Sunday, March 31, 2013

NEW INTELLIGENCE ~










1
   



Stars

are the campfires

of exiles.



 

Language exists

to pull things

close.

 



*

 


Stop that!

 

Communications

are being monitored.

 


Collusion is forbidden.

 


Humanity

will be punished

 


with the profusion

of new jargons.

 


2

 


Inverted glass,

a white cup

invents the underworld.

 



*

 


Fog thins

to chiffon,

 


nylon,

 


Easter.

 



*

 


In the universe next door,

I'm gone

 


and the shadows

of the leaves

 


of the elm I had pulled down

 


still make a fuss

over the earth.




 
____________________



 
 RAE ARMANTROUT
just saying
Wesleyan University Press 2013





















INSTEAD ~









1


To each his own

severance package



The Inca

hacked large stones

into the shapes of

nearby peaks.






2


The eerie thing

is that ghosts don't exist.



Rows

of clear droplets

hang from stripped twigs



instead.





3


Pain brings attention

to herself.



Spine on Fire!

Trail Blazer!

(Thinks she's hot.)



Out here

slim trunks bend

every which



_________________________

RAE ARMANTROUT
just saying
Wesleyan University Press 2013






















LOUISVILLE SLUGGER ~









Muhammad Ali







Saturday, March 30, 2013

NEW YORK TOWN ~
 




I recently found this excellent two-disc CD in one of our local libraries — fresh and clean, no scratches. It's a well researched and timely capsule taking one back to the early 60s and some of Bob Dylan's wellspring of inspirations and influences. A surrounding. At appox. 150 minutes and not once Bob Dylan singing; instead we have John Jacob Niles, John Lee Hooker, Rev. Gary Davis, Woody Guthrie, Lenny Bruce, Jack Kerouac, Barbara Dane, Jean Ritchie, Big Joe Williams, Lightnin' Hopkins, Lonnie Johnson, Kenneth Patchen, The Staples Singers, Paul Clayton, Dave Ron Ronk, Allen Ginsberg, Roosevelt Sykes (misspelled in the song credits), Elizabeth Cotton, and many more, freewheelin'.

Friday, March 29, 2013

SCHOOLDAYS ~








Two and two, they come to four; and four and four make eight;
Eleven twos are twenty-two; six eights make forty-eight.
If one big hen laid one big egg each day out in her coop
How many eggs for one whole year round would Mommy have to cook?

Where are they now, those golden years before I grew a man?
Where are the laughing barefoot boys who sported, played and ran?
The smell of chalk, the jotter book, the moments of great shame
When Master called me Dunce! and Clown! and hit me with his cane.

The sudden pride that came to me when history was told,
Brian boru and Sarsfield too, Saint Patrick brave and bold;
How sweet cocoa in a mug, white bread with dripping jam,
The first long pants that made me feel at last I was a man.

The dark-haired girl called Mary who lived across the way,
The crossroads near the river where we danced the nights away;
The turf fire burning in the hearth, the moments spent alone,
The sudden urge for places new, the pangs of leaving home.

London, Glasgow, Liverpool — I roamed that dreary land,
Seeking out a friendly face, a man to shake my hand;
The generous shores of America, a frantic search for gold,
The sunny land of Texas or Alaska's crippling cold.

War then reared its ugly head and many young men died,
Leaders roared like maniacs, pleaded, threatened, lied;
Governments made covenants, priests cried in vain;
I dreamed at night of my schoolboy days, it helped to keep me sane.

One thing has ever puzzled me since I ceased to be a boy:
Politicians must have gone — alas — to different schools than I,
They add up in the funniest ways, and time and time again,
Two and two will come out five, and six and three make ten.

I am tired of roaming now, I think I'll settle down,
I've seen too many dingy rooms, too many foreign towns,
The greenest hills are the hills of home and once before I die,
I want to see the little school that knew me as a boy.


_____________________________

SEAN McCARTHY
Darling Kate and Other Poems
Anvil 1972








O MYSTERY ~








"A mysterious malady seems to have expanded drastically in the past year, wiping out as many as half of the beehives needed to pollinate much of America’s produce."
 The New York Times March 29, 2013

 ___________________


Ah.

 A Mystery. 

 Like a Hard-Wired Society bent on reaping quick gargantuan profits at the expense of bees, sunshine, mountains & rivers, crops, workers, landscape, neighborhoods, people, for the investment of boy billionaires and groveling Mad Men has nothing to do with it. 

It's simple ~ the bees die; we die.


















Thursday, March 28, 2013

BLIP ~










Zero Dark Thirty, or, as I like to call it: 'Hard-Wired American Troopers', a film directed by Kathryn Bigelow, is an exercise in ennui and finally despair. The "shocking" water boarding scenes seem more hype and are actually comparable to photographs in Time Magazine. The fact that the US government operated as torturers with torture chambers spread out around the Middle East and Europe should be of more concern. They're still there, of course, since these makeshift gulags sometimes show results. "Black Sites." Expect a restaurant chain to erupt in the United States with this headline title sometime in the redeeming future. The choreography was worthless throughout the film since every explosion was hinted at moments before it wrecked havoc — whether a bus, a restaurant in a hotel, or a car approaching. Gee, I wonder what is about to happen? The strike on bin Laden's compound is a cruel video game of shooters knocking down almost anything that moved in its laser-seeking path upward to the third floor and its "jackpot" (a very ill bin Laden). Women are shot, then shot again, children possibly were, since there were many screaming and scrambling in the darkness of the raid, but we don't get a clear look at that. Nor do we see what happened to the many innocent women and children inside the structure — while a helicopter is blown to smithereens right inside the compound grounds by our crackerjack crash landing crew, and supposedly the women and children were left behind with the dead bodies, and the massive explosion, to fend for themselves. We heard, away from any Hollywood film, the Jackpot was "buried at sea," but nothing of this is shown in the film. Our hero "Maya," played by Jessica Chastain, is transported in a military cargo plane, designed to move a small army, and she can "go anywhere you like." Good old military justice and waste. While we're left with a final scene as she is stunned and weeping in what may be described as a vacuum of worthlessness. 'Where to go?' seems to be what the director is saying. "What's to watch?" is what I'm asking. The American Trooper Hard-Wired video shooters and players are demanding upon a tribal society that they are saviors to miraclewhip up a delicious "democratic" state salad. Living-as-we-do-and-please is actually democratic already.




[ BA ]



BEING THERE ~







"Two years after Fukushima's triple nuclear meltdown forced tens of thousands of residents to flee, it is possible to take a virtual journey deep into the exclusion zone to one of the towns they left behind."



Wednesday, March 27, 2013

“Living artist, glass, steel, mattress, pillow, linen, water and spectacles.” ~






Tilda Swinton at MoMA








1910 ~









The only American writer I knew who reminded me some of Leo Tolstoy — beard, eye contact, work with a two-man saw, and poetry to life — was Ted Enslin.
 They lived to almost the same age.
Thanks to Jonathan Greene for sharing this film.




Tuesday, March 26, 2013


JOHN TRUDELL ~







One Time


One time
I was visiting
with my relatives
the clouds, the mountains,
the sky, the trees
My relatives touched
My spirit
nudged it lovingly

Listen to us
Impatient one
We are forever
You must remember
the gentleness
of time

You are struggling
to be
who you are
You say you want
to learn
the old ways
struggling to learn
when
all you must do
is remember

Remember the people
Remember sky and Earth
Remember the people
have always struggled
to live
in harmony
in peace

Struggle against selfishness
and weakness
So the people
May live
As Nations

The old ways are hard
The people have always
had to work
together

Remember
Impatient one
Remember
and live
Do not be afraid
of truth
Respect
Discipline
Share your life
So the people
May live

Honor sky
and earth
Honor yourself
Honor your relations

Remember Impatient one
the gentleness
of time
So the People
May live.





