AFTER THE CHILD ~

Another Simple Story

We skated and skated

Later looking over

The lake north to

Snow clouds coming

And skated some more

(you do that with a child)

And because of that

Drove home in snow

Son At 19 Moved Away

Deepest snow —

look out the window

to our son’s old tractor toy left

out now for the birds at the feeder

and a nuthatch perched on it like

no one could ever have planned

Sitting With The Sun

On The Steps Of The Hut

I keep telling myself

to take better time

at peeling the small

orange and breaking

its heart into pieces

After The Child

the swing

swings

How To Survive In America, My Son

Forget tv

& newspapers

silly phones

& “what’s important” 

watch the sky, the trees, the tide

animals don’t care much about you until you look like them

when rolling the car

bang back the roof

knock smooth the doors

find new glass

don’t lend the car again

cover the tomatoes for as long as you can

the morning ice is in the work pails

rake the yard by hand 

leaf all garden beds

it’s time to say goodbye

do this with someone you love or who is your thoughts

watch for fools —

they act &

often

look

like you

————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS ~

Ballet


Are you not weary,

great gold cross

shining in the wind —

are you not weary

of seeing the stars

turning over you

and the sun

going to his rest

and you frozen with

a great lie

that leaves you

rigid as a knight

on a marble coffin?



— and you

higher, still,

                   robin,

untwisting a song

from the bare

top-twigs,

are you not

weary of labor,

even the labor of

a song?



Come down — join me

for I am lonely.

First it will be

a quiet pace

to ease our stiffness

but as the west yellows

you will be ready!

Here in the middle

of the roadway

we will fling

ourselves round

with dust likes

till we are bound in

their twisting stems!

We will tear

their flowers

with arms flashing!



And when

the astonished stars

push aside

their curtain

they will see us

fall exhausted where

wheels and

the pounding feet

of horses

will crush forth

our laughter.


———————————

William Carlos Williams
AL QUE QUIERE!
The Four Seas Company, 1917
New Directions, 2017

DAVE VAN RONK ~

MARIANA MARIN ~

      

On the Fifth Floor




Poetry,

when the putrefied loneliness of each morning

thunders inside your skull.

On the fifth floor of a drab apartment building

in a notorious proletarian district,

poetry restores to you the migratory instinct

of small gray birds.

How much love

              "When must everything depart from us?

               Does everything abandon us?"

(yes, time once held cherry trees and ivy).

In your rabbit-like shamelessness

what kind of death

did you make your bedfellow in these recent years?

Oh, poor earthbound terror!

Poetry,

when inside your skull, like a miracle,

you feast on yourself.

There will come a time for frost and for the snout,

a time for the whip that lashes your cheek

and for small gray pigs.




————————————

Mariana Marin
Paper Children
translated from the Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin
Ugly Duckling Presse, 2006

JOAN MURRAY (1917-1942) ~

Vermont and the Hills and the Valleys



1

Tremendous are the ways of the simple people,

The hills speak with their mouths,

The sky laughs out the rims of their eyes,

The earth walks with the feet of the people

And the wind and the dead are their souls awake

And the sleep, that is theirs comes when the eye-lid

Slips down to meet the soiled slant of their cheeks.



2

Great are the mountain slopes curving along the line

Flanked by the river or the smooth-glint track of train:

A speed of smoke, a sprung-coil loosely heaped beyond the span of 

   steel.

Look to right — look to the left and the fields

That fit in languid patterns between trees,

Umber cornstalks, hay in warm-split stacks!



3

Tight is the hair of women who call cows to the milking,

Wrists and fingers playing out the movement of the udder-press.

White is the angle and the piss and splash of milk.



Let it be remembered, O, let it be remembered

That there are the women and the simple people!




4

The oxen plow and wagon the hay in its high dung-gold,

Making long horns shape and hold the moon,

The red of their sides squat.

The green of the trees spring in wide green waves to the wind,

To the fields and the wide-palmed spread of space.




5

The men are before the night:

With the cracks of their cheeks filled with dust,

And the hands heavy like listless takes swung down,

And the dirt and sweat on their lips,

And the rise and fall of their chests.



6

The women go from the milking to the pot without compunction.

Steps of men and women from the field to the home,

From the plow to the reaping in the deep high swell of wheat.



There are the simple people

Whose hands rest still on a Sabbath,

And great are the fields and the mountains,

And great are the slopes and the valleys.





—————————————

JOAN MURRAY
Drafts, Fragments, and Poems
The Complete Poetry
edited by Farnoosh Fathi
NYRB 2018




M O R E !

VISIT TO THE CINEMA ~

TOM RAPP ~

T O M     R A P P

photo ~

Tom Rapp in the Netherlands early in his career, when he led the band Pearl Before Swine.CreditBill O'Leary/The Washington Post, via Getty Images

JONATHAN GREENE ~

Late August



Deafening cicadas

hide my tinnitus

from myself



while the cricket

keeps its location

hidden in the grass







Homage



Every street you wander,

carrying your family tree with you,

down to your toes, roots

looking for an earth to scratch in.



You thank your ancestors

for so much. Then stub your big toe

on some malady they passed on.

Encoded as it is.



You are their whole package.

By chance. Entrusted.

Good and bad.



And without thinking

add some small increment

all your own.







In the Pumpkin Patch




The toddler used to

getting his way, picks out

a pumpkin he can't lift.




—————————
Jonathan Greene
AFLOAT
Poems 2014-2017
BROADSTONE 2018





ALSO ~

Gists Orts Shards
a Commonplace Book
Enlarged & Revised
Jonathan Greene
(Broadstone 2018)

MEATYARD / MERTON ~

R E A D     O N

F I N D     M E

ACRES ~

Acres

There is a

field surrounded

by changing leaves

and there our

bicycles go

—

a tree

in the

way no

way go

around

—

dripped

red

sumac

—

not just

a field

but along

a river

twist

—

so sunny

she lay

back in

the grass

flat

—

he played

so we played

it was all play

—

to hold your

son as a young

boy for one of

the very last times

—

he is so young

and happy all

above how blue

the sky

————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

THAT'S HOW I GOT TO MEMPHIS ~

BILL FAY ~

MICHAEL PALMER ~

After

And to write a poem

beneath the sickle moon

is barbaric

And to trace a poem

upon the lover's body

is barbaric

And to write a poem

amidst the dust

amidst the dust

storm of history is barbaric

And to read a poem

To read

while the book is burning

and to enter the Paper House

while the streets are burning

To enter the Paper House

which is silent

And to hear the song

should we call it a song

soonest gone

of the cicadas

in the parching heat

when to drink

of the lover's liquid

is barbaric

And to wander

in a dark wood

wander lost

in a dark wood

to look

and to begin

to say farewell

to begin

and to dwell

to dwell upon

to dwell among

——————————

Michael Palmer

The Laughter of the Sphinx

New Directions 2016