Tap-Dancing Fingers on Overdrive

—Anonymous Photos
—Poetry by Alyssa Trivett

MOWERS

Although I live in suburbia,
I am still trying to decipher
why all the mimes
rev up their mowers
at the most inconsistent time?
Think nineties Monster Truck commercials
at the arena,
a demolition derby heartbeat
giving your lawn a waxing and weaving.
I would pop my head out the
train station ticket thick glass window
but my nerves tell me to continue
tap-dancing on and continue to
jack-in-the-box peddle these keys,
so I do.

GRIEF, WEEKDAY EVENING

I bowling roll the grief into stitched lines
and let 'em seep into the wall
like morphine in my IV drip during appendix surgery,
that shit made my head spin and threw my artistic ways
on an electric car remote control track
only to veer off and vroom down the basement stairs
and years later roller coaster jolt my nerves and wrists
and I saw my veins pop outta my arms today
like a broken toothpick house
lingering in the wind.
But I found a way,
and I used it;
instead of stabbing the pen into the paper,
I put 'em tap-dancing fingers on overdrive
'til the arms fell off from
a jittery coffee-cup day at the office.
Onward.

CEMETERY TOURS

We received our own grand tour
of playing hopscotch over
scarred roads
in the Jurassic Park tree branch
suburban July gravestone jungle.
We seep in air conditioning,
take cover from the toothbrush
branches hogtied to our windows,
hear peace in birdsong
and let heat wash our skin away,
to piece together your final
resting place.

HOSPITAL PARKING LOT A

A golf cart with
creaky wheels approaches,
rusted edges tail-side.
Driver with messenger hat
relays to me,
would I like a ride?
I reply, coffee cup bobbing in the wind...
No thank you, it's such a beautiful day.
I'd rather walk the fifty feet.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

—Percy Bysshe Shelley

__________________

Our thanks to Alyssa Trivett for today’s fine poetry. Alyssa is a wandering soul from the Midwest. When not working two jobs, she listens to music, chirps down coffee, and scrawls lines on the back of gas station receipts. Her work has appeared recently at In Between Hangovers, Gold Dust Poetry Magazine, and Apricity Magazine.

Gail Entrekin writes that the Summer Solstice issue of Canary Magazine is now available at canarylitmag.org/.

—Medusa

Alyssa Trivett 

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.

Caught in the Horse's Eye

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

CALIFORNIA POPPIES

Golder than the sun
these poppies each one reaching
higher into sky

summer’s quest for gold—
poppies lifting heads unstunned
by our foothill heat

sky blinding to the eye
as noon sun reaches down
to torch the poppies’ gold

burning like summer
a hill where poppies are the
only flaming shade

we’re trudging higher
ablaze with poppies.

CABIN IN THE WOODS

Beyond the campground, a stringer of pines;
footbridge across a creek that guards its
blue secret from tangle-grasses on the banks,
a patch of false hellebore mocking skunk
cabbage but for its white blooms—
we come to the clearing for this occasion.
Clouds are edgy, white and flocking
as if waiting on a word of weather to run.
Pines stand mountain-stoic. Kindling’s placed
tepee-fashion in the fire-circle, not yet lit—
the kind to keep us singing questions into dark.
Out of sight, in the woods a cabin’s
yet to shut its door as if waiting for a man
to come back home; pull off his boots
at end of day. Years ago we came here to say
our goodbyes. Today we come again.
Another friend has left a cabin open
in the meadow. Firewood outside the circle,
left for burning. Forest’s history of green.

