(Ed note: Happy New Year to All! And although we have been up every day for several months, it is still a joy to announce our grand opening. Today we start the year with a wonder bit of work by Christopher J Ananias, who is also responsible for the header image–Leila)
from the bug eyes of isolation
put the trailer court into a paper sack
and drink it
thirty years of days, gone
classmates, like pickets
they want, (they say), to see me at the class reunion
an October affair
when the pink glories despair
I can’t recall their faces
no one to dismiss
surely they had the makings of which
hair lips teeth—smiles and such
no successful accolades
What can I give?
they don’t want to catch my limp
one more look over the yearbook
oh, heart jumping!
there’s Lori’s brown braids
and Ken’s grin
he passed the pot pipe—and more
frozen people on wooden bleachers
others marching with golden horns and blue pennants!
cheerleaders throwing stars!
teachers standing around
oh sadness!
what do they want with me?
I cannot face those faces
I’m on a suspended license
riding up in my junker with dog hairs
gray goatee and brown eyes, dodging
with a shuffling hunching
mortal coil nearly shucking
all these days of years, drinking
leaking me on the barroom’s floor
a living hole
should take a big step through yon skyward’s door
no kids’ picture to present
not even a surly seed
or his mother’s needs
just me
drinking foghorns of time
sleeping on cement slabs
bars and paper crosses
glued with mint toothpaste
Who could believe?
we were ever seventeen
bursting threads and heart seams
marching with golden horns and blue pennants!
one more look over the yearbook
Saragun Springs 
Happy New Year CJA, LA, and Everyone!
This is a beauty of a poem that tugs on the heartstrings with its reality and affirms LIFE with its truth and honesty. It resonates like Jack Kerouac singing to himself in North Carolina.
The image that goes with it takes the breath away and makes you steel yourself for your fate.
As Ted Berrigan said, “Alone & crowded, unhappy fate, nevertheless / I slip softly into the air / The world’s furious song flows through my costume.”
More tomorrow, or rather later today! It will be a good year in a troubled world.
DWB
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Hi DWB
Glad you liked the poem!
The plaque, like a grave marker, started me. It came into focus like a visit from “The Ghost of Christmas Past.” Seeing my own year of H.S. graduation and “Honoring the Departed.” Like, “Say what?” Definitely a clear message from fate.
It was odd too. Because I had just finished the poem about a “Class Reunion” like fate was leading me then telling me it was almost over, but go put something into the world, anyway. Guess that’s what writing is, a sort of gusto against being forgotten.
Elegant and haunting quote, Ted B.
Happy New Year!
Christopher
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Christopher
What a haunting story this is about the plaque. Carl Jung would’ve called it synchronicity, Freud would’ve called it the uncanny, and I call it LITERARY SYNCHRONICITY. The Universe has a way of very much knowing what we’re up to when we think it’s not noticing. And it likes to send these little messages that are larger than anything else I can think of.
“A sort of gusto against being forgotten.”
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL PHRASE! It’s perfectly written and it says it all about what ART is about, especially art that is made for the love of art instead of only a paycheck, which is lame, and in most cases, not even art.
The phrase is perfectly arranged, and the word choice of GUSTO is so, so great!
This photo is married forever to this poem now. As in the work of William Blake, each piece stands on its own as a separate work. But when you put the visual and the language together, they enhance each other no end.
Thanks for showering your artistic talents in the Springs, like a spring rain of fresh newness in writing and visual art, which some call “photography” but which is somehow more than photography now, because of that thing we call The Interweb.
Too much gets said about how the internet is ruining everything but not enough gets said about all the myriad new artistic possibilities. In the right hands, that is. And yours are.
D
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Hi Dale
LITERARY SYNCHRONICITY is the perfect phrase for the poem and sort of colliding or pushed into discovering the plaque. It really was a bolt of the uncanny. It did seem like a message from the universe–almost scary. So cool that you recognize this and have your own terminology to describe it! Brilliant!
I’m glad the “gusto” line resonated with you! This is what I love about writing when the words come together. When you realize–this might be a good turn of phrase.
It was exciting to be led to this image with your LITERARY SYNCHRONICITY. This is a true experience of the phenomenon. Yes the right image with the writing does expound the art into something higher.
Very glad and grateful to participate on the Springs!
The Internet is way-great in countless ways. People like to say how great things were before the Internet. Blatant lies! None of them would want to go back to the stone age days.
Yes the Internet helps the arts. Helps people get into the arts. Writing, photography, communication, education–endless.
Thanks for your profound and excellent comments!
CJA
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“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. / Genius hits a target no one else can see.” – William Blake
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Wow! W. Blake sounds beyond this world!
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Hard hitting, real and heart breaking. What a start to the year.
Happy new 2026 to one and all – dd
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Hi Diane
Glad you like the poem!
Happy New Year!
CJA
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Happy 2026 CJA
The image you provided is lovely too. So much despair goes on when we are alone. Usually caused by times when we are not. Great example of the human heart.
Leila
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Hi Leila
Thanks! I’m glad I sent the image, almost as an afterthought. When I saw the plaque it really startled me. Then I thought, man I should get the camera, time’s a wastin.’ You might not be here another day.
Wow! Wonderful observation on the human condition! You couldn’t say it any better–so elegant.
Happy New Year!
CJA
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An excellent start to the year for Saragun Springs. Most of us can relate to this fine poem, maybe not in all the details, but certainly the melancholy.
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Thanks for your kind comments!
CJA
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Elderly person here. I hated high school (short, nonathletic, smart) and yet have gone to many reunions. I’m guessing our large class of 1961 is half dead (weird stat I’ve heard, can’t say if it is true – was the largest western USA graduating class outside of California – 400-800, don’t know).
At least at this point we are happy if we are alive, no more status.
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Those school days seem like yesterday, when it was all going on… I’m not sure who is alive or not anymore? 1984 was my class. The plaque startled me. Like seeing your own tombstone or something.
Yeah, definitely happy to be in the alive and kicking club.
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