Dreaming of Buds

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

BY THE BARK-HOUSE MEADOW

Here, earth springs
water of its own accord—
a moosh of mud this not-quite-spring

mixed with new grass
and fur of a fox who died last year,
leaving the harp of its ribs.

Sky is low this morning, wind
instead of bird-song in catkin willow.
Cedar-bark tepees sag heavy with wet

and the silent echo of drums,
pulse-beat of hands on buck’s hide.
Walk soft in mud to hear the music.

OUT OF PLACE

She asked you for directions, she’d lost
the trail. Only a few words between
you, disjointed like she’d left bits of herself
along the way and picked up new stuff
she couldn’t fit into her load. Off-balance
backpack that seemed to push her
forward against herself.
        You were traveling light, daypack
plus a bag of litter—discards of hikers
and overnighters who didn’t want to carry it
out. Freeze-dry packaging, granola
wrappers, cellophane glittering like glass
on granite.
                You’ve gotten good at
spotting what’s out of place. She was out
of place. You watched her disappear
toward Little Round Top, each step like
she was collecting litter of her self to stuff
in bags, to carry until she could heave it
in a trash can, travel light herself.

MIXED-UP MESS

Volunteers in boots and waders
drag garbage bags along the riverbanks;
others in wet suits disappear into the flow
like a school of black fish.
They’re combing the shore and fishing
the depths and crevices between rocks,
collecting trash. A cleansing, a blessing.

Tires, shopping carts, baby diapers,
dentures and smartphones, mattresses,
car batteries, cigarette butts, bowling pins,
half a pizza, a cappuccino machine.
Patiently the river has borne
our waste. At end of day, for a brief
moment, the river will be almost clean.

ASK PHOEBE

Spring. Taxes. 2 ½ hours of cyber-maze
& piles of old yr’s receipts, the blinding screen’s
scrim of numbers blending 1 into another.

You’re shut down. Walk outdoors.
Blue Oak’s leafless, its winter comforters
of grass growing without asking or taxing.

Black Phoebe hawks insects from garden-post
to Live Oak. All underfoot, green salad—
miner’s lettuce, Indian lettuce—who cares

for labels? Pick and eat it without sauce;
a morning’s labor—profits and losses,

a pesky bug which Sister Phoebe
snatches midair so gracefully
she blesses sky without a word.

“A GREAT TRAGEDY”

That’s what Dad would say, meaning
anything from losing a wheel over the cliff
on the road to Chitina, to running out
of shredded wheat for breakfast.

Another of his sayings: “Kids and paint
don’t mix,” as he dipped his brush
into a can of exterior gray.

I can hear him now, 30 years dead,
standing on our hill-crest, hands on hips,
surveying the mess of leafless oak canopy
intertwined with overhead lines

after a great Valley Oak toppled in storm.
“Trees and power lines don’t mix,”
he’d say. Is a day without electricity

“a great tragedy”? I think he’d reserve that
for loss of such a venerable oak—
its great trunk robed in greenest moss,
spirit of the rocky hillside.

BAMBOOZLE IS KITTEN

We named ours Latches.
Nothing is safe from his paws.
He sneaks onto my laptop and types:
swwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwg.
He steals pencil or pen and torments it
like a mouse. He unplugs my bread-machine
in the midst of making a loaf. He knocks
my lamp off the bedstead by yanking its pull-
chain, turning it on when he’s left alone
in the house. Everything mixed-up
is our kitten. No matter how I yell NO! he just
opens his big yellow eyes a little wider,
unlatching every door.

 Latches

Today’s LittleNip:

WINTER OAKS
—Taylor Graham

Winter-gray oaks stand leafless,
reaching with bare twig-fingers.
Earth twitches underfoot, roots
grasping for tree-colony comfort.
Already an oak dreams
of buds at twig-tips blossoming.

______________________

Thank you, Taylor Graham, for sparkling poems on a grey day, including Latches’ progress into the cat-version of Terrible Twos, as well as news of spring greens from the hawkish Sister Phoebe!

Tonight’s poetry events in our area include two at 8pm: Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe and Juice Bar in Sacramento, and Josh McKinney and Randy White at Poetry in Davis (John Natsoulas Gallery). Both include open mics. 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 (Celebrate Poetry!)

 Sister Black Phoebe Gets to Work
—Anonymous Photo

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

Circle For Spring

Flower Center

—Flower & Plant Poems by The Pantoja Pleiades Circle
—Photos by Chris Moon
 

DAHLIAS
—Janet Lar Rieu Pantoja, Woodinville, WA
(formerly of Sacramento, CA)

Discovered in Mexico,
Described by conquistadors:
Dinner plate or pinwheel types,
Diverse, bright colors, single,
Double—blooming endlessly—
Delightful plants for summer.
Decorate your yard with them!

__________________ 

SEPTINA
—Carol Louise Moon, Placerville, CA

Seven sunken moon-shaped bricks
some mossier than the rest—
slender twigs, these tiny trees
(six in all), surrounded by
spring pinks coloring the base.
Such a tiny garden, yet,
surely a child's paradise.

SUPERMOM
—Sharon McGarry, Vacaville, CA

Spider plant extends her arms
spreading out on all sides as
she hovers over her young.
Several generations are
simultaneously grown—
so many babies I must
seek adoptive homes for now.

GIFTED
—Miriam F. Berks-Roberts, Vacaville, CA

Grandma dug the front yard round,
Grandpa hoed the side yard square;
Gladiolas filled her spot,
Garden vegetables filled his.
Gorgeous cannas, roses, mums
Grew in special backyard slots:
Graced home with food and flowers.

FORGET-ME-NOT
—Allegra Jostad Silberstein, Davis, CA

Flower of fidelity
found close to earth in a shade...
fulfills a promise the way
friendship nourishes something
fundamental as chord roots
flowering in soul-music...
find me, oh, forget-me-not.

POINSETTIAS
—Jennifer Fenn, Fresno, CA

Petals like parts of His star
Pointing to where He was born,
Passionate red like His blood,
Price for our iniquities,
Promised by our God to all
Penitent people in prayer,
Panacea for our peace.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.

—Georgia O’Keeffe

____________________

Our thanks today to the The Pantoja Pleiades Circle for their spring poems; to Carol Louise Moon for organizing the submissions; and to Chris Moon for his beautiful photos, reminding us that spring is out there somewhere! Carol Louise writes, “Co-founded by Janet L. Pantoja and Carol Louise Moon almost a decade ago, the Circle is still going strong and enjoying the comradeship which comes from sharing and critiquing each other's poems, then publishing them in various volumes and websites. Each poet here has taken on the challenge of composing a Pleiades poem, a poetry form first created by Craig Tigerman and further honed by the Pleiades Circle poets. For us, a Pleiades consists of seven lines of seven syllables, each line starting with the same letter as the one-word title.” Thanks again to all of you for your lovely presentation!

This morning from 9:30-10:30am, cross the Causeway and head over to Philz Coffee (521 2nd St.) for Coffee w/Writers, Poets, & Literature & Language Instructors; bring your poetry, essays, books (in manuscript form or published), for chatting and coffee with other writers. Then tonight from 6-8pm, MarieWriters Generative Writing Workshop for writing poems will meet at Sac. Poetry Center, facilitated this week by Ann Michaels. 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 (Celebrate Poetry!)

 The 7 Sisters Pleiades star cluster (M45) is actually a group of 

800 stars formed about 100 million years ago. The cluster is 

located 410 light-years away from Earth in the constellation 
Taurus. For more about the mythology of the Sisters, go to 
www.naic.edu/~gibson/pleiades/pleiades_myth.html/.

—Photo by Josh Knutson, Aurora, CO

Photos in this column can be enlarged by

clicking on them once, then clicking on the x

in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

In Praise of Confusion

Every-Which-Way
—Poems and Photos by Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA

THINGS TO DO
After “Thither” Mural from the Temple of Longing 

by Paul Klee
                                               
All arrows point to time in this crammed city with
dark foretellings if I don’t follow each of them pointing
toward their own clock-shadows which are

so many. I follow them to the vanishing edge of their
directions in the lowering swift sunlight where they blunt
against the soft gold walls of

incompletion. Something blue remakes at the beginning,
the entrance widens as a gold cock crows and one gold
sun comes up against each end

of the brimming day which merely repeats itself. Each
time, I find a new confusion to follow. The arrows shadow-
shift and shudder to instruct me

and I find myself routed back into the same old tangle
where all arrows point to this-way-and-that of time with
its dark foretellings.
 

