Living With Who You Are

Poppy Statue in front of San Francisco Botanical Gardens

—Poems by Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO

—Photos by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

AUTUMN AT THE ABBEY

Through the window I see
the sun fire up
for the last time today.
There are jays
in the trees near the meadow,
crows in the grass
I cut with a scythe
early this morning.
Still on my platter
corn from the fields,
scallions, tomatoes,
bell pepper and cheese.
I'll remain at my table
with lemon and tea
and look out on the land
that surrounds me.
The psalms a monk
gave me this morning
I'll read for an hour
before sleeping.

___________________

BALLET OVER THE BORDER

Every summer they come, a ballet
over the border, without papers,
a mass migration of

ruby-throat hummers,
beautiful birds that devour
millions of flies in North America,

birds we welcome because we love
their beauty and their ballet.
We do everything to help them,

hanging and cleaning feeders of nectar
to plump them up so they can feast
on flies until October when

they have to lead the young
over the border in another ballet
to Mexico or the Caribbean.

All winter we shovel snow
and wait for the hummers to
begin their long flight back

to arrive in time for summer.
They arrive again without papers.
There are no plans to deport them. 

WHEN EVERY DAY IS HALLOWEEN

It used to bother me 
to see odd people
leapfrog parking meters
and shout every day
is Halloween until
I realized I'm as odd as
they are, always will be.

That's the way it is.
Not much I can do about it.

On Halloween I ring doorbells
without a mask or costume
and whisper "Trick or Treat."
My neighbors do not know me.
We may never meet.
If they put candy in my bag,
I say nothing more than "Boo!"

That's the way it is.
Not much they can do about it.

In time you learn to live
with who you are even if
both of you are strangers
who may never meet.
Normal people are the ones
you have to keep an eye on.
People with monocles are fine.

That's the way it is.
Not much I can do about it.

_____________________

A GOOD NEIGHBOR

Cookies for George,
40 years back from Viet Nam,
are the only payment
the man will accept 
to mow your lawn,
rake your leaves,
shovel your snow.

He sleeps behind
his brother's house
above the garage.
Every two weeks
he shaves and bathes.
His brother takes him
to the Veterans Hospital.

George has cancer again
40 years after Agent Orange.
But he'll mow your lawn,
rake your leaves
and shovel your snow
for nothing less than
cookies for George.

A SOUTHERN GIRL’S, UNCOILING

Whenever I mention you,
the doctor always asks
what do I see,

now that you’re gone,
when I think of you.
I say I see thighs,

tanned and gleaming,
kissed by the proper
Bonwit skirt, rising

through the terminal
toward me and above
your thighs

that smile,
a Southern girl’s,
uncoiling.

_____________________

A GRAND BUFFET

Maury's wife frets
about growing old
withering up

and sagging so
it's up to Maury
to let her know

every day she's
a grand buffet
that he can't wait

to see and sample.
Her appetizers are
enticing, entrees

perfectly prepared.
At his age though,
Maury has to pause.

He knows now
this will mean
a long nap later.

 Celebration of Color by Debbie Lopez

—River City Quilters Guild, Sacramento

BY MISTAKE HE LATER SAID

Every once in awhile
over the last 40 years
Ralph wondered what might

have happened to the guy
who had moved in with the mother
of his children and drank all the time.

He remembered the kids saying
when they were small
the fellow got up one night 

to go to the bathroom
and got lost in the hallway
went back to the wrong room

and got in the wrong bed
with Ralph's daughter,
by mistake he later said.

Forty years later
in a technicolor nightmare
Ralph saw the guy’s name

blink on a neon billboard
and Ralph Googled him to find
the fellow had won the lottery

and moved to Arizona,
got cancer and died.
None of the children,

adults with families
of their own now, knew
what had happened to him

except for the daughter who
wakes up and Googles him
in the still of the night.

______________________

PANTS ON FIRE

Rhoda, I can’t say why Amanda
was picked and not Tiffany 
for anchor of our Nightly News.
I interviewed both
because Mr. Smith wanted
a woman’s opinion.
I honestly don’t know.

I made a recommendation
and sent it to Mr. Jones
who sent it to Mr. Smith
who made the final decision.
I found little difference
between the two.

A day later Mr. Smith sent Mr. Jones
a formal email with a copy to me
saying Amanda would be the anchor
and Tiffany would return
to morning news.
I’m glad it was not my decision.
I could have picked either.

Earlier in our careers, Rhoda,
you and I both did on-air TV and radio.
Now you write a media column
and I direct this program.
As women, we know
the demands of television
differ from those
of radio and print.

But I can assure you,
one woman to another,
despite what readers and viewers
may think, Amanda’s cup size
was never a factor.
Mr. Smith says if you put that
in your column, you better
believe we’ll sue.

 Sea Jewels by Jan Soule and Debbie Lopez

River City Quilters Guild, Sacramento

BOOK SIGNING

Keep writing,
a famous writer
once told me
signing his novel,
until you have said
something true.
The thing of it is,
he cautioned,
some never do
yet find no time
for life as it is.

