Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Monday, October 26, 2015
JACK GILBERT ~
J A C K G I L B E R T
Alone
I never thought Michiko would come back
after she died. But if she did, I knew
it would be as a lady in a long white dress.
It is strange that she has returned
as somebody's dalmatian. I meet
the man walking her on a leash
almost every week. He says good morning
and I stoop down to calm her. He said
once that she was never like that with
other people. Sometimes she is tethered
on their lawn when I go by. If nobody
is around, I sit on the grass. When she
finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap
and we watch each other's eyes as I whisper
in her soft ears. She cares nothing about
our mystery. She likes it best when
I touch her head and tell her small
things about my days and our friends.
That makes her happy the way it always did.
_________________________
J A C K G I L B E R T
Collected Poems
Knopf
I started to type out a poem by Jack Gilbert today — in fact, two poems,
and I was going to tell you how the first poem, no need to say which poem,
after typing five lines and more to go, vanished before my eyes. I touched no buttons
but anyone who knows computer mechanics knows full well a button or something had to
have been touched for the poem to vanish. No, the poem simply vanished, probably because
someone wanted this to be so. I let it be so. I started on a second poem and the same disappearance occurred. I then made my way through a third poem, the one here for us.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
MAUREEN O'HARA ~
M A U R E E N O ' H A R A
b. Aug. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, Ireland
~
Boise, Idaho, 2015
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Friday, October 23, 2015
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
MICHAEL KRUGER ~
What Times Are These
Yesterday, in the wood,
a serious talk
with the trees:
if we had our way,
ran their rustling discourse,
there would be no such thing as nature.
What about us, I asked,
alarmed at the prospect of loss,
what on earth would we do without it?
You'd have to make,
out of second, first nature,
answered the trees,
and deal with it
just as you deal with us.
And in the meantime,
the leaves whispered fervently,
we would run wild, wilder than wild,
so that you, as strangers,
could, later, discover us once again.
When they had said this
they vanished for ever.
______________
Diderot's Cat
M I C H A E L K R U G E R
translated by Richard Dove
selected poems
Carcanet Press 1993
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Monday, October 19, 2015
KAY RYAN ~
K A Y R Y A N
EGGS
We turn out
as tippy as
eggs. Legs
are an illusion.
We are held
as in a carton
if someone
loves us.
It's a pity
only loss
proves this.
STILL START
As if engine
parts could be
wrenched out
at random and
the car would
still start and
sound even,
hearts can go
with chambers
broken open.
THINGS THAT HAVE
STAYED IN POSITION
Things that have
stayed in position
may nevertheless
have almost no
root system. You
could unstick
and slide them
like chess pieces.
Much of this
apparently tenacious
earth is fairly slick.
___________________
KAY RYAN
Erratic Facts
Grove 2015
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Friday, October 16, 2015
Thursday, October 15, 2015
INUKSUIT ~
The first comprehensive book about the Arctic's
mysterious stone figures called inuksuit, as told
by Inuit elders to Norman Hallendy together with
his classic and out-rock photographs
Douglas & McIntyre
2 0 0 0
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
JOHN BRADLEY MEETS HENRY FORD & BILLY THE KID ~
A N D T H E R E B Y E V E R Y T H I N G
by John Bradley
L O N G H O U S E is very proud to announce a new book by John Bradley in their on going series of S C O U T book publications — other titles from the series have been by Kent Johnson, Janine Pommy Vega, James Koller, Bob Arnold and Lorine Niedecker with more in the works. An opening salvo at the front of the book by Patrick Lawler should provide ample cover for what the reader should come to expect.
And Thereby Everything
John Bradley
Longhouse 2015
First edition
John Bradley
Longhouse 2015
First edition
only issued in softcover
208 pages, perfect bound
illustrated throughout by Bob Arnold
with 150 photographs
with 150 photographs
"John Bradley is a conjurer of conjunction and conjugation. Indeed, he does “speak his spark” from Old West to sold-out Hollywood, from Firestone to Sharon Stone to tombstone, from assembly line to disassembled line. His “language is a noise, noose, nuisance nuptial,” and And Thereby Everything—is everything. Maybe this book is why there was a Billy the Kid (“boy-bandit-king”) and Henry (Fordlandia) Ford. Maybe this book is why there is America. “Every story undulates another.” It is a tour de everything—a mix of aphorisms and dialogues and surrealistic lyrics with tics and “gears of history” and letters and plays and chorales featuring the voices of Adrienne Rich, Tony Soprano, George Zimmerman, Jean Harlow, Harpo Marx, Joan of Arc, et al. Burstingly funny and fiercely brilliant, this is Aaron Copland for dancers with clown shoes. This is Jack Spicer with a 1000 false clues and no place to hide. This is a Sam Peckinpah film starring Jane Russell as Billy with a soundtrack by Cotton Mather. John Bradley opened up America (with its dreams and icons, its violence and capitalism) and poured it inside this “Confusion Matrix” of a book. This is an American opera—maybe the only true American opera—starring, with all their desires and damage, with all their excess and dreams, Billy the Kid and Henry Ford as America."
— Patrick Lawler
author of Child Sings in the Womb and
Rescuers of Skydivers Search Among the Clouds
We want everyone on a horse, and in a car.
The cost of a ride ~ $20
Shipping $3.95 ~ U.S. orders with Paypal
Buy now through easy-to-use Paypal, US Orders, $23.95
International orders ~ complete $45 with Paypal payment
all orders may be made by Paypal or check
mail order here:
L O N G H O U S E
PO Box 2454
West Brattleboro, Vermont 05303
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
THE CROSSROADS ~
PIERRE MARTORY ~ JOHN ASHBERY
PARIS 1957
T H E C R O S S R O A D S
The rubble is still to come.
The exciting night sky was shining yesterday
On the usual fits of insomnia.
The young man decides to go away
Away from an obscure horoscope
In search of an obscure destiny
In the encouraging silence of the gods.
The intersecting routes the lost maps
The name drowned in foreign languages
His father and mother never knew.
The young man takes his sack and his stick,
Leaves it all to chance, to his good luck,
Spins around, and, far from his flocks
Walks toward his first meeting.
It's a woman and it's a dog
She smiles and she yaps
Singing amid the scattered bones
Something resembling the absurd question
The young man has never asked himself
Which he answers without thinking.
The sky falls like a night on his shoulders
The dog-woman dies inside a long howl.
And when he tries to return, yesterday is tangled.
There is no more tree or star or bed
Or woman or question or horoscope.
The crossroads is only a line without risk.
Nothing moves, a thread stands out, red
Against the sun. The rubble
Starts to smoke as in the past never.
____________________
PIERRE MARTORY
translated by John Ashbery
The Landscapist, selected poems
The Sheep Meadow Press, 2008
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/pierre-martory
Monday, October 12, 2015
PAY ATTENTION ~
PAY ATTENTION
It’d be
so cold
we’d warm
our clothes
right on the
woodstove
not near
the stove
on the
stove
be quick
about it
______________
© Bob Arnold
from the forthcoming ~
The Woodcutter Talks
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