BOB KAUFMAN ~

I Have Folded My Sorrows



I have folded my sorrows into the mantle of summer night,

Assigning each brief storm its allotted space in time,

Quietly pursuing catastrophic histories buried my eyes.

And yes, the world is not some unplayed Cosmic Game,

And the sun is still ninety-three million miles from me,

And in the imaginary forest, the shingled hippo becomes the gay unicorn.

No, my traffic is not with addled keepers of yesterday's disasters,

Seekers of manifest disembowelment on shafts of yesterday's pains.

Blues come dressed like introspective echoes of a journey.

And yes, I have searched the rooms of the moon on cold summer nights.

And yes, I have refought those unfinished encounters.

       Still, they remain unfinished.

And yes, I have at times wished myself something different.



The tragedies are sung nightly at the funerals of the poet;

The revisited soul is wrapped in the aura of familiarity.





Walking Parker Home


Sweet beats of jazz impaled on slivers of wind
Kansas Black Morning/ First Horn Eyes/
Historical sound pictures on New Bird wings
People shouts/ boy alto dreams/ Tomorrow's
Gold belled pipe of stops and future Blues Times
Lurking Hawkins/ shadows of Lester/ realization
Bronze fingers—brain extensions seeking trapped sounds
Ghetto thoughts/ bandstand courage/ solo flight
Nerve-wracked suspicions of newer songs and doubts
New York alter city/ black tears/ secret disciples
Hammer horn pounding soul marks on unswinging gates
Culture gods/ mob sounds/ visions of spikes
Panic excursions to tribal Jazz wombs and transfusions
Heroin nights of birth/ and soaring/ over boppy new ground.
Smothered rage covering pyramids of notes spontaneously     exploding
Cool revelations/ shrill hopes/ beauty speared into greedy ears
Birdland nights on bop mountains, windy saxophone revolutions.
Dayrooms of junk/ and melting walls and circling vultures/
Money cancer/ remembered pain/ terror flights/
Death and indestructible existence

In that Jazz corner of life
Wrapped in a mist of sound
His legacy, our Jazz-tinted dawn
Wailing his triumphs of oddly begotten dreams
Inviting the nerveless to feel once more
That fierce dying of humans consumed
In raging fires of Love. 








[ The Night That Lorca Comes ]

THE NIGHT THAT LORCA COMES

SHALL BE A STRANGE NIGHT IN THE

SOUTH, IT SHALL BE THE TIME WHEN NEGROES LEAVE THE

SOUTH

        FOREVER,

GREEN TRAINS SHALL ARRIVE

FROM RED PLANET MARS

CRACKLING BLUENESS SHALL SEND TOOTH-COVERED CARS FOR

THEM

TO LEAVE IN, TO GO INTO

THE NORTH FOREVER, AND I SEE MY LITTLE GIRL MOTHER

AGAIN WITH HER CROSS THAT

IS NOT BURNING, HER SKIRTS

OF BLACK, OF ALL COLORS, HER AURA

OF FAMILIARITY. THE SOUTH SHALL WEEP

BITTER TEARS TO NO AVAIL,

THE NEGROES HAVE GONE

INTO CRACKLING BLUENESS.

CRISPUS ATTUCKS SHALL ARRIVE WITH THE BOSTON

COMMONS, TO TAKE ELISSI LANDI

NORTH, CRISPUS ATTUCKS SHALL

BE LAYING ON BOSTON COMMONS,

ELISSI LANDI SHALL FEEL ALIVE

AGAIN. I SHALL CALL HER NAME

AS SHE STEPS ON TO THE BOSTON

COMMONS, AND FLIES NORTH FOREVER,

LINCOLN SHALL BE THERE,

TO SEE THEM LEAVE THE

SOUTH FOREVER, ELISSI LANDI, SHE WILL BE

GREEN.

THE WHITE SOUTH SHALL GATHER AT

PRESERVATION HALL.

Believe, Believe


Believe in this. Young apple seeds,

In blue skies, radiating young breast,

Not in blue-suited insects,

Infesting society’s garments.

Believe in the swinging sounds of jazz,

Tearing the night into intricate shreds,

Putting it back together again,

In cool logical patterns,

Not in the sick controllers,

Who created only the Bomb.

Let the voices of dead poets

Ring louder in your ears

Than the screechings mouthed

In mildewed editorials.

Listen to the music of centuries,

Rising above the mushroom time.

_________________

Bob Kaufman
Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman
City Lights Books
2019

ROBERT SUND ~

Considering Poverty and Homelessness
                       ( Homage to Basho )




I cannot go back now,

        for what I have not done.

Of what is done,

take — and be kind.

        I am building a voice for my grief.

Alone, on foot,

if years from now I have learned anything,

        I will wander back.

Dust will rise up

on a dry winter road

where no one has walked before.




___________________

Robert Sund
The Hides of White Horses
Shedding Rain
Brooding Heron Press
1982

TONY ALLEN ~

T O N Y      A L L E N

(Lagos 1940 ~ Paris 2020)

THE DEAD ~

                               The Complete Annotated Grateful   Dead Lyrics, Robert Hunter et al . . .

                  Annotations by David Dodd are irresistible

L I S T E N
(forget about listening, the creeps charge you,
go read this interview with David Dodd)

FREE PRESS

2 0 0 5

GENNADY AYGI ~

Now Always Snow

                              to N.B.



