SHE ALWAYS PREFERRED PIGS
—babirusa or pigling: pudginess
of even the slimmest ones: pork-
belly rotundery propped up on
pointed toes: ballet of chubbiness:
good-humored mincing, rut-
rutting in the cool mud by
the pond. Well-kept snouts
speak French: root out truffles
to sell for thousands. Or
potbellies from Viet Nam doze
on cushy beds: fubsy pork-pets
dodging the butcher—luckier
than more cumbrous breeds. . .
But still she preferred pigs, their
good-natured corpulence: ballet
of chunkies: pursy dancers tossing
pink roses as they root-root in
the cool mud by the pond. . .
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines
________________________
I have always had an inordinate fondness for pigs. Maybe Cynthia Bryant, Pleasanton Poet Laureate of Poet's Lane fame, shares it, because she writes:
Send me your poetry with themes FEBRUARY-Eros, Pigs, African American History (this year will be The Year of the Pig in Chinese New Year) or perhaps you need to rant in a poem about the injustices of life, send me a poem for Get it Off Your Chest (mental health poetry) page. Send your poems to PoetsLane@comcast.net . Pigs! Pigs and Eros? Get to work...
Tonight at SPC:
Sacramento Poetry Center will present Michael Pulley and Kimberly White at HQ for the Arts, 25th & R Sts., Sac., 7:30 PM. Michael Pulley is an award-winning poet and journalist. He grew up in Georgia and the Carolinas but has lived in the Sacramento area since 1978. He recently completed a Master's in Creative Writing at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS) where he now teaches English composition. In 2005, he won a CSUS Bazanella for expository prose, and he was the 2004 recipient of the CSUS Kathryn Hohlwein poetry scholarship. Pulley is a past SPC board member and edited one issue of the SPC Rivers series: Eden, 1992: Poets from the Time Tested Books Reading Series. His poems have appeared in journals throughout California, and in 1991 he published one chapbook, The Coffee Shop Blues. In a 22-year journalism career, Pulley has won Associated Press and United Press International awards and his work has appeared in The Sacramento Bee, The San Francisco Examiner, The Sacramento Business Journal, and Sacramento News & Review, among others.
Kimberly White's work has won awards from the Bay Area Poets Coalition and has been published in North Coast Literary Review, Comstock Review, Rattlesnake Review and other journals and anthologies. She has published two chapbooks and is the author of two unpublished novels. Most recently, she has been involved in ekphrasic projects with the Livermore Poet Laureate Project and with visual artist Victoria Corona, in a project produced by the Rice University Print Shop. She has lived in Sacramento since 1983.
A week from tonight (2/5), SPC will feature Theresa McCourt and Judy Halebsky.
Also this week:
•••Weds., (1/31), 10 PM-Midnight: Mics and Moods, Capitol Garage, 1500 K St., Sacramento. Features and open mic. $5; ages 21 and over. Info: 916-492-9336 or malikspeaks.com
•••Thursday (2/1), 8-11 PM: Vibe Sessions Open Mic at Cobbler Inn, 3520 Stockton Blvd. (next to Colonial Theater). $5, all ages.
•••Also Thursday (2/1), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. Features and open mic before/after. Free. Info: 916-441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com.
•••Sunday, 2/4, 6 PM: After Loss: Companion Spirit: The PoemSpirits of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento are pleased to announce the next featured reader: Jan Haag, a full-time, tenured professor in the Journalism and English departments at Sacramento City College. A prolific news reporter, copy editor and essayist, Jan also advises on student publications, especially Susurrus, the award-winning SCC literary journal. She turned to poetry, publishing Companion Spirit (by LAMP Press) after the loss of her husband, and with her subsequent involvement in the Sutter Writers Program. Co-Host Tom Goff will also offer a brief presentation on the writings of Michelangelo. These monthly presentations are free and open to the public. Place: Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento, 2425 Sierra Blvd [north of Fair Oaks Blvd., between Howe and Munroe/Fulton], Main Building. Free; refreshments provided. Open mic: You are encouraged to bring a favorite poem to share, yours or another’s. This monthly event is presented by UUSS members Tom Goff, Nora Staklis, and JoAnn Anglin. For info on reading, contact: Tom or Nora at 916-481-3312; or JoAnn at 916-451-1372. For info on UUSS: www.uuss.org
•••Next Monday (2/5), 7:30 PM: The Other Voice in Davis presents Tim Bellows and rattlechapper Shawn Pittard reading their poetry at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Road, Davis. There will be an open reading following the poets. This is a free event. James Lee Jobe will host. Call 530-750-3514 for details. Please check out http://uupoetry.blogspot.com for bios, sample poems, directions, and a map.
