Elegies for Winter

Gone

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch

SIX MORE WEEKS
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

The weather guy
in a crew cut
circumspect in his suit
knowing it all
as prognosticator
on the weather T.V. show
tells us to be wary
of a weary six weeks
well maybe I covet
to be alone on the beach
or exiled on this island
astonished by my words
glad to acknowledge
the Canadian robin
who came today
to visit me,
who did not stay long
but gave me
all I needed
when passing the bread
dropping by for water
at the spring's fountain
your gesturing song
in our shelter
across the Bay
you then flew away
in a blinding flight over my
baseball-hatted head.

_____________________

SPRING DREAMS
—B.Z. Niditch

Hanging out with my cats
this Friday dawn
along the icy Bay
with shy, delightful Chocolate
and insightful Vanilla
with my camera in hand
and some food on a tray,
once vegetable vines here
had their own footfall play
among corn, carrots and tomato
now cold nests as arbors
once lines of jonquils and roses
covered the sea's home harbors,
now winter still discloses
her whitened poplars
past vines of buried snow,
amid the enlightened woodland
it seems our spring dreams
may last forever
or have a long way to go.

______________________

FORGET THE GROUNDHOG
—B.Z. Niditch

Forget the groundhog,
and his prediction,
if only for today,
we live in hibernation
in our poet's underground
filled up with poets
in their own silences
uprooted for winter
by blinding light breaths
on unknown snowy blankets
in trembling sounds
with sparkling small words,
in profiles at gray dawns
giving way to sunshine
blazing out on window blinds
on mirrors of luminous times,
by hospice river beds,
with wandering rainy kisses
on redwoods and pepper trees
and blossoming inclines
caught in the thickets
like a bird's circle
over faded pines
covering tall grasslands
in newly radiant fields
of green tumbleweed,
we compose elegies by light
from upturned lamps
even at midnight prisms,
we trace our steps
as a traffic of images in town
exchanging with nature
her secret exposures
as experimental diction
through hypnotic nights
with inside-out stares
of unseen great things
from our coming-to-life fiction 
as we eagerly await spring.

 Tao

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

EXPECTING NOTHING
—B.Z. Niditch
 
Let six more weeks
of winter
be a motive for love
a Sixties happening now
with peace songs
action paintings
and a bong and bells for Zen
when we have transmuted
ourselves in nature's path
from the sunrise
over the ash trees
in a matrix inside our lines
accepting the poet's gift
not as a burden
of an abandoned nature
but setting off again
in the purest rain
on the runner's track
like a swan's neck
moving forward on the ocean
never looking back
in perpetual motion
like Lot's wife
but with our cold hands
in our fur gloves
until we remake words
beside a candle
our refuge.

______________________

A MONTH TO GO
—B.Z. Niditch

Do not tell me
there is a month to go
before the boulevard
along the Bay
will be clear of snow
and we may stroll
by a footpath's garden
without a winter coat,
when there is no storm
by the sandy sea
to view dispersed bluebirds
and wave on branches
of a flying mystery,
in the early sun-burnt dawn
with our notebooks in hand
imagining we are in an hourglass
to make us warm,
for we who love words
refuse to entertain worry
about this thundering weather
or even in a drought,
when in the depth of an abyss
we are self taught
not to be in a hurry
except to be about love
on a day light as a bird's feather
waiting out-of-doors
for a surprised kiss,
for we cultivate no doubt
that a living poem grows
inside our sleepy lanes
from nature's own tenderness
to spring inside our quatrains,
we choose to reap
and pardon all trains of thought
nor to accumulate or keep
any gloomy shadows
in spider webs not caught,
it's a month to go,
but we give way to grains
like Poe's fine wheat
which we have sought.

_____________________

HOW PREVERT CHANGED MY LIFE
—B.Z. Niditch

(for Jacques Prevert's birthday, Feb. 4)

Standing frozen
by an outside stall
of a used bookstore
enjoying cool French,
a nomad of a kid
notices PAROLES
(Words) by
Jacques Prevert
for fifty cents
putting my bus fare away
and with my new book
sit on a back bench
in the park
how could anything
in this world
compare with the way
this poet made out
in a language soaring
out of my hands
the sun came through
and I had a baguette
full of cheese,
what more do I ever regret
words, a roll, the river
nothing but a fresh path
of ease.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

A poem should not leave you famished or undernourished but hungry for another taste.

