Angels in the Windows

Coming Storm

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

STILL THERE

The moon.
The room filled with quiet.

The room with the cat sleeping
On the sofa.  One paw draped
Off the edge of the cushion.

The light through pull-down
Window blinds in the house
Across the street.

Easy wind threading its way
Through the oak trees
At the back of the garden.

The fireplace throwing shadows
Across the living room when the
Lights are out.

War.

___________________________

THE CLIFF CAMPS:
AN ATTEMPT AT A DESCRIPTION
        for Mikey West

At the edge of our cliff camp,
Facing the edge of the world
Was a large gate that Ramon said
Was the "Gate Of Where".

In a semi-circle around the gate
Were twelve wells that went deep
Into the earth.  So deep
One could not hear a stone
Strike the water below.  There
Was water below but it was not
For us to drink.

“One must go to the water or pass
Through the ‘Gate Of Where’
When certain signs are made
Clear,” so Ramon said.

He had been through the "Gate Of Where" a number
Of times and had descended three
Of the twelve wells on previous occasions.

The rain falls constantly into two of the wells.
It can happen much as it does in the place
Where you are now.

“This place has something to do
With the distance that separates us
From everything and everybody. 
One day we will know.”

I stood at the wells as if I could
Invent something about each river,
Each throne, what power might do.

I was there a very long time.
I could feel the kiss.
I knew the words of light.
I could nearly read the ledgers of despair.

The water flowers about me.
I knew then we lived in the same womb.

And what of those who cannot speak?
And what of those taken by one god
Or another?  Sleep, baby, sleep.

Sometimes there are shadows within
The arch of the gate.
Sometimes the place is muddy.
Sometimes it is bright green grass.

“You will know when it is time,” says Ramon.
“You will know for certain."

 Through

DO YOU KNOW THE BREATH?

The ease of a May morning tripping
Across the lawns, full of the mouth
Of Spring, breathing flowers.

Morning dismisses night, realizing
That scene by scene the sky
Has gotten lighter and lighter.

The trees segue to the next frame.

We are gathered 'round the bedside
Listening to the words whispered
To the room.  It is as if we can hear
Eternity on the other side of the breath.

In the arroyo the green owls glide
Through the dusk.  We can hear their
Breathing.  How is this possible?

The Santos are pulled down the streets.
We can hear the labored breath
Of those pulling the carts as the breath
Is sucked from their lungs.  Singing.

We walk across the earth, through
Cemeteries and battlefields, through
Factories and burnt-out villages.
Everywhere, do you know the breath?...

 Through the Center

IDEA

An idea that has run out
And finds itself stranded
Between the fence and the edge
Of a deep ravine, unable to move,
Afraid it might be noticed and pointed
Out as something that wears the sweat
Of failure or contains merely noise
And a sad string of flashing lights,
A couple of photographs of performing
Bears balancing large red balls on
Their noses as they stand on hind legs.

This is not the place to be.  It
Interrupts sleeping, drives one from
The bed to a small room where it
Can be seen as something extraordinary,
Rather than an anxiety of restlessness
Belonging to a night without a
Moon, clouded over so no stars show
As time drives its mad car up
And down the spine, making noises
With its most colorful mouth.

 Again

THE OTHER RELIGION
        for Robert L. Wagner

Forty-four coats of Coronado Red,
Rubbing each coat out in-between.
Smoother than lipstick and butter
To look at, gleam in the night when
The garage door is popped open.

The air is a cloud of lacquer spray.
There must be no wind.  Nothing
But air gonna touch this car.  My,
My, my, how it shines.  Only thing
Better is a Fender guitar lying in
Its case.  Only thing sweeter is
Everyone just standing around
Waiting on Summer midnight,
Smoking cigarettes and looking
Deep into the paint, seeing their
Lives in there, reflecting back.

So many of them could never get
Over how it was being there,
How it felt, how everything looked.
So that stayed.  For more than thirty
Years they continued to talk, to smoke,
To paint the cars, work on them, transform
Them so that they matched a single moment.

 Mystic

IT’S ALWAYS THE WONDER

It’s always the wonder, the mist
Above the morning river, the shimmering
Horses seen through Summer heat on the desert,
The changing of the seasons with their gifts,
The way dreams crowd themselves in our waking.                           
    