____________________
SLEEP
—Charles Simic
The woodpecker goes beating a little drum.
The shadow of the hyena blackens my face.
In my legs which are to be judged harshly,
And my hands with their false fury,
The bones lull each other tenderly.
I am with all that shivers,
All that hangs limp and without life.
It rains toads. My blood runs
Past dark inner cities on fire.
I climb into deep wells,
Rock bottoms and bone bottoms
Where gall of my birth steams.
Things slip out of my grasp,
Other things come to a quiet end.
This is my song. Nothing of us remains.
Almost nothing. I am whatever beast inhabits me.
When the rain turns into snow
Every beast shall see its track and wonder.
__________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as 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.)
ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT
—Walt Whitman
On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.
From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.
Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Juliter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.
Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?
Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection.)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
_______________________
Those of you who know Tehama Poet and Snake-Pal Patricia Wellingham-Jones will be saddened to learn that her husband, Roy, has passed away.
Today's photo is by another Snake-Pal, Colette Jonopulos, of her grandson, and originally appeared in Rattlesnake Review.
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as 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.)
Chez Kieth, 2007—
The New Snake Digs
(photo by Kim Miller)
HANDS
—Donald Finkel
The poem makes truth a little more disturbing,
like a good bra, lifts it and holds it out
in both hands. (In some of the flashier stores
there's a model with the hands stitched on, in red or black.)
Lately the world you wed, for want of such hands,
sags in the bed beside you like a tired wife.
For want of such hands, the face of the moon is bored,
the tree does not stretch and yearn, not the groin tighten.
Devious or frank, in any case,
the poem is calculated to arouse.
Lean back and let its hands play freely on you:
there comes a moment, lifted and aroused,
when the two of you are equally beautiful.
_______________________
Submit! Submit!
•••The editors of cæsura, from Poetry Center San Jose, invite you to submit 1-3 poems addressing the issue of MORTALITY and the general theme of mortality in our age. Submissions should not exceed 4 pages in total. All styles are welcome. Deadline is February 15, 2007. In addition to poetry, we are interested in essays and reviews of poetry or mixed genre collections (please query). The Spring 2007 issue of cæsura will be published in May of 2007. Provide the following contact information with your submission: name, address, phone number, and email address. Previously published work (in print or online) will not be considered. We accept simultaneous submissions on the condition that you notify us immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. Send your work in an email attachment in Word.doc format or pasted as plain text into the body of an email message to caesura@pcsj.org. If your work requires the preservation of a particular visual format or contains special characters, also send a hard copy to:
caesura
Poetry Center San José
1127 Polk Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
•••The Pedestal Magazine is also accepting submissions of poetry and fiction. For further info and to review the work of previous contributors, please visit website: www.thepedestalmagazine.com
By the way, Medusa does not claim to like or dislike any of these magazines that she posts info about; it's up to you to do the research and find out if any of them suits you and your work. I always advise people to get a copy—or nowadays you can find out a tremendous amount about journals online—before they submit. Why send one kind of poetry when the editors clearly want another? Or, heck, you may discover that you wouldn't want your poetry or your name to be seen dead there—that happens to the Snake all the time! :-) Then again, if you're a Poetry Slut like Medusa, you figure a credit's a credit, and there's no such thing as Too Many...
