Shooting at Silhouettes on Sacramento Poetry Day

Unwanted View

—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis, CA

MEMORY HELD HOSTAGE
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

(There is something I
Really need to forget
But my memory refuses
To open that door)

Almost 50 years ago
I awoke from a coma
Did not recognize family
Or the logic of bandages

I remember the encounters
Trying to peel away layers of
Gauze, then the nurse would
Smile and rewrap it

There was one meeting with a brain
Doctor who said that if I actually did see
What had hit me, my mind would have
Blocked out the memory to protect me

So today I am the proud owner
Of an abundantly clear memory
Of reconstructed images:
Rumors, hearsay, innuendo

Riding my motorcycle in traffic
Struck by a car, airborne 15 yards
Skidded on my helmeted head
Knocked out for 10 days

There is still a small chance
That I continue to hold that memory
And that something unpredictable
Will trigger it…..??

Meanwhile I am limited to shooting
At silhouettes where I can quantify the
Number and paths of ricochets
But no more than that

 Three Fish

—Photo by Katy Brown

THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO REMEMBER
—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento

A piece of the sky
presses my spine
hard against memory.
I fend off tomorrow
refusing to walk
that trail of dead thorns.
I want to fall out bright,
revert to empty.
Hope is a luxury I can’t remember.
I want to be ruined by rain.

*   *   *

Wanting to be ruined by rain,
I walk a piece of the sky
in a trail of thunder.
I can’t remember
ever being this empty.
My thoughts fall brightly
among the stars;
my spine becomes the Milky Way.
This is what I want to remember
as I turn towards tomorrow.

*   *   *

I turn towards tomorrow,
empty,
tears falling brightly as stars
on dead thorns.
No longer walking against memory,
I stretch towards hope.
I carry a piece of the sky
pressed soft
against my spine.
I have been ruined by rain.

 Titania

—Photo by Katy Brown

HEARING ANTON RUBENSTEIN’S FOURTH PIANO CONCERTO
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA

I’m reading a biography of him
whose works go scarce-played in Mother Russia’s self
for mainly the usual reasons: he earned pelf
as one whose keyboard colossus hands could limn
imaginings that thundered or could skim;
despised, rose from a low-bourgeois start, to wealth
and, gossiped of as Jewish—not always in stealth—
fought hard for musicianship, this was his hymn,

to build a conservatory, build compositions,
the former advanced, the latter behind the times
because not of the radical Five. And yet
some Rubinstein gems get past that inquisition
Music History 101, like rhymes
impregnable—still, who’ll catch him in eons’ net?

[This one Tchaikovsky, Brahms would borrow notes from:
once we cease idolizing the new-at-all-cost,
once we deign to disinter names lost,
to love the dust-lowly ones—will his time come?]

____________________

SHAVIAN INTERLUDE
—Tom Goff

   The last page or two [of Bax’s First Sonata] reduced
   that Chappell [piano] to a mass of clanging ironmongery,
   and you to a Harmonious Blacksmith. These piano fights
   are exhilarating, but they are not musical pianism.

        —George Bernard Shaw, to pianist Harriet Cohen


How many know Bernard Shaw knew Arnold Bax?
Shaw reviewed music in tandem with Bax’s uncle.
Here’s Shaw, that man of Irishry in facts
and fanciful wit, this suavest of oracles
for Fabian socialism, rebarbative drama
sand-arid in drollery. Perfect in Wagnerism.
Pronouncing like a sequestered Dalai Lama
on worldly, passionate song split as by schism

off far from Shavian realms of footlight glare.
Oh, this is no anvil-clangor, black notes or white.
These keys ring priestly gold from an iron frame:
such carillons might’ve cathedraled for the fair
Natalya* and Arnold, all through the fabled white nights.
What’s Russia for Shaw, to Bax’s Slavonic dream?


*Natalya Skarginska, pursued to Russia and Ukraine 
by ardent young Arnold Bax

_____________________

WEGENER
—Tom Goff

  The denunciation by academicians of any deviation from
  [the orthodox story of] Shakespeare’s works reminds me of 
  the scorn heaped on Alfred Wegener, the German geologist 
  who sought to explain surface features of the earth by what 
  he called “continental drift.”

        —Charlton Ogburn, Jr., The Mysterious William
            Shakespeare


I’m about to read Wegener’s biography.
This is the man mentioned when the amateur’s
great role as forerunner, as discoverer,
serves us to justify our insurgency:
unorthodox Shakespeare scholars—we’ve found our man,
the Earl of Oxford Shakespeare, contra belief.
Yes, Wegener, not unlike us, scorned by the chief
among geologists of his day, was banned

for depicting how continents drift plate by plate,
when tear-apart Africa, South America, soft-
baked snickerdoodle halves, float off on fate.
But, Oxfordians, behave as he did when scoffed:
proud amateurs, be many-sided like Wegener:
astronomer, physicist, balloon pilot, ice-trekker:

we aim at this man’s art and scope; far thinner
our resumés, juxtaposed with this hero “beginner.”

_____________________

ACCESS TO HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS
—Tom Goff

   [Unlike the teenaged Alfred Wegener,] modern children
   miss the beautiful colors produced by mixing reagents
   almost at random, as well as the mystery of combining 
   two colorless liquids at room temperature to produce a 
   violent geyser that renders the beaker holding them too
   hot to handle.

          —Mott T. Greene, Alfred Wegener: Science,
              Exploration, and the Theory of Continental Drift


How shielding we are, of others and ourselves,
our offspring small selves we must think versions of us,
or why on earth else this parental copter fuss?
As if tide pools equaled continental shelves:
one slip in your wade is to fade in the sucking of waves.
So armored by survivalist bunkering down,
walking through life part bubble, part Kevlar gown,
when will we throw open our safety-sealed enclaves?

