SONNY ROLLINS ~

MICHEL PETRUCCIANI ~

DAVE BRUBECK 1964 ~

BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON HOUR ~

SHAKE IT UP ~

———————————

The Library of America

(2017)

One more excellent collection from the

stellar Library staff. It could have

been a cooler cover design but

the editors come to the rescue

with a rockin' line-up of authors —

Luc Sante's essay on Dylan will

stop you in your tracks if you want to rush to the back 

of the book (I didn't, I like savoring)

in the meantime there is Hentoff on early Dylan

Amiri Baraka on R & B

Lester Bangs bangs in (we'd miss him)

Christgau on Prince, Ellen Willis on Janis

of course Tosches on Jerry Lee Lewis

Nelson George swims with Marvin Gaye

Babitz beds Morrison

Robert Palmer shows us Sam Cooke

Klosterman clangs with heavy metal

John Jeremiah Sullivan wastes time with Axl Rose

Wald knows top to bottom The Beatles

Hilton Als gives forth Michael Jackson

Kelefa Sanneh hits on Jay Z

Greil Marcus must end the tome

but one simply shouldn't omit

Paul Nelson squarely with The

New York Dolls

then:

Lillian Roxon

Richard Meltzer

Paul Williams

Evelyn McDonnell

David Hajdu

my goodness

Peter Guralnick!

and I'm still leaving good people out

and so did the editors

not meaning to

but dig

yourself

to 

China

MARTIN LUTHER KING ~

TWO REMEMBERED ~

READ   MORE!

EDITH    SHIFFERT

THE GIRL WHO MARRIED THE REINDEER ~

The Girl Who Married the Reindeer



1


When she came to the finger-post
She turned right and walked as far as the mountains.


Patches of snow lay under the thorny bush
That was blue with sloes. She filled her pockets.
The sloes piled into the hollows of her skirt.
The sunset wind blew cold against her belly
And light shrank between the branches
While her feet shifted, bare,
While her hands raked in the hard fruit.


The reindeer halted before her and claimed the sloes.
She rode home on his back without speaking,
Holding her rolled-up skirt,
Her free hand grasping the wide antlers
To keep her steady on the long ride.



2



Thirteen months after she left home
She travelled hunched on the deck of a trader
Southwards to her sister's wedding.


Her eyes reflected acres of snow,
Her breasts were large from suckling,
There was salt in her hair.


They met her staggering on the quay;
They put her in a scented bath,
Found a silk dress, combed her hair out.


How could they let her go back to stay
In that cold house with that strange beast?
So the old queen said, the bridegroom's mother.


They slipped a powder in her drink,
So she forgot her child, her friend,
The snow and the sloe gin.



3



The reindeer died when his child was ten years old.
Naked in death his body was a man's,
Young, with an old man's face and scored with grief.

When the old woman felt his curse she sickened,
She lay in her tower bedroom and could not speak.
The young woman who had nursed her grandchildren nursed her.


In her witch time she could not loose her spells
Or the spells of time, though she groaned for power.
The nurse went downstairs to sit in the sun. She slept.
The child from the north was heard at the gate.



4



Led by the migrating swallows
The boy from the north stood in the archway
That looked into the courtyard where water fell,
His arm around the neck of his companion —
A wild reindeer staggered by sunlight.
His hair was leached, his skin blistered.
He saw the woman in wide silk trousers
Come out of the door at the foot of the stair,
Sit on a cushion, and stretch her right hand for a hammer.
She hammered the dried broad beans one by one,
While the swallows timed her, swinging side to side:
The hard skin fell away, and the left hand
Tossed the bean into the big brass pot.
It would surely take her all day to do them all.
Her face did not change though she saw the child watching.


A light wind fled over them
As the witch died in the high tower.
She knew her child in that moment:
His body poured into her vision
Like a snake pouring over the ground,
Like a double-mouthed fountain of two nymphs,
The light groove scored on his chest
Like the meeting of two tidal roads, two oceans.

————————————

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Selected Poems
Wake Forest University Press

RACHEL WETZSTEON ~

Blue Octavo Haiku

Related Poem Content Details

           after Kafka

In fat armchairs sat

indolence and impatience,

plotting my downfall

      *

A wicked cage flew

across the long horizon

searching for a bird.

