Before I Got Lost

—Photo by Richard Hansen, Sacramento

BOOK STALL
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Often we choose a book
by its off color
like "Sons and Lovers"
perused for its cover,

Here to browse
for what is élan vital
or we are roused
solely by its grand title,

Here on a wall
called "Mathematics"
next to a muscled guy
cruising for "Gymnastics"

Then the stall features
ballet and dance
straight or gay novels
Detectives or Romance

I'll take my chance
with a bio of Yeats
then go to Eliot, Auden
and the modern "Greats."

________________

ON SEWALL AVENUE
—B.Z. Niditch

Eyes on a small used
bookstore
lined with Voltaire,
Poe and Baudelaire
by condos and rooms
of once boardinghouses
my desire to read
to feed on the greats
takes me in,
giving up a cream sickle
for the top shelves
past twin volumes
of Gibbon, Gogol, Dickinson
wading in another world
at cosmic decline
snatching belles letters
and verdant memoirs
on tables of cool hours
by remainders of poets,
explorers of the Word,
as craning students
serious as lions
out of nowhere
from every continent
and the semi-classic
faces of those seeking
knowledge,
the self-taught,
future historians
astronomers,
amateur shrinks
with long blue hair,
and the overwrought,
as a black sun settles
on the concrete walls
of the building
and a slight rain
patters on many hands
pages and watches
as all people of the book
in a long memory
which returns to us
even as the basement door
closes on the bookstore
here we learnt on chapters
at our readings, evermore.

___________________

THE WORDSMITH
—B.Z. Niditch

While browsing
through brittle books
with stiff upstanding
pages
at twelve,
the youngest of ages
here getting looks
that I was carousing
just by chance
by reading D.H. Lawrence
or Phillip Roth
since I was not
a man of the cloth
yet I chose Thomas Merton
dropped from the sky
of the top shelf
near the high curtain
of the store
and meditated on his poems
which I checked out
more and more.
 

 —Photo by Richard Hansen

REAL TIME
—B.Z. Niditch

In major acts of witnessing
these cynical times
as a minor clerk reporter
from the bench,
at a system which passes
out sentences
by corrupt judges
acting like cave dwellers
in soap opera's
dramas
having transgressed
any real time
searching for truth
here on back benches
without irony, only rumor
or any sense of humor
by exploiting motives
of personal innuendo.
         
Over beaten-up pages
of records
at a hearing
a thousand lines' long
these long-robed guys
having explored
words through cases
of evidence
with dull domestic faces
looking like tombstones
in a Dickensian world
to judge and give injury
saying in a straight face
who is guilty or not.

_____________________

HALF-WAY HOME
—B.Z. Niditch

His landlord
separated by
a wall of speech
lets the kid
named Billy
have a room
always
working out
with dumbbells
crossword puzzles
or his video games
hands over
his rent
as he takes out
the owner's trash
his laundry
does the lawn
fixes a t.v.
washes his car,
until an escape
from the kid's
water pistol,
Billy goes
to his appointed
shrink, Dr. G
to a half way house
up the street
in the middle of dawn.
 

_____________________

SOMNAMBULIST POET



—B.Z. Niditch

Half asleep


on the day bed


passing terrestrial


express trains of thought


from rented films


by house mirrors


or revealing your closed


omens and wounds


you may count on


a surreal glimpse

of Hiroshima, mon amour

of first light


from past echoes,


losing flesh and eyes


to enable voices

and surprise words.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

now, where was i
before i got lost?
no wait…damn it!

—charles mariano, sacramento

___________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Richard Hansen

Where Does Your Shadow Go?

Joan McNerney, Ravena, NY

 

WHEN THE MOON IS NEW

Groping through darkness
knocking everything down.
Down into enormous night
where thoughts unravel.

Memories moan past us as
shadows quiver across walls.
We lie pinned to bed sheets
like captive butterflies.

Dry butterflies...our throats
are brittle, eyes turning
from light.  Sore arms reach
for anything soft to hold.

Remembering seasons gone by.
So many lost promises.
This huge moment surrounding us.
Wide awake we wait for the new day.

____________________

LOST LANDSCAPE

I am driving down a hill
without name on an
unnumbered highway.

This road transforms into
a snake winding around
coiled on hair pin turns.

