Brooms of Sunlight

Bracelets and Rings

—Photo by Joyce Odam

DECIDING THE MORNING
—Joyce Odam, Sacramento

And who am I dreaming to become—
heaviest in sleep—lost in my own mind,
waking to a closet closing after me.
Where have I been,
and who,
and who were those others?

Start of the long day begins heavy
with a glance at the window
to see what sort of day I will enter.
What will I wear?
What will I do?
Which plan is more important than another?

_____________________

DEPLETIONS
(After "Unscheduled Appointments"
by Gayle Ellen Harvey)
—Joyce Odam

They cancel their little deaths
to matters of no importance—various
and thin—like ghosts, or shadows—

like those sounds they think they hear
in morning quiet after nights of vague
celebration—as weary as repetition.

Already they blur into voices that regret
dead loves with that humor they save for
sadness. Drunkenness gives them mercy.

No wonder they love—badly, or wrongly,
deceptively complex, what they need
for the moment—or lifetime. Later they

will elaborate on this—with reverence, even,
going over the broken memories—detail
by detail—until everything falls apart or fits.

____________________

LITTLE PANTOUM
—Joyce Odam

Take out this vial of tears.
Morning is late and full of afterthought.
The foolish dream is in pieces.
Get the broom of sunlight.

Morning is late and full of afterthought.
Did you not feel my heart breaking?
Get the broom of sunlight.
Sweep my memories into yours.

Feel my heart breaking.
The foolish dream is in pieces.
Sweep my memories into yours.
Take out this tub of tears.

____________________

ON THE DAY AFTER DEATH,

We picked up all our dark dresses
from the floor.

We hung them in gaping closets.

We bore into
the burning eyes of the mirror.

We listened to the morning sirens
in their tardy urgencies.

We called name after name
into the fading echo.

We watched a silent crow
glide past our windows.


—Joyce Odam

______________________

FISH POND IN MOONLIGHT
—Joyce Odam

The night fish
swim in their dark pool
and are lovely for

themselves
as I imagine them
nudging to the surface

then drifting back down
in pattern
after silver pattern

with only
the bright moon
to illuminate them until morning

when they
become just part of the
rippling movement of the shadows.

_____________________

THE DESIRE TO BECOME A STORM
(After "The Desire to Become a Storm"
by Armando Roche Rabell)
—Joyce Odam

I push through barrier after barrier with my life
which is crowded with intention and failure.

I am huge; I fit everywhere, for I am forceful;
I am my own jungle of resistance.

Trees crowd into me—
challenge my right to be among them.

I push them aside.
As long as I am strong I can do this.

At night I sleep among
the sleeping trees.

Each morning
we begin again.

____________________

Thanks to Joyce Odam for her "Morning After" poems and pix, and congrats to her and those other poets from Sacramento and environs for their wins in the Ina Coolbrith contest.

Let's take our Seed of the Week from Joyce's poem, "Fish Pond in Moonlight". What happens out there in the dark of night? Silver dollars of moonlight? The stealth of lovers? Or is it marauding raccoons? Send your tasty offerings to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline on SOWs.

Our "Form to Fiddle With" this week is the lune; go to the green board at the right for more about that. If you've ever read my rant in Calliope's Closet (under the SNAKE ON A ROD) on the green board, you know I'm not a fan of translating Japanese forms to English, given how very, very different their whole concept is from ours. But, well, maybe we could mess around a little with the lune, since we're talking about moonlight this week. A little lunar lunacy. (Make every word count.)

Trina Drotar sends us this link to her Sacramento Press article about last Friday's Cabral tribute:
www.sacramentopress.com/headline/59778/Odes_and_corridos_honoring_Facundo_Cabral

And some of you may have heard about Jane Blue's recent illness. Here is what her son, Michael Bissell, posted about it on Facebook yesterday: 

She slipped about a week ago and cracked her pelvis which was, of course, nasty, but not as bad as a broken hip. So while we were all worried about her recovery process, we weren't worried about her actually recovering. They moved her to a rehabilitation facility after a few days and she was on her way... —not happy, but recovering.

When I called yesterday, I was told they had moved her to UC Davis Med Center after a heart attack and pneumonia—which was a surprise for everyone. I won't go into details, but yesterday [Sunday] was not good and the doctors weren't sure if she'd pull through.

But she is pulling through—she's off the ventilator today [Monday], has fewer needles and is sitting upright and talking, even if in a rough, raspy voice. There's still a long ways to go, but we're all feeling a lot better today.

______________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

THE POND IS CLOUDY

this morning, its belly more vague
than usual, its water more fog
than mirror. Along muddy edges

the scattered emeralds of baby tears
are pock-marked from grubbing: black
velvet paws with long half-moons

have pried open damp earth, dug out
bodies huddled there in tight little
circles. . . Every night under cover

of jet and ebony, marauders descend
to steal the sleeping. Rustling
the eucalyptus as they crawl down

from their own dark dreams, they
rattle her bony fingers, then uproot
those who think they can rest—clawing

at the stillness, grubbing around
its edges, clouding up the pond. . .


—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines 

_____________________

—Medusa

Note to D.R. Wagner: Yes, I'm getting your poems, but my letters to you are bouncing back.

Flower Dish and Mushroom

—Photo by Joyce Odam

Solitaire Under the Still Life

Beads

—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

THE WATCHER
—Katy Brown, Davis

The sea, a hammered-tin beyond the breakers,
moves in restless swells against the lowering sky.
The old woman stands at her window,

drawing a filament of flat light into a ball
which she stores in an iron-bound chest
at the foot of her bed.

A jar of dried rose petals mixed with lavender
sits open on her dresser.
An oil lamp casts a shadow on her nightstand.

From her room, she watches ships come and go:
tall-masted schooners, exotic junks.
She’s watched these floating sepulchers

take sailors beyond the horizon.
Today, a black-sailed sloop
tacks its way between the rocks,

slipping into the harbor.
Gathering her shawl around her shoulders,
she makes halting progress

down her worn stairs and into the street.
Black sails flutter and snap against the wind;
the gangway lowers as she approaches.

______________________

UNDER THE STILL LIFE
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Playing solitaire
under the still life
you hear
unaccompanied Bach
from an old tape
on chords
of timeless memory
become audible
scattering like foliage
full of whirring tendrils
along back roads,
trying to imagine
the nature of things
open-mouthed
even as your nerves
by squinting light
wish the capture notes
or etudes
that stay with you
on the card table.

_____________________

SOLOIST
—B.Z. Niditch

All alone
except for
the chocolate milkshake
handed to you
by your stage mother
and having to remember
every cadenza
of the French concerto
forgetting stage fright
you proceed
with passages
in the musical logic
of the critic
with the bifocals
who called you
in a foreign tongue
a child prodigy
as bravo rings out
in your debut.

_____________________

THE MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE
—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

The pudding bowl
untouched on the frosty front porch
my best silk tie in teal, gold and chocolate stripes
stuffed halfway in, halfway out of the mail slot
the beta fish staring at me
mean with the intent of demise
from a punch bowl hanging
where the chandelier used to be
and Carmela smiling in the foyer
glad to see
my old off-the-wall self
spontaneously spry, sudden
is back in full bloom.

_____________________

VI.

Tonya never regretted lending out
keys to community facilities
especially when the person
who asked so properly and politely
had such good connections
with the Board of Trustees.


VII.

Andrew was breathing lighter
the labors of fatherhood
were so much pleasanter
when a child like Nick
was the bright cloud
in a family of thunderstorms.


VIII.

The election was close this year
several of six could barely
win or not
Andrew Marrington on the bubble
between defeat and
just scraping by.


IX.

Kyle Lucette moved
much too abruptly
from dead end
to cultured cul de sac
to back away
from harsh words and hisses


—Michael Cluff (for previous chapters, see previous days in the Kitchen)

_____________________

I GIVE YOU ONE HINT
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Elbert, high chief of the Snisuoc tribe,
Was cisum cousins with the beautiful
Oigada, whose twin brother Otnel
Allied the sharp biting forces of Otacizzip
To abut their journey to Aznedac.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

Yesterday on Bank Transfer Day I cashed in my Daylight Savings account and got one free hour to dabble in futures.

