A Sea of Shadows

—Poems and Photos by 

Joyce Odam, Sacramento

OVER A SEA OF SHADOWS

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

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

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

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

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

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

We penetrate the lining of grief
until we are no longer needed.
We suffer with disappointment

when called back.
We thought we were free,
but we return

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

_______________________

THE DOOR CAT

This cat that guards my stubborn door—
this bronze and elegant cat that gleams

in the structuring light of the doorway,
and seems to like its chore—it holds

the door open from summer winds
that like to pull doors shut—where it

can stare out—and in winter,
it holds the willful door closed,

and simply looks good sitting there:
The Important Guardian of Doors.

CANDLE WOMAN

I am candle woman.
I walk all night,
a fur coat around my shoulders.

I haunt the house of
my host and hostess
who sleep.
I read their walls.
I look in their mirrors.
I bless them, they are tired
and they dream of me.
I drink all their wine.
I fill all their ash trays.

I do not open the door to their night
which is full of peril
and superstitions.

I gaze at their cat
which gazes back
until she knows me.

Sometimes I wash a glass.
Sometimes I write a poem.

I seldom sleep.
I leave gifts for their children
in small child-places.

I watch the candles drip down
themselves
in soft, warm patterns.
And blesséd morning
always comes
just at the end of the candles.

THE INVISIBLES

more and more I seek out the angels
who hover, they say, everywhere
and are guardians, they say . . .

and I am close to that need,
and I am frightened
to actually seek and find

what is almost believable to me
in this need that comes so
easily now through all the curtains . . .

______________________

FROM AFAR

There is a crack in everything
and that is how the light gets in.
       —Leonard Cohen (line from "Anthem")

Look how she is holy.
Look how she is circular.

Her eyes hold the light
that holds your darkness back.

She breathes
and moves the light around her.

Is it her stillness?
Is it her movement within the stillness?

Her eyes do not say; her folded hands
disappear in robes of light.

The dark wraps her shoulders
with its safe distance.

She is a page of longing—yours
is the only truth of this, she tells you.

NUGGET

How did I become this band of gold.
I thought I was a glitter-rock
in a shallow stream, caressed by

years of sunlight, where I felt
the water and the light reflect me,
long before the eyes that found me there.

Now, I’m shaped to fit this finger—
turned and turned in admiration.
I like the touch.  I like the circularity.

I think I was blessed:
I remember words of love
when I was passed from one hand

to another.
I even have an inscription now—
I am its guardian, I think.  I honor that.

_______________________

NECKLACES FROM THROATS OF ANGELS

Strings of beads fall broken from the throats
of angels—do they do that on purpose—
leave them like clues as they soar—

float—or simply materialize in the minds of,
say, lost children—in forests—on their
way through fairy tales?

I have picked up many beads from such necklaces,
knowing they will become old-woman tears.
I do not understand this.

_______________________

WHY I HAVE CALLED YOU HERE

I am what sings here at the mouth of the cave.
I own the darkness. 
My pure memory reminds me of light.
I am vague as a sorrow.

Whoever comes to me
will stay
and be blessed by their own travel.
Bring your own mirror if you would see deeper.

A bird of warning sits on a shadow-branch
that sways—we love
the winter with its eloquence of snow—
the way the white surrounds and disappears.

Do not fear.
Pretend with me
that you were never the one I loved.

 Faith

“I’ll just let the angels take me.”
(…for my mother, who said this…)

Mother, the angels are here.
Shall I let them in?

Mother, they say your name
and they watch you sleeping.

Mother, shall we let go together—
though I am miles and miles away?

Mother, the angels are singing
and you are smiling.

Mother, I see them take you
in their many arms.

Shall I let go my holding?

                            
(first pub. on Medusa’s Kitchen, 2011)

_________________________

Today's LittleNip:

REACHING THROUGH LANGUAGE

Take a word, and bless the word alive.
Make it sing, and never let it hide.
Wear it like a talisman—wear it
all your life.  And when it binds—
ah, when it binds—cut it with a knife.

________________________

—Medusa, thanking Joyce Odam and all her angels, and reminding you to check out Katy Brown's new photo album on Medusa's Facebook page. And get your pencils a-scribbling for our new Seed of the Week: Toxic.

We Are Here For Art

Buick Headlights

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA

—Photos by Katy Brown, Davis

ON SHEPARD STREET

On Shepard Street
in Harvard Square
where we shopped
for wine and cheese
these poets came
to share their stuff
Aiken, Eliot, Lowell
and after
Plath, Sextant, Bishop
it was rough
even in the chatter
but there was laughter
in my small flat
there was vocal jazz
they called scat
in improvisation
here where I was
as a Beat
but when you
are young and in love
does it matter
when there is little to eat
I asked my guardian angel
for a welcome mat
and neighbors
in the hallways
always gave us a treat.

