POSTCARD 7 ~

Ian Hamilton Finlay
illustration by Ian Gardner




Ian once sent me this card
then his son Alec (Eck) did

KOFI AWOONOR ~

Kofi Awoonor

After a week of somewhat dark Birdhouse reports — whether about Home Depot sprawl or a gunman knocking himself out in Washington DC — comes a report that the Ghanaian poet, Kofi Awoonor, age 78, was one of the victims at the shooting massacre at the Westgate Shopping Mall, Nairobi, Kenya, by the Al-Shabaab militant group. He was in Nairobi to perform that Saturday evening at the Storymoja Hay Festival, a four day celebration of writing, thinking and storytelling. His son was also struck by the shooters but survived. A stop in your footsteps shame. No one is immune, and that's quite the point.

Between texting, Facebook, no fullness of communication, all email snippets, lots of mindless chatter, constant noise from media, traffic, jobs, news — we are moving to a wordless time. Where gunfire will be heard.

A resonant moment for Kofi Awoonor, at least, and then a move into sunlight.

This Earth, My Brother

The dawn crack of sounds known
rending our air
shattering our temples toppling
raising earthwards our cathedrals of hope,
in demand of lives offered on those altars
for the cleansing that was done long ago.
Within the airwaves we carry
our hutted entrails; and we pray;
shrieks abandoned by lonely road-sides
as the gunmens boots tramp.
I lift up the chalice of hyssop and tears
to touch the lips of the thirsty
sky-wailing in a million spires
of hate and death; we pray
bearing the single hope to shine
burnishing in the destiny of my race
that glinting sword of salvation.
In time my orchestra plays my music
from potted herbs of anemone and nim
pour upon the festering wounds of my race,
to wash forever my absorbent radiance
as we search our granary for new corn.
There was that miracle we hoped for
that salvation we longed for
for which we said many prayers
offered many offerings.

In the seasons of burning feet
of bad harvest and disastrous marriages
there burns upon the glint edge of that sword
the replica of the paschal knife.
The sounds rounded our lonely skies
among the nims the dancers gather their cloths
stretching their new-shorn hides off offered cows
to build themselves new drums.
Sky-wailing from afar the distant tramp
of those feet in rhythm
miming underneath them violence.
Along the roads lined with mimosas
the mangled and manacled are dragged
to the cheers of us all.
We strew flowers at the feet of the conquerors
beg for remission of our sins…

…He will come out of the grave
His clothes thrown around him;
worms shall not have done their work.
His face shall beam the radiance of many suns.
His gait the bearing of a victor,
On his forehead shall shine a thousand stars
he will kneel after the revelation
and die on this same earth.

And I pray
That my hills shall be exalted
And he who washes me,
breathes me
shall die.
They led them across the vastness
As they walked they tottered
and rose again. They walked
across the grassland to the edge of the mound
and knelt down in silent prayer;
they rose again led to the mound,
they crouched
like worshipers of Muhammad.
Suddenly they rose again
stretching their hands to the crowd
in wasteful gestures of identity
Boos and shrieks greeted them
as they smiled and waved
as those on a big boat journey.
A sudden silence fell
as the crowd pushed and yelled
into the bright sharp morning of a shooting.

They led them unto the mound
In a game of blindman’s bluff
they tottered to lean on the sandbags
Their backs to the ocean
that will bear them away.
The crackling report of brens
and the falling down;
a shout greeted them
tossing them into the darkness.

and my mountains reel and roll
to the world’s end.

LOST & FOUND ~

April 15th was a momentous day for us in the U.S. On that day two bombs exploded at the Boston marathon, killing three people. The atrocity was covered around the clock for weeks. I received e-mails from different friends in Iraq expressing their condolences and sadness. April 15th was also a momentous day in Iraq. I cannot help wondering how many people in the US heard about the eighteen bombs that went off throughout Iraq that same day. At least thirty-two people were killed. And on April random attacks left 111 Iraqis dead. On April 24th at least eighty-six were killed, and another ninety-six on April 25th. And this has been the reality in Iraq for over ten years now.

