbles
softly down the street

***

GRANDMA AT THE BUS STOP

If smiles had echoes
all the world would hear Grandma's
bouncing off the stars

___________________

Our thanks to Donal Mahoney and Katy Brown for their wonderful contributions to our Friday. Tonight, head over to Davis to hear Joshua McKinney and Hannah Stein read at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 7:30pm. 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.

Note also that there is a new photo album on Medusa's Facebook page, this one by Katy Brown of last Saturday's Sacramento Voices reading. Check it out at www.facebook.com/Medusas-KitchenRattlesnake-Press-212180022137248/.

And today's Sacramento Bee has an article about Mahogany Urban Poetry Series and other Sacramento readings at www.sacbee.com/entertainment/article145561759.html/.

—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.

A Wall of Lilies

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

(Anonymous Photos)

PERHAPS

Perhaps beyond
the wall of lilies

around the river
clearing the Neva

our hearts would collapse
from the church times

in prayer
of chimes

as Pasternak
and his sister

spoke for the last
hour of Vespers

to remember
this Easter hour

THE JERUSALEM WIND

The Jerusalem wind
from the air of breath

when Jesus
as a rose of Sharon

in his depth
of death is alive

in memory
of his reality

will survive the garden
as the sinned seek pardon.

THE DAYS

The days
which pass over

and cover us
for Easter

under the canopy
of brutal intensity

the Resurrection
when every sound

is a poem
of immensity.

PABLO NERUDA

With his poems
of justice

in his valise
hiding from the authorities

and the military
police

who wish to take away
his contrary soul

he in his verse of wonder
are at peace who sings.

EVOCATION

Evocation
and equivocation

on this dawn
following a deer

in the forest
of the Northwest

watching for hunters
but hoping for rest.

AT THE WINDOW

At the window
close to the hills

hearing the bellicose
wind along the roof tops

the rain laughs
at the branches

the sun singes
the lightening of the Oaks

which shiver
in the breeze.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE QUATRO
—B.Z. Niditch

I walked into the light
of the church

in my most tender
flight and search

feeling I had been
forsaken in the lurch

it was so bright
in its revealing.

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to B.Z. Niditch for his fine poetry and botanical inspiration this morning!

Celebrate poetry!
It’s a busy day today in our area, starting with 

Poetry at the Central Library at noon, 828 I St., Sac., 

or Literature of the Wild’s Round Robin at noon 

at Folsom Lake College in Folsom. Tonight, 

Danté Pélayo will be featured at Luna’s Cafe 

in Sacramento, 8pm, or head over to Davis to hear 

Phillip Larrea and Barbara West at the 

John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st St., also 8pm. 

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.

 

 

 

 

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.

Riddles of the Night Falcons

—Poems by Sheikha A., Karachi, Pakistan

—Photos by Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

RED RIBBONS

There are red ribbons tied to the door
tonight: charity for spirits. Was it

considered before setting loose
someone else’s conscience

like a wrath on my gate, that I
wouldn’t know your embryo

rose from black iron. Now, your son’s
feet scrape against doors;

his is a grave of amorphous cries,
the singing of shunned crows;

water it with your cold wails,
let him call your name aloud. Go

like the unconfessed restraint,
take the son of the son with you,

place him on his father’s burning
feet, and notice his eyes bead

like the black mouth of an open well
glinting like a wolf’s sight on prey;

then come back to my locked destiny—
my face: a valley of several ghosts.

UNREQUITED

Your eyes are kohled riddles
of the night falcons. Hospitality

is the second name for prolonged
architectures in your city. I have

walked the squares in circles
from the time my inner cheeks

would blister from excessive eating
of hard-skinned yellow dates. There

is a stirring of immediate resurrections
in your sands. Children where I live

threaten lawsuits as humour. The pits
of black olives are no different

from green’s, and if you pick them raw,
trees won’t protest. Love is a silent

coincidence between hearts; treated
like a band-aid, placed and removed

with an iodine solution—the lips
will wince as the eyes push back

the sting. I am still filled with
visions of your bulbing rains,

how they now clump into textures
of snow—an unimagined phenomenon

to happen to sun-trimmed roads.
Where I live, we have been

burgled of weeping skies, digging
floors of homes in search for canals. 

YOUR BELVEDERE FACE

Tell me about the scarps
you visited in your time away
and the steps carved across
both sides of your face;
a river ripples seismically
on your forehead—a scar—
scabbed down by the dusts
of your travails: allegory.

Your eyes like asthmatic
dunes of a struggling desert
whittling against sun and wind,
and your lips: line of oasis
on heat-blurred horizon(s).

Bridled. Broken. Barbed.
Bottled. Belittled.

