One Hundred Rooms

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

FOCUS



I am holding the child


In my arms.


Those fires on the horizon


Will not come this way.


We know who the fire is,


Its name, why it eats this way.



(Excuse me, I think this


Is the only way to get


Where we are supposed to be.)



What do you want from me?


I have all the blessings.

Something broke.  What’s left


To be sung by anyone.



You’ll never say that you want


To be anywhere the fuck near me.


Too many years split right through


What I currently call my eyes.



I can’t bring any of this to you.


Don’t look around.  Stay focused


On the page, just for a few moments,


So I can feel myself


Ride inside you just


As the dream does when


I put my fingers into your mouth and you


Show me where the entire


Control is supposed to be.



From here it looks like


A forest fire.

ALL THE POEMS



“These are all the ships we have,”


She said.  “Do you want to use them?”



I bring mountain range


After mountain range.


Neither of us knows how


To cross them.



Let’s give them to someone


Who needs them.


This is so wrong to stay


Here like this.  Listen to


My heart.  I want you


So much it is impossible


To say.  I’ll go make


Coffee.  You sit here and read


This stuff.  Maybe it will


Make sense to you.

 The Garment (Brock)
 

COLD



I touch the words you


Have written but it is already


Winter.  The paper so cold.

          * * *

FOREST



The light seldom comes

This far into this forest.


I read by it now.

          * * * 

NIGHTINGALE



I can hear water splashing


At the far end of the garden.


There is no moon tonight.


Still, it charms a nightingale.


 Over the Garden (Locke)
 

LOSS



Why did I come here


At this twilight hour?


I knew the steps


Of the wading birds would


Only deepen my sorrow.


I shall never see you again.

          * * *

BELL AND SILENCE



The bell and then its silence


Are tonight the very same sound.

          * * *

COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN



There is no wind now.


Coming down from Mount Fuji


I still think of you.


SALT



You have brought me one hundred rooms.



I will recognize your face,


At least your eyes,


But I will be broken


And beg you to hold me


All night.  Can you remember 


Any of this?



They are spelling my life out in


Bursts of bullets


Laced with tracer flares.


Can you remember any of this?



Oh fuck it.


The train is pulling in.


Call me in the morning.

Today’s LittleNip(s):

The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.

—Christopher Morley

         * * *

For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.

—Robert Penn Warren
 
_____________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s fine poetry and pix!
 

 Celebrate poetry today by writing short poems, 

if you usually don’t, or long ones, if you usually don’t…

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa. 

Liquid in a World of Solids

(Two Flowers by Katy Brown)

—Poems by Angelica Fuse, Los Angeles, CA

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA and Angelica Fuse

bonus room

we have built
the room on
to keep our
unquiet relatives
boarded up

if you listen
closely you
can hear them
scratching inside.

__________________

understood

we have an
understanding
we send each
other
with only our eyes

a wink
a nod
followed by
a kiss.

—Photo by Angelica Fuse

liquidate

I am soon
liquid
in a world
of solids
I am a splash
sizzling
in the fire.

_________________

organic

we are real
we are alive
bending flesh
and blankets
of emotion.

 —Photo by Katy Brown

endless clawing

animals
in the forest
send us their
claws
so that we can use
them
for our defense.

__________________

sun dress

don't put me
in a sun dress
trying to force
your impressions
on me

rather

dress me in the sun
let me radiate heat
crisping skin
toasting humor.

 —Photo by Katy Brown

mere feet away

I am mere
feet away
from my love
but they are
in another universe

what does one
do in these moments?
why are these
decisions so hard?

mysteries
miseries of humans.

_________________

turtle

he's an odd
little turtle man
the two of them
are incongruous
as in
you would never
put them together
in a room
especially with
his shell.

 —Photo by Katy Brown

right spots

my love
would know
all the right spots
if I weren't such
a cheetah.

_________________

Angelica Fuse says she is an unquiet voice. She blogs on bloodrootpoetryblog.blogspot.com, and her poems have appeared at Outlaw Poetry and other sites, including the online ancient heart magazine (ancientheartmagazine.blogspot.com) and the online journal, 1947 (1947journal.tumblr.com).

Welcome to the Kitchen, Angelica, and don’t be a stranger!

