JOSEPH MASSEY ~

Blinds





To listen

is to see



when the light

is a thing



felt in the ear —

it rings



you awake.




~






A dream's jagged

remains, what

morning absorbs.



Light, only light,

in place of nothing

left to remember.




~






Cliff face

shaded in

April snow

that fell

for an hour

overnight.



~





Off the highway

a stand of birch slants



above a vernal pool.

Sight slows to hold



flaked white

raked through



a stretched wreck of landscape.





~





A tree as thin

as your wrist



sprays

from the split



in a river rock.




~






A flag's reflection

dents the

water,



blurs

the debris,

mostly leaves.




~






When shadow

ingests shadow



and road clatter

thins into crickets.



When the notebook's

margins are lost



and language

sprawls. When



windows turn

brown, vacant



in their glare.





~





I return

to my body



attached to

a long vowel



stretched

between us.





________________
Joseph Massey
A New Silence
Shearsman Books
2019

PRESENT CONDITIONS ~

————————————

One Month Later

My mouth still moves

around language

that baffles me alive.

My vision blurs

but wherever I look

a world wakes.

I sit for hours

chanting in silence

the name of each thing

attached to each shadow

waving slowly

over white stucco.

——————————

Joseph Massey

Present Conditions

Hollyridge Press

Venice, California

2018

ILLOCALITY, JOSEPH MASSEY ~

 Wave Books, 2015

TURNED



A notch

at the top of the mountain —



the eye

without a thought



threads the sky through.



How hours take



the stain of hours

and hold beneath their bloom



these things arranged

to resemble a season.



Summer's hum and lag.



To walk into it —



breathe the frequencies

that knot the air, another



animal baffled

to be an animal.








ON MIGRATION



A split glyph

drags south

over a parking lot.



The suction

of dusk.

We watch it



wrest

margin

from margin.



Your face

in the half-light.



The aphasia

of the shape

of your face

in the half-light.



Autumn

embalms

the hour.







from  TAKE PLACE



As if a field guide

could prevent

the present



from disintegrating

around us.



 ~



A noun

staggers through

the gloam, the



indescribable

color



opening, closing.







from  ILLOCALITY



To imagine a morning



the first

sounds from the street



and the house, its halls



scarifying

consciousness



Antique glass

smudges limbs



(more blue

than green)



flared out 

over a roof



To imagine

the raw circumference



of a field

as it wakes



what we make of it



where our senses

send us


———————————————— 


JOSEPH MASSEY
Illocality
Wave Books, 2015

http://www.wavepoetry.com/products/illocality

New!
from Longhouse
December 2011
&
Forthcoming 2012

Reader

******* The Longhouse "Special Special" is back for another Perfect-for-the-Holiday Purchase from now until the New Year's ~

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~ NEW BOOKLETS AVAILABLE NOW ~

Ray Gonzalez ~ The Mud Angels, Mesilla, New Mexico

A chapbook depth new collection of poems by Ray Gonzalez, mapping deep into poetries and the southwest. Signed copy available upon request. Unsigned $8.95 + $2 s/h

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____________________


Ken Letko ~ Forgotten Inventors

Good thought and play at work here in this clutch of new poems by Ken Letko. Signed copy available upon request. Unsigned $8.95 + $2 s/h

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____________________

Joseph Massey ~ Another Rehearsal for Morning



The Block (Between Seasons)


No change beyond air
smelling faintly of old piss.
A neon liquor store sign
strains to break the overcast—
how November moves.
Stunted palm tree’s
stunted shadow sutures
curb to street, street to
curb—to lawn glazed
white with television. I
walk, watch day dissolve
as if on waking’s edge;
those impossible lines
consciousness repels.

Joe Massey's third booklet from Longhouse, and it's double the size! In lovely Himalayan wraps with band. Signed copy available upon request. Unsigned $10+ $2 s/h

Use Paypal? Purchase now for domestic orders —

____________________



Mark Terrill ~ Up All Night

Enough poems to fill a book! in this fold-out bus ticket. New from our American friend long living abroad in Europe. With one of Mark's drawings from his private notebook. A signed copy available upon request. Unsigned $8.95 + $2 s/h

Use Paypal? Purchase now for domestic orders —

____________________

J. D. Whitney ~ Other Cousins

More poems of the Cousins! A fine companion piece with the earlier Longhouse booklet Cousins in colorful cardstock with wrap around band. Signed edition available upon request. Unsigned $8.95 + $2 s/h

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____________________

Bob Arnold ~ Forever








IN GLADE


I cut the smaller

trees to make the

bigger trees bigger

yet and wait for the

sunshine to pay it

all a visit

20 new poems by Bob in this handmade pocket-size companion with Himalayan wraps. One of only 50. $20 + $2 s/h

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____________________

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____________________



Forthcoming in 2012

Helen Nearing ~ Our Backwoods Neighbor — Jarvis Green





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________________________________________________________________________________

"reader" photo © bob arnold
all other photographs courtesy of the authors

JOSEPH MASSEY

Mock Orange




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Joe's out there on the edge of northern California. I came through the town where he is fifteen years ago after driving and hiking through redwoods the day before. With a little boy you drive a little, you hike a little. Two weeks ago Joe sent this sheaf of new poems by electric mail. I read and wrote back with a "Let's do it." We designed and printed and folded and wrapped all the next few days of rain. Good old rain.

docks swallowed
-------------------------------in fog —


a transient talks
-------------------------------------------into a pine cone —