Seacoast

New Orleans

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento
 

TURNING THE PAGES
 —B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

My hands long for change
desiring watering places
leaving the coastline
for the open fields,
there is talk of war
on the newspaper pages,
reflecting on perspectives
of what changes
like leaves on our trees of life
by winding scrub paths
a lip pressed with wild roses
from a humid deserted sleep
the unexpected poet visits
by an oasis's sun silhouettes
within a glance at silence
turning to a wellspring
from new syllables
in the Mojave air
meditating by the rustle
numbering light clouds
you bloomed unsuspected
in the Autumnal dawns
his new beard mustache
bristles in his curly face
embraces in the dust.

__________________________

POSTCARDS
—B.Z. Niditch

Postcards from the motel
in Frisco
turning over a new life
the photo of the shy poet
strikes poses this Fall
under quilts and blankets
of a personal history
playing sax on the roof,
my wet mother's tongue
falls onto a sleepy gap of mouth
drops by the reed
with cozy sweat
on my motorcycle jacket
looking down at the traffic,
I'm pinned by imagination
over the city's enchantment
draped with an early stillness
by a camera's surveillance
of an orphaned time
trying to pay attention
of the man pumping iron
in denim, next to his girlfriend
getting a late morning kiss
my eyes reach landscapes
out by the Bay
getting closer to
young soccer players
running miles
near a bocce game
with excited guys in undershirts
acting like hairy water dogs
trying to play the rules
and to be fair,
by two sexy models
in red high heels
who flick their smile
and pack of cigarettes
on the corner,
giving it up for their shoot.

__________________________

THE SEA REMINDS US
—B.Z. Niditch
 
Poised for whale watching
over mirrored waves
aching to sight
a watershed moment,
cameras are ready
on pure instinct
for a voyage's persuasions 
where no one is a stranger
easily scenting danger
to sounds of endurance
and chance sensation
near the ocean's divide
covering green islands
on the schooner's side
with giant gulls covering
over lonely rough surf
wanting to survive
the jagged boulders
spilling secrets
here by sandy leaves
a beachcomber survives
along the ocean's undertow
another deep diving watch
for a Jacques Cousteau.

 —Photo by Cynthia Linville

JUST AT THE MOMENT
—B.Z. Niditch

Just at the moment
the dusk sun hits
the red brick
soundproof studio
the fog uncovers
its rain pouring tears
of avenging memory
from off the Bay
and the sax player
taking off his blanket
interrupted by bare glances
in the inattentive mirror
with pages of his new book
opened with one finger
stands by an open window
on the basement floor
in the dim electric light
for a time such as this
between two notes,
seasons, hours, stars
humming with ignominy
the same exercises
always with the repeated
sinking sadness of an E flat
dying for the kissing reed
of a lost soul urchin
dreaming of a perfect verse
from behind the scenes
at my gig.

_______________________

IN THE WINDLESS SILENCE
—B.Z. Niditch

In the windless silence
watching a cormorant rise
from the wavering sea
a lone swimmer
with leaves as his cover
takes Autumnal photos
by the murmuring dock
now full of pink-eyed salmon
from the first catch of the day
as fishermen glide
through the wooden decks
where memory clings
to his second-long glance
at the splashing shore,
a newly sprayed
bronzed beachcomber laughs
with open shirt
and lost and found sunglasses
on display
takes out his wash
with childhood's first worry
his body slightly adrift
skimming on the edge
of his whistle of breathing
and plays the Spanish guitar.

______________________

EVERGREENS
—B.Z. Niditch

Over the giant evergreens
in the eye faded dawn
when sunshine moves away
to create shadows
in the scant Fall fields
by footsteps of a Golden Fleece
through garden caresses
from hot-housed memories
of a seasoned observer
refusing to shun the silence
of the standstill winds
wishing for aspirations
of an hour in the country
by an elusive season
when my nature comforts me
of at least a compromised miracle
by losing myself to forget time
at the dew under these trunks
spying mushrooms on the fields
with a few tourists
exacting cameras
in the caprice and gesture
of believing this day
all things will be new
by these forsaken trees
a hundred years younger
than our own blindness
to forgotten bird voices
in the increased landscape
of an artless shade
covering a dazzling veiled
mourning dove
behind the branches
mingled on ice blue hills
assuring me by these woods
of constant cycles at rebirth.