See how it hisses though this
long night. Why am I alone?

At bottom of the incline
lies a dark village strangely
hushed with secrets.

How black it is.  How difficult
to find what I must discover.

My fingers are tingling cool, smoke
combs the air, static fills night.

I continue to cross gas lit streets
encountering dim intersections.

Another maze.  One line
leads to another.  Dead ends
become beginnings.

Listening to lisp of the road.
My slur of thoughts sink as
snake rasps grow louder.
See how the road slithers.

What can be explored? Where
can it be?  All is in question.

 

__________________

AN ACCOUNTANT

grappled with
white ledgers
& tight rows
of numbers.

He could
calculate
the secrets
of ciphers.

Who else would
appreciate the
eloquence of one?
This fat place maker
known as zero? Why
mystics marveled
at the holy seven?

While he slept his
dreams multiplied.
Suddenly long division
subtracted an unknown
quantity yet sums still
added up.

Where had his equations wandered?

______________________

ACCIDENT

If only it had not rained
the sky black and wet as
we hurried across streets.

Perhaps had he worn a
light coat it would have
been easier to spot.

Maybe if the cab driver
were not so tired, if
headlights shone brighter.

How many hundreds of things
lead him to that corner.
For instance staying late
to check computer printouts.

The cab driver had felt like
going home at six but had
a recent rent increase.

Everything lead to the cab
slipping along 3rd Avenue.
Him in front of his office
and then lunging out to
avoid a puddle.

There was no one to blame
nothing to blame really
not the rain
or the dark coat
not the dim lights
nor the cab driver
who would remember this always
and sometimes blame himself.

It was part of a series
of events of time and place
leading to this conclusion.

An ambulance screamed
down the avenue.  His eyes
wide open as he lay
facing the black night.

His time finished
eyes opened as if
staring at something
quite different now.

 —Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

DREAM MAKER

Where does your shadow
go when you sleep?

Last night mine wandered
an abandoned factory
where broken metal racks
littered floors and glass shelves
were filled with nothing.

Muffled syllables resound
through darkness as
I swallow musty smells
caressing old dust.

Suddenly the ceiling
blew    a  w  a  y
and bands of light
form a single pole
              slender
          slippery
speeding to the sun.

Then my shadow
bounced once waking
up inside me.

____________________

BLOWN AWAY

I'm gonna have lunch with
the sky.  It's been way too
long since we got together.

I'll run downstairs through
hallways into bursts of blue.
Perhaps never return to work,
words, paper clips, bookshelves.

Who needs cash when there's
so much green grass to hoard?
Forget about food.  I’ll drink up
sunshine, nibbling juicy clouds.

O sky,  you are my solar mate.
We will be faithful always.
Come home now...I will
never look at another.    
                                                          

___________________

SCARVES

I want to make scarves from the sky.
Since I’m not much of a seamstress,
here’s hoping it won’t be too hard.

To start I’ll just pick up a fleecy
white cloud to cover my neck.

Maybe create a dove grey scarf
and cut out pale blue ones too.
Make entire closets full of them.

At sunset I will fashion boas
of bright ruby and tangerine.

My midnight shawl will be long
gleaming ebony covering my
shoulders keeping me warm.

If lucky I’ll find some rainbows…
kaleidoscopes to wrap up in.

I will list them on eBay and Craig’s,
hang pictures on my Facebook wall.

Imagine, everybody will want them!
Would you like one too?

Better put your order in now.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

BEWARE

If you touch Medusa
her serpents will wrap
themselves around you.
She soars through water
with giant wings gold fins.
Hundreds of snakes
crawling from her head.

Some long to be near
Medusa to hear her hissing
lisping songs forgetful.
She can suck blood from
throats coiling minds
past infinity before
they breathe again.

___________________

Thanks, Joan, for today's poetry, and Katy Brown for the pix!  Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Camel Saloon Books on Blog, Blueline, Vine Leaves, Spectrum, three Bright Spring Press Anthologies and several Kind of A Hurricane Publications.  She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net. Four of her books have been published by fine literary presses.
 

Joan has recited her work at the National Arts Club, New York City, State University of New York, Oneonta, McNay Art Institute, San Antonio and other distinguished venues.  A recent reading was sponsored by the American Academy of Poetry.  Her latest title is Having Lunch with the Sky, A.P.D. Press, Albany, New York. Nice to hear from another left-coaster, Joan! Don't be a stranger...

