Itsy Bitsy and the Joker

—Poems and Photos by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

As I walked out leaving my parents’ place on Sunday evening to go back to my place down the street
      The neighbor’s cat, Itsy Bitsy, who likes me, runs across the street to greet me
      For several years this calico cat they have outdoors has liked getting attention from me
      She rubs her body against my legs and purrs
      Then comes the neighbor’s dog, Sofie, an Australian Shepard-and-Border-Collie mix
      (Sofie’s guardians allow her to be unleashed in her front yard because she’s friendly)   
      She loves coming up to me to enjoy me scratching her ears and neck with my fingers
      Sofie and Itsy Bitsy then stopped to glare in one another’s eyes
      I wondered if they said something to each other, like 
      “What are you doing, she’s “mine!”
      I could imagine them arguing that moment over me for attention in their shared mental “animaleze”    
      Then I said, “Itsy Bitsy and Sofie, be friends now!”
      I don’t know if the neighboring cat and dog ever will just because I’m the human who commanded it
      But as long as they glare at each other and don’t actually fight, it will probably be alright.

         

Despite being a “white” Evangelical Christian
     I have no problem with “Columbus Day” being changed to “Indigenous People’s” Day
     But so many of those want to hold on to Columbus like he was “messiah”
             rather than just a very faulted racist man who helped Spain conquer the “New World"
     Native Americans lost their lives to Western conquest as well as their lands;  
             even those who “converted” to Christianity weren’t treated as human beings
    America’s indigenous people were targeted for genocide—
    Yet glamorized “cowboy” westerns depicted the “indians” as the villains
    So much of history favors those who it considers the “winners”
    But doesn’t consider the humanity of the “losers”
    Even California’s history usually taught that the “golden rule” was, whoever got the gold, ruled
             and that it was "manifest destiny” to build their civilization while murdering the native peoples
    Yet Alfred Kroeber, an anthropologist who saved the life of “Ishi” the last Yahi,
             dared to demand that white Americans owe the Native Americans more than a mere apology. 

   


On Oct. 5 some Blue Angel jets
        or rather billion-dollar killing machines flew over my house
        Rancho Cordova’s Mather Air Base was having an “airshow”
        but some pilots apparently flew out above Arden Park in Sacramento
        I have to wonder what it is like to have those planes flying over to bomb you—
        especially in the Middle East 
        Such pilots probably convince themselves they are merely bombing buildings instead of killing people 
        Besides, I did once know a former military pilot who decided to no longer go to airshows
        He said Mather wouldn’t let him take in his own picnic and grill
        and, with several kids, being forced to buy from vendors was just too expensive
        I told him I think airshows are just another sign that we need to stop our bloated military budget.   

                         

A newsletter email I got from Audubon is an article against humans feeding wild birds
       Audubon says, ask yourself, “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?”
       They say no one, for instance, should ever feed endangered Scrub jays—
       Jays fed by humans stuff like peanuts are actually being malnourished and starved 
       Thus humans are leading to their extinction
       Audubon also says there’s a better way to feed songbirds
       Than by providing seed feeders in your yards
       Growing native trees and shrubs are best—
       Such as the service berry or crabapples
       But frankly I’ve always been fascinated as to why people feed birds anyway—
       The Bible in Matthew 6:26 says "Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, 
           nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?”
       I also wonder why people are so eager to feed pigeons and geese in parks
           but not the hungry of their own species on the streets.

In the movie “Joker”
        Joaquin Phoenix plays a crazy middle-aged comedian-clown who goes on a violent crime spree
        and no “Superhero” in the DC comic universe comes along to stop him
        Critics worry about the gun violence and mass shootings in the movie
        especially since there are so many these days in the real world    
        But I’d end such a movie with the supposed villainess Cat Woman killing the Joker
        and Batman would be all mad, feeling his ego destroyed   
        And she’d say “Why, Batman, I had to do what you wouldn’t
        because you “heroes” around here enjoy Joker coming back to fight you… "

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Today’s LittleNip:

And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

—William Shakespeare (from A Midsummer Nights’ Dream)

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Our thanks to Michelle Kunert, a long-time SnakePal who has come back to visit us with her unique poems and photos. Her world is always colorful, always charming! Welcome back, Michelle.

NorCal poets will be saddened to learn that primo Sacramento poet Jane Blue passed away in her sleep last Tuesday. More information may be had at the "Jane Blue" Facebook page at www.facebook.com/jane.blue.7. Our thoughts are with her husband, Peter Rodman, and her family.

—Medusa, celebrating the life of one of my mentors, Jane Blue. (Jane and Dennis both—too many lost, too fast!)      

“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.”

—Haruki Murakami

(Anonymous Photo) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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