WALKER EVANS ~ MICHAEL LESY ~

 

READ    M E

THE FLY TRAP ~

 

R E A D    M E

ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI ~

 

Figs

Figs are sweet, but don't last long.

They spoil fast in transit,

says the shopkeeper.

Like kisses, adds his wife,

a hunched old woman with bright eyes.

______________________

Adam Zagajewski

True Life

Translated by Clare Cavanagh

Farrar Straus Giroux, 2023

A MOUNTAIN GOAT IS GREAT IN THE CLOSET ~

 

JONI MITCHELL / CALIFORNIA ~

 

(AIN'T THAT) GOOD NEWS ~

 

MILDRED BAILEY ~

 

PASSING THRU ~

 

BILLY HARPER ~

 

MOTHERHOOD ~

 

R E A D      M E

MONGOLIAN NOMADS ~

 

SZILARD BORBELY ~

 

The Matyó Embroidery

On the platter set out in the center of the Matyó-embroidered tablecloth

was the syringe. And around it was silence. My father

gazed at my mother, and she back at him. Slowly,

faltering, he began to speak. I was seized by

an unusual shuddering. I recall that he used the word fate,

and that if   I consented to the injected dose,

we could all fall asleep. We would stay together

for all time. And evade the uncertainty in mortifying 

desperation. A fifteen-year-old’s desire to live 

cried out in me: “No!” To which

my father stated: “If you want to live, then

we too must keep on living, because we can’t leave you

by yourself.” My father was the village doctor. I grew up

with no siblings. My mother’s sister lived next door,

with her husband and two children, Nelly and Gyurika.

In the evenings I prayed: “Merciful Lord of mine,

My eyes have closed, but thine, yet still are open, father mine,

Watch over me as I recline.” Then this: “In one God 

I believe, in one homeland I believe, in the eternal 

divine truth I believe, in Hungary’s re-

surrection I believe. Amen.” Gyuri could not study in Pest,

he went to Brünn. Later, not even there. Then the family

sent him to Toulouse. My mind could not comprehend. Then

one of uncle Vilmos’s servants murdered him with six ax-blows.

He screamed crazed into the courtyard: “That’s what

the stinking   Jew deserved!” I found him, his head smashed open.

I ran to my father, who didn’t even believe it. And one after

the other, the horrors came. Nelly lived in Újvidék 

with her husband. Uncle Ernő was in the middle of shaving when

Hungarians broke into the flat. They were looking for the family. 

The nanny quickly threw a quilt onto six-month-old Tomika,

they didn’t notice him. Peterke was out with Nelly. Uncle Ernő

was executed on the ice of   the Danube. Nelly did not recover.

She knitted pullovers, each more beautiful than the next, so as not

to feel the pain. She went to Pest to learn a trade,

so she could support her children. That’s how it was when

nineteen-forty-four came. On March 15, one of my teachers said,

“You remain seated,” while the class sang the Anthem,

“and be quiet.” On the day of the nineteenth, the Germans

invaded. From then on, it was obligatory to wear the star.

Through the intervention of the medical officer and the Lord Lieutenant, my father

could have stayed out. I had to move to the ghetto with my mother. My

father said “The family should stay together.” All up and down

our street they stood, to bid farewell. Father acknowledged

them, but already he was just waiting

for the end. He had aged by decades. Then the injection,

the one I already spoke of, turned up on the table with the

Matyó embroidery. We sat in the evening underneath the open sky

before being loaded onto the freight cars. The doctor from the next village

drank mercury chloride with his wife. Despite my father’s stomach lavage,

they succumbed by the morning. There were eighty of us in the wagon.

An expectant mother gave birth on the way. But with no water, my father

could not save them. There were those who went mad in the freight cars.