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

broken concentration
—angelica fuse

my concentration
shatters
like a fine plate
upon the floor
there goes the rest
of my creative day.
_____________________

—Medusa

(—Anonymous Photo)

Celebrate poetry today by trying to write 

in short, concise sentences. Or, if that’s your usual style, 

try writing in long, florid ones.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Spring Days

Untitled, 1969-1970, Eva Hesse

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

—Today's art pieces are by Eva Hesse (1936-1970)

SPRING DAYS

Spring days
when the sunshine of reverie
shadows the ocean waves
consoles and bends me down
to try to make up
for a lack of exercise
on my landless exiled back
having a laughing wonder
that a bard survived
all the surprising
starry blizzards and storms
in a winter of rough
breathless snow
now in a binocular sunlight
over a long shipwrecked night
swayed by winds on every side
now eagerly watching upon
my orange kayak
a weary poet behaves
with guts and grace
in open palm and hand
watching mirrored faces
of swimmers and fishes
will also return to these waters
along the deep corridors
off the wellspring of the Cape
Poseidon appears on the Bay
suddenly with his wife Amphitrite
in Ovid's imagery with their son
hidden with Triton
his son among mermen
and twelve pagan deities
with shoulders barnacled
having a gold armband
carrying a cold conch shell
he blows like a trumpet
in his spiteful mouth
to calm the strong waves
when a sailboat overturns
near the edge of the sandy beach
and two crew souls start to sway
in the handy arms of their oars
yet rise to reach me
without delay
I am content as a clam
O daughter of mythology
along the imagery of the sea
in the excitement of early May.

_______________

MAY DAY

On a ship
in perpetual motion
among the salty spells
retelling of my poetry
from trembling footprints
from my clattering snorkels
among jelly tongues and wings
along the mysteries of the sea
my eyes on landscapes
of memory and mercy
circling between oceans
writing this Thursday
in my monologue 's diary
which like Melville's log
sustains me on my journey
as I speak in a Browning dialogue
over maps of Forbes, Burney
exploring light and dark continents
as we move haltingly underneath
the docks along oceans
by a six-gill shark shaped
with locks of teeth
hidden beneath a vampire squid
a draped Atlantic wolfish pair
and a swimming Pacific viperfish
as we were range unaware
even with a laughter's monologue
by strange wonderful creatures
moving in a thousand leagues
in thinking of a sax
rhythm and tempo
the waves are teasing us
pirated by drinking truants
as an express call and wish
in an alliance and allegiance of hope
now caught between the energy
of pleasing rains
featured on the pivotal
scales of taut justice
in a call to save the whales, dolphins
mammals and creature
sighted in a bright ice fish flow
knowing that my journeyed
self-entangled remains
on my wishful treasured rope
over my environmental journey
by a shelf of poetry
hoping for the horizontal chance
that from their colors and shapes
they will survive and dance
in a clean environmental space
to rescue right whales, turtles
under this gentle bubbling Cape.

 Ringaround-arosie, 1965

MAY I

May I say, may I
chanting by the maypole
in my sighs and allergies
for the lilacs of spring
as I sneeze on the back porch
here in Vermont
you need not decide
anything today,
just say May I
in any variant of language
across the soccer ball fields
with screams and shouts
in spring's first game
by the morning salt marshes
as you put your back up
it's not your fault or blame
for wanting an enlightened shield
from the insects
on the potted plant
your friends have bought you
as you wonder at the bench
at the French brunch
with a daydream all winter
to enjoy all these gifts
of spinach croissants and cheese
since on the ski lifts
here in Burlington
with this rain and thunder
on the open pavilion
as I play a few jazz riffs
and ask my motionless lips
to let this dawn just play out
and take up all my needs
as sunflowers are falling in
with butterflies
all over the ground
as Linda, a student
of English next door
asks me about a poem
she just wrote and can't ignore
tells me it's like love
an adjusted
and carefully timed atom bomb
yet she fears to attend
the junior prom tonight
going with Vincent
the boy next door
who out of a lame shyness
of his dyslexic syndrome
masks his real fears
and may be a no-go
she is sorry for bothering me
an old friend of the family,
as she starts to cry
wanting to go home
blaming herself
as we eye Vincent
with the soccer ball
who manages a goal
and a magnificent win
for his team even as I tell him
his human choice of a wish
will succeed in athletics
despite his anguish of language
that he will be distinguished
as he asks for a more fluent voice
which makes for more discipline
as we wish Vinnie well
knowing at his masked age
how self-confidence ranks high
when Linda and Vincent thank me
and we all say goodbye.

________________

BROTHER LAWRENCE

Stripped and clipped leaves
of wintry cold
would give wide sway
as new bare trees enfold
allowed him to believe
that new fruits and green
would give him to yearn
a good chance to discern outside
standing outside the monastery
leaning in his boots of Auvergne
of his remembrance of a day
that brings spring to return,
this happened to me in glory
when away for a season
in adolescence of my history
suited me to have a belief
as new saplings gave me
a relief of his presence
and Brother Lawrence
accompanied me to Salem,
Jerusalem and Florence.

