ALDEN VAN BUSKIRK ~

St. Louis Poems





God runs a gas station in

    East St. Louis, wears

big blue dungarees.



    What angels in the gold rest rooms,

what music of the organ pumps tonight? O



    Croak not Black Angel, the

truck pulls out to

flame the streets at zero.

        _______________


Gene showed essentially a square attitude

    toward the new myth of mud skinned angels, and when

confronted with the knife in a most

serious "dance of the syllables,"

subtly cooled from exclamation

mark to dash

         __________________


No Splibbins, No Smacks, No Straights.

         __________________


When yr supply is

        depleted, turn

    on w / a stick of garbage

or shoot gold dust from the sun.








After the desertion (a)




Streets empty in gray absence of light

their prints swept away by alto winds

the gods have deserted the city

their shoes hang in Good Will Stores

or writhe in incinerators

Lami's silver shoes among them — faster than

new sneakers for a

flight of thieves —

flame blue at last.

Lami was Joe Angel, Johnny the Fag,

Rimbaud, the Road Runner, myself.

The idea of the image is murdered,

debris wins at last.

Mind is free of imagination at last &

shits gaily in the streets, floods

paper buildings &

shines fresh in the garbage sun.

Citizens' bodies turn, bloat

in eddies, &

flow back to sea.





After the desertion (b)



Gray absence of light.

newspapers blow loosely in the streets like

Spanish galleys crumpling against lamp posts or

curb in tiny convulsions; no tragedy — they

billow off in the next breeze.



The gods have deserted.



Their prints erased by alto winds the

gods have deserted the city.

Their shoes hang in Good Will Stores or

writhe in incineraters — one last dance before



debris wins at last.



Mind has conquested imagination &

shits gaily in the streets,

streams from paper buildings, slime

in the ashen sun.



Bodies putrefy in doorways, only the eyes

flicker short-circuited by the

senses, their eyes convict me,

No they cannot see, they have

abstracted the sun & are lost

in me the dreamer,

only I am not dead for I dream,

my spirit-candle electrifying the

world forever.




_____________________

Alden Van Buskirk
Lami
THE LAST POEMS OF A POET
WHO DIED IN 1961 IN HIS EARLY 20s
collected from his writings by David Rattray
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALLEN GINSBERG
The Auerhahn Society,
San Francisco, 1965

MUSIC BURNS ~

THE UNIVERSAL STUDIOS 2008 FIRE

BACK TO THE LAND ~

R E A D    M E

ARCHIVE (BOB ARNOLD) ~

from Cache, Bob Arnold

Mad River Press

(Richmond, MA)

RAINER MARIA RILKE ~

R E A D      M E

DIRTY OLD TOWN ~

STEVE CASTRO ~

Polar Opposites
                                      __________________________





I just rose from the dead.



"Do you feel tired?" I asked.



A little. I'm also hungry.



Then she hugged me.



"Are you hugging me because I'm about to take your place in the afterlife?"



Maybe? I could also be hugging you because I like you.



"I've never dated anyone who was previously dead before."



I've never dated anyone who's about to die.



"How long do I have?"



Still embracing me, she looked into my eyes and then I knew that we

would kiss. Kiss we did. Her mouth tasted of flowers that had been

placed inside a coffin. I started crying.



"I can taste death in you."



She started crying as well. I wiped the tears from her eyes.



"I wish I didn't have to die," I told her.



Your wish is my command, she said.



Then we lived happily ever after.




__________________

Steve Castro
Blue Whale Phenomena
Otis Books
Otis College of Art and Design
2019

FAR COUNTRY ~

F R A N C O     M O R E T T I

XHIN (VENT) ~

PETER SCHJELDAHL ~

R E A D      M E

I remember Schjeldahl's poetry in the late 60s

one of the many poetry brats of the young

and zestful New York Poets scene

(after Ashbery, O'Hara etc)

— the poems were puzzle pieces

and since then, the art criticism has been

anything but. I followed his art writing

in the Village Voice, 7 Days, and for years

now in the New Yorker. It's much better fare than

the poetry the magazine now publishes.

A note on the book — Schjeldahl takes care of

his job and comes through marvelously. The book

design is a bit bland, though brightened 
in a de Kooning yellow, but too bad being

Abrams, an art house, they didn't slip in a feature

of art work, artists photographs etc.

[ BA ]

"LITTLE SUN" ~

1939 ~ 2019

T O N Y     G L O V E R

RENGETSU (Otagaki Nobu, 1791-1875) ~

    

 from Lotus Moon

Blackened Thing


Another year passes:

On my kitchen shelf

Something blackened

With soot —

A little Buddha image.