Tell me you suffered

so I satiate
and slide back into my self-
constructed perfunctoriness. 

MO(U)RNS

Brooks push back to ponds
before fish mob gateways.
The fireworks have broken
the terraces of houses drilled
of holes from bullets by guns
that went off in practice.
There is rumble in the sky
as if the buildings in heaven
greeted a bomber. Now, there
is water spilt everywhere.

EXPECTANCY

There are clothes to wring tonight.
I didn’t think bad dreams were
addictive. From not having seen
a man and woman become animals
in puddled mud, I have been wishing
for some bad to happen, worse than
the bad happened to anyone else,
or even up-scale torture. Just so I get
benediction. I have been washing
soap off clothes in waiting— 

VERSIONS
       for em em eye

Fold my wish into carving souls;
old as the falcon looking sea wave
receiving storms like prejudiced guests.
Sometimes the right thing to do
is let distances set in. Pages of a calendar
are held together by spiral rings—
the layout of avenues, routes liquefied.
Musky scents of moist dough rising
in a bowl—this is how rain binds soil.
Sometimes the only thing to do
is bring versions: the least unacceptable
conduct. Men of phantom tongues write
honourable verses, women of clenched
intents line them with graves. Some
ghosts are bold enough to leave,
they don’t believe in living
inside the clock.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

I’ve always associated the moment of writing with a moment of life, of joy, of unexpected reward.

—Seamus Heaney

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Sheikha A. for her fine poetry today, and to Caschwa (Carl Schwartz) for his beautiful spring-blossom photos!

 Sheikha Doodle

Celebrate Poetry!)
Sheikha is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates.
She has been published in over 100 literary venues so far,
both print and online, including several anthologies
by different presses. More about her can be found on
sheikha82.wordpress.com/.

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.

April Stanzas

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

APRIL STANZAS

I watch the treetops swishing in the air; their joy
(or agitation) is what my watching gives them.
            
That small dark bird—but a shape of quick
movement—gone before I can name him.                  

This drooping row of yellow roses—held up
by the iron fence—so generous with their petals.
            
A purple lady—walking fast—almost falls—
swerving to miss a leaf-shadow (or a pavement flaw).
         
Two men with a basket of noisy cans loudly share
their green bottle of morning wine, jovial together,

and their quick brown dog turns an abrupt corner—
surprised, its shadow continues down the sidewalk.

BLUE, GREEN, YELLOW IN A MARGIN OF BLACK
After “Blue Remembered Hills” by Howard Hodgkin

take the blue—how dark it is—
how it forms a deep curve,
like a rising wave,

and the yellow
that fits-in where it can,
flashing splinters of sun light,

and bits
of brown
become the ground—

the heavy, closing, border of black
becoming the eventual night
that pends,    and pends

___________________

EFFORTS TO PLEASE

I gave you the yellow bowl
and the yellow cup
with the red design,
but still you were unhappy . . .

I put raisins in your oatmeal
with a dash of nutmeg on the milk,
but still you would not give up
your sadness,

I sang a song and made a speech,
but you were still quarrelsome
and your eyes would not
give up my face.

And I went breaking like a dish
slipped out of
failing hands
and I went crashing to a cry,

so angry now
that both of us,
of your dark moodiness,
could die.

THE HEADINESS OF SUMMER FLOWERS

So many flowers do I see
that I’m afraid I trouble thee—

all whimsy and emotive guile,
to prattle on in some old style—

waxing flowery in my speech.
My woozy heart is moved to reach

an eloquence too far to know—
it’s just how longingly I’d go

back to some time beyond my birth
to find an older-fashioned worth—

so many flowers do I see—
I do believe they’ve giddied me.

If she were real,                
                “The Lady in White”
               —Charles Courtney Curran, 1961-1942
                       
she would bend toward the light of
yellow flowers before this dull background
of rain, or sea;

her white hat would shade her face
and her hand reach endlessly toward
some touch she craves;

she might expect response,
for the scene lives—as she lives—
in the capturing of time;

whatever her name, we would call her
some beloved name of our own,
for, even as we watch,

the brush-stroked blue
is fading with loss,
and the flowers merely bend away.

THE YELLOW FLOWERS
After The Flower Seller, 1942 by Diego Rivera

This burden of yellow is all that you can bear, however
beautiful—heavy as light on a late summer.  How bent
you are—sagging at last to the weariness—no matter if
flowers.  You are tired of light-soaked flowers that al-
ready settle into their dying—like you—glorified by the
zeal of the hidden artist who overloads your basket with
this burden of yellow.

