THE KILLERS (1946) ~

JILL JOHNSTON (MOTHER'S DAY ) ~

J I L L      J O H N S T O N

BACK   ROAD   CHALKIE

S P R I N G    2018

THE LINEUP ~

SHUGGIE OTIS (1971) ~

GHASSAN ZAQTAN ~

Also the House


Near the camp was a river
and in our house were absentees and hands
that will one day wake us in vain

I had just turned seven
while he was sitting in the shade
ironing his clothes
the blue jacket sagging over his shoulders

I paid no attention to the road
or the three steps
and didn't notice the carpet

I don't remember who was it that said
to me or to another
"When you grow up poetry will become your house"

The dust that eats the memories
always distances those folks

yet their chairs appear from afar,
from behind the hills and over the houses,
to hang in an air of summer and holm oak,
those shaded chairs that reach the  heart
on shoulders topped
with five flowers

Which flowers are speech
which flowers are silence?

And I can't remember
whether it was my uncle who stood at the door,
whether we had palm and lotus trees
in our house in Karameh,
whether my mother
who gave birth to me on the shelf
was folding our clothes behind our father's back
so he could sleep

The watchdogs used to cry from the heat,
and poetry, Husseini of Jerusalem,
and Khidr the mystic were all in our house
as was my uncle who came from a pond
within Hebron's walls

Twenty years would pass before a photo could tell us
we have grown older
and that's that

My father used to discompose his friends
with his days, and women
with the thread of seduction in his voice
as he would sprinkle chatter in their rivers
while walking about here or there with a lilt,
he'd let his days fall off him
and let others gather them as he walked
on gold that came only for him

And I can't remember
in our courtyard there were holm oaks,
a fountain, a tiled floor by a huge door,
we were confused and in a hurry

The closet that faced us in the second room
had a mirror
the mirror we now seek

And my father was standing alone in the hall that led
the stairs to the roof
thanking his days
or preparing for Wednesday's nap
or Thursday's morning
as he left, among the things he'd leave, the water can
full of water
while around his chairs our Saturdays rose

My father didn't want too much from life:
a house, five boys
who don't mess with his papers,
which were already chaos,
and two girls
so that braids could float all around the house


————————
Ghassan Zaqtan
The Silence That Remains
selected poems
translated by Fady Joudah
Copper Canyon, 2017

PETER ORNER ~

Am I Alone Here?

(Catapult Books, 2016)

Hardly!

This book is a wonder and I came upon the title as I do simply wandering book shelves

in a bookstore, new or used, or the town library. I can't tell you how many books I have read on this idea of discovering unique and common books and writing about them, and each collection has come up disappointing since every erudite reader/writer wants to be seen as an erudite reader! It's the same books, the same authors, or as an editor for a poetry anthology told me once on the phone: "I had to drop that great poem because the poet doesn't have a name, and replace the poem with another poem by a more recognized poet." It happens every day.

It's making reading quite miserable, yet challenging if you are a hunter. 

Peter Orner behind the wheel has finally given us the gift. I approached his book with genuine interest and began leafing through to see where he would be taking us — everywhere! Plus his writing is relaxed, humorous and it sparkles when you throw it on the floor. 

A quick stab into a few of his picks like Gina Berriault, Breece D'J Pancake, and Bohumil Hrabal, never mind Herbert Morris, says we're with an explorer. He butterfly nets sleepers. And then out of the blue, and it will win him no kudos, he chooses a book like Rembrandt's Hat by Bernard Malamud, an author very few read any longer. Their loss. I love Orner's daring and dives. He also sneaks in — and I like it that he does — essays about his father, family life, and the rumple of hanging in there.

This is a great work glove of a book.

[ BA ]

THE BLUESBREAKERS ~

OUTLIERS ~

I won't get to the city for this grand exhibit but you might,

but oh, I own and much enjoy the massive book exhibit.

R E A D      M E

National Gallery of Art
The University of Chicago Press
2018

TIME PIECES ~

A     B I T    M O R E

Knopf

2016

GERALD MURNANE ~

G E R A L D      M U R N A N E

LI-YOUNG LEE ~

—————————————



Sandalwood


The ash keeps dropping from the incense stick.



I keep turning you over in my mind.

I keep turning you over in my heart.



The stick shortens, burning.

The ash grows

and falls.



I keep turning you over.

