Stolen Roses

Everything in Sync

—Poems and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

CONTRASTS

My house, howling.
Sunlight in loose thin patterns.
The intense stillness of the curtains.
The cat in a deep sleep.
The air closing like fur around my thick breathing.
The motion and non-motion.
A future closing upon a warning.
Or maybe just a winter.
Simple as that.
No premonition.
No mystery.
The cat curled once around herself.
My intense listening.
Time pulled in all directions.
The sunlight giving up.
The wind like a lost voice.
My house straining not to answer.
The way all things resolve to some beginning.
The way a page holds words.
The way a door seems to want to let someone in.
Someone not there.
The way I brace for welcome.
The cat gone out of herself.
Her fur bristling.

 Blue Tranquillity
 

THE BLUE COFFEE POT
(adapted from The Coffee Pot, 1915 by Miro)

Old blue coffee pot, in this idle kitchen morning,
full of blue light from the filtered sky of curtains—
how you gleam, curving the slow light around you
in a soft blue dance of intricate small patterns
as the curtains move in the morning breeze
       as the curtains move . . .
              as the curtains move . . .                   
                         giving my eyes
such satisfaction in watching the quiet way you steal
the color, and the motion, and the rare blue light, and
turn yourself into this quiet work of morning devotion.

__________________

ACCESSORY

You have been standing
a long, long time
with the stolen rose
in your hand,
waiting to complete
your act of giving.

And now that the bush
has stopped its trembling
and the garden’s beast
is healing the wound
of beauty
in his tragic mind,
I come to you
in my furtive plunder
of receiving.

      
(first put. in Handy Homilies, 1969)

 The Comfort of Flowers

THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL COWS
After Young Herdsmen with Cows by Aelbert Cuyp,
Dutch, 1620-1691

The strange and beautiful cows who are so
tranquil, with their slow eyes, gazing at everything,

and nothing, lying so gracefully among each other
on the hillsides, and in the fields—watching the

busy traffic pass, or just each other—or just stand
staring—into the wide persistence of the sky.

But I am so taken by the absolute serenity of the
cows—how the sun shines on their hides, giving

them such a sheen—the absolute quiet that I feel of
their surroundings—that I want to stop my car and

walk out among them. I want to feel what they feel:
their complete, indifferent laziness, no haste or dread,

nothing to get caught up in, just watching the day’s
clouds mimic their own shadows over the ground—

that I, too, want to gaze into the uncluttered distance
and give no troubled thought to anything.

__________________

THIS POEM

you do not want
gifts
especially poems
(mine)
inferior to pain
(yours)
and useless as
flowers
that will die and
useless as the
giving of flowers
as symbols of ineptness

or maybe an eloquence
undeserved
or maybe a fragment
of silence left over
from worn-out love
some love ungiven
or unreceived if given
you do not want
any of this
you turn away
your broken gardenia
in my hand

 In and Out of Time

THE UNWANTED

Father,
is that you
cluttering through the house
like a broken tool?

I hear you muttering
in whatever room
I am not in. I hear you
scrape a chair
and scruff a shoe.
You open endless cupboards.
And you tap
your fingers on the air.

If I should call out where I am
your silent eyes
would glare at me
through all these walls,
and I would feel that look
against my own dark stare.

Stay in your other rooms.
We shall wander the house
eternally,
searching for separate things.
Let us never find each other
in the uselessness of love.

Love is the toy
you could not mend;
the rule I would not learn.
The house
is a word we share
genetically.
Whatever you hunt for, let it not
be me.
 

 An Obsession With Mandalas

THE LAKE
Lake Ontario, Whitby, Canada

Wide—and gray—and flat, like the gentled sea at
ebb tide—lapping against the narrow stretch of land
before the road turned back toward the houses.

We stood in the winter light and tossed stones and tried
to find words for each other. I don’t remember any gulls.
I expected gulls from this memory. Were there none?

We walked up and down the small stretch of land that
called itself a beach. I tried to find something of beauty
to exclaim about—the wide, gray, lisping water—

the distance of it, with its own horizon—bits of light
on everything, giving it all a subtle contrast: the rocks,
the weeds—the very air—the brief exclamations

we would make for conversation. What was there
to talk about: you had promised to show me the lake,
and I was properly mesmerized by the here of it.

___________________

BECALMED

They are the ones who will never arrive.
The fragrant water of their travel has
lulled them to such a half sleep they think
they are the dreams of their own creating.
They wait under the white patience of the sky
in the boat of silence.  The winged fish
that pulled them have also slipped into
this lull of timelessness…

____________________________________


There are no tides or under-warnings.  The
weather is perfect for their thoughts.
They are in a simple drift, so easy to
surrender to.  They feel no omen in the
changing blue that is fading ever so subtly
on the horizon or note the single shudder
of the bird that has been resting on the
motionless rail like a carving.


