\u201cCrushing us whole with its weight, the pressure pounds insanity into our brains\u201d
\n\u2014opening lines from The Breath Of Love by Ali Nuri, 2019.<\/p>\n
Love Lost on Paper Tossed<\/strong><\/p>\n Valentines on stormy seas tossed inside of me ME, MY SELFIE, AND WHY<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cof all the visions that haunt me, growing old alone has to be the most terrifying\u201d I used to tell my students when I see you I see me ***<\/p>\n Joey aka Pepe Batbon is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is a sonnet practitioner who enjoys stargazing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cCrushing us whole with its weight, the pressure pounds insanity into our brains\u201d \u2014opening lines…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,23672,23673,13843],"class_list":["post-317641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cnmi","tag-lvnv","tag-nola","tag-pepe-batbon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nvalentines on the ocean, high tides with emotion
\nmy love\u2019s labor lost in letters and notes to thee
\ncaring, unthinking, you\u2019ll always have my devotion
\nvalentines read in bed, love\u2019s red lights on my mind
\nlove on a warm water bed a roiling sea rolling
\nwarm weather today the trade winds are kind
\nwaves lap on the shore their sounds consoling
\ndreaming of loving times spent with you
\nwriting doggerel rhymes for you sometimes
\nyour eyes reflect the color of tropical sea blue
\nwith tiny speckles of green the color of limes
\nwhen I went to dump some paper scraps
\nin the wastebasket, valentines from me? perhaps.<\/p>\n
\n\u2014from his poem The Promise by Iraqi poet, Ali Nur, 2019.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m not looking at a \u201cman in the mirror\u201d
\n\u201cI am you as you are me\u201d and well we are we
\nDNA shows the lack of differences much clearer
\nMad Magazine has a cartoon philosopher comic
\nwho has great big ears and a goofy toothy smile
\nhis well known saying What Me Worry defied tragic
\nMr. Alfred E. Newman had a way to begin to beguile
\nthe closer you are to your face for a selfie
\nit shuts out the location of exactly where you are
\nyou might be hanging out with bats in a belfry
\nor \u2018hitching your wagon\u2019 to a giant blue star
\nregardless the time, place, event, or occasion
\nwhether ego, id, conscious or subconscious mind
\neliminating background hides your situation
\nprevents future viewers from knowing what\u2019s behind
\nthat tear, smile, grimace, or super goofy look
\nand puts you in the why Did He Take It? Book.<\/p>\n