Good Ol' Blaze

—Anonymous Photo

BLAZE WINS THE RACE
—Hatch Graham, Placerville

You speak of horses great and fast
while reading of the derby last
and tell of Man-O-War and Seattle Slew,
But when it comes to packing
you'll soon find they are lacking
and you'll bet your paycheck on only very few.
It started in the summer,
and I thought the horse a bummer,
bought by our local trail crew foreman.
He was flighty and a craze
and we had to call him Blaze,
He was tall and lanky and his nose was roman.

             It was Blaze! Blaze! Blaze!
You lanky bag of mule-bones, skinny Blaze!
Here's oats, you simple dummy!
Come fill your goldarn tummy,
you cross-bred sway-back sorrel, bony Blaze.

The season did progress
and he weighed less and less
the vet came up at last and wormed him:
the hose went down his throat,
the juice would fill a boat,
but by the fall Ol' Blaze was fit and trim.
We were riding hours on the range,
and it didn't seem too strange
to see that he could really cover ground
He'd come now to my shout
from where'er he was about
and you could depend for sure that you'd be found.

               It was Blaze! Blaze! Blaze!
You ugly maverick, you only want to graze.
It's time to saddle up.
C'mon now, hup-hup-hup!
        We've got miles to make it to the river, Blaze!

His long legs would really cover ground—
often after dark before a camp was found,
an' he'd stand by as I unsaddled him.
As I unpacked our mule and fed them oats,
cooked dinner, finished off my notes,
he'd graze unhobbled 'cause I trusted him.
Morning when I shook the sack
and whistled, he was back,
an' he'd puff up when we cinched the girth.
Though he'd often try to squash my boot,
he was a gentle old recruit,
though many years well past his birth.

               It was Blaze, Blaze, Blaze!
When I couldn't see just where he'd gone to graze
and thought our hobbled mule
had played us for the fool.
Here coming from the willows is faithful Blaze.

I'll not forget the night
when I'd ridden from first light
with seven rented horses to haul the fence crew in.
The snow had started falling,
the weather was appalling,
and we had strange horses where they'd never been.
I hobbled them and grained them late,
huddled in the tent, we could only wait;
as morning dawned, no horses could be seen.
With the trail covered by a foot of snow
And a fourteen-mile way to go,
I set out with tie ropes and thoughts obscene.

           It was Blaze! Blaze! Blaze!
You traitor, where are you in this maze?
With no tracks upon the ground
How can you e'er be found?
I thought that I could trust you. Damn you, Blaze!

The day and I were cold and gray,
when from a thicket came a neigh
and my white-faced sorrel trotted into sight.
He snuffled up his grain,
I mounted bareback, with a strain,
an' headed down the trail to catch the ones in flight.
Soon rounded up and fed,
back to the camp we led,
greeted by the crew with heartfelt praise.
They'd had a serious fright
of another freezing night,
and were glad I'd put my trust in Good Ol' Blaze.

               Yes, Blaze! Blaze! Blaze!
You roman-nosed old lanky sorrel, Blaze!
Gone now, but we all know the answer:
you weren't no Native Dancer,
but in my book, you won the race, my Good Ol' Blaze.

_______________________

—Medusa, thanking Hatch Graham for his cowboy poem as the Hwy. 50 Association Wagon Train completes yet another re-enactment of the journey from Lake Tahoe to Placerville. Some horses, like American Pharoah, are meant to win the Triple Crown, but others, like Blaze, have their own races to win...

In the Realm of Angels

 Artichoke Bloom

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

 

THE COSMIC ASYLUM
          for Skar Plow

Something broke behind my eyes.
I was able to see great fights of birds
In a fictive space within my skull.

The day threatened rain but never
Pulled the trigger.  I could taste the water
On my lips, almost swim in it, but I knew
It did not remember me at all.

When I looked down I could see
A river, with a mouth like Neruda making love.
And the sun was an evening mist that made
Color dance.  I wanted my skin to be like that.

Darkness promises me particular things
But I refuse them.  It begins to pursue me
With blood stains and rivers of which
I cannot see the banks.  I can feel my destiny
Touch me in my most intimate places, laughing
As if it has discovered something about me
Which I cannot know without living thousands
Of days more, listening for the horsemen,
Rushing to the shadows when I hear the hooves
Thunder closer and closer.  From here I can see
The circle about to close.  I write furiously, attending
To the preciousness of words as if they were my children.
 