(first pub. in Parting Gifts, 1988)

 A Matter of Balance
 

THE IMAGE

He brought the image to her as a gift. “It is for you,” he
said. “It will be anything you want it to be.”

“It is tearing like the leaves,” she sighed, “and it is
smothering like the wind that is too full of leaves.”

“What are you thinking?” he asked her.

And she answered, “I am thinking of your hands that
bring such gifts as this.”

___________________

THE PIECES

: comes to her arms,
comes with his heart all weeping
having broken himself upon his life
and lost the pieces,

how he cries to her,
telling his long and pain-filled story
giving it sharp and deadly
edges,

making it deep, carving it in,
how can she listen?

 A Small Emptiness
 
  

GIFT

all wrapped
guessing
better than
knowing
maybe never open

let gather dust
box of wonder
maybe box
within box
within box

to something
as small as
a thimble maybe
or joke—
just the boxes

_________________

THE ART OF ONE MORE DIMENSION

Such is the art of one more dimension
space of difference
out of fear.

How best contain a place for it?
Open new symbol?
Read instructions?

Believe in skill of comprehension.
We are private,
loaned to others out of necessity.

Why do we keep giving sorrow
as a gift—as though what is envious
has such need?

________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE LIGHT AS GIFT
“flowers were dressed in nothing but light.”
                                                 —Mary Oliver
It was
as if the light
gave itself away to
everything—especially the
flowers.


(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine)

________________

Many thanks to Joyce Odam for today’s poems and original artwork on our Seed of the Week, Unwanted Gifts. Her “The Light As Gift” is an Adelaide Crapsey Cinquain (Syllabic: 2, 4, 6, 8, 2).

Our new Seed of the Week is Expedition. 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

 Celebrate Poetry (and herds of cats)!

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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Entertaining the Lizard

Bedroom Moon

—Photos by Stacey Jaclyn Morgan, Fair Oaks, CA

ON AGENT ORANGE
—Michael H. Brownstein, Townsville,
N. Queensland, Australia

(projectagentorange.com)

Once I listened to a poet
(but I cannot remember her name
or the title of her poem)
who wrote lines about Cincinnati
using the Yellow Pages,
the names of corporations,
factories, the outpouring of chemical
into the early evening sky.
As I listened, I saw the sky
she saw, the setting sun,
the slow motion vibration of light
through pollution, the setting sun
caught in prisms, the end of day
wonderful with color, a drizzle
of compounds, everything
rainbowlithic. Years later a river
in that town caught fire.
So I ask you, Monsanto,
Dow Chemical, Uniroyal, can you
hear the beauty in that poem, too?
Did you see the splatter of spray
over American soldiers,
Vietnamese, the now extinct forest
wildlife and trees a display
of beauty? Did you not know
what it would cover, its effects
on people and life, the evolution
of humans to almost humans?
Did you not think the fish would change
and the water buffalo and the small peeper?
How could you not comprehend
the spread of poison down the Saigon River
into the oceans, the threads of life,
spreading its wealth into all of us?
The poet read a poem about dusk
in Cincinnati and I a poem
somewhat different, but still laden
with chemical and its rainbow of defects
that refuse to go away, but continue
until even rice might hold fire in its seed

burning its way slowly into all of us.

 Steel Moon

1942, RUDOLF REDER RECOUNTS HIS
ARRIVAL TO THE BELZEC DEATH CAMP
—Michael H. Brownstein

Dandruff mottled sky
Cold sweat of late winter
A fencing of dogs and sharp teeth:

How silly! We paid to ride the train,
Departed at Belzec, and knew immediately
“We were struck by the terrible truth.
Women naked and shaved, rounded
Up with whips like cattle. 
Two hours was the time it took
To prepare for murder and murder itself.”
How did Rudolph Reder survive this?
How was he able to write down these words?
We paid to ride to our deaths.
This was Business. Nothing personal.
Just following orders.

The sky was not dandruff mottled.
Warm air permeated later winter.
He did not remember a barking of dogs.

 Moonmouth

TOP DOG
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

A black president
Had never been elected before
So how do you top that?

