A Night of Dark Intent

ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT
—Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-by;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

_______________________

Colette Jonopulos of Tiger's Eye: A Journal of Poetry writes: We are printing Songs of Love by Robert Schuler on Valentine's Day (or thereabouts) and would like to give a few copies away. We'll choose three of your poems about love. Preferably the non-sappy type. It can be about your dog (or bird) or your favorite television show. Or about the love of your life, for those who have such things. Send your poems to tigerseyetracks@yahoo.com by the 14th of February.

Debra J. Harmes-Kurth, Owner/Editor of Art With Words writes: I am working on getting a tribute together for the families of the 12 miners lost in the Sago mine explosion in my home state of West Virginia. I am currently accepting submissions. All submissions must include name, address, telephone number and email. Poems or prose accepted, writers must keep in mind this is for the families....first. (djharmeskurth@hotmail.com)

Cleo Griffith writes: Hi Poets...I want to urge you all to continue to submit to Song of the San Joaquin. If you have any questions, please e-mail me: ssjq03psj@yahoo.com. Also, a call for submissions from BlackWidows' Web of Poetry. No e-mail submissions, but questions may be sent to Janine Margiotta, sunris2set@aol.com. She wants poems of 3-30 lines, line count on the top corner of the page, up to five poems per submission, a "personal" bio, not just a list of credits, SASE (!!!—don't forget), no special theme. Send to Janine Margiotta, Editor and Publisher, BlackWidow's Web, 87788 Blek Dr., Veneta, OR 97487. Her website: http://www.geocities.com/blackwidowswebofpoetry1/BlackWidowsMagazine.index.html
(Medusa did not see any deadlines on either of these submissions, so you'll have to check that out yourself...)

Poet Cleo Kocol of Roseville and John Doyle from Chico will be the featured poets at a Special Event sponsored by the Lincoln Library and Lincoln Arts Poetry Open Mic, Sunday, January 15, 3-5 pm at the Scout Hall (behind the Lincoln Library) in Lincoln. Free to the public.

Don't forget the memorial for Sacramento Poet Anatole Lubovich which will be held tomorrow (Sunday, 1/8) at HQ For the Arts, 25th & R Streets, Sac. at 2 pm. Then tomorrow evening, Poemspirits features Brad Buchanan at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sac., 6 pm (classrooms in the back). Refreshments, open mic, and Nora Staklis will do a brief presentation on Basho. Info: 916-481-3312. Or head over to Stockton: Poet's Corner Presents Eileen Malone, Barnes & Noble in Weberstown Mall, 7 pm. Info: 209-951-7014.

And Monday (1/9), Sacramento Poetry Center presents Terry Moore at HQ, 25th & R Sts., Sac, 7:30 pm. Terry is a huge contributor to the Sac. poetry scene, both with his own prize-winning poetry, and with all the events he sponsors. Do remember, though, to bundle up—HQ can be chilly this time of year!


ONCE BY THE PACIFIC
—Robert Frost

The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.

___________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

As the Dark Wheat Listens

JANUARY BLEAKNESS
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

It's a storming rain on the second day of the new year
such a pain to take down now the house Christmas lights
although they socked up the electric bill
they seemed to bring such excitement cheer
that now seems nowhere near
as the weather reminds me emotionally
that I have spared nothing for after December
And the football games on the television
just doesn't make me forget
the despair of the tax return

_______________________

Thanks, Michelle (you got THAT right...)! Michelle says she's working at the Hornet Bookstore now at CSUS; stop by and say hi.

JoAnn Anglin writes: To lose yourself in a beatific picture of poets, find the January 06 issue of Sacramento Magazine. Turn to page 23, the photograph of Straight Out Scribes. Elegant. Earthy. Rich. Gorgeous. [You’ll come up with your own adjectives!]

The Scribes, VS Chochezi and her equally-talented mother, Stajaabu, are a Sacramento treasure. Google up Straight Out Scribes for a schedule of where they will be reading, and when. (VS has a poem in the latest Snake.)

