Messages

—Photo by Ann Privateer, Davis, CA

WORK
—Ann Privateer

Off the page
At the beach
With shore birds
And dalliances
Into a new day
Far away from
What once was.

 —Photo by Ann Privateer

COME HITHER
—Ann Privateer

And yon, over fields
Of junipers whistling
Down the meadow
Listening to voices.

 —Photo by Ann Privateer

OH JOY
—Ann Privateer

One more outing
To not destroy.
One more minute
And then it's gone.
Living in the now
Gets complicated.

 —Photo by Ann Privateer

SENT
—Ann Privateer
 
Messages, winsome
And wet, thoughts
Without regrets
Ideas loaded into
What is, concepts
As varied as the sender.

 Demonstration in Santiago, Chile, 10/1919. 

Millions of people out on the streets.

—Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan 

SANTIAGO
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
 
Behold,
The rattling about you,
The clattering of pans
As women take to the streets in protest,
To make a stand.

The government said they can’t,
But women hardly ever take “No!”
For an answer.

“You must be mad!” they said.
“We’ve never had the luxury
Of eating cake for bread.

After us, may come our sons,
If we can’t work things out.
Our sons will have guns
To back up what they shout
And no matter what
The government said,
Our sons never once
Ate cake for bread.”

__________________

ASTEROID AUCTION
—Joseph Nolan

A comet or
Meteorite
Has landed in our driveway.

We are not sure which it is.
We don’t want to incur the cost
Of an expert determination
And have not yet obtained an appraisal.
It is being offered for sale
This weekend
In a driveway-sale at our residence.

Be the first one in your neighborhood
To own something extraterrestrial!
We will be taking bids
At our asteroid auction
Commencing at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday.

Terrestrial currency, in hand,
Is all that we will accept.
We are very down-to-earth about that!

 —Photo by Caschwa

CUTTING WEEDS
—Joseph Nolan

Each day,
I cut a weed
That grows
Outside my door.

My cutting
Is its growth
From the day before,

Each day,
I cut the weed,
Each day,
More and more,

But all I cut,
In cutting,
Is just
Its growth
From the day before.

Somehow,
It’s just attrition.
In this way,
I encourage its ambition
To just grow
More and more.

I fear it knows me!
And the one who lived here,
Me, before.
And knows that, if patient,
Another will come after me
Like the one before,

Only, that one
Will not come out
With cutting blades
From his garden door.

And such weed
Will grow in luxury,
Growing more and more.

__________________

SATISFACTION INTO SLEEP
—Joseph Nolan
 
If I were to float
Gently down
Into gratified sleep,
Into satisfaction,
Drowsy, deep,
What would be
The wisdom
I could keep,
To guide me
On my way
Into the next day?

 —Photo by Caschwa

RETIREMENT
—Joseph Nolan

Retirement
Is how a man disappears
Away from the stage of commerce
Into regret,
Into desire to forget.
Death is coming,
But not come yet.

 —Photo by Caschwa

Dear Governor Gavin Newsom,
              I understand that you’ve asked Warren Buffet to buy Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E)
              You fool, electric utility power belongs to the people
              not some Wall Street billionaire!
              And I also don’t mean Communist government control like they’ve got in China
              where people get electricity to their houses each day only for a few hours
              By that I also mean “green and clean”-produced electricity supported by our tax dollars
              the kind that won’t set spark to “wildfires”
              as PG&E’s equipment did with the Camp Fire that devastated the town of Paradise
              Gov. Newsom, while you criticize President Donald Trump
              you do sound a lot like him with your seeking how to profit off California’s “misfortunes”
              —you’re a rich, elitist politician seeking to further screw the poor
              You declare “PG&E is greedy and mismanaged” for widespread power cuts       
              But you won’t turn the control of power plants over to the citizen voters for change

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

 —Photo by Caschwa

SNEAK PREVIEW
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

paid some good money
to a mail order company
to get the answers to
some tough questions

finally they arrived
in a plain brown box
that took my sharpest
knife to open, only to find

no answers inside, just
restatements of the
original questions;
I’ll need a sharper knife

________________

THE IMAGE CZAR
—Caschwa

lovely picture of
luxury liner with all
the amenities

and then an aircraft
carrier, fully equipped
to destroy the world

a large government
that frees us from corruption
helps to keep us safe

the focus then shifts
to the bottom line and kills
laws that hurt profits

our nation is huge
there is no doubt about it
that is our image 

 —Photo by Caschwa

HOW SUITE
—Caschwa

Was watching some
political shows on TV
and it was all about
people in power
abusing that power
to commit the most
unspeakable acts
against other people

tired of that, switched
to a mystery movie
that was all about
people in power
abusing that power
to commit the most
unspeakable acts
against other people

tired of that, switched
to a game of solitaire
on the computer:
people in power, safely
minimized, minus the
unspeakable acts, and
ready for my return

_______________________

SAVE THE WHALES
—Caschwa

Caught up in a torment
of civic

            responsibility

a thoughtful young man
went and bought the
complete kit to collect
sperm whales for

            posterity

including cases of test
tubes with stoppers, eye
droppers, the latest,
greatest in label

           machines

every thing a young man
in tight

           blue jeans

could possibly need for

           a great start

and found it to be true
that good deeds really do

          warm the heart

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

MONEY HAIKU
—Caschwa

books are best sellers
contraband is street value
sports are gate receipts

Wall Street is sales growth
candidates are fund raisers
those are the measures

______________________

Good Monday, Morning, and here’s to another week of inching toward winter. And thanks to all our intrepid contributors today for sending us photos and messages in poetry!

Area poetry readings begin tonight at Sac. Poetry Center, with Heather Roegiers plus AndYes plus open mic, 7:30pm. On Tuesday from 5-7pm, Poetry off-the-Shelves poetry read-around meets at the El Dorado Hills Library on Silva Valley Pkwy. in El Dorado Hills. Suggested topic for November is "fashion," but other subjects also welcome.

On Thursday, in addition to Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe and Juice Bar on 16th St. in Sacramento at 8pm, Poetry in Davis meets at John Natsoulas Gallery on 1st St. in Davis, featuring Alan Williamson, Jeanne Foster and open mic, 8pm. Then on Friday at 8pm, Acapella Poetry Night meets at The Rink Studios on Del Paso Blvd. in Sacramento, featuring performance poets. And Saturday is the Second Saturday Reception for SPC Gallery’s new exhibit, “Passing Through”, with art by Carole Forest. 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.

Interested in workshops? Check the green box at the right for a listing of local ones which will be held this week and/or later.

—Medusa, listening to messages from the cosmos ~

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clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.