T.G.I.F.A.S. Thanksgiving—glad its Friday and Saturday

T.G.I.F.A.S. Thank Goodness Its Friday and Saturday

gorging incessantly on fattening food and sweets

still enough chocolate pie left to last through Monday

now more buttered mashed potatoes and gravy repeats.

After Thanksgiving spending days eating leftovers

a soup bone simmers used from the big ham butt

all the beer drinkers have heavy duty hangovers

empty cans in the trash that filled up their big beer gut.

A tom turkey trots either roasted or fried to the table

later I get the trots to end my rich food eating fable

yet I seem to do that every single year that I am able

then get comatose watching sports on the TV cable.

I’m thankful for family and food with God’s blessing

turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, and corn bread dressing

pounds gained over the holidays I’m just guessing

my intestines bursting, high blood pressure stressing.

Tales of a wild turkey

Tom turkey asks please give me a chance to eat

give me a chance to gobble like you, I’ll find some

low bush cranberries and some dropped apples on

the ground, your control over my death is fine

just give me a chance to eat before I die.

The way that turkey flew and gobbled as it ran

gave me a different view, changed my hunting plan

it put into my head a serious change of mood

instead of cold and dead I will not shoot the dude.

Tom turkey now awaits carving, to be untrussed

and dressed, moist and tender stays the turkey’s breast,

hot gravy with giblets, stuffing with corn niblets.

Wishbone! The wild turkey is almost gone as

Thanksgiving must the next morning at dawn

Tomorrow’s soup is turkey noodle, cranberry muffins

a loaf of rye, hot corn bread and apple streusel

freshly made whipped cream on apple rhubarb pie.

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.

A Think(s) Giving message for Thanksgiving 2024

(poems and prose from Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, and Russia)

I “think” Giving and sharing some poetry from countries at war will increase the breadth and depth of the “thanks we give” for having such a beautiful and peaceful place to live here in the CNMI. Right now, literally millions of people on both sides of the wars in Gaza/Israel and Ukraine/Russia have no homes to return to, have lost loved ones, and lack food, water, and medicine. All sides suffer in war. There are millions of refugees, children from the warring countries, who fled from the bombings that are now in refugee camps or scattered across the world. Here are some “thinks” from poets about these countries experiencing the horrors of war, at this time in history, for us to reflect upon this Thanksgiving weekend.

From Gaza: Mosab Abu Toha, born in a refugee camp in Palestine, in 1992. He is now a teacher and poet at Syracuse University in upstate New York.

“If we stay in our houses they bomb us, If we shelter in a school they bomb us

If we run to a hospital they bomb us, If we move into a tent they bomb us

If we run from an air strike they bomb us, If we do not do any of this they still

bomb us, If we remain standing like a tree or temporarily leave like a leaf in the fall, they bomb us.

But spring will come and they, those who bomb us, will find no bombs among the flowers. We will be on the trees bathing in the sun next to the sparrow’s nests, and they, those who bomb us, will have no sun, no place to rest, no legs to run.”

From Israel: Martin Buber, German-Jewish Israeli philosopher, born1878, died in Palestine in 1992. He advocated a bi-national Israeli – Palestine state.

“The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings.” “There are three principles in a man’s being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don’t do what I say.”

From Ukraine: Iryna Tsybukh, Ukrainian paramedic, forever 24, in her farewell letter to her brother. These were the last three sentences in that letter.

“To have the strength to be a free person, you have to be brave. Only the brave have happiness; it’s better to die running than to live rotting. Be worthy of our hero’s exploits; don’t grieve; be brave!”

From Russia: Anna Akhmatova, born Odesa Ukraine 1889, died in Russia,1966. She is one of the most beloved poets in Russia. Notice she was born in Ukraine, and we know Russia has reclaimed Ukraine. A major theme of her poetry is the impact of political events on individual lives. She avoided many Stalinist purges.

The Last Toast by Anna Akhmatova

‘I drink to the ruined house, To the evil of my life

To our shared loneliness And I drink to you –

To the lie of lips that betrayed me

To the deadly coldness of the eyes,

To the fact that the world is cruel and depraved

To the fact that God did not save.’

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.

The win or lose blues/more or less booze

EXPOSITION, a quote from a song by Bob Dylan

“I wish that for just one time, You could stand inside

my shoes. And just for that one moment I could be you”

—Excerpt from Positively 4th Street, released 1965.