Jeanine Stevens will celebrate the release of her chapbook, The Keeping Room, from Rattlesnake Press next Wednesday, January 11, at 7:30 pm at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento. Refreshments and a read-around will follow; bring your own poems or somebody else’s. Free. Info: 442-9295. Herewith is a yummy sample:


SEA GULLS IN BATH
—Jeanine Stevens, Sacramento

At Aquae Sulis, Roman generals hold silent court.
Green waters barely ripple old melodies on lute strings.

August heat demands open windows, eight sleepless
hours traded for a few brief breezes. Herring gulls

perch on every sill: gold-rimmed lids, light yellow
irises like tiny spinning suns—gawk as if humans

had just arrived in England. They rampage
ear-creasing, high-pitched squawks—kyow and hyah,

doubling longer notes far beyond measured decibels.
Bird noise seems to taunt moonlit statues. The silver

spires of Bath Abbey dwarf the largest commander
who gazes inward, melting dreams in submerged pools,

so far from home. Across the River Avon, a stone
labyrinth—worm trails and hexagons slither and gleam.

__________________________

Thanks, Jeanine!

Do you subscribe to the free e-calendar, Poet's Lane? Pleasanton Poet Laureate Cynthia Bryant will send you continual (several a day!) notices of Northern California poetry happenings (events, deadlines, releases, workshops, etc.). She writes: I have just added another new page on Poet’s Lane website for 2006-New Year Poems, so if you have written one and would like to have it included, send it my way with your picture, name and any thing such as email or webpage to add: cynthia.bryant@comcast.net.

Complete info: Poet's Lane, The Literary List, Cynthia L. Bryant, PoetsLane@comcast.net, www.poetslane.com, 925-398-8846. Most of the events posted are for the Bay Area, which you may or may not find useful, but Cynthia posts other items, too, such as the following:

2006 San Francisco Writers Conference
Feb. 17 thru 19 (President's Day weekend)
Mark Hopkins Hotel

Poetry faculty includes Brad Henderson (UC Davis) and Andy Jones (host of the "Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour" radio show, Wednesdays at 5pm, on KDVS-90.3 FM). They will present a session, "Putting Poetry into Your Prose" and host the Open Mic Poetry Readings on Friday and Saturday night during the conference. For more information about the conference, go to www.sfwriters.org or call Elizabeth Pomada at 866-862-7392.

_______________________

BEGINNING
—James Wright

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying
Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.

_______________________

—Medoosa (or is it Med-you-sa?)

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Open Circles

HAPPY (oh, sex) NEW YEAR, 06
—Ann Privateer, Davis

After the wind, after the rain
mistletoe peppers the sidewalk.
Insects kiss, cart it away
to party again next year.

_____________________

Thanks, Ann! May we all be around to party next year.

Yesterday's Sacramento Bee published an article (Scene section) on Les Birleson's artwork which has recently been installed at the majestic City Sump #2 at Riverside Blvd. and 11th Avenue, in the Land Park area of Sacramento, near the newly-restored Congregation B'nai Israel. The temple was seriously damaged in the firebombings of 1999, and as part of its restoration, the city of Sacramento has commissioned a granite sculpture called "Open Circle", with the goal of fostering tolerance and understanding. Les Birleson's massive piece includes poetry by local poets Jose Montoya, Julia Connor, Jennifer Pickering, Mary Catherine Rice, Patrick Pfister, Viola Weinberg, and spiralchapper Pearl Stein Selinsky, in addition to newcomer and aspiring poet Bloom. The poems have been sand-blasted on colored glass, then arranged like spokes in a wheel. Pearl notifies us that there will be a dedication; more about that later.


PEACE
—Gerard Manley Hopkins

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace?—I'll not play hypocrite

To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting, wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
He come with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.