We held a convention
And tossed out convention
In favor of a new scenario

That brought in
A businessman
With no political background

It baffles the pundits and commentators
Like having a table perfectly set
But missing name tags

One by one they struggle
For that ideal household word
That will define this unique anomaly

But it doesn’t exist yet
So they hold up the mike
To stream questions

But no answers
No time-tested expressions
Exasperation prevails

__________________

ONE DAY A YEAR
—Caschwa

The newborn year is given a diaper
Strange and different will make us hyper

Chocolate candies flood the stores
Puppy love is esprit de corps

Everyone must wear something green
Or face pinching that is downright mean

Remarks abound to sound like candid
As if everyone is born left handed

Each adult female is titled mother
Don’t complain, there is no other

Summer vacations are the dream
Though that river may now be a stream

A costly war has set us free
If not for you, there’s more for me

A harvest of babies, meteors, and crops
Better have spares if you wear flip flops

Haven’t yet found your labor of love?
Keep on looking and take off the glove

Three little ships under very strict rule
Headed up by a fellow that was not such a jewel

Giant gatherings of family and food
Some will smile, some will brood

Joyous praise to God, one holy day
Red and green displace all shades of gray

 Stipa Tenuissima

TERRITORY
—Caschwa

Beyond the sliding glass door
Lies a cement, covered patio
Covered with “things”
Covered with tarps

And the typical folding chair
Upon which I sit and stare
At a lizard

Who performs little pushups
To prove its dominance
This is its home

When it moves it is always top speed
No lights or sirens
Quickly out of sight

It parks itself sometimes under a cover
Sometimes out in the open sunlight
Sometimes somewhere on a raised bed

Watching human activity
We are the floor show
Serving to entertain the lizard

 Field

CASEY AT THE BAT IN OTHER FORMS
—Michael Ceraolo, Willoughby Hills, OH

       Haiku (Traditional)

Casey at the bat—
failing in the game's crunch time,
no hero today


        Haiku (Non-Traditional)

Mighty Casey—
today not so mighty:
struck out in the ninth


        Sigo

The game hung in the balance in the bottom of the ninth
as the superstar stepped to the plate with a chance to win the game
But it was not to be, and the fans files out disappointed


       American Cinquain

At-bat:
one pitch taken,
a second pitch taken,
on the third a home run swing
Strikeout!

__________________

Today’s LittleNip:

SONGS FOR THE SILENCE
—Michael H. Brownstein

She hums in her sleep
thin lines of wheat blowing
thick lines of corn knotted
a fence of insects and songbirds
surrounding her praising
everything good in life
until her humming ceases
leaving them alone

with harmonies no one hears.

 

 One Button Suit Plays at UCD Whole Earth Festival, Davis, CA

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

Our thanks to today’s fine poets and photographers for their contributions to our Monday brunch! Poetry readings in our area begin tonight, 6-7pm, with Poetry in Motion in Placerville, then continue at Sac. Poetry Center (7:30pm) with Amanda Nadelberg and Claudia La Rocco, plus open mic. Thursday, Speak Up presents poems and stories on the theme, I Quit (Sacramento Avid Reader, 7pm), or head on over to Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe for frank andrick, Paul Aponte/Wolf Fox plus open mic, 8pm. On Friday, The Other Voice in Davis presents Carol Frith, James Lee Jobe and open mic at 7:30pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church, as James Lee takes over hosting duties from Allegra Silberstein, who has hosted this series so well for many years. (Thank you, Allegra!)

And then it will already be Memorial Day Weekend! Saturday morning presents Writers on the Air, a live radio podcast/broadcast with Azin Rametipour, 10am, at Sac. Poetry Center. That afternoon, Poetic License in Placerville features a read-around at the Sr. Center, 2-4pm.  Then on Sunday, also in Placerville: Poetry on Main St. open mic for poets and musicians at The Wine Smith on Main St., 4-6pm. 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

 —Anonymous Photo

Celebrate poetry! [And insert caption here, such as 

Mooov-in Down the Road, On the Road Again, Cowabunga…]

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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An Ordinary Life

(Anonymous Photo)

THE PLEASURES OF ORDINARY LIFE
—Judith Viorst

I've had my share of necessary losses,
Of dreams I know no longer can come true.
I'm done now with the whys and the becauses.
It's time to make things good, not just make do.
It's time to stop complaining and pursue
The pleasures of an ordinary life.

I used to rail against my compromises.
I yearned for the wild music, the swift race.
But happiness arrived in new disguises:
Sun lighting a child's hair. A friend's embrace.
Slow dancing in a safe and quiet place.
The pleasures of an ordinary life.

I'll have no trumpets, triumphs, trails of glory.
It seems the woman I've turned out to be
Is not the heroine of some grand story.
But I have learned to find the poetry
In what my hands can touch, my eyes can see.
The pleasures of an ordinary life.

Young fantasies of magic and of mystery
Are over. But they really can't compete
With all we've built together: A long history.
Connections that help render us complete.
Ties that hold and heal us. And the sweet,
Sweet pleasures of an ordinary life.