_______________________
DINNER AT THE HOTEL DE LA TIGRESSE VERTE
—Donald Evans
1-Terrace
As they sat sipping their glasses in the courtyard
Of the Hotel de la Tigresse Verte,
With their silk-swathed ankles softly kissing,
They were certain that they had forever
Imprisioned fickleness in the vodka—
They knew they had found the ultimate pulse of love.
Story upon story, the dark windows whispered down
To them from above, and over the roof's edge
Danced a grey moon.
The woman pressed her chicken-skin fan against her breast
And through her ran trepidant mutinies of desire
With treacheries of emotion. Her voice vapoured:
"In which room shall it be to-night, darling?"
His eyes swept the broad facade, the windows,
Tier upon tier, and his lips were regnant:
"In every room, my beloved!"
2-Loyalty
I am kissing your wayward feet—
The rumours of flight are broken,
Your hands are a dear pale token.
I adore you to touch me, sweet,
And now are the frail vows spoken.
It is bravely the words are said,
Faith is a flash on our faces—
We mock as the mummer traces
The dawn when the month is dead,
Loyalty mussed like your laces.
_______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as 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.)
photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento
WHERE THE PICNIC WAS
—Thomas Hardy
Where we made the fire
In the summer time
Of branch and briar
On the hill to the sea,
I slowly climb
Through winter mire,
And scan and trace
The forsaken place
Quite readily.
Now a cold wind blows,
And the grass is gray,
But the spot still shows
As a burnt circle—aye,
And stick-ends, charred,
Still strew the sward
Whereon I stand,
Last relic of the band
Who came that day!
Yes, I am here
Just as last year,
And the sea breathes brine
From its stange straight line
Up hither, the same
As when we four came.
—But two have wandered far
From this grassy rise
Into urban roar
Where no picnics are,
And one—has shut her eyes
For evermore.
_______________________
Today Tom Goff sends us another poem about Hardy, with this introduction: One for your blog, if you wish; it's a serious thing about Hardy, since poetic karma demands that after my last endeavor [see Jan. 17 post below, about Hardy's heart]. I'm assembling, now that I've stumbled on it, another, perhaps much longer found poem on the whole business of Hardy's heart—it's quite the literary anecdote, apparently—since looking at all the different versions amounts to a great big academic game of "telephone."
HARDY'S BIKE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael
He calls it his “Red Cob” American,
the name stemming from a Tennessee
strain of corn, red in the ear, white in the kernel.
The country wellbred think his freethinking
part Yankee heresy part Darwin balderdash,
but in any case, a gloom affected,
poor fellow he’s lost it if he ever had it,
so low of birth. The poor fellow’s right this minute
freewheeling, not so much thinking thinking,
wind-assailed, through Wessex, that is,
Dorset cliffs, pedalling wherever ridgecrest
permits. Alongside him, Emma, sunlit face
reflecting the red of the Cob or the strain of the hill;
she on her Grasshopper with step-through frame, garbed
in green velvet, absurd as Thomas to the town
muffling its smirk with a palm. A way to escape them,
furious whirling or allegro ma non troppo
idling: how can a born poet, a trained novelist,
not relish movable theater, this diorama-cyclorama
slash through life? He can write confident vignettes
of one instant’s glimpse sidelong from the road:
a milkmaid’s underbrush-bent bonnet,
a peddler’s back-deforming knapsack…
So: why so uncertain how Emma now feels as they peel
the landscape? Her hair horsewoman’s hair that’d stream
as she faced him obliquely (even her smile sidesaddle),
chestnut tresses tumbling crimson in day’s last good light
now pinchbeck-beneficent under that same sun,
white gold hedged in a green velvet hat…
From her who was once all richness and laughter, barely
a blurt pert breathless retort. Should he,
though then so young, his frame capable
of nothing not found on a spectrum from glint to gleam
to glow, not have reflected: What is it to be a ripe red
cob under a grasshopper’s legs, the brimful kernels
clean white, the grasshopper’s thousand
thousand cousins coming Who knows when
to devour?
