Ripe With August

By Flashlight

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

WHAT DOES THE MOON THINK?

She’s right there staring darkly down
as we watch the sun begin to dim, our whole
attention focused on light dissolving.
Is she afraid sun’s flame will truly disappear
behind her back, her own face casting no light?
Already our steps come quieter and quieter
as night vanquishes morning. No sound
of shatter as our boots tread on sun-crescents
pale as moon-glow. Why should the moon
worry? She’s seen this so often; so many
moon-lovers briefly fixated on her sun. Soon
it will pass. Our dreams so easily
shadowed. Last night I dreamed of your boot-
laces. And look, now they’ve come
undone, frayed like twine from stepping
on crescents of sun maybe jinxed by moon.

 Boulder

ANCIENT AIRS

Bluebirds pecked berries from mistletoe
of a dying oak, its roots dug into
frost-heave, decomposing granite recomposing
tree and late-day shadow. On that lichened
boulder, half a mushroom-cap left
uneaten by a squirrel. Coyote scat laced
with manzanita berries and fur, fragments
of bone: what was left of gray squirrel.
When I first found that rock, lost in labyrinths
of manzanita, I imagined it sacred
to the Indians who used to summer there—
who lived there first. Bedrock mortars
in canyon shadow. And my boulder—was it
ceremonial stone? Now I think it may
have been a talking rock for sending messages
across miles of granite. Warnings,
invitations. A singing stone. I imagined
I could hear earth turn its worms through soil—
or was it blood running rabbit-trails
in my ears; tinnitus of aging?
News on the breeze across ridges before
air slips downslope to dark. Granite speech
that might reach me miles down the mountain,
still among stone.

 Door in Wall

DOOR IN THE WALL

I lived there for a certain time,
watering the tree at the edge of lawn,
keeping house and dogs but not a word of
poetry. The tree—what kind was it?—
did poorly. The lawn was summer-brown.
I’d drive my dogs far up into the forest
to hike. Then I moved away; driving past,
I saw the tree had died. I never noticed
a door in the rock-wall built to keep lawn
from falling into the road. Was a door there
all the time? If a door, then a hole,
a place where maybe poetry lived inside.
I never let it out, never walked it
in the forest. The tree I watered, but
didn’t name, has died.

 Blacksmith

BLACK BART AT THE STAMP MILL
    Gold Bug Park

He was all in 19th-century black, except for
the white pillowcase protruding from beneath
his hat. Haunting, this Gold Rush highwayman
poet, dressed for spooking, eve of Halloween.

He handed me his calling card—spotless white
handkerchief still bearing the laundry-mark
that led to his arrest. Coal smoke drifted blackly
from a smithy above the old stamp mill.

All black—vest, trousers, dapper moustache.
Only white was the pillowcase he wore cowled
from crown to collar. Black Bart in person.
When no one else was looking, he pulled

the pillowcase over his face, looked at me eye-
level through slits of mask. Clear steel-blue
intensity—his eyes, his life story. Stay, his eyes
said. Listen. He was alive in that story. I

suspended disbelief. I don’t rob anyone except
Wells Fargo. Did he rob a stagecoach here,
I wanted to know? Yes; well… no. Black Bart
was everywhere. The golden Motherlode.

And right now, here. Handkerchief fresh-
laundered from his last holdup, Nov. 3, 1883;
Po8 verse to prove it. Most courteous of bandits
dressed poetically in black, to the tip of his hat.

 Blackberries

PEREGRINE PREACHER
    for C.C. Peirce

A good solid grip on his staff, and he’s off—
hat or none; he has his heaven and its weather—
down a ridge to where the vista broadens
over river canyon. Great boulders grumble
in the flow. He’ll listen until it sounds
like psalming, so many tongues of praise.
Happy the feet that are walking through this
creation—Placerville to Georgetown,
on to Cool and then Coloma, all on foot,
all a part of the live transmission, whether
in church or under sky. No stained-glass
to taint pure daylight. This whole world’s
temple and nothing’s more delectable
to a traveler than blackberries ripe with August.

 Sunflower

WHITE STAR

He wore it everywhere, any sort of weather.
Old West Victorian top hat, black with an 8-inch
crown and a big white star. Wouldn’t say
where he got it—he never could afford. Maybe
he stole it, maybe found it in a pawn shop.
He wore it indoors and out regardless. Never
minded the white of etiquette. Fancy words
no more than courtesies to a wolf. Spent hours
waving that hat in front of the flighty head-
shy piebald somebody gave him that nobody else
could ride. White star in the middle of its
midnight forehead. He waved his hat
till the pony’d stand stock-still no matter how
he waved up a thunderstorm. Peculiar dark
between them, he and White Star inseparable
as man and his hat. One day they took off
west past sunset without a trace. Never came
back. Rode off into starry night, I guess.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

OUTSTRETCHED               
      rubáiyát

I was searching the totem of the place—
its boggy wetlands greening in the grace
that blankets meadows with a tangled edge,
a buzz of bugs, music of quiet space.