like snow the Lord is all there is

when all there is is snow

when the soul is all there is



the snows the soul and light

but still just this

that there are those

like death is all there is



to know that they are even here

darkness is also part of light

when the snows come again

Oh-God-Again-The-Snows

as maybe all that is to come



but there is no way to know for sure

as corpses do and do not exist

oh there is the Papier-Mache-Country

no question what it means to exist

when The People is a verb

that means to not exist



and what does it mean to exist

what's the point of this being

even the Holy Face is just a Mold

that is as if there only is

the country that is Darkness-and-Holy-Face

Epoch-Is-A-Corpse




but there is one thing that exists

when these are suddenly no more

— oh God again the snows! —

they are not just as this one thing is

only Numbness Country



they are such that they are and are not

and only by virtue of this exist

but there are things that only are



a whirlwind as if by a miracle is

in a moment Death-Country is no more

oh God again the snows

the soul the snows and light



oh God again the snows



but should it be that they are not

the snows my friend the snows

the soul and light and snow



oh God again the snows



and snow is all there is





_________________

Gennady Aygi
Into the Snow
translated by Sarah Valentine
Wave Books
2011

RAYMOND ROSELIEP ~

   with their pipes

hunched under spring sky

   old men make clouds







in the widow's veil

stars

blown from dandelion







spring breeze

puffs through the skeleton

of a bird







the farmer talks corn,

pointing where the corn

is talking







my mother stock-still

before the balloon I put

on my father's grave







he removes his glove

         to point out

                              Orion







   walking in the rain

I pass a stranger

                I know





______________________

Raymond Roseliep

HOLLOW CITY ~

R E B E C C A     S O L N I T

YOKEL ( 29 ) ~

Dodge

Glassy shine

Of the old truck

Behind the bush

Beside the barn

5

At the far corner table

Of the fairgrounds in a

Cage nearly hidden by

A sheet thrown over

As if neglected stood up

Rooster with feathers made

Almost mossy but wild and

Dangerous streaks of

Yellows and reds bristle

When I dared to lift

Halfway the sheet

Spring Air

Rainwater —

Enough in the

Flat of a field

For a pair of ducks

To float all day on

6

When pig turns

It’s all head

7

Ahead of us a man

With long open curls

Of gray hair carries

With one hand and leaning

Into his side a cage the

Size of a table holding

Two full-size toulouse geese

And three magnificent slime

Pond green behaved ducks

Many Spring Seasons

What I take to be

Ducklings skittering

Again across the pond

As I watched yesterday

Are old leaves blowing

Over the thinnest ice

8

Kids think

Nothing of

Running 100

Yards to the

Rides running

Back the 100

Yards asking

Us for money

And running

Away the 100

Yards a third

Time laughing

9

Paced off at thirty feet

Pairs of men toss horseshoes —

Some young and careless, others

Older and seasoned, a few older

But having to teach someone a

Lesson — my favorite was the guy

About my age who pitched his

Shoes alone — back and forth

With a ringer every third toss

Dropping softly into the sand —

He never tired, never overthrew,

Scuffed his way stake to stake

And when I left him for a moment

To watch another team finding

Later his lot vacant, shoes picked

Up with him sitting across the

Arena under a tree watching this

10

Favorite places at the fair

Heard far off as we approach —

Bell of horseshoes

Shaking working horse ground

______________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011

WOVEN MANIFESTOS ~

R E A D       M E

Prestel

2019

OLAV H. HAUGE ~

I Open the Curtain





Before I go to bed I open the curtains.

When I wake up I want to see the living dark

and the pines and the sky. I know a grave;

if you're there you do not see the stars.



Orion has arrived now in the west, hunting, hunting -

he has not come any farther than I have.

The cherry tree outside my window is naked and black.

The sky is a bell, dizzingly blue, where the hard

fingernail of the new moon is writing something.







Winter Morning




When I woke this morning the panes were frosted over,

but I glowed from a good dream.

And the stove poured out its warmth

from a woodblock it had enjoyed the whole night.






Across the Stump



It is the roots from all the trees that have died

out here, that's how you can walk

safely over the soft places.

Roots like these keep their firmness, it's possible

they've lain here centuries.

And there is still some dark remains

of them under the moss.

They are still in the world and hold

you up so you can make it over.

And when you push out into the mountain lake, high

up, you feel how the memory

of that cold person

who drowned himself here once

helps hold up your frail boat.

He, really crazy, trusted his life

to water and eternity.







One Word




One word

— one stone

in a cold river.

One more stone —

I'll need many stones

if I'm going to get over.







I Look At the Stamp



I look at the stamp on your first letter.

It's a month or more since it came.

During that time you've haunted this house,

called to me, frightened me, changed

from Ate to a green Erinye.

Today I got your photograph:

it is a girl sitting alone on some logs

near the darkening ocean.




___________________

Olav H. Hauge
Trusting Your Life
To Water and Eternity
chosen & translated by Robert Bly
Milkweed Editions, 1987 

TIM DLUGOS ~

New Music





The lovemaking grows more intense, not less.

Ten million men and women out of work

The price of a sound currency. Tim Page

Brings us "The New, The Old, The Unexpected,"

Two hours of new music every day,

Six hours of sleep, eight of work, and art

Simmers on the back burner with desire

For Fame, for Fortune, Rules: choose one, not both.



The reasons for not moving grow more lame.

Ten million stories in this naked city

And one of them is ours. I'm like Tim Miller

Spraying my name in paint upon my chest,

Reminding me of who I am. A man

By any other name's a refugee.

I shall not back away, but take my stand

Where love and honesty are one, not both.



It gets more complicated with the years

And less so. There must be ten million ways

Of making love, but all I need are three:

The new, the old, the unexpected. Grace

Is like New Music hitting with the foce

Of tidal waves, or like the atmosphere

So clear these mornings we forget it's how

We've always lived and breathed as one, no both.



I touch you on the eyes, and chest, and wrist.

Ten million dollars wouldn't change a thing,

The price of a sound mind. "Tim Dlugos knows,"

Voice-over from an old-time radio

Reminding me of where I used to be.

I'm here, and so are you. To make it art

Is easy when you're musical as we.

Live it or live with it: choose one, not both.




_________________________
Tim Dlugos (1950-1990)
A Fast Life
Collected Poems
Nightboat Books, 2011