Vision, Crocodilian and Otherwise

—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

First time I got Marylou pregnant
—charles mariano, sacramento

when she asked me
to come over
to the darkness
of her parent’s garage,
we were thirteen

i was socially inept
no clue,
about what goes on
with female bodies,
except from tv

she had long black hair,
nice lips, buckteeth,
and she smelled…intoxicating

after what seemed like forever
she pulled me close
kissed me, softly at first,
then harder
and i was lifted magically
to a very warm place

kissing,
that overwhelmed my senses
drowning
in hands, arms, lips,
breathing, pressing

walked home afterwards
stunned, ashamed, worried sick

she was pregnant,
i was sure of it

took weeks
before i figured it out
felt foolish
hid in my room for days

finally
i called Marylou, to ask
if she wanted
to get pregnant again

____________________

CROCODILIAN VISION

—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

Does it help to know

that an alligator sees in vivid color?

Would it help to show him

my shirt collar is already ripped, snagged

on a fish hook my last fishing trip?

Is my Kayak green, gliding through

his murky glades, seen in techno-vision?

Does he know the quirky color of my blood,

appreciate its pink dilution in water.....

his waters?

Is the St John's River wider, kinder

in places other than this place

of ever-fresh indifference—

ever-dangerous, ever-flesh?
 

____________________

A "nightmare" for Prince Harry—

        He is awakened by a guard while sleeping off a hangover from another wild party

        The guard declares, "Your grandmother has died,

        and grandfather and father and brother have been killed in an ‘accident’ involving the paparazzi

        You are expected at coronation ceremonies tomorrow evening after the memorial services.”

        All the guards then declare, "The Queen is dead, God save the King!"

       "Wait—how can this be?!" decries the only royal whom practically everyone has seen naked

       "I think I'd rather go back to Afghanistan..."

       "Oh no you don't," the head guard declares. "English parliament has ruled to pull out of illegally occupying all other countries. 

       —By the way your highness, a queen of royal blood has already been chosen for you

       And now you shall love her as if she is your wife..."

       Prince Harry's heart froze in horror—

       Suddenly he awakens, drenched in sweat and relieved that it only was a dream. Or maybe it isn't, he wonders… 

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

 

___________________

HAIR
—Ann Privateer, Davis

Now I wash my hair every five days

Thursday, Tuesday, Sunday, Friday

you get the idea, time has dried

it and at times it looks fried

it’s unruly wiry hair that needs dye

or palmate or a pretty tie

to tame the haywire pile

of gray/brown into style.

In high school I washed it every day

puberty’s oil glands would sigh

and pump out more oil, Grandma

loved my red locks gleaming in sunlight

but I called them auburn, chestnut, ginger,

or summer sandy brown on my

driver’s license windowed

with genuine leather stays.

—Photo by Ann Privateer, Davis

Somehow you keep exploring in my dreams

—Timothy Sandefur, Rescue

You must be up there still,

Neil, sliding down

that flimsy ladder, bolted

to the lander’s spindly

legs—aluminum,

like a jungle gym—

and poised to mess your new,

white boots with billion-year-

old silver dust; scuff up

some sand on that tranquil shore;

waving too fast in your home-

movies, making faces

safely behind your mirrored

mask.  Your laughter crackles

back to grown-ups in Houston.

Summer vacation will last

forever.  Out of sight.

Tonight again, you’re splashing

at Buzz in the Mare Cognitum,

or bouncing after a ball

out of bounds.  Man in the

Moon, gleaming like

an upturned smile.  Hail

Columbia; Peter Pan;

Captain America; Nostalgia

Man.  No, not Man,

mankind.  Host of Daydreams,

you keep flying toward

that earthrise; fling yourself

at a horizon that falls away

as you approach, around

and around forever.

____________________

FIVE QUINTAINS

—Michael Cluff, Corona

I would rather not hear sing

the actor Bob Hope

but with his sometimes partner Bing

Crosby's voice I can easily cope

but the other's makes me consider a suicide rope.