—B.Z. Niditch

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to B.Z. Niditch for today's tasty words and to Robert Lee Haycock for the tasty photos. And thanks also to all the wonderful poets and friends who wished me a happy birthday yesterday, on Facebook and otherwise, as I round the corner of 68. By the way, the "pat" that Catfish McDaris says he misses is Patricia Hickerson, poet/friend who passed away last year. Yes, Catfish—we all miss her and her poetry in the Kitchen, Luna's, and elsewhere.

Pomona and Vertumnus

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

A Man of Blue Regret

Improvisation 19 

—Painting by Wassily Kandinsky

IMPROVISATION 19
(after the painting by Wassily Kandinsky)
—Neil Ellman, Livingston, NJ

They are not what they seem
not even if held in the palm of a hand—
the mind creates its own designs
from words unsaid electric leaps
across synaptic space it sees
a universe in a petri dish
measures eternity with a spinning wheel
how earth, wind, water and fire
are improvised upon a table top
it knows that knowing is not enough
to know what is real and not
but nevertheless it shapes infinities
from a drop of blood.

_______________________

HIGH TIDE
(after the lithograph by Pierre Alechinsky)
—Neil Ellman

And so it came
and then it came
again again
so many times
it came alive
with fiery eyes
it came again
on cloven waves
with white-capped
dragon’s teeth
it came
so many times
the same
again and again
the same old
predator
predating man
the same
as it had always
been
and then again
at the ebb
of my mortality.

______________________

EVERYONE  BELONGS TO EVERYONE ELSE
(after the ink drawing by Matthew Ritchie)
 —Neil Ellman

Never alone
never an “A”
in an alphabet
of “A" to "Z"
neither in the isolation
of separation
nor in its solitude         
no man’s seclusion
in a sea of doubt
we are
connected by the gravity
of our lives
quantum leaps of faith
magnetic fields
that bind our minds
dark matter flowing
in our blood—
every one of us
from “A” to “Z”
belongs to everyone else
like petals
in an infinite rose.

 Metamorphosis

—Andre Masson

METAMORPHOSIS
(after the drypoint/aquatint by Andre Masson)
—Neil Ellman

Suppose for a moment
in the intricate web
of conjecture
rumor and surmise
that I were the me
you supposed me to be
that you believe in legends
and gossip spread
on the back of a bee
that you know
or seem to know
in the convoluted furrows
of your mind 
that I can never be
the who I was
or came to be—
better to believe in miracles
the soul transformed
a caterpillar
turned butterfly.

_______________________

ABSTRACT PORTRAIT OF MARCEL DUCHAMP
(after the painting by Katherine S. Dreir)
—Neil Ellman

 
Nothing belongs
that Is real
or who or what
It pretends to be
the craw of a face transformed
Into a geometry
of cones and circles
shapes without a formula or name
where the nose and mouth
should be uneasy squares
and tenuous space—
reality offends the sense
of a man
who has lost his face.

_______________________

THE OLD GUITARIST
(after the painting by Pablo Picasso)
—Neil Ellman

All I have known forgotten now
all I have learned dismissed
as the heresy of age 
a fire turned glowing stone
to crumbling ash
my mind is emptied of its past
like a hollow gourd of might-have-been
I am the leavings of excess
and fading years
I am a man of blue regret
who plays an old guitar—
better to have known me then
better to have heard me play
before the darkness came.

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

A poem's conviction begins in his first life sentence.

—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

_______________________

—Medusa

The Old Guitarist

—Painting by Pablo Picasso

Where the Hell's the Tule Fog???

Cody in Indian Brush

—Photo by Taylor Graham

DRY WINTER
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Our ground is a dusty hog stretched
under cloudless sky. Thirsty. He should be
rooting in mud, a glory of muck.

In my mind’s archives: a ski-trek
up through lodgepole and juniper. My dog
leads the way, printing her single-track
across still, white meadow.
Mules-ear and paintbrush sleep
under a comforter of snow, dreaming
of thaw, of blooming.
From a treetop, oracle Raven calls—

Snow-survey was a bomb. Your friend
the hydrologist reports less rain
than the worst recorded drought-years.

In my mind I climb to a rainbow garden—
lupine and columbine, larkspur
along a snowmelt creek
fringed in willow and warbler-song.
Clear water giggles with sun
that sweeps above clouds—clouds
bunching dark over the summit, promise
of summer storm.

This winter morning, a shaft
of rainbow—ice crystals in cloud.
No pot of gold until it rains.   