DEVELOPMENT, a sonnet by Joey Connolly

I’ll drink when I’m thirsty and vote when I’m dry

Just give me a number and the candidates name

If they lose the election I’ll stay home and get high

And keep the money you gave me I have no shame

I’ll vote for my aunties, uncles, or my first cousin

I’ll vote for any candidate who can give me a job

Extended families offer me more than a dozen

So sometimes I stay home and remain a fat slob.

Those were my days as a wise guy young pup

Now I live life in a completely different situation

I have two children, a job, I have now grown up

I am proud of my middle-age stage of maturation

Election’s over, campaign was fun while it lasted

So I blow some weed, drink beer, and get blasted.

CODA, a limerick by Joey Connolly

With lots of candidates it is hard to pick and choose

Sometimes I don’t even care who will win or lose

The only thing I really truly lose is my bloated ego

There are many more elections ahead so here we go

My dilemma is whether to drink more or less booze.

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.

The BIG T.O.E.—THEORY OF EVERYTHING

Inspiration-song titles, lyrics, quotes:

“Everything’s Coming Up Roses”—Ethel Merman

“Everything Is Beautiful”—Ray Stevens

“Everything Has Changed”—Taylor Swift

“Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”—Stevie Wonder

Development/themes notes:

Many 21st century cosmologists and astrophysicists are searching for a Theory of Everything. Some have suggested a combination of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and

Quantum Theory may be a possible answer to that query.

Isaac Newton theorized gravity in Principia Mathematica

Albert Einstein theorized relativity with E=MC squared

Quantum theory explains the nature and behavior of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic level.

Quantum physics studies the smallest things in the universe.

The word quantum is Latin for “amount”. So a definition for quantum is the “smallest possible piece of anything.’

Then for us mere ‘mortals’ there is ‘everything’ we can see here on Earth, our galaxy and universe. The cosmologists claim we see less than 5% of our universe. Dark matter and dark energy make up the rest. And those two aspects of the darkness out there have yet to be defined. They are working on it and use quantum mechanics to help them find it. So does ‘everything’ exclude anything? It must include ‘nothing’ and ‘something’ which are the subjects of the previous two poems in this trilogy on ‘nothing, something and everything’. So the theoretical pursuit continues with some particle string theorists (Brian Greene among them) claiming there may be some more particles smaller than strings. Until they may be found even though they are so small we will never see them we must be content to abide by wise words of my maternal grandmother, (who made great apple pies with fruit gathered courtesy of Issac Newton’s gravity theory found in Principia Mathematica), “Wait to see.” Parallel with Zen thought we continue stumbling through life’s parks, stumbling with neutrinos and quarks passing through us, all Bozo’s on this bus. No muss and not much fuss.

Count me in. Lose some then win. Let us all begin. Again and…

Recapitulation /coda; notes and quotes:

From Alexander Pope, b.1688 – d.1744. Pope was according to Sir Joshua Reynolds account, “about four feet six high; very humpbacked and deformed…”. The following are the last lines in “The Dunciad in Four Book” printed October 1743. He died months later on May 30, 1744. How prescient he seems to be now in the 21st century of what many scientists believe is our future universal fate. Interested readers might also like to check out Chaos Theory summarized by Konrad Lorenz as, “Chaos:

When the present determines the future but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.”

The last 17 lines of Dunciad IV by Alexander Pope

Art after art goes out, and all is night.

See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,

Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,

Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.

Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,

And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!

See Mystery to Mathematics fly!

In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave and die.

Religion blushing veils her sacred fires,

And unawares Morality expires.

Nor public Flame, nor private, dares to shine;

Nor human Spark is left, nor Glimpse divine!

Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restored;

Light dies before thy uncreating word:

Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;

And universal Darkness buries All.

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.

Brane is the name used for a universe which is a slice of a theoretical larger universe but is a self-contained universe on its own. The branes line up parallel to each other like slices of bread in a loaf. These differ from theoretical bubble and mega universes. My wormhole into this parallel universe is via a river in the brain that flows both ways, the corpus callosum. “Batbon” is part of my Chamorro nickname “Pepe Batbon” which translates as “Joey, the bearded rooster.”

A spiritual sojourn and satori inside and outside Batbon’s brane (poem)

From Vancouver Island beyond the Chilcotin wolves and loons cry alongside Murphy Lake

over the banks of Lake Louise a Buck moon Moraine Lake mirrors the Rockies each night

in Waterton Glacier Park the Sunrise Highway tourists take mountain trail pictures of moose

way high up Goat Haunt Montana is abandoned across the wide plains from Calgary toward

Saskatoon Saskatchewan grain fields below stretch endlessly towards Winnipeg Manitoba

thousands of shallow lakes bring us over to Sudbury and the Laurentian Shield of lead

in thunderous skies Canadian geese parade their finger size droppings beg your pardon.

