What a Life!

 

New Best Friends

—Poetry by Joe Nolan, Sayani Mukherjee,

Nolcha Fox, Stephen Kingsnorth, 

and Gabriel Bates

—Public Domain Photos Courtesy

of Joe Nolan

 

 

 

A DESERT WITH MANY RIVERS
—Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

Parched fields,
Open-mouthed,
Panting to the sky,
Pray for rain—
For Winter’s healing water
To ease their drought-felt pain.

Farmers, in church on Sundays,
Pray to a merciful God,
“What we need is
A sky-borne river
To make this drought go away.”

The sky, the land—
A desert with many rivers,
Our valley
Somehow finds its way
From dry months
To winter,
Each year,
From worry, to fear, to relief.
Salvation is rich-flowing rivers,
Enough to green the dry. 

 

 

 

 Nobody is an Island

 

ENGAGED IN INFORMATION STREAMS
—Joe Nolan

The sun, the moon, the stars,
All have smart-phones, now.

Each,
Engaged
In information streams,
Outside common perception.

Though always far away,
Now, somehow,
Farther still.

When startled,
They wake,
Bearing down
On your insolent meaning.

Distraction,
Though you may be,
Begging time’s
Kind indulgence,
Only for a moment,
Then back to where they were. 

 

 

 

 

STAINED-GLASS
—Joe Nolan

Little light
Filters through
Glass cast
In dark hue.

Gentle is
Our waking,
Under colors
Green and blue.

We hope
Our daily life
Is as sweet
As our night.

When we pray,
It’s for more
Of what
We’ve had
Before.

Light made gentle
By vibrant stains—
-Acts of kindness-
Gratitude remains.

 

 

 

 

VISION
—Sayani Mukherjee,
Chandannagar, W. Bengal, India

Landscape holy a budding fragrance
Of mist-dripped silky windfall
Pebble-eyed moisty soil air
Salty seafarer of opal-eyed vision
Mahogany pine, fig tree buried
Of water's navy blue emerging moon
Catalytic giant leap for falsehood
Simplify simplicity of city scared mumbling
La dame a pointed arc
Briskly walking tapered around the globe
Searchlight a one-eyed vision
All vanities perish in the chalkboard chess
Game
Ego logos planning rat-raced slumped edge
Still the one-eyed vision
Is evanescent, a forever presence
In the gazebo of my chalksquare life
Of two-fold misty lake city high. 

 

 

 

 


U-TURN
—Sayani Mukherjee

Paper dolls made of rag-patched soul mate
Marigolds and galaxy bent skin
Love falls off the top-notch garden
Kaleidoscopic cab driver along the city length
Silenced grain headed home with
A gardenia opulence
Rubies rubberneck marigolds
Along my path to the sun-smoothed scarlet
Lately melodic death and metal brand
Landed in a dream-fazed lip-syncing
Towers and grained loopings
It goes and comes around
W- and u-turn
Truth and untrue understanding
Xenophobia discoursed silence
Falls fall over the metallic blue tapering
Wise mates and untrue folly hankering
My chessboard falls asleep
Zigzag venue-striken lamp-hoisted pillars
Silenced grain of ragpatched soul. 

 

 

 

 


As shadows fall

across your life
and lengthen with
the years, the
childhood giggles turn
to tears when
those you love
leave you alone.
Your body aches,
compressed by pain,
your heart skips
beats and stops.
Your eyesight and
your hearing fades.
your taste buds
dull with food.
With little more
to live for,
your door is
open, waiting for
your new best
friend, the one
who loves you

death.

—Nolcha Fox, Buffalo, WY

 

 

 

 

FOUND OUT
—Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Wales

Woke or not, our humanity
includes all genders, idioms,
so who’s the mate who partners friend,
the twin that makes the couple one?
The norm’s to allocate a dog,
saluki, peke, dachshund maybe,
all global, great Dane, Afghan hound;
the pooch that walks to heel with paws,
brings healing by its loyalty.
But given pause, my verse, best friend.

I see so few but on the screen,
my phone voice phoney, stutter style,
so only closest family
have broken bonds, Zoom brake applied.
But scanning banks of current life—
it tells me that I know no-one.
I’m not a social, mixing man,
no sport or hobby, local pub;
exotic trip, the cemetery—
I’m stay-at-home, just not found out.

Distractions from pained Parky legs
are online dance and poetry,
and neither furnish quirky marks—
mere confirmations, middle class.
Imaginations smith the words,
but, truth to tell—I’m licenced, not.
I’ve six decades’ capacity
of storage tales as spring to mind,
and recall laptop screen of course—
the flat where the whole world, the scene.

These only sources, artist’s note.
That’s why I hunger for the prompt,
some stimulus to stop the rot,
increase, through google, new research,
consumed by latest patchy facts.
The only foibles, off-beat traits,
or idiosyncratic ways,
eccentric days, are mine alone,
and what is mine, assumed the norm.
So verse, the best friend of this man. 

 

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

what a life!
—Gabriel Bates, Tiffin, OH

she gets
the expensive brand
of food,
filtered drinking water,
a warm bed
of her own,
and all the toys
she could ever want
to play with.

I swear,
even the fucking
cat
has it better
than I ever did.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip is from newcomer Gabriel Bates, a poet living in Tiffin, Ohio. His work has appeared in several publications, online and in print. Keep up with him at gabrieljbates.blogspot.com, and we’ll hear more from him in January.

And thanks to all our other poets for their work today, and to Joe Nolan for supplying us with public domain photos! Our Seed of the Week is Man’s Best Friend—dogs or other takes on the subject—so some of our submissions had to do with that. Be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week.

Sac. Poetry Center’s Monday night readings are on hiatus during the refurb of their building, but a Poetic License read-around will take place this morning in Placerville at 10:30am. Tomorrow the Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center will hold an online reading featuring Beverly Burch and Linda Prather Nelson plus open mic, 7pm. On Thursday, in addition to Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento at 8pm, Beth Sutter and Bethanie Humphreys will read at John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, plus open mic, 7pm. And on Friday, El Gigante presents an online reading: An Evening With Juan Delgado, plus open mic, 7pm. Click UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS at the top of this column for details about these and other future poetry events in the NorCal area—and keep an eye on this link and on the Kitchen for happenings that might pop up during the week.

Sacramento Poetry Center’s new anthology of work from its workshops, More Than Enough, is now available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Enough-Anthology-Sacramento/dp/0982116632/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=sacramento%20poetry%20center&qid=1670742602&s=books&sr=1-2&fbclid=IwAR2b5duL8CAOH9v32CMU68VUwHQ2_v2HCIOhU6Dem1DL2FFAk-Lh1TJyOBQ/.

And SnakePal James Lee Jobe has a new blog at https://poetryzendo.blogspot.com/. Check it out!

____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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