EDEN ~

At last I fell to my knees
in the middle of the field
not because I was tired
but because my soul was burning

RUSSIAN FOLK SONG





CROSSING

In the real world people gather in crowds of sunshine on chilled spring mornings — smoking cigarettes, in hoods, cheap slacks, puffy sneakers always white, they joke and use words like words were meant to be used — direct, homely, getting from point A to point B — which is just what they are waiting for the bus that is free in this rural state to do, where cows out number people, and where busses cross over mountains.



MY LOVE. . .


wonders every winter-to-spring about a garden that grows on the way to town. This year she is worried about the man who plants and tends that garden every year. She hasn’t seen him at all out there working. Ground unplowed. She remembers him in the fall looking frail. There is a small pickup truck in the driveway. The gardener has no idea about my love’s thoughts. The space between the road and the house is maybe one hundred feet and within that space is a possible eden.



ADORE


I adore the concentration! A woman walks on the sidewalk toward me and tries the locked door where I am waiting. We both hear the lock hold. We’re strangers but she looks at me and speaks as if I am the door, “No...Wait. Oh, wrong door.” She moves down fifteen feet to another door and where things work.



STAIRWAY


I climbed the cement stairway of the four-tier parking garage — on the first tier I met up with a man who carried a large box down the center of the stairs, and he apologized for this. On the second tier I came face to face with a cherry condition F-150 pickup, turquoise painted stem to stern. My dream truck. I hesitated awhile there and just looked. On the third tier a man I’ve seen before was rattling on the parking ticket machine dreaming of loose change, and on the top tier of the parking garage a blond ponytailed woman in a soft pink sweater was stopped in her tracks and offering no eye contact. As I politely stepped aside she softly murmured, “Sorry.” It’s sunny on the top. The pigeons like this place. A man was leaving his brand new car to fetch himself a ticket. Nobody up there on that moonscape except him and me and the creaking sounds of his parked car relaxing.



THERE HE IS. . .


Nosferatu, his figure, painted on the cement wall of the parking garage when you descend the stairs after crossing all the top tier, pigeons, full sunshine and all. At the very bottom he is waiting. . .

from A Possible Eden, Bob Arnold, 2010

photos © bob arnold
photo of Judy Dater's "Imogen and Twinka, Yosemite 1974"

BABY BLUES ~

ANDREA ECHEVERRI



This song is maybe written to a lover, maybe written to Milagros the first child of Andrea Echeverri, Colombian musician, of Basque descent born in 1965, releasing her first record Andrea Echeverri in 2005. She also plays acoustic guitar in the group Aterciopelados. "Baby Blues" is dedicated from the Birdhouse to all friends having babies born this year as mothers, grandparents, or expecting.

photo : nacion.com

FRANCE ~







Ah, the French couple, Margaux and Gregoire.

She 25 long auburn soft curls to her hair.

Gregoire age 32 and looks ageless. Same with Margaux. Wonderful youth.

I had to slowly write out their names when they told me so I had it just-so when I signed over one of my books to them. Gregoire has an accent over his name, but I haven't yet figured out how to place that with my keyboard. Forgive me Gregoire!

Newly moved in romantically after knowing one another 3 years, both in Paris, both connected with the cinema and music, as French as French can be. If this is Paris, give me more of it.

Stepped right out of a Eric Rohmer delicacy.

Gregoire the step son of Paul Kahn, once of Bezoar the small press stapled in one corner publication, later a book on the Mongols from North Point, now married to Gregoire's mother in Paris. Paul edits and publishes NEW.

Susan and I saw immediately how enriched these two were, modest, curious, absolute sweethearts for the world.

Traveling with old stage coach driver Jim Koller, in his neat slouched hat, gray long strand ponytail, beatific grin, the warm crinkled eyes. He brought a small box of cheap beer in brown bottles that he shared with Gregoire, a dozen bottles. Two left at midnight. Bob, Sweetheart, Margaux happily sipping lemonade in our Rohmer film. Two quarts of our fresh picked blueberries being passed around. Music playing in all our ears.

Margaux and Gregoire almost pleading with the stage coach driver they would give anything to spend another day in Vermont. Ward Bond smiling and saying they were expected in Evanston "tomorrow night". Nothing but nothing standing in the way, not even NY State, Ohio or the width of the Hoosiers. He'll definitely get the mail through.