______________________

WESTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY, 1967:
BACK WHEN WINTERS NEVER ENDED
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Froze an ear once, walking to class.
Could have worn a cap or something,
But we were tougher back in
Undergraduate days—invincible—
Or thought we were.
Even so, next day, I changed
My major to something
Closer to the dorm.

_____________________

THE WEATHER THEN
—Kevin Jones

Simply put, it sucked.
It rained from Labor Day,
When school started, till
Thanksgiving, when
It started snowing.  Snowed
Till Easter, then it began
Raining till June. Then we
All went home.  There
Was no weather in
Macomb, Illinois
Over the summer.

____________________

THE METEOROLOGY PROFESSOR
—Kevin Jones

Wore black rubber boots.
Always, but never buckled
Them.  He stumbled a lot.
And his maps were always
Creased and wrinkled.

Mt. Shasta

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

WINTER COMES
—James Lee Jobe, Davis

The frost on the window,
lit up by the sunrise.

A friendly warmth
from the coffee pot.

Winter comes,
and with it, gloves and a scarf.

A frozen morning, and winter treads
on frosty footsteps.

Later, when the sun is warmer,
something cold and free stays with us.

Something like a gift from the winter,
from the morning.

Winter comes,
bold and splendid.

Strong.
Delightful.

We smile,
full of ourselves.

____________________

WINTER MAGIC
—James Lee Jobe

Some magic in the landscape has put me under a spell. I see your face on the tip of a bare, winter tree branch; an oak tree that is full of faces, and every one is different! There is a magic in this valley that captures me. The midwinter Tule fog on the marshes and the rivers is an old friend come to call. We pour the tea and sip together, friends under the same spell. Yes, I love the valley, and I love the long winters that we have here, and I have seen many of them!

____________________

WINTER IN THE HOLY LAND
 —James Lee Jobe

Hungry Syrian children gather at the fence
of the freezing refugee camp.

Maybe today the trucks will come
with food and blankets.

In Ramallah, on the West Bank, a missile flies overhead
then another. And another.

The people at the market don't know where they came from,
or who launched them, or who might be killed. 

Probably the innocent ones; a child, a priest,
a worker somewhere, a mother.

Nearby Israeli troops clean their weapons, standing guard
and smoking European cigarettes.

They have thick coats and warm boots,
made in America like their bullets.

From here, you could walk to where Jesus,
of the House of David, was born.

You could kneel in the dirt and pray;
perhaps it is time that we did.

___________________

NorCal poets were saddened last week by the death of Alameda Poet Laureate Mary Rudge. Mary was a much-published poet whose poems appeared in Rattlesnake Review from time to time, and Tom Goff and Claire Baker sent poems about her to the Kitchen last week. Lots of Sacramento poets knew Mary through Cal. Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc., through the annual Berkeley Poets luncheon, through Ina Coolbrith Society poetry events, and through Artists Embassy International's Dancing Poetry Contest. In case you'd like to attend a tribute to Mary, there will be a Memorial Poetry Reading for her at Books Inc, 1344 Park St., Alameda, from 7-9pm on Weds., February 12, sponsored by Alameda Island Poets. Poets are encouraged to "read your favorite poem by Mary Rudge, a poem that Mary may have encouraged you to write or a favorite poem of yours during the Open Mic."

Here's a question: If you click on Red Fox Underground Poet Irene Lipshin's new blog, will you see (1) poetry, (2) photos, (3) that Irene broke her ankle, or (4) all of the above? Click on it and find out: picturepoet-irene.blogspot.com

Speaking of the Red Foxes, you may be aware that Founder Brigit Truex moved to Kentucky a while back. She wrote to me a couple of days ago, saying that there are no poetry readings less than 70 miles away from her, despite the presence of two universities in her town. Ouch. NorCal poets don't know how lucky they are—readings, readings, readings, and we don't even have to travel 70 miles.

Speaking of readings, Sacramento will welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet Stephen Dunn one week from today on Wednesday, Feb. 12 (2-4pm) at the Central Library, along with Barbara Hurd and Sonoma County choral ensemble Take Jack. Sac. Poetry Center President Bob Stanley says that over 70 tickets have been sold, so be sure to get yours NOW for $15 at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/492569

In the green box at the right of this column, under the brain, is a notice about Kevin Jones reading at the Jeffers Conference in Carmel next weekend. Check it out.

