OUT OF MY HEAD ~

R E A D       M E

New York Review of Books

HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL ~

R E A D       M E

Great books

Volume 2 can become tedious,

Volume 1 is the gem ~

but it takes two.

António Osório ~

____________________________

A strong debut selection presented

by Patricio Ferrari and

designed by Bob Arnold at Longhouse

into an attractive foldout booklet

of 18 poems

$12

postpaid

Please pay by Paypal

poetry@sover.net

or check:

L O N G H O U S E

PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro

Vermont

05303

______________

THE WANDERING BOY ~

YOKEL ( 16 ) ~

Wind

Where Native has his junkyard

Which is causing all this trouble

With another town down river

About spilled fluids and such

A wind last week came into the

Valley and got snagged up right

At that spot and after it took off

Half of Gardener’s greenhouse

Roof and sailed it somewhere

Wind opened its mouth and bared

Its teeth and shook the earth from

Under Native’s life by knocking

Red pine trees his father planted

Anyway it pleased, some over

Those shit cars, and you just

Wouldn’t believe how the large

Rock maples that have grown

For years along the river 

Were snapped in half 

Woodlot

Here with me everywhere

In the snowy woods

Far from any road —

The smallest animal tracks

Logger

Logger came around at dinner time

And rapped at the kitchen door. We

Could see him through the glass door

Standing there in grimy t-shirt and

Camouflage trousers but had no idea

Who he was. Friendly enough smile.

He introduced himself tipping his head

In a few nods like a shy pony before

Spilling out the reason for his visit.

Turns out the Boy had been over across

River where logger was cutting and with

Another friend fooled with his skidder —

The gears had been played with, seat

Monkeyed over and what was worse

Logger found matches stuffed down

The gas tank and didn’t like it one bit.

I agreed and called the Boy over.

Logger looked at him as I did and

When asked if he had screwed with

The skidder nodded that he had but

Now realizes it was wrong and he

Didn’t mean to. Logger seemed a

Fair-minded sort and admitted he was

Once wild as a kid and seemed to

Satisfy himself with that. Turns out

He is cutting on Cityboy’s land which

Takes driving a log truck through a

Low part of the river, never mind getting

Over there each day for Logger, so his

Job was tough enough not to have kids

Playing with his gear. We left it with

A mutual understanding and an oily

Handprint of Logger on the white porch

Railing where we had stood awhile and

Talked about things around this valley.

Old Trick

Waiting for snow by

Getting everything done

______________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011

KOBE ~

Gianna & Kobe Bryant

____________

K O B E      B R Y A N T

August 23, 1978 ~ January 26, 2020
May 1, 2006 ~ January 26, 2020

COMPANY FARE ~

R O N A L D      J O H N S O N

EDDIE HAZEL ~

      

After a week of Impeachment hearings

where the House meets the Senate

it's time, again, for 'Maggot Brain'

IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM (archive) ~

I M O G E N      C U N N I N G H A M

The Unmade Bed
Imogen Cunningham's father
Cunningham's parents
James Broughton
Frida Kahlo
Morris Graves
Imogen Cunningham & Twinka
(Judy Dater, 1974)

GIORGIO DE CHIRICO ~

Suggestion



Faithful joys for your fine field

forget, o farmer, your anxieties.

Forget the great snows and the evil

wolves, who press on your heart

and turn it black.

When in the dark cavern,

you look into the depths of the profound well

you see that star that amidst

the others has from then on changed

its splendor.



~



Toward a faraway country

where my sun shines,

beyond the cities, beyond the mountains

beyond the dune,

I wish, o night, that I might voyage in sleep

upon your white clouds

lit up by the moon.






Enigma



Black and white man decomposes

who will ever be able to tell us

why this most beautiful rose

so unsettles my thought.





___________________

Giorgio de Chirico
Geometry of Shadows
translated from the Italian by Stefania Heim
A Public Space Books / Brooklyn / 2019

GERALD VIZENOR ~

G E R A L D     V I Z E N O R

Nebraska 

2019

NORMAN SCHAEFER ~

Norman's latest publication from Longhouse

is about getting snagged up with a bear

on a Sierra Nevada trail ~

losing a sleeping bag

and a bit more.

Not funny.

__________________

Perfect bound book

$15

postpaid

Please pay by Paypal
poetry@sover.net

or check:
L O N G H O U S E
PO Box 2454
West Brattleboro
Vermont
05303

______________

PABLO NERUDA ~

R E A D     M E

City Lights

2017

DAVID OLNEY ~

1948 ~ 2020

YOKEL ( 15 ) ~

This Is What Native Says At 50 Feet Up

A pine tree, long hanging ropes

Gassy hot day and chain saw with

Native dangling a moment topside

Of the tree like a burst of sunlight as if

He now were the sun, overweight in torn

Tanktop but with biceps the size of my legs

I hear him talk to the sky, the pissy work

And to me that yeah, my son is nineteen years old

And I wish he had never got into tree

Climbing and instead had gone off to

College since at one time he had

All the money in the world —

I asked, How’d that happen?

Waiting for him to lower down his limbing

Saw by rope and I’d refuel

Do you remember Woodstock II ? Native asked

I did —

And did you ever see the poster that went along

With the CD?

I hadn’t —

Well Native’s son went to Woodstock II and came

Back home with 33-thousand dollars —

I whistled at the amount while tying the

Saw off to hoist back up and Native was already

On a roll to get the old story over with:

How his son muddy and cummy over the musical

Weekend was asked to pose with his girlfriend

Nearly naked but she had a bra on was how

Native described it and for that one photograph

They split the money down the middle

I was left to think that over while Native

Spiked in better footing, bitching about

Pine pitch and sweating like a pig,

Sending large saw-chip flurry from

Sharp tooth chain floating down onto

Me and fragrant honeysuckle bushes —

So the kid came home and spent most

Of the money on a new truck that Native

Drives and a bunch of other junk then

With a bottomed out credit card managed

To put himself in debt up to his eyeballs —

So when does he begin work? I joked

When he gets back from Cal-if-ornia ! says a

Snarling chain saw and Native as pine bough

After pine bough come flying down fast 

Native Never Made It

It was Chucky the logger

Who told me later how

Native never made it —

Only a few weeks after

He took down the pine

Trees here and we rolled

Up the ropes together —

Turns out Native got in

With a wrong bunch

Much younger —

Drugs and drinking —

And they thought 

Nothing about tanking

Up an old fart logger

With wicked cocaine

And dumping his

Gasping body off

At the emergency 

Room entrance

From a car that 

Never stopped —

Just like the movies

Without

Without the moon

Without stars

Snowshoes stay hung up

______________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011