Dance, Dreams & Delusions

 Powwow, Port Sanilac, Michigan

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

QUIET SPACE
 —Taylor Graham, Placerville

What used to be third floor before earthquake:
skiff of concrete dust like morning snow. It's 
quiet except street-noise through shattered
window—hammers, hacksaws cutting rebar,

backhoe, sirens. Someone yells ¡Silencio! and 
everyone stops to listen. Sound of life? Inside
this room, my dog sniffs edges. Masticated
building tossed with chair-legs, a shoe, blue

floral print. My dog has had enough of death;
she crawls under a chunk of ceiling, or is it wall?
comes back with that look in her eye. Has she
found an inch of silence, space small as before

breath for a prayer to seep between gray slabs—
someone alive? From the parapet, a pigeon
extends its wings and flies.
 
_____________________

MAIN STREET, 7:30 A.M.
—Taylor Graham

The sidewalk's empty in a one-street town.
My dog on leash leads out, she pulls me east
past bakery with its after-whiff of yeast.
The sidewalk's empty in a one-street town,

my dog on leash leads out. She pulls me east
past gallery and grill, an antique store,
a crack in pavement—one quick sniff before
my dog leads out again, and pulls me east.

Past gallery and grill, an antique store
whose musty scent of by-gone days slips through
the locked-tight door. She tugs; here's something new
past gallery and grill; the antique store

whose musty scent of by-gone days slips through
to sidewalk (empty). In a one-street town
a dog's nose reads the news that's coming down.
Whose musty scent of by-gone days slips through?
The sidewalk's empty in a one-street town.

My dog on leash leads out, she pulls me east
past bakery with its after-whiff of yeast.
The sidewalk's empty in a one-street town.

____________________
 
ASKING THE ORACLE
—Taylor Graham
 
The night was shattered by dreams.
Two long-dead men lost and buried in their flight.
Overhead, the great bird screams.
Pits under snow, earth packed tight.
We woke to horses burning, day's savage light.
 
For such dreams, what must we pay?
Pebbles, driftwood, rafts of skin, some shards of bone.
A quarter-moon per Monday;
four makes a ghostly moonstone,
a silver coin. This moon keeps it for its own.
 
We keep nothing. Not one name—
faces of loved ones—they will all rearrange
and recombine in the same
register of memory; strange
yet shining, the old hands and glances; small change. 

___________________

DANCE OF RIVER AND ROCK
—Taylor Graham

A dance for two. My dog leads, and I follow.
I parked my car at the vista, and now
we move to the music of river far below,
past the rockwall meant to save tourists from
the view. Downslope of dance-floor
littered slick with deadfall leaves, my dog
picks our step. Out of sight, booming,
the great river. That lilt of head, the graceful 
turns—a dancer is my dog. To the edge
of gorge. Rock falls away, inches from my
boot. Above us, at the vista on a pleasant day,
people stand at the wall of the world,
gazing at blue heavens, grayrock castles
on every side, as wind joins the river's song,
an invitation to the dance. Without quite
choosing, someone took the river for partner.
That dance is done. I lead my dog back 
to the rockwall barricade, the vista, our car.

Little Grass Dancer

—Photo by Katy Brown

DREAM HOUSE 

—Caschwa, Sacramento

(There is a sweepstakes offer

to win $3 million towards

your dream house. No thanks.)

When I dream I am in a house

the rooms change without notice

the door to the master bedroom

now opens to the pantry

Like following footprints in an eddy

that room that had a piano

I was going to play for a while

is no longer where I left it

Familiar rooms become hallways

that lead to strange rooms

filled with strange people

nothing is where I left it

Maybe I am dead in my dream

dead people don't need

kitchens or restrooms

and neither does my dream house

Which takes me down the hallway

of a frat house, activity everywhere

constant motion, one belongs

or is awkwardly out of place

I reach in my pocket for the invitation

it doesn't work that way

you have to know somebody

where's that piano now?

 

____________________

Three Poems by Josh McKinney's English 30C Class, CSUS, Fall 2012 (with Cynthia Linville): 

ABANDONED TO SUMMER

Red clay layered against

the bottom of our feet,

hand in hand we

walk farther and farther toward

the ever-narrowing horizon until

we shrink into a small pocket of sky,

a seasonal contortion.

