JAMES LAUGHLIN ~

EXPERIENCE OF BLOOD



I never knew there was so much blood
in a man until my son killed himself


he did it with a kitchen knife stab-
bing himself all over and cutting his


wrists     then he got into the bathtub
and died there in the water     that's


where we found him     but could he have
changed his mind for a moment     the floor


was a carpet of blood & blood was spat-
tered on the walls the basin was cov-


ered with blood     did he stand there
looking at himself in the mirror still


wondering who he really was and then
went on with it     I had to wipe away the


blood     it took me four hours to do it
but I couldn't have asked anyone else


because after all it was my blood too.





THE CAVE



Leaning over me her hair
makes a cave around her


face a darkness where her
eyes are hardly seen she


tells me she is a cat she
says she hates me because


I make her show her pleas-
ure she makes a cat-hate


sound and then ever so
tenderly hands under my


head raises my mouth into
the dark cave of her love.

The Collected Poems of

James Laughlin

New Directions 2013

edited by Peter Glassgold

THE DAZE OF LOVE

Comes sometimes from

the blaze of light

when an asteroid

passes us too near.

There is also

the softer radiance

when we are separated

and sink into sleep

thinking of each other.




 A LONG NIGHT OF DREAMING



and when I finally awoke
from it we seemed to be


back where we'd left off
some thirty years before


in the compartment of a
wagon-lit somewhere in


Italy loving and arguing
soft words and then hard


words over where we'd go
next to Venice or Rome or


better to split again you
back to him I back to her.




SO MUCH DEPENDS

             For William Carlos Williams


Bill on the way you saw
the way your heart saw


what your your eyes saw not
just the way you saw a


wheelbarrow or the falls
or the blossoms of the


shad tree or Floss in a
rose and 100 other flow-


ers your patients & the
babies and the measure


of your lines in Brueg-
hel's painting of that


dance so many things the
rest of us would never


have seen except for you.




TOUCHING



I want to touch you
in beautiful places


places that no one
else has ever found

places we found to-
gether when we were

in Otherwhere such
beautiful places.


J A M E S   L A U G H L I N

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/james-laughlin


http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3039/the-art-of-publishing-no-1-part-1-james-laughlin

IF THERE'S HELL BELOW ~

compiled by BA the night of ferguson, mo. grand jury release
disbelief disbelief disbelief
 chose not to indict
 Darren Wilson
 in the fatal shooting
 of Michael Brown
even after all these years
of knowing better
naturally
a verdict
for  us &
Thanksgiving

Mamie Till, summer 1955                                               Michael Brown Sr, summer 2014

Photograph: Chicago Sun-Times via AP                                                      Richard Perry / AFP / Getty      

___________________


If the white man has inflicted the wound of racism upon black men, the cost has been that he would receive the mirror image of that wound into himself.

W E N D E L L   B E R RY
The Hidden Wound
1970




NEW YORK TIMES ~

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/26/opinion/the-meaning-of-the-ferguson-riots.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region



http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ferguson-wasnt-black-rage-against-copsit-was-white-rage-against-progress/2014/08/29/3055e3f4-2d75-11e4-bb9b-997ae96fad33_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop

BOB ARNOLD ~

 
On Building A Stonewalk In November




This river drifts the land,

In the long air of pines

I smell spring.

Down here, don’t wear gloves,

Don’t wear boots with leaks,

Stay working, and of course

Use the flat stones —

All the things

One learns

In a first year —

The boots take awhile, I know.

But come to you water gentle,

Very clear

Draw strong

Carry the river home to bathe.

It is November / wide open / colding

There is ice you shouldn’t trust.





Bob Arnold


_____________



Where Rivers Meet
Mad River Press, 1989

photo 2012  © bob arnold

H. P. LOVECRAFT ~

THE NEW ANNOTATED H.P. LOVECRAFT

edited by Leslie S. Klinger

Liveright, 2014
928 pages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft

BERTOLT BRECHT, LOVE POEMS ~

Bertolt Brecht

Love Poems
Liveright 2014

 translated by David Constantine & Tom Kuhn

 

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/bertolt-brecht

JEAN RHYS ~

Jean Rhys

Back Road Chalkies 
Fall 2014

http://www.lennoxhonychurch.com/jeanrhysbio.cfm

back road chalkies  2014  © bob  arnold

JOSEF SUDEK ~

 Josef Sudek

LABYRINTHS

Torst 2013

http://www.photography-now.net/josef_sudek/

DENNIS STOCK'S CALIFORNIA TRIP ~

It only took me 45 years later to come again upon this book — bottom shelf dusty bookshop, all used, way away from any city, backlot, no cover, no matter, last paged through the book with eyes wide open when it appeared in 1970 and I couldn't afford to purchase the book then and do now, only to find out later someone has cleanly removed three photographs from the text, so it's still not all with me, as I leaf through it now with you a few pages here and there — to my mind the California modern era photography cream of the crop.


