W. EUGENE SMITH ~

Farrar 2017

~

I want to believe if the photographer

W Eugene Smith wanted to read

a biography of himself,

this might be the one.

A gem.

M O R E !

I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU. . . ~

Susan,  Bob,   Jack,  VW beetle,  wheelbarrow,  home  (1980)

~

I'm In Love With You Who Is In Love With Me

for Susan & Carson

October ~ for Susan

It is a small bowl

You wash from

This early morning

Your hands just right

For its depth

Long Ago

That tiny toy instrument

Shaped like a French horn

Displayed with a dozen others 

We both gave it a squeeze —

But for some reason this

One sounded the best

With its familiar sound

More than a horn

And it took your breath away

And close to tears

At how its cry

Was like our geese

On a little farm

From long ago

Work Song

We carried the saw and ax to the top of the hill

Hop hornbeam logs waiting dry off the ground

I cut the logs into firewood size and split each one

You do the ground work, keep everything in order

We stack the splits into heavy canvas sacks

Carry it all down a trail under trees of meadowy leaves

I’m in love with you who is in love with me

The woodshed at home is filled to the brim

I’m in love with you who is in love with me

Finding Open Water

There are these things

That make lovely creatures

More lovely —

A red-tailed hawk sweeps

From one moment of the hillside

To another

Rising mist will not lose him

3 deer wade into the shoulder of a field

They feel safe in the holler of rain

Then you, rolling up your pants

Before a bicycle ride

Your hair just touching the ground

I tell you I will do something with that

Your smile makes the beginning of all this

What I Hear

This river water is

The warm breath of

Her whisper, what I hear —

The brown and white flurry

Of her thin clothing

The sweat of handwork

That musses the long

Blonde hair — dirt across

The forehead, may I wash

It off? thicken my hands

In that hair, kiss what I love

Away from our work and bathing

Part whisper and part water

————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

JONATHAN WILLIAMS ~

After one has read ALL the books by Jonathan Williams

this is the book where you will want to land. . .

or vice versa. . .

whichever way you go

don't miss out!

J O N A T H A N     W I L L I A M S

PROSPECTA   PRESS

JOHN ASHBERY ~

( Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2017 )

This biography only makes this reader request

that there will be subsequent volumes —

perhaps three 

to peel all the good apple.

Highly recommend.

(I'm reading in early June before any

rush of first reviews)

R E A D      M O R E !

REVOLUTION IN THE AIR ~

CHICAGO   REVIEW   PRESS   2009

I was carrying this book around all Spring
in a book sack when we were off traveling somewhere —
rumpled up cloth copy sitting with me by a river, in the woods,
on a lawn, by a brook, in the passenger seat reading —

some hate the book, think the long-Dylan savant 

is pompous — ah, so what: it's a romp going through

these 300 songs, historically and the astonishing

line of subjects. "Blowin' in the Wind"

was not Dylan's first song — that was saved

for Brigitte Bardot

"Song to Brigit"

(1956)

Dylan was 15 years old.

THE MOTHER OF ALL QUESTIONS ~

R E B E C C A      S O L N I T

TO AN UNKNOWN SHORE ~

Theodore Enslin

(John Phillps, photo)

Night Study

Moon sickle above under

brush where it always was

crumble in flames of echo

where it always was in

clouds     of a last reflection

sound     only mouse footfall

silence     dark depth to plumb

onshore of little breeze

no wavelength     light to touch

as phosphorous fish scale

light poured into shadow

no live thing remaining

spindrift     footstep in it

sickle moon     it dies away.

As if there were time enough to notice

that stones will polish in the wind

or that's an accident of speech

where happening has nothing to do

with thought     the laggard as it always was

but still the rock face brightness

while sand will sink away from it.

What is wild in our own day

is not the wild that's past

there is a different savor

some of it not pleasant

perhaps it never was

but it differs now

does not depend on distances

as it once did     now

the wildness is within us

trying to get out

one day it may     but without us.

To put life or fire into a word?

No     those were always there

but the use of many words

will often bring what was there

incipient     to ruin take care

how you hold what has a heat that

may crumble into ashes.

A ring of changes  

bells and circles

something round around us

changes in a measure

a breath so changed

rings these changes

becomes the circled ring.

Hermit Thrush

The singing's always new

the melody is old     or not

usually it is where

nothing new to sing or say

or sing when saying's not enough

or gives new voice(s)

Listen to the solitary     thrush

his heritage is full of sound

much of it what's not known.

A Tentative Tribute to C.C.

