JERRY MCCAIN ~

 

DOUG ANDERSON (BINGE) ~

 

Binge

War comes to visit me once a day.

I can't get rid of him.

He's grown old and hates himself.

I stopped a quarter-century ago,

but he still drinks — sits in airport bars

and watches the cocky uniforms

line up at the departure gates.

Desert camouflage this time, tan boots.

He orders another double and snickers,

little eyes set close together

in too large a head, like a grizzly's,

opaque and dead. Flies swarm

around his gore-smeared muzzle.

He stinks of corpse. I let him sleep in the garage.

You see, there's no way to make him leave.

Go to war just once, he's always with you.

At breakfast he feels like he's got

an ice pick in his head, swears off the stuff.

Never again, he says, I've found God.

By five he's back in the blood glow of the bar,

bumming drinks and telling lies.

He's got an eye for boys and girls

with wallets full of combat pay.

He'll Mickey Finn them,

roll them for their souls and go off giggling.

I see Senator Goldmouth weaving

down the bar to slap him on the back:

Let freedom ring! says he,

teeth twinkling from the neon at the bar.

________________

Doug Anderson

from What Saves Us

edited by Martin Espada

Northwestern University Press

2019 

LESTER WILLIAMS ~

 

MICHAEL NESMITH ~

 

M I C H A E L     N E S M I T H

1942, Houston ~ 2021, Carmel Valley

BROTHER ~

 

LAVERN BAKER ~

 

 

The cathedral, which remains unfinished, in 2017. It dominates the landscape of Mejorada del Campo, a town outside Madrid Credit...

Gianfranco Tripodo for The New York Times

J U S T O     G A L L E G O

M O N K, B U I L D E R

EXECUTIVE SUITE ~ (Fly the Friendly Skies) ~

 

The Crash of Two Airplanes and the Crisis at Boeing

An engine recovered from a Boeing crash, Jakarta, 2018Credit...

Achmad Ibrahim/Associated Press

R E A D      M E

TED KOOSER ~

 

At Dusk, In Decemeber

Driving a gravel road in the country

I saw a hawk fly up out of a ditch

with a mouse in its beak, and it flew

along beside my car for a minute,

the mouse still alive, its little legs

running as fast as they could, and there

we were, the three of us, all going

in the same direction, west, at just

a little under forty miles per hour.

____________________

Ted Kooser

Red Stilts

Copper Canyon Press

2021

CRAFT ~

 

R E A D     M E

Bloomsbury 2021

MICHAEL HURLEY ~

 

TOM STOPPARD ~

 

R E A D     M E

                               Tom Stoppard on his way to Darjeeling, India, in 1990. Photo: Karan Kapoor

JOANNA HOGG ~

 

JOHN BONHAM, BEAST ~

 

R E A D      M E

Hatchette

2021

THE TWELVE LIVES OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK ~

 

Finally, after many biographies

— a fresh look

LARRY WILLIAMS ~

 

GLORIA GERVITZ ~

 

New York Review of Books

 2020

SHIRLEY JACKSON ~

 

R E A D      M E

Random House

2021

BILLY LEE RILEY ~

 

 

THE HISTORY OF BONES, JOHN LURIE ~

 

R E A D     M E

Random House

2021