They find no time
to feed the hungry,
give drink to the thirsty,
clothe the naked,
care for the sick,
visit the imprisoned
or call an embalmer
to bury the dead.
Instead, he said,

writers keep writing
hoping they’ll say
something true
and maybe they will.
The thing of it is,
he said, so few do.
Most write about life
as they wish it to be
and not as it is
for too many.
A pity, he sighed,
signing another book,
but so often true.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

BUTTERFLY POEMS

I sit here at peace
and mind my own business
and hope for a butterfly.

I never take one out of the air.
I paint only the flight of the butterfly.
When I see one float overhead

I drop everything,
grab a brush and a pad.
I don’t want to miss a color.

A butterfly flying
is more valuable
than gold.

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Donal Mahoney and Michell Kunert for today's fine contributions to the Kitchen, and a note that on all Fridays in October (including tonight!), plus Friday, Nov. 13,  the Sac. Poetry Center will be holding a Friday Night Poetry Workshop from 4:30-6pm at the Valley Hi North Laguna Library, 7400 Imagination Parkway, Sac. Moderator: Rhony Bhopla. Bring 15 copies of a one-pg. poem, font no larger than 12-point.

Civil War Elegance by Lina Bergman and Debbie Lopez

River City Quilters Guild

Living Lyrically

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
—Photos by Denise Flanagan, Newton, MA

BACK IN MY NEST

In the course of a weekend
to the North Shore
struggling with
science fiction, plays
maxims, exams,
and so much more
unable to make a prediction
with the right diction
or pretend to have
the right title on my last story
having left
with an uncorrected ending
yet back in my nest
near a chorus of sky birds
with superpower wings
having discovered
the piles of sunflower seeds
we leave for the birds
near my open porch
when needing to prune the roses
at the rock garden
here at the last hour of night
walking on the flagstones
between the roses
are two smiling guests
with half-closed eyes
who hand us more flowers
and white wine
they place on the marble table
in the scorching air
not being able
to thank and surprise me
at my last reading
having my last collection
of Everything, Everywhere
in their grateful hands
asking for my autographed signature
to sign on the dotted line
any perspective of words
for my unmasked pleasure.

____________________

OCTOBER'S LOVE CHILD

The full moon enlightens us
as wet cut lemon slices
for a Japanese tea
a friend of ours
writes out my initials
on the acorn-falling oak tree
after dragging orange-red leaves
by a laughing love child
of a neighbor we know too well
in a labor of love
once orphaned and frightened
on the dry ground
almost left behind
in this close-knit road
when deer were around
wanting to make friends
as his eyes search twigs
acorns, fruits and nuts
near our picnic table
by the serious flash of wind
in the rejoined woods
under the stumps and trunk
hearing the songbird sound
with his earth-wise lyric
we fall on a blanket silent
trying to capture a picture
of this motioning landscape.

OPEN READING

Destined to gather
in noon at the quad
you were calm from the beach
swaying on the sailboat
where waves gave you peace
here to read each other’s words
in the shadowed patience
we forget the clock
people rise
from a shut eye to watch
the conversant
or relax under a hammock
play with a jelly roll
or a spinach croissant
even chant your lines
in a thousand tongues
before you are translated
is to repent of your past
no life is outdated,
you may move
to the constant future
on outer-spaced words
or inner worlds
actually we told Boris
a new Russian student,
not to panic or fear
there is no firing squad here
even when you bare your soul
you are among friends
for to prudently express
your conscience
does not give away our silence
when understanding pretends
to ask out loud in poetry
what questions answer all
that our absence contends
with a small hidden id and ego
yet our goal is viewed beyond
giving amends to the crowd
having hid from our embryo
yet waiting to hear your verse
read from a microphone
the wisdom of Whitman, Homer
Dickinson or Sappho
in our expanding universe
from an ancient chorus or muse
or your lone voice singing
for us till now.