Soon we will awake in the dark,

become a shooting star,

reach past city lights,

lingering—

out of time.

___________________ 

DRUNK AND DELUSIONAL

Everything devoured

by my hellish mouth,

by the sun crawling the length

of hazy mornings,

by the scorching embrace

of sober nights.

___________________

YOU CAN BUY BEER AT PIZZA HUT?

I lost my summer to booze,

bronchitis,

cat fights,

bare skin and sweat.

I lost my nerve.

I didn't need it to stick around.

__________________

Our thanks to today's contributors: Taylor Graham is fiddling with recent forms, including this week's Catena Rondo, and says she's putting together a book of dog poems. Caschwa (Carl Bernard Schwartz) eschews a dream house, while Josh McKinney and Cynthia Linville send us these poems that were put together by his CSUS class; both Josh and Cynthia have readings coming up, with Josh reading from his new book on Monday at SPC, and Cynthia reading tomorrow night at Poetry in Davis (details on our blue board at the right of this).

Tom Goff sends us a whiff of Scotch (via la France) in his LittleNip; we send it along to Richard Hansen of The Book Collector, who is now home from the hospital, with hopes for his continued recovery. 

And Katy Brown is sending us beautiful photos of the powwow she attended in Port Sanilac, Michigan last weekend, which we are putting into three photo albums for Medusa's Facebook page. One album is already up; the other two are coming later this week. Watch for them.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

CLAUDE DEBUSSY'S SCOTTISH MARCH

—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Ah my Highland lassie! D'you see

Braveheart himself, William Wallace,

flinging a Highland fling by the Seine?

Topped jaunty with a beret, in a

French Impressionist kilt? Not

a single banger anywhere

to be eaten?

__________________

—Medusa

Feathered Fan

—Photo by Katy Brown

One Square Inch

Penguin

—Enhanced Photo by Joyce Odam

THE END OF THE WORLD
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

I remember the billions of stars

on summer nights—the sky

dizzy with my staring up—

the sky clear as time stretching ahead of me.

I was a tiny swirl

of wonder—

a

dot

on the

spinning ground—

my eyes took in the whole universe.

And once,

when the moon was strangely low and bright,

a boy said

that this night

was the end of the world—

that prophecy had come true—

and made me afraid.

And I looked for the sign that this was so:

and the sky went deeper

and blacker,

and the stars shook—

their light even brighter—

and the full moon

stared back at me,

and I ran to tell my mother.

_____________________

THE ECHO ZONE

—Joyce Odam

Repercussions of light,

residuals of dark—

meld of refusal and compromise,

life's crowding moments—

torn open by reach into distance

through hollows of deaf height,

howlings and ravings that fill and

fill—emptying voice and mind

into another world of you.

____________________

DARK RANGE
—Joyce Odam

Where is the sun in this range of shadows—

gray forming over gray—overlapping.

The world is so colorless today,

a landscape made of monotony,

a slow creaking of sound

in the imagination.

Small hills rise into nowhere.

Undulations of time leave their mark,

a slow erosion of pain and solitude—

each overwhelming the other.

How can one live here and not weep,

not with endurance, but with grief?

—Enhanced Photo by Joyce Odam

FOR STORY OF YOURSELF, WHY GO

so far back to be now—

examine all that time and history?

What is there is gone: Was—

was—and is, still.

And do they still exist, the

Eve and Adam—

the perfection—and the blame?
And why are we

still guilty?
Many poets have come after,

and many artists,

and many makers of music—

and do the spheres still listen,

as we listen to the spheres . . . ?


—Joyce Odam 

_____________________

THE DREAMING FISH

—Joyce Odam

In the luminous room, shimmers

of lights—reflections on the wall—the

fish tank with the blue water and golden fish.

A glassed-in world—

tiny air-bubbles rising like

colorless balloons through thinning sky.

The ceiling light reflecting

back, until the room is afloat with

water-shadows—water-light—ceiling fish.

(first pub. in Noir Love, Rattlesnake LittleBook #2)

_________________________

THE NEW WORLD
—Joyce Odam

It was the hollow world we entered
with our dream of entering—
with our knowledge of being there.

