Rust.
Such is metal,
Scourged by lust!
Slowly, it turns red,
Letting its slow tears
Drip down the steel
Over which it’s bled!
Does any of this
Change your head?
It’s better to lust
Than live slow and die,
Waiting for some apple
To land on your eye,
And summon a knowing
Of gravity,
You had not known, before,
Appreciating
The rarity
Of love!
FADING AWAY
—Joseph Nolan
As a man
Fades slow to ghost,
Releasing things
He’d loved the most,
Little by little,
Then all at once,
Little pipes
Fill up with lime,
Reducing flow,
Marking time,
We hear a faucet squeaking
As it opens and closes.
SUDDENLY, TOO MUCH!
—Joseph Nolan
A kiss,
Embellishes
Softened, hybrid
Star-fire
Into the air,
Before our eyes,
As we hug and
Snuggle,
Warmly into the sky,
As clouds
Floating
Above our bed,
Plain white,
Must turn red
Above our bed,
White clouds must rain!
Pleasure, turning to pain,
Enough is enough
Suddenly, too much!
THE LIGHTHOUSE MAN
—Joseph Nolan
Exactly which anomaly
Of aberrant reality
Would you like to
Hang around your neck,
As an albatross,
To warn those, all,
Who’ve lost their way,
Encouraging, and
To them say,
“The way is in between!
Every talking serpent,
Every singing siren.
Bind yourself to a mast!
The ways of lost directions
Come suddenly, without warning,
As into reefs you crash!”
AIN’T WHAT IT SAYS
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
this
is not
poetry
formidable
inexplicable
versification of
hyperbolic syllables
adverse verses vs. any
counter intelligence data pool
climate changes faster than diapers due
what have you done with my reliable words?
back, backwards, backhand, backfire backtalk, back to back
AMAZING FEATS
—Caschwa
The Seven Wonders of
the Ancient World gave
us moderns a slap on
the face, a challenge
we had to come up with
something even more
spectacular than moving
and assembling gargantuan
building blocks for the
Pharaoh’s tomb, and we did!
taller than the pyramids, and
casting shadows of doubt
that reach to other worlds
we found a way to defy gravity
with utter, plain and simple,
downright textbook stupidity
boulders, not big enough
we managed to rearrange
entire continents of humanity
deploying enemies of sanity
two world wars! TV personalities
awarded high office, take that,
you itsy bitsy pyramid toys
we beat you fair and square
METAMORPHOSIS
—Caschwa
used to play down by the creek
with the other neighborhood kids
and watch amazing Nature convert
squirmy little tadpoles into significant
populations of tiny frogs
some of the kids wanted to do more
than just watch, and they would
laughingly take the baby frogs and
crudely smash them against the rocks
maybe somewhere in the world of
old normal, there would have been
the expectation that the outcome of
such behavior would be for one to
realize it was wrong to be so hurtful,
and summon up all the self-discipline
one has to ensure this behavior
doesn’t continue
but when a human would speak up
for these helpless, little creatures, it
would only sharpen the spirit of those
kids who killed them, and they would
double down to create a new normal
consisting of larger and larger tides
of total discontent
never once in those innocent childhood
years did I ever foresee that one of
those frog-smashing little kids
would occupy the highest
office in the nation, and
rally millions of other
little kids to make
such discontent
the centerpiece
of their bucket
list
BALLED MOUNTAIN
—Caschwa
revel in the
reverie of
unravelling the
radiance of
rafting down the
river
excel with
exuberance
extolling the
existential
exponential
excitement
flounder over
flotsam
flouncing the
flotilla in
flocculent
fluids
guess which
guests will be
gathering in
groups to
gossip
gloriously
harness
hyenas
handwriting to
harass the
handsome
Harlequin
inoculate every
inconsiderate
incoming
intern
in case they
inflate
Today’s LittleNip:
SLIPPERY IS MEMORY
—Joseph Nolan
Slippery, is memory,
That sometimes praises,
Sometimes blames,
Does not know its aims
Or its directions.
It wishes, in ambivalence,
Somehow, to prevail,
In spite of many instances
How, in the past, it failed
And still
Bears rage
For each of its defeats,
Each instance of mistreatment.
Oh! the pain of memory
Is sharper than a nail!
___________________
Medusa’s thanks today to Joseph Nolan and Carl Schwartz for brisk poetry and for Joseph’s brisk Web photos! It is, indeed, “better to lust than to live slow and die.” I’m all in favor of lust, of course…
Tonight (Mon. 8/16), 7:30-9pm: Sac. Poetry Center presents Robbi and Richard Nester on Zoom at us04web.zoom.us/j/7638733462/. Password: r3trnofsdv/. Facebook info: www.facebook.com/events/3060882810867318/?ref=newsfeed/.
Also tonight, 6:15pm: Sange Anfang’s Rivertown Poets Amuse-ing Mondays Reading Series features William O’Daly and James Cagney on Zoom at zoom.us/j/6508887879/. Sign up in advance for the open mic at aqus.com/online (3 min. per reader).
And next Sat. (8/21), 7:30pm (music), 8pm (poetry): The Bookery presents an Evening of Local Poetry and Singer Song Writers, hosted by The Wine Smith, 345 Main St., Placerville. Poets include Lara Gularte and H Jacob Sandigo; poetry open mic to follow. Info—call The Bookery at 530-626-6454.
___________________
—Medusa
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