 —Photo by Cynthia Linville

SEACOAST IN NOVEMBER
—B.Z. Niditch

Tugging at my kayak
a lobster boat next to me
the sea unconscious rises
from undertow fears
with high tide with its icy
blue green brine,
my heart awaits its beating
to the waves' music
calling out Fall echoes
of the dark deep moon
over my daredevil venture
out on the ocean's miles
of grey metamorphoses
on elemental waters
expecting secrets to dot
the map of my voyage
before morning arrives
on the hull and dock
carrying the veiled fishermen
with salty tongues
of salmon-pink hauls
on baskets of wizened flesh.

_______________________

WHAT AUTUMN CHIMERAS
—B.Z. Niditch

An acorn snaps on
a new Fall coat
the color of red
on your right shoulder
with diving butterflies
in neon and gold sparks
along the wharf's docks,
here by a humming fountain
of the home harbor
friendless tangled leaves
take you by surprise
gliding your boat
into the Bay
as a young retriever
does cartwheels
near the diving board
of my orange kayak
anchored at the shore' s
wriggled edge
my mouth is sealed
except for a song
of the jazz band
echoed by myself
waiting all day
by this veiled sea
for a salmon to appear
even by the light
of a fully magical moon.

______________________

LANGUAGE'S LIGHT
—B.Z. Niditch

Absorbed by the wonder
of language's light
silence inherits us
to map out our Fall day
a poet, painter, musician, linguist
all wishing to illuminate
the wonder of it all
from our private reality
and to recover what is lost
like orphaned children
searching for a fingertip of love
in this metamorphic world
wanting an audience
yet needing reassurance
that in a phantasm of our universe
we are not alone
or obliged to expect
an expansion of nature,
at the bay, under the pine trees
here at sunshine's space
behind the tall dunes
at dawn's turning points
with expression to capture words
jolting our warmth
as every morning's
first daydreamer knows
we carry the sounds, colors, words
like white doves
on the horizon and landscapes
unsettling lines between our bones
inviting all of you to listen.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

Language cannot confine us as a poem defines us; she lines up its words in her willing nature.

—B.Z. Niditch

______________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

[For more of Cynthia's photos of New Orleans,

see Medusa's Facebook page. We have a new 

photo album!]

Death's Second Self

Lara Gularte, reading at Sac. Poetry Center

Monday, Nov. 4, 2013

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

MANY NAMES
—Temple Boxold, Magalia

—Annie Menebroker, Sacramento

To name Buddhas in this house
is to name the wild flowers
in the field: Siddartha. Jonquil.
Guatama, Daffodil
Sugata. Narcissus.
One concept. One Beauty.
Many names. Just One.

___________________________

LEAVES OF CHANGE

—Taylor Graham, Placerville
 
You were talking about Orlando
or the London fields—anywhere but these
same dull hills of tarnished oaks
and stubble-grass the color of bone.
The November skies had held their tribunal
and declared “no rain.”
We searched our heads for some tribal
memory, incantation, aboriginal chant for
a change of weather. “A burnt
offering,” you suggested, “rake up leaves
for a bonfire to the gods of autumn.”
Meanwhile, the oaks
kept letting loose their leaves in flurries.
Leaves scattered every which way.
We gave it up and did our nightly chores.

Catherine Fraga at SPC last Monday

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

DARKENING INTO THE SOLSTICE
—Kathy Kieth, Diamond Springs

Murky edge of a winter's dawn
brings shadowy traffic
to the bird feeder: shorter days

mean shorter forages—shorter
and shorter these dim days grow,
in their steady flight into

ebony. . .  In the yard, a lone rose
bobs in this restless darkening:
nods on her slim cane so ready

for pruning: bright pink bridge
from summer's sun into the pitchy
cave of a long winter's night. . .

