ASSATA SHAKUR ~

 

A S S A T A    S H A K U R

1947, Queens ~ 2025, Havana

          Ozier Muhammad/Newsday, via Getty Images

LENA KHALAF TUFFAHA ~

 

Variations on a Last Chance

The fence does not hold.

The wire sheds its barbs, softens to silk thread.

The snipers run out of bullets.

The desert, as it always has, of its volition, blooms.

The snipers are distracted, sexting their girlfriends.

The snipers' eyes are blinded by smoke from our burning tires.

The snipers wonder if they will ever see the end of us.

The fence does not hold.

The snipers take a lunch break.

The bullets melt in their chambers.

The bullets disintegrate when they reach the word PRESS on Yasser's vest.

The news finally breaks the stillness around us.

The bullets will themselves away from the boy's skull.

The boy's sandals sprout wings and he hovers above the bullets' path.

The snipers lose interest in shooting at medics evacuating the wounded.

The snipers make eye contact with one of us and see.

There are enough saline bags at the hospital.

The snipers shoot and miss and miss and miss.

We outrun the snipers.

We bury the dead at the fence, let their roses reach the other side of home.

_________________________

LENA KHALAF TUFFAHA

Something About Living

University of Akron Press, 2024

BILLY STRINGS TONIGHT ~

 

   August 1, 2025

      Golden Gate Park

FRANK BALLARD ~

 

   Sun Records

SUNNY WAR TONIGHT ~

 

℗ 2023 New West Records, LLC

MOVE (1985) ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Mariner 2024

ROOSEVELT BOOBA BARNES & THE PLAYBOYS TONIGHT ! ~

 

CESAR VALLEJO ~

 

CESAR VALLEJO (Peru: 1892- Paris- 1938)

Translations by Michael Smith and Valentino Gianuzzi

THE NINE MONSTERS

So, unfortunately
pain grows in the world at all times,
it grows at thirty minutes per second, step by step,
and the nature of pain is twice the pain,
and the condition of martyrdom, carnivorous, ravenous,
is twice the pain
and the task of the purest herb, twice
the pain
and the goodness of being, our double pain.

Never, human men,
was there so much pain in the heart, in the lapel, in the wallet,
in the glass, in the butchery, in the arithmetic!
Never so much painful affection,
never did distance attack so close,
never did the fire
play better its role of dead coldness!
Never, sir minister of health, was health
so fatal
nor the headache extract so much forehead from the forehead!
And the furniture had in its drawer, pain,
and the heart, in its drawer, pain,
and the lizard, in its drawer, pain.

Misfortune grows, brother men,
faster than machines, at the rate of ten machines; it grows
with Rousseau’s cattle, with our beards;
evil flourishes for inexplicable reasons
and is a flood with liquids of its own,
with clay of its own, with a solid cloud of its own!
Suffering inverts positions, gives a function
in which the aqueous humour is vertical
to the pavement,
the eye is seen, and this ear heard,
and this ear tolls nine bells at the hour
of lightning, and nine guffaws
at the hour of wheat, and nine female sounds
at the hour of crying, and nine chants
at the hour of hunger and nine thunders
and nine lashes, less a scream.

Pain snatches us, brother men,
from behind, in profile,
drives us mad in the cinemas,
nails us to the gramophones
and unnails us on our beds, falls perpendicularly
on our tickets, on our letters;
and it’s very severe to suffer, one can pray . . .
And because
of pain, some
are born, others grow, others die,
and others are born but don’t die, others
without having been born, die, and others
are neither born nor die (these are the majority).
And also because
of suffering, I am sad
to my head, and sadder still to my ankle,
seeing the bread crucified, the turnip
bloodied,
crying, the onion,
the cereal, generally just fl our,
the salt turned to dust, the water fleeing,
the wine an ecce-homo,
the snow so pale, the sun so ardent!
Human brothers, how can I not
tell you that I cannot bear,
cannot bear do with so much drawer,
so much minute, so much
lizard and so much
inversion, so much distance and so much thirst for thirst!
Sir minister of health, what’s to be done?
Oh, unfortunately, human men,
there is much, brothers, so much to be done!

____________________

Also see: 

The Eternal Dice: Selected Poems

Cesar Vallejo

translated by Margaret Jull Costa

New Directions, 2025

KURT VILE TONIGHT ~

 

 Released on: 2023-11-17
Vocals, Associated Performer, Acoustic Guitar, Composer Lyricist, Producer: Kurt Vile
Electric Guitar, Associated Performer, Lap Steel Guitar: Rob Laakso
Drums, Associated Performer: Stella Mozgawa
Associated Performer: Chris Cohen
Recording Engineer, Studio Personnel: Gabe Wax
Mixer, Studio Personnel: Rob Schnapf
Engineer, Studio Personnel: Matt Schuessler
Mastering Engineer, Studio Personnel: Jessica Thompson

 

AMERICAN DIVA ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Norton 2024

TALKIN' GREENWICH VILLAGE ~

 

R E A D   M E

So fine,

It'll draw you in

JUDITH HEMSCHEMEYER ~

Vocation

The day I finally decided

To be a poet — yesterday —

I found I had everything I needed:

A clean pair of jeans,

Half a bottle of bourbon

My four-inch brass policeman paperweight

My sandstone Cochiti mountain lion fetish

With its soul strapped to its side

And an owl's cough-ball,

A bundle of matchsticks mousebones

Floating in a puff of fur.

So in My Dream

You killed yourself

so in my dream

I introduced your husband

to a new, exciting woman

who was you.

Plea

To my friend

who can no longer see

animals in the clouds

and takes it

as a sign of madness

Hang on.  Keep watch.