HER ASHES

Aspen meditated around the edges. Bare-armed or bundled—it was June— we found hard seats on picnic benches. The forest her country, cathedral of pines. To speak of the departed set the west wind blowing. She knew everything. Where the shelter-cabin huddled in the midst of snow. If a hiker was missing on the 2-lake trail, go check the drift of ground where pussy-paws spread over DG granite, it pulls you downhill so gradual, you don’t notice you’re dropping into canyon. She’d solve a disappearance in her head out of memory and long seeking. She never wrote those histories down, had no grasp of sentences on paper. And none of us thought to be her scribe. She was always there, until she wasn’t. Cancer no mystery she could solve. Then the wind picked up, a roar to remind it would storm any time of year.

aspen in flurry
the great pines leaned together
wind blew it away

A BETTER VIEW

Through office window-screen I thought
the blossoms on the privet were
getting dingy, fading white and falling.

What’s that bird? Phoebe silhouette
but dullish gray—a trick of light
screened by canopy of branches?

And bees! Dozens of bees.
Walk outside.
So many fresh white blossoms

and yes it’s Phoebe, bright in black habit.
And bees going crazy in the privet.

REPETITIONS OF THE DANCE

The old scythe’s gone too rusty for this dance
with another season’s blossom-dying green—
stickers grown brittle, higher than one’s knee
and thistle rampant all about the land,

its red-flag warnings: combustible land.
A motor-scythe’s our partner for this dance,
whacking wild oat and brome no longer green.
I swing and sway, no longer lithe of knee

and shoulder. There’s a rustiness of knee
on tricky footing, navigating land
of rocks and pocks and branches under green
that cause a sudden mis-step in the dance.

And yet there’s joy that makes of chore a dance,
a steady rhythm that absorbs the knee,
connects it somehow, fiber to the land—
grasses shaking down seeds to promise green

garlands for another dance. Bend the knee,
bow to this land that always comes back green.

THROUGH WINDSHIELD GLASS

Pure reflection. Pale horse
at liberty to graze for a few more moments,
this lovely cool morning before hitch-up, before
the Wagon Train moves on. Already a saddle-
horse is reined into the waiting line. Already
the teamster may be consulting his watch,
looking for a sign, a summons.
But for the moment he lets the lead-rope drag,
he’s almost lost in reflection, allowing
his horse to graze June grass so close to my car.
My little Honda so low to the ground
I’m caught in the horse’s eye. Separated
by nothing but glass and light, pure
reflection.

Today’s LittleNip:

SUMMER STARS
—Carl Sandburg

Bend low again, night of summer stars.
So near you are, sky of summer stars,
So near, a long arm man can pick off stars,
Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
So near you are, summer stars,
So near, strumming, strumming,
So lazy and hum-strumming.

__________________

Our thanks to Taylor Graham for her poems about her trick knee and that cabin in the woods (our recent Seed of the Week), plus her fine photos, all to celebrate this Summer Solstice, 2018!

Head on down to the Sac. library on I St. today for Third Thursdays in the Central Library at noon; bring poems, preferably by someone other than yourself, about weddings, marriages, partnerships, mutual discovery.

Tonight at 8pm, Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento presents featured readers Loch Henson, Marvin Zia and open mic. Also at 8pm, Anna Fenerty and Nick LeForce will read in Davis at the John Natsoulas Gallery. 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

Celebrate Poetry—and the Summer 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

Many Winds and the Teeth of Rivers

—Poems by JD DeHart, Chattanooga, TN
—Anonymous Photos

THE JACKET

Rummaging, Randall finally found it,
small folded fabric, tucked into the bottom

of the bargain bin—the perfect look
for him.

The jacket he’d been looking for, but, man,
when he put it on, a spin and a tornado,

it sent him flying into the air.

Yeow, he said, and it was not a polite
expression, followed by curses and swears.

That fabric swallowed him whole, black
leather conforming to skin, a liquid
epidermis, sending him out into the world
in waves

not knowing what he did
not knowing where he was
a mind full of forgetting, empty
action, waking

the following morning, having been
host to just a little jacket, $10

in the bargain bin.
  
__________________

ANOTHER FLY

Another fly buzzed by,
thank you, Ms. Dickinson.

They are forever here in the summer
feasting on the heat, making
quick work of the air.  Tiny compound-
eyed kamikaze pilots.

They know my every move,
anticipating my swatting.

