Renee Good/Doug Van Koss/Jonah Raskin/Jack Foley

Rest in Peace, Mother and Poet Renee Nicole Good

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Rhttps://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=9a9c725456583bfe0b61763ae2750d1f4bf0aff9cd73fa17f468ddd3311765d0JmltdHM9MTc2ODAwMzIwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=0b9f7957-e0a9-61c4-3f0e-6b55e12d6043&u=a1L2ltYWdlcy9zZWFyY2g_cT1yZW5lZStuaWNvbGUrZ29vZCZpZD1CQTM3QkRENzdGMDlDRDhCNTE1NTNEM0E2QUVCQ0QyRTlCQ0VDNTc0JkZPUk09SVFGUkJBShared with Your friendsRest in Peace, Poet Renee Nicole Good

On Facebook, I shared the words of one of my major heros, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez,

“I understand that VP Vance believes shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, and I do not. That is a fundamental difference between VP Vance and I. I do not believe the American people should be assassinated in the street.”

to which Petaluma, California poet Donna Emerson added,

Donna Emerson

According to the last video I saw, Renee Nicole Good was shot in the face shortly after she smiled at the shooter and said "I'm not mad at you..." turning her car away from him. He was 'locked and loaded.' She was a poet, won prizes at Old Dominion where she went to college. VP Vance spews from his full body rage weekly. Often against women.

Battle Hymn of Donald Trump 

by Doug Van Koss at 90

   Mine eyes have seen the glory of the tramping of my troops

   They have trampled out the freedoms where the dreams of peace are stored.

   They have loosed their terrible weapons on the homeless and the poor

   My troops are Trumping on

    Gory, gory, what’s it to yah!

    Gory, gory, what’s it to yah!

    Gory, gory, what’s it to yah!

    My troops are Trumping on.

  Battle Hymn of Most Everybody Else

   Mine eyes have seen the return of a guy named Donald Trump

   He has used the constitution to wipe his filthy rump

   He has taken all our hopes and dreams and burned them in a clump

    A pox on Donald Trump

     Sorry, sorry, he’s out ta screw yah!

    Sorry, sorry, he’s out ta screw yah!

    Sorry, sorry, he’s out ta screw yah!

    A pox on Donald Trump   

- Doug von Koss at 90

Jonah Raskin My Symmetrical Life 

As a "prelude"  to Jonah Raskin's startlingly revealing article in Caveat Lector, I would like to begin with the poem which I wrote for Jonah shortly after he published his chapbook, The Thief of Yellow Roses in 2023.

**********************************************

                        The best man I know 

circulates
San Francisco
these latter years
as a cloud a mist
perhaps as a memory
the fog of love, also
perhaps of war and
of battles surrendered,
and may he also 
find in the flesh
the still familiar 
long-lost face
of the dear one,
and when so much
comes down
to flowers and
he deems himself
to be a larcenist,
I tell him that at least 
rhetorically, my friend, 
it cannot be termed stealing 
to pinch from your own
vibrantly petalled 
bounty of produce
blooming each year
from bulbs fondly planted 
by you to culture your self 
as well as all those others 
who are lost and missed.
                                            (for J.R.)

Atheist Catholic

Now I recommend going to Raskin in Caveat Lector, the blog which he founded. There, you can read Jonah's revealing essay "James Joyce and Father John Converted Me: How I Became an Atheist Catholic."

Once you've pressed the link and read the essay, you might want to check out my poem touching on this subject, particularly its reference to Graham Greene,

and the shorter one which follows and which well might be employed by me, Ed Coletti, to conclude my book which will be titled  A Tourist in Time / Confessions of  a Catholic Agnostic.

Through a Glass Darkly

Entering each day into this cloud darkened redwood grove,

No fairy ring of filtered sun rays to light my understanding,

I watch the future moving closer and puzzle the obscurity

blinding me from vision of you—of what or where or why.

 

When willingly I take Paul’s entreaty seriously

To put aside my childish ways,

I wander from the tree limb shelter and cross over

from forested safeguards back into ultraviolet solar burn,

 

I face the sun—then flinch, retreat, realize nothing novel

here to spur conversion from the fear to face instead

toward heaven, hell, or empty void when, in a poem,

I depict once more my barren vision,

 

“I will want only/the efficiency of a single/beckoning off-switch.”

What a childish choice, mere nonexistence,

existential nonbeing, the pain of not being here

or, for that matter, anywhere even in remembrance.

 

I care too much about opinions of the other poets

regarding Ed’s supposed drift toward belief

though he is merely toying with notions and wonders

about all those sage converts to Catholicism

 

Not only TS Eliot, CS Lewis, John Henry Newman, GK Chesterton,

Dave Brubeck, Gustave Mahler and Henry Aaron, but also

the slave trader Jim Bowie and assassin John Wilkes Booth, and

I value Graham Greene most for dubbing himself 

a “Catholic Atheist.”

 Graham Greene

            

                                                      

Ed Coletti                                                 

Agnostic (Redux)

 Having written all of this,

I still don’t know

What’s true,

Do You?

 And

 I’ve grown

To like it

This way too.

Being

A Tourist in Time

Still Feels to me

To always be

Just fine,

 Yet

Even this

Faith in

My uncertainty

Wavers

Much the same as

That boat

Shooting rapids

Through

My earlier poem

“Floating”

 

But

 Opposite shore

Reveals

Curiously

Blurred,

Philosopher

Heraclitus

Praying,

and

So it goes,

Back and forth —

Mysterious flux

The river is

*******************************************************

Jack Foley (1940-2025)

I have known Jack for the past 20 years. I first met him at Moe's Bookstore (Berkeley) when we both were reading there. Although his body of work proved too abundant for me to sample more than a smattering, I certainly was familiar with his impressive talent and intellect. Over the years, we have spoken and corresponded from time to time. However, the events that were nearest my heart were Jack's acts of kindness to Joyce and me following the loss of our home and possessions to the October 2017 Tubbs Wildfire. Much to my astonishment, Jack, with no prompting from me, gifted us with a thousand dollars! This act of generosity was matched by his contribution of a poem to my chapbook Firestorm (Round Barn Press - 2018). Here is the text:

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ED COLETTI  by Jack Foley

They can burn my house

They can burn my shoes

They can burn everything

I usually use

They can burn my kitchen

They can burn my den

They can burn my lamp

But I show up again

Show up again

With my dog, my wife

When you got nothing

You still got life

And life isn’t nothing

Let the fire destroy

Everything I do

I CAN DO IT AGAIN

I’M A FIRE TOO

So burn

So burn

So burn

                                    Thank you, Jack. We will miss you.

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