 Tall Grass on Lake Huron

JACQUELINE DU PRE'S RECITAL

The concert hall
was perennially quiet
on the stage
a woman bent over
her chair
with a cello
playing a Bach solo
I thought she was an angel,
no doubt
to guard my Muse
and music career
and every moment since
I breathe in her scent
of what is lovely, clear
pure, calm and infinite
as the sun lowers at dusk
in a white wood
or by the blue lake
in childhood
where we fished
for trout.

 Evening Lighthouse

WHETHER AT SEA

Whether at sea
on my kayak
or on land
fixing it up
on my back
"We need a guardian angel
from heaven"
Igor, my neighbor
said in Russian,
"one who is partisan
for me
against domestic
and foreign enemies
who try their best
to make war
between nations"
and with one flick
of his wrist
he gave me copies
of Tolstoy's books
who was a pacifist
influencing the Indian Gandhi
and Martin Luther King.

 Blackbird

CHAGALL'S ANGELS

The steppes of Vitebsk
in old Russia
on snowy avenues
where old fiddlers play
on roofs of wooden houses
even after days
of rented garments,
banishment, exile, hurt,
in poverty and persecution
from the Tsar's government,
there is a smile
from a guardian angel
in Chagall's paintings
and onto Paris in your day
you knew Apollinaire
and Robert Dulaunay
as you paint landscapes
and still life scenarios,
even after the war
with so much suffering
of Jewish souls
you grace churches
and hospital windows
in England, Jerusalem
and Switzerland
as shadows of the Word
for in this creation
we live in
you knew, in part
there is no permanent
or forwarding address
yet we know
we are here for art
to bless and bless.

 Wild Grapes

MAYAKOVSKY'S BIRTHDAY
(JULY 19)

Mayakovsky,
a handsome man
and free poet
in a silver age
adored by the crowd
on the snow-kissed Arbat
or unbowed in Manhattan
memorized by students
in many languages' pages
who makes us proud
translated in Italian, French
Greek, Hebrew and Latin
yet steps away
from the press
and groupies
in any city
he has his own friends
from the golden age
needs no poetic school
has his own Muse
so cut him loose.

Black Squirrel with Nut

EARTH ANGEL

We slow-danced
to the Penguins'
"Earth Angel"
smothered by
my first love
lowering our voices
and eyes,
we realize
that young crushes
rarely go anywhere
except in blushes
or in the bushes
and Linda
called me her Prince
and I composed
lyrics to her
as my teen lover
she eventually moved
out West
a Hollywood star
and years later
when I worked
on film scripts
as a summer job
for my uncle
we recognized each other
at a party
on Fairfax Avenue
in West Los Angeles
at a time when we were
both tranquilized
by all the guitar glitter
and rock energy
when the crowd
became so loud
in glamour and clamor,
we walked outside,
and I sang to her
from "Earth Angel"
and asked her
to be my bride.

 Great Blue Heron over Lake Huron

FRA ANGELICO

Out of the lobby
in my Italian hostel
with a few lira
left in my pocket
it started to snow
while I slept on a day bed
yet I kept a locket
of my friend Angelica
who was in the ballet
performing near Rome,
once during her rehearsal
of Swan Lake
she taught me
a few classical steps of dance,
but soon, being in adolescence
I was already on my knees
as any incurable Romantic
with an off-hand chance
aching with love,
asking to be her partner
of permanence,
not just this afternoon,
yet she laughed with me
and gave me a locket
with her picture on it
and being an unselfish poet
I promised her any wish
to make her happy,
and she admitted
she wanted a post card
of the fresco cycle
about St. Francis
whom we both adored
painted by Fra Angelico
from Fiesole,
having one day left Italy
I had a train to catch
and on board
met Robert a scholar
without his collar on
who directed me
to the right museum,
the storm continued all day
yet I dreamed in the dawn
to see Angelica on stage
but it was not to be
so I mailed her the card
at the airport telling her
I had to go back soon
to my country
yet this penitent bard
and good sport
will never forget her.

 Driveway

CATHEDRAL ANGELS

On the Sistine Chapel
angels flit by with wings
resembling children sailing by
in a transparency of glass
glowing over an ocean
of loving paradise
the painter's spirit
motions to us here below
on earth
my big eyes open up
over the art of heaven,
a boy is longing
to have such friends
on such scaffolds
without end
who passes by underneath
as bold art lends us
a phantasma of such joy,
the boy is enshrined
with such divine heights
by watching the glints
on these frescoes
feeling such insight
of snowy detail
as only God knows
of Michelangelo's colors
in silent white douleur
having the desire
of asking Him
for such assistants
as David in Zion
a Hebrew king
at a tender age
with his slingshot
requested arrows
for such assistance,
and on many days
slew a bear, lion
and spiders in his lair
and wicked Goliath
such was his request
with much sorrow
as he waited for
an instant answer
or by tomorrow,
so I wished for
a guardian angel
to guard me
in all my ways.

 Three Pipes at Sunset

SUNSET

We do not regret
yesterday
for a guardian angel
sent a sunset
through Concord
by Cambridge
and Lexington
they were all there
the Alcotts
Hawthorne and Emerson
at their everlasting inns
I stood on the famous bridge
with a few students
ardently reading my words
from a few collections
as others fed the birds
and had a repast of memory
of American poets and history
with our confection.

__________________________


Today's LittleNip:

RILKE'S GUARDIAN ANGEL

I humbly ask
Rilke's Guardian angel
who is very smart
to fly over to me,
all expenses paid
by a benefactor
if he will not be delayed,
Angel, you once covered
his castle, tower
and cathedral sky
in Prague, Vienna, Chartres
every hour,
I once read how
in a euphoric few months
Rilke had great creativity
composing elegies
completing his poetry
with the power
in a prolific venture
shared with all society,
for he was our first
international poet
for every culture,
variety and nomenclature
we need you now
in our lore and legislature,
send over your angel
of our consciousness
to bless us
in our task
let me not be the last
to ask.

________________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's contributors: B.Z. Niditch, who says he was much inspired by our Seed of the Week: Guardian Angels, and by Katy Brown, who sends us these photos from her recent trip to Michigan. For more of Katy's photos—this time her series on Michigan Farms—see Medusa's Facebook page.

And note the early starting time for Sac. Poetry Center's Poetry in the Park tonight: 7pm, not 7:30pm.

Sunset

—Photo by B.Z. Niditch

To See Past The Morning

Buddha

—Photo by D.R. Wagner

‪UNABLE TO SAY AMEN‬
‪ ‬—D.R. Wagner, Locke
 
‪ I am no longer North, although my blood‬
‪ Still comes to freezing when I think of ships‬
‪ Bound by the ice and crushed like thoughts‬
‪ On paper, abandoned on some sea that never‬
‪ Had a name. ‬
‪ ‬
‪ I am compelled to stare across the distances,‬
‪ Full of alarm at the winds that have become‬
‪ My breath, no longer able to carry words,‬
‪ Yet afraid to not speak when the Aurora Borealis ‬
‪ Sits square behind my eyes and I retain the gift‬
‪ To see deep into the souls of those who claim‬
‪ A special knowledge of where the ark might‬
‪ Have landed or of which great lakes might contain‬
‪ The grandfather of the fishes who can still speak‬
‪ The language of the land.‬
‪ ‬
‪ I have held the braids of trinkets from the time‬
‪ When shells and bright bird feathers were woven‬
‪ Into baskets finer than the thoughts of great chieftains.‬
‪ ‬
‪ I recall the prayers to corn and fields of grain‬
‪ That they be full and rich and able to bear us‬
‪ Through the throat of the Winter, when the snow‬
‪ Is deep upon the ground and the eye of the hare‬
‪ Is the only black in such a great surround.‬
‪ ‬
‪ I am no longer North, so now I may bid you come‬
‪ To me and I will tell of many things—of magic‬
‪ Long forgotten, of tall spirits who once roamed‬
‪ These same lands through forests older now‬
‪ Than memory.  Those who once had eyes‬
‪ To see past the morning and who could reflect‬
‪ The sun as if they were the water that made all‬
‪ Of man and animal what they were when first they came‬
‪ Upon this land, when first they walked into this valley‬,
‪ When first they called a name to God.‬

_________________________

—Medusa

How Like A Poem...

The Hurrying Storm

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

THE BIG TIME

A gull, pitched across the sky
In front of a serious storm,
Lightning, great thunder, hail,
Raindrops protesting their call to duty.

This storm did not show us an agenda.
On the lake a freighter was lost
In a matter of moments.  In the video
The sailors looks like blips of colored light,
Saint Elmo’s fire on the masts and radar wands.
The ship glowed orange for a moment and disappeared.

I was inside a small building overlooking
The docks, near a lighthouse that was hit
By lightning hundreds of times, crackling,
Loud.  It was impossible to speak aloud.

By the time it passed, the whitecaps
Remained, full of the storm.  They glowed
Purple and lavender, white and the color
Of bone newly exposed to the air.

It was as if our skin had acquired a memory.
Highways of sparks and fractal energies
Flitted over our bodies for hours.

When we opened our mouths to speak
Our sounds were high and bird-like,
Impossible to understand.  We realized
We were very fortunate to have kept our bodies.

Mouth of the Storm

GUNNERS: RUNNING WITH THEM

Do you have gunner emissions over fifteen?
Then dismantle the entrances that will allow
Dwarves into the concrete factories.  We do not
Want them there.  They always make those birds
That frighten everyone, especially when it is snowing
And the snow sticks to their outstretched wings and those flocks
Of adolescent boys begin to make their haunting sounds,
Thinking they are attracting females of the species.

Along the edges of the meadows there are rows
Of clear glass bottles with tight lids, full of flies.
We are told they put them there for the pulsing music
They make in the night.  By dawn they are all dead.
The jars must be refilled every evening so that the old
May not lose sight of the roads through towns and villages.

Some of these villages have been gone since World War I.
The soldiers attach bayonets to their rifles and wade into them.
The veterans are stiff-faced and never show a trace of fear.
They drop like dropped ventriloquist dummies, straw spouting
From their bodies, piles of sliver coins pouring from their chests.

They were followed around for weeks, trying out the war
To see who would give them money or something valuable.
Some of them shot themselves in the foot; flocks of bright
Parrots gather in the trees above the camps.

Work shall set you free, dear children.  They are sprayed
With rainbow-colored bullets and fall to the ground
Just as full of holes as any vision that surrounds them.

We must run into our buildings and hide.  They
Can come back at any time.  We play cards
With electric hot stick linemen and talk to them
About transmission of the spirit.  They seem to know
This intimately and prepare sermons.  We decide
To go deeper into the jungle.  “It will be fun."
Even the devils smell of gun emissions.
But not for long.  Not at all, for long.

Walnut Grove Street

A CHANNEL OPENED TO SHOW SORROW

This could be any street.  It is, because
The Night has gained possession of it
So that it is able to so manipulate one
As a tango might infect a landscape.
All movements become furtive,
No matter how beautiful they might
Appear to another’s eye.  The street
Pretends to contrive the personification
Of sorrow.  It is Night.  We cannot see
How it moves itself through our bodies.

We feel the clarity of its sorrow
But realize it is not sorrow at all
But a channel slit into our life space
That has found a way to access
The deepest of our pain as it flows
Through the locks we find so difficult
To revisit again.  It tears our scars
Open once more, like visiting these hells
With Dante, but unable to speak with him.

When we awaken in the morning
All of this is forgotten.  We strive to
Understand why we feel this way,
Why we feel this so deeply.
We look for traces of this channel.
We discover it is our own circulatory system.

Last Gleaming, Locke

POLES

For years, as a child
I thought the telephone poles
With their cross arms, carrying wires,
Were crucifixes.  On rides with my parents
I would look for Jesus.  He might be hanging
From any one of them.  They wanted to keep
Him in our mind any way they could.

I found it difficult to talk on the telephone.
I knew my words would pass through his body
At some unknown point and he would know
Everything I had to say and what I might be about.


 

 Pierced

OWNING THE MOMENT

The thin white line where her lips
Came together.  It was as if she would
Never part them again, that words
Had discovered roads that no longer
Had anything to do with her mouth.

The moon slit a hole in the clouds and slipped
In over the gardens.  Names were given to
Every being who dwelt among the plants.
The names would be theirs for one night only.

These were her children.  Their names were:
Rain, in the hollow of tree stump.  Shadows
Know what I am talking about.  Grief, caught
With both hands deep inside the heart,
Pulling, always pulling, made of wisps and whispers.
Parting, the hours peeling away from the body
Until one could see the blood on the bones,
The bones still pulsing.  Prayer, hands raised,
Filled with the soft flame of the heart.  It flickers
In a gasping breeze, formless, yet carrying
The ideas we have come here to collect.

It has never been proper to speak of these things.
The eyes would wish to unsee them, the ears
To abandon whatever one might be calling music
On this terrible night.  Do not reach out to touch
The children.  They will shatter like those tiny
Cordial glasses, blown in colors, each one different
From the others.  She barely opens her mouth.

She is recognizing something that is not herself.
It slips thousands of fingers, daggers really,
Into her face and its stations of perception.

From across the lake we begin to hear the train
Approaching.  Soon it will be time to part again.
I raise her hands to my mouth and kiss her fingertips.
Over her shoulder I can see the sparks flying
From the locomotive stacks, see the clouds of steam.

_________________________   

Today's LittleNip:

MOTH

When I opened my hand a moment ago
A moth flew out of it,
Into the room and disappeared
Into the night.  I had no idea how it got there,
What it was doing or how the moment
Became filled with such insistence.
How like a poem it was,
Small, winged and extremely quick just
To see if I was noticing.
     
_________________________

—Medusa

Clothespin

—Drawing by Jasper Luong, Davis

Our Kick-Ass Warrior Angels

Raspberry

—Photo by Caschwa

TRAPPED
—Caschwa, Sacramento
 
Somewhere in the house or garage or
Maybe an outbuilding are a stash of
Unsorted boxes and in those boxes may
Be found a small collection of film cameras
With various accessories, many now obsolete

It is quite possible that there remains some
Exposed film in one or more of those cameras
Holding images once carefully chosen, framed
With a certain point of view in mind just waiting
To be developed, enlarged, and printed

Untold thoughts still bounce around in the head
That at one time would have been connected to
A photographic image, but without that image
Struggle like a live person in a coffin, barely
Breathing, but quite intent on achieving freedom

It is like when a person starts a sentence and
Then forgets how it was to finish, left to insert
Old codger remarks or dead silence or nonsense
Or like putting in half a pin code and then
Coming up blank on how to complete it

Will I locate those cameras?
Will the film still yield pictures?
Will I remember the point of taking the picture?
Do I already have a suitable digital photo of that subject?
Will my digital cameras meet the same fate some day?

________________________

UNDER A WING
—Caschwa

Day after day I count the
Coins in my piggy bank
Another tooth is getting loose
And I rejoice: Soon there will
Be more coins

Week after week I count the
Number of kids in my class,
Bicycles at the rack, and the
Times the teacher repeats the
Same expressions over and over

Month after month I observe
My mother counting her inches,
Growing ever larger, signs of a
New sibling and between the pains,
All the talk is positive

Year after year I begin to count
More and higher costs setting a
Pace that my earnings can never
Match, even if I give it my all
And come home exhausted

Decade after decade I count the
Fall of mortal men who had tried to
Manipulate the world economy,
Only to turn countless kings and
Queens into useless pawns

Generation after generation I count
All those broken piggy banks
Empty of coins and dreams
Except for here and there
Under a wing.
 

I don't know what this is, but I like the way it dances...

—Photo by Caschwa

LAUGHING POEM
—Charles Mariano, Sacramento
 
last night
in a dead sleep…

floating, filtering
through heavy layers
i could hear laughter
somewhere far out
in the darkness

“hah hah”

after awhile
the laughing got louder

no,
i take that back
couldn’t hear it,
i could see it
out there in the distance

small words at first
one by one
then closer,
in caps now, bolded text
until the words
became a single line

“Hah Hah, Hah Hah, Hah Hah!”

opened my eyes, sat up quickly
“who’s laughing?” i  yelled

tried to go back to sleep,
but the words just stayed there
mocking me, daring me,
wouldn’t delete, refused to erase,

so i crawled out of bed
pissed off, grabbed a pen
and wrote this ridiculous
dumb-ass poem

—Photo by Caschwa

LUMINOUS
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

We are luminous beings, you said to me
after you’d been to the Spiritual Life Center.
Although a woman of India helped you see
the truth of this axiom, what lone enchanter
first inked it on wise papyrus for the world?
Lo, “Luminous beings are we; not this crude matter,”
growled the green Dagobah man, who’d just unfurled
to Luke the Darth part of his dark path, no flatterer
of his presumed Force-readiness. Yet gave hope
(a new new hope?) Force-forklifting a muck-sunk spaceship.
So you, my Latvian woman, do help me to cope,
point being: that saying, in trouble-time—for the rest, lace lip.

Isn’t love the true lumen behind the gnome, whether Yoda
or you, my sweet, said it, or Paul Badura-Skoda?

And now luminously you face the lens, all sunbeam
right to the top where twin light lozenges
work over the part in your hair, the glowing stream
probing your russet locks with phalanges
of interstellar candescence to teleport
or beam you off somewhere, or convert you to energy,
clear radiance, all glassed in, a human retort
for testing how others like you might join the Synergy.
Yes, I see it at last: you are part Angel,
half Rilkean Angel ready for that Dominion,
needing only to swear the Oath of Uplift.
Your white blouse, your bright arms, your open enigma-angled
smile: you’re poised to outshine stars, to shapeshift
past the coarsest galactic salts. Will you be my guardian?

—Photo by Caschwa

Today's LittleNip:

NOT QUITE WHAT I’D IMAGINED
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove

I’d hoped for somebody like Michael—
You know—a kick-ass warrior angel with
Armor bright as the sun.
What I got was a guardian angel
Who looked like Bozo the Clown
With enormous wings.  “How are
You going to protect me from
Satan and all his pomps?”  “I got
Seltzer,” he said helpfully.  “Besides,
Kid, this is much better.  Nobody’s
Gonna come up and ask to touch
My Sword of Light.  That can get
Embarrassing for an angel.  And
People don’t like clowns, think
They’re creepy.  They’ll keep
Their distance.  And we can
Travel faster this way.  Now—
Wanna see me fold these wings
Into the little car?"

__________________________

—Medusa

—Photo by Caschwa

Like A Prince

Jane Blue, with Annie Menebroker

END OF SUMMER
—Jane Blue, Sacramento

1

In July's long heat wave we felt
we were dead, or we were the living dead.
We had no hunger, no hungers.
We couldn't wail. We couldn't smell
or even taste. But now, the aroma of coffee,
the door open, traffic shushing by.
A phone ringing, jazz, blues, gospel in the air.
A fly examines my flesh
for rottenness––grease, dirt, any way in.
It's cold enough in the morning now
to change the trees quickly
like adolescence.

I like the way the sky opens in winter––
another month or two; I expect to live
to see it. But who knows? Who ever knows?

2

The Rose of Sharon, the crape myrtle, opulent
fat and messy at the end of their season.
I love them. They are a part of my life.

I have lived in this place longer than anywhere,
even childhood.

I am planted here, yet every day I think about moving.


(first pub. Blood Moon, FutureCycle Press 2014)

  Rose of Sharon

COURAGE
—Jane Blue

A squirrel walks from the top of a bare sycamore
into a green magnolia.

The little phalluses of daffodils push up out of the cold earth.

When I walked out to get the paper,
I was surprised by the sun in the East
and to the West hanging curtains of fog in the trees.

Later, a man across the street
stood on the limb of an ash tree, sawing off the end.

The cold haze falls upward, out of the trees.

And now the full moon with its face on
rises in a lilac sky.

What courage to show one’s self to everyone this way!

(first pub. Blood Moon, FutureCycle Press 2014)

_________________________
 

A MORNING DURING THE TOUR DE FRANCE
—Jane Blue

The day starts out hot. Someone is talking
about wine. It’s cool in here.
A little girl with a yellow balloon
and a shirt to match, a pink bow and an aqua
gauze skirt, reminds my friend
of her childhood. The yellow shirt reminds me
of the maillot jaune, the yellow jersey
that appears on different cyclists
in the Tour de France, zipped up the back
to slip quickly on at the podium.
Muscles pump the differently colored jerseys
and ribs show through hunched backs, straining
through the Pyrenees, the riders focused, blind
to the beauty of the mountains; people
and motorcycles swerve into the narrow road
and Basque sheep, bewildered, clamber
up out of the precipitous canyon,
out of the thick mist settling. My latte
contains a leaf stamped in milk. I don’t want
to disturb it. My friend says, “bizarre,” and
“gentrification.” The leaf slides down
to the bottom of the cup, intact, as I sip.
The woman talking about wine laughs.
She has perfect teeth.


(first pub. Blood Moon, FutureCycle Press 2014)

Blown Rose

HOSPITAL, 8TH FLOOR
—Jane Blue

She comes in suffering, keening,
huffing and sobbing, won't
lie down docile
but crouches on old
hospital linoleum rocking
barefoot in an ancient
African way, and a visitor
watches, feeling
viscerally her pain. Her cousin
waiting on the bed. All night
she wails until near dawn
lies flat in the bed and sleeps––
then she and her cousin
leave back to the streets
from where they have come.

In the morning a crow, quiet
and oblivious, rides air
outside the window
from somewhere above the eighth floor
an escalator
made of down draft that I would
plummet, gravity-bound. Its goal
not suicide like my father
from his hotel
on the same length of sky, but life, food
it sharp-eyed sees, rodent
in its talons, or dove-egg in its beak.

Dogwood, Early Spring

A BABY LIKE A PRINCE
—Jane Blue

1

Dawn-struck trees and the windows of office buildings shine out of the morning commute; clouds splay in rays from the dark north. A ragged half-moon shows in the pale sky, blurred by day. In the evening, children ride their little bicycles home from school and the dogs walk. Sparrows flit in the papery native matilaja poppies landscaping the grocery store. The new leaves of autumn roses on a thorny stem fan out like gulls or crows in flight. A baby, like a prince, has come from Japan.

2

A fire rages in the hills, touching Ansel Adams' Yosemite. Elsewhere in this vast country floods wash lives and possessions away. Here we can barely understand the destruction. Dogwood leaves fly out of the tree like red diving birds and the pink roses are all blown and fallen down but they still smell sweet. Sparrows chirp and a veteran has asked to paint my house number on the curb. It's the least I can do. 

________________________

Our thanks to Jane Blue for today's poems and pix. Jane will be reading from, among other things, her new book, Blood Moon, at Sacramento Voices at Sac. Poetry Center this Saturday, 4:30pm. (For more info about her, see theliteraryunderground.org/wiki/index.php?title=Jane_Blue/.) What that bio does not say is that, among other Sacramento contributions to poetry, Jane was responsible for resurrecting SPC's Tule Review back in the late '90's. It was there that I met her, helping her with production for a few issues, and that experience was one of those which enabled me to see how Rattlesnake Press might be born, and later the Snake published her Turf Daisies and Dandelions. Thanks, Jane, for all that you've done for Sacramento poetry!

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

I'm no angel, but I've spread my wings a bit.

—Mae West

________________________

—Medusa

A Baby Like a Prince

Eggplant, I'm Told

Bluebird Babies

—Photo by Taylor Graham

A PHOTO TRIES TO CAPTURE LIGHT
—Taylor Graham, Placerville

Inside the box, a persistent calling: hunger.
Where is their mother, will she bring a fly,
or a darkling beetle in its larval stage? Will
she dive-bomb me, the intruder, as I gently
open the nestbox door? Inside I see the hard
glow of eyes. Bluebird babies not yet ready
to fledge; waiting for their feathers to grow,
speckled with stars. Knowing I’m here, they
don’t move, not a rustle. Only an intimation
of wind in wings; a memory almost faded
in the nest where they hatched into a life-
sleep, a forgetting. One eye glitters at me
with its secret of stars.

______________________

NOTES ON WATER
—Taylor Graham

A strange breath, fluid-air
dynamics in the midst of a country store
patronized by unshaven locals and whitewater
rafters put ashore
between the rapid thrills, the energy of snow-
melt testing gravity and fractured rock,
just passing through. Here to somewhere else.
And so was she, but everyone
stopped talking when she walked in,
so namelessly separate,
as if breathing in a different language.
She asked for directions, then went the other
way. After the door swung shut
behind her, blackberries kept ripening
in thickets just up from shore.
But the air was different with a sense
of drowning, or being carried as the river
was always running away.

_________________________

EXHIBIT
—Taylor Graham

History lines up its endless exhibits,
this world we keep creating;
more evidence all the time, too many
documents to number. Exhibit:
this woodcut Rhino, faded dun in patterned
armor-plate: the patient form, the sad-
eyed majesty of a creature captured
minding its own business; sailed across seas—
To shorten the synopsis: India to Lisbon,
exhibited to spellbound crowds;
housed in the royal gardens; then, collared
and bound for Rome. But, chained
on deck, how could he swim for his life
as the ship sank—not in battle, but a natural
storm? The jury’s still out on History,
but our beast was famous far beyond his
Rhino-tour; living on in art and story
as exhibit we keep to remember
how strangely beautiful, armored, sad.

________________________

SHE SAYS

it’s all her guardian angel’s fault, for getting her
into so many righteous causes: save the rain-
forest, the frogs; a cup of rice for every starving
child; a sprinkling of ground nutmeg to stimulate
the brain; redeem feral cats for the sake of birds.

For every cause there comes a sequel, a new
scarcity in the land, another endangered species,
ecosystem, way of life. She closes her eyes and
wonders if the sun might rise without her efforts,
and get that do-gooder angel off her case.


—Taylor Graham

________________________

GUARDIAN ANGEL
—Taylor Graham

Sometimes it sounds like murder—yesterday,
those 3 crows trying to occupy the same space
in the incense cedar, such a flail and flash
of black angel wings. The smallest fixed you
with its guardian crow’s eye and lifted off,
flying east. This morning your angel was that
guy at the co-op who didn’t care about rules &
regs but hoisted a 50# bag of dogfood on his
shoulder and carried it out to your cart.
Don’t guardian angels have an unexpiring
urge and license to help? And now your angel
is silent, the first yellow madia of the year—
tarweed blooming small rayed suns alongside
the freeway on-ramp. Uninvited flower
of derelict places, it promises an end to even
this dry summer. Pure angel-talk. Enigmatic,
changeable, inscrutable, at times you think
misguided. But better than no angel at all.

 Ready to Jump

—Photo by Taylor Graham

ECSTASY BEFORE NOON
—Jeanine Stevens, Sacramento
 
My day begins with Kathy’s blog: a richly toned
Kandinsky, Composition XI, a fretwork
of red cellos, purple mandolins, black oboes.

At St. Mark’s, the minister’s topic: Biblical Academy Awards.
Daniel, cradled in honeyed haunches, saved from the pit’s
bone-crunching jaws, earns “Best Live Action.”

Sun flames through abstract triangles of crimson
and cobalt glass. An open window to Jerusalem accepts
bluest breezes from drying hills.

A painting by Blake flashes on the overhead screen.
A Rumi poem: Wave of light builds
in the black pupil of the eye. No one dozes today.

I cannot suppress a giggle as energetic vibrations
from the organist tremble renaissance shades of heirloom
zinnias in the pewter vase on the simple altar.

Next week in our fellowship hall, Turkish students
from the University will provide a meal to celebrate
the end of Ramadan with prayers, dates and lentil soup.

On the sharing table filled with summer’s bounty,
three pearl orbs rest on a white plate, miniature moons
glazed, dusted with lavender stripes, each a Sultan’s turban.

Eggplant I’m told. I add yellow tomatoes and lemon
cucumber, what I would have missed had I not
woke early and wondered where I might find beauty.

______________________

FALSE PILGRIM
—Jeanine Stevens

               Six for Gertrude Stein

My feet are not quantum
nor measured in brown:
boxes, toggles and bones.

I want more than tossing stones
like vagabond shoes, or something
wild, like snakes on Mars.

Wren catches fortune
in her throat, disturbs,
scatters the wind.

The arena fills with winter rains.
Each clasp repairs, latches
bronze with clean and shine.

The hastened trek brought me
here
my cancelled check keeps me
near.

The borders of Rome never were,
calculations made in error,
turn around, aim the arrow.

_______________________

NEW DEHLI
—Jeanine Stevens

She is the brick wall that defines her,
the thin arms under the sari.
She is the madras pattern
of marigold orange and olive green.
She is the littered ground,
the ground scattered with bricks and refuse.
One brick is her table. She entertains
simply. There are no spoons,
only hands to mix grains and river water.
The street is her open window,
her furniture the battered chair tipped
on its side, a cupboard of sorts for bent pans.
She is the smoke stained wall
and crouches under a large sign
in English, “Choice Shampoo.”
She is the big toe that grips the ground.
Nearby, are bits of denim,
foreign labels, and one bright, upright yellow pear.
Back straight, she does not slouch,
looks directly at the camera in a half smile.
She is the pierced diamond
carried in the side of her nose
and the red spice she holds to mix
with her evening meal. She is
the memory of golden flocks on hilly flanks,
the darkness of things being burnt,
surrounded by things already burnt.
Her only book, a book of matches,
her tablet: the wall, her pen: bits of charcoal.
She doesn’t worry if her seeds
are not planted by the spring equinox.


(first pub. in The MacGuffin)

 —Photo by Ann Privateer
 

PLAYING POOL
—Ann Privateer, Davis

we dismantle the koi pond
where off-kilter birds feed

we canoe through algae
puffs floating celadon clouds

past schools of blue gills darting
and swaying in sunlight.

our boat casts bottom shadows
we count sheep, try to sleep

to disengage from reality, eat
nothing fill up on nature's shadows.

______________________

REFLECTIONS
—Ann Privateer

images in creek water bend
along the shore, sounds
like sighing reverberate

tumble over glistening rocks.
the sweet smell of mud
as it settles to the bottom

washing away the gleam
of fools gold. you taste tears,

salty drops dripping, undulating
eddies, and an image of truth.

_____________________

Today's LittleNip:

CAT FISH

are bottom feeders
in a world
where off-kilter
radiance feeds.


—Ann Privateer
 

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's chefs in the Kitchen [click once on photos to enlarge them and see the baby bluebird about to jump out of the nest], and a reminder that Jeanine Stevens will be reading at Keynote Books and Records in South Lake Tahoe tomorrow night, Thursday, July 17 at 7pm. Also: don't forget to check out Medusa's Facebook page for our latest album, this one of last Monday night's reading at Sac. Poetry Center: Tuesday Night at Monday Night by Michelle Kunert.

—Photo by Ann Privateer