From such a language

as no words can say

without the wording

it leaves me breathless.

Twelve Gates to the City

I do not know your entrance

nor would you care for mine

there are many others     but

once we are inside we will meet

and recognize each other

we came our different ways

what a pleasure we are here together.

Moon Phase

We do not think too often

of the moon's light in the lilacs

too often looking at it     turning

Midas' touch to curse     it's in remembrance

once we see that light     and all around it

blooms     the fading petals in that light

the fading of reflection     light

that was a stranger to the moon

and darkly strange to lilacs as they slept.

Goodbye to all that world

where we once talked

as if there were no end

to it     yet went on further

to fall off     even from a globe

held sure by gravity

It is here and not here

a way to walk and say goodbye.

—————————————

THEODORE ENSLIN

To An Unknown Shore

Shearsman Books, 2017

MYSTERY ~

M A U R I C E      S E N D A K

Doubleday 2017

THE VANISHING ~

Introduction   

For a collection of short poems, only a short introduction will do. These one hundred diminutive masterpieces are arranged by length so that each is one word shorter than the last. This intricate arrangement, however challenging for the anthologiser—who did it “his own self to gratify—”, should be to the reader only a secondary consideration. Each poem is a fresh universe to explore.   The collection takes its name from the final “fit” of Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”. Like the hero of Carroll’s tale, this collection “softly and suddenly vanishes away,” until a blank page alone remains.   
Copyright © Elsinore Books 2017

The Vanishing: One Hundred Shorter & Shorter Poems from 99 Words to 0 
(Kindle Locations 2-10). 
Elsinore Books. Kindle Edition. 

edited by Shae Spreafico


SEE MORE HERE




poets from Bob Arnold to James Wright. . .
and deeper deeper more!

—————————


After the Child



the swing

swings


— Bob Arnold

JOHN ASHBERY, 90 ~

F A R E W E L L

BETTY FUSSELL ~

L I S T E N

JOHN BRADLEY ~

A Nice Story: Gertrude Stein Lectures Her Tender
Asparagus, 1946


They asked me what I thought of
when I thought what I thought
about that bomb

I said I like to read.
Mystery and detective stories.
But death rays and atomic bombs.
I never could read them.

Not really.
What is the use if there is nothing left of use.
Nothing to read.
No one to read.

I tell you machines are only interested in machines.
Inventing other machines.
Sure the bomb will destroy a lot and kill a lot.
But it's the living that are interesting.
Not the way of killing them.

Alright.   That is the way I feel about it.
And so that is the way everybody feels about it.
They may be a little scared.
I am not so scared.

There is so much to be scared of.
So what is the use of bothering.
To be scared.
And if you are not scared the atomic bomb is boring.
With a hot baby b.

Everybody likes to be buttered.
Even a bomb.
                              I told you. This is a nice story.






Little Prayer on Hiroshima Day

           For Jana



If one morning
          in the east, Chicago flickers
and flashes into ash


          and you are not here
by my side, I would
          take the hand


of the flames waiting
          in the doorway, and go
into the next world


           where I know
you will be
          waiting for me.




—————————

JOHN BRADLEY
Erotica Atomica
WordTech Editions, 2017

STOP, LOOK, LISTEN ~

JAPANESE STONE GARDENS ~

M O R E !

MICHAEL HETTICH ~

The Happiness of Trees



I slept that summer on a screen porch in the woods
     with the creatures and insects singing so loudly
my mind seemed to join them — out there without me —
     to move around like a breeze from form to form


and then to return as a fox or a cicada,
     some other night creature, to slip back inside me
humming whatever it had heard, patterns
     I couldn't sing along with but felt inside


like the happiness of trees when a soft wind
     turns their leaves' pale underbellies up to the sky
and makes the sap rise. I love to wake
     before myself, to silence and fog.


Sometimes I got up and walked out into the chilly woods
     and sometimes I turned over as though this happiness
might last forever, and slept just a while
     longer, until the first birds sang.


—————————

MICHAEL HETTICH
The Frozen Harbor
Red Dragonfly Press, 2017

WHY POETRY ~

ECCO 2017

A fine enough poet but I believe the best mind of Matthew Zapruder comes through in this excellent new book of essays — really one long essay — on the same subject of why poetry, why poets, why is there air, and he even scores points on Auden's much over-used ragged line "poetry makes nothing happen" . . . with a delightful twist, Zapruder will show the reader that is exactly right: poetry MAKES nothing happen. A big word that "nothing."

In these essays Zapruder shows forth as a natural born teacher. 

Take up this book.

[ BA ]