SHELLEY ~

Heathcote Williams and Shelley

 please link and travel well:

http://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2012/12/shelley-at-oxford-a-timely-poem-for-christmas.html

http://www.huxleyscientific.com/books/shelley/

BOTANY ~

 

                     Duckweed

Afloat on their own reflection, these leaves
with roots that reach only part of the way,
will fall asleep at the end of summer,
draw in their skirts and sink to the bottom.





                    

                    Foxglove

Though the corolla dangles upside down,
nothing ever falls out, neither nectar
nor loosening pollen grains: a thimble,
stall for the little finger and the bee.


                  


                       Dock

Its green flowers attract only the wind
but a red vein may irrigate the leaf
and blossom into blush or birthmark
or a remedy for the nettle’s sting.


                


                       Orchid

The tuber absorbs summer and winter,
its own ugly shape, twisted arms and legs,
a recollection of the heart, one artery
sprouting upwards to support a flower.



______________________


Michael Longley
from Collected Poems
Wake Forest University, 2007

New from Bob Arnold! (Says Susan)


 

~   3 BOOKS   ~

FREE SHIPPING!

Order through Paypal and make your choice ~ this offer is for U.S. orders, please inquire as to international mailing

Bob Arnold, Individual Books

Yokel, postpaid $18.00 USD    I'm In Love, postpaid $18.00 USD    Beautiful Days, postpaid $18.00 USD    Set of Three, postpaid $40.00 USD

HANDS UP! ~

How many gun are sold in the US each year?
 Completed .40 caliber cartridges, above, are seen at Stone Hart Manufacturing, Miami, Florida. 

If you want to find out exactly how many guns are sold in the US each year, then the figures are not recorded.


However, if you want to know how many applications there are to buy guns each year, then the latest data from the FBI shows that 2012 looks like a bumper year for gun sales in America.
In the wake of the Newtown shooting in Connecticut, there is a renewed focus on gun control in the US. And, under US law, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System is used to check if someone can buy a gun from a federal registered dealer before they can walk out of the shop with it.

Before ringing up the sale, cashiers call in a check to the FBI or to other designated agencies to ensure that each customer does not have a criminal record or isn't otherwise ineligible to make a purchase.

The figures show that there have been 16,808,538 applications in 2012 so far to the end of November. If they were approved, that would be enough weapons to stock member of Nato's armed forces nearly five times over. The system has received 156,577,260 applications since 1998 and the US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world.



68,584,078 of the total applications since 1998 have been for 'long guns' such as rifles, usually a minimum length of 16 inches (40 cm) for rifle barrels - that is 43.8% of all applications.
The figures are also broken down by state - and they show that of those 16.8m applications, a huge amount come from Kentucky: 2,329,151, followed by Texas with 1,196,176 applications.


If you look at those figures by population for 2012, then Kentucky has had 535.78 applications for every 1,000 people in the state, followed by Montana with 116.95. The US average for 2012 is 53.94.
Of course, not all applications are approved. Reasons for denial include being convicted of a crime in the last two years, having a dishonorable discharge from the military or mental health problems. The latest figures show that being convicted of a crime (which is the easiest to check after all) is responsible for 58.65% of the 976,255 denials under the system.


The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also records figures for weapons stocked under the National Firearms act, which regulates and taxes many of the most serious weapons. It shows a record high in these weapons being processed this year.

The full data is below. What have we missed and what can you add?

