EARTH ~

FRIEND


This sparrow must

Love the sun —

All day it has perched

On the stone well

Beside the empty

Trough of seed




All day its feathers

Lifted in the breeze

Its head turning

The oddest angles




If I could have him

He would fit in

The palm of my hand







© Bob Arnold
from Where Rivers Meet
(Mad River Press)



photo © bob arnold

WINTER LIGHT ~

photo © bob arnold

GOREY ~

This little wonder has just the right amount of Theroux and just the right amount of Gorey, and the Gorey of the Gorey also passes through all the Theroux ~ it usually isn't him unless it is first Gorey, so a fine blend of characterization. No surprise in the hands of Alexander Theroux, author as well of the satirical gem Three Wogs.

Plus classic photographs, mainly all located on Cape Cod where both authors bunked in nearby towns. To get from here to there on the Cape, off-season, is a stone's throw.

The publisher knows the subject and treats the design of the book impeccably, starting with the appropriate front cover. Have another look.

The price is under $20, which means its cost is 15 minutes these days with any mechanic, and I believe the book will last forever, unlike the time with the mechanic. And I like most mechanics.

Cormac McCarthy gives the only jacket blurb.

There's a friendship and confidence within, quite at ease. My favorite passage in the book is this one, authored by Theroux, ruminating perhaps about the ways of life and passage:

"I have noticed all my life that those the press, the people, the planet ignores tend to be its most profound inhabitants, and that, sadly, those taken up, pampered, and praised are mainly hustlers, churls, opportunists."

Sweet Dreams.



MORE ~

EDWARD GOREY WAS KNOWN TO WATCH A THOUSAND MOVIES IN ANY GIVEN YEAR ~ HE ONCE WROTE FILM REVIEWS FOR
SOHO WEEKLY W/ ONE OF HIS BETTER PSEUDONYM'S
"WARDORE EDGY".

WHEN NOT ROCHELLE HUDSON, ONE OF HIS FAVORITE ACTRESSES WAS TUESDAY WELD. (MINE TOO).

SOME OF THE FILMS GOREY FAVORED ~ THE LADY VANISHES; BARRABAS; THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT; AND OF COURSE, THE BAT WHISPERS.

HE ABHORRED ALL AL PACINO FILMS.



ANOTHER ~

and a bonus. . .
another favorite Gorey film

EARTH ~

photo © bob arnold

FILM ~


One more remarkable film which you may have missed ~

The Yellow Handkerchief

Directed by	Udayan Prasad
Produced by	Arthur Cohn
Written by	Erin Dignam
Starring	William Hurt Maria Bello Kristen Stewart Eddie Redmayne
Music by	Eef Barzelay Jack Livesey
Editing by	Christopher Tellefsen
Studio	Samuel Goldwyn Films
Release date(s)	January 18, 2008 (2008-01-18) (Sundance) February 26, 2010 (2010-02-26) (United States)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$15.5 million
Gross revenue	$163,039

info : wikipedia

EARTH ~

SUGARING TIME




ONE SHOT
=============for Russell Denison


The one shot
I don’t think
He wanted to shoot
Put this deer down,
Found on the river ice
After the dogs
Had been chased off.

He left the body alive
Longer than I would
For someone to call
The game warden, or
Hoping 3 or 4 in the pack
Would circle back,
Put a slug in each one’s head.

But nothing returned —
This deer waits
Head flat
Muscles clawed from her legs,
She won’t ever rise again.
Bloody dog tracks
Pinwheeled from the body.

It is late winter
An open sunny day for a change,
The air is starting to melt
With new bird songs —
Her eyes are wide
She can’t move
Watches us as we move.




