Thursday, July 30, 2009

A Chest Full Of Sparrows

Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

Orange and gold carp,
Living beneath ice.
Uncaring of the world above,
Sustained by the water below.

—Deng Ming Dao

_________________

WIND
—Shinkichi Takahashi

Give it words,
Stick limbs on it,
You won't alter essence.
Whereas the wind—

I'll live gently
As the wind, flying
Over the town,
My chest full of sparrows.

_________________

APEX OF THE UNIVERSE
—Shinkichi Takahashi

Standing with cold bare feet
Atop the universe,
Raking down the ashes of logic,
My voice will be fresh again.

I've had more than enough
Of the polite sexuality of wind
And stars. It's not science that beats
The black into the parrot's bill.

Without hands and little spirit,
I'll blow and blow
Till that fresh sound comes:
I refuse to hear of the fate of wingless birds.

_________________

BEACH
—Shinkichi Takahashi

Gale: tiles, roofs whirling,
disappearing at once.

Rocks rumble, mountains
swallow villages,
yet insects, birds chirp by
the shattered bridge.

Men shoot through space,
race sound. On TV nations
maul each other, endlessly.

Why this confusion,
how restore the ravaged
body of the world?

_________________

SNOWY SKY
—Shinkichi Takahashi

The blackbird swooped,
eyes shadowing earth, dead leaves,
feathers tipped with snow.

One finds beaches anywhere,
airports, skies of snow.

Perched on the ticket counter,
blackbird watches
the four-engined plane land,
propellers stilled.

Dead leaves flutter from the sky.

_________________

I FORGET
—Yoshihara Sachiko

when i awake
i wonder
if the color
i thought i saw
in my dream
was real
or imaginary

was it red?
i turn back
towards the word red
but the color is gone

what i thought was
being alive
is only various colors
reflected and scattered
in my mind

sun setting
turned the windowpane orange
shower spray
was a diamond color
so i thought

now only the memory
of color remains
the window
and the shower spray
have vanished

_________________

BRIGHT HOUSE
—Fukao Sumako

It is a bright house;
not a single rooom is dim.

It is a house which rises high
on the cliffs, open
as a lookout tower.

When the night comes
I put a light in it,
a light larger than the sun and the moon.

Think
how my heart leaps
when my trembling fingers
strike a match in the evening.

I lift my breasts
and inhale and exhale the sound of love
like the passionate daughter of a lighthouse keeper.

It is a bright house.
I will create in it
a world no man can ever build.

_________________

Today's LittleNip:

Climbing the wax tree
to the thundering sky,
I stick my tongue out—
What a downpour!

—Shinkichi Takahashi

_________________

—Medusa

(Today's translations were by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto (Takahashi), Kenneth Rexroth and Ikuko Atsumi.)

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

THIS SUMMER:

There will be no rattle-read in July, while the Snake enjoys a little summer hibernation. (Stay current on Sacramento poetry, though, by way of Medusa's Kitchen.) Then join us Weds., August 12 to celebrate Joyce Odam’s birthday month with two new books from her: Peripherals: Prose Poems by Joyce Odam (illustrated by Charlotte Vincent) and Rattlesnake LittleBook #2 (Noir Love).
That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Free!

WTF!: The second issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick, is now available at The Book Collector or through rattlesnakepress.com, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #3 (which will be available August 21) was July 15; next deadline will be Oct. 15. Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing, to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW: Issue #22 is now available (free) at The Book Collector, or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Or you can order copies of current or past issues through rattlesnakepress.com/. Deadline is August 15 for RR23: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or
P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to add all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one, and please—only one submission packet per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me and I'll send you one. Free!

_________________

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 (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

About Being Lost (& Squirrels)

CHANGE
—Patricia Wellingham-Jones, Tehama

The old rancher dies,
his young widow
doesn’t know what to do.
For two years the ranch lies
paralyzed.
Now cattle trucks
haul off the steers.
That answers
one of the questions.
The old foreman
and his wife,
who have tended the land
for many decades,
don’t know what to do.

__________________

LOST IN LINCOLN
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

(“With Malice Toward None” Exhibit,
California Museum)

When I am lost,
as lost I must be,
where will my ghost
go? Will it not cling
to a few useful things,
as bits of Mr. Lincoln
adhere, perhaps,

to the temple stems
of his twin pairs of spectacles,
one stem twine-repaired?

Does his spirit circle the rims,
visit small magnifying pools
where the straight yet opaque
gray gaze once bobbed?