Our door opens and shuts
to another slew of them, always
a buzzing companion, our blazing
months accompanied

by wings too swift to see,
a faint hum, the music of decay.

FIELD NOTES

contained in indelicate
scribble, old receipts,
diagrams of the insides of
rooms none of the rest of us
have ever visited,
scraps of quotes, pages falling
out onto the floor,

the contents of months
in travel and analysis, application
of theory to a solid
locus of speech and practice,
crossing terrain, mapping mental
pathways to reflect self
in other spaces.

_________________
 
WORK OF HANDS

Today, I am separating what
is natural from what is made
by hand.

Flecks and crevices in the earth
are surely the work of many
winds and the teeth of rivers.

My many dreams, on the other side
of waking, are most certainly crafted
by my feet.

The places I went today in my world
or in my mind will reappear tonight
in my sleep, as if through a prism.

All the invisible ink I collect today will
unfold into a murder mystery of science
fiction tableau under the cover of dark.

I will recognize them from somewhere,
somehow, but really not at all—
What I will do with them is another
work of the hand.  The rest is up to the
flow of elements, the stacking of stones.

CHAMPION

I do not have the heavy
hands of a fighter,
a boxing glove feels anachronistic,
as natural as a slab of ham
trying its hardest not to slide
off my arm, a deft
shadow enfolds my vision.

I do not know how to cross, though
I have seen Roy Jones, Jr. bounce,
weave, I have seen the heavy giants
lumber on each other, catching their
breath as they pound skin and bone,
I have seen my father lean in, swing
his arm at nothing, embracing
a televised conflict, crimson face.

I might as well just leave my hands
at my sides, surrendering to collision.

________________

TAILS & TENDRILS

I dreamed about
prehensile instrument a mythical
creature might use
for exploration.

Think of the chimera, that bent
tail, stinger and other dangerous
insectoid features, somehow
misplaced on the mammal form.

Which reminds me of how,
early on, embryonic, we have
what looks like a tail which, I
suppose, becomes part
of the spine.

We snap upright, feeling
the world with words and invisible
connections instead.

SHE HAD

grease arms, and the
same haircut her whole life,

a bear’s sense of defense,
and a smile she did not share
too often.

Grew up next to wild roses
and a trestle.

She had the world
wrapped up in a wounded
heart that would not quit
loving, but did quit trying.

In some ways.
Never in others.

A faith that pumped her
pulse to the next day, and the next
encounter.

_________________

CARTOGRAPHY

There is a movement
forward, sudden gap in sound,
the rattle of bones.

My knees pop too loudly
and have since the third grade.
I was a young old man, gray
hair sprouting too soon.

We are looking for just a small
drink, but there is none to be found.
Like a fool, I insisted that we had
to see the entire map in person.

Maps are never in the flesh
what they look like on paper.

We stumble into a sandwich shop
but we want nothing of bread
flattened.  Seeing ice cream, we perk
up, but they are out.

When it’s in, there only two flavors
anyway.

It’s a dead end of town, a step too far,
the afternoon calling us back to the path,
on to the next object that won’t
resemble what we hoped it might.

DROP-OUT

I remember thinking
how I could disappear into the sheets
after one bad decision.

Going to the bank, thinking,
these are good jobs I will never get.
Hearing leaves rattle on gravel.

How I do not control the universe.
What was the root, what was the cause?
A multitude—boredom, sidelining,

marginalization, the traumas and flights
of other parts of life, always feeling like
the bent big toe in the classroom.

Afraid to stumble in the wrong direction.

Today is proof positive that one poor
judgment does not tie up all of life,
and that possibilities exist, always,
always.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

RIB
—JD DeHart

From Adam’s rib, a woman
was made.  So the story goes.
I believe it too.

What can be fashioned from my
rib?  A small universe?

A city on Mars, like the one Dr.
Manhattan made?

Or just a Manhattan, muddled
bourbon?

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to JD DeHart for today's fine poetry!

