—Anonymous Photos
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
The juice of
Sweet green onions
Sizzling
Under oozing mushrooms,
The smoke of tasty ham,
And the bottom
Must be butter
To lubricate the pan,
And let the eggs
Rise up in steam,
Up into an omelette!
Don’t trouble me
With “omelette” shells
With veggies just poured in
After a crust has formed
And won’t let in
The juices as they’re cooking.
Those things are
Awkward and inept,
The hazardry of hacks.
__________________
MUSK AND PATCHOULI
—Joseph Nolan
Old women,
Once young,
Remember lovers,
Well-hung,
Who loved them
Into frenzy.
Though they’d play,
They slipped away,
As did youth
And passion’s ending.
Natural,
The way
From here to there.
Evanescent daydreams—
Mixed musk and patchouli.
WAITING, WHILE TULIPS WITHER!
—Joseph Nolan
There is a conversation
As yet, undisclosed
In gossip columns,
Among the author
Of your dirty dreams,
The Mother of Invention,
And your secret, inner tension.
Call back
When you’ve heard
At least ten rings,
When your
Answering machine
Says to input your code
To remotely access
Your messages.
You can’t call here
From there!
The lines avoid
Such inner locations.
You’ll have to insert
At least another dime,
Before you’re allowed
The time,
To stutter, drool and dither
Waiting, while tulips wither!
It’s just a scam, I suppose
To suck in your last dime.
__________________
BEST FRIENDS, WE WAS
—Joseph Nolan
I felt a breeze blow by,
Gentle as a whisper.
I heard someone had died,
I knew,
Was my best friend,
Without a reason why,
Since I was
So very far away.
Maybe he
Tapped me
On my shoulder
To tell me
He had gone?
I feel that’s
The way it was:
He tapped me
On his way out
Just because,
Best friends,
We was.
AN ERIE CANAL SONG
—Michael Ceraolo, S. Euclid, OH
Danger was present in every mile;
we did our best to keep up a smile
Diseases, drowning, and falling rock;
even so, every one was a shock
I'm sorry to say I lost my pal;
he died building the Erie Canal
A thousand like him met the same fate,
sacrificed to make the country great
Every death on the way we know,
from Albany to Buffalo
__________________
YELLOW DOG
—Michael Ceraolo
This was not a term
for members of the Supreme Court,
but rather for a so-called contract
whereby workers 'agreed' not to join a union
as a condition of being hired,
and
further 'agreed' to forfeit the job
should they decide to join a union
The Supremes had decided a decade earlier
that the government couldn't ban such 'contracts’,
but even that didn't go far enough for some
In the case of
Hitchman Coal & Coke v. Mitchell
the dissent said
"When this suit was filed
no right of the plaintiff had been infringed
and there was no reasonable ground to believe
that any of its rights would be interfered with"
The majority didn't disagree,
yet
upheld the granting of an injunction
preventing the Union from
"interfering or attempting to interfere
with plaintiff's employees for the purpose
of unionizing the mine without plaintiff's consent"
"That the plaintiff was acting
within its lawful rights"
in enforcing such 'contracts'
"is not open to question"
A PROPOSITION (2)
—Michael Ceraolo
James Madison once wrote
If men were angels, government wouldn't be necessary
A corollary:
If management were angels, unions wouldn't be necessary
BORN IN THE U M OF A
—Caschwa, Sacramento
One of the greatest sources of pride
is to salute Old Glory and boast that
one was born in the United States of
America
There are songs and cultures adapted
to that very theme. Now obsolete.
According to POTUS #45, we are all
ineligible to claim that these are our
United States because so much bad
stuff is going on in different communities
across the country (e.g. Baltimore) that
we have now become the U M of A: the
Unforgiveable Mistakes of Americans,
and we are now charged with the duty
to clean it up quickly, or else
#45 will sign an Executive Order to
withdraw the U M of A from all treaties,
humanitarian aid projects, etc. That’s
right, he’s already got a head start on us.
We’d better hurry!!