Remember the happy time
when being together
is Solace
The pure happiness
of loving and laughing
Exploring sensations creating relief
in troubling times.

Remember the happy time
when all we have to do
is live
with each other
to be a shelter
in the face of the greed

Remember the happy time
how we use our joy as strength
Our tears washing away the bad
how just being is our alliance
The lessons we teach ourselves
Are the remembrances we carry

Remember the happy time
that is something we never lose
So
We must not throw it away
Or
Allow the abusers of life
to take it away

Remember the happy time
it is a gift to us. . .





The Exploiters


do not let them get to you
we are here there is a reason
reason for our own minds
reason for respect
reason for a natural world
reason for resistance
reason we are more
than they can control
their constant military
economic attack assaulting
the balance in life
inflation racism sexism egotism
new clear insecurities only
battalions of their armies
ravishing our universe
as their machines
rage against earth
industrial war
their mechanical money view
is limited to them

do not let them get to you
we are connected to each other
when we understand
their way of doing things
is unnatural
and
only natural things last





night time
when the sun rests
the clouds seem
no more than shadows
of themselves

night life
earth absorbing
moon and stars
universal energies
joining us
to each other
in
the constant creation
destiny
charging the flow
we are current
to forever





Living in Reality


Calling us red indians
we have been the colors
of a chameleons back
Changing with time
Altering the larger pattern
Surviving genocide
because we have to

Living in Reality
we are targets
of your unfairness
With Warriors for targets
You Create
Your own destruction

This is how we
bring you down
target by target
You wound yourself
Using your greed
We watch
Your spirit fade

Living in Reality
We can endure
                        Your cages
                        Your bullets
                        Your lies
                        Your confusion


We know
You have destroyed
            Your Peace
Living in Reality
You only exist.




_______________

JOHN TRUDELL
Living in Reality
(songs called poems)
Society of the People, 1982






Author's first book, published in the wake of the suspicious house fire on the Shoshone Paiute reservation in Nevada that claimed his wife, their three children, and his mother-in-law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Trudell

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Manning





Saturday, March 23, 2013

WISE LETTER ~



To Charles McCarthy from Kurt Vonnegut ~
Vonnegut was the author of Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Mother Night and other modern classics.

Charles McCarthy was the chairman of the Drake School Board of Drake, North Dakota.

To honor Vonnegut, never mind wise judgement, I like to read this letter at least once a year.
It seems now almost a duty. 










from Letters, Kurt Vonnegut, edited and with an introduction by the author's close friend
 Dan Wakefield. Both authors were born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana.
(Delacorte, 2012)

A terrific collection of letters to literary colleagues, family, friends, adversaries, and mostso KV's children.







Thursday, March 21, 2013

"BURY THEM FIRST" ~







No one speaks better about "Richard Stark" than his creator and guide Donald Westlake.


Of the 28 Stark novels, 24 feature its star "Parker" — no first name, although Westlake somewhere once said if he had to choose a first name for "Parker", he'd like "Frank". Forget that and just think "Parker" since it goes down like a rock thrown in all the novels. 


Not to confuse things — in 1999, a Richard Stark novel The Hunter was made into a film titled "Payback," after the seminal debut starring Lee Marvin as "Parker" but changed to the name "Walker" (remains the best of all Stark film versions, "Point Blank," 1967), and Mel Gibson starred in this remake. Gibson's terrific and even more terrific today as his personal life has given us a true bad boy since the film was released.


Don't take the film too seriously (though I do), after all it is a tongue in cheek noir, foolishly remade a few years later and released as a "director's-cut." While this remake may be technically wiser, it's boring, and has lost the pranks and hijinks and the delicious narration by Gibson himself reeling off his mind at what he's feeling and looking at as "Porter." He's looking at betrayal, and "Parker" (or "Porter" as he's called here) is all about loyalty. Don't cross him.


