Closing Off the Year

 

Coronament

—Poetry by Michelle Kunert, Joseph Nolan, John Stickney, 

Michael Ceraolo, Caschwa (Carl Schwartz
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

Ever since I was a kid, I enjoyed New Year’s Day evenings, relaxing in the living room, watching and listening on the T.V. to the Vienna concerts which cover a wide variety of European musical composers of marches, waltzes and polkas and operas—more than just Johann Strauss. It was like another "gift" of a musical-television holiday special, even though it was after Christmas.

I've always looked forward to the airing of the Vienna Austria New Year's Concert by the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Musikverein as much as the Rose Parade in Pasadena. For 2021, there will be no live audience for what has been declared possibly the most-watched classical music event on the planet, conducted by Riccardo Muti, an Italian-born conductor who currently is a director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini .

—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA

 

 

 

 

TONGUE TO ICY POLE
—Joseph Nolan
 
In my private madness,
I lick slick, frozen poles,
Fearing not
My tongue might stick,
Forcing me
To try
To scream,
When my voice
Is still not whole!

How does one scream
Into a pole
That holds
Onto your tongue?

Much like many
A married-man,
Whose princess
He has won.

 

 

 

 

BLUE-JAYS’ SONG TO DAWN
—Joseph Nolan

Wow!
Can you believe it?
The way
The blue-jays sing?
 
I hear them
Every morning,
As into life
They bring
—Utter joy!—

Oh!
To hear
A blue-jay sing,
While dancing on
My lawn,

Upon an early morning
Under my window,
Shaded by its awning,

And I,
So early, yawning,
Capturing the
Beauty of the Dawn~!

 

 

 

 

 

HEALING WING
—Joseph Nolan

She ate less and less,
Needed less and less,
Grew restless,
Eyed the cage-door.

Maybe it was the same old seed,
Eaten too many times
To be thought tasty,
Or maybe too easy to find?

When its wing has healed,
A bird will fly,
Once the door’s left open.

 

 

 

 

IRISH WAKE
—Joseph Nolan

I’ve never been
To a single Irish wake
Where some of the survivors
Would not have done better
With at least a couple of stiff ones
To help them numb the pain,
Just enough that they could
Slip their feet
Out of their boots,
Stuck in the mud
Of grief,
To feign rise up
And away
From such an
Oh! so rueful day.......

 

 

 

Town Square, Florence, Italy

 

REMINDERS OF ETERNITY
—Joseph Nolan

Descending down into a dream,
We hear a ringing sound—
Church bells in the morning
Or howling call to prayer,
Ringing out from minarets,
From parapets and spires,
As if our world, entire,
Were spiritually on fire.

Oh, though that is not so,
Many wish it were
And that before
First thoughts a-morning,
Before our coffee or tea,
Would be
—Eternity—
And our dreams
Within
Its sea. 

 

 

 

 

A VERY MELANIA CHRISTMAS
—John Stickney, Jefferson, MO
 
MELANIA TRUMP 2017 XMAS HAIKU
 
in a dress as white
as her dead tree branches she’s
clawing, ominous shadows up the walls
 
* * *
 
MELANIA TRUMP 2018 XMAS HAIKU
 
I’m working my ass
Off on this Christmas stuff, who
Gives a fuck about Christmas stuff
 
* * *
 
MELANIA TRUMP 2020 CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS HAIKU
 
This year packed with urns
Fifty to be exact
A sea of funeral arrangements
 
The Nightmare Before
Christmas Queen is right back
Not giving a fuck about Christmas

* * *
 
I DON’T REALLY CARE, DO YOU? (A Melania Trump Xmas Summary)
 
That’s on full display
Here in the dead branches
The blood-red trees, and the funeral urns

 

 

 

 

 

THREE POEMS FROM DUGOUT ANTHOLOGY
—Michael Ceraolo, S. Euclid, OH


Satchel Paige

Those who ran the white majors          


and those who ran the Negro Leagues             


had one big thing in common:      


they wanted to be the ones to control                   


your opportunities to play ball.
Old Satch wasn’t having any of that:      


it was me the fans were coming to see.
I knew it, and the owners knew I knew it,                


so if they wanted me to pitch for them,         


or if they wanted to rent me out to another team,                


they had to pay me well; if they didn’t
I would go somewhere where they would:
Bismarck, the Dominican Republic, Mexico;                 


everybody wanted the best pitcher in the world.
As I look back now,                

maybe that wanderlust was why
Jackie was first instead of me.