__________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Katy Brown

Metamorphic Intervals

Patricia D'Alessandro

BAHIA DE CASARES

—Pat D'Alessandro

Trumpet morning glories weave a tapestry of purple on the hills
where homes have chimneys that angle beneath terracotta tiles,
and my feet are swathed in bubbles from sea foam rushing in
leaving footprints in sand through a splash of waves on pebbles,
clarifying colors of new spices on the beach in Sabillinas,
where life is splendid on sabbatical in Spain.

A tower rises high above the Mediterranean,
abandoned by the Moors centuries ago,
and its brick and mortar walls crumble at the touch,
spraying dust as thick as moss that rattles slats of wood,
rotted through the ages and dangling like a string of chimes
beneath the broken tiles, their music grounded in the
harmonies of ancient times.

Looking up through mortar’s haze that powders fallen bricks
as if a snow machine is hidden in the wall,
I see the sky through a roof that’s gone
and am startled by a voice that calls

“HOLA” from above,

inviting me to see the view from there.
He guides me up stone stairs that wind through ceilings domed and white,
graffitied through the years with script too faded to be read,
and when we reach the top, from openings that once held guns
we see the sea in cuffs of white that splay to azure blue,
pounding rocks as old as time on shore.

The Spaniard smiles and understands my smile of satisfaction,
cautions me as I descend the stairs, and keeps repeating:


“cuidada, cuidada”.

Here, where men were paid in salt
for fish they tethered into nets,
this ancient remnant stands
as sturdy challenge to the angled chimneys on the shore.
Through years of sun and wind
its salted chimney rim is round
and does not angle
juxtaposing sense of logic
reaching toward a
different time.

—Artwork by Patricia D'Alessandro

CORNERS TO FILL
—Ann Menebroker

      for Joyce Odam

Her words are dancers and lovers. Ceramic philosophers.
Darkness is over-staffed, way too many corners to fill.

Happiness springs a leak, spills out over the pages
and tell us:  remember this. remember this.

And then forgets and sends up balloons
where there's a fever of birds, heavy with memory

and they are trying to peck the light and airy sacks
bring them down, show how thin the flight plan was.

She is less than five feet tall, is a banker of creativity.
She takes out of the Word—account every day.  Sometimes

she takes out  more than she needs.
She isn't afraid to overdraw. She carries a parachute.

_________________________

When I read a book,
the words
and the story
are not enough.
I have to inhale the fragrance
of the closed pages,
or open to the middle,
bow my head
and breathe deeply.

I need the smell of a book—
closing my eyes,
taking in the perfume
of the printed page—

some with the newness and magical aroma
of a first grade primer read on a classroom rug,
others carrying the heady odor of confidence
like the library books checked out in fifth grade,
carried everywhere, read at the dinner table,
and reluctantly returned.
Glossy pages exude the tang of bittersweet memories,
yearbooks with faces of friends,
scrawled signatures
first loves.

For me,
a book contains the scent of memories—
meant to be ingested and
savored.

—Nancy Haskett, Modesto

"Alleeoop and her one-girl band"

—Patricia D'Alessandro

ALL THOSE BOOKS

—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Let go, they said. They were tired of my shelves,
how could I keep them? The man paid me small
coins, Judas money, I kissed away the blessing
of my books. He'll sell them for money. What he
can't sell will end up homeless in shelters, like
children who can't afford shelves, or else scatter
to the ends of earth, where girls will hide behind
veils and love them passionately beyond words,
kissing each syllable.

______________________

UNDER THE CATHEDRAL
—Taylor Graham

He was tiling the vault of Heaven when he fell
from the roof. Not like Lucifer, no angel,
he had no wings but tiler's garb for his plummet
onto the market square. The gargoyles whisper
still his forgotten name even as his remains
remain, effigy in the cathedral's leaden crypt,
dry arroyo of a body that knew the song of tile
against tile, each a bridge from prayer to sky.
So unexpectedly heaven reached down to teach
him how to fly.