_____________________

NOT SURE

Not sure
if the zip-lined cable
and then a taxi city cab
would awaken me from my nap
composing a viola sonata
while asleep upon music sheets
under my Angels’ baseball cap
then rising to hear
a Bach cantata in B major
waiting for my morning cup
of green tea
with sliced dry melba toast
blueberry jam or paté
from Nana's cold jars
still on my lips
to taste a half day
as a dream confection
of Proustian repast
until my freshman visit
to the Coast for an open read
at the free library
giving me down time
to look up "Warsaw"
in a Polish dictionary
which Chopin loved
at his Parisian loft
with Georges Sand,
then I'm trying to find
on a map
"Bardstown," Kentucky
where Tom Merton
had an epiphany
from a clear voice
near an abbey and monastery
by all roads leading
to his own poet's Gethsemani
taking my own daily diary out
on my bench of reflections
at this exuberant October
my lap teeming with croissants
to share with the tiny birds
at this awesome hour
surprising myself
to discover karma
if there would ever be a witness
to my veteran crime drama
written on the city bus
for over a year
and presented to the class
would make it to off-Broadway
as I'm being made aware
of the fuss
outside a recruiting station
as two guys argue in Russian
if Tolstoy's War and Peace
was greater than any plot
devised by Dostoevsky,
thinking every encounter
addressed to the future
has caressed a past history
of a hot Beat
who keeps it going
by his good acting cast
with a misunderstood
fortune cookie on his lap
along the crunchy valley slopes
of my now-snowy childhood days
wanting to cross-country on skis
passing over the mountains
or play an alto sax at a gig
near the heavenly resort at Tahoe
watching two opposing sides
at the chess match
near a mission's fountains bench
hearing a heated argument
as their words catch up to me,
now the players link arms
asking to be engaged until noon
laughing at each other's jokes
until their dear John and Joan
love letters are within reach
in a beer bottle disposal
not burned but buried
until the year 3000 A.D.
near the sandy songbirds
who hover along the sea's beach
as this couple waves to each other
floating as my mind races
near red and orange leaves
and golden Fall mums,
I'm strumming on a Spanish guitar
given to me at the mission
to face the river beds of Autumn
fixing my motorcycle spokes
within reach
then riding away trying to believe
there is way to live lyrically
and vanish under a half moon.

WITH VIRGIL
(October 15, 70 B.C.-19 B.C.)

Dante, guide us again
with Virgil
through Hades, Purgatory
and Paradise
we recognize your story
by your breathless logic
taught by Dr. Chadwick
after linguistics in Latin class
surprised by the power
of the trajectory path
from the Georgics
in a descent of Orpheus
to rescue Eurydice
from the underground
before our cafe noon lunch
that still jogs my daily mind
having recognized your vision
to cohabit sounds
of the pastoral Ecologues
in the Roman poet's precision
for we learned of our Virgil
in his span and ability
as we earned the clever credibility
of logic from all the classics
that are often hidden away
in cold attics or library stacks
yet your planned mature words
are still alive to some of us
even if not read in the original
from old Roman Empire's dialogues
we still desire to read you,
contrary to our comic side
we will survive this century
of all dreaded literary quarrels
at our variety popular chorus
of stand-up or sit-ins,
Virgil is here for us
awakened in our varied culture
to his miracle history
and share the story
of the Aeneid
we light a candle to you
on your birthday cake
with a vigil fire over your head
festooned with earth-wise laurels
we applaud you with laughter
over a never-dead poet's society.

____________________

RIMBAUD'S BIRTHDAY
OCTOBER 20 (1854-1891)

An adolescent ever tongue-tied
spinning over the awe
of drawings, maps and words
shadowed by an encyclopedia
opens the windows of first light
overhears songbirds
by horse chestnuts
on wide-street trees
this October twentieth
imagining aqueducts by
rain shadows of mirrored hail
after sober sweet dreams
as he is being dressed by mother
Arthur beholds the lightning
and girded-up thunder
hoping for good fortune
now bent on his knees
by the Virgin Mary statuette
as he composes new honeyed lines
by his garden of Autumn leaves
along the Ardennes roads
now walking with his sister
who weekly takes him to church
for communion and to confess
yet he longs for the wondrous sea
to travel between the sky voice
and earth's remembrance
watching wings of lost sparrows
the boy seems suffocated
catching his breath
looking at pictures
of a sunny Seine River silhouette
by open boats moving
cargo ships in the dusk
all under the darkness
of the call of human exile
by smoke rising from candles
on his birthday cake
he imagines crossing over
somewhere out on the waters
under bestrewn tracked clouds
in a ports search of Casablanca
on a destiny's mission
with a full African moon
by a desert of Morocco
feeling down on his luck
in a long pleated shirt and dress
from a small houseboat
somewhere out on the waters
without love or aching caresses
until unexpected tears fall
upon a motionless face
traveling with whispers of grief
he sinks into itself in a daydream
of sweating disbelief
by his visiting seamstress
across his torso by the door
as seen by the painter Fantin-Latour
with a pitying care and relief
unlike the murmuring mistress
and lover Jeanne Duval
trying to wake up Baudelaire
under cover this Fall day
in the fair dawn
as drawn by Manet.

DENISE LEVERTOV'S BIRTHDAY
OCTOBER 24

It is an October wind outside
of us near the Frog Pond
where children will soon skate
by elm branches towering above
a chorus of mourning doves
reminding us of the story
of the hiding in the shelter
in the tabernacles of Exodus
as Fall leaves have slowly turned
a miraculous orange, blond and red
near a market of pumpkins
in a resonant open shed,
as a camera guy glazed with film
takes you over to the Common
sensing cool air from the regatta
of a cruise race on the Charles
as a Harvard artist cannot wait
to embrace a bard's smile
and paint your portrait,
as we watch one swan
we named Leda move ahead
close to the mouth
of the forsythia river bed
near the bird feeder
a student reads out loud
by the Esplanade bandstand
his assignment of Levertov's