 Emily's Fly

—Anonymous Photo
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. 

She Who Is The Forest

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

THE MUSE OF REVERIE
Russian Impressionism (works by twenty-two academy-
trained master Russian Artists of the past and present)

She is the center—her own muse—
her hands on her lap, her face in a stare.
Memories rest in layers around her:
the closed distance of her mother,
the mute presence of her father;
the attentive white cat on the lap
of an ancestor—seven lives ago.
She feels herself merge,
tries to pull away,
but the past has got her:

the visions swirl:
the old house she lived in,
the murmuring linger of vanished voices,
the thick scent of flowers in heavy vases,
the road of tall trees down to the lake,
the old cabin on the eroding bank,
the drift of summers,
the place where it snowed—
the polished fruit on the polished table
back to the present room that fits around her.

 Suitcase Full of Travel

TO LEARN BY HEART (She Who Sits
in the forest /She Who Is the Forest)

Your soul is your life—the deep mirror
of time—the reach toward and through.
In the divine center, you reach the
Self—become the blue forest—feel
the cool deepness of the trees within.
You hold still for the stillness—
create the silence—touch the other
depths—continue and continue—
become the summary of yourself,
and for this moment you are gone.
When you return, you will be untorn.

__________________

SOMEWHERE, THE LONELINESS

Wide sweep of wind across cloud-torn sky,
gray upon blue,
wild yellow grasses bending below,

a lone tree struggling in a nearby field—
this is free country,
nothing to surrender or resist,

no bird or sound but the wind.
The day is gathering the hours.
The grass is rustling.  Something

must happen, else why are we here,
the only observers, a place of no
landmarks and no roads.

There are many trees like
this lone tree. The clouds turn ragged
and tear through each other, hurrying, hurrying.

 Anticipation

A window full of tree,

leaves through sunlight
        glinting in a green dance
              between air and light,

a mystery of birds hidden there.
        I hear them.  I feel the dance
              from inside the window.

___________________

DIMINUENDO
After “Hands” by Paula Maarston

At night the hands play the piano.
The dark piano-room gathers in to listen.
The walls thin out so they can breathe the music.
The hands are bewildered that they can do this
and the piano does what the hands want.
The hands are transparent—asleep or
locked in a stillness—and we are
dreaming.  The piano dreams
too—and the room—and the
walls clear out to the trees
that swish with empathy
and feel the night-music
playing through them.

 What You Wanted

THE FULL MOON HANGS SO LOW
THE DARKNESS OPENS

trees of white bend and make their motion
in the surrealistic whiteness
of their dance

old women move in memory—
their tethered forms soul-caught against
the shadowy landscape quiverings—

and they dance together—the women and
the trees—interchanging in the light
which startles them
                                               

(first pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2011)

________________

CITY TREES UNDER STREET LAMPS

This is the edge of summer now,
this slow hot dwindle, cooling at both ends of the days.

We press between, half wishing for the rains of change
to come—counting ourselves away from the long humidity.

We stand and listen to the small city trees—how at night
they murmur under street lamps.  We look up at them

and feel the old sadnesses brimming—how could we lose
so much in so little a time? We take this measurement

inward once again and have no answer for it. We sway
and remark how beautiful the trees are in this light.

 Home Again

THE CHANGING

In the sweet green air of night
late summer winds rise up—play at dance,
tease the fluttering wings of leaves—
blow the curtains in through open windows.

The cat sits by the screen door,
looking out—
watching the motion of shadows—
the nocturnal mysteries.

The green trees
flicker under the street lamp—
approve the spotlight—
shimmer and preen.

Name it what you will,
there is
a change in the air;
something quickens—makes rumors.

The waves of the sea-painting seem to move,
you watch the motion of the water—
the wet color of the moonlight on the wall
—something you never noticed before.

