Sheer Poetry

Gears from a printing press owned by

Robert Dickover

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA and 

Photos by Katy Brown, Davis

COUNTRYSIDE SURPRISES

In paper mâché letters
with invisible ink
pronouns and consonants
in grammatical form
do an uplifting dance
to jazz's dissonance
in confidence of spring
under a Monday sun
shining like crocus
yellow and purples,
my sax in focus
playing as a chameleon
at all landscape hours
near the Bay's edge
with new tunes
improvised as knowledge
as a skate boy and girl
bring me flowers
for my window sills.

 Fonts

STARING AT A VAN GOGH

Staring at a Van Gogh
print this spring
in the Metropolitan
on a still life room
even the lights
must be exhausted
here in New York City
they once traded you
for francs to survive
during the war
now I have located you
Van Gogh,
but will no one forget
your nature landscapes,
ready to take my leave
amid gray squirrels
and spreads
of biting fresh air
for a quick repast
and picnic in Central Park.

 Curves

THAT SUN

That impalpable sun
breaking under an aura
of many-a-year Evergreen
glances on
my poem bench
with distillations
among the Fall foliage
by Mr. Harvard's statue
along the Charles River
loses us in idleness,
students with art books
wait for their mates
by tall grass shadows
for the annual regatta
our minds bend
to pace our boat lines
of rowing passages
farther out to the ocean
in currents of our time
under uncounted rays
in our double lives.

Metal Stuff

JUST A MOMENT

With the copper sun
on our hammock
it did not take us
long to focus
on singing intervals
of sea grackle voices
turning our eyes
over my old kayak
by a reared-up shore
of blue sashay waves
more numerous
than water rings of fish,
making mirror moves
over our quiet crew
sizing up the Northeaster
cacophony of damages
from all our sailboats
now sinking in on us
yet we brush away
any churlish worries
by the coastal deck
as once flood waters
migrated on an Arctic
winter's wind
toward the cruise ship
we call Noah,
drinking in
a wavering world
secluded on the Bay
by our own nostalgic
cover-ups and secrets
of how to land
on coal-grey waters
over nearly drowned
tourist canvas bags
rods and tackles,
as we slowly pass by
The Life of St. Francis,
a lobster boat
hooked in oarlock
as ocean shadows
jostle us
by the home harbor,
a mendicant artist
we call Angelo
huddles on board
the leafless deck
keeping out of storms
in a monkish blanket
crouches on first light
wishes me strength,
draws from his covenant
of abstracts, portraits
or his stonework mobiles
suspended in currents
of beach air,
always asks
this poet for a title
for his latest abstracts,
watercolors,
or dazzling sculpture
as if were a surf cutter
of treasured rock,
I'm handing out
a groundswell
of illumined verses
for he translates
in ancient tongues
then captures them
in a sunset flair,
keeps a vigil
over the creative sand
by shivering reefs
off the Cape.

 Spacers

AT ASPEN

The unloosed viola strings
at my soundproof studio
hang on like clouds
with an outside glance
on this windowpane
preparing for my recital
at Aspen, 2000
when Fall foliage
was at its visibility
wishing to be
a decade younger
in colorful puffs of snow
like music notes
as floodlights action
always follow us
from the airport
to the concert hall
by tall orchestral trees
in a choir of songbirds
and departing gulls
in full day recital
of nature's
own sight-reading.

 Cut-out

A TOWN NEVER WAKES

Not for a moment
to guess my future years
in the late '70's
here kicking
bottles, syringes
down a side street
once in an avalanche sun
of snow white,
now dusted
in a fog's haze
wearing his pea jacket
missing two buttons
on an April fool's night
when a somnambulist
silent with half-closed eyes
carrying a pawned sax
gloved in a haze
of sheltered blues
shows up here
by a musical haunt
as motorcycles and cars
sweep by Bay woods
now filled with jonquils
paces the dark club
toward this first gig
on Monday nights
for new talent,
a pacifist only armed
with his alto voice
to jam from a red eye,
improvisations break out
shielding all sights
by the lidless door
as budding sounds
over augmented notes
shine higher than waves
by the ocean outside
from unfinished songs
his fingers open riffs
on a furtive hour scene
by struggling exchanges
tangled by mystery
embedded in lips
burning like piles
of coal and fire.

