GHOSTS ~

Ghosts



March comes and water moves,

The river, ponds, brooks open.

On snowshoes this is the last week

You’ll hike down these banks of

Rotten snow, the last week bridges

Of ice will be there to criss-cross

Down stream, the last week a

Deer carcass will be pinned between

Rocks and white water spray through

The white of her skull — the runoff

Will let her go, or break her to pieces —

You’re aware of this where you step.

Pools of water swirl 5 feet deep,

Maybe her bones will lay down in the

Sand and white pebbles here, it is

The last week to think of any of this.

Beneath your feet of oblong ashwood

And softened leather you sense the newness

Of life — hide has slipped all winter off

The body, it is time to go places.


___________________________ 

Bob Arnold


Where Rivers Meet
Mad River Press



 

WILLIAM WANTLING ~

Poetry



I’ve got to be honest. I can
make good word music and rhyme

at the right times and fit words
together to give people pleasure

and even sometimes take their
breath away – but it always

somehow turns out kind of phoney.
Consonance and assonance and inner

rhyme won’t make up for the fact
that I can’t figure out how to get

down on real paper the real or the true
which we call life. Like the other

day. The other day I was walking
on the lower exercise yard here

at San Quentin and this cat called
Turk came up to a friend of mine

and said Ernie, I hear you’re
shooting on my kid. And Ernie

told him So what, punk? And Turk
pulled out his stuff and shanked

Ernie in the gut only Ernie had a
Metal tray in his shirt. Turk’s

shank bounced right off him and
Ernie pulled his stuff out and of

course Turk didn’t have a tray and
caught it dead in the chest, a bad

one, and the blood that came to his
lips was a bright pink, lung blood,

and he just laid down in the grass
and said Shit. Fuck it. Sheeit.

Fuck it. And he laughed a long
time, softly, until he died. Now

what could consonance or assonance or
even rhyme do to something like that?


 ____________________

W I L L I A M     W A N T L I N G 


Charles Bukowski on William Wantling

SHOES ~

Shoes


when you're young

a pair of

female

high-heeled shoes

just sitting

alone

in the closet

can fire your

bones;

when you're old

it's just

a pair of shoes

without

anybody

in them

and  just as

well. 



__________________


C H A R L E S     B U K O W S K I
edited by Abel Debritto
ON LOVE

the third and perhaps more to go in an excellent series drawing on many of Charles Bukowski's favorite subjects — horse racing can't be far behind

Ecco Press, 2016  

THIS WINTER ~

© bob arnold

SUGARING TIME ~

Sugaring Time



All at once

Off in the distance

Where an old hut

Sinks into the ground

Two small windows lit

And steam bellows

Up into the farmland sky —

You thought it was a fire

Until you tasted the air


______________________


Bob Arnold


Where Rivers Meet
Mad River Press

THE BE GOOD TANYAS ~

HANNE BRAMNESS ~

H A  N N E     B R A M N E S S     S T O C K H O L M     D A Y S 

B I O G R A P H Y

OUR TOWN ~

HOW OUR GOOD OL' 
SMALL VERMONT TOWN 
VOTED

CHEERS THE SOUL

The majority of us all are caught in a foolish way, and most can’t help it, since most of the world is ruled by
the iron first of economics, manipulating every facet of one bad luck turn after another — the ever best and hard working can be swept into debt.
Washed away with a hose. Be forgotten. My aim is mainly at the whole world, blue from space, and my eternal question: why can’t
we all have it better than we do? It’s right there to work with. The earth looks glorious from space. Why not make it so on the ground?
We find many reasons why not.

GABRIELA MISTRAL ~

C H I L D R E N' S     H A I R

Soft hair, hair that is all the softness of the world: without you lying in my

lap, what silk would I enjoy? Sweet the passing day because of that silk, sweet

the sustenance, sweet the ancient sadness, at least for the few hours it slips

between my hands.

     Touch it to my cheek; wind it in my lap like flowers; let me braid it, to

soften my pain, to magnify the light with it, now that it is dying.