Everyone in the 1999 version of Payback gets theirs by crossing Porter.


Casting director Marion Dougherty has spun a novelty — nearly every slimeball on the outer edges of Hollywood is brought in, male and female, and by slimeball I mean trained actors who can pull it off. Like William Devane, Manu Tupou and Deborah Unger. Like Kris Kristofferson with James Coburn (combining again Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett from another earlier classic film). The director's cut erases Kristofferson completely; more dumbness.


 When Westlake was asked who he thought of as his "Parker," he answered, "Jack Palance." When I mention Palance to Sweetheart she just makes a face and says, "eeewww" (pinching her nose). 


Lee Marvin's a glorious and tall leopard-like "Walker" (Parker). Gibson's "Porter" (Parker) is playful & fed-up with idiots, can deliver impeccable Stark lines, and just wants his "$70,000". No more, no less.


 _____________











Some Novels Available by Richard Stark

    The Hunter (1962, aka Point Blank, Payback, University of Chicago Press reprint 2008) ISBN 978-0-226-77099-4
    The Man With the Getaway Face (1963, aka The Steel Hit, University of Chicago Press reprint 2008) ISBN 978-0-226-77100-7
    The Outfit (1963, University of Chicago Press reprint 2008) ISBN 978-0-226-77101-4
    The Mourner (1963, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77103-8
    The Score (1964, aka Killtown, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77104-5
    The Jugger (1965, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77102-1
    The Seventh (1966, aka The Split, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77105-2
    The Handle (1966, aka Run Lethal, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77106-9
    The Rare Coin Score (1967, University of Chicago Press reprint 2009) ISBN 978-0-226-77107-6
    The Green Eagle Score (1967, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77108-3
    The Black Ice Score (1968, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77109-0
    The Sour Lemon Score (1969, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77110-6
    Deadly Edge (1971, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 0-7490-0087-2 and 978-0-226-77091-8
    Slayground (1971, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) — First chapter shared with The Blackbird, a novel in Westlake's Alan Grofield series. ISBN 978-0-226-77092-5
    Plunder Squad (1972, University of Chicago Press reprint 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-77093-2
    Butcher's Moon (1974, University of Chicago Press reprint 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-77095-6
    Comeback (1997, University of Chicago Press reprint 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-77058-1
    Backflash (1998, University of Chicago Press reprint 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-77060-4
    Flashfire (2000, University of Chicago Press reprint 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-77062-8
    Firebreak (2001, University of Chicago Press reprint 2011) ISBN 978-0-226-77065-9
    Breakout (2002)
    Nobody Runs Forever (2004)
    Ask the Parrot (2006)
    Dirty Money (2008)

Also appears in:

    The Blackbird (1969) by Richard Stark — Parker appears only the first chapter of this novel starring Alan Grofield.
    Dead Skip (1972) by Joe Gores — Parker appears briefly in a sequence that was also described (from a different viewpoint) in Plunder Squad (1972).
    Jimmy the Kid (1974) by Donald E. Westlake — This novel in Westlake's John Dortmunder series features the gang planning a caper based on a Parker novel they have. Chapters alternate between Parker committing a kidnapping (in the otherwise unavailable novel Child Heist) and the Dortmunder gang screwing it up as they try to imitate Parker. Only a few chapters of Child Heist are featured, and this particular Parker story is not complete on its own.

(wikipedia)


Wednesday, March 20, 2013

SPRING! ~







We haven't seen a March like this one — thick and rough and no-holds barred — for a few years now. It has me think back a week ago when we were climbing Sugarloaf in Massachusetts and the trail was still slushy but melting fast; and when we went to a nearby library to check out a satchel of books, what with a spring-fever roiling through our bodies, the young librarian clerk cheerfully announced to us "Spring!", and we wanted to smile with her, and we did smile, but she also saw we knew better. That's when she said, eyes lowering, "Oh, yes, I know". . . And here it is — a deep white and muddy Spring Equinox digging out.





