Opening the Veins of Dreamers

The Rain Breaking Up

 A STREET FILLED WITH MEMORIES

A street filled with memories.
They litter themselves through people,
Some half-remembered, some as persistent
As a lucid dream.

She saw him fall from the cliff
Toward the sunset, over the boatyards.
He is forever caught in the air.
Birds come to perch on him.
Eventually they come to build nests
There, raise their young and fledge them.

He recalls a bicycle ride through
Small villages in the south of France.
From the doorways of the shops,
The houses, come men and women
Made of sand, singing of Whitman,
Singing of Dante, singing of vague
Victories over evils.  They are
Dispersed by biting winds,
Clouding the sun.  The landscape
Now threadbare.

There are advancing armies darkening
The horizon.  They smell the horses,
The stink of fire in the clothing
Of the pike bearers.  This is the founding
Of new nations.  The drums,
The vows of vengeance thrown over
Them and they did their bloody work.

I wander through the labyrinth
Unable to gain these streets again.
Turn after turn, another blank wall.
A mysterious and curious music
Pervades the dying afternoon.

I hear the clunk of a bucket
In the cistern.  I turn on my heels.
I am in the path taken by the blind.

They cluster about me with their
Endless words, their clouded eyes.

___________________

FINDING THE EDGE

I was able to move through the rooms
But I was never allowed to stay there.
What happened to me there was not
Something I could own, but I could feel
It as if it had parasitic roots in my brain,
Roots in my blood and could pull words
From me without my even noticing.

I was always able to feel the pain edge of everything.
I didn’t live here.  I had no brothers hung up
On drugs to move pain away from
Their bodies and leave them limp with the blank
Ecstasy of no longer knowing feeling, only the coolness
The mind adopts as those drugs no longer allow it to move.

I take my people out to the edge of the great plain.
This morning would work.  It may be as clear as any
Move consciousness might make while searching
For a room on the second floor, above the bar,
Just beyond the neon, sitting on a bed, begging
For there not to be anything else that feels like this,
Begging for an oblivion that offers rest without
Dying but still offers a room to do so, if needed.

I head for the longer distance.  I can see the traders
Gathering near their camps, preparing their goods,
Opening the veins of the dreamers to see what might
Dwell there.  They find great ships, with beautiful,
Tall sails and a following sea that will remove
All the rooms, all the walls, all the pain even
As it asks us only the favor to speak with a clear
Voice, that of mountains, of jungles, of the open seas.

 Palm and Curve

PULLING UP THE BLANKET BEFORE GOING TO SLEEP

The stars pretend to show eternity.
They claim to be the cape of paradise.
They form constellations only so that man
Can talk about them and think them other
Than the flaming balls of gas they are.

Tonight I saw the stars as human skulls,
The constellations as the same and as I watched,
Time came and unloaded some of its trash
In a far corner of the universe just to keep
It expanding.  Just to keep things interesting.

I took the path that went through a small wood
And opened out almost at the edge of the sea.
The tide was at neap and what were waves
Were very far away, as if one were in Maine.

I went down to where the edge of the water
Would be in a couple of hours and listened
To these skull stars in the chorus of their
Divine realms of space.  They were voices.
They were voices as the sea is voices,
As the wind is voices, as the rain too finds
The earth a place that can make rain to speak.

And I did not know the words and I did not
Comprehend the music that I heard but I
Tried to be as these things were.  I became
Naked to the night and walked across
The rocks farther and farther, on my way
To meet the water, the great ocean, the
Endless sea, to welcome it back to the shore,
To believe as I was racing ahead of it, pulling
A great blanket up to the woods to give
The starry skulls the mirror their flaming vision wants.

____________________

THE DAYS

We moved out of the corridors,
Into the crowded streets.
There were so many people.

In the middle of the streets
Were the days, all of the days
Walking with their feathered headdresses,
Holding their stone knives and walking.

The days were walking and they were making
People. We were part of the days.
We crowded around them anxious
That they realize we were their
Children.  They continued to move
Toward the horizon, all of us following.

Children of the days, ever children
Of the days.