In the eight years since the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom until the end of 2011, 4, 480 US troops have died in Iraq. This is a figure commonly cited in the US media. A figure we might not have heard is the following: 4, 471 Iraqi civilians died as a result of ongoing violence in 2012 alone.

Cathy Breen, "Iraq: Hope Amidst Tragedy", The Catholic Worker August-September, 2013

young Wendell Berry

ONE RIGHT STANDARD

[The following letter was written by Wendell Berry, author, farmer
and environmentalist, to John Held, in support of the campaign against
frac sand mining - Eds. note]


Dear John,

You have offered me the privilege of joining by letter with you and your friends in Winoa, Minnesota in opposition to "frac sand mining" and I am happy to accept.

I will say, first, that there is never, for any reason, a justification for doing long-term or permanent damage to the ecosphere. We did not create the world; we do not own it, and we have no right to destroy any part of it.

Second, most of our politicians and their corporate employers are measuring their work by the standards of profitability and mechanical efficiency. Those standards are wrong. There is one standard that is right: the health of living creatures and the living earth.

Third, we must give our need to eat, drink and breathe absolute precedence over our need for mind fuels.

I wish you well.

Sincerely,
Wendell Berry

from The Catholic Worker, August-September 2013

However, other times there’d be a book I’d start reading and couldn’t put down. Here, for example, is the opening of one called Business be Damned—not a very promising title—by someone called Elijah Jordan, published in 1952 by Henry Schuman, New York, and presented at some unknown date to the library of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas by its original owner, Dr. Joe Colwell, and subsequently removed from their collection:

    "There have always been businessmen and business in the world. But never in history till today was business accepted as a morally honorable activity for men; never before was the businessman permitted to dominate the affairs of men. Today the rule of the businessman, accepted, justified and glorified, has become undisputed and absolute.

    Until lately, however, the activity of the businessman has always been questioned as to its moral rightness. The formulation of this doubt has been the negative or critical premise upon which every developed moral system and every cultured religious system has been founded. The new fact, therefore, in what is called modern civilization, is the acceptance of business activity as morally honorable, the approval of the capacities and the characteristics of the businessman, and the assumption that these capacities are appropriate for rule and control of human affairs."

This is extraordinary, I said to myself. Jordan (1875-1953), who was a professor of philosophy at Butler University for many years, saw the writing on the wall, pointing out already back then that business had become the dominant force in our lives with all other human interests in this country subservient to it. Religion, politics, government, morality, art were all being asked to acknowledge its absolute right and absolute power to be the final arbiter.

If he came back from the dead today, Jordan would be surprised that his fellow Americans still haven’t caught on that they are being taken to the cleaners. On the contrary, many of them now believe that the solution to all our problems, be it failing schools or expensive healthcare, is to hand over every publicly run institution to profit-seeking private companies, which, thanks to their knowhow and the magic of the free market, will save tons of money for the tax payers. This is what is known as “privatization” today, the scam that makes everything from private prisons, the vast growth of our surveillance state, and our global military presence, a hugely lucrative enterprise. Voters, one can’t help but conclude, no longer seem to have any problem with fortunes acquired dishonestly and at their expense, some of them even going into huge debt to send their sons and daughters to prestigious business schools so they can go to work for these hucksters and emulate their success.