 Amulets and Offerings

A WALL COVERED WITH LIT CANDLES

Lights begin to go off and on
Farther down the road.
We thought it best to don our cloaks.
“What are we waiting for?” asked Gabe.

“I have my horn,” she added.
“I thought I recognized someone
You knew that you had forgotten,” I added.

“Well, invite him up.  It’s been a long
Time since anyone who didn’t
Know him recognized him.”

“He had a long knife,” I said.

“Oh, him,” Gabe answered.

 Pomegranate

GIOTTO’S ANGELS

Their lamentations are endless.
Their garments laced with painful
Lines as they tear their clothing,
Pull their hair from their heads.
Today one can stand among them,
Draped with gold leaf and transformed.
We can be these angels.  They infect
Our eyes with their twisted splendor.
We know exactly what they have seen.

Where I am today, they hover over the river.
They have become herons and egrets.
No less angels, they remain the passion
Beneath the beauty of every moment.
The gardens have sprung from the sloughs,
Sprung from the body of a dead Christ.
This can speak even here, centuries later.
We remain in the realm of angels.
We live in the next world.  We lick Giotto’s
History with our tongues.  The dead Christ,
Now a landscape, envelopes us completely.

We are able still to lean over the body
Of the delta and see those angels
Above us, every movement grief and anguish
Exploding in the dark sky.  Each part touched
By a perfection of gold leaf and unfailing belief
In angels, always angels, always their lamentations.

 Artichoke

I DRESS MYSELF IN CLOUDS

Between this world and the next one
I ask you to accept these words.

Blood runs from my mouth and I hold
An apple in my hand as an offering.
It too is red and sweeter than my mouth.

I too am a figment.  I dress myself in clouds.
I have no voice but the earth herself.
She teaches me to speak in this manner.

_____________________

SKIPPING

What does one mix with tears
If not a curtain made of yesterdays.
Smiles in a closed box
No one is able to open again.
Piles of twigs heaped together,
Each pile with a dream
At its center.

One of birds.
One of the voice of fire.
One of the names of the stars.
One of broken promises.
One of decks of playing cards,
Each one lacking all aces.

I will take them all.
I will put them with my tears.
Later we will weave blankets of them.

They will keep us warm.
They will help us recall
The lovely horses,
The miles that we rode
Just to be here and see these things.

I’m skipping to the ending.
We wash our bodies,
Close our eyes
Sleep in each other's arms.

Carry me with you as you would your shadow.
I will come and go with the changing of the light.

I have come to understand fire and desire.
People on this earth tell me many things.
What should I believe about you then?

Often I am a fog or a frost upon leaves.
I will drift into your thoughts on occasion.
You may think you have heard my voice.

I will implore you to dress yourself in love
That I may know you and intuit your footsteps
In all the centuries.  I will never pretend to you.

 Behind Martin's Home

HORSES

There is never evidence of when
I have made love to you.
The wind addresses the sails
But the tales could be of anyone.

I am just beyond this room
Where the tops of trees
Can show me only the flights of birds.
Then the music fades as if it
Hadn’t expected anyone to be
Listening to it carefully.

So I’ll tell you once again.
This is my heart.  I love you.
It washes away in the wind.
I am confused by the way words
Want to push me away here
And allow a blank white
Chariot to stand ready but unwilling
To make any move.

I grab the reins, totally uninformed.
I see you there before me.
I can learn.  I will know your song.
Sing it to me.

______________________

Our thanks to D.R. Wagner for this fine way to begin a weekend! And a note that the last issue of Len Fulton's Small Press Review, which has been a mainstay in the small press since 1964, is now available. Len himself passed in 2011, but Dustbooks has soldiered on, and it will be sorely missed. For more info, see www.dustbooks.com/spr.htm.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

MOONLIGHT

The moon has come tonight,
Raiding my bedroom.
It takes possession of the walls,
Fading the pictures hanging on them.
It changes the color of my sheets
And leaves me pale in the cool light.

“I won’t be here long,” says the moon.

“Watch me.”

