Where Oh Where Is Buffy St. Marie?

—Anonymous Photos

OH! MEDUSA! MY DARLING, MEDUSA!
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

Oh! Medusa!
My darling, Medusa!
My sizzlin'-hot babe
From Tuscaloosa!
I love you more now
Than I ever-ever used-ta!

I love to see
Your snakes a-shakin'
When we're bouncin' on the springs
It really gets me goin'.
It really shakes my thing!

Oh! Medusa!
My darling, Medusa!
How come you don't love me
Like ya used-ta?

I'm sitting here
Learning this flute
To charm your snake-hair
High up in the air.

When it's way up high
You're gonna be so cute!
If I don't get bit
I may still die!
I hope they don't mind
If I kiss your ___?!?

Oh! Medusa!
My darling, Medusa!
How come you don't love me
Like ya used-ta?

_______________

WHERE FLOWERS FILL THE SKY
—Joseph Nolan

Wouldn't it be nice
If the skies were always
So clearly blue
As they were
In Sutter Creek, yesterday,
Framing you in the brilliance
Of that gentle, blue light?

I remember one tree
Had white leaves
In the Spring,
And cast against
The bright, blue sky,
I knew there was hope!
Hope for there to be Heaven
Up there, somewhere,
Where flowers fill the sky.

AT THE TOLL BOOTH
—Joseph Nolan

I paid the six-dollar toll
With a bag of nickels
And made the toll-taker smile.

“It’s been a while, she said.
It’s been a while!
I’ll let you through
Without counting,
Because I’m crazy,
Just like you!”

“Jobs like this
Are what we have to do
Just to stay alive
And feed our kids.
But sittin’ on this cash-lane
Has just about drove me insane!”

________________

A CLABBER-BLASTIC DAYDREAM
—Joseph Nolan

In my magic golf-cart
I roll around the greens.
I don’t have any windows;
I can smell the scenes,
Since I am
Among them.

I drift past all perdition
Of sand-traps;
I’m pristine!

As I look through
My simulex windows,
In search of strange, obscene.

Like girls
Who have sex
In the bushes
With ball-scrubbers,
All washed clean!
It’s a clabber-blastic daydream
Out here
On the greens!

TRUMP QUA CAESAR
—Joseph Nolan

“Let’s cross our own private Rubicon
And set the Senate on fire!
We won’t let them get us this time.

It’s just a matter of the meter of murder
Beat out to a Roman rhyme:
“Et tu, Brute?”
The unkindest cut of all!
Up into my under-groin
To let my testicles fall
Onto the Senate floor.

‘Oh! Brute!
You’ve started a civil war!’”

I told a Star Wars fan at work
     it bothers me that, just like Star Trek, there appear to be “Christians” in science fiction
     With the exception of C.S Lewis’s tales, including his The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—
     Where Lewis’s Lion, “Aslan”, rules over Narnia and made absolutely corrupt laws in favor of himself—
     Aslan would have become like George Orwell’s pig, Napoleon, in Animal Farm
     I mean the Lion would have also declared himself “more equal than all the other animals” of his land
     And the true Messiah of Narnia would perhaps be some despicable creature to Aslan, like an ass
     The Lion, Aslan, would accuse this ass, as well as his followers, of being in line with the Witch
     Even though the ass would say “My Kingdom is not of this world, but the next...”
     For this, Aslan would demand that the ass must die
     However, it would be the ass who would be the real “savior" that would bear forgiveness of sin


—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

I finally got around to looking at the Sesame Street 50th-anniversary reunion on the DVR

     They had returned surviving members of the original cast such as Bob, Louis, and Maria
     But I wondered where was Buffy St Marie,
     the outspoken Native American activist and musician who was on the show in the ’70’s?
     I have to wonder whatever happened to her
     and if she’s still writing new songs—
     is this 78-year-old woman “banned” from Sesame Street for being too “controversial”?
     I had to look on YouTube to find a few examples of Buffy St. Marie singing on Sesame Street
     Her country songs drawing on nature appealed to adults as well as children, such as “The Moon”  
     along with “Gonna Be A Country Girl Again “ and “Listen to the Wind Blow”
     Also “I am an Indian Wherever I Go” where she was shown singing near a beach in Hawaii
     and “Cripple Creek” which she sang along with a Native American mouth-bow
     Buffy even brought her infant son, Cody, on the show
     and apparently was the only mother they showed breastfeeding
     I wish she had come out of retirement to host the reunion show, instead of some guy named Joseph-Gorden Levitt 
     Seeing Buffy singing on that kid’s show was one of the fondest T.V. memories I remember as a little girl


