YOKEL ( 27 ) ~

G O ~ A L O N G

Y O K E L

Against the charitable gesture

there is no defence

SAMUEL BECKETT

Milking

Morning sunlight offers

Long shadows, a place of coolness

Hand size grape leaves cling to fence rails

A drop of warm light on the tips

Birds in the woods soon fly into the pasture

Sing and disappear all day

The sun lifts off the metal silo roof

Shatters into the pond

Between the barn and house

An aisle of light

                                                                    for Bill & Mary

Pals

I bought old

Tools from a

Friend since

We used the tools

Together on jobs

For years and

With him gone

I plan to work

Like we always

Have together

The Moral

You know an era

is over with the

morning you

see the local

outlaw junkyard

flatbed wrecker

with its owner’s

company name

barely scratched

onto the side doors

going by aboard

a real-deal junk-

yard flatbed hauler

on its way to town

to be sold as scrap

______________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011

THE PEREGRINE ( J.A. BAKER ) ~

R E A D     M E

BRUCE BAILLIE ~

B R U C E     B A I L L I E

INGER CHRISTENSEN ~

integrities





1

as sand vanishing

to nothing in wind

have any save none

lived for so long


I ran to meet you

dying on







2  

as light that can never

see itself

as none can lie still

falling free



I see your eyes

see







3

as water that bears

itself to death

you give what is yours

time that goes



semen

tears







4

as the grass growing

into your body

the body withering

into its mind



mind spreading out

over skin







5

as warmth as a summer

remembered to emptiness

we dream of joy

unknown unguessed



and into us looked

something else than ourselves







6

as paper at rest

while a word passes

sorrow gone white

joy in its blackness



I want to know nothing

you walk by my side







7  

as snow in its purity

white and alone

only a few days

only a few



and ever

the earth returns







8

as the bed opening

and closing open

darkness and light

I am cold I am hot



the body preserves

the world








___________________

Inger Christensen
It
translated by Susanna Nied
New Directions
2006

ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA ~

A Hindu Panegyrist Remembers
Sultan Mahmud


The wasting disease was bad enough,

Then he started losing his mind.

Visiting the treasury the week he died,

His jewels on display, he broke down

And wept like a child. Newcomers

Won't believe it, but Ghazna used to be

A miserable little place, known only for

The sweetness of its melons, before he

Changed its face, gave it a skyline

To match Baghdad's. He also changed our lives.

Each year before the onset of winter

He'd set off on his Indian campaign,

And four months later, when he returned

In the spring, the camel trains carrying

The spoils of war took a day and a night

To go past my door. We sang his praises,

He didn't stint on the reward; gold mostly,

But sometimes a string of pearls

Or a silk robe, like the one I'm wearing.






Ear-Cleaning Man


Unlike the carder

And the caner,

The ear-cleaning man

Has no street cry.

To find him you

Only have to look

And he'll be there,

Sitting beside you

On upright crate

Or low wall, probing

Your waxy ear,

First one, then the other,

For you to hear

Your inner voice

The better with,

Before vanishing

As suddenly

As he'd appeared,

The hands free,

A small bag tucked

Under his arm,

And two needles

In his headband,

Like a pair of feelers.






Worker Ant


The few things it needs lie within

Walking distance: an insect wing,

A grain of sugar. Sometimes it takes

A Grand Tour of roadside litter,

Or goes hiking alone in shingle

Mountains, past thumbnail lakes.

Its happiest moments are at a jungle

Boot camp, crawling on twigs,

Struggling in a bog-hole under

The garden tap, pushing a grass blade

Ten times its size towards a towering

Clod of earth in the flowerbed.

I saw the grass move before I saw

Its mover, hiding in plain sight.

________________________
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra
New York Review Books
2020

ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA (2) ~

R E A D      M O R E

CLIFFORD BURKE ~

28 March




And the March wind's gonna blow

(and what's gonna blow away these blues?)

Here it is: I saw

in the wan grey light of a quick storm,

the very color of the ground and air,

mere shadows in a fragile den

of storm grey mountain mahogany,

low-slung juniper,

a hollow in the shady ridge:



Two roadrunners, Ma and Pa

(thought they were all alone),

lovemaking, in their hasty bower.

A quickie; Pa takes off;

Ma looks smug, puffed out and warm.



I'm indoors, wearing two coats,

huddled up and watching

all the beauty that there is

right here, right now.



____________________

Clifford Burke
Talking With Raven
Grey Spider Press
1999

AT HOME W/ STEVE EARLE ~

FLANNERY O'CONNOR AND FRIENDS ~

R E A D      M E









Convergent
2019

ANGEL ~

J O H N     P R I N E

1946 ~ 2020

ART FOR ALL ~

R E A D      M E

Taschen

YOKEL ( 26 ) ~

Tough Guy

Watch the snow melt

as a back door pile

from ten feet to eight

to six and then four

and now a miserable

dirty pile two feet en-

during up to the first

new leaves of May

Ceremonial

When the old farmer Ralph Burdock

Was going senile, or maybe it was Alzheimer’s

It was still a time when old folks fell between

A summation of senile, or gone funny in the head

But I would see Ralph come down our road

Where barely anyone lived, and stop his car well

Off the roadside and get out and go to his trunk

With the pace a farmer heading to a barn to milk

Cows would forever have in his gait, and snap the

Trunk open without a key and lift out his scythe

With almost the ceremony of a swordsman

The blade never touching anything but air

And it was already sharp, and with no further

Ado begin his work along the edges of our

Dirt road high wet grasses and raspberry and some

Thistle, elegantly and steadily sweep it all down

Just like he was once taught, now without his farm

Or wife or morning chores and so he came and

Helped do some of ours, even though no one really

Was alive or there for Ralph, just his scythe and purpose

And I’ve never quite seen the roadside trimmed and kept

Like that again, even by me, or the paid town workers

Yesterday Today Tomorrow

The old farm bridge we know is gone

Long gone

The stone abutments are mossy

Under young trees, forest debris

The farmer is also gone, and the farmer before him

The brook flows like it always has

______________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011

CATHERINE WALSH (IRELAND) ~

Nearly Nowhere





Well it's half-past

hangin' time/time to

go rob



S' what the old lady sd. to me



Encapsulate it

and escape it



Timeless



Even   /reiterate it



Half-past

hangin' time/time to

go rob




____________________
Catherine Walsh
Idir Eatortha
Invisible Books
1996

BARBARA MORAFF ~

     

Barbara Moraff with Allen Ginsberg

Let It Be





Logic includes no promiscuity.

Deadly Nightshade is all

promiscuity.

Promiscuity, you ask, what

really

is it, how does it

function within us

or without us.

I tell you it is ignorance.

It ignores with pig passion

eats up everything in its

path. Look into its opaque

orange eyes & you see no

reflection of the real world.

Only density where existence

is an invulnerable thickness,

helplessly poisonous

like a belief system which is

strictly linear

in spite of its branching

                                        like lungs

through space.

Deadly Nightshade is my name

for the woman who stole my husband,

who screams at my children, who calls

my son 'freak' because he can eat no

fat, who never cleans up the glass

after she's slammed the door, who dresses

in thick pelts of richly endowed lambs

and buys her own children

their scanty garb at yard sales

and auctions held to settle

estates

of those who

lived and died in poverty.



Another name for her is Scumcunt.




____________________

Barbara Moraff
Deadly Nightshade
Coffee House Press 
1988

KIEFER NOTEBOOKS 1998-1999 ~

R E A D     M E

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS ~

WAYFARERS ~

R E A D      M E

Back pocket pal

ACROSS THE STREET ~

GEORGE CARLIN ~