 Blue Thematic

THROUGH FRAGILE DISTANCE

come to me through fragile distance
do not touch the shining there

the air trembles
the light dims for your coming

the very ache of waiting
is held in my patience

do not mix the colors
as you pass among them

leave them separate
they will blend back when they will

come with silence to my silence
there is only thought-refraction here

____________________

WITH LONGING

And the heart beats with longing, even as
the blood flows. What does love know
of this—or hate—or any passion? 

It is all slow completion, even as it begins.
Take fear, which is delicious—
surface and depth—like a terrible wish.

Is it death we know—
cat and toy—
the prize on the end of a question?

And the blood goes round and round
the body’s universe,
bearing the life along like a tireless swimmer.
 

 Inarticulation

WHEN LOVE WAS AN EASY THING
TO SAY

We tried to make
love our last amen,
but we were words and words away
from the real prayer.
We were too much want
and not enough give.
We had made too many errors.

When love was an easy word to say
we said it smugly
and with a fond confusion.
It was a simple word.
It would be easy to remember.

We look for it now
in the desperate faces of each other.
Was it a foreign word?
How many syllables did it have?
Why did we break it apart
and store its letters
in forgotten hiding places?

                                        
(first pub. in Mustang Review, 1969)

 Infringement

WHITE ELEPHANT

After Chinese Washing a White Elephant, c. 1800

(Chinese School, 19th Century)
 
Grown too large now for our care,
we struggle to retain
our scale of love

as when
it was a tiny,
new-born thing

that we
adored—a live toy—
exotic as a fable-creature,

fabulous and dear.
It loved us too, gazed at us
fondly, trusting itself to our keeping. 

Now it is
house-broken, huge,
though still of delicate behavior.

Our laps
too small to hold it now,
it grows bewildered, mopes,

and leaves its sad looks
everywhere. What now, we ask
ourselves in our confusion and despair?

__________________

THE ONENESS

How much I need to know of the formidable light.
I walk into it, become part, love the oneness
of myself with all other self,

the resistant light receives me.

We leave the dark speck of my confusion
that stays behind—
yielding,     resisting,

we envelop together into more light,

swallow the darkness,
become the dream of the dark speck
that even now turns to core of light

that forms, and reforms—forever in this moment.

 The Season of Leaves

ONE OF NIGHT’S DARK STORIES
After “Recovery” by A. R. Ammons

After dark, when
street lights come on, tree shadows dance
against
walls—
become
pictographs, shadow-murals on night’s
grim buildings
whose walls
are made beautiful
by this—and sidewalks try
to hold the trees
from pulling through their circles.

_________________

YOUR DOGGIE BAG

Today I sit down to my table and eat your food,
your small portion of fish, and your hard roll,
our mixed vegetables that need salt.  I remember
to say a small grace in your honor.  I remember
to chew slowly—to savor.  I allow time for con-
versation.  A whole day has passed under your
absence, and I find myself folding a red cloth
napkin when I am through, and remembering to
say thank you for your hospitality. 
                        The table is but a metaphor, but
the fish and the roll and the vegetables are real. 
My refrigerator was an accommodation to your
leftover thrift and meagerness of appetite.  I am
sorry you forgot your take-home carton.  I know
how you like to portion and savor, letting the too-
expensive banquet dinner parcel-out to three
more meals.

In Praise of Confusion

ONE FOOT BEFORE THE OTHER

He fails so fast
his life out of balance
forgetting his pattern mid-air
such a confusion upon his face
the untamed anger rising in him
in a rage of refusal.
But he is on a wire
that stretches from one thing
to another of his power
his life precarious,
his arms heavy,
his eyes like candle-flickerings.
If he falls, he falls forever
into the waiting gasp
of astonishment,
that disbelief of expectation,
the unreadiness.
Can he make it?
He takes another step and
feels the heaviness of effort,
the reluctance of trying,
the conflict of his ability,
the confusion of one foot
before the other. So simple.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
RECOVERY
—A.R. Ammons (1926-2001)

All afternoon
the tree shadows, accelerating,
lengthened
till
sunset
shot them black into infinity:
next morning
darkness
returned from the other
infinity and the
shadows caught ground
and through the morning, slowing,
hardened into noon.

