Malcolm asked about it
I went & found it
feel better M & M!
feel better M & M!
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
LONGHOUSE BIBLIOGRAPHY 2012 ~
LONGHOUSE
BIBLIOGRAPHY PART FOUR ~
2012
Greg Joly and Bob Arnold holding forth in a public reading forum of their own devise to raise awareness and possible funding to send down post-Katrina Hurricane to New Orleans.
: cover photograph is from a serene location I always liked from my boyhood home of the Berkshire hills, and the woman on the cover is the subject of all the book — 40 years of love poems. It is the second book in the trilogy "Woodlanders" and collects together innumerable smaller books, very limited, that have been issued from Longhouse and other small presses over many years.
2012. Ross Hair / drawings by Laurie Clark. An Anthology Gathered for Shirley Collins. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and one long poem. New and limited
: Ross Hair and I share an affinity for the music and time of Shirley Collins and his immaculate poem flower portraits, as homage, do garden this foldout booklet with an elegance. Laurie Clark pays another visit to Longhouse with her exquisite art work. Our thanks to Jeffery Beam for sending Ross our way.
2012. Louise Landes Levi. Early Poems. Three color unfolding concertina format with photograph and poem. New and limited.
: 'early', as in many decades ago when the poet, translator, musician and traveler Louise Landes Levi was heading out on her search for the being of poetry, love, and fellowship. Many of the poems are earthed in India where her earliest travels took her. Selected by Bob Arnold from a vast array of the poet's earliest notebooks.
2012. Gerard Malanga. Janine Pommy Vega, 1942-2010. Postcard . Noted poet, photographer, archivist shares a companionable eye to an old friend, the poet Janine Pommy Vega. Three color approximately 4-1/4 by 6 card. Ideal for framing. New and limited.
: a poem written by Gerard for our mutual close friend Janine Pommy Vega that I had heard about and went asking GM if we could reprint the poem in our series of postcards from the press called "Fabulous Futures". Typically, Gerard was more than obliging. Postcard came forth.
2012. Ed Markowski. Storefront Church. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and one long poem. New and limited.
: from Detroit's native son Ed Markowski come poems from a rock 'n' roll center of poetry, family, auto workers, street hustlers, muggers, angels, and the very smallest things. Selected by Bob Arnold from 100s of poems, mainly short (Ed also writes prose poems, baseball haiku, long poem, elegies) and collaged with personal photographs from the poet's cache of neverending wonder.
: this all came about when John sent me his latest beauty Nehemiah Grew, a book off the land and midair where he lives and moves through in many places Illinois. I had picked up our week of mail in town and had some time to kill parked with the truck in the shade and began reading John's new book and was so taken by a section titled 10(13), and couldn't think of the sequence of poems being anything but a tiny booklet from Longhouse, so I immediately began to design in my head what we might be able to print up for John as a surprise booklet to send to him of this sequence. To simply move it further. We did this and await to hear what he thinks of this little stroke of independent-how-dare-you!
: a rare item indeed — an unpublished short essay from the legendary Vermont homesteader, after leaving the Green Mountains with her husband Scott Nearing for the rocky coastline of Maine and re-establishing a home place. . .two cats, independent, much like these two good earth builders, showed them the way in.
: you're on the Arran Island of Scotland or you may also be in Japan but you are most definitely with the poet Malcolm Ritchie wherever he may be, humbled, gracious, receiving, sharing, and very learned. The first of what we hope to be more small booklets to come.
: some years ago now I gave a reading at Eero's then courageous vegetable farm, spread as it was along the banks of the Merrimack River, same river Thoreau and his brother John once navigated with small boat and big minds. It was an autumn of flooding and the farm was sloppy with mudholes and plants itching to harvest. Another poet and I read in a greenhouse for a few stalwart souls that showed up, a few of those workers from the farm. Small Cambodian women as I recall. Eero did this every year for other poets and musicians and it seemed to help his good farm grow, plus make his own poems and photographs, of which I wanted to gather for a foldout booklet.
2012. Steve Sanfield. From the Front. Three color fold-out
: . . .then after Susan went to bed I typed up this small booklet of poems dedicated to a Marine from the Gulf War and we'd print this booklet up after breakfast the next morning. Strangely, it's the first booklet we have published by Steve after decades of loving his work and always being quite content in the many small books he has gifted us over the years. He seemed to have it all covered. Happy we snagged a postcard and a tiny book to send his way.
2012. Andrew Schelling. MOUNT BLANCA with UTE CREEK at DAWN. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and one long poem. New and limited.
: the most recent offering from the press by Andrew Schelling, and there have been many booklets over the years, drawing from the poet's personal notebook of poems, travel diaries, and translations. This booklet is a travelogue poem in the heart of the Rockies (where the poet has resided until recently) moving down ridge into New Mexican territory and the change and sweep of language, history and vista.