 Distances

IT IS THE TIME OF CHANGING TREES

Now there are flecks of yellow in the leaves
and flutters of rust in a damping breeze
in a motion of green made nervous by the
hour that is coming faster now to sundown; 

and a blue presence is being felt in some new
awareness that pulls swiftly at the sad remark
of some love that has died a bit with the summer,
but was here and now is gone—but when? when

did it go? was it this moment that describes itself
too late and all the power is being pulled into a
demanding darkness?  Night is the answer to
questions such as this, or morning when it comes

again to variegating trees.  “Two sorrows make
an answer,” is what you told me when I asked
an easy question of your eyes that were too full
of me, and, like the season, had begun changing.

_________________

Today’s LittleNip:

SHADOWS
—Joyce Odam

Now in the bluish air,
the lonely birds
and darkened windows
where the sorrows stare,
personified,

and all the trees
are stricken against the wall,
and here is where
the crystal moment
thaws, and what looks in,
is simply there.

_________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for today’s fine poems and pix! Our recent Seed of the Week was Little Cabin in the Woods, which set Joyce to daydreaming of trees.

Our new Seed of the Week is Workshops. Go wide, go deep, and think of poetry workshops as well as carpentry. Send your poems, photos & 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

 —Anonymous Photo
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. 

Little Foxtails in the Socks

—Photos by Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

Wasn't

Quite a cabin

In the woods.

Was more a

Shack down at

The end of

Our back alley.

The reedy voice

From behind the

Rotted screen:  

"I can smell bees!" 

We took the other way

Downtown after.

—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA

In a cheap oil-painting class at Michael’s craft store
      I painted a little cabin surrounded by woods
      Well, it’s what I was shown to do
      Afterward I would sometimes dream upon that painting
      I would wish that I could have a place like that
      Later I would learn about 19th-century author Henry David Thoreau
      and how he “experimented” in living in a cabin in the woods
      There he would write Walden, his transcendentalist essays,
      living as one would say today “off the grid”
      but Ralph Waldo Emerson remained Thoreau’s postal address
      Thoreau didn’t want to be like the creepy loner witch living in the forest
      But today there are people doing that who want to “disappear” or “not be found”
      One such person found living in a cabin in the woods was Ten Kaczynski, the
      Unabomber  

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

INTERVIEW
—Caschwa

Hello, I’m here to apply for
the job of poem

Do you rhyme with anything?

There’s a few words, but
I don’t know ‘em

How about some alliteration?

Easy legumey

Have you ever been published?

Words cannot describe it

Okay, you’re hired!  Show up
first thing in the morning
dressed in proper grammar
and appropriate punctuation

Oh, I thought the editors took
care of all that

Well, maybe starting out it will
be better if you just intern as a
figure of speech

_________________

BRIGHT FUTURE
—Caschwa

It is the first day of pre-school:
the room abounds with untamed
energy spilling over the printed
text of the best preconceived plans.

None of the kids have yet learned to
read or to write, but every last one
of them possesses a legal scholar
gene that instructs them to summarily

reject whatever an adult tells them as
inadmissible hearsay, leaving the kids
to instead gather facts and the truth
directly from their own senses. Forget

about learning anatomy from books,
let us rip off our clothes and actually
see and touch what is there. You say
flames are too hot for our fingers, I’ll

be the judge of that.  Hey teacher, I
like the color of your sweater.  Let me
take a piece of that home to share with
my family, and the dog.  Thanks!

A TEST OF PATIENCE
—Caschwa

We planted 7 tomato vines
and daily watched as they grew

today some are ankle height and
others reach up almost to the knee

here and there yellow petals
complementing the green

a very few small, young tomatoes
not yet distinct enough to name

insufferable caveats about water:
they need plenty, once in a while

to be continued……

________________

LITTLE FOXTAIL IN THE SOCKS
—Caschwa

It could be just one soloist
or a thousand together
chanting that sorrowful dirge

Ouch!!  My! Oh that hurts!
Why couldn’t those pieces of
nature just stay where they
were?

A handy chair accepts my rear,
legs crossed, shoes removed
and there it is, boldly protruding
from the part of the sock covering
the most tender area of my foot.