 Legs of a Walking Ball, 1965

SIMONE WEIL'S LAST WORDS

The raindrops on Sunday
resume to fall on your roof
perspiring at the wellspring
from her last words
in her vocation
were as a fathom of letters
swaying under her raised arms
carrying a knapsack's
spiritual cover of her volume
from an bas-relief of leaves
of an art's phantom photo
on your commentary in the Iliad
of a hushed lover Patroclus
looking over Achilles
from a larger parting cloudy sky
children are rushing by the river
for a frisson of laughter's
leaping faith of excitement
Simone stares at
her opinion's proof
that the wind touches us
by smiling at our belief
that God has not abandoned us
after confessing your sin
when you heard the flocks
of birds sing a chorus
away from demon hawks
haunting gulls at their nest
as a branch leaf trembles
on water drops faintly warm
by the sea rocks on the beach
reaching out to the sand
for shells in her skeleton hands
emerging soon as shadows
in this mirror of afternoon
hearing church bells
far from guns and weapons
not welcomed anywhere
during the storms of Occupation
as a night exile in the country
writing between imagining
Janus and Jesus
on an island with bread crumbs
content amid vigorous sun dunes
you are self-martyred
whose praise remains with us
as ransom with your insight
always feeling like a wanderer
or a stranger rather than a mystic
a contrary philosopher
or literary critic
to atone in your own convent
with a new horizon for saints
by bright argent stones.

__________________

EVA HESSE
(1936-1970)

You survived fascism
in Germany
and came to America
on a short journey
to discover art
and sculpture
of which you were
a master of minimalism
staking her own part
in the free forms of culture
we will remember
those flexed circles and squares
in latex and bric-a-brac
and gorgeous fiber glassware
you could cut with a knife
of which only now
discover who you were
and not pass over
that we were unaware
how a new art was conceived
that which we take to heart
from Eva Hesse in our culture
to share and retrieve
your wonderful sculpture,
you fearfully became part of us
in your brief precious life.

 Hang-Up, 1961

JASPER JOHNS VIEW

Jasper Johns
changed how we view
the business of his pop art
as he is listening on the radio
in a confluence of music's part
introducing a new language
beyond the classical
screened for our critical age
spawned a lyrical minimalism
as in John Cage's technical part
who opened up to me in his studio
with a jazz solo number vibrating
in attraction of eternal magnetism
by greeting and speaking to me
of his blistering personal romance
now trembling on the piano
with its skull of Hamlet
let loose with words of meaning
“To be or not to be,"
for his reality show rehearsal
as well in our dancer's meeting
in flow free expression's heart
when Merce Cunningham
starring in a solo performance
emerges from his own life span
landing on a new form of rehearsal
covering a horizon
of the outdoor stage
that all the stops were changed
and altered by a rocking sound
of the Sixties underground
from a wide range
of our distraction still slams us
as live trip wire
of extended witnesses
in art, music, poetry's satisfaction
when at a party in the Big Apple
tears drop from our eyes
as we question what we saw
or when we wrote of our times
our rendered words recognized
now quoted by millions
from realized open pavilions
in San Francisco Beat time
from a flawed yet exciting era
expecting a call of many changes
casting all art chimes to meet us
as we chant with a recital dance
when John Cage's cowbells ring
by shimmering rhythmic feet
from a past of preferred professions
to a new era of liberty for us
where we were once all merged
in a chorus to belong
for we poets wish no longer
to be lyrically estranged
from a choral song
but represented in part
as in Homer's oral tradition
from the ancients' throng
in a showboat floral procession
with questions to follow
on a displaced float
getting an answer on canvas
stayed on a variety of location
as to why art was directing you,
Jasper, to monitor, install
and capture innovation as we recall
your vocation in our celebrity
cultural society for all
representing an art of tomorrow
on our corridor's graffiti wall.

________________

A FRIEND FROM ASPEN

When Beth a friend
and former student
invigorated by a mile run
raises a poetic glance
with an open-ended smile
despite her accident
in another marathon
a while ago in Aspen
holding a bunch of flowers
now here in Boston
always wise
with the right answers
in class to analyze
she messages her knees
as a former ballet dancer
after our brunch is done
with red wine
and hot butter croissants
of Danish cheese
as she collects her breath
in an hour's exercise
others spot her sunning
by the vines of trees
to wish her success
as a champion runner.

 Untitled, 1961

SECRETS OF LOVE

The lost-at-sea from the shore
as sleepwalkers on the plank
cannot fold back daydreams
ship-shaped on the ocean
rolling on the forward waves
tossed over by oars in midstream
from a May Day call in the sun
with blankets to mask themselves
to wait in the dock’s shade
hearing the bells listening
over the Cape's church
to escape confession's closure
for what they have done
or how they have behaved
and hide their exposure
by dreaming of us
in the long sun
yet on the dock give thanks
awaiting to search the Caribbean
for Baudelaire's and Coleridge's
albatross over the bridge
as jazz players, poets and sailors
often trodden down
or crossed out by life
among these rocks
wishing for love secrets
not judged by effect and cause
awaiting for double knots
of strife and trouble along
the softened ocean spectrum's
direction of the weather's flaws
about us the twin albatross' wings
hiding and biding time like Esau,
jealous for his lawful heritage
from his just brother Jacob
or in his criminal inheritance to wage
life's awesome double-mindedness
but we search for juice of carob
on these leeward islands
expect to be blessed by God
in our forward direction, "West",
to be saved like a bird's feather
from a wandering rainy journey
of kindly saints to launch us out
who sing over our sailing perfection
covering from the belonging nest
in the amazing wellspring of nature
by a chance to wish for rest
over the fishers’ riverbed
we hope to be delivered
egged on by a shivered connection
with a crown reserved for kings.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Do not be discouraged by the resistance you will encounter from your human nature; you must go against your human inclinations. Often, in the beginning, you will think that you are wasting time, but you must go on, be determined and persevere in it until death, despite all the difficulties.”

