TIMBUKTU ~

While the American government is building roads in Afghanistan and Iraq, here in Vermont or is it Timbuktu? folks are taking matters into their own hands and rebuilding their own roads the old fashioned way ~ hardscrabble, old tractors, rakes, shovels, neighbor to neighbor, lifting river bed rocks out of the road in the millions all over the state and throwing them into a flood crevice 5 or 10 feet deep and getting their roads back.

There have been three beautiful days in a row since Irene ~ that was the least she could do for us. Otherwise she reminded the state how rivers move and live. This is something folks had to learn the hard way: you got too close. Or the bridge in 1990 wasn't built with the eye and skill of those who remember the floods in the '30s. Yesterday, after a lift into town (Brattleboro) we got a peek up Flat Street where the majority of businesses were many feet under water and are now digging out of mud. Few have flood insurance. In the sun, spread out along the street, people were together like they maybe haven't been ever in their business lives side by side washing off material of mud and grime and sharing a similar story. If you made a passing glance going by, the gathering looked like any farmer's market ~ the colorful, the many, the unity of spirit. Many of these small businesses could be ruined if there isn't common sense relief given by whomever gives money or even has money in these times. Right now people are giving to one another. It's a Hurrah moment.

At home everything is high and dry but we're without phone or electricity. The river has dropped a million tons of water since the flood thundered through on Sunday, so by Tuesday evening we could stand along the water's edge and look easily across to a small island of our land where all next year's firewood has come forth in full tree lengths swept in with the Irene tide. Powerful maple trees grabbed out of the ground by its roots and brought to our catching spot. In twilight, along the shore, I found a flood sculpture plastered with the force of water engines made of sticks and grasses and roots and debris eight feet tall and 3 feet wide and it's about all I had to see in the wake of the flood. Mother's nature.

Down river, neighbors were working on that jagged rock ledge where the road once had been and where Alex and I lifted the motorcyclist lost on Monday night up and over. No one will ever know where he came from or where he was going. He never took his fishbowl helmet off. I believe that region got itself filled in by hand and small poor man tractors and the road gained itself a full two miles now from the covered bridge and the village. All without our taxpayer's wages to town workers, and all neighbors hard at work. A second Hurrah.

We've been on bicycles, everywhere. Miles.

We also refused to obey Amazon's and other book engine services orders by asking us to shutdown our bookshop and go "on vacation". Yes, we were going to get cut off the grid and wouldn't have book orders coming in as easy as pie, so it meant we spent the last two days traveling far and wide on foot, bicycle or borrowed ride, packing book orders out on our bikes and on our backs and fetching more orders when we got to any computer terminal we could borrow. I'm tapping this out to you from there. I'm even in another state. But the sun is coming in through the broad windows.

By tonight when we return home, maybe the lights will be on. There are towns and regions far worse than we are. There isn't a speck of river mud in our house. Count ourselves lucky. I don't need to drive anywhere, my bike is fine. I love my river friend of forty years, we've done a lot together. And she's allowed to show her stuff.

Tomorrow you'll come hiking down and ask me how a river that gentle and soft looking could do the damage that is seen. I'll point eastward to the high water mark, fourteen feet up and burnished into the hillside like a long time scar it will be. No words. But Hurrah.

no access yet to post my own photographs

but it's coming

IRENE IRENE OH IRENE ~

Well, we got smashed by dear Hurricane Irene ~ she wasn't wind so much but all a wall of water. Power & phone went out like a snap of the finger at 10AM on Sunday morning and then the river by our road rose & rose. At least twelve feet. I've never seen it that high. Neither has an old timer friend up in the village and she's lived here 70 years. Same place. The flood took a better portion of our dirt road and made it a river bed. Just left bedrock and stone rubble in the flood's wake. Neighbors a half-mile down river have no road at all showing ~ just jagged ledge. Last night we about lifted a lost motorcyclist over that tiny Matterhorn and on his way. How he appeared and got himself into such a fix, nobody knows. A little Scot terrier dog with him too, riding right behind the handlebars. We were all busy fixing a road not there. The river subsiding and remaining loud. Muddy, like the color of cement. Myriad miles of roads in there. Hereabouts, vehicles are parked and isolated. We have three. One is a brand new rental that as luck would have it we just happened to have for a few days. Stuck with us. We're hiking the two miles to the village with packs & bicycles taking all book customers packages with us to mail in town. We can catch rides from the village with friends. They say days & days & maybe even a month more of this before we see any sign of the town road crew. So many are taking matters into their own hands, which is always a good sign. Yesterday, in the most beautiful sunny day that could possibly occur after a flood ~ a vivid blue sky I tell you ~ we washed our laundry in a wood's stream running nicely up behind the house. Clear water. Like it came from the sky.