Waiting along the sides of the road, we see
Butterflies of a most remarkable color rise
From a single bush full of the jewel's wisdom
It creates when it walks among us with a human
Voice.  And there, such a lovely woman waves
Toward our rag-tag bunch of wanderers and
Calls to us to come for lunch, right about now.

Brooms that stand straight up, almost a forest,
Nod their corn straw heads.  A waterfall
Grows from the heart of the forest, planting
Rainbows on your skin.  We turn colors,
Surprising one another constantly.

I guess I must have looked surprised when
I got here.  I didn’t expect it would be like this.  It’s
Always wonder that carries the meanings in its
Coat pockets, talks across the whole country,
Allows us to return time and time again to continue
Through tears and heartbreak, murder and confusion.
I’m all for it, will get up and walk right up to it.
I’ll take all you’ve got, angels in the windows laughing.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

LIGHTNING

Lightning eats the sweetest things,
The trees, the seas,
Our heart,
Our wings.

And when they’ve touched
And burned the core,
It strikes again
And asks for more.

________________________

—Medusa

 Victory

  

Rags and Bones

Alexa Mergen, reading at Sacramento Poetry Center

Monday, Feb. 2, 2015

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

POET’S EARLY TOOLS
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA

Was so very lucky.
Uncle Vern owned—
He really did—
A rag-and-bone
Shop.  Scrap metal
Yard attached. 
Just across Rose Street
From home.

All the tools and props
I ever needed.  Could
Dress in a 19th century
Brooks Brothers’
Swallowtail and
With a good stave,
Stalk across the yard
Like Byron in Adidas.

Alas, poor Yorick.
Yeah, he had those
Too, but you had
To ask.  Is this a dagger
I see before me?
Oh, come on:
Back of the shop.
Just pick one.

Vern would sit
On the patio with
His bride, the lovely
Kentucky belle
Annalee (Always
Waiting, I’m sure,
For an outbreak
Of a Margaret
Mitchell revival),
Sipping what might have
Been coffee, and watch
And smile: what had
He encouraged here?

Yard help would smile,
Some would brandish back
With re-bar; most just
Shook their heads and
Smiled.  “Vern’s got
Another one.”

But Vern gave me, and
Most of my cousins
Who were interested
In fantasy or poetry
Or derring-do, a chance
To live it all out in
The junk yard
In the back yard.
I won’t even mention
What occurred when
A box of DC Comics
Came in.

Some of us grew
Out of it.  It happens.
But all were changed,
Though perhaps not
Utterly.  I could never
Get past the second
Or third rung of the
Ladders there
In the back of the shop.

 

Kathryn Hohlwein, reading last Monday Night at SPC
—Photo by Michelle Kunert

THE DEAD WOMAN IN THE BACK YARD
—Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch


Hollis and Dovey Pickle. 



No, I ain't making those names up, our landlord and lady who lived next door to us for eight years in Willow Glen. They must have been close to ninety then, the both of them, and their kids probably made an oodles of money when they passed, selling off that prime piece of San Jose real estate. 



Pepper and Daisy their Boston terriers always welcomed us on our visits. Pepper showed his appreciation by backing up to the wall heater and letting rip the rankest, most ill-digested canine fart to be wafted around the room.

 

Spent many a balmy weekend sitting at the picnic table in our backyard with Hollis while he regaled me with tales of his days as a deputized federal marshal and heavy equipment operator ("I grabbed hold of a 440 volt line on a wellhead once. Made my hair stand up!"). While he railed against the evils of marijuana, we got happily stoned on a gallon jug of his son-in-law's home-made sherry.



What? Oh, yeah. The dead woman in the back yard.



Our house was a ramshackle yellow thing where we lived through several jobs, an eye-opening stint in graduate school, and increasingly frustrating attempts at getting pregnant, but we had the most glorious back yard. Out beyond the very happy persimmon tree over the septic tank and our beds of ranunculus was Los Gatos Creek. Summers it was dry. Winters we would sometimes stand out back and wonder if we ought to load stuff in the car. Over it all hung a huge old elm.



Diana was clipping the suckers at its base one summer day and, grabbing an armful of cuttings, threw them over the bank (as Hollis had encouraged us to do) and realized too late that she'd tossed the lopper down twenty steep feet of blackberries and rip rap. I decided that weekend to try and retrieve the tool.



Halfway down a most unwelcoming riverbank I spotted an odd-looking branch wearing panty hose. I came back up and dialed 911. "I think there is a body in my back yard." Within minutes two paramedics arrived. I thanked them for their celerity but told them they were probably too late. They followed me back to the creek and peering down confirmed, "Yep, that's a body." 

A squad car appeared as the EMTs left and the officers said "Yep, that's a body," told me the coroner was on the way. Two fellows in very nice suits with a body bag arrived and were apprised of the situation. Before they scrambled down into the creek bed they advised me, "You might not want to watch this," to which I replied, "From this point on, there is nothing going to happen that will be worse than my own imaginings.

"

I shut down the barbecue that I'd started. I wasn't going to be grilling that afternoon, and sat at the picnic bench. A skull appeared at the edge of the lawn, a ribcage, armbones, legbones, the lopper.



Down the street from us was an assisted care facility. The year before a woman with dementia had wandered off in the night. Days were spent searching with dogs up and down the stream bed. She had found her way to the pile of concrete chunks below our house, curled up in a fetal position and fallen finally asleep.



A day or two later a daughter knocked on our door seeking closure and a finger bone.


And a ring.

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

—Mark Twain

________________________

—Medusa

 Anthony Sumpter, reading last Monday Night at SPC
—Photo by Michelle Kunert

Lemony Sprinkled Moments

Newel Owl, Darling House, Santa Cruz, CA

—Darling House Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

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

 FEBRUARY 5

Watching from a telescope
heights of stars
after my bicycle
rests along the Bay
meeting a sailor
who caught yellow jack
in islands far from home
here at a frozen shore
ice fishing in a few holes
that he plummets
in halting waves on waters
at the home harbor anchors
rescuing my orange kayak
anchored for the spring
as a Canadian robin appears
along the shore.

_______________________

FOURTEEN CANDLES

Riding on my bicycle
with a broken right arm
and break in shoulder
from soccer practice
hurting from a bully's wound
in those days of Mercurochrome
still smarting
on your body of thought
when left with a shadow of memory
as your eyelids smoulder
over a first leather jacket
from your birthday party
after seeing a James Dean movie
here in the sunlit January thaw
you walk with a free ticket
to the Cape Ann museum
a pug on the sidewalk
accompanies you
with a Van Gogh postcard
still intact
in your side pocket
under your broken sunglasses
from yesterday's assaults
of an insensate encounter
you climb up the art house steps
waiting to visit the moderns
taking out your oils,
notebook and poet's pen
unwilling to take any blame
for being an original.

 Gazing Ball

ESCAPE

Remembering days
when this snow blizzard
like today hit us
back in 1978
and taking my bicycle
through deep mounds
and finding the last
date and nut bread
in the food mart
escaping by the river
watching the shipwrecks
in the docks
of the home harbor
going away
with your camera-ready lines
as the sky admits a blue pastel
from the cirrus clouds
in these waterlogged moments
near the Frog Pond
finding a huge turtle
for the aquarium
where sister gives lectures
it starts to rain
by the abandoned shore
feeling like the stone's memory
in my schoolyard years.

_____________________

FEBRUARY BLUES

A Beat poet
cooped up all winter
like a canary
from a runaway cage
tired of TV screens
and faded old films
clouded over
his bloodshot eyes
wanting a red French wine
takes out his sax
to play riffs along the beech
as a former student eyes me
near the rocky shore
mentions his acid weekend trip
terrorized from a water bed
abandoned from home
and his made-up
spiritual exercises of Nietzsche
with a crusade
against his lost girlfriend
shows me his balancing act
in his disturbed universe
by throwing a football
from the Patriots
telling him a Chinese proverb,
"Tension is who you think
you should be, relaxation
is who you are."

 Still Life

THEY SMILE

The enemy soldiers
smile and gaze
as your furniture
and personal pictures
are being removed,
then you are taken away,
there are few
photos of you left
bathing on the sea
or up on skis
or on a white mountain
vacation,
no one to greet you
in the city market
without any fruit
or vegetables
in a time of war
reporters visit
after the horror
who now stare
at your losses.

_______________________

GREETINGS

"Have a nice day"
say the living neighbors
who do not envy the lost
as news reports
on victims' ashes
in Europe and Asia
cannot speak or reply
to the unthinkable
in an absence of gazes
from tiny snapshots
ex camera
in a former life
concealed among caves
and white stones
along the beach
your luminous eyes
cannot hide ourselves
or the unspeakable.