: just to show how insidiously sweet some poets can come about — I had known of Heathcote's writings for years — something about a bad boy anarchist from the UK, which I also received as a likewise classical mind savior. Gerard Bellaart had been for some time sending me Heathcote's poems in one more and another handsome publication from his Cold Turkey Press, he then bought and asked me to send my book Yokel to HW as a gift, who in turn bought a copy and sent it to Malcolm Ritchie, a lovely skipping stones moment in time. Less about me, I hope, and more about the sharing and soldiering on of fellow poets. This unity amongst all of us in a bubble of time generated my enthusiasm to fetch at least three booklets from two poets and still wanting to nab some of the art pieces of Gerard's, which will come. For now, jackdaw, in all his splendour.
2012. Heathcote Williams. Mr. Eternity. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and poems. New and limited.
: after Heathcote's "Jackdaw" cry, came the kneeling writ on sidewalks and walls "Mr. Eternity", a true to life poet of the streets who left his mark in chalk wherever he passed through. A Heathcote Williams portrait as long poem and photographs. One more indelible moment in time.
2012. Yoshiro, Ishihara/ Hiroaki Sato, translator. Haiku. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and one long poem. New and limited.
: wretched, troubling, searching, surviving haiku by one of the forgotten or never known (here in the U.S.) at all WWII generation poets of Japan, translated by one of our very favorite thinkers and heaven/earth philosophers Hiroaki Sato. His Miyazawa Kenji translations have meant the world to me since first discovered five decades ago and found, with many other Japanese gems, in a myriad of small press journals and publications. Ishihara is one more. We first took on the haiku, and as of this writing we're devising how to tackle the more demanding tanka unit. It'll come.
: like the haiku foldout booklet of Ishihara, we are offering the poems in as fullest content as possible: meaning Hiro's English versions, with the original Japanese, and characters. It's just the width of the tanka and the lesser width format of our booklets that is holding us up on this one. We go out and work a little more in the garden or in the woods, and while in those sometime narrow passages, come back inside and creep a little closer at making a design for this booklet. It's planned for August. The Leo month.
Greg Joly and Bob Arnold holding forth in a public reading forum of their own devise to raise awareness and possible funding to send down post-Katrina Hurricane to New Orleans.
These readings lasted a few years, often begun on
a whim or direct plan. The results were always contagious. This one is
outside the post office in Walpole, New Hampshire. Anyone who passed by was welcomed to abide.
________________
________________
2012
2012. Bob Arnold. I'm In Love With You Who Is In Love With Me.
168 pages. New and limited. Forty years with the same love, their
family, same home and household, same location, same river.
: cover photograph is from a serene location I always liked from my boyhood home of the Berkshire hills, and the woman on the cover is the subject of all the book — 40 years of love poems. It is the second book in the trilogy "Woodlanders" and collects together innumerable smaller books, very limited, that have been issued from Longhouse and other small presses over many years.
2012. Ross Hair / drawings by Laurie Clark. An Anthology Gathered for Shirley Collins. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and one long poem. New and limited
: Ross Hair and I share an affinity for the music and time of Shirley Collins and his immaculate poem flower portraits, as homage, do garden this foldout booklet with an elegance. Laurie Clark pays another visit to Longhouse with her exquisite art work. Our thanks to Jeffery Beam for sending Ross our way.
2012. Louise Landes Levi. Early Poems. Three color unfolding concertina format with photograph and poem. New and limited.
: 'early', as in many decades ago when the poet, translator, musician and traveler Louise Landes Levi was heading out on her search for the being of poetry, love, and fellowship. Many of the poems are earthed in India where her earliest travels took her. Selected by Bob Arnold from a vast array of the poet's earliest notebooks.
2012. Gerard Malanga. Janine Pommy Vega, 1942-2010. Postcard . Noted poet, photographer, archivist shares a companionable eye to an old friend, the poet Janine Pommy Vega. Three color approximately 4-1/4 by 6 card. Ideal for framing. New and limited.
: a poem written by Gerard for our mutual close friend Janine Pommy Vega that I had heard about and went asking GM if we could reprint the poem in our series of postcards from the press called "Fabulous Futures". Typically, Gerard was more than obliging. Postcard came forth.
2012. Ed Markowski. Storefront Church. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and one long poem. New and limited.
: from Detroit's native son Ed Markowski come poems from a rock 'n' roll center of poetry, family, auto workers, street hustlers, muggers, angels, and the very smallest things. Selected by Bob Arnold from 100s of poems, mainly short (Ed also writes prose poems, baseball haiku, long poem, elegies) and collaged with personal photographs from the poet's cache of neverending wonder.
2012. John Martone. 1013. Three color foldout sequence of poems folded into weaving pattern glossy wraps.
: this all came about when John sent me his latest beauty Nehemiah Grew, a book off the land and midair where he lives and moves through in many places Illinois. I had picked up our week of mail in town and had some time to kill parked with the truck in the shade and began reading John's new book and was so taken by a section titled 10(13), and couldn't think of the sequence of poems being anything but a tiny booklet from Longhouse, so I immediately began to design in my head what we might be able to print up for John as a surprise booklet to send to him of this sequence. To simply move it further. We did this and await to hear what he thinks of this little stroke of independent-how-dare-you!
