WITH ME ~

When you settle into a night of Bobby Blue Bland, you settle into those early Duke records, even though at age 80 the lion of the blues is going on strong. Born in 1930 in Tennessee and raised in Memphis, I'm pulling up two gems from Bland's 1974 album Dreamer. Those Duke recordings are behind him here, so is alcoholism, some rocky relationships, and bands. He's got the look and sound all his own. The ideal blend of gospel, blues, R&B, and nothing comes easy.

EARTH ~

25 BELOW AND
ALL IS STILL



When the axe

handle busted

after thirty

years



(it was

fatigue)



I came inside

with two logs for

the wood fire and

added the axe head



to the fire —

it burned the old

wood handle out

clean



(we two who

heat a home)







photo © bob arnold

EARTH ~






THIS PLACE IN EVERY LIFE


A span of 20 feet —
Someone, but no
One’s around, once
Laid down these log
Poles and nailed the
Planks for what I balance
On and cross, and then
Turn and once again
Walk over, because I
Like the feeling, a
Mountain creek beneath
And leaves floating,
The range of light —
Now back across slowly
The last time
Finally into my direction


====================for John Levy






© Bob Arnold
from Where Rivers Meet
(Mad River Press)


photo © bob arnold

NEW !

A new booklet from our press!

Spanish ~ English poems.

Head to our bookshop (always open) and get yourself one.


http://www.longhousepoetry.com

En mi soledad
he visto cosas muy claras
que no son verdad



In my solitude
I have seen very clear things
that weren't true

WITH ME ~

the kings of rhythm (clockwise): billy gayles, eugene washington, jesse knight, ike turner, eddie jones and raymond hill

The whammy bar of Ike Turner blows through the front door of this 1956 kicker he penned on the Federal label, and sung by Billy Gayles (also "Gales") who worked with Turner on his Clarksdale recordings in 1954.







That's Bob Dylan saying a little something at the tail end.

NEW !

A new broadside to frame from our press!

Head to our bookshop (always open) and get yourself one.


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SKYDOME ~

Robert Duncan

There are so many ways to say a book is fantastic. Maybe best here to allow the author some space to describe why the night sky (we all have) is fantastic.


~

=================================MARCH 10, FRIDAY. 1961. (1963)

Naming the stars out of the seas of heaven, men drew a net-work. The knots were suns, were burning. What the poets who bound the dragon of their confusion spun were lines of association where figures of light appeared, giving direction. All life is oriented to the light from which life comes. The bees in their dances are oriented to the sun and, if it is dark, will dance in relation to a candle flame. Men found at night a new orientation in the stars, found a heaven, a spreading mesh of lights, that became a projected screen of where and when they were as they danced, an image of another net that in memory we throw out over moment and place that are suns in time, the net of our selves. The bees dance to tell where the honey is.

They memorized as they realized. In turn, now, the surfaces and involvements of the brain were an imprint of the seas above; and the skydome above was the image of another configuration in the skulldome below. So, a network there too bound the dragon of a confusion in constellations of living cells that made up a body or series of imaginary bodies a man was, is, would be.

.

It was a map. It was a great design of where they were and then of when. Night after night here in the country I have been learning my stars. The wavering cold of a mixed winter and spring, as if those distant lights were within the aroma of March blossomings, the lilac, lemon, and grasses, of the star-world, brings a fragrance of stars. Earth sparks of scent seem just to have flown up into those signs of the ancient ways in which the book of when-where sparkles and glows. As we come home from an evening with neighbors, Orion is in the high heaven.

I found my copy, new, uncorrected proof, last fall tucked into the corner of a children's book display at a local bookseller's trade show...as if not quite knowing where to categorize the book. $2, "NOT FOR RESALE". I'm going by the early tatters of this text — affection for my found copy.

A VERY FINE BOOK ~

Elizabeth Smart

Born to an upper-crust Canadian family in 1913, the poet Elizabeth Smart wrote one of the more fallen from grace memoirs with By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, first published in 1945 in only 2000 copies, and maybe most of those were banned in Canada through the influence of her mother — not at all happy about the book — and what wasn't banned, mommie dearest bought up and burned.

Smart was a long time lover with poet George Barker, a married man. Passion holds no bounds, together they had four children that Smart raised herself while working as an advertising copy writer.

It's been said Lucian Freud went to paint her portrait and only got down as far as her eyebrows.

Her poems must be read, and her volumes of journals. There is something special about an independent soul up against the odds. This one was stopped in London in 1986 by a heart attack. In the meantime, her books have a life of their own.

