JOHN WIENERS ~

 

Children of the Working Class

to Somes

 

from incarceration, Taunton State Hospital, 1972

 

gaunt, ugly deformed

 

broken from the womb, and horribly shriven

at the labor of their forefathers, if you check back

 

scout around grey before actual time

their sordid brains don’t work right,

pinched men emaciated, piling up railroad ties and highway

ditches

blanched women, swollen and crudely numb

ered before the dark of dawn

 

scuttling by candlelight, one not to touch, that is, a signal panic

thick peasants after the attitude

 

at that time of their century, bleak and centrifugal

they carry about them, tough disciplines of copper Indianheads.

 

there are worse, whom you may never see, non-crucial around the

spoke, these you do, seldom

locked in Taunton State Hospital and other peon work farms

drudge from morning until night, abandoned within destitute

crevices odd clothes

intent on performing some particular task long has been far

removed

there is no hope, they locked-in key’s; housed of course

 

and there fed, poorly

off sooted, plastic dishes, soiled grimy silver knives and forks,

stamped Department of Mental Health spoons

but the unshrinkable duties of any society

produces its ill-kempt, ignorant and sore idiosyncrasies.

 

There has never been a man yet, whom no matter how wise

can explain how a god, so beautiful he can create

the graces of formal gardens, the exquisite twilight sunsets

in splendor of elegant toolsmiths, still can yield the horror of

 

dwarfs, who cannot stand up straight with crushed skulls,

diseases on their legs and feet unshaven faces of men and women,

worn humped backs, deformed necks, hare lips, obese arms

distended rumps, there is not a flame shoots out could ex-

tinguish the torch of any liberty’s state infection.

 

1907, My Mother was born, I am witness t-

o the exasperation of gallant human beings at g-

od, priestly fathers and Her Highness, Holy Mother the Church

persons who felt they were never given a chance, had n-

o luck and were flayed at suffering.

 

They produced children with phobias, manias and depression,

they cared little for their own metier, and kept watch upon

others, some chance to get ahead

 

Yes life was hard for them, much more hard than for any blo

ated millionaire, who still lives on

their hard-earned monies. I feel I shall

have to be punished for writing this,

that the omniscient god is the rich one,

cared little for looks, less for Art,

still kept weekly films close for the

free dishes and scandal hot. Some how

though got cheated in health and upon

hearth. I am one of them. I am witness

not to Whitman’s vision, but instead the

poorhouses, the mad city asylums and re-

life worklines. Yes, I am witness not to

God’s goodness, but his better or less scorn.

 

The First of May, The Commonwealth of State of Massachusetts,

1972

____________________________

John Wieners

Behind the State Capitol:

or Cincinnati Pike

The Song Cave 50th Anniversary Edition, 2025

edited by Raymond Foye with new essays by

Robert Dewhurst & James Dunn

STEWART BRAND NEVER STOPPED ~

 

The New York Times

April 24, 2026

SUZANNE LUPIEN BAKES BREAD IN VERMONT ~

 

   2025

LONG NIGHT STEREOLAB ~

 

NADIA ANJUMAN ~

 

In Vain

I don't want to open my mouth, what can I sing

I am despised these days — so what if I sing or not

What can I say of honey when it tastes like poison on my tongue

I curse the brutal fist that smashed my mouth

There is no one in the world I can rely on

So what if I cry, I laugh, I die, I linger

Alone in this corner with only defeat and regret

I was born in vain — my tongue is sealed shut

I know it is spring, my heart, a time of celebration

But I am a clipped wing, I can't fly

Though I have been silent for some time, I remember the song

I pull the words from my heart in an endless whisper

Celebrate that day when I will break from this miserable cage

and emerge, drunkenly singing

I am not that weak willow tree that trembles in the wind

I am an Afghan girl, and so I howl

Dalvae 1378 / Taurus 1999

Bent

I want to guide my poems upright

but the reach of the city's ceilings

                                is low and arched

There isn't even a crack

                            to push through

So, prudently, poems

have fallen asleep

hunched over

There is no vigilant hand

to break through

                            these domes

No one will ever see

                            the limits of their thoughts

Here you live bent

and you die bent

Sunbala 1382 / Virgo 2003

Prison

In this house of silence

there is no one left — the heart gets used to its song

The smell of smoke drifts from her burnt garden

where her grand cypresses wait for the earthquake

that will bring their heads to earth

How tragic that her beginning has come to an end

Anyone who has feathers and the strength

flees in an instant — she spreads her wings

and shoots from this nameless place like a bullet

The rare thrill of her flight is satisfying

She who doesn't find the strength to fly

suffers, prone. in a corner of ruins

Where did the friend who told her stories go?