Hooks

ORPHANED SHADOWS

We have been lost
at sea
on long winter days
watched the snowfall
from French windows
along blue hills
bathing on birches
in rough sprawling
shade buries the past
when household cares
vanish by sunshine
and early light silences
move veined clouds
as orphaned shadows
begin to open up smiles
we are like parchment
wishing to write italics
or splash our initials
as reverie on day skies.

 Chain

Today's LittleNip:

CANDLESTICKS

Two brass candlesticks
from a winter in Grenoble
slides on
a fresh velvet table
as light in blue smoke
on an ancient tablecloth
from my exiled family
rests by pale anemones.

_______________________

—Medusa

 

Flying press, as it is being moved

to its new home after Robert's passing

Equal To: Not True

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch

ARS POETICA

 —Archibald MacLeish

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

                 *

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

                  *

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be.

_______________________

—Medusa

Vision Trader

Rose in Rain

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

THE STORY TOLD BY THE NEW MOON

I didn’t mean to break it.
The moon, barely new,
Cracking, then tumbling terribly awry
In the night.

And we were still riding into the red
Part of the night, searching the streets
For the morons who thought this
Was some simple war.

"Just get out there and kill
Your man and then go back home
To be with your new wife
And your same family."

But it wasn’t true and the fighting
Went on and on and on.
And the young men grew very old
Before they were even thirty.

There was the distant roar of rockets.
Then, after death had found
His bearings, a horror of explosions
And more red in the night,
The villages aflame.

Leave the moon alone.
You have nothing to do with this.
I will show you a place
Near here, up that ridge.

The peace of that place was palpable.
A soft music rising with the moon
As it regained its composure and
Made a secret smile with its nether tips.

"What is this place?"
"Don’t ask.  Know you are alive.
Listen, no more guns.  No more
Fires, no more screaming."

A soft flicker of lights from
Cottages scattered over the place.
"This is so beautiful."

The quiet passed into his pores.
He could no longer remember
How he had come here.
The horses walking slowly toward
The villages, knowing they were home.

______________________

VISION TRADER

Before the shadows got too soft
There was a man who traded
In visions.  He was a surgeon
Of sorts who barely left a mark
When he excised a perfect golden
Octopus that could sing ancient
Greek boating songs, or slice
A Valentine of brightly colored
Birds into a strange collection
Of coins much desired by the
Herdsmen of the upper terrace.

He worked from dusk until dark
During the long Summer days
And during storms of any kind.
His voice was very musical.
Cats would be charmed by his
Soft whistles and his conjuring
Of small winged animals seen
Nowhere else in any moment.

He disappeared into the throat of
Spring when the child weavers
From the dark villages were
Bargaining with him over the souls
Horses had left with them.  That
And the lovely skins of animals
Found by the children at the bottom
Of the cliffs near the great waterfalls.

There are those who claim to know
Where he has gone, but whenever
A particular wash of golden light
Passes through this place, one
Can hear his tinkling laugh and
For a moment be unable to think.

Smoke rises from the ends of our
Fingers.  We are able to dazzle you
With words, the color of which
Is able to hook into our imagination
So completely we forget we have
The power of speech and find
Ourselves lost in the pure magic
Only seen in the best twilight markets. 

 Doorway, Locke

“THE CLOUDS WERE WHITE AND
NARROW AS BONES.”     ............Murakami

Cities of bones.
Spring catching fire at the ends
Of every tree branch.  The brightest
Green.  The sky littered with stars.

We do not know how to walk here.
We have no idea.  Our bodies
Lean forward and suddenly
We are falling through the days,
Week after week of them.
The sun spinning across the sky.