__________________
DIVING IN
in the form of the deibide baise fri toin
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
Add butter
said the cook on a cutter
that’s the trick to cutting ice
nice
***
Dead daughter,
weedy tomb at headwater
but not human, notes the dog,
frog
***
Use pulley
to harness efforts fully
more than a pat on the tush,
push!
THIS GREAT LAND OF OURS
—Caschwa
“Great”, a relative
term at best, tied right to one’s
ownership of land
a penthouse suite is
greater than sharing a cot
with other hired hands
the economy
is booming, say those who will
threaten eviction
pay the damn landlord
whatever price he demands
don’t create friction
whoever owns the
checkerboard gets to decide
what color goes first
taxation without
representation is the
path from worse to worst
__________________
JUST DESSERTS
—Caschwa
A recent internet poll asked how
many wanted a ballot with one
highly qualified woman for president
plus another highly qualified woman
for vice president
As much as that appeals to me in
principle, I mainly want my vote to
count among the prevailing majority
I can visit a buffet and choose just the
courses I wish to have, but our presidential
election ballot should faithfully reflect the
needs and preferences of an entire nation.
THE WHAT OR WHO HAIKU
—Caschwa
guns don’t kill people
people kill people, because
they pull the trigger
then look at bombs, which
we know to be dangerous,
ergo illegal
an argument can
be advanced that guns launch bombs
with triggers instead
of using fuses,
or plungers, or dropping from
stealth bomber aircraft
if we reduce their
number, fewer fall into
the wrong hands. Amen
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
STRIP CHESS
—Caschwa
Peel the Pawn
Disrobe the Rook
Denude the Knight
Bare the Bishop
Quickie the Queen
Unclothe the King
Checkmate!
____________________
Our thanks for today’s omelette of fine poetry from Joseph Nolan, Caschwa (Carl Schwartz) and Michael Ceraolo, whose poems are from his collection, American Labor: An Episodic Epic. Our camouflaged critters are in keeping with our current Seed of the Week: Hidden in Plain Sight. (Did you find them all?) And yes, Joseph, this old woman can still smell the musk and patchouli from her youth…
Interest in poetry in Santa Cruz? Visit (sorry this is so long) www.facebook.com/Poetry-Santa-Cruz-132408431683/?__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARA2B2TfysxIfpyAtylX3Lj5vUZJIh0PF5yyyfgGSSNwLU0mmjlpZiTvq4T9GYzrmxOe1bK_oVg2-p8Q/ for fun things. Gary Soto is reading at UC Santa Cruz on Nov. 7, for example.
A busy week poetry events in our area, starting tonight at 6pm with the Sac. Poetry Center’s Board of Directors’ Annual General Meeting. All SPC members are welcome to attend, participate, and vote for officers. That’s at 25th & R Sts. in Sacramento. Then stay to hear poets Pos Moua and Lisa Dominguez Abraham read at 7:30pm, plus open mic.
On Wednesday, Poetry Off-the-Shelves poetry read-around meets from 5-7pm in Placerville at the El Dorado County Library main branch on Fair Lane in Placerville.
On Thursday at 11:30am, Wellspring Women’s Writing Group meets at the Wellspring Women’s Center on 4th Avenue in Sacramento. Interested in other workshops? Check the green box at the right for a listing of local ones which will be held this week and/or later.
This Friday night at 8pm, Word Wizards presents a variety of groups featuring hip hop, poetry, and soul in Showcase at the Blue Lamp on Alhambra Blvd. in Sacramento.
Then Saturday is Sac. Poetry Center’s 40th Anniversary Celebration featuring poetry, food and fun from 2-8pm down at 25th & R Sts. in Sacramento. Also on Saturday, poet Kristin George Bagdanov and artist Pecos Pryor will do a presentation on Akinto: Day Making at Pachamama Coffee on 20th St. in Sacramento.
On Sunday afternoon, Poetry of the Sierra Foothills presents Odilia Galván Rodriguez and Zheyla Henriksen, plus open mic, from 1-3pm at Caffé Santoro on Pleasant Valley Road in Diamond Springs. Also that afternoon, from 2-4pm, Davis Center for the Arts presents Bethanie Humphreys and Heather Judy plus open mic at the Arts Center on F Street in Davis. 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 the poetry all around us...
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.
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.