Mercy, Mercy

 

—Watercolor by Laurie Edelman

—Poetry by Nolcha Fox, Ian Copestick, 

Stephen Kingsnorth, Sayani Mukherjee, 

Joe Nolan, Shiva Neupane, and

Caschwa (Carl Swartz)

—Original Watercolors by Laurie Edelman

—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Joe Nolan

 

 

 Empty bottle

stuck in sand,
thrown to shore
by wind and waves,
holds the sun
and lover’s dreams,
a glassy ghost
of summer past.

—Nolcha Fox, Buffalo, WY

 

 

 

 —Watercolor by Laurie Edelman, Westchester, CA

 

 

FOOD FIGHT
—Nolcha Fox

Tomato soup and rain heat
and bubble in my stomach,
two married memories
I cannot divorce.

I cannot divorce diets.
Every morsel is misery,
expanding my body
beyond mirror’s edge.

Beyond mirror’s edge I eat
to live, to remember.
If I don’t remember what I ate,
I will live to eat.

I will live to eat and bake.
I bake myself into this place
to pretend I can’t leave.
If I give up baking, where will I go?

 

 

 

 

 

SOBRIETY SUITS ME
—Ian Copestick, Stoke-on-Trent, England

I sit here
Sober on
A Saturday
Night
Surrounded
By my pets.

Up until last
Year, I would
Have been
Slaughtered
Every night,
But especially
On a Saturday.

I really miss
My Mrs, and
My Dad, And
The friends
Who've died in
The in the last
Couple of years.

Tommy Cherry
Felt like my
Musical mentor.
Although we never
Met, I considered
Him a true friend.

He was.

But, now I have
To say that I
Feel quite happy,
More than I have
Done for a long
Time.

Surprisingly,
Sobriety
Suits me.

 

 

 

 

MERCY
—Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth, Wrexham, Wales

I hear it, newsflash, of a dash,
so S.O.S., in coded morse,
saving our souls, though also sole—
is honour there in mercy shown?
Its quality not strained, I hear,
but undermined—is justice seen—
with punishment rarely aligned—
but sometimes fitted by Old Bill?
Is it meeting the other’s eyes,
there but for grace of God I go;
restorative, that justice grown,
victim forgiving, perp so changed?
Is it pity for one who wrongs,
knowing all fall, that target short;
maybe as ‘thank you’ from Mon Dieu—
for mercy shown, is merci given?
Could it be Base, Tranquillity,
or sci-fi type, far-side-of-moon?
The questions flow, for we don’t know,
as how to live with mercy found.
Rarely can it be owned, this craft;
we need musician, frame and dance,
the aural, visual, move expressed,
for insight, angels fear defend.
How strange a feast when just deserts
are taken from the menu served. 

 

 

 

 

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

Burning up and down
Like the highest peak can't be touched down
My dolce et petition
My sweetest devotion
Cracked open
I made my religion breakthrough
Through cracks and bones
Amongst midnights and alleyed bones
Little fragile heart at my doorstep
Visiting my underworld stairway
My heavenly coldness
Crowns in my living room way
The porched open house
Little graffiti artistic pursuit
Of my hotspot on the opened door
Aside from the bottom line
Made my phone book worthy
Like living waters
The transparent ghost
My front porch open window
Burning lilies hanging open
My superbloom my resilient religion. 

 

 

 

 

 

ANCIENT TIME, MODERN VISION
—Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA
 
The power to create,
The power to destroy,
The power to use,
The power to employ,
To create the pyramids
Above the sands
That once were wet—
The Great Sahara Forest,
The Nile,
Running east to west,
The center
Of a jungle
That ran abreast
Both sides
Of a river
Across the north of Africa,
Broad and wide,
Before the dawn
Of modern times,
Twelve-thousand years ago.

Still, we did not know
Until we looked below
From far above—
Eyes put into heaven,
Looking down
Could see below
The sandy ground—
An ancient river-bed
Across the Great Sahara.

Climate changes,
This we know,
Looking down,
We see below,
The loss of a flowing river
Gave birth
To a giant desert.

 

 

 

 

 

A CAT AND HIS PEARLS
—Joe Nolan

A cat
Licked a string of pearls
Until they
Were worn down,
Then turned into a clam.

From the outside,
None could tell
The change that
Was within him.

All the perfect
Round things
Then within him,
He smiled a perfect smile,
And knew, “I AM!” 

 

 

 

 

 

DRY FIELD
—Joe Nolan

Fallow
Lies a field
Along a river
That barely runs
A trickle
In the summer.

Its farmer
Took a job
In town
Working as
A plumber
After shutting
His farm down.

 

 

 

 

WAKE UP! AMERICA
—Shiva Neupane, Melbourne, Australia

The strategic patience is over
When Chinese balloons hover
Above your roofs
And they make you go Oops!

Wake up! America
Do not let others be your replica.
Your strategic assets may be stolen 
And you may be fallen.

Is this the retaliatory agony ensued from Hainan Island?
To poke the skies above America’s mainland?
The geopolitical-Lakshmana Rekha causes consternation
at South China Sea because it is a bone of contention.