Its barbs make pulling on the
sticker futile, so off comes the
sock to retrieve it from the other
side….success!!  Are there more?

A quick and intent search thankfully
yields no more pointy intrusions…
next joust I’ll put on those cheap
rain boots as my shining armor.

________________

TELL YOUR DOCTOR
—Caschwa

If you have ever been to an
area where certain fungal
infections are present.
    —TV advertisement

Sure, that’s easy enough, I’ll
just set my GPS to let me know
every time I get close to some
fungal infections. 

Won’t my doctor’s whole staff
be surprised when I forward to
them the exact coordinates of
any fungal infections I may have
approached in my travels.

Whoa!  The hospital facility
where my doctor’s home office
is situated registers quite high
on the fungal infections register.

Hope they fix that soon.

UNCOMMON THREAD
—Caschwa

Millions of youths share the title or
experience of being a senior on a
fixed income in their last year of high
school and again in college, when
they have seemingly endless reserves
of time and energy and wonderful
prospects galore

life is a model car, paint it whatever
color suits you

much too soon after the caps and gowns
have been retired, out come the modest
senior discounts, and a cluster of once
manageable debts show enormous growth,
quite outpacing torn hose

now the well-educated enter a whole new
world of problems that a fresh coat of paint
cannot help, such as needing a new vital
organ, but being left off the transplant list
due to serious, conspicuous deficiencies
in their physical or financial well being

___________________

DEFIES MEDICAL EXPLANATION
—Caschwa

Normal Baby Boomer childhood,
boy consumed with Erector Sets:
glorious metal pieces with pre-
drilled holes carefully engineered

to fit together with screws and nuts
for several neat projects to build.
Now grown, approaching 70, life
attempts to imitate the known qualities

of those metal pieces, but the joinery
is no longer readily retrievable, so
those seemingly familiar parts now
refuse to fit together in any sensible way.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

INNOCENT WISH
—Caschwa

Stay
Hydrated
In
The
Summer

___________________

Thanks to today’s contributors, including the riffs on our Seed of the Week: Little Cabin in the Woods, and to Caschwa (Carl Schwartz, who says he is a “serial gardener”) for the summery photos!

This week’s poetry in our area begins with a Cal. Lawyers for the Arts workshop, A Legal Guide to Book Publishing, at The Avid Reader on Broadway, 11:30am. (Info/reg at www.showclix.com/event/cla-book-publishing-sacramento-6-18-18/.) Then tonight at Sac. Poetry Center, Nick LeForce reads, plus open mic, 7:30pm.

Thursday at noon, Third Thursdays at the Central Library will meet in Sacramento; bring poems about weddings, partnerships, mutual discovery. On Thursday night, in addition to Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe with featured readers and open mic, 8pm, Nick LeForce and Anna Fenerty will read in Davis, 8pm, at the John Natsoulas Gallery.

Writers on the Air will meet on Saturday at Sac. Poetry Center, featuring Jackie Smithson Howard, Gerrie Walker, and open mic, 9:30pm. Also on Saturday, Poetic License poetry read-around will meet at the Placerville Sr. Center in Placerville, 2pm. And on Sunday at Sac. Poetry Center, Nick LeForce will present his free Wording the World Workshop from 12-4pm. Info: www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=wording the world/. 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!

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.

Armchair Adventures

Sky in a Jar

—Poems by Nick LeForce, Sacramento, CA

—Anonymous Photos

MISPLACED MOMENTS

I have elevated the act
of misplacing items
to a fine art

as if there is within me
a devious adolescent
playing a prank on a friend

by hiding
that one piece of paper,
that one set of keys,
that one little bit of importance

and then watching
with amusement
as I look for it frantically.

I do not want to know
how much time I’ve spent
in those misplaced moments
searching for something
I know to be where it is not
because it was there a minute ago.