2012. Helen K. Nearing. Two Independent Maine Cats. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and one essay. New and limited.
: a rare item indeed — an unpublished short essay from the legendary Vermont homesteader, after leaving the Green Mountains with her husband Scott Nearing for the rocky coastline of Maine and re-establishing a home place. . .two cats, independent, much like these two good earth builders, showed them the way in.
2012. Malcolm Ritchie. Some Small Lines on the Great Earth.
Three color unfolding accordion booklet with thirty new poems. Poet,
Buddhist and Japanese scholar, from the steward of the Arran Island of
Scotland. New and limited.
: you're on the Arran Island of Scotland or you may also be in Japan but you are most definitely with the poet Malcolm Ritchie wherever he may be, humbled, gracious, receiving, sharing, and very learned. The first of what we hope to be more small booklets to come.
2012. Eero Ruuttila. Today Poems.
Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and poems.
Noted poet, activist and farmer shares his outdoor eye to many
landscapes with poems and his photographs. New and limited.
: some years ago now I gave a reading at Eero's then courageous vegetable farm, spread as it was along the banks of the Merrimack River, same river Thoreau and his brother John once navigated with small boat and big minds. It was an autumn of flooding and the farm was sloppy with mudholes and plants itching to harvest. Another poet and I read in a greenhouse for a few stalwart souls that showed up, a few of those workers from the farm. Small Cambodian women as I recall. Eero did this every year for other poets and musicians and it seemed to help his good farm grow, plus make his own poems and photographs, of which I wanted to gather for a foldout booklet.
2012. Steve Sanfield. Doing Dishes. Postcard
: right in the middle of writing up this final leg of
the Longhouse Bibliography, to get us at least through 2012 (and more to
come), Steve sent over from his Sierra Nevada foothills nest a sheaf of
poems tucked into a new book of poems. I guess I had asked to see some
new work about a year ago and so here it was, better late than never. I
read the new book before supper, then the sheaf of unpublished poems
after dinner, and before bedtime we had the postcard poem designed and
printed up. . .
2012. Steve Sanfield. From the Front. Three color fold-out
: . . .then after Susan went to bed I typed up this small booklet of poems dedicated to a Marine from the Gulf War and we'd print this booklet up after breakfast the next morning. Strangely, it's the first booklet we have published by Steve after decades of loving his work and always being quite content in the many small books he has gifted us over the years. He seemed to have it all covered. Happy we snagged a postcard and a tiny book to send his way.
2012. Andrew Schelling. MOUNT BLANCA with UTE CREEK at DAWN. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and one long poem. New and limited.
: the most recent offering from the press by Andrew Schelling, and there have been many booklets over the years, drawing from the poet's personal notebook of poems, travel diaries, and translations. This booklet is a travelogue poem in the heart of the Rockies (where the poet has resided until recently) moving down ridge into New Mexican territory and the change and sweep of language, history and vista.
2012. Heathcote Williams. Being Kept By A Jackdaw.
Three color unfolding concertina format with photograph and one long
poem. Well known British writer, poet and activist puts his keen eye to
Mother Nature. New and limited
: just to show how insidiously sweet some poets can come about — I had known of Heathcote's writings for years — something about a bad boy anarchist from the UK, which I also received as a likewise classical mind savior. Gerard Bellaart had been for some time sending me Heathcote's poems in one more and another handsome publication from his Cold Turkey Press, he then bought and asked me to send my book Yokel to HW as a gift, who in turn bought a copy and sent it to Malcolm Ritchie, a lovely skipping stones moment in time. Less about me, I hope, and more about the sharing and soldiering on of fellow poets. This unity amongst all of us in a bubble of time generated my enthusiasm to fetch at least three booklets from two poets and still wanting to nab some of the art pieces of Gerard's, which will come. For now, jackdaw, in all his splendour.
2012. Heathcote Williams. Mr. Eternity. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and poems. New and limited.
: after Heathcote's "Jackdaw" cry, came the kneeling writ on sidewalks and walls "Mr. Eternity", a true to life poet of the streets who left his mark in chalk wherever he passed through. A Heathcote Williams portrait as long poem and photographs. One more indelible moment in time.
2012. Yoshiro, Ishihara/ Hiroaki Sato, translator. Haiku. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and one long poem. New and limited.
: wretched, troubling, searching, surviving haiku by one of the forgotten or never known (here in the U.S.) at all WWII generation poets of Japan, translated by one of our very favorite thinkers and heaven/earth philosophers Hiroaki Sato. His Miyazawa Kenji translations have meant the world to me since first discovered five decades ago and found, with many other Japanese gems, in a myriad of small press journals and publications. Ishihara is one more. We first took on the haiku, and as of this writing we're devising how to tackle the more demanding tanka unit. It'll come.