 Corner Detail

VISION OF TINTERN ABBEY
(WORDSWORTH AND TURNER)

How words and paint capture
the haze and atmosphere
reading a sense of light
and surge of water colors
covering chimney and roofs
from our racing pulse
and untamed mouths
eyeing genius in our glances
from a disappeared sunshine
between two misty worlds
of Romantic poet
and landscape artist
motioning seasonal images
in our still lives.

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

PROUST AND VERMEER

In a precious enlightenment
from the sun at Delft
our mind pulls back
from a canal of time
brighter than a memory
with a Dutch master
and French novelist
drinking from a Chinese tea glass
with a fresh madeleine
met with yellow reflections
from the windows
remembered of a still life
in a lemony sprinkled moment.

_______________________

—Medusa

Window Detail

Celestial Influences

—Photo by Loch Henson, Diamond Springs, CA

THE EMPTY ONES
—Loch Henson
 
Some are intentionally encouraging.

Some are classic and simple.
Some sparkle.
Some are leathery, others are glossy.
There are dragonflies, trees, and keys.
Some few have birds.
There are celestial influences.
A couple may be suitable for tattoos.

They offer comfort, or insight.


Humor, or complaint.


Emptiness?
    (Not to be confused with “nothingness”)

Lifetimes on the page, as yet unwritten.

The variety dazzles, even as the


profusion is embarrassing.

What a Waste (Live Oak, CA)

—Photo by Stacie Sherman, Orangevale, CA
 

TOOLS TO WRITE
—Charles Mariano, Sacramento
 
no high-tech gadgets
no sir, not me
grab a pencil, pen, or crayon
before stepping out the door,
and i’m good

smart move
would be a notepad,
but when out in the jungle
i operate on the fly,
travel light

if something moving,
or strangely exciting
bites me in the ass
and needs writin,

i grab a scrap of paper
newspaper, candywrapper
whatever,
and jot a few trigger words
preserve the thought

sometimes,
all that’s needed
is a word, or line
to rattle my brain
take me to the exact moment,
like a snapshot

if no paper available
scribble on my hand or arms
front and back

if i need more room,
take off my shoes and socks

if i run out of skin
then call 911,
because i’m passed out
or dead

 Should've Done More Cardio (Arc de Triomphe)

—Photo by Stacie Sherman

GIVE ME
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA

Give me the implements I need to simply write:
a pen, a hallway card table, enough for Ted Hughes
(when fiery young Plath commandeered his working space).

Dip my pen maleficent: writing signifies fight,
it’s battling down the acrid thousands of rues
and wounds in life for the sake of laying a trace.

Pervert, contort, invert sonnets, monkeywrench form,
since form is a tool too, and I want to control
shape so it obeys me in savager modes than storm,
than painful the lady horse who expels the foal.

I grub or I mope with the pen but the laptop delete,
key of all keys, arouses in me the desperate
urge to be loved by death. When I’m replete,
life long overdrawn, sting me on to insult lean fate.

______________________

DRIVING TO SYMPHONY SEVEN
—Tom Goff

His forms are simple, but his moods complex,
conductor Tod Handley declares of Arnold Bax:
Stark anger yields as elegy impacts
this otherwise blistering scherzo, then, to vex
the symphonic commentators, lilting dance
patterns ignite brief raptures, reveries
befitting an Isadora Duncan frieze,
her Grecian electric slide. What’s languid turns lance,
frenzy again stabs through the music. So.
I listen to Bax’s lovely Symphony Seven
while driving: Slipstream. Sidewind. Cars shave close.
Ecstasy mingles with rage, involving heaven
—unsummoned sharp dreams: your evanescent face.
Strange drive that can so enrage, console, displace.

______________________

FEBRUARY SPRING, MOON FULL
—Tom Goff

Spring, stumbling in early: green, rich, inflorescent,
just as the night-sky rondure widens, ripens.
It’s now I most think of you, plenilune to crescent,
the court before whose light each truth or lie bends.
Your heart-core clings to her orb through tilts of orbit,
swaying the nights and tides, purloining light
from the great daymaster who corrodes the starlit
pulsating darkness with harsh backlit whitewash.
He takes, and you reclaim, the wedding-band
shape, the close-knit charm, a type of light-sash:
dancers, ranged ring-a-rosy, sarabande
their adoring arabesques around your heart.
Grave sweetness attracts then pins them to this chart.