Data summary

NICS applications by state

Click heading to sort table. Download this data

STATE	TOTAL APPLICATIONS, NOV 1998 TO NOV 2012	TOTAL, Jan to Nov 2012	2012 Rate per 1,000 population
SOURCE: FBI These statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS. They do not represent the number of firearms sold. Based on varying state laws and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale. from The Guardian (UK)  Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
UNITED STATES	156,577,260	16,808,538	53.94
Alabama	3,749,099	350,780	73.30
Alaska	714,007	72,904	102.09
Arizona	2,675,937	290,868	45.35
Arkansas	2,514,731	207,363	70.98
California	10,714,573	981,798	26.29
Colorado	3,736,952	361,385	71.59
Connecticut	1,810,014	208,250	58.24
Delaware	256,059	25,098	27.89
District of Columbia	2,170	398	0.66
Florida	5,957,840	699,974	37.16
Georgia	4,559,627	386,562	39.80
Guam	5,934	819
Hawaii	121,737	15,414	11.31
Idaho	1,243,607	115,927	73.79
Illinois	8,399,271	923,920	71.95
Indiana	3,300,627	404,259	62.28
Iowa	1,530,528	128,293	42.06
Kansas	1,673,605	175,427	61.36
Kentucky	15,118,518	2,329,151	535.78
Louisiana	2,987,951	266,593	58.65
Maine	790,550	79,418	59.83
Mariana Islands	296	5
Maryland	1,239,350	117,432	20.30
Massachusetts	1,567,707	185,202	28.25
Michigan	4,817,185	370,960	37.56
Minnesota	3,516,313	385,075	72.51
Mississippi	2,390,007	180,121	60.65
Missouri	3,804,462	432,060	72.06
Montana	1,253,675	115,893	116.95
Nebraska	742,160	70,454	38.50
Nevada	1,076,544	123,943	45.83
New Hampshire	894,061	108,531	82.42
New Jersey	634,408	75,804	8.61
New Mexico	1,338,322	121,882	59.00
New York	2,849,970	290,299	14.97
North Carolina	4,427,820	415,284	43.44
North Dakota	590,720	73,878	109.51
Ohio	4,918,014	526,684	45.65
Oklahoma	2,841,850	307,245	81.71
Oregon	2,347,894	222,795	58.04
Pennsylvania	8,156,636	835,293	65.68
Puerto Rico	115,421	13,772	3.70
Rhode Island	169,915	20,180	19.17
South Carolina	2,320,334	265,276	57.21
South Dakota	744,106	73,658	90.20
Tennessee	4,166,503	432,200	67.98
Texas	11,724,997	1,196,176	47.37
Utah	2,967,949	198,091	71.37
Vermont	310,812	29,662	47.39
Virgin Islands	9,320	370
Virginia	3,524,638	371,267	46.27
Washington	3,631,035	444,762	65.96
West Virginia	2,059,912	191,550	103.30
Wisconsin	2,974,560	413,842	72.71
Wyoming	587,027	53,480	94.73

HEART ~

Some of what President Obama did tonight 

in Newtown, Connecticut

The family of Emilie Parker, who was 6, and a victim, released this photograph to the public

also:

"Human rights lawyer and law professor Bill Quigley writes that while the President offers condolences to the families of the 20 children shot in the massacre in Newton, Connecticut, he must also remember the countless children across the globe who die in tragedies every day, including "the 231 children killed in Afghanistan in the first 6 months of this year."

And on Friday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated in a report that ongoing violence in Afghanistan was taking an “unacceptable toll” on civilians, with an increase in civilian casualties of 28 per cent between 1 August and 31 October compared to the same period last year.

"Women and children are often the victims of the war between the Taliban and US-led Nato and Afghan forces, now in its eleventh year," the Irish Times writes in a report on Monday's blast."
(from "Common Dreams")

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/12/17

BRIDGE ~

Max Brod and Franz Kafka

Because of Brod, we have Kafka ~

as executor he disobeyed Kafka's instructions to incinerate his life's work

and instead became his biographer

guardian angel


________________

The Bridge

I was still and cold, I was a bridge, I lay over a ravine. My toes on one side, my fingers clutching the other, I had clamped myself fast into the crumbling clay. The tails of my coat fluttered at my sides. Far below brawled the icy trout stream. No tourist strayed to this impassable height, the bridge was not yet traced on any map. So I lay and waited; I could only wait. Without falling, no bridge, once spanned, can cease to be bridge.

It was toward evening one day — was it the first, was it the thousandth? I cannot tell — my thoughts were always in confusion and perpetually moving in a circle. It was toward evening in summer, the roar of the stream had grown deeper, when I heard the sound of a human step! To me, to me. Straighten yourself, bridge, make ready, railless beams, to hold up the passenger entrusted to you. If his steps are uncertain, steady them unobtrusively, but if he stumbles show what you are made of and like a mountain god hurl him across to land.

He came, he tapped me with the iron point of his stick, then he lifted my coattails with it and put them in order upon me. He plunged the point of his stick into my bushy hair and let it lie there for a long time, forgetting me no doubt while he wildly gazed around him. But then — I was just following him in thought over mountain and valley — he jumped with both feet on the middle of my body. I shuddered with wild pain, not knowing what was happening. Who was it? A child? A dream? A wayfarer? A suicide? A tempter? A destroyer? And I turned around so as to see him. A bridge to turn around! I had not yet turned quite around when I already began to fall, I fell and in a moment I was torn and transpierced by the sharp rocks which had always gazed up at me so peacefully from the rushing water.