_____________________

PEACE OF THE NORTH CORNER
—Taylor Graham

Why does she walk here every morning at first
light? Nothing but stunted oaks in soil so rocky,
you'd think giants spit out seeds of cliffs. And
the creek dry now, drained of the sky's blood,
all that water run off to sea. Even grass is dead
here, waiting for a better life next year. So why
does she come? To see. Small birds passing
through. Places where deer bedded down; gone
by morning. Where coyotes howled at the dark.
Maybe the bear clumbered its great bulk up from
underground heavy as a moonless night. No one
could find this place as she does. It's dawn.

_______________________

WATER EVERYWHERE NOWHERE
—Taylor Graham

Who jimmied the cocks of weather?
A fine spray from the broken fitting
in the well. The creek's sand-imprint
of its rainy-season self, the stream
that brightened as the darkness fell.
Who owns the water holds our wealth.
All we have are images of stormclouds,
glaciers melting and the ocean's swell.

______________________

STONE BIRDS
—Taylor Graham

Don't be afraid to take chances,
the grizzled wind said. It had seen
everything. Stone walls we heaped
as protection against a planet
made of stone: we built around
what we held dear; I held my breath,
crept inside a crypt of dead birds.
Don't be afraid…. I lifted one by its
mummied wing, flung it out of
the way. Underneath, its brothers
and sisters intertwined barely alive,
reconciled to becoming stone.
I cradled each in my hand before
release, flinging it into open sky.
The wind asked, Won't you fly?

_____________________

Our thanks to today's contributors! Pat D'Alessandro's contributions are from the book she published with Rattlesnake Press, Metamorphic Intervals from the Insanity of Life. Poets and artists everywhere will be sad to learn that former Sacramentan Pat D'Alessandro passed away recently. See her Facebook page for more information. See also www.rattlesnakepress.com/Patricia_DAlessandro.html

_____________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

We've lost boxes of books to fire, weather, and the postal service. As Elizabeth Bishop says, we learn the art of losing....

—Taylor Graham

BIBLIOPHILE

—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Won’t say he had
A habit,
But when he left
Town,
Four book stores
Had to close.

____________________

—Medusa

—Artwork by Patricia D'Alessandro

The Obesity of Tears

SAPPHICS FOR LOST CHILDREN

There they are—the innocents—in the old woods:
two lost children—fairy tale setting—danger
waiting for them.  See how they enter with their
bread crumbs to scatter

on the path for rescuers who will find them.
Find them!  All the forest birds soon will cover
them with leaves of pity and tender sorrow
once again.  Find them.

__________________________

AFTERNOON TEA
(in amphibrach dimeter)

She’s smiling, she’s smiling.
Best watch her, she’s smiling.
Her eyes are not turning
away from your face; and

she seems to be touching
the sleeve of your sweater—
as if to delay you.
You’ve waited too long now.

You find her beguiling.
She offers a drink, and
you take it—a teacup,
too tiny and fragile,

with rosebuds—real china.
It’s empty.  (You try not
to spill it.)  She pours you
another, and offers

a candy. She chatters
and chatters, insisting
you answer the same way—
pretending—invited

to afternoon tea that
she pours, and you share
with Teddy, the Bear, and
the doll named Marie.

________________________

TARRIANCE AT A SMALL
SIDEWALK CAFÉ

Eating a white dessert,
all by myself,
with small red bites

of strawberries in it,
rich as a sugar—
disguised in many ways,

and a cup of lukewarm
coffee to sip.
I savor the treat—

melting against my tongue.    
Outside: the threat of rain,   
not here yet

at this gray window
with its ominous gathering of clouds
and glassy blur of people.

Every day I try to diet.  When
I am thin again
I may forgive the obesity of tears.

VANITIES OF CREATION

There is a white bear that lives
in a white forest of ice,
casting his thin blue shadows everywhere

over those cold regions,
lonely for a warmth he never knew
or for a thawing of the fears around him.

He has no name but White Bear
but does not answer to this.
He roams the paths of his imagination—

living out his existence
as a myth of his own making.
Never go there

with your envisioning powers
lest you make him extinct
along with your other vanities of creation.

He was meant to be alone—there only
for the last separation of self;
he has not yet wakened to this.

Do not waken him from this mission
—that of being the only one of his kind.
You must not think to rescue him—

or destroy him. He is not yours to own—
not even in his tenuous existence
in this poem.


