—Anonymous Photos
UNDER THE HOUSE
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
Under the house
Is an
Indian burial ground.
No kidding!
Up they come on Halloween
To barbeque some corn.
If you squint just right
In the moonlight
You can see their teepee
In our living room.
We do not fear any doom
From Indians in our living room.
We think they’re kind of nice.
The smell of singing corn
Lingers.
We buried our dead cat
Down there,
To keep them company.
We look forward to their visiting
Next Halloween.
________________
THE BARTENDER
—Joseph Nolan
I’m going to help you
Screw up your life.
I’m going to be your bartender.
I’ll serve you drinks,
One after another,
Until there’s nothing between you
And truth-telling.
In vino, veritas.
In the morning
It will all be a blur
You will need to repeat
The next evening.
It will go on like this
Until your wife leaves you
You lose your job
And your liver gives out.
After that,
You won’t be able
To cover the tab.
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
Under the house
Is an
Indian burial ground.
No kidding!
Up they come on Halloween
To barbeque some corn.
If you squint just right
In the moonlight
You can see their teepee
In our living room.
We do not fear any doom
From Indians in our living room.
We think they’re kind of nice.
The smell of singing corn
Lingers.
We buried our dead cat
Down there,
To keep them company.
We look forward to their visiting
Next Halloween.
________________
THE BARTENDER
—Joseph Nolan
I’m going to help you
Screw up your life.
I’m going to be your bartender.
I’ll serve you drinks,
One after another,
Until there’s nothing between you
And truth-telling.
In vino, veritas.
In the morning
It will all be a blur
You will need to repeat
The next evening.
It will go on like this
Until your wife leaves you
You lose your job
And your liver gives out.
After that,
You won’t be able
To cover the tab.
DISTORTION
—Joseph Nolan
The odd thing felt
In sailing away
On curved, warped
Wood of bow
Is how
Without distortion
We would not
Have a bow
At all.
Without a bow
We could not go
Across the lake
With oars,
To row
Nor our
Neighbors know,
Those who live
Across the lake
To whom we wave
Or fish-poles shake
In passing,
On foggy mornings.
To distortion,
We owe
It all.
_______________
TOGETHER IN TOUCH
—Joseph Nolan
My darling,
I love
The way
I
Crumble
Under
Your thumbs,
Like a little
Fresh-baked
Cookie,
So sweet,
It buckles
To touch!
I love you
And
I love you
So much!
So sweetly
I dream
Of thee, dear,
And how
We’re together
In touch!
My darling,
I love
The way
I
Crumble
Under
Your thumbs,
Like a little
Fresh-baked
Cookie,
So sweet,
It buckles
To touch!
I love you
And
I love you
So much!
So sweetly
I dream
Of thee, dear,
And how
We’re together
In touch!
A LOVE POEM
—Joseph Nolan
There’s a heart
In my heart
That is your heart,
I need
To keep
Inside mine!
I feel your
Heart beating
Through muscle
And bone
And need
To keep it
My own.
It’s a world
Of fortune’s adventure
Like refreshment
Of sea-spray
At sea;
Once you get
A taste of it,
It will not let you free.
________________
THE WEEKEND TRAIN TO PISMO
—Joseph Nolan
I’m waiting for
The weekend train
To Pismo.
It only goes
There, from here,
Once a week.
It’s the only way I know,
The only way to go,
To get out of Fresno.
I’m waiting for
My train to show,
My only train
To Pismo.
Pismo is a
Beach town
To Fresno.
It’s where we leap
Across
From Summer heat
To have a pleasant day
In sunshine
At the beach.
For most of us
Here, though,
In Fresno,
Cost of living
Is out of reach
In Pismo Beach.
So we endure
The scorching,
Summer heat,
Most days of summer,
And Pismo’s just a treat.
PREDICTION
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
I am going to set forth a prediction
that does not come from any kind
of scientific study or any other such
discipline, but is just an idea floating
around like a kite in a breeze:
Somewhere in the world, in the not
too distant future, a child will fall from
an upper story of a tall building, and
the fall will put the child into a spin.
A good Samaritan at ground level will
dash forward into the path of the falling
child, and at the very last moment put
themselves into a spin in the same
direction of rotation as the child, and
safely catch the child in their arms.
I did not actually see this happen, but
the possibility refuses to take a seat.
__________________
LAND OF THE FREE
—Caschwa
BECAUSE we drafted 18-year-old kids and sent
them off to war to die, we lowered the voting age
to 18
BECAUSE school kids get killed right in school
by weapons of war in the hands of violent private
citizens, classes of schoolchildren are now forced
to practice active shooter drills, and so there is
also a proposal to lower the voting age to 16
BECAUSE the one individual in the whole United
States of America who is supposed to be our rock,
our mature guide, resorts to juvenile temper
tantrums, we have to find a way to protect our
government from our elected office holders
BECAUSE money talks, Democracy walks, we may
be losing everything we worked so hard to achieve
BORROWED TIME
(a double acrostic)
—Caschwa
Aftershocks, more coming
Put everyone on alert
Our walls still standing
Entrails still shaking
Miles of fault lines
Away from technology’s
Looming black hole
Rising to swallow
Experts so accomplished, they
Assume a pattern prevails
Doom is our new tomorrow
Yesterday no different
Was that another temblor?
Really deep!
Insufferable scenario
Time crumbles all
To dust
Escape is impossible
Now we pray
__________________
HIPPODROME
—Caschwa
Today’s political intercourse resembles
the chariot races in old Rome, where
slaves were forced to participate and
risk the most massive trauma to all
parts of the body and the ego.
A few did win and a smaller proportion
of those came away with some money.
Supporters divided themselves by colors
and promoted riots and incursions not
too dissimilar from the very bad influences
from which we try to shield our children.
So before you ask me to climb out of my
foxhole and participate in the fray, you’re
going to have to sweeten the offer with
lots and lots of clean money and dirty
body guards.
THAT FINISHING TOUCH
—Caschwa
Speaker #1: Four score and seven years ago…..
Speaker #2: Foreskin and circumcision……..
Speaker #1: Don’t cut me off like that!
__________________
Today’s LittleNip:
PHILOSOPHY
—Ian Copestick, Stoke on Trent, England
The haves hate the have-nots
The have-nots hate the haves
Being a Buddhist
A have-not and want not
Is the only peace
You'll ever have
____________________
Thank you this morning to our contributors, whose colorful writing inspired me to hunt up some kite pictures.
Poetry in our area this week begins tonight at Sac. Poetry Center with Kara Synhorst, Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas, and open mic. That’s at 7:30pm on 25th & R Sts. in Sacramento.
Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe and Juice Bar presents featured readers and open mic Thursday night, 8pm, on 16th St. in Sacramento. On Saturday morning, 9:30pm, Writers on the Air features Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas, Jennifer O'Neil Pickering, Taylor Graham, Sue Crisp plus open mic. Also on Saturday, Poetic License read-around meets in Placerville at the Sr. Center on Spring Street, 2-4pm.
Interested in workshops? Check the green box at the right for a listing of local ones which will be held this week and/or later. A workshop you might check out this coming weekend will meet at Wakamatsu Farm in Placerville on Sunday from 10-am-12pm, facilitated by Taylor Graham and Katy Brown. See www.arconservancy.org/event/capturing-wakamatsu-a-poetry-walk-workshop/ for info/reg/directions.
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, celebrating poetry!
For more about kites in China, check out the
Weifang International Kite
Festival at
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.