_________________

Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

from Collected Stories (Everyman)

"Stories Unpublished in Kafka's Lifetime"

it was all day yesterday afternoon, as Sweetheart drove, I read aloud these shortest of stories by Kafka

WOMEN ~

I watched for hours and hours and hours through Friday all this heartache from a one-shooter slaughter of small children and others in Newtown, Connecticut. It's quickly too much. The fact that the childrens' torn and dead bodies were being left in the school all night was already too much to bear. It's evident while men are storming the grounds in heavy artillery, which is also way too much, the women are a standout during this tragedy — including even the women in the media. I was struck by this teacher, who survived the shooting, and her actions with children that she had hustled into a bathroom and just waited. Imagine imagine just imagine this. When she came to the moment in her story that she looked at the children and realized someone had to tell them they were loved. . .she had me in the palm of her hand.

MORE MINNESOTA HUMOR
MEETS MORE MUSIC ~

Leo Kottke once played trombone




 

ACROSS THE STREET ~

LEO KOTTKE

http://music-illuminati.com/interview-leo-kottke/

GOOD START ~

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/three-arrested-in-connection-to-rate-rigging-scandal/?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/07/16/business/dealbook/20120716-libor-interactive.html

Russell Libby ~

Dear Russell,

I had no idea the next time I'd hear from you would be via the New York Times obituary page. You famous wonder-jack, you! Who sent me his books of poems, or just a sheaf of poems at will, as a friend. A friend I never got to meet, and what a shame. You were such a good man, Russell, and the best part of this is every part of that goodness will remain since as a farmer, family man, husband, and neighbor you put it back into the soil. Gave it to Maine. I'm going to miss your short but sweet letters telling me how you chimed into my Birdhouse blog each day, and shared some of your day with me. Heck, that's how we met! You bought my books and took those other books I tucked in as extra. The cancer came and it seemed you had it beat, but I can see in this film below you're doing your ever loving best to stay above the grade, seriously hurt as you were. The grand teacher. The quiet poet. The one animals and birds and the wind already miss. It's very important that those that had never heard of you (impossible in Maine) knew you were with us.

http://www.wcsh6.com/rss/article/220013/10/Bill-talks-with-Russell-Libby

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/us/russell-libby-organic-farming-advocate-dies-at-56.html?ref=obituaries

Applied Geometry

Russell Libby

Applied geometry,   

measuring the height   

of a pine from   

like triangles,   

Rosa’s shadow stretches   

seven paces in   

low-slanting light of   

late Christmas afternoon.   

One hundred thirty nine steps   

up the hill until the sun is   

finally caught at the top of the tree,   

let’s see,   

twenty to one,   

one hundred feet plus a few to adjust   

for climbing uphill,   

and her hands barely reach mine   

as we encircle the trunk,   

almost eleven feet around.   

Back to the lumber tables.   

That one tree might make   

three thousand feet of boards   

if our hearts could stand   

the sound of its fall.

see Russell's book
Balance: A Late Pastoral 
 (Blackberry Press, 2007)

EAST MEETS WEST ~

RAVI SHANKAR

( 1920~2012 )

"Ravi Shankar, whose formal name was Robindra Shankar Chowdhury, was born on April 7, 1920, in Varanasi, India, to a family of musicians and dancers. His older brother Uday directed a touring Indian dance troupe, which Ravi joined when he was 10. Within five years he had become one of the company’s star soloists. He also discovered that he had a facility with the sitar and the sarod, another stringed instrument, as well as the flute and the tabla, an Indian drum."

please read more:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/arts/music/ravi-shankar-indian-sitarist-dies-at-92.html?hp

ARCHIVE ~

A MOTHER USING ONE ARM STOPS A TRAIN TO LET SMALL ENGINEER SON OFF

_____________________




MORE TRAIN RIDES:

http://longhousepoetryandpublishers.blogspot.com/search/label/American%20Train%20Letters

photo © bob arnold

WATERWORLD ~

hphttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/science/project-seeks-to-map-and-reduce-ocean-noise-pollution.html?hp

LOVE LIBRARIES ~

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/10/uk-lost-200-libraries-2012

SORRY EARTH ~

The wolf that researchers called 832F, left, was shot and killed on Thursday outside Yellowstone National Park's boundaries. The alpha female of the Lamar Canyon pack, she wore a tracking collar. The wolf with her, known as 754, was killed last month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/science/earth/famous-wolf-is-killed-outside-yellowstone.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1&

~

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/dec/09/yellowstone-female-wolf-dead-hunters

FIREWOOD ~

A most humbling way to stack firewood. Save a tree!