Tuesday, March 19, 2013

WILD BILL ~





"William "Bill" Hickman (January 25, 1921 – February 24, 1986) was a stunt driver, actor, and stunt coordinator from the 1950s through to the late 1970s. Hickman played a major role in terms of development and execution in three of the greatest movie car chase sequences of all time: Bullitt, The French Connection and The Seven-Ups, all shot on actual city streets."









CAN YOU PLEASE ~
Please tell me, I'm not seeing and reading what I'm reading here? Mostso the price of tickets for admission.



The Poetic Table: A Feast with Fine Wines to Benefit Poets House

© Arnold Adler
Date and Time: 
March 18, 2013 - 6:00PM to 9:00PM
Event Location: 
Poets House & North End Grill
Admission: 
Tickets: $750 ($500 tax-deductible)
This is a special benefit for Poets House that helps keep our programming free or low cost.
Join us for an unforgettable evening celebrating humanity's most transcendent art. Esteemed wine importer Neal Rosenthal provides elegant pairings while poets Daniel Halpern, Sharon Olds, Charles Simic, current U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey and Anne Waldman tantalize our imaginations over an intimate three-course meal at Danny Meyer's award-winning North End Grill. Kevin Young serves as the host of this gastronomic feast for poets and friends.
6 - 7pm: Champagne Toasts at Poets House
7 - 9pm: Dinner with Wine & Poetry Pairings at North End Grill

Tickets: $750 ($500 tax-deductible) Places are limited.
RSVP by March 1, 2013
Contact Krista Manrique krista@poetshouse.org - (212) 431-7920, ext. 2830
Event Sponsored By: 
Poets House
Event Type: 
Other Events
ONCE IN THE SW ~










Monday, March 18, 2013

THREE MINUTES FOR GOOD BOOKS ~








Books or Music ~


Joshua Burkett, Time-Lag 059

Jess O! Tricky Cad & Other Jessoterica, Siglio, 2012 (Jess Collins)

Jack Collom, Second Nature, Instance Press, 2012

Clark Coolidge, 88 Sonnets, Fence Books, 2012

Jonathan Greene, Lustre, Of The Everyday, Common Epihanies, Broadstone Books, 2012

Donald A. Heneghan, City Lights Pocket Poets Series 1955-2005, The Grolier Club, 2005

George Kalamaras, The Mining Camps of the Mouth, New Michigan Press, 2012

Louise Landes Levi and Cralan Kelder, ED. IL. Bagatto, 2013, Broadside #13, Amsterdam, 2012

Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats, Penguin, 2012

Heller Levinson, From Stone This Running, Black Widow Press, 2011

Robin Magowan, Internal Weather, Pasdeloup Press, 2010

Jeffrey D. Marshall, The Inquest, University of Vermont Press, 2006

Mike Mauri, A Family of Skunks, Recession Editions Press, 2011

Ken McCullough, Broken Gates, Red Dragonfly Press, 2012

Tom Piazza, The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax, Norton, 2013

Francis Poole and Mark Terrill, The Spleen of Madrid, The Feral Press, 2012

Andrew Schelling, A Possible Bag, Singing Horse Press, 2013

T. Kilgore Splake, Rosetta Cafe, Shoe Music Press, 2012

David Thomson, The Big Screen, Farrar, 2012

Paul Vangelisti, Wholly Falsetto With People Dance, Otis Books, 2013






Once In Vermont films © bob arnold






Sunday, March 17, 2013

DREAM RIDER ~









THE MOST INCREDIBLE BEAT DREAM in the world, it's near St. Rita's church, on that street from Moody, but as my mother and sister Nin and I are traveling up Mammoth Road on some kind of train a woman rushes up shouting "I want to see Dinah Shore!" — She, Dinah, lives right up the street, right at the location of that grammar school — in a house — she has a "canary yellow" jeepster or convertible, which I point out to the lady saying, "That'll be her house there, Olivia DeHaviland has a canary yellow car" — (confusing the names) — My mother and sister accompany the woman: but I stay behind in a kind of suddenly transplaced Sarah Avenue house, it's Sunday, I'm the 30 year old beat brother and loafer of the family — "Dinah Shore" is standing in front of her house, and, seeing that I had directed the woman autograph hound to her she says, bleakly looking at me in an "official" or "Hollywood courteous" way — Wont you come in with us?" (for a bleary visit) —