(first pub. in Nomad’s Choir)

_______________________

THE DREAMING GIRL
(After "Sasho's Journey", 1990 by Wonsook Kim Linton)

Where does the brown bear lead? They are
in a cave. The walls of the cave are missing.

Night is showing through
with its sky and hidden moon—

its green rain and the lost distance.
She carries a handful of red flowers . . .

                      ~

They are on an ice floe in a desert night.
The land is shrinking around them.

The bear is pulling her through the melting.
The ice is the color of sand.

The sea is a deepening mirror.
A white bird rides on her shoulder . . .

                         ~

They are in a crude tapestry. Part of it
is missing. The ravels slowly work

around them—mending the fraying world.
Still, they seem resolute

in their calmness—the bear and the girl
going somewhere dreamily together . . .

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

FABLE

In the book’s forest
live the bears of harmony
who dream beneath trees
amid the gold butterflies
and other wraiths of heaven.

________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Joyce Odam for today's poems and pix! Our new Seed of the Week is All Those Books. Think broadly, though: books you grew up on, dusty bookshelves, bookkeeping, bookmaking, book burning... Send your thoughts to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs.

Unfriending the Dead

Fort Ross, California

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

TAKE A HOLIDAY
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

It's a holiday
relax

forget computer
and the fax

For today axe the I.R.S.
and unpaid taxes
all ways and means,
try some franks and beans,

Fish for salmon
with a new rod,
play backgammon
enjoy a brew and Cod,

No school
but the sun and swing
find a pool
after lunch for swimming

Enjoy your liberty
like a bird or mallard
why not order poetry,
and a word salad.

_______________________

pretty girls passing for crazy
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

he is taking a gamble
on tacking down her shadow
looking for skeletons in her one suitcase –
trying to disprove
a silence so deep
he cannot touch it

he is opening closets in walls so thin
he can hear every doubt –
on her hot skin
in her rough hair –
but he only listens to
her treacherous mouth

she is her own punishment

______________________

DELETING DEAD FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK

—Cynthia Linville

They’ve disappeared behind the page
where it’s horror-film quiet
or where there’s a low buzz
or a sibilant wind song

and yet they lurk like
ghosts waylaid by desire –
these departed friends
whose families keep posting
          I miss you
          I won’t forget you
          I finally found the perfect gift to give you

as if their essence
could be tacked to the screen with words
as if these smiling photos could still hear us
surreptitiously tapping these keys.

I unfriend the dead.
I don’t want their faces popping up
scaring me half to death
in the middle of the night.
 

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

THE DAY I DIE

—Cynthia Linville

For decades I’ve been holding this space
between my arms
open for you –
and now
I am an old woman.

Today you will appear –
your breath
warm on my neck
your hands
gentle on my hair.

____________________

STILL STANDING

—Cynthia Linville

Thoughts of you now burn the eyes
like artificial tears
turned black
long expired.

Yet I surrender to memory’s fingers,
surrender to a remembered smile,
surrender for somebody who knew
a good piece of you

somebody who listened to the sky
somebody whose hands reached up
from below the water
to clasp mine.

Such memories now
are loose kitchen tiles,
are once-juicy cherries
rotten by the roadside.

These memories are prone to
crumble off my fingers
like dark chocolate turned dry.
But she always stood by you

always remembered you
pulling flowers out of your sleeve
offering sugar-cookies
boiling tea

even long after you let her go.
I’m not even sure you’d recognize her now
your daughter, fully-grown
still standing by you.

_____________________

RELEASE
(Contemplating a book that needs to be written
of a story that demands to be left untold.)
—Caschwa

Someday on a date far away
I will write a book entitled Release
which will attempt to fill in the blanks

from a major episode of serious
head trauma that left me with no
independent recollection of it

imagine being 18, recent high school
grad, full of life one moment, comatose
the next, ending up with memories

that are no more than reconstructions
of reports from other people about
what they heard had happened

so I can easily describe the event from
rote like reciting my birthdate knowing
full well it is not my own memory

knowing full well that I don’t really
know this fully and I certainly do not
know it very well, but I can say it

with all the self-assurance of someone
telling you where gold was first discovered
in California like they remember it themselves

I daydream of being on the witness stand
and the judge is angered by hearsay so
you must offer an independent recollection

it would be nearly impossible for me to
adequately identify myself with those
limitations, I would be tongue tied

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

seems like,
i’m constantly
peeling away
dead skin,
trying to get
to the bottom
of me

—charles mariano, sacramento

___________________

—Medusa

Gualala Beach, California

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

The Marvelous Journey

Ithaka, famous as the island of Odysseus

ITHAKA
—Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933)

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.