_____________________

—Medusa

 Full Moon Through Window

 

Becoming the Lyric

—Poems by Scott Thomas Outlar, Atlanta, GA

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

 

LEARNING TO SING THE WORD
 
In the beginning
was the Word
and the Word
was a vibration
and the vibration
was a sound
and the sound
was a song
and the song
was a manifestation
and the manifestation
was an image of Creation
and the Creation
took on form
and the form
was chaos
and the chaos
brought about order
and the order
led to evolution
and the evolution
learned to adapt
and the adaptation
led to humanity
and humanity
became conscious
and consciousness
became the lyric

 Bee Rolls in Pollen

HEART OF HEARTS
 
Up the hill, out of breath
toward the sky, beyond the pale

White horses, opal eyes, diamond fangs
enter the Apocalypse

I dream of snakes in the garden
I wake to poison in my veins

Through the woods, toward the light
see the shine and follow forever

Black devil, silent faith, twisted lies
herald the Revelation

I found God in my heart of hearts
I lost the desire to sink

 On to the Next

KIND OF

It's kind of rare


It's kind of raw


It's kind of structured

It's kind of Fall


to the abyss


and find the answers


It's kind of stall


for awhile


then hit the gas

It's kind of a broken promise when the future comes


It's kind of a balanced loss when the account is drawn
It's kind of stupid when you think about it


It's kind of lovely

It's kind of a bail-out


It's kind of a buy-in

It's kind of this


It's kind of that


It's kind of the other


It's kind of a cliché

It's kind of a hardened liver 


It's kind of a big joke

It's kind of a trust fund


It's kind of a homeless scenario

It's kind of like that time you almost did, but didn't quite, but wish you had

It's kind of a new wave


It's kind of an old hat

It's kind of black


It's kind of white


It's kind of silver


It's kind of gold electric humming vibration across ten dimensions

It's kind of a power surge


It's kind of a fade-away

It's kind of lost


It's kind of found


It's kind of right where it's always been

It's kind when you're cruel


It's kind of a buffer

It's kind of like butter melting in the sun


It's kind of like the last moon that ever cycled

It's kind of here


It's kind of now


It's kind of passing

 Bee Hive Cartoon

FACING THE CYCLE
 
Life has a way of dredging up past mistakes
and cycling circumstances back into your experience
until the point in time when you actually decide to deal with them.

The mirror will always stare back
with eyes of disappointment and anger
until you learn how to love the reflection.

I have had a tendency to quit too easily
when the going gets tough
by cutting and running instead of digging in.

But I can’t run forever
because my legs grow weary
and I lose the sense of what direction I’m heading in.

God doesn’t deal in lies, but cold hard truths,
and so if you want to know real peace
you’d better learn how to play with a straight hand.

I’ve only ever been given exactly what I need
no matter how difficult it is to recognize
that even the suffering can bring about a higher state of joy.

Sometimes it feels like the only option
is to shed the past and go the path alone,
but I’m beginning to recognize just how much I need good company.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

—Medusa, thanking today's fine contributors! Scott Outlar was featured in the Kitchen on Jan. 14, 2015, if you want to look that up. And don't forget to check out Medusa's new photo album on Facebook, featuring photos by Katy Brown and Michelle Kunert from some recent Sacramento poetry readings, including last Monday night when Keith Carey accompanied Allegra Silberstein at Sac. Poetry Center. Keith used to be with Robert Crumb's band, Cheap Suit Serenaders.

Rainbows in the Waters

 Sebastopol Memorial Lawn, Sebastopol, CA

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

ON MEMORIAL DAY

After every war
we invent silence
even memory,
inside the quiet rooms
of our nerves
the recall of him or her
will find us offering a prayer
when the sunlight appears
on Memorial Day
through windows of birds
who flutter up over our windows
covering May's cool heavenly air
hands' outstretch to poppies
is reflected in our mirrors
along the surf's breeze
knowing we exist as words
become our lives
in every whisper
and tiny gesture
we choose to pick flowers
as a poet's shadow
turns in the high tide
drowning a remembrance
as rainbows in the waters
rise by the sea's headstones
choosing to revere
the silver thoughts
from our angel's occupation. 

____________________

AFTER WAR

After every war
or family conflict
we invent a cluster
of silence to pardon
even memory,
inside our quiet room
we will find peace
even in a gray empty sky
the sanctuary sunlight appears
through the scaffold windows,
we decide to walk
along the beach
shaping sails, shells, stones
warm as the dunes sing
out to us
as a memorial to pardon
the past and to reconcile
for our future,
we softly take our eyes
off portholes by the sea
as a poet's body of words
we fish for emerges
and a poem suddenly surfaces
knowing we exist
on every whisper's breeze
by a resinous redwood,
and tiny gestures of our face
at every dream of travel
we choose a voluntary life
following our verse's shadow
turning to swim by the dock
over the high tide
drowning our wishbones
as rainbows in the waters
by the sea's first sighs
and we wave into language
in our proofs to love.