WITH ME ~

Some evenings it's James Booker playing, or Otis Spann, or Mose Allison, Percy Mayfield and when none of the above, someone cut from the same cloth of all these hombres: Mercy Dee Walton. Rural-rooted Texan (b. 1915) who moved to California before WW2 and maybe best known for the blues standard "One Room Country Shack" originally cut on Speciality Records. He made ends meet working in the fields of California and playing a million club dates, touring often with Big Jay McNeely. Arhoolie would release the LP above in 1961. The following year, Mercy was gone.

NEW !

A new booklet from our press!

Head to our bookshop (always open) and get yourself one.


http://www.longhousepoetry.com

Nashville warbler

lost deep in a box elder —

the master plan.

MIKE ~

Dead Reckoning (1947) with Humphrey Bogart has always been my favorite Lizabeth Scott film. As soon as I say this I say to self, "But wait a minute! — how about I Walk Alone and how about The Racket? Yeah, how about it?

Lizabeth Scott was born in 1922 of Ukrainian background and is with us today at age 88. If there is anything I marvel at, and I like to quietly marvel, is how many silver screen legends are still with us. Women. Often living as quietly as my marveling, after decades of dynamic work, unforgettable performances, and often being treated as second fiddle because of the heroic male squad, which ain't always as heroic as the women. Think of Bogart without Bacall in Dark Passage. Think of Hollywood without Bergman, Davis, Crawford, Hepburn, Lombard, Lupino, Garbo, Arthur, Hayworth, Grahame, Stanwyck, Gardner, Colbert, Taylor, Novak, Winters, Bacall, Tierney, Scott, Kerr and we haven't even left the country yet. Or warmed up.

So here's to "Mike", "Slim", "Veronica", "Angel Face". And Marie Windsor. And Audrey Totter. And Ann Savage. And Jean Gillie. And Linda Darnell. And...

Of Lizabeth Scott's twenty films (she dropped the "E" on Elizabeth purposely) three-quarters were out of the smoke of film noir. No other actress appeared in more as a key element. She began in John Farrow's You Came Along (1945) and retired from film no less than twelve years later alongside Elvis in his second film Loving You (1957). Personal troubles and controversy may have spurred this disappearance from the screen. She did appear one more time in 1972 with the film Pulp, but forget about it. Swim between 1945 and the next ten years with Lizabeth Scott.

WRITER ~

EARTH ~

photo © bob arnold

A VERY FINE BOOK ~
{ many more to be showcased }







HANK WILLIAMS : THE COMPLETE LYRICS
edited by Don Cusic (1993)



I'M SO LONESOME I COULD CRY


Hear the lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry


I've never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind a cloud
To hide its face and cry


Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die?
That means he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry


The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry

WITH ME ~

One of the most influential duos in the Blues pantheon, Leroy Carr on piano and his partner Scrapper Blackwell on guitar cut this dancing on the rooftop delight five years before Carr's untimely death in 1935. Blackwell would retire shortly thereafter. A legacy for decades to follow.

SNOWLOAD ~

THE LONG WAY HOME


January and no thaw

Freezing days and nights

Far back in the woods

I stamped caked ice

Off my snowshoes after

Breaking into the open

Onto an old logging road

Returning down into the valley

Sunlight rinsing the hills

Passing my neighbor’s pasture

I feel staring between the trees

Huddled in deep snow

The whole world stop

As horses watch

photo © bob arnold

TRAIN TIME ~

Forget the remake with Gene Hackman, the original The Narrow Margin (1952) is one of the top ten film noirs ever made, anywhere, anytime. And the greatest part of the film is aboard a train. Even better, for us FRNs. Charles McGraw can play it good or bad and in this film he is a cross between the two (maybe his best placement yet), and a cop. He's tough with everyone until he meets his match — one Marie Windsor.

Marie Windsor

No matter what great and dirty B-film she is in, including The Sniper or The Killing (just a few moments each), with a posse of roughnecks in either film, Marie Windsor takes over and owns it. One could almost say present day actress Illeana Douglas is her spit image (see the latter in the remake Cape Fear and To Die For ).

Illeana Douglas

Back to the train. It's a Richard Fleischer film, without a doubt his best, and there's a slain gangster's widow to protect (enroute to a trial) with 2000 miles inbetween (Chicago~LA). Back when they used to know how to edge a film in black and white, all at a crisp 71 minutes. No fuss, no muss.

All aboard!

WITH ME ~

Bernadine Washington appeared mysteriously on the Imperial label with this tune ("I Walk In My Sleep") in 1961.

Headlined as "Berna-Dean", she recorded a few more singles ("Sleepless Nights") and just about vanished.

We like the ones who got away.

