PHILIP BOOTH ~

Half-Life





3:00 a.m. Back

from the bathroom,

I've lain awake

for an hour. I

was all right at

2:00, most of me's

still O.K. My feet

are down at the end

of the bed, they and

my head and testicles

still seem to be

the right size. But

my hands, clamped

shut like a baby's

fist, are big as

a catcher's mitt,

each thumb's as big

as a fat man's leg.

I can't get any

sound up from my

throat. I grab

for breath, trying

to cry out.

                   Though

she has been dead

for half my life,

my mother — all

her illnesses

still intact — leans

her softness

over my crib,

and tries with-

out words to

hold me. She

tries and tries

to hold me.




_______________________

Philip Booth
Pairs
Penguin, 1994

HANNE BRAMNESS ~

 

Paul Klee pictures
                   _______________



Sketch of a street in a town



The man's fine limbs

black lines

       running from

     bone to muscle

plaster is tendons

          tension is stone







Vor dem Schnee



I have seen the kingdom of

air so stiff

           darken and

the trees

so wild in the wind

                      continuous

    one line only

and softer colours

   before the snow

fell







The thirty-six hours before the air is softened by

snow  

       An ice lake

       a day

       clear and grey



Pictures look at us from that

painter's workshop

                      the park resembles Van Gogh

resembles what we see when we

                              look back







Gate of the deserted garden



Turn

    black earth     red earth

    learn to love

                  a human  animal  vegetable world

with the uproar of

       death




__________________

Hanne Bramness
Salt on the eye
Shearsman Books
2007







      

LEON REDBONE ~

L E O N      R E D B O N E

[ 1949 ~ 2019 ]

JAMES KOLLER 83, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JIM! ~

James Koller had a bunch of kids, all great kids, and I know most of them simply because their dad brought them to our house to meet them, and them us. It was that simple and familiar. Nothing like a visit!

Here is a message today from Bertie, Jim's son, a fine musician and craftsman, and while he is celebrating what would have been his father's 83rd birthday, he would like us to, too.

So get along.

[ BA ]

____________________

Hi all. 

In commemoration of what would have been James Koller's 83rd birthday today

I've added his reading of Brainard & Washington Street Poems 

to the collection at jameskoller.bandcamp.com

Enjoy,

Bertie

NOT A PRETTY PICTURE ~

Sidney Lumet

Everyone needs an arbiter. The best of us carry one in our heads. It talks to us, and if we are lucky, and even wise, it tells us “go left”, “go right”, “stop at the curb” etc. Robert Mueller, “the Marine”, turned out to be, in the long-run (over two years) nothing more than a double-speak lawyer in love with double negatives. I can only imagine the throngs in train and airport terminals with CNN on in all the waiting room coveys and people, after double-speak Bob spoke, asking, “What did he say?” or “What does he mean?” Thanks, Bob. And for not being the arbiter. If you aren’t, then Barr and the Rat are, and they have been wisely busy at this. Same time, it’s more than curious the very Democrats who are shaky on their feet are from New York (Nadler, Schumer) and without a doubt, by their actions, I see two cowards nervous what the N.Y. Rat has dug up about them and will have no hesitation to use; ditto Pelosi — certainly only a guess what he has dug up about her past and personal life. A woman, of course, is his favorite scapegoat. The Rat will use it with great entertainment. Congressional Committee Chairmen Maxine Waters, Cummings, Neal, Schiff have little of this fear. The Rat may also have something on Mueller. I watched The Verdict last night for the 10th time it seems, never tire of this film or Sidney Lumet’s films, and one sees precisely how the Big Boys work. TCM has been running film after film the past months dealing with themes (unannounced) lined up with the actions of truth (lies), Justice and the American way. 

It isn’t a pretty picture.

[ BA ] 

JERAH CHADWICK ~

After the Aleut 


Say a woman once stepped

from volcano steam, or a man

from the sea, desiring

to live among us.



Or that the storms once settled

leave drift logs and whale

for kin to apportion — even

volatile forces nurturing,

who would claim they are not related?



Tanaang Awaa, Aleut storytellers

began: This is a creation

of my country. Each tale

a twining of familiar

and strange, and at each telling

the lit faces, the lamps

drinking from their own

darkness, the everyday

and ancient rewoven.



Listen, even now wind

tries the door. Cold presses

its face to the glass, only the window's

delicate lacing of breath between us.



Say the wind envies and would remain,

that cold too steals

around our stove for this reason. Wood enough

for the night and more

beached and curing in the blasts. Imagine

the cabinet's rattling, this pulsing

of the floor as dancing.



___________________

Jerah Chadwick
Story Hunger
Salmon, 1999

NEW! GARY HOTHAM ~

Longhouse 2019
23 new haiku poems by 
Gary Hotham

____________________________

Gary Hotham

23

 Longhouse, 2019

 First edition

New and limited

A Longhouse limited edition

 four page foldout 

with decorative label

Signed by the poet

Poetry

$15

Buy now

with Paypal,

please use our email

poetry@sover.net

Check or money order ~

Longhouse

PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro, Vermont

05303

A PILLOW-BOOK ~

CAIRN / NEW YORK

400 West 23RD ST. 61

NYC 10011

HEAVEN LAKE (35) ~

Nothing But The Truth

She is a little girl

on a rocking-horse

and she will only

allow herself to be

lifted on the horse

if she can hold a

flower, it’s plastic

but she is two years

old so it is a flower

and she is content

with the horse her-

self and the flower

until I tell her her

daddy has jumped

into the pond and

her daddy who is

my son is hidden

by me in the door-

way and is quite

used to madcap

and fun but he

knows to reassure

his little girl that he

is not in the pond

but grandfathers

must say there are

such ponds

Still

Snow in the

Yard into the

Woods even in

The trees but

Under simple

Plank swing

A square

Of grass

Always

There are people who will love you

There are people who will hurt you

You can’t get one without the other

Sometimes it will be the same person

Sometimes it will be you

Close your eyes, it still doesn’t go away

See a river and where and how it goes

Go like that

Memory

we

live

long-

er

than

we

will

live

The Little Things

The axe

Standing on

The floor in

The corner

Is all said

And done

(conclusion)

________________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

PAYSAGES PLANETAIRES ~

WAITING FOR THAT GUY ~

MAUD LEWIS ~

Maud Lewis and Everett Lewis outside their home in

Marshalltown, Nova Scotia

Maud Lewis (1903-1970)

(and don't miss this film

starring Sally Hawkins)

SAM PRICE ~

ALEX KATZ ~

May 1996

oil on linen

120" x 240"

TOM MONTAG ~

Don't Say Tree






Don't say tree --

say maple



and locust

and oak. Say



red-breasted

grosbeak and



indigo

bunting. Say



cumulus

and horsetail.



The river

has a name.



Say it. Each

green thing does.



Don't say weed

or flower --



say creeping

charlie. Say



peony.

Say maple



again, oak,

loust, elm,



and jackpine.

say beauty



by its name.



_____________________

Tom Montag
Seventy at Seventy
MWPH Books
2019