In this house of silence

hopes die from waiting

saplings die even in spring

In every face you see

a person, broken, fed up with the tedium of days

Even the sunrise is solemn with its dark fate

You have to escape

from this cursed house of silence

to a city of far and invisible horizons

where there is the clamor of life

If you have no wings

go on foot

If you have no legs, leap into the dark

You must plunge into the sea

You must ask the wind

On any path that can sway away from this prison

you have to escape

you have to escape

Dalvae 1379 / Aquarius 2001

___________________

NADIA ANJUMAN

Smoke Drifts 

translated from Persian by Diana Arterian, Marina Omar

World Poetry, 2025

WOODEN SHJIPS VOL. 1 ~

 

TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES (DANIEL ELLSBERG) ~

 

R E A D   M E

   Bloomsbury 2026

THE STORY OF IRAN'S WOMEN-LED UPRISING ~

 

R EA D   M E

         Pantheon Books, 2025

NEW POETRY FROM PALESTINE ~

HAMID ASHOUR

Displaced Dog . . . Homeless Human

One night, a dog entered my house with a group of people who were fleeing the

bombing.  All left the next morning except the nameless dog.  As if he had lived

his whole life in his house and memorized its interior, he escaped the bedroom

for the backyard and the backyard for the roof in rhythm with the surrounding

raids.  He sat n the safest spot in the house before bombs startled him.  He

stayed with me from the beginning of the invasion.  We shared fear, barking,

shrapnel, and canned meat.  We shared the same fate, though I am not his

owner.  We went out sprinting and leaping nimbly among the shells, carrying

nothing but the housekey — barefoot, bare-hearted, our minds bare.  We made a

tent from old rags, reeds, and palm fronds.  We shared it like friends.  When one

of us slept to dream of return, the other guarded the dream and the road.

Gaza, 2024

NASSER RABAH

Nothing Kills Me, Nothing

I die slowly, oh Yiannis Ritsos,

Even slower, oh Nazim Hikmet.

From ancient times, the prisoners pass by asking, Do you remember?

Then I know who I am.

Empty prison, the dead pass by, waving to me.

I invite them into my museum of memory

Yet nothing kills me, nothing.

I die slowly, oh Federico Garcia Lorca,

Even slower, oh Muthaffar al-Nawab.

The timber contemplates itself in the extinguished fireplace.

A toothless ld man starts to sing, but his words jumble.

Daily, a street loses a door, a window.

Airplanes pass by overhead.

Yet nothing kills me, nothing.

I die slowly, oh Nasser Rabah,

Even slower, oh Pablo Neruda.

Two million messiahs ascend to God, barefoot and naked,

Holding out empty cooking pots, perturbing Rome's sleep.

They toss their children's names into the sky,

Until it is raining down song

On me, the keystone, touchstone, taproot of this place.

Yet nothing kills me, nothing.

Gaza 2024 

______________________________________

You Must Live

New Poetry From Palestine

translated & edited by

Tayseer Abu Odeh & Sherah Bloor

Copper Canyon Press, 2025

LUDOVICO EINAUDI TONIGHT ~

 

2022

DAVE MASON ~

 

D A V E   M A S O N

NIGHTMARE OF THE EMBRYOS, (MARIELLA MEHR) ~

 

R E A D   M E

New Directions, 2026

Marcel Duchamp Exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) W/Viewers (Maybe You?) ~

 

    Spring 2026

M O R E !

Photograph by Richard Avedon / © The Richard Avedon Foundation

JOHN BRADLEY'S PLANETARY SWAY ~

 

Instructions on How to Assemble

Your Diagnostic Potato

After I inflated the car and watched it float over the

meadow, I heard a hissing in my left foot.

                                        *

Then the streetlight buried its face in a blanket of moths.

                                         *

Unable to find a spare bed, he spread out on a slice of

bread, pulling the leaf of wilted lettuce over him.

                                           *

That minute has been following me for three days.

                                           *

Once you've unloaded my voice into your speech program,

I can assure you that we'll become the best of friends.

                                            *

Hair will tolerate nearly anything— except atonal weather.

                                            *

He would often talk to his money.  At the vending machine,

before he slid his dollar bill into the slot he'd say, Reggie want

to take a little ride?

                                            *

For some unknown reason, Van Gogh never painted a

portrait of his kidney.

                                            *

Even as we chatted, we could hear our teeth aging faster

than our words.

                                            *

Should you find me slumped and shrinking, please plug my

body-unit into the nearest electric outlet.

                                            *

I speak crooked not because I fear the straight razor, but for

all the mangled shapes left along the oral highway.

                                            *

The instruction manual for assembling the diagnostic potato

said nothing about how to blind its eyes.

                                            *

List my accomplishments now, before the night lays its eggs

in the seam on my coat.

____________________________________

John Bradley

Planetary Sway

Aphorisms for the

Everyday Emergency

Bottlecap Press 2026

Photo by Jana Brubaker

JAKE SKEETS ~

 

If the End of the World

through an open window

smoke settling in the leaves

like a bell ringing

Coming Across A Horned Toad

when I saw a horned toad

watch wildfire on juniper corpse

its eyes mattered pitched

and smoldered open

its name echoed small blood

a room full of breathing

a fire-caught voice

the body is a river is a body

horizon shrouded suddenly

tongue carried into mountain

into memory veined dusk bone spur

a moon trail touch-lit

another cathedral

another paint coat cracking

another

another

I have a tin can for sky

settled in open prisms

prisms between storm

and a god

I still see clouds still

over valley dirt afternoons

in December

when evening turns a dark shore

everything tall

through the pinons

I take note

because it comes back

comes lunar becomes

ash altered in spilled morning

because bloom

because white trees

because rope soot

a river's winded teeth

placid silver

and ankle-deep

under baptized skies

of black dirt

I hear morning

shell blue

and there a horned toad

its skin its flat time

its spine its arrowhead

pollen on its back

or is it sleet rain

braiding along

a dense prayer

I carry morning

_______________________

Jake Skeets

Horses

Milkweed Editions 2026

ICIHKO AIBA: LUMINESCENT CREATURES ~

 

    2025

AMELIA ROSSELLI ~

 

IN THE NORDIC

palm grove of deconsecrated churches,

forced laughter

the city in the palm,

charred life

YOU CAN'T WITHSTAND this winter

modestly

that innocent mud

and with shoes in hand

and naked you cross

that square,

traveling across squares.

LERMON HILL: IMPECCABLE

solitude! imbued with light

I am tonight: not dark

the green estate or ecstatic

the violet march towards

vendetta . . .

THE YOUNG, THEIR roses

akin to you: the young

their roses, akin

to me: the young, their

faults, akin to ours

YOUR WHITE HANDS

forgiving complaints of the poor

or forcing complaints

I play mute bells.

ROSES TIDIED UP

forgettable loneliness

meticulous farmer

best in the world

recognizing yourself as a tank

of covert nullity

spent crushing

death solitude

all the more valuable

if thinly I'm marble.

I'VE REMOVED EACH light

downplayed your spring

his combing his hair.

That indifferent land

and where are you,

born with science.

Seeing myself written on the walls

I crossed the islet.

OUT OF TUNE life,

it blows itself out

hope is plucked

hard to piece itself together

wants nothing to do with it

thoughts are oval then, or opaque.

ONCE THE GOAL is achieved

little refuge in my candid sky

splendid unused sun

our life shivering

with borrowed dismay

if he doesn't speed up I'll compete.

______________________________________

Amelia Rosselli

Document

translated from the Italian by

Roberta Antognini & Deborah Woodard

World Poetry, 2025

ROBBIE ROBERTSON'S INSOMNIA ~

 

_____________________________________

Many of the usual suspects show forth and are treated with

Robbie camaraderie — although Robertson's sweet-talk

doesn't move an inch with Hells Angel Sweet William

(Bill Fritsch) and lover of poet Lenore Kandel and a

somewhat troubadour of two wheels himself, who isn't

taking kindly learning that his poem has been withdrawn

from a tribute reading during the concert film "The Last Waltz,"

whereas both fellow San Fransisco laureates 

Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Michael McClure

remain on board. If you are interested, 

you can dig up on-line the full reading

by Sweet William, and later in Robertson's book

find out just why Fritsch is dragging his leg across

the stage to the microphone. For more of Sweet

William, see the Maysles brothers film "Gimme

Shelter" where the Angel, once again,

captivates the stage.

[BA]

    Crown 2026

    R E A D   M E

TALL DWARFS TONIGHT ~

 

TOM McGUANE ~

 

Nov 25, 2022 Mill House Podcast

ELLEN BURSTYN ~

 

E L L E N   B U R S T Y N

       Riverhead Books, 2006

LARRY McMURTRY ~

 

R E A D   M E

    Mariner 

    2026

JEWISH ROOTS, AMERICAN SOIL ~

 

In his new book about Bob Dylan, pictured here in 1974 (with The Band), Harry Freedman implies that elements of the singer’s Jewishness remained central to his art and identity. 

(Jeff Robbins / Associated Press)

R E A D   M E

NEIL YOUNG, OCEANSIDE/COUNTRYSIDE ~

 

     Silver Fiddle Music

     2025

REAL TALK ~ (John Mearsheimer) ~

 

    John Mearsheimer

#JohnMearsheimer #IranWar #USIranConflict #Trump #MiddleEast #Geopolitics #APTNews

ARACELIS GIRMAY ~

 

December

Or that I would run my hand along

the dip in the hill's grey back

up to its withers, feeling

the closeness of its heat,

its inwardness risen and rises and blown away

To be among their small group,

their mouths to the earth, their silences

Uncle is, swishing away the flies

Mother is, pouring black coffee through their hair

Each of us, briefly, a tense

cast into the other's time

Not to fill my ears with the sound of my own motion

but with ear

To hear the low voices of the shadows

To exist without the memory of words

To be traversed by elk, faces, wheels

To learn to stand outside the rooms of light

____________________________

Aracelis Girmay

Green of all Heads

BOA Editions, 2025

JOHN FAHEY'S OLD GIRLFRIENDS ~

 

     Varrick, 1992

CLANDESTINE IN CHILE ~

 

R E A D   M E

   NYRB 2010

TORTOISE ~

 

        International Anthem 2025