Sunday, June 9, 2019
Saturday, June 8, 2019
STEVE CASTRO ~
Polar Opposites
__________________________
I just rose from the dead.
"Do you feel tired?" I asked.
A little. I'm also hungry.
Then she hugged me.
"Are you hugging me because I'm about to take your place in the afterlife?"
Maybe? I could also be hugging you because I like you.
"I've never dated anyone who was previously dead before."
I've never dated anyone who's about to die.
"How long do I have?"
Still embracing me, she looked into my eyes and then I knew that we
would kiss. Kiss we did. Her mouth tasted of flowers that had been
placed inside a coffin. I started crying.
"I can taste death in you."
She started crying as well. I wiped the tears from her eyes.
"I wish I didn't have to die," I told her.
Your wish is my command, she said.
Then we lived happily ever after.
__________________
Steve Castro
Blue Whale Phenomena
Otis Books
Otis College of Art and Design
2019
Friday, June 7, 2019
Thursday, June 6, 2019
PETER SCHJELDAHL ~
I remember Schjeldahl's poetry in the late 60s
one of the many poetry brats of the young
and zestful New York Poets scene
(after Ashbery, O'Hara etc)
— the poems were puzzle pieces
and since then, the art criticism has been
anything but. I followed his art writing
in the Village Voice, 7 Days, and for years
now in the New Yorker. It's much better fare than
the poetry the magazine now publishes.
A note on the book — Schjeldahl takes care of
his job and comes through marvelously. The book
design is a bit bland, though brightened
in a de Kooning yellow, but too bad being
in a de Kooning yellow, but too bad being
Abrams, an art house, they didn't slip in a feature
of art work, artists photographs etc.
[ BA ]
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
RENGETSU (Otagaki Nobu, 1791-1875) ~
from Lotus Moon
Blackened Thing
Another year passes:
On my kitchen shelf
Something blackened
With soot —
A little Buddha image.
Seeing Young Nuns On
Their Begging Rounds
First steps on the
Long path to Truth:
Please do not dream
Your lives away,
Walk on to the end.
When People Tease Me About My
Constant Change Of Residence
A floating cloud,
Drifting about
Playfully
Here and there
Not wanting to fade away.
The Oni
Do not resist, (Mr. Onu):
Open the lotus inside
And overturn
All those demons
In your heart!
Heart
Coming and going,
Without beginning or end,
Like ever changing
White clouds:
The heart of things.
The Pleasures of Calligraphy
Taking up the brush
Just for the joy of it,
Writing on and on,
Leaving behind
Long lines of dancing letters.
Incense Burner
A single line of
Fragant smoke
From the incense stick
Trails off without a trace:
One's heart, as well?
A Life of Retirement
Reside in a living landscape
And it becomes yours:
Daikon dry along the fence,
Trees full of chestnuts
Brush against the eaves.
Thoughts While Making
A Flower Pot
Dew and butterflies are
Attracted to flowers of
Certain scent and color:
Do they have
Favorites too?
Digging Clay And Making A Vase
Taking the fragile
Little handmade
Things to sell —
How lonely it looks
In the market place!
_________________
Lotus Moon
Rengetsu
translated by John Stevens
White Pine Press
2005
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
Monday, June 3, 2019
Sunday, June 2, 2019
ROBERT LAX ~
one bird
two birds
one bird
two birds
two birds
one bird
two birds
one bird
one bird
two birds
one bird
two birds
two birds
one bird
two birds
one bird
one
~
"are you a visitor?" asked
the dog.
"yes," i answered.
"only a visitor?" asked
the dog.
"yes," i answered.
"take me with you," said
the dog.
~
every
night
in the
world
is a
night
in the
hospital
The Angel
and the Little Old Lady
an angel
appeared to
a little old
lady
& said:
would you
like a
wish?
for my
grand-daughter,
said the little
old lady:
that she grew
up to be a
beautiful young
lady
& marry a
nice young
man
two wishes,
said the angel,
would you
like another?
whatever other
good thing you
can think of,
said the little
old lady
the girl grew up
to be a beautiful
young lady
& married a
nice young man
after a year or
so, a child was
born to them
(the angel's
idea)
- - -
now the old
lady was
quite a bit
older:
the angel
appeared
to her again
& said:
would you
like a
wish?
for the
child, she
said
that he grew
up to be a
handsome
young man
& marry
a nice
young girl
two wishes
said the angel,
would you
like another?
whatever other
good thing
you can think
of,
said the little
old lady
_______________
Robert Lax
33 Poems
New Directions
2019
Saturday, June 1, 2019
PHILIP BOOTH ~
Half-Life
3:00 a.m. Back
from the bathroom,
I've lain awake
for an hour. I
was all right at
2:00, most of me's
still O.K. My feet
are down at the end
of the bed, they and
my head and testicles
still seem to be
the right size. But
my hands, clamped
shut like a baby's
fist, are big as
a catcher's mitt,
each thumb's as big
as a fat man's leg.