It was the far room at the end
with its wavering wall
that held firm for our entrance.

And then, the vast potential—:
we could paint everything with our minds:
mountains,   sky,   earth,   our own seas;

we could invent eternity.
How eager we were,
pouring over imagined blueprints.

Oh, the birds we created—
the marvelous jungles and cities,
children of no cruelty.

The weather was divided
into seasons with no extremes.
We balanced everything

to perfection . . . and then,
we left it there . . . slipped out of our world
before it knew of us.

______________________

THE NATURE OF BEING
—Joyce Odam

"Only if the moving waters calm down"  —Rumi

out of thought-range

eyes closed against interruption

holiest of moments,

self in deep repose

a soft sway—a listen to

far-away words of music

who knows what they say

music of mind

swirl of stillness

all forces surrendered

the patient dove releases itself

from your darkness

your small world resumes

original scale

only the feeling of joy,

only joy.

_____________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for her usual wonderful poetry/pics fare today. We've had some "silence" poems lately: Joyce's "Nature of Being" with its Rumi quote, and Jeanine Stevens' "One Square Inch of Silence" in last Friday's post. So we'll take their cue, and make our Seed of the Week "One Square Inch of Silence". The busy season is starting; remember to carve some silence out for yourself.

By the way, if you want to access past posts and have forgotten how, just go to the end of the daily post (the cream column on the left side of the blog) and click on "Older Posts", then scroll down to the day you want. Seven days will be there; if you need more, click "Older Posts" again. OR—you can scroll 'way down in the blue box on the right side of the blog (the skinny one under the skinny green box) and go to Medusa's Rap Sheet; you can find every day of posts that way, too.

Another way to access individual poets/poems is with the white search bar at the very top left-hand corner of the blog. If you type in "Jeanine Stevens", for example, you'll see her lovely photogenic face. Then, if you scroll down, you can see all the poems she's posted with us. (You might have to click on "Next Posts" at the bottom of the cream column to see more of them.)

Speaking of poetry seeds, I just discovered the many prompts on one of the Writer's Digest blogs: go to www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides for a passel of 'em! Laura Davis (www.lauradavis.net/prompts) also has weekly prompts. The Guardian used to have monthly "workshops", but they seem to have stopped that in 2011. Anybody know of any other "public" prompt sites?

Oh—and we have a new photo album on Medusa's Facebook page: the first of Katy Brown's powwow pix from her trip to Michigan. Check it out!

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

FURTHERMORE—

There is always more.
Distance is not far.
There are no maps.
The world travels itself—
after    and after    and after.
We float in a dream.
Sky follows.
The night is full of light.
Moon-light—spreading wide
into thinness.  How far can
that be?  We can see back
to where we are—in memory.

—Joyce Odam


 (first pub. in Poets' Forum Magazine)

_____________________

—Medusa

 —Enhanced Photo by Joyce Odam

Like the Carefree Swallows

Timothy Sandefur

VACUUM WAS THE SAME AS PRESSURE

—Timothy Sandefur, Rescue
 

Vacuum was the same as pressure.
Every day we’d be reminded:
We were sacred, chosen favorites;
just the latest versions, shaped
to fit without a gap. Every
morning, clutching scripts, we blocked
the next day’s movements. Every phrase
was finished for us. Every gesture
was into space emptied in
advance. Every night, at lights out,
the air began to thicken; you would
lie there quiet, feel yourself
be loved, and every breath inhaled.

___________________
 

THE TALE OF THE KEYS

—Timothy Sandefur
 

They told us if we went, we’d have to leave
Our houses and our cars, and have to flee
Through lonely forests. We’d abjured their pity,
Bit the hand that out of charity
Had caged us. But like the carefree swallows, we
Alighted at the meadow’s edge to link
And weave our glinting congeries of keys,
Like tinsel straw and sticks, in smiling wreaths,
To loop about the skinny necks of trees
And scornful busts with eyes too black to see,
And fly toward the woods, unlocked and free.

___________________

YOU SAY THAT I AM POOR, BUT I HAVE BUILT

—Timothy Sandefur
 

“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.”
—Robert Graves

1.