Meet me in Chapultepec.
Meet me in the Parthenon.
Meet me in Reykjavik.
Meet me in Cleveland
At the Terminal Tower.
Meet me when I finally shut
My big mouth and nova into
A startling poem that already
Knows only how to speak the truth.

_____________________

THE SONG WHERE NOTHING CHANGES

I don’t want to break for the wall.
I don’t want to know how you fall.
I don’t want to learn how you spell words.
I don’t want to tell you what I’ve heard.

There is a purple hand that helps me understand
Everything anyone wants me to know.
I cannot open my mouth one more time.
I have been told exactly where I must go.

Stand.  The wind in my hair.
Stand.  The will left to care.
Stand.  The trial given for the wounds.
We will express ourselves this way.

I don’t want to stand in the fire.
I don’t want to call you a liar.
I don’t want to have to look past the wall.
I don’t want to hear her when you call.

And the hard rain makes up my name.
It has its stories, I have the same.
It can call night beasts into my soul.
I do not need them.  Let them become coal.

Games that our dreams play, they gamble for gold.
We will never discover if we are bought or are sold.
I buy the food that feeds shadows and ghosts.
I stand with the choirs, the heavenly hosts.

I do not want to remember these rooms.
I cannot live here, these halls filled with looms.
I do not call you.  I’ve forgotten your name.
Meet me in your breathing.  It is all that remains.

 Picnic Table, Locke

SOME OF THEM OLD SONGS

What can I say after I say
I’m sorry.  You are right
About everything you think
About—but to be truly free
You must remember 1943 and me.

It works like the night coming on.

I’ve been looking so hard past
Myself I almost forgot a whole
Bunch of years and everything
That happened there.  Thought
It didn’t matter what was me
And what was you then too.

When I carry all the things
I am around with me, it’s like
A world we all know.  It’s
Called by whatever name you
Are called by and it goes
Where you go, does what you do,
Sings what you sing, and if
All of this is true, makes you
Pretty happy.  Good morning
Everyone.


(first pub. in sum magazine, 1968)

_____________________

Today's LittleNip(s):

LANGUAGES

Some things can never be repaired, she said.
They only know how to remain broken.
How many languages can you speak? he asked.


OLD AGE

You’re going to live to a ripe old age,
The doctor said.
The apple bushels were already full.
People were drinking hot cider.


KEYS

The keys were in my pocket.
I was sure of it.
What I had forgotten to do
Was wear that particular pair of pants.

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's delectable fare, and a reminder that his pocket book of poetry, Remembering Eternity, has been published by Cold River Press and is available for $9 at coldriverpress.org along with his 97 Poems.

Wisteria

The Garden of Envy

Carol Bales Mahoney

—Photo by Donal Mahoney

WHEN  MY WIFE IS IN HER GARDEN
—Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

When my wife is in her garden,
she becomes a ballerina
moving with the morning breeze
through hollyhocks and roses,
peonies and phlox.
There is music only she can hear.
It's been that way for 30 years.
I never interrupt her dance

not even when the house caught fire
early in the morning. I didn't holler out
the way another husband might
if he had never had a gardener for a wife.
Instead I called the firemen,
and while they were on their way,
I poured water from the sink
on the growing conflagration.

My efforts proved to be in vain.
The firemen arrived too late and so
the house is now a shell of smoke.
The garden still looks beautiful
yet I have no idea what I'll say 
when my wife comes back inside.
But if she's toting roses to arrange
she may not notice any change.
 
_______________________

OLD BATTERIES CAN SURGE
—Donal Mahoney

Things reach a certain age,
an age at which
things don't work
the way they once did.

The battery in your car,
the battery in your phone,
the battery in your laptop die
but these can be replaced.

Not so the battery in you. 
But today your battery's en fuego
so you tell the wife tonight's the night.
Dinner and a movie first, of course.

_________________________

GETTING OLDER
—Donal Mahoney

He's getting older
but has a life,
checks his emails,
loves his wife,
likes to know
what she's wearing
underneath.
Might be pink,
might be white.
Nothing wrong
with either.
But if it's red
or if it's black,
he knows
he better
take a nap.
He'll be up
late tonight.