Are these lenses, then,
the watery arena where
General Truth
and Rebel Detail

wage undying civil war?
And eternally reconcile?

_________________

LOST ON THE TWEED
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Elihu Burritt’s walk from London to the tip of Scotland, 1863

The cliffs precipitous, a zigzag trail
cut into rock that overhangs the Tweed.
A man could lose his nerve, his courage fail.
You’ve kept your nerve but surely lost your way
as you, by steeper pitch and prayer, proceed
through “these dark fastnesses.” A doubtful gray
from sky or river fills the gorge, the path
cut into rock that overhangs the Tweed.
Some spirit of the pagan wilds, its wrath
unmitigated in this lonely place—
yet still you climb in hand with God, and tight
against the wall’s unwelcoming, rough face.
At last you reach an open range, a height
with vista over panoramic space,
a vast expanse of hills and shadowed dale,
the cliffs precipitous, the zigzag trail.

__________________

A DAY-WALK OVER DARTMOOR
—Taylor Graham

... that travelers were liable to many serious mishaps; that storms came suddenly down upon the cold waste.

—Elihu Burritt, A Walk from London to Land’s End (1865)

This “cold, granite Sahara,” you call it, where July
makes no summer promises and travelers lose themselves
in spite of kistvaens, crosses, standing-stones.
Tors extrude boulders, as if a giant smashed a mountain,
and buried rocks keep trying to crawl out.

Still, water’s the motive force here. Rivers well
from granite morasses. Ground-swells of heather tide
underfoot, sphagnum moss floats in stone basins
of rainfill. Peat-bog, mire, wet-woodland
where willow dips its feet in the flow, tangling

with alder, fern, and birdsong. A traveler might want
to stay forever. A traveler might not find
a way out of here. For markers, ancient stone rows
and hut circles, meaningless at this stage of history,
of a solitary day-walk. Elihu, are you following

a mapped line, or just your 19th century
notion of always moving forward? The common folk
keep their cardinal points of legend: spectral hounds,
pixies, a headless horseman. By sun-course
and faith, you’re marching west with a six-foot stride.

__________________

GRAY SQUIRREL, TRANSFORMER
—Taylor Graham

oh squirrel
why didn't you tell us
you knew how to get there!
—Frank O’Hara

Quite lost down here
without power, the only soul without
lights—how could I find the way
in a world all blue sky
soon darkening to stars? And,
in between, squirrel-fling
oak boughs, a high-wire daring
to cross, to transform
oneself.

In time
would come
men with trucks and cranes,
electrifying answers.
Till then,
both of us lost, Squirrel.
I in the dark you made me;
you in
your ultimate arc.

_________________

Today's LittleNip:

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in a human situation.

—Graham Greene

_________________

—Medusa

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Gremlins Again...

YOUR MOTHER NEVER DIES

(for Jane Eshleman Conant, November 5, 1912-July 28, 1991)

—Jane Blue, Sacramento

Red roses reach into the politics of the sun.

The sun is everywhere, like God. Like your mother.

But then it sinks and the moon rises.
Your mother never dies.

The satellites rise, rushing across the summer sky.

Your father might die,
but your mother never dies.

There is one white rose as well, humble, almost
invisible. That is you.

The street is still. Even the doves
have gone inside their twiggy nests, outwaiting
(outwitting) the heat.

Just the slightest wind shakes the long canes.

I smell the acrid freeway
and its eternal (infernal) sound like a polluted sea.

But also the new-cut lawn.

Your mother in your dreams with a ruby
or a garnet in her ear.

Never dies.

___________________

Sorry that some of you are getting html instructions in the middle of your Medusas! I'm having a devil of a time posting lately; I don't know if it's Firefox or blogspot. Let's try this...

—Medusa

Eager For The Infinite

Our universe
as seen from the Hubble telescope

POEM
—Frank O'Hara

(after a poem by Ruth Krauss)

lost lost
where are you
lost in the shine
of my nails in the
little blue vein
inside my wrist lost
you are shining the
skin in the sun on
the front of my shoes
in my hair which is
shining with you lost
lost

lost
where are you lost
in my eyes are you
lost in the shine of my
nails in the little
blue vein inside my wrist
lost you are shining
the skin in the sun
on the front of my
shoes in my hair which
is shining with you lost
lost

lost
I want you lost
backyard lost alley the
mountain top and the
looking-glass water
lost lost I want you
lost lost stones lost
shells and the roar that is
lost and the looking-glass
water

_________________

Today's Seed of the Week: Lost. Sends your musings about being lost to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726.

