APOLLINAIRE MEETS PADGETT ~

Inscription for the Tomb of the Painter
Henri Rousseau Customs Inspector



Dear Rousseau you hear us

Hello

From Delaunay his wife Mister Queval and me

Let our luggage go duty-free through heaven's gate

We'll bring you brushes colors and canvas

So your holy leisure in the real light

You can devote it to painting

The way you did my portrait

The face of the stars






There



There are some terrific little bridges

There is my heart that beats for you

There is a sad woman on the road

There is a nice little cottage in a garden

There are six soldiers having an insanely good time

There are my eyes that search for your image



There is a charming stand of trees on the hill

And an old National Guardsman pissing as we go by

There is a poet who dreams of lil Lou

There is an exquisite lil Lou in that big Paris

There is some artillery in a forest

There is a shepherd grazing his sheep

There is my life that belongs to you

There is my fountain pen that flows and flows

There is a curtain of delicate delicate poplars

There is my past which is really past

There are narrow streets in Menton where we loved each other

There is a little girl from Sospel who whips her friends

There is my horsewhip in my oat bag

There are Belgian rail cars on the move

There is my love

There is all of life

I adore you



___________________________

Guillaume Apollinaire
translated by Ron Padgett
New York Review of Books
Z O N E, Selected Poems
2015


Listen to the soldier read:
https://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Apollinaire/Apollinaire-Guillaume_01_Le-Pont-Mirabeau_1913.mp3

WHERE IT'S SAFE ~

PANCHO & LEFTY ~

http://townesvanzandt.com/

POP '67 ~

SALLY TIMMS ~

P J HARVEY ~

 

 

CROWDED BY BEAUTY ~

P H I L I P     W H A L E N

You will want the Philip Whalen biography. 

It is a gnarly book in that it goes round and round in interesting ways, 

often through friendships, quite unusual in this day and age of publishing. 

First Ginsberg, then Kerouac, and then taking off like a rocket
with Snyder

and leveling off mysteriously & sweetly with Kyger, 
while sharing birthdays with McClure (and Rimbaud!)

and all the friends, each and every one

claim they never saw Philip with 

a love interest. 

The gods could have told them that.

 Look at the full Collected Poems if you want to see his love interest. 

Long before a Buddhist,
Whalen, like Kerouac, were human beings. 

They didn’t actually waste their time on the Buddhist stuff, 

they just never needed it in the first place.
So the book reads less as a biography and more like an autobiography— 

Philip’s — the one he didn’t write. 

He wrote love poems. 

He wrote On Bear’s Head. 

The book that must be in every poetry library if one wishes to claim it is a poetry library. 

[ BA ]

Counterpoint, 2015

ITSY BITSY SPIDER ~

REMEMBERING HASKELL WEXLER ~

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/movies/haskell-wexler-oscar-winning-cinematographer-dies-at-93.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=movies&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Movies&pgtype=article

 

 

PABLO NERUDA'S HOMES ~

Pablo Neruda's home Isla Negra

 overlooking the crashing waves of the ocean. 

  Credit Danielle Villasana for The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/travel/pablo-neruda-chile.html?ref=books

FRN TAKE NOTE! ~

A train on the Xianggui railway in southern China. 
Wang Wei’s photographs show off China’s natural beauty as well as its trains. 
Photograph: Wang Wei​

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/25/china-train-hunter-wang-wei-chronicle-expanding-railways

article: The Guardian: UK
 FRN: "fucking railroad nut"

PURE JOY ~

all together

STRAIGHT TALK ~

S E R E N E     J O N E S

A short talk for the ages ~ 


http://www.hulu.com/watch/886729

and more ~

http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60665256

MERRY MERRY ~

Oberägeri, Switzerland

  People dressed as Santa Claus pose on their stand-up paddles

 as they cross Lake Ägerisee

Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

CHRISTMAS ISLAND ~

PETER COYOTE ~

 

 

 

NO STAGING ~

Workers polish a snow sculpture ahead of the annual

Harbin (China) International Ice and Snow Festival

Photograph: Sheng Li/Reuters

CHARLES BUKOWSKI ~

wearing the collar



I live with a lady and four cats
and some days we all get
along.

some days I have trouble with
one of the
cats.

other days I have trouble with
two of the
cats.

other days,
three.

some days I have trouble with
all four of the
cats

and the
lady:

ten eyes looking at me
as if I were a dog.


_________________

C H A R L E S     B U K O W S K I

"A large number of the poems published in the posthumous collections,
especially beginning with What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through
the Fire (1999), differ — sometimes radically so — from the manuscript version
of the very same poems. In an attempt to rescue Bukowski's genuine voice and style,
the poems in this volume are faithful reproductions of the original manuscripts. If a
given manuscript could not be found, then the appropriate magazine version was
used; literary magazine editors made very few changes — if any — even printing 
Bukowski's unintended typographical mistakes. The sources below indicate which
version is being used for each poem as well as its date of publication."

"Poems flagged as uncollected have previously appeared in small press magazine
only, but given their obscure nature and limited print runs — 200 or 300 copies, if that — 
it is almost as if they were never actually published. Likewise, while some of the poems printed
in this collection have appeared in previous Black Sparrow Press and Ecco volumes of
poetry, the versions made available here have never been published before. This book, 
then, is a collection of new poetry and prose by Charles Bukowski."


For a poet like Charles Bukowski, who certainly didn't begin his writing career with the
likes of Ecco Press, or even Black Sparrow Press, I have highlighted above an astonishing
statement by the editor Debritto, diminishing the very world where Charles Bukowski made 
his name and reputation: the small press magazine and those obscure journals with limited
print runs. His early bread & butter. His charter. His family. If I'm not mistaken, some part of
even the Ecco publishing organization also cut their teeth on publishing a small press journal
and drew authors from its vast underground. Best not to be smug re Bukowski's background.
He could be listening.

[ BA ]

FRANCO ~

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8300170.stm

SAM PHILLIPS ~

Little, Brown 2015