HUNTED ~

BEI DAO ~

At the Sky's Edge



love among the mountains



eternity, that patience of the earth

simplifies our human sounds

one arctic-thin cry

from deep antiquity until now



rest, weary traveler

a wounded ear's

already laid your dignity bare



one arctic-thin cry




___________________

Bei Dao
At the Sky's Edge
translated by David Hinton
Poems 1991-1996
New Directions

PABLO NERUDA ~

R E A D      M E

Ecco

2018

MARK STRAND ~

When I Turned A Hundred



I wanted to go on an immense journey, to travel night and day

into the unknown until, forgetting my old self, I came into

possession of a new self, one that I might have missed on my

previous travels. But the first step was beyond me. I lay in bed, 

unable to move, pondering, at one does at my age, the ways of

melancholy — how it seeps into the spirit, how it disincarnate

the will, how it banishes the senses to the chill of twilight, how

even the best and worst intentions wither in its keep. I kept

staring at the ceiling, then suddenly felt a blast of cold air, and

I was gone.






Once Upon A Cold November Morning


I left the sunlit fields of my daily life and went down into the

hollow mountain, and there I discovered, in all its chilly glory,

the glass castle of my other life. I could see right through it,

and beyond, but what could I do with it? It was perfect, ire-

ducible, and worthless except for the fact that it existed.






Anywhere Could Be Somewhere


I might have come from the high country, or maybe the low

country, I don't recall which. I might have come from the city,

but what city in what countries beyond me. I might have

come from the outskirts of a city from which others have

come or maybe a city from which only I have come. Who's to

know? Who's to decide if it rained or the sun was out? Who's

to remember? They say things are happening at the border, but

nobody knows which border. They talk of a hotel there, where

it doesn't matter if you forget your suitcase, another will be

waiting, big enough, and just for you.




——————————

Mark Strand
Almost Invisible
Knopf 2012

FRANCO ~

FORGED BY CRAFT (AXE) ~

SHADOW ON MY DOOR ~

SNOW WALKERS ~

Here we are the other day in Bob’s old home region of the Berkshire hills. 

After almost 50 years in Vermont, where we have regularly snowshoed each winter,

making more trails than we can keep up with.

photo ~

Bob & Susan Arnold

February 2019

HEAVEN LAKE (23) ~

Snow Country

It’s the snow that runs the show

After a blizzard we look out from the house

See nothing but snow for miles

Tall trees come down with the weight of the snow

Horses cradle together beneath the softwoods

The bluejay flies as a darting color

And there are people out there somewhere

Hidden away until Spring

She Knows

She’s the one who sets the traps

Catching the mice under the kitchen cupboard

Friendly traps that often nabs a mouse by the tail

So she let’s the mouse go

Then sets peanut butter

Further into the trap

When the mouse returns

It gets it at the neck —

We are all hunters

With that in mind

Every mouse kill

She takes out into the woods

Onto a fine flat stone

For a fox she knows

That tracks through

To Me

as she leaves

she becomes

gorgeous

The Secret

Have secrets

Share them

Getting There

half

way

doesn’t

cross

a

bridge

_____________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

DUBUFFET DRAWINGS ~

R E A D       M E

The Morgan Library & Museum

Thames & Hudson

2016

FRANK KUENSTLER ~

Choruses

The poem was beautiful.

Was the poem beautiful, or was the rain beautiful?

The rain was beautiful.

Was the rain beautiful, or was the room beautiful?

The room was beautiful.

The girl was beautiful. The music was beautiful.

The poem was beautiful. Was the poem beautiful, or was the rain

beautiful? The rain was beautiful. Was the rain beautiful, or was

the room beautiful? The room was beautiful.

The girl was beautiful. The music was beautiful. Music,

rain, room & poem. Beautiful.

The poem was beautiful. Beautiful.

The rain was beautiful. Beautiful.

The girl was beautiful. Beautiful.

The music was beautiful. Beautiful.

Music, rain, room, poem & girl.

Beautiful.

Was the poem beautiful, or was the rain beautiful?

The rain was beautiful. The poem was beautiful.

Was the rain beautiful, or was the room beautiful?

The room was beautiful.

Was the room beautiful, or was the girl beautiful?

The girl was beautiful. The rain was beautiful.