Wake up! America
Decipher the pluralistic truth of new world order.
You’ve walked on the moon,
And you will be walking on otherworldly places soon.

You’re the greatest nation,
filled with the scientists of great notion.
The American dream will again blossom
And may spread the fragrance of fortune.

 

 

 

 
 

 

ALL ABOARD!
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

revolution
now independent of one brutal king
we made changes to honor ideals
without benefit of a step-by-step
program to get used to just how that feels

abolition
the very Greeks that gave us democracy
were themselves the owners of slaves
they just needed a forum to gather and talk
about local concerns in their enclave

reconstruction and prohibition
both noisy, stinky locomotives
following the track ahead
that often as not took us away
to some other place instead

we looked at whole institutions
where we wanted to get a new start
so we criminalized their followers
while taking the damn things apart

 

 

 

 

 

NO MERCY
—Caschwa

weather reports show
Russia suffering severe
sub-freezing temperatures
which may help explain why
Mr. Putin is so warm on the
idea of being in Europe
rather than in Asia

can’t wait for the news that
he has hijacked a Euthanasia
Airlines jetliner….

 

 

 

 

MY CALENDAR
—Caschwa

confirmed:  disappointment scheduled for November

either my candidate wins by a vastly one-sided margin
or the nation is catapulted into another Civil War

We, the adult white males of the Confederate States,
in order to form a more perfect autocracy, abolish
justice we don’t approve of, ensure domestics stay
slaves, provide for self-gratification, promote our genital
Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and it stops there, do ordain and establish this Declaration
of War against the United States of America

 

 

 

 

LAWS WITH NO MERCY
—Caschwa

just completed a Smart Driver
online course to be eligible for
a discount on my auto insurance

part of the Smart Driver presentation
included what you do in the case of
a collision, and part of that discussed
where to properly place flares or
reflector triangles

clicked on the map to see what the
State of California had to say about
this, and they had a stupid rule that
you had to place the flares or triangles
200 to 300 feet behind your car

remember, this is a scenario where
you’ve just been in a collision and
maybe, just maybe you didn’t get there
with all the tools and experience of
a major league baseball groundskeeper,
or those experts who determine the
spacing of airport runways and tarmacs,
 
and several different body parts report
to you that they hurt and you better do
something about it, but hot damn!, the
State of California wants you to figure
out how to measure the distance of
200 to 300 feet for proper placement
of your safety flares

took a personal inventory of my measuring
devices and came up with a few 12” rulers,
a couple yardsticks, and a tape measure
that extends to 25’.  That’s it.  None of them
long enough to keep me safe in California.

 

 

 

 

WE ARE ALL ARTISTS
reaching for stars one
might only imagine

(after reading the poetry of
Stephen Kingsnorth, Medusa’s
Kitchen, February 2, 2023)

—Caschwa

can’t sculpt worth a damn
but if I see a nude at the beach
laying still in the sunlight
the sculptor has shared the
gift of his sources with me

the same paint brush that
another may use to recreate
some awesome visual image,
when put in my hands, is now
the tool of a toddler; though my
mind is capable of seeing and
admiring that awesome visual
image

there are people who are born
to execute graceful dance steps
without years of cumbersome
lessons, all they need to learn
is to not get in the way of that
natural talent; I, too, will not get
in the way, gracefully receding
to be a flower on the wall, content
that dancers need my audience
to be complete

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Mercy

is sunshine after a blizzard,
a promise of spring.

—Nolcha Fox

__________________

Good morning to readers everywhere, poets and otherwise, from our contributors, some of which are having mercy on us (our Seed of the Week: Mercy). Be sure to check each Tuesday for the latest Seed of the Week. Today we have SnakePals who are visiting not only from Stateside, but from Wales, England, Australia, and India! Wow!

Congratulations to Nancy Gonzalez St. Clair on the occasion of being named the inaugural Poet Laureate of Lodi, CA! Nancy hosts a monthly poetry series called Mosaic of Voices, which is held on the second Saturday of the month in the Lodi Public Library, 2pm.

NorCal poetry events kick off this week with Anthony Xavier Jackson and Geoffrey Neill at Sac. Poetry Center tonight, 7:30pm. Poetry Unplugged takes place at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento on Thursday, then Angela Drew is featured in A Night of Spoken Word Poetry/Open Mic at Modesto Junior College Library on Friday, 7pm. Rest up this week, because Saturday will be a lollapalooza of poetry, starting with Sacramento Poetry Alliance presenting Rooja Mohassessy and Tamer Mostafa at 4pm; Sac. Poetry Center’s book release of Chimera by Brad Buchanan at 6pm; then T-Mo Entertainment’s Love Show at 7pm. All of that on Saturday!

On Sunday, The Poets Club of Lincoln will feature Sacramento Poet Laureate Emeritus Jeff Knorr plus open mic, 3pm. 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.

___________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

—Public Domain Cartoon Courtesy of Joe Nolan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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