—Brother Lawrence

______________

—Medusa, with thanks to B.Z. Niditch for today’s fine poetry!

For more about artist Eva Hesse, see the following links:
•••www.theartstory.org/artist-hesse-eva.htm
•••hyperallergic.com/294315/a-psychological-portrait-of-eva-hesse

And for info about the documentary being released about her, see
•••hyperallergic.com/207327/finally-a-documentary-about-eva-hesses-life-and-work

 Celebrate poetry today by writing poems 

inspired by the life and art of Eva Hesse, 

then head over to Davis to hear Matthew Zapruder and 

Jason Bayani read at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 

521 1st St., 8pm. There’s an open mic, too!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

A Puncher's Chance

Evening Cabbage
—Poems by David Wright, Sacramento, CA
—Today's Photos are by Stacey Jaclyn Morgan, Fair Oaks, CA

STEPPENWOLF

Seventeen and I left home, had to get out of there.
Thumbed my way to California.
Found myself sleeping by the Sacramento River.
Found a gym, and after
Popping the leather bag so it cracked like rifle shots (to my ears),
Some clown hired me to tomato-can for his new prospect.

My father covered boxing for the Globe, and I had grown up in gyms.
A killer straight right was all I had.
My jab was fair, but with short arms it wasn't much.
No quick feet, no grace, just a good straight right.
That was about it.
"You always have a puncher's chance,” they'd say.
Whenever you hear that, bet on the other guy.

Well, he caught me with a left in the third which left me sprawled on the canvas.
Hell, I could have staggered up, but there was no point and I took a coward's count.
"Ten", and it was fate.

Next day I found a room in a boarding house, 22nd & V; two meals a day and the tiny room.
"What happened to your face?" the landlady asked.

Next morning, starving, I hurried to breakfast and feasted on eggs, ham, toast and jelly.
Washed it down with OJ and big cups of coffee.
Life was looking up.
I asked for a bag of ice and laid there on my bed digesting and healing.
Ice bag over the egg-sized knot on my forehead.

For the first few days I just hung out in the room, resting.
Once recouped, I began to explore mid-town Sacramento, 1975.
I found a little library on 23rd and started pulling down books.
Found Steppenwolf by Hesse.
The start of a journey.

 Morning Glory, Last Summer

LOST MAGIC

It's not that I don't still enjoy the
Stormy day, the wind and rain, the bright sun
Challenged by dark clouds.
It's just not so magical anymore.
And I still go out and walk in the fog whenever I can, but this too is not some
Mystical flight, not like, say, that walk up 21st Street in the fog on my
Nineteenth birthday, staggering arm in arm with Peggy, out
for a
Third bottle of wine, and we pick up a
Used album from the store on P Street.
Blasting "Like a Rolling Stone" in her rooming house, the cops called and they're
Pounding, pounding, pounding on the door, I scream "Go fuck yourselves."
No, there's no magic like that anymore.

 Bronze Iris Cristata

FREE

Making money from the OUTSIDE and if not rich yet at least I'm free.
Happy to let others work for it.
Happy to let others wear ties.
Let others endure maladroit managers.  She,
I swear, used to just about hit her stop watch whenever I went to pee.
Stupid and dull, but the bosses listened to her, they had paid for her
Office Manager seminars, and she looked cute for them in her little sailor outfit.

 Comfrey Buds and Flower

ADVICE

I

Don't be personal unless it's metaphorical of the human condition, and
Don't use clichés (such as) don't be "a one trick pony."  My only trick is
Nailing down the lines as brutally honest as a
Punch to the mouth. Remember, an
Honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.
(You may prefer a handshake)

II

Not merely less contrived, but not contrived at all.
A kind of writing that just flows, unkempt, free,
Vital (and with apologies to Dylan Thomas) without guile.
While you drive to the store for snail poison, I strut out and stomp them dead.
(You may prefer elegance.)

III

A poet's value now is his heart & guts,
The writings are just splattered sweat and blood,
Residue of the fight.
(You may prefer artisans.) 

 Antique Field Rose, in Very Good Health

GHETTO PUNCH

They invited me to play some hoops and enjoy some
Ghetto Punch.  Ripple and Old English in a bucket of ice.
The first cup was sickening.
The seventh nice.