2012. Yoshiro, Ishihara / Hiroaki Sato, translator. Tanka. Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and one long poem. New and limited
: like the haiku foldout booklet of Ishihara, we are offering the poems in as fullest content as possible: meaning Hiro's English versions, with the original Japanese, and characters. It's just the width of the tanka and the lesser width format of our booklets that is holding us up on this one. We go out and work a little more in the garden or in the woods, and while in those sometime narrow passages, come back inside and creep a little closer at making a design for this booklet. It's planned for August. The Leo month.
: early October now issuing this so-far complete
Longhouse Bibliography (1971-2012)— there will be more for 2012 which I
will update by the end of the year. At least in the works are two books:
a portrait of a backwoods Maine coast stalwart by the name of Jarvis
Green as painted in no nonsense language by his neighbor Helen Nearing;
plus a book of unpublished poems found in the notebooks of Janine Pommy
Vega by her executor Bob Arnold. Kim Dorman will also select for us some
years of his paper-only publication gleanings into a foldout booklet, spanning over his life and work living in three Texas locations: Austin, San Antonio and Houston.
© 2012 Longhouse, Publishers & Booksellers
____________________________
____________________________
Longhouse Bibliography:
http://www.longhousepoetry.com/bibliography1.html
http://www.longhousepoetry.com/bibliography2.html
http://www.longhousepoetry.com/bibliography3.html
http://www.longhousepoetry.com/bibliography1.html
http://www.longhousepoetry.com/bibliography2.html
http://www.longhousepoetry.com/bibliography3.html
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
NERUDA ~
For Neruda, For Allende, For Chile, For All
Don Pablo it's strange and noble
as the Spanish language
is strange and noble, and it's
Surrealistic in that wild Spanish
style extending back to "Don Quixote".
I have loved your work for years,
and admired you as a human entity,
but within the past month I've found
that the available translations
of your work are slipshod, and while
working furiously, (35 poems in 29 days),
there occurred the heart-stopping coup
of the Fascists in your country, and
the murder of your President, Senor Allende.
I have been planning this letter
for a few weeks to tell you that I now
love you as a man, and as a poet,
and I'm told it's too late: you "died"
three-or-four days ago, of "cancer",
while in "Protective Custody".
They will probably burn your books.
Don Pablo, I know that as a translator
of English literary works, you had
knowledge of how badly your own work
had been mistreated.
(The money rustles, the trees droop,
the crepuscular fading happens,
the rats work incessantly,
the rivers polluted and the indians,
the copper and the nitrate
once again accepted
by the powers of sustenance)
, and you are with Vallejo,
with Lorca, with Jimenez.
You are dead of politics and I have
finished "Estravagario" and
"Las Piedras De Chile". Now I begin
on "Plenos Poderes", on the grapes,
the ice, the stones, the enigmas.
Childlike and playful as you,
I will hold up my hand
like the boy with his hare
on the highway. In the dark.
9 / 27/ 73
__________________
DAN PROPPER
The Tale of the Amazing Tramp
(Cherry Valley Editions 1977)
http://www.fundacionneruda.org/
For Neruda, For Allende, For Chile, For All
Don Pablo it's strange and noble
as the Spanish language
is strange and noble, and it's
Surrealistic in that wild Spanish
style extending back to "Don Quixote".
I have loved your work for years,
and admired you as a human entity,
but within the past month I've found
that the available translations
of your work are slipshod, and while
working furiously, (35 poems in 29 days),
there occurred the heart-stopping coup
of the Fascists in your country, and
the murder of your President, Senor Allende.
I have been planning this letter
for a few weeks to tell you that I now
love you as a man, and as a poet,
and I'm told it's too late: you "died"
three-or-four days ago, of "cancer",
while in "Protective Custody".
They will probably burn your books.
Don Pablo, I know that as a translator
of English literary works, you had
knowledge of how badly your own work
had been mistreated.
(The money rustles, the trees droop,
the crepuscular fading happens,
the rats work incessantly,
the rivers polluted and the indians,
the copper and the nitrate
once again accepted
by the powers of sustenance)
, and you are with Vallejo,
with Lorca, with Jimenez.
You are dead of politics and I have
finished "Estravagario" and
"Las Piedras De Chile". Now I begin
on "Plenos Poderes", on the grapes,
the ice, the stones, the enigmas.
Childlike and playful as you,
I will hold up my hand
like the boy with his hare
on the highway. In the dark.
9 / 27/ 73
__________________
DAN PROPPER
The Tale of the Amazing Tramp
(Cherry Valley Editions 1977)
http://www.fundacionneruda.org/
Monday, February 18, 2013
QUESTION TO LIFE ~
Surely you would not ask me to have known
Only the passion of primrose banks in May
Which are merely a point of departure for the play
And yearning poignancy when on their own.
Yet when all is said and done a considerable
Portion of living is found in inanimate
Nature, and a man need not feel miserable
If fate should have decided on this plan of it.
Then there is always the passing gift of affection
Tossed from the windows of high charity
In the office girl and civil servant section
And these are no despisable commodity.
So be reposed and praise, praise praise
The way it happened and the way it is.