     When I am with God someday, I do not want an angel's wing to cool my

heart's bruise; I want, stretched against the sky, the hair of the children I

loved, to let it blow in the wind against my face eternally!

translated by Stephen Tapscott

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS, 2002 

 

 Born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga in Vicuna, Chile, in the Equil Valley, April 7, 1889

There are some lovely prose poems in this collection by Mistral to Alfonsina Storni, Pablo Neruda, Rainer Maria Rilke — not to be missed.

MOLE IN THE GROUND ~

BERTA CACERES ~

HONDURAN INDIGENOUS LEADER BERTA CACERES ASSASSINATED

UPDATE FROM THE NATION


UPDATE: THE NEW YORKER

IRISH SPEAK ~

E D N A    O' B R I E N      R E A D S     H E A N E Y

FIRST STEP ~

Dear Kim,

Naturally, voting is all about one having a sense of empowerment and it should be practiced.

If someone believes in Trump, Hillary, Sanders — go for it.

But it’s quite another thing voting for the status quo of Hillary and Trump, who won’t move in any force toward a settlement of fairness and justice. In fact, Trump is practicing racism and bigotry and there is no way of protecting this. Clinton is simply more of the Obama platform, a man I value greatly and the position he is in, but his supporters make few moves at all that threatens their base of livelihood and caliber. They speak and barely practice. If anything,  Hillary Clinton has become more a war hawk as she has progressed within her political entourage. War monsters Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld were allowed to walk away scot-free after their devastating war maneuvers; no Wall Street firm had their nuts crushed for their demoralizing practices that continue every single moment of every single day; and the liberals are now consumed with their identities, forgetting the racism that continues in this country, and the downtrodden of the poor and unlucky. The liberals are effete as always and of course a liberal home in Texas would have photographs of Bush Sr. and the Clintons. They’re all Republicans!

This is the mighty rat-race of double-speak.

Tiny Williamstown, MA., is one of the few Berkshire county towns that voted for Hillary for President in Massachusetts. The majority of the rural spots in the state went for Bernie. Or Trump. Same in Vermont. Country folk want the straight shooters, even if they are night & day.

The independent stronghold everywhere in this country is rural. They talk with their hands.  Sometimes harsh, often elegantly and for justice. It’s an odd soup. A true American melting pot soup.

The problem, always, is there is no argument about justice: if you are against any part of humanity in its goodness and life, you are against freedom and justice. Period. Middle of the roaders are also the enemies of justice because there is no middle of the road to justice. It’s existing, or it isn’t. Compromise never works when one is attempting to justify a balance for justice. There are plain-jane bad people who are ignorant, abusive, and never to be compromised with. They must be educated just how a unity forms. It forms around equality for all.

The liberals want their coffee just-so, their cute dogs, comfortable homes and cars, and they detest more than anything the likes of anyone who has not given up on 60s ideals and hardwork radicalism that only proves the liberal softies as caved-in wusses.

Hey, what are you gonna do?!

Many (not all), somehow mistakenly believe a vote for Hillary is a vote for women,  which she is only in appearance. Otherwise she’s a corporate driven war hawk secretary of state. As bad as her stumbling and bumbling bubba husband, last seen campaigning for his wife inside and outside polling places on Super Tuesday in eastern Massachusetts, which is, by the way, against the law. 

It’s no mistake or surprise that we get two polarizing figures now at the head of the pack in the US Presidential race, adored by the general media capital, running against one another in the general election this fall, and in the meantime lose the chance of an actual and decent and fighting for-justice-for-all (Superman) named Bernie. “He’ll never win” is often the liberal cry against Bernie. My god, I've heard this whining all my life from these people: 'We can't end the war, we can't save the historical bridge, we can't stop the power plant, we can't climb this steep trail! etc.' With a battle cry like that, no wonder we no longer win wars, or can build a proper mousetrap any longer in America.

all’s well, Bob

 

FELICITY ~

M A R Y    O L I V E R    W/    R I C K Y

Do the Trees Speak?