No pesticides, no messing up live genes
to poison land that generously greens
with mud and scat and scent of rich decay.
No gears and the exhaust of their machines.

How to invoke a spirit to withstand,
to soothe my mind and still the restless hand?
A shadow passed—a great blue heron spread
a blessing with its deep wing of the land.

____________________

Many thanks to Taylor Graham for today’s fine poems and pix! For more about the rubáiyát, see:

•••thepoetsgarret.com/2010Challenge/form12.html
•••www.baymoon.com/~ariadne/form/rubaiyat.htm
•••classicalpoets.org/how-to-write-a-rubaiyat-with-examples

And here are three more resources to add to your list of types of poetry forms:

•••Poets Garret: www.thepoetsgarret.com
•••Society of Classical Poets: classicalpoets.org/category/poetry-forms
•••Poetry at Adriadne's Web: www.baymoon.com/~ariadne

Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe takes place at 1414 16th St. in Sacramento tonight, 8pm, with featured readers and lots of open mic. 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.

—Medusa

Celebrate Poetry!

 (Anonymous Photo)

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.

Meditation and Wing Dust

—Poems by Claire J. Baker, Pinole, CA

—Paintings by August Macke (1887-1914)

DEAR LADY
(a poem of the ‘70s)

Lady Liberty,
will my donation repair
the edge of your palm
pressed under that book?
Firm the base of your torch—
even flare the flame?

The art of restoration
can be discordant.
May hope keep echoing
from your eroded crown,
chipped eyelids,
the cracks in your hands.

Freedom nudges my heritage:
young American soldier (Scottish,
Irish, French, Native American)
marries a German maiden.
World War I over, he brings her
home to California where
I was born.

Dear Lady, maybe my gift will
smooth a crease in your robe,
chisel off dust hardened
on your shoulders, half remove
water stains from your face—
better still, heighten
the flicker in your eyes.

(first pub. in Blue Unicorn)

 Elizabeth Gerhardt "Mein zweites Ich"

THE BELL
(for Karen)

A nearby neighbor gives me a
small brass bell, 01-01-2001
imprinted on the side,
a World Peace Bell. I'm to ring
it like crazy, if in distress.

At this hour on a summer day
I'm not in danger, haven't fallen
or gotten ill. But I ring the bell
ecstatically so the God of Sweet Notes
may take proper note of me.

And I pretend I'm Buddha leading
a Zen monastery meditation.
Carefully I ring the bell once,
its pure sound resounding
as eyes close, head bends low.

 Lesende Frau, 1913

O, PRINCE

of Moonlight,
I roam
long and far
the poetic meadows
of expectation.

Wearing the moon's
veil, like a bride,
I feel myself becoming
eloquently
silent.

 Woman Reading

THE DAY AFTER PARIS
CLIMATE ACCORD

I sit alone, wearing
a lime-green dashiki.
Thoughts swirl, unevenly.

As June sun moves across
a western sky
treetop shadows change
over patio squares.
What are shadows for?

I blend into patterns
lively, peaceful
of their own accord.
For an hour
after America withdrew
and the planet shuddered,

I take the temperature
of shadows, I weigh
the climate of discord,
recall evidence gathered
toward shared solutions.
The shadow of shame
lingers on and on.

 Woman Reading in Red Armchair

ON AN AUGUST  EVENING

A praying mantis, ivory colored,
(we later learn means molting)
chooses our quiet entrance
for appearance, as on a stage.
At first we think the creature
torn gardenia petals pushed
slowly forward by a breeze.

Kneeling in dim light, we see
a head, odd wings, forelegs
that enable our visitor
to take spindly strides
and to pray.

We want to steer the wonder
away from nearby road.
Respecting nature,
we watch the explorer
freely roam.
Next morning, mantis is gone.

 Portrait of Elizabeth Gerhardt

ANOTHER "OTHERWISE"
(the Iraqi war, circa 2007)

Again we waken at 4 a.m. edgy,
the same as two nights ago
as war bleeds on in Iraq—

America's pre-emptive strike
not for love of broccoli,
but regime change and oil—

a land where dinosaurs and flora
perished in massive catastrophe
leaving rich remains...We recall

Jane Kenyon's poem "Otherwise,"
mourn 14 more marines killed in Mosel.
Indeed! "It might have been otherwise."

 La Femme de l'Artiste, 1912

BIRTHDAY IN SAN FRANCISCO

After our Mediterranean lunch
on a quiet lane amid skyscrapers
Leslie has me blow out
a small pink candle
on a slice of cheesecake.
Merrily we share.

Gazing upward
through tallest buildings
I'm drawn to a patch of blue.
Ah, here the City's phoenix
magnificently soars. As proof,
we blow wing-dust off our table.

 Elizabeth on a Green Sofa, Reading

Today’s LittleNip:
 
THE CITY OWL
—Claire J. Baker

hooos his city hooos
alto omen over inhumanities. Hooo
from the inner sanctum, what darkness
Full-circle owl eyes unblinking
Hooo are you? Hooo can you be
Whooo? Whooo?
Houdini chained to
underwater concrete mountain.
Whooo can escape?
Where is Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus
or Hooo...

_____________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to Claire Baker from down Bay-Way for today’s fine poetry! For more about the life and work of August Macke, see www.britannica.com/biography/August-Macke/.  To see more of his artwork, go to www.wikiart.org/en/august-macke/.

Claire's City Owl

(Anonymous Photo)

 Celebrate poetry!—and our Seed of the Week: Night Sounds!

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.

What Is It About A Hat?

Belle Chapeau

—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA
 

TRYING ON HATS

My mother and I would try on hats at a little Hat Shoppe
in one of the towns we lived in. (Long Beach, I think.)
A narrow little shop squeezed in between two others.
The hats cost only a dollar—maybe two—grown-up hats
with turned-down brims, some with veils, like the mystery-
hats sophisticated ladies wore in movies. We would
finally buy one apiece and saunter out on the sidewalk,
feeling somehow new to ourselves, changed by the wearing
of a hat—hers with a sassy brim—mine with a veil.

                
(first pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2012)

_________________

WHEN SHE POSED
After Evening Appearance, 1931 by James VanDerZee

Hello, Night.
How do you like your lady,
all spiffed up for you
in her red fox fur and cloche hat—

one bare arm stretched out along the edge
of a shiny table. 
How do you like her pose, her legs
silk-stockinged and seductively crossed.

How do you like her almost smile
as if she cannot feel a strap
slip down her other arm—
so casual.

She wets her lips for you
so you can wonder at her kiss,
but she has no kiss for you.
She wouldn’t want to smear her mouth.

How soft the light upon her
in this room—where she is young—
where time holds its breath
so she can become this photograph.

 Whisperings
 

MENU

Lady in white hat.  Pearls.  
White lace collar at her neck.  
Menu held in two jeweled hands.

She talks to one side—then another
to her companions. Looks back
at her menu—can’t

decide—turns the pages
back and forth—reads it all. The
window behind her holds her

image, her white hat bobbing
in the fascinated dark.
Finally, she decides, puts

the menu aside, and, sighing,
pats the edge of the table,
satisfied.

_________________

ADMIRER, ROSE, AND RAIN:
A TRIANGLE

She is bending to smell a rose.
Will it allow her nearness?

Which is the most beautiful
to any admirer—

self to self—
or rose to rose?

Does the rose open fully?
Do her eyes close?

Will it dare to rain
and ruin her hat—fill the rose

with sudden raindrops
to hasten her away—splat, splat . . . ?

                       
(first pub. in Medusa’s Kitchen, 2012)

 Silent Duet

GIRL WITH STILL LIFE
After Girl with Still Life (1919) by Alexander Tischler

A balancing act, this wearing of a hat as wide as a tray on
which are placed the things of the day : reminders of toil,
or the waste of time, or only the fancied weight of flowers—

wilting now. She is poised and steady—her long hair rib-
boning down her back, her face expressionless—part of
the still, a prop for the hat which almost weighs too much.

But she supports the teetering hat with its two goblets,
three knives, three apples, and half-empty wine carafe—
Tischler’s object-meaning for the Girl with Still Life. 

___________________

WOMAN DAY-DREAMING

A woman
in a white apron

and a hat to shade her from the sun
sits in the day’s warm light,

hands in her lap, palms down,
mind-drifting to a place

that takes her from herself.
And the day shuts down.

Her work is waiting—
it waits behind her in a long field;

her work is waiting
in a house full of windows

that glaze their eyes
in the day’s warm silence

and also seem to forget
her work is waiting.

 Golden Choir

THE WHITE MEADOW

She fills her hat with flowers.
Soon the summer will be over.
Something watches and shivers,
something saying, come to me.

Her long dress stirs and makes
a rustling sound.
She turns,
and feels
a watchful shadow
flowing near that takes
her mind back to the meadow.

Maybe she is that part of time that lives
for when it was—not in the now.
She bends again and resumes
her innocent gathering of flowers
and thinks her thoughts and feels no omen.

 Luminous Rose

RANDOM

Here is a lady in a gold hat
with one lock of hair down her face

standing in a ray of darkness
watching those who disappear

from her, as she disappears to herself. 
Still, her gold hat shines

in the gold-struck eyes of one
who admires her—follows her home.

___________________

A NIGHT REFLECTION

night
in a blue hat
walking narrow
feeling the
dark cold enter
and stay
eyes with
caught stars
hands that
clutch the coat
close to the body
night in a blue hat
looking in window
after cold window


(first pub. in Bellingham Review, 1992)

 Triangulo
 

THE SUNNY WINDOW OF THE
DARK CAFÉ

Ghosts in costume sit
at the sunny window
of the dark café.

They will not move
from the sunshine.
They are cold.

I think they want
to pray for
new beginnings.

One of them
is at the jukebox
reading the names of music.

Another hides his face
in the shadow he has brought
beneath his hat.

I will not stay.
I will go through the door
and enter the brimming day.

I will not glance
at them
as I pass their table.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ILLUSTRATION OF A HAT BY MARGARET COLLOT 
(After Le Parfum de la rose, 1924 by A. E. Marty)

Red rose reaching toward red lips,
shy eyes closing as she bends
to sniff the rose;

is this
to illustrate her yellow hat,
or to scandalize the kiss . . . .

____________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam with her poetry of hats (our Seed of the Week) and her beautiful photos of the roses that go on those hats! Our new Seed of the Week is Night Sounds. 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! For an hour of night sounds to inspire you, 

go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z1hi534hnU

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.

Hats Off!

—Anonymous Photos

COLLECTORS
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA

Back in Central Illinois
We collected
Gimme caps—
Free, mostly from
Seed corn or
Tractor dealers.
Tried not
To be too greedy:
Only one cap.

EXCERPT FROM EIGHTY DAYS
—Michael Ceraolo, S. Euclid, OH

        August 1, 1881

Garfield:

Bell was back today with his machine
Though I flinched at first last week,
fearing an electrical shock,
today I was ready and didn't flinch
Again Dr. Bliss operated the machine
Again he was unable to find the bullet,
something he thinks important
I wonder if the bed's metal springs
were a hindrance in the search


Guiteau:

"I know in my heart
that I am ONE with Christ . . .
forever and ever"

LOTUS AT RONCEVAUX
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA

Small dark-clothed lotus in the lotus posture,
your back turned. Seated high in the Pyrenees,
you gaze “out far and in deep” at steep pasture.
Green-softened chasm, summer reveries.
Just off the crumbling road-lip, just on the chasm-lip,
your backpack bulk laid down. Thin cloud, soft fog
hides, heightens every altitude. Each spasm-slip,
each twist or wrench of pre-sprained ankle: block
or hindrance, anyone else. And you tread onward.
But meditate now, student. Thin white mist,
at heights not sung by larks or flown by wrens.
How Roncevaux absorbs the cirrus-kissed.
Young soldier woman at ease for once, eyes forward,
profound as all this downdrop in the lens.

_______________________

READING BY REBUS
—Tom Goff

    for Carol Pottorff, whose lesson this is

A veteran teacher cracks away at a tough
nutshell, a student’s inarticulation.
The girl can’t sound out the word available.
A-vayb-la-bla, abey-la-ya-bla-buh.
Each syllable-by-syllable try dwindles.
Can it be true no learning ever kindles
without unlearning? What skin’s left to slough?

The teacher tries the backwards buildup, slow:
ble, a-ble, vailable, available—no go.
A brainwave! Something to fit this individual.
The prof thinks to pop out a simple visual.
A (face with a) veil, a bull: she draws a crude rebus.
Enunciation breaks over the girl like Phoebus.
“Available,” she says, and walks away.

To you I have no sense of what to say
even with all the right intake information,
what liberating rebus anyone draws.
Always I wear the veil, or you the gauze.
Inside bullhide I hide—whatever the cause.
The veil is really yours to don or doff.
The bull, horn-sore, has just now trotted off.

YOUNG POLAND
    (acquaintances of Arnold Bax)
—Tom Goff

At Edith Grove, the Drapers’* English home,
a couple walls knocked out to cram musicians
for chamber-music epics good physicians
would vow could cure whatever dire syndrome,
you’re spellbound. Lionel Tertis, great violist;
Pablo Casals, Eugène Ysaÿe; Young Poland
in Music: Slavic Modernist knights at joust;
have lance, will travel reactionary lowland.
Here’s Paul Kochánski, chin to violin:
he’ll show you his most brilliant special effect,
glissando double-stopped with double trill.
Now, Karol Szymanowski, architect
of mystic symphonies: Rumi, Hafiz too,
inspire him much as Yeats and Synge spur you.
Rebecca Clarke, Gene Goossens augment the thrill,
intoxicant sound that transcends boon or sin.
Are you there the night young Artur Rubinstein’s flames
sizzle the ivory fuse toward dynamite?
Power extreme, if not by sound, by sight
ignites at last the distinguished guest, Henry James…


*Paul Draper, noted tenor, and Muriel Draper, author of Music at Midnight.

_________________________

[At the Royal Academy of Music,] pouring out our jejune imitations of Tchaikovsky and Wagner, we dipped our pens in the fiery fountain of Helicon, in unshakable assurance that no such music had ever before blessed the earth. Our masters might dowse the flame with cold water, but the heartrending disillusion of the evening was banished at dawn by the morning wind of a still more godlike inspiration.
                        —Arnold Bax, in Farewell, My Youth


MORE GODLIKE INSPIRATION

—Tom Goff

    for any student

Do true for fun, says poet Marie Ponsot.
Wise words. Or do untrue, seed fantasy,
ripen your invention-garden, sow
your own seed, grow green as a praying mantis, be
all stalk, though you become space-beanstalk, sprout past
both Jack- and Giant-head-level, clear to the airlock
of the most high space station, beyond the last
shy molecule outshrinking the sheerest hairlock
of will-o-the-wisp-ineffable oxygen.

You are the earth’s but you are also the cosmos’s
nearest likeness to a living god.
Show godlike inspiration—no psychosis,
no trauma or neurotic episode
got you here by itself. Take agency,
take risks. No need to abandon gravity,
though it may abandon you. This vacancy,
this void’s your home, much more than mere cavity.
Fill it with your vast thought as you swell out
that Orlan spacewalk puffball of spacesuit.

You’ll pass through ion storms of dazzling doubt,
meteors, sand-grain-dangerous, will shoot
at but not through your plasticine spaceskin.
Rewards, as few as the atmosphere is thin.
Thin-skinned, what if we burst your luminous
second epidermis, bust your thrusters?
Suppose, exposed to vacuum, your velutinous
suave sausage casing, ultimate disaster,
bursts—it won’t, say scientists prosaic—
Pretend your artistic hopes disintegrate
with you. That’s just one day. You can regather.
Collect your scattered destiny, compound your matter.
Here’s a new suit. Slip into it, acclimate.
Above all, create the transcendent, dare every ambit
one orbit more elliptical, more eccentric
than yesterday’s. You failed with this day’s gambit?
Don’t free-fall back to Planet Earth acerbic.

Let yourself glide, drift clear of all the bitter.
Exploded, your god-bits batten the god-mosaic.
Stars up here give of their optimum burn. Space canyons,
starfingers concocted of contracting spasms.
Bright fissures, celestial cataracts fall into chasms.
Dilation as rooted and spreading as ancient banyans.
Are you a god-fragment in chaos? Add your god-glitter.

___________________

PSYCHED IN, PSYCHED OUT
—Tom Goff

Two men of creative genius, Bax and Rilke.
Eminent British composer, Bohemian poet.
The private life of neither flaxen, silky.
So inwardly arranged, each, wouldn’t we know it:

both drawn to psychologists, not psychology.
Rilke’s great early love, Lou Salome,
a Freud-trained woman psychoanalyst:
Watch Rilke wriggle away, bait slunk from hook,
from Lou’s best referral. Culprit unbrought to book.

Behold Bax writing to Godwin “Tiny” Baynes,
a chum from young manhood whose quite other life
was working for, translating, Jung. Midwife
delivering Zurich to England. For Baynes’ pains,

commending Bax all manner of psychic wealth
via mental accouchement on some analyst’s couch,
all Bax can say—friendly, mind you—comes to ouch.
No overt coaxing, certainly no stealth,

will make Bax / Rilke submit to that rope of sandstorm,
docile acceptance of fate’s analysand-form.

Nor would I, for that matter, unbridle, unbristle.
Why trade away edge best guarded with ounces of mean,
to have one’s subconscious intestine, best whistle
scrubbed clean? 

  

MAGICAL
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
 
At a magician convention
In the great hall
All the magicians arrived
Wearing hats

Some held rabbits
Some held bats
Some held we’ll have to guess

Next door
In another great hall
Exterminators came
Then it got fun

Some had traps
Some had spray guns
Some we’ll have to guess

When they stopped
For a break
The two groups intermixed
Wearing hats, pointing guns

Rabbits, traps
Bats, guns
None left, I guess

__________________

WITHOUT YOU
—Caschwa
 
Each and every week
I faithfully play the Lotto
“Don’t let your numbers
Win without you”

Surely my numbers
Will come up
Though it may not be
Within my natural lifetime

Not to worry
I’ll just incorporate myself
And go on living and living
And eventually win!

Of course by then
The Lottery Commission will have
Decided there are better uses
For my prize money

Such as donating
The entire winning jackpot
To the Lottery Commission’s own
Gamblers Anonymous fund

But my sustainable corporate self
With memories of human values
Now fully erased
Will be blind to the difference

Reincarnation of that
Once living human being
Will bring me back as
Digital financial projections

DERMIS
—Caschwa

By God’s design
Humans repeel and replace
Their skin daily

The process just happens
Without critical, political,
Despicable, deplorable

Much like an oil change
Out with old, tired, worn
Back to square one

Old skin stays where it falls
Old oil must be recalled
For a fee, of course

So you see, dead horse
The all-powerful buck
Stopped here

__________________

HATS OFF
—Caschwa

Biblical folks shared
The gift of knowledge
That would have missed us

Fabulous, improbable
Events too distant to
Ever have kissed us

But we believe
We must believe
That all of this is true

Because they say
It came from God and
He is rubber, we are glue

Now we have a president
Who shovels us
Fake dirt to sift

Hoping his words
“Believe me!” will suffice as
Our precious gift

We cannot sit by
A term or two
To right the ship of state

We must take action
Here and now
To unteach war and hate

LET ME RESTATE THAT
—Caschwa

Yesterday
Our president
So bold and self-sure

Read a script about
Charlottesville, about values
That should endure

It was a crossword puzzle
So lacking
In challenge

He penned all the answers
Using ink
By the gallons

The very next day
When the solution
Was published

He offered
Better answers
To replace all that rubbish

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

HACKED
—Caschwa

I was in Central Park
At the Carousel
And wanted to visit
The landmark Neo-Nazi Tower

A cabbie said
“No problem,
We’ll just head down E. 65th Street
And make an Alt-right on 5th Avenue”

___________________

Lots of fine poems today while we wait for the partial eclipse beginning at 9:02am (see www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/sacramento). Michelle Kunert has sent us two links for music to watch the eclipse by:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaDB574gTe4
eclipse2017.nasa.gov/eclipses-and-music

Poetry readings in our area begin in Placerville tonight, 5pm, with Poetry on Main Street, an open mic for poets and musicians at The Wine Smith, 346 Main St. Then head to Sacramento for CharRon Smith, Marvin Xia and open mic as Sac. Poetry Center presents Hot Poetry in the Park, Fremont Park at 16th & Q Sts., Sac., 7pm.

Thursday is Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sac., 8pm, with featured readers and open mic. Then Sat. morning, Writers on the Air presents Jackie Howard plus open mic, with Todd Boyd making a podcast. And Poetic License meets that afternoon in Placerville at the Placerville Sr. Ctr., 2-4pm. 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.

The latest issue of the Ginosko Literary Journal from the Bay Area is now available at ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/.

And SnakePal JD DeHart writes that he is working on a project at dehartreadingandlitresources.blogspot.com, a site where he writes book reviews and posts author interviews.  Check it out!

—Medusa

 —Photo thanks to Charles Mariano, Sacramento, CA

(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.
 

Sunshine and Hollyhocks

Bird of Paradise

—Poems by Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento, CA

—Anonymous Photos

SUMMER BIRDS OF PARADISE

In my yard beneath blue skies
where you’ll find yellow butterflies
grow several Birds of Paradise.

A scene of beauty such that brings
elusive black bugs out to sing,
to see these birds with browning wings

and golden beaks, and crowns of brass
that look like hair or tawny grass,
by brick-lined path where I walk past.

I now step down a brick-lined stair
to sit beside these birds.  Austere,
they stand as portrait—still as air.

 Sunflowers
 

SUNFLOWER

    "Sunflower strove with hollyhock.”
        from “First Death” by Donald Justice

Sunflower-maize and pink-on-stalk
two plants rising toward the sun—
a sunflower strives with hollyhock.

Past noonday hour at one o’clock
no birds sang—no, not a one.
Sunflower-maize and pink-on-stalk

aglow in sunny noonday shock
compete where streams of silver run.
The sunflower strives with hollyhock

in grasses neatly cleared of rock
where other strivings now are done.
Sunflower-maize and pink-on-stalk

both dressed in nature’s modest frock
don’t seem to know, they’ve both won;
the sunflower strives with hollyhock.

So wide it grows in front to block
the sun—grace it hopes to be undone.
Sunflower-maize blocks pink-on-stalk.
The sunflower strives with hollyhock.

 Hollyhock

THINK OF ME IN SUMMER

I think about you on your summer lake
in your father’s old green boat rowing—
forming diamond wakes
rippling rather, farther out—as you and I
have seemed to do.

A love-concern made fresh
in summer’s dew found early on in lakes
at dawn, as we two think of us anew.

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

In the garden of gentle sanity
May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.

—Chögyam Trungpa

______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Carol Louise Moon for this morning’s sunshine and hollyhocks! Carol Louise will read this afternoon in Placerville with Sue Daly (plus open mic), 1-3pm at Love Birds Coffee and Tea Co., 1390 Broadway. 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.

Carol Louise Moon

 Think of me in summer…—and 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.
 

Adagio

Iris

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

ADAGIO: AUGUST AND THE MOON

When we saw how many fragments
The dream had shattered into
Over the night we thought that all
Had been lost.  It was impossible to tell
What it had been just the night before.

The moon came up as usual
But it was a color we did not recognize.
We had been told that this might
Happen, but we were not prepared
For how peculiar it appeared now.

It was like the moon was thinking.

 The Race

I AM NOT HERE TO TELL YOU
SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

No one will let us pass.
I hate to tell you this, chaps,
But I don’t really have
Any idea what is going on.

The sky is looking around
For something to throw at us.

We have no weapons
That can help you now.

Our steps become quieter
And quieter until only the tiger
Can hear us walking through
This creation.
Listen to that breathing.

I’m not here to tell you
Something beautiful, but
I recall that, years ago,
Tiresias showed us a flaming bird.

Sit here for awhile again.
A flame.  Look!  A flame.

Some joy right under your chair,
I am beginning to feel all golden.

 Happy Feet

BROKEN HEART

My heart is broken now, so
I’ll take it in my hands,
Carry it outside and throw
It in the light brown garbage
Can, the one that goes to the landfill,

Not the recycle bin with its blue
Serenity and white logo, RECYCLE
ONLY, or the gray of the lawn waste bin,
A brilliant concept in itself
That I am never going to understand.

No, the brown one will do.
Tiende basura, por favor.
-*-

Among the coffee grounds, wrappers
From lunch and wadded paper
Towels, a good place for a heart
Like this, then go back into the house

Alone, consider the quality of light
In the kitchen, sweep the floor
So there isn’t anything to indicate
That anything is very different.

A broken heart, oh dear, says the clock.
Now just relax.  I have another
Minute here for you or an hour
Or a month, or the mystery
Of the noise made by some flying machine
High above the house.

I open the door again
To better hear it, it and
The music-moving that wind attempts.

I think of it as song.

 The Foot of the American Falls

THE FOG AT NIAGARA FALLS

So thick it spilled over


The gorge lip, filling


The streets with a dense white


Wall, stealing every sound


The night chanced to create.



A blank stillness
Devouring streets, buildings,
Houses, light itself.


There was nothing else

In the world, only fog.

Baxter and I stepped outside
His home just to see,

Just to hear this kind of voice.



Then we walked in opposite


Directions for a short time,


Turned and ran toward each other,


Arms outstretched, flying past


Each other like thick phantoms


Visible only for an instant.



We did this two or three times,
Each time a surprise,


An event, as we passed


Each other in this peculiar dark.



For years we carved this event
Separately.  Still it remained


The same in both our recollections.

Such is fog.



It holds moments


As singular things,


A permeable loud


Resting upon the ground
For a time gathering


Events and lives to itself.

Dispersing again without a trace.


Except these notes remembering.


Except the friendship recalled,


Our lives somehow linked


Because of it, arms outstretched,


Shearing through the night.

 Hole in a Wall

PRESSING THE MOMENT

I have no idea why they would let us
Remain on the boat.
It is very beautiful and we love it
But that is not a reason.

It could be because we are magic
Or that our hands can touch things
More gently then anyone else’s.

Or that we understand the dead
Pain of losing everything.  Some of us
Cannot see.  Others cannot hear.
We do understand profound silence
And yes, the late water still comes
Lapping.  And we can open up
The dreams like oranges and pass
Them around.  Press them to your
Lips.  They are sweet, sweet, sweet.

And just here, where we are,
The wind curves up and swirls
Upon the deck.  It knows
The journey.  I close my eyes.
I kiss your lips as you have always
Wanted someone to kiss your lips.

We feel the anchor being hauled up.
Those who could not hear, hear.
Those who could not see, see.
Those of us who can speak
Begin to talk of being survivors.

We link hands, wrapping them
With fine scarves.
The wind unwinds and moves
To fill the great sails.
The sails have become pure light.

We become the definition
Of every moment where longing
Changes the heart to find compassion.

No one has seen anything
Like this before.

 Big Dog

DETOX

I cannot wait any longer.
Too soon the morning will come
And the curl of your back
Will move away from our sleeping.
And the light will crack open
All the work we have made
Of ourselves this night.

I will watch my body dissolve
As a salt into the clearest liquid
And we will be as we never were before,
Plodding and stumbling down
The roadways toward some village,
Town or city, aware only of our
Traveling and the terrible
Ourselves, a cargo neither wanted
Or precious but necessary
For any kind of life at all.

_________________

Today’s LittleNip:

HO NE GORTHA—Dreamtalk

We are workers
In the star mines,
Tremors of delight
For the eyes and imagination.

These are songs pulled from
Our remembered dreaming
As used as a counterpane
With wild, clear lament.

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s poems and pix, all of which appeared on Medusa’s Kitchen in years past. D.R. is still on his August hiatus from the Kitchen, catching up on health and publishing issues. (Watch for his two new books to be released this Fall!)

 Celebrate Poetry!
D.R. Wagner reading at Shine, April, 2015

—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

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.

Fair is Fair

Brain Stem

—Poems and Photos by Smith, Cleveland, OH

STATUS REPORT 257

Some days
it's the space between pages
the silence before sound
the tip of the tongue
just out of reach
you can almost taste it
the one that got away
in happy never after
worry worn as won

Sometimes fire plays with wood
just licks and leaves
licks and leaves
until it gets a taste
and chomps

 Red Eye

BALANCE

Day and night come and go
wet dances with dry
old seeps through new.

The dead outnumber us
feed the living
canceled checks.

I still take new day's step
most hopeful, and yet
look for the lance.

Which coming kiss or curse
or hug or worse
will decide my stance?

 Scan Now

SISYPHUS AFTER ALL

It's not all rock
there's the exquisite relief of quitting time
dragging dead flesh twixt hill and home
to swallow cold food
before tepid bath and bed
and the dreamless ache of sleep
where eyes closed in dark
wake in same dark
at alarum's croaker cry
to rise again
stack old bones on new pains
then limp to manual mountain
and hope against logic for gain

 Sunfire

EVER NOW

I'm normally normal
but just not now
and it's always now

there're two times:
there's now,
and
not now

today,
and
not today

it's never tomorrow

that's why I'm nearly normal
nominally now 

 Night Fragment

 

NIGHT MOVES

Walking rough terrain through pitch black
first cup of campfire coffee one hand
flashlight the other
stop on trail
turn off light
sip black unsweetened coffee
hot in black back of night
something large rustles near by
I tell it welcome, but coffee's mine

black out
I pour black outer liquid
into inner body darkness

after long silence
coffee speaks

 Earth Entry

 

FAIR TRADE

I don't always turn the other cheek,
sometimes I slap back.

And I always forgive,
but never forget.

So beware,
fair is fair.

 Mind Meld

PRIVATE EYE SMOKEY GREY

i come to sip yer honey, honey,
my sticky bee—
internal hive memory

nothing personal, just duty.
howdy duty. by jingo. by golly.
by jolly we'll be an external

manifestation

of an inner

conversation

we spark the waters
hold 'em up
do the dirty bop

i need some heart gravy.
give me some heart gravy baby—
lounge lizard rhythm in
polyester time

    —with Lady K. Smith

 Betty USA

 
MAKING MISTAKE

I don't make mistake, I don't make mistake,
I don't make mistake, no I don't make mistake
they're not all that great and they lead to hate
make a mess of fate I hate to relate
so I don’t make mistakes

Oh I may make mistake, might make mistake,
could be my mistake, oh yes I’m mistake
mostly wrong on sing of song
lost the timber break the plate

Chasing rabbit, hailing hare
turtle here faster there
end of race rocks each roll
so unknowing's so nice to know
but sorry sir I gotta go I gotta go I gotta go

A chunk of tone and clink off-key
in merry merry mutilation melody
with grunt and groan and growl of gruel
wreck unrhythm on my motley crew
and torture tune unusually cruel
o I do I really really do

So no mistake to make or break
it’s all outtake which comes to fate
I do my do to your is
know at heart it’s all show biz
audience empty payment late

It ain’t mistake but ache I make
it ain’t mistake but ache I make

So chase the rabbit, hail the hare
Turtle here faster there
End of race rocks each roll
so unknowing's so nice to know
but sorry sir I gotta go I gotta go I really have to go

One thing here another there
depends on what the Emperor wears
or dares to care to bare beware

gotta go gotta go I gotta go


To hear with music & backing vocals by Billy Clarksville, word & voice by Smith (6:57, 2015), go to www.reverbnation.com/mutantsmith/song/24464101-making-mistake-pt-2/.

 Vice Excel

Today’s LittleNip:

NO WHERE THERE
—Smith

Two no-cats brushed my where.
I looked. They were not there.
They brushed again.
Ghost dance of none against my skin.

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Ever-Expanding Smith (Steven B. Smith) for fine poems and pix from Cleveland today! And remember that you have two poetry reading choices tonight: The Long-ish Poem at Sac. Poetry Center, 7:30pm, and Shawn Pittard and Laura Dominguez Abraham (plus open mic) in Davis at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 7:30pm. croll 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.

 Expanding 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.