JOHN BRADLEY MEETS HENRY FORD & BILLY THE KID ~

 A  N  D     T  H  E  R  E  B  Y     E  V  E  R  Y  T  H  I  N  G

by John Bradley

L O N G H O U S E is very proud to announce a new book by John Bradley in their on going series of S C O U T book publications — other titles from the series have been by Kent Johnson, Janine Pommy Vega, James Koller, Bob Arnold and Lorine Niedecker with more in the works. An opening salvo at the front of the book by Patrick Lawler should provide ample cover for what the reader should come to expect.

And Thereby Everything
John Bradley
Longhouse 2015

First edition

only issued in softcover

208 pages, perfect bound

illustrated throughout by Bob Arnold 
with 150 photographs

 "John Bradley is a conjurer of conjunction and conjugation. Indeed, he does “speak his spark” from Old West to sold-out Hollywood, from Firestone to Sharon Stone to tombstone, from assembly line to disassembled line. His “language is a noise, noose, nuisance nuptial,” and And Thereby Everything—is everything. Maybe this book is why there was a Billy the Kid (“boy-bandit-king”) and Henry (Fordlandia) Ford. Maybe this book is why there is America. “Every story undulates another.” It is a tour de everything—a mix of aphorisms and dialogues and surrealistic lyrics with tics and “gears of history” and letters and plays and chorales featuring the voices of Adrienne Rich, Tony Soprano, George Zimmerman, Jean Harlow, Harpo Marx, Joan of Arc, et al. Burstingly funny and fiercely brilliant, this is Aaron Copland for dancers with clown shoes. This is Jack Spicer with a 1000 false clues and no place to hide. This is a Sam Peckinpah film starring Jane Russell as Billy with a soundtrack by Cotton Mather. John Bradley opened up America (with its dreams and icons, its violence and capitalism) and poured it inside this “Confusion Matrix” of a book. This is an American opera—maybe the only true American opera—starring, with all their desires and damage, with all their excess and dreams, Billy the Kid and Henry Ford as America."

— Patrick Lawler
author of Child Sings in the Womb and
 Rescuers of Skydivers Search Among the Clouds

We want everyone on a horse, and in a car.

The cost of a ride ~ $20


  Shipping $3.95 ~ U.S. orders with Paypal

Buy now through easy-to-use Paypal, US Orders, $23.95

International orders ~ complete $45 with Paypal payment

all orders may be made by Paypal or check

mail order here:

 
L O N G H O U S E

 PO Box 2454

 West Brattleboro, Vermont 05303

THE CROSSROADS ~

PIERRE MARTORY   ~  JOHN ASHBERY

PARIS 1957

T H E    C R O S S R O A D S



The rubble is still to come.
The exciting night sky was shining yesterday
On the usual fits of insomnia.
The young man decides to go away
Away from an obscure horoscope
In search of an obscure destiny
In the encouraging silence of the gods.

The intersecting routes the lost maps
The name drowned in foreign languages
His father and mother never knew.
The young man takes his sack and his stick,
Leaves it all to chance, to his good luck,
Spins around, and, far from his flocks
Walks toward his first meeting.

It's a woman and it's a dog
She smiles and she yaps
Singing amid the scattered bones
Something resembling the absurd question
The young man has never asked himself
Which he answers without thinking.
The sky falls like a night on his shoulders
The dog-woman dies inside a long howl.

And when he tries to return, yesterday is tangled.
There is no more tree or star or bed
Or woman or question or horoscope.
The crossroads is only a line without risk.
Nothing moves, a thread stands out, red
Against the sun. The rubble
Starts to smoke as in the past never.





____________________ 

PIERRE MARTORY
translated by John Ashbery
The Landscapist, selected poems
The Sheep Meadow Press, 2008


http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/pierre-martory

PAY ATTENTION ~

PAY ATTENTION



It’d be

so cold



we’d warm

our clothes



right on the

woodstove



not near

the stove



on the

stove



be quick

about it  



______________ 




© Bob Arnold


from the forthcoming ~
The Woodcutter Talks

JERRY LEE LEWIS & FRIENDS ~

http://jerryleelewis.com/

M TRAIN & FLEET FOXES ~

Yes, the book is as good as they say it is. . .good medicine, and best read as a book and not an e-book contraption. 

Knopf still goes out of its way as a publisher to design a book that fits like a glove in your hands.

STREET CORNER SYMPHONY ~

http://www.singers.com/group/Persuasions/

 

KURT SCHWITTERS ~

B E R N A R D    J A C O B S E N    G A L L E R Y

http://www.artbook.com/9781872784526.html

BOB ARNOLD'S ~ THE WOODCUTTER TALKS ~

Drawing from years of poetry and also new poems, The Woodcutter Talks is Bob Arnold at his finest

branching love poems with back country work poems and settlement with community, family and 

individual portraits. The extensive collection also showcases vintage photographs from woodcutters

and woodchoppers and big-saw-pullers of old. Sweat runs down the cheeks of the mere literary and

they adore one another.

