BRYNJA HJALMSDOTTIR ~

 

from  A Woman Looks Over Her Shoulder

The creature twists the knob

it's locked

Somebody

A woman looks

over her shoulder

and sees

nobody

falling

out the window

Nobody

pursues her

Mixer

A woman lives

on an island

in a glass ball

When the ball is shaken

rocks spiral and storm

and someone

is always

shaking

See the World

A woman is asked

the question

When are you going back

to your place?

Never she says

When I'm from there is no living

only surviving

That's why I'll never go back

count my blessings to reside here

count my wounds and bruises

to remain here

And wait for my children

to have the opening

I don't have anymore

not now with the holes unmended

with hands clenched

            around a stranger's bedsheet

            around a broomstick

                around an old hand

An opening to throw

questions like this in the wastebin

Say:

I contain many places my place

is anywhere I please

~

The creature finds the right key

Twists the knob

it's open

Opens her third eye

and knows

This is the Whore's City

~

In the Whore City the coffee is always hot

and the doors always open

Everyone says yes

come in dear

just come in

no need to take off your shoes

All the houses have wood paneling

from floor

to ceiling

Insulated

so nothing ever comes

howling well well well

in through the cracks

~

Oh!

If you could just see it

look in

through just the right keyhole

with all eyes open

wide

__________________________

Brynja Hjalmsdottir

A Woman Looks Over Her shoulder

translated from the Icelandic by Rachel Britton

Circumference Books 2025

CHARLIE PARKER TONIGHT ~

 

Cosmic Rays · Charlie Parker Quartet Now’s The Time: The Genius Of Charlie Parker #3 ℗ 1953 UMG Recordings, Inc. Released on: 1952-12-12 Composer Lyricist: Charlie Parker Producer: Norman Granz

C COMICS (JOE BRAINARD) ~

 

R E A D   M E

     NYRB 2025

WOODEN SHJIPS ALL DAY THRU THE NIGHT ~

 

SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAR TONIGHT ~

 

    Columbia

LYN HEJINIAN ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Wesleyan University Press

     2025

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER (DEAD) ~

 

Provided to YouTube by Grateful Dead/Rhino All Along the Watchtower (Live at Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY, March 1990) · Grateful Dead Dozin' at the Knick: Knickerbocker Arena ℗ 2004 Grateful Dead Productions, Inc. Arranger, Producer: Bill Kreutzmann Drums, Percussion: Bill Kreutzmann Arranger, Producer: Bob Weir Guitar, Vocals: Bob Weir Arranger, Producer: Brent Mydland Bodhran, Keyboards, Vocals: Brent Mydland Producer: David Lemieux Producer: Doran Tyson Arranger, Producer: Jerry Garcia Guitar, Vocals: Jerry Garcia Mixing Engineer: John Cutler Producer: Mark Pinkus Arranger, Producer: Mickey Hart Drums, Percussion: Mickey Hart Arranger, Producer: Phil Lesh Bass Guitar: Phil Lesh Vocals: Phil Lesh Writer: Bob Dylan

JOHN BERRYMAN ~

 

"MAN?  BEWILDERED, HENRY STARED AT

THE WORLD OPPOSITE"

Man?  Bewildered, Henry stared at the world opposite

and took up Intractable Problem: Am I part of it?

—(Yeah, man!)

— There's all that zealous; whereas he lean back.

There's all that competent; whereas he lack

a minimal plan.

Let's think of his nature as a kind of mist,

which cares through, and has been known to insist,

and frequent' does hurt,

and caves in, and recovers to open air.

There are the common opinions he declare

in the rapid of his 'art.

Oh his 'art thrashes.  It will come to nix.

In time, in time, Henry will be towed away

as having counter-parked.

Devil a love will bail him from that fix.

Dispersing mist before the heat of day

in a corner of one galaxy.

_______________________________

John Berryman

Only Sing

152 Uncollected Dream Songs

Farrar, Straus, Giroux 2025

GEORGE HARRISON ALL DAY ~

 

SONYA COHEN CRAMER TONIGHT ~

 

Townes Van Zandt's song from one of

the loveliest folk albums in a 

long while; the daughter

of New Lost City Rambler John Cohen

Sonya was a newborn and at Newport

with her parents when Bob Dylan

went electric. She headed

for the hills.

BOB ARNOLD ~ MORNING LETTER. . .~

 

Morning Letter to Friends

They are calling it a “bomb cyclone.” The word Blizzard doesn’t seem to be enough. Is it the weather that is out-of-control, or the weather forecasters. All the forecasters. I step out onto the long sideways porch living room of the “Ojai" and see all the snow blown across eight feet, and over the old rug, and right up to the side of the house. I sweep off the rug and call it clean. Snow is a cleanser. Often we have taken our rugs, wool included, out into the fresh snow and given them all a thorough cleaning. It works. They almost stand up and applaud when brought back indoors and set back down. Brighter. Even startled.

The red squirrel (one), black squirrel (one), gray squirrel (one) all at the feeder with juncos, chickadees etc and this time, in the cyclone, the juncos don’t wait to scavenge seed sent down from the feeders by the robust chickadees but are right up into the two feeders with everyone. Everyone sharing. Mankind remains at a loss. Not enough watching the animals, the birds, the weather. Our town plow ventures down the road and into the cyclone gingerly, opens about a one lane road. Tomorrow the sun may shine, the cyclone off over the Atlantic, I’ll have drifts to contend with breaking open the long snowshoe tract building to building. All 9 buildings in the brunt of blizzard. I built each building. They can take it.

Reading Di Prima's journals of when her friend Freddie leapt out a 5th floor window. Junkie. As Lenore Kandel once sayeth, “too many of my friends are junkies.” The Italian Di Prima, always down to earth, friend of both Pound and Olson, shares the history the junkies (including Janine) couldn’t or wouldn’t want to quite remember. Di Prima, lover of LeRoi Jones ("Roi") and printing the first issues of Floating Bear, my very own inspiration. 

Susan tablet weaving on the sofa in the living room all of it on her lap.

The best firewood saved for today: rock maple. I remember this tree I made the firewood from. There is more, blown down over the winter, up in the woodlot, waiting for me and Spring. I’ve many times snowshoed past the fell'd trees. Half of my work is already done.

The woods take this blizzard like nothing to it. They know one another.

I work on my forthcoming selected short poems, 50 years worth, 250 pages, and move a space, add a space, there are 400 short poems not in there. One day I’ll get to the longer poems. Cover all designed, poems all chosen. I just wait now months to see what is going to appear. Or what will tire and to be removed. We’re all about lasting. Me, we, and the poems.

___________________________

Bob Arnold

Green River

Vermont

23 Feb 2026