______________________


Dennis Stock
California Trip
Grossman, 1970

once in vermont films 2014  © bob arnold

JOEL MEYEROWITZ ~

( Phaidon Press, 2014 )

A handy compendium in a long series of equally interesting titles from this publisher scooping up well-known or not so known photographers and artists works and setting them into a small enclosure. Hold it all in one hand. Carry it around with you. 
The weight of a camera.

http://www.joelmeyerowitz.com/

LANGSTON HUGHES ~

 Langston Hughes

 

Misery




Play the blues for me.

Play the blues for me.

No other music

'Ll ease my misery.



Sing a soothin' song.

Said a soothin' song.

Cause the man I love's done

Done   me   wrong.



Can't you understand,

O, understand

A good woman's cryin'

For a no-good man?



Black gal like me,

black gal like me

'S got to hear a blues

For her misery.







Daybreak in Alabama




When I get to be a composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.







Advice




Folks, I'm telling you,

birthing is hard

and dying is mean 

so get yourself

a little loving

in between.






Little Lyric (Of Great Importance) 



I wish the rent

Was heaven sent. 






Homecoming



I went back in the alley

And I opened up my door.

All her clothes was gone:

She wasn't home no more.



I pulled back the covers,

I made down the bed.

A whole lot of room

Was the only thing I had.






Dream Variations



To fling my arms wide

In some place of the sun,

To whirl and to dance

Till the white day is done.

Then rest at cool evening

Beneath a tall tree

While night comes on gently,

       Dark like me —

That is my dream!



To fling my arms wide

In the face of the sun,

Dance! Whirl! Whirl!

Till the quick day is done

Rest at pale evening . . .

A tall, slim tree . . .

Night coming tenderly

        Black like me.





~ LANGSTON HUGHES



____________


Selected Poems
Langston Hughes
Knopf, 1959

LADYBUG ~

I, Ladybug




Citizen

Of the imaginary world

Disreputable

Indisposed

Sorely used

Inordinate

Lay down my rules

And you, ladybug

What do you do?

Who That Divines
Laura Moriarty
Nightboat Books, 2014

EDWARD ABBEY ~

"How strange and wonderful is our home, our earth, with its

swirling vaporous atmosphere, its flowing and frozen liquids,

its trembling plants, its creeping, crawling, climbing creatures,

the croaking things with wings that bang on rocks and soar

through fog, the furry grass, the scaly seas . . . how utterly

rich and wild. . .Yet some among us have the nerve,

the insolence, the brass, the gall to whine about the

limitations of our earthbound fate and yearn for some more

perfect world beyond the sky. We are none of us good enough

for the world we have."

________________

EDWARD ABBEY APPALACHIAN WILDERNESS (1970)

http://www.salon.com/2006/10/22/abbey/

UNFATHOMABLE CITY (NEW ORLEANS) ~

University of California Press

2013

NOT A TEDDY BEAR ~

"The iPhone may cause broken bones and concussions. Yes, I’m leaving out a few in-between steps there.

So let me start over: Craig Palsson, a graduate student in the Yale economics department, argues in a new paper that the expansion of the 3G cellphone network led to more widespread adoption of the iPhone, which led to parents who discovered new apps and continual email on their cellphone; which led to parents who paid attention to their new toys at playgrounds and not necessarily to their small children; which led to 10 percent more accidents for those children from 2005 to 2012, including broken bones and concussions."

DEAN KARLAN

NEW YORK TIMES

11 Nov 14

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/upshot/how-an-iphone-can-lead-to-broken-bones-for-young-children.html?ref=health&abt=0002&abg=1

MUCH LOVED ~

Much Loved

photographs by Mark Nixon

Abrams, 2013

you probably owned one, once upon a time . . . 

JANIS BALTVILKS ~

The avenue decked with colorful-leaves

will prevent you from getting lost —

it will take you straight into winter.









PROOF


A handful of marigold seeds

and the feather of a finch

on my table:

the summer

really was here.









Rain on the windowsill.

Finally!

The grass and trees exult,

and the parched

tips of my nerves.









A lonely heron

high up in the autumn sky. . .



Lonely because it's so high?

High up because it's lonely?








A sprout

pierces last year's leaf.



I'm not sorry for the leaf.

I like the leaf.

And I like the sprout.



I was once a sprout.

Now I'm a leaf.








The wind

when it murmurs in the leaves

it murmurs like the wind.

The wind when it laughs

it laughs like the wind.

When it cries

it cries like a human child.



Everything in this world

cried like a human child.









I still cannot tell the difference between

a new wind and an old one.









A car abandoned in the woods

begs for forgiveness . . .



The moss is the first to draw near.









ABOUT BIRDS


No, not all of them will fly away.

Surely a jay,

a magpie, a pair of nuthatches,

a flock of chickadees in the garden

will stay here,

helping us

get through the winter.








A yellow birch leaf

floats away in the black water . . .



Do I ever want

to know and understand everything?





_________________

JANIS BALTVILKS
The Skylark Will Come
translated by Rita Laima Berzins
Poems 1990-2002
Blackberry Books 2004

CORKING THE WOODSHED DOORWAY ~

Plugging up the woodshed so the

door won't close

8 November 2014

photos 2014  © bob arnold