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Monday, April 12, 2021

Love, Movies & Blue Bananas

 
Icelandic Monument
—Poetry by Joseph Nolan, Michael Ceraolo, 
Caschwa (Carl Schwartz)
—Public Domain Photos by Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA



LOVE CAN BE JUST, SO!
—Joseph Nolan

There’s no
Need to kill
A little thing,
Because it will
Not grow.

Maybe you might
Water it,
And let it live,
Even though,
It will never
Come to nothing,
More than just a blessing,
—To let you know—
Love can be just, so!
 
 
 

 
 
ABANDONED BY OLD SCHOOLS
—Joseph Nolan

The world is full
Of furtive feelings
That may not 
Be revealed,

While evening dances
Drag moons down,
To where they
Can’t be healed,

Drying out
On surface sands,
Where dead fish
Wash ashore,

Condemned
To end,
Abandoned,
By all of their
Old schools. 
 
 
 

 
 
AT A SUPERMARKET IN BOULDER
—Joseph Nolan

He kept shooting
Undeterred
By what his shots had wrought.

He shot with eyes open
And saw which way his shots went.
He kept on shooting,
Shooting and shooting.

He watched all
The bodies fall.
He heard the screams
Saw the blood and all
And surely felt the pain
From his bullets
Spraying like rain
In a hurricane
And he kept on shooting,
Shooting and shooting.

Aware enough
To strip himself naked
Before submitting
To arrest,
To not give the cops
Any claim
To return fire.
 
 
 

 
 
ALONE, APART, TOGETHER
—Joseph Nolan

The wealth of love,
That overflows hearts,
In little pieces,
Held apart,
From one-another
Peacefully,

Each, in its own,
Separate culture,
Each, with its own
Religion,
And each demanding
Its right to be,
Beneath the sun
Eternally,

To live and let live,
Together and apart,
Don’t expect us all
To share
The same heart,
Forever and ever,
Beneath the sky,
That harbors us,
But doesn’t ask why,
We feel alone,
Together!
 
 
 
Blue bananas taste like vanilla


 
Here are three from Michael Ceraolo’s poem sequence entitled, “Mabel: Selected Lifeography”, poems in the persona of actress Mabel Normand as a sort of autobiography. Michael writes that each poem has the title of one of her movies and is the same number of lines as the running time of that particular movie, as far as is known:


THREE POEMS
from the sequence, “Mabel: Selected Lifeography”
by Michael Ceraolo, S. Euclid, OH

         Hot Stuff

Not to be immodest,
but we were all pretty hot stuff
in the early days just by being on-screen
But for David (he'd stopped calling himself Lawrence by then)
I wasn't ethereal enough,
didn't embody his vision of abstract womanhood
because I was a flesh-and-blood woman,
and so others became stars with him

* * *

        The Champion

Later generations of moviemakers
sought to have their names above the title
as a sign of their star status
I went them one better:
I was the first,
and still the champion with almost thirty,
to have my name in the title

* * *

        Mabel and Fatty Viewing the
        World's Fair at San Francisco

I know,
that's a helluva long title,
like those of some books Bill Taylor
would later buy for me to read
It was the last one I directed,
and was my only actual
Once the novelty of seeing things
move on a screen wore off, the public
didn't go in much for actuals
 
 
 

 
 
COME LOOK!
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA

the dining area was an
immaculate doll house,
table most perfectly set

durable cookware near
to the stove, and early
photographs of older

generations mounted on
the walls, looking down to
ensure that their protocols

were being followed to the
letter, no exceptions, your
compliance not an option

the missing element was
people, young, old, in between,
absent from this scene

but of course! they had all
dashed outside to enjoy the
annual visit of those colorful

Monarch Butterflies; boiled
meat and filtered talk can wait,
as they share a special moment
 
 
 
You'll go straight to hell if you eat this....
 
 
 
BRINGS TO MIND
—Caschwa

(after Tom Goff’s work about Keats,
Medusa’s Kitchen, April 8, 2021)


emboldened by words
Severn would skate past Keats’ nerves
over and over
 
 
 

 
 
DEALING WITH IT
—Caschwa

there it happened again
a pigeon pooped big
right on the windshield

impossible to find the
exact culprit, but no
matter, just grab a gun

and shoot the gizzards
out of the next pigeon
you see, that does it

won’t solve the problem
which is sure to repeat
but it brings satisfaction

where is the portal
to get back to ground normal?
I’m ready to leave

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

SEA LEGS
—Caschwa

no better way to feel at
one with the world, the
whole Third Reich can
rise and fall, rise and fall
and while others are
turning green in the face,
you’re OK strutting down
to the mess hall for some
chicken

_____________________

Our thanks to today’s three contributors of this morning’s poetry and photos, including Carl Schwartz’ paean to Tom Goff’s Keats sonnet cycle last week. Tom sent the following link to the Keatsian tribute mentioned in his work: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb4l7zYeK0U/.

Tonight, Mon. (4/12), 7:30pm: Sac. Poetry Centers Socially Distant Verse presents Mary Zeppa and Patrick Grizzell online at us04web.zoom.us/j/7638733462/.  (Password: r3trnofsdv)

This coming Friday (4/16), 7:30pm, Sac. Poetry Alliance presents Jennifer and Chad Sweeney reading online from
Foxlogic, Fireweed and other books, at csus.zoom.us/j/87183068168/. Facebook info: www.facebook.com/events/1616183911906112/. Host: Josh McKinney.

Follow Sacramento Poetry Salon’s Young Laureates interview series on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SacramentoPoetrySalon/. Next interview is April 13, hosted by Sac. Poet Laureate Andru Defeye and Sac. Poetry Salon.

Sacramento Poet and SnakePal Jeanine Stevens writes: “My new chapbook,
Gertrude Sitting: Portraits of Women, winner of The Heartland Review 2020 Chapbook Contest and a Main Street Rag finalist, has arrived! Many thanks to Mick Kennedy at Heartland.” For info and to order, go to www.theheartlandreview.com/chapbooks/. Congratulations, Jeanine!

And those of us in the Kitchen on this side of the sea send our condolences to our SnakePals in the UK on the death of Prince Philip. He served his his country well; may we all be able to say as much at the ends of our days.

_____________________

—Medusa
 
 
 
LittleSnake Gets Into a Pickle
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



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