—Caschwa

____________________

—Medusa

 Berkeley Museum of Art

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

(Cynthia has a new album on Medusa's Facebook page,

about her recent trip to Alcatraz. Check it out!)

Rejoice!

SONG FOR THE RAINY SEASON
—Elizabeth Bishop

Hidden, oh hidden
in the high fog
the house we live in,
beneath the magnetic rock,
rain-, rainbow-ridden,
where blood-black
bromelias, lichens,
owls, and the lint
of the waterfalls cling,
familiar, unbidden.

In a dim age
of water
the brook sings loud
from a rib cage
of giant fern; vapor
climbs up the thick growth
effortlessly, turns back,
holding them both,
house and rock,
in a private cloud.

At night, on the roof,
blind drops crawl
and the ordinary brown
owl gives us proof
he can count:
five times—always five—
he stamps and takes off
after the fat frogs that,
shrilling for love,
clamber and mount.

House, open house
to the white dew
and the mild-white sunrise
kind to the eyes,
to membership
of silver fish, mouse,
bookworms,
big moths; with a wall
for the mildew's
ignorant map;

darkened and tarnished
by the warm touch
of the warm breath,
maculate, cherished,
rejoice! For a later
era will differ.
(O difference that kills,
or intimidates, much
of all our small shadowy
life!) Without water

the great rock will stare
unmagnetized, bare,
no longer wearing
rainbows or rain,
the forgiving air
and the high fog gone;
the owls will move on
and the several
waterfalls shrivel
in the steady sun.

_______________________ 

—Medusa

Bare Ruined Choirs

Niagara in Winter
 Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

THAT TIME OF YEAR

—William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by-and-by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the deathbed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

     This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

     To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

_______________________

STAYING AT ED'S PLACE
—May Swenson

I like being in your apartment, and not disturbing anything

As in the woods I wouldn't want to move a tree,

or change the play of sun and shadow on the ground.

The yellow kitchen stool belongs right there

against white plaster. I haven't used your purple towel

because I like the accidental cleft of shade you left in it.

At your small six-sided table, covered with mysterious

dents in the wood like a dartboard, I drink my coffee

from your brown mug. I look into the clearing

of your high front room, where sunlight slopes through bare

window squares. Your Afghanistan hammock,
     a man-sized cocoon

slung from wall to wall, your narrow desk and typewriter

are the only furniture. Each morning your light from the east

douses me where, with folded legs, I sit in your meadow,

a casual spread of brilliant carpets. Like a cat or dog

I take a roll, then, stretched out flat

in the center of color and pattern, I listen

to the remote growl of trucks over cobbles on

     Bethune Street below.

When I open my eyes I discover the peaceful blank

of the ceiling. Its old paint-layered surface is moonwhite

and trackless, like the Sea—of Tranquillity.

________________________

COMPLAINT
—James Wright

She's gone. She was my love, my moon or more.
She chased the chickens out and swept the floor,
Emptied the bones and nutshells after feasts,
And smacked the kids for leaping up like beasts.
Now morbid boys have grown past awkwardness;
The girls let stitches out, dress after dress,
To free some swinging body's riding space
And form the new child's unimagined face.
Yet, while vague nephews, spitting on their curls,
Amble to pester winds and blowsy girls,
What arm will sweep the room, what hand will hold
New snow against the mild to keep it cold?
And who will dump the garbage, feed the hogs,
And pitch the chickens' heads to hungry dogs?
Not my lost hag who dumbly bore such pain:
Childbirth and midnight sassafras and rain.
New snow against her face and hands she bore,
And now lies down, who was my moon or more.

_______________________

TIME DOES NOT BRING RELIEF
—Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountainside,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

________________________

SEEING YOU STAND ONCE MORE BEFORE MY EYES
—Amy Lowell

Seeing you stand once more before my eyes
In your pall dignity and tenderness,
Wearing your frailty like a misty dress
Draped over the great glamour which denies
To years their domination, all disguise
Time can achieve is but to add a stress,
A finer fineness, as though some caress
Touched you a moment to a strange surprise.
Seeing you after these long lengths of years,
I only know the glory come again,
A majesty bewildered by my tears,
A golden sun spangling slant shafts of rain,
Moonlight delaying by a sick man's bed,
A rush of daffodils where wastes of dried leaves spread.

