18. Entering the Second Junana
There’s always something to look forward to,
like entering this Second Junana.
“What’s a junana?” I think you asked.
It’s a bundle of sonnets corded to-
gether - and seventeen, to be exact -
like a bushel of poetic manna.
Actually, junana’s a corruption
of the Japanese word for seventeen.
I like the word, as it rolls off the tongue.
Prime for neologistic adoption…
for a snappy, invented word, I mean.
This book will be of ten junanas strung.
The first one ranged rather wide, I reckon.
Let’s see what I can do in the second!
19. Channeling Kyle Kulinsky
“Jesus Christ! I can’t. I just fucking can’t.
Look at this stupid bastard. Dozy Don!
Spit geysering out of his latest rant
filled with some made up shit from Q-ANON,
JD right behind him, looking so smug
and wagging his tail like a lapdog pug,
hoping His Fucking Majesty will croak
while mopping up Uncle Don’s necktie, soaked
with the runoff from his slobbering nap.
And Stephen Miller - that circumcised schlong,
awaiting his cue for more Nazi crap.
Jesus. Please somebody pass me a bong!
But on to Trump’s asinine Gatsby ball.
We’re cooked. We’re just cooked. I hate to tell y’all!”
20. Five Centuries Beyond Copernicus
A trillion other galaxies at least
within our universe observable.
And yet there’s still the monk, the nun, the priest
whose theism is imperturbable
five centuries beyond Copernicus.
And now we’re yet smaller due to James Webb,
although not all of us have learned of this.
We’re scarcely a wave in the flow and ebb
of the swill of all that was and will be.
We humans often think it’s only us
and impose on ourselves some penalty
filled with fear, self-loathing and animus
for suggesting perhaps we’re not alone -
that our gods fall short of all that’s unknown.
21. Noetic Inaction (or, A Mode That’s Purely Id)
That last sonnet had explicit meanings.
But sometimes I just wanna mess around
and let some nonsense arise into sound
bearing little on my current leanings -
my predilections, whims, or sullen moods,
whatever I ate for dinner last night,
errors I’m determined to set aright,
or haunting memories of pointless feuds.
I’d like to have a mode that’s “purely Id”
and on a conscious filter set a ban.
Maybe pure silliness - Ollie and Stan,
or Don Quixote inverting El Cid.
I’d like to place all higher thought in traction
and savor the fruits of noetic inaction.
22. Ever Never, This and That
I’ve done this only and I’ve not done that.
There’s only so much life that one can live!
But this is great and this is where it’s at.
I’ve got a lot and even more to give!
And that? Well, that is for another life.
In this one I can only do so much.
As Dylan said, it costs some bit of strife
to fill one’s life with things one cannot touch.
I’ve really no experience with that,
and so I can’t do more than speculate.
Imagine what it must be for a gnat
upon longevity to ruminate.
And so I shall content myself with this;
for that is what I’ll ever, never miss.
23. The Poems of Yesteryear
The poet always wants to leave behind
some artefacts amounting to a gift
or offering to the communal mind,
though knowing only some of them may sift,
if sift they do, into futurity
and offer better fare to hungry folks
who long for former scope and purity,
not stomaching the broken, runny yokes,
the brash conceits of vers contemporain
in which restraints have all been long withdrawn
preventing bards from merely running on
and on and on and boring us past dawn
with tales of woe that no one wants to hear.
That’s why we turn to poems of yesteryear!
24. Quatrodecimal Palindrome (or, Sealed in Poetic Chromium)
Is it a sonnet if it doesn’t rhyme?
Let’s test the theory. Blank verse only, then.
Will stick with iambs strictly. 14 lines.
I guess that there should be an argument
to serve in lieu of sparks from flinted words
that spider into lineated webs
or grids that I call “quatrodecimos.”
(Such Latinate though paltry neolo-
gisms support my rise above the plebs
to soar with kites and more patrician birds.)
What happens, though, is that a bard’s intent
gets caught in unprojected traps and mines
and sealéd in poetic chromium.
The poet pulls his ruse off just in time.
25. Tinsel and Angels
Rhyme is an organizing principle.
Poetry can’t get too far without it.
You can’t have Christmas trees without tinsel
and angels. There’s no two ways about it!
The ancients didn’t rhyme, I understand.
It came into English via the French.
Normans brought them, and Anglos found them grand -
a trove of love songs between wight and wench.
Our modern troubadours all know this well -
from Robert Johnson up through Sheryl Crow.
Free verse in song will rarely move or sell.
That Anglo Bowie’s got a few, I know;
see his “Eight Line Poem” from Hunky Dory.
I wrote to him in youth. The bastard ignored me!
26. The Dual Dependency of Fun and Disgust (or, Our Mundane Tour)
Have you had enough fun in life? What’s more,
have you realized sufficient disgust?
We get to know them on our mundane tour
as yin and yang, John and Paul, boom and bust.
It’s true you’ve not lived if you’ve not known glee -
a goodly modicum of it, no less.
A surfeit of joy will render you free,
though you may vomit cleaning up your mess.