Seeing Young Nuns On
Their Begging Rounds


First steps on the

Long path to Truth:

Please do not dream

Your lives away,

Walk on to the end.






When People Tease Me About My
Constant Change Of Residence



A floating cloud,

Drifting about

Playfully

Here and there

Not wanting to fade away.







The Oni



Do not resist, (Mr. Onu):

Open the lotus inside

And overturn

All those demons

In your heart!






Heart




Coming and going,

Without beginning or end,

Like ever changing

White clouds:

The heart of things.






The Pleasures of Calligraphy



Taking up the brush

Just for the joy of it,

Writing on and on,

Leaving behind

Long lines of dancing letters.







Incense Burner



A single line of

Fragant smoke

From the incense stick

Trails off without a trace:

One's heart, as well?







A Life of Retirement



Reside in a living landscape

And it becomes yours:

Daikon dry along the fence,

Trees full of chestnuts

Brush against the eaves.






Thoughts While Making
A Flower Pot



Dew and butterflies are

Attracted to flowers of

Certain scent and color:

Do they have

Favorites too?







Digging Clay And Making A Vase



Taking the fragile

Little handmade

Things to sell —

How lonely it looks

In the market place!




_________________

Lotus Moon
Rengetsu
translated by John Stevens
White Pine Press
2005

EDITH PADE (FAUST) ~

GANGES ~

R E A D     M E

ARCHIVE / SELF-EMPLOYED (BOB ARNOLD) ~

 Self Employed by Bob Arnold
Pentagram
(Wisconsin)

THE VERY BEST OF JULIA LEE ~

ROBERT LAX ~

one bird

two birds



one bird

two birds



two birds

one bird



two birds

one bird



one bird

two birds



one bird

two birds



two birds

one bird



two birds

one bird



one




~




"are you a visitor?" asked

the dog.



"yes," i answered.



"only a visitor?" asked

the dog.



"yes," i answered.



"take me with you," said

the dog.




~




every

night

in the

world



is a 

night



in the

hospital







The Angel
and the Little Old Lady



an angel

appeared to

a little old

lady



& said:



would you

like a

wish?



for my

grand-daughter,

said the little

old lady:



that she grew

up to be a

beautiful young

lady



& marry a

nice young

man



two wishes,

said the angel,



would you

like another?



whatever other

good thing you

can think of,



said the little

old lady

the girl grew up

to be a beautiful

young lady



& married a

nice young man



after a year or

so, a child was 

born to them



(the angel's

idea)


- - -


now the old

lady was

quite a bit

older:



the angel

appeared

to her again

& said:



would you

like a

wish?



for the

child, she

said



that he grew

up to be a

handsome

young man



& marry

a nice

young girl



two wishes

said the angel,



would you

like another?



whatever other

good thing

you can think

of,



said the little

old lady




_______________

Robert Lax
33 Poems
New Directions
2019

PHILIP BOOTH ~

Half-Life





3:00 a.m. Back

from the bathroom,

I've lain awake

for an hour. I

was all right at

2:00, most of me's

still O.K. My feet

are down at the end

of the bed, they and

my head and testicles

still seem to be

the right size. But

my hands, clamped

shut like a baby's

fist, are big as

a catcher's mitt,

each thumb's as big

as a fat man's leg.

I can't get any

sound up from my

throat. I grab

for breath, trying

to cry out.

                   Though

she has been dead

for half my life,

my mother — all

her illnesses

still intact — leans

her softness

over my crib,

and tries with-

out words to

hold me. She

tries and tries

to hold me.




_______________________

Philip Booth
Pairs
Penguin, 1994

HANNE BRAMNESS ~

 

Paul Klee pictures
                   _______________



Sketch of a street in a town



The man's fine limbs

black lines

       running from

     bone to muscle

plaster is tendons

          tension is stone







Vor dem Schnee



I have seen the kingdom of

air so stiff

           darken and

the trees

so wild in the wind

                      continuous

    one line only

and softer colours

   before the snow

fell







The thirty-six hours before the air is softened by

snow  

       An ice lake

       a day

       clear and grey



Pictures look at us from that

painter's workshop

                      the park resembles Van Gogh

resembles what we see when we

                              look back







Gate of the deserted garden



Turn

    black earth     red earth

    learn to love

                  a human  animal  vegetable world

with the uproar of

       death




__________________

Hanne Bramness
Salt on the eye
Shearsman Books
2007