Friday, April 15, 2011
EARTH ~
photo © susan arnold
We now head back to our seasonal work of construction, stone, wood, landscape.
It's been a long winter of isolation, snow shoveling, snowshoe hiking and publishing many new booklets see here.
Bob's new book of back country life YOKEL is out and circulating, and we're working on forty years of Bob's love poems to be published in early 2012.
All the while B. has been reading aloud American noir novels to Sweetheart (and anyone else over hearing in the laundromat, in the truck, parking lots, kitchen, thawing porch): Chandler, Cain, Goodis, Fearing, Thompson, Himes. Hardcore.
With Scott and Helen Nearing scholar Greg Joly we are preparing a small book of nonfiction by Helen Nearing ~ Helen's reminiscences of an old-timer they met on the Maine coast when they arrived there from Vermont in the 1950s. A previously unpublished piece with black and white photographs.
For anyone interested we are working on the literary archive of old family friend Janine Pommy Vega, who passed away late in 2010. We all miss Janine. Bob is Janine's executor. Bob is also the literary executor for both Lorine Niedecker and Cid Corman. We have recently released a new booklet by Cid of his personal ink stamps used on all his correspondence, and for those who ever received a letter from Cid, you know just what we are talking about. This one is titled Chop.
A new and extra large Longhouse booklet has been issued of Janine's last poems
Walking Woman With The Tambourine.
We're always working on moving Lorine into all corners of the world. And many help us along.
New booklets of all sizes are also ready from John Bradley Fordtopia, and Ken McCullough Diet for the Smallest Planet, plus a palm-size booklet of Li Po translated by JP Seaton, ideal for that spring hike in the woods. New poems by Hanne Bramness in Norway will be issued in May.
So, we're busy and mainly outdoors, and in the night and on rain days, we'll build the Birdhouse.
It's been a long winter of isolation, snow shoveling, snowshoe hiking and publishing many new booklets see here.
Bob's new book of back country life YOKEL is out and circulating, and we're working on forty years of Bob's love poems to be published in early 2012.
All the while B. has been reading aloud American noir novels to Sweetheart (and anyone else over hearing in the laundromat, in the truck, parking lots, kitchen, thawing porch): Chandler, Cain, Goodis, Fearing, Thompson, Himes. Hardcore.
With Scott and Helen Nearing scholar Greg Joly we are preparing a small book of nonfiction by Helen Nearing ~ Helen's reminiscences of an old-timer they met on the Maine coast when they arrived there from Vermont in the 1950s. A previously unpublished piece with black and white photographs.
For anyone interested we are working on the literary archive of old family friend Janine Pommy Vega, who passed away late in 2010. We all miss Janine. Bob is Janine's executor. Bob is also the literary executor for both Lorine Niedecker and Cid Corman. We have recently released a new booklet by Cid of his personal ink stamps used on all his correspondence, and for those who ever received a letter from Cid, you know just what we are talking about. This one is titled Chop.
A new and extra large Longhouse booklet has been issued of Janine's last poems
Walking Woman With The Tambourine.
We're always working on moving Lorine into all corners of the world. And many help us along.
New booklets of all sizes are also ready from John Bradley Fordtopia, and Ken McCullough Diet for the Smallest Planet, plus a palm-size booklet of Li Po translated by JP Seaton, ideal for that spring hike in the woods. New poems by Hanne Bramness in Norway will be issued in May.
So, we're busy and mainly outdoors, and in the night and on rain days, we'll build the Birdhouse.
photo © susan arnold
Thursday, April 14, 2011
WITH ME ~
Dock Boggs was born Moran Lee "Dock" Boggs in 1898 and died on his birthday in 1971. Two of Dock's classic songs were on Harry Smith's 1951 Anthology of American Folk Music. A coal miner most of his life, Dock Boggs began recording in the 20s and like many treasures hidden away in the hills, he stayed hidden while working his trade and living with his back and hands. He was one more discovery in the 1960s from the youthful pursuit of musicians like Mike Seeger, who sought out their folk heroes to perform again live and likewise head into the studios to record. A round of applause for this good sense. Virginia born, the youngest of ten children, Dock Boggs drew much of his music from the landscape and those found therein: African-American itinerant players, camps, stories heard around the table, in the field. All his recordings are gems, perhaps the easiest to be found are on the Folkways and Smithsonian labels.
An excellent piece on the coal miner and "up-picking" banjo player by Jack Wright may be found on the link below.
I also include, w/ pleasure, Kaleidoscope at work.
http://www.oldtimeherald.org/archive/back_issues/volume-6/6-5/dock-boggs.html
Dock Boggs was born Moran Lee "Dock" Boggs in 1898 and died on his birthday in 1971. Two of Dock's classic songs were on Harry Smith's 1951 Anthology of American Folk Music. A coal miner most of his life, Dock Boggs began recording in the 20s and like many treasures hidden away in the hills, he stayed hidden while working his trade and living with his back and hands. He was one more discovery in the 1960s from the youthful pursuit of musicians like Mike Seeger, who sought out their folk heroes to perform again live and likewise head into the studios to record. A round of applause for this good sense. Virginia born, the youngest of ten children, Dock Boggs drew much of his music from the landscape and those found therein: African-American itinerant players, camps, stories heard around the table, in the field. All his recordings are gems, perhaps the easiest to be found are on the Folkways and Smithsonian labels.
An excellent piece on the coal miner and "up-picking" banjo player by Jack Wright may be found on the link below.
I also include, w/ pleasure, Kaleidoscope at work.
http://www.oldtimeherald.org/archive/back_issues/volume-6/6-5/dock-boggs.html
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
LOOK AT THIS & more!
[posted by Susan]
Recently Banned Literature
Site updates, poetry, notes, and marginalia by William Michaelian
[Monday, April 11, 2001 post]
William Michaelian
[posted by Susan]
Recently Banned Literature
Site updates, poetry, notes, and marginalia by William Michaelian
[Monday, April 11, 2001 post]
" If not for the heart, the hands wouldn’t know what to do. "
William Michaelian
Monday, April 11, 2011
EARTH ~
BORN TYING KNOTS
When he came out, into the world,
the umbilical cord
was around his toes.