      *

I burned with love in

empty rooms, I sternly turned

knives within myself.

      *

“Behold the bright gate,”

the keeper said. “I am now

going to shut it.”

      *

Hardly was the road

swept clean when ah! there appeared

new piles of dry leaves.

      *

But nothing could kill

a faith like a guillotine,

as heavy, as light.

      *

Happiness? Finding

your indestructible core;

leaving it alone.

      *

Into the heavens

flew a breathless legion of

impossible crows.

________________

Rachel Wetzsteon

from Sakura Park

Persia Books 2006

RACHEL WETZSTEON

GUIDE ~

Guide

Today is my sister's birthday

My sister who took her life

It's the first time since she died

That I have remembered this day of her birth

When she was alive, I always remembered, it's what

You do when someone is living, you think of them

Now that she is dead I have no way of getting to her

That couldn't have been her intention at taking her life —

She always wanted someone to call her, visit her, be by her side

But now we can't get to her

Death is after all a failure

To see all that I saw today and she hasn't

Who first taught me where to look

Forgiveness

After the flood

a true flood

where houses

and forests

and people

were washed

away, truly a flood,

I worked on an island

lodged of full trees that

were lodged with large stones

lodged with mud lodged with

sewer grasses lodged with more

trees and I cut and cut for weeks on

end until I had piles of wood back

at home, and I cut through all

these trees to get to the river

a most beautiful river

In A Hollow

We've walked from the center of town

to this park on private property

donated by the people who own

the land as a tribute to their son

who died 20 years ago

there is no one here but us

no part of the neighborhood seems awake

a new trophy home is being built down the way

the lumber piles, the dirt piles, the open shapes 

   where windows will be

the boy died at age 20 so now he would be 40 no longer a boy

the park is a hollowed retreat of woodlands and streams

ideal pathways that curl and go hidden

some mother or father or both have put a great

deal of thought and wonder into this place

and the boy is dead but not to them and not even to me

I walk a stone staircase of well chosen flat stone up a rise

to a structure where inside one can sit on handmade seats

around a handmade table where a notebook has been

left to write down any handmade thoughts

I write in there that this boy is very lucky

I know the place is natural and left simple and loved

where any spirit or being just couldn't resist returning

I've been there twice

I've felt the boy twice  



————————————— 

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL   DAYS

Longhouse

CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE ~

REQUIRED READING ~

Tim Duggan Books, 2017

ROD SERLING ~

REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT ~

PATTERNS ~

THE COMEDIAN ~

MIRROR IMAGE ~

BOB DYLAN SPEAKS HIS BOGGY CREEK ~

O NAVIGATOR ~

O Navigator

I’m an innocent bystander —

it’s my lover who hikes

up river for mail and some-

times meets curious things

along the way, like the fellow

in the car just now, after the

flood in this valley, who needs

to get to “west layden road” — my

lover corrects him, “you mean west

leyden road?” “ yes”, he says, then adds

“my navigator says it’s this way”

pointing to his dashboard, then southward

“but there isn’t any road this way since the flood”

she points south

“but my navigator says it is this way”

he points south

she kindly continues, “it is this way”

pointing south

“but the road’s gone”

still pointing

inch by inch

pointing someone

back to earth

Nite~Nite

It's a little secret

that I'll tell you

and only my lover

knows and she’s quiet

as sunshine on the

leaves, and it's all

about our little kitten

once upon a time and 

how much it delighted 

her that when I went to

bed far later than she did

I would always turn to the

kitten who would be awake

and active, even at midnight,

and say nite~nite to him be-

fore I climbed the stairs to

join my lover warm in bed —

yes, I admit, it is a beautiful

life I have, and now that the 

kitten is a cat my love asks and 

really wants to know do I still 

say nite~nite before I go to bed

to the grown cat who could

pretty much care less —

I do

The Back Back Road

A guy

I've known

the longest

around here

just went

by on his

ATV

cowboy hat

boots and

oxygen tanks

balanced

on his

lap, heavy

smoker is

Ben

——————————

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL   DAYS

Longhouse