Enchantings

Happy Birthday, Joyce!

—Anonymous Photo
—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

ENCHANTINGS
Count nine stars for nine nights. The first man you see
after that will be your husband, if you care for him.
                —from The Folklore of Love and Courtship
 

Husband, I counted the nine stars for the nine nights
until the story came true, and you were mine.
Do not look away toward the tumbling skies—I have
conjured you—and even though you have fallen to me
by intrigue of design, I care for you. Let me brush
the tears of confusion from your eyes.

I have touched your face with my soothing hands
and now you want to ask me all these questions
and I must lie to you. Forgive me, Husband—it was
only a night of meteors—you were dreaming, that’s all.
The sky is not deprived; the memory holes will mend.
See? Already you are forgetting; already we are
beginning to talk of other things.

 Essence

ESSENCE

Here in the dusk, by a slow bright stream,
the unmindful child—
ever at the brink of curiosity,
with childlike faith and followings—
comes to sit on the bank and listen to
the moving water shimmer past.

And the bushes sigh with disturbance,
and the dark trees whisper.

And the musing child—in the dusk—
in the rippling moonlight—
sits stroking the make-believe rabbit
the child would love to keep and love.
And high in the trees now, in the dark,
a Cheshire cat sits purring.

____________________

FIRE DREAM

Do you thirst,
said the spectre—swimming before me—

my dream stretched out like a blanket, afire,
the sky foreboding at the edge of the question.

I tried to answer, but the cup I held
kept spilling, and I could only watch the pouring.

 Sprig of White

THE POET’S WIFE

She came to the door,
night-eyed, witch-haired,
and whispered,
“My poet is locked in his tower.
No one disturbs his twenty-third hour.”

“How did you meet him?”
we asked her. She smiled.
“He composed me one day
when he was drunk on rhyming.
He liked my sound and metaphor.
I liked his timing.”

“Oh, what are your children doing?”
we shuddered.
She shrugged. “They are cutting out words
from what we say, doing research
for their father.
But he throws their adjectives away—
why do they bother?

“Will you show us your forest-garden,”
we flattered.
But she warned, “Something heavy
is in the air. No one can breathe what’s growing.
The night is sick with molding green.
And I am sick with knowing.

“Will you tell him we came…” but whirlpools
moved in her moody eyes,
and she
was already climbing her husband’s stair,
taking key-shaped pins
from her struggling hair.


(first pub. in Trace, 1965)

 The Power of Suggestion

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION
        THE POWER OF SUGGESTION

shadow          shadow
moving            moving
through              through                   
sightless                 sightless
room                         room
with                             with                     
grope                              grope
tread                                  tread
soft                                       soft
sound                                      sound
muffled                                muffled
against                              against
intense                            intense
listen-                           listen-
ing…                         ing…
what                       what
moves                  moves
like                   like
this…?          this…?

 Mockery

THOSE SONGS KEPT FOREVER
OUT OF HEARING

I have dreamed them, soft as lullabies
from ache of childhood,

songs that come in fragments
and tease—

tease for the missing line
or word,

songs that haunt like a broken need—
old, lost songs, sung only by the ghosts.

___________________

THE POWER OF REGRET

I have lived with the power of regret—
I have married the ghost of sympathy,

the one who weeps all over me, and
smothers my cries with a black handkerchief.

 Regret

THE POWER
After Harpy by Edvard Munch, 1899

When you are floating, vague above him,
like his dream, admiring him with your untouch;

when you are leaning on the descending distance
between you, letting yourself down in a

slow smother, and he stirs—
when you are that contemplation, savoring the slowness,

deliberate and shining, your face a cruel serenity,
knowing you have him now, he is yours, for all eternity,

and all timelessness—his sleep a myth—it is
death—and you are everything to him.

_______________________

REALITY AND SPIRIT
(for Judith and Steve, her spirit husband)

She describes him to others,
says he is with her
all the time.

Even now?
Even now.

He waits until others are gone.
He whispers at her ear.
She will make him real now.

He gives her his words.
Gentle words.
Fragrant words.
His mind is full of her.

And she listens
to see where he is.
And he listens
with her.


(first pub. in The Poets’ Guild, 1998)

 Reality and Spirit

SUMMONED

True as the gold light in your eye
that fastened like a sun
to my dark mirage,

a circle of stars, a core of words,
like a power surrounding you.
I was only heat-shimmer,

spinning in the light.
We did not reach,
I was dreaming on a blue ice floe,

you on another.
There was nothing to save us,
but love. Even our souls wept.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

FRAGILE
—Joyce Odam

the way one spirit moves through another
as easily as love through love—

that mystery as deep as any other

—like a leaf seen through another leaf
when held out to the sun

____________________

Happy birthday today to Joyce Odam, with many thanks for her enchanting poems and photos, as her muse muses on our Seed of the Week: You Will Need the Witch’s Cabin Key. 

Our new Seed of the Week is Catching My Breath. Smoke got you down? Or are you just looking for some late-summer zzzzzzz's? Or maybe you'd rather think more broadly about what makes you catch your breath: surprise? fear? wonderment? lust? Send your poems, photos & artwork about this (or any other) subject to kathykieth@hotmail.com. No deadline on SOWs, though, and for a peek at our past ones, click on “Calliope’s Closet”, the link at the top of this column, for plenty of others to choose from.

Tonight, 5-7pm, Poetry Off-the-Shelves meets in El Dorado Hills at the Library on Silva Valley Parkway. 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
 

 Harpy by Edvard Munch, 1899

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.

You Will Need the Key . . .

The Witch Is In

Quilt Panel, 2017 Quilters’ Show, Sacramento
—Photo by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA
 

POSSESSION
—Caschwa, Sacramento

Just having a key to the cabin
does not connote that one is
the head of the household. 

Behold!  Dozens of rumpled
mattresses upon which lie
ancient satyresses, each bare
torso a dreamboat beckoning
a man’s body to consummate
their false narrative by sleeping
with a goat.

_________________

BOOTED OUT
—Caschwa

My poem started off innocently enough
with the notion “Give yourself some credit”
and then it went berserk with implausible
metaphors like printing one’s own money…

All earnest fine tuning and editing attempts
to make it work failed, so it was dumped
unceremoniously into the cyber garbage
bin, sparing everyone the labor of trying to
revive a dud that was never meant to be.

Okay, now we have a clean slate again,
let’s just try to avoid making eye contact
with the editing room floor…

 —Anonymous Photo of Witch's Cabin

DARWIN’S FOOTPRINT
—Caschwa

(Response to Summer Circuit
by Taylor Graham, Medusa’s
Kitchen, August 2, 2018)

Skeletons of birds were derived
from dinosaurs, say scientific
journals, going all out to
explain the universe

so let’s take that one
step further and build a
hypothesis that bird’s nests in
trees are giant craters, time reversed?

_______________

IQ MIA
—Caschwa

Say goodbye to the old CIA
because future generations
will only know about the new,
improved, Artificial Intelligence
Agency (AIA) that will govern
absolutely everything Earthlings
do.

No more classroom instruction,
as all lesson plans must conform
to the filtering process where any
student who just doesn’t get it
will fail standardized testing and
be expelled, unless their family
has a ton of money.

Hello sex toys, each wearing a
smile that doesn’t quite fit, but
carefully programmed to make
all the right choices so your
precious adolescent can learn
from virtual-date practice sessions
before actually going out on that
first real date.

Today’s fantastic new burger
flipping machines that perform
faster and more accurately than
humans will soon evolve into robots
that deliver babies, cut and tie the
cord, spank the butt, nurse until
sleeping, then gently rock in the
cradle, freeing up Soccer Mom to
continue her busy calendar.

 —Anonymous Photo

TWENTY BULLETS LATER
—Caschwa

When you buy a new car, it may
have desirable, optional features
available at an extra cost.  The
same happens when buying a cop.

For the right price your shiny new
shield and gun can whisk you past
common barriers, like collecting
good evidence and presenting a
solid case in a court of law, and
instead hasten you on that luxury
shortcut to the sausage factory,
where a twisted-links interpretation
of due process means you can
summarily toss a suspected subject
straight into the meat grinder,
celebrate resolving the issue, and
then head for home, sweet home.

_________________

TRUTH NEEDN’T BE TOLD
—Caschwa
 
One day the newspaper forecast
no rain or wind, but when I opened
the door to retrieve my daily paper
I got drenched from windblown rain.

Anyone who is truly good looking, or
smart, or powerful, or rich, doesn’t
need mass media to say so.  Roadkill
is proof of the truth that big trucks and
trains will flatten you like a penny, no
arguments, no regrets. 

 Inside the Witch's Cabin at Night

POET REPORTS FROM US-IRAN BORDER
—Rhony Bhopla, Sacramento, CA

Two horsemen, one Putin, the other the President
together atop one horse, gallop.  Putin is shirtless
with both hands up in the air, his creamy pecks glisten
in the sun. Sitting behind him, the President tweets:
 “there will be consequences the likes
        of which few throughout history
            have ever suffered before”

All caps.

It continues this week, the rial plummets, expressions
on the US dollar distort, Iranian oil prices go up
tariff-tariff-tariff warn the monks of mothers of all wars

The tired horse arrives at the US-Iran border

Down goes the weasel. Iran-side, Rouhani flaunts
the lion’s tail before the President. Metaphorically. 
Putin stares, while he straddles, and strokes the horse’s mane,
and recites: A bomb will strike on land and sea by he
                       fret not, we have enjoyed such games many

Putin rides off into the sunset with future reservations
at the White House. Food menus to be determined.
The President taps, clicks, then flips, and invites
Rouhani for talks.  Will Iran bear the humiliation?

As Rouhani’s back is to the President, he whispers:
Thirty and Eight has been since time we met
You left the deal.  Hostility is what is left.

Tap, tap, click-send. Stay tuned to find out
what happens                                  in the end.

 Witch's Cabin from Pirates of the Caribbean

—Anonymous Photo
 
 

MONEY STALK
—Michael H. Brownstein, Chicago, IL

To you money is a magic bean that sits on someone else’s head,
Perhaps a large stalk bending its way in and out of the garden.
Money does grow on trees, and you think they mostly belong to you,
But you are not the one doing the work. That would be someone else
And you know that someone else. You even recognize the bean

And the grit from the vine strangling that someone else into compliance.

 —Anonymous Photo

AS HARD AS I TRY, I CANNOT UNDERSTAND
THE LOGISTICS OF L.A.N.G.U.A.G.E. POETRY
—Michael H. Brownstein
 
Charles Bernstein holds up his veneer-plastered walls with poems,
fine tunes a phonology of gestures to wrap laminated walnut,
uses meter, diphthongs, and wind to attach three-tab shingles.
But what of foundation? Snow easily finds a way into his bedroom. 

 —Anonymous Photo

Today’s LittleNip(s):

four chair turn
on The Voice
mockingbird

* * *

a volleyball
named Wilson
gull cry

* * *

the roadrunner
stays off-camera. . .
Tatooine


(first pub. in Spectrum #15)

—Deborah P Kolodji, Pasadena, CA

______________________

Many thanks to today’s diverse contributors for their be-witching poetry, and for Michelle's highly appropriate quilt photo! Today's pix are about our Seed of the Week: You Will Need the Witch’s Cabin Key. Why are we writing about witches in July? Because we can... Poets can write about anything, anytime, yes? And surely there is a witch out there somewhere who has visited upon us such fire and heat and smoky skies...

Visitors to the Kitchen today include Deborah P Kolodji, California Regional Coordinator, Haiku Society of America (www.hsa-haiku.org/regions/california.htm). (She says, "please note there is no period after the “P”—think of it as a name, not an initial!") Deborah writes to let us know that Four Seasons Haiku Kai, a haiku workshop group that meets four times a year in Burlingame, will have its next meeting on September 8 from 11am-1pm. Poet Chuck Brickley will read from his book of haiku, earthshine, which recently won a Touchstone Distinguished Book Award from the Haiku Foundation. They will meet at Mercy Center, 2300 Adeline Drive, Burlingame. (Info: mercy-center.org/ProgramsEW/HaikuKai.html/.) Deborah has promised to return to the Kitchen to spend more time with us soon. In the meantime, there is an informative interview with her at www2.silverblade.net/2015/02/interview-with-deborah-p-kolodji for you to check out. She also notes that Haiku Society of America is interested in setting up a group here in the NorCal region. Think about it….

Poetry readings in our area begin tonight with the Portuguese Heritage Reading at Sac. Poetry Center, 7:30pm, then continue tomorrow night in El Dorado Hills with the monthly Poetry Off-the-Shelves read-around in the library, 5pm. There will be another Poetry Off-the-Shelves on Wednesday night, this one in Placerville at the El Dorado County Library, also 5pm.

On Thursday at 11:30am, Wellspring Women’s Writing Group will meet at the Wellspring Women’s Center in Sacramento for poetry, journaling and other forms of writing (women only). Then in the evening, 8pm, Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento will present featured readers and open mic.

Next Saturday, Sac. Poetry Center’s Gallery will present its Second Saturday Art Opening and Reception for Jennifer O’Neill Pickering’s art work in watercolors and mixed media. Poets are invited to write an ekphrastic poem and share it at the open mic at 7:30pm.  Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

Speaking of SPC Art, Sac. Poetry Center Art Gallery is sponsoring City of Trees: An Invitational Art Show to Benefit Sac. Tree Foundation, curated by Bethanie Humphreys and Heather Judy. You are invited to enter up to three tree-themed artworks; see www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=city of trees invitational art show for info. The show will run from Sept. 3-Oct. 5 (reception Sept. 8); artists may choose a percentage of sales to donate to Sac. Tree Foundation. Questions/entry forms: bethaniehu@hotmail.com/.

—Medusa

 The Most Famous Witch of All?

Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz

—Anonymous Photo

Celebrate Poetry!

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

Cap Sante Marina, Anacortes, WA
—Photos by Carol Louise Moon, Placerville, CA

NIGHT DIVE
—Samuel Green, First Poet Laureate, Washington, 2007-2009

Down here, no light but what we carry with us.
Everywhere we point our hands we scrawl
color: bulging eyes, spines, teeth or clinging tentacles.
At negative buoyancy, when heavy hands
seem to grasp & pull us down, we let them,

we don’t inflate our vests, but let the scrubbed cheeks
of rocks slide past in amniotic calm.
At sixty feet we douse our lights, cemented
by the weight of the dark, of water, the grip
of the sea’s absolute silence.  Our groping

hands brush the open mouths of anemones,
which shower us in particles of phosphor
radiant as halos.  As in meditation,
or in deepest prayer,
there is no knowing what we will see.

 First Nations Fishermen

AT THE POND’S EDGE

I come to her the way I come
to a pond’s edge in October dusk, so as
not to frighten the wood ducks,

my hands gentle, a drake drifting
across the pond’s surface
or the slow caress of mist at dawn,

hanging now on, now about the still water.
Dusk or dawn, a man can be gentle,
may be always and always gentle,

and still be a man, her slow teaching
over long years, the classroom her body,
nearly a quarter of a century now,

and no longer the body’s daily insistence,
the hard urging that caused me once to
fear my own desire.  We have slid

into middle age with a sweet understanding,
the pleasure of the long familiar,
a tenderness that still, no matter how gentle,

explodes into sudden wings on the water,
catching us both by surprise.

 Restored Schooner, "The Adventuress", Built 1913

Today’s LittleNip:

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

—Vincent Van Gogh

 Boat Launch Hut

______________________

Many thanks to Carol Louise Moon for her photos today of Cap Sante Marina, where she and her partner, MyJohn, are spending some time this summer. Carol Louise wrote about Samuel Green, Washington State’s first Poet Laureate, and his poem (which neither Carol Louise nor I could find), “What the Fisherman Knows”. For more about Samuel Green, go to

•••www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/samuel-green
•••www.seattlepi.com/local/article/A-life-dedicated-to-the-art-of-poetry-1278592.php
•••vimeo.com/68195546

To hear him read:
•••www.kuow.org/post/view-here-perspective-poet-sam-green •••www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAI8tf6S1_0

For more about Cap Sante Marina, go to www.portofanacortes.com/.

—Medusa

 "A harbor seal that climbed up on the dock 

right across from our slip"

—Photo by Carol Louise Moon
Celebrate Poetry—and vacations!

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. 

Horses of Lightning

Poet and Wife. Cool.

—Poems and Photos by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA

Raindrops like teeth, the enamel of god.

A horse of lightning. A tractor of thunder.

The muddied boots of the children,

Waiting forlornly by the front door. A wet winter,

Here to move water back to the earth, and back to the ocean.

You can cry or laugh or find a drum to pound.

You can catch a bus to Dayton or Tulsa.

This isn't fate. This isn't preordained.

If I were foolish enough to make predictions or claims

I would tell you of dark-haired, dark-eyed girls dancing to gypsy music.

I would say that the government is lying about the shape of the world,

Lying about the dreams that wake you with a shudder,

Lying about everything. I am living now in the silence of things,

Sleeping in the dusty corners.

Accept the finality of the human experience.

Raindrops like teeth, the enamel of a god; I am a being of light,

And I refuse to answer to anyone. 

 Poet's Footwear

The mirrors are still at last, and you are so tired. You are listening to the wheezing breaths of the smokers. Even your mind is tired, and you don't really want to think anymore, but you don't know how to stop. From a dark corner of your consciousness you sense that the animals are slowly returning to the forest, and you wish that you could join them. You will die one day and until then you will never be free of this reality. Yes, there are cracks in time, you've seen them, but they are too small to slip through and escape. Your life is a slender being, moving from shadow to shadow, slinking in memory and loneliness. The room smells of disinfectant and the nurse with the cart is bringing the medication. You check the mirror one more time and then look up at the plain-faced clock and see that three minutes have passed since the last time you looked.

_______________

Grandmother went to sleep full of the emptiness that everyone is afraid of. She is sleeping across a blue landscape, under a green sky. This is a land that smells like jasmine, but that doesn't tell us much. Grandmother is dreaming of a day like this one, only in heaven, not here. She wants to take walks above the shore. She wants to sip tea and read those old books again, the ones she always loved. In a dream, anything is possible—flying, a new love, you can even be young again. Grandmother isn't afraid of the emptiness, she knows better than that. Look at her, smiling in her sleep. So peaceful, so relaxed. Grandmother isn't waking up again.  


 Poet's Favorite Swimming Hole, Middle Fork, Yuba River

(Hard to get to)

                  Blessed, blessed, blessed.

                               Now to bury the dead while the soil is weak and the grief is strong, to shovel them under and to say the words of god and heaven and life everlasting, world without end, amen.
                                  

                               Now to dream and hope and plan and pray and work and build and do and be.

                               Now to breathe the cool air of quiet midnight under the bone moon, the sound of darkness, the pull of emptiness, the power of being alive and alone, the power of still feeling the strength of the machine inside of the body.

                  Blessed, blessed, blessed.

                              Now to love; someone, anyone, everyone, to embrace another soul, another body, to speak and to listen, to hold and be held, to share it all, every last thing, the day, the night, the slow years and the fast ones, to grow, to become more fully yourself while accepting the difference of each other.

                             Now to speak the brazen truth, to stand tall in the face of the blatant lies and the cruel hatred, to say no as fiercely and severely as your bravest yes, to cast down the liars and the fast-talkers, the deniers, to refuse to back down to that which is false or evil.

                             Now to wade out into the river, to let the current take you, to just relax and go limp, to go under to another world, a water world, life, death, suffering, release, bliss, to float and be free, the darkness first and then the light.

                Blessed, blessed, blessed.

                            Now to climb out on the muddy bank and hold your arms up to the sky and give thanks, to praise, to be fully present in this body and on this earth, all while still wet and dripping.

                            Now to close your eyes and let your soul rise up from your body, up through the sky, up through the clouds, out into space and through the milky way, to let your soul move on other dimensions where you are the light and the light is you, free, true.

                Blessed, blessed, blessed.

 Poet at a Bus Stop

I wipe the stink from the blade. I carry the cup from mountain to mountain, from ocean to ocean, but I do not drink the blood. Not ever. I do not love the city for its lights or wealth. I remember well when the streets were on fire with the anger of the poor. Was there ever a time when this land was not at war? I do not listen to the priests anymore; I stopped when I was very young. I pray, yes, but not to the false god of damnation. I pray to the gods of the light and the creation. I pray that I will earn the kindness that was shown to me, and that I will, in turn, be kind myself. Turn and turn again. I remember my childhood as if it was a foreign country that I visited long ago. Where will I end up if I continue to walk this same road? I don't know, but I intend to find out.

_________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
What is this life? A small boat,
Rowed across a large river.
At journey’s end there is no trace.

—James Lee Jobe

_________________

—Medusa, with our thanks to soon-to-be Davis Poet Laureate James Lee Jobe for this morning’s fine poetry and pix!

 Poet's Message to You

... and celebrate poetry!

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The Devil Laughs

—Poems by Michael Estabrook, Acton, MA
—Anonymous Photos of Springtime in Paris

SUNSHINE

Everything seems more dire at night
demons climbing in
through the walls creeping across the ceiling:
can’t pay the bills or lose weight,
the pain in my knees and back,
car acting up, toilet leaking,
grubs in the lawn,
is my wife on match.com?
Must remember not to think
about any of that at night, only during the day
because for some reason it is easier
to say “the hell with it”
when the sun is shining.

ART

Told my artist friend
that he paints because he must paint
the muse demands it.
There isn’t money or fame but it’s who
he is, he has no choice. And even though
I’m in a similar position
with my poetry I feel worse for him
because he’s dedicated
his entire life to living
the poor artist’s life hoping some reward
would come after all that deprivation.
Whereas I’ve never had any illusions,
managed a conventional middle-class life
so what you see is what you get.

 GREED

Sad, but always interesting (and sometimes fun)
watching billionaires and giant corporations
tearing each other apart in the news.
Incessant squabbling, backbiting, lawsuits.
How much money do you need?
How many houses can you live in?
How many cars can you drive?
Amazing they are never satisfied,
never seem to get enough.
As for me
I’m a simple man
walk the dog, have a coffee with the wife
text my son living in California
and sleep at night with a clear conscience
and accepting the fact that
you can’t take it with you.

PARIS

So my old buddy Rick sends me
a picture of himself,
his gorgeous wife and two strapping sons.
He’s still handsome, of course,
stylish, has all his hair
and he’s debonair,
always was such a classy guy.
He’s made some money: vacation home
and 2 boats, bought his mom a house.
We worked together
back in the day but look at me:
turning down the heat,
reusing plastic bags,
wife cuts my hair,
I mow my own lawn,
saving a few bucks here and there.
But! Has Rick seen Paris in the spring?

AGAINST THE GRAIN

When you feel you need to make a change
a big change in your life
when you want to make a change
but you don’t know what or how
what do you do?
Just pick something and do it, the Devil laughs.
Doesn’t matter what?
Change is change. He stops pacing.
Let me help you out.
Do something big! For example,
become celibate or gay or a political activist
or a dog breeder or a gun lover or—
and this is an interesting idea—
stop writing poetry, it sucks anyway,
take up another hobby instead:
golf, gardening, stamp collecting,
raise ferrets, play the tuba, anything
just do something please!
For the love of God (and the Devil)
and he stomps out of the room
shaking his head just like always.
Him and his dramatic exits, so predictable.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
Just don’t let the devil use your mind as a garbage dump.

—Joyce Meyer

___________________

—Medusa, with many thanks to Michael Estabrook for today’s fine poems, and for giving me a springboard to post beautiful photos of springtime in Par-ee!

 
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.

The Ghost That Sails The Daylight

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

SCREAM IN THE NIGHT

Five a.m., what’s that shrilling down the dark?
Five-headed banshee having claws ripped out?
yet none of our home dogs daring to bark.
At half-cocked sliding door, I stand in doubt.
A neighbor’s gatepost lamp across the swale
stands vigilant as lighthouse in a gale.

And still the screaming’s constant, muffled, far,
unchanging as dead-dark before the day.
Down the county road rushes someone’s car
hurrying to somewhere, or just away,
its tires on chip-seal like a fingernail
run down the chalkboard. But look, there’s a pale

line of light along the ridge, while dead-dark
keeps our valley; but now the cries are gone,
shut tight in the hold of an unlit ark.
Silent daylight begins to wash our lawn
and still the question’s hanging like a blade.
What was the beast that all that shrieking made?

MY UNKNOWN LAND

This never-ending chore
of early morning, “eating weed”—
annual grasses turned flammable and dead.
Oh I might pay to have it done, instead.
But it’s a joy, whacking full-speed
through the bull-thistle’s core,

felling wild oats grown taller than my head,
and finding where my new trails lead
through land I’ve known before—
no mystery in store….
Look, this fresh sapling, sprung from seed
dropped by what bird, from what far watershed?

IN THE NEWSPAPER,

a cow-camp meadow under crystal peaks—
the photo’s just a newsprint replica
that haunts, a landscape dulled by window glass.
They say the meadow’s open, can be reached
by anyone with four-wheel-drive on hair-
pin turns, and time to take long hikes. I long
to be there when the meadow’s wild with bloom
or brittling seed-pod at the cusp of fall,
the willow thickets catching at a breeze
that’s shiver-chill. Remember summer dawns
we’d wake to ice on water bucket; fill
the blackened coffee pot and start our day
that ended with a drive back home—too soon.
That ghost that sails the daylight is the moon.

SUMMER CIRCUIT

I take my walk in reverse from old-dog graveyard where live critters undermine the dead; under oak trees posted as if waiting out summer for rain. The land silent. Spring grasses sunburned brittle, stickery brown. One sapling live-oak has pushed through, one spot of vibrant green; it survives on its own. I climb the hill, the slope creating its small breeze, a blessing of July. At the top, I dismantle this year’s house-wren nest—a jumble of twigs, whitewashed to suggest chicks safely fledged. The nest-cup, hidden all nesting season in that labyrinth of twigs, is a marvel; strings of disintegrated turquoise tarp woven in a careful bowl with down-feathers to cushion the babes.

from somewhere above
comes calling a scold—House Wren
still guarding her own

CLEARCUT

What does distance say?
Smoke is what’s left of fire.

Why does Raven fly?
A cedar snag hums its life
long after the loggers leave.

Think myself to tree
split and hollowed by lightning,
held in place by stone.
If I step inside, who could
find me, the tree’s eyes
set in a landscape so changed?

The lost boy wandered
mazes of thorny hillside.
He peeled translucent
globes of gooseberry and drank
prickly-sweet cups of crimson.

How does the earth spin?
Does the mountain rise so high
thin air can’t hold it?
Our packs have grown too heavy
to contain a wander-trail.

Dust keeps our footprints
a moment then wipes them out—
we follow the wind.

LADY LUCK BE YOUR GUIDE

Night is marked by gibbous moon-gleam
that drones the alley behind Main—combo music
punctured by jitter-chilling shriek—

bragging rights of that sneaky old Tom
atop the propane tank, a tawny cougar
to pounce on journeyers gone astray.
*
To pounce on journeyers gone astray
atop the propane tank, a tawny cougar
night is marked by gibbous moon-gleam

punctured by jitter-chilling shriek
that drones the alley behind Main, combo music
(bragging rights of that sneaky old Tom).
*
Bragging rights of that sneaky old Tom
punctured by jitter-chilling shriek
atop the propane tank, a tawny cougar

that drones the alley behind Main. Combo music
night is marked by gibbous moon-gleam
to pounce on journeyers gone astray.

Today’s LittleNip:

SPECTATING
—Taylor Graham

How intricate is Spider’s web
suspended silken in so fine
a gauze for air to flow and ebb.
The window’s open like a sign
of “welcome, Fly.” Spider’s design
is sleight-of-eye, silk string to pluck.
What chance? Fate is crystalline,
opaque as is the face of Luck.

__________________

Many thanks to Taylor Graham for today’s fine poems and pix! Placerville’s Tuesday at Two workshop has done a form-a-day throughout July, and TG has posted some of hers here. Can you identify the forms? “In the Newspaper,” for example, is a Smith sonnet.

Two choices tonight for poetry readings: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento, 8pm, with featured readers and open mic; or The Love Jones “Best Love Poem” Competition at Laughs Unlimited in Old Sac, 8:30pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 … to pounce on journeyers gone astray…
—Anonymous Photo
Celebrate the poetry of the wild!

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. 

Waking Up in St. Tropez

—Poems by Ian Lewis Copestick, Stoke on Trent, England
—Anonymous Photos of the Way Cool Beach

A BAD DAY

It's days like these when you know
You've been whipped, beaten
Halfway through a 15-rounder
Your legs are like lead
And your eyes can't see
Only in life there's no coach
To throw in the towel

Walking down the drizzly, dreary street
Slapped in the face by the wind and the rain
And the life
Oh yes, the life
It's on days like these when you can
See the future clearly
All too clearly
All you see is poverty and old age
Staring you in the face
Like a double-barrelled shotgun
You see your dreams for
What they are
Nothing
Nothing at all
Complete fantasy
Because if you had to
Really look at life
In all its rotten, stinking glory
You'd go completely insane
And use the carving knife
Or several hundred paracetamol
Or the gram of heroin in one hit
Or the pipe from the exhaust
Or .....
Or .....
Or .....
There are hundreds of these ways to die
And thousands of ways to go insane
But I think this must be the worst
To see it all for what it really is
Relationships a screaming, bawling
Brawling travesty of love
A third of your life wasted
Sweating, hating, cursing your tedious
Muscle-wrenching, low-paid, low-grade job
A third of your life spent hitting the bottle hard
And feeling it hit back harder
Until your insides ache
And your mind becomes numb
Fuzzy around the edges
Like a T.V. with a bad reception
The final third is spent, fitfully
Trying to sleep
To forget
But
The mind-rot seeps slowly
Into dreams, until
The arms of Morpheus
Are not comforting and restful
But smothering
Dragging you into a
Netherworld of nightmares
So
Days like these
Days like these
Days like these
Dragging you into
Depression's icy grip
Yet
When the
Spotty, sweaty, overworked
Teenage staff in McDonald’s
Tell you to
"Have a nice day "
It would be rude and churlish
If you didn't even
Try to

COMING IN

Coming in from a long
Long night at work
Nine-and-a-half hours
Of back-breaking
Brain-aching
Idea-taking
Tedium
Then another hour of
Black coldness
Cold blackness
Standing
Shivering
Swearing
Waiting for busses.
To come into;
Waiting for sleep
Waiting for the aches
And pains to stop
Waiting for the drink
To take hold
Waiting for........
.......Nothing

Cigarette smoke curling and coiling
In the half light

3:30 P.M. WITH A BEER

This is important
Meaningful, necessary
To sit at 3:30 p.m.
With a beer
Dressed in dirty jeans
And an old T-Shirt
No underwear
No socks
No shoes
No worries
Not a thought in my dumb head
My girlfriend is at the hairdresser’s
Getting herself styled
And highlighted
I sit here with three days
Worth of beard
Preparing for the sacrifice
Of another night to the
World of commerce
Another nine-and-a-half hours
Of manual labour

This is important
As important as
Lying cuddled up to my girlfriend
As we talk night into morning
As important, meaningful and
Necessary as that
Or taking our table in a restaurant
Both well dressed
Plenty of cash, plenty of drinks
Gazing at each other
Over the tablecloth
Just knowing that
This is where you want to be
And who you want to be with
As important, meaningful
And necessary as that

Or writing a poem
Your head a whirl
As the words splatter the page
As you get the sheer exhilaration
Of getting your words down
Knowing instinctively
That they are right
That you are saying
What you want to say
What you ought to say
What you need to say

This is just as important
Meaningful and necessary

To sit at 3:30 p.m.
On your third beer
And not a thought
In your dumb head

THE STRANGERS

What's scarier than strangers
And all the things that they don't know
Don't know, don't care and if they did
They'd never let it show

They have no fears, no phobias
No terrors in the night
No doubts, no worries, not even concerns
They always know that they are right

The strangers are the ones in a rowdy crowd
In the lynch mob too
They join the army, even the police
They aren't like me and you

They vote Conservative, own pit bulls
Get involved in, even start pub fights
I've never really known one of them
But I can spot one on sight

These strangers include the rapists
Child molesters too
I even believe in traffic
They are the ones in front of you

They used to buy Phil Collins
Then they bought U2
They put Englebert Humperdinck at Number One
While "Strawberry Fields" got stuck at two

These strangers are so weird and scary
I don't know what to do
Now I never dare go anywhere
In case I become a stranger too

BAR-B-Q

I love the summer
But I have to say
I hate barbecue season
The loud conversations
The drunken laughter
And the smell of cooking
Sausages and burgers
Floating through the window
The loud, cheesy
Dance/pop music
Assaulting my senses
As I sit here alone
With a single bottle
Of fortified wine
As the loud, drunken fools
With their arrogant, manly laughter
Have countless crates and bottles
Ready to be consumed
As I sit here alone
Always the outsider
Scribbling my lines
To console myself
With the idea of "art"
As if it is important
Not to be
Part of the crowd
When the truth is
I was never invited
Anyway

         

IT’S NOT A BAD LIFE

I wake up slowly
Realise I'm at the beach house
The St. Tropez sun
Bursting through the blinds
A quick dip in the pool
To wake myself up
Then it's into my oak-panelled
Study/Library
With my Havana cigars
And my 20-year-old Scotch
To knock out another
5000 words of
My latest bestseller
As my 21-year-old girlfriend
Tries to tempt me with
Designer lingerie and
Brightly coloured
Cocktails
It's not a bad life

BANG!!!!!!!!

I wake up and
Look around  at
The grimy walls
That really need painting
The pile of dirty clothes
At the side of the bed
Roll myself a cigarette
Think......
I've got about £5 in
My bank account
That should get me
A cheap bottle of wine
And an even cheaper
Frozen pizza
I grab a pen and pad
And write down this poem
It's not a bad life

Who knows
Tonight's dream
Might be even better

_____________________

Today's LitteNip: 
 

Fruition—
Think of writing as a harvest.
You till the ground.
Plant. 
Water. 
Wait.
Apple trees take years to bear fruit.
Harvest.
Clean.
Process.
Then you have apple pie.

—Keelie Breanna

___________________

Thanks for the fine poetry, Ian! Ian Lewis Copestick is a 45-year-old poet from Stoke On Trent, England. He is currently unemployed and living on £70 a week dole money. This means that life isn't easy but he has plenty of time to read, think and write. He has been writing poetry for about 17 years, but has only been sending it out for just over a month. In this time he has been published by Anti Heroin Chic, Outlaw Poetry (outlawpoetry.com/2018/four-poems-by-lewis-copestick), The Dope Fiend Daily, The Rye Whiskey Review and Medusa's Kitchen (7/16/18). For more of his poems, go to hellopoetry.com/u696303/favorites/. Thanks again, Ian, and don't be a stranger!

—Medusa

Ian and Pal

—Celebrate poetry from across the seas!

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.