_______________________
Thanks, Tom! The saga will continue...
This weekend:
•••Friday (1/26), 7 PM: Stockton Youth Advisory Commissioners (YAC) are sponsoring “By Word of Mouth”, an open mic for teens; others are most welcome to come out and support. Podesto IMPACT Teen Center, 725 N. El Dorado St., Stockton. Cost is $3. Poets interested in performing should e-mail lorienelms89@yahoo.com
•••Saturday (1/27), 9 PM: "The Show" Poetry Series features Ike Torres (Sac slam team), Izreal, and Damnyo Lee (L.A. slam team). Wo'se Community Center, 2863 35th St. (off 35th & Broadway). $5. Info: T.Mo at 916-455-POET.
•••Also, Saturday (1/27) is the deadline for Harvest International, an annual arts and literature magazine produced by Cal Poly Pomona. They’re looking for poetry, Short Poetry Fiction, Drama, Song Lyrics, Personal Essays, Analytical/Critical Essays, and Artwork (pen or ink drawings; no color artwork, please). See last Monday's post (1/22) for details.
•••Sunday (1/28), 2-4 PM, hear frank andrick host The Pomo Literati (KUSF, 90.3 FM). Special guests: Beth Lisick, Michelle Tea, Tara Jepsen, Becca Costello, Rachel Leibrock, Rachel Gregg, Rachel Savage. Pre-recorded works include Patti Smith reading Television, Hannah Marcus, The Glove (robert smith), Allen Ginsberg, Mirah, Kristen Hersh, William Burroughs, Edie Lambert, Germ ‘n’ frank, Lisa Gerrard, David Houston, The Haints and more. Hosted by frank andrick, co-hosted and engineered by Jim ‘The Germ’ Smith. The Pomo Literati is part of the KUSF Spotlight series. Also on the global airwaves at www.live365.com/stations/kusf. Questions? fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com or 209-727-5179.
Coming up February 1:
•••Call for Submissions: Salem College Center for Women Writers (but men can submit too): 2007 National Literary Awards, deadline February 1, 2007. Includes:
Reynolds Price Short Fiction Award
for a single short story up to 5000 words
Judge: Pinckney Benedict
Rita Dove Poetry Award
for a poem up to 100 lines (up to 2 poems per submission, any style)
Judge: Beth Ann Fennelly
Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award
for a single piece of creative nonfiction, including personal essay
and memoir, up to 5000 words
Judge: Emily Herring Wilson
The winner in each genre will receive $1000 plus round trip travel and lodging for a reading of his/her work at Salem College. The two honorable mentions named in each genre will receive $100. Competitions are open to anyone living in the U.S. and writing in English except Salem Academy & College employees and students. All submissions must be unpublished. Postmark deadline: February 1, 2007. Winners will be announced by May 1, 2007. For submissions guidelines, a list of frequently asked questions, or information on our creative writing major, please visit http://www.salem.edu/go/cww/
•••Call for Submissions: The Bellevue Literary Review seeks fiction, non-fiction and poetry on the theme of Aging (something Medusa knows nothing about, being, of course, ageless). Up to 3 poems or 5,000 words. Submit at: www.blreview.orgDeadline: February 1, 2007.
_______________________
Yesterday we mentioned that both Philip Levine and Edgar Allan Poe had birthdays this month which we failed to acknowledge. Here's a poem that solves that. Well, sort of:
ON THE EDGE
—Philip Levine
My name is Edgar Poe and I was born
In 1928 in Michigan.
Nobody gave a damn. The gruel I ate
kept me alive, nothing kept me warm,
But I grew up, almost to five foot ten,
And nothing in the world can change my weight.
I have been watching you these many years,
There in the office, pencil poised and ready,
Or on the highway when you went ahead.
I did not write; I watched you watch the stars
Believing that the wheel of fate was steady;
I saw you rise from love and go to bed;
I heard you lie, even to your daughter.
I did not write, for I am Edgar Poe,
Edgar the mad one, silly, drunk, unwise,
But Edgar waiting on the edge of laughter,
And there is nothing that he does not know
Whose page is blanker than the raining skies.
_______________________
Thanks, Phil!
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as 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.)
photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento
—R.S. Thomas
Cars pass him by; he'll never own one.
Men won't believe in him for this.
Let them come into the hills
And meet him wandering a road,
Fenced with rain, as I have now;
The wind feathering his hair;
The sky's ruins, gutted with fire
Of the late sun, smouldering still.
Nothing is his, neither the land
Nor the land's flocks. Hired to live
On hills too lonely, sharing his hearth
With cats and hens, he has lost all
property but the grey ice
Of a face splintered by life's stone.
_______________________
Thanks to Jane Blue for her Medusa photo! You may've noticed more photos on the blog lately; I'm aiming for one a day, now that I more-or-less have the hang of it. Feel free to send 'em in—any subject—either by e-mail (kathykieth@hotmail.com) or snail (P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA). As with poems, you retain the rights.
THE WAY OF IT
—R.S. Thomas
With her fingers she turns paint
into flowers, with her body
flowers into a remembrance
of herself. She is at work
always, mending the garment
of our marriage, foraging
like a bird for something
for us to eat. If there are thorns
in my life, it is she who
will press her breast to them and sing.
Her words, when she would scold,
are too sharp. She is busy
after for hours rubbing smiles
into the wounds. I saw her,
when young, and spread the panoply
of my feathers instinctively
to engage her. She was not deceived,
but accepted me as a girl
will under a thin moon
in love's absence as someone
she could build a home with
for her imagined child.
_______________________
Poetry tonight:
•••Thursday evening, Jan. 25, at 7:30 PM, University of the Pacific in Stockton will present David Keplinger, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for The Rose Inside and author of The Prayers of Others. Reynolds Art Gallery, UOP Campus on Pacific Avenue.
•••Also tonight, 8-11 PM: Vibe Sessions Open Mic at Cobbler Inn, 3520 Stockton Blvd. (next to Colonial Theater). $5, all ages.
•••Also tonight, 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac. Features and open mic before/after. Free. Info: 916-441-3931 or www.lunascafe.com.
Listen to frank on Sunday:
This Sunday (1/28), hear frank andrick host The Pomo Literati (KUSF, 90.3 FM) from 2-4 PM. Special guests: Beth Lisick, Michelle Tea, Tara Jepsen, Becca Costello, Rachel Leibrock, Rachel Gregg, Rachel Savage. Pre-recorded works include Patti Smith reading Television, Hannah Marcus, The Glove (robert smith), Allen Ginsberg, Mirah, Kristen Hersh, William Burroughs, Edie Lambert, Germ ‘n’ frank, Lisa Gerrard, David Houston, The Haints and more. Hosted by frank andrick, co-hosted and engineered by Jim ‘The Germ’ Smith. The Pomo Literati is part of the KUSF Spotlight series. Also on the global airwaves at www.live365.com/stations/kusf. Questions? fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com or 209-727-5179.
Poet's Espresso deadline is NOW:
Donald Anderson writes: Send in your last minute poetry/art/photo submissions for the February-March 2007 issue of Poet’s Espresso ASAP to: poetsespresso@yahoo.com and maybe we can fit them into this issue! The themes are Valentine's and Black History Month. Limit 31 lines.
________________________
Medusa has fallen off the poets'-birthday wagon, maybe because hers is coming up. Normally we post the birthdays of famous poets; during The Move we've been remiss. Yesterday I was reminded that Robert Burns' birthday is in January; turns out, it's today! Happy Birthday, Bobbie! And in case you're wondering who we've missed, we did talk about William Stafford (1/17), but missed Sandburg (1/6), Philip Levine (1/10), Poe (1/19), and Lord Byron (1/22). Happy B-Day, fellas! Here's one from Bobby; read it out loud and listen to the music:
A VISION
—Robert Burns
As I stood by yon roofless tower,
Where the wa'flower scents the dewy air,
Where the howlet mourns in her ivy bower,
And tells the midnight moon her care.
