PATRICIA SMITH ~

 

A Poem for the Man Who Shot My Father

I don't know where you are now,

so for the purposes of this poem

I will imagine you are dead.

The circumstances of your death

should be ironic.  A bullet smashes into

the back of your skull. A bullet

smashes into the back

of your skull.  A bullet smashes

into the back

of your skull.

A coincidence.

For the purposes of this poem, but only

for the purposes

of this poem,

I will imagine you in a hell

where you are scraped and torched

each second, every second,

and you feel it all,

you feel everything.

For the purposes of this poem

I would like you to describe

my father's face

the moment he turned

and saw you

                wild-eyed and thirsty

the moment he knew

the moment before he turned away

to run

And for the purposes

of this poem, I hold

that picture in my head.  I will live

over

and

over

that look of an animal dazed

in the headlights

because, even though

I have imagined you dead,

you are probably not too dead to remember

that there is a hell

here too.

_____________________

Patricia Smith

The Intentions of Thunder

New and Selected Poems

Scribner, 2025

JOHN FRUSCIANTE TONIGHT ~

 

℗ 2001 Warner Records Inc. Assistant Mix Engineer Mixer: Brian Grimmel Mixer: Jimmy Boyle Performed By: John Frusciante Producer, Vocals: John Frusciante Masterer: Vlado Meller Writer: John Frusciante

ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA ~

 

House of Peeling Walls

I leave this house to the birds in the birdbath

To the leaves that float down like feathers from the sky

To the Lakhori brick I hold in my hand

To the black ants that live inside the walls

To their ears that hear thunder before there's thunder to be heard

To the irises that climb over stones when they get in the way

To the shingles that came down rivers when there were rivers

To the flowering clover that spreads like fire

To the buttress root that uprooted the garden shed

To the dawn that widens the crack in its road when light seeps in

To the bougainvillea twigs thorning the ground I step on

To the woodpile stacked against a leaning wall

To the new leaves of March that arrive with a cracker burst

To the rose vine that doesn't know where to stop

To the water in the iron bucket

To the squirrel that darts round the corner of a medium-sized country

______________________________

ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA

Of Least Concern

Centre for the Creative and the Critcal

2025

                             

THE KLEZMATICS MEET WOODY GUTHRIE TONIGHT ~

 

     2006

A PLACE OF RAGE ~

 

    1991

SUN RA THRU THE NIGHT ~

 

Volume One: RLA Sound Studios, NYC, April 20, 1965 Volume Two & Three: RLA Sound Studios, NYC, November 16, 1965. Marshall Allen described the recording of the album in John F Szwed's biography of Ra, Space Is The Place; "Sun Ra would go to the studio and he would play something, the bass would come in, and if he didn't like it he'd stop it; and he'd give the drummer a particular rhythm, tell the bass he wanted not a 'boom boom boom,' but something else, and then he'd begin to try out the horns, we're all standing there wondering what's next... "I just picked up the piccolo and worked with what was going on, what mood they set, or what feeling they had. A lot of things we'd be rehearsing and we did the wrong things and Sun Ra stopped the arrangement and changed it. Or he would change the person who was playing the particular solo, so that changes the arrangement. So the one that was soloing would get another part given to him personally. 'Cos he knew people. He could understand what you could do better so he would fit that with what he would tell you." Marshall Allen

NELLY SACHS AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY ~

 

N E L L Y   S A C H S

     Stanford University Press

     2011

PETER MATTHIESSEN ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Pantheon

    2025

THE RESIDENTS TONIGHT ~

 

       Cherry Red Records

       2025

THIS LITTLE ART (THE ART OF TRANSLATION) ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Fitzcarraldo Editions

      2024

NINE INCH NAILS TONIGHT ~

 

    Interscope

    2004

SILAS HOUSE ~

Northern Lights

I longed for you before I knew

you; that's what I always think

when something like this happens.

I never dreamt I would see them,

especially from my own back porch

right here in Kentucky.  But there

they are.  The richest purple, glowing

green, the blush of them,

an undulating mystery

as abstract as the enigma that brings

two people into the same orbit.

Here we are, watching them, together,

and we always will be, even when

we are nothing more than sky.