The room was beautiful.

The poem was beautiful.

Music, rain, room, girl & poem. Beautiful.

The Poem on the Wall

In 810 A.D. Yuan Chen wrote his friend the poet Po Chu-i

that on his way to exile he found one of his poems inscribed

on the walls of the Lo-k'ou Inn.

_____________________________________

     The clumsy poem I wrote on the wall

no one much cared to see.

    Birdshit & moss' growth obscured it,

     Letters & all. An exile came, a page

to the throne, travelling. He didn't

     mind using his fancy sleeve to wipe

     the dirt away so he could read.

______________________________

Frank Kuenstler

The Enormous Chorus

Pressed Wafer 2011

photo by Ira Cohen


R E A D      M O R E

LEOPARDI ~

L'Infinito / Infinitive


I've always loved this lonesome hill

And this hedge that hides

The entire horizon, almost, from sight.

But sitting here in a daydream, I picture

The boundless spaces away out there, silences

Deeper than human silence, an unfathomable high

In which my heart is hardly a beat

From fear. And hearing the wind

Rush rustling through these bushes,

I pit its speech against infinite silence —

And a notion of eternity floats to mind,

And the dead seasons, and the season

Beating here and now, and the sound of it. So

In this immensity my thoughts all drown,

And it's easeful to be wrecked in seas like these.

translated by Eamon Grennan


————————————
Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837)
Selected Poems
Princeton University 1997

JEFF BECK ~

IRON CURTAIN JOURNALS ~

You may think you've had enough Ginsberg — not quite.

This is AG at his height and only rising.

He's spunky, daring and traveling solo

meeting poets and flavors along the way.

He will be crowned by students ceremoniously

the "King of May" in the Czech Republic and

then unceremoniously be booted out of the

country by the government who already

warned him to keep a low profile.

Impossible.

[ BA ]

University of Minnesota Press 2018

edited by Michael Schumacher

BO DIDDLEY ~

CROSSING AMERICA ~

Crossing America


I.


We hitchhiked America. I

still think of her.



I walk the old streets thinking I

see her, but never.



New buildings have gone up.

The bartenders who poured roses

into our glasses are gone.

We are erased.




II.


Minook, Illinois,

one street out of nowhere through cornstalks.

Winter clutched the cornfields into Chicago.

Cold, we couldn't get in out of the cold.



But a lonely filling station owner risked

letting his death in out of the night.

I lay on his gas station floor and let her

use me for a bed.



I will never forget the cold into

my kidneys or lying awake bearing the

pain while she slept like a two month

old child on the hill of its mother's tit.



It was on the stone floor

that I knew I loved her.




___________________________

just a portion of this excellent long poem by
Leo Connellan
Crossing America
Penmen Press, 1976

JESSE FULLER ~

LOUISE BOURGEOISE ~

The Museum of Modern Art

2017

____________________________________

A labor of love portrait by Deborah Wye

 which spirals around

as only Bourgeois could feel

the intricacies in art & labor

of this astonishing artist —

every man should study this artist

and this book —

Every woman is already born to it

[ BA ]

JANINE POMMY VEGA (FEBRUARY) ~

Janine Pommy Vega circa 1969 ~
how a troubadour poet lived

The back of the sheet —

one of Janine's poems and drawings

Janine in Lima, Peru with a dream 

w/ Bill Bathurst, Bob, Susan and Carson Arnold

Janine Pommy Vega
1942-2010
A February birthday

HEAVEN LAKE (22) ~

He’s Nearby

                     for Franco

I hear

leaf

caught

in bicycle

spoke

JK & JPV

He said

when he

was old

real old

he would

go live in

Venice and

watch the

pretty women

She said

no the

prettiest

women with

the best

legs were

not in Venice

or France but

Czech women

He thought

a moment

and said

okay when

I am old

and alone

I will go

live in

Prague

I Sent To My Mother

my book of forty years of

love poems and she never

said if she received the book

or not, so I asked —

and she sighed

“Oh yes, I have that

I put it away”

Family Tree

They have come to visit

From a long way off —

The expectations are thrilling 

He is 40

She is 30

Their daughter is 3

By the time they leave

After nearly two weeks

He is miserable

She is middling

And the daughter 

Keeps hugging us

for John

_______________________

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018