LISTENING ~

Listening

He was an older man

wearing older clothes

making his way through

the Salvation Army store with

what looked to be a used stethoscope

in his hand — who knows where

he found it in the place —

by the time he got to a quiet

corner of the used books

he put the two loose ends of the

stethoscope into his ears and

the other end under his old 

coat over his heart 

and listened with

his eyes closed

Old Guys

Lots of old guys still writing poetry. Poetry nobody really wants. Old guys that don’t go to the AWP. Guys that write lots about old girlfriends, or roads not taken. Guys hiding half their faces in photographs. Balding guys with hats, caps, scarves, I know. All white guys. They once ruled the roost. Filled anthologies. Not these old guys, they came after the model white guys ruled, and in came ethnic and many colored, and women storming and true. The old guys, the ones that haven’t died bad deaths, early deaths, drink and drug deaths, blow-my-head-off deaths, now write some of the softest and maybe even sweetest poems I know. Many being insomniacs, they write these poems when you sleep. If the poems are terrific, it means you are getting something done while you sleep. These old guys will give you their poems. They’ve about given up, but not quite. Like old birds you can’t help but feed them. Talk to one, you’ll get a song.

Friend

I saw him last

before the big

snow, then we

burrowed into

the woods for

months with a

few lamps, by

spring there

he was on his

tractor and the

mud road call-

ing my name

waving an arm

__________________________________

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL DAYS

Longhouse, 2013 

ARCHIVE ~

Bob Dylan and James Baldwin almost touching heads at the

Emergency Civil Liberties Committee's

Bill of Rights (remember those?)

dinner to present Dylan

with the Tom Paine Award in 1963.

S O M E     D Y L A N     S P E E C H E S     ETC

GLENN GOULD / BRAHMS ~

KENNETH COX ~

J A C K E T      R E V I  E  W 

Flood Editions

edited and with an introduction

 by Jenny Penberthy

This volume gathers twenty-four essays by the English critic Kenneth Cox (1916-2005)
on various writers, including James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Basil Bunting,
Louis Zukofsky, and Lorine Niedecker. In each case, Cox's exposition proves rigorous idiosyncratic, drily passionate, and full of keen insights. Always, he proceeds with an "emphasis on literature as the art of language."

"A is one of the mid-century epics which, like Finnegans Wake,
Paterson and The Anathemata, stands comparison to The Cantos. It
is less adventurous but more reflective and at the centre more
certain: though amongst strangers its Odysseus does not wander."

—  K E N N E T H      C O X

NEIGHBOR NEIGHBOR ~

WILLIAM MCPHERSON ~

"F A L L I N G"

W I L L I A M      M C P H E R S O N

photo the Associated Press

ROBERT GRENIER ~

C R O S S I N G       O N T A R I O



joking and somber

and joking and sober




.




all the stores closed

afternoon Wednesdays



very dark

snow clouds in

July

in

the first days

of August



west southwest to

east northeast

it flows



cafe brightness

light blue walls

mirrors lake scenes as if

reflected off snow



hard to order

a vanilla sundae easy

one small cold ball

round in stainless steel



see the model station over the road

spur line here

to Hudson's Bay



where the railroad must stop

Esquimaux


they want you to work

they don't want you to sleep




.




what

I move so

thickly through into

very furry




.




not so much

the forest



with its

gleams of silver



meadow fucking

meadow meadow




.




blue birds

mountain rings



the tow

of the body






H O R S E S




grass

brush

fire




sky

oaks




smoke




wood houses

wood houses




warm greys zone




sun

in the ocean




sand

river bed




California

Almond

Growers




————————————
R O B E R T     G R E N I E R
Series
This
1978

DONALD KEENE

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996

WOLF ~

KNOW IT ~

Know It

All

of

us

are

only

so

much

Job Today

I turned the bird-

bath around —

looks better

Chores

an

unbeatable

word

Memory

we

live

long-

er

than

we

will

live

——————————

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL   DAYS

Longhouse

Buster Keaton & friend

JOHN ASHBERY ~

Hillbilly Airs and Dances




The same ideas or different ones condense,

and you don't have to sleep again.

Garbage is necessary. That's another issue

that hasn't been talked about.



I hear what you're saying.

Now all together: Everyone is standing

outside some movement: French spenders,

my business train, millions

of irregular plurals. Like we were all

gone together at some point,

something one could understand.



to confront you with our country,

smoking cloud,



vintage treat, village street.

The other is all mind.

In world aesthetics, a bundle in the straw.



_________________________

JOHN ASHBERY
Commotion of the Birds
Ecco 2016

BACK ROAD CHALKIES ~ (THINK SPRING)

PHILIP LEVINE ~

T H E     P A R I S     R E V I E W

JOANNE KYGER ~

FAREWELL

JOANNE KYGER

Vallejo, CA 1934 ~ Bolinas, CA 2017

Longhouse published Joanne over the years

and wish her only safe passage

she has left us beautiful poems

NIGHT AT SEA ~

MORE AGNES MARTIN / SUZANNE HUDSON

ON PHOTOGRAPHY ~

REACTION BOOKS
(London)
2016

MESSAGE TO THE FUTURE ~

T H E      W H I T N E Y

ROBERT SILVERS ~

Robert B. Silvers in his office at 

The New York Review of Books in 2012. 

CreditFred R. Conrad/The New York Times

NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARY

MODERN ASSEMBLY ~

Modern Assembly

Man’s gift to himself —

Eliminate himself

Uncle

I see his face —

it can't be helped

because he sees every

face who sees his face

and this concerns him

the sexual predator

as he comes into the

restaurant and good-uncle-

like chats with the prettiest

girl at the cash register,

barely 15, willowy, and the

reason he is here, her face not 

at all developed or trained —

she shows crushing boredom

overwhelming confusion

grimace with genuine sparkle

if given the chance, a breakthrough

smile —

which she allows the predator

sensing him as an uncle

and when she drops her eyes

and he lifts his, dripping

over all of her, a split second is

all, I can't tell you how much the

blade of a shadow makes me cold

I Saw Porcupine

I saw porcupine as soon as I pulled the truck into the meadow. There is nothing that moves on the earth like a porcupine. Imagine carrying a body of hollow pointed quills around everywhere all through your life. Porcupine stopped his ground when he saw the red truck. I got out and slowly walked to porcupine and porcupine reared up the quills and turned its back and slowly moved into the woods edge brush, then stopped and waited. Porcupine didn’t leave, and neither did I. We were five feet from one another. His chiseled full brown face and patient eyes studied all parts of what was around him. I knelt near him awhile and waited awhile with him, there was something that made us both cautious. The truck was off and way over there. The sky was blue, the foliage still green approaching fall. Two days later I would hike my morning path and nearing the meadow wonder what had happened to porcupine, and there he was in the sunshine and large leaf ginger plants munching at his breakfast. I sat down in the sun myself and watched awhile. It was the best way to be.

——————————

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL DAYS

Longhouse, 2013