Wash Your Own Dishes

—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Joseph Nolan

 FIVE SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT

—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

The inevitable,
Catastrophic
Escalation

We have all
Learned to fear
Is almost here.
A mini-nuke
Has hit Beirut
And now,
Its port is clear.

3.5 kilotons,
One-sixth the Hiroshima,
Measuring on the Richter Scale
At about 4-point-two.

Russia has just announced
That any incoming missile
Will be treated as
A nuclear attack,
Warranting
Nuclear push-back.

I can just see
The Stay-Puffed
Marshmallow Man,
Waddling over
The horizon
As a fitting ending
To this year, 2020. 

PREPARED FOR THE WRONG WAR

—Katy Brown, Davis, CA

While we were building submarines, missiles,
bombs, jets, recruiting armies, and sending them
to distant lands to fight over invisible boundaries,
another enemy was preparing for invasion.

You can’t hear it rolling down the street in tanks.
It doesn’t set off bombs in the marketplace, station
snipers on rooftops.  It slips into your bedroom
and kills you while you breathe.  COVID-19.

It might as well have landed from Mars, for all
the preparedness we made.  Now, we’ve all gone
to ground, inside, locked-away, trying to outlast
the invasion of an invisible army.

Our leaders were slow to react—even as it swept
across national borders, mountains, and seas.
It took a toe-hold of a dozen or so cases—and
we were given false assurances that it was harmless.

Harmless—as it dug into first one community,
then another.  Reassured—as the numbers climbed.
Told we’d all be in churches by Easter.  Then, when
churches filled early, people grew sick and it spread.

The numbers keep climbing.  No end in sight.
We keep building submarines, missiles, and tanks.
Our leaders argue and divide while this invisible
killer is loose in the country.  We still aren’t prepared.

 WAKAMATSU PEACE

—Katy Brown

On this hill where the wind blows birdsong
among the gold mid-summer grass, where
the high, circling hawk keeps watch—

we gather to celebrate that long-ago peace.
We ring a bell of peace between nations
on this hill where the wind blows birdsong

over the grass, among the silent oak trees.
We dedicate ourselves, once more, to peace under
the high, circling hawk who keeps watch.

This place unites us in a common goal:
understanding among people.  A commitment
on this hill where birds sing in the mountain wind.

We ring the bell of peace that echoes across
the land, the ocean, the great divide of cultures,
while the high, circling hawk keeps watch.

We celebrate peace and the desire for peace
in the ringing of the bell on this day,
on this hill where the wind carries birdsong
and the high, circling hawk keeps watch.

RINGING OF THE BELLS

—Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

over pastureland and ridges,
two creeks that flow

from headwaters
toward river and the sea—

listen to the bells

copper and tin alloyed
for strength, and voice—

the bells in their long
wordless but unmuted history

this evening, ringing

gathering dark for the first star,
ringing unspeakable loss

to hope, friendship, peace 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE JOURNEY
—Pat Schneider, Amherst, MA

The self you leave behind
is only a skin you have outgrown.
Don’t grieve for it.
Look to the wet, raw, unfinished
self, the one you are becoming.
The world, too, sheds its skin:
politicians, cataclysms, ordinary days.
It’s easy to lose this tenderly
unfolding moment. Look for it
as if it were the first green blade
after a long winter. Listen for it
as if it were the first clear tone
in a place where dawn is heralded by bells.

And if all that fails,
wash your own dishes.
Rinse them.
Stand in your kitchen at your sink.
Let cold water run between your fingers.
Feel it.


from The Weight of Love © 2019, Negative Capability Press

FRESH START
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

Today I heard a popular presidential
candidate start a campaign speech
with the words, “Donald Trump…”

Our nation needs a fresh start.

A majority of voters already knows
the name of the individual who did
not turn out to be a good fit for the
position.  Enough of that. Now we
need new candidates to offer us strong
reasons why we should consider them
the best fit.

Our nation needs a fresh start.