The next morning I couldn't remember who won the game, or
How I got the black eye.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

—Scott Adams

____________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to David Wright for today’s fine poetry, and to Stacey Jaclyn Morgan for her intriguing photos! 

Celebrate poetry today by sending some of your work

to Medusa's Kitchen, care of kathykieth@hotmail.com/.

Our Seed of the Week is Sorcery, but feel free

to send poems, photos and artwork on any subject.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa. 
 

Private Mirrors

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
 

THE ABSTRACT LIGHT

Woman sitting in the garden
in stippled light
in artist pose.

The abstract light
plays with her face,
her thoughts, her clothes.

Nothing matters but the day
that turns the hours
slows.

The garden whispers,
spreads its shadows,
glows.

______________________

AND A TAMBOURINE

Two voices haunting against each other
sing all night.

One voice follows the other,
line by echoed line.

Their white guitars shine between them
in the bright moonlight.

Their shirt sleeves gleam.
They don’t quite harmonize—then

they pluck the strings in
an elaborate duet.

We leave them, finally—
late,    late,

many anguishes
late.

They may be there
yet.
 

BLESSING

All right.
Off with you.
You are a bird.

I shall shut the door
and pick up the clothes.

I shall redecorate myself
like an extra room.
I cannot bear it if I cry.

I shall drink wine instead.
I shall fill up my head
with anything but you.

I shall not say stay.
I have forgotten that sad word.

I shall say go
like a gift.
Whoever you must become
will know what I mean.

   
(first pub. in Writer’s Showcase, 1971)

_______________________

CENTERING

I’ll bet his name was Grief.  He wore white spats
in summer, and carried a cane, and moved cat-like
and slim. And all this became him. We would see him

at the poetry readings—centering—in his urbane,
remote demeanor—his eyes dark as slats. He just sat
in his chair, and leaned forward, or back, at the right

moments—permitting a small, superior smile when
he knew you looked at him. He never read his poems,
but we remember him—sidling in like his own ghost.

A rather handsome man, for a ghost—out of his time
—too young to be so fancifully attired—in spats,
and cane, and narrow mustache . . . and he seemed
to like himself, though I think his name was Grief.

COBWEB

You’ve hung there for years.
You have become my favorite design,
the way you drape across the corner,
like an awning;
the way your spider has abandoned you.

Too much elegance for this room,
this bedroom of stuffed closet
and insomnia;
this room with its piles of clothes
and a blanket that drags
one corner to the floor.

How often I have watched you
with concentration;
at just the right angle
when I lean my head back
against the wall.

You are like a shadow drawn
as an interesting detail in a painting.
I wonder why no moth has found you.

__________________

DREAM PULLINGS

She dreams that she is a bride, holding a
     bouquet of dead flowers.

She dreams that she is standing naked in a
     vast gray room and that a cold gray light
     keeps sifting down from distant windows.

She dreams that she tries to throw the flowers,
     but they will not leave her hand.

She dreams that she is supposed to be dancing,
     but the music is so heavy she cannot move,
     that her feet are stuck to the floor.

She dreams that she has amnesia and that she
      is accountable for her amnesia.

She dreams that her nakedness is an accusation
     and that her amnesia is made of sleep.

She dreams that she is offering the dead bouquet
     to herself in the mirror of chagrin.

She dreams that the mirror is her amnesia,
     but she cannot look away from it, and her
     mirror hand will not reach for the flowers.

She dreams that she is a block of gray clay,
     that she is slowly hardening on a small
     gray pedestal of resistance.

She dreams that the heavy music is pulling her
     toward the altar where her self in the mirror
     stands, holding the bouquet of dead flowers.

She dreams that it is raining sorrows, and that she
     must stand there, with no clothes on, until her
     dead mother, who is in the mirror now and holding
     the bouquet of dead flowers, can stop weeping.

PRIVATE MIRRORS

The way we love ourselves in our own mirrors,
friendly to us, liking how we look—
a kind of compromise—safe with each other,

no harsh distortion—no glaring truth
as public mirrors give.
I need to take my mirrors with me when I shop,

stand them around me when I try on clothes,
place random ones here and there for when
I catch myself passing.

Public mirrors, with their shock of recognition,
chide all vanity.
My private mirrors are quite used to me.

______________________

FOR ALL YOUR FAILURES

Who is going to love you now,
you old fool, out there in the
rain, pulling off your clothes
and cursing at yourself for
all your failures?

Who is going to drag you in
and hold you to a weather-beaten heart,
be strong as an old tree full of dry music
to make you warm again,
and never blame you for your pain?

Who is going to love you
when you grow quiet as a stone
and no longer exclaim
that there is nothing left
of you now to save—

that you are in a floating room
inside yourself
where you complain
that after all the rain and weeping
there is only drought?
 

