JED PERL ~

R E A D    M E

THE LEGENDARY TYPEWRITER TAPE, 6/25/64 ~

 

JANIS JOPLIN

JORMA KAUKONEN

A PRIVATE SPY ~

 

John le Carré (1931-2020)

Credit...

Keystone/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images

R E A D    M E

KENNETH ANGER ~

 

K E N N E T H    A N G E R

TINA TURNS THE COUNTRY ON ~

 

BILL LEE ~

 

B I L L     L E E

SILENT SPRING REVOLUTION (DOUGLAS BRINKLEY) ~

 

TINA TURNER ~

 

T I N A     T U R N E R

A BOOKSHOP IN SCOTLAND ~

 

R E A D     M E

Godine, 2022

GRATEFUL DEAD IN ENGLAND, 1970 ~

MIKE O'CONNOR ~

 

MILDEW & HENRY DAVID THOREAU

During the Plum Blossom Monsoon

in the mountains

of southern China,

you just start throwing

more and more stuff

away, more and more,

and pretty soon

you're at Walden Pond.

CANYON CREEK

It seems colder than it is outside. I

should go look at the moon ripening

in a thicket of stars, but I wanted

to talk a little of creek water,

how the stones in the shallow bed

up Canyon Creek are as round and vivid

as the eyes of deer . . .

No, I meant rather to speak of the stillness

under moss-laden old growth:

bark on one fir so thick

seeds take root in it and soar,

"thinking" as a young tree thinks,

it's the earth.

No, that's not it exactly. I believe

it was simpler, not even the surprise of so many waterfalls

nor the chattering companionship of squirrels

and the stellar jay,

as I stumbled through brush,

worked through devil's club,

jumped skipped from rock to rock.

I think it was when I was

standing under those ancient trees,

wringing out the bottoms of my jeans,

beginning to think some thought

that had come with me from town,

growing a little melancholy in the shade,

that I looked down from the green bank

and could see    yes    the creek,

the creek in the sunlight,

and it was just the creek in the sunlight,

and it made me happy that it made me happy.

____________

Mike O'Connor

Old Growth

New & Selected Poems

foreword by Red Pine

Empty Bowl, 2023

PETE BROWN ~

R E M E M B E R I N G    P E T E     B R O W N 

UNSQUARE DANCE ~

 

BRUNO SCHULZ ~

 

B R U N O     S C H U L Z

TWILIGHT PEAKS ~

 

Robbie's last studio album

1984

CUSTARD PIE ~

 

FRANTZ FANON ~

 

R E A D    M E

KAMAU BRATHWAITE ~

 

Bermudas

marine to noon on AméricasAirplane

First the dark meer

begins to breathe gently into green

into light & light green

until there are like blue

ribs upon the water. dreaming

and the ribs of water’s colour are the gills

of the first fish breathing

the first land the first eye

-land

until there is what shd not be here

on the water

white

footsteps of sand from the bottom of the ocean

become the thin road to Eleuthera

long & thin upon the water walking

until there is suddenly a black stone

a dark

veil kabala surrounding by whorls

of worship green water scallops

folding into themselves like soft

jewels the first huge fish

out of creation

w/ribs veins glimpse

of a tail & deep channels in between

where they will be mountains & ridges

& villages & ozure indigo sunsets

of lapis lazuli & white salt marking its finely corrugated edges

& stretching out into thousands of tongues. miles

of soft drifting labials. like pellucid love

on the water. this fish

from the air of so many so many untangles

& 10 thousand years later there are trees

glistening sunlight & listening rain & white streets

& houses & people walkin bout & talkn to each other on the water & across

its blue echo

& thinking of horses & houses & now soon after midday there are great ob

-long blotches like a stain

of milk & a great spider spreading itself along the pale glazing bottom of

the water. and this great planet passing upwards towards us

out this silence & drifting & blessing of the water

_____________________

BY KAMAU BRATHWAITE

Notes:

*100m sharks are assassinated each year for their fins - their carcasses thrown back into the sex of the sea - to make
fine Chinese fin soup for you to sit down & dine
w/yr sip spoon & napkin all over the wide open restaurant eye of the world
CNN NewsReport seen in Ja on the friday of arrival there

Kamau Brathwaite, “Bermudas” from Born to Slow Horses. Copyright © 2005 by Kamau Brathwaite and reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.

Source: Born to Slow Horses (Wesleyan University Press, 2005)

photo: Beverly Brathwaite

KAMAU BRATHWAITE / WALTER RODNEY ~

R E A D    M E

WALTER RODNEY, A REVOLUTIONARY FOR OUR TIME ~

 

R E A D     M E