HANSHAN ~

 

from Cold Mountain Zen

Father and mother having left me much to inherit,

I'm not envious of others' paddies and fields.

My wife handles her loom, clicking, clucking,

my child, playing by herself, mouth babbling, babbling.

She claps her hands, making blossoms dance,

chin in hands, she listens to birds singing.

Who will come by and admire all this?

Just a woodcutter stops by for a while.

Since birth, for thirty years,

I've walked tens of thousands of li.

Along the rivers blue grass proliferated,

as I entered the borders scarlet dust rose.

I kneaded elixir vainly to seek immortality,

I read books to comment on history.

Having returned to Cold Mountain now,

I lie by a stream and wash my ears.

As I climb the path to Cold Mountain,

the route to Cold Mountain does not end.

The valley is long with piles of stones,

the streams smothered with grass.

The moss is smooth, not because of rain,

the pines sough, not by borrowing winds.

Who would go beyond the world

and sit with me amid white clouds?

I lie beneath heavy layers of rocks;

steamy clouds do not fade during the day.

My room is murky and dark,

but my mind rejects uproar and clatter.

My dreams go to wander in golden palaces,

my soul returns by crossing the stone bridge.

I've thrown away whatever disturbs me,

even the gourd clanking in the trees.

My house sits under green boulders;

the garden is wild but I do not cut grass.

New wisterias hang down, entwiningly;

old stones stand, rising steeply, sharply.

Monkeys pick mountain berries;

in the pond a white heron mouths fish.

The transcendental book, in two volumes,

I read under a tree, mumbling.

_C O L D  M O U N T A I N  Z E N_________________________________

Hanshan

translated by Hiroaki Sato

New Directions 2026

I've waited all my life for Hiroaki Sato to bring us Hanshan —

it was only a matter of time. Excellent footnotes accompany these

poems, so I encourage every reader to find this essential book, a

beauty, and read all the poems, all the footnotes, all the essays,

all the all. I just wanted to type out a few poems to share on a late

summer season evening.

MONK ALIVE IN ZURICH 1964 ~

 

Thelonious Monk Quartet Zurich, Switzerland 02/26/1964 Charlie Rouse (ts) Thelonious Monk (p) Edward "Butch" Warren (b) Ben Riley (d)

PAUL CELAN by ANNA ARNO ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Belknap/Harvard

     2026

THOMAS A CLARK, THREADBARE ~

 

the shape changer

                ______________________________

once I was a deer

stepping under trees

my form always broken

by lights and shadows

then I was a wildcat

leaping up and away

from the traces of my own

rigour and ferocity

in a fold of hills

nodding with flowers

I took on many

shapes and colours

seldom was I present

to myself in a form

half as alluring

as what I might become

again I was a goldcrest

a bright fragment of song

moving through the forest

leading farther in

at times defeated

reduced to stone

I lay disregarded

concealed in the open

then I was a juniper

turning to take the slope

pausing and bracing myself

above a sheer drop

and once I was a dragonfly

for an afternoon

little more than a notion

of the stillness and the green

_______________________

The Threadbare Coat

Selected Poems

Carcanet, UK, 2020

we celebrate our wedding anniversary

today with a dear poetry friend

LARRY EIGNER ~

 

_______________________

microphones

on top of the world

heads spin

empty

______________________

Waters /

Places /

A Time

edited by Robert Grenier

Black Sparrow Press

1983

photo ~ Ann Charters

JOHN COLTRANE "SPIRITUAL" TONIGHT ~

 

Concord Music Group reissues remastered and expanded edition of John Coltrane’s Afro Blue Impressions Two-CD set commemorates both the 40th anniversary of Pablo Records and the 50th anniversary of the recordings Concord Music Group will reissue a remastered and expanded edition of John Coltrane’s Afro Blue Impressions album (international release dates vary). Enhanced by 24-bit remastering by Joe Tarantino, three bonus tracks, and new liner notes, the new reissue celebrates the 40th anniversary of Pablo Records, the jazz label founded by Norman Granz in 1973. Afro Blue Impressions represents an anniversary within an anniversary. By the time Norman Granz launched Pablo in 1973, he’d already stockpiled several years worth of previously-recorded tour performances in his vaults, including these sets from Stockholm and Berlin in late 1963 (October and November, respectively). This new two-disc reissue of the classic Coltrane Pablo album — originally released as a double LP in 1977 — arrives just a few weeks ahead of the 50th anniversary of the original concerts. Coltrane fronts a stellar quartet on both European dates that includes McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. In addition to the nine tracks that appeared in the original Afro Blue Impressions double album, the reissue also includes three bonus tracks from the Stockholm date: “Naima,” “I Want To Talk About You,” and “My Favorite Things.” “When you compare and contrast the performance of a composition that was released on the original album to a different performance of the same composition from among the bonus tracks,” says Afro Blue Impressions reissue producer Nick Phillips, “it perfectly illustrates just how restlessly creative Coltrane and his band were. Each song was a springboard for unpredictable improvisation and boundless creativity.” “These tracks brim with the wonder and the power of discovery,” says Neil Tesser, author of the new liner notes accompanying the reissue. “At this juncture, the Coltrane Quartet existed in a state analogous to quantum mechanics . . . Each new performance yielded new insights. As the musicians gathered this data and sifted through it, they would arrive at the polished theories underlying the eventual masterworks to come, such as the album Crescent and the monumental suite A Love Supreme — achievements that would then launch a new age of chaotic discovery, on such albums as Om, Sun Ship, and Meditations. How much those recordings will resonate on their 50th anniversaries will likely engender some controversy; Coltrane didn’t live long enough to complete the journey that began with them, and the jury remains out, even decades later, regarding the impact of that work. But history long ago weighed the import of his work in 1963, when his music stretched and struggled its way toward becoming Coltrane’s iconic stylistic statement.”

AMIRI BARAKA ~

 

   Lunch Poems series

    Amiri Baraka

GREAT MUSIC TALK TONIGHT ~

 

Joe Boyd

   Buddy Miller

TRACY K. SMITH SAYS FEAR LESS ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Norton, 2025