I keep turning you.

I keep turning.



The ash keeps falling, piling up, more

of the silent reduction.

Burning earns such clean wages,

eye of ember, eye of ash hastening.



I keep turning your eyes over

to find your thoughts.

Turning your voice over

to find your meaning.

Turning your body over to find

a place to hide me.



And you keep turning inside me.



—————————
Li-Young Lee
The Undressing
Norton 2018

ENCOMPASS ~

Time Passes Slowly

Breezy naked

Under a red

Summer dress

You will soon

Kiss me but

First point 

To four goldfinches

On a wire close enough

As if watching us

Their colors faded

From a week ago like

These autumn hills 

All That Thunder 

Wouldn’t you know — I was scything deep in the backyard around the wood’s edge and many of the flower beds, when the thunderstorm caught me flat out in the open, shoulder high with Jerusalem artichoke flowers and nowhere else to go. For a moment I ran under a tall ash tree, bundled beside a maple and its large leaf cover. Rain was coming down steady and cold. I took the scythe with me and ran for the outhouse. Kept the door open and watched the rain, the roof tip-tapping. I noticed that Sweetheart had run for the woodshed from her garden work and was standing there waiting for the thunder and rain to pass. It wasn’t working that way, instead it was settling in, darkening the sky, eclipsing the river valley. We waved to one  another. I then sat back on the bench, looked at all the faces and small posters and pictures tacked on the walls over the years. There’s Pete Seeger, there’s Dorothy Day, there’s Madonna’s large green eye peek-a-boo out of blond hair. There’s Sweetheart! she’s come with an umbrella to rescue me out of my rain cave. But instead of heading home we run up to another cottage, deeper in the woods, furious with a steel roof in the rain and fall asleep awhile in each others arm’s and all that thunder.

She Comes To Me This Way

In her stocking feet and the

Pleats of her skirt, the way

The blouse is plain and opened

At the sand of her throat and her

Face is burned with winter and

So happy, that it is only then I

Notice something more — a

Necklace of rawhide and soapstone

Pebble, and even closer, the etch of

Turquoise on the piece, which brings

Me to her eyes . . .

Encompass

Just that slight change in her expression

Warm, tender, all mine it says, changes my life

Since childhood, years before I knew her

—————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

 

JIMMY SCOTT ~

1967 ~

R E A D     M E

KENNETH KOCH & JOHN ASHBERY ~

SLIM HARPO ~

PHILIPPE JACCOTTET ~

Seagull Books

2017

DECEMBER

Pull back this curtain of snow . . .

JANUARY

The stream: an advancing murmur, escorted by that

of the trees, of the birds hidden along its edges.

   In Atoms of Silence, Hubert Reeves writes that

time passes more slowly at the bottom of a valley than

on the top of a mountain.

   Of the pilgrim, he says: 'He must be taught to live

in the space between knowledge and vision, and to

take the precise steps that will lead him to the truth.'

There was that late winter, saturated with frigid

lights as if we were already being pursued by a

swarm of hail with most tender stings.

   Then the knot of brooks came undone

like a braid.

   The hail lived in the trees for a short

time . . .

DECEMBER

The comet, sparkling, observed yesterday in the icy

night:  nothing more than a dandelion's feathery

sphere.

JUNE

Afternoon heat. The sky almost incandescent just

above the rooftops, light blue higher up, where even

the swifts appear calmer, less greedy, almost always

taking time to glide.

'The cold season.' It could be a title. Nothing that

burns, nothing that devours. As when we leave, and

naturally it's the case, whether we like it or not.

Nevertheless, the world is still there; the foliage

shines; the light on the morning horizon is a white

haze. The spider webs are also shining in the window, 

fragile and tenacious — exemplary in this. There is no

way to feign 'perfect joy'.

————————————

Philippe Jaccottet

ASTRAL WEEKS ~

This is musician and spirit Mel Lyman

(look him up)

Finally, a handsomely researched book on the Boston

music scene — folk to rock — circa 1968.

Van Morrison is the big cookie in this book

but Mel Lyman and followers is the jam

center.

The Velvet Underground show up

ditto Leary and Alpert at Harvard

&

LSD

and how could one forget The Boston Strangler ~

Astral

DOWN IN JOE BUSSARD'S BASEMENT ~

HUNTER S. THOMPSON ~

R E A D     M E

Melville House

2018