I do not want to know
how often I’ve retraced my steps
redone my work
re–searched my soul

trying to find the patron saint
of the lost and found
who can lift a box
of forgotten treasures
and mislaid trinkets
from behind a counter
where I may find
what I have been looking for
and, with a mix of gratitude and relief,
say “thank you,”
“thank you,”
“thank you.”

ARMCHAIR ADVENTURER

Even the armchair adventurer
will one day come home
bearing maps of lands unknown,
of places no one else can go;
shoe-worn and travel weary,
telling stories no one hears
and no one sees the sadness
from all the years
of living life on the sidelines.

If only promises,
inked on parchment and
tucked onto dusty shelves,
could show the way;
could bind us to the spine,
opening pages filled
with the loves and losses;
the misery and magnificence
of a ragtag team of misfits
you can only come to love
over time.

If only we could let our lives
become a page–turner,
every part of the plot
a piece of a puzzle
that adds up to something
you cannot wait to discover.

If you read between the lives
of every armchair adventurer,
you will see someone
longing to live a life
that cannot be put down;
a life to which you want to return
in every waking moment
all the way through
to the end. 

TREES

I want the deep sleep of trees
that can dream for weeks and months
undisturbed by wind and storms
rooted as they are in life

and growing rings each year
around a question
they do not need to answer.

Knowing themselves
not by what they say or do,
but by drinking sunlight,
caressing earth,
kissing heaven,

and holding fast to a truth
that can only be found
by one who is willing
to stand still
through the passing of seasons
year after year. 

SKY IN A JAR

“Sky In a Jar” was written after hearing Hannah Stein read her poetry at Barnes & Noble in Sacramento on 2/19/03.

How I wish to capture the sky in a jar
and hold it out to you as Hannah did.

She knows the quivering you feel
when someone traces the fault-line
across your soul
and can take you back
to the time
when the old world
and the new world
were still one continent.

She wears the years like a scarf
draped around her neck
clothes color-coordinated
and stands in perfect politeness.
But she still feels her own nakedness,
still savors succulent blackberries
hand-picked so the juice stains her fingers
eating only the ripest, those bursting with life,
because she knows
even caged animals
weep for their dead.

She dazzles those, like me,
who walk with silk crutches
taunting us to throw them aside
to dance with her across the rainbow
filling an open jar
with the heavens.

I went out that very night
and began shooting stars
at the moon
and I felt contented
even though
every single one
missed the mark.

FOREVER ETCHED

Only when the years have whitewashed your hair;
Only when life has etched itself upon your face;
Only then will you come to yourself whole.

Only when you have loved, and lost, and loved again;
Only when you have traveled down dead-end roads
And left a thousand projects unfinished;
Only then will you come to yourself whole.

Only when you have embraced the other face
of your two–faced life;
Only when you have slept in the bed of your own lies;
Only then will you come to yourself whole.

Only when the wind and water have weathered the edges of you;
So much so that you are a remnant of what you once were;
Only then will you come to yourself whole.

Not as arms and legs.
Not as thoughts and feelings,
Not as deeds and accomplishments,
But as something wholly unknowable.

Only then will you find your Self
Forever etched upon the face of the universe.

_________________

Today’s LittleNip:

The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.

—Doug Larson

____________________

Our thanks to Nick LeForce today for his poems, all of which are from his book, Heaven in Our Hearts (Inner Works), available on Amazon. Nick will be a busy poet this week! On Monday, he will be a featured poet at Sacramento Poetry Center, 7:30pm; on Thursday, he will read in Davis at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 8pm; and on Sunday, 12-4pm, he will be conducting a writing workshop at Sacramento 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.

Today, area readings offer two choices: Davis Arts Center Poetry Series, with Amanda Hawkins and Vincent Kobelt, 2pm, and Poetry in Placerville, with an open mic for poems and stories, 1pm, at Love Birds Coffee and Tea on Broadway in Placerville.

—Medusa

 Celebrate the poetry of aging!