_________________________

Frith Press, which produces the beautiful and prestigious Ekphrasis in addition to selected chapbooks, announces the release of Fainting at the Uffizi, a new collection from North Carolina poet Joanna Catherine Scott. This beautifully produced new volume is available from the Friths at P.O. Box 161236, Sac. 95816-1236. Info: www.hometown.aol.com/ekphrasis1. Oh—and tomorrow (1/6) is the Friths' wedding anniversary!

_________________________

THE THINKER
—William Carlos Williams

My wife's new pink slippers
have gay pom-poms.
There is not a spot or a stain
on their satin toes or their sides.
All night they lie together
under her bed's edge.
Shivering I catch sight of them
and smile, in the morning.
Later I watch them
descending the stair,
hurrying through the doors
and round the table,
moving stiffly
with a shake of their gay pom-poms!
And I talk to them
in my secret mind
out of pure happiness.

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Stepping Into Fire

THE KISS
—Anne Sexton

My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby, you fool!

Before today my body was useless.
Now it's tearing at its square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot
and see—Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!

Once it was a boat, quite wooden
and with no business, no salt water under it
and in need of some paint. It was no more
than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.
She's been elected.

My nerves are turned on. I hear them like
musical instruments. Where there was silence
the drums, the strings are incurable playing. You did this.
Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped
into fire.

______________________

THE NUDE SWIM
—Anne Sexton

On the southwest side of Capri
we found a little unknown grotto
where no people were and we
entered it completely
and let our bodies lose all
their loneliness.

All the fish in us
had escaped for a minute.
The real fish did not mind.
We did not disturb their personal life.
We calmly trailed over them
and under them, shedding
air bubbles, little white
balloons that drifted up
into the sun by the boat
where the Italian boatman slept
with his hat over his face.

Water so clear you could
read a book through it.
Water so buoyant you could
float on your elbow.
I lay on it as on a divan.
I lay on it just like
Matisse's Red Odalisque.
Water was my strange flower.
One must picture a woman
without a toga or a scarf
on a couch as deep as a tomb.

The walls of that grotto
were everycolor blue and
you said, "Look! Your eyes
are seacolor. Look! Your eyes
are skycolor." And my eyes
shut down as if they were
suddenly ashamed.

_____________________

US
—Anne Sexton

I was wrapped in black
fur and white fur and
you undid me and then
you placed me in gold light
and then you crowned me,
while snow fell outside
the door in diagonal darts.
While a ten-inch snow
came down like stars
in small calcium fragments,
we were in our own bodies
(that room that will bury us)
and you were in my body
(that room that will outlive us)
and at first I rubbed your
feet dry with a towel
because I was your slave
and then you called me princess.
Princess!

Oh then
I stood up in my gold skin
and I beat down the psalms
and I beat down the clothes
and you undid the bridle
and you undid the reins
and I undid the buttons,
the bones, the confusions,
the New England postcards,
the January ten o'clock night,
and we rose up like wheat,
acre after acre of gold,
and we harvested,
we harvested.

_______________________

—Medoossssa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

The Way to Achieve Inner Peace

I am passing this on to you because it definitely worked for me and we could all use more calm in our lives. By following the simple advice I heard on a Dr. Phil show, I have finally found inner peace. Dr. Phil proclaimed the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started.

So I looked around my house to see things I started and hadn't finished; and before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Baileys, a bottle of Kahlua, a package of Oreos, the remainder of both Prozac and Valium prescriptions, the rest of the Cheesecake, some saltines and a box of Chocolates. You have no idea how freaking good I feel.

Please pass this on to those you feel are in need of inner peace.

This was sent to me a while ago by Rattlechapper debee loyd of Modesto, and somehow it seems timely as we deal with after-Christmas/after-storm(s) blues. Thanks, debee! debee also reminds us that Friday is the deadline for submitting to Hardpan: A Journal of Poetry, a new biannual journal coming from Modesto poets debee loyd, Karen Baker, and Gordon Preston. Premiere issue will appear in March, 2006. Send poems to PO Box 1065, Modesto, CA 95353 (hardpanpoetry@sbcglobal.net). Include name, address, e-mail, phone, and SASE. The editors promise to respond within 42 days! Send $15 for one year’s subscription. No previously-published work, please.