VOICES ~

Antonio Porchia

The great and still little known Argentine poet who died at age 82 in 1968. Born in Italy, he lived in Buenos Aires from 1911, writing in Spanish and working as a potter or carpenter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before I travelled my road I was my road.



I found the whole of my first world in my meager bread.



My poverty is not complete: it lacks me.



One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.



I have scarcely touched the clay and I am made of it.



Nothing that is complete breathes.



You will find the distance that separates you from them, by joining them.



He who tells the truth says almost nothing.



For a thousand years I have been asking myself, "what will I do now?" And still I need not answer.



My heaviest comes from the heights.



Chimeras come singly and leave accompanied.



Man, when he does not grieve, hardly exists.



We have a world for each one, but we do not have a world for all.



Would there be this eternal seeking if the found existed?



We become aware of the void as we fill it.



When everything is finished, the mornings are sad.



A child shows his toy, a man hides his.



I love you as you are, but do not tell me how that is.



If I did not believe that the sun looked at me a little bit, I would not look at it.



I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.



I do not want anything over again. Not even a mother.




Whatever I take, I take too much or too little; I do not take the exact amount. The exact amount is no use to me.



Yes, this is what good is: to forgive evil. There is no other good.



When one does not love the impossible, one does not love anything.



Everything is a little bit of darkness, even the light.



The fear of separation is all that unites.



If those who owe us nothing gave us nothing, how poor we would be.



When everyone grieves no one hears the crying.



Every toy has the right to break.



Even the smallest creatures carries a sun in its eyes.



The dream which is not fed with dream disappears.



Because they know the name of what I am looking for, they think they name know what I am looking for!



To the best of refuges, I prefer their doorways.



All things pronounce names.





Antonio Porchia
selected from Voices
translated by W. S. Merwin
Big Table, 1969

photo: 123people.es

TELEGRAM ~

FROM MY LINE ABOUT WHEN I WAS A "BOY CARPENTER BUILDING WITH BIG DREAMS, ALMOST A VILLA, AND NEVER THINKING OF THE OLD GUY (ME) DOWN THE ROAD " HAS MY GOOD FRIEND ED IN MICHIGAN ASK ME IN VERMONT ~

"2 FEET OF SNOW 8 HOURS OF SHOVELING DO YOU HAVE A ROOF RAKE?"

HI ED ~

BOY CARPENTER/OLD MAN IDEA I ACTUALLY HAVE THOUGHT OUT IN MY BOOK SUNSWUMTHRU A BUILDING, WHERE I WAS FOOLISH ENOUGH AT AGE 50 (STILL OBVIOUSLY A DREAMER) TO REBUILD OUR BACK NORTH ROOF INTO A LITERAL FOOTBALL FIELD SIZE APRON SHED ROOF AND INSTEAD OF GIVING MYSELF THE LIFE SAVING STEEPER PITCH FOR SNOW SHEDDING, I SET IN EYEBROW WINDOWS TO PROVIDE NATURAL LIGHT FOR THE ROOM, AND NOW I SHOVEL THE ROOF AFTER A GOOD TWO FEET OF SNOW. IT'LL BE MURDER IN A FEW MORE YEARS. I'LL NEED TO HIRE A HELPER, A WILD ANIMAL, A SLAVE LIKE MYSELF. COME AND VISIT, BRING YOUR SHOVEL.

YOU ASK, "DO YOU HAVE A ROOF RAKE?"

ED, DOES A MICHIGAN BEAR SHIT IN THE WOODS?

I HAVE 3 ROOF RAKES. BUILT MY FIRST 40 YEARS AGO FOR MY CABIN IN THE WOODS AND THEN THE ALUMINUM MODELS CAME ON THE MARKET. BOUGHT ONE, TOLD A FRIEND IN THE WOODS TO BUY ONE, HE DID. THEN HE MOVED AWAY AND LEFT THE RAKE BEHIND. I GOT THAT. FOUND ONE OTHER, I'M BETTING AT A TAG SALE. ON SATURDAY IT WILL BE IN MY HANDS MOST OF THE DAY. I CLEARED 4 ROOFS YESTERDAY WITH MY FIRST ROOF RAKE, DUCT-TAPE ON IT AND ALL.

(THE FOOL HAS 2 OTHERS, WHY IS HE USING THE DUCT-TAPED ONE?)

WRONG QUESTION ~ IT'S BOP 'TIL YOU DROP.

WE BROKE TRAIL THROUGH THE WOODLOT TODAY ON SNOWSHOES. BROUGHT HOME MAPLE AND BEECH LOGS FROM THE CORD STASHED UP THERE. EVERY DAY WE CARRY BACK TWO MORE LOGS. BY APRIL THE PILE SHOULD BE HOME (AND BURNED).

ALL'S WELL!

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr


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