DENISE SWEET ~

Palominos Near Tuba City


In the desert of burning dreams, of armadillo and centipede,

I would call this night pitch dark back home

I would watch for any star to pass into dream song



or point of light called planet to whirl and twist like

a tiny pinwheel swallowing me to its vanishing point.

Here under pewter sky with words out of breath



I chase poems down like wild mares into fenced corrals

I watch close calls with wisdom rear and kick

against the fences of good judgment.



I used to think the skies brought them home,

thundering hooves and swollen bellies, ready to speak

and fire the dry bony floor, sulphuric aroma real as rain.



But now, the horses of white lightning gallop toward me;

afraid of nothing, they rush with an eye for hesitation

ready to brush up against my heart with their horse madness.



Here, it is the rider standing in the wavering heat, erect

and indisputable as a lightning rod braced in the open.

I stand my ground and wait, ready to hold on for dear life.



———————————

Denis Sweet
Palominos Near Tuba City
New & Selected Poems
Holy Cow! Press, 2018

ROBERT HEDIN ~

  

Pollen



For weeks it was our weather,

Clouding the air for days,

A fine bright storm that billowed

Over barns and feedlots,

Making all the livestock shine,

The horses one color.

And like luck I wanted it to last,

To have it there each morning

When I milked, the stalls

And stanchions shining,

The udders all dust with light.






Afterward




Afterward everything hung in perfect balance. Light and

dark, heaven and hell. We weighed our words carefully and

never went outside. We just wandered the house, one desolate

room after another, afraid anything we'd say, even the

slightest comment, would bring the day crashing to the

floor. And so finally we settled on no words at all, and lost

ourselves in little things — watering the plants, straightening

the books on the bookshelves — both of us wondering how

long it could last. It was like some great scale, so fragile, so

delicately calibrated, even the dust was a factor, could tip

the day one way or another.






Whiteout




Here on this ridge

The only color

Left is you,

And soon you too will fade.

The spruce have long

Returned to birch,

and the birch

Are quietly

Turning to snow.





—————————————
Robert Hedin
At the Great Door of Morning  
Copper Canyon, 2017

ROLF JACOBSEN ~

When They Sleep


All people are children when they sleep.

There's no war in them then.

They open their hands and breathe

in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.



They pucker their lips like small children

and open their hands halfway,

soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.

The stars stand guard

and a haze veils he sky,

a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.



If only we could speak to one another then

when our hearts are half-open flowers.

Words like golden bees

would drift in.

God, teach me the language of sleep.


————————

Rolf Jacobsen
from At the Great Door of Morning / Robert Hedin
translated by Robert Hedin
Copper Canyon, 2017

HEAVEN LAKE (12) ~

Hermit Advice

Don’t answer the door

It’s almost always bad news

Regular Advice

Always answer the door

It could be what you’ve been waiting for

Rain Song

Rain all day —

The lilacs bow

Rain all day —

Heads to ground

Geese graze

Rain all day —

What is green

Is greener

Rain all day —

The bucket splashes

Rain all day —

Tulips fold

Rain all day

I run again

Like a kid

Rain all day —

Rain all night

Out To Sea

Strange how I found a

golf ball way out in the

woods on the trail —

a sign of land

Lobsterman

He showed us his firewood

Drifts he called it

Pulled from the sea

Split posts of spruce

Heating the room

Lighting the maps

—————————

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018

OLAV H. HAUGE ~

It's the Dream


It's the dream we carry

that something wondrous will happen,

that it must happen —

that time will open

that doors will open

that the mountain will open

that springs will gush forth —

that the dream itself will open,

that one fine morning we'll drift

into a harbor we didn't know was there.





Poem


If you can make a poem

a farmer finds useful,

you should be happy.

A blacksmith you can never figure out.

The worst to please is a carpenter.






I Have Three Poems


I have three poems,

he said.

who counts poems?

Emily tossed hers

in a trunk,I

doubt if she counted them,

she simply opened another tea bag

and wrote a new one.

That was right. A good poem

should smell of tea.

Or of raw earth and freshly cut wood.





——————————————

Olav H. Hauge
from At the Great Door of Morning / Robert Hedin
translated by Robert Hedin
Copper Canyon, 2017

VIEUX FARKA TOURE ~

PAUL AUSTER ~

Quarry


No more than the song of it. As if

the singing alone

had led us back to this place.


We have been here, and we have never been here.

We have been on the way to where we began,

and we have been lost.