_______________________

GOLD CUSP OF AUTUMN

—Kathy Kieth

The birds know about autumn’s cusp.
They know where the golden apples are hidden
among the curling green leaves.
Their chicks have all grown up now,
and can find the apples by themselves.

Among the curling green leaves,
those chicks have finally grown
and are finding the apples by themselves.
Of course, the birds know about autumn’s cusp;
they know where all the ripe golden apples are hidden.

______________________

BLUE EDGES OF A WINTER MORNING

—Kathy Kieth

have the jays out early: noisy,
hungry, thirsty, stirred up by
a long night of November chill.

They chip the azure out of
the birdbath, try to keep
moving, keep dry, keep warm.

Blue edges have me brewing
coffee: cold hands fumble in
the near-dark for my cobalt cup

and promises of thaw—fingers
reaching for anything to melt
my icy mood, cold feet, new

sharp edges to this steel-
blue November morning…

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

SONNET 73
—William Shakespeare
 
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
   This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
   To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

_____________________

—Medusa 

Tony Roma at SPC last Monday 
—Photo by Michelle Kunert 

 

 

 

Leaves of Change

Cyclamen

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

MARRYING THE PRINCE

From fairy-tale to Princess
we tell how we ran from witches
into goodness.
Love, the
Handsome, bends from his horse
and saves us.

Oh, but our favorite gowns
got torn on his dagger-shoes.
How can we go to
fancy places now?
And we weep into forests,
our new homes.

Our father, the King, cannot
ransom us. Our mother, the Queen,
consults dwarves who, by the
firelight of winter,
eerily dance our names from the flames
till they run down the damp velvet
to the palace floors.            

And we grow content,
braiding our endless hair in the
evenings, under the cold stars.
All the endings are ours.
We are completed by a single
Happily-ever-after.

Oh, but did you know
there were other pages,
dull ones and sad ones
and some that were dangerous?

Out in the barn
the white horse still in its saddle
is drooping his old adventures down,
neglected and ill-fed.

Handsome hardly smiles any more.
He rubs his sword and complains
about the dullness.

We who were never durable
cannot bring him
the first bottle of excitement,
that finished wine,
a good year.


(first pub. in Piedmont Literary Review, 1993)

__________________________

SUCH A NEAT ROOM

the precise arrangements:
yellow-fringed tablecloth
upon it
the bowl
of fruit
flowers  
teapot  
one cup & saucer
and on the green-painted wall
the nude in the yellow frame
who stares down at
the prim young woman
in the violet chair
sitting at the small round table
just staring off
in a mood,
so distant,
waiting for the tea to cool

__________________________
 

CENTER PAGE WHERE THE BOOK IS THICKEST

One page keeps slipping from the book,
freed from the center glue and place
where the words are thirstiest and the yearn
is great—one errant page that would say:
I am not part of this—no longer part of

this sequence and dense collection. I am
center page—the poem that would get free,
if only you would not keep shoving me back in.
I no longer want to be there.  I want to be
like the leaf going back to the tree.  Let me. 

THEY SIT MEASURING

My children
are made of wands and flowers
and come from
two different gardens.

They know magic words
and have
other places
where they go
when my eyes
are guarding them.

Sometimes
I leave them too.
They watch me go
with old
mysterious eyes.

When I come back
from long spell-binding
they sit measuring
love and time
with child-witch fingers.

__________________________

TREE AS UNDERSTOOD BY ART

They say a tree of stone grows
on a wall. I’d like to see that—

touch its leaves and trunk—
find the reason for its stillness.

They say it blends against
the light-struck landscape of the wall.

They say its colors blaze in sunlight’s
window and contains them still

in moon’s soft light.
And does it suffer, or rejoice?
   
What cryptic mind could understand,
and then personify, a tree of stone?

