Sunday, March 13, 2016
THE EDGE OF THE WORLD ~
"[what we used to casually call the 'dark ages']
We've seen how plague became the reason,
just like terrorism today, for social regulation, for saying how children must behave,
for taking away a worker's right to choose what work he wanted,
for deciding which of the poor are worthy of help and which are just wastrels.
Plague enforced frontiers that were otherwise wonderfully insecure,
and made our movements and travels conditional.
It helped make the state a physical reality, and give it ambitions."
_______________________
from The Edge of the World
Pegasus Books
2014
Saturday, March 12, 2016
BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS ~
Just a little word here on books —
I'm showing on this page a sample of what I picked up recently from my local library visit,
perhaps a lucky day. Yes, I read through all the books, in fact I adore and desire this. Always
have since I was about fifteen years old and really took off as a reader. Each and every book I post
on the Birdhouse has no strings attached, including the books I design and publish. I seek out
all
these authors personally. I don't have the slightest marketing push to
make any book anything more than it is, so I try to choose wisely on
the author and the book that it won't be a whiner, a flaming ego, the
hottest topic in the hot land of poetry, but rather a great read.
Something I think you may want to read and want to own. Same with every book I
am reading at the moment and I post onto the Birdhouse: no strings,
just a great read. Try it.
Friday, March 11, 2016
CLIFFORD BURKE ~
C L I F F O R D B U R K E
Out of Nowhere
Nineteen Tiny Poems
with Woodcuts from
Ten Thousand Square Ideas
Desert Rose Press
2003
From the master craftsman's hand of the letterpress and binding ~
Thank you, Clifford, for sending a copy this way!
Thursday, March 10, 2016
TIME FOR SOME GOOD NEWS ~
Dindim the penguin makes a 5,000-mile journey from Argentina to a small island near Rio de Janeiro every year to be reunited with a man who saved his life after finding him covered in oil and struggling to survive. João Pereira de Souza, 71, a retired bricklayer, found the South American magellanic penguin in 2011 and nursed him back to health
The Guardian / U.K.
BERTOLT BRECHT ~
Bertolt Brecht and Walter Benjamin playing chess, Denmark, Skovsbostrand, 1934
On the Terms of Exile
No need to drive a nail into the wall
To hang your hat on;
When you come in, just drop it on the chair
No guest has sat on.
Don't worry about watering the flowers —
In fact, don't plant them.
You will have gone back home before they bloom,
And who will want them?
If mastering the language is too hard,
Only be patient;
The telegram imploring your return
Won't need translation.
Remember, when the ceiling sheds itself
In flakes of plaster,
The wall that keeps you out is crumbling too,
As fast or faster.
__________________________
Translated from the German by Adam Kirsch
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
PATSY CLINE LIVE AT THE CIMMARON BALLROOM ~
"Cut July 21, 1961, at Cline's first show after a
near-fatal auto accident. As her studio
recordings couldn't do, the rough,
brassy set catches the spirit of a
woman who never got around
to apologizing for anything."
G R E I L M A R C U S
MY CHEAP LIFESTYLE ~
circa 1980s
My Cheap Lifestyle
After a bourbon
I came in turned on the tube
Lit a joint and watched Monterey Pop
Nearly wept when Janis came on
Janis's legs kicking on stage was a memorable sight
Janis does her sweet little Texas girl smile as
her act finishes. She kicks her heels
And Otis Redding is so sexy.
Millions of young Americans experience religion for the first time
In their lives
Or so the cameras would inform us
I'm concerned about manipulations in this media
How one gains such wonderful power
But of course I'm too tired
Thrilled by the process of bringing down a familiar blanket
Upon my bed
It's nearly fall
Nearly winter
I expect the stars will be bright
The woods full of bears.
S h h h
I don't think
I can afford the time to not sit right down &
write a poem about the heavy lidded
white rose I hold in my hand
I think of snow
a winter night in Boston, drunken waitress
stumble on a bus that careens through
Somerville the end of the line
where I was born, an old man
shaking me. He would've been my dad.
You need a ride? Wait, he said.
This flower is so heavy in my hand.