The winds were laid, the air was still,
The stars they shot alang the sky;
The fox was howling on the hill,
And the distant echoing glens reply.
The stream, adown its hazelly path,
Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's,
Hasting to join the sweeping Nith,
Whase distant roaring swells and fa's.
The cauld blae North was streaming forth
Her lights, wi' hissing, eerie din;
Athwart the lift they start and shift,
Like Fortune's favors, tint as win.
By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes,
And, by the moonbeam, shook to see
A stern and stalwart ghaist arise,
Attir'd as Minstrels wont to be.
Had I a statue been o' stane,
His daring look had daunted me;
And on his bonnet grav'd was plain,
The sacred posy—"Libertie!"
And frae his harp sic strains did flow,
Might rous'd the slumb'ring Dead to hear;
But oh, it was a tale of woe,
As ever met a Briton's ear!
He sang wi' joy his former day,
He, weeping, wailed his latter times;
But what he said—it was nae play,
I winna venture't in my rhymes.
_______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as 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.)
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
FIRST SIGHT
—Philip Larkin
Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.
As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasurable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.
______________________
Tonight:
•••Wednesday (1/24), 6-7 PM: Hidden Passage Books, 352 Main St., Placerville presents an open-mic read-around; bring your own poems or those of a favorite poet to share with other poets and the skeleton in the floor, or just come to listen. We hope to see you there!
•••Also tonight, 10 PM-Midnight: Mics and Moods, Capitol Garage, 1500 K St., Sacramento. Features and open mic. $5; ages 21 and over. Info: 916-492-9336 or malikspeaks.com
Calendar addition for tomorrow night:
•••Thursday evening, Jan. 25, at 7:30 PM, University of the Pacific in Stockton will present David Keplinger, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for The Rose Inside and author of The Prayers of Others. Reynolds Art Gallery, UOP Campus on Pacific Avenue.
____________________
IGNORANCE
—Philip Larkin
Strange to know nothing, never to be sure
Of what is true or right or real,
But forced to qualify or so I feel,
Or Well, it does seem so:
Someone must know.
Strange to be ignorant of the way things work:
Their skill at finding what they need,
Their sense of shape, and punctual spread of seed,
And willingness to change;
Yes, it is strange,
Even to wear such knowledge—for our flesh
Surrounds us with its own decisions—
And yet spend all our life on imprecisions,
That when we start to die
Have no idea why.
________________________
ULTIMATUM
—Philip Larkin
But we must build our walls, for what we are
Necessitates it, and we must construct
The ship to navigate behind them, there.
Hopeless to ignore, helpless instruct
For any term of time beyond the years
That warn us of the need for emigration:
Exploded the ancient saying: Life is yours.
For on our island is no railway station,
There are no tickets for the Vale of Peace,
No docks where trading ships and seagulls pass.
Remember stories you read when a boy
—The shipwrecked sailor gaining safety by
His knife, treetrunk, and lianas—for now
You must escape, or perish saying no.
_______________________
LOVE
—Philip Larkin
The difficult part of love
Is being selfish enough,
Is having the blind persistence
To upset an existence
Just for your own sake.
What cheek it must take.
And then the unselfish side—
How can you be satisfied,
Putting someone else first
So that you come off worst?
My life is for me.
As well ignore gravity.
Still, vicious or virtuous,
Love suits most of us.
Only the bleeder found
Selfish this wrong way round
Is ever wholly rebuffed,
And he can get stuffed.
_______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)
(kk & friends, none of whom are named Fluffy)
FLUFFY
—Taylor Graham, Somerset
I left it on the livingroom carpet
just inside the door
where they can’t miss it. I purr
to their shrieks and pointings
till master lifts
it by its scrawny tail
between two fingers,
“disposes” of it.
What do they know
of dispositions, desires
niggling as the tooth of mouse
inside walls? In dream
I stalk its ghost
as the moon slants shadows
across a world
humans sleep through.