 Noah Purifoy, Joshua Tree, CA

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

A POET'S REMEDY

When we are down
and cannot think
and everything seems
to be wrong
drowning in words of ink
by broken mirrors of love
suffocating from the heat
we take a kayak
like Charon's oars
over the high sea
to enlighten us
in the cool sunlight
and breathe in ocean air
as once in the Adriatic
away from fields of wheat,
when a friend is in grief
open the doors to her
and offer Natalia a greeting
of daytime flowers,
give her no obstacles
in any dance of hours
for all miracles are welcome
in a luminous belief,
try to draw or paint
a number of pictures
as a bas relief,
when you were far
from home
and needing a plumber
in Rome

the carrara marble sink
was dripping
by your Trevi fountains art,
we choose transparency
to do my visible part
and drew Natalia in a flight
of angel bird-song above
the shimmering mountains,
when you need any remedy
drink from a parlance
to command your vocabulary
at a sunlight's window
outside the cape,
or call on the Parisian poets,
Baudelaire or Pierre Reverdy,
or give ear to Saint Malachi;
when I try to exercise
or play sax in the attic
to maintain my wise balance
by the music stand's weight
and not be sycophantic.

______________________

GLINKA'S DAY
June 1, 1804

We walked into
my neighbor's house,
that is Igor and Galina's
as her son is wildly
running down the banister
with his new schoolbag
the couple dressed up
for me
offering us tea in a glass
along with kvass
and hearing Glinka
from an orchestra
playing on their C.D.
reminding me of Russia
in my old boots
and muted fur hat and coat
when giving readings
to those who love
Akhmatova
and signed my autographs
between our tears and laughs.

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

THOMAS HARDY'S DAY
June 2 (1840-1928)

Your novels and poems
leave us melancholy
to the accidents of fate
before we make decisions
we make alterations
from any rhyme of folly
and reach any probabilities
wrestling on words to wait.

_____________________

GINSBERG'S BIRTHDAY
June 3, 1926

Beat all the way
on the breezy June third
how wild bewildering hours
pass by in Manhattan
since we celebrated
in New York City
on your birthday
that make you over-sized
we are captured again
by your sitar
and a memory of your word
how the Sixties pass
and we are breathlessly amazed
with man we wonder
alone in our walled sanctuary
at your body of language
from so many earthy pages
that we still are missed
when your earthy lips
came on us with passages
in our own birth and death
as you sang and kissed
spilling out words
we have not missed.

 Urban Ore, Berkeley, CA

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

LORCA'S BIRTHDAY
June 5 (1898-1936)

Let every chorus ring
with lyrical flights of wings
and musical songbirds go higher
on a lonely rapturous branch
even during this rainy season
Garcia Lorca,
under the clouds' expanse
you gave us a chance
under the pampas
and on every campus
to lift our spirits visually
by buried injustice
from every hostile
civil war zone
by your own exile
you want us to forget
our mourning every June 5th
and to play a jazz riff
from a smiling alto saxophone
and rejoice on earth
in your inspired firmament
and poem's arrangements
of notes and words
on your day of birth.

____________________

A YEAR AGO
(for Maxine Kumin)
June 6 (1925-2014)

We're on your heart
after a short year
those whose tranquil words
filled our lightness
of language
for so many seasons
in laughter,
enchantment and loss
we still sport a tear,
is it really one year
you are gone
by a sunshine's brightness,
this morning we spied
a swan dancing in the lake
not fearing the water
rising near my kayak
trying not to forget
the moment
yet felt an ache and cried
sliding by the breakers,
after a winter of snowing here
by Vermont's woods
in the hinter's distance
spotting many fawns and deer,
gone from our sight on fields
is a woman of gentle verse
easy going in our neighborhood
as this daring life often gives us
a second chance
even though you fell off
a horse you recovered well
keeping in a nurse of care,
now in a changing season
of warmth on June sixth
with the springs at our back
we saw only music in you
where only poets dwell
it's only sleep we lack.

 —Photo by Cynthia Linville

DIEGO VELAZQUEZ
June 6, 1599

As a painter of the brothers
who brought to their father
the fiery bloody coat of colors
of a disfigured Joseph
dropped once in a well
like those who once desired
to hide from their guilty crime
yet we watch Joseph raised up
in Egypt to interpret dreams
became a Jewish dreamer
and beloved prime minister
to be honored for all time
for sin is shamed in history,
yet justice reigns, it seems.

___________________

PAUL GAUGUIN
June 7, 1848 
 
Watching your Tahitian
scenes in all shades
we stand motionless
with joy
at the museum
as sons and daughters
watch the mounting waves
in the motioning waters,
wanting to wade in.

Today's LittleNip:

Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter.

—Satchel Paige

________________________

Our thanks today's skilled contributors! Note that B.Z.'s second poem is a reworking of the first, like we talked about with two of Joyce Odam's poems last Tuesday. 

Note also that there is a new photo album, Recent Sacramento Poetry Readings (from Katy Brown and Michelle Kunert), on Medusa's Facebook page today. I posted the photos in two groups, one yesterday afternoon, and one last night, so you might want to check again if you looked at the album earlier yesterday. (Like Urban Ore in Berkeley, poets are industrial-strength recyclers, turning one pretty thing into another pretty thing, yes?)

Free! Free!—we're celebrating Medusa's Kitchen's tenth birthday this week with our Seed of the Week: Birthdays. Send poems and pix about birthdays to kathykieth@hotmail.com and I'll send you a copy of the new issue of WTF! Free!

By the way—if you haven't gotten a copy of this WTF and you're a contributor (or aren't sure), let me know and I'll mail you one if you are. Copies may also be ordered for $2 by clicking on WTF??? in the links at the top of this post, or there still might be a few free ones at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac.

—Medusa

 

The Wild Unknown

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville

SUNRISE YOGA

Tree-pose, right leg rooted, left bow-cocked.
Balance. Hands arrow-prayered
pointing up. Focus on a point of light slipped
through the blinds. Breathe. Release.

Sunflower. Arms raised, seeds of praise,
of wonder. Focus on a spider walking inverted
across the ceiling. Bend. Breathe.

At last, corpse-pose. Deep breath, lights out.
Focus on that one invisible point of bright.

_____________________

FOR HIS BIRTHDAY

he wants a drum. Not one wrapped in silver
paper, ribbons tied so tight he’ll never
make them smooth again. Can’t make the Happy
Birthday paper new again either, any more
than he could unwrinkle past time. If he wants
a drum he’ll have to make it himself
from an old tin can rusting among rocks
on the wild side of the hill, left by whoever
lived here before he was born. A can too rusty
to tell what it held. He wants to make music,
even if no one wishes to hear him learning
to play the wild percussion of life. They just
want him to blow out candles and pass the cake.

_____________________

GOLD BUG PARK

Along the creek, monkey flower and blackberry
in bloom. Green flecked with white, yellow,
every shade of violet, a rusted wagon wheel.
Glimpsed through leaves, even sky blossoms
blue. Slopes cling to periwinkle, poison oak
rooted in soil rooted in bedrock. A tell
of Nature’s history. Old dog leads a journey-
way searching for the bridge, a crossing. Breeze
sweeps our footprints, weaves in our prayers.  

ALIVE

The meadow’s a riot of puppy dashing after
butterflies; she and her sister, tongues lolling in
the shade of oaks. Sparse grass at the edges,
dry soil. Headache for a rancher under a full
Arid Moon. Gusts of parched air. But
these pups have their second wind, they’ll
play beyond human patience. Find my keys,
drive back home, where my old dog charts
the scent of puppies alive clinging to my arms
and ankles, legs, my hands to loose and hold.

______________________

WEEDS HAPPEN

These are the weeds beloved of sheep.
“Weed” is a human construct.
Lacking our language, sheep know better.
It’s our single shot that leaves them dead. Or,
no reason at all, just dead.
This lowly plant with silent clock-hands
we bag as noxious.
It could take me out in an instant, wham!
But see how vibrant, green.
I put it in salad. Maybe I survive
by not believing the label.
Gone six weeks, my cat will walk
in the door with adventures taller than
a black cat in boots.
How he survived hawk, coyote, owl.
I’ll listen, leave the door open.
Weeds advance.
I can see the Strawberry Moon, and Night
with a wisp of wind wound into her hair.

