{"id":378104,"date":"2022-10-21T06:05:51","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T20:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=378104"},"modified":"2022-10-21T06:05:51","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T20:05:51","slug":"senescent-sonnets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/senescent-sonnets\/","title":{"rendered":"Senescent Sonnets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Turning a Page on Alcohol<\/strong><br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe first time you got drunk what was your age<br \/>\nif you looked at yourself what was your image<br \/>\nwere you with your friends at a teenage stage<br \/>\nis that when you began regular alcohol usage<br \/>\ndid you grow older drinking more and more<br \/>\nalways having some more booze in storage<br \/>\nalways driving to the cheapest liquor store<br \/>\nwith a few cases of beer still in your garage<br \/>\nyou got a beer belly now or a tiger in your tank<br \/>\nvomiting and blacking out every now and then<br \/>\nwaking up with a headache your mind a blank<br \/>\nnot a sober day since you can\u2019t remember when<br \/>\nhave you had enough booze at your present age<br \/>\nthinking about saying no and turning the page.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>Not Scared of Scarlatti\u2019s Song<\/strong><br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<em>\u201cThere the shudder of the waves breaking against\u00a0<br \/>\nthe rocks fills my heart with fear and terror\u201d\u00a0<br \/>\n\u201cOmbre tacite e sole\u201d <\/em><br \/>\n\u2014Cantatas by Alessandro\u00a0Scarlatti (1660-1725)<br \/>\n    written on Oct. 31, 1716.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThough the place is called Suicide Cliff<br \/>\nI go there not to die but to watch the\u00a0<br \/>\nMilky Way far above the Tinian sky<br \/>\nto see the bright moonlight dancing\u00a0<br \/>\nacross incessant choppy little waves<br \/>\nand how the moon\u2019s reflection behaves<br \/>\nback and forth over and down under<br \/>\npearl and diamond necklaces skip and\u00a0<br \/>\nsway weaving intricate abstract patterns\u00a0<br \/>\nyou are unable to see in the light of day<br \/>\nI feel no terror as Scarlatti\u2019s song sings<br \/>\nbut dance with celestial angels that have\u00a0<br \/>\nstarlight on their wings. Yes, there is a<br \/>\ndull thud of waves on the rocks below<br \/>\nproviding bass notes for the sea\u2019s song<br \/>\nlit up lovely lilting golden moonglow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Joey &#8216;Pepe Batbon&#8217; Connolly (Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>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":"<p>Turning a Page on Alcohol \u00a0 The first time you got drunk what was your&#8230;<\/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-378104","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\/378104","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=378104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378104\/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=378104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}