Still Walking Young

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

WALKING YOUNG
          (After "Mother and Daughter
          Barcelona, 1900" by Picasso)

Prissy and Missy go for a dance-
walk down the strutting avenue
in their pretty shoes and daring
skirts—a bit too tight and a bit
too short for the old decorum.
Boldly they flounce themselves
along through the golden mirrors
of the air; blithely they mince, and
glance, and smile, and flutter their
eyes, and form a flirting kiss with
their lips—and the day is so long,
and so bright, and so rare, that it
lets them go to the end of it before
they know what the next will know:
that there’s only one, as brief, and
free, and glad, and young, as this.

______________________

OLD SHOES

Somewhere an old shoe
lieth under a bed—
all dusty
and lost
from its other—
lonely as someone
dead
and searching still
for its mate
in a cadaverous closet
and making death
real for the
abandoned shoe.

______________________

IN SILHOUETTE

Time has captured them again, in silhouette,
these famous lovers, named Anon, who glide
among us with their timeless love.

Oh, I have seen them—one arm linked to his
bent arm—while she holds her skirt up from
the ground with the other—and he deftly holds
his top hat to his side and guides her leisurely
along—speaking toward her with his charm.

And I have heard their laughter—restrained,
flirtatious—and the swish-sound her dress
makes along the path, and the way his pol-
ished boots step ringingly beside her.

They do not  know how time has passed them
by—that we are hurrying around them with
our later lives—crossing their slow meander 
with our hurry, and watching the ever-
spinning skies pull us faster along.

But they remain impervious—they stroll and
murmur—moving in toward something de-
lightfully familiar—turn their backs to us, then
fade again—back to their time. 

VISIT IN THE YEAR OF SNOW

in the year of snow
in the place of far away
white boots on our feet
we made our prints and lifted our face
to watch and feel the snowflakes fall
it was early night of our first day
the streetlight spread its yellow glow
around us in a soft tableau
and from her window
high above our play
Worry sat with envy on her face
watching us steal from her
our little fun
while on her wall
her little clock ticked on

______________________

VAUDEVILLIAN

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here to
amaze you with my abstract presence. 
Notice how the spotlight leaves me
stark, in exaggerated silhouette.  That is
a clue.  Notice how thin I am and how
nothing of me is attached to strings. 
So—I am not a puppet.  I belong to no
ventriloquist.  My voice is my own—
though it does not carry—though I am
not a mime.  The stage is bare on
purpose—I am on my own with you. 
If you heckle, I will grow mute and
stand patiently still until you finish. The
microphone does not work, though I
always introduce the next act, which is
late.  I can’t remember jokes, so I am
not funny.  My boots are too big, so I
cannot dance.  But I posture nicely, I
posture nicely, with my cane and my top
hat and the audacity of my wide mustache. 
And you stay for my act, for I am famous—
a real old-timer, still hanging on to time. 
And you need to laugh.  So you stay in
the nostalgic dark with me—for you are
the audience, and I am the old familiar act.

_______________________

THE RESORT IN WINTER
        (After a photo by Teresa Tamura:
       “I Am Becoming the Woman I’ve Wanted”)

Pull on black stockings. Dress for the day,
for the winter outside. Put on a long skirt
and a warm sweater. Layer yourself until
you are fit for the layering weather.

Put on boots. Leave the small bathroom
with its steamy mirror. Look to the day
which is passing by. Speak to yourself
about nothing in particular.

Walk down to the ocean; watch the gulls,
the waves; then turn to the town with its
little stores. Browse deeply for some
souvenir.

This is a holiday from your daily self; give
it a difference; study each new reflection
in each new glass or pulling shadow where
you walk, aimless and distracted. 

You are here, and here is enough to be.
This day will be a turning point for you.
Turn when it does, back or forward
to the old or new.


(first pub. in EDGZ, 2003)

______________________

Today's LittleNip:

THE GIRL IN LEATHER
IN THE SAND PILE

little-girl girl
sits deep into sand
digging her leather boot in
ignoring the winter
with a curious smile

all the tones
of the day are the same
the gray weather pleases her
she does not have to
grow up today


(first pub. in Paisley Moon, 1991)

______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Joyce Odam for today's delectable poems and pix! Caschwa (Carl Schwartz) sent me a poem yesterday that gave me an idea for this week's new Seed of the Week: According to Science... Send your poems, photos and artwork about such a thing to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though.

