U.S. HIGHBALL ~

YOKEL ( 10 ) ~

S O N   O F

Y O K E L

It was the opportunity to be ignorant

that I improved

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Hot Work Day

My young son

points over the

pasture gate high

off into the woods

edge shade and says,

Let’s walk up to

there — can we?

Of course we can

                                   for Carson

Staring At the Engine

Hood up

Greased hands of both natives

Wool caps pulled over the ears

Splashes of oil on snow and scrap metal

Grimy tools in a shiny toolbox

Baby cries from the trailer

Driving

Once upon a time all of us drove

Pieces of junk — VWs, old trucks, 

Screwed back together wagons —

And then there was the day the

Newcomers came and better vehicles

Were always around, driven the fastest —

But the newcomers had a funny 

Way of breaking themselves in —

First they were courteous and only

After awhile did their speed pick up

And about the same time the natives

Began to show forth with new sports

Vehicles all sponsored by a bank

Loan that almost always went broke

And soon enough they were back in

Pieces of junk so that we can always

Tell the difference between who

Is who

In Valley

One day my son

and I went to watch

a helicopter lift out

hardwood logs from

a steep shady woodlot

no skidder dared to reach

the helicopter made its

hitch and drop every

three minutes, it was

something to see, as

the long cable swept

the tree tops with an

oak log a few of us

stood far below on

an old farm bridge

greatly diminished

______________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011

ANNA KARINA ~

A n n a      K a r i n a

1940 Denmark ~ 2019 Paris

THE HOBO 1869-1956 ~

R E A D      M E

GEORGE KALAMARAS ~

Had I Had A Daughter Named Delia






Had I had a daughter I would have named her Delia.

Nobody names their sons George anymore.



The name Delia contains the sway of a dark fluid flower.

Nobody names their daughters Delia anymore.



Had I a fish, I would have called it beloved whopping cough

      to which I am inscribed.

Nobody calls their coughs tenderly anymore.



Had I loved a fig, I would have called it certain lovely fig in

      the now of my mouth.

No one describes the mouthed-now of lovely anymore.



Had Delia and I been father and daughter, I would have

      held her fever, clutched her daily dissolve, taught her

      the invisible, all the ways of softness I know, even how

      to release that certain vulnerable hunch she'd no

      doubt inherit from my own childhood strain.

No one teaches touch anymore, a way to kiss the inside

      bleeding of a star, anymore.



Had Delia asked me, Dad, I don't understand boys. I am

      unsure of my sway, the mood of my moon— how can I

      rejoice? I would have named her normal.

No one is named normal anymore.



Had I had a daughter named Delia, I would have loved

      her just for being my daughter, asked her to name her

      daughter Delia too.

At least when you're sixty-three and male and

      childless and male, nobody names their daughter's

      daughter anymore.



_____________________

George Kalamaras
Luminous in the Owl's Rib
Dos Madres 2019

JOSEPH MASSEY ~

Blinds





To listen

is to see



when the light

is a thing



felt in the ear —

it rings



you awake.




~






A dream's jagged

remains, what

morning absorbs.



Light, only light,

in place of nothing

left to remember.




~






Cliff face

shaded in

April snow

that fell

for an hour

overnight.



~





Off the highway

a stand of birch slants



above a vernal pool.

Sight slows to hold



flaked white

raked through



a stretched wreck of landscape.





~





A tree as thin

as your wrist



sprays

from the split



in a river rock.




~






A flag's reflection

dents the

water,



blurs

the debris,

mostly leaves.




~






When shadow

ingests shadow



and road clatter

thins into crickets.



When the notebook's

margins are lost



and language

sprawls. When



windows turn

brown, vacant



in their glare.





~





I return

to my body



attached to

a long vowel



stretched

between us.





________________
Joseph Massey
A New Silence
Shearsman Books
2019

GARY HOTHAM (HAIKU THEORY) ~

      squeezing

into our universe

cherry blossoms











      incoming clouds

the Atlantic rolls over

           our feet











          after Bach

space for snow to fall

            deeper











          filling the dark

a star with its own distance

         from the others










      inside

the goodbye

the snowman










    
      far into morning

clouds getting their way

         with the sky










          fog

letting us back

          in



_________________

Gary Hotham
Rightsizing the Universe:
Haiku Theory
Yiqralo Press
2019

DEAR MIND (JOHN LEVY) ~

Dear Mind,



You are dear.  Without you I'm nothing.

Often with you I'm almost nothing



but you tell me that I can't really

conceive of nothing, so you instruct me



to use "almost" up there. When I first learned

your name, Mind, I was a child.



Your name was not one of those words

that interested me. It seemed like other words



for things, like car, sidewalk, leaf.

Except unlike those things I couldn't see you



or ride inside you (it never occurred to me

I could) or walk on top of you or watch you



turn colors and fall. In many ways both of us

miss those days, days that if there were no school



were sometimes fabulously unending.

The nights were rarely as good, school or not, since



you made me so afraid of the dark. Yes, I'm

blaming you. And whatever parts of me



are not you

also deserve blame. So here we are, both



67, truly approaching the dark. You suggest I write

"truly and falsely approaching the dark"



and there, have I satisfied you?




______
______________

John Levy
Silence Like Another Name
otata's bookshelf
2019

GEORGE SZIRTES ~

A Soldier

(after Karoly Escher)


A young man with two flowers in his cup

Has turned away across the platform

To move towards two women wearing headscarves.

He is the country I am leaving.



He is beautiful, a beast decked and garlanded,

He stands gently and placidly, tall, slim,

Melancholy, prepared for sacrifice,

A peasant soldier, simple as they come.



Death has half closed his eyes

Ready to devour him at a blinking.

Behind his head the blur of a wagon pulling out.

He seizes one of the women, embraces her,



Presses himselg against her.

As we depart I am tempted to shout

To attract his attention. I can only guess

The occasion of his death, his tenderness.



______________

George Szirtes
The Budapest File
Bloodaxe Books
2000

YOKEL ( 9 ) ~

Giraffe

Native one day had one of those

Plastered wire sculptures in

His dooryard and it was a giraffe 

And though his kids were too old to

Appreciate the thing it looked newer

And brighter than anything for miles

Around. It must have been picked

Up by Native on one of his autobody

Rounds or else given as payment

For some job but I hand it to him for

Plunking the friendly beast close

Enough by the road for all to see.

We knew it wouldn’t last a month

Amidst all the grime and turmoil,

Yet it was one more example of

Native trying to do well, despite

The fact by winter’s end giraffe

Was in pieces, legs last seen

Sticking up from a snowpile.

The Evening Bird

clucks,

dying

for an

answer

The Kiss

She can do this what she’s doing

If light could be liquid, well then

This is it, thrilling itself into

The lamp, and only later do I

Taste the kerosene on her lips

Mankind

Just to let you know —

A little mouse

Stuck its face

Out from the

Woodpile today

And by its 

Expression

It cared nothing

About me or

Anything about you

______________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011