_____________________

CALL OF THE WILD

Coyote—that weird wild lonesome cry that haunts the night
and just keeps wailing in the mind, to echo out of sight.

They slip like spirits out of roadside weeds, a gaze
that disappears if I look twice—a springtime valley haze,

a lamb gone missing. I love coyotes as I hate the kill—
in dawning dim, a mother ewe is bleating, bleating still.

Her lamb is gone. I search down rocks along the creek,
hoping I won’t find, in that wild corner, what I seek.

What are fences to coyotes? They clear them in a bound.
That’s where I found the lamb they brought to ground.

In spring, so many hungry pups in a coyote’s den—
coyote mother’s on the hunt to fill them up again.

In spring, by bright or dark of moon, while we’re asleep,
Coyote comes. We wake and lose our count of sheep.

Still I go searching, after all the lambs are grown,
for what, I couldn’t tell you. Coyote? the wild unknown.

   
TYGH-BO’S BUTT-STUD

Three hundred pounds of ram, but he was advertised as mellow.
Loaded in our little car, Bam!Bam! on floorboards—what a fella!

He stomped his ram-staccato       all the long drive home.
Three pretty ewes on our acres, he had no need to roam.

Poker-eyes in an iron skull struck flint when he was peeved.
Don’t turn your back on a ram, or up-side you’ll be heaved.

Then old Tygh-bo caught a cold, yellow mucus from his nose.
We bought a veterinary dose to cure him, syringe thick as a hose.

Tygh-bo’d seen that before. They say sheep don’t learn,
but he just whipped his butt around—     eyes in a slow burn.

You jabbed the silver needle in. Don’t think Tygh-bo’d stand
for that! He whirled—while you just stood, syringe in hand—

Bad luck, the needle stuck, in his butt. Snazzy silver stud.
You grabbed for it, he whirled away, body-pierced for good.

So Tygh-bo wears that needle-stub, no way you dare remove it.
He’s cool, he’s groovy, hip—butt-stud in his rump to prove it.

_______________________

REMEDIES

Weather likes to be inclement. Sullen.
Lightning arrows down to strike
the highest point, your home on its advantageous
hilltop. You’ve done the drill, examined
the odds. The medical—no remedy; in the end,
life loses. Weigh that against
the ecstatic squeals leaping inside this whelping-
pen, a mother-dog telling you the glory
of her eight newborns.
You’ve been here. Not this garage, not this
dark-eyed smiling Shepherd bitch
you’ve never seen before.
It’s like film reeling itself back on the spool
for a second chance. Maybe this time
the pups won’t die before equinox.
They’ll live to find paths through the woods,
romp in mountain meadows; chase storm clouds
to test the winds, the weather.
Search for angels. Just listen to them
mewling for their mother. Watch them grow.
At last, take one home for your own.
Your remedy, life.

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

ALTERNATIVE SELF-PORTRAIT

Remedy for a loggy morning,
paint yourself as a shattered mirror in shades
of mallard wing, dynamic,
begging for a lily in the armpit, grass-
hopper in the mouth. Make your
self up as you go.

_____________________

Many thanks to Taylor Graham for today's poems and pix, including her cowgirl poems (well, sheepgirl) celebrating the Highway 50 Wagon Train which is headed toward Placerville from Lake Tahoe. This annual trek will be stopping in Camino on Saturday night, where they will be holding a BBQ with western music, an open mic, and cowboy poetry from well-known cowboy poet Jim King; on Saturday they will finish up the trip by heading down to Placerville. 

And don't forget—we're celebrating Medusa's Kitchen's tenth birthday this week by our Seed of the Week: Birthdays. Send poems and pix about birthdays to kathykieth@hotmail.com and I'll send you a copy of the new issue of WTF! Free!

By the way—if you haven't gotten a copy of this WTF and you're a contributor, let me know and I'll mail you one. Others may be had for $2 by clicking on WTF in the links at the top of this post, or might still be a few at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sac.

—Medusa

 







  

Trees Made of Light

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

MORNING PROCEDURE

The cat has been stroked
and has left my lap to the
lamplight in the dark morning.

Hum of early traffic begins . . .
no . . .    it is only an airplane drone
—gone now.

My pencil scrapes the page with a
strange sound—whisper of language
a pen does not know . . .

A thin whine in some far background
says,  Here . . .     Now . . .
in my ear only.