Concrete Bison Head

THE TASTE OF WATER

Seeing her move away from
Whatever collects about herself
So that one might come to believe
This strengthens its chance for eternity
Rather than the garments a memory
Makes, so we may wear it without
Bitterness, only to watch it become
Indecipherable or become
Regarded as innocence looked over
By others as the mind loses its details,
Finally crashing behind some bushes
In a great garden of reasons
Where it is found by a lovely child
Who plucks it from oblivion and runs,
Returning home to show the visiting
Guests what she has found.  Each
One inspecting it as if they may
Be doomed to recall.  They show
Their scars to one another, frightening
The child who leaves the room
For something to drink.

____________________

THE DAYS OF SAYING

We know so little to be true.
Sometimes the air moves around
One and something is seen.

The smallest of flying things
Tracks around a light
In the middle of the night.

Is this small creature diminished
Or exulted by having been seen by us?
Its life is so miniscule and yet
Here in the last minutes of a day,
It is flying around a lamp left lit
Late, is noticed, and this is reason
For its being.  To be seen.

And such are our own lives, as alone
We sit in the late dark and hear
The night freight train hurrying
Through these same last minutes
And fancy them important as well.

I do not recall you looking at me,
But surely I was wrong.  Surely this
Train, this flying mote, are both
Of greater song.

 Rio Vista Bridge

TRYING TO GET THROUGH THE MIRROR

Touching happiness briefly
As its train moves through what
May be a moment or an eternity.
We are so easily confused.

Do not look too closely at these words.
Everything is here.  Nothing is lost.
The faces will leave us, sliding into mirrors
Right in front of our eyes.  A glow
We will beg to be part of, for we
Believe we are leaving this place,
When it is only the reflection
Abandoning all its corridors,
Slipping into the perfect sunset.

I beg you call these words a destiny,
Nothing less, that all that one could
Possibly become is one moment
Of our discovered lives.

Yet when we sit at the table
At the end of the day
Time offers us the choicest morsel
Most seriously.
This is forgetfulness.

______________________

SPEAKING OF ANYTHING

In my voice, I hear him
Dictating the poem to me.
He offers clever deceit,
A view of the infinite that could
Hardly be obtained, no matter what.

I can speak of anything:
Flights of stairs leading to
The suicide room.
The glass returning my gaze
From shop windows full of the most
Marvelous of things.  Heroes
In great ships, dead soldiers,
More of them than I would ever
Want to use, a month spent
At the seashore, roaming
In and out of fog banks,
Spying cattle and black and white
Sheep on the most perfect
Green hills.

There I will speak of food..
I will speak of shadows
I will call upon glorious angels.
I will call my own name
And hear myself answer.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

MAKING A SQUARE

Counting the syllables.
Building a fruitless night.
Trusting to no one else.
Trying to find a way.
Opening the last door
A perfect square is made.

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's poems and pix!

Blue Shoe

Secrets the Birds Keep

Bull Thistle

—Photo by Taylor Graham

KING OF THE HILLS
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Thistle—
bull-headed but
royal-purple crowned now
as we bow to the first hard heat.
Brown grasses needing to be cut;
dust, stubble, sweaty brow.
The fields repeat
Bull Thistle.

______________________

IMPORTANT PAPER
—Taylor Graham

Lost now.
You've checked every
place you might have put it.
Think of gremlins, or the off-chance
it's outer-spacing your memory.
You thought it would just sit
when it could dance?
It's not lost….

______________________

THIS MORNING THE MUSE

walked right in. What a dump, she said. Papers
all over the place. This, I suppose, was going
to be a poem. She balled it in her fist
and lobbed a shot at the wastebasket. Where
are the trees of your childhood? Yours, on loan.
Gone forever. Scratch paper. Such things
aren't for keeping, no more than dreams of sailing
to Greece. Or even San Francisco. Too much
baggage. Why don't you just take a walk—no,
put that pencil down! Nothing in your pocket.
Pick up a rock, look underneath. Whoosh
of wind. What tribe of tree whispers to you
its unrecordable history, itself beyond metaphor,
its name? Before you're back, I'll have
these heaps of paper sacked for recycling.
The whole place humming like an empty hive.
Pure air, pure possibility. Not a written word.

—Taylor Graham

______________________

SOUTH OF THE NORTHERN STAR
—Taylor Graham

We have no crows' nests here.

But in the valley oak
below the salt-block, a bluebird
broods five azure eggs.
She watches me with a bright eye,
her feathered patience.

Above the field,
six flycatcher nestlings form
a perfect ring, their broad
yellow bills a-gape as goblets
awaiting breakfast.

