BILL FRITSCH READS POETRY ~

 

S W E E T      W I L L I A M

(Bill Fritsch)

SWEET WILLIAM FRITSCH ~

 

Sweet William Fritsch & Lenore Kandel

________________________________________

SWEET  WILLIAM  FRITSCH

My Few Days Filming the San Francisco Hells Angel

Paul G Ryan

Photograph: 2009 Isaac Hernandez 

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY ~

 

R E A D      M E

Yale University Press

2022

BILL BATHURST ~ The Collected Poetry & Prose

Bill Bathurst, The Collected Poetry & Prose

 edited by Bob Arnold

___________

Longhouse, 2022

Available now 

240 pages of poetry & prose

including Bill Bathurst's three out of print titles ~

For Julessa, Greystone Poems, How To Continue

plus uncollected poetry & prose

62 photographs & images

Introduction by Clifford Burke

$25

$5 shipping for USA

Overseas please inquire

Buy now

with Paypal,

please use our email

longhousepoetry@gmail.com

Check or money order ~

Longhouse

PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro, Vermont

05303

________________________________

Time On My Hands

                                for Billie Holiday

As though abed in white satin

her wedding night with Prez

that never threatens dawn,

her voice from the Thirties

untouched by Death

the lone night through.

As though Lady,

filling in my silence

like Prez when her soul

caught its breath,

could ease me through the dark,

“I’m Pullin’ Through.”

As though that voice

would never trail off,

dawn never catch me,

like a shade flying up,

sandwiched between mirrors

taking a piss,

wide-eyed and hollow

cheeks needing a shave,

this image reflected &

diminished to a point

invisible with silence

she must have welcomed,

leather soles of police

on the waxen floor

of her hospital death room

heard inside her eyes

as gardenias of years gone by

crushed underfoot.

As though, then, this coda

could finally be left

unwritten: Sunday, lonely,

guest of a friend

gone to bed with his wife

pregnant again, restless

when I write this,

outside I’m spaced, the sun

at my armpit, encircled by

acres of broken land

flat as my prospects,

weeds & barbed wire running riot

like doubts in my head

make it hard to walk,

uncertain & shy, alone &

a long way from home.

                                         

                                                20 August 1967

PETER LAMBORN WILSON ~

 

PETER  LAMBORN  WILSON

1945 ~ 2022

photograph 2017

Gerard Malanga

GHASSAN ZAQTAN ~

 

Just A Song

Thanks because the river flows

and the villages are fruits on the roads

and the roads are sleepwalking doors

and sleep is the shadow of death

its white land's first

and the dead are with me

strolling in front of my house

unarmed and peaceful

they posed for photos then left 

singly

without an evening

or a calamity

and thanks to the evening.

A Going

Leave us something

we'd be sad if you leave

Leave us, for example,

if you like,

your last photo by the door

our summer trip together

that scent of pine,

your words or your tobacco?

And don't go

alone

and whole

like a sword.

A Horse

And whenever I fall asleep

I find a horse grazing grass

. . .

always

a horse comes to graze the grass

. . .

when I fall asleep.

____________________

Ghassan Zaqtan

Like A Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems

trans. Fady Joudan

Yale 2012

EASY RIDERS ~

 

Dennis Hopper & Brooke Hayward long ago

R E A D      M E

THE GOOD DOCTOR ~

 

DENISE RILEY ~

 

L I S T E N

YEVGENIA BELORUSETS ~

 

R E A D  &  L I S T E N

Yevgenia Belorusets is a Ukrainian writer, journalist, artist, and photographer who lives between Kyiv and Berlin. Her photographic work calls attention to the more vulnerable sections of Ukrainian society – queer families, out-of-work coal miners, the Roma, people living in the war zone in the East – and was shown in the Ukrainian pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. She is a member of the Hudrada curatorial collective and cofounder of Prostory, a journal for literature, art, and politics. She was awarded the 2020 HKW International Literature Award in Germany for Lucky Breaks, her first work of fiction.

SONIA SANCHEZ ~

 

14 haiku

    for Emmett Louis Till

Your limbs buried

in northern  muscle carry 

their own heartbeat

Mississippi

alert with

conjugated pain

young Chicago

stutterer whistling

more than flesh

your pores

wild stars embracing

southern eyes

footprints blooming

in the night remember

your blood

in this southern

classroom  summer settles

into winter

i  hear your

pulse  swallowing

neglected light

your limbs

fly off the ground

little birds . ... .

we  taste the

blood ritual of

southern hands

blue midnite

breathe sailing on

smiling tongues

say no words

time is collapsing

in the woods

a mother's  eyes

remembering a cradle

pray out loud

walking in Mississippi

i hold the stars

between my teeth

your death

a blues, i could not

drink away.

______________________

Sonia Sanchez ~

Collected Poems

Beacon Press, 2021

CLYDE MCPHATTER ~

 

JOHN KEENE ~

 

Blackness

           after Miguel James

When I begin a poem I often  do so

because I love black people.

When I choose not to write

a  poem I still love black people.

If I write I love black people

it's because  I love black people.

If  I don't write  I love black people

I still love black people. Every metaphor,

every simile is rooted in the fact

I love black people. Even if I forgo

figurative language altogether  I still

love black people. Whenever I start

an essay or a short story or novel

I can feel all the way to the very bottom

of my soul that I love black people.

Those times when I stare

at the blank white screen or page

I may despair that I cannot show

or testify how much I love black

people and want other black people

and all people to love black people

and to say and urge others to say

publicly that they love black

people which is to say I have learned

to love myself and to love black people

and to recognize that despite all that

we face in the world from the moment

of our birth to the day we die

that even the black period that will end

this poem is a sign and seal

to me and anyone who cares

that I love black people.

________________________

John Keene

Punks

New  & Selected Poems

Song Cave, 2021

JAMES RAY ~

 

SIPPIE WALLACE ~

 

OUMOU SANGARE ~

 

EZRA POUND ~

 

Ione, Dead the Long Year

Empty are the ways,

Empty are the ways of this land

And the flowers

             Bend over with heavy heads.

They bend in vain.

Empty are the ways of this land

             Where Ione

Walked once, and now does not walk

But seems like a person just gone.

E Z R A       P O U N D

______________________

JANINE POMMY VEGA POEM ~

 

Happy Birthday, Jim

THE ORLONS ~

 

A girl group with a guy!

Steve Caldwell

LAST LETTER TO A READER ~

R E A D       M E