SUGARING TIME


All at once

Off in the distance

Where an old hut

Sinks into the ground

Two small windows lit

And steam bellows

Up into the farmland sky —

You thought it was a fire

Until you tasted the air




JACK BELDEN


Uncle Jack is what the young kids
Around here call him, even though he
Isn’t really their uncle but rather
Their own parents’ uncle and usually
They just called him Jack. His name
Doesn’t come up too much when I’m
Working with my neighbors.
There are three houses of the same family
Up the dirt road running alongside
French Brook. The brook eventually
Climbs higher into the next town of
Cheshire and Jack drinks from this brook.
The dirt road winds around Church Mountain
And swings back into the village
Passing through the covered bridge
And over the waterfall,
Forks then into two roads like a wishbone
That provides travel for a dozen families.
They hardly ever come down our road
Which follows the river, and I don’t
Think anyone knows Jack Belden up there.

The three houses on Jack’s back road
Are the homes for two of his nephews
And his sister; Jack’s small trailer
Is hidden in a hollow from them all.
He never married, doesn’t own a car,
Hikes to Brattleboro 12 miles away or
Picks up a ride with the rural mailtruck.
One day walking home from work
I was 500 feet behind Jack who had just
Left the mailtruck in the covered bridge
And was stalking down the muddy river road.
Middle of the season. A warm day.
The buckets on the roadside maples
Brimming with sap.
A mile down the road
And still a distance between us
I watched him abruptly stop,
Look both ways (but not behind him),
Let down his burlap sack of groceries
From his shoulder, then walk to
One of the trees and remove a bucket,
Drink for a good half-minute
Wipe his mouth with his sleeve
Hang the bucket back
Then continue the remaining mile to home.
I thought all about that yesterday —
It was eight years ago. He was 75 years old.

Today I’m tapping the same trees
On the farmer’s land Jack drank from.
The mud is deep and the day is warm,
Not much has changed.
But I heard and couldn’t believe
That Jack has been in the hospital
Since January, the month we broke
All records for freezing temperatures.
I recall one night sitting with neighbors
Already reminiscing about
The headaches of busted water pipes
Depleting cordwood and icy roads,
But no talk about Jack —
The whiskered old man who walks.
Everett, his nephew, told me
As we filled our aprons with tap spouts
That Jack’s gas ran out in the trailer
During one of those real cold nights.
30 below. His feet froze.
They amputated the gangrene from all his toes.
Shut out all the lights to any more walking.

I wonder what this all means —
We worry about water pipes bursting,
But a quarter-mile away
Jack loses his toes.
It wasn’t brought up at town meeting this year.
Jack’s photograph doesn’t grace
The inside town report bulletin
As one of the patriarchs of Guilford.
Yet, he knows his territory —
Takes a leak outside his trailer door
Like any liberated yankee.
Quietly living so that you
Don’t know that he lives.
Showed me once how to
Crush an early shad bud
Between my fingers
For the first scent of spring.

QUILLS


He didn’t move —

With pliers I

Pulled 16 of them

From mouth, lips,

Nose and head —

Like last year

It is early spring





HEMLOCK


When the big hemlock
Washed down river
During one of the early
Spring runoffs, I went
Down with bowsaw and
Sawed off one large
Limb for the cabin
Steps handrail, and then
Went back and brought
Home a dozen smaller branches
Thinking they could be
Used for something —
Although they have only
Stood up behind the woodshed,
Bleaching in the sun,
Warping away from
Straighter timber
They once knew.





BLOSSOMS


Beneath rain clouds

She wheelbarrows

Loose black soil

Of daylilies

From the brook

To plant around

A ledge of stone

And in a month

She will smell like

The yellow blossoms

PRIZE


Away from the road,
Off into the high edge
Of a field, unless I
Looked carefully you
Would never have been seen
Picking wildflowers
Growing in folds of sunlight
Among the tall grass.

Each snipped by hand
At the same height, then
Gathered inside a pail
Of shallow water.

The world seems weightless
Watching you work,
If this is work —
You call it a prize
Saved for the last
Hour of the afternoon,
Taking away what this
Plot of land has to give —
Flowers for the kitchen table,
Brightened windowsills.