 Daylily

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

IN THE MOOD
—Donal Mahoney

We're going dancing, my wife and I,
to a Charity Ball high in the sky where
Glenn Miller's band has been playing
since 1944, the year his plane got lost
over the English Channel.
No wreckage was ever found,
not a single body.
Glenn Miller was going to France
to play for American troops
during World War II.
Government records say
he's still "missing in action."

Maybe so, but I hate to go dancing,
even with music by Glenn Miller.
So I told my wife I'll go if she
can find a dress as red
as the one she wore in 1956
when Father Hennessy said, 
"This is a prom. Not burlesque."
A slip of a girl back then,
she made things worse
with black seamed nylons.
All the rage back then, the nylons
disturbed the padre.

But if my wife can find a bright red dress
and a pair of black seamed nylons,
I'll wear the old seersucker suit
I bought at Macy's for the prom.
It goes real well with the "duck tie"
I found "on sale" for 50 cents 
at the Army Surplus store.
Father Hennessy loved that tie.
Even now I can hear him bellow,
"That tie's so wide the ducks
will fly for 50 years to cross it."
How prescient the padre was.

______________________

WATERBUGS, ROSES AND ME
—Donal Mahoney

Waterbugs scurry
when the light snaps on
at midnight in the bathroom
the way this woman's eyes 
dart when I see her
dancing with a nice man
but not the right man.
He's shorter than I am,

has a neat goatee.
She always knew
my interest would last
once I had gamboled
in the garden of roses
she had been planting
one rose at a time
for a devil like me.

 Bee on Red Sunflower

—Photo by Katy Brown

MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF ENVY
—Donal Mahoney

It's hot in our bedroom this midnight in June.
The air conditioner died but my wife sleeps on.
She spent the day weeding the garden.
I finally decide to open a window
and pray for a breeze.

No breeze but I hear roses and lilies
arguing about which is the prettier,
which of them deserves more space
in the garden to unfurl their beauty,
petal by petal, like Gypsy Rose Lee.

The peonies mock the roses and lilies,
claiming peonies are the prettiest of all.
The petunias along the borders yell
not to ignore them because they're not tall.
Suddenly there's a ruckus among the hibiscus.
They, too, claim they're the most beautiful.
They want more space, as do the hydrangeas.

The roses decide to offer a compromise.
Tomorrow they promise to count
which flower in the garden attracts
the most butterflies and honeybees.
The flower that attracts the most
will be named the most beautiful
and be given more space in the garden 
and won't lose a bloom to bouquets.

The other flowers discuss in a whisper
the compromise offered by the roses.
They take a vote and agree to comply.
Finally, silence returns to the garden.

I tell my wife in the morning to hide out
in the yard with a clipboard to confirm
which flower attracts the most
butterflies and honeybees.
We can't trust the roses, I tell her.
They'll cheat on the final results.

I ask her to keep an eye on the sunflowers
since they didn't join the furor at midnight
over which flower's the most beautiful.
I tell her more butterflies and bees
will visit the sunflowers tomorrow
than any of the others because
sunflowers at noon leap in the air
and kiss every cloud in the sky.

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

MOMENT IN A MARRIAGE
—Donal Mahoney

After all these years
my wife at the ironing board,
perfect in panties.

_______________________

—Medusa

Tulips

—Photo by Katy Brown

The Seams of Non-Sequitur

Connie Post, reading at last Monday's 

MIND Institute Benefit

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

SATURDAY BEFORE DAWN
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Beautiful are the pale round squashes that grow mammoth and neglected beyond the chain-link fence, beautiful as the seams of non-sequitur, the clarity of nowhere in the waking world to go. Beautiful is the mind at rest in the tidewash of sea; the pampered dogs who drag their master to the old mutt with holy eyes, the meaning of lucid dreams unremembered by morning. Beautiful over unmapped roads is the left turn signal that leads me out of town; the mind that leaps off the edge to swim in the dark reservoir below guardrail; beautiful the sleep that skinny-dips in chill underwater among the granite rocks. Beautiful my dog who shoves her nose in my face to wake me before I forget the dreams, beautiful terrible dreams that hold me in wonder I wouldn’t have seen in daylight.