(Trans. from the Greek by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

____________________

—Medusa

Remembering Your Sweetness

Threading the Needle

AN EARLY MORNING IN LATE MAY

Leaving the full moon stranded, honeyed
Clouds dripping from its face.

Trapped inside high pressure,
The trees afraid to move.

The night dragging itself through
The city streets, breaking and entering
With its shadows, soft as caramel.

A buzzing starts up in the ears,
Loud, louder than the the colors
Of a map.

Eight million stones lie hidden all around
The earth.  We are to touch as many
Of them as possible.
They tell us of a yearning,
Spit out a history built in terms
Of what common things were named
Before we manifested on the planet.

Our compass swirls, as if confused
At having lost an old Pole Star.

____________________

IVORY

We do not deserve this victory.
Everything that happened
Happened in secret, as smooth
As ivory, almost intangible
To the touch.  The sea was blood,
Not just the color of blood, blood.

When the enemy reached the mirrors
There was no one there to look
At them.

All we had were images,
The enemy walking through clocks,
Gears and wheels, springs and pawls,
Towering above them, insidious
In their insistence that
The throb of the rhythm should
Overwhelm them, produce
A kind of island that left them
Alone, no way to turn, a forgetting
Pouring into their ranks, a fragrance
Accompanying it, bringing little
Of use in such a battle; the friendship
Of the moon and the elements
Surrounding, a few grapes, the smell
Of honey as we walked into them,
Our swords, singing.

In Traveling

BREAKING TEMPO / AND WITH YOUR SPIRIT

There is a slight rise just at the edge
Of the wood where the trees seemed
To have decided they would go no further
Than this.  A rise pushing up with
Visible boulders and short grass.

When I used to go there it seemed
Very important to get right to the brow
Of the place.  There one was even with
The tops of the trees and could look down
To the ice-edged creek that named the place,
The Baxter Run the people called it.

Baxter had had a farm not too far
From the rise and the stream was a quick
One, moving over rock, heading for the lake
With a couple of deep holes
Where dark fish dwelt, sun fish,
Perch, crappie and bullheads.  Raccoons,
Foxes and raptor birds liked to come here.

I decided to come here for the same
Reason these creatures did,
To know the place.
A place to put my heart and to know it
In my blood and feel it in my bones.
A place where, no matter who came there
They could never find it as I had.

In the silver of summer, if it were quiet
I could hear the lake water lapping
Just at the edge of sound.

A place where I could image old Baxter
Getting up from his kitchen table, lighting
A cigarette, putting on his coat and boots
And making his way to the barn
Where the few head of cattle he kept
Waited for him.  Their lowing in the night
Air just above the waves.

He too would walk by the Run.
He too would see the same water
Curl around the edge of the farm,
Past the cabbage field and into
The hardwoods to the rise.

Some evenings I could hear him talking to the cattle,
His voice deep and resonant, a caring.
Then I was the fox and the raccoon,
Then I was the darkened wing headed
Into the woods to find where the night was safe.

Now I wake from deep sleep
In a bed on the other end of evening
And I am on that rise above Baxter’s run.

I wish for a moon.  I get one.
If I want to see the water rushing
Just beneath the thin ice, I am able
To do so.  If I wish this place
To become forever, it does so and I become
The place, the rain, the snow,
The wildflowers of Summer,
The insect orchestra.
The tendrils of each day breaks
And there will never be anything
Greater than this peace.

______________________

THE SONG COMING FROM THE GRAVE

She had been beneath her tomb effigy
Since the mid-13th century.

Can you hear the dogs teasing at the
Morning child?  Listen to their beautiful
Voices.  They tell the names you knew.

We have a fine dress for you.  Your eyes
They have dried and your skin has abandoned
What was your lovely face.  But it is not cause
For shame.  We remember your sweetness
Oh my dear. We remember your sweetness,
Your name.