Katy Brown heard tell of a new reading series, this one an open mic called Winters Out Loud which will be held on the fourth Thursdays each month from 7-9pm at Root Stock, 22 Main St., Winters. Hosts: Deborah Saw, Roy Pits. Info: Roy at 530-908-7160.

Also in my email bag recently was a letter from Bay Area poet Connie Post, listing a couple of articles that she found interesting. I pass them on in hopes they might be helpful. She sends us:

A very informative and useful article by Diane Lockward on submitting poetry manuscripts (for those of you interested or just starting this process): 

dianelockward.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-few-thoughts-about-poetry-book.html

And a good one from The Review Review on “What editors want”:

www.thereviewreview.net/publishing-tips/what-editors-want-must-read-writers-submitti

And just yesterday I received the latest copy of DADs DESK, our local Large Print Poetry Journal edited by Carol Louise Moon. This issue features Amy Schoonover and is available from Carol Louise at dadsdesk2@gmail.com

Finally, I figured our friends back East (such as BeeZee Niditch) could use a few desert pix to offset all their snow, so I've posted some of Cynthia Linville's today, and I've also put together an album of her desert photos for Facebook. Check it out on Medusa's Facebook page—it rocks!—so to speak...  :-)

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

CALIFORNIA WINTER RAIN
—James Lee Jobe

Let me live this life
Like a California winter rain.
Slow,
And steady.
Let me leave nothing untouched!

___________________

—Medusa

Jemez Mountains

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

What We Cannot Have

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

THE BEAUTIFUL SAVAGES
(After "The Beautiful Savages" by Georges Barber)

Love flaunts by—out of reach,
in a lure of three: dancers,
or models of costume,

bold-eyed
and green-stockinged—
wearing dyed feathers,

lace
and beads—
in a bright window

full of time’s transitions—
winter’s hot-house
for icy eyes to melt through

with praise, envy, signs.
Mirrors know their secrets,
how they entice, comply—

reflect desire—
all three
miming: Choose me.

_______________________

DECEMBER MOON

Crescent Moon.
A dream.
Sea stars sparkle.
The shore is far and lonely.
A beautiful fish turns into a woman.
A desire.
Frail moonlight quivers upon the dark sea.
The sea suppresses.
Beautiful woman turns into moonlight.
Her long red hair pulls toward you—
fire-strands;
her luminous scales glimmer like gold—
shimmer endlessly.
A crown of sea shells holds her hair in place.
She trembles shoreward.
Still she has not reached you.
Her hair tangles away from your touch.
Maybe she is not real—
maybe she is only real to losses like this.

_______________________

EDGES OF DESIRE

(After "Square Limit" by M. C. Escher)

Braid of woven silence and sound—coil
of lines bent according to the weave
—a complexity of pattern and

the materials that work with pattern—
intention obscures thought upon
thought that holds the secret:

white is relief—
as black and gray are relief
to white—center is always reached

—as are the edges.
What is first:  Idea or result?
Bind the edges.  Let nothing out.

______________________

GRAIL

Oh, how I want, and find I cannot have—
I who would challenge everything that binds.
Every restriction—every pitfall—finds
me back at some beginning, nothing to grab
but hands that slip away. A curse—a laugh
escapes my mouth for that far-shining blinds
me still—and my persistence winds
its dull way forward—and its dull way back.

Oh, how I pity me—woe after woe.
Longing, for what it’s worth, does not teach much.
I lick my wounds and wish it were not so—
for still the need continues to aspire
beyond reality’s elusive touch—
and at the end, there is only this desire.

                                      

(first pub. in Poets' Forum Magazine, 2005)

THE PLACE OF OLD DESIRE

How else am I to arrive at this place
and not be changed, no matter the map. 
Old lie.  Old truth.  The forces here
were lures, attractive and needy. 
One merely yields.

That is not what the plot is. 
No.  This is The Escape,  the thrill
of almost being caught.  The moon
hung upside down in the heavy water. 

We looked in and begged to reach. 
An owl laughed.  A formless shadow
pushed at our leaning.  You turned
first, something so far on your face
I shuddered back.

I left you there, bent away from me,
becoming the center of a vast shimmer.
I grew cold then, torn from something
that I knew and wanted, but not yet.
                            

(first pub. in Poets' Forum Magazine)          

______________________

SILENCE AS ITS OWN DESIRE
(After "DESIRING SILENCE: Holy Island
from Lamlash," 1994, by Craigie Aitchison)


The blue boat waits on its reflection,
soundless on the motionless water.