My father taught me always to say “Ich will

arbeiten.” On the seventh of   July the train stopped. Father read 

the plaque, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and said, “We are

lost!” Megaphones blared, “Leave your packages

in the wagons, they will be brought to you later. Special vehicles

are coming for the sick and the elderly, just remain sitting,”

they repeated, “everything will be fine. Men exit

the wagon to the left, women to the right.” As farewell, 

my papa said, “Always be my clever, my obedient, my good 

little girl...    ” That is how we parted for eternity. Tomika and Peterke

were squeezing my hand tightly, but my mother said, “Don’t

you want to sit down? We can walk. Come...    ”

We moved forward in a column of five rows. The bulbs of the searchlights

blinded us in the eyes. A German officer, legs wide apart. He stood there

somewhere far away. Sent us to the right. Had to get undressed

in a room. Then they sent us into another, and the iron door slammed,

bolted shut. Screaming, I pounded on it again and again. We truly 

were lost, as last I understood.... Turning around, the others

already shaved bald. I didn’t recognize anyone.

They stood there like sheep. Upon their skin, the writing of gooseflesh.

——————————————————————————

BY SZILÁRD BORBÉLY

TRANSLATED BY OTTILIE MULZET

Source: Poetry (November 2013)

PROFOUND DESIRES OF THE GODS ( 1968 ) ~

OK: WATCH ON YOU TUBE

 

ROYSTON ELLIS ~

 

R O Y S T O N     E L L I S

NEW FROM LONGHOUSE! ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA ~

_________________________________________________

ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA

Two new titles from Longhouse, Spring 2023

~ Rahim : Dohas   /  Translations from Braj

~ Resting Places, I & 2

A many-varied cover foldout booklet of new translations!

$15 

$20 signed

Free Shipping in USA

others please inquire

TWO-booklets with wrap band filled with new poems &

photographs from India!

$15

$20 signed 

Free Shipping in USA

others please inquire

Issued from Longhouse, 2023

Paypal, use our email of longhousepoetry@gmail.com

[we can invoice you]

or check to ~  Longhouse, PO Box 2454, West Brattleboro, VT 05303
or contact us by email for information

R E A D     M E

 

 

JOHN WATERS TAKES THE CLOSET `

 

SONNY ROLLINS ~

 

S O N N Y     R O L L I N S

Hachette, 2022

THAT GUY, KENT JOHNSON ~

 

K E N T     J O H N S O N

INDIGENOUS CONTINENT ~

 

The Finnish historian Pekka Hamalainen, in Oxford, England. His book “Indigenous Continent” describes a “four-centuries-long war,” in which Native Americans “won as often as not.”Credit...Kalpesh Lathigra for The New York Times

R E A D     M E

STEVIE SMITH ~

 

ELMORE JAMES ~

 

CHIP KIDD ~

 

COLIN BARRETT ~

 

R E A D     M E

RICHARD HOLMES ( BIOGRAPHY ) ~

 

WATCHING THE RIVER FLOW (1971) ~

 

MIKE SEEGER (1964) ~

 

NOVELIST AS A VOCATION ~

 

R E A D     M E

WILL ALEXANDER ~

 

Ghostly Bonding by Kinetic

Since the living body persists

as strange accelerated crimson

what of its post-biology through ideas through ghostly bonding 

      with itself as kinetic?

does it persist within its after-state via chewn reindeer?

or does it unearth itself via post-mortem figment?

because kinetics reabsorb themselves

they remain trenchant

as certain owls

roaming the horizon as signs

___________________________

Will Alexander

Divine Blue Light

    for John Coltrane

City Lights Books 2022

OLAV H. HAUGE ~

Mountains Don't Attract Me Anymore

The mountains don't attract me anymore.

I've lived long enough between cold snowfields.

I still find my way in the woods, listen

to fall wind, and stop at the forest ponds,

engage with streams. Even late in the year

you can find good berries there.

You have to cross mountains if that's not enough.

Peaks stand there, so you know where you are.

______________________

Olav H. Hauge

The Dream We Carry

translated by Robert Bly

Copper Canyon Press, 2008

ELFRIEDE JELINEK / FURY ~

 

R E A D     M E

THE MONK'S RECORD PLAYER ~

 

R E A D    M E

An ugly as sin dust jacket but

the book is a delight to read