1971, Atlantic Recording
daydreaming w/ Bob Arnold
Democracy
Democracy is when your phone rings
and you pick up the receiver
with nobody on the other side.
Democracy is when the entire skyscraper cannot sleep
because of a hungry dog barking beneath the window,
locked in a cage by his owner.
Democracy is when you call
the SPCA
as you can no longer
listen to the desperate dog,
and they tell you
there's nothing they can do —
once the laws are adopted . . .
once it becomes legal . . .
we'll bark too.
Democracy is when somebody
previously poor
remains poor in the future.
The Seeker
Drunk from the bus,
terrorized from thinking.
How does the snow smell?
How do you dream?
The Samurai
I'm pierced through.
With the last year's swallows
still flying through me.
Snow
Believe in snow
and cut yourself up
to make it sting
when it falls.
Russians
Russians never
run away.
It's too far.
~
Born before my mother,
I'd be free
~
Give me your hand,
I've taken your heart.
~
The rhythm sleeps on the tracks.
~
The silence of a hand
having found itself
in another one.
______________________________________ 
Esad Babacic
Every Child Is Beautiful When Born
Dalkey Archive, 2021
Dear Bob,
Mr. Tarr, right, received the Grand Jury Prize in 2011 at the Berlin International Film Festival from a jury member, Guy Maddin. The award was for Mr. Tarr’s final feature film, “The Turin Horse.”Credit...
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
to come but to this,
my wife and I trusted in life
as if it would last
a thousand years.
My wife departed from our home.
I could not hold her back
so I have hidden her
in the mountain,
and my heart has lost its bearing.
Though my mind knows
that life never comes
but to this,
how I cannot bear
these painful feelings!
Each time I see the mist
trailing on Saho Mountain,
I remember my wife —
there is no day
when I do not weep.
In the past
I glanced at it casually,
but now that I realize
my wife's grave is there,
how beloved is Saho Mountain.
_______________________
from The Ten Thousand Leaves
Poems from the Man'yoshu
translated by Ian Hideo Levy
NYRB, 2025
Apparent Breviary
2
Every time I see the sun I believe in
an opposite. Necessarily
the true absence that extreme
liberty
my hands, they reply: blood doesn't kill.
It remains the same tiger,
who trembles again
in my hands
27
Desire is no one's
lip worn like
memory
eyes
death ahead
without will
without dilemma
without air
39
To the place
from before
44
To know then
Perhaps because two spaces
is
many
and two times now
(perhaps,
if a single time is already
memory
52
Must say something
Flee from the other's word
Without laughing. The word's
capacity
as water A balance.
The ordering of air
65
Never man
Only
one
78
To look,
without distracted eye
To not look Only there the center will be
a pall
nameless place speech,
so the body remains
without distress
without aura
93
The living.
Light expels travelers permanence
has no edge
like hair
does not wound,
does not present
place incarnates,
in intution
without edges
___________________________________
Gaston Fernandez
Apparent Breviary
translated from the Spanish by KM Cascia
World Poetry 2025
Advent
It's hopeless, the stars, the books
about stars, they can't help themselves
and how could you not love them for it
here in the new week with animals
burying food and everything outlined
in cold and even friends, it's hopeless,
this mess, this season, all that
is lost and tickets and strangers,
what can I say, only sitting here
on this dark bench waiting for what
I don't know, I want this world
to remain with me, this holy tumult,
which does not know it loves me
and you, friends, spectacular driveways,
an orange, the vanishing year.
______________________________
Heather Christle
Paper Crown
Wesleyan University Press, 2025
Oar is the only studio album by American singer-songwriter Alexander "Skip" Spence, released on May 19, 1969, by Columbia Records. It was recorded over seven days in December 1968 in Nashville, and features Spence on all of the instruments.