CHRIS CORNELL ( PRINCE ) ~

 

CID CORMAN ~

 

Cid Corman

                                             June 29, 1924 ~ March 12, 2004

_______________

for all

poets

At the shrine

on the altar

not one relic

but in one way

or another

I remain.

A LORD will dismount

at the imperative of

the cherry blossoms.

DON'T LET the poet

get you down

when he rages

His letter kills but

his spirit

resuscitates.

AN

effulgence

a glory

a subtle

insistent

falling a

lucid rain

a torrent

guttural

clear and shrill

a run of

color con-

fused and con-

fusing a

sky full of

them! Alone

on the downs

on a bright

windless day

NOTRE DAME

Where Roman law made aliens bend

Stands a church, original, vital,

Like Adam once, all nerve and mettle,

Muscles aquiver at the end.

From outside you see the inner plan:

Flying buttresses forestalling

That mass from breaking against those walls

Upholding the vault's outstretching strain.

Labyrinth, impenetrable wood,

Soul of Gothic's rational abyss,

Egyptian might and Christian meekness,

By slim reed  oak, by plumb line — lord.

But the more, fortified Notre Dame,

I studied your immense example,

The more I thought: one day I too will

Build from meaningless a dream.

TU FU is long dead.

Leaves have fallen —

leaves will fall.

Every

thing in his words

on a far lookout.

MAKING

of rock. Letting as

Michelangelo

does the prisoner

becoming the rock

escape.

MOVED — three blocks up

and around in

a row of old

houses under

the bells of St

Stainslas and

cherry blossoms.

Must go get a

sink stopper and

a curtain rod —

if life is to

be tenable.

HERE I am

like a leaf

falling or

fallen. Point-

less as one —

as any —

all. Holding

mother's hand

though she's gone.

WE COME out

in the end

at the end

beginning

to see where

the stars are.

THE HILL

beyond the

gate

the temple

almost

mist.

__________________________

from TU

Cid Corman

The Toothpaste Press

1983

EMILY DICKINSON ~ WRITING IN TIME ~

 

W R I T I N G    I N     T I M E

Adeline of the Appalachian Mountains ~

 

GEORGE KALAMARAS ~

 

Below Buffalo Willows

Give us a kiss.  Goodbye, dear.  The buffalo

willows were full of hurt, and then the fire died.

Kiss the neck,  the nape, the cheek.  Somehow we survive

all the depths of deaths living gifts us.  I have cried.

I am not a we, but you are me,

and we are here.  Whenever we die.  Wherever

we had lived before,  with the sheep,  the cattle,

all the long grass long as a ribbed rib of sleep.

Yes, there was dust.  We slept the animal.

We slipped back and forth many times until

we got it right.  The woman the man hoped

to be was scarred.  The man she bled, hurt.

Say some touch or other.  The way we hold

a hand grieves us tough gusts that beat us

back.  A kiss.  Give it.  Grieve it.  Give us a way.

This mouth or that,  we are all tick-tonguing

our way around the tree bark of the heart.  Say something.

This time.  Anything.  Nothing would be enough.

_________________________

GEORGE KALAMARAS

We Slept the Animal

(Letters from the American West)

Dos Madres Books

2021

LEONARD CROW DOG ~

 

L E O N A R D     C R O W     D O G

Aug. 18, 1942,  Rosebud Sioux reservation in South Dakota ~

June 5, 2021, Rapid City, S.D.

JAMES LAUGHLIN ~

 

A Letter to Hitler

Last winter we were

short of firewood and

it was good and cold

so we used a lot of

old books that were

in the attic just old

novels nobody would

ever want to read but

we found they made

plenty of heat and

twice they set the

chimney afire when

a burning page went

up with the draft and

we found they would

smoulder a long time

after you thought the

fire was all out and

then suddenly burst

into flame & another

thing they made ashes

that wouldn't stay in

the grate but floated

out all over the room!

______________________

JAMES LAUGHLIN

Some Natural Things

New Directions

1945

BETTYE LAVETTE ~

 

WHO'S THE BOSS HERE?

 

CECIL SHAW ~

 

BONNIE LOU ~

 

NOTHING STOPS FREDDIE KING ~

 

THE FLATLANDERS ~

 

RAVEN'S WITNESS ~

 

Nothing like an authorized biography

which should come in good time

and more gleanings selected by a

Lentfer, a close friend with Nelson,

from the anthropologist and explorer's

private journals, well trail-

blazed and revealing.

Go read Richard K. Nelson's

 The Island Within.

Mountaineers Books

2020

BUKKA WHITE ~

 

ROLF JACOBSEN ~

 

Guardian Angel

I am the bird that flutters against your window in the morning,

and your closest friend, whom you can never know,

blossoms that light up for the blind.

I am the glacier shining over the woods, so pale,

and heavy voices from the cathedral tower.

The thought that suddenly hits you in the middle of the day

and makes you feel so fantastically happy.

I am the one you have loved for many years.

I walk beside you all day and look intently at you

and put my mouth against your heart

though you're not aware of it.

I am your third arm, and your second

shadow, the white one

whom you cannot accept,

and who can never forget you.

Moon and Apple

When the apple tree blooms

the moon comes often like a blossom,

paler than any of them

shining over the tree.

It is the ghost of the summer,

the white sister of the blossoms who returns to drop in on us,

and radiate peace with her hands

so that you shouldn't feel too bad when the hard times come.

For the Earth itself is a blossom, she says,

on the star tree,

pale and with luminous

ocean leaves.

Sssh

Sssh the sea says

sssh the small waves at the shore say, sssh

not so violent, not

so haughty, not

so remarkable.

Sssh

say the tips of the waves

crowding around the headland's

surf. Sssh

they say to people

this is our earth

our eternity.

__________________________

Twenty Poems

Rolf Jacobsen

Translated by Robert Bly

Seventies Press 1977

RICHARD K. NELSON w/ TERRY GROSS (1990) ~

 

L I S T E N    T O

R I C H A R D    K.   N E L S O N

FRIEDERIKE MAYROCKER ~

 

F R I E D E R I K E       M A Y R O C K E R

Dec. 20, 1924, Vienna ~ June 4, 2021, Vienna

READING BY JOHN CAGE (DAVID TUDOR ON HAND) ~

•  

HENRY (JOHN BERRYMAN) ~

 

BENTLY BOYS ~

ANNE BRIGMAN ~

 

A N N E     B R I G M A N

Yale, 2020