Long-ago Sappho crowns you my sapphire rose,
mystery around whom the universe turns and glows…
Each evening you arrest your axial grace
while balancing, one leg drawn up taut as a lace.
You, in your most languid spearlike yoga pose. 

 No Beef Here (Paris)

 —Photo by Stacie Sherman

QUICK CHANGE ARTIST
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

My bright blue vixen wig
platinum pixie-cut and
pink circus puff-balls
aren’t enough for him.

He says, I imagine you in
a jet black bob with bangs
a long wavy ginger wig
a Marie Antoinette updo

or perhaps
a blond 70s afro to complement
your pink paisley disco dress and
silver platform shoes.

He says he knows I have a secret drawer
in my desk at work
with rainbow eyelashes
and sequined ankle boots.

He knows one day he will catch me
slipping out of the supply cupboard
like a super heroine
slinking off to a post-work photo-shoot.

 Sunset Flight, Lake Natoma

—Photo by Stacie Sherman

ETCHED IN DIAMOND
—Richard Hansen, Sacramento

Distant Lovely One
memories
allow us to meet in Dreams
but
I am not here consulting
about anything
no
problems for unloading
or
because of loneliness
I've been here
since that instant which
inspired our desires for each other
Joy and Love
be in our lives
separate or together
I am here because I never lost you
gratitude
makes my love for you stronger so
I
am
here for
just one simple pleasure
That which we have
and always had together
has always
will always
and right now is doing
stopping it is impossible
I AM ENFOLDED
I am here with Bright Delight
in
my Heart

I am here to enjoy
BEAUTY

_________________________

DINNER WITH MOM
—Richard Hansen

My mom and I had so much fun yesterday
dining during Happy Hour at
O'Conner Woods Senior Living Facility
the offerings were Sparkling Apple cider
Baringer Wine red or roze zay I asked for
"Scotch Straight up"
they coughed
I laughed
had Red
It was delicious

I met a lot of Mom's friends
"Dah suit's Italian don't touch!"
I laughed again
giving a frail woman a warm hug

"I preferz not washin' my hands buh'fore dinner
due to dah delicate nuances they deliver
tu dah olfactory glands
while con suming my meal,
OK?"

Missus Marrico
"Call me 'Yah hee'"
related the story of a child and her family
being assigned to a horse stall with two other families
"We had hay and horse feed to stuff our mattresses"
were given canned heat and bare essentials to cook rice
and things in cans "we were unfamiliar with"
there were no plates
"We shared spoons."
Kids couldn't get over
Grandpa farting, unaware of any silly taboos

I hope to have dinner again

with Mom soon.

 Who, What, Where, When (Paris)

—Photo by Stacie Sherman

MISGIVINGS
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Gusty outside
Too harsh
Took the wind chime in
It remains in the
Hallway on a nail
Silent

Decades ago
I believed a promise
Voted for it
Got screwed
Older and ….
Well, just older

Was invited to come
Stay at IA, American Heartland
Came to mind, but they meant
Insane asylum
Which backwards is
Artificial intelligence

I made a New Year’s
Resolution to get
Organized
On the very first
32nd of the month
Yes, I’ll do it!

Ever wonder
If your ground round
And your boots
Came from
The same
Cow?

Musicians
Play
Organs
Doctors
Play
Golf

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

—Jean Cocteau

_______________________

—Medusa

Guarded Wisdom (Chartres, France)

In the Red Horse Dream...

 Praying Mantis

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

THE RENTED BICYCLE

It is another childhood year; my mother has fallen off
the rented bicycle—the others have kept on going.

                                *

She came back angry—skinned and crying—making
her curses. My mother knew great swearwords, some
in a made-up language.

                                *

Emphasis was her way—she ruled by emphasis. I am
her best study. I never learned to ride a bicycle. I
swear like a lady.
                                                                   

(first pub. in Parting Gifts)

_____________________

TRUTH  POEM
                              
There’s a monster in the
bedroom!

No, David. There are no
monsters.

David all golden
and beautiful and three
stands and looks at me
with patience and truth
after pulling his wagon of toys
from the feared room
and as sure as a man
and as if I did not understand
explains :

There’s a
Monster in the bedroom.

 Landscape with Truck

ESSENCE

Here in the dusk, by a slow bright stream,
the unmindful child—
ever at the brink of curiosity
with childlike faith and followings—
comes to sit on the bank
and listen to the moving water
shimmer past.

