THE GARDEN OF IAN HAMILTON FINLAY ~

 

J E S S I E   S H E E L E R

I H F

LEON REDBONE ~

 

PAUL McDONOUGH ~

 

Blow Back

once

upon a time

a boat due

for wetdock

maintenance

and repairs

officers

enlisted men

headed to port

...

...

waste

dumped

fore not aft

in briny deep

by mistake

boat sailed

through a cloud

of trash

what was nuclear

gave the hull

a radioactive

veneer

...

...

atomic footprints

of one hundred men

headed for shore

leave

across the deck

of the submarine

tracked

hither and yon

through the night

to

bars

brothels

trailer parks

families and friends

crew pulled back

for safety checks

...

...

but also

running silent

running deep

to keep it

from the press

________________________

Paul McDonough

Electric Boat

Bullhead Books 2024

THE REST IS MEMORY ~

 

R E A D   M E

       Liveright 2025

ALWAYS MICHAEL HURLEY ~

 

M I C H A E L   H U R L E Y

1941 ~ 2025

M O R E

   M O R E   M O R E

  he lived in his songs

APRIL 5 IS NOW ~

 

       Clifford Burke / Virginia Mudd

FORREST GANDER'S MOJAVE GHOST ~

from Mojave Ghost

In the city, a weather of zeros-and-ones

cascades through rising static, while here

in this xeric topography, we fold ourselves

into the circumstances of desert foothills

chewed away by leprosies, toothed winds, and

sudden rains. Will you let me

approach you? Bend forward

and touch consequences, tenderness, leave

the trace of my fingertips

on your throat's dimple, your

clavicle, nipple? Lean in. In

my mouth, the sound of

your name has changed.

___________________

Forrest Gander

Mojave Ghost

New Directions 2024

LISTEN TO BERNIE ~

 

     U.S. Senator, Vermont

GILLIAN WELCH & DAVID RAWLINGS ~

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwUoej-nm6I

LINTON KWESI JOHNSON ~

L I N T O N   K W E S I   J O H N S O N

 

JOHN MILTON ~

R E A D   M E

 

      Gustave Dore

JOHN BRADLEY'S SPELLS ~

 

Stopping By Words Spell

Whose words these are I think I know.

Who can really own them, though.

No one will see me stealing here

To watch these words become my own.

My sturdy tongue must think it weird

To mouth such blather far and near

Between your ears, that lovely space

Where song makes clatter something dear.

You give each word a goodly shake

And ask if this is some mistake.

This tune, so familiar, must leak

From the pillow used by Willy Blake.

These words are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have syllables to keep,

And text to eat before I sleep,

And text to eat before I sleep.

________________

John Bradley

As Blood is the Fruit of the Heart

Dos Madres 2025

NATURAL MAGIC ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Princeton, 2024

BIRDS THROUGH INDIGENOUS EYES ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Princeton 2024

MAKING THEATRE IN KYIV, SPRING 2024 ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Wordville, 2024

JOHNNY ACE ~

 

PICTURES BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN ~

 

R E A D   M E

A N D

      Houghton 2021

THEODORE ENSLIN WOULD BE 100 TODAY ~

 

Little Wandering Snowflake

Ah, little wandering snowflakes are how I watch the day today, now ending March and the thin ice melting and refreezing each day on the pond in the back lot of the yard — ducks we found out there the other morning — a pair of mallards — just imagine the alert green head of the male, the brown muss of the hen hidden nearly in cattail stalks. Ted would. He would want to tramp out there with me to see, stay as long as he wanted, then perk a further walk off somewhere else. We did that one winter day when he visited from Maine. Maine is Ted’s home (largest of the New England states, occupied by more than 5000 rivers and streams, with a state motto Dirigo : I direct), so is New Mexico, Cape Cod, early spring in Philadelphia; early spring anywhere for that matter. Ted is a man at ground level, refurbished daily by the day, and it is clearly your own fortune to meet the man, find the poems and song that come forth from a living earned. Nothing special — and Ted wouldn’t want the undue excitement nor attention — but let’s not upset the magnificence of over one-hundred books of poetry, prose and literary chorales (ie., Forms, Synthesis, Ranger, Axis); and would it be unbelievable in this day and age of stroking champions and making such a fuss over some little big name in the poetry world that Ted would read his poetry across the United States in the old days traveling by bus, selling his books, making friends of dear strangers, recalling fondly those small mountain open towns in Nevada, then returning to his rural home and family, garden and woodcutting detail, tending to the cranberry and blueberry harvest, pressing apples, clamming, a supper table devoted from the land and the sea. The very utensil. It’d be easy to want to quote young Henry Thoreau when thinking of Ted — but why Henry, when we have Ted? —

And if he sings

                          with care,

he sings 

                   a new song

made of old

                     flints struck.