* * *

Hilton Smith

Just about the only things
Satchel and I had in common            


were that we were both right-handed pitchers         


and neither of us was straight about our age.
I understood the economics of baseball:
Satchel put fans in the stands           


and made us all more money.
A lot of games he would pitch a few innings             


and I would come in and finish the game;              


because of that, some called me Satchel’s caddy
I didn’t like that one bit:
I considered myself at least as good a pitcher,          
but it was something I’ve put up with until now.

*  *  *

Oscar Charleston

I played hard and aggressive ball
and got into my share, or more than my share,
of fights on and off the field,
which made it ironic to hear
the youngbloods coming up later wondering
why we hadn't fought harder to integrate.
We fought the only way we could at the time:
by showing the major leaguers we belonged on the same field
whenever we got a chance to play against them.
We didn't deserve the criticism we got later:
only saints want to become martyrs,
and we were no saints.

 

 

 

Llamas at Attention

 

KISS MY ANCIENT SHOPPING SYMBOLS
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

ancient (and perhaps extraterrestrial)
astronauts loved to go shopping but
their time was quite taken up with
structuring society and learning what
this new planet had to offer

ergo, similar to today’s top executives,
they delegated shopping tasks to
underlings, leaving them a secret shopping
list comprised of many cryptic or symbolic
representations

some of these ancient shopping symbols
(A.S.S.) manifested themselves in the shape
of pyramids, giant statuary, and other
objects all over the globe that we can
see but not fully comprehend

could the answer be as simple as “scratch
and sniff”? maybe the ancients left us a
shopping list that begins with the instruction:
“Kiss my A.S.S.”

 

 

 

 

 

JUST TURN IT OFF, THEN TURN IT ON
—Caschwa

Oh no!! the copier machine is jammed;
best practice is to switch it off, clear the
jam, then turn it on again
Hint: this doesn’t require turning off the
power to the whole building

Oh no!! a shopper is leaving without paying;
best practice is to have Security detain that
shopper and call the police if necessary
Hint: this doesn’t require bringing in an army
of police with a mission to secure the entire
shopping mall and shoot to kill anyone they
perceive to be an “enemy combatant” who
does not immediately comply with their
instructions

Oh no!! innocent people are being killed by
the police for every reason under the sun;
best practice is to fix the problem at the source
Hint: this doesn’t require defunding or disarming
the police department, but full public disclosure
of some damn strict reviews are certainly in order

 

 

 

 

ONE MAN’S TREASURE
—Caschwa

ants in the kitchen
darting happily across
scraps of fresh food

while another set crawls
purposefully in and out
of stinking garbage

outside, ants in human
form climb ridiculously
high places to leave
their calling-card pair
of shoes

then return to the kitchen
to pursue this, that, and
another morsel of food

ants with beach towels?
sure enough, right there
in the vicinity of water
spouts

 

 

 

 

VACCINATED VERSE
—Caschwa

excuse the paper bag, it’s
just a prop to house that
ever-so-uncooperative poetic
verse, daring it to fight itself
out of such confinement

the bag is safe harbor from
all the ills of facing the light of
truth, all the bills that won’t
get paid until Congress spares
more of the people’s money
to help the people

haven’t we had quite enough of
putting brand names on luxury
towers, spending gazillions on
space-travel programs aiming to
unlock secrets of the universe,
while the program of universal
health care right here on Earth
remains sorely unfunded?

inside our paper bag we cannot
use the open flame of candles to
light our way, as that would burn
the bag to mere ashes, and we
would have to learn the ways of a
world un-shaped by our untested
postulations

_______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

SECOND CHANCE
—Caschwa

(measured syllables, 6,8,6,8;
meter all over the place)


the party in power
during the impeachment hearing
made sure that there was no
damning evidence appearing

if that power now shifts
and the floodgates are opened wide
maybe, just maybe, then
the truth will have no place to hide

_____________________

Thanks to our industrious contributors this morning, as we wind up this last week of 2020. Tonight, 7:30pm, Sac. Poetry Center presents Jan Haag and Jessica Dailey-Keithline online on Socially Distanced Verse at us04web.zoom.us/. Password: spcsdv2020/. Info: www.facebook.com/events/232096251619127/?acontext={"source"%3A"29"%2C"ref_notif_type"%3A"plan_user_invited"%2C"action_history"%3A"null"}&notif_id=1609082321541179&notif_t=plan_user_invited&ref=notif/.

After 30 years, Jan Haag will be retiring from her teaching position at Sacramento City College. Her helpful syllabus, “Desolatiion Poems: Poetic Forms Used in English”, can be found at janhaag.com/PODesIntro.html/.

______________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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