RACHEL WETZSTEON ~

Blue Octavo Haiku

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           after Kafka

In fat armchairs sat

indolence and impatience,

plotting my downfall

      *

A wicked cage flew

across the long horizon

searching for a bird.

      *

I burned with love in

empty rooms, I sternly turned

knives within myself.

      *

“Behold the bright gate,”

the keeper said. “I am now

going to shut it.”

      *

Hardly was the road

swept clean when ah! there appeared

new piles of dry leaves.

      *

But nothing could kill

a faith like a guillotine,

as heavy, as light.

      *

Happiness? Finding

your indestructible core;

leaving it alone.

      *

Into the heavens

flew a breathless legion of

impossible crows.

________________

Rachel Wetzsteon

from Sakura Park

Persia Books 2006

RACHEL WETZSTEON

GUIDE ~

Guide

Today is my sister's birthday

My sister who took her life

It's the first time since she died

That I have remembered this day of her birth

When she was alive, I always remembered, it's what

You do when someone is living, you think of them

Now that she is dead I have no way of getting to her

That couldn't have been her intention at taking her life —

She always wanted someone to call her, visit her, be by her side

But now we can't get to her

Death is after all a failure

To see all that I saw today and she hasn't

Who first taught me where to look

Forgiveness

After the flood

a true flood

where houses

and forests

and people

were washed

away, truly a flood,

I worked on an island

lodged of full trees that

were lodged with large stones

lodged with mud lodged with

sewer grasses lodged with more

trees and I cut and cut for weeks on

end until I had piles of wood back

at home, and I cut through all

these trees to get to the river

a most beautiful river

In A Hollow

We've walked from the center of town

to this park on private property

donated by the people who own

the land as a tribute to their son

who died 20 years ago

there is no one here but us

no part of the neighborhood seems awake

a new trophy home is being built down the way

the lumber piles, the dirt piles, the open shapes 

   where windows will be

the boy died at age 20 so now he would be 40 no longer a boy

the park is a hollowed retreat of woodlands and streams

ideal pathways that curl and go hidden

some mother or father or both have put a great

deal of thought and wonder into this place

and the boy is dead but not to them and not even to me

I walk a stone staircase of well chosen flat stone up a rise

to a structure where inside one can sit on handmade seats

around a handmade table where a notebook has been

left to write down any handmade thoughts

I write in there that this boy is very lucky

I know the place is natural and left simple and loved

where any spirit or being just couldn't resist returning

I've been there twice

I've felt the boy twice  



————————————— 

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL   DAYS

Longhouse

CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE ~

REQUIRED READING ~

Tim Duggan Books, 2017

ROD SERLING ~

REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT ~

PATTERNS ~

THE COMEDIAN ~

MIRROR IMAGE ~

BOB DYLAN SPEAKS HIS BOGGY CREEK ~

O NAVIGATOR ~

O Navigator

I’m an innocent bystander —

it’s my lover who hikes

up river for mail and some-

times meets curious things

along the way, like the fellow

in the car just now, after the

flood in this valley, who needs

to get to “west layden road” — my

lover corrects him, “you mean west

leyden road?” “ yes”, he says, then adds

“my navigator says it’s this way”

pointing to his dashboard, then southward

“but there isn’t any road this way since the flood”

she points south

“but my navigator says it is this way”

he points south

she kindly continues, “it is this way”

pointing south

“but the road’s gone”

still pointing

inch by inch

pointing someone

back to earth

Nite~Nite

It's a little secret

that I'll tell you

and only my lover

knows and she’s quiet

as sunshine on the

leaves, and it's all

about our little kitten

once upon a time and 

how much it delighted 

her that when I went to

bed far later than she did

I would always turn to the

kitten who would be awake

and active, even at midnight,

and say nite~nite to him be-

fore I climbed the stairs to

join my lover warm in bed —

yes, I admit, it is a beautiful

life I have, and now that the 

kitten is a cat my love asks and 

really wants to know do I still 

say nite~nite before I go to bed

to the grown cat who could

pretty much care less —

I do

The Back Back Road

A guy

I've known

the longest

around here

just went

by on his

ATV

cowboy hat

boots and

oxygen tanks

balanced

on his

lap, heavy

smoker is

Ben

——————————

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL   DAYS

Longhouse

BOP APOCALYPSE ~

R E V I E W

Da Capo 2016

SOUNDTRACK OF THE REVOLUTION ~

Stanford University Press

2017

BILLY MILLS ~

T i n y     P i e c e s





scattered

this glass

reconstitutes



folds

determine




~




follow

the lines



come

again




~




sun

after rain



luminous

leaves



boxroom

window




~






various greens



a pair of thrushes





~





first

the world



next

the word



imperfect

charting




~





close

now



slowly

come




~





touch

call

remember



simple

pleasures




~





here

where



all

is



tiny

pieces



—————————————————————
this is Tiny Pieces published in 1998 by Wild Honey Press
and sent to Bob & Susan by Billy a few years later.

It's June 2017 as I type out all the book to share with you,
having to, watching Dennis the Menace of the White House
pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord. You can't sit still
when in the presence of idiocy, you must scatter gems.

Here you go







Billy Mills

JOHN PHILLIPS ~

Gratitude

for Fadhila Chabbi

Wherever I walked dust covered my tracks

Whatever I made fell to a thousand pieces

Whatever I said was lost in the wind

Whoever I loved loved nothing in the end

Whoever I created vanished the same

~

What is happening

when this is happening

is what this

happens to be.

~

A Way

Your absence is

the silence

to say this

toward your not

being here.

~

As

meaningless

the sun

means

us

~

Afterwards

Every time I sit down

to write this

I expect someone else

to rise from my chair,

in a different world,

impossibly better.

~

No matter

what it is

I'm doing

I've never yet

got over the

idea

I'm pretending

to do what

I am.

~

This

Whatever else it is a poem

is often nothing

more than thinking

there's something there to be

found when there's

nothing but thinking so.

~

Reading

Remember

these words

know more

than you

you came here

for a purpose

no word

could give.

——————————————

JOHN PHILLIPS

Shape of Faith

Shearman Books 2017

DICTIONARY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ~

Thames & Hudson, 2015

A REVIEW