First edition
Longhouse 2015
only issued in softcover
234 pages perfect bound
w/ photographs

Buy now through easy-to-use Paypal, US Orders ~ $20
$3.95 shipping & handling

International orders ~ complete ~ $45 with Paypal payment

all orders may be made by Paypal

 or check mail order here:

L O N G H O U S E
 PO Box 2454
West Brattleboro, Vermont 05303

NICK CAVE ~

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/magazine/i-am-the-real-nick-cave.html

JOY HARJO ~

 J  O  Y     H  A  R  J  O

For Calling the Spirit Back
from Wandering the Earth
in Its Human Feet



Put down that bag of potato chips, that white bread, that
bottle of pop.

Turn off that cellphone, computer, and remote control.

Open the door, then close it behind you.

Take a breath offered by friendly winds. They travel the earth
gathering essences of plants to clean.

Give it back with gratitude.

If you sing it will give your spirit lift to fly to the stars' ears and
back.

Acknowledge this earth who has cared for you since you were
a dream planting itself precisely within your parents' desire.

Let your moccasin feet take you to the encampment of the
guardians who have known you before time, who will be
there after time. They sit before the fire that has been there
without time.

Let the earth stabilize post colonial insecure jitters.

Be respectful of the small insects, birds and animal people
who accompany you.
Ask their forgiveness for the harm we humans have brought
down upon them.

Don't worry.
The heart knows the way though there may be high-rises,
interstates, checkpoints, armed soldiers, massacres, wars, and
those who will despise you because they despise themselves.

The journey might take you a few hours, a day, a year, a few
years, a hundred, a thousand or even more.

Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and
leave your heart for the immense human feast by the
thieves of time.

Do not hold regrets.

When you find your way to the circle, to the fire kept burning
by the keepers of your soul, you will be welcomed.

You must clean yourself with cedar, sage, or other healing plant.

Cut the ties you have to failure and shame.

Let go the pain you are holding in your mind, your shoulders,
your heart, all the way to your feet. Let go the pain of you
ancestors to make way for those who are heading in our
direction.

Ask for forgiveness.

Call upon the help of those who love you. These helpers take
many forms: animal, element, bird, angel, saint, stone, or
ancestor.

Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and
creases of shame, judgment, and human abuse.

You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would to a beloved child.

Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return
in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be
happy to be found after being lost for so long.

Your spirit will need to sleep awhile after it is bathed and
given clean clothes.

Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who
loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no
place else to go.

Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short.

Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way
through the dark.



_____________________

J O Y   H A R J O
Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings
Norton, 2015

DAVID BROMBERG ~

 

 http://www.davidbromberg.net/

WOMEN OF THE BEATS ~

Janine Pommy Vega

 Joanne Kyger

 Hettie Jones

 Anne Waldman

 Denise Levertov

 Diane di Prima

 Lenore Kandel

 Mary Norbert Korte

 ruth weiss

 Elise Cowan

https://www.bartlebyeditores.es/ficha_obra.php?id_obra=204&genero=poesia

REAL LIFE ROCKS ~

http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300196641

GETTING ACQUAINTED ~

GETTING ACQUAINTED


 
We knew no one
 
Driving into a
 
Small town

 

Then we saw a sign
 
“It’s a Boy!”
 
And we knew someone


_______________________________________


 © Bob Arnold

 

AWAY ON THE MOUNTAIN ~

 

YVES BONNEFOY PARIS REVIEW INTERVIEW ~

Y V E S   B O N N E F O Y

The Paris Review Interview

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1790/the-art-of-poetry-no-69-yves-bonnefoy

 

THE ANCHOR'S LONG CHAIN ~

Seagull Books 2015

Yves Bonnefoy

 

The Anchor’s Long Chain (Ales Stenar)

translated by Beverley Bie Brahic 

 
I

They say
Boats appear in the sky
And from some of them
The anchor’s long chain may rattle down,
Down towards our furtive land.
The anchor bobs over our fields and trees
Seeking a place to moor,
But soon a wish from above yanks it free; 
The ship of elsewhere has no use for here,
Its horizon lies in another dream.

It may however come to pass
That the anchor is heavy, unusually so,
And rakes the ground, rumpling the trees.
Someone saw it snag a church door,
Catch the arch where our hope fades,
And a sailor had to shinny down
The taut, jerking chain,
And free his heaven from our night.