 

Boots, Bugs, & Burqas

Sunlight

—Photo by D.R. Wagner, Locke

COLD CASE
—Jane Blue, Sacramento

In the deli she goes through the cold case like a criminal
investigation that’s hit a dead end.

Now she’s jittery on the patio in the wind, talking
into her cell, green table umbrellas crushed and flailing,

almost inside out, like the upheavals of love, those
entanglements you used to have. She closes the phone,

her expression crumpled, crestfallen, dials again, then
stares into it at arm’s length as though it’s a book

and she’s forgotten her glasses. You’re inside,
looking out a window, the door is open, you can hear

leaves on the pavement chattering like birds. Her copper
hair catches the morning light, she’s backlit, a bower

behind her like an illustration for a fairy-tale. She twists
her torso, scratches her arms. Is it a connection

she needs? You’re here escaping the whine
of a powerwasher’s compressor, you’ve accepted

a painter’s bid, the young one, in goggles, shorts,
Canadian Mountie boots. As soon as you get out of bed

he is clinging to the siding like a giant insect.
He’s hacked the roses away so as not to be caught

in their thorns. Pruning’s good for them, he says, always
on the verge of producing their bitter love-apples.

__________________________

SHOES


—Charles Mariano, Sacramento

shoes
say who you are
where you’re from
Converse, Nike,
best money can buy

when i was a kid,
a mocoso,
from the K street projects
in Merced,

my shoes
were like my skin
dirty, callused, peeling

i wore shoes
from the segunda,
secondhands, for a buck

wore them
till they barked
flopping front ends
patched with tape
cardboard insoles

nothing to do
with culture,
everything to do
with poor

don’t recall
being dirty, smelling bad,
or crying,
but must have

i remember hungry
a lot

and no matter
how many times
i changed the cardboard
in my shoes
embarrassed
by my hardened, unwashed socks,

or wondered why
everyone in school
stared,

i’d just lower my head
pretend not to notice,
then go home
to our house
in the projects,
where it was safe
where everyone
wore shoes,

like me

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

HALO
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

This morning the sun rose through a notch
between pine-top mountains. A winter sun
white-blinding as I took the curve into town.
But in this winter of drought, a rainbow-halo
around that sun.
Last night you saw the same
concentric halos around the moon—
micro-moon they call it, so distant, yet
huge. When apogee coincides with full
moon, there's magic in the air.
And now a rainbow-halo
on the sun. Presage of rain? Or just a trick
of sky, dry lightning, kindling to a spark.
Angel-wings of flame. Might I see it
as hope against darkness, a hymn of praise?

_____________________

UNDERSTANDING AGGRESSION
—Taylor Graham

It’s a matter of syntax.
Nothing but a chimney left standing
after fire and wind swept through. Wild
growing things erect walls in what used to be
plowed field; labyrinths where a man
can lose himself, just walking to work.
And the eagle. Beak and talons,
beautiful as it soars against a rising sun.
Forever hungry to live.
Small birds have raided the two fig trees
that stand barren of fruit. But see
how lovely the trees in their tatters
of leaves, white limbs extended
like dancers.

____________________

WIND IN THE SHOPPING CARTS
—Taylor Graham

The word by seers or sibyls told…
still floats upon the morning wind.
                 —Ralph Waldo Emerson


My dog leads me
diagonally across the painted lines
on asphalt. From rooftop a crow
calls down to shoppers pushing their carts,
to my dog who trots, nose knee-level
where a certain scent hovers
in early-morning sun. Even here,
the food co-op, is the wind’s country,
though it skulks like a prince in disguise
between buildings, before bursting out
across parking lot, the hoods
of cars. Abruptly my dog
snatches a brief wind-drift—around
a corner, and there stands
our quarry, Hatch, waiting to be found.
Such revelations if only we’re
watching, listening for an unexpected
chord of wind and crow;
breathing a momentary scent—
the elemental givens
always changing, eternal, new.
My dog and I, these shoppers, a crow—
each with equal right to inhale
and be lifted, to hear the wind’s word.   