Another poetry website: Ellaraine Lockie writes to say she was featured yesterday on Your Daily Poem at http://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=67/. Check it out—another poetry website to watch.

Two workshop opportunities, thanks to Monika Rose:

•••Sat.-Sun. (8/15-16): 13th Annual Tuolumne Meadows Poetry Festival at Parsons Memorial Lodge, Yosemite National Park, features Poets Jane Hirshfield, Kay Ryan, and Joseph Stroud, plus Musician Shira Kammen, violin and vielle. Schedule:

Saturday

10-11:30 AM: Meadow, River, Stone: Poetry workshop with Carol Blaney

2–3:30 PM: Featured poets and music

7:30 –10 PM: Open reading and music

Sunday

10-11:30 AM: Writing by the River: Poetry workshop with Margaret Eissler

2-3:30 PM: Featured poets and music

Allow half an hour for an easy walk to Parsons Memorial Lodge. All events are free. Supported by the National Park Service, Yosemite Association, Loralee Tucker Hiramoto Memorial Fund, Friends of Parsons Lodge, and Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant it has received from The James Irvine Foundation. To view a complete schedule of the Parsons Memorial Lodge Summer Series visit www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/programs.htm/.

•••Sat.-Sun (9/26-27). Workshop on Self-Publishing with Tom Johnson, journalist and journalism educator for more than 30 years and Gold Rush Writer faculty member. You will come away from this workshop empowered to publish, market and distribute your own books. Leger Motel, Mokelumne Hill. Limited to 20; cost of $200 includes 2-day publishing workshop, continental breakfasts (Saturday & Sunday), Saturday night dinner. Antoinette May, hosting the workshop, will need a $50 deposit by Aug. 15.

_____________________

Jane Blue writes: Here is a poem for my mother, who died July 28, 1991.

YOUR MOTHER NEVER DIES

—Jane Blue, Sacramento

(for Jane Eshleman Conant, November 5, 1912-July 28, 1991)

Red roses reach into the politics of the sun.

The sun is everywhere, like God. Like your mother.

But then it sinks and the moon rises.

Your mother never dies.

The satellites rise, rushing across the summer sky.

Your father might die,

but your mother never dies.

There is one white rose as well, humble, almost

invisible. That is you.

The street is still. Even the doves

have gone inside their twiggy nests, outwaiting

(outwitting) the heat.

Just the slightest wind shakes the long canes.

I smell the acrid freeway

and its eternal (infernal) sound like a polluted sea.

But also the new-cut lawn.

Your mother in your dreams with a ruby

or a garnet in her ear.

Never dies.

_____________________

POEM
—Frank O'Hara

Poised and cheerful the

squirrel moves in the grey

tree passing upward into

the world's leafy aerial

away from us and eager for

the infinite

berry his

volatile eye rolls shyly

comprehensive and sees

us as specks in a corner

midway between the dull

earth and birds' rare

nests now

empty forever

fading into wider sky

leaves are all below

him wires farther from

each other our antennae

no longer conduct him

cold and gone

oh squirrel

why didn't you tell us

you knew how to get there!

_________________

Today's LittleNip:

The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters.

—Ross MacDonald

_________________

—Medusa

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

THIS SUMMER:
There will be no rattle-read in July, while the Snake enjoys a little summer hibernation. (Stay current on Sacramento poetry, though, by way of Medusa's Kitchen.) Then join us Weds., August 12 to celebrate Joyce Odam’s birthday month with two new books from her: Peripherals: Prose Poems by Joyce Odam (illustrated by Charlotte Vincent) and Rattlesnake LittleBook #2 (Noir Love).
That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Free!

WTF!: The second issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick, is now available at The Book Collector or through rattlesnakepress.com, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #3 (which will be available August 21) was July 15; next deadline will be Oct. 15. Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing, to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW: Issue #22 is now available (free) at The Book Collector, or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Or you can order copies of current or past issues through rattlesnakepress.com/. Deadline is August 15 for RR23: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or
P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to add all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one, and please—only one submission packet per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me and I'll send you one. Free!

_________________

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 (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Monday, July 27, 2009

A Single Lucid Drop

Photo by Bob Dreizler, Sacramento

SPINAL RESTING PLACE
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

The many rocks laid

out on a curved pathway;

gems of varying symmetry.