________________________
Thanks, TG! This is part of Taylor Graham's reminder that the deadline for submissions to Rattlesnake Review Lucky #13 is coming up February 15. Before that, though, send in poems for Snakelets, the journal of poetry from kids 0-12, by February 1. Next VYPER deadline (the journal by folks 13-19) is March 1.
Submissions for Six Ft. Swells:
Rattlechapper and After Hours Poet Todd Cirillo from Grass Valley writes: Six Ft. Swells Press is now accepting poety submissions for the next chapbook in their famed Cheap Shots Poetry Series. This will be a themed issue featuring a collection of the best poetry that reflects those goodtime evenings of drinking, music, and streetlight love affairs, and/or the painful reality of the morning after and the vague remembrance of what may or may not have occurred in the neon night before. Either way, no apologies are given. We believe poetry is meant to be a good time, so we are only looking for poems that explore these themes in an entertaining, fun, humorous, and/or enthusiastic manner. We will not accept sappy, depressing, AA recovery, or the evils-of-alcohol poems. Send 3-5 poems with cover letter and SASE to 417 Neal St., Grass Valley, CA 95945 or (preferably) email to Todd & Julie at sixfootswells@yahoo.com; please use “Bottoms Up” in the subject line. Poems should not exceed 40 lines; previously-published okay if indicated. Deadline is March 16, 2007. Info: www.myspace.com/sixftswells
Addendum to tonight's calendar:
Tonight (Tues., 1/23), Indigo Moor will be reading at The Bistro on 3rd & F Sts. in Davis, 8:30 PM. Indigo is a 2003 recipient of Cave Canem’s Writing fellowship in poetry and Vice President of the Sacramento Poetry Center and editor for Tule Review. He is the author of Tap-Root, part of the Main Street Rag Editor’s Select Poetry Series. Winner of the Vesle Fenstermaker Poetry Prize for Emerging Writer, Indigo was also a 2005 T.S. Eliot prize finalist. He has received scholarships to the Summer Literary Series in St. Petersburg, Russia; the Idyllwild Summer Poetry Program; the Indiana University Writer’s Conference; and the Napa Valley Writer’s Conference. His work has appeared in the Xavier Review, LA Review, Mochila Review, Boston University’s The Comment, the Pushcart Prize-nominated Out of the Blue Artists Unite, Poetry Now, The Ringing Ear, the NCPS 2006 Anthology, and Gathering Ground. He also has a littlesnake broadside from Rattlesnake Press.
_______________________
PIECE OF CAKE
—Taylor Graham
Have your cake and eat it
before it’s snatched away.
So said the mothers,
putting on pinched faces
in the dark before dawn.
We could hear them descend
the stairs to get
the fire going.
As they creamed the sugar
into margarine,
or whipped the batter,
they recounted wars
and famine.
We never got up early enough
to know how it was.
They pulled the corners
of their lips tight
to carve the sweet
wedges. Eat,
they said, before
it’s gone.
______________________
Trümmerfrauen
—Taylor Graham
The rubble-wives are stooped against the wind,
gathering broken bricks that once were wall,
re-engineered now by the whims of war.
Come see what’s left from bombs and fire and war:
an endless winter, famine, bitter wind
that sings through ruined whistle-stops of wall.
Look, brick by brick they improvise a wall—
what husbands built who won’t come home from war.
Is that the piping of their breath, or wind,
chill wind chanting, through walls, the oaths of war?
_______________________
One final note: Those of us who know Sacramento Poet and Publisher James DenBoer and his lovely, vivacious wife Leah will be saddened to know that she passed away Sunday. James is accepting letters and e-mail right now, but not phone calls.
——
Leah Zeff DenBoer
June 20, 1932 — January 21, 2007
Gone, gone,
gone beyond,
gone altogether beyond.
O what an awakening!
(from The Heart Sutra)
——
Addresses: James DenBoer/ 330 N Street #18/ Sacramento, CA 95814 or
jamesdb@paperwrk.com/ www. paperwrk.com
_______________________
—Medusa
Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, 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.)