Shall I rise to the dark morning
and put all this away,
unfinished?

Now that morning no longer
belongs to me,
I am distracted.

But the words still compel me with their
illegible scribble; time is going,
and they accuse me.

Where is the comfort-cat now—
that silent shadow
of casual existence?

 Trees in the Top

DEBRIS
From May Sarton’s "Well"

Ah, yes—the old drowned doll—that mystery again. Foul
play, I’m sure—cliché of broken childhood : play turned
cruel, indifferent to the sadness of dolls. This one awkward
upon wet sand as if up-flung by a rejecting wave. Poor naked
doll, its face ground in, one arm raised as though to swim
out of this flailing—one foot dug in—the day turning cold—
night coming on, and no one to grieve its dying.

_____________________

DREAM SCRIPTS

I have never let nights go dreamless,
unsettled and strange
twisting them into scenarios
ever uncompleted—
ever dangerous.

I, the messenger, the lead, the foe,
the very direction—
without finale,
make up the dreams without ending,
knowing I can break out of sleep
at the point of my destruction.

 Trees in Late Sunlight

FOR THE TREE ITSELF
After "Facing the Tree" by David Ignatow

I
O, My Tree,
let me now arrange your
leaves before they fall—
angle the light
for the shadow—
                            add a bird
or two—some music—
and call you Symphony.

II
and this tree of light—
hollow light surrounded by leaves
and branches, openings
for sunlight and birds—
for wind,  
               and little breezes,    and the seasons
that have their effect, this tree that faces the window
where someone looks out year after year
upon this tree made of light.

III
I gave someone a polished leaf from a tree full of
such leaves—a perfect, new-falling leaf—shining
like a bronze reproduction—floating on the arrested
moment of air that the light caught—the other leaves
around it fixed and motionless in the shade of this
old tree. But a tiny patch of sunlight had flared
with some purpose that I recognized—and complied—
and took from the others, this little gift.

IV
Once a weariness so heavy came
upon me that I surrendered to
a yearning and sought
a tree I knew that
had vast shade and
quiet. I brought myself
to its healing and lay on the ground,
looking up through the branches
and slightly-moving leaves,
and I slept for a long
while, unwinding
and renewing.

 Front Yard Trees, Fresco

MEAN LOVE

I would say sorrow waits in every love,
in every vow, in every lie, well-meant,
intensified by doubt and mean despair.
Love hurts, it cannot help itself.

Falling short of expectation lets it love
the moody rain and light, the way it loves
its tears—wept often and alone.
Forget all that. Love needs itself—

despite the woe—the absence that
it leaves in retrospect. Why else give up
the power of the risk; how else define
the indefinable for what it means?

______________________

ROCK FORMATION
After "Etretat, 1885" by Monet

Somewhere I have written words to go with this:
the hole in the rock—jagged and huge,
and through it—the boat ghosting by—

and another such rock beyond—
and another—
jutting out into the calm sea.

But why calm?
A dream-scape for a sleeper
caught in levels of benign imagination?

But, no.  The dream and the sea—
the gaping tunnel in the rock—
as well as the drifting boat—all the dreamer

—all painted to bring everything to a stop:
the boat never reaches beyond the passage—
the sea stays at ebb—the dream dreams.

Only the rock-shadows quiver with surface light,
almost breathing—revealing detail;
almost making a sound—like dream music.

Somewhere I have written words, left with the sea,
lost in the seventh wave, answering everything,
even this later quarrel with recognition.

 Green Tree

CHAIR-STUDY IN RUST-BLUE LIGHT

A chair in a room blue with light, back
to the window, well sat in,
its rounded contours softening
in the dim recognition of what it is—

how often have we noticed in abstraction
something as familiar as a chair, something
as patient and allowing and as
comforting as a chair?… and in the room

two windows doing what they do with view
in the rust-blue light of a fading afternoon,
and the very walls that hold everything in,
and the way the quietness simply waits…

and then we notice how long it takes
to intrude across the floor,  
and we remark on this for something to say
to remove the overtaking block of silence,

for now we must open ourselves again
and let each other in and let the room
breathe around us, though it is being
very still and blue through its blue curtains—

all rust-blue—in the late light spreading
across the floor in our direction;
and the chair stretches out its shadows
even more and goes deep; and maybe now

something will become ultimate: the windows
pull us toward their lowering light
and a flood of sorrow comes from nowhere
and we lose our hold and weep.