English walnuts fallen

on a sidewalk. A mud

river winding northward.

A broken tree trunk

in a sandy creek bed;

a woman asleep on her side.

__________________

HandyStuff Quickies:

Katy Brown sends us this link to The Guardian and its way-cool poetry site:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/25/war-poetry-carol-ann-duffy/. Check it out!

And Steve Williams writes: I don't know if you've heard of this, but Lana Ayers sponsors a postcard project every year in which you send out a poem a day on a postcard to someone else on the list who is also sending out poems on postcards. Not only do you get to write thirty-one poems, you also get to receive the same. Here is the info: http://www.poetrypostcards.blogspot.com/.

For more fun sites, including www.wildpoetryforum.com hosted by Steve and his s.o., go to SnakeFaves on rattlesnakepress.com/.

_________________

This week in NorCal poetry:

•••Tonight, Monday (7/27), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Shawn Pittard and LaVerne Frith at HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. [See last Friday's post for bios.]

Coming Up AT SPC:

August 3: Noah "Supanova" Hayes and Stuart Livingston

•••Tues. (7/28), 7-8:30 PM: Join California Lawyers for the Arts and attorney Grace Bergen at Time Tested Books, 1114 21st St., Sacramento, as she presents an overview of Copyright Law. Topics include What is Copyright, International Copyright, How to Copyright your work, What does Copyright Protect, Pictorial, Graphic, and Sculptural works, Sound Recordings, What rights are secured for copyright owners, Co-ownership, Collective Work and much more. There will also be a Q&A, so you are welcome to take advantage of Grace’s knowledge and bring your own questions. Grace Bergen is Former General Counsel for Tower Records and a current Attorney with Greenberg Traurig LLP. Fee: $20 general, $10 members of C.L.A., $5 student/senior members. Membership: Join C.L.A. (1 yr.): $40 general individual, $25 working artist, $20 student/senior. Info: (916) 442-6210 ext. 102 or email prclasacto@aol.com to register/.

California Lawyers for the Arts is a non-profit service organization that provides lawyer referrals, dispute resolution services, educational programs, publications and resource library to artists of all disciplines and arts organizations.

•••Thurs. (7/30), 8 PM: Poetry Unplugged @ Luna’s Café (1414 16^th St., Sacramento) presents SLiC and Sage. Open mic before and after. No cover and all ages. Info: Art Luna at www.lunascafe.com or 916-441-3931 or frank andrick at fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com/. SLiC is a poet who's broken into the Sacramento poetry scene with his unique blend of distinctly American styles reminiscent of the work of Walt Whitman, Bob Dylan, Charles Bukowski, and Tom Waits. Deeply human, lyrical, and moving, his poetry has landed him page time in Rattlesnake Review, Poetry Now, Medusa's Kitchen, Brevities, and WTF. Weekly performances at Luna's Cafe have helped to make him a force in the poetry scene. Pick up SLiC's chaps and broadsides at The Book Collector, Luna's Cafe, and local coffeehouses.

Alexandra Sage Reagan was born and partly raised in Sacramento, and partly in the foothills to the northeast. She is currently a student at Sacramento State University and has been an appreciative participant of Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s since the age of fourteen. Sage, as she is known, has come to learn that the best things in life cost a one-drink minimum... She has been most recently published in WTF!

•••Friday (7/31), 8-10:30 PM: TheBlackOutPoetrySeries presents Open Mic Love Jones Poetry Night: Neketia Brown (special presentation), plus singers Chris J. and Zionista. Hosted by Jean Hooks. Bring your BEST love poems and share them. That’s inside the Upper Level VIP Lounge, located inside of Fitness Systems Heathclub, by Cal State Skating Rink at 26 Massie Ct., Sacramento. (Exit Mack Road East to Stockton Blvd and then make a left on Massie right past Motel 6.) $5.00. Info: (916) 208-POET.