borrowing a computer
no access at home
itinerants !
all be well

POETRY ~





Hurricane Irene is lightly raining out there, through the open living room screen door, 3AM.

The experts call this the calm before the storm. Who can sleep?

We in Vermont wouldn't really know ~ the last great hurricane that any old timer liked to tell me about barreled through in the 30s or 40s. We still drive over many creek bridges that were rebuilt after that storm. A whale of a rainfall.

It could grow to be 12 inches of rain, or better, with Irene. Sweetheart and I easily remember 18 inches not too long ago. Closed our road. Lifted and took the green out of the river.

I don't like to talk too much, or too loudly, certainly not too boldly with Mother Nature. She does what she does, and even sometimes has to do. It's up to us to collect jugs of clean drinking water before hand. We went to the grocer's and bought our first head of lettuce since early May. The garden season for lettuce is almost up and now this drowning rain.

There really isn't all that much to buy. We saw people buy gasoline for generators. All men. We bought batteries.

If the power goes out for days and days we'll be eating a lot right out of the fridge before we lose it. We might invite you over.

I don't like to talk too much, or too loudly, certainly not boldly about poetry. It also does what it does. I watched the new film Poetry the other night, and hard to believe I watched Secret Sunshine the night before that. Two Korean powerhouse films. Brilliantly acted and lived within by two women actors.

There is a scene in Poetry, amongst many, where I believe the essence of a nasty poet is well portrayed. It comes late in the film, with next to no fanfare. You might be so used to seeing and experiencing this in your own life that you'll miss it. You'll want to hope it doesn't portray you. Even speaking to it makes me feel uneasy. But there is the poetry teacher in the film, not a bad guy at all, he tries hard, seems quite sincere with his students, is patient and likewise candid and real with each one. But now we have him outside the classroom and meeting a few of his students at a public seating and the teacher, himself a poet, brings along a close friend that he describes in so many words as a "real poet". The guy miserably lives up to the description; in fact when the teacher speaks to his students (all adults) in a tone of fellowship and kindness it about splits the head apart of the real poet's cult and intelligence. At one point he leans toward the teacher and asks him with a killer grin if he is acting for real with what must be a sickening nonsense. Probably none of the students will ever carry the water to write many poems like this real poet. It appears writing one poem is daily haunting many of the students, but oh do they show determination and belief. Plus a collective kindness. I've been in these classrooms. I've seen that hopelessness time and again try to climb that grease rope of hope. I've quietly told the cynics to get the fuck out of the room.

There is a scene in Poetry where her hat blows off on the bridge. Telling.

Nothing I've read by Pound, Bloom, Mistral, Keats, Neruda, Brooks, Eliot, Milton, Shakespeare, Saigyo, Transtromer, Stein, and stacks and stacks and stacks of books in my room does any better than this film.

How do we write poetry in a world that has lost interest? How do we write poetry when we can barely get through the day? How do we write poetry when we can't even see poetry but someone insist it is in all of us?

Go out and tell the dog to bark. If you've trained the animal it will be a trained bark. Sound like a trained bark. Otherwise, it barks when it is ready to bark. Poetry barks.

It takes toughness and kindness but don't say those words. Just know and earn those words.

The film Poetry opens with what we believe is the floating body of a very young woman in a river. Children discover this body as they play.

So many contrasts. Like sprinkles of rain preceding the hurricane, then to bed, and later in the morning rise to a harrowing mess. Such poetry!

