You may have heard people say all the good poets are dead. There was even a movie made a few years ago called Dead Poet\u2019s Society starring Robin Williams portraying an English teacher teaching poetry to his students.
\nAccording to some studies less than 50% of the American public will ever read any poetry after finishing high school or college and less than 15% will ever buy a poetry book. Kudos to Saipan Tribune editor Jayvee Vallejera for publishing my poems and some of my student\u2019s poems from Tinian and Saipan over the past 25 years or so. The students wrote haiku and senryu about their mothers and holidays.
\nI\u2019d like to start this month\u2019s Literary\u00a0Nook with three living Irish American poet laureates: Billy Collins, born 1941, an East Coast English teacher, U.S. poet laureate from 2001 to 2003; Kay Ryan, born 1945, a West Coast English teacher, U.S. poet laureate from 2008 to 2010; and last, and certainly least, myself, Joey \u201cPepe Batbon\u201d Connolly, born 1949, a CNMI English teacher appointed Tinian poet laureate in 2018 by then Mayor of Tinian and a former CNMI attorney general Joey Patrick San Nicolas. At 72 I\u2019m experiencing the onset of senile dementia so what better place to return to than my ongoing series of sonnets called T.O.A.S.T.\u2014Telling Old Age Senescent Tales.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many of us streaming along\u2014 D.D.T.\u2014Dreading Dementia Thoughts<\/strong> Imagine river* rapids *The river referred to here is the corpus callosum, which is often called \u201cthe river that flows both ways.\u201d It is a mass of transverse fibers connecting our brain\u2019s cerebral hemispheres.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Sarcastic Symptoms of Senescence<\/strong><\/p>\n Plenty aches and pains when growing old wear and tear of more than sixty long years no six to eight hours sleep like when in your prime head hair going, lots of new hair in ears and nose Joey ‘Pepe Batbon’ Connolly (Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong> You may have heard people say all the good poets are dead. There was even…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":331236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,16617,23673,13843],"class_list":["post-365863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cnmi","tag-national-poetry-month","tag-nola","tag-pepe-batbon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365863","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=365863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nall of humanity, really\u2014
\nmoving in perfect sync,
\nyet each lost in the room of a perfect dream.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2014excerpt from Billy Collins\u2019 poem, The Parade.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n(A poisonous plague for senescent seniors)<\/p>\n
\nthat always flow both ways
\ninto an ocean of thought
\ndementia slowly dams them
\ndementia slowly damns them
\nthe thoughts get caught
\nImagine electricity
\nin neural activity
\nconnecting and lighting up ideas
\nswimming through it
\nfraught with neural onslaught
\nslowly encrusting a sea
\nof synaptic senescent tides
\nShort-term memory loss
\nslows the rapid flows
\nsenile dementia settling in.<\/p>\n
\nbothered by this thing, bothered by that
\nbothered by heat and bothered by cold
\nwrinkled skin, crepe skin, many rolls of fat<\/p>\n
\nfading night vision that new glasses won\u2019t help
\nstomach rotundity from way too many beers
\neating inedible greens, curly kale, sea kelp<\/p>\n
\nyou forget the names of people you have just met
\nwalking up and down stairs gives you a hard time
\nfrequent urination leaves underpants a little bit wet<\/p>\n
\ngrowing heavy with fat you can\u2019t fit into your clothes.<\/p>\n
\nJoey 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":"