AGNES MARTIN WITH PAINTING ~

 

R E A D   M E

                                  Agnes Martin in her studio (1960); photo by Alexander Liberman

MENG HAO-JAN ~

After Visiting Thought-Essence Monastery,

I Return with White-Cloud Wang Following

Somewhere Behind

I left that high valley long before midday,

and twilight was fading when I got home.

Looking up the mountain road, I find only

oxen and sheep.  My gaze grows reverent.

Woodcutters lose each other in darkness,

the evening chill silences a last cricket,

and I still haven't closed my bramble gate.

I keep lingering, expecting you out there.

At the Pavilion on Grand-View Mountain,

Sent to Chang Tzu-jung at Flourish Ridge

On the summit, sudden winds wild,

a cloud sails by like a startled bird.

Standing at the guardrail, I wonder:

is it old Chang coming back home?

Looking for T'eng's Old Recluse Home

Human endeavor's gone in a single morning,

and a recluse's three paths vanish in weeds.

First I hear you're resting at the Chang River,

now you're among T'ai Mountain wandering

dead. There's a pond here still tinged with ink,

but autumn's tumbled out of mountain clouds,

no hidden bones to find. You understood, hid

all beneath heaven inside all beneath heaven.

Visiting the Hermitage of Ch'an Monk Jung

In the mountaintop meditation hut — just a monk's robes.

And outside windows, no one. Birds at the stream take flight.

Yellow dusk stretching half-way down the mountain road,

I hear cascades in love with kingfisher-greens gone dark.

Gathering Firewood

Gathering firewood I enter mountain depths,

mountain depths rising creek beyond creek

choked with the timbers of bridges in ruins.

Vines tumble low, tangled over cragged paths,

and at dusk, scarce people grow scarcer still.

Mountain wind sweeping through simple robes,

my chant steady, I shoulder a light bundle,

watch smoke drift across open country home.

____________________

The Mountain Poems of

Meng Hao-jan

Translated by David Hinton

Archipelago Books, 2018

CRUMB ~

 

C R U M B

D A N   N A D E L   &   R A Y M O N D   F O Y E

     Scribner 2025

REPUBLIC ~

 

Backroad Chalkies

Home at Longhouse

Summer 2025

THE THEATRICAL ADVENTURES OF EDWARD GOREY ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Chronicle Books

      2024

ARTHUR RUSSELL TONIGHT ~

 

R EA D   M E

Anthology Editions

2024

JOHN LENNON TONIGHT ~

 

Nobody

Told

Me

SHIRLEY COLLINS ~

 

R E A D   M E

      White Rabbit 2022

C.D. WRIGHT ~

Light Bulb Poem

at 4 o'clock I am at the door

with a bare hand of snow

laughing shamelessly

I undo my shirt

we'll pick up at the next chapter

my beloved are the words of the rambler

if not the words the substance

the snow smeared across my front

warm to the touch

though we remain separated as if by a chair

and I unwilling to read ahead

Amarillo Poem

A room across from a sporting house.  With the dark,

I watched a woman washing the men off; then herself

she washed with a different cloth.  It was fall.  I was sitting

on my bed in my flame-proof gown.  Every morning

I had to jump aboard my suitcase to get it to close.

Poem With Some Water Damage

She kept boarders kept hens

in the heart of town

heard birds whenever I phoned

now bullhorn now chopper

someone puts a plate in her hands

hours later someone takes the plate

from her hands  Damn he says

if it ain't overcast again

Poem With A Dead Tree

it is late afternoon

she avoids looking

in its direction

she can feel

it moving toward her

in shaky black lines

Poem From The End Of Old Wire Road

hands as heavy as rocks

in the pockets of a Goodwill coat

kicking up leaves

she uncovers four trout lilies

Ah spring how it made her

want to walk backwards

or stick a fork in her side

Poem Before Breakfast

She pulled the sundress over her head

Forgetting her pants, her sandals,

And her ring.

Leaving her glasses on the sink

She unlatched the screen.

With her lunch money

Tucked in her pocket;

Her clean manila hair

Settling down her back.

She went out on her toes

To see if the painted bunting

Had fled her wedding bush.