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 Ridiculous Man

Still Life With Underpants

—Poems and Photos by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA

I am a ridiculous man.
The moon is an old friend;
Was it hung there by a child?
The sky is a blanket of night
Waiting in the cool darkness.
My feet are tired from walking,
And my soul is worn out by grief.
How far is there left to go?
And how did the years fall away
So quickly? I seem to have failed
To see that which is obvious.
I am a ridiculous man.
My mind is a ticking time bomb
That cannot be defused.
Sin can be forgiven, but my mistakes?
They cannot all be corrected.
My guilt is obvious, everyone knows it.
I wonder now if I know it, too? 

 Still Life With Shovel

Standing outside of my church late at night,
I can hear an owl up in a Ponderosa Pine.
If you smell the bark of a Ponderosa Pine,
It is a little like butterscotch.
It's a tree that one usually finds higher up
In the foothills and mountains.

"Why are you down here in the valley?"
I ask the old tree that.

"Just keeping an owl happy,"
She tells me.

The owl, who I never actually saw,
Hoots twice more and then becomes quiet.
A cold night in January, lit only by stars. 

 Still Life With All Stars

Night, like the shark with teeth of steel
And a hunger for sweet flesh.
Night, the great starry ocean in the sky.
Like the word of the liar and the praise of the misbegotten.
Night, the sword of darkness, cutting through all dreams,
Cutting through life like a hot knife through soft butter.
Like the sound of death. Like the smell of new life.
Night, like the womb of the hairy mother.
What do I have that can possibly face
The endlessness of you?

__________________

Things fall apart. Indeed,
Hard things happen quite randomly.
What was once an ocean becomes a desert,
Flat and true.
Earthquakes move the plates of the earth
To the dismay of buildings and bridges.
The sky can strike you with lightning, wind, or hail.
Tread your path with care, friend,
And watch out for the good things that happen, too.
The flutter of a hummingbird.
The friendly nuzzle of a pup. 

 Still Life With a Can of Beans

Naked, we are holy, sacred.
Yes, we are penises, vaginas,
Breasts, anuses, flesh, arousal.
It's true, but that's the easy part.
Brother, sister, we are immortal
Beams of lights housed in mortal skin
And strengthened with bone and muscle.
We are the thought made human,
The ideal reduced to suffering and love.
Holy, sacred.
Naked.
We walk in the footsteps of the gods.  

 Downtown Davis. California, 1945

—Anonymous Photo

Here is the face that I call being alive,
And here is the other face, that one that I call death.
Together they make up the two halves of the mask
That I call water, or air, the mask that I call earth.
This is the wind on a day so dry that I cannot make tears.
This is the sound of my mother weeping,
A sound that breaks my heart.
This face will not come off in my hands.
I am wading out into the river. One step follows another.
The water comes over my knees, my hips, my chest.
I am not the man that I thought I would become,
But at least I am not the man that I was afraid of becoming.
Here is my face, look closely. There is no damn lie in it.
Goodbye. Now I am swimming away.

______________

Today’s LittleNip:

Blue water, cold and clean,
Flowing past granite boulders—
My son's ashes, gone.

—James Lee Jobe

_________________

Many thanks to James Lee Jobe for today's fine poems and for the pix from his Still Life With... Series! Tomorrow, James will be hosting Amanda Hawkins and Vincent Kobelt at 2pm for the Davis Arts Center Poetry Series, 1919 F St. in Davis.

And today, head up the hill to Findleton’s Estate Winery in Camino to hear Lara Gularte read from her book, Kissing the Bee, at 2pm, plus open mic, plus the artwork of Pamela Findleton. That’s 3500 Carson Rd., Camino. 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.

Sacramento poets will be saddened to hear that Patricia Lee Nichol passed away in late May. A memorial will be held at Sac. Poetry Center on July 1 at 2pm. For details of Pat’s life, see www.legacy.com/obituaries/sacbee/obituary.aspx?n=patricia-lee-nichol&pid=189299738/.

—Medusa

 —Anonymous Photo

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.