And the bushes sigh with disturbance
and the dark trees whisper.

And the musing child—in the dusk—
in the rippling moonlight—
sits stroking
the make-believe rabbit
she would love to keep and love,
And high in the trees now, in the dark,
a Cheshire cat sits purring.

_______________________

DAVID IN THE SUNBEAM

In the sunlight on the floor
the cat sleeps.
It is almost a stillness.

The child on the tricycle
pedals into the sunlight
and is broken into
endless golden motes
settling and
turning him again
into a child.

In the sunlight on the floor,
where the cat and child
were a moment before,
all that is alive in it
is lifting and falling.

                 
(first pub. in South Florida Review, 1970)

Spirit in Chair

THE ALBINO NIGHTINGALE
        (after "No Swan so Fine" by Marianne Moore)

Made of pure light—sent from imagination’s land,
straight out of childhood’s fairy tales. A nightin-
gale, of course, in a silver cage, with an open door
to test its loyalty—
                my mind’s albino nightingale
that preens and sings and struts its delicate self to
please the Emperor whose love for it proved vulner-
able. With mind-sweet trill— I hear it still—all the
way from then to here.

______________________

EARLY DARK                       

walking downtown
dark at six o’clock
a mild winter evening
just early enough yet
for hotel boys to be out
on roller blades and bikes
and lone men ambling by
with hands in their pockets
and you and I looking for
a restaurant we heard about
the car six blocks away
too late now I think of
the money in my purse…
stories of murders…
a dangerous world…


(first pub. in Parting Gifts, 1998-99)

 Yard Rocks

AWAY FROM CHILDHOOD

In the red horse dream, there is no fear;
they fly—over the small village
that holds them away from the sky.

In the dream, the red horse
is afire with muscled energy and light,
with the love of flying,

and the man looks backward—
backward—to where
the night is too slow to stop them.

In the dream, the boy is the man,
gripping his knees to the horse
and locking one hand into its mane;

the horse has no wings, but they fly
into another waking and whatever
follows is too slow. They escape.

_____________________

CROSS STITCH

My grandmother sings the blues to my mother in
heaven. Lullabies. Hymns. Toneless and beautiful.
How did they find each other?

This is how long it is between stories never told.
Who makes the rules for memory?  Soft, folding
things that make up patterns.

Once there was a riddle. Its name was love. It
carried a long distance, like faith and loneliness.
A riddle solved is a disappointment.

Sometimes I carry a tune for years, remember it
differently—think I composed it. My grandmother
holds my infant mother and asks about me.

She is almost complete now and I feel a ravel begin,
a slow sensation. I tie another knot and move more
carefully.

My mother used to teach me embroidery: “This is a
French Knot,” she would tell me, “for the centers of
flowers, and this is a Satin Stitch for their leaves.”

And we would sit in my childhood for hours,
making arm rests, and head-rests, pillow cases
and pretty dresser scarves.

THE DAY WE DRANK 
SWEET-CINNAMON-SPICE TEA
            (for David)

The day we drank sweet Cinnamon-Spice-Tea,
that winter day,
with death to mourn and celebrate—
those little rituals one makes to manage grief.

Oh, we were gathered with our news.
We wept and spoke;
we offered words of disbelief—
all this for you, our floundered one
who broke the slender hold of life—
your foolish choice—your last escape
from all that chase.

No demons now.
No rule.
No law.
The rest is yours.

We will not make you guilty of our worried love.
You were a lost child, after all.
For you we held this ritual.

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

DREAM SPIRAL
—Joyce Odam

She
enters the
spiral, is pulled
under; it is the dream,
the one from childhood.
what does it mean?—This
time she does not fear
it—does not resist—
simply goes
where it
goes.
 
________________________

—Medusa, noting that our new Seed of the Week is A Poet's Tools. What do you need to have in order to write? What material objects, what preparations, what frames of mind? Send your poems/artwork/photos on this or any other subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com/. No deadline on SOWs, though.
 

 Sidewalk Length

Lambing Season and Spring Flowers!

—Photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento

MAY FLY
—Jane Blue

1.

A May Fly has no mouth, no
digestive parts. It is born to mate, one
day of dancing in the sun, rising
on iridescent wings, and then falling,
exhausted into the water; dying
it releases eggs that wait, unconscious
until a year passes, and another party begins.