The pretty blooms

of the late summer

finds their way into dining rooms

as days do pass they become a bummer

the growing smell makes the nose go number.

As I teach my new class

watching time is a task

used to indicate who will pass

and let students grow and bask

yet I keep on the professional mask.

The potbelly mollie

new in the fish tank

makes the water quite jolly

never in mood dark or dank

the joy she produces I gladly have drank.

The new necktie that I tied

blue, black and white stripes

is paraded around with pride

its importance cresting overt hypes

by colleagues of lick-spittle types.

 

____________________

STAR LIGHT

—Taylor Graham

First star of evening. Storm clouds pull apart

as if that star might speak, And then a tongue

of lightning, sudden silence. Is the heart

of heaven waiting thunder? How you've clung

to hopes of stars. The ancient songs are sung,

and still repeat, but translated in dreams

you half remember, puzzle, and forget.

The forest beasts won't talk to you, it seems,

disappear to dark. Stars. One night you met

a man who'd caught so many in his net,

he'd reached his limit. Could you catch just one

and keep it in a night-bowl by your bed?

What kind of dreams come of a burned-out sun?

The sky keeps its secrets above your head

as webs of stars behind the storm clouds spread.

___________________

Our thanks to today's cooks for their cheeky poems, "first times", and quintains, and welcome to newcomer Tim Sandefur from Rescue and his tribute to Neil Armstrong! This week's Form to Fiddle With digs a little deeper into the quintain and other five-line forms with the help of The Poets Garret; see the green "board" at the right of this column for details.  

Another way to stretch your poetry muscles is with Lilliana Mendez-Soto's East Sacramento workshop, which begins another six-week session this Wednesday (8/29). Check that out on the green board, too, under the brain. And once you've got those wonderful poems done, send 'em out into the world, fer criminentlies—either to Medusa or to some of the publications listed over there on the green board. There are lots of deadlines coming up this week. Don't be shy—the world wants to see your work!
 

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

COLLECTING

—Taylor Graham, Placerville

What to do with a child

who shoots down moons for fun?

Just before they start to wane;

pewter targets in the sky. He'd collect

what fell to earth, as if shards of clay

pigeons. The smallest, perfectly silver-

round, he'd tuck in his pocket

for plugging meters and the juke box

with its achy-breaky. His father

frowned if he aimed at stars—all that

splintered glitter, image of eternity

burning itself out. And angels—

broken wings plummeting

like swans in season—he promised

his mother he'd never shoot

one down. What good

is a dead angel?

__________________

—Medusa

  —Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

How The World Really Is

ALLIGATOR POEM
—Mary Oliver

I knelt down

at the edge of the water,

and if the white birds standing

in the tops of the trees whistled any warning

I didn’t understand,

I drank up to the very moment it came

crashing toward me,

its tail flailing

like a bundle of swords,

slashing the grass,

and the inside of its cradle-shaped mouth

gaping,

and rimmed with teeth—

and that’s how I almost died

of foolishness

in beautiful Florida.

But I didn’t.

I leaped aside, and fell,

and it streamed past me, crushing everything in its path

as it swept down to the water

and threw itself in,

and, in the end,

this isn’t a poem about foolishness

but about how I rose from the ground

and saw the world as if for the second time,

the way it really is.

The water, that circle of shattered glass,

healed itself with a slow whisper

and lay back

with the back-lit light of polished steel,

and the birds, in the endless waterfalls of the trees,

shook open the snowy pleats of their wings, and drifted away,

while, for a keepsake, and to steady myself,

I reached out,

I picked the wild flowers from the grass around me—

blue stars

and blood-red trumpets

on long green stems—

for hours in my trembling hands they glittered

like fire.

___________________

—Medusa

The Staff That Holds All Music

Morning Sky

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

AN OLD AGREEMENT

—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

I have a relationship with the stars.

It is something we contrived long ago

When anything was possible, before

We could even consider if animals

Could talk, or trees or even the planets

For that matter and that did matter.

