This road was designed to force people to slow down and enjoy the views.
—Poetry by Joseph Nolan, Michelle Kunert, Michael Ceraolo,
Caschwa (Carl Schwartz), and Kevin Jones
—Photos by Joseph Nolan and Michelle Kunert
THE PASSING OF A NEAT MAN
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
His floors were all well-swept
His lawns were all well-kept,
But hardly anybody wept
When a neat man passed away.
He didn’t have that many friends.
That is how such business ends,
Since he worked his private business.
Keeping mostly to himself,
Waving to his neighbors,
Didn’t bother anyone.
Surprising that no-one noticed,
When a quiet, neat, peaceful,
Elderly man passed on.
—Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA
His floors were all well-swept
His lawns were all well-kept,
But hardly anybody wept
When a neat man passed away.
He didn’t have that many friends.
That is how such business ends,
Since he worked his private business.
Keeping mostly to himself,
Waving to his neighbors,
Didn’t bother anyone.
Surprising that no-one noticed,
When a quiet, neat, peaceful,
Elderly man passed on.
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
ENTREATIES OF A DESPERATE AMBASSADOR
—Joseph Nolan
The last time I saw Richard,
He was riding on a snail,
Whipping with his riding crop
On a snail’s hard-shell tail,
Whooping like a rodeo,
To try to make slow, fast.
His girlfriend also told me
How he liked to make things last.
Here’s to Richard!
Here’s to Richard!
To all who like it slow!
Kudos to Poor Richard,
When he lets that poor snail go!
Without fail!
Without fail!
A fragile, poor ambassador
Pledged his love through mail,
To his dear, beloved bride,
Who still lived overseas
And promised to
Live by her side,
If she filled every need.
—Joseph Nolan
The last time I saw Richard,
He was riding on a snail,
Whipping with his riding crop
On a snail’s hard-shell tail,
Whooping like a rodeo,
To try to make slow, fast.
His girlfriend also told me
How he liked to make things last.
Here’s to Richard!
Here’s to Richard!
To all who like it slow!
Kudos to Poor Richard,
When he lets that poor snail go!
Without fail!
Without fail!
A fragile, poor ambassador
Pledged his love through mail,
To his dear, beloved bride,
Who still lived overseas
And promised to
Live by her side,
If she filled every need.
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
TELEPHONE SOLICITORS
—Joseph Nolan
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
We would like to tell you:
You should let us go,
And stop calling us
All the time.
It takes us
Precious minutes
To delete
Your left, there,
Beep-beeps,
From our
Answering machines,
Day-to-day,
When we do not
Care a whit
For what you
Have to say!
—Joseph Nolan
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
Yes? No!
We would like to tell you:
You should let us go,
And stop calling us
All the time.
It takes us
Precious minutes
To delete
Your left, there,
Beep-beeps,
From our
Answering machines,
Day-to-day,
When we do not
Care a whit
For what you
Have to say!
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
TRAGIC ENDINGS
—Joseph Nolan
This is how the script is read:
You always cry in the end!
Someone’s always suffering,
Then they end up dead.
It’s a matter of indifference
Who has to take the fall.
It just depends
Whose number is up.
It happens to one and all.
Why do we have
Such tragic scripts?
We can tell the plot
Before the curtain rises,
As the actors gather
Behind the curtain,
Ready to read
Their wearied lines,
Memorized from
A tattered page.
Maybe it’s ancient mystery
Or maybe the folly of fools
That anyone participates,
Once they know the rules.
Goddess figures excavated from the Holy Land of the Bible
—Photos by Michelle Kunert
—Photos by Michelle Kunert
The Woodland Museum of Biblical Archaeology
Little figures of heathen pagan goddesses have been dug up by archeologists throughout the Biblical Holy Land
Apparently still held dear under the reins of Hebrew kings such as Hezekiah and Josiah, who outlawed worship of such deities
In a culture that became bigoted and sexist under the name of their one God, where the men even declared “Thank Yahweh I am not a gentile (goyim) dog nor a woman”
And females were forbidden to enter its holy places such as the tabernacles or its temples
Hebrew and Semitic women likely still clung onto such goddesses as the Caananites’ Astarte
They’d perhaps even, understandably, defiantly hide away these goddesses in their homes, away from their husbands, to secretly pray to them
—Michelle Kunert, Sacramento, CA
Phoenician child sacrifice urn excavated from Carthage
—Photo by Michelle Kunert
At the Woodland Museum of Biblical Archeology
a display unearthed at Carthage features a small urn, or “tophet”, for charred human remains
Such urns are found throughout Phoenician sites in Sicily, Sardinia, and Tunisia
where child sacrifice took place continuously for over 600 years.