A half century ago I crossed Canada back and forth several times via hitchhiking, van, train. Then after moving to the CNMI 40 years ago this month, I flew RT over AK and Canada via the pole route many times from Tokyo to Detroit to return to the Finger Lakes region in upstate NY where I grew up. In July I flew from Seoul to Vancouver B.C. and across the southern border route of Canada stopping in Calgary, Alberta, the Canadian Rockies, Toronto and crossed the U.S. border in Niagara Falls. The poem about this sojourn satori described above is about that trip. Written lakeside on Irondequoit Bay, Lake Ontario on Aug. 9, 2024.

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.

“There will be no peace: Fight back, then, with such courage as you have and every unchivalrous dodge you know of, Clear in your conscience on this: Their cause, if they had one, is nothing to them now. They hate for hate’s sake.”—W.H. Auden

Barrio boulevards and backyard battlegrounds

Finding exits and entrances on lost highways

a hard time remembering bygones and byways

few delays or detours on the road to perdition

yellow brick roads lead some to contrition

hiking a tempestuous trail towards sinning

surmountable mountain trails towards winning

through boomer boom towns paved with glory

to grim ghettos filled with misery a tragic story

broad streets bands parades cheerful sunlight

dark streets of sin gin and women of the night

from superstar super rich sidewalks of fame

to homeless crack addicts on sidewalks of shame

the corner of Truth Boulevard and Senescent Alley

we all descend into the living hell of Death Valley.

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.

MY OLD MAN’S SPIRIT and SPIRITS

my Father whose heart and spirit are up in heaven

leave all your mistakes down somewhere in hell

on this day to honor you for all your hard work

there’s no need on any of your bad deeds to dwell

you drank too much and whipped your older sons

while on both your hands was hard work callouses

you dug many a deep muddy cold ditch you SOB

and you never got rich building other men’s palaces

many times, with my weekly allowance of a quarter

you were a day late and a nickel or dime short

eventually you made it up so good news to report

you worked hard and drank hard stuff like whiskey

very rarely a glass of wine or a cold bottle of beer

we knew when you yelled it was time to steer clear

dear Father some days I know you’re down in limbo

but some days you’re back up in a deer filled heaven

you will always be my strict Daddy, father of five

who did a good job raising your family of seven.

MY OLD MAN

(An Irish song by Phil Coulter check online to hear this sung by Finbar Furey)

The tears have all been shed now

we’ve said our last goodbyes

His soul’s been blessed and he’s laid to rest

It’s now I feel alone He was more than just a father

A teacher my best friend He can still be heard in the

tunes we shared when I play them on my own

As a boy he’d take me walking by mountain field

and stream He’d show me things Not known to kings

Still secret between him and me Like the colors of a

pheasant as he rises in the dawn and how to fish

and make a wish beside a Holly tree.

Chorus:

[No, I never will forget him He made me “what I am”

And he may be gone Memories linger on (and on)

And I miss him…the old man]

Sure I thought he’d live forever He seemed so big and

strong The minutes fly And the years roll by For a father

and a son And suddenly when it happened There was so

much left unsaid No second chance To tell him thanks

For everything he’s done. (repeat Chorus).

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.

DEMENTIA DIARY DAILY DELIBERATIONS

An old fellow was walking down a country road.

A passerby asked him how things were going?

The man replied, “Oh I’m stumbling along between the immensities,” The passerby asked, “What are the immensities?” “Well, they are birth and death.” said the old fellow.” We all stumble and fall over many things in our lives. The poems and articles under this heading reflect my stumbling and dealing with walking through life in general, picking up the pieces.

DAYDREAM: THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

Have I ever met that person before

I have to think about that some more

Recalling that face is really a chore

Maybe by tomorrow I’ll remember

Once a long time ago I knew that man

Was it in divorce court or at a wedding

The exact location I’m forgetting

What kind of weather? June or December

Seems I know that face from an ocean swim

Have I heard him sing an old gospel hymn

Was he once really fat now he’s looking slim

Could he have been a jug band member

My memories coming back it’s getting clearer

Why it’s my face reflected in the mirror.

SHORT MEMORY OLFACTORY MYSTERY

I think I have done that twice

or maybe I did that thrice

should I follow my own advice

and do it one more time again

I don’t remember the first

for some instant recall I thirst

short term memory’s getting worse

it comes back every now and then

my longterm memory is great

I recall many an old birth date

what I did will just have to wait

just how long has it really been.

Can’t remember when all this started.

What’s that smell? Was it me that farted?

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.