Today I knelt down to the bottom shelf in a bookshop, and I'm always by myself in this section, the poetry section. I was drawn to a new large collection of poems by Tim Dlugos. I remember his work well years ago and read his many slim volumes. Young and long hair, off in the shadows. As a dead man his first book in years is large and handsome and he's been well taken care of by David Trinidad as editor and tender. A kind tender, I might add. The poet is now older with his hair cut and sitting out on the steps like Joe Brainard. Another poet compares Dlugos to Frank O'Hara, but no one yet has shown to be Frank O'Hara and I doubt it will ever happen. Bark. Bark. I decided to leave the book behind, knowing I would regret it, and I do. Too many silly short poems which really aren't silly at all. They each add to the whole of this revolutionary poet who was revolutionary because he fought for love. There are no greater fighters than lovers.

Imagine fighting Irene.

http://www.nightboat.org/

Tim Dlugos, A Fast Life (Nightboat Books)
Director of both films: Lee Chang-dong
Secret Sunhine (2007): actress Jeon Do-yeon
Poetry (2010): actress Yoon Jeong-hee

ANNIVERSARY ~

two of us






this song came up as almost everything we were doing Saturday
though Sunday is our anniversary, in the rain

IRENE ~

Tex Ritter

We're just in the door after 4 days traveling, which put us somewhere in the mountains north for breakfast, westward another day at dawn, back north today with the sunshine up there still family friendly and no care in the world amongst parties about anyone called Irene. But she's coming. We just rode from town without any other vehicle or sight of man on the road for a half hour. In truck headlights after dark we moved 6 cement blocks and covered over all the woodpile tarps. We'll lose power for sure. As long as we don't lose our 50 pounds of berries put~up and frozen. The great Tex Ritter's song came up on the play list as we drove the rain, just about perfectly timed. We'll let it play in our heads as everything goes wet and wild.

EARTH ~

( open your eyes )

Cream

To hear the masters light into this song, of all their songs, in elder age, at the Royal Albert Hall May 2005 is something to behold with eyes open or closed (your choice), or find the film of the concert and await for this moment. There's something to be said about age and achieved wisdom behind the words and the playing.

psst:

http://youtu.be/vc0m7e4UnIY

BHAKTI ~

Man is the greatest Truth of all. There is nothing beyond.
— Chandidas


"For over five centuries songs have circulated in Bengal with the name Chandidas attached."


I've been reading it. In the laundromat. In the truck as passenger. Waiting for my sidekick as she ships the mail when I'm in the cab under the tree and the tree is a maple. For an hour waiting for a book sale to percolate behind a locked door. On a bench in the sun. Outside a classical music festival rehearsal hall and the Brahms was lovely but now Sweetheart needs a nap and we pull off into the shade, her side window open, bare feet stuck out, lightly smudged, music playing (Gene Clark) and I read more & more of this fine book. I knew the poems would all be sturdy, and the commentary by its editor would be more than sound; I just waited to see if the poems and the commentary invited a reader, many readers, visitors, as a good book that can take care of itself guides and welcomes and teaches and shows the way — and this one does. Don't hesitate.






the oxford anthology of bhakti literature
edited by andrew schelling
oxford university press
2011

EARTH ~

Gennady Aygi


It's a New Morning, at least for me, on each new book publication in English by the Chuvashia born poet Gennady Aygi. Aygi wasn't published in the Soviet Union until the 1980s, and since then he has been widely translated by Peter France and others. . .the most recent gift through the skilled eyes of Sarah Valentine which shows an immediate freshness and Aygi's connection to the outdoors — of both landscape and language. I also much like Valentine's direct speak and thought around modern poetry:

"I think many poets in the United States today struggle with a feeling of irrelevance, of impotence in the face of global-scale crises. Sidelined in a mass-media, technology-driven culture, the American poet seems to have a slim chance of connecting with an audience, and even less of a chance to effect large-scale change through poetry. But elsewhere in the world many poets, like Aygi in the Soviet Union, wrote and continue to write poetry at the risk of losing their lives and livelihoods. For them poetry is an ethical act, an act of humanity, regardless of the cost. Many of Aygi's poems confront the political and social crises of his age, but many others are small poems about the beauty of fields and flowers, the birth of a child. Some consist of only a few lines, a few words, or a single word, or a single letter.