2.

They go by in the muggy, soon-to-be
summer evening, still May,
on their bicycles, in their helmets,
the father out in front, large as fatherhood’s
authority, the mother following
with the baby in the Burley trailer,
the little girl on her little bike,
and on the sidewalk under the magnolia,
the small boy scraping his training wheels
like mad, catching up to the dad,
and I suddenly see them––my life––
the cycle of it. They are a phase, and
I am another phase. I was there once,
and now I think I was happy, and
everything in between is just a moment.

______________________

SOMETIMES AN ANGEL
—Jane Blue

Rain pounds through the downspouts; we are all looking for an ark.
Lilies shine in the gloom and drink the rain.

Sometimes a person will return to your life
and remind you of a great hurt to your heart. An angel
inviting you to forgive.

And the rain sheds loud, heaving tears.

***

There was a time we didn't have a child and then we did.
It was summer; I remember driving up into the brown hills
toward Napa, a passenger, as the child was a passenger
in my womb; and I see that narrow road, scrub oak
on either side, as a border dividing my life into two parts:
a time of freedom and a time of never-ending responsibility.

***

A blurry figure on a bicycle speeds by; flooded earthworms
lie drowned on the walk.


(First pub. in Pirene's Fountain)

 

—Photo by Jane Blue

PETTY THEFT
—Nancy Haskett, Modesto

Usually,
the two bicycles
stood next to each other
just inside the garage,
a heavy chain threaded
over, through, around,
the ends padlocked together—

secure
until that one day
of careless nonchalance
when the door was up,
the chain was off,
an open invitation
too hard to resist.

I’d like to think the thief
didn’t rush off to sell
the bike at a flea market,
wanted instead to sit
atop the cushioned seat,
shift the gears on small inclines,
feel the wind on his face
as he rides along the canal
as we used to do.

________________________

AND AROUND THE ROOM WE RODE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

In the one picture I have left of you
you turn a didactic back…More evident,
the fiesta mood—you’re traffic-copping tricycles.
Your bangled wrists, as if to the skipping theme
of “Ding Dong School” or “Romper Room,” send palms
aslap in a Kodak blur. Hips schoolmarm-calm,
hair lightly permed, your bent, your whole intent
is for letting us three boys train-track down the pine-
board floors upon wheels that clunk. We whee and whoo
through homespun cyclones, lusting for Popsicles.
Progressive Education proudly thrives:
No silly songs while this kid-carousel may scurry on.
Our Long Plays centrifuge hot Khachaturian.
The Saber Dance in xylophones unhives!
Your blouse, photo-gray now, whispers Mommy’s nice,
in blue and orange notes, with birds-of-paradise.

(First pub. in truenature (2006)

Peace (Jan. 30 Newborn)

—Photo by Taylor Graham, Placerville
 

LAMB FABLE          
—Taylor Graham

In this commune of sheep, who would nurse
the newborn speckled lamb whose natural
mother bleats ignorance, gazes at the horizon,
then moves off to graze sparse January
grass? Who’s responsible for an unasked-for
child? Her lamblet rocks to his feet, finds
her flank, searches for the teat. She flicks him
away, a pesky winter fly. There’s grass,
but barely, for the sheep. At dusk, a man
shakes his grain-bucket, calls them
to the barnyard; shuts the gate against
coyotes. What does he know of shepherding
splendor through a freezing night? Who
attends the fragile newborn, the stranger,
the unasked-for poet? What midnight sun
might hold this lamb from dark to daylight?

______________________

GUARDIANS
—Taylor Graham
 
My shepherd-dog knows nothing
of herding or caring for a flock.
But when the mother-ewe wanders
away toward whatever lights
a sheep’s eye, leaving her child

        behind—

               between field and forest

the ghosts of lambs—
my dog seeks the baby out.
Is he drawn by scent curiosity
or sweetness, or a dog’s higher truth?
            And see how, abruptly, now
the lamb’s a candle to his mother’s eye.

 Peace and Wednesday

—Photo by Taylor Graham 
 

SPINNING ADVENTURE
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Only a few of us are born with wheels.
Until that spitfire-red bike, she needed fancy
to buy such freedom. But now her father
finds the Hornet leaning against a fencepost
where field shades into forest. Blame
two wheels to convey a child so far from home.
What was she thinking, to leave her bike
at woods’ edge like a portal to another world?
Does she think elves live here, and might
be frightened by the singing spinning silver?
Is she sure that elves are friendly?

