A five-line poem by American poet Emily Dickinson caught\u00a0my eyes as I was taking a break from reading and writing about\u00a0local politics. Politics were on my mind and her poem inspired me. I lengthened my poem into sonnet form and appropriated\u00a0some of her words and her use of capitalization. Dickinson\u2019s complete poem and my others follow here:<\/p>\n
There are Two Mays <\/strong> There are two Mays There are Two Women<\/strong> *St. Jude Thaddeus the apostle is the patron saint of Lost Causes. For transparency sake, Sen. Jude U. Hofschneider is also my\u00a0former student. I respect his helping the people of Tinian.<\/p>\n Political Rallies Held by Poetic Candidates<\/strong> Calling all preachers, teachers, mothers, and brothers *A \u201cbrane\u201d is part of a cosmological theory that in a multiverse\u00a0or mega-universe, many universes may reside right next to each other like slices of bread in a loaf of bread. The \u201cbrane\u201d I found\u00a0is less than the blink of my eye away and contains humor.<\/em><\/p>\n Joey ‘Pepe Batbon’ Connolly (Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong> A five-line poem by American poet Emily Dickinson caught\u00a0my eyes as I was taking a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":355846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,23672,23673,13843],"class_list":["post-368617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","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\/368617","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=368617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n(She used her first line as title)<\/em><\/p>\n
\nAnd then a Must
\nAnd after that a Shall.
\nHow infinite the compromise
\nThat indicates I will!
\n\u2014Emily Dickinson (1830 -1886)<\/p>\n
\nThere are two Women and then there are four Men
\nAfter that a Question:\u00a0If Compromise what then
\nVote by a Suggestion or by an Impression
\nOne of the two women is my former Student
\nOf the men some I\u2019ve talked to every Now and Then
\nMy bias toward the Women hurts my being Prudent
\nAll six candidates are elected now, four are Men
\nThe two Women are running for top post! reasons to Boast
\nEmily Dickinson talks about Compromise
\nVoting day nears we can\u2019t wait for Infinity
\nLet\u2019s listen to their speeches, who\u2019s most Sage, most Wise
\nThen pray to St. Jude* and the Holy Trinity
\nI\u2019d like to digress from this nonpartisan Spin
\nLearn what you can, VOTE. May the best two people Win.<\/p>\n
\n(In Batbon\u2019s Brane*, a parallel universe reached through neural fibers in my corpus callosum, a universe with parity par excellence)<\/em><\/p>\n
\nCousins, aunties, uncles, kumpaires, kunados, and others
\nCalling younger and older sisters and their beloved misters
\nWe welcome nonpartisan voters and voting resistors
\nCalling all grandpas, grandmas, and other man\u2019amko
\nPlease check your ballots carefully when voting you go
\nTodudu katpenteru, lancheru, yan bulala peskadot
\nPlease make the Commonwealth better with your vote
\nYan lokkue first-time voters we are glad that you did
\nVote with your conscience there\u2019s no need to keep it hid
\nThose Pro and Con impeachment we welcome both sides
\nIt was so farcical we\u2019re laughing to keep from crying insides
\nWe humbly ask you to make your most honest vote
\nWe will now humbly end our voting plea on that note.<\/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":"