That Cunning Sun

  —Photo by B. Lynne Zika

* * *

—Poetry by B. Lynne Zika, Burbank, CA
—Photos by Jiri Vlatch and B. Lynne Zika

 

 

 

GITA

Beneath the window passerines
cluster in their family clutch,
claiming for the afternoon
a place to share, to speak, to touch.

Behind the screen my daily plague
begins its torturous harangue.
Lone I—vanquished-—then concede:
I am now become the pain.

 

 

 

 —Photo by Jiri Vlatch

AND THE CUNNING SUN

Morning sun stretches long green fingers through
the grove
and cups her hand over a breast of creekbank moss.
Downriver, rapids churn the day to a start;
beech trees lean into their stately tasks.
A monarch butterfly loops around me,
tracing arabesques, wings beating a delicate thrum,
cocooning me in a silent, twinkling applause,
and the cunning sun
slips over to steal flecks of gold and copper from
my hair.
My love has gone.

___________________

AVONDALE

On the south end of Noble, gold-lettered coaches
carry children with richer daddies down a circle
of track.
Across town, a necklace of boxcars
waits to be hitched at the dock.
The mill whistle cuts the day in half.
Dye from the vats still froths the creek
bounding the house that failed to hold my mother
past the year she was of age.

The morning Mr. Raymer dropped a milk bottle
on the kitchen step, she woke to her father’s
tongue pushing past her lips, pushing away
18 years of safety. She must have gone cold,
felt the slip she’d pulled on the night before
too thin
against her body. Outside, the milkman
swept the last of the splinters
and whistled off to the comfort of his route.

Three-thousand miles later, I open a package
my mother has sent from home. A gold chain
to safekeep the charm I’ll be left when she’s gone.
A pocketknife she means for my grandson—
“My daddy’s,” she writes.

I remember a man with pockets of candy.
The way we swept into Woolworth’s,
grand with our Saturday dimes.
Our mother. Laughing.
Slapping pink balls with wooden paddles
one-hundred-and-twenty-nine times.

 

 

 

 —Photo by B. Lynne Zika

PROMISE

Soon it will be spring.
In the patch of ground
outside the window,
fruit trees will swell
from bud to flower—
young maidens with growing breasts
preparing for the fullness
of motherhood.
They will bear fruit.

Surely
a life of pain bears
something of benefit:
a testament to the comfort
love can bring
or bearing witness to the world,
to those who believe themselves forgotten
or never seen.

I see you.
Come.
Let us remember together
the bud as it bursts open,
the sunlight casting shadows
at our feet.

____________________

 

Today's LittleNip:

 

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.

 

—Elvis Presley

 

____________________ 

—Medusa, with thanks to B. Lynne Zika for her fine poetry today on this most unusual date that only happens once every four years! (Where will we be four years from now?) Anyway, visit the Kitchen again tomorrow for Lynne’s Italian Sonnet.

 

 

 

 B. Lynne Zika

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




For future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
 during the week.

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

Find previous four-or-so posts by scrolling down
under today; or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column; or find previous poets
by typing the name of the poet or poem
 into the little beige box at the top
left-hand side of today’s post; or go to
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of
the blue column at the right
 to find the date you want.

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
send poetry and/or photos and artwork
to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!

 

 














 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why I Love Poets

 

Arlo Paints

—Poetry by B. Lynne Zika, Burbank, CA

—Visuals Courtesy of B. Lynne Zika

 

 

 

WINGÈD
 
Ah, but the poem of the air—
the one that lifts itself from the broken curb,
the one hoisted from the gutter,
plowed from exhausted dirt,
the one which caught the shirttail
of a moan
and lifted the shriek to a celebration,
the one that unbuttons your heart
and crawls into your chambers
to do its damage and repair,
and never touches a pen,
never proclaims itself in the trades
or is gilded in sweet academia
but tiptoes to your lips,
brushes them with its own
in a honey fire that burns you
until you’re weeping,
and once gone is silent
so that only air and memory remain—
that is the poem I will bring you,
and if the day is not too loud
and if your murmur tells you
Answer,
well, then, yes, of course,
I’ll be listening.

 

 

 

 

 

WHY I LOVE POETS

Pound gave Zukofsky’s poetic career an important
boost by urging Poetry editor Harriet Monroe to
appoint the young New Yorker as guest editor of a
special issue devoted to new English and American
poets.
                               —Poetry Foundation


The poet sat on my couch for hours, reading
poem after poem and not
saying a word.

Finally:

Why aren’t you published yet?

He gave me a name.
He wrote her himself.

Telephone publishes my first three poems in print.

Lacey Thomson’s mother worries.
Her daughter prefers books to people.
I know this because her second cousin cleans my
house
now that I’m a geezer.
Ten poets I know
send Lacey a list of poets to read,
and Emily and Mary and Maureen
join to teach a solitary young girl in Alabama
the power of the written word.

 

 

 

 

WHY ARE YOU CRYING NOW
 
Because my friend’s new book is out
and it’s one woven from
the same threads I wear,
and I don’t think I can afford it, and
I don’t want to tell him because
he might do something silly like
offer to send me a copy,
and then I’d feel bad about telling him.
 
Sigh. So we’re back to that.
 
And because, really,
I don’t want to be here anymore.
It’s not that the hummingbirds
glitter less brightly in morning sun
or that his morning words
are any less sweet
or that the white arms I see
stretched across oceans
are sunburned now.
It isn’t even so much
the loss of majesty
because even the microscopic
can hold splendor,
but I am tired of being small,
of folding my wings,
of not hearing giggling children or,
once grown, not having strength
to sit below their balconies
and listen to them singing
to their own wives.
 
I am tired of my father
being too long dead,
and I’m tired that still
there are hungry children
and men arguing for cameras.
 
And I cry because there is no one
to tell these things to, that
maybe they don’t even matter,
and even if they do, what then?
Will they stay a hand?
Will the backhills boy
or the city girl know I’m listening?
 
Do you think there’s any damned satisfaction
if my words are remembered when I’m gone?
I don’t want to ensure my memory.
I want water.
I want these fires to be quenched.
I want to be silent.
I want peace.

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

THE OCCASIONAL PLEASURE
OF MARRIAGE

—B. Lunne Zika
 
I called to him from my room,
“The crows are conversing!”
and settled back to listen to their chatter.
He wandered in and studied the window,
then, for ten minutes, translated
The Conversation of Crows.
I keep telling him he should write, but so far,
he leaves it to me. So, courtesy of
the occasional pleasure of marriage,
I do.

_______________________

B. Lynne Zika is back with us today, bringing her Burbank sass and swagger and some fine poems and pix! B. Lynne first appeared in the Kitchen last May 17 (https://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/search?q=b.+lynne+zika/).

Today is the last meeting of the First Church of Poetry at McKinley Park in Sacramento; this week features Stockton Poet Laureate Tama L. Brisbane. Click on Medusa's UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS (http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html) for details about this and other future poetry events in the NorCal area—and keep an eye on this link and on the Kitchen for happenings that might pop up during the week.

_______________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 

 Upside-Down Cake with Lizard
—Artwork by B. Lynne Zika


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!

 

 Ah, but the poem of the air…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just to the Left of Humor

 

—Poetry by B. Lynne Zika, Burbank, CA

—Photos and Art by B. Lynne Zika

 

 

 

BY FIRE
 
Every day I have held my mouth to a string of fire
and eaten, flame by flame, the hope of invisible things:
the fibers of books, the maps of hands,
the silence after music.
Every day, light falls through the sky,
inviting the earth to examine its shadow.
 
I see a thief in the shadow
of my face, greedy for the weightlessness of fire,
for the impeccable arrogance of sky
and the gravity of invisible things.
I hear in the cracking of my heart a kind of music
that trembles through my arms to my shaking hands.
 
From a blue shelf littered with toys, a saint hands
the bubble of a broken machine into the arms of my
shadow.
A tinny song plays on my shoulder, and the music
of copper fires
the mercurial air. I know I will never conquer the
things
of the flesh that will burn high enough to humble
the sky.
 
Every day I have lain in a white room, a sky-
light seducing the sun into the palms of my hands.
Every day I have agreed that there are things
I will never understand: the length of shadow
multiplied by need, hunger divided by fire,
the compound of the elemental absence of music
 
in a brick-studded sky, in vacant hands,
in the way our shadows turn from each other,
our music
choking with the things we cannot illuminate by fire.

 

 

 

 

 

HOW TO FIND ME (v. 1)

It depends, of course,
on what you’re looking for.
Do you want me to be a pine tree?
Then go to where the saws stand weeping.

Do you want laughter?
I am a master at sass.
But you will find another door
just to the left of humor,
and may you own the courage
to walk through.

 

 

 

 

 

HOW TO FIND ME (version 2)

It depends, of course,
on what you’re looking for.
Do you want me to be a pine tree?
Then go to where the saws stand weeping.

Do you want laughter?
Honey, I’ll sass you ’til your chuckle
ramps up to a chortle and you’re
plumb riddled with guffaws. Your mama
will have to come scrape you up
off a jelly-rolled floor
and you’ll still be begging for biscuits.
I am—I say I am—a master of sass.

But you will find another door
just to the left of humor.
There are no stately canopies
shielding tuxedoed arrivals
from any storms. No red-suited
doorman with gold braid
offering an arm or a white-gloved assist.
You don’t know what you’ll find
inside, but I know I’ll be wearing satin,
in your favorite color,
whatever that might be.

I’m not donning some fake modesty fur stole
to tell you silliness like, “I’m not much,
but you came looking, and
you done found me.” No, sir.
All I’ve got is what I am,
what I can do, which at the moment
includes pushing open a heavy door.
I’m hoping you’ve got the courage
to follow.

 

 

 

 

 

HONEY
 
First you really must decide
whether you’ll approach her as a child,
exploring the woods for a likely spot
to hold the world’s fiercest fort,
guaranteed to keep you safe
from Genghis Khan himself
or at least Charlie Atwood,
who’s taken to stealing your marbles
and telling the other boys
he decked your sister once
for letting her setter take a whiz
on his front lawn.
A lie, of course, but
he’s got 30 pounds on you
and a mean big brother.
 
If you go to the woods
in black canvas high-tops,
you’ll find her
spilling over a hillside,
somersaulting from sheer glee
and flinging herself helter-skelter
at your feet. Take a moment
to examine the blooms.
Consider the fully open
but not yet drooping
into a lazy wilt.
Then pluck one blossom
where it joins the twig,
just below its green wax seal.
Pinch it free, thank the lady,
and claim it for your own.
 
Next, with the nails from your thumb
and index finger, pinch the bottom—
but not all the way through!
Stop on each side right before
you reach the style,
the little white cord
snaking its way from the joint
through the tube
to the outside of the trumpet.
Now take hold of the style
and slowly draw it toward the bottom, until,
the moment before the stigma pops free,
a drop of nectar appears
and dangles, trembling,
awaiting your decision.

 

 

 

Yes

 

 

YIN
for Sara

I have seen the broken pieces
my brokenness left behind,
withstood their lash of anger
and wept —Oh, God, I’ve wept.

I flung open the doors of my wounding long ago,
faced the wicked pleasure of the sword
which pierced me, the laughing hands
gleeful in my pain,   
and the self-protective armor
of the one who should have shielded me,
and met a healing heart
and finally slept.

I’ve stood nose-to-nose with my shadow.
Very well, I have a shadow.
Lord, how she now makes me laugh.

But, Mary, how did you bear
that you could not protect him?
Please—please—show me
how you withstood that grief.

There is a mother in the budding of a tree,
another shining in lunar light,
and many more whose bark-veiled arms
reach for both the sky and me.
Through them she speaks.
See what you’ve done
to protect them from your history.
You cannot protect them
from their own ways to strength.
Yes, I forgive.
Now forgive yourself.

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

WHY I DON’T CHECK OUT
—B. Lynne Zika
 
Because in an hour’s—two hours’—time,
the hummingbird will come back
to the plum tree
and plumb the last remaining blossoms
for a thing too sweet for words.
Because there always seems to be
one more thing to write.
Because I want to hear him say, again,
I love you.

_____________________

B. Lynne Zika is an award-winning poet and photographer and a retired editor of closed-captioning. Awards include: Pacificus Foundation Literary Award in short fiction, Little Sister Award and Moon Prize in poetry, and Viewbug Curator’s Selection, Staff Favorite, and Hero Awards in photography. Her father, also a writer/poet, bequeathed her this advice: Make every word count.

Welcome to the Kitchen, poet-who-makes-every-word-count, and don’t be a stranger!

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 B. Lynne Zika


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For upcoming poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
in the links at the top of this page.

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

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!

 

 “Every day I have held my mouth 

to a string of fire. . .”

 

 

 

 

 

Moonlight Fantasy

 —Poetry and Photos by Taylor Graham,
Placerville, CA
—And then scroll down for
Form Fiddlers’ Friday, with poetry by
Joe Nolan, Nolcha Fox, Stephen Kingsnorth,
Claire J. Baker, Joshua C. Frank,
and B. Lynne Zika

 

 

WHAT WENT WRONG

A junior jinx, a gremlin in the circuitry       
squashed your poem like a small animal.
My computer declined to save even a snippet
of your verse. What remained on the screen
was an empty vessel. I flipped the switch,
killed the machine, replaced it
with a walk outdoors to settle my mood.
A winter moonlit evening
transformed every stone to silver
mica in reflected light, bright
as your poem that survives
death by computer.

 

 

 

MOONLIGHT FANTASY

Did they come, surreptitious between storms, to this confluence by winter moonlight? Prospectors for gold with their equipment, trudging trails flooded with so much rain—did they misjudge the current so it snatched their gear away, left it beached where the canyon narrows? Stormwater rich with treasure—

garnets, diamonds, gold flakes
washing over the truly
awesome waterfall

 

 

 

 

TINY SIGN ON GIANT TREE

These mirific woods
too steep for walking—why
posted No Trespass?—
so deep and dark, I’ll traverse
them in imagination.

 

 

 

 

TRAIL PUZZLE

Why, in the midst of trail,
Is a perfectly good sleeping bag
There, tossed in a heap,
Not a sleeper inside?
Even though it’s morning, sunbeams
Sleep behind horizon. But bird-
Song? It bursts from every tree.

 

 

 

 

WHO’S STEERING?

Who’s riding shotgun?
A dog and his man should be
inseparable—
but one with wind-blown head out the window,
the other with hands on the wheel.

 

 

 

 

WHITE HORSE

On our second try for the pass, a ghost
stepped out of the trees in guise of a horse
gazing at us till we quit. Did I sense
a spirit of the land to guard this trail?

Muddy with rain, and difficult the trail
skirting an old railroad track, history’s ghost
running between the rails... Can this make sense
of why our third try never found the horse?

After storms, could one even ride a horse,
so many trees fallen across the trail?
My dog refused to go on. Could she sense
cougar, or bear, or a malignant ghost?

It takes another sense to walk this trail
without the ghost in guise of a white horse.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

TONIGHT’S WINTER LIGHT
—Taylor Graham

A cloud-cloaked moon gives
thunder, lightning, rain instead—
open curtains, look!

____________________

 

 

 

 Taylor Graham reading at last Sunday’s 

Poetry of the Sierra Foothills
—Photo by Lara Gularte

* * *

March is roaring in around here like a lion, bringing us Taylor Graham with a grand swoosh of wet weather. Our thanks to her for today's fine poetry and photos. Be sure to check out her latest book, Walking the Bones (Hot Pepper Press).

Forms TG has used today include a Word-Can Poem (“What Went Wrong); a Haibun (“Moonlight Fantasy”); a Tanka (“Tiny Sign on Giant Tree”); a Double Acrostic (“Trail Puzzle”); a response to Medusa's Ekphrastic photo of last week (“Who's Steering?”); a Sestina Sonnet (“White Horse”). and a Haiku (“Tonight's Winter Light”). The Sestina Sonnet and the Double Acrostic were both Triple-F Challenges last week.

For news about El Dorado County poetry—past (photos!) and future—see Taylor Graham’s Western Slope El Dorado on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry or see Lara Gularte’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/382234029968077/. (Poetry is Gold in El Dorado County!) And of course you can always click on Medusa's UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS (http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html) for details about future poetry events in the NorCal area.

And now it’s time for…  


FORM FIDDLERS’ FRIDAY!

 

It’s time for more contributions from Form Fiddlers, in addition to those sent to us by Taylor Graham! Each Friday, there will be poems posted here from our readers using forms—either ones which were sent to Medusa during the previous week, or whatever else floats through the Kitchen and the perpetually stoned mind of Medusa. If these instructions are vague, it's because they're meant to be. Just fiddle around with some challenges—  Whaddaya got to lose… ? If you send ‘em, I’ll post ‘em! (See Medusa’s Form Finder at the end of this post for resources and for links to poetry terms used in today’s post.)


There’s also a page at the top of Medusa’s Kitchen called, “FORMS! OMG!!!” which expresses some of my (take ‘em or leave 'em) opinions about the use of forms in poetry writing, as well as listing some more resources to help you navigate through Form Quicksand. Got any more resources to add to our list? Send them to kathykieth@hotmail.com for the benefit of all man/woman/poetkind!

* * *

Last Week’s Ekphrastic Photo

This week we received responses to last Friday’s Ekphrastic photo from Joe Nolan, Nolcha Fox, and Stephen Kingsnorth (in addition to the one above from Taylor Graham):


NATURE’S COURSE
—Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA
 
A happy man
With his happy dog—
An image of tranquility.

What need has he
To change his course?

May nature have other plans?
What’s around the next bend?
Stay tuned
For how he’ll
Remember
How happy he was
Back then,
Before he got a horse.

* * *

TEACHING MY BEST FRIEND TO DRIVE
—Nolcha Fox, Buffalo, WY

He’ll be great behind the wheel.
He hates cell phones, radios.
He’s sharp, alert, a friendly guy
who doesn’t lose his cool.
He’ll be great behind the wheel
as long as roads are free
of cats and rabbits, he’ll ignore
the posted speed and chase
them over curbs and brush.
That’s what doggies do.

* * *

RETRIEVER
—Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Wales

A golden world, environment—
retriever, trees, car window frame,
through filtered sun, or gaffer, grip,
who set lighting equipment up.
Who’s driven autumn merriment,
the middleclass in leisure time?
I fear it, half a life ago,
me on the road to where I am.

In one steer, dog hangs over wheel—
hangover cure, hair of the dog—
distinctive fur in foreleg light,
within a whisker, DUI.
And there’s that scarf hung over neck,
those rainbow lines, by woven skill,
to hide ID medallion,
or chip implanted under skin?

My dogs recalled, those seasoned scarves,
so much retrieved from early days,
not prey of hunters’ shooting game,
but memories before escape;
of mother love, Dad, strains resolved,
of family, wife, children, friends,
of college days and learning ways,
of fellowship, companion bread.

With host of saints clouding beyond,
contentment, more than gleaming smile;
but now charged, dump greeting cards,
whose signatures call up passed shades.
Like fading days, full glory scene,
yet falling leaves, year’s task fulfilled,
are not for discard, sweep away,
but tilth for resurrection seed.

* * *

Nolcha Fox sent a lovely-but-sad Haibun in response to our current Tuesday’s Seed of the Week, “Jewels”:

 

 

THE MISSING JEWEL
—Nolcha Fox

You kept me dry on days that rained discontent and flu. I hid behind your smile in a room of strangers. You waved your pom-poms when I didn’t want to show up on the field. You gave me a standing ovation when I couldn’t spit out the words.

And now, I am
a gold ring
missing its diamond. You are gone.

* * *

All this talk of winter moons inspired Claire Baker to pen her own response:

 

 

 

WINTER MOON
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole, CA

When the full moon was born,
this genius of the night
was carefully memorizing names

of stars, beginning with fires
near its circular rim—taking
care when it encountered

flare-ups
to the magnitude of explosions,
stars releasing pressures. Yes,

we poets are given huge sparkles
from atop earthly hills, now
snow-white as angel wings.

* * *

Here is a Rondeau by Joshua C. Frank:

 

 

TWO EMPTY CHAIRS
—Joshua C. Frank

“We did the NFP [natural family planning] bit for awhile [sic]... and have felt revulsion over it ever since.  During that time we might have had at least two more children.”  

                    —Letter to the Editor, Seattle Catholic, 2002

 

Two empty chairs, each in its place—
The kitchen table’s vacant space,
Where our six children see the chill
Of unworn seats, both standing still
Like Tiny Tim’s by the fireplace.

We timed the marital embrace
To procreate at slower pace.
That empty phrase means none shall fill
Two empty chairs.

Our family planning did erase
Two precious souls we can’t replace;
We chose ourselves above God’s will.
Their nonexistence buys each frill,
And never shall their presence grace
Two empty chairs.


(First published in The Society of Classical Poets)

* * *

Always-skillful Josh has also sent us a Villanelle. Love the repeated line: Oh look!  It’s yet another field of corn!

 

 

 

DRIVING THROUGH KANSAS
—Joshua C. Frank

I drive a Kansas highway, full of scorn;
The squares of endless flatness wear me down—
Oh look!  It’s yet another field of corn!

The semi truck behind me blasts its horn,
Allowing me to hear the driver’s frown—
I drive a Kansas highway, full of scorn.

Brochures for Highway 83 don’t warn
About vast fields of dried-out gray and brown—
Oh look!  It’s yet another field of corn!

The filling station food mart’s stocked with porn
(The playhouse of that agribusiness town)—
I drive a Kansas highway, full of scorn.

The highway’s shown the same old scene since morn;
I pass gray grass torn like a tattered gown—
Oh look!  It’s yet another field of corn!

The amber waves of grain the state has borne
Are harvested by every Big-Ag clown.
I drive a Kansas highway, full of scorn—
Oh look!  It’s yet another field of corn!


(First published in The Society of Classical Poets)

* * *

Here is an Italian Sonnet by B. Lynne Zika; go back to yesterday’s post for some more fine poetry by her:

 

 

 

THE ART OF WAR
—B. Lynne Zika, Burbank, CA

They go to arm themselves at the dry-stone wall.
The thin boy pulls a forked stick from his shirt
and bends toward a pebble in the dirt.
Tom says, “You won’t catch nothin’ at all,”
and snags a larger rock beside the gate.
He winds a strip of rubber around the stick,
cut from the limb of a black oak, strong and thick.
The thin boy stammers, “Tom, you’d better wait.”
But Tom’s got the slingshot pulled and aimed to
shoot.
He fired awry. His daddy’s at the door.
A pane of glass shatters to the floor.
The old man cracks two shards beneath his boot.
Tom says, “Bill, I think you’d better go,”
then bends to take what’s coming, blow by blow.

* * *

And we have a closing Ekphrastic poem from Stephen Kingsnorth, based on a public domain photo posted in MK on Saturday, Feb. 24:

 

 

BLOOMING BRICKS
—Stephen Kingsnorth

What contrast, border, parched grey earth,
save cement strip, as tower above,
back garden to flat, uniform,
perennials despite storm norms.
This floral bed of pillowed blooms,
lies plump yet creased, sense drowsy scent,
a depth denied by plaster cast,
all vibrant texture, rainbow mix.
But where buzz bees, earwigs indeed,
those pollinators, plant refresh,
or infestations, draining sap,
when too close planted, petal fold?

What rhyme or reason drives our part
as painting, writing, crafting oeuvre,
in charting folks’ goals with a heart,
imparting hopeful attitude?
Our street art may be fantasy,
the scene as we’d prefer its view,
a home where we would rather be;
a fiction, visionary draw?

___________________

Many thanks to today’s writers for their lively contributions! Wouldn’t you like to join them? All you have to do is send poetry—forms or not—and/or photos and artwork to kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post work from all over the world, including that which was previously-published. Just remember: the snakes of Medusa are always hungry!

___________________

TRIPLE-F CHALLENGES!   

 

See what you can make of these challenges, and send your results to kathykieth@hotmail.com/. (No deadline.) I do believe the Bema’s Best was devised by Sacramento Poet Be Davison Herrera (who has passed away), though Poet’s Collective left the “Be” off of her name. This form is based on 3’s and 5’s:

•••Bema’s Best: https://poetscollective.org/poetryforms/bemas-best

•••AND/OR try a Blind Rhyme or Hidden Rhyme, which fools around with internal rhymes. (Be sure to scroll down for “Shit Creek”):

•••Blind Rhyme or Hidden Rhyme: https://poetscollective.org/poetryforms/blind-rhyme-or-hidden-rhyme

•••See also the bottom of this post for another challenge, this one an Ekphrastic photo.

•••And don’t forget each Tuesday’s Seed of the Week! This week it’s “Jewels”.

____________________

MEDUSA’S FORM FINDER: Links to poetry terms mentioned today:

•••Acrostic Poem types: https://studybay.com/blog/how-to-write-an-acrostic-poem
•••Bema’s Best: https://poetscollective.org/poetryforms/bemas-best
•••Blind Rhyme or Hidden Rhyme: https://poetscollective.org/poetryforms/blind-rhyme-or-hidden-rhyme
•••Double Acrostic (Carl Schwartz): first letters and first words of each line form Acrostics
•••Ekphrastic Poem: notesofoak.com/discover-literature/ekphrastic-poetry 
•••Haibun: www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/haibun-poems-poetic-form
•••Haiku: www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/haiku/haiku.html
•••Rondeau: www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/rondeau
•••Sestina Sonnet (Joshua C. Frank): uses the Sestina algorithm for four end-words, plugged into the Sonnet form
•••Sonnet Forms: https://blog.prepscholar.com/what-is-a-sonnet-poem-form AND/OR poets.org/glossary/sonnet AND/OR blog.prepscholar.com/what-is-a-sonnet-poem-form
•••Tanka: poets.org/glossary/tanka
•••Villanelle (rhymed; can be unrhymed): www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/poetic-forms-villanelle
•••Word-Can Poem: putting random words on slips of paper into a can, then drawing out a few and making a poem out of them

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 Today's Ekphrastic Challenge!
 
 Make what you can of today's
photo, and send your poetic results to
kathykieth@hotmail.com/. (No deadline.)

* * *

—Public Domain Photo

 
 
 

For info about upcoming poetry 

happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page.

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

Find previous four-or-so posts by scrolling down
under today; or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column; or find previous poets
by typing the name of the poet or poem
 into the little beige box at the top
left-hand side of today’s post; or go to
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of
the blue column at the right
 to find the date you want.

 

Let's see: what rhymes with sss?

I know!—sss!