This didn't trouble us,
that he was tying knots THAT EARLY.
We untied it.
Later, he heard his birth
story.
It caused him to begin tying knots again.
He tied things up near his home,
TIGHT, as if everything might float away
in a river.
This river came from
a dream he had.
House things were tied up
at night. Shirts, other clothes, too,
and a kettle. All those things
were tied to his feet
so they wouldn't float away
in the river he dreamed.
You could walk in
and see this.
Maybe the dream stopped
because it was no longer comfortable
to sleep with shirts tied to him.
Or a kettle.
After the dream stopped,
he quit tying things,
EXCEPT for the one night he tied up
a small fire.
Tied up a small-stick fire!
The fire got loose its own way.
QUIET UNTIL THE THAW
Her name tells of how
it was with her.
The truth is, she did not speak
in winter.
Everyone learned not to
ask her questions in winter,
once this was known about her.
The first winter this happened
we looked in her mouth to see
if something was frozen. Her tongue
maybe, or something else in there.
But after the thaw she spoke again
and told us it was fine for her that way.
So each spring we
looked forward to that.
WALKED TOWARD THE LYNX
He knew a lynx has two voices.
There is one that is a growl
and can teach a baby pheasant to fly QUICKLY,
and frightens us too, sometimes.
And one other voice. It is when a lynx
scratches its claws on bark.
This boy would hear that scratching
and walk toward it.
If he was a lynx-ear
he could have heard it CLOSE UP!
Or a whisker.
Which is what
he wanted, I think.
I saw him climb trees where he'd seen
a lynx, and find the place
where the scratch marks were left.
Then he would rub his fingers over them.
One finger at a time, gently,
or all of them at once.
His fingers heard the lynx talk again
that way.
TOOK HONEY WITH HIS FACE
He knew how bears got away
with it. He watched one
stick her nose deep in a hive
and get good honey on the face.
He knew this way
from watching.
So he dressed that way too,
with an old bear skin all over him
and mud-leaves on his face and hands.
AND STUCK HIS FACE IN A HIVE!
STUCK HIS FACE IN!
Got his feet stung.
But he got honey that way.
No one told him to use the wet
torch-stick smoke
to get out those bees.
No one told him this for a long time.
They liked watching his way
too much!
He took honey that way
a few times.
Then someone told him
how to use smoke.
Or he saw it done
from hiding.
LARGER EARS
She had large ears, and this seemed
to please her. Even the time a man
joked at her ears
and said they were BATS,
she chose to believe it!
She said to him, "Yes. You are right. They are bats!
I'm glad you came to tell me.
And I will send them into your house
THIS VERY NIGHT to hover
and listen over your face!"
This quickly stopped
his joking.
Also, she liked to listen to large sounds
with those large ears.
Maybe the two things
went together.
Before storms, she would sit along the edge
of a lake, EVEN AFTER IT BEGAN RAINING,
to listen to thunder!
Sometimes she shouted back
to it, "Louder! I can hardly hear you!"
Even though the rest of us
had our hands over our ears, as we sat
inside houses.
Listening with our smaller ears.
WHO ONCE LIVED ALONE
One summer this boy chose to live
by himself. It was never a secret, no, he just
said, "I'm going to live
by the next lake, to the north."
We could tell he had thought about it
a long time. He built a dwelling there.
It had rain fall on it, and had sun fall on it.
And the foxes didn't try to move in,
so, then for certain, it was his home.
He lived there all summer. We seldom heard him,
or knew where he was, except some nights
we knew he was out on the lake
because the loons were quiet.
There also were nights we wondered
how well he was eating, and that's when we walked
to where he lived.
Walked out at night to see
the bending pole. It was a pole
he had stuck in the ground.
This came about because he fished with long
stick poles, and he had stuck one of them
in the ground near his dwelling. After each day's fishing,
he bent that pole to let us know his luck.
When it was bent low by the rocks tied to its string,
we knew he was catching fish.
When the pole was straight up,
we left fish for him.
TURTLE WAIT
I've always watched
turtles. One lived around here,
the one who caused my name.
At an early age I waited for turtles
to come up on their logs.
Everyone knew this
about me. I'd wait. Wait. And one turtle
would be the last out of the water. He had
moss, mud, sometimes sticks on his back
and he was a slow one.
Other turtle watchers gave up. But I would
wait until he came out
to tell me things
and no one else.
So, in that way he caused my name.
The last one to wait for.
Up on his rock or log.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from BORN TYING KNOTS
Swampy Cree Naming Stories
told by
Samuel Makidemewabe
translated by
Howard Norman
Bear Claw Press (1976)
NAMINGS: AN INTRODUCTION
Two weeks travel on foot, northeast from Lake Winnipeg. Along certain stretches of one river here, Echoing River, trees come right down to the rocky banks forming acoustic corridors. You can echo your voice best here. The Cree call these places Mwoakoopawmiko tuskwi, or "Loon-wind-throats," for the eery vibratos that are sent out among the rock, air, water and trees. The sound of a duck splashing with its wings as it lifts from the river echoes a long way. So does a moose call, or the human voice.
There's a place near Split Lake, named Achewita hotoowuk, or "Their-horns-are-locked," after a stand of trees whose branches are intertwined high up. From a distance they look like great racks of antlers.
The whole of the country is in effect an oral map, for the specific place-names should be spoken aloud upon arriving at each one. This way you bring alive what happened, or still happens, there. When you arrive at a place, and live there in an attentive manner, you see where its name comes from. "Many-weather-place," "Place-otters-slide-to-the-left," and on.