FOR THE APPLAUSE

He is doing pratfalls.
He is wriggling his mustache and
walking like Charlie Chaplin.
He is googling his eyes.

His clothes are baggy and
he pulls his pockets out
to show his emptiness.
He’ll be anything to make you laugh:

the butt of every joke;
a sad drunk; a wishful lover;
a hungry person—
pantomiming his real life.

He close-ups toward
the camera,
looks in
and acts surprised to see you there,

grows shy
and hobbles away,
falling again,
this time into a pie.

He pulls the meringue away from his eye
with an index finger, tasting it,
so glad to be fed.  He grins.
You laugh at him.

_____________________

FRAGMENT

The Poet and his entourage finally enter the stuffed hall.
Advancing with private glances, they saunter with impor-
tance—a row of blackboards behind them, a length
of sunny windows to the right. The room rustles, hums,

waits, with separate glancings. Chairs scrape silent.
Latecomers stand against the bright back wall. The
Poet—tall, grim, and gray of hair—stands in the door-
way a moment longer. His brow wrinkles. Soon he will

sweep his words around and over us; but for now he just
looks out at the room—his face sun-struck, his big-rim
glasses glinting, his white shirt standing out against
the cold flat distance of the partially-erased blackboard.

___________________

PASTICCIO IN A TEARING OF WHITE

she stands in the sharp wind-light
amid the cold white flapping of clothes
on the clothesline     perhaps she

should have removed her dress
for it wants to tear
into a rag to fit such a ragged day as this

her whipping hair is a mess    
and the ground holds something
that compels her stare     she is literal

she wrings her hands as the day
expands into something more than it is     
frozen there among

the tugging shapes of the bright clothes
flailing against
the taut lines of resistance

she is losing detail     her face disappears
then her whole definition
until just her dress

remains     hanging in a limp
and exhausted stillness
in the violent, harsh seduction of the air

PATIENCE

It is no longer true that
I am direct descendent of goodness.
I am old nude in shadow attire.
Light falls upon me in
apologetic appreciation.

I hold my pose for the artist
who is nearly blind,
all of my rages cast down
under my eyes which are
closed in sympathy.

I ache for the gods to hold me
as when I was among them.
I am good. I am good.
I am perfect.

See how others like to look at me,
holding here so still
so I can be patient and
faithful to my artist
who tries so hard.

“Once more,” he sighs,
though we both
are weary of the attempts.
“This time,” he promises.
And once more I believe him.

___________________

SORROW NOCTURNE

Now go the length of sorrow
and turn around.

See how far you’ve come and say it.
Begin and end with the same cry.

Be finished at last.
Claim the prize and die.

Release the bird you carry under your shirt.
Feel your heart follow . . .

and your emptying eye.
Note how the colors blend more slowly

now that winter has arrived
with its thought of snow.

Where will you go to be born of light—
that promise you believe.

Ahead of you,
the road of sorrow thickens into dusk.

_____________________

Hearty thanks to Joyce Odam for today’s fine poems and pix!

From now until June 30, Shawn Aveningo’s journal, The Poeming Pigeon, is accepting submissions for its fourth issue on the subject of Music. See www.thepoetrybox.com/ThePoemingPigeon.html for info and guidelines.

Our new Seed of the Week is Sorcery. Send your poems, photos and artwork about this (or any other subject) to kathykieth@hotmail.com/. No deadline on SOWs; for some topics of the past, click on Calliope’s Closet in the links above this column.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE PARIS TEE SHIRT
—Joyce Odam

Paris is a generic place to be. I’ve never been there,
and I’ll never go. But I can wear this tee shirt without
guilt.  Paris is like some ‘conjured’ place—not real—
like Reno, or Mt. Shasta, or Niagara Falls, or some
café or nightclub—famed and popular—where you
buy tee shirts to prove you’ve been. But Paris! Paris
is generic—a place made up— romantically afar—
a place I’ll never go.

____________________

—Medusa

 Celebrate area poetry today and tonight 

by attending the Big DOG (Day of Giving) party 

at Sac. Poetry Center, 5:30-8:30pm, and/or making 

donations to this regional fundraiser for nonprofits 

at www.bigdayofgiving.org/. 

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Happy Shirts

Back of Sign on J Street, Sacramento

—Photo by Charles Mariano, Sacramento, CA

HAPPY SHIRTS
—Caschwa, Sacramento

I have five Hawaiian shirts
Hanging in my closet
They spread cheer
Wherever I wear them

My first one is silken
Stunning bright red
Made in Hilo
Everybody knows Hilo

Now 2 sizes too small
It shows too much of me
Between buttons
Almost popping

My other “Hawaiian” shirts
Wash and wear style
Came from the lesser-known
Hawaiian Islands

Such as Bangladesh
Dominican Republic
And Viet Nam
All bring a smile

SHH!!
Don’t tell
The Birthers
About this!