___________________

Fine poems and artwork by Joyce Odam this morning, and many thanks to her for starting our Tuesday off right! A. R. Ammons has been a great favorite of mine over the years. Today's LittleNip is the poem that Joyce patterned her "One of Night's Dark Stories" after, using his syllabic structure: 4, 9, 2, 1, 2, 9, 3, 2, 5, 5, 4, 7.

 
Poetry Off-the-Shelves meets today from 5-7pm in El Dorado Hills at the library on Silva Valley Pkwy.; or you can ride down to Modesto for Queen Bean’s March Poetry Night open mic from 7-10pm (sign-ups at 6:30pm), 1126 14th St. in Modesto. And the Tuesday Night Workshop for critiquing of poems meets tonight at the Hart Center (27th and J Sts.), 7:30-9pm (call Danyen Powell at 530-681-0026 for info). 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.

Our new Seed of the Week is “So Mad I Could…” 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.

—Medusa 
 

 “Thither” Mural from the Temple of Longing
—Painting by Paul Klee  

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

Relief's Within Reach

Hence the name, STRAWberries...

—Photos by Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

A MILLION MILES
—Michael H. Brownstein, Chicago, IL

You wake to a million miles of something,
but your fingers do not know what this something is,
nor does your nose or your eyes.
Your tongue full of morning paste and so it remains ignorant.
What of your ears? Did they hear something?
This is the problem: A million miles is a million miles.
For reasons unknown something goes nowhere and everywhere.
One thing is certain though—it did wake you up.

UNDECIDED
—Caschwa

What is the best word with which to begin a poem?

“What” is the best word with which to begin a poem.

The best word with “which” to begin a poem is “what”.

The best word to begin a poem with is “What which”.

Word with which what to the poem is best begin a. 

THE PROMISE AND CHALLENGE
OF THE AGE OF A$$ ITCH (AI)
—Caschwa

(liberal modification of an excerpt from
“Executive Briefing”, McKinsey Global
Institute, October 2018)


Despite periods of significant scientific
advances in the six decades since, AI
has often failed to live up to the hype
that surrounded it. Decades were spent
trying to describe human itching precisely,
and the progress made did not deliver on
the earlier excitement. Since the late
1990s, however, technological progress
has gathered pace, especially in the past
decade. Machine-learning algorithms have
progressed, especially through the
development of deep itching and
reinforcement-learning techniques based
on neural networks.

***

I have had AI
for longer than I can say,
relief’s within reach

__________________

YOUR LOSS, OUR PROPERTY
—Caschwa

Indians had lived here for countless years
before our ancestors had even discovered
this continent. They honored the land most
highly as God’s gift, not as property to be
exploited and developed to attain the highest
and best real estate use.

Then came the invasion from Western
Europe of colonists, settlers, frontiersmen,
priests, all hell bent on appropriating this
new land for their own purposes, until today
when we too often hear:

“Speak English only!!!
When in America you
must speak our language!” 

HOWDY, NEIGHBOR
—Caschwa

(Response to “Toy Drive” by Ryan Quinn Flanagan,
Medusa’s Kitchen, February 13, 2019)


Who would steal away money collections or toys
that were intended to benefit little children?

On this side of the border that would clearly be some
of our very own elected officials with good salaries and
per diems, who daily delve into accounts set up for
specific public purposes duly approved by the voters,
only to use the funds for a quite different, sometimes
totally personal purpose…

Our very own elected officials with good salaries and
per diems, who steal tiny babies from the loving arms
of desperate mothers escaping unspeakable abuse in
their homeland to seek safety and shelter in the Land
of the Free…

Our very own elected officials with good salaries and
per diems, who laughingly regard all the persons and
estates of the citizens of this great nation as if they
were mere disposable plastic pieces on a game board...

They don’t campaign that
they’re in it for the money,
but watch how they spend!