* * *
In Cree the lynx is called Pi'sew, or "Wild Cat." But there is an older name. Sometimes it shows up during the telling of a Wichikapache ("trickster") story, about a time when only totem animals and Wichikapache roamed the earth. The language gets older during these stories. Often, when the lynx is mentioned, he is called: "Cat-who-nightly-screams-from-high-trees." Think, if you will, what this name encompasses in terms of the compactness of the Cree language, what specific knowledge it has gathered in, then how this knowledge it has gathered in, then how this knowledge places the lynx into thelarger realm of life: a classificatory system. We know it's a cat.* We know one of his voices. We know one time to listen, one place to look for him.
Now, if you want or need it to, comes a moment when this old lynx name leads you out into its world. You have the particulars preserved in the name: you can take them out into the trees. Then wait. Probably you will wait many nights.** Sometimes it works, you see a lynx. Or think you hear one. Most times the cat huddles quiet, or is padding around far from you. But by waiting there, in one place, you feel something of where the animal lives. You know the name better then. And that it came from others like you who waited, watched, recalled by telling you about the lynx.
* * *
The personal name-origins translated in this little book (selections above, ed.) were told to me by Samuel Makidemewabe, a Swampy Cree elder. He lived several places in northcentral manitoba Province, Canada. It's a vast lake, muskeg, dense boreal forest region. One of his jobs in the community he lived most often in, was to chronicle in stories how certain people earned their names during childhood. For the names included here are kuskatchikaos, or "earned" names. Makidemewabe wasn't present for all the incidences from which these names came from. He was right there for some of them. With the others, basic information was brought to him. These stories, then, illuminate every storyteller's option to embellish as long as the necessary core of historical fact is clearly presented. Every teller knows this about his craft. Some of these people whose names I was gifted to hear about are still alive. The youngest is many Talks who is about eighty. The woman named Quiet Until The Thaw is alive, and others. Some of these people I never was introduced to, except through these stories which certainly are intimate in their own ways. Makidemewabe said, "To say the name is to begin the story," which leads you into this book.
HOWARD NORMAN
FEBRUARY 1976
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Not to be taken for granted, as the Cree classification of animals is often complex. Bats are birds. Otters may be fish if, say in a story, they are talking underwater to fish, etc.
** Say the name over to yourself, in different voices, in melodies, and you have a lynx-song to wait with.
I share all of this from an original pamphlet, close to me, published by Bear Claw Press once upon a time in simple spool binding and now age-toned papers. Slowly but surely the book is moving back to the earth. (BA)
Swampy Cree Naming Stories
BORN TYING KNOTS
When he came out, into the world,
the umbilical cord
was around his toes.
This didn't trouble us,
that he was tying knots THAT EARLY.
We untied it.
Later, he heard his birth
story.
It caused him to begin tying knots again.
He tied things up near his home,
TIGHT, as if everything might float away
in a river.
This river came from
a dream he had.
House things were tied up
at night. Shirts, other clothes, too,
and a kettle. All those things
were tied to his feet
so they wouldn't float away
in the river he dreamed.
You could walk in
and see this.
Maybe the dream stopped
because it was no longer comfortable
to sleep with shirts tied to him.
Or a kettle.
After the dream stopped,
he quit tying things,
EXCEPT for the one night he tied up
a small fire.
Tied up a small-stick fire!
The fire got loose its own way.
QUIET UNTIL THE THAW
Her name tells of how
it was with her.
The truth is, she did not speak
in winter.
Everyone learned not to
ask her questions in winter,
once this was known about her.
The first winter this happened
we looked in her mouth to see
if something was frozen. Her tongue
maybe, or something else in there.
But after the thaw she spoke again
and told us it was fine for her that way.
So each spring we
looked forward to that.
WALKED TOWARD THE LYNX
He knew a lynx has two voices.
There is one that is a growl
and can teach a baby pheasant to fly QUICKLY,
and frightens us too, sometimes.
And one other voice. It is when a lynx
scratches its claws on bark.
This boy would hear that scratching
and walk toward it.
If he was a lynx-ear
he could have heard it CLOSE UP!
Or a whisker.
Which is what
he wanted, I think.
I saw him climb trees where he'd seen
a lynx, and find the place
where the scratch marks were left.
Then he would rub his fingers over them.
One finger at a time, gently,
or all of them at once.
His fingers heard the lynx talk again
that way.
TOOK HONEY WITH HIS FACE
He knew how bears got away
with it. He watched one
stick her nose deep in a hive
and get good honey on the face.
He knew this way
from watching.
So he dressed that way too,
with an old bear skin all over him
and mud-leaves on his face and hands.
AND STUCK HIS FACE IN A HIVE!
STUCK HIS FACE IN!
Got his feet stung.
But he got honey that way.
No one told him to use the wet
torch-stick smoke
to get out those bees.
No one told him this for a long time.
They liked watching his way
too much!
He took honey that way
a few times.
Then someone told him
how to use smoke.
Or he saw it done
from hiding.
LARGER EARS
She had large ears, and this seemed
to please her. Even the time a man
joked at her ears
and said they were BATS,
she chose to believe it!
She said to him, "Yes. You are right. They are bats!
I'm glad you came to tell me.
And I will send them into your house
THIS VERY NIGHT to hover
and listen over your face!"
This quickly stopped
his joking.
Also, she liked to listen to large sounds
with those large ears.
Maybe the two things
went together.
Before storms, she would sit along the edge
of a lake, EVEN AFTER IT BEGAN RAINING,
to listen to thunder!
Sometimes she shouted back
to it, "Louder! I can hardly hear you!"
Even though the rest of us
had our hands over our ears, as we sat
inside houses.
Listening with our smaller ears.
WHO ONCE LIVED ALONE
One summer this boy chose to live
by himself. It was never a secret, no, he just
said, "I'm going to live
by the next lake, to the north."
We could tell he had thought about it
a long time. He built a dwelling there.
It had rain fall on it, and had sun fall on it.
And the foxes didn't try to move in,
so, then for certain, it was his home.
He lived there all summer. We seldom heard him,
or knew where he was, except some nights
we knew he was out on the lake
because the loons were quiet.