_________________________

VIGNETTE

“…as if on cue, a black cat came out to look
at something to the side of a photographer.
The cat is the x in this equation. I expect never
to get her out of my mind.”—Charles Simic

Mysterious cat—
shadow cat—
made real by her shadow,
in a path of light,
outlined in white from the moon
on a black and empty night—she

pauses for a moment on the windowsill

of the tremulous room:
if you can see this—
then there is a cat—
a time-held cat
on the sill—looking down

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

CIPHER

When exhausted, the wild duck flew down
into the swimming pool and floated—
floated there—staring at the day
and the day stared back

and then the shadow of the other wild ducks
crossed over and the first one rose
and followed

_________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Joyce Odam for today's tantalizing Kitchen fare with the scent of Witchcraft about it, last week's Seed of the Week. Autumn is here, sending us scurrying after blankets and quilts, bringing down last season's crop of leaves. Leaves of Change: our new Seed of the Week—either the literal leaf fall, or the turning of the pages (leaves) in a book from one time period to the next, or...? Turn over a new leaf: send your poems, photos and other art to kathykieth@hotmail.com/. No deadline on SOWs, though; find more ideas for poems in Calliope's Closet, one of the fuchsia links at the top of this column. The Snake of Medusa are always hungry!—have you fed them lately?

—Photo by Joyce Odam

The Nature of Lost

Blue Water Maiden, Port Sanilac, MI

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
 

BILL HAD SAID SO
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento
     (for Bill Latimer)

Bill'd been right about the Yellow-
Billed Magpie being only from California.
Bill'd said, over the nest they always
Build a dome of thorny sticks.  It's
Billed as quite a protective fortress.
Bill'd be wrong, though, if he said the Black-
Billed Magpie's got nothin' on the Yellow-
Billed.

________________________

NIGHTLY IN THE CABIN
—Carol Louise Moon

Every night by candle light
an old woman cannot sleep.
From the past a random shadow
settles on her tired chest.

The settling of her tired chest,
her breathing rasped and shallow,
lulls the woman's cat to sleep
every night by candle light.


(first pub. in Brevities)

_______________________

THE MASK I WEAR IS NOT MY OWN
—Carol Louise Moon

A face like mine
is given to me...
I wear, I wear...
but not for me, for you.

Light plays this mask,
I think, the light too bright
for me to think myself.

Vibrations of mask:
a mask of plaster melting
skin—a soul undone,
an eye unseen.

Neurons of itch that
can't be scratched,
beneath a question
unanswered.

________________________

JAZZ POET
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Minding my own business
being shy for the cameras
on way to my gig
walking over this metropolis
without an attache case
only this cold luggage
like a pawned violin
held by four strings
containing a life's work
of quartets for alto sax
and songs for our time
with vital plays on words
a cup of java on one hand
and a murdered Danish
in the other
shaking off a coffee cup
with schnapps
on a Northern hamlet road
in a runaway midnight
of All Souls Day
such as this,
you may not yet recognize
the composer inside him
in his all black cape.

Changing Maples
—Photo by Katy Brown

THE GREEN MAN
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

At the edge of greenwood, I said “go find!”
My dog knew, I meant human:
a friend who said he’d hide so well, he’d never
be found. Poison ivy with greenbrier
lacing trees so dense, only my compass kept me
from fairytale circles. Everything glowing
green, lost in green. Where
was our friend? After many twinings,
my dog’s head popped up—quick turn, mid-
stride—disappeared in green—
came back with
that look in her eye. She bucked a pirouette
in front of me, whirled around,
nosed into thorn-thicket. I saw nothing
but leaves. Pivoting, she stared at me, stared
into green. Leaped in. A gasp—squeal—
our friend crawled out, head to toe green camo.
Not quite the liar, but human caught
in woods-disguise. Trickster
Puck, Pan—this world’s unending shape-
shifter, spirit of green.

________________________

THE MOUNTAIN’S DARK LIGHT
—Taylor Graham

The puppy has knocked these old folders
off their pile—loose pages shuffled,
reshuffled by flying puppy feet. Decades
of reports, so many missing names without
endings. The miner who hiked to town for
supplies. The one who drove from the city,
out yonder to his claim. The earth is full of
 small openings. Shafts and adits, tectonic
shifts. We searched the canyons for a miner
goat-footing trails and passes. Could he be
 the one who fell in love with ancient languages
of underground, mistaking a black-glow fire
for veins of gold? Or the one who wanted more
than the river washed down, and reached too
sudden too deep for flakes of gold; held himself
above water as our dogs searched the banks,
and then let go? No, that was a fisherman
casting too quick for his catch, gone to tidal
quicksand before we could arrive. Skeletons
in the mountains, children dreaming just off-
shore. Maybe it wasn’t the new puppy, after
all, who strewed this chaos of stories all over
the floor. Maybe it’s just the nature of lost.
 

________________________

REDWOOD TREE
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole

A huge one sprawls
on forest floor
trunk propped up
year after year
on crash-broken limbs.

What brought down the giant?
Lightning? Disease? Age?
Time and weather have peeled
the bark, the trunk silky
to touch as an ancient scar.

Part native American
feeling ease in a forest
I try to see my face
in the silvered wood
even just a shadow.

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

BUDDHA UNTITLED
—Claire J. Baker

Let this poem be
a few moments when
nothing happens.

If anything stirs
let it go. After all
it is nothing.

Yet, if you insist
see a prayer wheel
turning long

maybe stopping at a love
you are meant to relive
lightly, lightly.

________________________

—Medusa

And a star to steer her by...

—Photo by Katy Brown

On Wine, On Poetry...

BE DRUNK
—Charles Baudelaire

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that
breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be
continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass
of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake
again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind,
the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying,
everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, every-
thing that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what
time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:
"It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves
of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry
or on virtue as you wish."


(trans. from the French by Louis Simpson) 

______________________

—Medusa (be sure to set your clocks back!)

Angel Stories

Mums

—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke

FOR THE CHILDREN GONE

These dreams that were our children,
We bury them in the silver of the seas.

I will ask you to dance with me for awhile.
And the music will be a waltz.
We will see Christmas when we were small
And the music was all around us and the magic
Was even in our clothing as well as our bodies.

I will ask you to stand on the top of the hill
On the North side of that copse of trees
We use for firewood in the Winter.
The wind will have at our coats and scarves,
Make them flutter about us as if they would leave
Our bodies as our souls do when we have lost
All of our dreams and our memories are distributed
To those who might find them in their own dreams.

And I will ask you to walk with me awhile
As Ebenezer Scrooge did in his night of troubled
Sleep that we too may gaze upon the children
One last time before the sea swallows them entire
And we are left in our little boat bouncing
Above the top of the waves, the sun glinting
Across their lips almost as if they could speak.

_____________________

THE SMALL RAINE DOWN CAN RAINE

No one has seen us here.
Rain drips from the eaves of the roof.

She opens her hand.  About five inches
Above it is a small gray cloud.  It is raining
Into her hand.  He looks closer at her hand.

There is a small house.  It has a few lights on
Inside and someone is looking out
One of the windows at a 1948 Ford driving
Up the road from her wrist.

When the car stops and cuts its headlights,
A door to the house opens and a medium-size
Dog runs toward the car.  The scene is all too small
To determine what breed of dog it is.
He hears a small, single bark. 

Someone exits the car and runs
Toward the open house door, the dog following.
She closes her hand and everything disappears.

“He has come a long way to be here tonight,"
She says to me.  "We should leave them alone
For awhile.  Let’s go get something to eat,
Maybe a cup of hot tea would also be good."

 The Month Escaping

BEGGING THE MUSE FOR MANY THINGS

I bend down to see the small opening
In the earth.  Georgian Table music
Came from it.  Yellow-jacketed meat-eating
Wasps pour from the hole.
They are confused.  They understand the nature
Of dreaming.  One cannot hear them landing
Again on the ground.

I have bent my body in this way
To say something to you that is
Most difficult to articulate.

The cave of the room seems tangible
Enough.  The logs break open as they
Did in the early nights when Proust
Awoke to find us in his dream
Able to recall his own life for him
As if played upon cellos.

I am familiar with the most ancient
Of languages.  I am able to make fire
Of their words, and long ago I imagined
Men who devoured shadows in fantastic
Woods peopled by painters of landscapes
We are unable to imagine in these times.