We were all asleep at 1 AM and up at 5 saying good morning and tally-ho by 6. Koller will take them everywhere on a USA trip they'll never forget. Poets, relatives, old sites. Remembrance.

Sea to shining sea.

fading light photo © susan arnold

PETE'S BEST SONG ~

Pete Seeger, that is. Taking one of his old songs that helped end one war (believe it or not) with the help of many younger musician friends, singing it into the next war and the next. They say there were only seven years without a war in the history of the world.

Keep singing.

photos:
freemuse.org

hilobrow.com

(IF YOU LOVE YOUR UNCLE SAM) BRING THEM HOME

If you love your Uncle Sam,
Bring them home, bring them home.
Support our boys in Vietnam,
Bring them home, bring them home.

It'll make our generals sad, I know,
Bring them home, bring them home.
They want to tangle with the foe,
Bring them home, bring them home.

They want to test their weaponry,
Bring them home, bring them home.
But here is their big fallacy,
Bring them home, bring them home.

I may be right, I may be wrong,
Bring them home, bring them home.
But I got a right to sing this song,
Bring them home, bring them home.

There's one thing I must confess,
Bring them home, bring them home.
I'm not really a pacifist,
Bring them home, bring them home.

If an army invaded this land of mine,
Bring them home, bring them home.
You'd find me out on the firing line,
Bring them home, bring them home.

Even if they brought their planes to bomb,
Bring them home, bring them home.
Even if they brought helicopters and napalm,
Bring them home, bring them home.

Show those generals their fallacy:
Bring them home, bring them home.
They don't have the right weaponry,
Bring them home, bring them home.

For defense you need common sense,
Bring them home, bring them home.
They don't have the right armaments,
Bring them home, bring them home.

The world needs teachers, books and schools,
Bring them home, bring them home.
And learning a few universal rules,
Bring them home, bring them home.

So if you love your Uncle Sam,
Bring them home, bring them home.
Support our boys in Vietnam,
Bring them home, bring them home.

Words and Music by Pete Seeger
© 1966 Storm King Music, Inc.

ABBEY LINCOLN ~

Farewell

(August 6, 1930-Aug 14, 2010)

Jazz vocalist / songwriter of the top shelf

Actress (Nothing But A Man, much recommend)

Civil Rights activist.

BRUNO S. ~

Farewell

Bruno Schleinstein
(June 2, 1932-August 11, 2010)

Actor, self-taught musician, forklift driver.

Appeared larger than life in two Werner Herzog films: The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) and Stroszek (1977).

Bruno S - Estrangement is Death (2005) is a documentary by Miron Zownir.

MUSIC IS LOVE ~

DAVID CROSBY

In 1971 I bought an LP unlike any other in the Sixties pie in the sky time.

This one had a series of songs that stitched together as one long chant, almost summing up, if possible, the persona of an era just passed through. Gathering together fellow musicians from the Airplane, the Dead, Neil Young et al., it was attempting to be sunrise and sunset at once. Very close.

At the time it was panned in Rolling Stone, which wasn't then what it is now: then it was nearly vital.

The LP sallied on. Ignored, taken on by a few and a few more, grown to be loved by later generations.

The performer, despite immaculate odds, even survived.

Being an August birth (August 14) — he was eleven years old when his Oscar winning father was the cinematographer for the film High Noon (1952) — close your eyes and listen and say we are happy you are alive David Crosby.

image: modernguitars.com

MUSIC HEADS ~

woodshed collage photo : © bob arnold

TARHEEL SLIM ~

Not many speak any longer about Tarheel Slim (Allen Bunn).

Born in North Carolina in 1924, he played the circuit cutting songs with various groups, under either of his names, and with Little Ann.

Unforgettable records, like Wildcat Tamer/Number 9 Train
on the Fury label from 1958.

Rock 'n' roll was never finer. Wilder.

Tarheel Slim passed away in 1977.