And we recall you once, down at the well
When the shadows grew long on the ground.
The man with the lute was with sound all around him
And he told us of the relics you’d found.

Jean d’Alluye, it was Phillip Augustus he served.
He came back with a relic from the cross.
He came back and remembered your name.
Then he died and they laid him to rest.
But not for long, they needed him still.

They took the top of his tomb, flipped
It over and made it a bridge that led
Past the place where you lay.  And now
We want you to return, back to us.
Too long you have been far away.

We will fix up your hair and your skin.
Make your body that of a bride.
We will call your brave hounds
From their far distant fields.  We will dress you
In laces and ride, yes, we will dress
You in laces and ride.

Far from the tomb where you lie,
We will meet Jean d’Alluye
By the steam once again.  We will
Open the dream with our songs
Once again.  Please hasten, unravel
Your shrouds.  We have light and fresh fruit.
We have life, once again.  We have life.
We have life and your pride.

Upon My Back

NOTES FROM A JOURNAL

Trails led out of her eyes.
People were walking on them.
A few of the people we thought we
Recognized.

The moon, crooked behind
The trees.

One man handles fire
With his bare hands.
He lifts it and puts it
Into baskets,
Sells it to ladies
Walking down the strand.

There was a blue cherub
With purple wings
Who never quite made it
Into a song;

We waited as he tried and gave
Him our guides, so we may as well
Take him along.

He can ride in the carts that carry
The hearts, that bundle the darts
For the trade.

He can spot where the bridges
Have all fallen down.  He will
Tell us of what they were made.

II.

We stopped for the night beside
A stream of water just as the last
Light was climbing up the trees
To make its jump into night.

As it grew darker, the stream grew
Brighter and brighter and we could
See almost as well as in daylight.
The stream seemed to enjoy our being there.

No one had ever come this far into
The forest.  In the morning the stream
Gave us fish, dappled like sunlight,
Sweet of flesh and eager to join
Us in making our bodies work.

III.

When we reached far Marlee
We released many of the birds
We had brought with us from Gothurg.

They flew ahead of us, forming
The shapes of many creatures
As they did so.  The people of Marlee
Could see us coming for miles,
As if a cathedral were walking
Toward them, singing the while,
Telling the tales of our journey
In stories that are still told today.

IV.

Two giants, squatting, eating flowers.
In the next moment they had become trees.

Stone (photo enhancement)

AN EARLY MORNING IN LATE MAY, REDUX

We wish for the wind but it has left.
It shows us only the softest of touches.
Remembering a last paragraph, the stroke
Each letter assumes to allow us language.

Take a good look, past the patios,
Through the garden, above the river
As its bridges are blown up.

We were not given time.  We took
It at the moment we thought we understood
The weight and smell of each day,
Realized that we were not in cages
And that the tiger could walk beside
Us or behind us, appearing when
We least expected it,
In turning the pages of a book,
In the sky unloading its birds across
An afternoon,
Convincing us it is a ceremony
That has been lost longer than Ulysses.

We bargain for a dragon and are given
Clouds, terrible waves in the middle
Of the ocean.  These are given without
Consideration of ourselves.  We deal
For an imagined dream, then leave it lost
In a book, as we throw the bedcovers back.

____________________

WHAT THEY WANT US TO RECALL

It has gone forever.
Bound in black leather.
Wrapped in some sort of song.
Crushed beneath our understanding.
Broken apart by dreams we will never
Be able to dream. 

They will call us by name.
They will place our mouths against
The parts they will want us to remember
When the blindness arrives with its stainless
Steel instruments and begins to carve
At our gullible understanding.

Those men standing by the door...
They have no intention of ever allowing
Us to leave.  They have memorized the names
The camps were given long ago.  They know
What happened there.  They believe we do not.

From where I am standing I can hear the shots
Being fired into the villages.  Later there
Are explosions and what screaming human
Beings do when they are being torn apart
By something they will not forget and hate
To remember.

We board the buses near the clock tower.
If we pass this way later this evening
We will pick you up and you can come with
Us.  We will have guns and big dogs.  No one
Will want to mess with us.  I promise I will
Not tell them your name if they detain me
At the gates.  I heard there were angels
There who would help us.  Pray for us.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

Reality is not always probable or likely.

—Juan Luis Borges

_______________________

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

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