Saturday, November 7, 2015
Friday, November 6, 2015
MILTOS SACHTOURIS ~
M I L T O S S A C H T O U R I S
Wind Blew
Wind blew
flowers from another world
like a church
with black stigmata of evil
here and there
burning the skin red
in sleep
her hair
smelled tragically
sweet
Hour-Hand
From a high mountain I saw the sea
in its arms I saw
birds living and dying
and I shone high like a star
with tears and with nails
and around me fish and ladders
ladders they could climb up to push out
my heart
ladders I could climb down
to shred the heart of the sea
For Spring
The sun is green
the trees are burning
awaiting the swallows
our iron swallows' nests
no longer fool us with their flowers
they cost us our arms and legs
now our arms and legs are hanging
from the trees
The Poet's Head
I cut off my head
I put it on a plate
and took it to my doctor
— There's nothing wrong, he said,
it's just overheated
throw it in the river and we'll see
I threw it in the river with the frogs
and it raised a dreadful racket
it started shrieking and howling
all kinds of strange songs
I picked it up and put it back on my neck
and roamed the streets in a rage
with a poet's green hexagonometric head
__________________
Miltos Sachtouris
Poems
(1945-1971)
translated from the Greek by
Karen Emmerich
Archipelago books, 2006
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
NEW! FRANCO BELTRAMETTI BOOK ~
"Franco Beltrametti's smooth-barked Muse leads him across the grids of
latitude and longitude to the source of good medicine poems. A suavity
masks these elemental songs - or rather, gives these elder faces a
modern "human" mask. Civilized, in the best sense."
Gary Snyder
Franco in action ~
https://vimeo.com/48647354
Gary Snyder
Franco in action ~
https://vimeo.com/48647354
Monday, November 2, 2015
THOMAS BERNHARD ~
T H O M A S B E R N H A R D
MY FATHER
My father suffered from the aridity of the earth,
likewise from the moldered face of summer,
he climbed the mountain and rested above the tarns.
At that time the ships used to sail westwards,
never shall I forget how my father's hand
reached out for the human soul —
He climbed the mountain to see the countryside that they
trampled to bits in seven weeks.
"I tell you," he said, "Love is indestructible —."
Then the tanks rolled over the wheat field and buried
hope for the coming year.
They all suffered from the aridity of the earth, some
fell back into the night, saying: we
cannot find any verses at all in this monstrous poem.
My father believed this earth belonged to him, since he
had bought a hundred acres and a hut with
trees; in which he slept,
but found no dream.
For hundreds of millions of years he gazed into the animals' eyes
as they flickered on Christmas Eve.
He said: "We don't need candles!"
My father brought a branch from the olive tree and carried snow
to the lips of his sisters.
In Siberia he embarked upon a voyage, yet
needed an eternity, because they were all suffering
from the aridity of the earth,
and a voice within him said: "I shall dip my light
in the human snow."
___________________________
T H O M A S B E R N H A R D
translated from the German by
Peter Waugh
Three Rooms Press (2015)
http://www.thomasbernhard.org/
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Saturday, October 31, 2015
SO LONG, IT'S BEEN GOOD TO KNOW YA ~
M A R K M U R P H Y
L E O N B I B B
A N I T A S A R K O
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/arts/music/reflecting-on-anita-sarko-influential-dj-of-the-new-york-club-scene.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fobituaries&action=click&contentCollection=obituaries®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront
all credit: nytimes
Friday, October 30, 2015
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
NORMAN MAILER TO MICHAEL MCCLURE~
N O R M A N M A I L E R
195. TO MICHAEL MCCLURE
December 19, 1959
Dear Michael McClure,
I had a hard time reading your letter because like most poets you
write a prose which is an assault on the nervous system of a stylist. I think
it probably has something to do with the mother-love most boy poets get
when they are young and while I'm certain the inner workings of your
mind are a thing of surrealist beauty the expression in prose is so
damned self indulgent that I recoil because you see, baby, everyone I
knew who has any talent is certain that their own mind is the most beautiful
work yet created by God (Paul Carroll said a couple of weeks ago,
"The Devil is the most beautiful creation of God"). But one's style is the
hero of one's art and a hero with bad manners never makes no history
so you would do well to consider all your competitors, large and small,
older and younger than you as being equally greedy and self absorbed
and so never look to them for praise, for love, for attention and certainly
never offer them the spoils of your brain in a casual and styleless
letter since they will only put you down.
[Don] Carpenter is right. I said that you were beat and not hip and
people who are beat do not really interest me because they are in need
and I do not care to run a free restaurant. I liked you well enough, I
thought you were a saucy little cat but then I began to dig that New York
was not your town and I like it because it is hard and true as negative
truth is true. I had the feeling I might be able to enjoy your company in
a few years when you are harder and less in love with yourself but until
then you were in my book just another royal mountain climber who was
hoping you don't have to get killed or even lose a little on the way up.
Best to you and cheers,
Norman
Random House 2014
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Monday, October 26, 2015
JACK GILBERT ~
J A C K G I L B E R T
Alone
I never thought Michiko would come back
after she died. But if she did, I knew
it would be as a lady in a long white dress.
It is strange that she has returned
as somebody's dalmatian. I meet
the man walking her on a leash
almost every week. He says good morning
and I stoop down to calm her. He said
once that she was never like that with
other people. Sometimes she is tethered
on their lawn when I go by. If nobody
is around, I sit on the grass. When she
finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap
and we watch each other's eyes as I whisper
in her soft ears. She cares nothing about
our mystery. She likes it best when
I touch her head and tell her small
things about my days and our friends.
That makes her happy the way it always did.
_________________________
J A C K G I L B E R T
Collected Poems
Knopf
I started to type out a poem by Jack Gilbert today — in fact, two poems,
and I was going to tell you how the first poem, no need to say which poem,
after typing five lines and more to go, vanished before my eyes. I touched no buttons
but anyone who knows computer mechanics knows full well a button or something had to
have been touched for the poem to vanish. No, the poem simply vanished, probably because
someone wanted this to be so. I let it be so. I started on a second poem and the same disappearance occurred. I then made my way through a third poem, the one here for us.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
MAUREEN O'HARA ~
M A U R E E N O ' H A R A
b. Aug. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, Ireland
~
Boise, Idaho, 2015
Saturday, October 24, 2015
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