__________________

A RECIPE FOR BOILING OVER
—Caschwa

Start with a big cauldron of hot tempers

stir in hands and arms firmly clasped around firearms,

top with old confederate flags raised in pride, and

simmer with communities firmly gated and slammed
shut to keep out certain “low-lifes”

invite hostile foreign nations to help serve the meal,

and for dessert, give the top 1% a giant tax break. 

AN ANGRY OLD MAN
—Ian Copestick, Stoke on Trent, England

I remember as an angry young man
The outrage that I felt
I'm angrier now at the hand
That I have been dealt
Thrown onto the scrapheap
By a government that doesn't care
A life lived constantly on the cheap
A life on benefits, going nowhere
They say unemployment's going down
And wages are rising
I can't find a job in this town
And don't see any on the horizon
The many keep slaving for the few
And believing the lies they're fed
I think I'll go to church, kneel before the pew
And pray things are better once I'm dead
Yes, what can I do as an angry old man
Perhaps it's better if I wait
And sneak onto the seating plan
Behind those pearly gates

SHIFTING EXPECTATIONS
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

Rules slip sideways
Under our feet,
Imperceptibly,
Absent rapt attention
To the finer details
Of shifting contours
Of what is expected,
And later, demanded.

How to know
If it is O.K.
Not to call,
To be
Out of reach,
Not to own
A cell phone?

___________________

MOVING INTO ANANDA
—Joseph Nolan

Jnana will surrender to bhakti;
Chit will move into ananda.
Sat will come first,
Then chit,
Then ananda,
And all play together
In your heart and your mind.

Truly felt emotion
Is stronger than thought
And will run through
Your canyon
Like water from a broken dam
Sweeping away maya.

It happens quickly.
Be ready!

ALMOST HER
—Joseph Nolan

Do I look like
The one you wanted?
Do I walk like her,
Talk like her
Moan in the same tone
As she did
And give you what you wanted
From the one you wanted
In a generically,
Replaceable sort of way
As though
I were
Almost her?

____________________

LET IT GO AND SMILE!
—Joseph Nolan

As we grow older
We realize
We are being chewed up
And spit out
Into the ash-heap of history.
Not that there is
Anything wrong with that.

At some point,
They called time
On Babe Ruth
Lou Gehrig
And Joe Dimaggio.
That’s just the way it goes.
At a certain point,
You just have to let it go
And smile!

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:
 
WHAT WOULD WE DO?
—Joseph Nolan

The universe is so big!
Biggest and getting bigger,
It’s the biggerest, biggerest U.
It’s a long way to U!
Longerest, longerest-long
Longing, longing and longing-longer
It’s the longerest, longerest U
From me to you.
From U to you.
What would we do?
If you weren’t U?

____________________

Good morning and our thanks to today’s contributors, including Chicago’s Michael H. Brownstein, whose poetry volume, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else: A Poet's Journey To The Borderlands Of Dementia, was recently published by Cholla Needles Press (2018). I notice that Cholla Needles is also publishing a book called Medusa Memories by poet Noreen Lawlor; see more about it, including a Medusa poem, at www.amazon.com/Medusa-Memories-Noreen-Lawlor/dp/1796217247/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=cholla+needles&linkCode=sl2&linkId=4e27e79263da02c56d6910e962ff7501&qid=1551635574&refinements=p_n_feature_browse-bin%3A2656022011&s=books&sr=1-1&tag=eartaste-20&unfiltered=1/.

Poetry in our area tonight begins at Sac. Poetry Center, 7:30pm, with Rob Esperanza and Ike Torres, plus open mic, 25th & R Sts., Sac. Tomorrow features Poetry Off-the-Shelves in El Dorado Hills at the library on Silva Valley Pkwy., 5-7pm; or ride down to Modesto for Queen Bean’s March Poetry Night open mic from 7-10pm (sign-ups at 6:30pm), 1126 14th St. in Modesto.

SPC workshops this week include Tuesday Night Workshop for critiquing of poems at the Hart Center (27th and J Sts.) on Tuesday, 7:30-9pm (call Danyen Powell at 530-681-0026 for info); and MarieWriters Generative Writing Workshop at SPC for writing poems, facilitated this week by Ann Michaels, 6-8pm.

