T.O.A.S.T.: Telling Old Age Sonnet Tales

This poem is dedicated to my younger sister Ellie, who had a palomino horse in her early teens that she called El Dorado. She took the horse’s name from the Edgar Allan Poe poem, El Dorado. Poe’s poem and Ellen’s careers as a home economics teacher and blueberry, strawberry, rhubarb, and cherry farmer were my inspiration.
 
My Sister Ellie’s Potato
 
It was Irish all right though at times a French Canadian 
fried delight covered with a thick sauce of tomato
sometimes it was gold, blue, russet brown or red
they always kept us five Connolly children well fed
we sure looked forward toward eating Ellie’s potato
sometimes they would get soft or grow green and black
and stinky rotten from sitting for too long in a sack
usually they were edible ready to cook and found
some oblong with eyes, good and hard all around
we found every one of them that had the knack
and took a dozen that looked good and were hard
wrapped in aluminum foil to roast in the back yard
or over to our friends or a nearby neighbor’s patio
‘baked potato’ said we ‘hot fire roasting makes thee’
a model to be named for our sister Ellie’s potato
oh for mountains of mashed with salt and pepper
and butter stashed inside our mouths it would go
whether it was baked, roasted, boiled or fried
my sister Ellie’s delicious and nutritious potato.
 
Mr. Glenn, A Maven Forevermore
   
Another Edgar Allan Poe poem, The Raven, was my inspiration for this sonnet dedicated to my old friend, Glenn O’Leary, on his 70th birthday last April 2020. A maven is a Yiddish word for someone who understands how to do something or take care of things very well.
 
Ah distinctly I remember though a cold dreary
April come to the high desert as she often will 
my old Louisiana friend Mr. Glenn O’Leary’s
forthcoming birthday was on top of the bill
at the good ole boys Southern crawfish boil
with Leroy, carpenter friends, and Jules Hebert
over an open fire he grilled chicken with toil 
corn on the cob Cajun spices they did prepare
I thought of him and remembered oh so well
Colorado, Louisiana, Philadelphia’s Freedom Bell
how his love and friendship and sense of humor
brought calm peace from Viet Nam to Hammond
and like the good “Doc” Mr. Glenn always says
aided now by his better half Ms. Carol Fernandez.

Joey ‘Pepe Batbon’ Connolly (Special to the Saipan Tribune)
Joey aka Pepe Batbon is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is a sonnet practitioner who enjoys stargazing.