Sand

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

BOOTS
—Michael Cluff, Corona

We kids found Santa's
boots in Belinda's backyard
right around Groundhog Day.
Pete said they looked like
his dad's
when Mr. Raleigh sat on
Santa's lap
during their open house
Christmas Eve.
The white of fake snow
just on the spot where
toes met tanned heavy
leather.

That is all I remember
from that season
fairly near fifty years ago.

____________________

MURMURS II
—Michael Cluff
The rumor
of release
from oppression
found under
heavy boots.

Staying seated
in burqa
the front
of bus
in Tehran.

Children's conference
breath held
teacher passes
knuckles saved
imaginations grow.

A giggle
tie unknotted
kiss shared
same gender
total love.

____________________

MOVING ON
—Caschwa, Sacramento

And what, pray tell
Were all those bugs
Doing in my boots?

Certainly not living
Happily ever after
Once I sprayed

With cleanser
Over and over
Dead, yes dead

A fella needs to
Put his foot in the sock
And then in the boot

Without dealing with
A bunch of uninvited
Visitors crawling all over

Like unwelcome people
Who pretend to pay you
A compliment, but only

If they can weave it
Into a reprimand delivered
In an ugly voice

“That’s good information
But you could have found
A better way to tell me”

I am prohibited by law from
Smashing in the faces of
Those who offend me

Though there is almost no
Limit on what I can do to
Bugs in my boots!

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's contributors and a heads-up that Jane Blue has a new book out from Future Cycle Press, Blood Moon, and Charles Mariano also has a new book out, Piece Work (see Amazon).

Morning Glory
—Photo by D.R. Wagner

Crystal Stair

MOTHER TO SON
—Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

_____________________

—Medusa

Eternity Dresses in Purple

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

BEING CALLED FROM AFAR

I have lived there so often.
The shoes I wear, covered
With a vocabulary of light that
I have found impossible to abandon.

I open my mouth to tell of it
But the flower is gone.  I can see
It so clearly.  The momentary scent.
You would know it.  I know you would.
The voice heard in the next room.

No way to understand the words,
But the tone may be held in the heart
For the briefest of moments.  A child
Running across the hallway, the evening
Light coming through the window transforms
Everything seen into a perfect phrase, an
Unexpected chord that searches frantically
For a home.  There is no home.  The heart
Opens, tries to become a place.

Later, walking home from the restaurant
I look up an alley connecting the streets.
The light shifts without revealing much
Of anything.  I feel I am almost home
But there is no home.  We are required
To live here.  Nothing is revealed.

_________________________

“THERE WAS A LITTLE INN IN THE VALLEY”

Behind closed doors you came
To me and I thought you were
A flame, although I could see
Your face so clearly.  I could see
The birds landing on the lake
Of your eyes and the way that angels
Gathered at the corners of your mouth
Just waiting for you to say something,
Anything.  I remember telling you
I loved you and could see
A perfect landscape for such
Long moments.  I thought we might
Live there.  But no, it was just
A moment and you asked me to go
Get some ice.  I felt as if I were
On a kind of crusade I might
Never return from.

When I did get back
You were sleeping so soundly.
I could see doors opening and closing
As you moved through the walls
Of your dreams.  Such pleasant
Songs you sang, all about rain.  

A COUNTRY

The most devoted is the wind.
Unhurried but persistent
In its moving on the lands.

“What country is this?”
“The wind’s.”

The soft animals of childhood walking
In the last of the twilight.

“Is this where the seasons come from?”

“Look, there is death.  Even his horses
Are beautiful.  He has such multitudes
Accompanying him.  He barely notices.
To death it is all music.”

We can see eternity getting dressed.
It is wearing purple this morning.
It washes its hands in blood
As if it were a secret.

The power of the wind never lessens.
It caresses our faces even as we
Stand here gazing at the battlefields.