I’m pouring poetic danger into this flask,
to witness the upshot with Alfred, pressing close,
unworried for face, for fingers and hands, as long
as the flask vibrates a tattoo, innocuous
limp liquids transformed to fizzing abandon-songs
of risk. With “fumes and booms”—real world, unmask!

 Roxie

—Photo by Katy Brown

FROM THE HILLIAD, BOOK SEVEN
—Tom Goff

And after the debate-spears flung, each warrior aiming
for the other’s head in fiery single combat,
each would have brought out the stabbing short sword
of statistics, accurate or misleading, but that
the herald strode between the two combatants
parting them and in a loud voice thanked all,
contenders and audience alike for their part
in this rousing or enraging civic contention.
And Hillary’s partisans gave a great stir and cheer
like the thousand-voiced migratory vocalise
of south-winging geese in autumn, their handshakes
and wide-mouthed acclaim presaging a hopeful welcome
to the Capital City, also signaling their vast relief
that their chief of women had come away unhurt
at the hacks of the small-handed* antagonist;
not only this, but her followers breathed joy
that he had not escaped altogether unscarred
from the thrusts of her short yet acute stabbing sword…


*In Greek, the term, μικρό-χέρι, also signifies “underhanded.”
(Loeb Edition, vol. 1, pg. 75)

 Peeking Piggie

—Photo by Katy Brown

Unlike with Christmas, there are rarely ever “cute” Halloween house displays
Some Halloween displays on front lawns are in fact kind of “gory”—
For instance, a guy I know portrayed hacked-up human body parts being picked by buzzards
Others decorate with bad, cheap and ugly Halloween decorations made in Chinese sweatshops—
including the “cob-webbing” that can entangle birds when used outside 
Besides the skeletons and skulls are definitely not the arty “Dia de los Muertos” kind
and fake-looking plastic gravestones never mention any notable names
along with “zombies” or other creatures that just look like dummies 
When people try to make “ghosts” using white sheets, it just looks corny
Among the best Halloween decorations are just homemade carved Jack-o’-lanterns                  
and harvest-themed wreaths that Martha Stewart would recommend for your door or front window

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento

 Medusa Visits the Alpacas

—Photo by Katy Brown

THE LIBRARY
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

Where do they store all the old histories—
the color of each purple sunset, the violet-red
flame consuming a dawn I saw coming
over a ridge whose name I’ve long forgotten?
Each moment in the building and fall
of the Palace of Shapur. The wild animal eyes
watching me from forest thicket. Towers
destroyed by war, and looters coming after.
The briefest dreams are recorded there,
and who dreamed them. Voices of winds,
lost mountains that followed their rivers.
All the falls of rain, its voices calling
to windows and walls. Even considering
the shrinkage of age, how many stories,
shelves and drawers? Who could
capture every moment; who has time
to sort and catalog, numbering each spine?

 Trek, So Tired

—Photo by Katy Brown

A RAINY EVENING
—Taylor Graham

We’ve hung our slickers to drip
on linoleum. The dogs—wild spirits
of weather—came in shaking storm
from their fur, rolling on carpet
and couch, shedding rain-joy on every
fiber of the house. Rain surrounds
our world complete tonight, talking
through walls, writing its history down
windowpanes, beating its pulse
against the roof. Will the creek rise,
overflow culverts, ravage the road?
And wind—break-dancing our old oaks.
In the morning, will we have a drive-
way? Turn off the TV, internet—rain’s
washed the satellite dish clean of any
signal from outside except the rain.
Our news is rain, the voice of poets;
most beautiful music. Just listen.

Strawberry Bush

—Photo by Taylor Graham

GRAVITY MUSIC
—Taylor Graham

Everything we needed in our Kelty packs—
mummy bags and three-day rations, canteens
replenished at every creek. I lost track of time
except miles trekked, sun down, sun up, moving
shadows, glare off granite. Gradually emptied
provisions from our packs. Emptied my mind to
flycatchers in willow, meadow hush; lizard track
across trail, wind in lodgepole, water song over
rock. Until, our packs so light, we ended back at
trailhead. Click of key in lock. I startled at the
crack of closing door, tires crushing gravel. Too
fast down chipseal, everybody in a hurry. Radio
clash of music—I wasn’t ready for the brash of
city. A concrete overpass I knew would crush us
if it fell; concrete river below.

listen deep within
the mountains’ song still full of
gravity and flow.

 Camellias with Bees

—Photo by Taylor Graham
 

VELKOMMEN
—Carol Louise Moon, Sacramento

Five Russian men chatter in Russian
at a restaurant table, gingham cloth,
silverware and napkins neatly placed.

At a restaurant table, gingham cloth
aprons of waitresses welcome us
as we sit down to dinner.

Aprons of waitresses say VELKOMMEN
but I hear a French greeting and I smile,
responding with, Muy bien, gracias.

I hear another French greeting and smile.
My husband holds one of my hands.  Then
suddenly a sugar packet appears.

My husband holds one of my hands, then
suddenly the sugar packet disappears,
reappearing from behind his left ear.

The sugar packet disappears again,
reappearing from behind his right ear.
I love this place.  I love his way.

Responding with Muy bien gracias
we remain seated and finish our dinner,
silverware and napkins neatly replaced.
With sugar suddenly appearing
and reappearing from behind his ears
I love this place, his way with sugar.

____________________

LIMONIUM (a Pleaides)
—Carol Louise Moon

Landscape of salt marsh.  At times
like these, wool-bundled, I walk
looking for my favorite flower—
Lavender of the Sea which
lives and thrives in salty breeze;
lovely blend of purple-blue.
Life is good here by the sea.

_____________________

PIONEER DAY TARTOUM
—Carol Louise Moon
 
Horses prance around our park;
we hear them clopping down the street.
It’s hometown Pioneer Day, once again.

We hear the clopping in the street
as leathered mountain men on steeds
wave to families lined along the park.

Leathered mountain men on steeds
and Spanish ladies, high in stride
on horses decked with yellow roses, wave.

Spanish ladies high in stride
have practiced all  year long for this,
along with clowns and
           high school marching bands.

We’ve waited all year long for this—
it’s Pioneer Day, once again!
We wave to families in the park
along with high school marching bands.
In our hands our yellow roses wave.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip(s):

TWO STANZAS FOR WINE FESTIVALS
—Carol Louise Moon

Around our hometown park the horses prance.
Gazebos gaily decked in boughs of green—
where ageless couples of the town had danced

to banjo bands—a blithe romantic scene.
They looked for love throughout the timeless years
and raised a glass to glories they had seen.


* * *

You, the neutral pronoun
Wash up, drink down stuff
Unknown sexuality

We, another neutered note
Holds good promises
For everyone

They, the people over there
Not us, they're them
Stretching in between

Ours knows us best
Moved to be here now
How doesn't matter at all.


—Ann Privateer, Davis, CA

___________________

Our thanks to today’s many contributors on this, Sacramento Poetry Day! Celebrate tonight at Sac. Poetry Center with poets Sarah Pape and Michael Spring at 7:30pm, or go up to Placerville for Poetry in Motion at the Placerville Sr. Center, 6-7pm. On Weds., Time Tested Books in Sacramento presents Arturo Mantecón and Gilberto Rodriquez, with musical accompaniment by Arturo Balderrama, 7pm. As always, Poetry Unplugged will meet at Luna’s Cafe Thursday night, 8pm. Then ride over to Angels Camp on Friday, 5:30pm, for Hallow Words: Scary Story and Poem Night with Blanche Abrams (bring scary stories and poems of your own choosing; she’ll provide the Poe). Also down south, this time in Modesto on Saturday, poets Rosa Lane, Nina Lindsay, Stella Meratlis and Gillian Wegener will read at the Stansilaus County Library, 2pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

_________________

—Medusa

 (Anonymous Photo)

—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.

Ghosts

 Sly Coyote

—Anonymous Photo

GHOSTS
—William H. Simpson
 
Ghosts of the early earth!

The sly coyote knows you,

And the timid deer.

I asked the eagle, circling skyward,

And saw your twin shadows.

The fox looks everywhere

And calls you brother.


Was it your whisper,

Your mocking whisper,

Among the twisted cedars?

Or only the tired winds,

Cuddling on the cool breasts of evening?


(from In Hopi-land and Other Lands; appeared in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, 1920)

__________________

—Medusa, reminding you of the Dia de los Muertos Celebration in Davis today, beginning at 11am. 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.

Rain Spirits

Abandoned Farm Machinery

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

A LATE JOURNEY

We passed the house of the avenging angel
With its parapets and ribboned trumpeters,
Purple and red-violet the color
Of their eyes.  It was the hour
When dreams are captured, sorted
And released to the children born
To the damned and to those who
Wander.  They are unable to speak,
Dress in cassocks and flowing
Gowns.   They do not take bodies
Often as it is this dreaming
That gives voices to the winds.

We can see this in the eyes.
Wild animals turn to us
When we encounter them in the forest,
Unexpected and interrupting their precision
We like to call behavior.

The stars wound ‘round him, this lurid angel,
As the singing rose around us.  Lights began
To go out as stars became the evening.

__________________

CEREMONIES OF DREAMING

I eat the corner of the room.
There are stars painted on the ceiling.
It’s not dark enough for them
To really glow in the dark.

I shudder or the room shudders.
I can’t tell which.
I swing like a thurible.
A sweet smoke pours
From my mouth and nose.

Angels begin to assemble
In the other corners of the room.
It seems as if they don’t want
To be there.

 Woodpile, Locke, CA

AN ANCIENT PROCESSION

A silk unlike all others.
Light as a spider’s,
Strong as steel.

A promenade.
A historical remoteness.

She stood there
Like a story.

              *

A small bell that lifts
One from Compline
To a clear call and response
As the psalm unwinds,
Lifting through incense
To gather measured breath.

The day as a rosary
Linked toward the dawn
And the rising of the moon.

I will trouble you no further
With what could be a dream.

I must not; however,
The clouds were very well dressed.

 Gourds

A RAINY EVENING

Slipped out, just inside the rain.
A window down the street was
Keeping quiet with its yellow
Light, surrounded by rain sounds,
Water dripping from the eaves,
Down my collar, shivering my mind.

There is not a soul on Key Street this evening.
Even the cats, who own the street, have found
Shelter away from cars and porches.
They have hidden themselves beneath
The old wooden houses here in Locke.
No one will ask for them.  They have become
Rain spirits.  The night and the streetlights
Own them.  Gravel still crunches beneath
My shoes.  I look for the door to my apartment.
Rain drips from the brim of my straw hat.

I find my way to my front door, climb the stairs.
I find a tumbler and fill it with ice and sake.
Looking out the window.  Rain talking to the rooftop.

Thomas Merton, e.e. cummings, Kenneth Patchen,
Melissa Studdard, Viola Weinberg, Kent Taylor,
Henry Thoreau, Tom Kryss, John Dorsey, Alice Anderson,
Al Winans, Meg Pokrass, Cassandra Dallett, Jorge Borges,
Alike Barnstone, Italo Calvino, raindrops of poets.
All against the window pane.  Their voices on the rooftops,
Dripping into my breathing and my very soul.

 Terracotta Rabbit

CELLOPHANE

“Don’t get any ideas,” he whispers.

The jugglers twirled as they
Took to the air
And songs of parting rained
Down on all that was there.

There was a persistent flooding
Of the frontal lobes.

My skin felt like cellophane.

___________________

FLOOD

If the water keeps rising
We will have to chop
A hole in the roof so we
Can escape.

The flashlight shows
A couple of blue kitchen
Chairs floating about halfway
Up the stairwell.
The water is black-brown
And doesn’t make noise at all.

The entire scene seems
Like a bouquet
That has survived
Past its prime.

I try to think
Of a prayer.
No luck.
All I have left
Is your name.
I don’t even want
To try to say it.

Cosmos

THEY SAY

The lights were going on and off.
I could see your mouth moving.
The lights made your teeth look
Like cars sliding into an exit ramp.

There was no sound.  So, I can tell you
Whatever seems perfect for that moment.

Don’t drain the batteries just to keep
The lights going.  Everyone knows their queue.

There was a backdrop of images, all of Krishna
Except for tondos of tigers wrestling
That were left over from when the music
We made was built entirely of electronics.

I was able to say, ‘I love you.’

__________________

NO RESISTANCE

No resistance.
The heart falling
Through ice crevices
In the center
Of the glacier.

Russell's Truck

A FROZEN LIGHT

Far down from the North, a wraith
Draped in ice came floating.

It was without a name.  It was
Without a claim to any knowledge
That might feign-describe its glow.

For light itself was locked inside
Its resemblance to a soul and this
Leaked upon the land, to silvered
Fields and frozen meadowlands.

We were later told it was the soul
That Winter drags across the world
With its spare and haunting songs
Or, terrified by great winds,
Drives a blindness of snow before
Itself and slides on the edge of morning
To show up worlds of white
On trees and water, both.

The snap of names inside the frozen
Voice it uses to call across this stark, stark place
And rises up in a swirl of white
As if it were the frozen smile
Legends clamor to be when we
Are gathered here together in
Small stone shelters with our sheep

At night and gaze out upon a million,
Million stars and the soft voices
The sheep offer to this white that echoes
Their own white fleece.

All of this we will never know
For we come here within the ice.
We come as wraith to the seasons
Man denotes as he lifts his
Boot-clad feet, pushing past the drifts,
Believing he too is moving
Through such a perfect soul.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image.  Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

—Thomas Merton

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for his wonderful poems and photos, and two notes: Dec. 31 is the deadline for the Sac. Poetry Center 2016 High School Poetry Contest for written and spoken word poems. Cash prizes! See www.sacramentopoetrycenter.com/contests/spc-poetry-contests/. Also: Manzanita Press has a Jan. 15 deadline for submissions to their next print anthology, Out of the Fire, publishing art, photography, and writing. See manzapress.com (scroll down).

 Rain Spirit

—Anonymous Photo

Celebrate poetry (and the rain spirits) by 

heading up to Placerville today, 2pm, for 

Poetic License at the Placerville Sr. Center. 

Scroll down to the blue column (under the 

green column at the right) for info about this 

and other upcoming poetry events in our area—

and note that more may be added at the last minute.

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

Wheelchair With a View

—Poems by Donal Mahoney, St. Louis, MO
—Photos by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento, CA

A PAINTING BY MONET

This Monarch butterfly
dances from petal to petal
red, yellow and orange

sits for a while
on each and then
suddenly is gone

returns again to dine  
several times today in  
this painting by Monet.

__________________

A WILDFLOWER GOAL

It’s a kindergarten soccer team
and Jack’s the biggest kid.
His father is the coach.

The team is undefeated
but there’s a problem
on the field because Jack

has stopped to pick some
wildflowers for his mother
smiling in the stands.

CRACKLING AGAIN

This brilliant winter morning finds
waves of snow on every lawn
and red graffiti dripping
from the walls
of Temple Mizpah
once again
as down the street
stroll ancient men
who every morning
shuffle here for prayer.

As usual, they're lost
inside old overcoats,
their collars up,
their scarves too long,
their yarmulkes,
as always,
in diffidence
askew.

This morning, though,
they don't go in.
They shuffle near the curb
like quail.
They can't believe
the goose-step scrawl
on every wall.
They know their world's
awry again, an encore
of the chaos left behind
when they were young.

The good thing is,
Chicago's better now
than was Berlin back then
even though the temple walls
make clear this morning that
someone's struck another match
and the ovens of Auschwitz
are crackling again.

_________________

RADIO FLYER

When you were a boy in 1948
living on a block of bungalows
in Chicago right after WWII
you had a red wagon
you pulled behind your mother
going to the grocery store.

Rationing of food was over.
Beef was back and butter too,
no more margarine you had to add
yellow to. Now you had big bags
of groceries to pull all the way home
in your red wagon with your mother
in a house dress, swinging her purse
and smiling behind you.

You were the man of the house
on hot summer days and your
red wagon was the family car
because although your father
had a car, an old Plymouth, 
he took it to work every day
and didn’t get home until
late at night because of
the splendor of overtime.

The only caveat was
your red wagon had to have
Radio Flyer painted on the side
or the other boys would say
you didn’t have a real wagon.
The war was over but they said
your family couldn’t afford one.
Same thing when you got
your first two-wheel bike.
If it wasn’t a Schwinn, they said
your family couldn’t afford one. 

A HUSBAND FALTERS

Better take his wife to lunch
after what he said yesterday.
A slip of the tongue.

But where to take her?
The Chinese buffet?
The Indian buffet?

Maybe the Japanese place.
She likes sushi and tempura.
But when he asks about lunch

she says not a chance.
She has to clean the house.
Cleaning lady comes today.

_____________________

COLD WATER RAINING BETWEEN THEM

Annie has a nice washing machine now
but she remembers the one her
mother had with the wringer,
the old-fashioned kind.

Her mother took in washing and when
the washing machine would break
Annie would become half the wringer.
Mother would hold the waist of wet pants

and Annie would grip the cuffs and
they’d twist in opposite directions,
the cold water raining between them.
Each pair of farmer’s pants

put food on the table. With six kids
food was important. To this day Annie
smiles when she remembers her  
Mother never had to use a pants

stretcher in winter to make
her ironing a little bit easier.
She’d hang the pants out in the yard
and they’d freeze straight on the line. 

UNINTELLIGENT DESIGN

An hour a day,
sometimes more,
I chipped away
with mallet and chisel
on a block of marble
I found in Carrara
and shipped to New York
on the deck of a trawler.

I offered the marble
to a famous sculptor
who told me he works
in granite only
so I grabbed his beret
and one of his smocks
and said I'd sculpt
the block myself
with whittling skills
picked up as a kid
from a drunken uncle
named Whittling Sid.

Several weeks later,
to my surprise,
I finished the bust
of a chimpanzee
simply by wielding
mallet and chisel
the way I wield
pencil and eraser
when hewing a poem.

Working with marble
or working with words,
a sculptor or poet
proves less is more
by chipping away
until something emerges
upright and walking
with a soul of its own.

__________________

IT’S MANY MILES FROM EASY

It's many miles from easy to the end.
For some, the end is dawn. For others it's
the nightfall of imbroglio because

the end depends upon your ticket
and every ticket's punched one-way.
No round-trip tickets, save perhaps

for some who claim a mulligan,
who say they need another chance.
It's true that some may need a mulligan

if they leave without a destination,
while others know which port
they'll dock in. Or so they say.

When they arrive, however,
and find no hula skirts or leis,
they may gasp and cry, "Who knew?"

while somewhere in the clouds
a blinking neon sign proclaims
it's many miles from easy to the end.

RECYCLE THEM

We worry so much
because we’re nice people.
We want to find a way

to feed the poor
house the poor
employ the poor.

No wonder some say
nip the problem
in the bud.

Pluck them from the womb.
Sell their parts.
Recycle them.

_________________

AN ACT OF THE WILL

If love’s real, not
the puppy kind, it’s
not just a feeling
but an act of the will

a constant giving
whether one
feels like it or not.
After many years

you don’t know why
you’re doing it
or why It must be done.
Two begin as grapes

purple with passion
unaware you'll be
raisins wrinkling
at the end.

 Marina, Berkeley, CA

WHEELCHAIR WITH A VIEW

When you sit in this chair all day
and look out the window for years,
the garden is calendar and clock

declaring the coming of seasons.
You know when to expect them
but spring is always a surprise.

After surviving long winters
you forget after so many years
the daffodils will shout again

and blooms on the redbud cover
leaves that will hide young robins,
their beaks open for more.

Winter is all you remember until,
for reasons only God knows,
spring smiles again.

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

GARDEN GIRLS (a senryu)

Eight blondes with brown eyes
nod at working men nearby.
Sunflowers rule the sky.

____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Donal Mahoney from St. Louis and Cynthia Linville from Sacramento, and a note that the 18th issue of the Bay Area’s Ginosko Literary Journal is now available at ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/downloads.htm (suggested donation of $2). And don’t be shy about submitting your own poetry there, either—there's a handy black button there that's just waiting for you to give it a click!

 Celebrate the poetry that is our fellow creatures, and 

head over to Davis tonight for the reading by Dennis Hock 

and Beth Suter at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 

7:30pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green 

column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming

 poetry events in our area—and note that more 

may be added at the last minute.

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

Onward to Oz!

—Poems by B.Z. Niditch, Brookline, MA
—Illustrations from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 

by W.W. Denslow
[Click once on each photo to enlarge it.]

ONE-ACT

Despite your smile
of a starlet in
this dressing-hall mirror
the way your wrinkle creams
line your Roman face
your dancing hands sparkle
as your blue-green eyes move
and flutter in my portrait
of you in this mud room
your laughing lips
move the resonance
into a metamorphosis
of the dreams of Hollywood
and all my awaiting hopes
for your formless freedom
when you receive an Oscar
and stardom rest
in a yearning apocalypse
with my one-act play.

INNOVATION

Letters relocated
close to my cellar
my poetry is
in a defense mechanism mode
from a Thursday arrival
of a stellar honor code
in an eyeglass prism
from an invitation of an ode
ready to be read
in my B.Z. short film
Innovation
for local lovers of poetry
from underground covers
of our metaphors
inscribed by my fans’
many signatures.
 

SEVEN WOUNDS: A B.Z. FILM

Seven wounds on my chest
received in the house of a friend
while making this film
during Octoberfest, 1993
in our Sunday best
with a guest searching
for a way to be blessed
by giving out
our street poetry
behind rival maritime lines
in our secret correspondence
as Allies by secretly recording
a new short film in German
from a decoded spy glass
disguised from their beers
off Normandy swells
pretending to be
fishing by French coastal sea
rewarded in a world
without end
we living poets
are wishing for survival
to exhibit our art of bravery
and make over our rivals
as we are asked to take off
all our eye-hidden masks
by umbrellas
of the sixth fleet's arrival
off of the last of Germany's
U-boats at 8 bells
we managed to escape
and at least to pretend
to be free of the Nazi
beast in the swells
of the Rhenish falls
by disproving the enemy
over the hellish walls
for our love will win out
over a forbidden fascist infamy
hidden in their blasphemy
by listening to the call above
we will float over history
into a democratic port
to be refueled in Manhattan
where a renewed Walt
Whitman awaits us all
near Emma Lazarus' statue
with an iconic American family
into a faultless
patterned renewal.

BECKETT'S TOUCH

Much has been made
of a numbing comparison
from my plays and poetry
to Beckett
by French critics
at our melancholic furtive ways
of putting dramatic grave words
on humanity's headstones
as we both are born free
hating fascism's dictatorship
and sated scurrilous censorship
known as a spilled-out memory
in Germany and Italy
renouncing a hated tyranny
under our eyelids
of a hidden idolatry
and ideology that makes
for a human traffic of slavery
Samuel and I will not succumb
to a charismatic world
now guided by
the deaf and dumb.
 

OCTOBER SURPRISE

Sketching my eternity
in my qualms of a new play
looming over my memory
entering the skin of wit
of this existential poet
as the early dusk falls
on the sandy tall dunes
this Evergreen tree
still reminds me
of my bz initials
put on my own island trees
by student signatures
as my palms bear witness
with my bread and psalms
at communion
to sing out praise
from my roadside altar
raised near the iron docks
of Iberian fishermen
who offer me a salmon lunch.

JAMES DEAN'S PASSING

My voice cracked
as we denied your passing
the foliage lost another leaf
though there was no sound
again in the backyard
when we heard on the radio
word of your accident
yet still we may pause
at your fine acting
but the underground earth
has overturned in a moment
as your memory scatters ash
in a scent of last rose petals
invading the garden
by the elm tree trunks
your voice of hope sounds
from a line out of your film
A Rebel Without A Cause
the sun pardons you
by the river's warming mouth
we put your initials
on a tree beside mine
near the embracing ferryman
who sheds a tear
by the docks near me.

 Melting the Wicked Witch

THE CAMERA: MARILYN

The camera loved
her images
in an accordant pool
of Italian carrara marble
in West Hollywood
meshing into lines in her flesh
now with an urgent emergency
of being on time
at the bus stop
there she is painting her lips
in her mirror
from her satin handbag
here is Marilyn Monroe
going for an audition
as a well dressed showgirl
giving off confidence
from her intricate sense
of acting ability
from her mirrored eyes
in the dressing room
of her breathless distress.

IT'S A NEW DAY FOR JUDY

It's a new Fall day
for Judy Garland
the stars have faded
like the yellow leaves
to shed tears by a skyline
of first light
as I open up the car window
and clear out phrases
from my Beat-crazy life
while taking away shadows
for my pop art by painting
the town red,
while eagerly awaiting
Judy Garland
always late to the set
introduced to me by Sonny
my uncle and a publicity agent
on this movie set
under bright strobe lights
which will soon blush
at midnight
on global cups of bottled red,
I am innocent of complaints
in Judy's mind's eye
after her shadows are fainting
instead of waiting
for her for hours
knowing she will need me
to brush up
on her lines of dyed makeup
in the laughter
of dark hallways
while forgetting back home
those parental storms
in Kansas, the Big Apple or Boston
leaving everything as regrets
for the incoming film scenes,
suddenly I am forgetting
to pick up
my Fall yard leaves instead,
as I have to fix
my anchored kayak tied
to a tree at the hub's river bed
my memory is delivering us back
to those late hours
at the nightclubs,
to pause over storytellers
of a convicted good cause
even as a cowardly lion
will pass by our fellows
with his thick hands and jaws
near the stuffed straw man
somewhere over the rainbow
of my loving conviction's cause
together with a prediction
of those wild stories
coming alive
in Judy Garland's
morning glory days
on the yellow brick road
as we go by the stars,
onward to Oz!

 Judy Garland, 1922-1969

_________________________

—Medusa, thanking B.Z. Niditch for today’s poems and inspiration! For eight things you may not know about the Wizard of Oz, go to www.history.com/news/history-lists/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-wizard-of-oz

 Celebrate poetry—and stories—and remember that 

at noon today, there will be poetry at the Sacramento Room 

of the Central Library on I St. in Sacramento. 

Then tonight, Bob Stanley and Rick Rayburn will read 

at Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento, 8pm, 

and Traci Gourdine and Evan White will read at 

John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, also 8pm. 

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green 

column at the right) for info about these and other 

upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more 

may be added at the last minute.    

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

October Dreams

—Photo by Sue Crisp

CYCLES
—Sue Crisp, Shingle Springs, CA

Green leaves turning into colors
of flame and gold.
An October delight, long waited
to behold.

One by one autumn’s trees are
stripped of their quivering fiery leaves.
They slowly drift to the ground below,
piling up like autumn snow.

Soon October will take its toll,
as its blustery breezes begin to blow.
Branches tremble under October skies,
as they become naked and bare, and
they no longer have their dazzling flair.

Now they slumber through the winter,
until spring comes again
and gives them a reason
to start nature’s new season.

PROMISES
—Sue Crisp

I’m walking through the dense forest in a
dream-like state, listening, feeling what it
has to tell me, winter’s white blanket
crunching under my feet.

There is the sighing of ailing trees
with bowed branches laden with fresh,
heavy snow. I feel their struggle to stand
upright and reach for the sky.

Bright, warm sun or blustering wind could
free them and end their despair. I whisper to
them, soon, soon, it will be over soon, and
hope someone on high has heard my promise.

 —Photo by Sue Crisp

RED RISING
—Sue Crisp

Shivers of sharks cruise the cool
depths of the bay. Gliding silently
through clear aqua water. Un-
blinking, slitted, cold eyes, on track
for any sign of prey seeking refuge
among the jagged coral reefs. Pred-
ators from a prehistoric age, on the
prowl for what the sea offers, what
is expendable.

Fins of silver flash,
once calm seas boil in the chase,
red, stains the white foam.

—Photo by Taylor Graham

JUST ONE MORE
—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

She moved away out here to get away
from people, from a job that buried her under
other people’s problems. We’re rural here.

She settled in a place with barn and corral,
got a horse but doesn’t ride. Adopted a dog
and two barn cats plus one for the house.

Added some pens and got a nanny goat,
two sheep, one pig, two hens, a rooster and
a husband but like most other humans

he had his problems. Before long he was gone.
She put out grain for wild turkeys, a saltlick
to lure in deer. Jackrabbits who ravage gardens

here and there. Coyote keeps to edges,
hawk to thermals and the owl to dark. Toward
midnight, the most blood-curdling cry

from her direction. Husband back with
a gun? No country home’s complete without
a peacock screaming murder.

_________________

DOWN IRON MOUNTAIN ROAD

a car was parked in the eastbound lane—long long
convertible wide open to the sky. I caught a blast of country
western achy-breaky, and a gent in boots and Stetson
two-stepping his ruffle-skirted lady in the eastbound lane.

Dancing, right there in the lane of traffic.
I was doing 50 westbound but I took a second look.
Were they real?
Already far behind me, out of sight.

I knew that car from growing up. Every Saturday
a neighbor washed his blue ‘53 Plymouth,
3-speed manual. It meant nothing to me. Why I kept
its image in my mind for 50 years, who knows.

Somewhere behind me, bound east
against the sun, a car stopped
out of my childhood, stopped against time
passing. And I kept driving on.


—Taylor Graham

—Photo by Taylor Graham

PROSPECTING
—Taylor Graham

What a notion, grazing the river as if
we’d gone back wild in evolution, animals
hungry for the raw elements. We’re groveling
sand and gravel, drenched to the knees,
grubbed and scraped, swirling a bit of silt and
water in a shallow pan like washing dirty
dishes—what the river brought down in the last
big storm. Are we hoping for the big strike?
I woke up out of a dream—
earth’s big-bang reverberating in the blood,
rushing downriver like arriving on a midnight
train; adrenalin knocking the heart awake.
Look! over the river, dozens of dragonflies,
wings of black and white, pure light and dark
dancing ripples of moving water. No gold
heavy in the pan, but bright, fleeting,
precious as life.

__________________

NOT QUITE MIDNIGHT
—Taylor Graham

I wrestled with the epistemology of
sight, how a thoroughbred unwinds itself
across a field in curves of bone and
sinew. No. It was too dark to keep pace
with a creature so weighty and so
light. And then broke
commotion right through the protection
of walls—a house party up the road.
Moon that was hanging clear and bright
slipped away leaving nothing
but starlight and the same old question,
how we know the beauty
of a thousand pounds of flight.

 Chickenhouse

—Photo by Taylor Graham

COMMUNITY FARM
—Taylor Graham

A sow and piglets. Sheep and cattle graze
the fields long gone to thistle and disuse.
Two arcs of irrigating water—praise
to husbandry—spark rainbows. The wild goose
takes wing to join her mate where updrafts sluice
the morning. Ripples on the lake. And there—
a wagon henhouse, chickens on the loose
to peck what fowl can find on land once bare.
Horsetail clouds. A kingfisher, dragonflies on air.

_____________________

PALIMPSEST OF A GHOSTED ROOM
—Taylor Graham

What are the memories
here? kimonos on hangers
in an upper room.
The kitchen’s rusted fluter.
You pour the wine—what vintage?

And you tell stories:
adagios of families
up and down the stairs
as they moved on to other
places in this long history.

A layering of
breaths, of sun through a window
golden leaving its
glow; patina on door knobs
and closed panes of waver-glass.

Opening. Unseen
hand lightly on your shoulder
as you stopped beside
the bedroom’s limp white curtain
suddenly lifted by breeze.

 —Photo by Taylor Graham

OCTOBER DREAMS
—Taylor Graham

These are the cocoons of dreamers in sleep   
to wake as silk strands boiled to be set free.   
Fields dream of rain to green the grass as sheep   
fathom lambs from some meditative sea   
deep as the idea of Unknown. Tree       
releases sky from sleeping leaves that shake   
with dreams of coming winter. Shall we see           
a flower breaking surface of the lake       
as dreamers in their silken strands awake?   

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

—Albert Camus

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today’s contributors from upside the hill!

Celebrate poetry today, and check out Midtown Out Loud 

open mic at Shine Café today in midtown Sac, 8pm. 

Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column 

at the right) for info about this and other upcoming 

poetry events in our area—and note that more 

may be added at the last minute.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,

then click on the X in the top right corner to come back

to Medusa. 

Dancers Beyond Midnight

—Poems and Artwork by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

ALL-NIGHT CAFÉS
(Rondeau Redouble)

There’s a late café in a sleepless town
where customers linger, as I used to do,
over coffee, to let time drown
the sorrows down to just a few—

well past midnight—feeling too
blue to go home—take my frown
to the sad mirror, blue to blue.
There’s a late café in a sleepless town

made of myth and memory—bone-
colored walls, seeming askew
with crooked calendars, days counted down,
where customers linger, as I used to do;

numbing the days to be gotten through—
maybe feeling their own pages torn—
a place like that.  Maybe you—
over coffee, to let time drown

whatever pulls you in—alone
in some quiet window-booth to pursue
your ramble of thoughts, as if to hone
the sorrows down to just a few—

as if you solved a thing or two,
then finally notice how light it’s grown,
the day beginning right on cue.
Everywhere such need is known,
there’s a late café.

____________________

HE’S GOT A VERY SAD LAUGH

he comes to our parties
with his supplemental wine

and sits like a
poured glass of laughter

spilling with private joke
at our saddest poetry

tears come to his eyes
and he shakes his head

and sighs
and laughs again
         *
when it’s time to go home
to his midnight wife

he looks into the room
from the door

where he busses
the hostess

who is holding the tragedy
back from the light

and as if it meant
something more

he says with
his loneliest voice

good
night
                            

(first pub. in South Carolina Review, 1972)

ENCOMPASSING

noon.
time of no shadow.
we are vertical.
reverent to the silence.
standing in the sun like scarecrows.
our black-to-the-center eyes
holding the landscape together.

at midnight
we become flesh of darkness.
holding our arms out like we do.
stars on our fingertips.
night clouds in our hair.
our eyes deep with the suns of that hour.
darkly beautiful.

                                    
(first pub. in Poetry View, 1976)

___________________

BLUE STUDY
After “Transformacion En El Paraiso”, 1987
by Freddy Rodriguez (Dominican Republic)

blue eyes of red flowers
staring into
eyes of viewer

vase without water
roses without stems
a floating red feather

the white vase shining
under the floating roses
that used to be a dozen

a surround of blue
that is only a dream
of its midnight self

one huge red flower
with a deep blue eye

burning with transformation

SOFT RAIN POEM

Blue mottled street
midnight
or so
stars
smearing down
to the pavement
where
shadows
           tremble
                     tremble
till
the light
begins to shift into gray,
fusing with the grainy dawn.

_________________

TRIANGLE

The life of those shadows—
silhouettes against drawn shades,

dancers beyond midnight,
lovers oblivious to the voyeur

who strolls the empty night,
haunted by whatever haunts him.

Their music drifts down,
and now the watcher

is part of their love—dancing
all by himself in the moonlit yard

amid the wakened roses
and the rustling garden shadows

A SAFE WALK THROUGH THE GARDEN   

And when you touch the nightly rose,
gone strange with dusk, will you suppose

its petals melt or turn to dark
against your hand’s electric mark?

The rose, illumined, is my own,
picked from the center, midnight-grown.

(It’s only moonlight—not a spell
that makes you dizzy and unwell.)

              *

Since you approve my ancientness,
come with me now where I undress

before the mirrors that enhance
with such young smile and such young dance.

This is my garden—this my room—
the center—where pale roses bloom.

               *

So move toward me with the word
I said was all—I swore I heard—

and speak it once against the flaw,
that I may turn to you in awe

and chant your name with all my death
returned to me (surrendered with

the tear I gave to get you here).
Come, Lord of Roses.  Come, my dear.

Come deep with me, come long, come far.
Come all the way from who you are.


(first pub. in Kansas Quarterly)

__________________

THE DARKNESS

You have come with your gift of black roses
for my midnight joy. Now the house
is full of flowers that die after all,
no matter how I loved them.

All of my rooms are thick with their dying
and I am sad now. Flowers cannot
heal me, yet you keep bringing
these impossible black roses.


(first pub. in My Best Regret minichap, 2008)

THE DREAM OF BEING ELSEWHERE

Midnight. Tuesday. The night bird flies in out of the
dark, the window opening for it. Outside, the flock,
dipping in welcome. I hear their wings glide. I sense
their shadows. I feel their eyes, bright as glass. They
fill my window—swarm in. They lift me through the
dark release. I am only what I imagine.
                                                              

(first pub. in Parting Gifts, 2004)

_____________________

THE CIRCLE OF NIGHT MUSIC
After “The Fiddler’s Son” by Eugene Bradley Coco,
Illustration by Robert Sabuda

In the circle, the boy with the fiddle is making wild music
to the night, the night full of shadow-forms, dancing their
feet and clapping their hands. The boy is blind and does not
see the manic circle spin around him. It is midnight and music
is not allowed. Forbiddings come toward him on sooty wings—
Angels of Suppression that drop down into the shadows at the
far edge of the circle. The boy opens his white eyes and seems
to recognize them; he smiles, and they come toward him with
an effort they resist. Too late they realize the heaviness of
their wings. The music has taken possession of the boy; he
fiddles until the cold night rings and jealousy is appeased. All
night he plays, until the first soft gray of morning, when he
will lie down among the dancing forms that fade exhaustedly
around him—even the tempted angels in their ragged wings.

                                                                     
(first pub. in Parting Gifts)

MIDNIGHT’S OLD CONDITION
(An Abracadabra)

Dare we trust conditions of this masquerade?                 
Eyes of warning watch us in our dreamlike dance—       
shadow-hidden—with their masks removed—they stare 
as if we were not figments; as if not made                       
of our illusions; as if their eyes could guess                     
beyond our air of mystery—as if they’d                         
reached the end of midnight while we still refuse           
to go back to our other selves—too afraid—                   
too changed by costume’s guise—wanting the romance, 
loving the pretense—the brazen way we dare                 
test rules forbidden love has never obeyed.                      

                                                         
(first pub. in Poets’ Forum Magazine)

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

JANUARY

I do my
own calendar.

Death Month.
Mother’s.

Which day?
So close to midnight

Three time-zones
between.

___________________

Our thanks to Joyce Odam for her thoughts about midnight, our most recent Seed of the Week—and unsettling thoughts those are, indeed. Joyce knows how to usher us into Walpurgisnacht, that’s for sure!  Our new SOW is Memories I Can’t Shake. 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 more SOWs than you can shake a memory at.

__________________

—Medusa

(Anonymous Photo)
Celebrate poetry and the memories—good, bad, full of holes—

that it can bring to the surface.

And scroll down to the blue column (under the green 

column at the right) for info about upcoming poetry 

events in our area—and note that more may be 

added at the last minute.

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