I would include the stars in as many

Things as it was possible to include

Them and they would include me

When music was to be made.

Time has obliterated anything

We were once capable of discovering

With the edges of all other creation.

All that remains is a vague glow

That is still my luck to discern.

When I sleep, the trappings of my

Memory might show me a legion of stars

And indeed I am accustomed to their shapes

But now I must poise myself on the edge

Of oblivion, still faithful to the

Common dreams we once shared,

Still eternally bound to their numbers,

Their names, their infinity of beauty,

Still my obsession.  But I am no longer

Part of that eternal sea where

Their music is entirely my own.

I find it now in dreams,

All the appointed places still seen

Upon the staff that holds all music.

But it wanders through my body,

A strange, barely successful

Landscape, found mostly in my poetry

Where I stand unwinding the labyrinth,

The communion of saints,

The words always complicated

By an anxiety of purpose

That may or may not be music to you,

May or may not be the stars at all.

Everything still looking so eternally real.

_________________

THE LIKELIHOOD OF SUFFERING

—D.R. Wagner

I don’t think I should be allowed

Out of doors after the sun has set.

Certainly not when I can see the stars.

I recognize the night for what it is

And it urges me forward, past

What is real, to angels, to remote

Whirlwinds nourished by mythologies

I barely understand but am able

To realize as a mirror of eternity.

And smack there, in the yard

Or in the fields behind the house

Comes an idea that the landscape

Is gilded at its edges, an evening,

Made entirely of gold that will

Never change except for the play

Shadows so blissfully use as conversation.

I should just close the book,

Stop trying to find what kind of instrument

I am. Why these huge ghosts?

Sometimes entire galaxies of them

Prepare exquisite doors for me to

Anticipate what death might be wearing.

Will it sing like a nightingale?

Will it not really belong to me,

But be other, part of another

Matter and I will be caught

Outside looking at the stars again

When the entire adventure ripples,

Magical and massive just that

Far away from me when I

Truly should be paying attention?

I expect nothing.  Frail and yet

Eternal I will stand at the ramparts

Waving to some approaching shadows,

Shouting to them, thinking they

Might be my friends.

___________________

LARGO: AUGUST AND THE MOON

—D.R. Wagner

I thought that August would stay.

I know it never had in the past,

But this year if felt like it had

Something to do and would remain

Longer than usual.  Perhaps to count

Something like after a battle,

When soldiers go out on the battlefield

And collect the dead, counting

Them, sorting them, trying to identify

Who these dead men had been

Or what really happened there

After all.  The clouds of flies,

Of course, the smell, everywhere.

But this was not August at all.

It was his mind loping slowly through

Days hoping there was something that would

Totally capture him, quicken the pulse.

The sun seemed to have little to do.

The days were hot.  The sky blue.

A beautiful blue to be sure but only blue.

Because we turn our lives into words

We have the fortune, good or bad,

To have our pockets full of as many

Moons as it is possible to imagine.

And we need not be able to identify

Them at any given time.  We might

Use one accidentally as a quarter

Plunked into a parking meter without

Thinking what that could mean,

Or toss it high and watch it curl

Itself into a dragon that troubles

Children as they try to sleep.

It is always ours to use and use it

We will.  Then one night, when

Everything is still and we are heaping

Words into the flow of night after

Night and employ it as a unique

Device that makes everything fit,

We look up and there it is,

Hanging there in the night sky,

White and fickle and without a name.

We create clichés to bind it to our

Foreheads, glorious and sublime

As we try to name it, as if we created it.

This became a game of moons,

Of myriad descriptions of moon,

Curving or smiling, endless variations

That seemed to have import but

Were always within reach.  A search

For an unknown name that would

Still convey the single idea: moon.

But it was not a place to dwell.

There was no magic in August,

Like one day when perhaps

That giant wolf we had heard about

So long ago would come and indeed

Slay the moon.  But it was not to be.

I dragged the boat down to the water’s edge.

It seemed golden under the reaping moon,

Something unknowable yet familiar.

I laughed at the strangeness of the moment;

August was going quietly.  It was glorious

But it was finished and September was

Right on time.

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

THE GOOD THUNDER

—D.R. Wagner

We brought out the good thunder

To the edge of the edge of the meadow

Where the elms are still incredibly tall

And over two centuries old.

We could ask it to dance and we did

And it did and the sky split.

Hey, hey, the sky split and

Our lips split from the yelling.

The blood had a color never

Seen elsewhere.

We brought three horses there,

Fire in their eyes, and begged

The palest of the blue riders

To mount them and circle

Us faster and faster until

We could see the Western Lands

Rise from the sand, until we could

Come to believe all the stories

These ancient gods could tell.

_________________

‘IN MY EYES THERE ARE NO DAYS’

                                             ....Borges

—D.R. Wagner

Even now the terms are dying.  They are

Suspicious of time.  And rightly so.

Time nibbles the edges of everything

To fulfill its murky omnipotence.

We become unable to recall simple things,

Tremble in the yard like thieves

About to be discovered with the treasure

Of nights and days.  Time will sell us pain

As a miracle, the senses as lasting forever

And we will not know how to address it.

Others will see it in our faces.  We will

Read stories of the lives of others,

Thinking we know them, or that we knew

Them and we may well be correct.  We will

Not ask to continue here.  We have

Other birthplaces, other lives.

                  *

That image must be of a street

Crowded with others, as night

Comes to define the tenacity

Of the place.  We sit down

At an outdoor table at the cafe

And question one another.

‘Who are these people?

Why do they come to these places

At all?’

_______________________

INTO THE WHITE CAVES

—D.R. Wagner

Just before we were able to remember

That we were not supposed to enter

The white caves we crossed the threshold

To having the ability to navigate in and out

Of a dream state at will.

If we could know we were falling through

The air we could catch ourselves there,

Choose exactly where the air could take us,

Either higher or into the teeth of the thing.

This allowed us to bring our lives to the edge

Of the immortal, tear the skin away from reality,

Allowing us to feel the arrows or not, no longer

Afraid of nightmares or of finding ourselves

In situations where we might come to harm.

But we had entered the white caves.  There

Only words were true.  There was no life without

Them.  We were not breathing but found ourselves

Looking through the letters on the page, seeing

Ourselves captured in them but unable to live

Without the windows they have come to provide.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

MY FICTIVE LIFE

—D.R. Wagner

My fictive life so guarded from itself

By strenuous histories so full

Of myself I barely recognize

The shore when it appears.  I throw

Myself against it, imagine I am

Far above in a black castle, watching

Starlight reflect upon the blank

Mirrors I have recalled from

An even more improbable youth.

I fall asleep to waves crashing,

Cannons firing, the frightened

Cries of men whose faces I would

Never see see, hovering in stories

I will never be able to more

Than imagine.  Their perfect loyalty to me.

___________________

—Medusa, who notes that the Fall issue of Convergence is now online at www.convergence-journal.com/fall12  Look for work by Gale Acuff, Im A Bear, Myles Boisen, Doug Bolling, Holly Day, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, Anara Guard, Patricia Hickerson, Erren Geraud Kelly, Pete Madzelan, Rebecca Meredith, Allyson Seconds, Nina Sokol, David Thornbrugh, and Brenda Yamen.

D.R. Wagner and John Dorsey at the Shine Cafe

Wednesday, August 22

—Photo by Lisa Jett-Gallup, Elk Grove

[For more photos of the Poetry With Legs reading,

see Medusa's Facebook page

for a new photo album by Annie Menebroker.]