Charles Simic, "The Books We've Lost" The New York Review of Books, August 13, 2013

Isma’il Kushkush/The New York Times

KHARTOUM, Sudan — On the corner of an old colonial building in downtown Khartoum sits the city’s oldest bookstore, Sudan Bookshop. It was established in 1902, three years after Britain established control over Sudan, and for a long time it was a magnet for the city’s civil servants, politicians and intellectuals.  (read more...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/world/africa/in-a-faded-literary-capital-efforts-at-a-revival.html?pagewanted=2&hp&pagewanted=all

POSTCARD 6 ~

Peyto Lookout
near the Icefield Highway
Mistaya Mountain and Mt. Patterson (10,490 ft. )
are reflected in the glacier fed waters of Peyto Lake.
Meltwaters from Wapta Icefield flow down this
valley to the North Saskatchewan River. This 50 mile
view along the backbone of the Rockies was discovered
 by an early mountain guide, Bill Peyto, in 1894,
it is near Bow Pass, 25 miles north of the
Trans-Canada Highway.
We are in Banff National Park.
35 years ago Sweetheart & I above this lake
 couldn't believe our eyes or our good luck.
The "bear lake".
Clear day.

SUMMER ENDING WITH MOONLIGHT ~

Laura Marling

LYME DISEASE ~

Thank Goodness for Dr. Stephen E. Malawista

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/science/stephen-e-malawista-lyme-disease-researcher-dies-at-79.html?hpw



http://medicine.yale.edu/intmed/rheumat/people/stephen_malawista-3.profile



 http://www.longhousepoetry.com/campiv-complete.pdf

FIELD OF DREAMS ~

Home Depot Sunset by Google

We're right at freezing temps this morning at dawn. I'm not moving quickly to get on the work site but I will. Steel roof is coming today. . .no, wait, it's coming when it's coming — the Fabral truck broke down somewhere between Pennsylvania and Vermont. That shoots all the good days of weather I had lined up for some roofing and buttoning up. The steel is 1/4 the cost of a red cedar shingle roof which I might prefer, and so the savings buys half the windows. The economics of a yankee.

 Off Craig's List Sweetheart pulled from one camper twelve pairs of Stanley hinges at a fraction of the local hardware store, and in the local hardware store the beaten and abused who have worked there forever, and raised their children to do the same, and even grandchildren (each we have watched come and go) are barely mustering a smile. Home Depot was chased out of town only to lodge 15 miles south of here over the border in Massachusetts, in a farm field I once worked in as a boy. Its glorious view of the sky and hillsides we rested in when we took a water-break from haying is still there, otherwise the "emptiness" town officials once exclaimed about is now filled with box stores. There's a bright solution for all that emptiness for you. 

Almost every worker in HD is with a smile, orange apron fitting a bit too tight or small; you could be asked six or seven or even eight times in six or seven or even eight minutes upon landing in this airport terminal of Everything "do you need any help?" Oh, we need help all right. While I'm in there out of desperation (all I need is concrete board) twelve contract workers or civilians are being hunted down by a lone assassin in a navy shipyard in the nation's capitol. The gunman is black. He's a former employee; he's one of them.

There are a million reasons now to be unhappy and miserable in America. . .much as I hate to, I'm contributing to it right here.

 A day or two before this mass murder, a young, black, former athlete in North Carolina (described as "sweet") will be shot to pieces by a white "bad" cop, and they're almost the same age (years away from 30) after the athlete has staggered away from a solo vehicle accident in the night, approached a home for help, caught a white woman occupant off-guard, who panicked, and called in the local law, who panicked, and gunned the helpless man down. The injured man was running to the officers for help! But don't worry — "Guns Save Lives" — I saw it scrawled across a banner, many banners. The ninth Home Depot worker who asks me, "do you need any help?" in less than nine minutes, may have me blowing my top.

They may have Everything. But one more field of dreams is gone. 

–––––––––––––––––––––

Bob Arnold

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html?hp

POSTCARD 5 ~

photograph by Charter Weeks
one of our faves by Charter

BUILD UP ~

The sun room is going to take awhile to complete. It has too many persuasions. As if I'm attempting to build everything I know into one small structure: heavy glass work, eyebrow windows hand built, all the exterior stone walls, jacking timbers into place, rough beam work, sawmill visits, painting before too cold, masonry work before too cold, a ton of Mexican tile work and adhesive before it is too cold, switching 100 pound doors around because new doors, insulated glass, are way too costly now, way too. Slate work, stone cutting, stone drilling. Rebuilding old doors to be new doors, finish carpentry inside, new floor, build a large trap door into this new floor because the whole ball of wax is over our cellar bulkhead which was built into the original porch deck which is now the subfloor for the sun room. Talk about multitasking! Ah, shut up, and get back to work! Extremely extensive and heavy stonework I did into this bulkhead 30 years ago is now underneath all this new stuff. Never hide old stuff with new stuff — blend it together, work it as harmony, let it all show and be its function(s).