_____________________

—Medusa, reminding you that today, Nancy Aidé González and Lara Gularte will be reading at Love Birds Coffee & Tea Co. in Placerville (1-3pm), and Jennifer O’Neill Pickering will be at Lincoln Library in Lincoln, 3pm. Then at 5pm, Joshua McKinney will speak about his life and poetry at the Naked Lounge Coffee House (1111 H St., Sacramento) in a “Coffee and Poets” series interview by guest host Frank Dixon Graham. 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. 

An Unblemished Kingdom

Sky

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

AGAIN

The morning comes again,
Struggling to have us believe
Everything is new once again.

All is new.  An unblemished kingdom.
You have never walked here before.
We have been told that long ago
All of this was a dream.

Today, I will dream you
And I will dream myself,
So that we may walk together
Along the edge of the sea.

We will be able to sing songs
To one another and listen
To the waves hiss toward our feet.

By evening all will seem
To have been pure magic.
We will pass the gates of sleep
Again.  The morning comes again.

Everything is new once again.

 Moon on My Computer

A PRIVATE RIVER

The moon creeping around
As if it thought I was waiting
For anything to be real.
The blanket still warm enough.

You don’t know what you
Are doing here, do you?
How you are with me
Still listening to the
Song that moon makes when it lifts
Above the trees.  I see you.

This is going to feel like
We’re dancing.  I won’t apologize.

Don’t worry.  You won’t remember
This anymore than that horse who
Gave his harness bells a shake.

If you lift your eyes you can see
The flashing lights of the police cars.
You’re not supposed to be here.
Let’s open the entire
Moment up completely.

They will see the car doors
Open, us dancing to the radio
As the city flickers and swells
In July, across any distance.

 Light Cube

BLUE QUARTZ

I got shell shocked
In the middle of the night.
I was glowing like blue quartz.
I stood up for the fight.
I opened up the picture frame.
I opened up the gun.
The one with the pearl handle
That you had gifted to your son.

You reminded me that this would happen
But I couldn’t hear you out.
I was spitting teeth into the street.
The ghosts began to shout.

Don’t touch a thing within this room,
They don’t mean a thing, they say.
I jumped into the blue coupe.
I had warned you that you’d pay.

I could feel the bat escape my hand
As I struggled to my feet.
Do not come one step closer.
Keep your hands off of the meat.

No one really means it now.
It’s just a room without a door.
It’s just the way the pitch
Intrudes this time around.
Now get up off that floor.

 My Bedroom Looking East

LOVE POEM

Last night your hair
Had nothing to do with you.

It really didn’t need you at all.
But I was happy for that
Moment, maybe eight bars.

The house and garden were there.
I could see the release.
It was just a muted trumpet
Trying to find any language
That would mean something
More than these stupid words.

 Living Room

WAITING FOR ROBERT FROST

I was ready to go with you
To the spring to brush
The leaves away.

I must have rubbed my eyes
Just before you came that day.

I was up by roots and dark
Foliage wrapped itself
Around me and I became
The Spring and looked up
To see you staring at me
As the moment declared
Such pools to be.

 Roses

FIREWORKS

I speak with the dreams
My own dreams have.
They are a perfection
That dismisses everything
You may imagine about me.

I know you do not imagine
Anything about me but
The atmosphere here
Is full of volcanoes and
Such magnificent fireworks.

I know they can be nothing
Else but the brightness of the moment
That you are here.

TIME CAN DO SO MUCH

Joni Mitchell never kissed me.
I always thought she would.
I even thought we might be lovers
But I never knew about
How high mountains could be
Or that her voice could really be anywhere,
Couldn’t it?   Nothing lasts for long.

Last time I looked I was still
Floating over Canada
Thinking I would see her
At any moment.

 From a Russian Fairy Tale

Today’s LittleNip:

There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said.

—Joni Mitchell

 Local T-Rex and Friend

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s poems and visuals!

 Banner for Asian Festival in Locke Today.

Celebrate poetry! And visit the Locke Asian Pacific 

Festival in Locke, CA today, 11-4pm 

(events.sacbee.com/performer.aspx?perf_id=2395684); 

then come back to Sacramento for Sacramento Voices 

with Jan Haag, Pat Wentzel, Haley Veith plus open mic, 

4:30-6pm at the Sac. Poetry Center, 25th & R Sts.

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.

Teaching Moments

—Poetry by Donal Mahoney, Belleville, IL

—AMGEN Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

A TEACHING MOMENT FOR LITTLE NORA

Little Nora and Grandpa Bill
sit on swings in Grandma’s garden. 
A hummingbird arrives to sample

the brilliant flowers at this buffet.
Grandpa Bill sees a teaching moment
and asks little Nora with a smile

if hummingbirds have beaks or bills.
Little Nora has a teaching moment,
says, “Grandpa, they have straws."

__________________

ALICE’S HOUSE

Redbud and dogwood have blossomed
above the tulips and jonquils where
Alice's house used to be.