________________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

—W.S. Merwin

_______________________

—Medusa

White Mums

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

To Love Things Nothing Worth

—Photo by Ronald Edwin Lane

NOH MASK
—Ronald Edwin Lane, Colfax

It looked dead and it was, I think.
After all it was severed at its petiole,
skin tanned, veins browned. It had

fallen to land upon a bench on
its journey to the ground.

Phyto-fleece—nothing more.
“It was just a leaf, Man!”
But then I saw it really was
a leaf-man, or

perhaps a Noh Mask.
Yes, a Noh Mask,
a disheveled devil’s death-face
of irate eyes, contorted chin,

chonmage topped and
twisted rictus lipped,
cut of blade, of slits,
donning a design of brown
dichotomous lines.

Through three seasons it had
battled sun, wind,
drought and won,
surviving, thriving verdant
and strong, but then
cold crept into veins and
nights grew long.

On a cold sun day
with a stark white sky, it fell,
to lay flat
upon its back upon
a slat of oak, cold and wet,
a place to rest, before

that final step.

_____________________

THE DAY AFTER "ANONYMOUS" NIGHT, OR, THINGS NOTHING WORTH
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
—Shakespeare, Sonnet 72

Politicians, lords, and spies
All about the kingdom rise.
Such “murder sleep,” and thus wake fear.
To combat them, arise “Shake-Speare.”
Upwafting ghostlike from a cellar,
Honor-bound to play truth-teller.
His safety in a nom de plume,
For only secrecy gives room
And vision-angle overplus.
Outsiders, only, earn the trust
Of masses, ranges, schools of men
Who crowd playhouses, denizens
Of poetry's home, the Muse-inspired
Fledgling Englanders all choired
Thickest where inn-yards trump the church.
Begin right here the nation-search,
Let feeling, thought, and honor thrive
On all a renegade earl can give.
Let’s today examine corruption,
That downward-thrusting earth-implosion
Eating at the state’s own vitals.
Listen: history’s recitals
Warn us to avoid these ills,
The lusty bloodline royal’s blood-spills.
A ruler owes unto his public
Conduct fitting a republic.
Looms over our navy Spain’s Armada?
Let enemy whatsoever plot a
Storm of violence and blood,
England raises up a brood
Of men with falcon, eagle wings.
These listen as the lyre sings.
How can this earl speak of such “things”
As “nothing worth?” Lord Burghley’s line
Comes down to us as lofty, fine;
Yet what of Lord B.’s politic words?
All rotten smoke and rusty swords.
His vast and empire-building joys
Loom like the castle-sands of boys,
Next to this earl’s poetic “toys.”

_____________________

OUT OF GRAY

before dawn, east of the poor side
of town, a broken toy; silent figures under
streetlights. Roses dropping petals.

There was a man who dreamed so
beautifully, life became an artifact of words
you could hold on your tongue.

Off the boardwalk, onto sand, listen
to the sea slip up and down its changing
shoreline. First light turns the surf

gray as ocean sings to itself from the dark,
never alone. Gray light dims or brightens
a bit of driftwood, or is it bone?

smoothed and beveled, worked
by sand, salt, and water into something
different but the same. It glows

of its own light forced from its
form. Dawn again, with its briefly
fragrant petal-of-rose.


—Taylor Graham, Placerville

____________________

EARTHSHINE
—Taylor Graham

I saw the new moon late yestereen
wi' the auld moon in her arm.
           —Sir Patrick Spens

Between this Old World with its broken treaties
and men's limbs shot off in war, and that New

World of greenstick promise not yet fractured,
rolls the sea away in moonlight. Each ship

a child's toy tossed on phosphor waves. So many
moons since he sailed off for a new life.

She dreams spirit-lights, drowned sailors
breathing under the tide. Between two worlds,

the postage is too dear; a letter with its news
she can't afford. Is he still alive? Tonight,

the new moon rocks the old moon in her arm.
A mother walks the shingle, up and down

the shoreline, watching for star-board
lights beyond breakers—proof perhaps of life

on another side. The new moon
cradles her son in the sickle of its arm.

_____________________

IV.