_______________________

FAIR DEAL

Ten fathoms deep
My lord doth lie
As does his ship, ‘Fair Deal’
And but one will bring it back again
Their story to reveal.

Worse weather than seen
By Sir Patrick Spens
Had possession over the sea
When we went a-sailing North
To reach the Zuider Zee.

Not two days out
We met full force
The fury of the Arctic Wind
That whipped a sea so tall
We would not get back again.

Well battened and well-reefed were we,
But the sea would have us drown
And she took the ship with all aboard
And pulled the ice around our throats
And drew it tight, tight as sash cord.

Why I survived
I’ll never know
But here I stand death pale
Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner
To speak the words of ‘Fair Deal’s’ tale. 

 The Face in the Tree

THE PRAYER OF THE LOST DREAMERS

There used to be a channel
That went from the very heart
Of the city directly to those
Houses that faced away from the world.

Huge flights of crows were the music there.
On occasion they would rise up and form
Words that could be read from the ground.

The waterfalls were intermittent
But extremely powerful when they flowed.
This was probably because of the wide
Variety of dreaming that visited this place.

We often would walk on the path
The led to these places,
Confident we could pass safely
Through these channels.  Although
We were aware of the kinds
Of monsters that inhabited these lands,
We knew we were powerful enough dreamers
To confront them and recognize them.

But now the channels had been closed.
There was no lighting of the noises.
They were terrible loud and frightening.

This was our prayer:
‘Stars that watch both Gods and men
And leave us here below to breathe,
Do not forget we travel here,
Always pilgrims, never bringing war
To these hills.  We are no more than clouds
Or rain upon the land.  Give us passage
Here that we may recall the world
From which we came while we were here.  Quiet these
Twilight kingdoms.  Protect our souls
And keep safe our bodies.

In the names of all the Gods
We burn the sweetest incense to all who
Dwell here.  May we wander free
Upon these places that face away
From the world, that we may
Know all manner of dreaming.’

_____________________________

LOOKING AT JEALOUSY

I don’t know.
I was standing a little too near
To where everyone was doing judgement.
Who is better?  Who is best?
Who used the stick on the hornet’s nest?

I can’t imagine anyone using a poem
As a map, looking for a way to claim
They have reached a higher crag,

On a higher mountain, when the whole
Thing is made of words.  And right here
A banshee flies by, or someone spills
A cup of coffee, or this six-year-old kid
Bends down and picks up part of someone’s
Dream he found on the sidewalk when he was looking
For something that bounced.  It could have been
An idea or a tennis ball.  One is surely better
Than the other.  A fireball hits us right between
The legs.  It would seem we would be pretty
Badly hurt but...hey folks, it’s just a poem.

Maybe it is a mediocre poem.
Maybe it will find its way into a special
Car headed for the camps, just like
It was when the Nazis had a solution.

Then, again, maybe it is covered with angels,
Little children playing in a rain puddle,
Someone you love, kissing your lips.

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

POPCORN

And then, just as we were turning the corner,
Smell of popcorn and the laughter still
In our ears, we were stopped completely.
We were here before, only a moment ago.
These echoes grasping at our ankles, hauling
Us toward some other ground.  Just a moment.
No!  No more moments.  The place has closed down.

__________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's poems and pix! And a notice to check out Medusa's Facebook page for a new photo album, this one by Michelle Kunert: JANUARY 13, featuring the readers at Sac. Poetry Center last Monday night. Thanks, Michelle!

Made For Walkin'

A Pair of Shoes

—Drawing by Vincent van Gogh

SHOE BOOTS SHOWING
—B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

Van Gogh had four drawing
of shoe boots
all green-black in the 1880's
and Andy Warhol's Factory
turned out in the 1980's
advertisements of boots
hoping for satisfaction
for his "Diamond Dust Shoes"
in his consumer paintings
and what a reaction!