Wednesday morning from 9:30-10:30am, cross the Causeway and head over to Philz Coffee (521 2nd St.) for Coffee w/Writers, Poets, & Literature & Language Instructors; bring your poetry, essays, books in manuscript form or published, for chatting and coffee with other writers.

Thursday in Sacramento brings Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe and Juice Bar, with featured readers and open mic, 8pm, 1414 16th St. Also at 8pm, Poetry in Davis presents Joshua McKinney plus open mic at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st St. in Davis.

This weekend, SPC’s Random Friday presents Ladies of the Knight (plus open mic) on Friday at 6pm. And the Second Sat. Art Reception at SPC will host Sable & Quill’s 10th anniversary, with art and poetry from 5-8pm. 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.

—Medusa (Celebrate Poetry!)

 Michael Brownstein’s new book is available at 

www.amazon.com/Slipknot-Into-Somewhere-Else-

Borderlands/dp/1727462009/ref=sr_1_11?

keywords=cholla+needles&linkCode=sl2&linkId

=4e27e79263da02c56d6910e962ff7501&qid=

1551635508&refinements=p_n_feature_browse-bin

%3A2656022011&s=books&sr=1-11

&tag=eartaste-20&unfiltered=1/.

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

Caledonia In My Blood

Living Room Table Top

—Poems and Photos by DR Wagner, Locke, CA

I WAS BORN INTO THIS

I was born into this.
May this be true.
The sky sings.

My love is like
A red red rose.
It can be heard
As a song.

I was born into this.
May the river carry me
Through all the rains.

I hold the parting
Glass. May it be
Enough to be heard
Through all of time.

I was born into this.
I have Caledonia
In my very blood.

Through all of these waters
May this voice be heard.
I am the mists that wrap you
At eventide into all parting.

 Locke from DR's Bedroom

IF DREAMS HAVE WINTER

If dreams have Winters
And stars have memories

If the seas are a great song
And mountains fabulous stories

The music is our bones
And words the movement of the dance.

Even now the planets swirl about us.
The moon is a precious gem.

All animals rejoice with their hearts
With wild bands of color depending.

 DR's Studio

(Work by Kiny McCarrick)

THE RAINS

And now the rain.
And what did I see?
Nothing to fear.

I kept myself from falling.
I never knew I could call
Out to Athene.  I barely
Knew her name.

In this rain nothing
Has words, save man.
What walks in beauty?

I have a song here.
The forest seems to have
Rooms for dreams if we
Remember even a single Alleluia.

This then is soft as a fen.
Never more than a melody
And still as the breath of dawn.

At last the voice of rain.
I use my mouth to make words
Of streets full of puddles
Gutters full of a million whispers.

BUTCHER OF LOVE

Blankets of waves.
I stood on the shoreline,
Rainbows springing from my forehead.
What don’t I know?

The night has such soft hands.
What comes from the body
Where sleep has its own stars?

I steal away from the butchers
Love sends like a Pentecostal
Hymn.  I shall never be the lullaby
They push through their miraculous
Horns.  I am inhabited by ten
Thousand hands.

Do I make this sound
Voices bring to my heart?
Ave, Ave, I remain a creature
Wonder uses to come and go
Through that rainbow.

Choruses of them gathered at the
Corners of my mouth expecting
An event.  When I look up

You are as clear as a carol.
I will steal away to say these
Things.  Magnum Mysterium.

SHE WAS REMEMBERED FOR DANCING

She was remembered for dancing.
No one knew her name.
She lived long before we began to speak.

Perhaps the stars knew her
But the stars do not speak either.
Perhaps they saw her dance.
But the stars are too far away
To care about dancing.

She was as beautiful as a story
About Spring.
They named an arched bridge over
A canal in Japan after her.

She was thought to be very beautiful.
Perhaps the stars knew her.

 Two Glass Doves

SOMEWHERE

Somewhere, oh I don’t know where,
My heart is flashing signals to your heart.
You may not ever hear of them.
You may not ever see them
But they are there.

I have chalices for you.
What are dreams but chalices?
What are you but dreams?