_________________

I MISSED IT
—Caschwa

All because I am
Too short
I missed it
All of it

What was it?
Don’t know at all
My attention span
Is too short

So it never
Had a chance
To become a
Retrievable memory

Plus my memory
Is too short
So it just up and
Left my mind

I’ll never know
What it was
Because
I missed it

Please concentrate:
Living or inanimate?
Image or event?
Typical or unique?

Don’t try to force
An explanation
My temper is
Too short

Just accept that
I am too short
I missed it
Put it in your pocket

 Oscar de la Renta Display, deYoung Museum, SF

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

ALOHA SHIRTS, AND A LITTLE MORE
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA

I.
If the shirt
Glows
In the dark
You may
Have
Gone too far.

II.
Came about
Because
Of the missionaries,
Actually (Isn’t
It always
The way?).

Max Von Sydow
And Julie Andrews
Thought
The natives
Should wear clothes.

So what we have
Is basically a
Missionary-
Approved workshirt.

Enough frangipangi
On top, nobody
Notices
There’s nothing
Below.

III.
Somewhere
In the last
Whole Earth
Catalog it
Mentioned
Geminis were
Into drama,
Colorful flowered
Shirts, and chasing
Buses they’d missed.
Have always
Done my best
With each.

IV.
They’ll
Tell you
The rayon factory
For the shirts,
I mean The Shirts.
The ones from
Here to Eternity,
Burned during
The war, and
The recipe
Was lost.

Rayon today:
Colorful, but
Breathes like
Polyester.  You
Look and feel
Like the last guy
To substitute
On the bowling team.

V.
Starting out with
The obsession?
Stick with reds and
Blacks for
The background.
You want to
Go subtle into
That good luau.

VI.
The foregrounds?
Most anything goes.
Flowers, local
Monuments,
Little grass shacks.
Best, though,
To avoid topless
Wahinis in little 
Grass skirts. Can’t
Wear them to work,
After all, and it’s best
To save something
For the neckties.


VII.
Ukulele themes
Are good.  Had one
Once in day-glo
Orange that
I sent to a player.
Black velveteen
Trim: you felt
Holy just
Touching it.
Never heard from
The guy again.

VIII.
Paniolos—
Hawaiian
Cowboys, really.
A combination
Cowboy shirt, pearl
Snaps, yes, but with
Cattle and horsemen
In the print. No,
You are not hallucinating,
Pardnuh.

IX.
My all-time favorite:
A black back, hibiscus
Theme, with gold lamé
Highlights.  From
Sears-Roebuck.  And
You thought they
Only sold what your
Mother
Would want
You to wear.

X.
Longsleevees,
For the wedding (Cue
Noel Paul Stookey),
The funeral (Pace, Don Ho)
Or else after six.
In memory
Of Duke Kahanamoku.
Always.

XI.
I’m ready.  You?
You really don’t
Have to be there.
Aloha.

 Voices in Trees

—Photo by Taylor Graham

KHAKI
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

They called the old team back together
to put another of our lost
to rest. Come in uniform, they said.
I searched closet and drawers, found my old
khaki shirt, veteran of so many
wanderings through the dark by compass
and topo map, and beck of a dog’s nose—
a dog already put to rest
years ago. The shoulder-patch outdated,
insignia spiffied up twice
since I wore the shirt. It would have to do.
Isn’t it remembrance that counts?
My young dog—my living dog, trained
but not mission-ready—brightened,
sniffed old khaki as if she smelled a friend
she’d never met. As if she
smelled adventure, the call of her life.

__________________

THERE ARE BIRDS HERE
—Taylor Graham

So many birds—the unseen, the ones
I hear at dawn, rising to midday
then into the afternoon at fading light, intervals
of the night. The owl that calls each morning
out of dark. They say it calls your name.
But how to respond?
I don’t know if it’s the name-call owl
or another. I don’t know the language, there are
so many. The bird that tricks me
from the depths of thicket. And that sweet
twitter as if from above
the front door in daylight—I’ve never seen it,
don’t know its call, its name, its message
which must be important.
All these birds, wild hearts unfolding song.
The day bird as the night bird
insistent, unknown. Trying to tell me
something.

__________________

TRESPASSING ICE
—Taylor Graham

It was late spring, but still hard-freezing
overnight. Next morning early
we walked the farm road up into woods, stepping
carefully to not disturb
crystals the night had formed with mud.
A magic I’d never seen before.
It looked like penitent-ice
moving from sunny orchard to the darker
secrets under trees. A band of tiny white monks
illuminated in first-light
crossing a bridge to Pentecost.
If we missed a step
the earth would shatter, the woods
shut tight, a sword across the path. This
is all I remember, ice-tongues
in a language I didn’t understand, music
of a silent praying.

