Welcome to the Kitchen!—daily poetry from around the world (poetry with fangs!). Read our DIARY, the cream-colored section at the left, for poets local and otherwise. Then scroll down our GREEN AND BLUE BULLETIN BOARDS on the right for more poet-phernalia. And please feel free to be a SNAKEPAL and send your work, events and releases to kathykieth@hotmail.com—see "Placating the Gorgon" in the FUCHSIA LINKS right below here for info. Carpe Viperidae! Seize the Snake!
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Illustration by Sam Kieth Just to let you know . . . Sam the Snake Man Kieth passed away at the age of 63 in Diamond Springs, CA, on March 16 of this month, of complications from Lewy Body Dementia. Sam's artwork will be sorely missed. He contributed many drawings to Rattlesnake Review— some of which have appeared in Medusa's Kitchen— all the while sustaining a highly successful career in comic…
—Original Artwork by Sam the Snake Man For the last seven years or so, my husband, Sam the Snake Man, has suffered from Lewy Body Dementia, a degenerative disease that’s kind of a combination of Alzheimers and Parkinson’s, with a lot of other nastiness thrown in. (Think Robin Williams.) For a while, I was his sole caregiver, but finally, his mother and our local hospice stepped in—plus, we hired…
Watch this spot on January 10 for the final word about what's happening in the Kitchen! _____________________ —Medusa
—Poetry by Kathy Kieth, Diamond Springs, CA —Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Kathy Kieth WHEN TURKEYS WERE CLAY Smell of warm wet wool over squeaky muddy rubber boots: peckish first-graders cooped up, restless in November rain. Cool white ceramic turkeys nestle in small hands as cheap brushes feather poster paint in neon globs and patches. None of us had ever seen turkeys, so we made them up,…
—Snake Courtesy of Sam the Snake Man SO many thanks to those of you who noticed my absence this past week— even Gorgons need to get their oil changed now and then. I'll let you in on the full skinny in the very near future—for now, let's just say that the snakes and I needed a little emergency brake (get it?), plus "they" decided to upgrade my Mac, leaving me in the lurch for a few days in a…
—Winter Poems by Sarah Das Gupta, Cambridge, UK —Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Medusa PARSON’S FIELD IN WINTER Dark fairy rings appear in the grass, mushrooms, tiny, static, nuclear clouds, explode from nowhere. Autumn ends with storms and gales. The creeping paralysis of winter grips the field. Winter comes, a heathen King, crashing through the bare branches of the trees. The grass already…
—Poetry and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA —And then scroll down to Form Fiddlers’ Friday , with Poetry by Nolcha fox, Stephen Kingsnorth, Caschwa, Christina Chin, and Uchechukwu Onyedikam FOX CRY What’s the wailing about? he wants to know. However can words fill a scream gut-wrenched? From down our gravel drive, a scream. Gut-wrench as if gravel being ripped from bedrock. Inside our…
—Poetry by Kathy Kieth, Diamond Springs, CA —Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Medusa GHOSTS DON’T EXIST even though there is a big one living under the bed: sleeping all day down there between the dust motes and the candy wrappers: flipping the corners of his quilt out of boredom in late afternoon: lurking just beyond the brave beam of his flashlight. . . Of course ghosts don't exist: it says so…
—Poetry by Royal Rhodes, Central OH —Public Domain Illustrations Courtesy of Medusa A MAGICIAN OF SURREALISTIC ANIMALS He made the alphabet of animals surreal, unlike the ilk that sailed on Noah's Ark. Brancusi, Ernst, Man Ray, Duchamp would deal with art of such a brand, a noble lark demystifying beauty—like his fly of steel and porcelain—a basin, doves that served as armchairs, while he sought…
Promises, Spells And The Like —Poetry by Joyce Odam and Robin Gale Odam, Sacramento, CA —Photos and Original Art by Joyce Odam THOUGHTS FROM THE SEVENTH DAY OF AUGUST —Joyce Odam This I have done : stared at the sun too long. Thought the wind in my hair was mine. Ached to be bird. Welcomed and given the pain of love. Looked through the golden eyes of the summer lion. Turned into leaves soon after.…
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