A possum and raccoon nose around
where the garage was before the tornado.
An armadillo has joined them.

Someone has hung a red feeder from
the old clothesline. No hummingbirds yet.
Spring has brought new life over there.

_________________

ALICE BENT OVER

A gathering of elders
from the local rest home
is out for a walk after dusk

on canes and walkers
admiring roses and lilies
and a pond of rainbow koi

except for Alice trailing
without cane or walker
whose head is bent over  

at the neck so she sees
nothing but ants
scurrying around her.

Alice is the letter “L”
upside down forever.
She will never see the sun

light up the sky or the stars
glow in the night or the halo
of moonlight falling around her.

BREAKFAST WITH TED

No one goes to the patio now
except at night when Ann
goes out to spread old bread
and sunflower seed
on the small table for birds
to eat at dawn.

The next morning
she gets up early and
watches the birds from
the breakfast nook
where she and Ted
would sit and marvel
at the pecking order.

First the sparrows arrive
and eat as fast as possible
before the cardinals and jays
come and take command.
Then the starlings land
and raise a ruckus
even when the table
is theirs alone.

The starlings leave
like jets on a mission and
in just a few minutes
two doves drop down.
One walks behind the other
and they eat whatever
is left behind.

It’s no wonder Ann’s partial
to one of the doves.
He reminds her of Ted
and lets the other dove
walk ahead and eat
the best of what is left.
His feathers are always
perfectly in place, same
color as Ted’s hair.

_________________

A DIFFERENT WALL

Three times a day
a train roars through
a field a farm away

booming like an Angus bull
looking for companionship.
Nearby in Henson's field

Guernsey cows eat their grass
behind a redwood fence
and moo in blissful peace.

They’ve heard this bull before.
No need to raise their heads.
He can’t come through that fence.

DRUMSTICK AND THIGH

Young Tim goes to Zaire
to write his dissertation
in African Studies.

While there he meets and
marries a beautiful librarian
darker than he is, flies her

home to meet the family.
Tim's father asks his mother
if she knew about Margot.

Mother says she didn’t
but she’s not surprised.
On Thanksgiving Day

Tim likes the dark meat,
the biggest and meatiest
drumstick and thigh.

________________

AMERICAN RAINBOW

Black lives matter
in different ways
to different people
in the American rainbow
especially bus companies
that bounce over potholes
in the big cities of America.
For them money matters.

If blacks stop riding buses
the buses will be empty
except for other poor folk
white, red, yellow, brown
who don’t drive cars
but are too few to keep
the buses bouncing.

Everyone will understand
that black lives matter when 
everyone understands
that black money matters
not to blacks alone but
to all stripes in the
American rainbow. 

A BRIDE FOR MR. FENSTER

Three sisters
single in their 40s
gather 'round the fire

on a night of thunder
to figure out which sister
should marry Mr. Fenster,

a widower in his 90s now.
He proposed last week to
all three of them and said

he would marry one
and provide a nice home
for the other two.

Mr. Fenster owns a farm
down the road a mile or so.
Worth a lot of money

he buried a wife a year ago.
He's mourned enough, he says,
and wants to marry a nice lady

who will make him happy.
Mabel and Maude say Millie
should be the bride.

After all, she's the youngest
of the three, can cook and clean
and is young enough

and strong enough to lift
Mr. Fenster on and off.
Millie says no way.

________________

BIKER AT THE DRUGSTORE

It’s a very busy drug store
with seats along the wall
where folks who wait for refills
sit and sometimes chat
but as I discover you can
leave the store worse off 
than when you walk in.

The fellow next to me's
a biker as his attire says,
a red bandana around his head
a black leather jacket with
zippers dashing everywhere.

I’ve never met a biker
but everything is fine until
he presses something in his neck
and says his vocal chords
were harvested by cancer.

I lie and say I understand
but then he adds he's been told
he now has liver cancer.
He’s picking up some meds
he hopes will let him live.
The doctor says six months.
Again I lie and say I understand
but who am I to understand.
I’ve never had cancer.

I tell my wife later, next to
marrying her, the smartest thing
I’ve ever done was quit two packs  
a day and vodka straight
no chaser on the weekends.
That was 50 years ago.
She says marrying her was
nowhere near the smartest thing.
Quitting all that stuff was better.
I suspect my biker friend
if he had another chance
at life would join me.

CHAIR ARRANGER

Homer's a chair arranger who
works in meeting rooms
on 30 floors in a building
tall as Trump Tower.
At least it looks that tall to him
getting off the subway
half asleep at 4 a.m.

Setting up a banquet is
the toughest job for Homer.
Long tables and many chairs
take all morning to set up
all afternoon to take down.
He works alone by choice.
Doing so is job security.