There also were nights we wondered
how well he was eating, and that's when we walked
to where he lived.
Walked out at night to see
the bending pole. It was a pole
he had stuck in the ground.
This came about because he fished with long
stick poles, and he had stuck one of them
in the ground near his dwelling. After each day's fishing,
he bent that pole to let us know his luck.
When it was bent low by the rocks tied to its string,
we knew he was catching fish.
When the pole was straight up,
we left fish for him.
TURTLE WAIT
I've always watched
turtles. One lived around here,
the one who caused my name.
At an early age I waited for turtles
to come up on their logs.
Everyone knew this
about me. I'd wait. Wait. And one turtle
would be the last out of the water. He had
moss, mud, sometimes sticks on his back
and he was a slow one.
Other turtle watchers gave up. But I would
wait until he came out
to tell me things
and no one else.
So, in that way he caused my name.
The last one to wait for.
Up on his rock or log.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from BORN TYING KNOTS
Swampy Cree Naming Stories
told by
Samuel Makidemewabe
translated by
Howard Norman
Bear Claw Press (1976)
NAMINGS: AN INTRODUCTION
Two weeks travel on foot, northeast from Lake Winnipeg. Along certain stretches of one river here, Echoing River, trees come right down to the rocky banks forming acoustic corridors. You can echo your voice best here. The Cree call these places Mwoakoopawmiko tuskwi, or "Loon-wind-throats," for the eery vibratos that are sent out among the rock, air, water and trees. The sound of a duck splashing with its wings as it lifts from the river echoes a long way. So does a moose call, or the human voice.
There's a place near Split Lake, named Achewita hotoowuk, or "Their-horns-are-locked," after a stand of trees whose branches are intertwined high up. From a distance they look like great racks of antlers.
The whole of the country is in effect an oral map, for the specific place-names should be spoken aloud upon arriving at each one. This way you bring alive what happened, or still happens, there. When you arrive at a place, and live there in an attentive manner, you see where its name comes from. "Many-weather-place," "Place-otters-slide-to-the-left," and on.
* * *
In Cree the lynx is called Pi'sew, or "Wild Cat." But there is an older name. Sometimes it shows up during the telling of a Wichikapache ("trickster") story, about a time when only totem animals and Wichikapache roamed the earth. The language gets older during these stories. Often, when the lynx is mentioned, he is called: "Cat-who-nightly-screams-from-high-trees." Think, if you will, what this name encompasses in terms of the compactness of the Cree language, what specific knowledge it has gathered in, then how this knowledge it has gathered in, then how this knowledge places the lynx into thelarger realm of life: a classificatory system. We know it's a cat.* We know one of his voices. We know one time to listen, one place to look for him.
Now, if you want or need it to, comes a moment when this old lynx name leads you out into its world. You have the particulars preserved in the name: you can take them out into the trees. Then wait. Probably you will wait many nights.** Sometimes it works, you see a lynx. Or think you hear one. Most times the cat huddles quiet, or is padding around far from you. But by waiting there, in one place, you feel something of where the animal lives. You know the name better then. And that it came from others like you who waited, watched, recalled by telling you about the lynx.
* * *
The personal name-origins translated in this little book (selections above, ed.) were told to me by Samuel Makidemewabe, a Swampy Cree elder. He lived several places in northcentral manitoba Province, Canada. It's a vast lake, muskeg, dense boreal forest region. One of his jobs in the community he lived most often in, was to chronicle in stories how certain people earned their names during childhood. For the names included here are kuskatchikaos, or "earned" names. Makidemewabe wasn't present for all the incidences from which these names came from. He was right there for some of them. With the others, basic information was brought to him. These stories, then, illuminate every storyteller's option to embellish as long as the necessary core of historical fact is clearly presented. Every teller knows this about his craft. Some of these people whose names I was gifted to hear about are still alive. The youngest is many Talks who is about eighty. The woman named Quiet Until The Thaw is alive, and others. Some of these people I never was introduced to, except through these stories which certainly are intimate in their own ways. Makidemewabe said, "To say the name is to begin the story," which leads you into this book.
HOWARD NORMAN
FEBRUARY 1976
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Not to be taken for granted, as the Cree classification of animals is often complex. Bats are birds. Otters may be fish if, say in a story, they are talking underwater to fish, etc.
** Say the name over to yourself, in different voices, in melodies, and you have a lynx-song to wait with.
I share all of this from an original pamphlet, close to me, published by Bear Claw Press once upon a time in simple spool binding and now age-toned papers. Slowly but surely the book is moving back to the earth. (BA)
(photo)
aurora: eco time
Sunday, April 10, 2011
WITH ME ~
That's Brett Sparks on the right and Rennie Sparks to the left and Brett takes the lead to this old Appalachian murder ballad which was taken from a 19th c. Irish ballad "The Wexford Girl". Folklorists will tell you the Irish borrowed it from the English ballad "The Oxford Girl". And I'll tell you Patrick Sky once parodied the song into "Yonkers Girl". It's feels good to mention Patrick Sky, barely anyone does anymore. The Louvin Brothers maybe recorded the most murderous rendition of the song in 1956, they about own it. But the Wilbur Brothers also recorded the song, and so has Nick Cave and Elvis Costello who aren't brothers. Sparks galloped in with his bold marauder version in 2003. With Rennie they make up the quite gothic American duo Handsome Family, which originated in Chicago, though you can hear in Sparks voice and tone he is Texas born.