DAY AND NIGHT


How often have we
Stepped together into water —
You left your clothes on the rocks
And shivered your way to me,
Said it was freezing as I thought
Of the mountain stream filling this
Clear basin of evening light, and how
Swallows showed us the angles of the sky
Far above barbed wire and pasture heat
Which we came down from after work
Smelling lilac in the breeze —
And it was the long blonde hair you shook
Out of a blue bandanna and later braided
That had me remember the day and night.








© Bob Arnold
from Where Rivers Meet
(Mad River Press)


photos © bob arnold

WITH ME ~

It doesn't get much better than this — James Brown ratcheting it up through a Little Willie John tune, complete with lazy horns which sometimes pop like flashbulbs or downtown traffic horns, the maestro's voice deep in the groove. The ultimate song to discover as you start to settle into a music store's bins and this beauty comes on. It could change your life's direction. As Emily Dickinson was said to have said when she heard this song in a leafy Amherst, Massachusetts used music store: "It took off the top of my head."

I first heard this song years ago on a King LP I covet (own) titled Thinking About Little Willie John and A Few Nice Things — to die-for covers by JB.

The hardest working man in show business was born in South Carolina in 1933. An African American with Apache descent and Asian ancestry. Brown had a rough childhood: very poor, his mother hightailed it off with another man by the time he was ten, that left him with his father who taught him how to play harmonica and an aunt running a house of prostitution. In that house came Tampa Red who gave JB his first guitar lessons. Otherwise, he was hustling friends, survival on the streets, and answering life's messages — locked-up at age sixteen for armed robbery being one. While in lock-up he met another servant of gospel and rhythm & blues: Bobby Byrd, and really the rest is music history. Both men would pass away at age 73.

James Brown & Bobby Byrd in the groove

photo JB : emiliogrossi.com

EARTH ~

ANCESTOR OF THE HUNTING HEART



There is a distance in the heart
and I know it well—
a somberness of winter branches,
dry stubble scarred with frost,
late of the sunburnt field.

Neither field, nor furrow,
nor woodlot patched with fences,
but something wilder: a distance
never cropped or plowed,
only by fire and the blade of the wind.

The distance is closer than
the broomswept hearth—
that time of year when leaves
cling to the bootsole,
are tracked indoors,
lie yellow on the kitchen floor.

Snow is a part of the distance,
cold ponds, and ice
that rings the cattle-trough.

Trees that are black at morning
are in the evening gray.
The distance lies between them,
a seed-strewn whiteness
through which the hunter comes.

Before him in the ashen snow-litter
of the village street
an old man makes his way,
bowed with sack and stick.

A child is pulling a sled.

The rest are camped indoors,
their damped fires smoking
in the early dusk.

JOHN HAINES

(1924 – March 2, 2011)





Photo © Dorothy Alexander

EARTH ~

WHILE DEEP SNOW

FALLS IN THE

NORTH WOODS



clear

clean



tea

cups



in

the



kit

chen









Bob Arnold
from Builder


photo © bob arnold

EARTH ~

NINE AFGHAN BOYS COLLECTING FIREWOOD KILLED BY NATO HELICOPTERS

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/world/asia/03afghan.html?ref=global-home

I met Ali yesterday when with the other friends were in Ghahroud (an small town near Ghamsar) walking in a path of an almost dried river.
He is 11 years old but can not go to the school because he is from Afghanistan ! This was what he said about himself. I did feel ashamed of being an Iranian in front of him when he was talking about his situation! I wish I was able to send him to the school.
He said :there is someone from Afghanistan who teaches me how to read and write and how to drive a loader machine the same time. While he was talking I couldn’t take off my eyes from his hardened hands. When I asked him where you wish to live, he looked at a very far place and said nothing!