The boat is empty and takes this time to sleep.
It knows where both the shores are.

It knows how to go back and forth between.
It lives in the cool shadow of the mountain.

The mountain guards the sunlight.
The water holds the mountain in its depth.

The boat floats on the mountain.
Time is measureless.

The water holds the boat like a trick of reality.
The boat does not keep time.

Time sleeps in the blue silence of the boat.
The boat dreams of the silence.

The red sky drowns in its own reflection.
The calm water bleeds every day at this hour.

                                             
(first pub. in Poetry Now, 2008)

_______________________

THINKING ABOUT LOVE

It is in the superb language of love
that desire meshes with fate—

oh, merely fate,
with its own agenda

never the true—or even the true.
Love is victim to the game,

for game it is—poorly played or
brilliantly.  How easy to discuss

the points of review, the win or lose,
the simple tactics, carried through.

Only the thinker knows—the casual
thinker, sitting here, thinking about love.

______________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for today's poems and pix! Joyce writes that her healing continues apace, with, finally, a reduction in the pain that has plagued her hip these many months.

Bill O'Daly writes that last Wednesday’s scheduled Tiferet Talk interview was rescheduled for 4pm today (Tuesday, 2/04), owing to a last-minute unforeseen circumstance. This link (www.blogtalkradio.com/tiferetjournal/2014/01/30/william-o-daly-tiferet-talk-with-melissa-studdard) will take you to the Blogtalk Radio webpage where you can listen live to Tiferet Talk, when poet, bestselling author, and host Melissa J. Studdard interviews William O’Daly. The interview will be archived and available for later listening. And here is the link which will take you to the Facebook page for the interview: www.facebook.com/events/286458858169976

Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his burrow last weekend to find it all too too overwhelming, so he went back in, forecasting six more weeks of Winter. (If they'd use a groundhog out here in the West, he'd have a much different opinion, yes?) Anyway, our Seed of the Week is Six More Weeks of Winter. Make of it what you will and send your poetic/artistic/photographic results to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though—click on the Calliope's Kitchen link at the top of this column for our ever-burgeoning list of past SOWs for more ideas.
 

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

THE POWER
(After "The Desire and the Satisfaction",
1893, by Jan Theodore Toorop)


Their gold faces speak of desire
and satisfaction—
such has their love been taken.

Their eyes burn with after-
thoughts.  Hers turn away
from his haunted stare.

Gold bells weep into dying sound
along the surrounding wall;
gold leaves fall from the sky—

for it is imperial here
with wealth and power—
except over love.

______________________

—Medusa

Not Yet On Empty

Barn Wood

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

DEALING WITH MYSTERY
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

My gas gauge slipped toward empty
on the long, deserted, dead-end road. But
we had a tail-wind that brought us
to a gas-pump petrified in time. Winter
wind down bare hills, through the boarded
doors remaining. I hoped for a bit
of magic here, of mystery—but there wasn’t
a soul, at least none with a body.
Silent balconies, broken stairways.
In shard-sheen of a storefront window
an ancient doll, dead; and a small bright
sphere like the moon glowing with wonder;
a face—a child? Gone to moonlight.
My dog pulled me the other way, winter-
bare hard into the wind. At hilltop
she sniffed, taking in whole histories
of scent. Moving slowly across horizon,
a man bent to the wind, tattered coat
color of soil; a shadow across the mouth
of knowing. He beckoned or was it
wind in my eye, sun-glare? Gone to earth.
Slant sun-sparkle like coin-metal
shattered, scattered on dirt.

Those whispers were wind; they held
stories, but withheld all the endings.
My gas-gauge magically not yet on empty.
 

_____________________

IF I COULD HAVE JUST ONE THING
—Michael Cluff, Corona

Time to sleep
in lavender sheets
paisley wool blankets
on the second-floor patio
with forget-me-nots
dwarf pineapple trees
and a pure white trellis
with thorn-less roses:
all this for however long
I wish.
The soft non-acidic rains
of Corona never touching me
in this permanently paid-off
part of a valley
that has gone hidden again
except for happily pondering
fair-minded people
who view bolts on doors
government internet spying
Dobermans for protection
and police overuse of bullets
anathema.

Pony in Yard

—Photo by Katy Brown

THURSDAY SONG
—Michael Madigan, Santa Rosa

A fence, chains pointed, separating the
cupped sanity from obligation's
quills.  Once humorous, now a
strangle.  How it loves to see me in
this figure, they, those bats.