____________________

THE SPIRAL

Once more we enter the spiral
that whirls us inward
and down

into the coil
of invisible dark
that we expect, through the

heart, bitter with love,
and the eyes that pool—
and there we are

in another whirlpool
winding
downward

through the resisting center.
So many depths to pass through,
each one a condition of time

that stays unaccountable—
we can never recall
the return of all such promise—

is erased
it seems by our
need to test once more

the spiral with its sweet vertigo
which now has become
an addiction needing us as well.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

THE HEALING TREE

Once a weariness came
upon my being
and I surrendered to a yearning
and I sought a tree I knew
that had vast shade and quiet
and I brought myself to its healing
and lay on the ground
looking up through its branches
and silently moving leaves
and I slept for a long while
unwinding and renewing,
under the flickering sunlight.

______________________

—Medusa, thanking Joyce Odam for today's poems and pix extolling Sacramento's fine trees (does anybody have a remedy for the drought that is making them suffer?), and calling attention to how Joyce's "The Healing Tree" (see LittleNip) is a reworking of the last verse of her "For the Tree Itself". Joyce has great courage about recycling parts of poems, turning prose poems into verse, stealing shamelessly from herself just to see what else can be done. This can be a very useful way of poking the muse into doing double-duty for you; give it a try sometime.

Oh, Medusa!—we forgot your birthday (May 29)! And the tenth it was, too, an especially important one. Well, I suppose it's immodest to wish oneself a happy birthday, so I guess that explains your silence on the subject, lady that you are. Anyway, DR Wagner had a fine post for us that day, which was an excellent way to celebrate. Many happy returns, Medusa, to you and all your fine poets and artists. And our new Seed of the Week shall be Birthdays, just to keep the birthday thoughts going. Tell you what—anyone who sends a poem about birthdays to kathykieth@hotmail.com before midnight on Sunday, June 7, I'll send you a free copy of our new edition of WTF! Howz THAT for a deal?

 Palm Tree

Lovers of Sun and Stars

Bodega Head

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

FACEBOOK ANSWERS THE $64,000 QUESTION
—Cynthia Linville

Which superhero, celebrity, rock star, Disney princess are you?

 
Which Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Partridge Family character?
Which 80s song?

Which dipping sauce?

What's your true age?
How smart are you?

 
How much of a bitch?

How strong is your relationship?

 
Who will you marry?
What does your name say about you?

What is your power animal?
Your true profession?
Your real personality?

Who were you in a past life?
What kind of wings do you have?

 
What color is your soul?

 

If you weren't you, who would you be?

 Before

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch

ON THE WIND
—Robert Lee Haycock

The juniper spins
A mandala of shadow
Listen, the birds pray

____________________

DAWN ON THE SAN JOAQUIN
—Robert Lee Haycock

Freighted with last night's dark
Meandering upriver
Morning swims downstream

____________________

YET
—Robert Lee Haycock

The belling of the bull elk
The blazing of the buckwheat
I do not have an answer

Morning

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

TO PHOTOGRAPH A MORNING GLORY (Hawaii)
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole, CA

Waiting for wind to realize and be still
    Waiting for wind

Waiting for dew drops to lure the sun
    Waiting for dew

Waiting for petals to unify with air
    Waiting for petals

Waiting for shadows to shift slightly
    Waiting for shadows

Waiting for the stem to bend a bit
    Waiting for the stem

    Tension ease into core
    choreography of composure

            until

    a golden pulse clicks.

_______________________

CARAVAN
—Claire J. Baker

Stay with the caravan, yet be
yourself; notice what others do,
what wise ways they take,
yet follow your own path.

Whether you ride, walk, fly,
limp, run or stumble
you are your significant other,
a lover of sun and stars,

interpreter of human nature,
celebrant of carousels—
drawn to oceans, dune grass,
waterglow, children, art.

When alone may you serve as
your own fine companion,
aware, amazed,
ecstatic to be alive.
 

 Linear

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock
 

Today's LittleNip:

HOME REMEDY FOR
AN UNFORTUNATE RELATIONSHIP
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

Choose carefully
A small stone.
Hold under the tongue
Until dissolved.
You are cured.

(first pub. in The Home Remedy Poems,
Lamoine Valley Press, 1975)

______________________
 
—Medusa

Bodega Head

—Photo by Cynthia Linville