EARTH ~
A centuries-old tablet warned of tsunamis
in the town of Aneyoshi,
Iwate Prefecture, in northern Japan.
in the town of Aneyoshi,
Iwate Prefecture, in northern Japan.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/limits-to-disaster-memory-even-etched-in-stone/
photo : Vincent Yu/Associated Press
photo : Vincent Yu/Associated Press
Saturday, April 9, 2011
EARTH ~
Small Prayer for Fallen Angels
too many of my friends are junkies
too many of my psychic kin tattoo invisible revelations on themselves
signing their manifestos to etheric consciousness with little
hoofprint scars stretching from fingertip to fingertip
a gory religiosity akin to Kali's sacred necklace of fifty human heads
Kali-Ma, Kali-Mother; Kali-Ma, Kali-Mother
too many of my friends are running out of blood, their veins
are collapsing, it takes them half an hour to get a hit
their blood whispers through their bodies, singing its own death chant
in a voice of fire, in a voice of glaciers, in a voice of sand that blows
forever
over emptiness
Kali-Ma, remember the giving of life as well as the giving of death
----Kali-Ma...
Kali-Ma, remember the desire is for enlightenment and not oblivion
----Kali-Ma...
Kali-Ma, their bones are growing light; help them to fly
Kali-Ma, their eyes burn with the pain of fire; help them that they see
with clear sight
Kali-Ma, their blood sings to death to them; remind them of life
that they be born once more
that they slide bloody through the gates of yes, that
they relax their hands nor try to stop the movement of the flowing now
too many of my friends have fallen into the white heat of the only flame
may they fly higher; may there be no end to flight
from Word Alchemy
Grove Press, 1967
Lenore Kandel
Small Prayer for Fallen Angels
too many of my friends are junkies
too many of my psychic kin tattoo invisible revelations on themselves
signing their manifestos to etheric consciousness with little
hoofprint scars stretching from fingertip to fingertip
a gory religiosity akin to Kali's sacred necklace of fifty human heads
Kali-Ma, Kali-Mother; Kali-Ma, Kali-Mother
too many of my friends are running out of blood, their veins
are collapsing, it takes them half an hour to get a hit
their blood whispers through their bodies, singing its own death chant
in a voice of fire, in a voice of glaciers, in a voice of sand that blows
forever
over emptiness
Kali-Ma, remember the giving of life as well as the giving of death
----Kali-Ma...
Kali-Ma, remember the desire is for enlightenment and not oblivion
----Kali-Ma...
Kali-Ma, their bones are growing light; help them to fly
Kali-Ma, their eyes burn with the pain of fire; help them that they see
with clear sight
Kali-Ma, their blood sings to death to them; remind them of life
that they be born once more
that they slide bloody through the gates of yes, that
they relax their hands nor try to stop the movement of the flowing now
too many of my friends have fallen into the white heat of the only flame
may they fly higher; may there be no end to flight
from Word Alchemy
Grove Press, 1967
photo : popartmachine.com
By the time she had moved to San Francisco in 1960, Lenore Kandel had published three very short collections of poetry (now extremely rare) having been born in New York City in 1932, her father the author of the hardboiled classic City in Conquest. In the movies it starred James Cagney. It all makes sense to Lenore Kandel who rode with the Hell's Angels, was exotic provocateur of The Love Book and for decades on end kept her reputation as an author on that slim dynamo of a book and Word Alchemy ~ no two books in the poetry world like them.
By the time she had moved to San Francisco in 1960, Lenore Kandel had published three very short collections of poetry (now extremely rare) having been born in New York City in 1932, her father the author of the hardboiled classic City in Conquest. In the movies it starred James Cagney. It all makes sense to Lenore Kandel who rode with the Hell's Angels, was exotic provocateur of The Love Book and for decades on end kept her reputation as an author on that slim dynamo of a book and Word Alchemy ~ no two books in the poetry world like them.
EARTH ~
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/04/eerie-footage-from-inside-japans-radioactive-evacuation-zone/
thank you to alan casline
photo : presstv.ir
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/04/eerie-footage-from-inside-japans-radioactive-evacuation-zone/
thank you to alan casline
photo : presstv.ir
Friday, April 8, 2011
WITH ME ~
photo : thebluegrassblog.com
The eighth child born (1935) of eleven children in a West Virginia coal mining family, Hazel Dickens has never stopped singing her bluegrass roots — from picket lines, Union halls, and classic coal mining films: Harlan County, USA; Matewan; Black Lung. She recorded five albums with Alice Gerrard ("Hazel & Alice") starting in 1965, along with her own solo albums, and she has been included in numerous compilation recordings. Everyone wants Hazel Dickens' high lonesome sound.
photo : thebluegrassblog.com
Thursday, April 7, 2011
EARTH ~
JAYNE CORTEZ
If the Drum is a Woman
If the drum is a woman
why are you pounding your drum into an insane babble
why are you pistol whipping your drum at dawn
why are you shooting through the head of your drum
and making a drum tragedy of drums
if the drum is a woman
don't abuse your drum----don't abuse your drum----don't abuse your drum
I know the night is full of displaced persons
I see skins striped with flames
I know the ugly disposition of underpaid clerks
they constantly menstruate through the eyes
I know bitterness embedded in flesh
the itching alone can drive you crazy
I know that this is America
and chickens are coming home to roost
on the MX missle
But if the drum is a woman
why are you choking your drum
why are you raping your drum
why are you saying disrespectful things
to your mother drum----your sister drum
your wife drum and your infant daughter drum
If the drum is a woman
then understand your drum
your drum is not docile
your drum is not invisible
your drum is not inferior to you
your drum is a woman
so don't reject your drum
don't try to dominate your drum
don't become weak and cold and desert your drum
don't be forced into the position
as an oppressor of drums
and make a drum tragedy of drums
if the drum is a woman
don't abuse your drum----don't abuse your drum----don't abuse your drum
from Coagulations
new and selected poems
(Thunder's Mouth, 1984)
JAYNE CORTEZ
If the Drum is a Woman
If the drum is a woman
why are you pounding your drum into an insane babble
why are you pistol whipping your drum at dawn
why are you shooting through the head of your drum
and making a drum tragedy of drums
if the drum is a woman
don't abuse your drum----don't abuse your drum----don't abuse your drum
I know the night is full of displaced persons
I see skins striped with flames
I know the ugly disposition of underpaid clerks
they constantly menstruate through the eyes
I know bitterness embedded in flesh
the itching alone can drive you crazy
I know that this is America
and chickens are coming home to roost
on the MX missle
But if the drum is a woman
why are you choking your drum
why are you raping your drum
why are you saying disrespectful things
to your mother drum----your sister drum
your wife drum and your infant daughter drum
If the drum is a woman
then understand your drum
your drum is not docile
your drum is not invisible
your drum is not inferior to you
your drum is a woman
so don't reject your drum
don't try to dominate your drum
don't become weak and cold and desert your drum
don't be forced into the position
as an oppressor of drums
and make a drum tragedy of drums
if the drum is a woman
don't abuse your drum----don't abuse your drum----don't abuse your drum
from Coagulations
new and selected poems
(Thunder's Mouth, 1984)
photo : uctv.tv
Jayne Cortez was born in Arizona (1936), raised in California, lives today in New York City and Senegal, and has published nearly a dozen books and almost as many recordings. Her poetry has been translated and is known around the world. Once married to Ornette Coleman, she is the mother of jazz drummer Denardo Coleman.
