They Call Me Bone

Eyeline Smith

—Poems and Photos by Smith, Cleveland, OH

BONE

They call me bone
in secret name
no one knows is secret

Covered heart alone
carries weight
waits

Meat is meat
if no magic
magic no magic no meat

Uncovered heart atones
recent track
marries meat to bone

 Sat Cat

TOP SHELF

Third-floor window
dim in
bright out.

Big bee flies clumsily across
two leaves flit float down in dance
bee bumbles back
as third slow falling leaf
lingers in light.

Inside is pre-cricket quiet
outside the water rush
of wind and traffic
babble of birds
feeding at feeder.

Black cat quivers
crouched on sill
wanting bee
leaves
the birds below.

 Borders

ROAD WORK

Outside the fire
it's tooth and claw
feather beak talon all
glint of eye
gulp of gullet
no reason why
just bite the bullet
enjoy the good
outlast the bad
it's all about survivalhood lad
and lassie
avoiding ire
and being had
so protect your chassis
in this slant land

 Featherweather

ACID SNOW

Such cunning, these beasts.

By pruning Heaven
they've stilled the old wild yeasts.

Yet in breeding unleavened
seed such sheetings of grief
shat out uneven
o'er poor human paste
that all dogs believing
rise lonely, and weak.

These acids know weakness.
Know mercy for grief
or inherent meekness
unheeded beneath
these semen-stained sheets.

Keeps meat on its knees
and power unaided
or tree on the leaf
and tragic the shaman.

 Intertwine

FOREPLAY

Freud comes tonight
to mock our mere
reflected lives'
refracted fear,
shelf dependents
miming mirror
of every man and action.

In abstinence
such sibilance
through undue trade
and undulance
calls forth
in outlawed ambulance
emotional transaction. 

These scars we horde
until they're heard
to bargain bare
a binding word,
the players paid
and pompous lured
to daily dead transgression.

Nipples rise
through lemon dust
raw, red
and real in sapient lust,
emasculate tongues
court and musk
mother's moist application.

 Vatican

SISYPHUS SMITH

First couple sips strong black coffee
couple tokes cheap weed
a bit more coffee
see if the ache of pains pass
sit in the low light
waiting for sun to rise
my favorite time
before light before strife
before might turns to maybe
turns to later
turns to lost
turns to let it go
walking this waking wheel
working the worry weave
for answers
to get through one more day
rolling the rock
losing the rock
rolling the rock
losing the rock
letting it go
letting it all go
cherishing what remains

 Crosshatch

NO WAILING OFFENSE

There will be
No tears
No wailing
No gnashing of teeth
When I go
When I’m gone
When I die
When my flesh
Is sold
For packets to eat
Or doorstop
What knot
Plot not
Best to burn me baby
Use me as sand
Grit to rough the bland
Just call me
Oyster helper
Pearl point
Beginning irritant
Smooth in end

 Stonecash

SOLD AMERICAN

We're born in blood, raised in flesh
In Ragnarock 'n roll Armageddon
So let's go let's go let's go go Sell American
For the red white black and blue

Schroedinger's cat is dead, perhaps
And we but lie, lie dreaming
This tit for tat means this this ain't that
No matter what the ragweed’s weaving

My Little Bo Peep's out eating her sheep
With Darwin doubtless her handle
Your Little Boy Blue's down sniffing glue
While cooking a spoon over candle


To hear this online, with music by Peter Ball, word & voice by Smith, go to
www.reverbnation.com/mutantsmith/song/8051052-sold-american/.

 Yesterday's Wine

Today’s LittleNip:

MOM & POP SHOP
—Smith

This this is where I am—
the dead are dead,
their just desserts undelivered,
and regret a nasty beast
with no heart to pierce with truth.

____________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to Smith (Steven B. Smith) from Cleveland for today’s fine poems and pix! And music besides!

 Easter Sunrise

 —Photo by Smith
Celebrate poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Chasing the Ponies

Pony Hand-Off, 2017 Pony Express

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

OBSESSION: THE PONY                       

I must have been surreal to the guy at the bus
station; asked if he’d seen a horse and rider
coming through; the Pony Express, I couldn’t
find it. I had the same trouble last year.

So this time I prearranged everything—got on
the official website, followed the Pony’s
progress St. Jo, Missouri through Nebraska,
Wyoming, Utah, Nevada. And then

in the middle of historic re-enactment, trail-
updates stopped. Another mudslide? unseasonal
snow over the summit? secret pact of silence,
fear of digital hijack? robbery of Pony mail?