Even the air around me
notices, the off chords—
a new song, barely, a
tree looking back

from the other half
feeling sorry for me
but cheering.  Me: grin.

Travel from block here
to corner here.

Agreeably incensed.

______________________

A FEW DAYS AFTER YOUR PASSING
(for Poet Mary Rudge, 1928-2014)
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole

Mary, after the poetry gathering
where images of you whirled,
crashed, rose upward & crashed again

I'm home. Your "Poem Garden" slim books
silky white, staples like twin page-kisses,
gaze & gaze at me. One cover a pink

water lily photographed in China—
the other your collage from a photo
of your great-granddaughter in pink tutu

& ballet slippers, standing
in circle of a flower wreath,
favoring you around the cheeks.

Child "Jennifer" is holding a huge
fluffy flower, a repository for
poignant phrases you left us?

______________________

Today's LittleNip:
 
HEROINES
—Claire J. Baker

I foolishly tried to
walk in your footsteps.
Upon finding my steps
shorter
and
wider
I forged
my own path
as you would want.


(An earlier poem for Mary Rudge
from a 40+ year friendship)

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's contributors, and a reminder that there are some poetry events coming up in our area; scroll down to the blue box (below the green box) in the column at the right of this one for all the happenings. Warning: there's an "e-flyer" going around advertising Sable & Quill, the Sac. Poetry Center art event curated by Jennifer Pickering, that says it's happening on Monday, Feb. 8. T'ain't so: February 8 is SATURDAY. So the event is this coming Saturday. Check it out!

 Sunset

—Photo by Katy Brown

In the Garden of My Heart

DESIRE
—Alice Walker

My desire

is always the same; wherever Life

deposits me:

I want to stick my toe

& soon my whole body

into the water.

I want to shake out a fat broom

& sweep dried leaves

bruised blossoms

dead insects

& dust.

I want to grow

something.

It seems impossible that desire

can sometimes transform into devotion; 

but this has happened.

And that is how I've survived:

how the hole

I carefully tended

in the garden of my heart

grew a heart

to fill it.

_____________________

—Medusa

A Bagful of Dreams

Sphere

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

SOMEWHERE A STAR FALLS

I write a stillness in the whitest of snow
That it be a temple where we may rest.

I write the river, dark against the snow
As the beak of a swan is to its feathers.

I write the moon and keep it high above
Us that we may gaze upon it and know wonder.

These are not our true garments.  They have
Been tossed our way to quiet the poor, the hungry.
The halt and the blind.  Let us have none of their
Clothing made of blood and murder, the stink of war
Upon them and covered with the filth of words
We never wanted to hear.  Their own souls forsake them.

I write the night sky as our true garments that we may
Tread there, wrap the strong arms of the wind
Around ourselves and become useful as song
Is useful and fill this world with those who love
One another despite all odds.  I write a world this way.

____________________

DEALING WITH MYSTERY

Not waiting any longer.
When the music stops
I still can hear it for a long time.

There is a figure walking across
The back of the gardens even this late
At night.  He has a small lantern and swings
It back and forth, not looking for anything
In particular.

I found a small package by my door.
It contained a small sphere that glowed
And three very bright coins.  I had no idea
What to do with them.  I put them on the counter.
When I came back home, they were on my bed.

Tonight the fire in the fireplace looks digital.
I work hard to try to bring a music out of the flames.
My own breath interrupts me and I begin speaking
Words I had no intention of having in my mouth.

Somehow I can watch them as they fulminate
About the cold view across the gardens.
Whoever was walking there has disappeared
Deep into the woods along the slough.

I remind myself that I may have only wished
For the package that arrived.  Who hears these
Things?  I pull my covers up close to my throat.
I make a deal for a bagful of dreams, sight unseen.  

 Compass in a Floor

THE BALCONIES OF SILENCE

We found them bent over their guns.
Some of them were still smiling.
The tiny green birds and the tiny yellow
Birds were landing on their bodies and singing
Very beautiful songs that told of another world,
One where the ground wasn’t sticky with blood,
Where one could still walk in the streets and smile
At his neighbor without having his hands blown off.

We kept clawing at the remaining doors
Trying to get them open.  We all knew how
Round and white and gold and ruby red and
Sapphire blue those openings could be.
They could never be destroyed completely.