                                             "Oh no — I'm busy — " but, they can see that I'm yielding and in my head I've started calculating advantages I can get from knowing "Olivia de Haviland" — So I gave in, but in such a beat obvious way, and we go on in —

                                              "I'm a novelist," I announce forthwith," you should read my book," I say to the hostess — "Your husband is a writer too — a very great writer, Marcus Goodrich." Then the persistentifiction I have that Dinah Shore is really Olivia de Haviland has to break down here and I say "Oh well, of course, yes, you're Dinah Shore, I keep thinking you're Olivia de Haviland" — but this is so gauche — and I havent shaved and stand there in her parlor, she is bleakly attentive, I'm like a thinner younger Major Hoople who really had a small taste of early success but then lost it and came home to live off his mother and sister but goes on "writing" and acting like an "author" — on the little street — But now, my sister sees that I am botching everything so she steps in and in an even more beat awful gauche way begins to try to impress Dinah with a kind of halting Canuck-English speech (attempts at 'social smartness') (and really painful to hear) goes into some speech about how this and that, and so on, to show how really chic she's been at one time, we've been, our really more elegant real backgrounds than what shows (and in spite of this pitiful brother, and she's spoken up really to cover me up and also cut me, as she has her own ideas about how to impress people like Dinah Shore) to which Dinah listens even more bleakly — and my mother standing by like the original lady who wanted an autograph — it ends on this bleak beat note . . .with me all anxious and chewing my nails —the comic opera of our real days —

                                              I'm also a neighborhood self-styled roue' ready to make all the housewives but they don't really want any part of me, except a few of the older ones who want to have something on my mother —


____________________

JACK KEROUAC
Book of Dreams
(unabridged edition)
City Lights 2001










See The U.S.A. In Your Chevrolet by Dinah Shore on Grooveshark





Dinah Shore entertains US troops at a show in France, Aug 1944








Friday, March 15, 2013

 New from Longhouse ~
( Spring 2013 )




Steven Manuel, First Ayres


 
Three color booklet of new poems

by Steven Manuel in fold-out splendor.

Both signed and unsigned editions.
from Longhouse


Signed limited edition $12.95
Unsigned $7.95

(International orders kindly inquire about shipping)

order here through Paypal (plus $2 s/h)






First Ayres









Thomas Cochran,  Little Poems




Three color booklet of new poems

by Thomas Cochran in fold-out splendor.

Both signed and unsigned editions.
from Longhouse


Signed limited edition $12.95
Unsigned $7.95

(International orders kindly inquire about shipping)

order here through Paypal (plus $2 s/h)









Little Poems









Krista Feakes, To Where I Walk




Three color booklet of new poems

by Krista Feakes in fold-out splendor.

Both signed and unsigned editions.
from Longhouse


Signed limited edition $12.95
Unsigned $7.95

(International orders kindly inquire about shipping)

order here through Paypal (plus $2 s/h)





To Where I Walk









Jason Watts, nothing is looking







Three color booklet of new poems

by Jason Watts in fold-out splendor.

Both signed and unsigned editions.
from Longhouse


Signed limited edition $12.95
Unsigned $7.95

(International orders kindly inquire about shipping)

order here through Paypal (plus $2 s/h)





nothing is looking







Forthcoming:

A booklet of scattered gems translated by Robin Magowan & Reza Saberi
 of Saeb Tabrizi


A new book of prose poems, photographs and art work by Bob Arnold


A book of early travel years by Janine Pommy Vega