There are no boundaries

in the light. And the earth

leaves no word for us

to sing. For the crumbling of the earth

underfoot



is a music in itself, and to walk among these stones

is to hear nothing

but ourselves.



I sing, therefore, of nothing,



as if it were the place

I do not return to —



and if I should return, then count out my life

in these stones: forget

I was ever here. The world

that walks inside me



is a world beyond reach.




——————————

Paul Auster
Collected Poems
Overlook Press, 2004

BHARTRIHARI (Buddhist Hermit) ~

———————————

Her quick eyes

and animated mouth

unsettle me.

So, of course,

her uplifted breasts,

full lips —

soft fruits for the hungry.

But why should a

single wisp of hair,

stroked beneath her naval like some

classic

line of poetry,

reduce me to such

anguish?

                                                                                 K. 119

————————————————

Bhartrihari

Some Unquenchable Desire

Andrew Schelling, Translator

Shambhala, 2018

SANDOR KANYADI ~

Smoke


Smoke has been the sign of human settlement

ever since Prometheus' defiant act,

ever since people settled down to roasting,

torching, scorching and cremating, ever since

human history began its smoldering.



The pale blue smoke of campfires and

the black smoke of plunder, burning stakes,

and crematoria; they both have stained the sun

and its starry vault in this accustomed hey hue.



Puffing on a cigarette I'm sitting high up on a hill,

watching limpid supper smoke weave its way

from the valley across the reclining sunrise;

but it's the sickening fun of burning brains

that tickles my memory for taste and smell.



Could they be burning books somewhere?



———————————

Sandor Kanyadi
Dancing Embers
translated by Paul Sohar
Twisted Spoon Press 2002

KEVIN YOUNG ~

How To Make Rain


Start with the sun

piled weeks deep on your back    after

you haven't heard rain for an entire

growing season    and making sure to face

due north    spit twice into the red clay

stomp your silent feet    waiting rain

rain to bring the washing in    rain

of reaping    rusty tubs of rain    wish

aloud    to be caught in the throat

of the dry well    head kissing your back

a bent spoon for groundwater    to be

sipped from    slow courting rain    rain

that falls forever    rain which keeps

folks inside and makes late afternoon

babies    begin to bury childhood clothes

wrap them around stones    and skulls of

doves    then mark each place well enough

to stand the coming storm    rain of our

fathers    shoeless rain    the devil is

beating his wife rain    rain learned

early  in the bones    plant these scare

crow people face down    wing wing

and bony anchor    then wait until they

grow roots and skeletons    sudden soaking

rain that draws out the nightcrawler

rain of forgetting    rain that asks for

more rain    rain that can't help but

answer    what you are looking for

must fall    what you are looking for is

deep among clouds    what you want to see

is a girl selling kisses beneath cotton

wood    is a boy drowning inside the earth



———————————

Kevin Young
Most Way Home
Zoland Books, 2000

DIETER ROTH ~

 ~ Yale ~

edited by Barry Rosen

HEAVEN LAKE (11) ~

Breaking News

What's to be done with “Breaking News?”

I watch the news with the sound off and read the captions

So there is no sound of anything breaking

A second ago it was a cyclone

Now it's two planes nearly colliding over Indiana

The breaking news is now old news for all the passengers

It's not even news, it's good luck, they're still alive!

We need more good luck on television news —

By the time its breaking news reaches us

The cyclone may have died down to 

A light breeze, there’s no way 

To make news with mother nature

For instance, it's raining as I write this

But probably not as you read this

And if it is, it's just our luck

Millionaires

What to say to

A Mexican gal

Working high off

In the mountains

With a quick greeting

For us to step out

Back and see what

They do — dyeing

Wool over a cast

Iron pinion fire —

The dyes stir with

Wool skeins in two

Deep tubs boiling as

Bare armed she works

Ingenious pulleys to

Lift out and bleed

Magnificent colors —

Nothing like we see

Anywhere else in old

Town until we look up

To the sky, and another

Worker drapes the dipped

Wool over makeshift

Drying racks, neither

Women bothering much

To wear their masks

For the wicked vapors

Since out of nowhere

In the smolder of heat

And poisons she says

They are both

“Going to win the

Lottery” — fast toothy

Grins — “Yep, going

To win big-time

A million bucks!”

Cross Country

In all our windows

It’s the moon

On the train

Mother Earth

Lonesome far

Out in the snowy woods — 

When we wanted

A friend to visit

We built

A snowman

—————————

Bob Arnold

Heaven Lake

Longhouse 2018