I’m happy to have quaffed deep vats of both.
We moderns are a rather lucky lot
and consummate a double tendency.
Enough may be enough, but I am loath
to think one day I’ll drain a final pot
and lay to rest this dual dependency!
27. Our Era, the Digital Plentocene
We entered stasis in 2015.
This era marks the End of History.
Let’s call it the Digital Plentocene.
We’re failing forward in epistrophe,
having learned nothing from anamnesis -
that cosmic loop in which once more we’re stuck.
Here comes Caesar again, and now Jesus.
Adam and Eve, who forgot how to fuck.
By 2015 we all had smart phones,
and that’s when everything came to a halt.
Our standstill is being mapped out with drones.
Blame Gates and Musk, but it wasn’t their fault.
Maybe we’ll speak again, after the thaw,
assuming we’re not long dead or dumbstruck with awe.
28. Banners of Exuberance!
Poetry’s an act of exuberance.
I only write it when I’m doing well.
It’s a gift, a happy protuberance
on a column of the linguistic shell
to be opened on days I’ve lived life right
and boxed again when I’m doing poorly.
I really only rise to fullest might
in efforts to scrawl something enduring
when I exclaim, “Damn, it’s been a great day!”
and open up the box to let fly out
these banners countering gloom and dismay,
anxiety, grief, self-loathing and doubt.
Let mopier poets chauffeur their hearse.
My exuberance seldom leads to paltry verse!
29. Finite Immortality (or, Those Quondam Youngsters with Spondaic Names)
We age when we ain’t in the news no more
and lose our finite immortality.
We sense our youth has been reduced to lore,
succumbing to fatigue and malady.
Tom Cruise. Brad Pitt. They finally look old -
those quondam youngsters with spondaic names.
It’s comforting to view their tarnished gold
as our own better years go up in flames.
We were every bit as dashing as they,
could just as easily have earned their mint!
And now, like us, behold! They’re flashing gray
and narrowing their vision to a squint.
For Dorian only fancied himself clever,
while providing proof that no one lives forever!
30. This Next Machine
“And what does this one do - this next machine?”
“For one, it’s self-constructing, as you’ll see.
It may finish in an alexandrine.
I'd like to see that happen, but it's free
for the most part to act on its own whim.
The guidance I provide is minimal.
It summons up its own vigor and vim
and adjusts itself to the liminal
proprieties that serve as its four walls.”
“Does it ever get ahead of itself
or, say, lapse into unfamiliar drawls?”
“Of, course. That’s where I come in…though with stealth.
It wouldn’t do for it to know me well,
and nor I it, for otherwise we’d break the spell.”
31. A Title upon It
You’ve got to find your own goodness and truth
and live in it before you’ll know it well.
Just take this bit of sonnetary sooth -
this habit, this domain in which I dwell.
I started out with little more than hope
that I might someday have a song to sing.
And now I’ve got this globe, that telescope,
capacity and pride and endless bling.
You’ll tell me that you’ve seen all this before -
that these are relics of a former time.
It’s strange how much gets tossed from yore to yore.
But some things do recur. It’s not a crime.
And thus it re-begins - this form called sonnet:
fourteen lines of verse with a title upon it.
32. What I’ve Learned Through This Week’s Top AI-Generated Fake News Stories
Bob Dylan’s finally proposed to Joan Baez,
and Tupac Shakur was Malcolm X’s son.
Epstein was in league with the Brothers Menendez.
Alzheimer’s is just the result of excess fun.
We’ve learned that Marilyn probably faked her death.
She was the one with the gun on the grassy knoll
and winked at Jackie as Kennedy took his last breath.
Young Donald Trump was aboard Apollo 13
and with a bunch of aliens smoked a bowl
after serving in Vietnam as a Marine.
Bruce Springsteen just held a seance with Charlie Kirk.
We’re certain that both of the Brontës slept with Chopin.
And Beyoncé taught Noam Chomsky how to twerk,
manufacturing firm consent around her can.
33. With Faded Ink
A feeling I’m recouping wasted time
has often haunted me throughout my life.
Both when I sense I’m rising to my prime
and when it’s clear I’m falling into strife,
I know I’m doing something that I need
to do because I failed to do it then -
some distant past when I was in the lead
and something great was well within my ken:
perhaps a book to influence lost souls,
or else some fabulous accomplishment
to save my planet and its melting poles
and win the hearts of my arrondissement.
This failure’s from a former life, I think.
It’s etched into my soul with faded ink.
34. Exiting the Second Junana
Each of the ten junana has a pair of doors -
one at the front, the other in the back.
Feel free to come in when it rains and pours;
you’ll find each one provides a cozy shack.
Please sign your name in the entrance ledger;
I like to get some sense of all my guests.
Please note the ones that gave you special pleasure…
and if you notice any dust or pests
calling for custodial attention,
just ring the little bell next to each book.
It’s challenging to mind each tiny nook!
These ten junanas form a merry mansion
that domiciles this frozen mummery.
I’ll see you again in Junana Number 3.
[Next: Third Junana, Sonnets 35-51]