ETTA JAMES ~

JEFFREY YANG ~

Circle of fierce

embers floating to stars

divine spark inside

breathing     breathing

I am coming, Mesingw

is coming

I am here




~




Beaver appeared, then otter, muskrat,

toad on a lily-lotus, turtle's

slow search earth rocked

tectonic web,  spider's net

Mesingw astride deer

face red black mask

eponym of peace, of

silence, steps, breath

making the forest

opening the path

Thoughts born of words:

You are not myself

nor any other

we are: thoughts




~




Surrounded by water and darkness

immersed in the sound of her heart

If this is blindness what is sight?

Before memory




~




They walked toward me from a great distance

and clothed me in garments of sun

faces so familiar, from a city of bridges

city of stone, city of ring roads

waterway fields

now dust motes in a sunbeam

They rubbed my back

and my feet

whispered sweet words to me

brought me food and drink

So thirsty I stood

alone

as they danced around me

knowledge and acknowledged

Salt flowing down

my body, a

vessel, my

blood my water

misting with earth

Hours not of silence or sun

but of the child

The cries in my arms




~




Stepped into water to wash

by dawn's first light

I carried her

she

carried

my heart un-

sequestered forest

Musing's breath

everything living emotion

motion in stillness

water clear as the air

was clear, the earth, my

thoughts, hers




~




And after many days

of water-silence, naps

and dreams,

her milk feeding my heart, her voice

gentle wind, her face blossoming sky

I returned to the village of nine houses

without a name, uprooted

not-yet-born calling me calling me

Tears of the Father




~




Walked the shore of shells

Walked the dock, the glass

Peninsula, the broken pier

Walked the macadam to

Grassy field, walked the path

Thru the trees towering to sand

Walked the mourning dove's nest

In shade and leaves

Walked the temple

Of elfin gold, of orpiment crystals

Tempered with wine

Walked the birches and outhouse

Walked the water back to where

I began

(tho I could see no semblance of a beginning)

And what the walk revealed

Along the sea's margin

Along the rimrock

Of the island

After so many centuries

Of marsh-tides and moonstones

Of or and ore (before oar)

Was an experience of walking

Irony replaced and transience

The unsaid

Thoughts flowing round my heart

And the rays like a shepherd's fire

Shadowing the vanishing-line



——————————————

Jeffrey Yang
Vanishing-Line
Graywolf 2011

THE PRISON SEGMENT ~

POLINA BARSKOVA ~

Manuscript Found by Natasha Rostova
During the Fire of Moscow




I will try to live on earth without you.



I will try to live on earth without you.



I will become any object,

I don't care what —



I will be this speeding train.

This smoke

Or a beautiful gay man laughing in the front seat.



The human body is without defense.



It's a piece of firewood.

Ocean water hits it.

Lenin puts it on his official shoulder.



And therefore, in order not to suffer, a human spirit

Lives

Inside the water and inside the wood and inside

     the shoulder of a great dictator.



But I will not be water. I will not be a fire.

I will be an eyelash.

A sponge washing the hairs of your neck;

Or a verb, an adjective

I will become. Such a word



Slightly lights your forehead.

What happened? Nothing.

Something visited? Nothing.



What was there you cannot whisper.

No smoke without fire, they whisper.

I will be a handful of smoke

Over this, lost, Moscow.



I will console any man,

I will sleep with any man,

Beneath the army's traveling horse carriages.


     — translated by Ilya Kaminsky



———————————————

This Lamentable City
poems by Polina Barskova
Tupelo Press 2010

THROUGH THE TREES ~

DREAM COME TRUE 1 ~

 DREAM COME TRUE

————————————

 for, you know who

Visitor

Along the very tops

Of trees only —

Our wind

Map 

The road goes through

Such a wilderness —

Forget town names

Contagious

Just the way your loose

Hair sweeps your cheek

Loosens me

Centuries

Long after millions perished

This old painted vase

Goes on

Oak

Before I cut this

Tree — feel its

Life to live

Trick

Mere seconds

To be

Friendly

Sunlight

Doesn’t it feel like it is

There for you when you

Sit in the room with it

Clue

You tell an old house

By the squeak

In its hinge

———————————

BOB ARNOLD

Dream Come True

Longhouse, tel-let, Nordsjoforlaget 

2001, 2008, 2009

A little book published by three

different publishers and thank you

to Susan, John Martone, Hanne Bramness,

Lars Amund Vaage who translated the poems

into Norwegian

ST. JAMES INFIRMARY ~

PURE BEATLEMANIA ~

LOOK & SEE ~

W E N D E L L     B E R R Y

http://lookandseefilm.com/trailer

THE KINKS, Paris 1966 ~

CHRISTA WOLF ~

M O R E !

I AIN'T GOT NO HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE ~

MORE!

MY FUNNY VALENTINE ~

GODZILLA ~

Haruo Nakajima, who played Godzilla, at his home in Sagamihara, Japan, in 2014. To perfect the monster’s notoriously destructive gait, he spent hours at the zoo, studying how elephants and bears walked. 

L E G E N D

photo ~ 

                                                                                           Junji Kurokawa/Associated Press 

KIOSK ~

Arterial Road



It is as though you'd unexpectedly woken up,
as though long enough you'd been out hunting
for that which escaped you,
as though you had really noticed
what is really there,
as though you had suddenly discovered something,
as though you'd discovered the philosopher's stone,
as though you'd discovered
what the philosopher's stone is good for,
as though it shone,
as though all were initiates whom you ran into
at this street corner like any other,
as though you were one of them —

till the second hand moves on one second,
the traffic light leaps from red to yellow,
and you drive on down the sign-posted road.






Addressee Unknown — Retour a l'expéditeur


Many thanks for the clouds.
Many thanks for the Well-tempered Clavier
and, why not, for the warm winter boots.
Many thanks for my strange brain
and for all manner of other hidden organs,
for the air, and, of course, for the claret.
Heartfelt thanks for my lighter and my desire
not running out of fuel,
as well as my regret, my deep regret.
Many thanks for the four seasons,
for the number e, for my dose of caffeine,
and, of course, for the strawberry dish
painted by Chardin, as well as for sleep,
for sleep quite especially, and,
last not least, for the beginning and the end
and the few minutes in between
fervent thanks,
even, if you like, for the voles out there in the garden.




The Entombment


Our mortal frame,
they call it.
But what did it hold?
The psychologist will say:
Your psyche.
Your soul,
the priest.
Your personality,
the personal manager.

Furthermore,
there's the anima,
the imago, the daemon,
the identity and the Ego,
not to mention the Id
and the Super-Ego.

The butterfly which is to rise
from this very mixed lot
belongs to a species
about which nothing is known.


———————————
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Kiosk
translated by Michael Hamburger
Bloodaxe Books 1997