_____________________

FEBRUARY COURTYARD
—Taylor Graham

From a leafless branch, a robin utters the first
letter of not-quite-spring—flimsy line of day-
light above the rooftops. Token of possibility,
two bicycles rest against a bench as centerpiece
of the courtyard. How little profit to that old
man living like an idle king at the top of a flight
of stairs. Some would call him crazy. But he
flings open his window, and in shines morning.
On courtyard cobble, a student straps his books
to his bike and pedals off to find his fortune.  

_____________________

ISLANDER
—Taylor Graham

The neon I is burned out
at the SLANDER MOTEL—one-night
island in the middle of desert
dark lit by tracers of headlights,
brakelights, necklace interchanges,
quick-stops, billboards for
shoes, roses, sparkle.
But the seeing I is burned out,
and in a room on the
ground floor, someone is
trying to trim his soul
for a candle-wick
as we whiz by in the north-
bound dark. Next stop: Cordelia
Junction.

 —Photo by Taylor Graham
 

Today's LittleNip:

WHEELING
—JoAnn Anglin, Sacramento

The bicyclist races with herself
Angles around corners, loves
How going downhill pulls back
The sides of her face, is drawn
through a dance where the rhythm
keeps changing   But she is keeping up   
keeping up       dares trains and trucks
Everything she passes recedes
Dissolving begins    + she eats time
and wind, peripheral visions stream
goals flash past like sharks, sparing her,
eating the liquid markers of her day
 

______________________

Our thanks to today's contributors, some of whom will be having work included in the upcoming issue of Rattlesnake Press's WTF, due to be released at Luna's Cafe on Feb. 19. JoAnn Anglin's "Wheeling" was so appropriate to our current Seed of the Week (Trikes and Bikes) that I couldn't resist a sneak preview. Thanks, JoAnn!

And Pijush Kanti Deb, who we've featured in the Kitchen recently, writes: By God's grace, my first poetry collection, Beneath The Shadow Of A White Pigeon, has been released (as of Feb. 1). The book is available on Amazon at
www.amazon.com/Beneath-Shadow-White-Pigeon-Pijush/dp/1505854113/ref=sr_1_1_twi_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422829526&sr=8-1&keywords=beneath+the+shadow+of+a+white+pigeon

______________________

—Medusa
 

Paperwhites

—Photo by Jane Blue

Mumbai Monsoon

DARK RAIN
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

Torrents of our monsoon strike,
saturating the mud holes. 
Plooooffff
fall the mud clots.  Fathers stand,
headscratch,
women know to stick twigs
into the open holes.
Push, push, push, there is no hole again.
Children look up to them, and smile
because they keep the Mumbai monsoon
out of their shared dinner bowl.

Plooooffff
like the splashing feet of uniformed children
walking home with bushels of
dhania, wet.
This herb does not stay moist, it dries
like ink on a saree’s pallu.
Nobody likes that color, so
the pallu cracks.
Their screams carry the smell home, rushing through
diagonal spears of water streams.

Plooooffff, my eyelashes fall off
behind me as I walk through the city.
My dark DNA lines follow me,
a circumference of the torrent.

The wedding bells
have been taken down.
The miniature silver temple
against the wall
is filled with smoking incense, coloring
the eyecatching dieties with grey,
enveloping their open palms,
wide eyes, and the austere message
carried from ancestors.
The temple is a rhyme, the temple is a story,
its blackness brushes against my frock, still laden
with sequins.
There is no shine, just water, water, water.
Mumbai monsoon, take away this heaviness.
You have driven the coconut man away,
his blade sits idle.
You have stirred the yogis from their path.
You have brought down the torrent of finality.
I stand by the window listening to the ailing cries
of the bride’s mother.
Mumbai monsoon—the smoky bhartha
aromatic burning by lava,
masala and the wandering girth and hue
of chai, just now heating up
to pry us away from
the glitter of stones.



Word Key: 

dhania = coriander leaf
saree = 6 yard fabric wrapped and worn by women
pallu = the most adorned portion of the saree, the end of the fabric
bhartha = flesh of egg plant, extracted after the vegetable is cooked to a burn
masala = mixture of spices ground for cooking or tea
chai = hot drink made with loose black tea leaves, along with spices and roots

_______________________

—Medusa