Nick left the ladies’ room
with a limp
not congenital
or accidental;
he had brought it
all down on himself.


V.

The birds in trees on the hill
behind the gym
flew away at the sound:
such caterwauls of distress
and death imposed upon
the open air frightened them.


—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

______________________

 HUNG OVER
—Ronald Edwin Lane

      Since daybreak, four, slimy, cat scat come-to-life like souls, have clung, upside down, to a bed—a debarked edge of weathered cambium, striated like stratified rock, atop layered seasons of weathered cellulose, vessels and tracheids, embedded in the ground, amid patches of their own excrement, white sheets of tattered threads, brown pocket rot, black inky fungus stains, and muddy detritus, resting, aside a worm hole (that of a Buprestid), of sufficient size for them to slip inside without a sound—until I turned their world ‘round.
      They recoil at the sudden forces, (acceleration, centrifugal, deceleration – the shift in the pull of gravity), but mostly at the vapor pressure deficit and touch of mid-day blue-sky light that threatens to transmogrify these spineless blobs—who spent the night, I’m sure, as they always do, smearing opalescent snot under foot along meandering paths, carousing, high on grass, eyes bulging, while adding their mass to moonlit mobs engaged in unprotected orgy sex—into dried out lifeless turds.
      With slow deliberation they poke heads from beneath rubbery mantles, open whale-like blow holes, extend short sensory limbs, pop-out eyes, stretch feet, and glide on undulating soles, to shadows I suppose, to wherever their souls shall lead.

____________________

Thanks to today's cooks, including more of Ron Lane's stunning poems and pix, another two installments of Mike Cluff's story, a "a ditty writ in Elizabethan (Oxfordian?) manner" by Tom Goff, and two fine ones from the other TG, Taylor Graham. And yes, there's snow in these-here mountains, about an inch, but it didn't "stick" to the roads much in Pollock Pines.

Three links of interest today: two from Trina Drotar, bless her, and the last from Sam the Snake Man, who took note of a still pic in the Sac Bee to hunt down the video. Awesome! No, I mean truly AWESOME........!

For the 99 Poems Project, go to 99poemsfor99percent.blogspot.com

For Trina's preview article of tonight's Facunda Cabral tribute, go to
www.sacramentopress.com/headline/59541/Poets_honor_messenger_of_peace_Facundo_Cabral

And for a video that'll knock your garters off, go to www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/30915/lunging+humpback+whale+nearly+swallows+up+surfer+kayaker

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

Not much to offer you—
Just a lotus flower floating
In a small bowl of water.

—Ryokan

____________________

—Medusa

Painted Without Light

—Ronald Edwin Lane

What Is Is The Same

Bear With Shades

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

A USE FOR ROSES
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

Well, it’s not like I could
Understand anything that was
Being said without some kind
Of confusion fluttering up
From below my feet creating
Clouds of thoughts from crowds
Of children making off with what
Little anything on this round world
Had to offer. Even tears could be bought
And sold just like clothing.

I was going to stop here for a moment
To see what everything looked like
From this point of view. I figured
That would help as much as taking
A match to the whole place
Would ever do.

“Sir, would you like a rose, sir?
It’s worth more than anything you might
Say about revenge right now
And smells so much better as well."

______________________

“A STRANGE GRAY LIGHT PLAYS OVER
THE SILENT FIGURES...COMING FROM
A PLACE OUTSIDE THE WORLD”  
                  —Kenneth Patchen, Sleepers Awake
—D.R. Wagner

What was left that could be broken?
Hearts were a lousy bet to begin with.
Promises weren’t too far behind.
Parts of the body and collections
Of toys were right up there with treaties.

It became like trying to breathe underwater.
Forgetting was not an option. It would
Be as if daylight had found a room
On a poor side of town and refused
To come out, getting drunker and drunker
As the hours passed it by in the streets,
Taking as much as they could from
Whomever passed by, regardless
That the sea was parading itself
Up and down the shoreline offering
A real alternative to loneliness.

Finally, we gave up on colors,
Ideas, open land, the sweetness of fruit,
All that time could hold, in order to protect
Ourselves. We stood around the windows,
Gazing up at the buildings, attempting conversations,
Recalling those who could dream so beautifully
For all of us. “Gray, the place became
Gray. Nothing would lay claim to this
Place any longer.” We began to walk away
Hoping that this truly was not anything
We could imagine the world to be.