Leaders of the Hebrews mentioned in the Bible forbade their people from murdering their children as sacrifices to pagan gods
For this, modern evangelical Christians make the comparison to these ancient pagans’ child sacrifices to modern abortions of pre-born infants in our culture
But these ancient pagans at least gave somewhat dignified and honorable cremation burials to the children they sacrificed to their gods
So these human babies’ earthly remains weren’t disposed of as mere “medical waste”,
nor their body parts sold for monetary profits for those who procured their deaths for “experimentation”
Piece of grain-threshing floor sledge excavated in Jordan
—Photo by Michelle Kunert
After the novel, Circe, by Madeline Miller, where Medea is a main character:
"Ave Medea”
such as a princess and sorceress heroine in Greek mythic tragedy
Not a model of purity as Mary is portrayed in Christianity
but Medea of ancient lore, with whom so many more women even today could probably identify
she’s not placed upon a pedestal to behold from afar
but seen in many femme fatales characters in literature
therefore her immortal place being held in pages on book shelves
Medea who slayed her children to revenge being betrayed and spurned by their father Jason
and then who poisoned Jason’s new lover and set fires to burn down the city of Corinth
The Catholic Church just renamed pagan gods Biblical names
rather than pick a Babylonian goddess of fertility, renamed Christ's mother
Medea the demi-goddess ought to be instead the “Queen of Heaven”
then praises would be ”Ave Medea" full of mercy and grace—
the niece of the witch, Circe, and granddaughter of the sun god Helios.
Oh Medea, pray for sinners damned and exiled, of whom you would understand
being one of the mad women of fiction, legends that they among those whom are writers, do so adore
—Michelle Kunert
"Ave Medea”
such as a princess and sorceress heroine in Greek mythic tragedy
Not a model of purity as Mary is portrayed in Christianity
but Medea of ancient lore, with whom so many more women even today could probably identify
she’s not placed upon a pedestal to behold from afar
but seen in many femme fatales characters in literature
therefore her immortal place being held in pages on book shelves
Medea who slayed her children to revenge being betrayed and spurned by their father Jason
and then who poisoned Jason’s new lover and set fires to burn down the city of Corinth
The Catholic Church just renamed pagan gods Biblical names
rather than pick a Babylonian goddess of fertility, renamed Christ's mother
Medea the demi-goddess ought to be instead the “Queen of Heaven”
then praises would be ”Ave Medea" full of mercy and grace—
the niece of the witch, Circe, and granddaughter of the sun god Helios.
Oh Medea, pray for sinners damned and exiled, of whom you would understand
being one of the mad women of fiction, legends that they among those whom are writers, do so adore
—Michelle Kunert
—Photo by Michelle Kunert
What if Johnny Cash was instead the man in orange?
The term "Orange is the new black” is coined in the Urban Dictionary, thanks to author Piper Kerman’s autobiography
Kerman was referring to orange jumpsuits worn by prisoners when she was an inmate at a woman’s prison
It’s made me think, what if Johnny Cash was the man in orange instead of black
Interesting thought, when considering orange robes are worn by holy men, including monks in Asia
But Cash’s orange clothes would probably be still in the shades of the darkest hues to represent the solemn moods of his songs
A Cash in orange might, though, have to explain that he wasn’t supporting any Protestant violent offenses against Catholics in Ireland
He’d probably explain that the orange is for the color of the flames of fire
which, as it burns, does also symbolize renewal
He’d probably even wear it to represent the transformation for the “fall" that all people must go though
—Michelle Kunert
—Photo by Michelle Kunert
THREE POEMS FROM THE COLLECTION,
DUGOUT ANTHOLOGY
—Michael Ceraolo, S. Euclid, OH
Shoeless Joe Jackson
I took the money to fix the Series,
then played well anyway
I can now admit that was wrong,
and I deserved the lifetime ban
But was it so wrong
as to deserve a ban for eternity?
I don't think so,
and I am asking to be reinstated
these many years after my death
* * *
Chick Gandil
Yeah, I kept much of the money
that was supposed to go to my fellow fixers
What of it?
Did any of them come to my aid
when I was getting beaten by Speaker?
The hell with them,
and everyone else involved with baseball
* * *
Buck Weaver
When Landis banned me for life
for not squealing on my teammates,
it was a great injustice
And when he and his successors refused to lift the ban,
the injustice continued to the end of my life
But now I embrace the ban,
because it has kept my name alive
among at least a segment of baseball fans,
far more alive than the average player of any era
And despite the hype from books and movies,
that's what I was: an average player
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
BAN PLATFORMS
—Caschwa, Sacramento, CA
offshore drilling structures
designed to last 35 years
are now at 40+ years, rusted,
over stressed and bathing our
beautiful ocean with crude oil
get rid of them!
social media websites are
all over the place specially
engineered algorithms to
misquote and misinterpret
raw data as long as it makes
entertainment, to the point
that some people’s lives are
ruined
get rid of them!
platform shoes have been
shown to be more prone to
causing accident and injury
than heels
get rid of them!
balconies, handy for holding
a few extra potted plants, are
no match at all for a crowd of
bouncy party goers
get rid of them all!
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
MORE HEARSAY
—Caschwa
just 2 seasons: Slip and Fall
be careful at the shopping maul
chins for sale, buy one get one free
new car, same old extended warranty
consult your doctor, then get a second onion
can’t bail out those prisoners in dungeons
regulation 6’ fence around the jury pool
I drive a 2014 Hard Bargain, it’s so cool
—Caschwa
just 2 seasons: Slip and Fall
be careful at the shopping maul
chins for sale, buy one get one free
new car, same old extended warranty
consult your doctor, then get a second onion
can’t bail out those prisoners in dungeons
regulation 6’ fence around the jury pool
I drive a 2014 Hard Bargain, it’s so cool
—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Joseph Nolan
THE HOUSE ACROSS THE STREET
—Caschwa
got to be more than the retired art teacher
who planted lovely flowers in our front yard
could handle, so it
got a new owner, who tore out living plants,
leveled the yard and added static paving
for more parking spaces
got a new family, a nice couple with kids,
bilingual, one child studies the violin
got a new roof, courtesy a been there, done
that crew who dispatched two men wearing
uniform, lime green shirts, silently climbing
their old fashioned ladders to remove the old
roofing and toss it down into a waiting trailer
to be hauled away, then brought up new, big
wooden panels to lay down as the foundation
for a new roof, after which they rolled in an
outspoken conveyer belt machine to elevate
new roofing materials which were stacked up
and sat over night, and then the following
morning, those two men in green shirts began
lining up the materials, securing them in place
got that far, two men in green shirts on the roof
still working at this very moment, leaving in my
mind a big question mark as to whether solar
panels might be in the offing?
—Public Domain Cartoon by Joseph Nolan
QUICKIE SUMMATION STATEMENTS
—Caschwa
this is a smear to our founding fathers
cover your dowel with a towel
gross miscarriage of melody
that’s just not fair
it is not worth it
X + X = nudity
I told you so
no way
I’m out
bah!
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
—What's that big
Armored truck outside?
—Our shipment of
Gossamer and
Chewing gum.
—Kevin Jones, Elk Grove, CA
______________________
We're a little late (blame blogspot), but we've got lots of good words from lots of good poets today, plus eye-catching photos from Joseph Nolan and Michelle Kunert. And plenty of Orange, Medusa’s recent Seed of the Week. Michelle sent us some links to orange things, including:
•••Some “orange” paintings from history: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki
File:Flaming_June,_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896).jpg OR
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monet_grainstacks_W1273.jpg
•••Nutritious orange food: www.healthupshot.com/orange-coloured-food
•••”Orange Colored Sky” by Nat King Cole: www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/natkingcole/orangecoloredsky.html
•••A note that it’s been 50 years since the movie, A Clockwork Orange, came out: see www.the-take.com/read/what-does-the-title-of-a-clockwork-orange-mean
•••Nutritious orange food: www.healthupshot.com/orange-coloured-food
•••”Orange Colored Sky” by Nat King Cole: www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/natkingcole/orangecoloredsky.html
•••A note that it’s been 50 years since the movie, A Clockwork Orange, came out: see www.the-take.com/read/what-does-the-title-of-a-clockwork-orange-mean
Orange Food
—Photo by Michelle Kunert
•••Mon. (10/11), 7:30pm (log-in 7:15pm): Sac. Poetry Center’s Socially Distant Verse presents Alameda Island Poets on Zoom at s04web.zoom.us/j/7638733462/. Password: r3trnofsdv. Info: sacpoetrycenter.org/event/socially-distant-verse-alameda-poets/.
•••Thurs. (10/14), 5:30pm: Sac. Poetry Alliance’s Literary Lectures (www.sacramentopoetryalliance.com) presents Everything is Politics, featuring S.L. Wisenberg online at us02web.zoom.us/j/81872835469/.
•••Sat. (10/16), 6-7pm: Third. Sat. Art Walk in Placerville features Rina Wakefield plus open mic. Toogood Winery, 304 Main St., Placerville. Host: Lara Gularte.
•••Thurs. (10/14), 5:30pm: Sac. Poetry Alliance’s Literary Lectures (www.sacramentopoetryalliance.com) presents Everything is Politics, featuring S.L. Wisenberg online at us02web.zoom.us/j/81872835469/.
•••Sat. (10/16), 6-7pm: Third. Sat. Art Walk in Placerville features Rina Wakefield plus open mic. Toogood Winery, 304 Main St., Placerville. Host: Lara Gularte.
•••Sun. (10/17), 3-4:30pm: Lincoln Poets invites you to the Zoom meeting/open mic (3 poems for a read-around) at us02web.zoom.us/j/85962483608/. Meeting ID: 859 6248 3608; Passcode: 142237/. Please remember: when reading your poems, read to the microphone in your laptop or phone so you can be heard well.
_____________________
—Medusa
—Photo by Michelle Kunert
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