 There is a very old door, just look at the cut nails (above) sunk into its pine boards, that used to be gerry-rigged in this 223 year old house as an entry way down into the cellar from inside the house. In the same vicinity, once, as the stairway that went from the front door up into the second story. All removed over decades, rebuilt, reformed, renewed. I even built in a new short stairway like one finds in a ship and I swear when I duck up into this little secret passageway stairway I feel I'm at sea and on a ship, which is my secret way of being on-a-ship.  Have secrets. Share them.

Anyway, I took off this door and stored it away in the rafters of the big woodshed for many more years knowing I'd have a use for it one day. It hasn't happened and the door is becoming in-the-way. So yesterday, I did a 'heaven's forbid' in the eyes of the purists, which I know for a fact the old timers have done forever (how do you think they got that gloss and bulk and antiquity to work?) by tearing down the old door, saving every damn hard-to-pull cut nail, and the elegant wood cleats built into the door, and took the one inch thick boards I needed instead of measly 3/4 inch lumber stock, and hand built all day framing for these eyebrow windows. I found the glass for the windows at a FREE display awhile back in Chester, Vermont, just leaning against a tree waiting for the likes of me; and Sweetheart took that into the local hardware store, along with a bunch of other loose sized glass panes I bought over the years for other jobs here, there and everywhere from this hardware store and didn't use for lopsided reasons, and a very generous young clerk took all that glass and cut it down to eyebrow window size for us. This is exactly how the world moves along and works well with the complexities of one another: you help me who has helped you and buildings go up (instead of down).

Bob Arnold is expanding his original builder's notebook On Stone, published from Origin Press in 1988, into a new edition, with new title, and all the old work-site photographs, along with dozens of new ones, plus more chapters and an updating to the building practice. Longhouse will publish later this year the revised book for a 25th anniversary edition.

thick and now rock hard
 softwood plank walls
just look at the air-space!
corn cobs, between these planks
and the lathed plastered walls on the
interior, would be the best
bet for insulation

HANK BALLARD ~

All day at stone work building I had this song rolling around in my noggin', so we put it on and played it over & over & over which is quite the point with Hank Ballard (November 18, 1927 – March 2, 2003). Of his many crackerjack songs, Ballard wrote and performed "The Twist," which in 1960 Chubby Checker made a million on.

STICK WITH IT ~ IT GETS BETTER AS YOU READ ~

Jonathan Franzen: what's wrong with the modern world

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/13/jonathan-franzen-wrong-modern-world

Portrait of Karl Kraus, 1925
by Oskar Kokoschka

READING ~

photo : Cindy Sherman

POSTCARD 4 ~

Buster Keaton, Hollywood 1963


Here is Buster Keaton at age 67 holding a portrait of Keaton from a vaudeville act; the comedic maestro will pass away at age 70 of lung cancer.
Orson Welles believed  Keaton's silent film The General "the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made."

photograph : Roddy McDowell



http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/buster-keaton/about-buster-keaton/644/

KENNETH PATCHEN READS ! ~

Kenneth Patchen

http://www.folkways.si.edu/kenneth-patchen-reads-his-love-poems/poetry/album/smithsonian





https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/selected-poems-kenneth-patchen/id279286386

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19455





http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/kenneth-patchen

READ AWAY ! ~

Old books market in Cairo
 Photograph: Alamy

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/inside-the-end-of-the-u-s-bid-to-punish-lehman-executives/?hp