Why bother? What difference could jotting down a few lines about flowers possibly make? The answer, I think, for Aygi was that each word of each poems was part of a grander project, an exploration of the nature of existence, of our place in this universe — whatever that is — of what lies beyond the limits of our knowing, and of how, through a humane art, we can maintain our connection with all of it. Also, and perhaps most importantly, each poem is a celebration of mystery, of the fact that, though we pursue these questions, life in all its forms is a mysterious gift. That, if we can find it, there is always enough light — sometimes even on the petal of a flower — to dispel the darkness."

GENNADY AYGI (1934-2006)

ONCE AGAIN — INTO THE SNOW



and you begin to sing — and I am disappearing

slowly into the snow (like before : a figure

darkening in the dusk

somewhere far away) and the broken board appears

there — among the ruins

in the abandoned shack (they sang whispered

then

cried long ago — it seems

from great joy) and in the distance the forest

as if

in a dream

opens — and you are singing

(though — you needn't

for it's already over)

you go on

(though even without us eternity

is already ripening

shimmering

like gold)

you go on

though you're becoming too muffled

to sing






GIRL IN CHILDHOOD



she goes out

like a bright breath into the field



like board-white buckwheat

cuts through the woods



birds like straw

take the forest sounds on their backs



her pigtails on her back without a plan

as in a dream begin a village

looking over the fire tower's edge



and there in the clearing in the wind

beyond the far heart of the golden rain

a birch plays with out a birch

into u without u






SILENCE



1


in the invisible glow

of pulverized melancholy

I know uselessness like the poor know their last piece of clothing

and old utensils

and I know that this uselessness

is what the country needs from me

reliable like a secret pact:

muteness as life

indeed for my whole life



2


Muteness is a tribute — but silence is for myself



3


to grow accustomed to silence

like the beating of one's heart

like life

as if a well-known place there

and in this I am — as Poetry is

and I know

that my work is both hard and for itself alone

like the sleeplessness of the night watchman

at the city graveyard






LITTLE TATAR SONG



I took a pail and went for water

because we had no water.

I sat next to my pail and cried

because we had no joy.



Back in those days

I was no taller than the pail.



"Mother" I whispered — the meadow hushed,

"Brother" I said — and sleep fell silent.

What was I trying to name was silence:

sun, oak forest, wormwood.



Only to my song,

beyond the aul,

I silently cried — "Sister."

~

my cap goes off to
Wave Books
www.wavepoetry.com
for making such a gift





see an earlier Birdhouse for Gennady Aygi :
http://longhousepoetryandpublishers.blogspot.com/search/label/Gennady%20Aygi

EARTH ~

Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/23/over_160_arrested_in_ongoing_civil

EARTH ~

Bookseller's Rap

EARTH ~

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schumann




Peter Schumann in his element



made in vermont

WITH ME ~

LOU REED

This is one of the great blues songs recorded by one of the more successful recording artists, Blind Lemon Jefferson, in 1927. For some of his gospel songs and the classic heard here, Jefferson recorded under the name "Deacon L.J. Bates".


Others like Lightnin' Hopkins have recorded the same song as "One Kind Favor". Canned Heat did, too. The U.K. band Half Man Half Biscuit recorded their own version and titled it "See That My Bike's Kept Clean".


Blind Lemon Jefferson died two years after he recorded the song, in 1929, at age 36. He froze to death in a Chicago snowstorm. Paramount Records paid for the return of Jefferson's body to his home state of Texas.


His grave that he wanted kept clean went worse for wear and even unmarked until 1967. By 1996 the cemetery and his marker were in unholy shape. It wasn't until 2007 that the cemetery changed its name from Wortham Negro Cemetery to Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery, and you can make sure that this grave is kept clean (the location isn't exact but its bluesman-close) for Blind Lemon the next time you're in Wortham, Texas.


Lou Reed is Lou Reed. So was Harry Smith.

WITH ME ~

Spacemen 3


Over its time, less than a decade (1982-1991) this English psychedelic group numbered up to eight musicians coming & going with the band. They cut four studio albums, a handful of live albums, and a bunch of unofficial releases to their good name. Drug convictions prevented them from obtaining visas to tour the USA, so they kept to themselves elsewhere, not exactly getting along as a group after awhile. Solo albums occurred by various members and most everyone is still active in music today. A spaceman is always out there somewhere. Great music to go with the cicadas of summer.