But no one wants his job,
not even young Jason,
who steps in for Homer when
he has to take a vacation.
That’s when Homer warns Jason
chair arranging is like life.
What goes up must come down.
And both can happen quickly.

_________________

AT MIDNIGHT IN NEW YORK

It’s midnight in New York
and in this tall building
Herb and Molly are
in bed making love.
Molly is a virgin
and it hurts.
Olga’s upstairs
in bed with cancer
terminal and it hurts.
Melvin’s downstairs
in bed snoring.
Nothing hurts because
he doesn’t know yet
he has multiple sclerosis.
In the hallway a thief
goes floor to floor
trying door knobs
hoping one will open.
All the doors are locked,
chained and bolted.
Everyone is safe.
No one can get in.

_________________

DONALD TRUMP AND MOTHER TERESA

Time’s a jet plane
when you’re young.
You go to school
get a good job
marry someone nice
and have a family
if that’s your calling.

Then the kids grow up
and move out and
things start falling
apart even if you
have a pension and
many now won’t.

Poor health sneaks in
like a submarine
and in time you forget
to take your pills
so the kids find a place
where folks give folks
like you your pills
every day on time.

Then one day you die
and find out if you had
the right goals in life
all those years you tried
so hard to do things right.
Mother Teresa found out.
Donald Trump will too.

_________________

Today’s LittleNip:

BURP
—Donal Mahoney

A sense of shame is
missing in the world today.
If you find it, burp.

_________________

—Medusa, thanking Donal Mahoney and Katy Brown for today’s fine fare!

Celebrate poetry and the slow and the swift!

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.
 

Crazy With Poetry

Clarksville Team (with golf cart)

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

CLARKSVILLE DAY

Crazy with poetry and weed-eating—
all that new spring growth head-high by now—
I put down the Echo, the pencil, the mouse,
and drove to Clarksville. Once a bustling place.
On just one day a year, they open the gate
to the old ghost town. This was the day. I hadn’t
expected such a crowd of the living, come
to see ruins of the old Wells Fargo station;
black Percherons hitched to a wagon;
Pony Express riders; classic car parade;
Mormon Battalion with its replica Howitzer
and “fire in the hole!” One-room schoolhouse
now the center-piece of a barn. Walls
that have stood so many tomorrows. Old
cemetery with too many infant headstones.
Purple thistle blooms beside a home long vacant.
No whisper of a ghost; but one might yet
come to visit, passing on-wish through a gate
kept locked except for yesterday.

__________________

INSIDE A CURLY-CUE FENCE

Calla lilies bloom as if forever by a house
where no one’s lived for decades. This side yard
must have been some woman’s sanctuary
with no statue of a saint, but soil that grows
many prayers. I imagine she might have
put out a dish of water in summer for birds
and lizards to drink, and the sun to
admire its reflection as it passed, turning field-
grasses brown and flammable by June.
When she flung her wash-water onto a bit
of garden-green, did she dare denounce the heat,
the wind, a siphon-cloud changing some
invisible balance of mountain and valley;
the chance of just one wayward spark? Did she
check the sky for smoke above the ridges?

 Classic Cars

RUBICON

The whole landscape’s broken—uplift
and fractured stone. Land of broken axles, quick
fixes to get your rig back on the trail.
You come once a summer to make yourself
whole under sky. Ancient juniper reaching tree-
arms in blessing on a rock ridge—
a human heart-stop on the torturous way.
You’d rest under the shade of its uplift arms.
This year, you stop in the suddenly
shadeless spot; speechless. The blessing’s gone,
fallen under too many winters’ snows,
when no one was there to witness, to hear it fall.
And nothing in your toolkit could ever fix it.

____________________

DEEP IN THE CLEARCUT FOREST

He became a tree. Climbed into a hollow stump
and pulled old slabs of bark over the top. Made
himself comfortable. He heard the west wind
blow across his roof, sweeping the clearcut.
He could hear ants following their leader up and
down the weathered trunk that had been cedar.
A bird sang in its own language which he tried
to understand, and almost did. Gooseberries
ripened their thorny crimson lanterns lit
with sun. Did he miss his home? his mother
calling from an open door? Someday maybe
tomorrow or today, he’d wander back that way.

 Hangtown Marshals

ENERGIZER

She doesn’t walk into a wasteland with
rake and shovel, meaning to create a paradise
with sweat and tears. She prefers to do
the groundwork in her head. Figuratively, she
squints at a square of cloth, needle in one
hand, basket of fibers in all possible colors or
as many as she can afford, and where had
been blank white fabric she creates a garden.
Forget Penelope at the loom, undoing
every night what she’d done that day, although
work often seems like that. Science teaches
that nothing is forever, and vegetable gardens
get ripped out at the end of a season,
used-up plants fed to the stock, plowed back
under or turned to compost for microbes
to go to work. No, her garden is kids’ minds
and the fancies of folk who hear a song
in their head and want it freed. A garden mixes
metaphor as an artist mixes pigments
on her palette. Mint wild-green in summer,
sending roots every-which-way growing
so strong you’ll never eradicate it.


No one lives forever. In the meantime,


what might she plant tomorrow?

_____________________

ANOTHER VERSION

How could she believe the dream?—knowing
fairytales, legends and myths with barbed truths
in guise of fable slipping to melodrama.
He stole the key to the kingdom, citadel of
a heart kept safe—or was it captive?—in stone.
He slammed shut the door, caretaker’s cabin
whose dark no sun would strike. The key locked
inside. Are re-enactments real? She woke
to tomorrow; found one path led to the next.
Logging spurs disappeared in thicket at the edge
of dropoff. She kept on going, down, skirting
cliffs, drawn by the call of wild river.
Not a moat—even if the kingdom stood on the
other side, across water running fast and cold,
snowmelt from mountains of cloud. River
that might become a meditation between where
she left and that quiet kingdom high on a sun-
slope. For him, a moat. He’d never find her.

__________________________

Today’s LittleNip(s):

QUETZAL
—Carol Frith, Sacramento, CA

A snake? I've forgotten how to write
a serpent. Quetzal, with your feathered scales
and brother to the moon? A god, not quite
a snake. And I've forgotten how to write
about the moon, who slept with you, her light
a memory that all light somehow fails.
Bright snake, I've forgotten how to write
about you...Quetzal with your feathered scales.

* * *

ADAPTATION
—Taylor Graham, Somerset, CA

The vixen knows her way about this land
for ages. Engineered, a new bridge cuts
her roaming-ground in half, her river spanned.
The vixen knows her way about this land
but has to find new paths, and understand
geometry. A sturdy arch abuts
what vixen knows: her way about this land.
For ages engineered, the new bridge cuts.

________________________

May 29, 2005, was the first-ever posting in Medusa’s Kitchen, so we have an anniversary coming up. At the time, I was putting together Fangs 1, which was an anthology of poems about snakes. (Yes, snakes—celebrating Rattlesnake Press.) I was wheedling snake poems out of people, including Carol Frith, who sent me the above “Quetzal”, and I posted it on the third day of the Kitchen (May 31). Taylor Graham then wrote the above “Adaptation” in response to Carol’s poem, and I posted it on June 3, making her also one of the first poets to join us at the Kitchen table. She’s been a loyal contributor ever since, sending poems and photos, particularly about nature and about our heritage in Placerville (she is El Dorado County's first Poet Laureate), and often writing in response to our Seed of the Week and to other poems posted on Medusa (particularly D.R. Wagner's Saturday posts).

So it’s an honor and a pleasure to have Taylor Graham officially occupy the Thursday slot. Welcome, TG! And thanks for your many, many contributions of poetry and photos! For more about Judy Taylor Graham, see eldoradoartscouncil.org/poet-laureate/; www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/taylor-graham-poet-interview/; vimeo.com/36216794/. TG also has established www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry, for news of El Dorado County poetry events/, of which, thanks to her and her husband, Hatch, there are many.

By the way, some of the other ‘way-early poets posted were Don Feliz, Bill Gainer, and Anatole Lubovich (his Colonoscopy poem!), Mary Zeppa, James Lee Jobe, and Patricia Nichol. To find older posts, all the way back to the beginning, scroll down in the blue column at the right to Medusa’s Rap-Sheet (the archives), then click on the caret for the year you want, and then the month. Warning: some of the older posts don’t look very good, because formats and computers have changed over the eleven years. As has my brain......

—Medusa
 

 Clarksville Big Team

Celebrate poetry, and don’t forget that today at noon, 

Sac. Poetry Center presents Third Thursday at the 

Central Library on I St. in Sacramento; then tonight 

you have your choice of Poetry Unplugged at 

Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento tonight, 8pm, with 

featured poets and open mic, or William O’Daly 

and Madeline Gobbo (plus open mic) at John 

Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, 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.

Where Pinwheels Hide

—Poems by Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA
—Anonymous Photos
 

LOST WORDS, LOST WORLD

Theresa, I never witnessed your running side:
what better admission of that ignorance
in which I knew you, liked you in a trance
as one who might know the mind but miss the stride?
—by which your agile cerebral parts made glide
your lean-knit frame…rocketing from stock stance
to accelerated gazelle. This run-romance
ignited word-hoards within: where bright pinwheels hide.

