Stockholm 1929 ~ Manhattan 2022
daydreaming w/ Bob Arnold
With Home Service are several guest musicians — Andy Findon/saxophones, flute & clarinet; Phil Langham/fiddle, accordion and vocals; Eve Matheson/backing vocals; Philip Pickett/ recorders & shawm, etc. Also John Tams and Bill Caddick plus guest vocals from Linda Thompson. Graeme Taylor plays some sstirring electric guitar solos.
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Replica of Zen Master Ryokan’s hut – Gogo-an |
___________________________________________________
My hut lies in the middle of a dense forest;
Every year the green ivy grows longer.
No news of the affairs of men,
Only the occasional song of a woodcutter.
The sun shines and I mend my robe;
When the moon comes out I read Buddhist poems.
I have nothing to report, my friends.
If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things.
____________________________________
Ryokan (1758-1831)
Tr. John Stevens
T H E G R E A T
Memphis, April 15, 1942 ~ El Paso, July 11, 2022
_____________
A Poem for my 79th Birthday
Please
when it’s over
scatter my ashes
bones
whatever
in the Milky Way.
Thank you.
Lee & Bobby Byrd, El Paso, Texas
1927 ~ 2022
L.Q. Jones was born Justice Ellis McQueen in Beaumont, Texas. His first film role was in the 1955 film “Battle Cry,” playing a character named L.Q. Jones which he adopted for his stage name. He mostly appeared in Western films and TV series, becoming a favorite of revisionist Western director Sam Peckinpah. He played bounty hunter T.C in the Peckinpah film “The Wild Bunch,” and appeared in “Ride the High Country,” and “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” among others. On TV, he had guest roles in “Gunsmoke,” “The Big Valley,” and “The Virginian.” He directed, wrote, and produced the independent film “A Boy and his Dog” in 1975, based on a novella by Harlan Ellison.
Joe Turkel in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” (1980). Mr. Turkel’s ominously stoic presence shifted the film into a darker register.Credit...Warner Bros.
Crying girl
in the canopy
branch held
unstable
a face drawn
pendant-
shaped, from
the bark
marks
how like
a tree is
a woman
crumbling
with age
conversations
inaudible
without a
stethoscope
to the forest
floor and
even then
we whisper.
____________________
Rachael Allen
Kingdomland
Faber & Faber, 2019
You're going to meander
but it's a fine Sierra Nevada
geological, historical, personalized
portrait, with chapters on the
masters of the place:
John Muir, Mary Austin,
Clarence King, Norman Clyde
& Gary Snyder —
for a more unique and
textural Sierra, see Norman Schaefer's
Records of a Broken-Down Mountaineer
______________________
from Songs for Schizoid Siblings
the bird has flown
i'm all alone.
via the edge
comes all knowledge.
were i sure i'd live twice
i'd stop taking your advice.
take it away,
tae it away,
what isn't tomorrow
is yesterday.
buy a chair
and mend a table,
catch a fact,
and write a fable.
almost all lies
are pocket size.
kissing fish was a habit
enjoyed by a rabbit
whose fur was a kind of fin.
he would look at the water
convinced that his daughter
was either without or within.
i think i often look for things
that disinfect what in me sings.
were i not a fool
would i be in school?
gentle, gentle little lamb
even you'll become a ram.
the moon will ruin
the solar tune.
the sun will split
the moon's orbit.
jupiter
will saturn crack,
and bounce
sweet venus off her track.
but pluto soon
and dry neptune
will enverate
the earthen state
and rectify
the martian eye
through which,
like pitch,
a quadrate light
will burst —
and make uranus shatter first.
authority
is you and me.
a man who rides
the lunar tides
rarely decides
on other guides.
__________________
Lionel Ziprin
Songs for Schizoid Siblings
The Song Cave, 2017