Breathing the Water
realizes that words matter,
the tall sun is a strong setting
for your birthday
people pause to hear you
on the crowded podium
as we read and play jazz
and sax riffs for peace
with an avalanche of voices
your presence rings out
remembering during the war days
children from the kindergarten
recall how during the Blitz
when a sparrow would fall
and land on the ground
you would rescue birds
in gentle acts
from their bereavement
over battle line shadows
scattering unknown moments
of eye-watered observations
planting yourself in transition
to make up to nature's exile
as your spirit still sounds
whether in London, Boston
unquenchable Seattle
or by the leafy underground
of Black Mountain peaks
full of little poet pockets
and letters from loving fans
tucked into your sweater
hearing that you are here
makes us all more alive
what matters, Denise Levertov
is that in your poet's name
this morning of your birth
seems to the lot of us
to make the earth a bit better.

____________________

PRAGUE TRANSPORTS: OCTOBER, 1942
(FOR PAUL CELAN,
1920-1970)

Trains, transports
from Prague to Lodz
citizens from Berlin
cannot find
a place of peace
on the earth,
what greater sin
is to take away lives
along the Vtlava river
by the Old New Synagogue,
who could have imagined
such deeds against the Creator
than the history of murderers
in their victimized strife
now living as a remnant
out of dead dry bones
from shamed skin
as numbers on one arm
on days to atone
in chant of chants
toward God's writing
in the Torah
to give birth in shame
from talented names
lost to the sky birds
on a parole of souls
before the firing squads,
imagine an engraving of life
its memorial writing
cut with a knife into a stone
a body of words may rise
from explained editorials
before closed doors
from the lawyer and prosecutors
past all just words
in the higher and lower ranks
from crimes of blame
no one may forgive
history's timely lessons
for its innocent
grandsons and daughters
who visit the Shoah
carrying its human cargo
on its memory cards
or to lay flowers
on old unmarked cemetery graves
in the Prague snow and rain
as the absent poet Celan
is saved by his silence
again and again.

IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Covered by the mute sun's
high afternoon dust
hiking in a deft weary range
with a poet's October shiver
remembering the cool air
riddled with orange kites
on a high space
at a first frosty arctic wind
hearing tangled voices
on a branch of sparrows
singing a fine tune
entangled in small eternities
on a fresh airy peak
handing a red apple
to a thoughtful friend
and a wounded doctor
embedded in the last war
known for his debates
in sixth-grade English class
now on his once-soccer knees
by lifted-up songbirds
and a cicada chorus
almost covered by leaves
a lone robin wanders near us
with a tangled wounded wing
from an explosive truck wheel
saying a childhood prayer
we all begin to heal.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Conversation may be compared to a lyre with seven chords—philosophy, art, poetry, love, scandal, and the weather.

—Anna Jameson

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today’s fine East Coasters: poet B.Z. Niditch and photographer Denise Flanagan!

October's Fire

Bird in Leaves

—Poems by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA
—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

AS IF SHIPWRECKED

in our state of solitary tides delivering tatters of a world unreachable, we gather a wicker basket blue-green floats of bubbled glass nets tangled haywire styrofoam to carve into queens kings castles for a game of chess that never ends, we drift from sunrise to slivering of the moon our path to the salmon run our destination erased daily the sun on course overhead the tsunami line and beyond that point a ghost ship

dark against twilight
three-masted rock at anchor
sailing out of reach 

FULL MOON FANCIES

A sloop of amber slips away.
She shuts the book, imagining breakwater,
lighthouse, afterglow of sunset
on the sails. Glistening, leaving ripples
that in the slip of time and space
become a woodland pool. There might
be elves. Ghost-ship of a moon
passes slow across her window.
Once he sent her a postcard from Italy
but it was just another station on his map.

FALL AS IT WILL

Sun-screen against October’s fire
slanting down the southern sky. It’s cobalt,
that sky. Ravens are the canniest players
calling from the tops of cedars; they forgive
no shortcuts through their woods.
Realize that if I stop, winter overtakes.
Legs, arms are pistons, yet I float on magic
boots. Illusion or metaphor?
They’ve carried me through the months
emptying themselves out;
past the orchard whose blossoms quivered
in spring air; and now the year
bequeaths brandied-apple leaf-fall,
the delectable season making compost
of us all. Wind sweeps memory and footsteps
away. Every whisper’s held to earth,
too heavy to rise. Muffle and haze.
My dog savors the scent of rot
underfoot. My boots fly as if I could.

BREAKING OPEN

He found it on the internet, supplanting his
hanker for a pair of rawhide boots: this vision
of vast distances receiving signals that make
the heart drift wandering. He waved $29.95
plus shipping goodbye. And waited, through
the simple circle of each given day. From
across country—like a hospital patient bar-
coded and tracked by an arrogant technology—
it arrived at or near his mailbox beside so
many identical gray boxes and the lockbox
for packages. Locked; no key. Among dirt
and weeds, a plastic tab, the kind attached
to lockbox keys. Oh the penury of loss.
Above his head he
watched sun break the sky open—
no key no bar-code.