_________________

THOSE SUMMERS

those summers
you stood under tall corn
laughing in your pride
a golden man in golden corn

and the soft mysteries
of the corn talking . . .
talking . . . as we walked under
almost cool there

those summers
you grew sunflowers
rivaling Jack’s beanstalk height
so towering . . .

their huge faces
bending down
heavy with light
your arm reaching upward, but

they were
even taller than that . . .
you smiling at me . . .
oh camera summers


(first pub. in One Trick Pony)

                  

WILD FLUTTERINGS MADE Of APPREHENSION

Today I walked hastily toward a door. There was a shadow
in the wall and when I reached a patch of light there was no
door. I turned toward a window and looked through. The
world was wild and torn. A rose fell from the wind. I was
afraid, for where I was, was not where I must be. The door
became a shadow, not a wall. The light became a sound.
The rose became a bird.  It sang, and broke me free.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

A BREAK IN THE WEATHER
—Joyce Odam
                       
The rain has lessened. Everything subsides.
The winds. The sirens. All the dreary news
the day began with. All that’s whole divides.
The silences stay silent to confuse.
We don’t know how to read each other’s clues
or all these pendings—not just if but when.
It rained. It stopped. And it will rain again.

___________________

Many, many thanks to Joyce for today’s poetry and photos! Trouper that she is, Joyce was able to read at Sacramento Voices last Saturday, despite a brief stay in the hospital earlier in the week. Later this week, I’ll post an album on Medusa’s Facebook page, photos that Katy Brown took last Saturday, including some endearing ones—such as the one below, which appeared on Facebook last Sunday. If anyone else has any photos, I’d very much appreciate you sending them so we can add them to the album. (By the way, was that you, Michelle Kunert, who took this photo (below) of Joyce and D.R. Wagner?)

Be sure to keep an eye on the listing of poetry readings for the week; more are added as we speak. 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 will probably be added at the last minute.

Our new Seed of the Week is Frustration. 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 of others to choose from.

—Medusa
 

D.R. Wagner, Joyce Odam

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.

Sunflowers and Rosebuds

—Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

RAINBOW CINQUAIN
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole, CA

Only
this green hilltop
and I watching as sun
pulls undried raindrops back into
the sky.

__________________

TO A WILD KITTEN
—Claire J. Baker

All orange and fluffy
you crouch and gaze.
Our eyes meet, blue eyes to green,
for a moment bonded before
your explosive run and hide.

Will you ever let my hand
stroke your fur?
Will you ever curl on my lap
and cuddle?

My old cat is failing,
lethargic, yet full of love.
Little wild one,
you might take his place.

I know love is not perfect.
But it tries.

___________________

BEAST OF HER BLOOD
—Claire J. Baker

Spirited by DNA
an inherited weakness spots her.
Snarling at edge of a jungle,
it leaps, lands on her back,
anchors claws into bone.

She feared the arrival.
When she turns her head to
face it squarely, the creature
is gone. But she feels the
weight, and waits…

BLACK SEED BY BLACK SEED
—Donal Mahoney, Belleville, IL

Every day the same people
at the same table
at the rear of the cafeteria.
The maiden, 35 at least,

is gray at the temples,
sour at the mouth.
The widow, 55, waves
a cigarette like a wand.

Girdled and dyed,
she needs no one now;
She ministers to a dog
and has a new apartment.

The accountant, 65, wants to retire,
his years of intemperance
tempered by a stroke,
his anger at everything

suddenly gone. The janitor, 60,
explains over and over
how over the weekend
he snipped from his garden

husks of dead sunflowers
and drove them out of the city
and into the forest
and there in a clearing

spread the black cakes
for chipmunks to strip,
black seed by black seed.
I, a young editor,

“with your whole life
in front of you,” they insist,
sit through it all,
Monday through Friday,

spooning broth, buttering slices
of rye, and praying that after
pudding again for dessert,
the phone on my desk

will explode too late
with a call I’ll take anyway,
and that after that call, I’ll rise
and take from my sport coat

a speech I wrote years ago,
a speech I’ll discard for two lines
off the cuff: “Here’s two weeks’ notice.
I have found a new job.”

VEGAS STYLE
—Caschwa

Fake satisfaction
Watch that balance grow
On the home computer screen

It is within parentheses
So it is a growing deficit
No problem

Little gains here and there
Sometimes a win
Usually for the house

But I can outlast the losses
And wait for the gains
Quantified in dollars

Unlike Alzheimer’s, where
Trickles of memory always get
Swept away with waves of deficit

I can play again and again
And I know I will win
Once in a while

_________________

NAKED FEAR
—Caschwa

A sunflower rose majestic
Clothed in hungry bees
Attracted to the sweetness

An aromatic microcosm
Of families, cities, states, nations
Bonding to the extreme

Forces of nature
Which quickly become
Contract exclusions, voiding

Lengthy written agreements
Handshakes, blood buddies
Tradition, accepted practice

All now count for nothing
Once drained of the natural
Ingredients of sunlight

I’ve got a neighbor who stuck a dirty cushioned chair in his driveway with a “free” sign on it
     He’s got to be kidding,
     who’s going to take this once-white-cushioned chair that’s now covered with coffee-brown stains?
     Goodwill probably wouldn’t even take this chair that his dog and cat likely pissed on, even if he donated it to them
     Why did he even get this chair in the first place if he’s got pets?
      It will probably stay in front of his house for weeks
      I wonder if those who recycle bed mattresses will now be willing to take dirty, unwanted upholstered chairs
      because dirty chairs and sofas dumped in trash landfills are also a waste
      Today they could probably fashion even better pieces of furniture from worn-out and dumped remains… 


—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

MORNING HAS

a way of mixing things up, spreading
surprise across illusion. In what we call our
pebble-deck garden, this chilly April
morning I find a volunteer wild-plum already
sapling among periwinkle—fiore di
morte—gone feral with hyssop. St. John’s
Wort is an island unto itself, much too
densely populous for anything else
to land and take root. Except for an old
cottage-cheese tub, beloved of my dog who
dances it into unexpected still-life.
Out back, the first rain-tattered rosebud is
opening, by rosemary we never planted but it
attracts elves. That’s morning.

—Taylor Graham 

 


THUNDER CHILDREN
—Taylor Graham

Family Movie Night. Outside it’s storming
wind and lightning, thunder unexpected
as everything. Through rooms of endless shelves
the Librarian walks, a tiger slung over
one shoulder, a lion over the other. No hot
breath, no pulse or pant, no crouch,
no roar. Don’t say they’re stuffed. It’s your
imagination. She’ll fling them
on the communal floor raising wind in a room
not meant for anything so bright as wind.
Getting brighter as the lights dim.
Lions and tigers for children to romp
and climb upon, and snuggle, not far from
their blindly seated parents, and maybe
fall asleep before the movie’s done. Oh, sleep
is not a circus. Jungles and savannas
where kids can vanish, running wild in gulfs
of wind and light.

AGINCOURT AT THE OPEN MIC
—Taylor Graham

It’s the speech you memorized
in high school and, seventy years after, still recite
but richer for all you’ve learned of slogging
through mud and history, trying to shake
the clogging earth from your boots, your horse’s
hooves, winter coming in the mountains;
having spoken your confessions
into the magazine of so many starred nights—
King Henry you are not; but fortify
yourself with his words from Shakespeare’s pen,
that fletcher of such language-arrows
our English had never used to such advantage.
It was the longbow more than the knights;
battle-buffs maintain it was luck of terrain and
weather, the weariness of armies.
Henry’s words keep you going. Now
it’s your turn at open-mic. Let the words
once more twine themselves a band of brothers.
Address each listener to his face. Strip
your sleeve to show the wounds to come.
You’re a king no longer young.

 Le Passe-Muraille (Montmartre)
—Sculpture by Jean Marais
—Photo by Ann Privateer

 

Today’s LittleNip:

THE MAN IN THE WALL
—Ann Privateer, Davis, CA

Montmartre, he tries
to be freed like us
half in, half out, pulled
lurching toward our way
stuck in cement
mixed with shame and guilt

keep trying says I.

_______________________

Many thanks to today’s fine contributors on this Easter Monday! Poetry in our area begins tonight with MK Chavez and Cassandra Dallett at Sac. Poetry Center, 7:30pm.

On Thursday at noon, there will be a read-around at the Sac. Central Library, 828 I St. (watch for the theme of the month). Then, that night at 8pm, you’ll have to choose between Danté Pélayo at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento or Barbara West and Phillip Larrea reading at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, 521 1st St.

Also in Davis, this time on Friday at 7:30pm, The Other Voice will present Hannah Stein and Joshua McKinney at the Unitarian Universalist Church library, 27074 Patwin Road, Davis. On Saturday morning, beginning at 10am, Writers on the Air live podcast/broadcast features Amy Rogers at Sac. Poetry Center. Also on Saturday (Earth Day), beginning at 9am: the Arts in Nature Festival will take place in Georgetown, featuring all sorts of art, music, poetry, dance, and other things arty. Then on Sunday, Poetry on Main Street in Placerville will present an open mic for poets and musicians at The Wine Smith, 346 Main St., Placerville.

Don’t forget to register for the Sac. Poetry Center Writers’ Conference 2017, which will take place on Saturday, April 29. For info/reg., call 916-714-5401. And remember to bring cans of food to Sac. Poetry Center events throughout the month of April to help support River City Food Bank.

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

 Celebrate poetry!
—Photo by Taylor Graham

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.