Univ. of California Press
2009
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Monday, June 16, 2025
Sunday, June 15, 2025
A CONTINUING EDUCATION ~
Mr. Wells in 2011. When he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he decided not to undergo treatment. “He accomplished what he set out to do,” a former colleague said.
Photo ~ Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
THOREAU AND THE LANGUAGE OF TREES ~
W A L D E N
THOREAU AND THE LANGUAGE OF TREES
2019
Douglas Brinkley with Henry David Thoreau
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Friday, June 13, 2025
Thursday, June 12, 2025
JOHN FARRIS ~
Skunk
The pot I'm
smoking now
smells like
Armpits after sex (
not with you
of course). You
always tell me
to go to hell. (this
may be the
last time we
see each other.) Where
I will lie is where
I say I loved
you more than this.
Verse
some-
thing's out
there—aft (her
the uni-
verse). The verse
is yet.
Call It
Tobacco
cotton
sugar in
Louisiana
shirts
made of gingham
and slaves
after
and the crack
of what twang of what
tight strings what
on earth under
the sun nothing mugs
but time
for the
load coffee
is like that double
time to
the old swing
No Joke
dragging myself
through 3rd street
& across avenues
depends on the kindness
pf strangers, cars, trucks, bicycles
refuse to run me over. The other
day a bus stopped just short
of a crutch at a curb I was
hanging precariously from
& swung out to miss me, it was
an old man who
was getting on that alerted
the driver & a young hoodie
that grabbed my pack: i
thought he was going to run, but he didn't.
"Watch out pop!" he said, solicitously, &
never asked me for
a quarter. Maybe more
people should be crippled: even cops.
_____________________
John Farris
Last Poems
Archway Editions 2025
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
ELAINE EQUI ~
Weather Vane
If only I had one,
I'd keep it for a pet.
Let it perch on the roof
tethered in the wind,
warbling a tinny,
whirring song.
Let the body of the house
sag beneath its talons,
go limp as it lifts,
it and us up — up.
Gilded bird,
crowing at midnight,
pecking at the grain
of stars.
________________
Elaine Equi
Out of the Blank
Coffee House Press, 2025
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Monday, June 9, 2025
THE WHITE LADDER ~
NIMS PURJA CLIMBED THE FOURTEEN EIGHT-THOUSANDERS IN THE WORLD
IN SIX MONTHS AND SIX DAYS
Norton 2025
Sunday, June 8, 2025
Saturday, June 7, 2025
HOW THE WORLD FAILED TO STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA~
Language is damaged when demands to stop killing civilians are 'antisematic', when an army that dehumanizes its enemies is 'moral', when an enterprise of obliteration is a 'riposte', when a military operation openly conducted against Palestinian civilians is the 'Israel-Hamas war'. Thinking is suffocated when debates are prevented, lectures banned and exhibitions cancelled, when the police enter institutions of higher education and prosecutors are imposed to ensure orthodoxy. An oppressive atmosphere of suspicion and accusation has endangered freedom of speech.
— Didier Fassin
Verso, 2025
Friday, June 6, 2025
Thursday, June 5, 2025
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Monday, June 2, 2025
Sunday, June 1, 2025
Saturday, May 31, 2025
RON PADGETT ~
from Pink Dust
________________
I shovel a path
from the porch to the truck
and another around the house
to the back door, stopping
to see if I'm one
of those geezers
who have heart attacks
while shoveling snow,
and when I'm finished
I'm not. Look
at all that snow out there
going down the hill
as far as the eye can see.
=
In my sleep I caressed you
and when I woke up
I caressed the memory
of the dream.
I never caressed you
in "real life."
I never even wanted to
though I was close
to liking the idea of caressing you.
If I had caressed you
I would remember it,
which is what I did last night.
=
I almost feel sorry
for the human thumb,
off to the side, alone,
and not looking much like
its four nrothers and sisters—
the real fingers.
They invite the thumb
to help them when they need it,
but otherwise keep their distance.
Just across the way, though,
there's another thumb.
In the old days
the two used to twiddle.
Now they're happy enough
just knowing they're both there.
=
It's satisfying to eat
exactly the right amount
of, say, French toast
and then stop,
for you have just
achieved a moral victory
in the middle
of the flow of time,
and though it slows away,
this victory,
you have its aftertaste,
along with butter
and genuine Vermont maple syrup
from a tree not far down the road.
=
A haiku went up into a tree
and sat there on a limb
it had just made up.
__________________________
Ron Padgett
Pink Dust
New York Review of Books, 2025