CUCCINI AMOROSO!
—Joseph Nolan
“Cuccini Amoroso!”
Read the sign on
The restaurant door.
Everyone who’d enter
Would be happy,
More and more,
When they
Read the menu,
Ordered and implored,
The waiter
To bring the vino,
Two glasses
And close the door,
So a couple
Could have its privacy,
Their dinner,
To enjoy!
In the midst
Of sultry Napoli,
In the summer,
On their tour.
AN OFFHAND INVITATION
—Joseph Nolan
I slumber in
A garden,
Outside your
Apartment,
Waiting for
Your greeting,
To arise.
Criticize
My sleepy eyes,
If you choose.
I have only
Myself
To offer,
That you
Might peruse,
Should you
Show an
Interest
In a wandering
Gypsy,
A singer of the blues?
A PACK-RAT’S IMPRECISE LIFESTYLE
—Joseph Nolan
Imprecision,
Anathema
To circumcision:
Painful,
Screech the victims.
Oh, well!
Better luck next time,
If and when there is.
Imprecision,
The only way to analyze
The random
Assemblage of objects
That fill up space
On floors
Of places I inhabit.
Call me, “Pack-rat!”
Imagine that I care,
Which I don’t,
Which is why
I lie
When I tell you
I’ll clean up my act,
When I won’t.
WILL WALTER LET US KNOW?
—Joseph Nolan
With grindstone
Burnished
To my nose,
I try
To find
What anyone owes
To the capitalist
War machine?
Skin wears thin
When young men
Go to war,
Not knowing
What it’s for.
We while away the evenings,
Watching Walter on T.V.
Hoping for some answers
To injustices we see,
But the advertisements
In between,
The narrative
That fills the screen,
Betray the filthy message:
“We only want your money!”
THREE POEMS FROM DUGOUT ANTHOLOGY
—A Collection about Baseball by Michael Ceraolo, S. Euclid, OH
Slim Jones
One-year wonders weren't a thing only in the white majors;
we had them in the Negro Leagues too
I should know; I was one of them
And what a year it was:
as good a year as any pitcher ever had
(and I was only twenty-one at the time),
plus, we won the championship playoffs
I can't say why others didn't repeat their success,
but I know why I didn't: booze
And fast living put me on the fast track to the end
I was only twenty-five
when I sold my overcoat to buy whiskey
It was a cold November day, and I either
died from pneumonia or froze to death
I sure couldn't tell you which it was
* * *
Rollie Hemsley
The sportswriters called me Rollicking Rollie,
in my case a euphemism for someone
who got drunk all the time, and often got into fights
I wasn't much of a hitter on or off the field
(I lost most of those barroom fights),
but I was a good defensive catcher,
so when one team fired me I always got another chance
When I was playing with Cleveland
I found out about Alcoholics Anonymous
when two men approached me about it
after we had returned from a road trip
(I never found out if they did so on their own
knowing of my reputation,
or at the suggestion of Cleveland management)
After drying out in a hospital
(officially: recovering from an injury)
I began attending meetings and it saved my life
I went public about my involvement in AA,
voluntarily giving up my anonymity,
the first to do so to the whole country
(I didn't realize that was against the rules;
I thought the rule applied only to outing others)
But if my doing so helped even one person,
I'm not sorry about it
* * *
Wes Ferrell
If I hadn't been a baseball player,
people would have said I had an artistic temperament:
I exploded easily, and often,
at bad calls, or bad plays behind me,
which of course didn't endear me to umpires or my teammates
And the typical overwork of the time
shortened my major-league career considerably
But even with all that,
I think my numbers, pitching and hitting,
speak for themselves
I hope those who have the say are listening
KNOCK, KNOCK
—Caschwa
who’s there?
the millions of voters who support Stop the Steal
this is not a good time
we demand a recount
been there, done that, no change
you took away our hero, there is a price to pay
you took away our Constitution, which is priceless
we will stay here and call you bad names
we are stronger than that
we will confiscate your democracy, in the name of justice
now you’re digging your own grave
oh, so you want to talk tough, huh?
didn’t we see you at the Black Lives Matter rally?
those Libtards should know their place
could say the same about election losers
[crickets]
OH, THAT HEAT
—Caschwa
gone are those
several layers of
fashion experiments
that were sheltering
our bare skin from
the stares of others
now the gazes of
total strangers
casually intrude
into what should
have been private
comfort zones
shaking us like
little snow globes
for the cheap thrill
of watching all that
rippling heat have
its way with the
fallen snow
LESSONS FROM THE AUTOCRATS
—Caschwa
different people set
different standards, making
friction, making heat
you’ve done the required reading
followed up with diligent research
and composed an exemplary report
enumerating all the salient points
complete with supporting evidence
wrapping it up with an array of rock-
solid, fact-based conclusions
it was not well received, that
is not at all what they wanted
only blind adulation would grease
the wheels of satisfaction
so take those hands off your heart,
put them over your eyes, and
release all facts into a burn box
kneel down in your most submissive pose
and salute the idols you’re told to salute
ON ANY GIVEN DAY
—Caschwa
I am Schwartz, which is
German for black, which
in science denotes the
property of absorbing all
the colors and reflecting
nothing
so while my sensory organs
do give me the full spectrum
of collected data, somewhere
deep inside my highly refined
information processing system
lie ever-present gaps bigger
than days missed at school
I can easily tell the difference
between a tree and a horse,
but when pressed for details
about what sets apart one
kind of tree from another, or
one kind of horse from another,
my own mental library doesn’t
keep those books handy
constant, daily, rote repetition
advertising propaganda has
aptly illuminated the difference
between a race car and a stretch
limo, but those myriad trees and
horses remain unsolved mysteries
oh mystery shroud
lurking, come out, come out from
wherever you are
Today’s LittleNip:
YFIO
—Caschwa
You’ll
Figure
It
Out
Your
Fly
Is
Open
Yank
Four
Inches
Only
Yesterday’s
Fun
Is
Over
Youtiao
Fried
In
Oil
_________________
Good Monday Morning, and those of us milling around in the Kitchen wish you a fruitful (and veggie-full) week! And thanks to our contributors today for their poetry and phine photo-supplying!
Tonight (7/19), 7:30pm, Sac. Poetry Center’s Socially Distant Verse features Judy Halebsky and Rob Winger in the Zoom Room: us02web.zoom.us/j/7638733462/. Meeting ID: 763 873 3462; Passcode: r3trnofsdv.
Tomorrow is the deadline for The 2021 Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest, three poems about “If Life were a Game Show, What Would Poets Say?”. Send to Alan Lowe at slolowe@icloud.com
Sac. Poetry Center’s Weds. Night Writing Group meets on—you guessed it—Wednesday Night, this week with Facilitator Laura Rosenthal, 6-7:30pm. This group was founded in honor of Marie Reynolds, and will continue to meet on Zoom even as places begin to reopen. Find out more about how to attend each week on their website: sacpoetrycenter.org/.
__________________
—Medusa
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
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Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
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that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
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