_____________________

I.

The smell of that
pink soap dispensed
in nearly first rate bathrooms
slightly covers the stench
left by him
on Kydia's rasped skin.


II.

Later
detergent could never
deter the odor
he had left so violently
inside and upon
her quintessence.


III.

Kyle found the mess
a bit too hard
to dispose of properly
nothing in his training
had quite prepared him
for this at home.


—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

_____________________

SHE WALKS TO THE PARK
—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

she walks a mile
to a green place
finds a bench to sit on
she walks a mile
from her house
so she can be quiet
to be quiet in the park
where there are trees
that stand quietly
she has no home now
where it is quiet
where there is no threatening wind
she walks a mile
to trees
where it’s quiet
now I am quiet, she thinks

_____________________

she follows him everywhere

around the corner
down the block
behind the garage
through the alley
up the hill
under the trees
across the street
over the bridge
under the overpass
when will he stop walking?
the sick man with the bad heart
he will keep walking forever
as long as his heart ticks the time
and she will follow him
hoping to keep him safe
under the trees—
safe from the simmering sun


—Patricia Hickerson

______________________

JELLYFISH AT THE MANGROVE SWAMP
—Patricia Hickerson

four eyes lucent
look for the branch
guide the way,
through the swamp
to where you want to be
four eyes hidden deep
to look for the branch
to guide the way
to the mangrove swamp
translucent in the body
call it jelly
call it fish
call it four-eyes
the eyeglasses in the swamp
looking for the branch
to guide the way
mangrove and swamp
swamp the jelly
swamp the eyes
deep in the body
translucent

______________________

Thanks to today's contributors! Mike Cluff sent us the rest of his poem which was yesterday's LittleNip, though the mystery of What Happened is still, well, a mystery—and maybe it should remain so.....

Check out our Kool Thing of the Week (over on the green board at the right) for a complete schedule of the poetry-in-the-schools Confluence 2011, sponsored by Sac. Poetry Center.

And we have a new album on Medusa's Facebook page: Poe, Poe, Poetry Night, the Friends-CARE benefit which was held on Halloween at Sac. Poetry Center. Thanks to Annie Menebroker, Michelle Kunert, Katy Brown and Sandy Thomas for all the 'way kool photos!

______________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

Why do we worry about the quality
of life? Quality is not the point.
I love you. What is is the same.

—William Bronk

______________________

—Medusa

 Graffiti

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

Beauty Still Matters

Days come and go

Beneath

The iron oxide

Rainbow

—Photo and poem by Ronald Edwin Lane, Colfax

FOR BILL
—Dave Boles, Grass Valley

i received
your the message
mid-day
your mother
was succinct
you had finally
heard
the one reason
for taking your life

i knew the voices
had returned
took your calls
at all hours
tried to comfort you
best i could

in the end
the decision
as it always
had been
was entirely
up to you

i suggested years ago
poison
or razors
were a waste
of time

your mother wrote
the .45
was your final choice
leaving mention
in your note
to tell me
i was right

goodbye
my friend
glad i could help
bring
some
final
comfort.

______________________

MY DARLIN' MAGGIE,

We sail tomorrow with the dawn star
on a phosphor sea, under a baleful sign:
when the old moon carries the new moon,

the sea will rise to embrace the mast of a tall ship.
I wish that I could hold you in my arms once more,
but we leave from Bristol with the dawn star.

You are my love and my life, you and little Jenny.
Tell her that I didn't want to leave
with the new moon haunting the sliver of old.

The last two days, the sun rose in a garnet sky,
casting fear among the crew. Regardless,
the capt'n says we set the sails at dawn.

Sailors from the Betsy Ann told tales of the Dutchman
over mugs of ale at the Three Hanged Men last night.
The crescent moon carries its ghost across the sky.

Evil rides on the phosphor tide, spirits light the waves.
You and Jenny are in my heart
as we set sail with the morning star.
Pray God a full moon sees us safely home.