He drove me home in his old blue
Dodge, a thermos next to me,
cigarette packs on the dash
so quiet like Boston is quiet
Boston in the snow. It's New York
plates are clattering on St. Mark's
Place. Should I call you?
Can I go home now
& work with this undelivered
message in my fingertips
It's summer
I love you.
I'm surrounded by snow.
Harmonica
Don't want to put my glasses on
Cause I don't want to see
Don't want to move again
Because I don't want to
Live
Don't want to love again
Because I don't want
To lose
Don't want to eat again
Because I don't want
To be full
Don't want to drink
Again because I don't
Want to feel quenched
Don't want to sleep again
Because I don't want to
Wake up
Don't want to live in the summer
Again because I don't want
To be hot
Don't want you to kiss me again
Because I don't want to be alive
Don't want to see you again
Because I don't want to vanish
Don't want to ride my bike
Because I don't want to
Get there
Don't want to know my family
Anymore because I don't want
To remember me
Don't want to walk my dog
Because I don't want to be out
Don't want to stay in anymore
Because I don't want to be
Alone
Don't want to be tired anymore
Because I don't want to feel old
Don't want to eat candy anymore
Because I don't want to feel sweet
Don't want to talk to my friends anymore
Because I don't want them to know me
Don't want to sing anymore
Because I don't want to hear me.
Don't want to die anymore
Because I don't want to see god.
Don't want to live anymore
Because I don't want to repeat
E I L E E N M Y L E S
_______________________
I Must Be Living Twice
new and selected poems
Ecco Press 2015
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
GHOSTS ~
Ghosts
March comes and water moves,
The river, ponds, brooks open.
On snowshoes this is the last week
You’ll hike down these banks of
Rotten snow, the last week bridges
Of ice will be there to criss-cross
Down stream, the last week a
Deer carcass will be pinned between
Rocks and white water spray through
The white of her skull — the runoff
Will let her go, or break her to pieces —
You’re aware of this where you step.
Pools of water swirl 5 feet deep,
Maybe her bones will lay down in the
Sand and white pebbles here, it is
The last week to think of any of this.
Beneath your feet of oblong ashwood
And softened leather you sense the newness
Of life — hide has slipped all winter off
The body, it is time to go places.
___________________________
Bob Arnold
Where Rivers Meet
Mad River Press
Monday, March 7, 2016
WILLIAM WANTLING ~
Poetry
I’ve got to be honest. I can
make good word music and rhyme
at the right times and fit words
together to give people pleasure
and even sometimes take their
breath away – but it always
somehow turns out kind of phoney.
Consonance and assonance and inner
rhyme won’t make up for the fact
that I can’t figure out how to get
down on real paper the real or the true
which we call life. Like the other
day. The other day I was walking
on the lower exercise yard here
at San Quentin and this cat called
Turk came up to a friend of mine
and said Ernie, I hear you’re
shooting on my kid. And Ernie
told him So what, punk? And Turk
pulled out his stuff and shanked
Ernie in the gut only Ernie had a
Metal tray in his shirt. Turk’s
shank bounced right off him and
Ernie pulled his stuff out and of
course Turk didn’t have a tray and
caught it dead in the chest, a bad
one, and the blood that came to his
lips was a bright pink, lung blood,
and he just laid down in the grass
and said Shit. Fuck it. Sheeit.
Fuck it. And he laughed a long
time, softly, until he died. Now
what could consonance or assonance or
even rhyme do to something like that?
____________________
W I L L I A M W A N T L I N G
Charles Bukowski on William Wantling
SHOES ~
Shoes
when you're young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you're old
it's just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and just as
well.
__________________
C H A R L E S B U K O W S K I
edited by Abel Debritto
ON LOVE
the third and perhaps more to go in an excellent series drawing on many of Charles Bukowski's favorite subjects — horse racing can't be far behind
Ecco Press, 2016
Sunday, March 6, 2016
SUGARING TIME ~
Sugaring Time
All at once
Off in the distance
Where an old hut
Sinks into the ground
Two small windows lit
And steam bellows
Up into the farmland sky —
You thought it was a fire
Until you tasted the air
______________________
Bob Arnold
Where Rivers Meet
Mad River Press
Saturday, March 5, 2016
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