_________________

GATHERING
—Taylor Graham

Wishing for silence, she walked deaf
through the crowds; past the cheering ballfield,
amphitheater with its plugged-in sound,

alongside a pond that smelled of yesterday.
A bridge to a clearing, sunlight filtering through
green. Drums muffled morning to a heartbeat.

Ancient people lived here; gone now
into the spring of Time. An old man sat on a log,
mumbling thoughts or verses, who could tell.

The gray-skin pond began to ripple, a song
of water moving without stirring sound.
The pines were speaking of winds passing

always overhead, unrooted as raven.
She felt the tug of earth through her shoes,
playing each nerve ending. Language alien as

a poem not yet written, words she’d known
all her life as nothing but words. Magic
when May meadow-grass spoke their names.

Lounging Lion, Land's End

Golden Gate National Park, SF

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

 AT HINCHINGBROOKE, 1564
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA

Her Majesty Elizabeth’s going on progress,
dining in state on plate wherever she is,
entertained at each stop near to royal excess:
chiefly on plays, heart’s meat and spirit’s fizz.
Hinchingbrooke. Her Grace comes, amid courtiers’ carts.
All rein up and settle in this old monastery,
seat of the Cromwells, now that it’s not of the Church.
All wish to rest, but the hardiest hope to make merry.

Boy players who’ve straggled behind catch up, accost her;
Your Majesty, if it please you to hear a play…
Queenly Divinity’s body has traveler’s limits,
yet body consents, despite what kindness will cost her.
Soon they play her their “device”: young mummers begin it,
mime Catholic bishops (jailed after the last queen’s reign).
The great chair scrapes. She rises, red hair ablaze:

Desist from religious satire—you mock our late sister.
You dare flout her rule—what stops you from mocking us?
How durst you show holy bishops eating the Lamb,
one dog-headed with the Host in his slobbering mouth?
Out of my sight, louts—impudent tongues be blistered!
She hoists a slim arm as if to flog the rout
of miscreant whelps, just as our Jesus did whip
out of the High Temple all crass traffickers.
Then calls for torchbearers: “Lights, lights, lights!” and exits.

Left in the dark to muse—for is it his play
that so wounded the conscience of a monarch?—
Edward de Vere should’ve guessed: however she hated
her sister Bloody Mary, she’ll not put up
with subjects of any rank who preempt that hate.
He’ll dream up theatrical use for such high rage:
a murderous king, tricked into revealing guilt.
Young Oxford, standing on black and white tessellate floor,
from scenes of uproar broods vast Hamlets to be,
in the wake of this drama that plainly was not to be. 

____________________

SHIRT GRAFT
—Tom Goff

If ever you catch me in my best-loved shirt,
you won’t mistake what wearing it must mean.
It came to me from your soft hands, you flirt.
Oh yes, it fits—I’m still one size too lean.
But you won’t catch me wearing it when next
we chance across each other somewhere strange.
So swarmed with thoughts of you, my life’s too vexed
to want you to blush with pleasure at this change,

the change from wrinkled costume into you;
and anyhow now you can’t tell if I wear it
or I wear woman—your gift, I say with rue,
is grafted into my body: touching it’s
knit vein to vein and ghost to ghost, my sin.
Your shirt clings deep beneath our sheath of skin.

 Lion's Head, Land's End

Golden Gate National Park, SF

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

Many thanks to our breakfast potpourri of contributors today! National Poetry Month may be over, but we’re still partying hard, poetry-wise. This week begins with a reading at Sac. Poetry Center tonight by members of Frank Graham’s Writing Across Continents workshop, 7:30pm; tomorrow is Big DOG (Day of Giving) for 24 hours; and on Thursday, Poetry Night in Davis presents Matthew Zapruder, Jason Bayani and open mic, as well as Poetry Unplugged here in Sacramento at Luna’s Cafe. Scroll down to the blue box (under the green box at the right) for all the details.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

DRESSED IN CLOUD
—Taylor Graham

Wind chafed roof and gutter, flagpole
and curb. It fisted clouds across the bay,
against suspension bridge where they hung
like dirty laundry. It reassured, in this midst
of city, how close we still live to weather.

_____________________

—Medusa

 (Anonymous Photo)

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Spiritual Honey

(Anonymous Photo)

MAY

—Mary Oliver

May, and among the miles of leafing,


blossoms storm out of the darkness—


windflowers and moccasin flowers. The bees


dive into them and I too, to gather


their spiritual honey. Mute and meek, yet theirs


is the deepest certainty that this existence too—


this sense of well-being, the flourishing


of the physical body—rides


near the hub of the miracle that everything

is a part of, is as good


as a poem or a prayer, can also make


luminous any dark place on earth. 

_________________

—Medusa

For more info on May Day than you can shake a stick at, see www.thebookofdays.com/months/may/1.htm

For some thoughts about Mary Oliver’s “May”, go to matterpattern.blogspot.com/2009/05/may-by-mary-oliver-invocation-of.html