POSTCARD 35 ~

 

Astor Piazzolla, Annernasse, 1983

photograph by Dany Gignoux

CROWNED ~

Crowned



A book fell on my head today while building up in the cottage with Sweetheart. All day slugging out new shelving. Sweetheart moving lots of books as well with me over snow. With a sled. Have to be very careful, one tipsy with the sled and many books ruined in the mud and snow-melt puddles. The puddles are now deep. We'll take it if it means the snow is melting. It says it is melting. We say keep up the good work. So back to the book that crowned me. Sure enough, one by Codrescu. One I have been lugging around from building to building waiting for it to sell over 10 years. Never did. I dropped the price down to $3.95 hardcover, brand new. The problem is it crowned me on the head at an inopportune time for me and the book (but not Codrescu, he didn't feel a thing), and on the second floor, with the windows wide open (double window shutter style, lots of wide opening) I took the book in one hand and motion flung it out the window to never never land. Into snow. Near a brook running well, the cover flew off mid-flight. Ah, well. Temper temper. Two hours later we got back to the house and sure enough, there was an order for the book, we sold it. You can bet in the split second before I tossed the book I knew we had another copy, this was a double, so expendable with my wrath. All is well.

[ BA ]

CEDAR SIGO ~

click on image once to enlarge

Language Arts

Cedar Sigo

Wave Books, 2014

www.wavepoetry.com

FRANK SAMPERI ~ TRILOGY ~

Coming very close to mirroring the masterpiece three volumes first published by Mushinsha/Grossman in the early 1970s,

here we have the Trilogy all under one roof, in one volume, from Skysill Press in England. Once again, an American poet has to be taken across the Atlantic only to be brought back home. With three authors writing appreciations of Samperi — Robert Kelly, Peter O'Leary, and Elizabeth Robinson — something new for this new edition. 

 ________________


Frank Samperi
Trilogy

Skysill Press
3 Gervase Gardens
Clifton Village
Nottingham  NG11  8LZ
skysillpress.blogspot.com

Then the dwelling  of the angel in the road

or rather the odor

sign

of the dwelling

continuing

habituating the man

to the daily

drawing out radiance

preparing

rendering

transparent

the surroundings

the universe

the aureole

receiving

truest

ray

POSTCARD 34 ~

On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley arrived at the White House carrying a commemorative world war II colt .45. Being a badge collector he wanted to trade the gun to President Nixon for a narcotics bureau badge. Elvis received the badge and the gun is now on display at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. The irony is too thick & bewildering to measure. 
Anyway, no one looks stoned here.

J.D. WHITNEY'S SELECTED POEMS ~

 NEW FROM LONGHOUSE!

J.D. Whitney

Sweeping the Broom Shorter
Selected Poems 1964-2014


Longhouse 2014
192 pages

ORDER NOW!
By credit card, check
or
with easy to use Paypal ~

$15.00
 plus $2.00 shipping (USA)

For International orders, please inquire as to shipping

email: poetry@sover.net

YESTERDAY, AT THE THRIFT STORE ~

I bought for you . . .

drawing © bob arnold

WATERS ~

Paul Wellstone

Senator (D)

Minnesota

_________

I had Paul Wellstone in mind today and thought it a good idea to pay my respects to the loss of a fine fellow, most likely murdered for being a fine fellow, eleven days before his re-election to the Senate (October 2002), where he would have provided the Democrats with a majority vote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellstone_Action  

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/paul-wellstones-legacy-10-years-later/264086/  

While we're in Minnesota, let's drop over to Wisconsin and have a look around:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opinion/sunday/the-fight-for-wisconsins-soul.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0



and then out to the Pacific Northwest:


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opinion/sunday/egan-at-home-when-the-earth-moves.html?hp&rref=opinion

Remember, rivers run through us.

wikipedia
the ny times
the atlantic

SUGAR ON SNOW ~

compiled by bob arnold mud season 2014

THOREAU'S HUT AFTER WALDEN ~

The paragraph above will shine some light on the whereabouts of the hut by the pond, after the fact

 The Adventures of Henry Thoreau

Michael Sims

Bloomsbury, 2014

page 315

photo © bob arnold

POSTCARD 33 ~

 

Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, Colorado

On the high line, 400 feet above the Animas River in Colorado runs the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. Once upon a time I rode the RR with someone I bought a ring for in the old mining town of Silverton that fit perfectly, and by the time we returned down from the high altitude to Durango, the ring fell loose. She's still with me.

photo by Kim Todd

POSTCARD 32 ~

 

Many of the most dangerous criminals in the United States were sent to Alcatraz Federal Penitentary to serve their sentences. Al Capone, George Kelly and Robert Stroud were three of the well known convicts that spent time on "the rock". While two of the three used bullets, Robert Stroud handled birds and wasn't as handsome as Burt Lancaster who portrayed Stroud in the 1962 film The Birdman of Alcatraz.

JOHNNY CASH ( LISTEN ) ~

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/mar/24/johnny-cash-out-among-the-stars-exclusive-album-stream

WE ARE STILL HERE ~

Visually stunning portrait of The American Indian Movement through its deep historical roots (arguably more "American" than anyone else) through its battles, defeats, radicalization, honor.

__________________

We Are Still Here

A photographic History of

The American Indian Movement

photographs ~ Dick Bancroft

text ~ Laura Waterman Wittstock

Borealis Books

BIRTHDAYS ~

Today is the birthday of two ~ 

the author Flannery O' Connor and

the poet and musical composer Theodore Enslin

Both were born the same day in the same year

25 March, 1925

Cheers!

MIYAZAWA KENJI ~ translated by Hiroaki Sato

NEW!

 FROM LONGHOUSE

SPRING 2014

Miyazawa Kenji, translated by Hiroaki Sato

 Aomori Elegy / The Tsugaru Strait / The Karafuto Railroad

 Double wrap-band volume

 Three color unfolding concertina format with photographs and poems.

Use Paypal for FREE shipping to the U.S. 
  $15

Use Paypal for postpaid shipping to International addresses ~ $18

SPRING GODDAMMIT ~

SPRING GODDAMMIT


 
First off, I'm sick of the cat bowl behind the woodstove but not the cat
my buddy
I've had my face pitched down to retrieve
that bowl for the past 200 freezing days in a row
since I last went swimming, and where I went
swimming is frozen solid

I'm sick of this weather that's sick of me and as I said I'm sick of it
nothing like mutual

I'm sick of all the doors that don't close right because they're old and warped
but still it must have something to do with winter, right?

I'm sick of firewood, o my god the firewood, it's running out
or it's about to run out in almost every dooryard I spy into
on the long haul mud drive to town

and that's another thing —
I'm sick of all those who live on a tar road
who have no idea what it's like to live on five miles of mud road
it's six more weeks of winter is what it is
while they're fancy free and clean
we're mud splattered to the car windows
the truck tailgate
the waist of our pants

naturally there's nothing to be done about it —
blame your parents
they got you born
winter is here to stay
and if you don't know winter
you're probably baking in flat iron heat
or wondering when a fireball will roll over the hills to your home

what a plan!
rotten moods
foul weather
too long winters
and no place to put it except into our lives

I asked the dental hygienist as she pinned my bib
"how's your winter been?" both of us iceboxed in vermont
"terrible" she moaned
"I don't think I can take one more day of this"
outside the window I see that lovely pale increasingly warming soon-to-be sunshine
up against a three story abandoned pea green brick building and recall how
nearly thirty years ago I watched the movie High Plains Drifter in that building
with a friend, now long gone, who had my little family over for supper

I return to the hygienist:
"well, when spring comes you'll have no choice but to take the day off"
she nearly squeals at the idea and then rolls her eyes
regaining consciousness and good sense past
my foolish whimsical plan
"are you kidding, they'd have my head"

so, you see, it isn't that bad
she has one or two sensible days left in her
to get through winter


_________________

photos © bob arnold

 

POSTCARD 31 ~

mickey spillane & son, 1958

photograph by genevieve naylor

W.G. SEBALD ~

W.G. Sebald
A Place in the Country

on ~ Gottfried Keller, Johann Peter Hebel,
Robert Walser, Jean-Jacques Rousseau ,
Eduard Morike, Jan Peter Tripp

translated from the German by Jo Catling

Random House, 2013

CHARLIE PORTER, ADVENTURER ~

CHARLIE PORTER

( 1950 ~ d. Punta Arenas, Chile 2014 )

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/sports/charlie-porter-63-an-adventurer-who-reshaped-climbing-is-dead.html?ref=obituaries