____________________

A BEAT TAKES OFF HIS BOOTS
—B.Z. Niditch

A Beat takes off his boots
on the grounds of peace
not yet liking
or licking the boots
of the officer ill at ease
for sending raw recruits
to an undeclared war in 1966
says to me at my physical
"He would rather dance
to Nancy Sinatra's 

'Boots Were Made for Walkin'

than go abroad,"
he was soon in newsprint
for taking off his helmet
black boots
and burning his own draft card
along with other A.W.O.L.'s,
telling me he was going
out to San Francisco
with flowers in his long hair
was put in a brig
for his offense,
but I took out my bric-a-brac
of images graven
not for Moloch's war machines
but to shoeshine my life
for the peace of understanding,
while I breathe out my sex
and alto sax on the street corner
like Walt Whitman
who visited the Civil War Vets
in their hospital rooms,
here in my cleaned-up boots,
knowing the joy and comrades
in an army of peace
of a walking Beat
making me an instrument
to save lives.

______________________

DUO
—B.Z. Niditch

Trying to be as composed
as is in this gig
crowded with jazz lovers
I take my Christmas boots off
and write out a sax piece
at the piano
and suddenly opposite me
is a singer with boots on,
so calm and orderly
who starts humming my tune
we remained together
for a half-hour and became
a duo Barry and Mary
with a musical love
the night Mary recorded us
playing and dancing
as we step outside
in our winter boots
we cannot leave
till three A.M.
promising to each other
to come back the next weekend
sober with our boots on.

 Birds Like Music

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis

AT RISK
—B.Z. Niditch

Asked by a theater company
at a local university
who consulted me
for a frenzied script
on a student film
to be made in 55 minutes
being a city slicker,
the art director
urged me briefly
to get on a horse
riding with my boots on
worrying about
a hairline fracture
getting on this colt
but I was safely slouched,
admiring this animal's life
for his traveling nobility
imagining if this were
a real Western on the screen
and this poet was lodged
on a covered wagon
going out West
centuries ago
and somehow I survive
the first showing
of the film At Risk

and got a new pair of boots
at the graduation's awards day.

_____________________

REVIEWING THE HURT LOCKER
—B.Z. Niditch

Reviewing the film

The Hurt Locker

about the Iraq War
during this winter vacation
and all the suffering
involved with IED'S
and their identities
from all nations
and stations crossing
the globe
I recall
those in the film
the moving screens
with hardly anyone left
in their poor villages
locked in hiding
with injured feet
others missing their footing
on the killing fields
overseas,
and those brave medics
who won't let
sisters and brothers die
like the slaughtered lambs
without knowing
the good in themselves,
and not licking the boots
of those who grasp nothing
as they pass by
a sick woman's face
stretched out on
a makeshift country bed,
or shivering hungry souls
in their own deliriums,
a few guys on either side
looking tough and hard
being oblivious to suffering,
and others helping
even the enemy's wounded
at this world's sad inferno,
when the lights go off
in the movie theater
and I put my new boots on,
outside in Cape's parking lot
a blue bird passes up
miraculously before our eyes
to the blue sky heaven,
wanting a haven of rest
like us.

_____________________

ABSENT GUY FROM LIFE
—B.Z. Niditch

His house was a misnomer
maybe a cape
hard to describe
with ill-conceived
huge curved planks
a turned-around weather vane
and wooden cupboards
for a kitchen cabinet
living all by himself
on this higher-up open boat
covering the bay side,
the only tenant
on the ocean surrounded
with seal skins to keep
warm all winter
dragged in all by himself
his cave boat inscribed
with tall letters "AGFL"
of an "Absent guy from life"
painted with shoe polish
and shellack from his boots,
a small light gleams
from his salt watery window
as the sun and moon
visit in daylight or nocturnally
on the sound of four bells
a ship of solid fishermen
would travel crosswise
and offer him salmon
or some catch for the day
before the seaside restaurant
opens its doors,
one well-known novelist
even bringing in used books
no longer in use
from the library bin
but to "AGFL"
he was the center of the earth
living under the stars.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

IT'S TIME FOR PEACE
—B.Z. Niditch

There is a theory
that the world is war weary,
we are merely asking
to take off our army suits
and remove all desert boots,
enough of excuses to kill
for macho juices to spill
and not to harm or thrill us
it's time for a balm of peace
before we are over the hill.

_____________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Katy Brown

Stormy

Storm Down

—Poems and Photos by Martie Odell-Ingebretsen, Sacramento

STORM DOWN

Bring me thunder,
stake this thick air to the ground
to the ground with a sizzling sword,
dazzle with drenching this braided hair,
touch these eyes with sparklers
of sky fire,
perfume the dirt,
storm down.

Take this cloud
of white bellowing promise
and blow it over and down the pass,
furl the rabbits’ soft,
bead the dove’s feathers,
imprint the quails trail,
lay the lupin sideways
and release the scotch broom’s sweet,
the sage’s pungent,
storm down.

Dapple across this water
and crease the fabric,
let me see your thread
stitch the sky to earth,
storm down.

MAKE ME A STORM

I talk to the mist
the steady drip that touches the leaf
I see it quiver
be bigger louder harder and enough
to make the smell of wet cement

I talk to the clouds
clutching at the light
give in to the dark
swirl with it in consort
make me a storm

The air is dense
strike it with your hammer
slap the sky into the trees
dance with these tall stalks of sunflowers
throw a torrent into the river

I am a small slug
just a trail across the dry leaves
wet them until they tear and shred
fall down on me until I am mulched
make me a storm

STORM TUNED

Torn the leaves of autumn
Falling falling no longer
Crisp with freedom flying
Unrooted and withered
Trod and gone to winter

In the room the window watch
Has closed the door to cool
And the pewter sky is waiting
In the stillness of the canopy

It is the watcher that binds color
And her light is casting no shadow
She sings across the waking storm
Her true of voice keeping her
From falling into pale

Despair is so damp
That comforting cannot robe the chill
Then in the echo of her song
She hears the first drops of rain

The sound is the opening
Where peace is found

THE COMING OF A STORM

—Martie Odell-Ingebretsen

I heard aluminum crash
against the spill of morning
and awake the desperate air
singing like lightning
it curled against time
and startled the trees

I was rain then
desperate for fire
filling the clouds until they were dark
riding the wind from the sea
listening to the spirit swift and keening
opening me

Awake now within the light
a crow is calling to another
and the trees have talking leaves
cool their fingers now release
the hold and twirl
the smoke is gone within this air

Against the spill of morning
the clouds are clouds in truth darkening
they move across the blue of sky
and in the gathering of time coming
there is a promise and a thank you

_____________________

Our thanks to Martie Odell-Ingebretsen for today's poems and photos! Martie was born in Pasadena, California.  She fell in love with books at an early age and continues that love of reading.  She received her AA degree at Pasadena City College and attended the University of California at Berkeley and several California State College campuses where she majored in English Literature and Creative Writing.  She is a child-development specialist and taught young children for over thirty years.  She and her husband owned a flower shop for twenty years, where she spent many holidays delivering flowers.  Her Novella, Sweet William, was published in 2013.  She has also written  a number of short stories, and over two thousand poems, currently, and a number of them have been published.  She continues to write and finds poetry to be a way to express her deepest feelings.  She is a keen observer and finds imagery in all things, and in so doing appreciates the beauty and learns from the wisdom that surrounds her.  Martie lives in Sacramento.

Welcome to the Kitchen, Martie!

____________________

—Medusa

Martie Odell-Ingebretsen

Redwings

—Photo by Katy Brown

WHITE DRUMS

—Katy Brown, Davis

From beyond a curtained aurora,

they advance—

beating their white drums with

a poet’s white thigh bones

—barefoot,

not touching the ground:

these red-winged angels

sent among us—

shimmering in starlight,

chanting an atonal hymn.

Do not approach.

They crackle with lightning.

They sing for a god who burst

bushes into towering flame

and twisted men into sculpted salt.

They come with forewarning. . . . .
 

_____________________

BUS POETRY
—Tom Goff, Carmichael
 

If you should see me boarding the bus,

do I look vexed?

Prunefaced old fart, muttering grizzled old cuss,

behind my stare, I’m young and avidly sexed.

I climb the greased and thinly guttered steps:

I may absently take the reserved-for-disabled seat.

Pluck my sleeve if you know me, and where I get off.

Soon in an Alzheimer’s moment, I’ll drop the name Goff

like an illicit butt flicked lit from the half-open window.