_______________________

SMOKESTACK ON HORIZON
—Taylor Graham

Railroad-thunder belch of black
smoke. But her rider presses leather
against the mare’s neck, leaning, urging,
knees insistent against ribs—
a horse must go placidly into inferno,
away from the fields and cowpony ranges;
into town, asphalted streets
stampeding with bellowing cars,
the stench of slag wagons; fenced yards
of horses no longer horses.
            Instead, she wheels—blacker
than factory fire, loses her rider
on the side of the road; gallops back
the way she came,
                        back to the arroyos,
the chaparral canyons,
to forage what tastes like sky,
freedom, hunger.

_______________________

PASSING THROUGH TONOPAH
—Taylor Graham

          
Six a.m. outside the OK Corral Motel:
clouds the color of slab concrete,

junked cars beyond a dead-end spur.
A deputy’s on duty, and

my dog, who with a poet’s nose
proceeds from chainlink fence to power

pole, marking his praise
of such an unswept morning just waiting

for wind to deliver the latest
news. He offers his pent-up streams

of metaphor against a milepost,
a tumbleweed, the sparsely graveled

ground. He lifts his muzzle, inhales
odors from who knows where:

a café dumpster’s scrambled scents,
or kids bundled up for school;

flights of fancy for a dog
who, like Nevada’s unleashed wind

this morning, happens
to be just passing through.
 

(first pub. in One Dog Press and What the Wind Says

by Taylor Graham)

_________________________

ARS POETICA FOR A WEEKDAY
—Taylor Graham

Mares’ tails and hangnails,
the crooning of a saltwater snail;
provocative paperclips
and wind-shear over the seven seas.
Don’t be surprised at palatial
rise of a hilltop between
starlight and the old dog’s fleas.
Bits of crazy-quilt
not quite worn-out; invisible
gadabouts from alley to the long-
long trail unwinding
farther than you can see;
quick as a bushtit; compressed
so it fits in Medusa
each morning for free: sheer
poetry.
 

Kate Duren reading at the MIND Institute Benefit

from Where's Jukey, the book on which she collaborated 

with her husband, Andy Jones

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

ARMWEARY TRAVELER
—Dale Jensen

the statue of liberty is much less impressive if people wear hats in front of you
those eyes that remember everything that happened
from the point of some choice that you made when you were twenty-two
you the platform     the laundry blesses you as it hangs across the torch
and there you stand wearing california around your neck like an amulet

it’s strange having california hanging from my neck now
and it’s so huge you can’t move     speaking those accents
emotional threads wide as a treadmill obscuring every other direction
then you’re big     you’re supposed to choose
then disappear

the statue of liberty is much more impressed if you see it before it sees you
then she looks     then you think you’re so small you’re invisible
so you carry coney island around in your pants pocket for your last day here
she’ll spend her life in thrall to that image
as you wave your torch in celebration and sink knee-deep in concrete

and the statue keeps staring     staring
and blessed are the subways     their clattered tempo slowing
to become your heartbeat
she’s been my friend most of the time since i’ve been back
whatever of that beauty goes into your walk is worthwhile
you’ve made your choice     now you can’t get out of the way
so please come back with me to my hotel room night doesn’t set here
it made that decision when it first got out of college
the city’s lights redefine night any time of the day
and any day still sits still just west across the water
 

_______________________

THE GLASS SHIP  

—Judy Wells

I saw it far out on the horizon, a blinding light.  As it came closer, I realized it was a magnificent sailing ship made completely of glass—glass sails, mast, hull—a dazzling spectacle in the sun.  At times, the glass ship reflected rainbow lights like a crystal.  I had heard stories of this legendary ship, though no one I knew had ever seen it, but here it was, bearing down on me in my small boat.