EMBOLDENED AND POSTAL
—Caschwa

(a sharp departure from the popular motto attributed to our postal services)

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night, nor abundant laws, nor abundant warning signs, nor abundant cameras, nor abundant guns, nor abundant prisons, stays the porch thieves and car thieves and purse snatchers and sexual predators and child abusers from their daily rounds.

BREAKING NEWS
—Caschwa

Before Bob Mueller’s report became a bone of contention,
Bill Barr betrayed his bias about the basis of obstruction,
and is now bypassing best practices of handing the ball to
Congress to bear, by barnstorming our beleaguered bourgeois
with a bristling bouillon of brazen bald-face buffoonery.

RECORD FOR DREAM (Blitz Poem)
—Caschwa

broke the window
broke the record
record the music
record the score
score the winning run
score the basket
basket of pencils
basket of bread
bread of life
bread crust
crust of the Earth
crust scraps
scraps for food
scraps and howls
howls at the moon
howls all night
night gown
night light
light me up
light fantastic
fantastic journey
fantastic story
story book
story time
time immemorial
time of one’s life
life jacket
life savings
savings account
savings and loan
loan me a dollar
loan shark
shark tank
shark tooth
tooth decay
tooth pick
pick me up
pick a fight
fight the wind
fight crime
crime of the century
crime doesn’t pay
pay booth
pay day
day of reckoning
day dream
dream job
dream good
good…
job… 

THE GIRL OF MY DREAMS
—Joseph Nolan

How can I find
The girl of my dreams,
Who speaks to me
In silent words, soft-spoken,
Precious as they are,
Behind my eyelids closed,
As I near to waking?

How she cares for me!
Caressing me
With messages
From a sweet eternity,
Still awaiting.

Ah! The girl of my dreams!
Though I wonder if I’ll find her
In this world, below,
At least I know
She’s out there, somewhere,
Since she visits me. 

THE NEPHILIM
—Joseph Nolan

...and fallen angels
Who had descended to Earth
Mated with sexy Earth-babes
And gave rise
To the Nephilim
As their offspring.

Who can blame them?

It gets pretty boring
Floating around
In the sky
With nothing much to do.
You need some carnal action
To lively things up.

And besides,
Earth-babes know how
To suckle and raise their young.
So, you can go back
To floating around in the sky
When you are done
And watch what those
Little Nephies get up to
As they grow into giants. 

A BABY’S PURE JOY OF LIVING
—Joseph Nolan

A baby lives
For life, itself,
For pure joy,
For the beautiful tapestry
Of nipple
Woven to skin,
Silky, smooth and warm,
Oozing mother’s milk,
Into its eager mouth,
Over and over again,
Until its teeth come in. 

DEVASTATION
—Joseph Nolan

Devastation
Dredges ditches
Into dreams.

Devastation!
No-one sees it coming.
We all love our better health,
But come, it does, indeed,
In one way or another;
Slow or fast, we bleed,
Bloody, unto death.

 Like a bat out of water...

WHAT TO LIVE FOR?

—Joseph Nolan

There must be a way
To sort all this out
When things just evaporate
Like morning dew
In dawn’s fresh sunlight?

Should I live just for me,
Or just for you,
Or just for us
Or keep sending Blacks
To the back of the bus?

For when the tables are turned,
The first may be last and
The last may be first
And we
May be
—Measured—
—Whether—
We gave
Drink to thirst. 

FOUR POEMS FROM DUGOUT ANTHOLOGY
—Michael Ceraolo, South Euclid, Ohio

          Stephen C. Clark

I preferred to stay in the background,
but know this:  without my contribution
there wouldn't have been a baseball museum
And without the museum
there wouldn't have been a Hall of Fame
We acted in good faith,
and finding out later the Doubleday story was nonsense
doesn't diminish what we did (and still do:
a family member is still on the Hall's Board)

* * *

          Alexander Cleland

Mr. Clark provided the seed money,
and I did a great deal of the work,
first with the Cooperstown people
and later with baseball officials,
especially Mr. Frick
The only Hall of Fame at the time
was the Hall of Fame for Great Americans,
so no one knew if our idea would work
But we worked hard to make it a success,
and many other sports and activities
took note and followed suit