Jayne Cortez was born in Arizona (1936), raised in California, lives today in New York City and Senegal, and has published nearly a dozen books and almost as many recordings. Her poetry has been translated and is known around the world. Once married to Ornette Coleman, she is the mother of jazz drummer Denardo Coleman.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
EARTH ~
TONY MARES
STANTON STREET BRIDGE GOODBYE
Time to say goodbye
to the river crossing,
goodbye to El Paso / Juarez,
the Stanton Street Bridge.
Time to say goodbye to the family,
a child, a woman, two men,
one white-haired, all crowded
together on the rubber tire raft
crossing the river.
Time to say goodbye
to la migra in their green trucks
running around like Keystone Kops
chasing mexicanos guilty
of trying to return
to their ancestral homeland.
Time to say goodbye
to the troubled border.
from RIO DEL CORAZON
Voices From the American Land, 2011
www.voicesfromtheamericanland.org/html/mares.html
ELIADES OCHOA
TONY MARES
STANTON STREET BRIDGE GOODBYE
Time to say goodbye
to the river crossing,
goodbye to El Paso / Juarez,
the Stanton Street Bridge.
Time to say goodbye to the family,
a child, a woman, two men,
one white-haired, all crowded
together on the rubber tire raft
crossing the river.
Time to say goodbye
to la migra in their green trucks
running around like Keystone Kops
chasing mexicanos guilty
of trying to return
to their ancestral homeland.
Time to say goodbye
to the troubled border.
from RIO DEL CORAZON
Voices From the American Land, 2011
www.voicesfromtheamericanland.org/html/mares.html
CRISTINA BRANCO
ELIADES OCHOA
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
GOODBYE ~
TELL OL' BILL
The river whispers in my ear
I've hardly a penny to my name
The heavens have never seemed so near
[That] All my body glows with flame.
The tempest struggles in the air
An' to myself alone i sing
It could sink me then and there
I can hear the echo[es] ring.
I tried to find one smilin' face
To drive the shadow off my head
I'm stranded in this nameless place
Lyin' restless in a heavy bed.
Tell me straight out if you will
Why must you torture me within?
Why must you come from your high hill?
Throw my fate to the clouds and wind.
Far away in a silent land
Secret thoughts are hard to bear
Remember me you'll understand
Emotions we can never share.
You trampled on me as you passed
Left the coldest kiss upon my brow
All my doubts and fears have gone at last
I've nothing more to tell you now.
I walk by tranquil lakes and streams
As each new season's dawn awaits
I lay awake at night with troubled dreams
The enemy is at the gate.
Beneath the thunder-blasted trees
The words are ringin' off your tongue
The ground is hard in times like these
[The] Stars are cold, the night is young.
The rocks are bleak, the trees are bare
Iron clouds go floatin' by
Snowflakes fallin' in my hair
Beneath the gray and stormy sky.
The evenin' sun is sinkin' low
The woods are dark, the town is too
They''ll drag you down, they run the show
Ain't no tellin' what they'll do.
Tell Ol' Bill when he comes home
[That] Anythin' is worth a try
Tell him that I'm not alone
That the hour has come to do or die.
All the world i would defy
Let me make it plain as day
I look at you now an' i sigh
How could it be any other way?
© Bob Dylan 2005
photo © bob arnold
TELL OL' BILL
The river whispers in my ear
I've hardly a penny to my name
The heavens have never seemed so near
[That] All my body glows with flame.
The tempest struggles in the air
An' to myself alone i sing
It could sink me then and there
I can hear the echo[es] ring.
I tried to find one smilin' face
To drive the shadow off my head
I'm stranded in this nameless place
Lyin' restless in a heavy bed.
Tell me straight out if you will
Why must you torture me within?
Why must you come from your high hill?
Throw my fate to the clouds and wind.
Far away in a silent land
Secret thoughts are hard to bear
Remember me you'll understand
Emotions we can never share.
You trampled on me as you passed
Left the coldest kiss upon my brow
All my doubts and fears have gone at last
I've nothing more to tell you now.
I walk by tranquil lakes and streams
As each new season's dawn awaits
I lay awake at night with troubled dreams
The enemy is at the gate.
Beneath the thunder-blasted trees
The words are ringin' off your tongue
The ground is hard in times like these
[The] Stars are cold, the night is young.
The rocks are bleak, the trees are bare
Iron clouds go floatin' by
Snowflakes fallin' in my hair
Beneath the gray and stormy sky.
The evenin' sun is sinkin' low
The woods are dark, the town is too
They''ll drag you down, they run the show
Ain't no tellin' what they'll do.
Tell Ol' Bill when he comes home
[That] Anythin' is worth a try
Tell him that I'm not alone
That the hour has come to do or die.
All the world i would defy
Let me make it plain as day
I look at you now an' i sigh
How could it be any other way?
