HAUNANI-KAY TRASK ~

 

HAUNANI-KAY  TRASK

LARRY CAMPBELL'S "GOLD RUSH" (Bill Monroe) ~

 

GEOFF MULDAUR ~

 

I GOT A FEELING ~

 

never tire

RY COODER ON BIG JOE WILLIAMS ~

 

MAYA LIN: GHOST FOREST

 

G H O S T      F O R E S T

photograph by Jesse Frohman

GIL SCOTT-HERON ~

 

"BLACK WAX"

A film by Robert Mugge

1983

W A T C H

TED JOANS ~

 

The Truth

IF YOU SHOULD SEE A MAN

walking down a crowded

street

     talking

                  ALOUD

TO HIMSELF

            DON'T RUN

                                           IN THE

OPPOSITE DIRECTION

                                        BUT RUN

TOWARD HIM

                    for he is a

                                         POET

you have NOTHING to

                                          FEAR

FROM THE

                  POET

                          BUT THE

               TRUTH  

_____________________________

Ted Joans (1928-2003)

African American Poetry

250 Years of struggle & song

edited by Kevin Young

Library of America

2020

CHRIS CORNELL ( PRINCE ) ~

 

CID CORMAN ~

 

Cid Corman

                                             June 29, 1924 ~ March 12, 2004

_______________

for all

poets

At the shrine

on the altar

not one relic

but in one way

or another

I remain.

A LORD will dismount

at the imperative of

the cherry blossoms.

DON'T LET the poet

get you down

when he rages

His letter kills but

his spirit

resuscitates.

AN

effulgence

a glory

a subtle

insistent

falling a

lucid rain

a torrent

guttural

clear and shrill

a run of

color con-

fused and con-

fusing a

sky full of

them! Alone

on the downs

on a bright

windless day

NOTRE DAME

Where Roman law made aliens bend

Stands a church, original, vital,

Like Adam once, all nerve and mettle,

Muscles aquiver at the end.

From outside you see the inner plan:

Flying buttresses forestalling

That mass from breaking against those walls

Upholding the vault's outstretching strain.

Labyrinth, impenetrable wood,

Soul of Gothic's rational abyss,

Egyptian might and Christian meekness,

By slim reed  oak, by plumb line — lord.

But the more, fortified Notre Dame,

I studied your immense example,

The more I thought: one day I too will

Build from meaningless a dream.

TU FU is long dead.

Leaves have fallen —

leaves will fall.

Every

thing in his words

on a far lookout.

MAKING

of rock. Letting as

Michelangelo

does the prisoner

becoming the rock

escape.

MOVED — three blocks up

and around in

a row of old

houses under

the bells of St

Stainslas and

cherry blossoms.

Must go get a

sink stopper and

a curtain rod —

if life is to

be tenable.

HERE I am

like a leaf

falling or

fallen. Point-

less as one —

as any —

all. Holding

mother's hand

though she's gone.

WE COME out

in the end

at the end

beginning

to see where

the stars are.

THE HILL

beyond the

gate

the temple

almost

mist.

__________________________

from TU

Cid Corman

The Toothpaste Press

1983

EMILY DICKINSON ~ WRITING IN TIME ~

 

W R I T I N G    I N     T I M E

Adeline of the Appalachian Mountains ~

 

GEORGE KALAMARAS ~

 

Below Buffalo Willows

Give us a kiss.  Goodbye, dear.  The buffalo

willows were full of hurt, and then the fire died.

Kiss the neck,  the nape, the cheek.  Somehow we survive

all the depths of deaths living gifts us.  I have cried.

I am not a we, but you are me,

and we are here.  Whenever we die.  Wherever

we had lived before,  with the sheep,  the cattle,

all the long grass long as a ribbed rib of sleep.

Yes, there was dust.  We slept the animal.

We slipped back and forth many times until

we got it right.  The woman the man hoped

to be was scarred.  The man she bled, hurt.

Say some touch or other.  The way we hold

a hand grieves us tough gusts that beat us

back.  A kiss.  Give it.  Grieve it.  Give us a way.

This mouth or that,  we are all tick-tonguing

our way around the tree bark of the heart.  Say something.

This time.  Anything.  Nothing would be enough.

_________________________

GEORGE KALAMARAS

We Slept the Animal

(Letters from the American West)

Dos Madres Books

2021

LEONARD CROW DOG ~

 

L E O N A R D     C R O W     D O G

Aug. 18, 1942,  Rosebud Sioux reservation in South Dakota ~

June 5, 2021, Rapid City, S.D.

JAMES LAUGHLIN ~

 

A Letter to Hitler

Last winter we were

short of firewood and

it was good and cold

so we used a lot of

old books that were

in the attic just old

novels nobody would

ever want to read but

we found they made

plenty of heat and

twice they set the

chimney afire when

a burning page went

up with the draft and

we found they would

smoulder a long time

after you thought the

fire was all out and

then suddenly burst

into flame & another

thing they made ashes

that wouldn't stay in

the grate but floated

out all over the room!

______________________

JAMES LAUGHLIN

Some Natural Things

New Directions

1945

BETTYE LAVETTE ~

 

WHO'S THE BOSS HERE?

 

CECIL SHAW ~

 

BONNIE LOU ~

 

NOTHING STOPS FREDDIE KING ~