* * *

           Abner Doubleday

As a commanding officer 
I requisitioned bats and balls for recreation
to keep up the men's morale
I didn't like outdoor sports; such requisitions
were my only connection to baseball
It's probably tough at this late date
to change many people's minds,
and so even though it's not how
I wanted to be remembered,
better to have been remembered wrongly
than never to have been remembered at all

* * *

          Walter Littell

I told Mr. Clark about the ball,
and he bought it on the cheap
It had belonged to Abner Graves,
so I made up the story
calling it the Doubleday baseball
in order to boost the town
and its claim as the birthplace of baseball
The power of the press in action

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

LETTING GO
—Joseph Nolan

We should just let things settle
Down to the bottom
Into dissipation and ferment—
Things that ooze between toes
When you walk in a river,
Things you hope no-one remembers
Or knows,
Little things,
Better released,
Whose niggling
Will never cease
Until you let go.

______________________

Thanks to all our contributors today, putting together a welcome anthology of poetry and pictures to start our week! About the bell-ringing poems, Taylor Graham writes, “Katy Brown and I have sent poems we wrote for the bell-ringing at Wakamatsu [in Placerville] this past week: U.S. Japan Sister Cities Bell Ringing, commemorating 75 years of peace since Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Bells were being rung simultaneously in many places around the planet (see sistercities.org/2020/07/15/u-s-japan-sister-cities-bell-ringing-75-years-of-peace-since-hiroshima-nagasaki/).” Thanks to Taylor and Katy for their fine poems, and don’t forget their on-going outdoor poetry workshops at Wakamatsu Farm in Placerville. The next one will be held Sunday, Aug. 30. Contact Julie@ARConservancy.org to sign up or call 530-621-1224. Social distancing & masks encouraged. Info: www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry (scroll down).

Sue Daly sent a poem of Pat Schneider’s, who passed away August 10. (Thank you, Sue!) Pat lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was the Founder/Director of Amherst Writers & Artists and editor of Amherst Writers & Artists Press, which has published forty-two books of poetry and the national literary journal, Peregrine. She was also adjunct faculty at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and has led creative writing workshops across the country. We are honored to publish one of her poems! For more about Pat Schneider’s life and work, see patschneider.com/pat/.

Michael Ceraolo continues to work on his Dugout Anthology, celebrating baseball even in these troubled times. Caschwa (Carl Schwartz) sent a tumbling Blitz poem: see www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry/poetic-form-the-blitz-poem OR www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/blitzpoem.html/. And Joseph Nolan has sent us many glorious photos to go with today’s poems, including his own. It’s great to see such industrious writing from all these contributors!

Here in our area, Sac. Poetry Center uses Zoom for weekly readings and workshops. For more info, go to www.sacramentopoetrycenter.com/. Area online poetry events  this week include:

•••Mon. 7:15pm: SPC Monday Night Socially Distant Verse online. Zoom: us02web.zoom.us/j/7638733462?pwd=YVltWXFFa2Rid2pZQ3pWaVordmZ5UT09;  meeting ID: 763 873 3462 ("P O E T R E E I N C”); password: spcsdv2020

•••SPC Tuesday night workshop hosted by Danyen Powell. Bring a poem for critique. Contact mostoycoff@gmail.com for availability and Zoom info.

•••Wed., 6pm: MarieWriters workshop (prompts): zoom.us/j/671443996/.

•••Fri., 4pm: Writing from the Inside Out weekly workshop led by Nick LeForce. Reg. in advance at: zoom.us/meeting/register/upwkde-opjkpnyQECAVBKolY4hKCdl61uA/. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. (If you have registered before, use the same link.)

* * *

Also this week:

•••Fri., 7:30pm: Video poetry reading on Facebook by Davis Poet Laureate James Lee Jobe at james-lee-jobe.blogspot.com/ or youtube.com/jamesleejobe/.

For more about El Dorado County poetry events, check Western Slope El Dorado poetry on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ElDoradoCountyPoetry/.

____________________

—Medusa
 

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