He was collecting woods beside a dried tree. I captured his portrait with the roots of the dried tree. It seemed that the river has taken the tree off in one of its torrents and now both river and tree were dry. We don’t help Afghani people because their roots are out of their lands…As it goes on, this flood of disaster in the region will root up our tree, one day! This was what I was thinking of afterwards…

علی گفت که اجازه نداره در ایران مدرسه بره چون افغانیه!! در برابر نگاهش از ایرانی بودن خودم خجالت کشیدم.

photo : flickr

LITTLE THINGS ~

IF INTERESTED IN ONE, TWO OR MANY

PLEASE CONTACT US ~

New titles from Longhouse

poetry@sover.net






film : © bob arnold

EARTH ~

Protecting the Lion From U.S. Predators

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/a-protective-scepter-for-the-lion/





photo : associated press

EARTH ~






PACIFIC


Lovelier —

When the

Bandanna from

My pocket is

Worn around

Her neck








© Bob Arnold
from Where Rivers Meet
(Mad River Press)



photo © bob arnold

GOODBYE ~

Suze Rotolo
Nov 20, 1943-Feb 24, 2011







photo: Don Hunstein

POETRY ~

tuesday weld

EARTH ~

Joe Long of Birdel's Records

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/sked-for-sunday-feb-27-a-beloved-record-store-closes-among-last-in-a-dying-breed/





photo : Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

OSCAR ~

Sweetheart has gone to retrieve books at the faraway cottage on snowshoes. Books for customers. Snowshoes to get to & fro. Beat down the trail. When I go out to do all the trails — around the house, to the studio, and through the woodlot (pick up more logs), I'll take a spin and do the faraway cottage trail as well.


"Do you want any cookies baked?"


"Why?"


"Ah, the weather's so bleak."


She's right. It may take a few cookies to get us into March.


I've lost count of the days now and am about to give up on the weather map for the first time in years — it's just going to snow some more, then weeks on end of mud. That's the weather report. We hand shoveled the long driveway three times since Friday. Maybe 16 inches of snow over the three days. The snow banks are well over our heads.


Now to the important news: Natalie Portman looked by far the finest, and radiant, at the Independent Film Spirit Awards last night. Nothing in the world like an expectant mother. Dale Dickie from Winter's Bone appeared quite taken and humble on the announcement of her winning, and John Hawkes well deserved his award as one scary and thin meth tooler also from Winter's Bone.


The Oscars will be watched by millions worldwide this evening, and I only hope they will likewise pay attention to the Oscar winners out in Wisconsin who are fighting for their work lives and home lives. It remains the Greatest Show on Earth. It may indicate just how fascist state these united states have become.


Perhaps go back and run a finger (as if through flour) across the time line and history since Ronald Reagan, through lying in Congress, to liars now in Congress, AIDS, homeless, the bogus air "attack" to America which has performed an excellent excuse for anytime and anywhere states of emergencies, clamp downs, search and seizures, torture, wiretaps, email snooping, and let's not forget world banks and finance (a great deal of it centered in NYC) over throwing governments of the people for governments of the all-mighty buck.


If you've got the bucks, you're included, if you don't (majority) you're out.


Political parties mean zilch. It's all down to what cash you hold and who you protect. It's boiled down to the working-class being treated like garbage by a vast minority who have never worked an honest working day in their lives.


This is paramount. It's what dreams are made of, whole libraries of books, folklore, old sayings, traditional songs worldwide, wisdom from grandparents and parents and the wily neighbor who always had a keen tidbit to offer your way.


Unions aren't perfect but they are people. Every dictator is a louse.


An Anthony Scalia on a Supreme Court is obviously not justice.


War criminals BushCheneyRumsfeld jetting around free and with book parties is obviously a hideous joke.


One fatcat in America making the income of 350,000 Americans is a something-is-awful-wrong-here moment.


People kept healthy and educated and warm through mutual support are stronger, sharper and willing.


And united. It's about time this country earned its name.