____________________

C.D. Wright

The Essential C.D. Wright

edited by Forrest Gander & Michael Wiegers

Copper Canyon Press, 2025

HELEN GARNER'S STORY ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Pantheon 2025

M.A. REDCHERRIES ~

america never looked for us

I forget my name and it turns me gold

canned heat inn winter is warm

when I find you and

listen to

all we've become

can you dream in color

if you were not born in color?

you once told me we could never separate

being Native from

the original

big migration

into

you're in america now.

____________________

M.S. Redcherries

Mother

Penguin Books, 2024

JESSE ALLEN TONIGHT ~

 

XI CHUAN ~

Louvre Messages

The palace is always haunted.

The pond does not lack reflections.

   *  *  *

The sea never reflects the sky quietly.

Empty mountains are indifferent to the presence of life and death.

*  *  *

This "moment" refuses to understand time greater than a moment.

Ordinary flowers of the moment form a collective.

*  *  *

Angels without a collective greet each other across generations.

Their remnants stars of a single era.

*  *  *

Don't try so hard, idiot:

The goddess of victory is the goddess of victory even without her                   head.

Putting her arms back on wouldn't make Venus any sweeter.

*  *  *

The gods stare at statues of gods to recognize themselves.

No matter how strong the sunlight is, it needs the help of  lightbulbs.

*  * *

But staring at anything too long

is an intrusion on its past and future lives.

*  *  *

Let your thoughts go wild, idiot:

Angels are angels because when they fly

they can see the dust on the heads of "everything."

                                  August 18, 2023

____________________

Translated from the Chinese by Lucas Klein

from At the Louvre

NYRB, 2024

ROLAND BARTHES ~ WHAT IS SPORT? ~

 

R E A D   M E

translated by Richard Howard

Yale University, 2007

CINEMA'S RADICAL OTHERNESS ~

 

P.   A D A M S   S I T N E Y

Annette Hornischer/American Academy in Berlin

TODAY! JANINE POMMY VEGA WAY ~

 

Be there live with these links ~

Facebook event

Youtube event

MARY McLEOD BETHUNE ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Penguin, 2024

DOROTHY PARLER ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Simon & Schuster

      2024

NEIL YOUNG TONIGHT ~

 

       NEIL YOUNG & THE CHROME HEARTS

    JUNE 22, 2025

     C O P E N H A G E N

MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ ~

 

R E A D   M E

photo: Philippe Matsas/Editions Flammarion

    Farrar, Straus, Giroux

    2024

NEIL DIAMOND'S HOLLY HOLY TONIGHT ~

 

DAVID WOJNAROWICZ (ARCHIVE ) ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Aperture 2015

COLLABORATION (PHOTOGRAPHY) ~

 

R E A D   M E

Thames & Hudson

2024

ELIAS CANETTI ~

 

R E A D   M E   A T   T H E   P A R I S   R E V I E W

    Joshua Cohen

ROLLING STONES TONIGHT ~

 

      Brian Wilson's favorite Rolling Stones song

PHILOSOPHY OF THE HOME ~

R E A D   M E 

      Penguin 2024

LOVE SONG OF THE PLATANOS MADUROS ~

 

LOVE SONG OF THE PLATANOS MADUROS 

No, this is not a song for us, ripe plantains sliced and fried in a pan.

This is a song for you, a song in praise of your mouth and tongue,

a song anticipating your anticipation of the first bite into our yellow

hearts, a song to celebrate the delirium of the first kiss from you.

No, this is not a song for us, the alchemy of the tough skin green,

then yellow, then black. This is a song for you, a song in praise

of your nose, breathing us in, a song for your eyes as they close

to contemplate this offering more tempting than the wafer in church.

No, this is not a song for us, flying from islands where the peasant

stain of the platano says: This is who I am. This is a song for you,

a song in praise of your hands, lifting us slowly on the fork as if

to savor the delicacy of aristocrats, a song of delight in your delight.

We live to be useful, and useful we will be, warming your belly as you

crave one more. We will doe heroes. We will die happy on your lips.

____________________

Martin Espada

Jailbreak of Sparrows

Knopf 2025