SHARDS ~

http://www.ndbooks.com/book/shards-fragments-of-verses/

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/04/lawrence-ferlinghetti-interview-poets

EDITH PIAF ~

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/movies/08vie.html

BERLIN STORIES ~

New York Review of Books, 2012

http://www.nyrb.com/products/berlin-stories?variant=1094929313

FRANK O'HARA ~

Y E T   A N O T H E R   F A N





It's a great shame

Madame Mallarme

that to sad us your

hands seem swans

on tortoises drifting

elegant in the sea



While birds whine

at the sun we lay

our aching eyes in

your lap and an iron

balustrade holds

firm round our heart



Gently white planes

rove the horizon

as your wings beat

to earth and trample

our freckles into

coral and grass


 _________________

F R A N K   O' H A R A 


 

SWEDISH PURSE ~

SLY ~

SLY

 

By truck we were
 
Heading home the same
 
Time we saw fox heading
 
Home by the side of the road
 
Muddy legs like quick
 
Moving boots he made
 
His way and I swear
 
We looked at him
 
And he looked at us
 
And the Earth was whole


_____________________ 

© Bob Arnold
The Woodcutter Talks
LONGHOUSE 2015

YESTERDAY AND TODAY ~

T H O M A S    P Y N C H O N

( 1966 )

ny times

THE HARROW & THE HARVEST ~

A LOVING GESTURE ~

Dear K —

This old nondrinker notices just how much drinking is in your letter from this gala event you attended. How our society depends on the drink to grease the gears, to get us through. To get everyone involved through. It’s the non-drinker, trust me, they have no idea what to do with.

 
Somewhere out there someone has a video of you on their cell phone doing “Chain, chain, chain, chain of fools” in a conga line.

 
It’s customary to think we are now all in the chain of fools since we are all drunk. Have to be. Unless we aren’t getting through.

 
My father would be uncomfortable with me, who wasn’t drinking, while he was drinking. Finally when he was loose and relaxed enough, he’d cozy up to Sweetheart and me and take out his forever shirt pocket notebook filled with lumber scribbles and house information, cabinets to order for a kitchen job he recently measured up for a young couple eager for their first home, and he’d write down just what it would cost to get us tickets for an Amtrak train trip since he had been listening to us prattle along about a long cross-country voyage and it sounded like fun. Into the notebook went all the information, which of course looked like nonsense to him when he sobered up. Sweetheart still remembers this sort of sad testimony about the man. Nothing ever came of it, not that we expected any, the guy was just relaxed and feeling happy.

 
A close friend felt more like himself when he finally got me to drink down two bottles of red wine with him the very last time he visited here. He didn't know all I wanted was to see him smile. I must have felt somewhere in the soul this could be a last visit, although I would have never predicted it. My friend, to us, would live many years longer. He brought the two bottles of wine (which he drank the most from), Breyers ice cream, and a jar of unsalted old man peanuts that he seemed to relish. A loving gesture.

 
The stout Jack Daniels bottle sits on our kitchen shelf not quite polished off after a very long winter and chilly spring, along a dreary episode with the flu. Neither of us wanted any of the whiskey. But the bottle label looks dignified like a Harley Davidson emblem. We tried the hot-toddys and got nowhere with them but sipped them down like medicine. Sweetheart only once. Me every night for a week. I’m not sure it cut a lick but I gave it a try for the first time. It all still tastes like gasoline to me, as does wine, very foreign, but nothing matches the stuff I used to swill down when I was with a Chinese foot doctor for a few years and the concoctions he insisted I swallow I’m sure were part bark, roots, dirt, animal droppings, insect wings and bat guano. Pretty pink pig ear grease. The squiggles of homemade calligraphy down into my gut.

 
What will be left of us when the world is pulverized?

 
What I like about this Mexican hole in the wall restaurant where we eat is the owner is a limping long haired native with a wolf grin and wide striped shirt and he moves with the deliberation of a wise animal. And he owns the place and he’s owned the place a long time and he’s made it work. Congratulate the man! He hires women all in Spanish tongue, a bit of Indian shade to each of them, fluent in their tricky language and half may smile at you. Just their pacific faces beat out the entire history of most of the white customers that wait for their take-out orders.  There is little to speak of from this white world except consuming, Facebook, cell-phone, money making, bill paying and a rent to meet. Where’s the beef? Where’s the trail? Where’s the music? It’s MP3 and throw away the vinyl, the field recordings, the personal heavy boxes of records, so many journeys. The real heft that instills a real memory. The stuff that makes you feel hurt in places and so you are alive.

 
I listened to Boz Scaggs during an interview, and there’s the Texan musician looking a bit wasted after decades of road life, making a music out of this young man heart of once upon a time and somewhere in his serious litany of remembrance he suddenly turns me on and I really hear and see and bear down with what he’s trying to get across. It’s almost like he has the partial heart of Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers sincerely deep down in his bones. It is true. I can hear the cadence and the calmness of the dust trail and animal ploving and how slow both the Red River and Rio Grande can flow. Only a true Texan. Like you, he says, he was raised in Oklahoma and Texas. I like these guys. Always have. He has a new and very popular album now out. Try to play it at your music store job. Put a Texas blues into the Texas hallways, trap it into the book catacombs, drizzle it down into the store cafe. Sexify the styrofoam.

 
I have a steel wall to build today. Happy days are here again.

 
all’s well, Bob