Carving Our Initials

Bromeliads

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

 

FIRST TAP STEPS

—Patricia Hickerson, Davis

two little girls in blue

onstage in organdy side by side

puffed sleeves and swelling skirts

black patent leather shoes

black grosgrain ties

pale blue socks

silver taps under the toes

taps power the sound

pale legs flail

before them a dark crowd watches

swathed in darkness from seats row on row

to the back of the great arena

arena of dance

where people clap

when they hear first taps

the time step tapped and tapping

to the piano rhythm

fever of spotlight on small girls                                                         

five year old girls singled out

smaller than anyone else

looking out on the big people

a swarm of watchers

watch them dance the time step

the first routine learned at the studio

when it ends a wave of applause

reaching to the far back row 

watchers clap

fever of clapping

fever of first taps

contagious fever of tapping

never ends

________________

UNCLE BILL’S REBEL LEGACY XV

—Patricia Hickerson

say goodbye to Uncle Bill

he taught you all you know

it wasn’t much; he never preached

he told you dance is good

can’t get enough

go for it that’s the way

let it ride in and out

over and under

feel the pain feel the glory

in the cabin out of the cabin

under the trees

over the bridge

across the water

in the snow

in the rain

now you’ve got it

never stop

it’s all about dance

okay, kid? 

_______________

LAST TIME I SAW MOSCOW

—Patricia Hickerson

don’t know what it’s like now

from 40 years ago

still drunks sprawled along Nevsky Prospekt?

cops throwing them into paddy wagons?

midnight New Years Eve

toasting with vodka the everyday drink

red velvet hotel’s long tables crowded

next morning what a layout of breakfast

hot cereal, eggs, sausage, golden caviar

for lunch borscht in a workers’ restaurant

later sitting in a crowded cafė 

across the table from an elderly WWII soldier

honor medal on his lapel dark-eyed blonde at his side

Beatles’ music, dancing

hot with vodka and loud voices

stamping of feet on Red Square bricks

St. Basil’s cathedral onions

catercornered to the Kremlin

Lenin finally serene in his glass coffin

guards at the ready

yanked my hand out of my pocket

cold air and snow

babishkas sweeping the streets

their raggedy straw brooms                             

 Nicole dances Dracula, Sacramento Ballet

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

INITIAL

—Michael Cluff, Corona

In July 1967

the first beach sunset

seen with adolescent eyes

marked me until

the present

and, I know,

into my limited future.

The star dashed

into the emerald

tossing sea

minutely turning itself

and the waves

into hues of henna

a tide of tans

and an ocean of orange organza.

I sat until the sea and sky

became one

the line between

a deep purple

that had no definition

like my life

back then.

__________________

INITIAL II

—Michael Cluff

The first day

of teaching

at the start

of the semester

demands:

an extra four swipes

of deodorant

under each arm,

a sharper razor,

the freshest of breath that

a plastic bottle can evoke,

a better polished

pair of brown wingtip shoes

and the perfection of dimpled knots

in the middle price range

of not-quite-so-outdated paisley ties.

After the third day

old ways reassert

a reality of their own

that I will defy

sporadically

on my own impulse

until the middle of December

or early weeks in March, when they

expire in their own natural ways.

______________________

WHERE AM I?

—Taylor Graham, Placerville

My dog has led me to a useless place.

Deserted street of houses; bungalow

with peeling paint, front yard a disgrace

of weedy lawn. My dog goes sniffing, slow

and thoughtful, as if anything could grow

here. Side gate's hanging by a hinge, the fence

leans to block my passage—but childhood-bright

with honeysuckle, mint, remembered scents

from—where? My dog still leads me, eyes a-light

with seeking. Memory is a second sight.

_____________________

Thank you to today's contributors! Don't forget to check out Medusa's Facebook page for Michelle Kunert's beautiful photos of orchids.

Congratulations to Sacramento City College Professor Jeff Knorr for being appointed Sacramento Poet Laureate for 2012-2014! There is more info about Jeff on our green board at the right of this column.

____________________ 

Today's LittleNip: 

INITIAL PERCEPTION

—Michael Cluff 

The sky is above
the evil red sea
sage brushes both
and does not care
which is right
or will win.

____________________

—Medusa

 Sleeping White Lion
McKinley Park, Sacramento
—Photo by Michelle Kunert