I looked up at the now looming ship and spotted a young man and woman on the deck,   dressed completely in white. They were dancing, whirling slowly around, waltzing to be exact.  I saw one face, then another, and was astonished to recognize my own parents.  A longing arose in me, and I called out to them.  They stopped and looked down at me curiously— my father with his slicked back hair, my mother with her black curly bob—
 and did not seem to recognize their daughter.  They resumed their positions, waltzing around the glass deck, a whirl of white, transfixed only by each other.

Gradually, I realized why they did not recognize me.  I had not yet been born.  Here were my parents deeply in love before they were married, before the four children began to come, before the toil of creating a home.

The glass ship sailed off with my dancing parents.  Its wake caused a slight rocking of my small skin boat before I was left alone on the still sea.

_____________________
 

SUGGESTIONS
—Caschwa, Sacramento

I met a 4-fingered curtain maker,
Ed. Metoff, who confided in me his
Secret: using a grommet affords
One assurance the fabric will not

Rip or tear apart from the
intrusion of hanging hardware
Then he introduced me to
Mrs. Metoff, oracle of Wadjet

Who wears out the DVR running
Kismet, a forecast of fate
Or is it destiny?  Run it again!
Damnit, a foreign object

Sets her hair afire
Hotter than a metal forge
Losing touch with the
Poetry of the ancients
 

_______________________
 

NATURE BOY
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole
 

As if painted by Winslow Homer
a boy sits on a large log
in a eucalyptus grove
by the worn path to town.
He doesn't wear a smock
but black t-shirt, blue jeans.

He sits, wistful,
merged into shadows:
maybe works a math problem
or fantasizes about a girl
he met after school.
It's been a half hour.
Hopefully he doesn't dread
going home.

Here from my open balcony
the young man is fresh,
peaceful, surrounding
shadows and trees
electric.

______________________

LANDSCAPES
—Claire J. Baker

Dear friend,
at your memorial service
I think of Emily Dickinson's
haunting passage:
"Life is death we're lengthy at,
death the hinge of life."

I see a room, an easel.
You were like a painter
enriching shadowy landscapes—
purples, greens, blues,
alchemizing from the sun
fresh color and energy,
the sun made rounder.

This poem for you
shall remain half shadow,
half sunlight.
 

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

SERIOUS POETRY

—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Guy from the Iowa
Writers Workshop told
Me, “Kid, poetry is what
You can get away with.”
Then he fell off his bar
Stool.  Stayed down, too.
Serious poetry going on
In those days.

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to all of today's contributors! Dale Jensen and Judy Wells will be reading at Sac. Poetry Center this coming Monday, April 7, 7:30pm, hosted by Wendy Williams. And Arisa White will be reading at Poetry in Davis at the John Natsoulas Gallery tonight, hosted by Andy Jones. Scroll down past the blue board to the green board at the right of this column for details on these and other readings in our area.                                 
                                                  --------------------------------->>>

Patricia Killelea, reading at the MIND Institute Benefit

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

This Butterfly Life

—Poems and Photos by Martie Odell-Ingebretsen, Sacramento

IN SEARCH OF DESTINY

I can see the path turning,
though beyond is hidden
by a cliff of delicate fern,
with plume and grace
they reach in knowing
and peek with curling greenness
around the bend and nod,
ah, so that is the way.
And what does it matter
to this purpose which is now
just this dappling of sun
and the damp delicious earth?

Oh, but this fleeting butterfly life
feels whispers,
begging delicate urgent go,
find the music to the dance
then dance for love dance,
this blossoming has numbers
and idle wings cannot fly.

Take these words and all this paper,
these printed exclamations of feeling,
this intelligent question,
this tale of light and laughter,
all these marvelous and exploding tears
and build a tree you see,
to jump from
and see around and over this tedious trail,
to glaze the surface of this day
with delicious and glorious gleaning.

Return to midnight and stars slow circling
and release your full blooming,
for sure     each small movement
is a changing thing that alters,
if only the leaf you cling to,
and dawn will seep into the dark valley
with the reverent and worthy color of hope.

THIS ONE SMALL BUTTERFLY

This tender land is dry and brittle
with stream moss covered
talking in song giggle here
this warm skin drowns in memories lair
and river stocked with ancient rock
is gold so rare

I dare roll up my pants
and bare my soul
to ooze of slushy sand
then stand like this scrub oak
in tenacious hold on sky and land

Colored like a cloud
a tremble by the breeze
a petal yet not
up here I touch wind and sky
and this one small butterfly

MOON SAIL AWAY

A celestial glow disturbed the room
and in its fade a shadow bloomed
as if this light took up some space
and beguiled the air with an embrace

so I crossed the bedroom’s gloom
into the refracted space of moon
that grazed the sky in watchful glean
and took me to a peaceful dream

leaving behind the wilted pillow
and moving over the silver willow
just a beam of purest pale
leaning into dreams a sail

then serene in the between
to flow with gilded butterfly wing
with dust of wishes made today
across the trail of milky way

Would that I could stay this flight
and be a follower of this light
though robin song would gather dust
against the bushes in cobwebs thrust

and my dear heart who still sleeps on
would reach out and find me gone
so I choose the breaking day
and the moon sailing away away

the moon sailing away

THE SPACE BETWEEN

There’s a chill in the air tonight
and it’s taking me past the moon
in the space between the milky way
and the darkness of my room

It holds me there on darkened plane
against a breath so clear
that I can feel the silken touch
of millions of loving years

The place is pealed by laughter
and glittered by lullaby
and it rocks a memories cradle
and it drinks the hurt from sigh

It is filled with music’s silence
and the peace of holding hands
the calm of ocean floating
and the strength of a golden band

There’s a light in the air tonight
and the path it takes is clear
its way is starlit dreaming
that has turned away dark fear

There’s a chill in the air tonight
and it’s taking me past the moon
in the space between the milky way
and the darkness of my room

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

—Robert Frost 

______________________

—Medusa

Child Knows What Fears Become

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

THE POET MENTIONS HER CHILDREN

She has such children,
such children,
hidden in bibles and prayers,
hidden under blanket-tents
pulled over chairs,
hidden in the world
away from her . . . hidden.
But her strings are silver rain
and her children come home again
to dry her hair,
to kiss her wet weeping.
Her strings are silver rain.
Her children return.
She holds them . . .
she sends them away . . .
it is an old pattern.


(first pub. in Voices International,
© 1989 by Voices International, Inc.)
 
__________________________

A CHILD OF LONG AGO

A child of long ago lay in our arms.
She could not hold us, though, nor love us,
nor abuse the future privilege of our concern.

What was it that we knew about her—
that she was dead?  Not so!  Not so!
That she lived, then?  No!

It’s more than that.  She was our own
who never was her own.
And yet she moved us to such strength—

to name her name  and let her go.
She never saw us, though we stared upon her
sad and long to make an imprint.

She would have loved us later;
nothing of this poor song
would have been necessary;

no curious longing and regret would take
her sweet and bitter place within us.
Child,    Child,    Child,

you were so perfect.
Maybe that’s your secret . . .
all you needed . . . to be verified.

_________________________

CHILDLESS

Outside, the voices of loud children
surrounding the mirage of my house . . .

I live here
in precarious silence
holding the tremulous boundaries together . . .

But they get through . . .
to the bright oranges on my tree
to the curiosity beyond my fence
to the dismissal of my windows . . .

I have become so narrow . . .

Just now a child slips through . . .
then another . . . then another . . .

DEAR UNKNOWN CHILD,

I found her in an old sand-pile,
such a sad little doll, her eyes
clogged shut, one arm
dangling, her hair still long,
but thin and straggly.
You would want to comb it.
She had a pretty dress on
once, with a pink sash.
I couldn’t find her shoes
though I dug for them.
I wish I could find
where you have gone to
in this stressed-out world.
She stays so silently forsaken
in my arms. She won’t respond
to me. I think she still waits for you.

