LITERARY NOOK: Enescent sonnets for September

A senescent sign off sheet on standard elementary particles

What are the last seconds of thought before we go

Oh my Oh wow! Holy crap! There’s nothing there.

Wait a minute there is something, I can’t see a thing

There is a dim light Oh oh now the lights gone out

There’s the Big Bang, oh it was just a little blink

All the frozen strawberries are melting

Neutrinos are knifing through the ice

I still can’t see or feel a single thing

All my red and white corpuscles sing

All those people who kept on saying

We tried to show you tried to tell you

Are underground or burned to a crisp

Longevity is but a will-o-the-wisp

Adios amigo see you down the road

Goodbye you all and to my ego too

A supernova is about to explode

Gravitational waves coming through

Lights in the sky coming through the dark

A dog pees on a flowering bush in the park.

At 73 senile old me

I read this meme on FB: “They say 70% of the

population is stupid. I’m so glad I am part of the

other 40%”. It took me a little while to get it.

I must be somewhat near to the 73rd percentile

73 years of age showing signs of being senile

And getting worse mile after mile after mile

Stumbling along life’s slippery and rocky road

Never in denial of poor mathematical ability

Possessing at most a very minimal capability

In a world full of jokers facing partial reality

Doubling down daily on nonsensical doggerel

Rhyming off the top of my head my specialty

An aging Boomer retaining a sense of humor

Somewhere up in my now foggy gray matter

I hearken back to Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter

Down some ridiculous rhyming rabbit hole

Living on an earth of mirth events threshold

Entangled theoretically in a black moldy hole

Relying on the totality of neural networks sum

To pass their way through my corpus callosum

Where queries about string theory find me dumb.

N.B. birthdays on Sept. 14: Classical music composer, Michael Haydn (brother of Joseph Haydn) on 09/14/ 1737 in Austria. He wrote 20 symphonies.

Ed King, American guitarist for the rock band Strawberry Alarm Clock and Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. Ed wrote “Sweet Home Alabama.” Born on 09/14/1949 the same day and year as Joey “Pepe Batbon” Connolly, Tinian Poet Laureate 2018.

Joey has written more than 400 anti-Trump sonnets from 2016 to present. Maestro para Tinian yan Saipan. Composed thousands of haiku and senryu published in anthologies in Canada, Japan, the U.S., and online.

More than 1,000 sonnets since the ’80s on topics from A to Z published in the Saipan Tribune. Topics have ranged from Food, Fears, Fun, Asparagus to Zucchini, the Cosmos, Senescence, Abecedarian, Villanelle, Limericks, Raps, free style verse, parodies of Shakespeare, classical to modern poets, and his love for Tinian and the CNMI. He has a penchant for rhyme, like all the time.

On turning 74 I’m raring to go for many more.

Joey aka Pepe Batbon Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is a sonnet practitioner who enjoys stargazing.

Joey aka Pepe Batbon Connolly