A WOMAN AND HER BEASTS
—Joseph Nolan
Well,
She might like to hear them
Beat their daily rhythms
On a drum,
To stave ho-hum,
So she does not stifle them,
With sterile-formed command,
But urges them to blossom
As though her home
Were fairy-land,
And any beast she owned
Might reach full-flower,
Under her loving hand.
WEATHERED BEAUTY
—Joseph Nolan
Beauty, weathered,
Beaten,
Hammered,
Into many facets,
Reflecting light
To many angles
Into darkness,
Product of pain
And years of suffering,
Not because she wants to,
—Just the way it is—
And she can’t help it.
EX-BEAUS
—Joseph Nolan
Chimps, simps, wimps and pimps!
Not sure which is worse.
They all got their own problems, but
I don’t want theirs to be mine.
How can you think about
All the old guys
When each was a source of pain
And, in one way or another,
They seemed to lack a brain,
A heart,
Or courage,
And who
Would want to lay down
With a cowardly lion?
TIME TO WONDER
—Joseph Nolan
(After Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”)
Little did we know, then
What we still
Don’t know, now!
If it ever should come to pass
That we might learn, at last,
Fewer mysteries would abound.
Just give us time to wonder
As we wander on the Earth
Trying to find some meaning,
What any of it is worth.
Michael Ceraolo writes: “Here are three poems (#s 4, 5, and 6) in a sequence entitled, ‘Excuse My Dust’, poems in the persona of the actor, Wallace Reid, comprising a memoir/autobiography:”
A MODERN SNARE
—Michael Ceraolo, South Euclid, OH
"There are only a few things worthwhile in this world—
and they are so easy to get
An open fire, books, a little music,
and a friend you can talk to or keep silence with"
And yet,
once you've started earning big money
your wants seem to expand to keep place
and soon you find those wants have become needs
You've been caught,
and going back to just those few worthwhile things
seems an impossibility
* * *
THE MAN WITHIN
—Michael Ceraolo
Two months after war had been declared,
Dorothy gave birth to William Wallace Reid, Junior
At that time Mother and Dad were
financially dependent on me, as was the studio,
so I was convinced, reluctantly,
not to volunteer for the war
I used my leverage to convince the studio
to let me direct a few of the shorts I was acting in,
and to let me write one of them as well
(these weren't included in the scorecard earlier)
I couldn't wait until I would be
allowed to write and direct features
My feeling at the time:
"I haven't done anything
I haven't accomplished anything"
* * *
THE ROARING ROAD
—Michael Ceraolo
I had what later generations
would come to call the need for speed
I started driving when I was a teenager;
I understand that's pretty common these days,
but back then it was uncommon,
if only because few people had cars
Another of the jobs I had before the movies
was as the Assistant Editor of Motor Magazine
When I started there I thought
it was going to be my dream job:
actually getting paid to watch car races
and then write about them afterwards
"But I was doomed to disappointment";
I soon found out the races were a small part
of what I was expected to write about
Most of the job was covering auto shows
and detailing the specs of every engine
presented on such occasions;
while that was of some interest
"I would rather drive a car
than write about one"
Later on in my movie career
I appeared in a number of racing pictures:
The Roaring Road
Double Speed
Excuse My Dust
Too Much Speed
Across the Continent,
these
and two other non-racing pictures
all written,
either screenplay, story, or both,
by Byron Morgan,
who
was kind enough to say about me
that I was in the flesh
exactly the way he had pictured
the hero of these stories
I loved to drive on-screen
(a perk of the job),
and
I loved to drive off-screen:
sometimes when I was sent on a publicity tour,
sometimes just for the fun of it,
sometimes when I couldn't sleep,
sometimes as a way to deal with
whatever was bothering me
For that last it didn't work in the long run,
but it helped in the short-term
Once,
when such a thing was still possible,
I even attempted to race professionally,
trying but not qualifying for
the 1922 Indianapolis 500
One of my biggest regrets
LIVE BAIT
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
young and Asian
perfect for the big catch
entrancing moves
no one enforcing limits
secured to the hook
lowered into the water
spontaneous obedience
now just wait for it
there’s a pull on the line
followed by another
stronger and stronger
action at the reel
rod raised and lowered
line pulled in
more wet line filling the reel
empty hook breaks the water
fisherman curses
sheriff hears his cries
analyzes the situation: it was
“a really bad day for him”
USE OF FORCE DOCTRINE
—Caschwa
strapped in his special seat
wanting to repeat fait accompli
landing a big game fish
just the right equipment to snag the
catch and render it helpless; added a
few pulls on the line anyhow
while other fishermen stood by
clapping and cheering each squirm
just like at a good old lynching
this was now the moment of truth
crew available to help land the catch
the scale was readied for this prize
growing ripples on the water top
up and up and up the line comes
it is a big, heavy, boot
THAT PARKING SPOT
—Caschwa
ugh! parallel parking
some thank their lucky stars
for those self-parking cars
one less headache
but then on second thought
if your car parks too near
to the ones front and rear
there’s a problem
you may come back and find
they had no such device
so they hit your car twice
just to get out
IMPATIENTLY WAITING
—Caschwa
it has Vietnamese & Chinese cuisine
delicious lunch specials daily
a tropical fish aquarium beams
the largest one eyes us gaily
but now they are closed, don’t answer the phone
we drove up to check out the scene
lights out, door locked, same signs in the windows
no mention of any quarantine
we’re hopeful they will open again
we lust for their fine soups and meals
they need richer than we to pay their rent
there’s no telling what fate conceals
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
IT'S NOT
That I'm not
Writing, but had
Some surgery
A while back,
And a cadaver donor.
He wants
Me to revise.
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA
____________________
Our thanks to this Monday’s contributors, as we charge into April. Tonight, Sac. Poetry Center’s Socially Distant Verse will present Ike Torres and Rashad Hedgepeth online at 7:30pm at us04web.zoom.us/j/7638733462/. Password: r3trnofsdv. Facebook info: www.facebook.com/events/482690879585321/.
The 2021 Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest for adults and young poets began April 1; its theme is “If Life Were A Game Show, What Would Poets Say?” Deadline is July 20, and poems will be read on Sunday, October 10. For questions and a Rules/Entry Form, contact Alan Lowe at slolowe@icloud.com/.
___________________
—Medusa
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