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My past catastrophes ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

Notes: 1. Nos Amours (“Our Loves”) was the popular nickname for the Montreal Expos, MLB’s first franchise outside the United States, founded in 1969 and named after Expo 67, Montreal’s World’s Fair. The team relocated to Washington, D.C., after the 2004 season and became the Nationals. 2. In 1994, the Expos had the best record in baseball at 74-40 — on pace for 106 wins — when the players’ strike cancelled the remainder of the season and the World Series. Unable to absorb the financial losses, the team sold off its core players. Many fans and historians regard the strike as the beginning of the end for baseball in Montreal. When the team was honored at Olympic Stadium in 2014, a banner read On se souvient Édition 1994 — “We remember the 1994 season.” 3. In 1946, Jackie Robinson played for the Montreal Royals, the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate, the year before he broke MLB’s color barrier. Montreal embraced Robinson warmly — his teammate Jean-Pierre Roy recalled that “in Montréal, he was always respected as a baseball player.” After the Royals won the Little World Series that October, fans carried Robinson on their shoulders and then chased him joyfully through the streets. Sportswriter Sam Maltin wrote it was “probably the only day in history that a Black man ran from a white mob with love instead of lynching on its mind.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve thought about piloting This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve been seeing the future ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

When Carlos Cortes hit a scorcher ... This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

The purple martins returned To their spot on the melted river. The phenology calendar We keep by the door said they would. The redwinged blackbirds, too, Were there, and a lone cormorant. I was also there for sun And for the hope wafting in the air. A stoic seagull sailed over And circled the scene on patrol Before veering away Upstream towards the marina. Everything leaned toward spring And its offer of new beginning. Every bird and beast in that scene, Myself included (with my cares), Seemed well aware of what Opportunity lay at hand And that the seasonal gift Must be seized like the reins of a horse To be ridden out of the dawn Or lost in the heat of the sun And the difficulty Of the long summer days to come. Potter Poems is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

How easy life can be. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

Let me tell you, dear Fred, About how fatefulness led From exhaustion to love Like a bee gliding into a glove Or a foot with ruby sock Kicking open a sugared lock. But I wonder, old pal, How it’s going, and your gal, How she’s doing as well, And how the old magic from the spell Is winding down to its end Back to where all things must descend. There’s no such thing as luck, I’ll tell you that, and some pluck Will go a long way towards Breaking through the closed windows and the boards That were nailed there out of fear And the lack of required good cheer. But I know that you know That, dear Fred, and that the show We’re all starring in is Not unlike the one about the wiz And ultimately funny Like a bee conjuring honey. Potter Poems is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

The caverns of my heart Flow with the water music Of a waltz frozen in the past. I was once the leader When all the dance steps came to grief, Even the rising sun. But the dawn comes again And the ice of the river Begins to relax and give way To a new song and day. Second chances and new dances Appear in the melting. The main thing is to feel The changing waves chip away At the ice as it melts and breaks And then to step into The flow with your thoughts fully formed And your resolve secure. Will they follow you there? The only way to find out Is to take the plunge and begin To swim downstream, to dance Along the waves and rivulets, One-two-three, one-two three. Potter Poems is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

the sun refuses to let the gray sky have the final say instead emitting a low whisper of hope and distant birdsong This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

The painter Tintoretto had an eye For how the light of Venice danced across Not only the canals but every surface, The plenitude of interlacing moods Of bodies occupying space. His brush Contained the Cristo risorgente’s glow Like sunrise on the Adriatic Sea. And now I rise and walk down to a scree Of broken pavement where I stub my toe While waiting for the sunrise and the rush And swoop of birds. A Little Egret broods Nearby and I surrender to the harness Of the day, my load of gathered dross, And all the things to see before before I die. Potter Poems is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

Sunrise from the Fondamenta Nove The Fondamenta Nove gazes east Across the great lagoon and past the graves Of Brodsky, Pound, Stravinsky, and the beast Of Venice, namely Potter with his waves Of ink that flash and glint like squid Whose brains like those of poets are nocturnal But still embrace the lifting of the lid Of day, the new foundation of eternal Imagination carried from the night Like catches hauled in nets of straining lines Laid out in sepia tones transformed to light Illuminating manuscripts and signs Revealed in Fondamenta Nove’s view: Venetian sunrise offered here for you. Potter Poems is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

Potter Poems is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

false spring gives way This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

waking in the dark from uneasy dreams I feel a kafkaesque anxiety come over me as if I know not seems, (but I know I do, in perplexity in a temple built of uncertainty) the tradewinds of uncanny servitude bring sunrise as a broken interlude like this poem propping up the ceiling and this strange and lovely beatitude of dawn undoing my fear-fraught feeling This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

the clocks askew, the morning faint This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

how the morning hit the day This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

when I looked through my window glass This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

in the morning there is pain at the frozen river's edge on the ledge of spring's return in the morning there is pain where the lamb by lion slain sunrise bleeding on the verge in the morning there is pain at the frozen river's edge .subscription options pourboire This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe