Albatross

Black-Footed Albatross

—Anonymous Photo

To stand on a high place, a cliff over the ocean, seeing pelicans circle, at first ungainly, then plunging like flung stones—this was what he loved under a gray sky with a rough sea, no beach, a rocky coast and the distant sound of the surf, a rumble and crash and hissing away.  He felt sure that when he died his specific light would flick out, no more than that, and at times he looked forward to its dark repose.  But at other times he thought that if he had had a previous life, he must have been an albatross, one of the smaller ones, nothing regal.  That would have given him joy, instead of today’s to-ing and fro-ing, its altercations and constricting chambers.  And no matter how much he believed in the coming dark, at times he wished the other might lie ahead—riding the air currents with nothing to hinder his vision of the horizon, that gray line between shifting cloud and unsettled water.

—Stephen Dobyns

______________________

—Medusa

 

Jars Full of Delight

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

WORDS EXPLAINING



I’ve gone out to gather


These words and have brought


Them back, so many of them that


They have become hard to carry


With their meanings and nuances


Attached like so many ideas in


The head of a genius playing.



Right here they cluster together


To say I love you and could do it


A thousand times if I let


Them all go as they wish to be 


Let go.  They look up at you.



Enthralled by being seen,


Explaining themselves in row


Upon row of letters, forms,


Shadows on the mouth of knowledge.



Eventually they will lie down


Properly and go to sleep.


Even dreaming is here,


A warm bed, tenderness,


The night finally quiet


As they wait on the edge.

_____________________

VOYAGER



There is little colder than those red


Eyes gazing at an electronic brain.


Not even the idea of wind visits here.


The lines from a lost poem written


During yet another war are sealed


In this heart but none shall ever

Open that vessel to see those expanding


Circles.  All communication breaks


Off just beyond the edge of the solar


System but the gold surface


Continues to reflect something, a star


Or an icy tail of some forgotten comet


Come by with information for no one.

WE HAD BEEN WALKING

We have been walking out here


For a very long time.  The dark


Colored glass of this valley


Was making us sick.  It might

Have been the smell that roiled


Through, dressed like a five-year


Yearning for blind angels to


Minister to us about the great


Mysteries.  



God, she looked


So beautiful as the ornaments


Of sleep crept into her face.



We couldn’t stay here any longer


Let alone wait for the great


Wings to show us what was


Really meant by those circles


Beaten into the stones telling


Us to love all things.  There was


Unrest in the weather.

________________

BLUE TERRACES: INTERIOR

That trembling was
Like your lip but was
So much deeper.  I could
Not hold anything in
My hands.  I didn't even
Want to think about speaking
To you.

It hastens and chastens
The will to make known.

That small fire, mostly
Charcoal.  I carried it
Around from room to room
Thinking it would keep
Me warm.

I stopped to pick up a
Sunset; thought I'd
Bring it to you like
A cup of tea on a day
That discovered it has
To follow me because
It knew I was
Going to see you.

If you need me, I'll be on my bed
Looking out the window.

WAKING UP WITH YOU BESIDE ME



I dreamed you beside me in the morning,


The winds of sleep still rolling through


Your muscles, fields of diamonds cascading


Your dreams, white water on the white of oblivion.


You did not see me as I lay beside you, watching


Dawn slip across your skin.  You did not know


I kissed you then or that you were other than


Your present self.  I know, and only I can know for sure.



I was surprised in this dreaming, dreaming that


You dreamed about me.  Who knows what highways


Sleep will let us travel?  All our lovers in their cars,


Zipping through the chemicals that unlock door


Upon door and let us see these loved ones again,


Living or dead.  I dreamed that we were loving,


Making love with all attendant skies and being touched


By angels as we were there together, again and again,


Falling in and out of sleep, first you there and then


Again you not.  I spread my hands upon the whiteness


Of the sheets and they were flat and cool, not you at all


And of more substance than such dreams.



This morning you were gone.  You were birdsong


On the electric wires, the net of energy that surrounds


Us in our cities.  You were slow breezes off the delta,


A dancing in the leaves of the trees, the sound of the mind


As it clears all sleep from its fine sifting screens, a moment


When, before the water hit my face, you were truly


Real and I did not know that such a thing as this was dreaming.

WILLOW
 


Do you remember me?  I asked the tree


which had grown in my absence.


So much water had rushed under the bridges


at Remagen, Corazon, Kyoto (cherry trees


in blossom in the spring!) and it was only


a tactical decision to fail to mete out a memory

of bridges near a hospital once visited repeatedly


on a day much like today, when nothing


hung in the balance or asked anything of us


beyond the most complete and humbled attention.


Do you remember me?  Why should it?


I only watched as it was carried away, its veins


leaking from the bag I had bundled them up in


when I dug them back out of the ground—


I gave the whole tree away to someone


who promised to take care of it through winter


and flood—and someone must have heard


my thoughts as I stood there and begged it


to remember because she came and stood with me,


and we looked at each other and admitted,


at least with our eyes, that this was more


than could be asked of a tree—the briefest glance—


and then I had the impression again I was standing


alone and it was true, she had left—and at this moment


a wind came up through the leaves of the tree

which had grown crooked because no one had bound it


when it was still young—silver—I should like to have


such silver in reserve for border crossings to come—


silver of the type it does no one good to hoard


and one only remembers and gives it away.


WE ARE REALLY NOT THAT SMART



The palaces of the night,


Made of fireflies and moonbeams,


Ropes one hundred thousand


Strong, the night birds thronging


The parapets and gliding along


The chimneys with their dark smoke.



Actaeon becoming the stag on the edge


Of the forest, his hounds seeing his


Coat glisten and become fur.



Poor, the weeping that comes


From the great cities.  Lame,


Tired and with wings of pity,


Tied to the coattails of change


So that nothing is recognized 


When we pass a place.



“This was your home as a child


And it is a grocery store,” the lights


Depending on our feeble memory.



They even record and play thunder-


Storms when the sprays of water


Turn on and wash the vegetables.


We are outside.  The world is ours.


 Let us run through the garden.



The thin strips of wood that made


Up apple baskets are gone now.



Entire trees are draped in torn


Plastic fluttering with the wind


Alongside of every highway.



Sweet prayers rise from our throats.


Saint Theresa joins us with armloads


Of roses.  She tells us about Actaeon,


Gathers the stag in her arms.

___________________



Today’s LittleNip:


TIGER



These stars don’t have names.


They wander around heaven


Praising God and nothingness


Alike.  They are like you are.



Rumi tells us every object,


Every being is a jar full of delight.


Are we not nobler than the angels,


For we walk upon the earth, sing


Songs to one another, embrace.


We have bodies that reflect the


Mind of God.  Reflect.



We do not have to talk any longer.


We are light.  We make color


Visible.  We can see the Spirit


Jump higher than the tiger.



____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s fine poems and photos!

 D.R. with Michael McClure, 2006

That Crazy-Eyed Angel

—Photo by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

OUT OF PLACE
—Ann Menebroker, Sacramento

A boat on a trailer.
The driveway filled
with sea gulls.
Everything out of its
element.
The suburb thrusts out
its leafy chest
dripping with rain.
Lawns gone and
cacti in because
it needs almost
no attention.
(beware, lovers)
A flag pole
without a
flag can’t
dip and sway
but it can
be there.

 Crazy-Eyed Angel, Forestville, CA

—Photo by Cynthia Linville
 

ENTROPY
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

Now is the time when petals end,
when flowers turn to slime.

We have again been misled by memory—
that crazy-eyed angel
who ate all the birthday cake
when we weren’t looking.

The sky purples with patient crows.
You’ll have to find someone else to feed them.

 —Photo by Cynthia Linville

COMMUNING IN THE LAND OF VASSAR TAN
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

I find that I am, once again, without my
compass and have wandered into the
Land of Vassar Tan.  I have a yearning
for egg-custard, a milky view of sunrise.
Lettuce be concerned, not so much with
greenery, but the tripping-on of long
stones as baguettes.

Wine flows freely here, as birds sip in
unison.  Deer who come to drink seem
to vibrate a familiar song, a familiar
stepping away on gentle hooves,
doe-eyed and sincere.

Raven keenly watches all who wander
through, waiting for the moment to offer
advice; flying around in circles to prove
his point; his crown dropping to the
ground each time he nods a yes.

The geese have learned to ignore him,
gathering as they do in sunny spots,
making more of the nothing that has ever
been said, and turning it out as proverb.

It becomes clear to me that living in
the Land of Vassar Tan without one’s
compass would be a strain, especially
if one could not get used to walking
upside-down to get the better view.

__________________

THE OLD SEA CAPTAIN
—Carol Louise Moon

It was not a dark and stormy night
and the old sea captain was not
on the deck of his ship.  He was
at the old Spanish Inn at a table
by himself.  I asked him what he
was eating.  He said, “Tuna on rye,
coleslaw and a mug of beer.”
He was furiously writing something
on a paper napkin.

“When it’s not a dark and stormy
night,” I asked, “and you’re
not on the deck of your ship,
do you often come to this old
Spanish Inn and sit at this table?”
‘Though he was busy eating his
tuna on rye, coleslaw and sipping
his mug of beer, he replied that
he liked to sit here and write.

“And, what will you do when you
retire?” I asked.

“If it’s not a dark and stormy
night, and I’m not on the deck
of my ship, I’ll probably come
to this old Spanish Inn and
sit at a table by myself and
order tuna on rye, coleslaw
and a mug of beer.  Then I’ll
probably sit and write for
a while.  Here’s one I wrote:

It was not a dark and stormy
night, and I was not on the
deck of my ship.  I had come to
the old Spanish Inn to sit
by myself and write at a little
Spanish wooden table.  I had
just ordered tuna on rye
when the waitress asked me what
I was doing.  I told her I was
retiring and had come to this
inn to sit and write poetry,
repetends mostly.”

 —Photo by Cynthia Linville

THE ASSUMPTION
—Carol Louise Moon

What if this daffodil is the center
of the universe and not my dog
as I had previously assumed?

I come home to my dog and enter-
tain the notion of starting a God-blog:
What if this daffodil is the center

of my gardener’s eye, but only a splinter
of reality?  Does God not love frogs
as I had previously assumed?

I’ve always known a gentler
God.  To have a harsher one would clog
my theology.  Is this daffodil the center

of only its own universe?  Ego-centered?
As for the God-blog:  Does God drink grog
as I had previously assumed?

Or, do we all avoid the decanter,
the gin of reality.  This puts me in a fog.
What if this daffodil is the center—
as God had previously assumed?

 —Photo by Cynthia Linville

TRUST ME AGAIN
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Once upon a TIMEOUT
This is not a fairy tale
But it may very well
Look that way

A popular Black man
Certifiably accomplished
Lots of friends and success
Becomes POTUS

His opponents muster
Anger and tantrums
As if we forgot to worship
The right gods

The Supreme God of
Corporate entitlement,
AKA God of winners keepers,
Losers weepers

The Confederate God of slavery
Long overdue to return
Don’t fight the inevitable
The South will rise again

The Smiling God of Ronald Reagan
Who served his nation making movies
At MGM in Culver City, and then
became the worst enemy of unions

The White God of Terrorism
Alive and well in Flint, Michigan
Unleashing weapons of mass destruction
While not being held accountable

The Naked Villain God of Newt Gingrich
Who clothed his wife-cheating ways
With old odd ends stolen out of
Meritorious family values arguments


(My thanks and apologies to William Shakespeare)

Berkeley Municipal Pier

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

BERKELEY PIER
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA

                 for Cynthia Linville

It pounces straight at me, this jetty, infinite-distant.
Is it a working contraption? Hard to see how:
front timber’s shivered off rough, one board sunk slant.
As if dock got lopped or ripped by awkwardest saw,
busted off here in the deepseabluegreen before us.
Yet viscerally, maybe, perspective can play tricks;
fast-forward accordion, the pier juts out to floor us.
Like those mobile pallet-rack shelves in The Matrix
that lunge dream-convenient for Neo
with ranks of ripe gun.
But this is no vision, or is it? The skies shriek Marin,
the waters glow Alcatraz lazuli. Which way sun?
It lolls out of frame, shades bridges, whitens horizons.
There’s nothing much else to enlighten or to bedizen.
Back to this obsidian pier. I repent my worst sin.

___________________

CREDO: BAX IN IRELAND
—Tom Goff

Not one day’s life lived without the ecstasy,
not even if paid for with that same night’s despair.
Our essence is animal. Crassest apostasy,
not once to have pounced and ravaged, run sated to lair.
Admit these plain truths to your soul, star forth that flare
husbanded too long in sun-secrecy,
or it blackens, a cold spot under the tact of care
—that index, mud-smeared, withering…worldly.

Enchanted summer, all Ireland, begs us: disrobe.
Let the coarse cloth slink with a soft whistling from skin.
Molting’s not finished, give wistfully in to the probe,
shed everything, instinct can stun us and yet stir no sin.
You’re naked, adorning depravity’s grassiest swale,
stained only by sundown, on the Head of Old Kinsale.

_______________________

BAX: SYMPHONY TWO
—Tom Goff

Bass note up to flat fifth, then minor ninth:
this is your stalker, the graveyard door that grates,
not Beethoven’s blatant four knocks on 400 gates.
Sometimes this motif insinuates, sometimes it grinds,
but this in whatever shape is the keynote and capstan
turn of your tersely writ symphony: never in life
so acrid an edge of youth, a backwards knife-
stab you choose to take, my passive-aggressive Tristan.
This is your own and not your own thrust.

That’s what arrival means, lover. You, while living
the golden moment with your woman, your choice,
discover gold surfaces chafe faint green with misgiving.
Inside you, you hear a new voice, a satin voice.
You keep your thoughts from her, but is it her you mistrust?
You start the climb rinsed in day’s dragon-fire fountain.
And here it is moonless and midnight. You
keep right on mounting.

 —Photo by Cynthia Linville

BAX VIS-À-VIS BEACH
—Tom Goff

Did Arnold Bax hear of one Mrs. Amy Beach?
Beach the pianist, Beach the composer? Gift,
each of theirs, equal to Bach. Won’t history sift
these lost from the discard heap? But let’s not beseech.
Amy, from a baby, holds powers no tutor can teach,
boasts ears canting forward. Hear why. Ina Coolbrith
pens poems for capture on Amy’s photographer’s lith:
meadowlark-warblings—transcribed in Beach-perfect pitch.
Top that if you will, Arnold Bax. He has strong hands;
so does she. He builds colored-glass domes that last;
her, too. Twenty fingers, two black-and-white grands,
both surge ahead wistful squinters at, always, the past.
Much writ of Sir Arnold’s pro-Irish sympathy:
how might he appraise Mrs. Beach’s Gaelic Symphony?

_______________________

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS’ PASTORAL SYMPHONY
—Tom Goff

His wartime-wistful urge to touch home,
home even on hills brushed French-sunset red,
reminds his listeners of cows in loam:
so are the poets understood.

Did you not hear the trumpet just out of reach,
belling high bugle tones just out of tune?
What time can do as it darkens the peach,
what time can do as it rounds out the moon:

Soften all bloodlust in lyricism,
flatten wrecked Belgian fortresses,
sift from this symphony all cynicism,
crystalize all the evil distresses,

bodies disintegrated, faces
left horrifically mutilated,
forge dark modalities into graces,
enshrine in a searingly lilting girl’s song

war, refined gemstone: the rutilant
spear-reds, tornado-straws bedded in quartz.
What driven-in stresses divide our own hearts,
prod us to question, what of our arts:
aloof from, shot through with, involvement—who’s wrong?

____________________

Our thanks to today’s fine contributors! Two of our poets were inspired by recent offerings in the Kitchen: Ann Menebroker by Joyce Odam’s seagulls posted last Tuesday, and Tom Goff by Cynthia Linville’s photo of Berkeley Pier which appeared in connection with last week’s Seed of the Week: By the Sea. For more about the repetend poetry form mentioned by Carol Louise Moon, see www.britannica.com/art/refrain#ref73293/.

If you’re going to be in SF tonight, you might check out the release party for Neeli Cherkovski’s newest book, The Crow and I (from R.L. Crow Publications, rlcrow.com), at The Beat Museum in SF, featuring Neeli Cherkovski, Paul Corman-Roberts, Cassandra Dallett, SB Stokes, Wm. Taylor Jr., and hosted by Bill Gainer. 540 Broadway, SF. Info: www.kerouac.com/beat_event/neeli-cherkovski-friends-the-crow-and-i-book-release/.

And this just in: this Sun. (1/22) at 2pm, Mosaic of Voices presents Jeff Knorr and Kate Asche at the Avid Reader at Tower, 1600 Broadway, Sac. Host: Nancy Aidé González.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.

—John Fowles

____________________

—Medusa

 Albuquerque Rattlesnake Museum

—Photo by Cynthia Linville

Elvis, Caravaggio, and Apple Betty

Apple Betty

—Anonymous Photo

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

MY POND POEM
(for my mother, Betty,
on her 98th birthday, January 16th)

An unborn nest from the hill
cries out from a voice
of small birds calling out
between a Vermont valley
and Green Mountains
writing my pond poem
with a skeptical pen with words
barely covered with icy frost
the sky wakes up for you
as you sing to yourself
by the distilled fountain
with twenty winks of memory
fulfilling your morning alert
for your last daydream cry
still gazing up from my miracle
near the evergreen branches
by the ski loft by thanking
an angel of Israel
for saving our lives when
we children fell in an avalanche
wanting to understand
why the lichen rocks are disguised
in a dawn's flakiness of snow
as we slowly climb down
from the shadows’ lift
through snowflakes’ branches,
soon unborn trees will bloom
and blossom in a spring garden
from childhood's cold frosty path
as sounds will echo even at night
as an unwise twelve-year-old
with new-year red mittens
hikes down White Mountains
asking pardon for a nature
lost in a morning's forest
wanting to have Apple Betty
and toll house cookies
or lemon and lime pie
to dwell in my mother's kitchen
through shadows of first light
in the wellspring of time.

__________________

SPECULATION

Feeling for a boulder's crag
from flakes of a morning
of a scary blind man's bluff
up from the snow country
on the White Mountains
of a cross-country's ski resort
on Vermont's sporting lodge
grappling with an exam
and to share my words
for a January poem slam
wanting a passionate time
from old touch-football skins
in wintry games to win
by waiting for hide and seek
in a speculation of making
my bare mark of my initials
on a named tree of life
wriggling and sliding
by holding onto a branch
on the Green Mountains
in hiking boots
on my way down
escaping fears of an avalanche
looking over my shoulder
turning my concentrating rhythms
into scuff-lined patterns
chilled in my yellow jacket
winding down pikes in shadows
as a transformation of numbness
holds me up in my Christmas gloves
yet knowing a small inner voice
offers to light my way
though shadows haunt me
watching clouds reminding me
of one of Dali's paintings
surviving the cold hands
that feed me a thin crisp cracker
covering me by eyelashes
of the morning first-light sun
as humming whispers of chants
open my heart up
to my solitary plaintive songs
in soft melodies blushing
on a parched thirsty Thursday
starting to pull me along
by snow-packed-down hills
as a dancing bluebird
reminds a solitary poet
of a thrilling childhood awareness.

 The Mountains of Vermont

—Anonymous Photo

IN JANUARY'S CIRCLE

Contradicted by the cold
beneath the rough rocks
along the seaweed
checking out my kayak
in middle of the morning
getting my bird wings
for a visit from the South
with my cousin Lee
returning from the Galapagos
to view the fauna and turtles
recording her misgivings
of the plane as she arrived
in a heart of personal equations
of likely survival
wishing her winter visit
to a poet's reading was an occasion
in a split obligation
at her sudden arrival
bringing me a poster
of Nabokov, almost disfigured
she found in a yard sale
on her travels
and a shattered rose flowerpot
of my great aunt.

___________________

READING HARDY

Reading poems
of fate and pessimism
forgiving myself
for the placemats
of topical uncertainties
as a visiting relative
and guest
suddenly emerges
from her announced taxi call
asking for strawberries
and hot milk
night snow freezes her in
mumbling nights of memory
from a family album
in front of the lamp
our words would have been
in a cover of my latest book
suddenly eyeing
a bear outside on the field
and locking the door.

 Red Salmon in Scandinavia

—Anonymous Photo

A WINTER'S READING

Feeding on the avant-garde
an adolescent life
begins to pick itself up
in the public library
among missing persons
and parts of a small city
after fishing for red salmon
in Scandinavia
returning my book from the shelf
to read Soren Kierkegaard
a wise poet and philosopher
who once called himself
"a corrective"
trying to be a knight of faith
to live in a moment's discovery
surviving in a really selfish time
in his darkened middle age
discovering to be a letter writer
capable of a better love
one cannot taste or touch
yet has a closeness undercover
wanting to shout out to God
and Regina his bride and lover
riding over the wide streets
yet going home to a meal
of horseradish and beets
as if we are living alone
in a magician's dream world
of Bergman films
yet praying in familiar words
like Hamlet in Denmark
to catch his mouth on a wishbone,
seeing the ice cover the rink
in the dark marked alleys
choosing his silences wisely
wishing to think and pray
under a lamp stand
marking out a passage
his head hanging
in a humped position
thinking how to understand
wintry nightmares
going over town circles
in his snowy shoes
through spring wounds
at hours of summer walks,
watching Fall's country foliage
in a wish to serve in the light
with grace's permission
not turning into a loss of age
from our great physician's voice.

_________________

RAPHAEL'S SEARCH
(1483-1520)

Thirty-seven years
of wishing to be known
Raphael paints the walls on
any cave, church, city alley
or dark Venetian hallway's home
to perfect a pastel art's ability
always answering his critics
in his own school
by a search for new techniques
to summon a young gentility
appearing dramatic at every forum
walking into any gallery's court
any day of the week
without even a quorum
to mark his intoxicating genius
on Roman stone and quartz,
to find his own passionate links
in a selfish assiduous way
aided of course by Pope Julius
leaving his church's sacristy
to invest in this young artist
on his own hopes
on that glorious day
when fame finally turned his way
though notoriously jealous
with those others around him
who use their own swaggering sway
to paint angels on chapel aisles
yet Raphael is justly eager
to drink from his own silver cup
with his own drawing style
to be worthy of grudging smiles
of those who are judging him
in Rome's higher-up neighborhoods
thinking as he labors he needs
to be as cruel and corrupt
as to conspire with those fools
by covering up
any defiled memory
over an over-zealous nomenclature
at his latest frescoe's signature
nor would he interrupt himself
for any blame in borrowing styles
or colors from other painters
to wash over his unique imagery
to get his name out first
and deliver his work early
on any religious scene
hiding the many pretended roles
that art critics had esteemed
for an early secretive posterity
from his libidinous nature's soul
that was needed to be redeemed,
not waiting for prosperity
in a lusty business of power
for his own curious end-game
to reach for his consummate goal
by a devil-may-care attitude,
suddenly having to change his plan
as romance turned into venal lust
which shortened his life's vitality
from rumors of an unwise curse
followed by surprised days
and long legendary dream nights
of over-stated contemporaries
interred by echoes of the Sistine,
Raphael still wears a trinity ring
around his bejeweled bountiful neck
as he was the third of three kings
who attacked with his own personal fuel
the anointing of Michelangelo
and Leonardo Da Vinci
in direct ambition to his own
yet constantly knowing his own worth
for there is no mercy in seeking
a just name on earth
and then hiding a weasel's bone
on many nights of lusty mirth,
preferring easy sensual beds
leaving a calumnious beck and call
though love was within his grasp
believing in furious Hell's mimicry
having caught a dreaded disease,
yet we know from wise Cleopatra
the snake is an ominous asp
with a vocal inheritance to surprise
taking its voluminous boastful toll
of all sensuously despised sap
whose venom will soon
leave him and his reputation dead
and away from paradise,
without much ministry's time
to paint along the gallery
its throngs of adored saints
from a gorgeous fresco's easel
to an arising heaven
for Raphael's brief time on earth
fainting away at thirty-seven.

 Portrait of a Young Woman (La fornarina)

—Painting by Raphael, 1518-1520

A MEMORY OF ANTHONY HECHT
(1923-2004, born January 16th)

Life was suspended
for that unsuspecting hour
as Anthony Hecht
read his powerful phrases
directing our minds to our nature
trading in the literary Muse
at long-sought-out words
over his loose quatrain of thought
who taught us to think and choose
to open our own unsuspected gifts
from imagination's poetic lore,
without an arbitrary excuse
for our own sinecure
with his own politic translation
into a passionate critical spirit
arranged from his own calculation
as he crossed his knees
on a large academic chair
over an Oriental rug
awesome in his elevated insight
at an ease of reading
as Anthony excels in a legacy
with ill-fated signs connecting
to unfold new worlds
through a mighty ear of language
filling in what love attracted
and not left or lost by his age
for he reads slowly on pages
of an unsettling horror of war
reflecting over his words his view,
giving us in the audience
bereft of a second chance
to renew our impressions
of his bountiful commentary
when memory revives that time
of personal adolescence
each January the 16th
an original voice is gone
reaching out from a train ride
in the coolness of our direction
when visiting his unique presence
at my third visit to Manhattan
as if upon Hamlet's stage
at hearing his personal soliloquy
of verse set to musical showers
on the back of a swan
somewhere near Emma Lazarus
as her poem will deliver justice
over the icy brackish waters
to sons and daughters
on Ellis Island
as they land by the Hudson River.

______________________

CARAVAGGIO'S SECRET WORLD
(1571-1610)

Light from the dawn
falls straight along the stairs
into colors and tears
as clearly cut sculpted prayer
and plainsong
transforms art into a masterpiece
of St. Francis of Assisi
in Ecstasy
as you met what electrified
your life by your painting
without, purity, piety or pity,
he will soon add up the once-divide
between art and architecture
covering his eye-visions
with a part of camera obscura
that Hockney later identified
as a way of fearful insight
into Caravaggio's secret world
as hiding moments turned art
from a fresco's bright dawning
as the remnant of curtains fall
drawing in the fearful easel
of an artist's mature years.

Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy

—Painting by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, ca. 1595–96

ANOTHER LIFE OF DAVID BOWIE

Singer of conflict
and simmering agony
between a victorious
life and inflicted death story
to pass on to David Bowie
in his own persona
translates us
to keep us rocking
from our cast of mirrors
born like Elvis
on my birthday,
January the eighth
searching for a higher power
as in Kabbalah's metamorphosis
always surprising
in recognizing the genesis
of reinvention's memory
in his last hour.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

The truth is, of course, that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.

—David Bowie

___________________

Many thanks to B.Z. Niditch for today's fine poems, and a note that Thursdays at the Central Library returns today at noon (1/21) after the holidays and a roof repair at the Central Library, 828 I St., hosted by Lawrence Dinkins and Mary Zeppa. Bring poems (preferably not your own work) about beginnings, endings and time. Free.

—Medusa

Elvis

An Empty Space Among the Stars

Gas

—Painting by Edward Hopper, 1940

—Ekphrastic Poems by Neil Ellman, Livingston, NJ

GAS STATION
(Edward Hopper, painting)

Somewhere on the road
between Phoenix and the moon
the reality of loneliness
a reason to rejoice
between now and never
it waits
for one more car to stop
for one last fill
before its journey ends.

_________________

NIGHT VOYAGER
(Richard Pousette-Dart, painting)
        
I travel by the light of stars
not seen
except as if the shadow
of a skein of geese
for an instant dappled
against the moon
and then move on.

Hidden by the sun
obscured by the light of day
wherever it seems I am
first here, then there
I am little more
than an empty space
among the stars
In the shape a wanderer
without a home or plan.

Creator and created            
deity and man             
mine is the voyage
from the beginning
to the end of time
traveling through the blank
and endless dark
because of who I am.

 House by the Railroad

—Painting by Edward Hopper, 1925

HOUSE BY THE RAILROAD
 (Edward Hopper, painting)
 
When the trains once ran
past the old house standing
alone in the fields of corn
life inside went on
as if there were no tomorrow
and now, like a scarecrow
having done its work,
even the birds have moved away.


__________________

MEMORABLE FACTS 

(Jean Dubuffet, screenprint)

                     for Gail

If only I could memorize
the flower names
the pattern of the stars
that arc above my head
and birds
that light on nameless trees

If only I could choose
your face
from thousands
in a milling crowd
and spell your name
as if it were my own
I would know
the facts of life
and all there is to know.

 Away from the Flock

—Construction by Damien Hirst, 1994

AWAY FROM THE FLOCK
(Damien Hirst, construction)
 
Away from the flock
the soul of the lamb
is a fiction in formaldehyde
a metaphor
floating in an amniotic sea.

it takes a form
that can be seen
but never touched.
it makes no sound
that can be heard.
It moves to the slow
rhythms of its breath
as if a fish
to its primeval air.

Away from the flock
the soul of the lamb
is a fable
born, told and died
in glass.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:


NIGHT SHADOWS
(Edward Hopper, etching)

Alone among the columns
of my retreat
through alleyways
on moonlit nights
the shadows
of my discarded past
follow close behind
to join me
in my solitude.

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Neil Ellman for today's fine ekphrastic poems, and noting that Thursdays at the Central Library returns tomorrow (1/21) after the holidays and a roof repair. Central Library, 828 I St., 12 noon, hosted by Lawrence Dinkins and Mary Zeppa. Bring poems (preferably not your own work) about beginnings, endings and time. Free.

Night Shadows

—Etching by Edward Hopper, 1921

Sea of Shadows

—Poems, Artwork and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento

OVER A SEA OF SHADOWS

Joyful, we rise like a cloud of angels
flying a straight line;
like geese in their true direction,

too high to be seen.
Like all the agonies of the world,
we are released into forgotten dreams,

like a scattering of soft white clouds
that trail like dresses
made of moonlight.

Joyful, we are released
from dreams of the troubled.
We are the solutions of sleep.

Children admire us,
then forget us.
We do not look back.

We are the sensations that come
before weeping.
The sky trembles to receive us.

We penetrate the lining of grief
until we are no longer needed.
When called back

we suffer with disappointment.
We thought we were free,
but we return

through the echoes
that never fade. We separate
and return to the memories we trust.

___________________

WINDOW AND SEA

And the tides—as they pull again
at the moon’s urging
and the earth’s response,

the slow motion of time,
the gray window that lets in light,
yet holds the darkness.

Such is the compromise:
subtleties of shadow,
the way the cold walls shift,

or seem to.
How near the sea—
the old admonishing sea,

claiming what it claims,
whispering,
come near . . .   stay back . . .

And the sea breathes in and out
with its glimmers of sunlight—
the sea’s reflection.

And the tiny window
glints out over the bay
and the day fills with strangers

changing the mood and rhythm
between window and sea
and breaking the connection.

SEA BOTTLE

I have floated for a century, at least, seaworthy, bearing a
scrawled message.  Loneliness deceived.  I will never reach
shore.  I have learned to love these waters.  No longer
curious to know what it means to be so entrusted.  Waves
lift me . . . from one . . . to another . . . to another . . . in
endless relay.  Every time I near a shore, some undercurrent
pulls me to its different whim.  Whoever cast me thus has
no further thought of me.  An answer now would be an
answer to the dead.  Loneliness must aspire for its own
sake, become its own journey, to that elusive horizon . . .
that unreached shore . . . .

__________________

THE DANGEROUS MOTHER

You take the babe to the sea for baptism, or the release
of drowning—you, the dangerous mother, running into
the black shadow of the sea—chased by what . . . ?

chased by what . . . ?  and the sea, rushing to catch you,
tugs at your skirt . . .  pulls at your feet . . .  and the babe
clings to your neck in trust and fear.  How the night

thrills at your intention.  It opens up . . . opens up
its wet wing for you.  How deliberate you are . . .

SEA HOVEL

The slow moment of time, the gray window
that lets in light, yet holds the darkness,

the way the cold walls shift, or seem to,
and the tiny window glints out over the bay;

how near the sea—the old admonishing sea—
claiming what it claims, whispering, come near . . .

stay back . . . and the sea, breathing in and out.
Such is the compromise, the subtleties of shadow,

and the tides as they pull again at the moon’s
urging, and the earth’s rejoinder, and the day

fills with strangers, changing the mood and
rhythm of the reverie that breaks

the connection between sea and window.

_______________________

TOUR OF THE BAY
(Balboa, circa 1941)

Chugging out through the dark shapelessness of the jetty
in the nighttime boat, on tour of the bay, how can there
be such silence, swallowing around us out of the noisy
glow-path of Balboa, shivering now in night’s released
dimension, perspectively diminished in the confines of
this disappearing boat that heads us out toward the ocean—
dark, dark there—as true dark ever is, the old stars streaking
dizzily around us from the sea’s deep motion as the boat
takes on a jerky, struggling pattern; and we huddle down,
hearing the old wood creak and twist to keep its balance;
feeling the hard thump of the water spray against us; and
we laugh with nervousness—the many of us there who do
not know each other—who will become the separate
memories of this, savored and conversed about—like a
tourist’s painting, still wet from its inspiration, and bought
for its impressionistic value, catching the flavor.

         Of what stuff memory? What if we never took this
tour, but changed our mind at the last cold minute, and just
stood watching the small tour boat pull away—without this
last connective shiver—into the uneventful closing of the
uneventful summer…?

PRIVACY
                (for Stella)

You are widowed tonight. You have written the letters.
It has been a good love. You are proud of your memories.
You are calm. All morning you have woven the light to a
clear window and have looked through it into a shared
view; all afternoon you have been practical, keeping
yourself whole and true.

You are widowed. Friends shy from this; you allow their
distance. You mark the center of a circle with a line.
It folds in half for you. Now you can weep or not—
whichever you do. Widowed. The thought is not new;
the thought is days old. You will honor the sea with the
poetry of his life. He will praise back to you.

____________________

WINTER BOREDOM

The small sea-house grew musty in winter
with its dark wood
and its just-so window shades,
pulled even.

All the tourist noise was gone,
and the days endured themselves,
and the nights,
and the sea rolled in and out of time
with a certain patience.

The quiet light seemed almost blue
when the day closed down
and the sea-sounds muffled against the air
like a lamentation.

The house would creak and brace itself
against whatever force
was set against it.

To live by the sea in winter
is a lonely waiting:
too cold to stroll by day—
too gray its colorless dimension.
I was too young to love it then.
That would come later.

Tonight I think of that small house
with a sweet remember;
the safe domestic hum
as I bided my time to be gone from there;
the quiet rustling of the rooms;
the restless way I stared out into the night
from the gaze-back window.

Today’s LittleNip:

SONG THREE

What can you know
of music and wind
and the vital sea.
I am all three.

Come to my places
and suffer where
the loneliest sound
you have ever heard
keeps filling the air.

When I am wild
you will be frightened
but will not go.
Then you will know.

           
(first pub. in Oregonian Verse, 1969, and BLUES 1991, Piper’s House/Sandcastle Collection)

______________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for this morning’s fine fare, riffing as she has on our last Seed of the Week: By the Sea. Our new SOW is More Than He Could Chew. Send poems, photos and artwork about this (or any other subject!) to kathykieth@hotmail.com/. No deadline on SOWs.

—Medusa

Turning Coots Into Swans

—Photo by Jane Blue, Sacramento
 

WINDOWS
—Jane Blue

             "All the windows were open in her heart.”
                                           —D.R. Wagner
 
Means to look out on the whole wide world.
To escape down the sidewalk, down the road.
Silent, extra eyes. Silent swinging outward limbs.
Out when you are in. In, intimate, when you are out.
In the cold, in the heat. Sometimes mullioned like a cage.
Abroad. Mysterious, foreign. Flower boxes, geraniums spilling.
Plastered walls, a woman leaning out, smiling.
Open windows, sheer gauze curtains billowing.
Open like her heart. Or shuttered like a closed face.
Shutters painted cerulean or vermillion, flung open.
A woman turning away. A woman flirting.
A hummingbird flickering in the glass, yellow-breasted
At home. A sparrow that hovers, hummingbird-like.
A reflection in the window. You. In the roses, in the street.
Disembodied. A spirit. The spirit that sways the rose.
The wind blowing the rain sideways. A pink bud of rose.
Pushing high toward winter sun. In the wrong season.
The pink rose that will soon be pruned.
That will come back in spring.
All the windows open in your heart.

 Rhony Bhopla, reading at Sac. Poetry Center, 1/9/16

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

THE SLUMS ARE SILENT
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento

Silent.  Indian fog creeps
like odorless gas, deadly over vast
Mumbai.  An omen has arrived. 

Roaming dogs lack sense of night,
they weave through alleys
between huts.  Teeth grip
leather shoes once hung on
string between doorways.

The hounds do not growl, they creep
like fog.  Come when human
minds escape confines of living,
needing, wanting—surviving.

Scattered grey backs do not relent. 
Skin ripples as they gnaw,
the inevitable fog, silent lashing.

They take back hides of other animals,
fearless, grasp jagged mouths of
steel cans.  Succumb to seduction
of white foam containers. 
Delirious for food left behind.

Not yet thick with insects, are well-kept
floors inside the huts.  Children, asleep.
Dreams of svarg begin to ascend
at the mourn of the conch.


svarg:  paradise

 Tim Kahl, reading at Sac. Poetry Center, 1/9/16

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

WITH THE WIND
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

Such a fine morning for a run away.
The sun’s above Stone Mountain, rising free
with just a hint of breeze at break of day.
A puppy reads the news that I can’t see

from higher ridges, lands of snow and scree;
down here dancing our creek all silver-gray
over rocks, after rain this jubilee.
Such a fine morning for a run away

from piles of papers, promises to pay—
out here it’s fresh as salt-scent by the sea.
We might as well declare a holiday.
The sun’s above Stone Mountain, rising free—

no matter all the hedgings on TV,
screaming gulls talking with nothing to say.
Storm passed in the night, sparkling in the lee
with just a hint of breeze at break of day,

my partner’s Loki-wild but on-belay
of leash. Now I unclip her. Bel-esprit
of wind from every compass-point. Today
a puppy reads the news that I can’t see,

and there she’s off in search of mystery.
I tag along, lucky as Saturday
that lags, and looks, and listens. Chickadee
and nuthatch, raven, woodpecker and jay—
                       such a fine morning!

___________________

BY THE SEA
—Taylor Graham

What must have once been pillar or
pedestal, not proof against
     the strapping waves that break with
         never ceasing shrapnel on the tide,
the sand that covers all then shifts
again unveiling just a particle
a hint of that once pillar, altar—
what better place to teach that things
       depart which never may return but
             changed by the everlasting
    sermon of the sea.

 Wendy Williams, reading at Sac. Poetry Center, 1/9/16

—Photo by Michelle Kunert

BALLAD FOR A COLD NIGHT
—Taylor Graham

He walked into town, he and his dog alone.
The population had exploded. Without a roof,
men camped beyond the light, far from
the graven steps of stone. So many questions
in the dark unanswered. What did the angels say
of men who came here without a home?
What door was open to a man without agenda
but only his dog and dreams? Where
shall he sleep on such a night that could kill
a man alone? He sat down beside his only
dog and said that his dog was home.

______________________

DON’T CALL IT A LIE
—Taylor Graham

You talked about swans, but those are
plainly common coots floating on a chilly river.
No, it’s not river but flooded field—see
last year’s stubble standing stiff gray in rows.

Lacking swans, these coots are our wings
on water, drifting among rippled
shadows, stirring charcoal into color the way
grace might come to land on our lives.

If I say blue sky is imperishable,
would you refute me with thunder clouds?
If they whisper rain, that ionic zing
is wind in wings.

Isn’t this the way with poetry?
conversation of warped images through
a slantwise window. Not bleared
but cracked, turning coots into swans.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

COYOTE DREAMED
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA

Of oceans, seas,

Blue water.

What surrounded him—

The grey green,

The dusk brown
Of old strip mine
lakes. Was enough.

For now.

 Abe Sass, Sacramento, 1938-2016

Our thanks to today's fine contributors, and to Michelle Kunert for the photos of readers at Sac. Poetry Center last Monday. A note that the Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute, The DREAM, will take place at SPC tonight, 7:30pm. Also coming up this week, two events in Davis: Phillip Barron and Karen Terrey at The Poetry Night Reading Series at Natsoulas Gallery, and James Lee Jobe and Rhony Bhopla at The Other Voice at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis. See the blue box (under the green box at the right of this column) for details.

There’s a new photo album by Michelle Kunert on Medusa’s Facebook page: the launch of Soul of the Narrator, the annual chapbook produced by “Team Jan Haag”. The writing group read from their new book at Sac. Voices last Saturday at Sac. Poetry Center, hosted by Phillip Larrea. Check it out!

Also happening this weekend is the annual fundraiser at the Sac. Fine Arts Center in Carmichael, with the help of Sac. Poetry Center, featuring the Dave Brubeck Institute Quartet as well as Sac. poets composing verse inspired by SFAC’s current Animal House Art Exhibit. Tickets are $25. Again, see the blue box for details and to purchase tickets.

Or, if you’re so inclined, head on over to the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, which runs from Jan. 25-30. Plenty to see and do there!

Got an event coming up that Medusa hasn’t posted? That’s because we haven’t heard about it! Send into to kathykieth@hotmail.com/.

Last Saturday we remarked upon the passing of California Poet Francisco X. Alarcón; see the links in the green box at the right of this column for more about Francisco. Poets everywhere will also be saddened to learn of the passing of Sacramento Poet Abe Sass on Jan. 3 of this year. To read more about Abe, see www.legacy.com/obituaries/sacbee/obituary.aspx?n=abe-josef-sass&pid=177327495/. You will be missed, Abe.

And Bill Gainer writes that super-star dachshund, Alice, has also passed. Bill writes that “Old age and the abuse of her youth had battered her health in the last few year.” (I relate!) Alice appeared in the Kitchen several times in the past, not for her written poetry, but for the poetry in her feisty little soul. You, too, will be missed, Alice.

—Medusa
 

 Alice, Brave Hunter of Lizards, d. 2016

—Photo by Bill Gainer, Grass Valley, CA