As runners feel the stopping pang, the stitch,
remembrance caught, snagged on the thinking-vine
still aching toward the dark grapes of sweet speech.
I mourn your long loss of memory; question mine,
that ranges our poetry scenes, but gaping, holed:
you speak, and the lovely words come, lipped on silent film.
Yet paper revives your voice, your English time-realm:
unscrolled there, sprint of thought: you fiercely tholed.

ENCHANTED SUMMER (Arnold Bax)
    Symphonic poem for orchestra and chorus
    (a setting of Prometheus Unbound, Act Two, Scene Two)

In youthful fierceness that vaults difficulty
where mortal choristers cannot hope to leap,
Bax mounts his Promethean setting high in the steep
Caucasus where the god-man must soon go free:
Pure Shelley, idealist youth and idealist youth
saturating in music together the rage
for beauty unchained, for tyrants to lose to truth,
in an orchestral poem transcending all era and age:
we hear it and feel for the singers so taxed and strained,
and yet the fine English choir to cope somehow.
Strange melodies, gorgeous ones, perfectly “sun-stained,”
obscuring the diction everywhere; words bow
to sound. Yet clarity in the soprano shout:
of how the EARTH shall be made one BROTHERHOOD.
The brightness, all Shelleyan Italy, all good,
and Davy’s empirical science, in Shelley made stout
as imagined sweet sylphs may ascend on real swamp-vapor.
What a miracle, though, to hear song reinforce the verse-paper… 

_________________________

ON REHANDLING ANOTHER’S (Perfectly Good)
        Translation from the French

A most impudent misuse of my mind;
arrogant, too, to presume to reword
the expert translator’s rendition, to find
excuse to recalibrate, in blurred,
dulled verbiage, great C.F. MacIntyre.
Rehandling a master’s most deft, swift French-
into-English, twiddling his stove-dial for fire.
As if he left faults anywhere to retrench!
Yes, I have only one tongue to tune;
mere commonsense leaves the translator intact:
his own Corbière, his Verlaine, his Rimbaud.
I learn, though, as much as I lean on spoonfuls
he alone can dole out like fact
made good medicine; as he dictates, so I flow.
Though I spy a stiltedness, for all his lilts,
something to lightly resize, reshape,
monolingual, my measure far short by his tape,
I remember Yeats’ thoughts on the uses of stilts…

MIRLITON

Sleep on in love, cunning blacksmith of cicadas!
There in susurrusing waves of sawgrass,
the cicada will aim his song-arrow of rasp,
joyous, his shrill finger-cymbals in cadence.
The matin comes on as the dewpoint will weep,
and the Mayday blooms wind up a pretty gravesheet.
Sleep on in love, cunning blacksmith of cicadas!
Weeping in bird-squadrons, blusters will sweep…
Here the white Muse of the Nose-Hole will stay;
forever to your blackened mouth she’ll convey
the rhymes that make bone-marrow shrivel and pale…
Sleep on in love, cunning blacksmith of cicadas!

—Tristan Corbière (translation by C.F. MacIntyre, rehandled by T.G.)
 
__________________________

RONDEL

The dark’s coming on, child, the stealer of sparks!
The nights are no more, the days are no more;
sleep…and await all the ones who contend
Forever! and those who retort Now’s the end…!
Do your ears catch their footfall? Not heavy, no:
Oh, the light feet! Love, clear up to the wings!
The dark’s coming on, child, the stealer of sparks!
Do your ears catch their voice? All graves are deaf.
Sleep: they weigh nothing much, your immortelles:
those others won’t come anytime, your friends the bears,
to toss chunks of pavement at your demoiselles:
The dark’s coming on, child, the stealer of sparks!


—Tristan Corbière (translation by C.F. MacIntyre, rehandled by T.G.)

CROSSING THE BARRIER

When you robbed me of power to speak up,
I knew you’d crossed my blood-brain barrier
as hypodermics or a strange potion cup
could never do. Your vintage Harrier
made intravenous jump-jet takeoff lift:
your face, your hands, your voice ascended straight
into my cranial life. Your deep red gift
then strained directly down to permeate
my sanguinary empire. So suffused
was I, when you spoke soft impulsive words
I ached to speak but might have uttered blood.
By what flight path might I arrive, leave stirred
your limbs and veins with pain and bliss confused;
what speaking tongue ignites a young red flood?

__________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. … It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.

—Enid Bagnold

_________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Tom Goff for today’s fine poetry! Tom will be reading with his wife, the exotic Latvian poet Nora Staklis, as part of the Speak Up series at Avid Reader in Sacramento next Thursday, May 25 (a week from tomorrow), 7-8:30pm. Tom and Nora will be joining other poets and storytellers on the theme, I Quit. 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.

 Celebrate poetry, and those poets who have passed. 

For more about Pinwheels for Peace, go to 

www.pinwheelsforpeace.com/Pinwheels_for_Peace/home.html/.

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.