And where do our mourning doves
nest this morning—
the ones who walk our autumn
pasture, gleaning
turkey-mullein seeds?

Such secrets the birds keep.
At night, their nests are roofed
with stars; Aldebaran
on watch. I've seen constellations
in the smallest egg.

Chinese Bottle, Arden-Dimick Library

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

My parents' crimson red bottle brush blooms again
  buzzing with bees
  I believe the first place I got stung at age seven was
  trying to clip some of its flowers for a bouquet
  Fascinated, staring a little heart on a stinger
  pumping into my finger  

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

__________________

I don't want to mow the lawn
    when little clover heads bloom
    along with little orange flowers
    with the grass going to seed

—Michelle Kunert

________________________

GLASS DOOR. CLOUD.
—Tom Goff

When by chance you entered
the large staff room where I sat
munching something it was pure
cold January and the way you stole in
a friend was with you at first and served
you as a cloak under whom you could enter

You stole in no stride not one footstep
to be seen or imprint the carpet but
came in soft and soft you were before me
when for two months I had felt my mind grasping

outward blindly for any door you might come
in through There you stood before me
and in me at once How does it happen
the cloud opens as simply as that glass
door

And it is that glass door the cloud
alters releasing one beam of solar light
from the millennia But now now that light beam
presses at the glass panel for admittance
and in that instant is already through
behind inside before the glass door
splashing itself in one perfectly even
coat all over that large and waiting lens

This is how you came and stood soft
before me and in me at once
Are you my cloud my light my radiant glass
Are you my mind my entire mind 

__________________

JUST TO GET WISE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

Now is the time for you to learn
from someone, a gentle mouth or a bruising one,
what the flare of love can do. At least I can claim
to have painted a hot sweet blush on
your pale, softly ardent face, once, just once.

What you’ve done: sealed me up, turned me
a motionless Bodies Revealed figure, lungs,
heart, kidneys, viscera frozen to the view
except that through the clear resin of my
replacement skin throbs one pulsating organ,

if we agree on what constitutes an organ. Misery:
misery, a translucent inner pink skin, tightens
and loosens around that inert heart impregnated
with glue. Sheets of real blood flow and filter still
through that living skin. Now is the time

for you to become sticky with desire, no, not for me,
never for me, but anywhere in the world, anyone
in the world whose love is the true yet canned pineapple
juice, sweet but a little off, that may feed you and
not fill you. What might Walt Whitman say here?

Oh the beautiful unkiss’d mouths and you,
my wild loon of the marshes of Manahatta,
among them? And where do mouths like yours,

pink and full without lipstick, disappear simply
to receive the official imprint, those entry stamps
of lip, of tongue? Where do any of us run off to,
just to get wise and feel hurt?

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

Nothing is sweeter than cuddling with an old cat—
   one that is fifteen years or older.
   Kittens are so overrated

—Michelle Kunert

__________________

—Medusa

Michelle Kunert, Cockpit, McClellan Park

Preserve Us, Monsanto!

 This is what it sounds like when doves cry...

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch

ELEGY FOR ELIOT
—Phillip Larrea, Sacramento

Who will embrace this orphan, Eliot?
He wanders certain half-deserted streets,
His nose pressed against the fogged window pane,
On the inside looking out. Longing to
Walk among the bustling half-dead throngs
Commuting from Michelangelo there,
Crossing Renoir’s bridge to Dada End.

On this bitter April Thursday morning,
He scatters remains of last night’s ashes,
Tucks his practical cat in his rucksack,
Hopes to fall in with pilgrims’ progress
In peace to Buddha’s shrine, without a prayer.
His cross to bear—he does not understand.

Doubting Thomas shakes frost off his shoulders,
Wishing to crawl back into the Blessed
Mother Mary’s virgin womb. But she who
Comforts each to each will not comfort him.

He grows old—cast to the side of the road.
Hollowed out by every pound of flesh
Exacted by critics’ ragged claws which
Damn him with faint praise, assent with a leer.

Re-baptized in the water faith, he dies.
Gasping the last air not yet consumed by fire.
A bit of earth marks his passing this way
With all that there really is left to say:
T.S. Eliot begins and ends.
Here, like a struck match, he begins again.