ON RAGLAN ROAD
(Air : The Dawning of The Day)
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of
O I loved too much and by such by such is happiness
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems
With her own name there and her own dark hair like
When the angel wooes the clay he'd lose his wings at
Only the passion of primrose banks in May
Which are merely a point of departure for the play
And yearning poignancy when on their own.
Yet when all is said and done a considerable
Portion of living is found in inanimate
Nature, and a man need not feel miserable
If fate should have decided on this plan of it.
Then there is always the passing gift of affection
Tossed from the windows of high charity
In the office girl and civil servant section
And these are no despisable commodity.
So be reposed and praise, praise praise
The way it happened and the way it is.
ON RAGLAN ROAD
(Air : The Dawning of The Day)
On Raglan Road of an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might
one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of
the day.
On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along
the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of
passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making
hay —
O I loved too much and by such by such is happiness
thrown away.
I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign
that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound
and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems
to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like
clouds over fields of May.
On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her
walking now
And away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of
clay —
When the angel wooes the clay he'd lose his wings at
the dawn of day.
_________________________
Patrick Kanvanagh
Collected Poems
(Martin Brian & O'Keeffe 1977)
Saturday, February 16, 2013
ASK ME ~
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thoughts, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
_________________________________
WILLIAM STAFFORD
The Way It Is
(Graywolf 1998)
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thoughts, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
_________________________________
WILLIAM STAFFORD
The Way It Is
(Graywolf 1998)
Thursday, February 14, 2013
THROWAWAY ~
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW
(DON’T EXPECT IT TO BE ANYTHING
IN YEARS TO COME)
Our African American and smart and handsome President
is detested by half of Congress
who are hated by most of the people
when this President is making a speech to the world
3,000 miles away in the western mountains
another African American man is being burned alive
the same ilk guarding this President
are hunting this African American man in the mountains
who came from a city that has killed many African American men
in the meantime, a cruise ship stacked like sardines with passengers
is full of
shit
back to the African American man —
it’s a manhunt, he’s holed up in a cabin, when he comes out the
back door instead of capturing him, they force him back inside
we’re all on a cruise ship full of shit
the African American man, a former police officer, is called a “cop killer”
the cops always take care of their own
it’s none of our business
turn off the
tv
________________
valentine’s day
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING RIGHT NOW
(DON’T EXPECT IT TO BE ANYTHING
IN YEARS TO COME)
Our African American and smart and handsome President
is detested by half of Congress
who are hated by most of the people
when this President is making a speech to the world
3,000 miles away in the western mountains
another African American man is being burned alive
the same ilk guarding this President
are hunting this African American man in the mountains
who came from a city that has killed many African American men
in the meantime, a cruise ship stacked like sardines with passengers
is full of
shit
back to the African American man —
it’s a manhunt, he’s holed up in a cabin, when he comes out the
back door instead of capturing him, they force him back inside
we’re all on a cruise ship full of shit
the African American man, a former police officer, is called a “cop killer”
the cops always take care of their own
it’s none of our business
turn off the
tv
________________
valentine’s day
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
INEFFABLE ~
I AND YOU
Transmissions flow from your heart to Mine,
trading, twining my pain with yours.
Am I not — you? Are you not — I?
My nerves are clustered with Yours.
Your dreams have met with mine.
Are we not in the bodies of millions?
Often I glimpse Myself in everyone's form,
hear My own speech — a distant, quiet voice — in people's weeping,
as if under millions of masks My face would be hidden
I live in Me and in you.
Through your lips goes a word from Me to Me,
from your eye drips a tear — its source is Me.
When a need pains You, alarm me!
When You miss a human being
tear open my door!
You live in Yourself, You live in me.
PEOPLE'S EYES WAIT
People's eyes wait for me
like candle wicks for a light
Shames brothers beg my help,
deceived sisters dream of consolation.
And I, with stubborn boldness, have promised
that I will increase tenderness in this world —
and it seems to me that I will, in time
move on through this earth
with the brightness of all the stars
in my eyes!
WAR AND VICTORY
Give me no gift of weapons
nor feelings of victory.
I want no triumph.
Let me fight, but lose!
Give me heroic stubbornness in love,
unending heart,
to give friendship without measure,
to forgive without end.
Only grant me strong bright senses
to bring happiness, to help, to hear the needs
of even a pulse-beat,
the call of any person!
A SUNDAY IN JULY IN BERLIN
Today the city belongs not to people —
only to trees.
Citizens of a proud land have come
and taken over all the streets.
Standing with torches in their hand,
gathering luster for every eye;
holding plates outstretched
while the sun distributes bits of dazzle.
Today the city belongs not to its citizens
but to us who have remained in it.
Those who've gone touring
left the town to the most lonely
and locked her up with stillness.
And we with torches in our eyes,
with cool-fire loneliness —
forgotten bt everyone —
we love you — you, the deserted for a day and night!
for my sister Esther
FORGIVENESS
When I wash myself with water I shudder, thinking:
"This is the sweat of millions of laborers."
Street-walkers are my bastard sisters,
and sinister criminals — souls perhaps transmigrated from me.