I got in my car, set off for the last known
position—the last constant—on the Pony map.
Maybe I went surreal, running on snow-time,
star time, sun-shadow on a league of mountain

high; running on horse time. By chance I found
them outside Front Yard Nursery—one horse
arriving, switch of mailbag, fresh horse trotting
off west into the unknown. The dismounting

rider hugged her little boy, hoisted him
high into the saddle, then led her honey-sorrel
toward a waiting horse-trailer. One
young boy in danger of becoming surreal.

 2017 Pony Boy

TRADERS

What’s the retail price of a human life?
Slave traders raiding the village
know, and the old woman left behind
with a gangrenous leg,

mourning her stolen children.
She’ll be dead in minutes or days.
No time postponing, thieves on horses
across the river, already gone.

But this father travels silent, on foot,
leading mere boys—one who chips rock
to lethal arrow-point; one who charms
the snakebit pennon to its quarry.

Together they crouch behind
bushes, watch the slavers carousing
with a crazy bottle, hatbands
cinched over poisoned dreams.

One boy stands guard, one unfetters
the slaves, one frees the horses
so they gallop away.
The father judges it a fair trade.


(a version of this poem was first pub. in 

Muddy River Poetry Review)

 Piper's Eyes

PIPER’S EYES                           

A dog has her rights. To be with her master,
not groveling; enlisting cheerfully for any job.
Piper threw herself into it with the ferocity
of a reincarnated spirit—spirit of all the self-
willed dogs of our past. Nothing could enclose
her. Left at training camp while you hid
for someone else’s dog? she’d slip her collar,
tie-out cable, and harness to find you.
Left in the truck after her shift, on that search
for the kidnapped girl—she escaped to join you.
Could you question her devotion? Just look
at this photo, her eyes. She’s passed
to a better, fenceless world. Those eyes
are still boring holes in the wall.

 Upcountry

COLLECTING SPECIES                       

An aerie of eagles was the
blue sky’s eye as we set out on trail
contouring above alpine lake, a
drift of swans below—you,
ever the naturalist, said “swans,” being
field guide unto yourself,
guide of diminishing vision, so a
herd of deer becomes collective, each
individual melding in the whole. A
jinx of jokers are we,
keen to conglomerate while wandering
lost to unnoticed miracles of
mountain; busying ourselves with
naming,
organizing—a
pox of pundits when we should
quit talking; just walk, breathe, look. A
ratchet of rattlers might be
sleeking out from under any rock
to make our day
unnerving. There’s a
vastness of views in all directions, a
wellspring of wonders.
X the nightingale off your list;
you know it doesn’t occur here. No
zenith of skylarks either. Look, a raven!

 Balance Point

WHERE WE ARE                           

The sky’s gray silk unbound. Delicate balance
point. I step out the front door to set the faucet
at just a quarter turn, water downslope to keep
our young trees alive at the edge of Wildwood.
I listen for significant sound in this interval
between dark and light. A dog barks briefly
down-canyon, and there’s a soft scatter of birds.
Tiny machines waking—not machines. Nature’s
workers. Electricity everywhere, longing for
light. Above the big blue oak, a perfect half-
moon moves west, so slowly it will be the ghost
of sun in daylight. Soon everything will bustle,
heating up under a sky so hot blue, it seems
finality/the spark of something. Spring delivered
a truckload of ground squirrels to under-tunnel
our land, and our dogs add their own frantic
digging, trying to reach them. Pests must have
their place in a natural order. So far, a good day.

 Star Thistle

O STAR THISTLE

They won’t sell you at nurseries,
you’re a noxious weed. You’re easy enough
to find. Through long droughty summers
no one waters you, yet you survive.

You flourish along roadsides
and give a soft jade tint to fields where
everything else turns bone-brittle,
dead and dry. You thrive.

Sheep eradicate you. But they’re just
an interruption. Now the sheep are gone.
You creep through fences,
on wind you fly like bees to hive.

I crouch, Star Thistle, pulling you
up by the roots, your golden flower
with a crown of spikes. Shall I
call you hero? rejoice at your drive,

your stubborn, invasive
green? In this tarnished landscape
burned by the long summer sun,
it’s you who look alive. 

 Septic Truck

Today’s LittleNip:

FAR FROM THE SEATS OF POWER   
—Taylor Graham           

Off the freeway. Lift my visor to the blessing
of oaks overarching two-lane chipseal.
Valley oaks too graceful for the straight-away.
I take it sweet and slow here. Truck ahead.
No turning back. It’s a septic pumper, essential
to our country way of living. I do a double-
take—this road’s not meant for laughing.
Message painted neatly on the bumper:
        HAULING POLITICAL PROMISES

_________________

Our thanks to Taylor Graham for these fine poems and pix today!

Those of us who read El Dorado County's Mountain Democrat, longest-running newspaper in California, were able to enjoy an article yesterday (Wednesday, June 21) about Sacramento Poetry Center’s archives—nearly 40 years’ worth of articles such as posters, scrapbooks and publications—coming to CSUS, to be housed in the Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives at the CSUS library. The collection is open to the public.

Thursday night is Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe, with featured readers and open mic, 8pm.

And the summer issue of the online Canary literary magazine about climate issues, from Gail Entrekin in the Bay Area, is now available at canarylitmag.org/.

—Medusa

 Eyes of the Dapple

2017 Wagon Train, El Dorado County

—Photo by Taylor Graham

Celebrate poetry!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

SomeOne New

—Poems by Allison Grayhurst, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

—Anonymous Photos to Celebrate the Summer Solstice

SomeOne New
       
Change is crouching
on my back deck,
behind the pillars
and rotted wood.
Change is tossing in my womb
and giving me a bell to ring.
Like someone new to sing to,
it nicks my forehead with its
broken rhythm. Like starlight
weaving under my skin, growing,
wanting my speed,
change is alive, but small as a rice grain
forming its heavenly head.
Welcome little hamlet of wonder,
welcome from the blue breath of God.
Come see us all and turn this home

of three kindred souls into four.

__________________

CHILD

As wounding as
the stars reflected in
the river, yours is a beauty
too big to embrace.
You are the everlasting miracle
that walks these floors each morning
and day, marveling at every turn.
Your easel is full of yesterday's colours.
There are songbirds under your bed, and in the closet
are assorted hats that call to you to try on
and wear down the hall.
You are the syrup on my toast,
the first tulip of spring.
Before you, I was too afraid to dance with freedom,
crippled by a servant mood.
You are the open door where teddy bears
dream and live—a soft, unhindered love
that cures the hardness
overpowering any room.

HIT THE MARK

This sunrise, rushing
from your pores, smooth and
bright as perfection
has trailed out from a loving home,
out from the endurance of a decade tattooed
to your skin.
You, under the spotlight
bearing no fractures
are as close as the bone is to the shell.
And everyone was transported, gliding
through your soliloquy like birds in
a cool spring air.
A coming together, a rejoicing of all
your struggles, the last completing thread,
magic and kindled by your spiritual voice.
Animated like silver dust on still water, you arrived.
You made the world, at last
understand and listen.

IN PRAISE OF WALT WHITMAN

He wandered as an individual,
care-full and tender with all he touched.

He embraced beauty in his arms
by embracing a young man's dying limbs or
the trunk of a tree, hundreds of years old.

Faithful, clean, pursuing
vitality and depth with compassionate strength,
he was what each hopes to be,
entirely oneself, unafraid of battle
or of withering or joy, unafraid to stake
everything
for the necessity of honest expression.

He, with his brave, child-like being, waded
in the brutality of war, in the ponds of dazzling
and delicious Nature, equal in his love
and in his giving.

THE LAST WALK OF
THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE
    
            Heaving strange
the pride in my mouth that will not drown.
After all love given and failed, to hold only this body
of a starved finch, gold but lifeless like all else
that has inspired me on. I shifted extremes, bandaged
my disappointments in bitter hate and landscapes
where only serpents were resurrected.
            Of my self, I have no virtue to defend, what I have
is impulsive and merciless, and a fortune
that has placed my fate at the feet of a cunning enemy.
            That I was saved from the seal of drunken suicide.
That I saw my own image float in the river, giving
seed to a non-judgemental faith, and she, my daughter
(who knew nothing of resentment), cradled my cure
in the compassion of her eyes. I walk with a simple fool
trailing behind who says I was rough
but somehow kind, who seems to show concern
when I stumble and for my face so down,
it will never see daylight again.
He carries me to an abandoned shack
where soon I will die—he, unaware of the killer that I am.
            If my daughter finds me, never let her know
the loneliness that drove my desperate deeds or the fear
I felt of losing her natural devotion. If she finds me,
tell her not to put flowers where I rest. Tell her not to grieve
the aftermath dust of the likes of me—a crushed,
unatonable man.

________________

Today’s LittleNip:

A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.

—Carl Sandburg

_____________________

—Medusa, thanking Allison Grayhurst for today’s fine set of poems, all the way from Toronto on this, our simmering summer solstice!

 Celebrate poetry! Interested on self-publishing? 

Bob Pimm, Esq. will provide a workshop today 

on the legal angles from 11:30am-1pm at Avid Reader, 

1945 Broadway. Admission is $20 online. Scroll down to 

the blue column (under the green column at the right) 

for info about this and other upcoming poetry events 

in our area—and note that more may be added

 at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Unreachable

—Poems and Original Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THE UNREACHABLE

My father in a soft moonlight,
waiting for some dream to waken him . . .

I listen to him crying
but he doesn’t know I am his daughter.

He suffers from failure—that, and some
lost love. My imagination cannot save him.

He stares at a small gray river.
The water-moon quivers his face.

He thinks that love has abandoned him.
My mother stands watching from

her own sad distance—I look
from one to the other and cry out to them.


(first pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2015)
 
___________________

BREAKING UP THE FAMILY

Father is a crude wooden carving outside the front door. 
Mother won’t let him in. He has pegs for arms and a lap
to sit on where we can change shoes. His expressionless
eyes stare out—painted a dull and listless brown. He does
not know what he has become.

Mother says that next time we move she’s just going to
leave him there—in the rain—in the sun—in the traveling
winds that wear him down. She says that we’ve got to quit
carrying him from place to place—from year to year. She
says we’ve got to quit even remembering him anymore.

 Enigma

WHEN YOU WERE FATHER AND I WAS A CHILD

and years grew fast and long between us,
leaving me only Mother.

This is not a complaint—or a cry.
I don’t know what it is.

Perhaps a door that I cannot open—
or close.

Perhaps there should be only the doorway
and no door—an opening

that is the fatherless world—
and no walls around it, to signify no house.

You were not a house, Father; only a door.
With a turn of the knob

you exited.
I still write Why on the wall that is not there.

___________________

FATHER PERSON

I am a press
     of leaf-saving…

I open my book
     and everything
          falls out, th-
               e delicate
                    fragile
                         leaves
                              of
                         times
                    and places
               of words that
          are stained
     with their
impressions…
    
     just as you, Fa-
ther, just as you…

 Heart and Soul

MY MYSTERIOUS FATHER WANDERING
ALONE IN A DREAMED PLACE

I imagine him playing a flute
in a long wet corridor
walled in stone.

I imagine him mysterious,
facing the east with burning eyes,
and at night the west.

I imagine him father to some burning child
made of melting bone, with soul of cold fire
and mouth holding an old moan.

I imagine a long cold note of sadness
that he cannot hear
floating between us in the closing air.

This is the fatherless year
of devastation
when all things break and are gone . . .

I imagine my father . . .
broken . . .
gone . . .

 Quiet Circles

ONLY CHILD
After CD Jacket, girl with butterfly and two birds

Your hands are too small
to hold all that you desire.
The live butterfly
caught in your hair
will not love you for long.

The tethered swallow
you keep on a string
will escape
back to the wall paper.

The beautifully feathered bird
you hold on a stick
will lose its will to fly away.

You are too innocent for such power—
to keep all that life as yours,
to possess and try to tame—
standing there in all your defiance,
as if you dare not believe me. 

 Flourish

ONLY CHILD

I float upon calm water surface
bobbed gently
rocking nowhere
no tide.

The dolls float beside me
stiffly
their rigid arms upraised
their faces staring at a sky.
Is that a sky
or ceiling;
is this a sea
or room?

The dolls multiply;
they wear my dresses.
(How did they get that large?)
At last they touch me.
I terrify.
My many eyes assess my mirrors.
The walls stream.
The room is raining on the sides.
The dolls are sighing . . .
breathing . . .

I multiply,
my struck selves touching
coping with the mystery
of looking for who I am . . .
my many lives.

I hear the light bristle
full of inflections
touching the glass of all my clothing
like shock-costumes
I must wear through scenes . . .

ever back toward my mother
who is always at the edges
floating huge dolls out to me
on all her fragile sighing strings.

                          
(first pub. in Maryland Poetry Review, 1989)

 Presence

ORPHAN POEM           

paints a sun
makes it round
and yellow

draws spikes of warm
into the ground
where the grass
is hard lines of green

the dog
with all its legs
on one side
smiles at the face of
a flower

and the boy
and the girl
with the straight-stick
arms and legs
are brother and sister

and the smiling
mother and father
are looking
at the boy and the
girl and the
dog and the
flower

and the house
with the black curls
climbing from the chimney
stands behind them all
and is very happy

and the blue blue sky
with the fluffy
white clouds
is full of birds

draws them singing

 Night and Day

PATINA

And there you are—
my sister, whom
I have lost so many times.

This time you come to me as a doll
with all your emotion smoothed
to a cold perfection.

How I envy you this—ageless
and without the wear, while
I wear the patina for both of us.

And why are you the silent one
with no question?
Why this return?

Where have you been? What
journey? What experience?   
Did Mother send you?

I ache with an old loneliness.
You look at me in the old blank way.
Did you know our father?

___________________

GREETING CARD

Dear Old Dad, the one I never had—
Here’s to you, Father.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

LEGACY OF BLAME   
—Joyce Odam

My father
who was Adam
had one weakness;
he was acquiescent.
And he died
blaming my mother
for his chronic
indigestion.

         
(first pub. in The Muse, 1961)

__________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for her original artwork today and her poems about fathers, never an easy subject for Joyce, who—well, her poems say it all. “Dads” was our past Seed of the Week; our new one is Sudden Heat. What kind of sudden heat? Weather? Fire? Anger? Lust? Menopause? Send your poems, photos and artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.

—Medusa

 Celebrate Poetry!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Ionosphere via E String

—Anonymous Photos

NEAR NEWCASTLE
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA
 
Diverted from our plans for Folsom Lake,
we tread the dust and vestiges of dung
that dot the horsetrail-spiral overlook.
It must be this year’s high river keeps things young,
charged with raw snowmelt from where winter clung
so hard that January latched its hook
into late May, and chill has even stung
with rainspikes all the smallest inlet brooks.

This is not March, not April. First of June,
this month, this woman clothed in deep green spring.
Twilight must only open the monkeyflowers
(so many of them!); life relentless wrings
light from all butterflies under archaic moon.
As minute-hands crawl this chill dial of hours,

new-hatched velour-black caterpillars tread
imperially vulnerable and slow
the dust they must cross nimbly or have fed
on granite russet choking as they go.
Wherever you see a proto-butterfly
slow-shoulder a passage across the powdered trail
—plodding in softness open to the sly
sky-pounce—you fear for all the brave who fail:

one birdbeak snap to divide the poor worm-shape,
or ignorant human stumble that must crush
the insect under one near-silent scrape
or utter hush. You will this inch of plush
the chance to survive enclosed and crack the shroud,
dry fresh wet wings and venture the nectar cloud.
Foreseeing the wings, the tongue down in the flower,
lend every caterpillar an extra hour:

Because the fighter in you is twice the lover,
with random twigs you lifeflight the lost to cover.

SONG OF THE NIGHT
            Szymanowski, Third Symphony
—Tom Goff

Ionosphere via E string, angular, suave,
Creation’s oracle, prior to human voice,
radiance transcending human joys:
we hear what should be visible, in mauve,
orange, blood-orange, amethyst on crushed white stars,
all nebular pattern distant as the song
of Rumi, sunset-rose persisting strong
when sun should fade as on dayskin old scars.
High-shimmering tenor, old and young at once,
allures far choral murmurs—poetry
dilates in voice and brass most violently;
the gong’s cyclonic supernova shunts
all gravity aside: pulverized jewels
configure song built solely on splintered rules…

***

Rumi ascends as Heaven separates
from Earth. Nocturnal ruin rains on all folk.
Cracked egg annihilates and consecrates
the End of Days in igneous gold yolk.

***

This night, turn ruin protoplasm.
Inspirit all corpses in one spasm.
Satire, warp every black regret.
[Sardonic E-flat clarinet.]
Yield up, Old Order, your ectoplasm.
Erect the summit in the chasm.

READING “THE DEVOTEE OF EVIL” (CAS)
—Tom Goff

At Sacramento Street, 153,
stands an old house in Auburn’s Chinatown
“reputed haunted.” Might one long-prolonged turn
of doorknob dissolve a mystery?
Whosoever dares penetrate
—one push of the fateway gate—
must deepen or dilute this history.
What leathern animal lurks within whose poison blazon
writhes red across this black changshan, what twisted wyvern
embellishes that jade confection’s wry turn?
What serpent sarabande, benign, malign, each maze on
maze a corridor-to-parlor dance of doom, a dragon-
slinking, seething, searing whitefire doom
implicit in every empty room
and room’s design?
Who would align
their desires with yours, Clark Ashton Smith,
break open the final stubborn seal
denying the dust-mote strew the sunbeam-steeped and real?
Who will decrypt each petroglyph,
audaciously shakingly touch the bandaged lich
by the stammer of your guttering torch,
in cellar or attic or porch,
Clark Ashton Smith?
Who ventures Sacramento Street, 153,
heart shuddering tugged by mystery?
What sleuth of the paranormal will break free
each last conjecture from its chafing chain,
loose every last dream leashed at aching strain
into the silent Eye, the sinister Ecstasy?

______________________

ROMANTIC FLAME, ARCHAIC CLAIM
—Tom Goff

Now nothing is the same, old visions move me.
                                                —Nora May French

Life roars on as it sweeps us far apart.
Both distant as the star-bright planet up
its lofty overhead tonight, my heart,
your heart. Yet close, too close. I wish this cup
could work like potion in reverse. The dart
would come unstuck from skin with all its tip
dipped in that venom love, the charm restart,
unjolt the rhythmic instrument that sips
the red not to be shocked nor overheat.
In all my rhyme forever classical,
may you remain a distant ancient dream
of symmetry so perfect something sweet
of scent lifts from your marble form: that smile
the archaic Kore face bears as a stream
a leaf. As long as that leaf-drift has rolled,
a lamp in your young skin will light you old…

LEADING LADY
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

A role that goes straight
To the heart
Written by, for, and about
Me, handsome, dashing
All around
Me

Won’t need a director
I’ve got all the signals
Like a bus at the curb
With its lights flashing
All around
Me

Lucky for me
The jester does makeup
Helps keep the budget down
And I’ll still look smashing
All around
Me

A lady tried to steal my part
Bore animosity to my buddies
Even tried to make me look bad
Which sent me cutting, slashing
All around
Me

 

 Steam Punk Violin

BERG CALLS BLUFF
—Caschwa

Out on the open sea
A captain who could only see
Strict orders from the company
Concerned only with money, money, money

We cannot afford to waste any time
Time is money, money is prime
Sip the lemon, kiss the lime
Hear the toll of Big Ben’s chime

Stay the course with this unsinkable craft
A perfect vessel from fore to aft
“I’m calling your bluff!” the iceberg just laughed
The inflatable Molly Brown was the only life raft

The ship went down like a large piece of lead
More people died just looking for the dead
A hard lesson learned, after all was done and said
Except each new generation has new appetites unfed

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

AP REVISITED
—Caschwa

Hello, Baby Boomer here!
Attended grammar school
Where they taught us rules

Such as the Awkward Punctuation
(AP) rule about commas
“At the dinner table, avoid any topic of politics, race, religion and fart bigtime.”

Now those snobby Oxford scholars
Erased any cloud of doubt and have us uttering
“At the dinner table, avoid any topic of politics, race, religion, and fart bigtime.”

____________________

Our thanks to today’s Monday morning voices for waking us up to the week to come, which begins, poetry-wise, with tonight’s Hot Poetry in the Park, Sac. Poetry Center’s first summer reading at Fremont Park, 1515 Q St., featuring American River Review alumnae plus open mic. If you’re interested on self-publishing, Bob Pimm, Esq. will provide a workshop on the legal angles on Wednesday from 11:30am-1pm. On Thursday, Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe features readers and open mic, 8pm.

On Saturday, Writers on the Air meets at Sac. Poetry Center at 10am, featuring a live radio podcast with Katya Mills; then at 2pm, Poetic License meets at Placerville Sr. Center in Placerville. And Wendy Patrice Williams is offering a six-week writing workshop about “Re-Storying Your Life”, beginning Sunday, June 25, at 6:30pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Monday Shark

Celebrate poetry, even if the Monday sharks are after ya!

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

He Knew Me

—Poems by Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento, CA

—Anonymous Photos

SWEDISH TAILORS ON TABLE TOP

There could have been any number
of reasons why four tailors from
Stockholm sat cross-legged upon a
sturdy table in an old Victorian
house in Santa Barbara early in the
twentieth century, early in my
father’s memory.

His grandfather John Ostin was chief
among the tailors, his stout body
heavily pressing one end of the table
top.  A small wool suit jacket hung
off the table edge as he hand-stitched
a final hem.  I doubt it was for lack
of chairs.  Perhaps they sat closer to
the ceiling light.  Stitching dark thread
into dark fabric is a challenge.

Each immigrant man had sponsored
immigration to America for the next.
Now, the four sat back-to-back
engrossed in their craft.

Years later, my father would fret
that he had not kept the dark woolen
suit made by his grandfather when he
was twelve years old.

__________________

DESK CLERK

My father’s wooden desk on Spanish tile
was near the motel lobby—night auditing,
calls in and out.  He counted the money
next to the fireplace mantel where hung a
Marlin caught off some coast, here or there.

He made a spell-check phone call to me
one night between registering guests in
and out.  “Hi Dad, and yes, the word for a
story is spelled t-a-l-e, but an animal’s
behind has a t-a-i-l.  You’re welcome.  You’ll
be home in time for dinner?  No?  Oh well,
dessert then?”

If I didn’t see him before pajamas, I would
see him the next day after grammar school
at the motel coffee shop, where always a
donut, small milk glass and Dad would be
waiting.  I sat on a swivel chair under a
fresco of a vaquero, a vineyard, winepress
and a full-bosomed Spanish señora, a basket
of fruit under her arm.

“Dad, does the place grow on you?”

“What?  I live here instead of with you,
Kiddo.  What do you think?”

_______________________

HE KNEW ME WHEN I WAS YOUNG

I.  He knew me when I was young
at two and three and five, and a teen,
and when I was twenty at my wedding.
He knew me always.  He was always with
me, but not today.

I drove him to the doctor, then to a little café—
difficulty thrown in and out of someone’s car;
weather gathering darkness around us—
between us.  Who is this limping man in
flaky skin?  Is the slip-of-his-mind exactly
like the parking-lot reflection of him against
the car sliding ominously along the shiny
brown paint… and away?

II.  So I know now that I have lost him,
but who have I gained?  I have someone here
in my care; he looks like Santa Claus, but not
so jovial this time of year, or this time of life,
or this time…

A madman yells to be heard, that’s all.  He wants
to be heard by any passerby.  The Salvation Army
bell ringer knows this as she rings her little bell.
And so, Santa Claus yells out something about
pirates and knives.  Santa Claus is now a madman,
and we are alone on the sidewalk, his walker
tipping to the curb.  I do believe in angels; my
father was one once.

III.  Another came out of nowhere. 
How is it that this very tall man is now helping
get my father back into our car?  Where did he
come from, this man who quickly said his father
had dementia, gave my father a lift up with
his arm…  then disappeared.


(prev. pub. in Song of the San Joaquin, 2013)

______________________

FATHER, FLOATING ON A COUCH CLOUD…

in his dementia, looks down,
and seeing the tiny carpet people
below, declares that they are
too busy to notice his face
looming large above them.

Not an elephant-in-the-room,
but rather a flaky-skinned cherub
with large green eyes, I name him
“All-My-Own-and-Beyond.”

Later in the afternoon, after
he has rolled himself off his couch,
I cover him with a tapestry of
Christmas elves and leave him
nestled among the many tiny
carpet people.


(prev. pub. in GRIST Anthology 2013)
 

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Carol Louise Moon for today’s fine poems!

 Celebrate poetry—and fathers! And don’t forget that 

Michael Paul and Moira Magneson will be reading in 

Placerville today, 1-3pm, at Love Birds Coffee and Tea Co. 

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green 

column at the right) for info about this and other 

upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more 

may be added at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.

Forgetting How to Drown

—Poems by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA

—Visuals Provided by D.R. Wagner

AN ESCAPE:  INNISHERE REVISITED

No one has touched his body in a very long time.
And he watches it as if it were
A golden boat lifting from the surface
Of the water, claiming air
To hold the hull, to drive it
With only wind.  Wind and a perfect star.

“Yes, that is something I have done,”
He thinks, and gathers in the streamers
Of light that lit the labyrinth
For a thousand years.  He plies
Them into a belt and wears it.

Gazing down from a great height,
Not discovered by the twinkling
Lights so far below his delicate balance.

“I have something for this.  It will
Be a song.”  He helps it along
Through the harbor, tests it with
A three-pronged tool to ease
The sea back into the dream.

He will even borrow someone
Else’s dream of living by the shore,
Listening to the gulls in the morning
And the crispness of the air.
“They will never notice,” he thinks,
Letting the sails fill with a phantom wind,
Allowing light to escape and bounce
On the throat of the waves.

“No one will see this,” he assures himself,
“No one at all.”
The shore line disappearing
In the wake of such a beautiful ship.

____________________

HE IS A DIFFERENT KIND OF KING

He’s a different kind of king.

The waves stand up when
He passes by in his peculiar boat.

“I mean to have
Some fun,” he says and a great
Number of ducks begin
Quacking and follow him around
As if they were a bunch of drunks.

 Dancing with Fairies

—Anonymous Illustration

STRING SECTION

They placed the sorrow in the highest
Rank of strings.  Violins inquiring
After the health of the heart
As if it could do anything more
Than touch the edges of a mouth,
Move a tear into a hand
Where it might not be seen
Until much later in the day.

I hold you close as we watch
From the window.  The world
Is burning, but they will not
Touch our love.  Not here
Where the music pushes blood
Through our beating hearts.

Oh that this were true, if only
For these moments.

 Guardian

—Anonymous Illustration

STANDING OPEN MOUTHED

Death opens its big mouth,
Loosing the cloth across
Its face and showing its toothy smile.

A break of light
Softer than dreams of angels.

I watch you touch the face
Of the dying world.
It is such a tender gesture.

The song falls from the pocket.
It is lost upon the ground.

It is sung only after all others
Have been forgotten.

 Girls Reading

—Anonymous Illustration

A TRAVELER’S TALE

In the blood of evening we wade
Through the moments, listening for thunder,
Something we can rely on before we wash
Our legs to get ready for the night.

I do not understand why we continue
To reach for one another but I do
Participate.  Perhaps it is for the feel
A hand might might have, touching near the heart,
Asking a forgiveness that is non-specific
But well meant, wanting something to be
Done before the whole place becomes
Dark and we stumble from one pool
Of light to another, never sure our direction
Is correct or even necessary, before
It gets too dark to see your eyes

Before me.  Perhaps we will be in love.
Perhaps we will find a doorway for a
Moment, crouch there and begin to relate
Stories to each other as if it were
Important for us to hear them.

I will tell you how I came here
Across the wine-dark sea of ancient
Time and found myself just outside the city
At this time of day, traveling with
The others past the dim orchards,
Seeing the fires on the horizon, hoping
Rest would be full of peace, quiet
Song and the precious company
And comfort one might find here.

It seems a long way to travel
To find only the bloody failing
The light is intent on illuminating.

We begin to call to one another,
Softly at first, then louder,
Always trying to make the new
Distinctive, luxurious to discuss
And comely in its transformation,
Its shading, its interlocked devices,
Our commerce in its patterns, always new,
Always skillful, filled with a fragrance
Unbound by the finality of daylight,
Praying we may never be so totally alone.  

 Crow and Aminita Muscaria

—Anonymous Illustration

PRISONERS OF THE AIR

The stands of trees engage
The evening birds like tongues
Of fire.  They revel in an electricity
Made of feathers and nervous squalling.

How thick is the atmosphere?
Thin as a dream, swirling blue
One could cover with a thumb
When seen from cold space.

All of life can rise to this ceiling
And no further, prisoners of the air.
Dancing in the colors made from light,
Made from the longing of light
To bend around all things and pleading
For a naming.  How can we explain this
To our children?  Light upon the oceans?

We walk along the edge of the great seas,
Unwilling to drive the required knowledge
Deep into our lungs.  Our mouths opening
And closing like fish.  We forget how to drown.

The sky breaks open and allows
Us to see the moon and its
Stars through a million clouds,
And once again we do not know
Where we are.  All of life depending.

 Rabbit Running

—Anonymous Illustration

A LAST EVENING

This could easily be the last evening
As easily as just another.  We say fate
Would have it a particular way,
But it does not.  It only allows
For the strangest forms of gifts
And banters with time for a particular
Time of the day, in this case, evening.

We notice the mirrors that reflect
The top of the pyramid or a hallway
Where, as far as we can see, flowers
Seem to entrance one and we are
Allowed to wander as long as we are
Able until the light fails.

Or, given the sea, or a cloud, we
Watch it move toward some horizon
That transforms itself into the high
Stained glass windows of a great
Church.  We marvel at it.  It is as beautiful
As the evening, any evening.

Our arms have become gargoyles.
Rain water pours from their mouths.
We somehow find this charming,
In the evening,  any evening,  and stand there
Quietly until it is over.

 —Anonymous Illustration

Today’s LittleNip:

THE FALSE DREAM OF EDGAR

—D.R. Wagner

He would walk like a spinning dime.

“There’s a treasure in things
Like this, Jerry.”
But I’ll be damned if I can find out
Answers to what they mean.

“Such fabulous wealth,”
Thought the cat, as he spun
Past.  “Brighter than the
Sun for a brief moment.”

_______________________

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

 Celebrate poetry! And remember that the life of poet 

Theresa McCourt will be celebrated at Wm. B. Pond Park in 

Sacramento today from 10am-3pm; that Cal. Poet Laureate 

Dana Gioia will be reading with Steven Finlay Archer in 

Angels Camp today, 12noon-4pm; and that James Lee Jobe, 

Stephen Daly and Nick LeForce will be reading at the 

Sac. Poetry Center today, 4:30-6:30pm. Scroll down to 

the blue column (under the green column at the right) 

for info about these and other upcoming poetry 

events in our area—and note that more may be added 

at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.