EARTH ~

John Clare

". . .the poems of Clare's that still make a catch in the breath and establish a positively bodily hold upon the reader are those in which the wheel of total recognition has been turned. At their most effective, Clare's pentameters enrage not just the mechanical gears of a metre: at their most effective, they take hold also on the sprockets of our creatureliness. By which I only mean that on occasion a reader simply cannot help responding with immediate recognition to the pell-mell succession of vividly accurate impressions. No one of these is extraordinary in itself, nor is the resulting poem in any way spectacular. What distinguishes it is an unspectacular joy and totally alert love for the one-thing-after-anotherness of the world. Here, by way of illustration, is another one of Clare's sonnets in couplets — perhaps we should call them supplets — picked almost at random from the ones Clare wrote at Northborough during his early and middle forties:



The old pond full of flags and fenced around

With trees and bushes trailing to the ground

The water weeds are all around the brink

And one clear place where cattle go to drink

From year to year the schoolboy thither steals

And muddys round the place to catch the eels

The cowboy often hiding from the flies

Lies there and plaits the rushcap as he lies

The hissing owl sits moping all the day

And hears his song and never flies away

The pinks nest hangs upon the branch so thin

The young ones caw and seem as tumbling in

While round them thrums the purple dragon flye

And great white butter flye goes dancing bye




Rarely has the butteriness of a butterfly been so available. The insect has flown into the medium and survives forever there as a pother of lip movement and a set of a substituted feet in the scansion of the line. And the old pond here is like the cesspool in "The Mouse's Nest", in so far as it embodies for Clare not only the reality of all such places as places, with distinct characters and histories, but also their value as a set of memories and affections at the back of his mind. There is dreamwork going on here, as well as photography. The casual rightness and potency of the thing come from a level of engagement well below the visual; in fact, the whole poem acts as a reminder of how integrated and concentrated a poetic response can be. What is unstated can still be felt as a potent charge inside or behind an image or a cadence, and what lies behind the self-possession, the sureness of tone and grip on place in such a poem is Clare's great feat of endurance in the face of historical and personal crises."



_________________________

SEAMUS HEANEY
from Finders Keepers
selected prose 1971-2001
(Farrar, 2002)

From Helpston in rural Northamptonshire, John Clare was born in 1793.

THANKS! ~

freeloadin' bin black bears nice truck brave woman ladder free!

BREAKFAST ~

( Fence Books, 2012 )

www.fenceportal.org

LIGHT EXCESSES


That's me: the woman sitting

in her house among

many light excesses.

This is winter.

This is a heap of lacking

and the mind's trash

becoming the need

for many fabric protections,

in a way that quilts alone

could never be. I climbed up

on the bed to see you,

and the light from the ceiling

and the dresser lit your face

like an apple orchard on the day

a farmer's favorite horse

rose from the dead.







LEISURE, HANNAH, DOES NOT AGREE WITH YOU (2)

                                                                     — After Catullus


My house disgusted me, so I slept in a tent.

My tent disgusted me, so I slept in the grass. The grass disgusted me,

so I slept in my body, which I strung like a hammock from two ropes.

My body disgusted me, so I carved myself out of it.



My use of knives disgusted me because it was an act of violence.

My weakness disgusted me because "Hannah" means "hammer."

The meaning of my name disgusted me because I'd rather be known

as beautiful. My vanity disgusted me because I am a scholar.



My scholarship disgusted me because knowledge is empty.

My emptiness disgusted me because I wanted to be whole.

My wholeness would have disgusted me because to be whole

is to be smug. Still, I tried to understand wholeness



as the inclusiveness of all activities.: I walked out into the yard,

trying to vomit and drink milk simultaneously. I tried to sleep

while smoking a cigar. I have enough regrets to crack all the plumbing.

I'm whole only in that I've built my person from every thought I've ever loved.







MAYBE A FAREWELL TOUR


Because it had grown warmer in the night

I realized that while I was sleeping



your anger towards me

must have lessened.



Letters to my friends begin: "Writing you here,

among the poinsettias. . ."



and then I drop my pen

and think about how, at this moment,



my mother and her God are alone in a room,

and he is comforting her.




_______________________


HANNAH GAMBLE
Your Invitation To A Modest Breakfast
(Fence Books 2012)