Concerning those murdered, I think
that I encouraged the assassin.
Perhaps I insulted
the disgraced people in my town.
Something in me confesses
"I'm guilty a thousand times for your distress."
MY SONG
I want to give you — world,
The inner lattice of my limbs;
My word, my hands,
the wonder in my eyes.
Take me for service to you,
And use me for your ends!
Place me
in alien railroad depots
like a greeting-statue
for forlorn guests . . .
with joy, and throat filled with words
with a bright face
and sunny hands.
Send me to exiled brothers,
prisoners in jails.
Send me with good news
and consolation to mourners.
With help to the poor,
with rescue for the sick.
Take me for a friend!
Take me for a slave!
I want to throw my head at your doorsteps —
prisons, hospitals — and beg forgiveness.
____________________________________
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The Ineffable Name of God: Man
translated from the Yiddish by Morton M. Leifman
(Continuum 2004)
I AND YOU
Transmissions flow from your heart to Mine,
trading, twining my pain with yours.
Am I not — you? Are you not — I?
My nerves are clustered with Yours.
Your dreams have met with mine.
Are we not in the bodies of millions?
Often I glimpse Myself in everyone's form,
hear My own speech — a distant, quiet voice — in people's weeping,
as if under millions of masks My face would be hidden
I live in Me and in you.
Through your lips goes a word from Me to Me,
from your eye drips a tear — its source is Me.
When a need pains You, alarm me!
When You miss a human being
tear open my door!
You live in Yourself, You live in me.
PEOPLE'S EYES WAIT
People's eyes wait for me
like candle wicks for a light
Shames brothers beg my help,
deceived sisters dream of consolation.
And I, with stubborn boldness, have promised
that I will increase tenderness in this world —
and it seems to me that I will, in time
move on through this earth
with the brightness of all the stars
in my eyes!
WAR AND VICTORY
Give me no gift of weapons
nor feelings of victory.
I want no triumph.
Let me fight, but lose!
Give me heroic stubbornness in love,
unending heart,
to give friendship without measure,
to forgive without end.
Only grant me strong bright senses
to bring happiness, to help, to hear the needs
of even a pulse-beat,
the call of any person!
A SUNDAY IN JULY IN BERLIN
Today the city belongs not to people —
only to trees.
Citizens of a proud land have come
and taken over all the streets.
Standing with torches in their hand,
gathering luster for every eye;
holding plates outstretched
while the sun distributes bits of dazzle.
Today the city belongs not to its citizens
but to us who have remained in it.
Those who've gone touring
left the town to the most lonely
and locked her up with stillness.
And we with torches in our eyes,
with cool-fire loneliness —
forgotten bt everyone —
we love you — you, the deserted for a day and night!
for my sister Esther
FORGIVENESS
When I wash myself with water I shudder, thinking:
"This is the sweat of millions of laborers."
Street-walkers are my bastard sisters,
and sinister criminals — souls perhaps transmigrated from me.
Concerning those murdered, I think
that I encouraged the assassin.
Perhaps I insulted
the disgraced people in my town.
Something in me confesses
"I'm guilty a thousand times for your distress."
MY SONG
I want to give you — world,
The inner lattice of my limbs;
My word, my hands,
the wonder in my eyes.
Take me for service to you,
And use me for your ends!
Place me
in alien railroad depots
like a greeting-statue
for forlorn guests . . .
with joy, and throat filled with words
with a bright face
and sunny hands.
Send me to exiled brothers,
prisoners in jails.
Send me with good news
and consolation to mourners.
With help to the poor,
with rescue for the sick.
Take me for a friend!
Take me for a slave!
I want to throw my head at your doorsteps —
prisons, hospitals — and beg forgiveness.
____________________________________
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The Ineffable Name of God: Man
translated from the Yiddish by Morton M. Leifman
(Continuum 2004)
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
NUALA NI DHOMHNAILL ~
Carnival
1
When you rise in the morning
and pour into me
an unearthly music
rings in my ears.
A ray of sunshine comes
slender and spare
down the dark passageway
and through the gap
in the lintel
to trace a light-scroll
on the mud floor
in the nethermost
sealed chamber.
Then it swells
and swells until a golden glow
fills the entire oratory.
From now on
the nights will be getting shorter
and the days longer and longer.
2
When I open my eyes
to come up for air
the sky
is blue.
A single bird sings
in a tree.
And though the tension
is released
and the chill
gone from the air
and a honeyed breath spreads
like frankencense
about the earth
such is the depth of emotion
we share
that neither of us speaks
as much as a word
for ages and ages.
3
If we were gods
here at Newgrange —
you Sualtam or the Daghda,
myself the famous river —
we could freeze the sun
and the moon
for a year and a day
to perpetuate the pleasure
we have together.
Alas, it's far from gods
we are, but bare, forked creatures.
The heavenly bodies stop
only for a single, transitory moment.
4
A rose opens in my heart.
A cuckoo sings in my throat.
A fledgeling leaps from my nest.
A dolphin plunges through my deepest thoughts.
