—Poetry by Tom Goff, Joe Nolan,
Michelle Kunert, Caschwa (Carl Schwartz)
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA
IN CAHOOTS
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA
You Capitol police
Who bravely stood, thanks be.
Some few of you in cahoots
With the absurd but dangerous Proud Boys,
Not unwillingly enabling the milling
Wall-scaling throng, the boisterous crowd noise
Turning battering ram,
Bashing ahead with fire extinguisher killing,
You who cooperated with the berserker-
Fur-clad bare-chested Viking,
With the pipe-bombing-bearing, officer-striking
Mob, a lasting disgrace.
Whether you played the misleader or the shirker,
The emblem of the whites-only racist face,
The Stars and Bars, flaps in your blood
And in the blood that is your hands’ defiler,
Some of that blood still staining President Taylor.
The insurgency was mostly akin to flood,
Thank god, not fire,
What with all that Molotov-bottled-up ire.
The brave among you police fought; some
capitulated,
Letting the screamers or oddly touristy trespassers
Stay gawking or vent their obscene release.
Rome’s Capitoline geese
Who squawked in time to save their Capitol
Were of more use. What could be crasser?
You who were in cahoots:
Peru’s indigenous desperate fighters,
Clamoring their defiant Inca hoots
While battling vicious conquistadors, Pizarros,
Were of much tougher moral fiber
Than you who posed for selfies with
the Bizarros.
—Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA
You Capitol police
Who bravely stood, thanks be.
Some few of you in cahoots
With the absurd but dangerous Proud Boys,
Not unwillingly enabling the milling
Wall-scaling throng, the boisterous crowd noise
Turning battering ram,
Bashing ahead with fire extinguisher killing,
You who cooperated with the berserker-
Fur-clad bare-chested Viking,
With the pipe-bombing-bearing, officer-striking
Mob, a lasting disgrace.
Whether you played the misleader or the shirker,
The emblem of the whites-only racist face,
The Stars and Bars, flaps in your blood
And in the blood that is your hands’ defiler,
Some of that blood still staining President Taylor.
The insurgency was mostly akin to flood,
Thank god, not fire,
What with all that Molotov-bottled-up ire.
The brave among you police fought; some
capitulated,
Letting the screamers or oddly touristy trespassers
Stay gawking or vent their obscene release.
Rome’s Capitoline geese
Who squawked in time to save their Capitol
Were of more use. What could be crasser?
You who were in cahoots:
Peru’s indigenous desperate fighters,
Clamoring their defiant Inca hoots
While battling vicious conquistadors, Pizarros,
Were of much tougher moral fiber
Than you who posed for selfies with
the Bizarros.
CAPITOL OFFENSE
—Tom Goff
The whitest building, the whites-only dome,
Rising above D.C. like wavetop foam,
The noblest product known of all our piles,
Exists by unfree labor that defiles.
Reclaimed by Lincoln for a Union free
(For some this freedom remains a mystery),
Re-reclaimed by a Presidential huckster,
Retains its bigoted, spit-shined, lackluster,
Sepulchral sanctity that lives by bribes,
Pork-barrel vittles argued for by tribes
Of lobbyists, tacked onto bills by riders,
Negating all good intent like true backsliders.
In such an atmosphere, will the sprayed mace
In rioters’ eyes fume worse than the disgrace?
The Senate majority leader cares for none
Of the vandals dressed like Viking or
like Hun
Or Goth whose black attire and eyeblack, flags
Drape—not ours but Police-Lives-Matter rags,
Good-ol’-boys’ Stars and Bars that scent
their place
In this still largely segregated space.
Outnumbered, still the Capitol Police
Fought a brave losing battle where Release
Of crassest Prejudice, privileged Arrogance,
Made marble walls and halls a blood-floored
manse
Where zip-ties would take hostage the lawmakers
And execution-style deaths be thirst-slakers,
Expressed most bloodlust in the rioters’ picnic
That littered the scene and killed good Brian Sicknick.
Some of the police who fought you sympathized
With whatever grievances you had devised,
Yet fought you till mauled with flagstaffs and sticks
And riot shields, withstood such as who sicks
Vicious pit bulls in “most admired disorder”
Till total breakdown of the restraining border.
We trust them as we do hostile witnesses
Sworn to tell truth that counters their own interests;
Likely their hearts felt what the marauders felt,
Yet they sank down defending. Cut and welt
And blow to the head they took, defending
principle
And practice Time at best finds half-defensible,
The standing contradictions whose old home
Embraces all beneath the White Man’s Dome.
WRITING BY MOONLIGHT
—Joseph Nolan
Because the moon
Is not that bright,
I write
In the light
Of day.
