THE PILGRIM HAWK ~

THE GUARDIAN REVIEW

The New York Review of Books

2001

MICHAEL CASEY ~

pentagon



in country the My Lai tragedy

occurred before my time

and the lesser Seymour Hersh story

on Ky Chanh, Quang Tin Province,

was before my time as well

but my patrol route

on Highway One

was through Ky Chanh

and I remember once near Ky Chanh

seeing children play with a stick and ball

with what looked like a pitcher's mound and a home plate

and then there were four bases

now I wish I had stopped

taught them something about the game

but that would mean time travel

you can't get there from now




———————————

Michael Casey
Check Points
Aastra Press, 2011

Michael Casey was born in 1947 in Lowell, Massachusetts. After graduating from Lowell Technological Institute in 1968, Casey was drafted into the US Army and served as a military policeman in Missouri and Vietnam’s Quang Ngai province. His first collection of poetry, Obscenities, was published in 1972 and chosen for the Yale Younger Poets Award. The poems were largely inspired by his time in Vietnam. 

PETER KROPOTKIN ~

R E A D     T H E     B O O K

AK Press, 2007

HEAVEN LAKE ( 9 ) ~

Amen, Brother

He wasn’t happy

about any part of his

job and I’d wager

even his life knee-

deep in snow

cranking away

on two gas

tanks when

he said with

scorn, “Happiness

isn’t everything

it’s cracked up

to be” — amen

brother, but if I

took away your

wrench and

doubled the

snow depth

up to your neck

I promise you

you’ll miss

this little bit

of happiness

you have

Perfume

The girls around the perfume display

giggle & talk like idiots —

what freedom!

Education

He was visiting a

relative at the nursing

home where off to the side

he went to find a drinking

fountain when a little old

woman in a wheelchair

appeared next to him and

said matter-of-factly

“get. me. out. of. here.”

they didn't even know

one another

in those circumstances

they didn't have to

as quickly asked

and an eye-blink of

recognition between them

she was whisked away by someone

leaving him to

grow old and wise

    for Kim

Redwing (Steel Toe)

When I bought his boots

At the garage sale

He handed them over 

Looking me in the eyes

—————————

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

DANIEL BERRIGAN ~

R E A D       M E

Orbis Books

2017

PETER GREEN ~

HILMA AF KLINT 2 ~

R E A D      M E

   Guggenheim 

2018

HILMA AF KLINT ~

R E A D      M E





Christine Burgin
The University of Chicago Press
2018

RAY JOHNSON ~

University of California

2018

WHY WRITE? ~

R E A D      M E

Why Write?

He's going to tell you

Library of America

2017

JEAN GIONO — MELVILLE ~

R E A D       M E

VICTOR JARA ~

W A T C H     M E

(and cry)

HEAVEN LAKE ( 8 ) ~

Watch How It’s Done

Today in a town

back parking lot

where we like

to park I leaned

against the truck

and watched for

a long time a gray

squirrel move a

large enough

brown paper bag

with its mouth

up a tree and out

onto the thinnest

limb where he

waited for the limb

to bow and place

him neatly onto the

three-story roof

and then scramble

across the ridge line

and up an eight foot

chimney and down

into the chimney where

of course he was

building his home

No one said he couldn’t 

I love builders

Presto

You know a rat

When you hear a

Rat in the ceiling

Modern Credo

You have to

Be careful and

Not be too nice

You don’t want

To be looked upon

Suspiciously

Stop Light

With only a few passengers

the bus driver figures

it’s as good a time as any

to comb his hair

—————————

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

VICTOR HERNANDEZ CRUZ ~

Childhood in the Latin Caribbean

I was child mountain

lived in a Latin American country

till I was five,

My grandfather was a cigar maker,

a tobacconist, rolled the leaves

Ancient craft.

Mother and father brought

together by custom routine,

young and curious,

primero balcony stares,

held hands for a while.

The plaza, Catholic Church,

life there was Pueblo ocio

arrested by boredom

Rutina tedium.

Marry young jibara

wooden house

Christ on the cross

over the bed

Covered by mosquito net,

nocturnal bolero voices

could be Julio, el Bohemio

in cancion

Grandfather/Abuelo

always sang,

everyone cantando

Even the rocks sang.

I was there in the air

not yet born but alive

counting the tamarindo

Coconut lollipops.

anxious to be white sombrero

getting hints upon the weaving of straws

glances from eyes like music

Shadow depth, the porcelain tinge

Surrounds the pearl black eyes

Of the girls.

Otro lelolay.

Destiny had other plans.

Life has no pity,

It moves forward.

Someone told me

man of father’s generation that

he was quiet in school,

that he made it somehow

from the mountaintop barrio Bayamoncito

into the town each day

the tribulation labor, secret that

people took in silence,

my mother refunfuñar (bickered)

as her family was everyday town-

people,

her father the dignity of the 

tabaqueros,

black café and brandy six in

the morning rolling cigars,

sun falling singing with Alegria boleros

Together rolling the life given

the tobacco cape leaf

Wrapping the guts, pajilla

tight cigars.

Later Chicago Mafiosos will smoke

them

Porto Rico American Tobacco Company

New Jersey ‘mericans

owned the production of cigars

los tabaqueros just rolled

what the mountains gave,

the Taino ancestral leaf

in your finger,

To which they sang

Poetry of the Spanish golden

Age in Cuban bolero sway.

Habaneros for the New York

bankers,

Antiquity awakes in the

now, the past dreams in the future.

Boleros de Rosa-Julia

Persist, the image tomorrow

somewhere 

Someone else the same,

a different similarity,

my root of earth.

Modernity does what it does?

I maintain 

macho Cimarrón,

the old café tobacco cane night

Flavor churning

grind bones.

Limbes tamarindo, coco

at Dona Rufa’s.

Café con leche,

ensalat bacalao

Rosada beans,

yucca with olive oil

twas my country,

Black eyes

launch from black hair

Skin rosa brown,

What can improve?

Evolve?

upon a day

of our hot wintertime,

We jumped from the

Fire

Into the freezer

Cold November,

the cruelest month

Excusez moi

T. S. Eliot

April lluvia

Brings mayo flores.

Mother’s schools

included math riddles

With poetry jingles,

As father Severo accomplished

numbers in addition

astute with the economy

he never slept.

Forward we went into

New York of the early

50s into the future

with the past,

into the English

with the Spanish,

in a movie rerun

the mountains melt

with the bricks.

Eyes hang sideways

upon Guayaba trees frozen

East side school yards.

Guitars strum history

bolero broadcast

amor trovadors,

singing back into the layla night

the lyrics.

Awkward language sounds

Still photos crumbled

In compost moisture.

A lone plaza photograph

A post spelling RECUERDOS

Of a country of childhood

Which dissolves

bright memory,

As

Now a now, is all there is.

————————————————

Victor Hernández Cruz

Beneath the Spanish

Coffee House Press

2017

MICHAEL O'BRIEN ~

Five Poems

1

SUBWAY

clop clop of a

horse, no, a

coin rattled in a

paper cup

2

ZUKOFSKY

nothing

too small

to belong

3

BUSON'S HAIKU

footprints in the snow coming home, all the rest of last year forgotten

4  

EMPTY CATEGORY

e.g., the Russian

theologian who felt

compelled to believe

Hell existed, but,

such was God's

mercy, no one

was in it.

5

Harmonica's two-

note wheeze, a

boy riding his father's

shoulders down 20th St.

—————————————

Michael O' Brien

To the River

Flood Editions

2017