5
I straighten the bed
for you, sweetheart:
I cannot tell
you and my husband apart.
There are daisies strewn
on the pillow and bolster:
the sheets are embroidered
with blackberry-clusters.
6
I lay down three robes before you:
a mantle of tears,
a coat of sweat,
a gown of blood.
7
You are a knife through my heart.
You are a briar in my fist.
You are a bit of grit between my teeth.
8
I dreamt of you again last night:
we were walking hand in hand through the countryside
when you suddenly ambushed
me and gave me a lovebite on my chest.
9
I spent all last night
driving down the byroads of your parish
in an open sports car
without you near me.
I went past your house
and glimpsed your wife
in the kitchen.
I recognise the chapel
at which you worship.
10
You won't hear a cheep from me.
The cat has got my tongue.
My hands do all the talking.
They're a swimming cap about your head
to protect you from the icy currents.
They're butterflies searching for sustenance
over your body's meadow.
11
When I left you
at the quay tonight
an enormous trench opened up
in my core
so profound
it would not be filled
even if you were to pour
from one utensil
the streams of the Mull of Kintyre
and the Irish Sea and the English Channel.
_______________________
from The Astrakhan Cloak
Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill
translated from the Irish by
Paul Muldoon
(Wake Forest 1993)
Carnival
1
When you rise in the morning
and pour into me
an unearthly music
rings in my ears.
A ray of sunshine comes
slender and spare
down the dark passageway
and through the gap
in the lintel
to trace a light-scroll
on the mud floor
in the nethermost
sealed chamber.
Then it swells
and swells until a golden glow
fills the entire oratory.
From now on
the nights will be getting shorter
and the days longer and longer.
2
When I open my eyes
to come up for air
the sky
is blue.
A single bird sings
in a tree.
And though the tension
is released
and the chill
gone from the air
and a honeyed breath spreads
like frankencense
about the earth
such is the depth of emotion
we share
that neither of us speaks
as much as a word
for ages and ages.
3
If we were gods
here at Newgrange —
you Sualtam or the Daghda,
myself the famous river —
we could freeze the sun
and the moon
for a year and a day
to perpetuate the pleasure
we have together.
Alas, it's far from gods
we are, but bare, forked creatures.
The heavenly bodies stop
only for a single, transitory moment.
4
A rose opens in my heart.
A cuckoo sings in my throat.
A fledgeling leaps from my nest.
A dolphin plunges through my deepest thoughts.
5
I straighten the bed
for you, sweetheart:
I cannot tell
you and my husband apart.
There are daisies strewn
on the pillow and bolster:
the sheets are embroidered
with blackberry-clusters.
6
I lay down three robes before you:
a mantle of tears,
a coat of sweat,
a gown of blood.
7
You are a knife through my heart.
You are a briar in my fist.
You are a bit of grit between my teeth.
8
I dreamt of you again last night:
we were walking hand in hand through the countryside
when you suddenly ambushed
me and gave me a lovebite on my chest.
9
I spent all last night
driving down the byroads of your parish
in an open sports car
without you near me.
I went past your house
and glimpsed your wife
in the kitchen.
I recognise the chapel
at which you worship.
10
You won't hear a cheep from me.
The cat has got my tongue.
My hands do all the talking.
They're a swimming cap about your head
to protect you from the icy currents.
They're butterflies searching for sustenance
over your body's meadow.
11
When I left you
at the quay tonight
an enormous trench opened up
in my core
so profound
it would not be filled
even if you were to pour
from one utensil
the streams of the Mull of Kintyre
and the Irish Sea and the English Channel.