HOW I WAITED

You didn’t come. But the oaks
were casting their ballots for fall, leaves
glossy with last night’s rain. My pup and I
walked under comforter clouds, ionic
trill of damp air. He showed me fox scat
red with manzanita berries. Promises
are flimflam. A spokesperson squirrel, brush-
tail erect, jubilated at distress-crop acorns,
faith this rain would cure the drought.
You didn’t come but this was offset
by my puppy trotting ahead on the high trail,
scouting the pasture fence. You weren’t
there. But still, the tingle of air no more at war
with earth, oak woods listening with all
their raindrop ears. October chill.
Beyond the gate, expectation grazed
the grass as sheep do, waiting for more rain.

_________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

DARK FALLING FAST
            on Dickinson’s XLIII

After rain the clouds were Emily-purple
with a burst of molten gold where sun shot
thru. It would have been a photo of such
bright dashes but I was late and in a hurry
so I couldn’t stop to iPad-click the show.
Emily did it much better in two quatrains,
their dazzle still lingering past the glow.

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's fine chefs in the Kitchen!

Storms of the Heart

—Poems and Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

ANNA’S SONG
(After Anna Akhmatova)

So what that I write about grief
—grief and melancholy,

when this is what I live with,
those old foes that know me

intimately
—love me even.

How we carouse and commiserate
late into the year,

or night,
feeling sorry for ourselves,

and each other.
How else get through the life

on balance,
on cue, our timing perfect

—perfectly guarded to whatever
assails us

—every ship that sinks
and fills the sea with mourners.

___________________

THE BLUE SHIPS

Ships are blue because they are blue,
creating their own distance,
sailing into horizons where everything ends,
even watching—
a diminishing blue on a dark ocean.

Ships are blue because
memory likes them that way :
little painted boats on little ponds,
happy as toys—
even little suffered ships in bottles,
the pride of clever boys.

Ships are blue because memory sails them
into blue calms and storms—
wondering about their destinations,
their passengers, their crews.

Sometimes tantrums drown them, careless
as storms of the heart, the angry power
in the moment. How they resist,
turning bluer and defiant—
buffeting upon the towering waves
that fight the lowering skies.

Home will always remind them
of love
with its
lighthouse,
its dutiful prayers,
its candled windows.

Ships are blue
because they are made of farewell
which is final—adrift in
the desolate mind of feeling and no feeling
—even the heart pumps blue to fill the ocean
of that strange longing.

THE CAR ON THE BEACH

A car parked on the beach—its headlights staring out over
the water—watching for navy mermaids to swim
away from ships with their lonely tears—
watching for stars to fall into the fog.

How will this pining car adapt to tides?
The first waves lap at the shadows of its tires.
How will it know when to let go the land and drive out
to the horizon line just like the ships that have disappeared?

______________________

VESUVIUS IN THE DISTANCE

Up close the slow boats on the
   tranquil water, passing each
      other in layered perspectives,
         the boats anonymous

The far-off mountain sleeps
   under the flat sky—this is
      a year among years—
           time protects the boats
                 and the tranquil water

The day drones on
   the boats seem to not move
      but they are moving—through
         the daylight—gazing—grazing
             toward the sleeping mountain.

LEGEND
(After Ice Creatures Water Color, 1943 by Henry Miller)

For years he swam under ice
toward the one who was always
above him, encased in blue sunlight;

where he could see her, ever skimming
the other dimension, wearing a
white coat of scales that glittered,

and he knew he could reach her;
there was always the current, pulling him
in her direction—and she beckoned,

smiling—Oh, this was impossible.
It took too long for both of them.
He grew to love the grip of water,

which was deep, and deeply lonely.
She was afraid of depths, and she
loved to float on the surfaces where

down-swimming skies could touch her.
Yet, somehow they held
their legend true. Ships came and went

with the telling. All the storms
knew; and the long, caressing calms
that could wait forever.

____________________

THE NON-TRAVELER
           My non-arrival in the city of N
             took place on the dot.
             —Wislawa Szymborska

My non-arrival in the city of N
(…though I meant to be there as we
     had not planned—
you in your airplane, lost in the sky
     of When—
and I on a ship that straddled land
     to land…)

took place on the dot
(…though we were not there,
blessing fate—but caught
in the vast Somewhere….)

 


THE BOATS AT THE EDGE OF SUMMER
(After Boats at ĽEstaque by Raoul Dufy)

Let us play with summer
                  a while longer
             the boats
     are waiting
                   in the sunlight in the cove,  
                               their masts
                   are touching the low ceiling
       where the crosses cross
and make a prayerful image

and the water laps at the green edges
of the light—an unhurried sound—
shadows waver
in the heat,
the boats
but the dream of boats,
nudging against each other
by the sloshing, trapped exertion

of the painted water
the boats bump softly there
              against the water and
                      against the walls
                                     that hold them,
             real and imaginary,
      just there
for the sake of being, their sails removed.