____________________

WRONG, RIGHT AND REASONABLE
(adapted from an essay by Benjamin Franklin, 1767)
—Phillip Larrea

It is Wrong, O ye Americans, for you to expect hereafter
That we will make any acts of Congress from the time we,
The Gentle Shepherd and his flock, get into power but such
As are calculated to impoverish you—and enrich us.
Our standing maxim is, you exist only for our sake.
Your Lords we are, and slaves we deem ye.

It is Right to call this by the name “bounty”.
We express our Goodness to you more clearly to intimate the
Great Obligation you are under for such Goodness.
Yet—you manifest the ungratefulness of your tempers by objecting,
In return for such Goodness, to take upon yourselves
A burden ten hundred times greater than the bounty!

It is Reasonable, O ye Americans, to charge you with dreaming,
Otherwise we cannot keep you so poor, but you may pay your debt,
Dreaming that you may increase your own strength and prosperity.
Joseph’s brethren hated him for a dream he really dreamed.
We, for a dream you never dreamed, which we only dream
You dreamed, have therefore resolved to hate you most cordially.

 Stitches in Time

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

WHAT SHE SAW THERE

—Phillip Larrea

“High in cerulean skies, weeps the statue...”.
She had been on summer sabbatical
To Sao Paolo was it, I think she said?
No, no—now I recollect it was Rio.
She shows snapshots from her trip. Heartfelt pantoums
Using literate words seldom heard ever.
We display our profound appreciation
With golf claps. Her colleague in the back row
Snaps his fingers. The adjunct on the side
Nods, eyes closed, deeply entranced, no doubt.
Next, she anaconds us down Amazon
Pleistocene rainforests. We smell compost.
Last—an ekphrastic of empty pottery.
Smash show! We defenestrate such poetry.

_________________

TWINKIE FOREVER

—Phillip Larrea
 
The twinkie
Has taught us
A half-life

Is longer
Than a full.
When you pray,

Skip the saints.
“Preserve us,
Monsanto!”

_________________

Thanks to Robert Lee Haycock for today's photos (reminding you to click on them to enlarge them), and to Phillip Larrea for the poems. Phillip is the host of the Foam at the Mouth poetry series which meets one Saturday a month at the Sac. Poetry Center. About his poems, Phillip writes: Forms to play with from my new book, We the People. The first is an elegy, the second a "found" poem, the third a "broken" sonnet, the fourth a TriCube, the fifth a haiku. I will be reading with Jan Haag at the Sacramento Poetry Center a week from Monday, 5/13. The link to the publisher and more about Phillip is www.coldriverpress.org/HTML/the%20people.htm

The TriCube is a poetry form that Phillip invented: three stanzas, three lines each, three syllables each line.

_________________

Today's LittleNip:

TOOTHPICK MAN
—Phillip Larrea

Famous toothpaste man
Squeezed from bottom to top, then
Gets his head lopped off.

_________________

—Medusa

Songs my Father taught me

—Robert Lee Haycock

May Day! May Day!

Iris

—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

AMONG WILD ROSES
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Sunshine glows
among wild roses
and thyme
drinking in
shimmering stems,
a colossal sunlight
vanishes at
the unwatched dawn
here by the pond
resembling the waters
of a Monet,
a few jays wrestle on
a fragment
of dark green,
as my pictures
are quickly taken
with resonance
on a Japanese
peace garden
by nettles of the spring
with waters floating
by spidery stones,
a zen poet
without sharing names
nods to me
with flowers on her lap
tightly holds her sheep dog
and runs loose
by the almond waters
taking out a blanket
and meditates,
her prayers like flames
of good will
across the dunes
on the harmonious shore.  

____________________

ALONG THE WATERFRONT
—B.Z. Niditch

No loss
reciprocal letters
of your childhood friend
who has moved away
unexpectedly
now in the shock
of being overwhelmed
here at the ocean dock
where we first sailed
in the regatta
on the Bay
harboring memories
by the sea's waterfront
throwing pebbles
to the shore,
wanting to recover
our past adolescence
wanting again
to be spontaneous
with a school companion
who envisioned
our reunion
by summer,
yet there is joy
in countless encounters
with the orange kayak
he named "the B Z"
or you going underwater
swimming cautiously
in the language
of these shining waves.

