A M E R I C A N P U L P
Paula Rabinowitz
Princeton, 2014
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Monday, December 29, 2014
GUSTAF SOBIN ~
Gustaf Sobin
always a chair
at every door; someone
watching
won't see.
through a spray
of gray beads, the scent
of oils,
unguents. . .
even in mid-
summer, small fires, smoke
through
magnolias.
of myself, no
word, no
messages; would wake early, take
trains to the temples.
stout stations in the
midst of
nowhere:
black
waiting rooms, within.
through the
high, rolling
interior: raised earth,
cradled air.
dry wind, dry
rocks, not
even the beggars, there,
say thanks.
over the seared
hills, their rolling
black
rectangles: the sea.
thick cables
of brown hair, quick
fingers
picking at squid.
a moon moving
over the un-
capped
columns: lost digit.
stone drums, stacked
into rows of
brown
tubulous lilies.
face, half-wrapped in
hair, glances
fast
as a needle -fish.
below the
rose domes, green
as leaves, the
young oranges. . .
with skinny rolls of
coins, nuns
buying bus tickets
for Caltanissetta.
really two
worlds, this light, that
dark, these fingers
swimming through. . .
__________________
GUSTAF SOBIN
Sicilian Miniatures
Cadmus Editions
1986
SNOW FREIGHT ~
Canadian freight train passing by Baker Lake, Alberta, Canada December 2014
AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Saturday, December 27, 2014
THE LYRICS (SINCE 1962) ~
Only 5000 were printed by Simon & Schuster (the same folks that are slowly bringing us Dylan's memoir in installment books) and a crate out of this small initial edition were also shipped over to the U.K. The price of under $150 quickly zipped up to $200. Scalpers now want $300-$500 for the first edition. Everyone expects a second printing. There are complaints about the slipcase, even the ribbon book mark! We all have so much to complain about.
Christopher Ricks and a small team of editors prepared the tome.
The best of the lyrics were written by a youngster.
The Lyrics
B O B D Y L A N
Simon & Schuster
October 2014
Woody Guthrie
STUCK IN THE MUD ~
orange
chimney
breadth
circle
desert
monarch
month
virtue
wisdom
English words that "cannot be rhymed at all" listed in the
Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
if you do rhyme one of these words
and I have
don't take it up with me
take it up with them
and I have
don't take it up with me
take it up with them
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
BERTIE KOLLER FOR JAMES KOLLER ~
"This is a song I wrote for my father who passed away 10 December.
It was performed at a Winter Solstice celebration at my neighbor's house with Jamie (bass) & Sean (percussion) Oshima."
~ Bertie Koller
It was performed at a Winter Solstice celebration at my neighbor's house with Jamie (bass) & Sean (percussion) Oshima."
~ Bertie Koller
THE OLDEST LIVING THINGS ~
RACHEL SUSSMAN
The Oldest Living Things in the World
The Oldest Living Things in the World
University of Chicago 2014
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Monday, December 22, 2014
ELSE LASKER-SCHÜLER ~
The Evening Rests On My Brow
The evening rests on my brow.
Man, I still haven't heard you murmur
or heard your heart roar —
and yet is not your heart
Earth's deepest shell?
Listening for the ring of your joy.
I learned next to your fear and listened closely.
But your heart is dead and Earth forgotten.
Oh, how I imagined that tone —
the evening presses it coolly to my brow.
I Am Sad
Your kisses darken on my mouth —
you no longer love me.
But how you once came —
blue for paradise.
On your ecstatic fountain
my heart danced.
Now I must paint it,
like the ladies who redden
the withered rose of their loins.
Our half-closed eyes
are like dying heavens.
The moon grows ancient.
And the night no longer watches.
You barely remember me —
where then shall I take my heart?
Farewell
But you never came with the evening —
I sat in a cape of stars.
When I heard someone knocking,
it was my own heart.
Now it hangs on every door post,
even yours —
among ferns a burnt-out fire-rose
in garland brown.
For you I stained heaven blackberry
with my own heart's blood.
But you never came with the evening —
I stood in golden shoes.
Prayer
In every country I seek a city
with an angel standing at the gate.
I carry broken on my shoulder
his great heavy wing,
and in my forehead the seal of his star.
And endlessly I roam the night
bringing love to this world,
that every heart may blossom blue.
All my wearying life I have watched,
darkly breathing, cloaked in God.
Oh God, pull your coat tighter!
I know I'm the lees in the goblet,
and when the last man pours out the world
You'll not let me slip through your might again —
a new globe of earth will encompass me.
_________________
E L S E L A S K E R - S C H U L E R
translated from the German by Janine Canan
Star In My Forehead
Holy Cow! Press
2000
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/lasker-schueler-else
Sunday, December 21, 2014
RAYMOND CHANDLER IN HIS OWN WORDS~
The World of Raymond Chandler
in his own words
edited by Barry Day
Knopf, 2014
in his own words
edited by Barry Day
Knopf, 2014