_______________________

HARBOR LIGHTS AT THE END OF SUMMER

Remember the way to the harbor . . . ?
The seagulls were circling and circling.
The skies were so broken we shuddered.
The breezes came up of a sudden—
the turbulence sudden with meaning.
The docks set to rocking and rocking.
The twilight grew longer and colder.
Our long-ago summer was ending
in moonlight and starlight’s last ember.
We watched the small boats bump together.
We watched how the lights touched the water.
We lingered, then lingered the longer.
Remember?    Remember?    Remember?

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

THE ROYAL PORTABLE
ca. 1940, Long Beach, CA

Came right off the ship,
he said,

and gave it to me
for my birthday.

A typewriter!
My very own!

For poems!  and stories!
with a black and red ribbon

that went back and forth—
until fading beyond legibility.

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Joyce Odam for this morning's fine contributions, and a note that our new Seed of the Week is Colors of Autumn. Send your poems, photographs and artwork about this (or any other!) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com/. No deadline on SOWs.

Imagining Ezra Pound in Track Shorts

Pixilated

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

ENTROPY
—Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch, CA

What more can I say?
Everything is falling apart,
Has always been falling apart.
Two moons dance in the sky now.

Teacher is not pleased.
Forty years late for my lesson,
I squirm about on the piano bench.
These hills are the color of a week-old bruise.

There is no sense in any of this.
Shall I go on?

 Pixilated 2

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

SUNSET FANTASIA ON THE RIM OF THE WORLD
—Ann Wehrman, Sacramento
 
dissolve burnt sugar
desire on my tongue
blow dandelion
to four winds
crunch October’s
frosted grass
under cold feet

we dance in my dreams
on the rim of the world
you in black tails
my crimson gown twirling
Eros’ flame spirals
between us
from soles to star
crowns on silvering manes

spirits dance in cosmic marriage
keep time in eternity’s steps
paint the world
cadmium red, cobalt violet,
midnight blue

______________________

A BRIEF CONVERSATION WITH A CLIFF AT BIG LAGOON
—Ann Wehrman

Thousands of years
written on its weathered face,
the cliff stands firm, proud
feet kissed,
massaged by the sea.

I ask, “How old are you?”

“I’ve been here forever,”
it seems to laugh,
“and unlike you,
forever I’ll remain.”

Yet it knows,
as do I,
that one day both
mountain and man
must die.

 Pixilated 3

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

GHOST BOAT
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA

About this time of year,
Back in Illinois, I’d head
Over to my father’s cabin
On Rock River to shut things
Down for the winter—drain
What needed draining,
Cover what needed
A Visqueen wrap, fortify
Myself with Irish coffee
And Victorian ghost stories
Till dark enough for bed.

The one I remember best,
Or at least think I do, as I’ve
Only been able to make it
Through that one time, was
Algernon Blackwood’s “The
Willows.”  When The Prince
Of Darkness, not Ozzy,
The older, better dressed
One, signals not
To go any farther on the river,
You’d do best to heed him.

And then the lights went out.
And I heard it.  Peaked out
The blinds to see it moving
Upriver, a dark boat, propelled
On quickly flashing
Muffled oars.  No rower
In sight.  I never told
Anyone, till just now.

Out here on the coast,
Stories of ghost ships,
Treasure, the unforgiving
Lost at sea, abound.
The tale of a haunted
John boat would get
Few chills from around
A dying campfire.

 Chris Erickson reads at the Jazz and Beat Festival in Davis, CA

this past weekend

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

THERE ARE REASONS THAT POETRY
SHOULD NEVER, EVER BE OFFERED
AS AN OLYMPIC EVENT EVER AGAIN
        (Was, in the first Modern Games, 1896,
        Along with other things, an Icelandic
        Form of wrestling called Glima, for instance. 
        You don’t want to know.)
       

MOSTLY

A.
Because you’d rather not
Imagine Ezra Pound
In track shorts.

B.
Or imagine your
Favorite poet
In track shorts either.


THE SPRINTS

Because there are always
More than enough haiku
Any one time in the world


100 METERS

You’ll never see
That image
Again.


QUARTER MILE

Enough time
To think about it.
But not enough
To revise.


THE HALF

Go ahead, try.
You’ll end gasping,
A quatrain
And a half unfinished.


MILE

Maybe,
If you’re
A quick
Self-editor.


POLE VAULT

You’re
Never going to
Do an epic: don’t
Kid yourself.


JAVELIN

Hurling it right
Is part
Of the craft.
But focus?
Harshest critic
Does not count.


SHOT PUT

Bind up your
Worst in a ball
And hurl.  Sixteen
Pounds the limit.


HURDLES

A.
Rhyme and meter
Folk sail over,
Or think
They do.

B.
Free verse people
Charge straight
On through.
After, blame
Their bruises
And difficult lives
At length,
In the infield.


POETRY MARATHON

Just don’t let them
Get started. 
Any of them.