You say that I am poor, but I have built
You cities whose veins are quivering with gold,
Infusing winter hillsides with a glow
That overflows from tranquil evening windows,
And shines upon the sea, now tamed, that once
Seethed and hissed, an eternal, breathless void.
In the swirling storm the shadows of the trees
Scratch their thin black fingers at the door,
And grin with icy teeth. But I have brought
The child’s eyes the gleam of Christmas lights.

2.

You say that I am idle, but I’ve made
Your gardens bloom among the scalding desert
Rocks; fountains to nourish the desolate dust;
Sown for you wide fields of flourishing grain;
Thickened the orange peel, made the grapefruit
Plump and gold. No bleeding slave now scrapes
His grave from the ground for my dominion.  Now
I harvest with spinning steel, to fructify
A race that’s known no famine; fill your barns
With stacks of wheat and cotton; milk the herds;
Press the olive; comb and card the wool.

3.

Yes, say I have no soul. But I have cleared
A path for the peasant and his son to leave
The plains, where only wind once haunted grass,
And raised them steeples of steel and gleaming glass,
Whence shines the light of day on Earth’s dark side.
Where once they stared across the empty strait,
I balanced a bridge on a thousand metal strands,
And every one I’ve gilded with a light
That points toward tomorrow through the night.
 

____________________

Thanks to Timothy Sandefur for today's poems! About himself, Timothy writes: I am an attorney and author living in Rescue, although I’m originally from southern California. I’ve written poetry on and off through my life, and find myself drawn frequently to the subject of freedom. “Tale of the keys” is inspired by a story that in 1989, one of the communist nations—I forget which—allowed people for the first time to leave, but warned them that they could never come back; the people answered by hanging the keys to their houses on the statues and trees and leaving anyway.

___________________

Today's LittleNip: 

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

—e.e. cummings

____________________

—Medusa

  Timothy Sandefur, with a self-portrait by
e.e. cummings
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

 

Things Which Enclose Me

—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

somewhere i have never travelled
—e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility: whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens; only something in my understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

__________________

—Medusa

To hear e.e. cummings read his poem and to see the original manuscript and its punctuation, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWcuGo0rEFo

Returning to the Oracle

Tools

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

ADAGIO: AUGUST AND THE MOON

—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

When we saw how many fragments

The dream had shattered into

Over the night we thought that all

Had been lost.  It was impossible to tell

What it had been just the night before.

The moon came up as usual

But it was a color we did not recognize.

We had been told that this might

Happen, but we were not prepared

For how peculiar it appeared now.

It was like the moon was thinking.

___________________

RETURNING TO THE ORACLE

—D.R. Wagner

We were already beginning

To forget the dream.

This was required for us to even

Have the dream.  All the names you learned

Would change to bits of driftwood.

We would be hurrying away from the beach

Carrying our briefcases and talking

About how life had become.

You will already be dead by the time

It occurs to you that I may be

Addressing someone else, but I will

Continue to speak to you and I

Will tell you how clearly the oracle

Spoke to me this time.  I watched

You tremble.  You remarked on this.

“This is the intersection, then?” you said.

But I too was forgetting each moment

We were having.  You were no longer familiar.

I had never been this way before.

We became lost looking for the place

Where we had parked the car.

___________________

SAVING OUR SKINS

—D.R. Wagner

They cut away the dermis that they might

Claim it as a helmet or a sword.

We behave as reptiles before a most

Uncertain fate.  We promise to defend.

We do not know the names of death.

We do not recognize the fury of the devil.

The skies are carried away to make sails.

We have come out of the woods

To protect ourselves against these

Obscene dunces.  We watch death

Dance with the night, the dawn,

Those long-ago nights, those events

That burnt at our eyes and moved

Us to dreams of the hero, but hiding

From ambush and unable to know

Warning unless destination was

Some kind of exit.

We swear to one another that we will ride

From this darkness, these ashes, and reclaim

Our own skins, but we are bound

By imaginary men who occupy our dreams.

They look like refugees from a Goya

Painting, a water clock of which we

Are the hours and swallow our time

As a kind of truth, plagued by lies

That scab this skin we seek.

Blessed are we in our quest.

Bring us the grace of knowing this is not

A personal destiny.  For now,

At least, our understanding is a matter

That will be decided by a single lamp.