_____________________

THE LAST BIRCH
—B.Z. Niditch

When dreams
like heavy rains
lash across the bay
with shaken ocean sounds
of seagulls and hawks
only beach echoes remain
to haunt the night,
then great hailstones
on a blacked-out cold sky
shatter the twin barns
and linger along
the mossy greenhouses,
wondering if the last birch
in the yard will survive
my own thinking
when both of us
take our leave in the wind
and wonder if we are
forgotten or obsolescent
not to be heard or seen
when in the morning
across the low marshland
looking around
from the blurred fog
and mist of shore
my tall birch is there
at least in memory
of a poet's lines
for a lifetime and more.

—Photo by Richard Hansen, Sacramento

TOP WITH YOUR FAVORITE SWEETENER
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Clear sky
Calm Field
Life abounds
Chaparral fire
Pain
Loss

Ashes
Darkened Sky
Slow new growth
Blooms
Color
Aroma

Progress
Asphalt
Strip malls
Crowds
Ads
Loans

Debts
Crimes
Jails
Courts
Law
Public defender

Doubts
Trial
Success
Tears of joy
Party
Guests

Cars
Limo
Retirement
Lovely home
Clear sky
Calm field

_____________________

MODERATION IN THAT


CITY BY THE BAY

—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Had a teacher
Who for years
Wanted to
See San Francisco.

Finally he
Bought a ticket.
Flew out,
Walked
Around the
Airport, flew
Back to Illinois.

“That’s it? That’s
All you did?”
I asked.  “It was
Enough,” he smiled.
“Remember, I’m
An English Professor.”
 

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

DON'T LOOK DOWN
—Caschwa

It is springtime!!
the grass is overgrown
the toenail is ingrown
ain't going to mow the lawn today

____________________

—Medusa

Dogwood

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

So Much Depends...

COMING UPON HUMPTY DUMPTY

Do you mind if I sit here on this wall
awhile with you?  I’m feeling a bit
fragile and a bit blue.

And I have this touch of vertigo
I hope will pass. Sometimes
I feel like I’m made of glass

about to shatter.
But you’re so cute,
though you do seem apprehensive—

not quite steady;
and you do seem to wobble
quite a bit.

Do I make you nervous
with my chatter?
I’d like to just sit here

while my anxieties pass—
feel the breeze—
watch the view

while I gather back my indecisions.
How about you?
You look about as out-of-kilter as I feel

_____________________

THE HUNDRED-YEAR SLEEP

Will you just kiss her, as though
she breathes under her death-sleep
and will merely waken at your kiss?

Will her lips remember
what a moan is for—or how to open
for a word? Will her dead eyes open?

Beware such mourning—
the old tales are true—you,
the hero of her dreamed darkness,

there at last:
how long she has waited . . .
how deeply she loves you . . .

MULTIPLICITIES

Synchronization:

What does this have to do with memory,
this little love,
this heroic sacrifice—
time into time—lost before it is taken—
two meetings that recognize, then suffer loss . . .
what has this to do with memory?

Enigma:

So much begins . . .
but what is so, and what is much?
Say what you will—
there is no difference
between here and gone. They are the same.
The difference is time,
but there is no difference, so there is no time.
We are back to much. That much I know.

Accusation and Defense:

Love is so difficult of meaning.
Innocent at first.
It has no guilt.
It is not in danger of being changed
or changing.
So much for influence.
What happens is always at fault.
Blame is born of situation—
love the victim of both—
the innocence and the blame.

Dimensional:

What is circular that so much fits—
only that it’s round and therefore
comforting.
No hard edges, meaning corners—
and one can continue endlessly
round and round
on endless measurement of arrival,
though you never leave where you are.
So much depends.

____________________

PIERROT

Under his laugh—under
his white costume—his  black
skull cap—Pierrot scoffs at his tears.

         ~

In a stance of ease,
one hand gestured at foolishness,
Pierrot hunches his shoulders.

        ~

On the empty stage, bracing against
the encroaching bare wall,
Pierrot loses his shadow.

        ~

In a pithy spiel,
Pierrot angles his head, sharpens his
eyes and hints at their secret.

        ~

In his white voluminous costume of
wrinkles and folds, Pierrot turns and
flutters his hand—just so: Pierrot is Pierrot.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

FOOLS, RUSHING IN

How we wish for love
—even after loss.
As stubborn as fools.
Soon the sorrow?

Risk the old regrets?
Never mind the cost
—discover new tools.
Once more    we’ll love.

           
(first pub. in Poets' Forum Magazine, 2004)

__________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Joyce Odam for today's poems and pix! Thankfully, Joyce is home again and able to send us these, despite fracturing her hip only a little more than a week ago!

