OURS ~

A crowd organized by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee sang “We Shall Overcome” in Farmville, Va., in 1966, after a speech by Stokely Carmichael. CreditThe New York Times

R E A D      M E

THE OPEN PRAIRIE ~

THE ART OF LOADING BRUSH ~

R E A D      M E

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS ~

KADDISH ~

R E A D      T H E      P O E M

KEN MCCULLOUGH ~

Early Peonies




the peony buds

   and their very own

      army of ants

  on maneuvers

   don't know tophats

           from tapioca

but a wind

      from the southwest

   they recognize





Seeing Snyder Again in the 80's



He's much the same

              truckin' stride

                        mountain goat demeanor

          Tibetan about the eyes —

                                      a feisty sprite



after his talk

       I come up to him

                     in a coat & tie

      and Italian leather shoes

    — gray in my hair

                          and paunch from citywide

              wheel of parentkarma



           introduce myself



& he cocks his head

             leans back a step

        and eyes me quizzically



I say

   referring to the way I'm dressed

        "Yup, it's me, all right"



He fixes me with a glance

      And

                referring to his own getup

             (short patrician haircut

                                            [Bubbs Creek update]

                   professorial reading glasses

         neat blue suit coat

                                   snappy old tie

                         & buttondown shirt

      — still the earring     [diamonds, now]

& still three humpbacked flute players

                                             on his belt buckle — )

says

            "Yup, it's me, too!"

                          with eye crinkle

                       and gold tooth smile


13:X:83





Joey (2001-2016)
       for Orion and Lynn



our beautiful yellow cat

   who spoke to us so eloquently

  always groomed my beard

      as he did his father

     and his siblings

and even inside

         his dog's ears

died yesterday



     even as he was dying

he smelled like fresh-cut hay



I wept and kissed his forehead

     then each of his pure white boots

   then curled him in a shoebox

           and placed him in the basement freezer

      until next spring

               when we'll bury him

under the lilac hedge

    next to his father



I will forever

      see his upright stripy tail

   cutting through the wildflowers

as he makes his way home




—————————



Ken McCullough
DARK STARS
Red Dragonfly Press
2017

  


   

LONG GOODBYES ~

Author Ursula Le Guin at home with her cat, Lorenzo, in 1996. The writer’s “pleasant duty,” she said, is to ply the reader’s imagination with “the best and purest nourishment that it can absorb.”

Credit                                                                                                Jill Krementz, All Rights Reserved 

             

              1929 (Berkeley) ~ 2018

Nicanor Parra teaching in Santiago, Chile, in 1992. On the blackboard he had written: “Back to democracy for what? So the movie repeats itself? No.” 

   Credit

                                                                                                 Alvaro Hoppe/Associated Press

                                                                                          1914 (Chile) ~ 2018

                                                           

ADONIS ~

"Ali Ahmed Said was born in a small village in Syria in 1930. His choice
of pen name — Adonis — is an indicator of the audacity of both his poetry
and his writings on Arab culture and society. In 1961, this self-proclaimed
Arab Nietzsche published Songs of Mihyar the Damascene, a complex two-
hundred-page collection that many consider turning point in modern
Arabic poetry. Its impact on Arabic poetics has been no less substantial than 
the impact T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" had on English poetics."

— Kareem James Abu-Zeid

R E A D      M E

Yale

2017

EAST SIERRA SONG ~

——————————————

East Sierra Song

I’d climb the clouds

From the highway up

If you came with me

I Notice

Sunburn under her blouse

And more buttons are undone

When she is only

Around me

Taos

the blue of the pool

and the sky and

your eyes I swim

Love Life

Untouched

For 40 years

Either of us —

Except by

Either of us

Tip~toe

Summer dress

Covers you

Barely

————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

VISIONARIES ~

R E A D      M E

BUDDHIST SANCTUARIES OF LADAKH ~

White Orchid Books, 1987

JAMES KOLLER & BERTIE KOLLER ~

BARRELHOUSE BLUES ~

BUSTER KEATON ~

WHERE ART BELONGS ~

R E V I E W

WHERE YOU ARE ~

Where You Are

Fireflies when we

Swim at dark —

One in your hair where you are

Everlasting

Some things never change —

Under your dress

Hours later

Entirely feel

Our river swim

Contagious

Just the way your loose

Hair sweeps your cheek

Loosens me

More

drying off

from her bath

one lasting

water drop

between those

eyes

Purple Japanese Iris

Where you stand

They just about

Touch your lips

—————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

MOSE ALLISON ~

FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY ~

A “missing” poster for Andrew Goodman, James Earl Chaney and Michael Henry Schwerner. 

In 2005, Mr. Killen was sentenced to 60 years in prison for their deaths.

R E A D      M E

SHIRLEY COLLINS ~

AN EVENING WITH GARY SNYDER ~

POWER ~

Ken Letko

——————————


P O W E R




A tornado sway

her hips

through Nebraska



a Right whale

takes a breath

before a nap



a childless couple

adopts a dog

from the pound


——————————

Ken Letko
Bright Darkness
Flowstone Press 2017