MUSICAL GARRETT HONGO ~

 

JERZY FICOWSKI ~

Village Landscape

There is silence in the meadows

of former battlefields

the bank of the bug river arranges

shells and bones

at times a wasp's ricochet

shoots from the burdocks

someone was buried here

or somewhere else

and there is no hole in heaven

as there is on earth

.     .     .

I was unable to save

a single life

I couldn't sleep

a single bullet

so I circle cemeteries

that aren't there

I search for words

that aren't there

I run

to the aid uncalled for

to the rescue delayed

I want to get there on time

even if it's already over

Kazakhstan, USSR

they let us out of the wagons

right here

And nothing anywhere

not a river

to drown in

or a tree

to hang oneself

____________________________

Jerzy Ficowski

Everything I Don't Know

Selected Poems

translated from the Polish by

Jennifer Grotz & Piotr Sommer

World Poetry Books, 2021

DIANE DI PRIMA ~ REVOLUTIONARY LETTERS ~

 

DIANE  DI  PRIMA

City Lights Books 2021

April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa

Today is your

birthday and I have tried

writing these things before,

but now

in the gathering madness, I want to

thank you

for telling me what to expect

for pulling

no punches, back there in that scrubbed Bronx parlor

thank you

for honestly weeping in time to

innumerable heartbreaking

italian operas for

pulling my hair when I

pulled the leaves off the trees so I'd

know how it feels, we are

involved in it now, revolution, up to our

knees and the tide is rising, I embrace

strangers on the street, filled with their love and

mine, the love you told us had to come or we

die, told them all in that Bronx park, me listening in

spring Bronx dusk, breathing stars, so glorious

to me your white hair, your height your fierce

blue eyes, rare among Italians, I stood

a ways off, looking up at you, my grandpa

people listened to, I stand

a ways off listening as I pour out soup

young men with light in their faces

at my table, talking love, talking revolution

which is love, spelled backwards, how

you would love us all, would thunder your anarchist wisdom

at us, would thunder Dante, and Giordano Bruno, orderly men

bent to your ends, well I want you to know

we do it for you, and your ilk, for Carlo Tresca,

for Sacco and Vanzetti, without knowing

it, or thinking about it, as we do it for Aubrey Beardsley

Oscar Wilde (all street lights

shall be purple), do it

for Trotsky and Shelley and big/dumb

Kropotkin

Eisenstein's Strike people, Jean Cocteau's ennui, we do it for

the stars over the Bronx

that they may look on earth

and not be ashamed.

_____________________

Diane Di Prima

Revolutionary Letters

50th Anniversary Edition

Pocket Poets No. 27

City Lights, 2021

BEN E KING ~

 

NEW! ANDREW SCHELLING FROM LONGHOUSE ~

 

Andrew Schelling

FOREST, TEMPLES, GLACIAL RIVERS

Longhouse

2022

many-colored

& limited

$10

postpaid

$15

   SIGNED

We accept Paypal

Please use our email address of 

longhousepoetry@gmail.com

Payable by check ~

Longhouse 

PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro, Vermont 05303

ZZ TOP ~

 

HENRY TOWNSEND ~

 

STONE CARVERS ~

 

Julio Jiménez drives short spikes into a large piece of stone in order to cut out a section from a quarry near Escolásticas.

S T O N E    C A R V E R S

SHOLOM ALEICHEM ~

 

L I S T E N

NATHAN ABSHIRE ~

 

STEWART BRAND ~

R E A D      M E

                                                            Mr. Brand in Sausalito, Calif., in 2016.

                                                                       Mark Maheny/Redux

Credit...Mark Maheny/Redux

CARMEN GIMENEZ SMITH ~

 

Lullaby

What does the poet call

a loss of words?

She calls it widest pupil.

They call it skewered sight.

How precise the nerves

that bear the toll of language.

Once there were stories

I didn't want true about me,

but here I am, twisted

with appetite. My mother

said I was a curious child.

She meant it as a gift.

Pirate moon, the

rapture of deep sleep,

build me a fortress

for my mantle.

__________________________

Carmen Giménez Smith

Cruel Futures

City Lights 2018

MARY LOU WILLIAMS ~

 

JOHNNY WOODS & R.L. BURNSIDE ~

 

PAUL AUSTER BRINGS US STEPHEN CRANE ~

 

NAT & BILLY ~

 

MARIE KNIGHT ~

 

ONE FRIDAY IN APRIL ~

 

R E A D     M E

Boubacar Traoré & Ali Farka Touré ~

 

PAPA CHARLIE JACKSON ~