—Photo by Kathy Kieth

For more photos of San Francisco, see

the new album on Medusa's Facebook page!

And hopefully that will inspire you for our new 

Seed of the Week: San Francisco.

Send your thoughts about Baghdad by the Bay, 

past, present, or future, 

to kathykieth@hotmail.com

Finding Aldebaran

Nesting Dove

—Photo by Katy Brown

GREY MADONNA
—Katy Brown, Davis

She holds me hostage

with her wild vulnerability—

her shyness—a barrier

to my human routines.

She’s out there now,

the rose-grey dove

sitting on her hasty nest

in the empty bird feeder.

She brought strands of dry grass,

weaving them into an oval

in the hanging square

of the mesh feeder by my door.

She softly croons, a song heard

only by the wind and stars—

and waits in feathered patience

for what will come.

___________________

FIVE CROWS
—Katy Brown
 

The crows look disgruntled this afternoon,

the feathers around their necks in disarray from wind

that sprung up ahead of an in-coming storm.

They strut on the lawn across the street,

leaning back in that stiff commandant-stance

they assume when claiming territory.

No cat today to notice their slow patrol;

no mockingbirds or magpies to intimidate.

It’s hard to say what draws them here.

They tilt their heads at the distant rumble of thunder;

and all five lift off at once—like a gang of thugs

exiting a motorcycle bar.

They circle the street, climbing steeply,

cawing displeasure, and flap toward the row

of tossing eucalyptus trees down the block.

The whoosh of wind sweeps the sound

of the retreating crows down the street.

The sun appears a little brighter

on the lawn where five crows congregated

to plot some new, unfriendly mischief

in the quiet neighborhood below a row of blue gum trees.

___________________

UP NEAR THE CROW'S NEST
—Katy Brown
 

Rock me in the rigging

rock me, rock me

up near the crow’s nest

and northern star—tied

in a hammock of salt-stiff jute

where the boson’s lute drizzles

a song through

the swaying spars.

Well-patched sails luff in the wind;

it’s enough up here—now—rocking

rocking, rocking in the salt-stiff jute

—the notes of a lute drifting

up from the bow in a tune

like a lullaby: rock me, rock me.

The crow’s nest swaying

the sound of the lute—

salt-stiff jute forms a creaking nest

grant me rest, grant me rest

rocking    rocking    rocking  

up in the rigging with luffing sails

while the boson’s lute plays a lullaby.

___________________

ELEPHANTS CAN'T JUMP
—Katy Brown
 

Today the word is limits

—well, maybe it was flower or follower.

Brace for the intense hum of bees boiling out

—or the hollow silence of an empty hive.

I’ve depended on routine and ritual

to keep me grounded.

Someone is cooking bacon and onions

down the street.

I think of ringing their bell

and asking myself to dinner.

Colors shift toward orange

in the evening light.

I’ve walked this concrete route

all hours of the day

in all seasons

looking for the white crow

that lives in a neighborhood flock.

Orphans come in all ages.

I’m working on letting go—

not the closing-doors and opening-windows kind.

I’ve seen too many windows open onto brick walls

and doors that lead into cellars.

Letting go of the ephemeral:

things I thought I could count on

but were only mine on loan;

mine only on loan.

I’m learning odd facts, new ways of thinking.

How to cope with shadows.

How to find Aldebaran.

—Photo by Taylor Graham

RELEASE MECHANISM
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Today they let me go.
I can't wait for the forest to catch up with me.
Past the old railroad grade
for hauling logs out of the woods
to be mechanically turned into walls and doors
that long ago became kindling for a fire.
When did the trees give out?
Berries upgrade everything with their dusty
sweet black breath, their voices.
Coyotes eat them in the dusky dark, and leave
their sign full of seeds and fur.
I taste one berry close to the thorn, to the bone.
Game-trails beckon through the green
eternity of bramble. Old sleeping-bag
adobe'd into clay, someone found
a hidden space to sleep among sweet berries
by the pond, where they put a cyclone-
fence around anything so wild,
but maybe that's just my amnesia. Clouds
of pond-water when my pup emerged to shake
her joy all over me. Today
they let me go, issued me fresh batteries.
I didn't tell them about the pond,
out beyond the bridge, quietly slipping away.
They'd've said I'm crazy.