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security?CMP=ema_565&et_cid=48048&et_rid=7392220&Linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2fworld%2f2013%2fsep%2f05%2fnsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security





http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175744/tomgram%3A_andrew_bacevich%2C_drama_from_obama/#more







http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/movies/paolo-sorrentinos-great-beauty-explores-italys-decline.html





http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/07/neuroscientists-sex-brain





http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2013/sep/07/snapshot-photography-chile-pinochet-etchart





http://vtdigger.org/2013/09/08/landscape-confidential-flooded-trees/





http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/07/industrial-waste-pride-community





http://www.lettersofnote.com/2013/08/take-your-pick.html





http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2013/08/20/watch-the-paris-review-on-charlie-rose-here/

POSTCARD 3 ~

"Cowgirls" 

 oil on photo linen

Photograph : Bob Wade

1988

 

 

CLOTH OF THE TEMPEST, KENNETH PATCHEN

Lips of the Angel



Hate the world
For the world is not love

Only life is loved
O only life is loved

Not the evil
Not the weak
Not the said thing
Not the saying of the Highest

Not the love of good at all
On the earth and off the earth

O only death is loved
Only death is the loved of every thing
On the earth and off the earth

Roglolisendurikahrium


The pathway. It needs O it needs
Light on it. As a face
We love.

I know the gray panther. He kills,
And it is fun O it is fun
In his heart. As a day
We die through.
Sullen. The deathman is sullen. O
He does not like
Little cars. Cars full of huge snowroses
And men wearing heaven
On their caps.

But joy.

O the joy of roads sweetens the earth
And the panther is a fool
And a fool is that deathman
Who brought us here. For joy
Shall touch every being. As the sun
These fields. O what is a tree and a brook
And a hill and a lamb and a brown sparrow?
What is a pathway?
O look at the beautiful cars O
Thy are full of strange creatures
Who do not have guns in their hands.

           This Poor Life; the Rain
          and the Shining Guide:
   the Nest of the Horse and the Scales
                    of Eternity
Make a Pattern but I've Got My Life Caught
          in a Road Going Nowhere



The empire is
Officially a goddamned bore.

Money's antennae
Feel over the asses of everybody.

As far as that goes a fire ten miles high
Wouldn't warm some of these toads.
They shake my hand and their gloves stink
With the sweat of my people.

They ride a blind horse in a race to hell.
But they sing pretty fat now.
Try tickling me under the chin!
"I just met the most amusing writer   . . ."
How perfectly snotty.

For the pittie o' 'em,
O for the pittie of their bloddy ways   . . .

As now I've said their death —
I'm sure they will know whose friend I am.

The Slums


That should be obvious.
Of course it won't.
Any fool knows that.
Even in the winter.
Consider for a moment.
What?
Consider what!
They never have.
Why now?
Certainly it means nothing.
It's all a lie.
What else could it be?
That's right.
Sure.
Any way you look at it.
A silk hat.
A fat belly.
A nice church to squat in.
My holy ass   . . .
What should they care about?
It's quaint.
Twelve kids on a fire escape   . . .
Flowers on the windowsill   . . .
You're damn right.
That the way it is.
That's just the way it is.

'The Animal I Wanted'



The animal I wanted

Couldn't get into the world   . . .

I can hear it crying

When I sit like this away from life.

The Prize


There are no losses.
There is only life.


Pear-smooth, cool face of a child   . . .
Black cow wading in a green pond   . . .
The crazy loft in an old building   . . .
Sea comin in, honey
O Lord sea comin in
You will find the Lion
O Lord you will find the lion
And war!  War?
What is lost now is the world in this time.
Any peace they make is a lie.
Butchers are not interested in freedom;
The higher their talk, the bloodier their aims.
'Why don't you lead me to that rock?'


But there can be no losses.
There is only life for all men!

To A Certain Section Of Our Population



It is ordered now

That you push your beliefs

Up out of the filth high enough

For the inchworm to get their measure.

