LONNIE MACK ~

 

ENSEMBLE MARANI ~

 

GIUSEPPE UNGARETTI (ALLEGRIA) ~

 

Sinkhole At Night

The face

of this night

is dry

as a piece

of parchment

This hunched

nomad

softened with snow

lets go like

a crumpled

leaf

The endless

weather

uses me

as a

rustle

__________________

Giuseppe Ungaretti

Allegria

translated be Geoffrey Brock

Archipelago Books

2020

L.C. COOKE ~

 

Sam Cooke's younger brother

circa 1964

THE DU DROPPERS ~

 

BOBBY DAY ~

 

JERRY MCCAIN ~

 

DOUG ANDERSON (BINGE) ~

 

Binge

War comes to visit me once a day.

I can't get rid of him.

He's grown old and hates himself.

I stopped a quarter-century ago,

but he still drinks — sits in airport bars

and watches the cocky uniforms

line up at the departure gates.

Desert camouflage this time, tan boots.

He orders another double and snickers,

little eyes set close together

in too large a head, like a grizzly's,

opaque and dead. Flies swarm

around his gore-smeared muzzle.

He stinks of corpse. I let him sleep in the garage.

You see, there's no way to make him leave.

Go to war just once, he's always with you.

At breakfast he feels like he's got

an ice pick in his head, swears off the stuff.

Never again, he says, I've found God.

By five he's back in the blood glow of the bar,

bumming drinks and telling lies.

He's got an eye for boys and girls

with wallets full of combat pay.

He'll Mickey Finn them,

roll them for their souls and go off giggling.

I see Senator Goldmouth weaving

down the bar to slap him on the back:

Let freedom ring! says he,

teeth twinkling from the neon at the bar.

________________

Doug Anderson

from What Saves Us

edited by Martin Espada

Northwestern University Press

2019 

LESTER WILLIAMS ~

 

MICHAEL NESMITH ~

 

M I C H A E L     N E S M I T H

1942, Houston ~ 2021, Carmel Valley

BROTHER ~

 

LAVERN BAKER ~

 

 

The cathedral, which remains unfinished, in 2017. It dominates the landscape of Mejorada del Campo, a town outside Madrid Credit...

Gianfranco Tripodo for The New York Times

J U S T O     G A L L E G O

M O N K, B U I L D E R

EXECUTIVE SUITE ~ (Fly the Friendly Skies) ~

 

The Crash of Two Airplanes and the Crisis at Boeing

An engine recovered from a Boeing crash, Jakarta, 2018Credit...

Achmad Ibrahim/Associated Press

R E A D      M E

TED KOOSER ~

 

At Dusk, In Decemeber

Driving a gravel road in the country

I saw a hawk fly up out of a ditch

with a mouse in its beak, and it flew

along beside my car for a minute,

the mouse still alive, its little legs

running as fast as they could, and there

we were, the three of us, all going

in the same direction, west, at just

a little under forty miles per hour.

____________________

Ted Kooser

Red Stilts

Copper Canyon Press

2021

CRAFT ~

 

R E A D     M E

Bloomsbury 2021

MICHAEL HURLEY ~

 

TOM STOPPARD ~

 

R E A D     M E

                               Tom Stoppard on his way to Darjeeling, India, in 1990. Photo: Karan Kapoor

JOANNA HOGG ~

 

JOHN BONHAM, BEAST ~

 

R E A D      M E

Hatchette

2021

THE TWELVE LIVES OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK ~

 

Finally, after many biographies

— a fresh look

LARRY WILLIAMS ~

 

GLORIA GERVITZ ~

 

New York Review of Books

 2020

SHIRLEY JACKSON ~

 

R E A D      M E

Random House

2021

BILLY LEE RILEY ~

 

 

THE HISTORY OF BONES, JOHN LURIE ~

 

R E A D     M E

Random House

2021

DION ~ SAM COOKE ~

 

BIG JOE WILLIAMS ~

 

SVETLANA ALPERS ~

 

ROBERT BLY ~

 

Dec. 23, 1926 ~ Nov. 21, 2021

Snowfall In The November Afternoon

I
The grass is half-covered with snow.
It was the sort of snowfall that starts in late afternoon,
And now the little houses of the grass are growing dark.

II
If I could reach down, near the earth,
I could take handfuls of darkness!
A darkness that was always there, which we never noticed.

III
As the snow grows heavier, the cornstalks fade farther away,
And the barn moves nearer to the house.
The barn moves all alone in the growing storm.

IV
The barn is full of corn, and moving toward us now,
Like a hulk blown toward us in a storm at sea;
All the sailors on deck have been blind for many years. 

"Snowfall In The November Afternoon" by Robert Bly, from Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems.

 © Harper Flamingo, 1999

WALKER EVANS AGAIN ~

 

R E V I E W

A TENT IN ARCTIC SIBERIA ~

 

Gordon Clarke

LOUISE GLUCK ~

 

Song

Leo Cruz makes the most beautiful white bowls;

I think I must get some to you

but how is the question

in these times

He is teaching me

the names of the desert grasses;

I have a book

since to see the grasses is impossible

Leo thinks the things man makes

are more beautiful

than what exists in nature

and I say no.

And Leo says

wait and see.

We make plans

to walk the trails together.

When, I ask him,

when? Never again:

this is what we never say.

He is teaching me

to live in imagination:

a cold wind

blows as I cross the desert;

I can see his house in the distance;

smoke is coming from the chimney

That is the kiln, I think;

only Leo makes porcelain in the desert

Ah, he says, you are dreaming again

And I say then I’m glad I dream

the fire is still alive

_____________________________

Louise Gluck

Winter Recipes From the Collective

FSG, 2021

FRANCIS BACON ~

 

Francis Bacon

Revelations

by Mark Stevens & Annalyn Swan

Knopf 2021