Tha Dirt Feelin plays at the Jazz and Beat Festival in Davis

this past weekend

—Photo by Michelle Kunert
 

PREPARING THE MASK
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet…
                                    —T.S. Eliot

(for Y.K.H.)


You took pride in a living room
festooned with riches, African,
signifying never a span
of tourist-kitsch collectibles,
but lores and magics—meaningful
one way to their makers, another to you.

Yet you were of the outside few
who prize as godly the carved-wood mask.
Too soon before you lay the rueful
premonition: the hardest task,
grasping hold of that one last husk

which represents the wearaway
of so much of you, the self, the truthful.
Prepare a face? To meet who? What?
You carved a countenance of that
tree bark, root-fiber, extract of color.

No hollows laced with Prufrock lace.
A mask to admit you—its angular face
etched out with cheekbone patches, eye-holes—

to one last labyrinth: giving on grace?…

 Myron Stephens paints to the music of Nagual

at the Jazz and Beat Festival in Davis

this past weekend

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

HAZARDS OF INSTINCT
—Tom Goff
 
Primeval, archival, once upon a wag
stands one like man confronting first a tail
astern of a wolflike prow of snout: brief lag
to assess the threat. He can’t unsee the flail
in that tail: it gestures club to a hominid.
One moment for everything: friend or unfriend?
Dark bind, or blend, whichever—quo pro quid.
A shuffling submission’s rewarded by a bite,
and dog and man by food and fire are bound.
What does life say for humans who missed the guess?
Something our ears didn’t catch, though trained for sound.

There but for the grace of instinct dines
the beast on manflesh, or the man on dogfeast.
What instinctual accident made tines
of branch-forks neatly shaved to points that skewer,
instinct plus the inventive mind at heat?
Odd how we partner with dolphin, wolf, dog—dragon.
What sort of mongrel race are we, no truer
a purity of intentions and functions, any more
than a platypus, eggs inside us, or an appendix
(book of errata and eros, grain and meat
commingling in our bio-muesli mix)?

And what, my soft white dragon, leads the wrong
human to dragon nostrils, thinking fire
is always and everywhere a cleansing ewer
or a space heater for iced feet and fingers?
Soft as you purr your deft soft smoke-puffs harmless,
I survey the valley where you have enmeshed
men by the hundreds, lizard-mesmerized,
feet deep in lime, a ripe harvest yet to thresh.
Then, like the slow-beating mallet on a gong,
soft murmurs beat at my ear. Your fiery mouth,
each syllable spaced so flame can’t issue forth,
feeds me deep dreams, in tongues not yet surmised.
I struggle, insect on pin, pigeon on skewer,
but my limbs work; my mind is what malingers,
cooling to reptile serenity, coiled yet formless.

And you now, yes, my dragon, what do you have
to say for yourself? You’ve counted on the innocent
to stride or sidle toward you, confident
that in those smoking nostrils, backed by light
that peeps out from the clamp of lip on lip,
we’d see a warm dry animal to slaver
us over with a gentle beastly heat:
we’d only need to figure out what it ate.

Then one step past a boundary, through a force-field,
and you lash out in one flamethrower spate,
synaptic impulse unites with internal furnace:
a roasted statue stands so that we learn us
by bitter knowledge when not to be sweet
or kind near the cunning things of low remorse-yield…

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

THAT TIME
—Robert Lee Haycock

He had never been able to overcome his fear of sopranos.  Teams of therapists, myriad drugs, still his palms sweat whenever he heard someone sing anything higher than C above middle C.  Just once, under hypnosis, did his hands remain dry as the doctor played a recording of Victoria de Los Angeles singing "Musetta's Waltz" from Puccini's La Bohème. That time, he began to blaspheme mightily.  The doctor almost fainted.
 

________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's fine potpourri of contributors, and a reminder that photos in this section of Medusa's Kitchen may be enlarged with a single click.

 Pixilated 4

—Photo by Robert Lee Haycock

Ship of Air

Ghost Ship of the Caribbean

THE PHANTOM SHIP
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In Mather's Magnalia Christi,
  Of the old colonial time,
May be found in prose the legend
  That is here set down in rhyme.
A ship sailed from New Haven,
  And the keen and frosty airs,
That filled her sails at parting,
  Were heavy with good men's prayers.
"O Lord! if it be thy pleasure"—
  Thus prayed the old divine—
"To bury our friends in the ocean,
  Take them, for they are thine!"
But Master Lamberton muttered,
  And under his breath said he,
"This ship is so crank and walty
  I fear our grave she will be!"
And the ships that came from England,
  When the winter months were gone,
Brought no tidings of this vessel
  Nor of Master Lamberton.
This put the people to praying
  That the Lord would let them hear
What in his greater wisdom
  He had done with friends so dear.
And at last their prayers were answered:—
  It was in the month of June,
An hour before the sunset
  Of a windy afternoon,
When, steadily steering landward,
  A ship was seen below,
And they knew it was Lamberton, Master,
  Who sailed so long ago.
On she came, with a cloud of canvas,
  Right against the wind that blew,
Until the eye could distinguish
  The faces of the crew.
Then fell her straining topmasts,
  Hanging tangled in the shrouds,
And her sails were loosened and lifted,
  And blown away like clouds.
And the masts, with all their rigging,
  Fell slowly, one by one,
And the hulk dilated and vanished,
  As a sea-mist in the sun!
And the people who saw this marvel
  Each said unto his friend,
That this was the mould of their vessel,
  And thus her tragic end.
And the pastor of the village
  Gave thanks to God in prayer,
That, to quiet their troubled spirits,
  He had sent this Ship of Air. 