PULL! ~

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/opinion/19iht-edmahbubani19.html?ref=global-home





"Those who can't find anything to live for,
always invent something to die for."
LEW WELCH

MEOW ~

Speaking of mail ~ I just subscribed and it's FREE (like the Birdhouse) to the sculptor Robert Schelling's Kitchencat.com. RS sent the announcement on a postcard through the mail. Sweetheart had hiked up for mail along the river this morning while I was at stonework up in the woods. She came back with the postcard, sweet all around, plus a book order tucked in a little note from Port Townsend. Now, I call that Friday.

SUBSCRIBE PRONTO!

http://kitchencat.com/

YOU'VE GOT MAIL ~

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=639a4d19-f03e-4c34-808b-81c1b828e01c





books through the mail!
keep those letters coming!
write postcards save postage
the lovely slowdown of regular mail
a day without mail is an unhappy day
we walk upriver every morning for mail
close some military bases ~ keep all rural POs open!

SWEETHEART ~

drawing © bob arnold

EARTH ~

Edward Thomas & Robert Frost

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/29/robert-frost-edward-thomas-poetry






photo : david mccoy

EARTH ~





AUGUST WOODS



All

that



rain

is



now

in



all

that



river






photo © bob arnold

$TOP MAKING $ENSE






Stop Coddling the Super~Rich
By WARREN E. BUFFETT

Omaha

OUR leaders have asked for “shared sacrifice.” But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched.

While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors.

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot.

To understand why, you need to examine the sources of government revenue. Last year about 80 percent of these revenues came from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. The mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of their earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class: typically, they fall into the 15 percent and 25 percent income tax brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, tax rates for the rich were far higher, and my percentage rate was in the middle of the pack. According to a theory I sometimes hear, I should have thrown a fit and refused to invest because of the elevated tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

I didn’t refuse, nor did others. I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain. People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off. And to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation.

Since 1992, the I.R.S. has compiled data from the returns of the 400 Americans reporting the largest income. In 1992, the top 400 had aggregate taxable income of $16.9 billion and paid federal taxes of 29.2 percent on that sum. In 2008, the aggregate income of the highest 400 had soared to $90.9 billion — a staggering $227.4 million on average — but the rate paid had fallen to 21.5 percent.

The taxes I refer to here include only federal income tax, but you can be sure that any payroll tax for the 400 was inconsequential compared to income. In fact, 88 of the 400 in 2008 reported no wages at all, though every one of them reported capital gains. Some of my brethren may shun work but they all like to invest. (I can relate to that.)

I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them. Many have joined the Giving Pledge, promising to give most of their wealth to philanthropy. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.

Twelve members of Congress will soon take on the crucial job of rearranging our country’s finances. They’ve been instructed to devise a plan that reduces the 10-year deficit by at least $1.5 trillion. It’s vital, however, that they achieve far more than that. Americans are rapidly losing faith in the ability of Congress to deal with our country’s fiscal problems. Only action that is immediate, real and very substantial will prevent that doubt from morphing into hopelessness. That feeling can create its own reality.

Job one for the 12 is to pare down some future promises that even a rich America can’t fulfill. Big money must be saved here. The 12 should then turn to the issue of revenues. I would leave rates for 99.7 percent of taxpayers unchanged and continue the current 2-percentage-point reduction in the employee contribution to the payroll tax. This cut helps the poor and the middle class, who need every break they can get.

But for those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate.

My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.

from The New York Times 14 August 2011

Warren E. Buffett is the chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway.

monopoly

EARTH ~

wood

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/science/16obwood.html?ref=global-home






Science/AAAS

DONE RIGHT ~

phil ochs

Draw wherever you might this new film by Kenneth Browser done right in 2010 and now on DVD. With excellent commentary throughout by Pete Seeger, Tom Hayden, Ed Sanders, Joan Baez, Judy Henske, Dave Von Ronk, plus other music associates and members of the immediate family. It makes deep sense to the music and political field of the 1960s. One can remember where one was and what time of day it was when each Phil Ochs album was found. Still with me.

phil ochs in battle position 1960s