I can't get any
sound up from my
throat. I grab
for breath, trying
to cry out.
Though
she has been dead
for half my life,
my mother — all
her illnesses
still intact — leans
her softness
over my crib,
and tries with-
out words to
hold me. She
tries and tries
to hold me.
_______________________
Philip Booth
Pairs
Penguin, 1994
Friday, May 31, 2019
HANNE BRAMNESS ~
Paul Klee pictures
_______________
Sketch of a street in a town
The man's fine limbs
black lines
running from
bone to muscle
plaster is tendons
tension is stone
Vor dem Schnee
I have seen the kingdom of
air so stiff
darken and
the trees
so wild in the wind
continuous
one line only
and softer colours
before the snow
fell
The thirty-six hours before the air is softened by
snow
An ice lake
a day
clear and grey
Pictures look at us from that
painter's workshop
the park resembles Van Gogh
resembles what we see when we
look back
Gate of the deserted garden
Turn
black earth red earth
learn to love
a human animal vegetable world
with the uproar of
death
__________________
Hanne Bramness
Salt on the eye
Shearsman Books
2007
Thursday, May 30, 2019
JAMES KOLLER 83, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JIM! ~
James Koller had a bunch of kids, all great kids, and I know most of them simply because their dad brought them to our house to meet them, and them us. It was that simple and familiar. Nothing like a visit!
Here is a message today from Bertie, Jim's son, a fine musician and craftsman, and while he is celebrating what would have been his father's 83rd birthday, he would like us to, too.
So get along.
[ BA ]
____________________
Hi all.
In commemoration of what would have been James Koller's 83rd birthday today
I've added his reading of Brainard & Washington Street Poems
to the collection at jameskoller.bandcamp.com
Enjoy,
Bertie
NOT A PRETTY PICTURE ~
Sidney Lumet
Everyone needs an arbiter. The best of us carry one in our heads. It talks to us, and if we are lucky, and even wise, it tells us “go left”, “go right”, “stop at the curb” etc. Robert Mueller, “the Marine”, turned out to be, in the long-run (over two years) nothing more than a double-speak lawyer in love with double negatives. I can only imagine the throngs in train and airport terminals with CNN on in all the waiting room coveys and people, after double-speak Bob spoke, asking, “What did he say?” or “What does he mean?” Thanks, Bob. And for not being the arbiter. If you aren’t, then Barr and the Rat are, and they have been wisely busy at this. Same time, it’s more than curious the very Democrats who are shaky on their feet are from New York (Nadler, Schumer) and without a doubt, by their actions, I see two cowards nervous what the N.Y. Rat has dug up about them and will have no hesitation to use; ditto Pelosi — certainly only a guess what he has dug up about her past and personal life. A woman, of course, is his favorite scapegoat. The Rat will use it with great entertainment. Congressional Committee Chairmen Maxine Waters, Cummings, Neal, Schiff have little of this fear. The Rat may also have something on Mueller. I watched The Verdict last night for the 10th time it seems, never tire of this film or Sidney Lumet’s films, and one sees precisely how the Big Boys work. TCM has been running film after film the past months dealing with themes (unannounced) lined up with the actions of truth (lies), Justice and the American way.
It isn’t a pretty picture.
[ BA ]
JERAH CHADWICK ~
After the Aleut
Say a woman once stepped
from volcano steam, or a man
from the sea, desiring
to live among us.
Or that the storms once settled
leave drift logs and whale
for kin to apportion — even
volatile forces nurturing,
who would claim they are not related?
Tanaang Awaa, Aleut storytellers
began: This is a creation
of my country. Each tale
a twining of familiar
and strange, and at each telling
the lit faces, the lamps
drinking from their own
darkness, the everyday
and ancient rewoven.
Listen, even now wind
tries the door. Cold presses
its face to the glass, only the window's
delicate lacing of breath between us.
Say the wind envies and would remain,
that cold too steals
around our stove for this reason. Wood enough
for the night and more
beached and curing in the blasts. Imagine
the cabinet's rattling, this pulsing
of the floor as dancing.
___________________
Jerah Chadwick
Story Hunger
Salmon, 1999
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