Asst. Wrangler Robbie Grossklaus has the next issue of VYPER, our journal of poetry from youngsters 13-19, almost ready to go; it'll premiere at Jeanine Stevens' reading at The Book Collector on January 11.

Speaking of poetry for youngsters, check out the article in The Bee today (Metro section) about the up-coming spoken word contest for young people to be held in April-May for kids in Sacramento County (they are hoping to expand to other counties in future years). This is a national contest, sponsored by NEA and Poetry Foundation of Chicago (remember all that moola they got last year?). Poets choose poems from an online selection to memorize and recite, then they are judged on their presentations. Ultimate winners from all states go to Washington, D.C. to compete. Further info: www.poetryfoundation.org.

Meanwhile, I'm still stuck on the weather and the vicissitudes of January:


NO POSSUM, NO SOP, NO TATERS
—Wallace Stevens

He is not here, the old sun,
As absent as if we were asleep.

The field is frozen. The leaves are dry.
Bad is final in this light.

In this bleak air the broken stalks
Have arms without hands. They have trunks

Without legs or, for that, without heads.
They have heads in which a captive cry

Is merely the moving of a tongue.
Snow sparkles like eyesight falling to earth,

Like seeing fallen brightly away.
The leaves hop, scraping on the ground.

It is deep January. The sky is hard.
The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.

It is in this solitude, a syllable,
Out of these gawky flitterings,

Intones its single emptiness,
The savagest hollow of winter-sound.

It is here, in this bad, that we reach
The last purity of the knowledge of good.

The crow looks rusty as he rises up.
Bright is the malice in his eye...

One joins him there for company,
But at a distance, in another tree.

____________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Until It Puts Itself Right

JANUARY
—R.S. Thomas

The fox drags its wounded belly
Over the snow, the crimson seeds
Of blood burst with a mild explosion.
Soft as excrement, bold as roses.

Over the snow that feels no pity,
Whose white hands can give no healing,
The fox drags its wounded belly.

_______________________

THE SNOW AS PERFECT SNOW
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

I’ve never known the snow as perfect snow.
It looms too high up, a summit shock of ice
blurred driveby in the windshield of our car,

or purls downhill unseen too far below,
dissolved of identity, endangered witness
run off to shiver somewhere new-named and far.

But every so often we stop. A fresh snow-oasis!
Diamantine, near-iceless dust, translucent.
Only the bluest shadows taint the ascendant
sun-mote white that forms the drift’s deep basis

and sinuous skin. Then we dismount and play,
no, horse around scuffing up embankment skirts
and roadside rime. Our snowstick fingers hurt,
stung crushing out harsh edges, fisting blades.

____________________

Ambivalence about this weather, snow or not, which I share. Thanks, Tom; you've put it nicely.

Snakebytes, the monthly e-mail about all those nefarious slitherings of The Snake, went into cyberspace today. Let me know if you didn't get one, or if you got one twice (which is even more annoying). Or let me know if you'd like to sign up; heck, it's free! Write to me at kathykieth@hotmail.com.

•••No reading tonight at The Poetry Center. On Wednesday (1/4), catch Alan Satow's new First Weds. reading series at Java Aroma at the Empire Theater, 1825 Pacific Ave., Stockton, 7-9 pm, free. Info: 209-463-6058. Also on Weds.: Mahogany Urban Poetry Series meets at 9, Sweet Fingers Jamaican Restaurant, 1704 Broadway, Sac., $5 cover. Info: www.malikspeaks.com.

•••Poetry Unplugged meets at Luna's Cafe on Thursday (1/5) at 8 pm. Also at 8 on Thursday is Poetic Light Open Mic at the Personal Style Salon, 2540 Cottage Way, Sac. Info: 916-470-2317. Or Head over to Gwen's Caribbean Cuisine, 2355 Arden Way, Sac. at 7 pm. that night for an Evening of Poetry. Info: 916-284-7831.

•••Friday (1/6) is the Open Mic at Barnes & Noble in Citrus Heights (6111 Sunrise), 7 pm.

•••Saturday (1/7), join Escritores del Nuevo Sol's monthly writing workshop and potluck at 11 a.m., second floor of La Raza Galeria Posada, 1421 R St., Sac. Info: joannpen@comcast.net.

•••And Sunday (1/8), please plan to attend the memorial service for Anatole Lubovich, which will be held at HQ (25th & R Sts., Sac.) at 2 pm. Info: 442-9295. Then later that evening, Poemspirits features Brad Buchanan at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd., Sac., 6 pm. (classrooms in the back). Refreshments, open mic, and Nora Staklis will do a brief presentation on Basho. Info: 916-481-3312. Or head over to Stockton: Poet's Corner Presents Eileen Malone, Barnes & Noble in Weberstown Mall, 7 pm. Info: 209-951-7014.

______________________

CAT & THE WEATHER
—May Swenson

Cat takes a look at the weather:
snow;
puts a paw on the sill;
his perch is piled, is a pillow.

Shape of his pad appears;
will it dig? No,
not like sand,
like his fur almost.

But licked, not liked:
too cold.
Insects are flying, fainting down.
He'll try

to bat one against the pane.
They have no body and no buzz,
and now his feet are wet;
it's a puzzle.

Shakes each leg,
then shakes his skin
to get the white flies off;
looks for his tail,

tells it to come on in
by the radiator.
World's turned queer
somehow: all white,

no smell. Well, here
inside it's still familiar.
He'll go to sleep until
it puts itself right.

__________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)

Where to Look for Angels

THE TRUE NATURE OF ANGELS
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Every angel is terrifying.
—Rainer Maria Rilke

The Bohemian Austrian poet
on whose imperial sadness
a century has draped black silk
believed them huge.
His inmost boyhood, forever stunned
by a girl’s name, hair and skirts,
lived hypnotized by angels,
dived nose first into their embrace.
Far down that dark cleft
he found, then lost, his infant cry
(squeezed out by comfort and
terror in that helpful vise, those
visiting aunt’s breasts).
But always they arrived
in silence and vapor, the smoke
of overtones far below the lowest octave,
and always they would
goad him to shout
word pebbles into their echo.
That’s how angels torment genius,
knowing it abler than us to take
Sistine terrors, Empire State passions.
For most of us, these crosstown spirits
bring strange fevers and fears,
which make us look out, look up,
blind eyes bathed in snow mirage.
Angels are visions radiant with wings,
yes, and we are primates that gape,
our brains full of sky and poetry,
after a celestial Bigfoot’s forty feet.
How quickly we inflate our intercessors
to Macy’s parade balloon size.
Boastful of our mistaken metrics,
as if guaranteed bigger angels new
and improved, we’re votive tourists
making mouths at skyscrapers.
Look for angels instead
in little gaps between thought,
when minds run like newspapers
shorn of headlines on broken engagements
or heatstroke, and for minus
five seconds you’ve dropped
all memory of why or when
did this happen?
This is a lubricating angel,
careful of microfine tolerances, that
brain pistons not overheat.
More frightening
is the nightmare kind who opens
dreams a fraction of an inch.
That’s why memories
twist hard between dusk and dawn,
why we awaken knowing
our films are exposed.
Smaller than electrons these wraiths
retain advantage like fulcrums,
wander our inmost vein plaques
and skin craters, digging into our
hopes and conscience
with maggot patience and depth,
like nostalgia, like remorse.
That crack you heard when you
stood up and thought
your knees had given out?
Just one of their mortality tests.

(previously published in American River Review)

_________________________

Thanks, Tom!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)