I hand you oars for a boat.
I give you the end of a story.
I look upon a rose with you.
I recall the places we stayed together.
I wrap you in the limbs of a great tree.

I am approaching dawn once again.
I remember your name and whisper it
To myself.  I am able to see over vast distances.
I can see you traveling with your quiet flocks.
I become the morning for you.
There are skeletons in the mountains.

_____________________

I GOT TALKING TO THE ANGEL DURING THE SNOWSTORM
AND AS HE HAD A LOT OF TIME AND I WAS FREEZING
TO DEATH, I ASKED HIM TO TELL ME AN ANGEL STORY:

The idea might have been alright
But the mountains were everywhere
And there was no telling
If the trails would be clear
Or the passes open this late in the year.

I lifted her hands and placed
Her palms against my eyes.
Her breathing slowed.  The singing started.

There were signs in the air.
I could see the smaller animals
Begin to gather at the edge
Of the forest.  They were watching.

“How do you do that?" she said,
“See without using your eyes.”
“You don’t have to think
About anything now.
It is a gift I have been given.”

It was raining over the Dharma
Pass.  In the distance the little
Horses looked like gray ghosts.
It was hard to tell if they had riders
Or only large packs on their backs.

“We have to leave soon.  We have
A very long way to go.”
“Will there be angels?” she said.
I held my palms tighter
Against her eyes.

“There are always angels,” I answered.

She was asleep before I had
The vehicle ready.  She was dreaming
About a river.  She was trying to cross 
It but kept slipping and getting all wet.

The clouds parted for a moment
And the way became easier under foot.
“There are always angels," I repeated.
"We know which mountains
We are crossing.”  She smiled
In her sleep.
I could still hear the singing,

“THERE WAS A LITTLE INN IN THE VALLEY”

Behind closed doors you came came
To me and I thought you were
A flame, although I could see
Your face so clearly.  I could
See the birds landing on the lakes
Of your eyes and the way that angels
Gathered at the edges of your mouth
Just waiting for you to say something,
Anything.  I remember telling you
I loved you and I could see
A perfect landscape; for such
Long moments I thought we might
Live there.  But no.  It was just
A moment and you asked me to go
Get some ice and I felt I were on
Some kind of a crusade I might
Never return from.

When I did get back
You were sleeping so soundly
I could see doors opening and closing
As you moved through the halls
Of your dreams.  Such pleasant
Songs you sang.  All about rain.

 Valley Farm

THE CASTLE TINKLES IN THE WIND
AS IF MADE OF GLASS

This is the true hour,
The opening of the hand to reveal
All are still here building our litanies.

I suppose we will all die.
Everyone seems to have done it.
We all, finally, choose to forget this place.

In the alley someone is screaming,
Trying to wake the stars,
Great wires dangling down
Snarling traffic as if it didn’t matter.

An entire collection of echoes
Heads off towards the endless plains.
Someone is trying to memorize
The patterns of the streets,
Hoping there is a song somewhere
In their curves and intersections.

Soon we will know who we are.
I read it in a book, my dear,
It must be true, just like a world
Without violence, the dove landing
On our shoulders, its feet sticky
With blood.  We do not realize it can’t see,
Still, we welcome the moment.

We rinse out our mouths, pick up our masks,
Create our myths, walk out into the garden.

We never see where the bullet
Comes from.  There will be a sting,
Then a deep warmth as if one were praying.

The sky overflows with stars.
There are tears in our eyes.
We begin to feel as if we were
Walking in deep snow.
Everything becomes a murmur.
We begin to believe even the water
Will keep us from drowning.

_______________________
 
COWS SLEEPING WHILE THE SEARCH CONTINUES

The light is dismal here.
Even the air walks away with an attitude
Making it hard to breathe.

I can hold myself above water
For a few moments more.
I can see the search parties
With their grim dogs.
Their lights are playing
Tag along the river banks.

I can see how lovely the meadows
Really are.  There are cows sleeping
Under the trees.  They are not going
To let anything bother them this night.

I throw my house into this.
I can hear it crying.
I gave my word to be there.
This mountain is so full of light.

The rain begins again.
It always seems to behave
At this spot to describe whatever
The hell this poetry is doing.

We step out of the door.
Our competition changes from death
To art.
I will help you make snowballs.
We will wait for the singing to begin.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

GREEN

Caught dreaming.
I dream in green.
I walk to the sea.
I am in Galilee.

I break on the shore.
I was a wave.  I am no more.
I dream in green
Green, green, the sea.

I stand inside the fire.
I am the one they call the liar.
I dream in green.
The fire burns in green.

I touch the starry mansions.
Green, green, I dream in green.
I gather silence like green flowers.
All the flowers green.

I hold the songs, the green, green songs.
I hold them to my bosom.
The glow bright green inside my shirt
I dream in green like seas are green.
I walk in green.  The green man dreams.
Caught dreaming.  Caught myself in green.

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's culinary delights, and a reminder to set your clocks back a hour tonight.

And friends of Mimi and ex-Sacramento Mayor Burnett Miller will recognize the Miller home profiled in the Sacramento Bee's Home & Garden section today. For many years, the Millers have hosted the Sac. Poetry Center fundraiser each December, and they have been long-time supporters of Sacramento poetry.

 Where I Work

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

Singing School

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM

—William Butler Yeats

I

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees

—Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

III

O sages standing in God's holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

In the artifice of eternity.

IV

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

_______________________

TO A FRIEND WHOSE WORK HAS COME TO NOTHING
—William Butler Yeats

Now all the truth is out,

Be secret and take defeat

From any brazen throat,

For how can you compete,

Being honor bred, with one

Who, were it proved he lies,

Were neither shamed in his own

Nor in his neighbours' eyes?

Bred to a harder thing

Than Triumph, turn away

And like a laughing string

Whereon mad fingers play

Amid a place of stone,

Be secret and exult,

Because of all things known

That is most difficult.

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

SOLOMON AND THE WITCH

—William Butler Yeats

And thus declared that Arab lady:

"Last night, where under the wild moon

On grassy mattress I had laid me,

Within my arms great Solomon,

I suddenly cried out in a strange tongue

Not his, not mine."

                             Who understood

Whatver has been said, sighed, sung,

Howled, miau-d, barked, brayed, belled, yelled, cried, crowed,

Thereon replied: "A cockerel

Crew from a blossoming apple bough

Three hundred years before the Fall,

And never crew again till now,

And would not now but that he thought,

Change being at one with Choice at last,

All that the brigand apple brought

And this foul world were dead at least.

He that crowed out eternity

Thought to have crowed it in again.
For though love has a spider's eye

To find out some appropriate pain—

Aye, though all passion's in the glance—

For every nerve, and tests a lover

With cruelties of Choice and Chance;

And when at last that murder's over

Maybe the bride-bed brings despair,

For each an imagined image brings

And finds a real image there:

Yet the world ends when these two things,

Though several, are a single light,

When oil and wick are burned in one;

Therefore a blessed moon last night

Gave Sheba to her Solomon."

"Yet the world stays."

                              "If that be so,

Your cockerel found us in the wrong

Although he thought it worth a crow.

Maybe an image is too strong

Or maybe is not strong enough."

"The night has fallen; not a sound

In the forbidden sacred grove

Unless a petal hit the ground,

Nor any human sight within it

But the crushed grass where we have;

And the moon is wilder every minute.

O! Solomon! let us try again."

_________________________

THE SECOND COMING
—William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

AT GALWAY RACES
—William Butler Years

There where the course is,
Delight makes all of the one mind,
The riders upon the galloping horses,
The crowd that closes in behind:
We, too, had good attendance once,
Hearers and hearteners of the work;
Aye, horsemen for companions,
Before the merchant and the clerk
Breathed on the world with timid breath.
Sing on: somewhere at some new moon,
We'll learn that sleeping is not death,
Hearing the whole earth change its tune,
Its flesh being wild, and it again
Crying aloud as the racecourse is,
And we find hearteners among men
That ride upon horses.

_______________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock