JOHN GODFREY ~

J O H N     G O D F R E Y

photo Ted Roeder

Everything Beautiful



Buick, big old boat, purrs

Backs into the square of moonlight

where the path is worn



Notice you must the pang

in the air

                 You hear

a little of bells, a little of hypnosis



I have traced all this to my body

Everything beautiful, and everything

that ever goes wrong



One giant light of green

and one of gold, inject the glow

chosen sky by the city






Tiny Gold Dress



Days so fleet you have to've

seen unruly ones

I do all the time

Someone I soon trust

puts your hand in mine

Just what I'm looking for

Start with the body

and search me

Won't find me sleeping



I dig my six feet

and you stand there in

your tiny gold dress

Can't believe my eyes

Your smile knows

Your ever-so-slight lisp

Ahead of me in the

opposite direction

Big man alerts me



I shed little bits

of chivalry

I caress like one bereaved

Forethought and hindsight

in the flesh

Peanut shells under bed

Lamp nearby of

fire and roses

Ribbons of smoke sketch

momentarily an orchid






Pool Cake



When she sleeps on the floor

When the umbrella blows

into her hand



The whole landslide is missing

She treats me like a conversion

I am a probability



Eclipses her in sheets of snow

How many emotions on

the tines of a fork



Her particular disguise for dust

The haves are equidistant in time

You could say everything is minus that

To those who waken stealthily

Sew up the hat real neat

Frost ascends the blade






Flakes



Muddy plastic spoon

Barefoot on eolas

First they nab the tramp



Words sort and sink

Ash glitters on her collar

Jumpseat vapor smell



She interrupts herself

I too blow smoke

Can't hardly overhear



Farewells then walk alone

Night briefly unwraps

Inevitable hallways






Wavy



Boogaloo

the best you can-can

Time hangs in braids



There is room for

that hip in the

blazing gold drum



Do not hasten

The crosswalk aglow

Maybe learn nothing



Signature footsteps

I know what to do

with the wrong dream




_____________________

JOHN GODFREY
The City Keeps
Wave Books, 2016


 

A PRINCE HAS DIED ~

 A    P R I N C E    H A S    D I E D

FREE ~

CHARLES OLSON ~

B A C K R O A D     C H A L K I E S

C H A R L E S    O L S O N

photo: bob arnold 

spring2016

COLOR ~

CHECK THE COLOR MAP WHEN 

YOU READ HILLARY CLINTON WON

NEW YORK

(THEY MEAN THE CITY)

COLOR  MAP

BERNIE CONTINUES
TO WIN
THE LITTLE GUY

SMALL TOWNS

ALL TOWNS

ROBERT SUND ~ SHI SHI ~

http://www.robertsundpoetshouse.org/books.cfm

SELF-EMPLOYED ~

Changes

Under the waterfall

Leaves finally reach

Bottom and stay put,

Every known foliage

Puffed into a hive

May strike you dizzy

When the sun is on them

And water above flows

Clear, the shaken colors

Point into your eyes

First winter light  







Self-Employed



Take two squared stones and

Drop them almost side by side

Lift the thinner slab of rock and

Bust your guts setting it on top

Now you got reason to sit down

 

Bobolink

He watches my entry

Down the tilt of pasture

Clumps of mud sinking rubber boots,

Chain saw load and fuel jugs,

Holds an eye on me

In his one position.

When I set to work he sets to work,

Drops off the long spring of telephone wire.

Through the day picks at brush piles, goes

Back onto the wire, withstands the heat, watches.

It is only when the saw is shut down I hear what

He says, the scale of whistles both sharp

And gentle to the ear, no one pitch alike, perhaps

The voice of many birds together, in this new one who

Peers down as I leave and now stars to sing.

 

Treeplanter

Never see how —

But see how —

The pine tree

Has grown a foot

Since a year ago

_________________

Bob Arnold

some of these poems appeared in

Self-Employed

handset letterpress from

Pentagram

 

ANOTHER OF THOSE BEAUTIFUL PHOTOGRAPHS ~

Sanders supporters in Prospect Park
April 17, 2016

Photograph: Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images 

CAT-IRON ~

Cat-Iron was from Natchez, Mississippi

Frederic Ramsey recorded the singer in 1958

as a Folkways release 

POETS WE LIKE ~

visit ~
 F R A N C O     B E L T R A M E T T I



 

 

visit ~
G A R Y    S N Y D E R

A BEAUTIFUL PHOTOGRAPH ~

Bernie Sanders and President Evo Morales of Bolivia

at the Vatican, Rome Italy
April 15, 2016

LITTLE DEER

LITTLE DEER



Little deer,
    within the wilderness, upon the earth,
        down, he went.
Little deer,
    within the wilderness, upon the earth,
        down, he went.


Little deer,
    within the wilderness, upon the earth.
        down he went.
Little deer,
    within the wilderness, upon the earth,
        down, he went.


Little deer,
    within the wilderness, upon the earth,
        down, he went.
Little deer,
    within the wilderness, upon the earth,
down, he went.


Morning came, dark blue water,
    in the spotted water, you drank,
        returning on the light blue earth, down you went
            on the flower dawn wind, down, you are sounding.
Little deer,
    within the wilderness, upon the earth,
down he went.




Y A Q U I     D E E R     S O N G S 



ILI MASO



Ili maso
    huyapo bwiapo
        komsu sika
Ili maso
    huyapo bwiapo
komsu sika


Ili maso
    huyapo bwiapo
        komsu sika
Ili maso
    huyapo bwiapo
        komsu sika


Ili maso
    huyapo bwiapo
        komsu sika
ili maso
    huyapo bwiapo
        komsu sika


Matchuka teweli bam
    yoko bampo se heka
        notteka toloko bwiapo komsu sika
            sewa hekapo komsu hiyawa
Ili maso
    huyapo bwiapo
        komsu sika


(sung by Marcs Savivae from Potam)

WILLIAM EGGLESTON ~

Untitled, 1971-1974
 from Los Alamos

Photograph: Eggleston Artistic Trust

Gagosian Gallery


http://www.egglestontrust.com/

FOLLOW THE MONEY ~

FOLLOW THE MONEY

W/

BERNIE

SANDERS

LEAF FROM LAST FALL THIS SPRING ~

Once In Vermont Films 2016
copyright  bob arnold

OH SUSANNA ~

from the LP Johnstown

(Stella/Square Dog, 1999) 

GERMAINE GREER III ~

 

GERMAINE GREER II ~

GERMAINE GREER ~

REAL LIFE ~

Real Life

It was a hot day thrown suddenly cool

By that hard rain, poured off the slate roof barn

When the boy was hit by lightning.

Standing safe, he thought, in the large doorway,

Eaves above him tapping,

Farm trucks shining up.

Big for his age, father’s overalls, watching things,

Whole complexion tan like pure maple syrup

The stuff he gathered with his grandfather and horses.

His old man and older brothers stoke and boil the wood fire,

Spend those long nights in the sugar house.

The way the light spills out of the small steamy windows

All over snow, dreamy in the valley.

Well a mean bolt came down from the sky to end that,

A splitting axe flying.

Water dripping smooth from the roof edge

Splashes onto his boots and cuffs,

Hayseed still itching his back,

Cows poking behind him in their stalls.

Need a light already it’s getting so dark, he thought —

Struck him from the forehead straight down

Cracked him open like nothing should be.

The family dog lay nearby on a broken bale

Like he has for 15 Julys,

Large head on his paws tilted and watching

Rain burning the ground.

_____________________ 

Bob Arnold

WHERE RIVERS MEET 

START CALLING ~

Burger King staff tricked into smashing outlet's windows 'to release pressure'

Prank caller posing as a firefighter told workers that dangerous levels of gas had built up inside the restaurant

S M A S H I N G

NO WORRIES ~

I'VE NEVER HAD

ONE WRITER FRIEND

IN 50 YEARS

WHO HAD TO

WORRY

ABOUT THIS

T H E     W O R R Y

 

 

THE BIG DREAM ~

HEARTH ~

JOSEPH STROUD ~

The Potato



Three days into the journey

I lost the Inca Trail

and scrambled around the Andes

in a growing panic

when on a hillside below snowline

I met a farmer who pointed the way —

Machu Picchu alla, he said.

He knew where I wanted to go.

From my pack I pulled out an orange.

It seemed to catch fire

in that high blue Andean sky.

I gave it to him.

He had been digging in a garden,

turning up clumps of earth,

some odd, misshapen nuggets,

some potatoes.

He handed me one,

a potato the size of the orange

looking as if it had been in the ground

a hundred years,

a potato I carried with me

until at last I stood gazing down

on the Urubamba Valley,

peaks rising out of the jungle into clouds,

and there among the mists

was the Temple of the Sun

and the Lost City of the Incas.

Looking back now, all these years later,

what I remember most,

what matters to me most,

was that farmer, alone on his hillside,

who gave me a potato,

a potato with its peasant face,

its lumps and lunar craters,

a potato that fit perfectly in my hand,

a potato that consoled me as I walked,

told me not to fear,

held me close to the earth,

the potato I put in a pot that night,

the potato I boiled above Machu Picchu,

the patient, gnarled potato

I ate.




________________________


JOSEPH STROUD
Country of Light
Copper Canyon, 2004 


 

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED ~

Please listen to:

R O S A R I O     D A W S O N

Rosario  Dawson

IT AIN'T RIGHT ~