'She Is the Prettiest of Creatures'



She is the prettiest of creatures
All like a queen she is

I have made a paper wheel
And I pin it to her dress

We lie together sometimes
And it is as nice as music
When you are half-asleep

And then we want to cry because
We are so clean and warm
And sometimes it is raining
And the little drops scuttle
Like the feet of angels on the roof

I have made this poem tonight
And I pin it in her hair

For she is the prettiest of creatures
O all like a strange queen she is

While the Panther Sleeps



It is not entirely wrong to think
That there are angels here.
The weather is right for them;
And the panther is asleep.

Walk into the beautiful.
Hold your hand out to it.
Put on good like a bird.
Does it amaze you?
Do you really hate God?
O the panther is asleep,
And the soul of man fondles a higher season.

For there are angels around us.
They wear little yellow hats,
And their eyes are made of water.
Give them your doings to hold.
Let them try on your tall.
Will they like to kiss you?
Will your love clothe their fire?
The panther of the world is asleep,
And the spirit hastens to its brightest home.

Not to Disturb This Gay Gathering



O I know a fabulous cowshed

Where a strange beast is kept

That gives milk the color of blood.

And the reason I tell you this

Is that its mate is loose in your world.

The Buffalo That Went To Live At the Waldorf Astoria



It makes so much noise when I walk
Down the stairs
And the elevator is too damn small altogether.
Maybe I can get them to put in a field
Where the dining room is   . . .
A lake would be nice where they have the lobby.
If I asked friends in the way things are now,
They'd laugh at me.
It seems odd that all the trees have been cut down
And there isn't a blade of grass anywhere
Except on the floor of the manager's own room.
My wife complains that the bathtub is so tiny
That there is hardly space for the water to fit,
And none at all for her when the water is in.
Surely the management must realize that to sit
In an empty tub is pretty cold comfort at best,
And the results on the score of personal cleanliness
Are not encouraging from our way of thinking.
It does seem to me that the less I say about the food
The better it will be for the mental climate
Of the maniacs who concot it:
Tomato sauce on rice pudding! Whipped cream
With devilled lobster! Great mother of the plains
Preserve us!
If my poor father could only taste their crepes suzettes,
I'm sure he'd demand to be taken off the nickel.
But the watering trough in the Grand Ball Room
Is at once aesthetically satisfying and eminently practical.

Now I Went Down To the Ringside
and Little Henry Armstrong Was There



They've got some pretty horses up in the long dark mountains.
Get him, boy!

They've got some nifty riders away yonder on that big sad road.
Get him, boy!

They've got some tall talk off in that damn fine garden.
Get him, boy!

When you can't use your left, then let the right go.
When your arms get tired, hit him with a wing.
When you can't see very good, smell where he is.

They've got some juicy steaks in that nice sweet by-and-by,
Get him, boy!

They've got a lot of poor black lads in that crummy old jailhouse.
Get him, boy!

O they've got a lot of clean bunks up in their big wide blue sky.
That's his number, boy!

'Enjoyment of Women'

Enjoyment of women

Makes good rooms for life to live in.

Sharp food and pleasant drink

Do town the spirit with clean inhabitants.

For the gloomy man, gloom;

For the kittenish of appetite, soft cozy pretties

To write poems about or to smack around;

People can get springheads in the winter,

And winterheads in the spring;

It all depends on what they have to live with;

But the people who don't like to be people,

Will get messed up in some way or other.

________________________________________


Kenneth Patchen, born in Niles, an Ohio steel-mill town, worked mainly on the East Coast until 1950, when he and his wife Miriam moved to San Francisco. Living in North Beach, he created his well-known “painted books” and began performing “poetry-jazz” in the city’s avant-garde clubs. A crippling back injury restricted his activities in the late 1950s; the Patchens moved to Palo Alto, where Patchen continued to write and paint until his death at age 61. He authored many many books millions read and loved; yes, millions. We ain't dead yet.

Kenneth Patchen roof-topped with some of his painted books
 

Cloth of the Tempest
Kenneth Patchen
Harper and Brothers, 1943