They must be gathering now

over the Pacific,

great, soft herds of elephants,

cirrous alligators

and horses being pulled apart

with no pain.

_____________________________

Judith Hemschemeyer

Very Close and Very Slow

Wesleyan University Press, 1975

CLAUDIA CARDINALE ~

 

C L A U D I A   C A R D I N A L E

    1938 ~ 2025

GEOFF MULDAUR TONIGHT ~

 

CARTOONIST ~

 

R E A D   M E

Drawn & Quarterly 2024

SQUANTO ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Yale 2024

GARY HOTHAM ~

from Our Backs To the Wind

_____________________________________

whatever

the rain decides

the river takes

near the mountain top —

the wind doesn't stay

on the path

another day of rain

not even stepping over

the puddles now

holding up the snowfall

    the park bench

    in her memory

squeezing

into our universe

cherry blossoms

New Year's day

the party hat not made

to stay on

yard sale—

a bookmark

    falls out

the somewhere else

of this summer night —

the firefly in her glass jar

Dad's funeral —

the same knot

in my tie

in both hands —

the water she carries

from the ocean

another room

the song she sings

to herself

_____________________

Gary Hotham

Our Backs To the Wind

selected haiku

Brooks Books 2025

THE JOKER & THE THIEF (BOB DYLAN FARM AID 2025)~

 

          Bob Dylan and band, Farm Aid 2025

THE SONG (MARGO PRICE, FARM AID 2025) ~

 

       She was made to sing it

Billy Strings finished off the instrumental with the band —

String's own set is the magnificent one — waiting

to post his set once it shows

COLORS OF FILM ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Frances Lincoln, 2023

ON ART AND MOTHERHOOD ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Thames & Hudson

      2024

ISHMAEL REED ~

The Banishment

We don't want you here

Your crops grow better than ours

We don't want you here

You're not one of our kind

We'll drive you out

As though you were never here

Your names, family and history

We'll make them all disappear

We don't want you here

You look too good on Sunday

We don't want you here

You work too hard on Monday

We don't want you here

Your children are learning in school

We don't want you here

Why aren't they behind a mule?

We don't want you here

Your women dress so fine

We don't want you here

Your gain means

Our decline

Why aren't your men

Stooped and bent

The way they should be

They walk about town

As though they were free

We don't want you here

Go away and never return

We don't want you here

Your homes, farms and

Churches will burn

We don't want you here

__________________________

Ishmael Reed

Why The Black Hole Sings The Blues

Poems 2007-2020

Dalkey Archive, 2020

Reed's masterpiece "The Jazz Martyrs"

is included here

LEONARD PELTIER ~

 

      Democracy Now!

EVEREST, INC. ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Simon & Schuster 2024

LIFE IS ARCHITECTURE ~

 

I. M. P  E I

      Thames & Hudson

       2024

ROBERTO TEJADA ~

 

Grassland

Flax color patches of flash-flame

    vast little grassland

disturbance come

    in splinter light

intractable

*

    morning dispersed

on encrusted earth

    in gravel shade

casting mineral

    hold given over

to whatever survives

*

    misgiven views

in diagonal glare

    to the far mount

above the patter

    of pronghorn

luted beyond

    the lashing Tyvek

house-wrap

    from a single wide

exoskeleton

*

    over winter disruption

given on proximity

    long unbroken

underspread

    of ground

in miles    

    to the great elevation

the other name

    for eye and throat

for land tilt

    delivery

*

here is the fiend

    of family

ferocity

    here is the god

to reversing

    genesis

as again to grace

    once-broken

blades of agave

    with blooming

_____________________

Roberto Tejada

Carbonate of Copper

Fordham University Press, 2025

    

YO LA TENGO ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Bloomsbury 2025

NAGUIS MAHFOUZ ~

 

Dream 231

I saw Ibrahim Pasha emerge right out of his own statue

and go wandering from cafe to cafe, challenging the top

backgammon champions and defeating them one by one.

Dream 232

I found myself in the Al Ghouriya district and there were

twice as many police as civilians. I saw my father walking

toward me with a policeman on either side of him. I pan-

icked, thinking he was under arrest. But then he greeted

 me and said: I see a policeman on either side of you, and

I'm afraid you've been arrested.

Dream 233

I found myself in our old house in El Abbassiya, with my

mother and sisters overcome with grief over the death of

our faithful and much-loved dog. I had only ever seen them

in such a state when the dearest to us had passed away.

Dream 234

I saw myself as the proprietor of a large farm around which

I had built a modern village with clean running water and

electricity. There was also a hospital, a school, a mosque,

and a church. I'd doubled the wages of the workers. Then

the warden of the district came to tell me: You stand accused

of showing up the neighboring landlords and, therefore, of

inciting anarchy and revolt among the innocent peasants.

Dream 235

I found myself in a group of young men listening to Osman

Bouzi, the most prominant producer of perfumes during

my youth: he was calling on us to boycott foreign goods.

My father told me, sitting cross-legged on his prayer rug:

That's all very well, but we haven't yet manufactured the

most essential products. I told him: Well, let's start with

what is possible.

Dream 236

I saw myself entering a new apartment, with the doorman

leading the way. Then he was nowhere to be seen. I became

homesick and wanted to leave, but I couldn't find my way

out. Voices, offering guidance, began to direct me. Some-

times they said to turn right and other times left. I called

out to the doorman, and then I called out to my family.

Darkness fell, everything was confusion. And yet, some-

how, I never altogether lost hope.

______________________

Naguib Mahfouz

I Found Myself . . .

translated by Hisham Matar

New Directions, 2025

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BOOKS ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Penguin 2021

CRISTINA CAMPO ~

 

R E A D   M E

     NYRB 2024