—Michelle Kunert

OUR HOUSE WAS A CAGE
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

We had private discussions
inside of our house that we
later heard repeated by our
next door neighbor

who apparently had enough
money and/or connections
to be at the helm of some high
tech surveillance equipment

sadly, we ourselves did not
have the means or connections
to engage the right gear and
brains to de-bug our house

and of course no publicly funded
agency would send over trained
people and devices without some
concrete proof there was a crime

we sold that place and after the
bittersweet experience of a few
rental apartments, we got another
house, among good neighbors 

I AM FRANK
—Caschwa

Filthy Rich And Never Knighted
don’t ask me to prove the wrongs I’ve righted
I steer clear of areas blighted
lost count of places where I’m not invited

fond of generous foreigners
rich and powerful dictators
ships that fly their Jolly Rogers
shh! don’t mention those draft dodgers

rose from worthless bottom feeder
to become our nation’s leader
of daily briefs, I’m not a reader
I’m now the top rule of law impeder

I am FRANK the ever, all knowing
whipping the backs of men who are hoeing
adding more burdens on women who are sewing
taking the country where it was not going 

IN THE BEGINNING
—Caschwa

(We the People
to insure domestic tranquility
to promote the general Welfare)

pairing a maximum efficiency gun
with any person can get one
creates a scenario in which
mass killings occur without a hitch

in the blink of an eye
many innocents die
while blame lives on and on
like feeding pigeons on the lawn

owning bombs is forbidden
its true meaning remains hidden
as legal guns with similar potential
wreak massive terror consequential

_________________

DON’T FORGET THE SPLATTER SHIELD
—Caschwa

Ukrane capitulates to Russia and is
ready to recapitulate to anyone else
while the US plays a deadly shell
game with promised military aid

the Kurds bled and died to help us
but those actions didn’t come close
to matching the ear splitting scream
of money from Russian oligarchs

and our POTUS is preparing to host
a Gonad-7 meeting at his failing golf
resort, inviting leaders with large gonads
to luxuriate on our taxpayers’ dim

$2.4 MILLION, WOW!
—Caschwa

The Constitution and its
Bill of Rights
came from the pens of
white, adult males

Notwithstanding more
recent amendments
(freeing the slaves
and giving them the
right to vote)
a strong contingent of
white, adult males today
is still dead set on using
deadly force to put down
a dreaded slave revolt

The wrongful killing
by a police force
of one black man
holding a cell phone
resulted in a civil court
settlement payable
to his kids
(and their lawyers)

Although no amount of
printed currency
can ever compensate
for the value of any
human life,
we amuse ourselves
thinking at least
it will be a deterrent
to longstanding hate 

SUE DOUGH LITTER IT
—Caschwa

I senryu to
grandstand seats very haiku
football season, rah!

too cold for shorts, so
bring me a tall, black, coffee
take smiley selfie

preoccupied with
automotive maintenance
housework disappears

all about the dog
nothing about the poet
all about the dog

the dull, rote task of
sharpening a lawnmower
blade all morning long

look it up, I did
way too much information
back to sleep, I fell

six is unlucky
so welcome to hot dogs and
seventh-inning stretch 

Today’s LittleNip:

CLIPS AND SOCKETS
—Joseph Nolan

There’s a wire
With a socket,
And a clip
That’s meant
To lock it
Into place,
So electricity
Flows with grace,
Exactly in the way
It’s meant to go.

But if
The clip
Is broken,
It won’t.

_______________

Thanks to today’s contributors for musings about muses and medusas and Buffy St. Marie, among other things—including Joe Nolan's poem in which he rhymes shameslessly with "Medusa". I'm warning readers, however, not to draw comparisons between today's politicians and turkeys, unfair as it is to the birds....

Poetry readings in our area begin tonight in Placerville at 6pm with the Poetry in Motion read-around at the Placerville Sr. Center on Spring Street, then continue at Sac. Poetry Center with Maya Khosla and Bob Stanley, plus open mic, 7:30pm, on 25th & R Sts. in Sacramento.

If you’re up Grass Valley-way on Wednesday night, stop in at Nevada County Poet Laureate Chris Olander’s 4th Wednesdays Words w/Friends: Poetry and Pizza at Wild Eye Pub on Mill Street in Grass Valley. This week features Kathryn Smith, Gene Berson plus open mic, 6-8:30pm.

Friday is Speak Up: The Art of Storytelling at Avid Reader on Broadway in Sacramento, 7pm. This week features readers on the theme of “Thanks”.  And Creative Minds spoken word gathering of artists takes place this Saturday, 2pm, at GOS Art Gallery on Del Paso Blvd. in Sacramento, hosted by Straight Out Scribes. 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, thankful for poets at their wonkiest ~

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