SAM SHEPARD ~

PEGGY LEE ~

BIRD SHADOW ~

a new chapbook is now in hand by Ronald Baatz 
and typically for me with Ronald Baatz 
I can't help but begin to type up a handful of poems
 from an exquisite letterpress collection to share with you

_____________________________

Covered with road dust

peonies blind and beautiful

and remembering thunder

Returning alone from the dance

thinking about what

I'm going to tell the dog

I hire a fool to write my poems

but discover I can do the job

better myself

As a newborn I was brought home

from the hospital in a black car

followed by other black cars

In the morning

the hatless

squirrel

Listen!

you can tell that cricket is on its

last leg

This whole infuriating life

not overwhelming

old pajamas

Thoughts~

they come like birds

I have no seeds for



__________________

Ronald Baatz
BIRD SHADOW
Bottle of Smoke Press
PO BOX 12589
Wallkill, NY 12589
www.bospress.net

THAT LUCKY OLD SUN ~

PORTER ~

“Porter”

Little kid

comes up to

my knees

short blond

mohawk haircut

while passing

me head down

bloodhound

asks like a pro

Excuse me

sir, have you

seen any

money any

money on the

ground?

I said, no,

I haven’t

he’s been

taught to be

a scavenger

and he’s cute

a few moments

later I heard

his mother

(camouflage pants)

call his

name

She Always Works With Me

In The Woods Elegant &

Gallant And Sometimes The

Trees Strike Back Which 

Doesn't Look Good For Me

black

eye

still

there —

they

do

that

Spring Storm

On the ground

under the tree

all its blossoms

—————————————

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL   DAYS

Longhouse

TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS ~

COMMENCEMENT NAZZ ~

WOODEN SHJIPS ~

M O R E !

MAHMOUD DARWISH ~

2011

E X C E R P T

MARY GAITSKILL ~

R E V I E W

(actually, the finest essay 

in the book

 is about the loss of a

little one-eyed cat)

THE BEAR ~

One more terrific tale in the Applewood Books series of

attractively designed and sized hardbound books

that you can fit into the back pocket of a pair

of jeans and hike all day and read

a tale such as The Bear around

the campfire at night.

People still do that, right?

I do.

Applewood Books

PO Box 27

Carlisle, MA.

01741

THOREAU ~ THE ESSAYS ~

NORTH POINT 2002

A glorious collection in softcover that I once discovered, used,

but after holding the book in my hand, with a healthy crease down

the cover and throughout the text, much as I wanted the book, hated to leave it

behind, I waited and hunted up another copy in short time. For $1 less!

Ideal condition, never read, and guided by the gifted hand

of Lewis Hyde.

If you are looking for a treat companion volume of Thoreau's essays,

this one would be my choice.

PERFECT BIRTHDAYS ~

Irene

All

that

rain

is

now

in

all

that

river

Quite A Cat

At night

when everything in the house

grows quiet the later it becomes

even the refrigerator almost

stops humming and I am done

with writing and crumble my

last piece of paper into a ball

thinking to toss it into the fire

the cat comes to me at the sound

of the paper crumbling and

knows there is a paper ball

in my hand to crouch down

on the kitchen floor planks

with him to play catch —

yes, I toss and he fetches

like a dog, so he isn't

quite a cat

Perfect Birthdays

she gave to 

me a book I

already have

a pair of bib-

overall rain

gear I already

have and for

my lover a pair

of blue earrings

she’ll always have

What She Brings

From Town

A fat clear bag

of dried cranberries

ready to burst

————————————

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL   DAYS

Longhouse

DEXTER GORDON ~

ELLINGTON / COLTRANE ~

HANK JONES ~

SONNY ROLLINS ~

MICHEL PETRUCCIANI ~

DAVE BRUBECK 1964 ~

BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON HOUR ~

SHAKE IT UP ~

———————————

The Library of America

(2017)

One more excellent collection from the

stellar Library staff. It could have

been a cooler cover design but

the editors come to the rescue

with a rockin' line-up of authors —

Luc Sante's essay on Dylan will

stop you in your tracks if you want to rush to the back 

of the book (I didn't, I like savoring)

in the meantime there is Hentoff on early Dylan

Amiri Baraka on R & B

Lester Bangs bangs in (we'd miss him)

Christgau on Prince, Ellen Willis on Janis

of course Tosches on Jerry Lee Lewis

Nelson George swims with Marvin Gaye

Babitz beds Morrison

Robert Palmer shows us Sam Cooke

Klosterman clangs with heavy metal

John Jeremiah Sullivan wastes time with Axl Rose

Wald knows top to bottom The Beatles

Hilton Als gives forth Michael Jackson

Kelefa Sanneh hits on Jay Z

Greil Marcus must end the tome

but one simply shouldn't omit

Paul Nelson squarely with The

New York Dolls

then:

Lillian Roxon

Richard Meltzer

Paul Williams

Evelyn McDonnell

David Hajdu

my goodness

Peter Guralnick!

and I'm still leaving good people out

and so did the editors

not meaning to

but dig

yourself

to 

China

MARTIN LUTHER KING ~

TWO REMEMBERED ~

READ   MORE!

EDITH    SHIFFERT

THE GIRL WHO MARRIED THE REINDEER ~

The Girl Who Married the Reindeer



1


When she came to the finger-post
She turned right and walked as far as the mountains.


Patches of snow lay under the thorny bush
That was blue with sloes. She filled her pockets.
The sloes piled into the hollows of her skirt.
The sunset wind blew cold against her belly
And light shrank between the branches
While her feet shifted, bare,
While her hands raked in the hard fruit.


The reindeer halted before her and claimed the sloes.
She rode home on his back without speaking,
Holding her rolled-up skirt,
Her free hand grasping the wide antlers
To keep her steady on the long ride.



2



Thirteen months after she left home
She travelled hunched on the deck of a trader
Southwards to her sister's wedding.


Her eyes reflected acres of snow,
Her breasts were large from suckling,
There was salt in her hair.


They met her staggering on the quay;
They put her in a scented bath,
Found a silk dress, combed her hair out.


How could they let her go back to stay
In that cold house with that strange beast?
So the old queen said, the bridegroom's mother.


They slipped a powder in her drink,
So she forgot her child, her friend,
The snow and the sloe gin.



3



The reindeer died when his child was ten years old.
Naked in death his body was a man's,
Young, with an old man's face and scored with grief.

When the old woman felt his curse she sickened,
She lay in her tower bedroom and could not speak.
The young woman who had nursed her grandchildren nursed her.


In her witch time she could not loose her spells
Or the spells of time, though she groaned for power.
The nurse went downstairs to sit in the sun. She slept.
The child from the north was heard at the gate.



4



Led by the migrating swallows
The boy from the north stood in the archway
That looked into the courtyard where water fell,
His arm around the neck of his companion —
A wild reindeer staggered by sunlight.
His hair was leached, his skin blistered.
He saw the woman in wide silk trousers
Come out of the door at the foot of the stair,
Sit on a cushion, and stretch her right hand for a hammer.
She hammered the dried broad beans one by one,
While the swallows timed her, swinging side to side:
The hard skin fell away, and the left hand
Tossed the bean into the big brass pot.
It would surely take her all day to do them all.
Her face did not change though she saw the child watching.


A light wind fled over them
As the witch died in the high tower.
She knew her child in that moment:
His body poured into her vision
Like a snake pouring over the ground,
Like a double-mouthed fountain of two nymphs,
The light groove scored on his chest
Like the meeting of two tidal roads, two oceans.

————————————

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Selected Poems
Wake Forest University Press