_______________________
from The Astrakhan Cloak
Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill
translated from the Irish by
Paul Muldoon
(Wake Forest 1993)
Monday, February 11, 2013
TELL IT ~
FEELING FUCKED / UP
Lord she's gone done left me done packed / up and split
and I with no way to make her
come back and everywhere the world is bare
bright bone white crystal sand glistens
dope death dead dying and jiving drove
her away made her take her laughter and her smiles
and her softness and her midnight sighs—
Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky
fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds
and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth
fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and
democracy and communism fuck smack and pot
and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck
god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon nixon
and malcolm fuck the revolution fuck freedom fuck
the whole muthafucking thing
all i want now is my woman back
so my soul can sing
____________________________
ETHERIDGE KNIGHT
from Blues Poems
(Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/etheridge-knight
FEELING FUCKED / UP
Lord she's gone done left me done packed / up and split
and I with no way to make her
come back and everywhere the world is bare
bright bone white crystal sand glistens
dope death dead dying and jiving drove
her away made her take her laughter and her smiles
and her softness and her midnight sighs—
Fuck Coltrane and music and clouds drifting in the sky
fuck the sea and trees and the sky and birds
and alligators and all the animals that roam the earth
fuck marx and mao fuck fidel and nkrumah and
democracy and communism fuck smack and pot
and red ripe tomatoes fuck joseph fuck mary fuck
god jesus and all the disciples fuck fanon nixon
and malcolm fuck the revolution fuck freedom fuck
the whole muthafucking thing
all i want now is my woman back
so my soul can sing
____________________________
ETHERIDGE KNIGHT
from Blues Poems
(Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/etheridge-knight
For twenty years — through the 80s & 90s — I visited an all women's boarding school as a poet-in-residence for each year's winter term. It worked well with my other work as a builder and landscaper since these were the lean months for me financially, and it worked for the school because it brought something different into the English Dept. One more win-win. I would allow a day off for the sophomore class teachers since these were the classes I worked in from 8AM until 1PM, and then in the afternoon I conducted a two-hour writing seminar where I welcomed in all ages and scholarship — no prejudice. This is where we got to walk into a classroom and really shut the doors (and open the windows) and write and speak our minds, and we did. The classes were often explosive in size — chairs used up and students sitting on the radiators or windowsills. Good stuff. Anything that could be handled with care was allowed into the class and contributed. So in came guitars, notebooks, personal journals, art work, poetry, sports, complaints, wisdom. Since I shot baskets in the gym an hour before class, I met the jocks and the janitors, and in more ways than one they also were inducted into the class. I always brought poetry, and every year this poem by Etheridge Knight came and every time it received the same thrill response. It's important for young women or men to receive the heart and soul of other women and men.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
ARCHIVE ~
John Schuchardt
John Schuchardt is an old friend of the family, once of Brattleboro, Vermont — former Marine, antiwar activist and humanitarian — his tale of speaking against the war in Iraq in its early stages remains as important today.
More on John and his life's work may be found here:
JACKDAW ~
Heathcote Williams
vocals: Alan Cox
http://longhousepoetryandpublishers.blogspot.com/2012/03/longhouse-heathcote-williams-being-kept.html
Heathcote Williams
vocals: Alan Cox
http://longhousepoetryandpublishers.blogspot.com/2012/03/longhouse-heathcote-williams-being-kept.html
Saturday, February 9, 2013
"Perfect" ~
Mississippi Fred McDowell
"I shall never forget", wrote Shirley Collins," the first sight I had of Fred in his dungarees, carrying his guitar and walking out of the woods toward us in a Mississippi night." Collins traveling companion and recording genius Alan Lomax recorded McDowell over four nights in 1959. Night time, because during the day McDowell was picking cotton. As Tom Piazza describes the bluesmaker in his book The Southern Journey of Alan Lomax ~ McDowell was "a sharecropper who sang and played slide guitar in juke joints and at dances, he embodied a legacy of black work songs and field hollers. When he performed his "61 Highway Blues" for Lomax, the folklorist wrote a single word beside the entry in his field log: "Perfect."
DEER CAMP ~
When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder
When the roll is called up yonder
And my hunting days are done
Leave me lay out on some hillside
Where the ole red foxes run
Leave me lay back from the hillside
Where the traffic sounds are not
Where the noisy sounds of progress
Cannot reach my resting spot
Make it where no greedy grasping hands
Will reach to grasp their fill
Make it where all greed's a stranger
On some quiet peacefull hill
Make it by a speckled trout stream
On a hill that greets dawn's sun
Where dedicated houdsmen
Will bring their hounds to run
Make it by some hardwood forest
So that in the fall
The colored leaves will caress this spot
Where from the frost they fall
Leave me lay beside the game trail
Where the mightiest whitetail trod
Let it be where just the mightiest
Leave their hoof print in the sod
And make it where the cross winds
Will blow which ever way
It takes to bring the baying sounds
Of the hounds that pass that way
Make it where the warming sunshine
Brings the earliest signs of spring
Leave me lay beside the tallest elm
Where first the robins sing
Make it far back in the country
When to rest you lay me down
Leave me lay there ever after
'Neath the peaceful country sound
- hunter, poet, and songwriter
____________________________
from John Miller's
DEER CAMP
(MIT Press 1992)
When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder
When the roll is called up yonder
And my hunting days are done
Leave me lay out on some hillside
Where the ole red foxes run
Leave me lay back from the hillside
Where the traffic sounds are not
Where the noisy sounds of progress
Cannot reach my resting spot
Make it where no greedy grasping hands
Will reach to grasp their fill
Make it where all greed's a stranger
On some quiet peacefull hill
Make it by a speckled trout stream
On a hill that greets dawn's sun
Where dedicated houdsmen
Will bring their hounds to run
Make it by some hardwood forest
So that in the fall
The colored leaves will caress this spot
Where from the frost they fall
Leave me lay beside the game trail
Where the mightiest whitetail trod
Let it be where just the mightiest
Leave their hoof print in the sod
And make it where the cross winds
Will blow which ever way
It takes to bring the baying sounds
Of the hounds that pass that way
Make it where the warming sunshine
Brings the earliest signs of spring
Leave me lay beside the tallest elm
Where first the robins sing
Make it far back in the country
When to rest you lay me down
Leave me lay there ever after
'Neath the peaceful country sound
- hunter, poet, and songwriter
____________________________
from John Miller's
DEER CAMP
(MIT Press 1992)
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