Otherwise,
I could not read
What it was
I had to say
Until the
Following day,
When I could
Not remember
What it was
I’d really meant,
Anyway,
Or from which muse
The message was sent.
—Joseph Nolan
Because the moon
Is not that bright,
I write
In the light
Of day.
Otherwise,
I could not read
What it was
I had to say
Until the
Following day,
When I could
Not remember
What it was
I’d really meant,
Anyway,
Or from which muse
The message was sent.
JAZZ SAX
—Joseph Nolan
He did it straight,
He did it hard,
Like it came
From a place
Of devotion,
Something
You’d never discard,
In a million
Years of playing,
Like you can’t crawl
From your skin,
Or find any
Replacement
For the beauty
You need to win,
Over and over again,
When you play those high notes
Like a hawk
That floats in the sky.
You reach for that
And never question why
You can get there.
—Joseph Nolan
He did it straight,
He did it hard,
Like it came
From a place
Of devotion,
Something
You’d never discard,
In a million
Years of playing,
Like you can’t crawl
From your skin,
Or find any
Replacement
For the beauty
You need to win,
Over and over again,
When you play those high notes
Like a hawk
That floats in the sky.
You reach for that
And never question why
You can get there.
THE INNER-MEANING OF TOUCH
—Joseph Nolan
Unfortunately!
You have no appreciation,
No understanding,
Of the inner-meaning of touch.
In a lifestyle
In which
We’re all hurried,
To be fussy
About the means
By which we might
Lurch into familiarity,
Requires much too much!
And thus,
We drift apart,
Into disparate
Software,
Regretfully, perhaps,
Since, we find,
We have lapsed
And we are
Not together,
Anymore.
—Joseph Nolan
Unfortunately!
You have no appreciation,
No understanding,
Of the inner-meaning of touch.
In a lifestyle
In which
We’re all hurried,
To be fussy
About the means
By which we might
Lurch into familiarity,
Requires much too much!
And thus,
We drift apart,
Into disparate
Software,
Regretfully, perhaps,
Since, we find,
We have lapsed
And we are
Not together,
Anymore.
TOLERANCE
—Joseph Nolan
We shall surely go on
Making choices,
Some better,
Some worse.
This is unavoidable.
We don’t need a showdown
With judgments of morality.
It is better for us to continue
In whatever it is we have chosen
Than to burn each other at the stake.
It is not for friends to get preachy
With each other
Whenever we get some whiff of impropriety
Or inappropriateness;
That is for priests.
And, among priests,
Most care not to daily do battle
With human frailty and weakness,
Since most, in their leanings,
Simply seek a dimmer light,
A paler reflection of the brilliance
Of the harsh glare of Divinity.
If it were up to me,
daily newspaper comic strips which deal with the coronavirus pandemic ought to be given awards for their brave statements—
For a while, Scott Adams’ characters in “Dilbert” in 2020 were drawn wearing masks and discussing how coronavirus was affecting their jobs as well as their overall lives
Only a few other minor strips, such as “Sally Forth” and “Baldo”, dared to have their characters wear masks and mention their frustrations with the covid pandemic
Then “Dilbert” just suddenly quit acknowledging the panademic, as if the artist was told the humor was getting "too dark” for a comic strip
Comic artists such as Scott Adams should not have caved into their critics who apparently want “irrelevant” strips not dealing with the real situation of life under a pandemic
Making humor during this pandemic also should not be considered a taboo, morbid subject, but a possible emotional essential
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA
daily newspaper comic strips which deal with the coronavirus pandemic ought to be given awards for their brave statements—
For a while, Scott Adams’ characters in “Dilbert” in 2020 were drawn wearing masks and discussing how coronavirus was affecting their jobs as well as their overall lives
Only a few other minor strips, such as “Sally Forth” and “Baldo”, dared to have their characters wear masks and mention their frustrations with the covid pandemic
Then “Dilbert” just suddenly quit acknowledging the panademic, as if the artist was told the humor was getting "too dark” for a comic strip
Comic artists such as Scott Adams should not have caved into their critics who apparently want “irrelevant” strips not dealing with the real situation of life under a pandemic
Making humor during this pandemic also should not be considered a taboo, morbid subject, but a possible emotional essential
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA
THREE POINT TWO MILLION
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
it was TV news talking about living
people, comparing those who had gotten
the life-saving vaccine to those who were
still waiting, as if on some rainy forest
road at midnight, while a search was
called off for darkness
but somewhere, all their three million,
two hundred thousand, warm, beating
hearts evaporated into cold, Wall Street
greenbacks, 3.2 million pieces of paper
rolling off gargantuan machines, each
one having the full faith and credit of a
government that shamelessly lies about
numbers
it could be one entire city or even one
entire state that had those 3.2 million
living people, “forgeddaboudit!” they
don’t count, not listed on the Big Board,
not a Citizens United voice in Congress
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
it was TV news talking about living
people, comparing those who had gotten
the life-saving vaccine to those who were
still waiting, as if on some rainy forest
road at midnight, while a search was
called off for darkness
but somewhere, all their three million,
two hundred thousand, warm, beating
hearts evaporated into cold, Wall Street
greenbacks, 3.2 million pieces of paper
rolling off gargantuan machines, each
one having the full faith and credit of a
government that shamelessly lies about
numbers
it could be one entire city or even one
entire state that had those 3.2 million
living people, “forgeddaboudit!” they
don’t count, not listed on the Big Board,
not a Citizens United voice in Congress
BAR MITZVAH
—Caschwa
today you are a man*
all you have to do is
read through this Hebrew
well enough to get us
through the service,
and you the man!