What have I ever known, what do I know now?

I know, shuffling down the too-high steps: don’t slip.

My faraway gaze into the sunglare

equals one poem, just one, written or unwritten.

The opening door, the brake, discharge passengers, blast excess air.

The driver struggles for patience, oracle hardbitten,

reluctant to let slip his bits of mystery.

Where does this bus go? What does she want, all the fricking facts

of every fricking stop I make? But this is public history.

As for me, I’m listening to Arnold Bax:

Tintagel, Enchanted Summer, The Garden of Fand,

all lodged in my head where I keep my staticky broadband.

Smoke and rearview mirrors: the bus sidesidles, halts, then backs.

A wheelchair, hoisted aboard. Bus poetry.  

Blink

—Photo by Taylor Graham

NOTES FROM THE TALE
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Rats: But of course they blamed the Plague on
the Jews for poisoning the wells, they assumed.
Easier than rats to catch and helter-skelter burn.
Jan. 9 1349 in Basel. She walked through Basel
6 centuries + 2 decades later, when Europe had
recouped its population and shushed a lot of its
guilt. It wasn’t just Basel. Black waves moved
in all directions. Strasbourg, were she ate chou-
croute garnie. Freiburg where she lived one
foggy year. Nobody spoke of Plague. Old news.
Any color’s black without light. Once she saw
a rat scuttling its load of real or assumed guilt.
We know so much more now. We poison the
rats who poison whoever eats them. She kept
on walking past Courthouse and City Hall.          

Cats:
black kitten Blink
longs
to be Pharaoh
but however
much he elongates
upward toward
the beacon of his almond
pupiled eyes, the
more his center of gravity holds
him to
the furniture

Bats:
Van Gogh’s stained-glass bat wings
spread full-out from gaps in the broken tower.
Light shines through
a Van Gogh night, bright as skin,
as wing-leather stretched
tight across the white drum
beat with white leg bones into music, life.

______________________

PHOTOSYNTHESIS
—Taylor Graham

We laid the old dog in the ground
beside a young toyon.

Tough scrub, evergreen with promise
of red berries, toyon’s not common here;
a bird must have dropped its seed in passing.

Next morning the old dog’s daughter came,
sniffing for news.

She paused at the fresh-dug mound;
stopped short at the toyon.

What might plants absorb
of our used-up breath, our scent, and hold it
close, then let it out again, cleansed?

She thrust her muzzle deep into sleek
green foliage; inhaled.

Leaf by leaf, so slowly, as if an image
passed, she breathed-in

what the leaves gave back.

____________________

REDWINGS
—Taylor Graham

Worn out boots, weathered, leather stiff
as brick—
brick wall still standing after half
the building fell down.
I was grateful for those boots,
too light for earthquake search but
they were all I had.
They eased me through tight places,
crawling after my dog
through a hole hammered in brick wall,
third-floor level, into factory
that had no stairway anymore. Those
boots shook with every after-
shock through rubble as I watched
my dog disappear
under hanging ceilings
where, even in those boots, I didn’t dare.
My boots stepped me down
to pavement street-level, with my
dog, and back home.
I still keep those boots,
cement dust worked tight into seams
and laces. I don’t wear them
anymore, but feel a quiver
up through earth, even on solid floor.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

REMEMBER ME
—Olga Blu Browne, Sacramento

I have witnessed the tides of time,
where the winds whispers are taboo,
and watched echoes through moon-
lit doorways, where images stay in
the mirror.
       Remember me?
I am more than my skin.

__________________

—Medusa, with a reminder that Taylor Graham will be reading with Robert Twiss at The Other Voice in Davis this Friday night. It's a busy weekend in Sac poetry, in fact—check out the blue board (under the green board at the right of this column) for all the details of readings, and while you're scrolling down the green board, check it out for workshops (under the "brain").

Cowboy relaxes on the porch. 

Between front door & car. 

See my boots, muddy from last time? 

Ready. 

He won’t be left behind.

(from "Dog Tweets" in Taylor Graham's new book,

What the Wind Says from Lummox Press)

—Photo by Taylor Graham