—Anonymous Photos
—Poetry by Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
TWO LEFT FEET
Friday night, high school football
Halftime show, marching band
Sousaphone on shoulder, shako crooked
Towering lights blur the moist air
My group of four is in formation
Three steps forward with knees high,
Two sidesteps right, count several rests
Take a deep breath, play double forte
If it goes like our last rehearsal…
Well, let’s be positive
The director doesn’t smile
Just motions like a cuckoo clock
* * * * *
Everyone in the pool!
Synchronized swimming
A drone is in place for pics
All I see is water in my eyes
* * * * *
Summoned to traffic court
Where the prosecutor provides
Demonstrable evidence
The same view God has
Or that drone at the pool
No virtual street-level diagrams presented
It is always from directly overhead, so that
Every imperfection can be carefully quantified
ALL THIS AND MORE
Response to “All This” by Ann Werhman
(Medusa's Kitchen, 1/3/18)
It is 1:50 in the afternoon
My tummy contented from lunch
My mind full of pleasing memories
Somewhere in the back of the closet
Like a lion asleep in a zoo cage
Lies my red and white pep band blazer
Ready to adorn my capable frame
It dares me to try it on again
“C’mon, think of the fun times!”
The clock now reads 2:05
And the blazer slyly reminds me
That only 15 minutes have gone by
But my arm, struggling vainly
To reach through the constricted
Sleeve betrays a disproportional
Awkward and uncomfortable
Increment in body weight
So hang it back up, maybe later…
It is 1:50 in the afternoon
My tummy contented from lunch
My mind full of pleasing memories
Somewhere in the back of the closet
Like a lion asleep in a zoo cage
Lies my red and white pep band blazer
Ready to adorn my capable frame
It dares me to try it on again
“C’mon, think of the fun times!”
The clock now reads 2:05
And the blazer slyly reminds me
That only 15 minutes have gone by
But my arm, struggling vainly
To reach through the constricted
Sleeve betrays a disproportional
Awkward and uncomfortable
Increment in body weight
So hang it back up, maybe later…
SAVANT OR BUST
It seems as if our heavenly Father
Gave some of his children
A much larger allowance
Than the rest of us got
A little trickled down my way
Fold a sheet of paper
Into five equal sections
No practice, no problem
Make it look natural
You can’t teach that, but I did it
Run faster and jump farther
(is it further or farther? I’ll ask my futher)
Than the all-knowing
Statistical averages predict
You can’t teach that, but I did it
Play an intricate piano piece flawlessly
After hearing it only once, no practice
Not me, buried in rote repetition
Rote repetition, rote repetition
You can’t teach that, no buts
DILATED DISCIPLES
Look up
Say the cue cards in my hand
Don’t stare
Warn the rafters
Look out
Of the box
The mentors are always right
Handed, and you are left
Holding that
Last straw
Radiating power
Failure
POSSIBILITIES
One is that I have a
Reduced attention span
Another, no less, is that
It was always this short
But my finely tuned
And refined ability
To effectively cope with it
Or at least to mask it
Has faded away
Like my youth
The television presents
A British mystery movie
Plot developing slowly
Dialogue at a snail’s pace
Lots of innuendos peppered
With a few French expressions
Which I never learned
That is a line I will not cross
So here I am in another room
At my friendly PC
Fingers darting this way and that
Generous back space and auto-correct
Are we having fun yet?
Quite a possibility, yes
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
SHORT QUIZ
—Caschwa
Answer True or False:
1) Who?
2) What?
3) Where?
4) When?
5) Why?
6) How?
____________________
Our thanks to poet and sousaphone impresario Carl Schwartz (Caschwa) for today’s fine poetry! For 10 Facts About the Sousaphone, see blog.oup.com/2016/05/ten-facts-about-the-sousaphone/.
Poetry readings in our area begin tonight at Sac. Poetry Center, 7:30pm, with the West Coast launch of Portraits in G Minor by Paco Márquez, plus readings by Kate Asche and Iranian poet Ziaeddin Torabi—all this and open mic, too! Then Poetry Off-the-Shelves meets in Placerville on Wednesday (5-7pm) at the El Dorado County Library, and Sac. Poetry Center’s Second Saturday Reception features Sable & Quill (Writers Who Are Also Artists) this coming Saturday, 5-8pm at SPC. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
—Medusa
Heck—poetry does the same thing . . .
Celebrate poetry—and sousaphones!
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