O.K. He sings his source.

and then some. Do yourself a favor and say hello.

                                                — Bob Arnold

       Bob Arnold & Theodore Enslin

Fort Atkinson, WI., 2003

  photo by Susan Arnold

L I N K   T O   T H E   R E A D I N G:

https://mville-edu.zoom.us/j/81912000037

also:

PENN SOUND

WEIJIA PAN ~

 

Ultimatum

If I forget one character a day,

I will have forgotten Chinese

by the end of 2042.

Sooner or later I will forget

my quarrel with my father,

I will forget if

I ever wrote to you.

And the new language

I will have acquired

will not be the same

as the one that bit me.

____________________

Motherlands

Weijia Pan

Milkweed Editions

2023

SHY OF THE SQUIRREL'S FOOT ~

 

R E A D   M E

      North Carolina University Press,

    2024

PRESSURE DROP ~

 

R E A D   M E

Omnibus Books

2024

THE VIETNAM WAR ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Basic 2024

JOSHUA BURKETT and LAU NAU ~

 

JOSHUA BURKETT & LAU  NAU

      Mystra Records

BOB ARNOLD'S FANCY ~

 

A collection of ten new poems

_________________

Anthem

It was the most exciting country in the modern age. It had

mountains and rivers and cities and towns and villages and prairies

and canyons and dead ends and avenues and broadways and even

a sunset strip. A Big Muddy. It was an empire, and a folk song, and

a parade. A myriad of languages and skin color and appearances.

It had been away in world wars and bombed and also been bombed

upon, millions had died and also been born. The sun came up, the

sun went down. Stars at night overlooked all of it. Nothing was

spared. It was working, not perfectly, which is what made every

day involving. If the land was perfect, the sun and moon and stars

wouldn't have been needed. They came to help. All the people had

to do was also help themselves, and one another. It was already

there the way each person was made with two legs and two arms

and hands and two ears and eyes and a mouth that could talk. The

ability to talk! Animals couldn't talk but the people could talk to the

animals, they could talk to anything. To themselves, to a stranger, to

a loved one, while wandering lost in the woods. You are never lost

because you can talk. Until that day you refuse to talk and instead

you lie, which isn't talk, but backward words. And one comes and

lies and then another sees that easy advantage and they lie and soon

a room is lying, a whole building, all the town, into the bright lights

of the cities and soon lies sweep across the prairies. In less time than

you think everything that was working well, is now broken. A vast

majority have decided broken, somehow, is best. There are millions

of people who will now take over and lead this broken existence. In

basic electronics it is called a loose wire. Left to its own devices, it

will burn a house down.

                                                                           ~ Bob Arnold

________________________________

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PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro, Vermont 05303

PABLO NERUDA ~

 from  The Book of Questions 

Why don't the immense airplanes

fly around with their children?

Which yellow bird

fills its nest with lemons?

Why don't they train helicopters

to suck honey from the sunlight?

Where did the full moon leave

its sack of flour tonight?

Is it true that voluptuous crocodiles

live only in Australia?

How do the oranges divide up

sunlight in the orange tree?

Did salt's teeth come

from a bitter mouth?

Is it true that a black condor

flies at night over my country?

Whom can I ask what I came

to make happen in this world?

Why do I move without wanting to,

why am I not able to sit still?

Why do I go rolling without wheels,

flying without wings or feathers,

and why did I decide to migrate

if my bones live in Chile?

And why is the sun such a bad companion

to the traveler's in the desert?

And why is the sun so congenial

in the hospital garden?

Are they birds or fish

in these nets of moonlight?

Was it where they lost me

that I finally found myself?

Why was I not born mysterious?

Why did I grow up without companions?

Who ordered me to tear down

the doors of my own pride?

And who went out to live for me

when I was sleeping or sick?

And which flag unfurled there

where they didn't forget me?

Can you love me, syllabary,

and give me a meaningful kiss?

Is a dictionary a sepulchre

or a sealed honeycomb?

In which window did I remain

watching buried time?

Or is what I see from afar

what I have not yet lived?

_________________________

Pablo Neruda

The Book of Questions

translated by William O'Daly

Copper Canyon Press, 2001