Here are a few songs (all dynamos) that run through my mind when in the presence of Tarheel Slim ~




Ben E. King after The Drifters and playing into the upper reaches of R & B ~








Shuggie Otis, son of Johnny Otis, teenage wizkid musician via dad's great act, Al Kooper, Zappa, his own solo recordings done the same youthful ages Rimbaud worked his poetry. If anything, Shuggie Otis is a prelude to Prince to come ~








James Brown takes a few words and a few chords and the party is on ~











photos
tarheel slim: pete lowry
ben e. king: areavoices.com
shuggie otis:soundunwound.com
james brown: philspector.wordpress.com

Bob Arnold's

A POSSIBLE EDEN ~

[click on image to enlarge]





Please go to Jacket #40 for four poems from the new book




Bob Arnold's new book of modern fables
With two paintings by the author
Three color text
Limited to fifty copies
Hand-sewn
40 pages

Signed edition $20

order here through Paypal plus $2 shipping

NEW BOOKLET FROM LONGHOUSE !

ALVARO CARDONA-HINE

there is the moment

when the water and the moon

surprise each other




~




her blackberry voice

tells me that the time has come

to know her body




~




they say

Grandfather can hear

the neighborhood

groan

with years



that Grandma's

oven

can bake

an apple pie

with its eyes

closed

Fifteen poems and one painting, "The Blue Barn"

by this author who lives in the

mountains of northern New Mexico.

Lovely three-color booklet with wrap band.

Your choice of either signed or unsigned editions.


order here through Paypal with free shipping

Unsigned $10, Signed $15.

(International orders kindly inquire)

WAY OVER YONDER ~

One of the many hundreds of songs Woody Guthrie wrote and left behind, picked up by the next rover and done in their own method and style. The Guthrie words are never lost, rising with a glowing common ground. Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island was the home made by Woody and Marjorie Guthrie and their four children, a very productive household at the time for Guthrie's songwriting and association with other artists. The goodness of Billy Bragg would come years and years later to mine the spirit of the spot.

"My theory is this; I'm not a political songwriter. I'm an honest songwriter. I try and write honestly about what I see around me now."

~Billy Bragg








Woody and Marjorie Guthrie


Woodrow Woody Guthrie (July 14, 1912-October 3, 1967) American songwriter; guitar, mandolin, fiddle, harmonica player; father of eight children; inspired by Dust Bowl, Leadbelly, American travels; dead-set influence on Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan. Encouraged to write his autobiography by folklorist Alan Lomax, the rambler did — Bound For Glory, published by Dutton in the center of WW2 — my G.I. father gave me his worn copy the year Guthrie died in 1967, (the same year Dylan returned to acoustic music and released his 8th album John Wesley Harding) — one of the great books handed down.















Billy Bragg: liveon35mm.wordpress.com
Woody & Marjorie Guthrie: memory.loc.gov
Bob Dylan & Ramblin Jack Elliott: John Cohen

SUNDAY SUMMER MORNING ~

photo © bob arnold

FAMILY ~

GIRLS ON RADIATORS

for everyone in the photograph




I happen to think there is very little to say about writing


except hug life and learn to live for it. Dialogue will be there.


I visited 20 years at a girls school from the late 70s to late 90s.


I could point to you just the time, the girl, the hour, when I saw


Reagan ruin America. When America decided not to listen to


Jimmy Carter and instead listen to a gimpy actor. Downhill.


I was coming into the school for two months of the year when


my work load for money was lean and mean (winter). I was splitting


wood across town for an elderly couple for those same 20 winters.


Carson born and raised. In the summer months I did the gardens


for the elderly couple. They left me cash under a tea cup in the


kitchen without fail, my paycheck. At the school I was hired to


help out our nearest neighbor at the time, a half mile down river,


who had no idea how to teach poetry (and that was because she was


trying to teach it). I was building a stonewall for her and her husband,


they had Sweetheart and me in one evening after work for supper. She shared


her plight. Her husband said, "Why don't you ask Bob if he can help?"


She said if I would visit the school with her she'd pay me her class pay


that day, $9. In 1979 $9 was $9. It still is. I sold 25 LPs and 5 CDs


yesterday for $54 cash-in-hand. Took Sweetheart out to lunch. When I drove


down to the school with my neighbor I met the kids and the kids met me.


Yes, a little wildfire rippled through the joint, this guy with ponytail and


big beard. The head of the English dept. came for a look, sleek boots,


technical skills, no literary lust. It turns out she was leaving and an


older and jolly sage was taking over. She came for a look, sat right in,


eyes sparkled and she laughed. I was hired for years to come. Not much


official academic decorum in my background, nor driver's lic. Dress the part


(black jeans, nice shirt, vest, boots) and I shot baskets in the gym for the next


20 years in my 1 hour break after lunch, always with the girls. Great games.


This is where I brought in the jocks who "hated poetry". My afternoon writing


session of young writers was crammed to the windows. Girls on radiators. All my


poetry books were bought by teenage girls. What can I say? We laughed a lot.

photo courtesy Bob & Susan Arnold: Friends & family together ~ Susan Arnold, Carson Arnold, Bob Arnold, Janine Pommy Vega, James Koller, 1995

SCOTLAND ~

Photograph of Morven Gregor, and I just love it! You want to wave back.

The photograph is taken by Bryan Evans at Old Kilpatrick on the Forth & Clyde Canal.

"Old Kilpatrick close to our boat - maybe a mile or so," my friend the Scottish poet Gerry Loose tells me in a letter today.

photo © Bryan Evans

Bob! For Your Birthday Today ~

Posted by Sweetheart, with love

DUO



The same bird every night
In the same tree singing
The same song that does
The same very songful
Thing inside of me


from Sky, Bob Arnold

photo - Susan Arnold

EARTH ~









CHANGES


Under the waterfall

Leaves finally reach

Bottom and stay put,

Every known foliage

Puffed into a hive

May strike you dizzy

When the sun is on them

And water above flows

Clear, the shaken colors

Point into your eyes

First winter light




SUGARHOUSE GONE


You’d think it would have

Lasted forever like some

Of them around here do —

This one halfway nested

Beneath the ground, piled

On stone. Downstairs, then

Empty of buckets, if you looked

Above between wide floor boards

You would see where tubs

Of sap are brought to boil

And a few souls go at it day and night

In this tiny place with windows lit

And open shutters of the cupola

Dieseling clouds of sweet steam

Had you at some point in the day

Lean for a cooling moment out the

Sugarhouse door — feeling a realness

In yourself, the redwing’s flight over

Steep pasture, dry mud on high boots —

All of this for warm days and cold nights.

While the fire that bubbled your syrup

Was somehow the same fire

That burned you down.





IT’S SO


After love, you lift your dress

Wash in cold running water.

I’ve to work in the morning,

Drive through the field, frighten

A flicker from wet grass

To the stone wall, birch, white oak.

It all started with you hugging my neck

Pulling back and laughing.

We’d open a large window upstairs

Lie down in the river sound.




The mason’s young helper unloads stone

Then breaks for a cigarette,

All day guns cement mixer blades.

Long handle shovel stuck in sand

Lime dust blowing

Whitewash peeling from ripped out

Barn ceiling boards.

Two weeks ago this was a new job —

Rotten sills weren’t jacked

Bolts cut —

A buzzard flew up from the valley

Cockeyed in stiff wind

Beating rough edged wings,

Very black on melting snow.




Now 4-wheel drives burn tread

On the hillside, tool boxes slam

Workers pitch vision to the ground,

Black flies sting our skin.




By the end of day a red fox

Hops out of that sunny part of the field.

I hear a school bus downshift miles away.

Two guys clean out a wheelbarrow

Drink from the hose

Talk of bear hunting.






from Where Rivers Meet, Bob Arnold
photo © bob arnold

BACK ROAD CHALKIES

MORNINGS ~

MIRA BILLOTTE


Mira Billotte recorded this Bob Dylan tune in 2007 for Todd Hayne's film I'm Not There. It stood out, and is as haunting as the original off John Wesley Harding, which is saying something. When not working the rounds as a solo artist and with that general free-for-all in today's music so beautifully done by many young musicians, Billotte is housed in the band White Magic.

www.last.fm/music/Mira+Billotte



and, speaking of the devil, listen to him cover a Doc Pomus tune, recorded as well by
Big Joe Turner, with equal glee:

Bob Dylan Woodstock.jpg

and then the pro...








Big Joe Turner
jango.com


. . . finally, here is Bob Dylan introducing Doc Pomus ~
born Jerome Solon Felder (June 27, 1925 - March 14, 1991 )
off his radio program "Theme Time Radio Hour".
He says it all the best.








Doc Pomus