Ramon made a funny voice and said that we
Could not help any of these creatures here.
The earth was on fire.  Madmen were running
From place to place with madness blossoming
Like a cancer from their swords and their eyes.

Come on, Ramon said, let’s get out of here.
The animals of the air are bursting into flame,
People are copulating in the most vile of places.
We’ll need a thousand years between us and them
In order to see the stars once again.  The black
World bent before us.  People are calling out the name
Of God and strangling rabbits and small children
And winking back at God as if they knew him.

Farther away now, we climb high into the trees
And gaze at the stars.  We have chosen sleep
And an old song we have always loved to sing.
One by one our voices rise and fall until we are
Alone on the balconies of silence.

_______________________

WORDS EXPLAINING

I’ve gone out to gather
These words and have brought
Them back, so many of them
They have become hard to carry
With their meanings and nuances
Attached like so many ideas in
The head of a genius playing.

Right here they cluster together
To say I love you and could do it
A thousand times if I let
Them all go as they wish to be
Let go.  They look up at you.

Enthralled by being seen,
Explaining themselves in row
Upon row of letters, forms,
Shadows on the mouth of knowledge.

Eventually they will lie down
Properly and go to sleep.
Even dreaming is here,
A warm bed, tenderness,
The night finally quiet
As they wait on the edge.

 Walking the Reef

WHAT WE WANT

To hear the voice tell us stories.
The heart went questing with true
Love and its page, Ardent Desire.
To know this is true, as true
As clouds lifting against the
Horizon, building higher than ideas.

Oh please tell us the truth.
Tell us about Mister Death
And his lovely dances full of leaps,
Full of daring and challenges.
The color of the sky at twilight.

When we wait at night for the
Lights to quit and make soft
Cloaks around our thoughts
So we may sleep.  Children,
Families, lovers and deer feeding
Beside streams full of moonlight.

Let us stand here together.
I will hold you to me and kiss
Your lips.  I will tell you and you
Will tell me.  We will be able to see
The silver of enchanted light through
The trees.  We will agree that our lives
Shall always have this sheen about them.

Far to the North, just before the snows
Begin to own everything for months
At a time, we hear the voices again.
Cantatas that overcome death, leave
Us choruses swelling with prayers,
Rejoicing beyond measure, the seasons
So full we wash in them and they flow
Over silken skin as clouds lifting
Against the horizon, building higher than ideas.

______________________

TRAINS
            for Michael Madden

The sound of the train owns the night.
It finds itself in all the distances and landscapes.
We need never move and it swirls by, mars light orbiting,
Wiping the night as if it had an intelligence.  It does not.

It is not there.  It is gone before we hear the sound.
We may see it in the distance crossing a trestle or
Running into a central valley full to overflowing with
Red cars and tank cars and flatcars and cattle cars.

We are not invited to see its passing, waiting
In an automobile at the edge of the track at night, the clack-clacking
Trucks counting something, gone now.  A single red eye
At the end of the snake’s body winking out in the huge night.

This beast is the neuron, the impulse moving on its own
Highways through our county, known by all, coated with its
Own history and lore, its legends and heroes and more steam,
Diesel smoke and soundtracks for dreams than that body

Can absorb.  It is our magic glowing room throwing itself
Through the great American night as cities and towns flash
By, always on its way to somewhere, crying the land in steel voices.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

UNDER THE DESK

Now while I wouldn’t be saying
This if it weren’t the truth,
The truth sometimes hides little
Gems in its blouse and only shows
Them when there is nothing left to lose.

The sparks reveal a tiny room
Under the desk.  It has a beautiful
Look to it but one could never
Touch it without totally destroying
The illusion that the edge was
So close, so full of the dreams of others.

We forget quickly.
Others use our thoughts,
The capital of dreams,
The song of gifting becomes
Extreme, so full of what we imagine.

___________________

—Medusa, reminding you that Norma Kohout of Sacramento and Bill Latimer of Citrus Heights will be among eighteen poets from the Central Valley, Bay Area and Sacramento who will read their own work today at the release of Song of the San Joaquin's Winter Issue in the Downstairs Auditorium of the Stanislaus County Library, 1500 “I” St., Modesto. This event, presented by Poets of the San Joaquin, the Stanislaus County Library, and Friends of the Library, is free and appropriate for all ages. Light refreshments are provided. An open mic will follow the formal presentation. For more info: Cleo Griffith, 209-543-1776, cleor36@yahoo.com.

In Russell's Shop