I pretend that I am a song.
I know you are a song.
I will play you on this old heart,

I look across the halls of space.
Perhaps we are there.
Perhaps there is only dreaming.

Can one call this love?
Is it even dreaming?
Am I only a motion in a thickness

Precipitated by desire.
Unable to understand even itself.
I’ll try to call this a song.

I could be entirely wrong.
You could be the song.
How will we learn to sing?

___________________

Today’s LittleNip

Scarecrow in the hillock
Paddy field—
How unaware!  How useful!

—Matsuo Bashō

___________________

—Medusa, with songs of gratitude to DR Wagner for a return visit to Medusa’s Kitchen! 

 —Anonymous Photo

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

 

Let The Morning Begin

Rain, Yolo County

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

Morning light begins, pale
Through the window.
Just a whisper in the darkness
At first, then, later, a blue sky
Cloaked in golden sun.
Slowly, slowly, the valley rises,
And I rise, too. Today is here.
This is now, I tell myself,
Time to take roll call.
James? Present.
Let the morning begin.

—for the Davis City Council—

 Rain, Davis

The light on the porch stays on all night,
Paling when the sun slices through
The dark meat of dawn.
We are creatures who move through the light,
Pulled toward warmth by the needs of our flesh.
We are creatures of soul, living in this flesh.
From my doorway, I watch.
Dawn has returned yet again,
Kissed by a breeze.
And beyond that?
The trees. The birds.

 Rain, Sacramento River

Almost time for autumn to blow in
On a breeze with a sneeze.
Antihistamine and the call of geese in flight.
Warmer shirts and black coffee.
Homemade chicken soup.
Welcome home, Sister,
All summer long I have been waiting.

 Rain, Sacramento

Lovers outside at midnight. A quarter-moon.
Summer is almost ended, the air at night
Is cool and fresh. Without thinking of it
They take each other’s hand, fingers entwined.
There are years yet to be. From the pines
A Western Screech Owl takes flight,
Silhouetted by that small bit of moon.

 Yuba River, Rain

Some things I need—
Leaves that return in spring
Sunlight, moonlight
An evening breeze
A friend, a wife

The valley sees me here
And reaches up to me
Through thick soil
Hand in hand we walk

Time moves easy
Life is good

 Rainy Day, Putah Creek

The true darkness is a gift,
It offers us a place to enter the world,
It offers solace and quiet.
Now close your eyes,
Empty your mind and come in,
Everyone's waiting for you.

________________

Today’s LittleNip:

I don’t keep a god, but everyday
I give thanks anyway.

—James Lee Jobe

________________

—Medusa, with thanks to James Lee Jobe for today’s fine poems, and for capturing our rainy region right now!

 —Anonymous

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

Just Enjoy The Trip

—Poems by JD DeHart, Chattanooga, TN
—Anonymous Photos of Fictitious Birds

BEAK BOY

For his seventh birthday, the parents
gave him a jungle-themed birthday party.
Zebras, lions, and rhinos romped around
with elephants and monkeys.
But he chose the toucan mask.

An hour later, they found him squatting
in the tallest tree in the backyard.
"How did he get up there?" mother asked.
"It's just a phase," father suggested.

It's been months. 
He only comes down for earthworms
and slices of cake.  He doesn't do his
chores anymore but has built a rather
splendid little nest. 

The neighbors complain of late-night
video-game flashes and sounds
coming from the tree.  The parents
don't know what will happen when
winter begins to approach, but father
is still insisting it's a phase.


(first pub. at Strange Poetry)

 Food of the Gods by Ray Harryhausen

SYMBOLISM TAKES A SEAT

In walked dear symbolism,
whom I invited so often to
class with me and down
she sat.
Along the ride, she pointed
out the plumage of bright
birds flapping past, perhaps
resembling courage;
a pool standing stagnant
representing my lack;
an old man signalling
the inevitability of my fall.
Dear, you read too deeply,
she told me as she left,
just enjoy the rest of the trip,
which I took to mean life.
But maybe not.


(first pub. at Eunoia Review)

 Tchar of the Skorr

ABRUPTLY

In rushes the season, in rushes
the dog, small frantic creature.
I drain my life before the classroom,
seeping out my humanity
before an unforgiving audience.
The lesson could involve a dancing
tiger and there would be no ovation.
I could light myself afire and someone,
probably that shaggy shiftless one,
would declare, Boring, then return
to a private world of video game avatars.
My switch of gears is abrupt, threatens
to tear out the transmission of life,
spitting out gravel. Somewhere there’s
a new town with the same old “folks”
who populate this town, only wearing
slightly different shades with a variation
of the now-familiar vernacular.


(first pub. at Eunoia Review) 

 Dodo

JOHN RUM

When first domesticated, John was given
A power tie and a mug with antlers
He was informed about corporate life

Now he paces in the offices
Snorting and bucking, attempting to climb

The heights are sheer
This is what his hooves are made for

They talk about him at the water cooler.
 

(first pub. at Eunoia Review)

 The Roc

AUTOMOBILES

Kid stuff, the revving engine
in the driveway. I love to take
out the car. The car never
gets taken out.

I was the kind of kid
who made mad car noises,
rocking in his seat.
No I wasn’t.

It’s always raining or about
to rain. It’s always damp
or cloudy. Or I’m just not up
to it. I’m not sure how the
gearshift works anymore.

The car has won awards, but
I never have. Maybe it’s envy.
The car’s red, not green, so
the envy must be in me.

Maybe one day I will grow up.
Or maybe I will finally
take the car out again.


(first pub. at Revolution John)

 Phoenix

SACRED

Some people put marks
around a spot of earth
and others hang glass on the wall,
or revel at ceramic figures
or write to famous persons

We collect small items
in boxes, wrap them in newspaper,
and store them away
then get out the old objects

Put them back up to change
seasons, and the cycle continues,
our application of sacred
given to tiny kiln-blown fragments
that cannot even say our names.


(first pub. at Eunoia Review) 

RUINS

When they have unearthed us, will they
look back at our architects and mutter,
How they rivaled the pyramids, or will
they first get hold of our wasted celebrity
adoration, our overpopulation, or propensity
for barbaric neighborhood yawp, will they
first peruse the words of Faulkner or Melville,
or lay their hands on the garish pop novels
we carry with us, with oversized umbrellas,
considering our culture with furrowed brows,
will their verdict be, Let us imitate them, or
No wonder they have all gone missing.


(first pub. at Eunoia Review)

SIMPLE VARIATIONS

I was a nose
and two eyes and a mouth
I was a gender
and a race and a class

I was a language
and a code and a system
a culture and a mass
and a movement

Once, but only once,
I thought I was a cult, then
thought I was magic, had
something like destiny,
a bubblegum world at best

Now I am just a voice
trailing off, not liking the
sound of itself recorded.


(first pub. at Revolution John)

LATEX

The slap of rubber, even in its clownish
lavender shade, conveys the deepest sense
of other, the hand arranging the needles,
shaking up the small bottles and I bidding
my love to go be prodded with those same
sharp implements, the smile on a nurse’s
face as thin and medicinal as those gloves,
a voice like the tapping out of air bubbles.


(first pub. at Eunoia Review)

 Firebird

 

MURK

You cannot see the bottom,
neither can I. Should we dive
is the question. I’ve got all
kinds of questions.

I never know the answers or
feel like I have an answer
until I hear someone else speak
more questions. Should we
dive is still the question.

There’s a leaf floating, a sense
of a bottom, or maybe there isn’t.
Maybe this tiny pool takes us
through the center of a quicksand
universe. There’s no pushing
through to the other side.
It’s not possible.

I have no choice but to dive.


(first pub. at Revolution John)

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ORANGE EPIDEMIC
—JD DeHart

I dreamed about a world where, suddenly
at the edges of their being, some people
started turning orange, burning shades
of autumn, and so the landlords and officers,
wearing their capitalistic top hats, threw
these shades of persons into chains, stuffing
them into Orwellian overalls, and put them
to diligent work building a new country,
throwing up the guard of a new regime.
I have to stop reading dystopian fiction
before turning the lamp out.


(first pub. at Eunoia Review)

_______________________

—Medusa, with thanks to JD DeHart for his lively poems, evoking the fictitious birds in these photos I found…

 —Anonymous

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