________________________

—Medusa

 

A Drifting in the Heart

From the Train

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

A SADNESS



A great sadness passes over me.


I can see vast distances for moments


At a time.  There is no breeze.


Sheets of heat undulate in the air.


There is no wind.  Speech is impossible.


So much has happened that no one 


Here can remember anything.  It is 


A great amnesia that seems to exclude


Love.  People are going around


Killing one another.  Wars are started


Over bad manners and bad changes of direction.



They are playing our favorite song.


They play it over and over.


You know all of the lyrics perfectly.


They go with your outfit.  The one


You will wear tonight.  There will


Be a party.  Everyone will be there.



In the distance we can see


A man walking through the wasteland


Very slowly.  He seems to want to tell us


Something.  We don’t know what it could be


But we know it is important.


We run toward him.


We begin receiving signals.




BLANKET



A drifting in the heart.  Long 


Sounds that find no solace.  No matter


Where they go they remain wanderers.



We will find them on the shores of the lake


After storms that rip the lining of the night


Easily from its darling moon.



Someone must have seen where the careful


Touch has gone, where the sandals cut


The crust of the morning away from the bread


And no hand, oh pretty creatures they are,


Could move as brutally, tearing the stars


Down from the black lion of night,


All kindness gone, its blue cart tipped


On its side in the crowded streets.



No one wonders any longer.


Dammit all anyway.  All they ever


Wanted were blankets to keep warm


And just a touch of a hand,


Someone to say, “Do not be afraid at all.”

BREAKING THE MONTH OPEN



The month had emptied


Itself out.  Everything it had


Contained was spilled in front


Of it like it had been


Too much to hold and, in the


Middle of October, had


Twisted around a corner


And spilled its guts 


Into the street.



“Try not to walk in any of that


Stuff, man,” a slightly familiar 


Voice said.  “My cousin died


Last weekend.  I know 


He’s in there somewhere.


He was 26 years old.”

_________________________


SHORT STORY



And she says, “What’s that supposed


To be?”  And I tell her it’s my


Life and that it looks like this


Because I’ve been living for 


A long time and there has been


Some damage to some part of it.


“You can say that again,” she says.



So I do.


PLAYING OVER THE SLASH CHORDS



The sky was charring.


The dark trumpet eyes


Of the evening fell upon


Us in a memory of bison

Herds and great raptor


Birds searching for souls.



For a kind of emptiness


Not found in the quiet


Things of this world.



They need that swelling


Found in fine jazz


That is never spoken, but pulled


From strings and brassy 


Horns, from reeds and the hurried


Footsteps of time long ago.



Sweeping memory from the sky,


Not peeling it away from itself.


Trying to form a simple


Circle of any given day



As we undress ourselves,


Knowing we will once again


Be ruled by the most


Profound sleep imagined.

 At Les' Home

SOLIDARITY



How far will we come into any universe,


Making our sad procession, before we discover


That we are indeed the door to the heavens.



At times the stars look like armies surrounding


Temples of compassion.  These were recognized


By tribes long before we came to perform here.



Again and again we forget that death always


Ends every parade and career, showing its folly


Beneath that white mouth speaking 


Above all cities. 


We only see these stars when darkness 


Consumes all that we admire.



Be still, the centuries of the spirit.


Empty the ragged halls filled with seasons


That move like islands of dream while we lie


Down next to forever and play with its body.



Continue to stand over against the sun


As the rain becomes darker and darker.


This is not a music but a “door standing open


On horror.”  We must be of life.  All words of life.


An embrace of a life without guilt as we were


When children.  “Look, look,” we can shout,


“The sun.”  Each of us as dazzling.



*



We are multitudes that no longer


Fear death, for it too lives.


Hold everything dear, children.


Embrace everything.  We shall


Never leave. 


Answer me.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

A TINY FIRE



Turquoise fire


And if rubies could burn


That color, of blood


Near the heart.

_____________________

Our thanks to D.R. Wagner for this morning’s fine fare, and a reminder that he will be reading in Locke today (Saturday, Oct. 17) with Al Winans and Cassandra Dallett in Danger! at the Moon (Cafe Gallery), Main Street, Locke, 5pm. Info: moonartcafe on Facebook or 916-776-1780. Small donations requested at the door.

—Medusa