© Bob Dylan 2005
photo © bob arnold
Monday, April 4, 2011
EARTH ~
DIVINING ROD
Over the winter we had two well diggers in the house —
Good guys. Gerry & Sam.
They arrived on a cold afternoon, no higher than 20 degrees.
They came because we had about reached the finish line
With any plumber who could untangle our
Plight with air in the water pipes
And it's a very simple plumbing system
We'd been living with this for a half year —
Air that clouds a drawn glass of water like smog.
So when in doubt, go to the ones who dig for water for
A living, they seem to have a sixth sense.
Out of their truck I watched both guys head
In different directions since we shovel a pathway
To two different doors. We always leave from one door
With an outside lock but like to come back in through
The other door without an exterior lock, because the door
With the lock is under a roof edge of ice that makes a slippery path.
We leave from that door and button up the place and
When we return one of us goes through that
Way to unlock the door we prefer. The preferred way
Has a wide and cleaner shoveled path.
The other way is a cowtrail punched down by snowshoes that
Ducks under a clothesline...so watch your head!
Gerry's a country boy, it's no surprise he was going the cowtrail way.
I don't know where Sam's from, he was coming on the wider path.
For a moment there both had stopped to negotiate with
One another which way to arrive. Maybe Sam won or
Gerry listened to his idea because they ended up
Coming on the wider path. All I know is when they
Left Sam went out the ice path way and Gerry almost
Insisted with his body he must go out the way he arrived.
Maybe he's superstitious?
I greeted them with a joke about two paths.
Our first meeting.
No, that's not true —
I met Gerry almost forty years ago
When he was a youngster and I was about 20
With a crew of his brother and cousins we worked together
For a fellow who liked sugaring and who seemed to like kids.
Think of us as a bunch of elves as we sprang off the tractor
With its pulled wagon holding the big sap tub and flew
To the trees with our gathering pails, snow past our knees
To fetch an overnight catch of maple sap from
Hundreds and hundreds of tapped buckets.
Squeals and shouts and always laughter we spent
Hours this way. Sometimes days in a row.
On a big red tractor plowing down a narrow back road of snow.
This was before tubing was used to collect maple sap.
Before tubing (and cellphones) people seemed to be
Outdoors more often, and they liked to work together,
And there was much more laughter.
So this was how we worked with Gerry & Sam at our house
And things got communicated one to the other
And the water problem was solved.
It was solved by listening carefully to our stories
While standing in the kitchen and getting warm
For a moment by the woodstove, before moving
(yes all of us) down into the bowels of our stone cellar.
By crawling over an obstacle course I won't even go into,
Just trust me. Into the cellar and listening to us and
Watching the water and how it was operating (or not)
In the pipes, and shouting up to someone
Through the floor boards in the kitchen to
Turn on or off the pump, while another went out
To the truck to grab additional tools since gaining
On a problem always calls for another tool or two.
From the stone cellar we all then headed
Outdoors to the well and its submersible pump.
Long ago I had built a stone cairn around the well casing,
Always kept it shoveled free of snow just for a problem like this —
Having to go down into the well in the middle of winter and
Yank everything up. That means about 100 feet of
Black pipe up and over all the snow banks,
See to the old pump (okay), now carefully look over
The pitless adapter and check valve.
The latter is the troublemaker —
Probably has been since the day
Or week it was installed, brand new and brass.
But brass now comes weaker without lead added to
Its mold and can crack in the handwork of even the best
Plumber or well digger and this is what this one had done.
It took two guys with a sixth sense for water to
Track it down. Searching from the kitchen to the
Cellar to inside the well 100 feet pitched into the earth.
And one guy is newly recovering from shoulder surgery
So the other guy came to help him lift.
photo © bob arnold
DIVINING ROD
Over the winter we had two well diggers in the house —
Good guys. Gerry & Sam.
They arrived on a cold afternoon, no higher than 20 degrees.
They came because we had about reached the finish line
With any plumber who could untangle our
Plight with air in the water pipes
And it's a very simple plumbing system
We'd been living with this for a half year —
Air that clouds a drawn glass of water like smog.
So when in doubt, go to the ones who dig for water for
A living, they seem to have a sixth sense.
Out of their truck I watched both guys head
In different directions since we shovel a pathway
To two different doors. We always leave from one door
With an outside lock but like to come back in through
The other door without an exterior lock, because the door
With the lock is under a roof edge of ice that makes a slippery path.
We leave from that door and button up the place and
When we return one of us goes through that
Way to unlock the door we prefer. The preferred way
Has a wide and cleaner shoveled path.
The other way is a cowtrail punched down by snowshoes that
Ducks under a clothesline...so watch your head!
Gerry's a country boy, it's no surprise he was going the cowtrail way.
I don't know where Sam's from, he was coming on the wider path.
For a moment there both had stopped to negotiate with
One another which way to arrive. Maybe Sam won or
Gerry listened to his idea because they ended up
Coming on the wider path. All I know is when they
Left Sam went out the ice path way and Gerry almost
Insisted with his body he must go out the way he arrived.
Maybe he's superstitious?
I greeted them with a joke about two paths.
Our first meeting.
No, that's not true —
I met Gerry almost forty years ago
When he was a youngster and I was about 20
With a crew of his brother and cousins we worked together
For a fellow who liked sugaring and who seemed to like kids.
Think of us as a bunch of elves as we sprang off the tractor
With its pulled wagon holding the big sap tub and flew
To the trees with our gathering pails, snow past our knees
To fetch an overnight catch of maple sap from
Hundreds and hundreds of tapped buckets.
Squeals and shouts and always laughter we spent
Hours this way. Sometimes days in a row.
On a big red tractor plowing down a narrow back road of snow.
This was before tubing was used to collect maple sap.
Before tubing (and cellphones) people seemed to be
Outdoors more often, and they liked to work together,
And there was much more laughter.
So this was how we worked with Gerry & Sam at our house
And things got communicated one to the other
And the water problem was solved.
It was solved by listening carefully to our stories
While standing in the kitchen and getting warm
For a moment by the woodstove, before moving
(yes all of us) down into the bowels of our stone cellar.