Let only that we may find a way home,

That I may finally recognize you,

Even if your skin may never reach

The glowing home of pure peace.

 Circle

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

 

CLIMBING THE HILLS

—D.R. Wagner

A wash of those same birds

We saw almost a year ago.

Just the way their wing tips lift

Slightly, catch the sun, flashing

An unexpected iridescence back

Toward the high trail we are

Upon.  We were as surprised.

There was a dark drawing that,

When looked at closely, was filled

With mysterious forms not quite

Recognizable, yet most definitely

There, almost reflections upon

What looked to be only dirty glass

From a distance.  You pointed

This out to me just as the day

Was ending and sunset was ordering

Its last streaming of light

Through the place.  It was hard

To concentrate on any one thing.

So I have come here again and this

Time it is an exclamation,

An insistence of small rose-

Colored birds lifting

As we climb toward the high lakes,

Above the villages. “See how it is up here?”

You say, gesturing toward the flight.

“Yes, I do.  It seems perfect

Just now.”  And perhaps it is, I think.

The shadows jumping to attention

Dancing after the birds as if looking

For a partner to carry across the night.

___________________

DANCING

—D.R. Wagner

What, that we could look across the harbor

And still see the boat that brought us here

Steaming away like a black maggot, belching

Diesel and left over evening, splashing red and lurid

Blues all around the upper air.  We would be here

Forever and we knew it.  Someone lit a cigarette,

Passed it around until it was nothing as well.

We were not seeking.  We weren’t even saying.

It was mostly that it was cold and we were without

Features now that night has taken the brush,

Painting furiously to get ahead of a moon that

Would be pale, almost green as it tried to overcome

The entrance hymn that night had prepared.

Somewhere someone began to play an old tango,

El Amanecer, I think it was.  It felt like blood coming

From a cut wrist as it inched its way closer.  If we

Hadn’t been distracted by the situation we

Might have tried to forget the little bird sounds

That filled its middle, but we were unable to do so.

Better to stay huddled here, away from all

Conversation, dedicating ourselves to leaving

Rather than looking for Albion.  Pierre suggested

We try to dance.  I took a long drink and stood up.

“Two step or waltz, tango or polka?”  I bowed to everyone

Gathered there in the black and imagined they did so as well.

 Peace

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

 

THE HOUSE OF COLORED LIGHTS

—D.R. Wagner

My teacher, who was Yqar called Stul

Or some say Misthub of the Silver

Lance, spoke to me of the great

House of the Colored Lights.

None could enter here as they once

Did in ancient stories, but are, rather, bound

To increase the seals upon these doors when they

Have been told of its stories.

The house was seen even upon the sea.

The great squid, the whale and the

Finny fish and the dolphins and

The great schools of mackerel.

The silver lightning of sardines were

Seen to bear it up through the waves,

The sea opening like a great mouth,

Its watery lights enchanting

The sailors so that they were struck

Dumb for years afterward and created

Dances to tell the tale of the house.

___________________

EDGE OF THE GORGE

—D.R. Wagner

And it broke on the tines of the fork

Of the moon and scattered the night

With stars.  And it called the men

Home and made them recall

The sounds of the songs that they heard

At the wall of the world when

We all stood together, whenever we

All raised our voices, when we

Looked to the heavens to see wolves

Dancing.  The Great River was burning

And the castles of night’s dome

Were light beyond magic

And figures of light stretched

Out to the dawn.

I think that you should go back

To sitting by the side of the well.

No one will recognize you there.

You will meet people who will be

Happy to love you and perhaps understand

Why you are still here, so late in the season,

Describing the leaves to them, telling

About the fickleness the winds adopt.

I stand by the edge of the gorge

Gazing down at the river.  From here

It seems to move slowly with just

The easiest of changes as the water

Moves over the river bed all surge,

Sporting fifty-foot-high waves.

I raise my voice to the emptiness

Above the river, as only a fool

Would do.  There is clearly no point

In doing this.  Nothing could hear me

In the night.  I can barely hear

The river.  The wind knows how

To laugh.  The traffic past

The Whirlpool Rapids also knows

How to laugh.  I hear it come

forth in the voices of the gulls.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

—T.S. Eliot

__________________

—Medusa

—Photo by D.R. Wagner