RAY JOHNSON ~

University of California

2018

WHY WRITE? ~

R E A D      M E

Why Write?

He's going to tell you

Library of America

2017

JEAN GIONO — MELVILLE ~

R E A D       M E

VICTOR JARA ~

W A T C H     M E

(and cry)

HEAVEN LAKE ( 8 ) ~

Watch How It’s Done

Today in a town

back parking lot

where we like

to park I leaned

against the truck

and watched for

a long time a gray

squirrel move a

large enough

brown paper bag

with its mouth

up a tree and out

onto the thinnest

limb where he

waited for the limb

to bow and place

him neatly onto the

three-story roof

and then scramble

across the ridge line

and up an eight foot

chimney and down

into the chimney where

of course he was

building his home

No one said he couldn’t 

I love builders

Presto

You know a rat

When you hear a

Rat in the ceiling

Modern Credo

You have to

Be careful and

Not be too nice

You don’t want

To be looked upon

Suspiciously

Stop Light

With only a few passengers

the bus driver figures

it’s as good a time as any

to comb his hair

—————————

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

VICTOR HERNANDEZ CRUZ ~

Childhood in the Latin Caribbean

I was child mountain

lived in a Latin American country

till I was five,

My grandfather was a cigar maker,

a tobacconist, rolled the leaves

Ancient craft.

Mother and father brought

together by custom routine,

young and curious,

primero balcony stares,

held hands for a while.

The plaza, Catholic Church,

life there was Pueblo ocio

arrested by boredom

Rutina tedium.

Marry young jibara

wooden house

Christ on the cross

over the bed

Covered by mosquito net,

nocturnal bolero voices

could be Julio, el Bohemio

in cancion

Grandfather/Abuelo

always sang,

everyone cantando

Even the rocks sang.

I was there in the air

not yet born but alive

counting the tamarindo

Coconut lollipops.

anxious to be white sombrero

getting hints upon the weaving of straws

glances from eyes like music

Shadow depth, the porcelain tinge

Surrounds the pearl black eyes

Of the girls.

Otro lelolay.

Destiny had other plans.

Life has no pity,

It moves forward.

Someone told me

man of father’s generation that

he was quiet in school,

that he made it somehow

from the mountaintop barrio Bayamoncito

into the town each day

the tribulation labor, secret that

people took in silence,

my mother refunfuñar (bickered)

as her family was everyday town-

people,

her father the dignity of the 

tabaqueros,

black café and brandy six in

the morning rolling cigars,

sun falling singing with Alegria boleros

Together rolling the life given

the tobacco cape leaf

Wrapping the guts, pajilla

tight cigars.

Later Chicago Mafiosos will smoke

them

Porto Rico American Tobacco Company

New Jersey ‘mericans

owned the production of cigars

los tabaqueros just rolled

what the mountains gave,

the Taino ancestral leaf

in your finger,

To which they sang

Poetry of the Spanish golden

Age in Cuban bolero sway.

Habaneros for the New York

bankers,

Antiquity awakes in the

now, the past dreams in the future.

Boleros de Rosa-Julia

Persist, the image tomorrow

somewhere 

Someone else the same,

a different similarity,

my root of earth.

Modernity does what it does?

I maintain 

macho Cimarrón,

the old café tobacco cane night

Flavor churning

grind bones.

Limbes tamarindo, coco

at Dona Rufa’s.

Café con leche,

ensalat bacalao

Rosada beans,

yucca with olive oil

twas my country,

Black eyes

launch from black hair

Skin rosa brown,

What can improve?

Evolve?

upon a day

of our hot wintertime,

We jumped from the

Fire

Into the freezer

Cold November,

the cruelest month

Excusez moi

T. S. Eliot

April lluvia

Brings mayo flores.

Mother’s schools

included math riddles

With poetry jingles,

As father Severo accomplished

numbers in addition

astute with the economy

he never slept.

Forward we went into

New York of the early

50s into the future

with the past,

into the English

with the Spanish,

in a movie rerun

the mountains melt

with the bricks.

Eyes hang sideways

upon Guayaba trees frozen

East side school yards.

Guitars strum history

bolero broadcast

amor trovadors,

singing back into the layla night

the lyrics.

Awkward language sounds

Still photos crumbled

In compost moisture.

A lone plaza photograph

A post spelling RECUERDOS

Of a country of childhood

Which dissolves

bright memory,

As

Now a now, is all there is.

————————————————

Victor Hernández Cruz

Beneath the Spanish

Coffee House Press

2017

MICHAEL O'BRIEN ~

Five Poems

1

SUBWAY

clop clop of a

horse, no, a

coin rattled in a

paper cup

2

ZUKOFSKY

nothing

too small

to belong

3

BUSON'S HAIKU

footprints in the snow coming home, all the rest of last year forgotten

4  

EMPTY CATEGORY

e.g., the Russian

theologian who felt

compelled to believe

Hell existed, but,

such was God's

mercy, no one

was in it.

5

Harmonica's two-

note wheeze, a

boy riding his father's

shoulders down 20th St.

—————————————

Michael O' Brien

To the River

Flood Editions

2017

THE LAST UTOPIANS ~

R E A D      M E

Princeton University Press

2018

REFLECTIONS OF A ROMANTIC BIOGRAPHER ~

R E V I E W

MAURICE BLANCHOT ~

R E A D        M E

M E       T OO

Fordham University Press

PRESENT CONDITIONS ~

————————————

One Month Later

My mouth still moves

around language

that baffles me alive.

My vision blurs

but wherever I look

a world wakes.

I sit for hours

chanting in silence

the name of each thing

attached to each shadow

waving slowly

over white stucco.

——————————

Joseph Massey

Present Conditions

Hollyridge Press

Venice, California

2018

HEAVEN LAKE (7) ~

Service Worker

He comes

home

after a long

day at work

and she says

you smell

like gas

like oil

like I don't

know what

he says, I work

with gas

oil

and some-

times I'm

not even sure

what, but

there it is

and it's

on me

when I go

to people's

homes and

they are

nervous and

waiting for me

they say

can't you

smell it

the gas?

I say no I

smell your cat

what you're

cooking, what's

been lost on

your rugs, so

when you smell

gas when you

smell oil you

smell me

Two-Cents

funny how those

that don’t know

are the loudest

to tell you what

they do know

which is what

they don’t know

We All Lost Money

It all started when our son’s drunk pal rolled our car

We all lost money

The drunk lost his license for almost two years

Couldn’t leave the state neither

Sweetheart said, “At least it’s a beautiful state”

“Maybe at your age”, young drunk quipped back

Too stupid to realize how at his age Sweetheart

Cut timber, snowshoed to the road, slept by lamplight

And lived with me doing all of this while

Listening now to one more dwarf selfish thought

Afterwards, all our vehicles bottomed out

Machines went jerky

All we did was travel to & fro seeking repairs

We heard the geese fly over once while crossing a parking lot

We waited to pay in a dollar store for

Two pairs of warm socks, some tights and

A Mickey and Minnie Mouse nite-lite

For supper Sweetheart cut up an apple into white slices

Sprinkled with cinnamon & sugar

It was something I waited for

Shadow

Seaside —

boat in the yard

bigger than the house

—————————

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018