*you still can’t vote,
or marry, or smoke,
or drink, or drive, or
enter a contract, or
rent your own place,
or join the military, or
have a choice about
schooling, or contradict
your parents
—Caschwa
today you are a man*
all you have to do is
read through this Hebrew
well enough to get us
through the service,
and you the man!
*you still can’t vote,
or marry, or smoke,
or drink, or drive, or
enter a contract, or
rent your own place,
or join the military, or
have a choice about
schooling, or contradict
your parents
AFTER DEATH EXPERIENCE
—Caschwa
a popular late-night comedy show host
asked 3 interview guests to try to tell
him what they think happens to them
after they die
their responses were on the order of
becoming an angel, not really sure,
and visiting with friends
well I am not going to overrule those
wonderful guests, but feel the need to
expand the list of responses to include
this one:
after we die, we become like the federal
government under #45—eternally dead
to the world in both appearance and
function, showing no visible signs of
being connected to any living thing
MY BIG EXCUSE
—Caschwa
Disclaimer: No birds were
harmed in the penning of
this poem
today is the day following
my birthday, so my quill
knows no ill because
I was born yesterday
all those glaring flaws and
agonizing imperfections of
our governmental body are
not my baggage because
I was born yesterday
generations of hate and
horrendous deeds of high
crimes and misdemeanors
don’t point to me because
I was born yesterday
the Second Amendment,
along with endless discussions,
firearms, repercussions, assaults
on USA, no mea culpa because
I was born yesterday
unpaid debts, negative balances,
bad decisions and choices, a Who’s
Who of ugly tattoos, organized crime,
short one dime, I did no crime because
I was born yesterday
—Caschwa
Disclaimer: No birds were
harmed in the penning of
this poem
today is the day following
my birthday, so my quill
knows no ill because
I was born yesterday
all those glaring flaws and
agonizing imperfections of
our governmental body are
not my baggage because
I was born yesterday
generations of hate and
horrendous deeds of high
crimes and misdemeanors
don’t point to me because
I was born yesterday
the Second Amendment,
along with endless discussions,
firearms, repercussions, assaults
on USA, no mea culpa because
I was born yesterday
unpaid debts, negative balances,
bad decisions and choices, a Who’s
Who of ugly tattoos, organized crime,
short one dime, I did no crime because
I was born yesterday
It’s time to start hanging together!
HAPPY NEW EAR
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
The opportunity is
drawing close
where the needs of
regular people
will finally be heard
as they were when
this nation revolted
to oust a tyrant king
pen to parchment
torches held high
signals glow in the air
blood writing history
no we won’t kneel
get off your high horse
not here, brother
that is not who we are
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
BEAUTY TOWARDS HUMILITY
—Joseph Nolan
Beauty is a blazing rung
On a ladder to
Unabashed humility.
____________________
Our thanks to today’s contributors for their messages from the muse, as we say good-bye to President #45, Donald Trump, and as we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK Day will be celebrated today with a virtual event from 5pm-7:45pm at mailchi.mp/88ec47ba03eb/mlk-day-event with speakers, art and poetry. If interested in sending pictures of your art, please contact crnworkgroup@gmail.com/. Facebook info: www.facebook.com/events/2792272631039428. And may we all be in a much better position by this time next year when his next birthday rolls around.
This Thursday from 8-9pm, Poetry Night in Davis presents An Evening with Dana Gioia online at ucdavisdss.zoom.us/. Facebook info: www.facebook.com/events/1373317273014249/?acontext={"source"%3A"29"%2C"ref_notif_type"%3A"event_aggregate"%2C"action_history"%3A"null"}¬if_id=1610981182585341¬if_t=event_aggregate&ref=notif
_________________
—Medusa
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.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