_____________________

DR KAY
—Richard Hansen, Sacramento

Dr Kay was a Civil Engineer
for the city of Cupertino or Sunnyvale

somewhere!!
around there
in the mid 70s
and he taught a course at De Anza Jr College
called
“Deductive Logic”
promoting greater knowledge
in the Humanities
in the Dept of Philosophy
So
I thought
we’d be discussing John Locke
Or Plato, perhaps Alexander Pope who wrote:
“what is is right”
And a learned Professor
  with intellect and insight
Could demonstrate the greater meaning
   of such lofty thinking
Comprising the lyrics
  of songs musicians sing
oooooWeeeee this was heady!
so
I bought the textbook by Copi
  and was horrified to see
Mathematics on every page, like:
A implies B
and
B implies C
then of course
A implies C don’t you know
Well Fuck! I didn’t and so
Everyone failed the mid-term
  except two who got As
  being engineering students
  they didn’t have much to say
and Dr Kay’s expression dropped
  not being at all stern 
    sharing some thoughts
talked about his doctoral pursuits
and all that he had so easily learned
  with one notable struggle:
A course in metal fatigue
  when one builds with railroad trussels
And being the man in charge
    of so much public safety
Taking very seriously his responsibility
Dr Kay spent many extra hours researching
because
knowledge of metal fatigue was vital
  and essentially
was assumed to be a part of his mastery
But now
  he’s charged with increasing our knowledge
He adopted new modalities of instruction Plus:
   extended his office hours
   re-wrote the course syllabus
   got those engineering students to tutor us
And one of his lectures included
  a slide show of The Parthenon too
Mentioning the creativity and beauty
  of elegant Greek engineering including
The logic and math so tightly wrapped
The Parthenon IS right and true
Isn’t that a fact!
  just look at it man!

Appreciation
for deductive reasoning
 was the logical result
given
that which was supposed
 earlier in the semester
 so
Long story short: I got a B
 learning conditions in logic
 that combined with validity
like:
a truth implies a truth
“hey that’s easy”
but
a nontruth implies a nontruth too
  and it valid!
“Oh Really?”
Yes
Just thumb through so many pages and look
  at the true table provided in Copi’s book
  and lookit:  
We can make a premise negative
   with statements such as:
   “it isn’t the case that”
  but in notation we use a squiggle that
  looks like a drunk minus sign
  placed in front of a premise
  to oppose what’s originally defined
And transferring language to symbols
  takes time
But with practice you’ll do fine

A nontruth can never validly imply
Something that’s true
  in logic or in life
So I never worry while driving
  in the south bay
  in and around San Jose
or
Was it Cupertino? or Sunnyvale?
Well, anyway
I know the overpasses will never fail

____________________

NO POETRY TODAY
—Katy Brown
 

No phrases or stunning words or forms;

no sentiments that I desire to share:

the muse has left for good this time.

Language has its limits, here—

no term for this creative void;

no phrase or moving word or form.

Words are an imperfect bridge

from heart to heart when meaning counts.

My fickle muse has left for good.

There is no language for a stranded soul

caught between expression and desire—

no catchy word, no form, no phrase.

The syntax of the heart, the lexicon of charm:

there’ll be no poetry today.

The muse has packed her trunk and fled.

No term for dread that causes such distress—

no crumb of inspiration or incentive;

no phrase or form or thought-provoking word.

My muse has flown and left no forwarding address.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

UNINVITED
—Taylor Graham

What's riffling
the quiet of cedar pond
this hot spring
day? No breeze—

just puppy splashing dog-joy
like it was heaven.

__________________

—Medusa, suggesting you click on today's pix to see enlarged versions of them, including the shadow of the head of Loki, Taylor Graham's dog, lurking near the pond...

    —Photo by Katy Brown

The Story We Tell

—Photo by Richard Hansen, Sacramento

THE STORY OF MANKIND FROM 

EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY

—William Bronk

We are so set on making stories, asleep

even, only the mind moving, lying intent

to stroke whatever comes to it, awake

while the body sleeps, identifying sounds

with events, feelings with faces, picking out

from the day's debris whatever will make do.

Awake, our invention finds more room to move,

sets up itself in three dimensions as if

it were there, assigns us almost consistent roles

to hold from day to day, necessitates

a past we must have had, and a time to come

where, even now, the story begins to be true.

What may, in fact, go on, if indeed it does,

has nothing at all to take from the story we tell.

___________________

—Medusa