And the Oscar goes to the ground-breakers, the name makers.

MORE JANINE ~

A short film by
Kurt Hemmer & Tom Knoff


please link here ~

http://www.harperdoit.net/videos/janine/

photo © susan arnold

TEAMWORK ~

William Saroyan, the master storyteller, once co-wrote a song with Ross Bagdasarian (the creator and voice of Alvin and the Chipmunks) that Rosemary Clooney spun into a novelty hit in 1951. Welcome to the world of
"Come On-a My House" ~

saroyan : parajanov.com


coda: I just had a letter this morning, snow falling all around, from good friend William out in Oregon who knows a thing or two about the two gentleman above. He kindly sent this version not to be missed ~ please link here

EARTH ~

CANTOS DE VIDA Y ESPERANZA / SONGS OF LOVE AND HOPE



IX.




Towers of God! Poets!

Heavenly lightning rods

withstanding severe tempests,

like unadorned crests,

like rustic peaks,

breakwaters of eternities!



Magical Hope announces the day

when on the rock of harmony

the perfidious siren will pass away.

You must have hope, let's still hope!



Keep hoping.

The bestial element takes comfort

in its hatred for sacred poetry,

hurling brickbats of every sort.



The insurrection from beneath

spreads to the upper class and elite.

The cannibal covets his piece of meat

with red gums and sharpened teeth.



Towers, place a smile on the pavilion.

In the face of that evil and that unease

place the lofty suggestion of a breeze

and the tranquility of sky and sea. . .





Rubén Darío
(1867-1916)

Songs of Life and Hope
translated by Will Derusha & Alberto Acereda
(Duke University Press 2004)

WITH ME ~

A great midnight song, when the moon is rising over the trees and the incomprehensible is invited in.

Johnny Guitar Watson was the ultimate rocker of blues. He took his name as still a teenager after he saw the Nicholas Ray film Johnny Guitar.

Etta James called him the best, and she traveled with him and knew. Frank Zappa picked up his guitar because of Johnny Guitar Watson. Hendrix is in the corner nodding yes to all of this.

A sleek pompadour and one more mountain lion bluesman from Texas raging in the 50s; by the 70s he had transformed without losing any of his claws or talent into a brother of style and funk, fly suit and all, and maybe just maybe he was the one who swept in Rap. Blame someone, JGW can take it.

Music historian Peter Gurlanick claims Watson not only was a musician but also a pimp — the wild man said it paid better than music.

Born in Houston, he played with everyone by the time he collapsed on stage in Yokohama, Japan, grasping his Fender Stratocaster mid-guitar solo! It was May 17, 1996. Age 61. Over there, it's still on some people's lips.

EARTH ~

RISING


Some sound outside has raised our heads
Made us look into the eyes of one another.
You by the kerosene lamp glowing into your
Face and hair, knitting needles down in your lap.
I pull on high boots and wool shirt
Walk out to the dogs on their chains
Muzzles sniffing to the hillside.
We wait, beneath a clear wash of moonlight,
For sure we’re heard something and we’ll freeze
To hear it again — there, low bark, speaking from
A darkness left in the woods, excites the malamute
To circle his hut, piss on the pine he’s tied under.
No stir or movement up there, though these barks are
Moving across the face of the night, striking out
From some loss or pain, wearing down a trail.


I leave the dogs whining to go to the river
Rushing deep and flashing white light of the sky.
This is the clearest night yet for October
Frost webs open ground
Deer everywhere must be fattening on mushed apples.
A howl, now straight across from me —
I can’t see the bear but know it’s a bear,
The call it makes fills that body.
In a moment it will be farther away
Gone back into the hairs of darkness.
I hear nothing more, as if I’ve heard enough —
Now the middle of the night.
Soon that white light will rise out of the river.







© Bob Arnold
from Where Rivers Meet
(Mad River Press)



photo © bob arnold