—Katy Brown, Davis

_______________________

TINDLES
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

This mask of time and space—
a membrane thinning where dusk
and horse's mane dissolve in dream
and dog becomes a firebird—

each shape spell-caught inside
the sleeping mind—silk behind the eye
pulled taut as if awake. No things
are as they seem, but recalled—

just her kind of gesture still alive
so many years past death. Dry twigs
thrive without water. Dry bone,
spark without tinder

seen through November-flaming
leaves. No breath—she floats
through the shut door in greeting,
not goodbye—as if she'd always been

here, just over the edge
of understanding. Imagination goes
blind, drawing me tap-tapping
the dark beyond.

_____________________

QUESTION
—Taylor Graham

Inside the house, on fresh-swept floor,
this leaf-lorn, splintered, dried-out twig.
Dragged in for a Deer-Mouse nest?

It keeps the scent of wild, shape of bird-
shadow when Westwind makes
of Oak its whirligig. And Imagination—

why must Mind invent a story
for every broken-off, enigmatic sprig
that finds a way inside our house?

_____________________

DOWN HERE
—Taylor Graham

The morning after
in this dark of the year
tangled in chill of dry twigs,
leaf-fall sheets wrapping dreams
in shadow blacker than trees,
someone's lost in frost-bit stars
waiting to be found
as astronauts spin backwards into space
waiting to be found,
someone's lost in frost-bit stars,
in shadow blacker than trees'
leaf-fall sheets wrapping dreams
tangled in chill of dry twigs
in this dark of the year
the morning after.

_____________________

THE MIDNIGHT CARNIVAL
—Nicole Schrager, Davis

Bare trees point their dark branches upwards like veins
threading into the burnt flesh of the sky.
Lights and glowing baubles spin round
and round, hovering, blinding, disorientating,
illuminating giant tents crouched
with open mouths sucking in
any inattentive wanderer lost in the mist,
set out on a grand adventure at first
but realizing later rather than sooner
the uncontrollable depths of this strange,
mystical world that only appears
at this hour on this day this very moment
appearing ahead and pulling you,
tearing at you, screaming at you, “come
let us attend you and turn you towards us
and slip inside your bones
and wear you like a puppet
on this night.”
Enter the tent, dazed and numb,
not yet afraid but only just,
you poor dumb beast,
raised from birth for nights like these.
Coo and laugh and marvel at our flashy parlor tricks
our golden eyes
our spells woven around you
until you are no longer.
Carne vale:
a farewell to the flesh.
Cover yourself with masks of bone
designed with blood.
Jump upon our stage and blend
into the slime dripping from the ceiling,
brushing the tips of your head—
vines perhaps, or entrails or your
old hanging bodies.
Plunge your hands into the uncertain goo
and wait there, immobilized.
Wait for us to call you out.

_____________________

Thanks to today's contributors: always good to hear from Ron Lane and his camera; Dave Boles checks in (watch for next week's Poetry With Legs reading featuring Neeli Cherkovski and frank andrick); Katy Brown and Taylor Graham continue their dialogue; Mike Cluff sends an intriguing LittleNip (wonder what the rest of THAT story is...); and Nicole Schrager pulls up a chair to the Kitchen table for the first time. She writes: My name is Nicole Schrager and I am a student at UC Davis. Currently, I'm taking a poetry class taught by Professor [D.R.] Wagner, who is very fond of Medusa's Kitchen and encouraged our class to send in our Halloween poems to your site. Welcome, Nicole, and thanks for heeding The Professor about sending poems to us; he is, indeed, fond of the Kitchen, and we of him...

Be sure to have a look-see at the latest issue of Pirene's Fountain at www.pirenesfountain.com/current_issue.html; you may see some names you recognize in their substantial offering of poets, including Jane Blue, Holly Day (who has appeared in the Kitchen) and C.J. Sage, who will be reading with J.P. Dancing Bear this Thursday at the Davis Arboretum (see blue board for details).

_____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

The smell of that
pink soap dispensed
in nearly first rate bathrooms
slightly covers the stench
left by him
on Kydia's rasped skin.


—Michael Cluff, Highland, CA

_____________________

—Medusa

In this jungle

Survival of the fittest

Dog eat dog world

Beauty still matters

—Ronald Edwin Lane