By crawling over an obstacle course I won't even go into,
Just trust me. Into the cellar and listening to us and
Watching the water and how it was operating (or not)
In the pipes, and shouting up to someone
Through the floor boards in the kitchen to
Turn on or off the pump, while another went out
To the truck to grab additional tools since gaining
On a problem always calls for another tool or two.
From the stone cellar we all then headed
Outdoors to the well and its submersible pump.
Long ago I had built a stone cairn around the well casing,
Always kept it shoveled free of snow just for a problem like this —
Having to go down into the well in the middle of winter and
Yank everything up. That means about 100 feet of
Black pipe up and over all the snow banks,
See to the old pump (okay), now carefully look over
The pitless adapter and check valve.
The latter is the troublemaker —
Probably has been since the day
Or week it was installed, brand new and brass.
But brass now comes weaker without lead added to
Its mold and can crack in the handwork of even the best
Plumber or well digger and this is what this one had done.
It took two guys with a sixth sense for water to
Track it down. Searching from the kitchen to the
Cellar to inside the well 100 feet pitched into the earth.
And one guy is newly recovering from shoulder surgery
So the other guy came to help him lift.
photo © bob arnold
Sunday, April 3, 2011
EARTH ~
Letter to Mrs. John Marshall (Jane Pollard) in Leeds, 1805
...the time will come when the light of the setting Sun upon these mountain tops will be as heretofore a pure joy — not the same gladness, that can never be — but yet a joy even more tender. It will soothe me to know how happy he would have been could he have seen the same beautiful spectacle. I shall have him with me, and yet shall know that he is not of the reach of all sorrow and pain, can never mourn for us — his tender soul was awake to all our feelings — his wishes were intimately connected with our happiness.
...his courage I need not speak of, it served him in the hour of trial, he was seen 'speaking with apparent cheerfulness to the first Mate a few minutes before the ship went down', and when nothing more could be done he said 'the will of God be done' and I have no doubt when he felt that it was out of his power to save his life, he was as calm as before if some thought of what we should endure did not awaken a pang. Our loss is not to be measured but by those who are acquainted with the nature of our pleasures and have seen how happily we lived together those eight months that he was under our Roof — he loved solitude and he rejoiced in society — he would wander alone among these hills with his fishing-rod, or led on merely by the pleasure of walking, for many hours — or he would walk with William or me, or both of us, and was continually pointing out with a gladness which is seldom seen but in very young people something which perhaps would have escaped our observation, for he had so fine an eye that no distinction was unnoticed by him, and so tender a feeling that he never noticed any thing in vain. Many a time has he called me out in an evening to look at the moon or stars, or a cloudy sky, or this vale in the quiet moonlight — but the stars and moon were his chief delight, — he made of them his companions when he was at Sea, and was never tired of those thoughts which the silence of the night fed in him — then he was so happy by the fire-side, and little business of the house interested him, he loved our cottage, he helped us to furnish it, and to make the gardens — trees are growing now which he planted. Oh my dear Jane!
15 March 1805
...the time will come when the light of the setting Sun upon these mountain tops will be as heretofore a pure joy — not the same gladness, that can never be — but yet a joy even more tender. It will soothe me to know how happy he would have been could he have seen the same beautiful spectacle. I shall have him with me, and yet shall know that he is not of the reach of all sorrow and pain, can never mourn for us — his tender soul was awake to all our feelings — his wishes were intimately connected with our happiness.
...his courage I need not speak of, it served him in the hour of trial, he was seen 'speaking with apparent cheerfulness to the first Mate a few minutes before the ship went down', and when nothing more could be done he said 'the will of God be done' and I have no doubt when he felt that it was out of his power to save his life, he was as calm as before if some thought of what we should endure did not awaken a pang. Our loss is not to be measured but by those who are acquainted with the nature of our pleasures and have seen how happily we lived together those eight months that he was under our Roof — he loved solitude and he rejoiced in society — he would wander alone among these hills with his fishing-rod, or led on merely by the pleasure of walking, for many hours — or he would walk with William or me, or both of us, and was continually pointing out with a gladness which is seldom seen but in very young people something which perhaps would have escaped our observation, for he had so fine an eye that no distinction was unnoticed by him, and so tender a feeling that he never noticed any thing in vain. Many a time has he called me out in an evening to look at the moon or stars, or a cloudy sky, or this vale in the quiet moonlight — but the stars and moon were his chief delight, — he made of them his companions when he was at Sea, and was never tired of those thoughts which the silence of the night fed in him — then he was so happy by the fire-side, and little business of the house interested him, he loved our cottage, he helped us to furnish it, and to make the gardens — trees are growing now which he planted. Oh my dear Jane!
15 March 1805
If it wasn't for the rich leaves of Dorothy Wordsworth's journals, diaries and letters, we may not have today many of the poems as rich by her older brother William Wordsworth. He fleeced her tree freely. Though married to Mary Hutchinson, brother & sister lived together almost all of their lives. By age 30, Dorothy decided she was too old to marry. The Lake District was her bride.
The letter above concerns her younger brother John, who died at sea in 1805 off the south coast of England while Master of the ship Earl of Abergavenny
The letter above concerns her younger brother John, who died at sea in 1805 off the south coast of England while Master of the ship Earl of Abergavenny
Friday, April 1, 2011
ANNOUNCING FOR SPRING !
Y O K E L
a long Green Mountain poem by Bob Arnold
Y O K E L
a long Green Mountain poem by Bob Arnold
Ten years in the work ~ farm poems, woods poems, narrative, love poems
Longhouse, 2011
156 pages perfect bound / $18 plus $3.95 media mail s/h
International orders please inquire
156 pages perfect bound / $18 plus $3.95 media mail s/h
International orders please inquire
Credit card, check or easy-to-use Paypal - just link here
A portion of this book previewed through Sylvester Pollet's "Backwoods Broadsides" series.
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