____________________

Silas House

All These Ghosts

Blair, 2025

THE DEAD C. TONIGHT ~

 

     2006

JOHN MUIR ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Nebraska

    2024

WANG YIN ~

 

Lover

We have reached the open sea, my love,

the shore lights extinguished

seahorse flutes sweet and lilting

We have reached the open sea

I open the urn

scatter you

little pieces of you

falling more slowly than powder

obliquely onto the water

I scatter all of you

You turn the sea faintly red

You calm the waters

just as when you were alive and

midnight snow's fell upon

our open hands

I give you the sky

give you the sea

I give it all to you     all to you

I take the urn that held you

hold it to my breast

I put myself inside the urn that held you

I am now in your dreams

1987-88

_________________________________

Wang Yin

A Summer Day in the

Company of Ghosts

translated by Andrea Lingenfelter

NYRB 2022

BECK'S LOSER TONIGHT ~

 

   1993

NEW! TIM MCNULTY at LONGHOUSE ~

 Tim McNulty

Stopping by Stumps

~

L O N G H O U S E

 2026

poetry of a treeplanter

in the Pacific Northwest

many-colored 

w/ photographs from the field

$12

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PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro

 Vermont

 05303

TORTOISE TONIGHT ~

 

       International Artisan

       2025

DEAD AND ALIVE, ESSAYS ~

 

R E A D  M E

Penguin Press

2025

TYRONE DAVIS TONIGHT ~

 

PATRICK PHILLIPS ~

Elegy with Table Saw & Cobwebs

Rummaging the wood-rack

I pull a cracked

old shingle off the stack

a scrap

on which at

some point, with his flat

knife-whittled pencil

my old friend Ollie scratched

5/32 + 1/2 —

a kind of riddle now, a workman's

artifact,

unnoticed since that

year the cancer cells attacked –

since whatever it

once meant,

whatever part it

played in some project,

went with him

into the flames

& ash.

Friends

we die like that:

thew hole starry sky goes black

while these little

nothings last —

while these spiders in the rafters

go clutching

their white sacks

whispering & yet & yet

& yet & yet

until I dust the fading rune

& put it back.

______________________

Patrick Phillips

Song of the Closing Doors

Knopf 2022

BOOKER T. & the MG's TONIGHT ~

 

       Stax 1971  

JOY LADIN ~

 

Whisper

I didn't know

I was in prison

till I looked out

the small round windows

and saw you whispering stars

______________________

How long have I been here

up to my neck in sunshine

splashing across my bed

On this street

nothing reminds me

of my children

Here I am

trying to give up

and you keep blossoming

________________

Joy Ladin

Family

Persea Books, 2024

BEGGAR'S BANGUET ~

 

     The Rolling Stones

     1968

THE THIRD REICH OF DREAMS ~

 

Nazi execution WW2 / Alex Pretti executed by US Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis 24 Jan 2026

R E A D   M E

     Quadrangle Books

     1966

TWILIGHT TIME ~

 

       Rounder Records

THE MAP OF MY DEAD PILOTS ~

 

F L Y   M E 

     Lyons Press

     2012

POPS STAPLES TONIGHT ~

 

     posthumous album

     2015

WENDY COPE ~

At 3 a.m.

the room contains no sound

except the ticking of the clock

which has begun to panic

like an insect, trapped

in an enormous box.

Books lie open on the carpet.

Somewhere else

you're sleeping

and beside you there's a woman

who is crying quietly

so you won't wake.

On a Train

The book I've been reading

rests on my knee.  You sleep.

It's beautiful out there —

fields, little lakes and winter trees

in February sunlight,

every car park a shining mosaic.

Long, radiant minutes,

your hand in my hand,

still warm, still warm.

To My Husband

If we were going to die, I might

Not hug you quite as often or as tight,

Or say goodbye to you as carefully

If I were certain you'd come back to me.

Perhaps I wouldn't value every day,

Every act of kindness, every laugh

As much, if I knew you and I could stay

For ever as each other's other half.

We may not have too many years before

One disappears to the eternal yonder

And I can't hug or touch you any more.

Yes, of course that knowledge makes us fonder.

Would I want to change things, if I could,

And make us both immortal? Love, I would.

____________________________________

Wendy Cope

Collected Poems

Faber 2024

BENJAMIN LACKNER TONIGHT ~

 

      ECM

      2025

KATHARINE WHITE ~

 

R E A D   M E 

 

The World She Edited

Mariner Books

2024