________________________

THE MURDERED CHILD     

On the morning news:
A child has been murdered

a skeleton child
lost for so long

that the world heard about
and prayed for

that the world looked for
and could not find

no one knew
where else to look

the parents, on the television,
cried and begged the world

and now we know:
A child has been murdered

in our own neighborhood
another child.


(first pub. in Acorn, 1999)

______________________

PARADELLE FOR CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

I remember the floating fish on the sunlit water.
I remember the floating fish on the sunlit water.
Death was contained in a warped dimension.   
Death was contained in a warped dimension.
Floating on the death, a warped dimension was
contained in the sunlit fish.  I remember water.  

All such memory fills the window.
All such memory fills the window.
Child never knows what fears become.        
Child never knows what fears become.
Fears become what all such memory knows:
the window Child never fills.

All day it rains, and all night.
All day it rains, and all night.
Time is hungry.  It feeds itself.
Time is hungry.  It feeds itself.
All day, time rains,
and all night it feeds itself.  It is hungry.

I remember the sunlit water.
All day it rains and never fills the window.
Time is itself—hungry.  It feeds.
Child knows what all fears become,
contained in such memory all night: death
was the fish, floating on a warped dimension. 


(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine, 2007)

 VANISHED CHILD

Mother is tending to baby now,
do not disturb her smile.

Don’t climb her rhythmic rocking
nor help to hum her lullaby.

Mother is nursing baby, don’t
nuzzle her with your cold mouth.

Do not stare upon her nipple,
Mother is closing her eyes . . .

to be away . . .
quit finding her.

___________________________

THE UNFINISHED CHILD

(After “Baby in Wicker Basket” by Joseph Whiting Stock.
Cover Illustration for The Unlovely Child,
Poems by Norman Williams)

Oh, babe in blue dress
in straw cradle, serene-faced
against a white pillow,

floated there
like a dated drawing;
the musics that you hear

are shown on your listened face—
the flutes in the air—the trembled
afterspace—the weeping that comes

from another room—
soft tears of mother that drift
and lullaby you;

you turn your face to the reaching
but her grief has forgotten you;
she picks up a thread,

runs it through a needle,
the room slips a shadow,
cuts you free;

you float to her
with your little shining life.
She holds you.

__________________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for her photos and these rather unsettling poems. In almost every Seed of the Week, I suggest thinking out of the box, working with metaphors rather than the obvious. I found it fascinating that Joyce took the theme of nesting and turned it on its head, writing about mothers who found the nest difficult at best. About these poems, Joyce writes: Somehow, the theme this time took me in the opposite direction of "nurture", to "unable to nurture",  mostly. "The Poet Mentions Her Children" was for Mary Rudge, quite a long time ago, from the gist of much of her poetry and commentary thereof. I remember one poem in particular that I loved of hers, entitled: "Children, Your Mother Wanted to be a Poet".
 

April is upon us, and April is National Poetry Month. It will be celebrated on websites far and wide; here are a couple to check out first: "What is National Poetry Month?" at www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41 and Poetry Daily: poems.com/about_newsletter.php/. In light of National Poetry Month, our new Seed of the Week is Sheer Poetry.

And local journals have new spring issues, too. Check out:

•••Convergence: www.convergence-journal.com/spring14 

•••Casey Robb's new website—the science poem page is www.pikapawpress.com/science

•••Ekphrasis, edited by Laverne and Carol Frith: www.ekphrasisjournal.com

•••Canary, the journal of environmental poetry: hippocketpress.org/canary

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

WOMAN HOLDING CHILD      

See how pretty my baby?
Look, Mister Camera,
see my little doll?

Do not look at me,
my tired smile,
my wrinkled face,
my fat body…

look at
my child,
my youngest beauty.

She is not heavy in
my arms, love knows!
She will grow up to be
as pretty as I
used to be.


(first pub. in Imprints Quarterly, 1971)

________________________

—Medusa