•••Sat. (8/1): Deadline for The Poets Club of Lincoln poetry contest for 2009, sponsored by The Lincoln Library and Friends of the Lincoln Library. 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners selected in each contest category! Five categories include: "Lincoln in 2025," "Love and Life," "Heroes," "Memories" and "Science and Technology." Each poet may submit 3 poems, no more than one in three of the five contest categories. Poems may be rhyme, free verse, Haiku or other accepted poetry forms and of any length, up to a maximum of 30 lines. Young Poets, 18-years of age or under, are encouraged to submit poems and will compete in a special “Young Poets” category. The top three winners in each category will be contacted by phone. Entry Forms and Contest Rules are available at the Lincoln Carnegie Library Check-Out Desk, the Twelve Bridges Library Check-Out Desk and can be downloaded from the following websites: www.libraryatlincoln.org and www.friendsofthelincolncalibrary.org/. Winners will be asked to submit their poems electronically (by e-mail attachment, using “poem name.doc” format) to lincolnpoetry@gmail.com. Winners will read their poems on October 11, 2009 at the Voices of Lincoln event to be held from 3-5 PM, Twelve Bridges Library (Willow Room), 485 Twelve Bridges Drive, Lincoln, CA. Winners also will be presented with a commemorative chapbook of the winning poems.

______________________

AUBADE
—Philip Larkin

I work all day, and get half drunk at night.

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.

In time the curtain-edges will grow light.

Till then I see what's really always there:

Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,

Making all thought impossible but how

And where and when I shall myself die.

Arid interrogation: yet the dread

Of dying, and being dead,

Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse

—The good not done, the love not given, time

Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because

An only life can take so long to climb

Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;

But at the total emptiness for ever,

The sure extinction that we travel to

And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,

Not to be anywhere,

And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid

No trick dispels. Religion used to try.
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die,

And specious stuff that says No rational being

Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing

That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,

Nothing to love or link with,

The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,

A small unfocused blur, a standing chill

That slows each impulse down to indecision.

Most things may never happen: this one will,

And realization of it rages out

In furnace-fear when we are caught without

People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave

Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.

It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,

Have always known, know that we can't escape,

Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.

Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring

In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring

Intricate rented world begins to rouse.

The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.

Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

__________________

THE VISITOR

—Gibbons Ruark

Holding the arm of his helper, the blind

Piano tuner comes to our piano.

He hesitates at first, but once he finds

The keyboard, his hands glide over the slow

Keys, ringing changes finer than the eye

Can see. The dusty wires he touches, row

On row, quiver like bowstrings as he

Twists them one notch tighter. He runs his

Finger along a wire, touches the dry

Rust to his tongue, breaks into a pure bliss

And tells us, "One year more of damp weather

Would have done you in, but I've saved it this

Time. Would one of you play now, please? I hear

It better at a distance." My wife plays
Stardust. The blind man stands and smiles in her

Direction, then disappears into the blaze

Of new October. Now the afternoon,

The long afternoon that blurs in a haze

Of music...Chopin nocturnes, Clair de Lune,

All the old familiar, unfamiliar

Music-lesson pieces, Papa Haydn's

Dead and gone, gently down the stream...Hours later,

After the latest car has doused its beams,

Has cooled down and stopped its ticking, I hear

Our cat, with the grace of animals free

To move in darkness, strike one key only,

And a single lucid drop of water stars my dream.

_________________

Today's LittleNip:

When you're a writer, you no longer see things with the freshness of the normal person. There are always two figures that work inside you, and if you are at all intelligent you realize that you have lost something. But I think there has always been this dichotomy in a real writer. He wants to be terribly human, and he responds emotionally, and at the same time there's this cold observer who cannot cry.

—Brian Moore

_________________

—Medusa

P.S. Be sure to check out the article about Bob Stanley and local poetry in the "Living Here" section of today's Sacramento Bee.

SnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:

THIS SUMMER:
There will be no rattle-read in July, while the Snake enjoys a little summer hibernation. (Stay current on Sacramento poetry, though, by way of Medusa's Kitchen.) Then join us Weds., August 12 to celebrate Joyce Odam’s birthday month with two new books from her: Peripherals: Prose Poems by Joyce Odam (illustrated by Charlotte Vincent) and Rattlesnake LittleBook #2 (Noir Love).
That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Free!

WTF!: The second issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick, is now available at The Book Collector or through rattlesnakepress.com, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.
Deadline for Issue #3 (which will be available August 21) was July 15; next deadline will be Oct. 15. Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing, to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726 (clearly marked for WTF).
And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be
over 18 years of age to submit. (More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

RATTLESNAKE REVIEW: Issue #22 is now available (free) at The Book Collector, or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Or you can order copies of current or past issues through rattlesnakepress.com/. Deadline is August 15 for RR23: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or
P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to add all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of the on-going Medusa are always hungry; keep that poetry comin', rain or shine!
Just let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one, and please—only one submission packet per issue of the quarterly Review.
(More info at rattlesnakepress.com/.)

Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me and I'll send you one. Free!

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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 (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) 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.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.