MURIEL RUKEYSER ~

R E A D      M E

New Directions, 2013

JERRY MARTIEN ~

Dream of the West


Driving through the country of the otherworld as I passed
a small town I pulled to the side of the road. I don't know
why I stopped. The sky was dark but the busy highway
and the roadside were just like our world in the middle of
one of its ordinary end of everything afternoons. It could
have been Oklahoma just before a tornado or the bomb.
I was driving a big American car, a Ford LTD or maybe
it was a Continental. The edge of the road sloped sharply
down, then dropped off much faster than I expected. The
huge automobile lurched downward and stopped sideways
on the precarious slope.

I could see the situation from several points of view. The
busy highway. The little Okie town across the fields. My
car ridiculously stuck. Then I saw other cars had gone
off this embankment. Some were part way down, some
farther. Rusted, abandoned. At the bottom of the long
slope a sunny grove of trees. There were people living there.
People in some of the cars.

Just below my car there were some Indians whose car was
older and much worse stuck. There was some
argument. Whose fault it was they'd gone off the road.
Then we began to laugh about our common
predicament. I could envision a big yellow tow truck
coming to my rescue. The whole nine one one. The cable
reaching down from the highway to bring me up again.
But it never came. I never called.

I've been living down here ever since.



——————————
Jerry Martien
Earth Tickets
Bug Press
2017

PREACHER ~

C O M E      T O      M E

C O M E      A G A I N

L I S T E N

Bob Dylan

Getty Images

HAPPY ENDING ~

 R E A D     M E

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND ~

There are many books about Woody Guthrie,

 including the masterpiece Guthrie wrote himself

Bound For Glory

and this book by noted music historian Santelli

is as good as it gets regarding Woody Guthrie,

his associates, travels, time period, including

Guthrie's celebrated song

"This Land Is Your Land."

Somehow Santelli takes the reader

right up to the song's door.

[BA]

KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD ~

'In Sweden, where I live, war has not been waged since the seventeenth century, that is since the time of 

Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare."

KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD

Americans can swish that sentence around in their heads for a moment.

THE WORLD ON A PERFECT DAY ~

Family

Try to get three berries

Off one stem at rest stop

As three of us

July In The Sun

We pick blueberries this way —

I wear jeans and t-shirt

you wear a pretty dress

the rest is easy

We

I wanted the

Longest kiss —

So we began

The World On A Perfect Day

All day it rains a steady rain

We can’t work in the gardens and fields

We hear the birds while we wait for the rain to end

The rain never ends

We watch the rain in the trees

We are surrounded by woods

We make love at lunch

————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

AFTERLIFE ~

R E A D     M E





Every one 
of the book blurbs
on this book
are 
dead-on
and to be
believed

THOMAS JAMES ~

T H O M A S     J A M E S

by

Lucie Brock-Broido

TOGETHER STILL ~

R E A D      M E

Seagull Books 2017

DO YOU HAVE A BAND? ~

M O R E !

JAMES WRIGHT ~

Farrar, Straus Giroux 2017

JAMES WRIGHT      HORSE      ROBERT BLY

ANGELA EASTERLING ~

THE FORCE ~

Unfortunately Don Winslow, while still a crime writing force,

seems to be writing more for the big screen rather than

a great book read. Read his The Cartel, where the first

100 pages of an engrossing tale will hold your

feet to the fire, whereas in The Force you

may slog for the first 100 pages

enduring a main character

that seems cut right

out of one played

by Josh Brolin

in the

film

American Gangster.

Fine in the film.

Tedious here.

But it picks up by about page 200

in a book that goes over 400 pages.

If you're a crime writer fan, you'll hang in there.

Expect a movie.

[BA]

Morrow 2017

UP THE TRAIL ~

Up The Trail

I could see the hawk fly off

Through the trees but you didn’t —

So I felt like I didn’t

The Way

I can’t tell

If it’s fighting

Or love the way

The two songbirds

Shoot upward

Wings threshing

Flying way high

Into the snow

Falling as tail-

Feathers unfold

Into one fan

Baker

Kitchen spotless —

But flour

On her lips

While Deep Snow

Falls In The

North Woods

clear

clean

tea

cups

in

the

kit

chen

Sure

The cat hides away all

Day asleep and thinks nothing

Of coming out and wanting a kiss

————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

FAY CHIANG ~

F A Y      C H I A N G

~

L I S T E N !

BALLAD OF A CARPENTER ~

THOMAS BERNHARD ~

My Great-Grandfather Was A Lard Merchant




My great-grandfather was a lard merchant,

and today

some still recall him

between Henndorf and Thalgan,

Seekirchen and Kostendorf,

and they hear his voice

and draw

together at his table,

which was also the table of gentlemen.

1881, in the spring,

he made up his mind for life: he planted

grape vines along a wall outside the house

and called the beggars together;

his wife, Maria, the one with the black ribbon,

gave him a further thousand years.

He invented the music of pigs

and the fire of bitterness,

he spoke of the wind

and of the wedding of the dead.

He would give me not one slice of speck

for my despair.




——————————————

Thomas Bernhard
translated by James Reidel
COLLECTED POEMS
Seagull Books 2017

NEVER GONE ~

ERNEST HEMINGWAY ~

There are now a number of fine biographies now circulating

all written by women

and each one a powerful contribution

to the world of letters —

Bannos on Vivian Maier, Herrera on Noguchi,

and now Mary Dearborn on Hemingway

possibly the finest single volume biography

of Ernest Hemingway to date.

It may be because it takes a woman to see straight through a man.

And for the first time, we may finally have a balanced eye and report

as to the lives and struggle of "Papa's"

four wives.

[BA]

T-MODEL FORD ~

MIRIAM ~

ISRAFEL ~

THOMAS A. CLARK ~

Yellow & Blue

                                    a selection



on a morning early
when no one
is around
the scree slope
tumbles into
the green lichen









an insult
hurled in the face
a pebble-dash
of raindrops









the rain-drenched
cloudberries
taste of earth
and cloud









rain is falling
there and here
on an earth
or ground
repeatedly affirmed
as if it were
unbelievable









lie back in the heather
the winds are silk
cloths drawn lightly
over the slopes
the cheek bones









consonants with varied
points of articulation
palatalized and rounded
sibilants affricates
clicks clacks diphthongs
a burn or babble
of open vowels









older than looking
this listening older than listening
this lonesome
touch









it takes a lot
of noise to clear
old sunlight
from pine woods









light that might
spread indefinitely
never to be known
is trapped in leaves
and pulled down
through the tree canopy
around everybody









nothing hides
in the abandoned places
no household gods
no folded spaces
flint left in the wall
long idle









a jug of water
a chink of light
a twist of smoke









wash it in the burn
dry it on a thorn
sew it with a needle
with pure white thread
putting the iron on it
press it and warm it
place it crisp and folded
in the right hands








neighbors on the doorstep
nomads at a border





——————————

Carcanet 2014