Do the trees speak back to the wind

when the wind offers some invitational comment?

As some of us do, do they also talk to the sun?

I believe so, and if such belief need rest on

   evidence, let me just say, Sometimes it's

   an earful.



But there's more.



If you can hear the trees in their easy hours

of course you can also hear them later,

   crying out at the sawmill.







Storage



When I moved from one house to another

there were many things I had no room

for. What does one do? I rented a storage

space. And filled it. Years passed.

Occasionally I went there and looked in,

but nothing happened, not a single

twinge of the heart.

As I grew older the things I cared

about grew fewer, but were more

important. So one day I undid the lock

and called the trash man. He took

everything.

I felt like the little donkey when

his burden is finally lifted. Things!

Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful

fire! More room in your heart for love,

for the trees! For the birds who own

nothing — the reason they can fly.






This Morning



This morning the redbirds' eggs

have hatched and already the chicks

are chirping for food. They don't

know where it's coming from, they

just keep shouting, "More! More!"

As to anything else, they haven't

had a single thought. Their eyes

haven't yet opened, they know nothing

about the sky that's waiting. Or

the thousands, the millions of trees.

They don't even know they have wings.



And just like that, like a simple

neighborhood event, a miracle is

taking place.



_______________________
Mary Oliver
Felicity
Penguin 2015 



 

TWEEDLE DEE ~

GO! BERNIE ~

V O T E

B E R N I E     S A N D E R S

P R E S I D E N T

United States Senator from Vermont
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2007 Serving with Patrick Leahy
Preceded by	Jim Jeffords
Chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee
In office January 3, 2013 – January 3, 2015
Preceded by	Patty Murray
Succeeded by	Johnny Isakson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Vermont's at-large district
In office January 3, 1991 – January 3, 2007
Preceded by	Peter Plympton Smith
Succeeded by	Peter Welch
Mayor of Burlington
In office April 6, 1981 – April 4, 1989
Preceded by	Gordon Paquette
Succeeded by	Peter Clavelle
Personal details
Born	Bernard Sanders September 8, 1941 (age 74) Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
Political party	Liberty Union (Before 1979) Independent (1979–2015) Democratic (2015–present)
Spouse(s)	Deborah Shiling (1964–1966) Jane O’Meara (1988–present)
Domestic partner	Susan Mott (1969)[1]
Children	Levi (with Mott) Dave (stepchild) Carina (stepchild) Heather (stepchild)
Residence	Burlington, Vermont, U.S.
Alma mater	Brooklyn College (1959–60) University of Chicago (1960–64)
Ethnicity	Jewish
Signature
Website	Senate website Campaign website

photograph by bob arnold







Charles Blow from the New York Times

FROM SNOW AND ROCK AND WOOD AND MUD AND OVER ICE ~

The day it turned sunny and 45 degrees and still February

my goodness! we headed back into the woodlot

and pulled out 12 sled loads of that red oak

firewood pile we had made earlier in the

week by felling the old and dead tree

and hand-splitting right on site

Except this time we loaded all 12 loads

right into two truck loads and

brought the firewood home that way

through the breaking down ground

frost, the mud that is here now

and let's not even try to

remember all the ice

Instead of dragging the sleds home twelve times

this time we used the truck —

we're not as dumb as we look —

and we still had a jolly old time

Did I tell you the battery is dead on the truck?

It's a 1989 Toyota red pickup

and it's the only vehicle

we ever bought brand new

our first 40 years of marriage

Walked right in with 12k in cash

in our pocket and that was

after saving 1k every year

for, you got it,

12 years

We have worked with the truck so long now

that it has worn out a name,

we call it "the red truck"

and we talk to the truck

nearly as much as we talk to

one another and we talk to

one another all the time!

We also pat the truck on the side

the steering wheel and when

we carry along the jump-start battery

in the cab with us to turn the truck over

(it takes quite a long time to sled down

through the woods sled loads and

load a truck up) plus I never

told you the frame is about

busted

We have to be tender,

and it's easy to be

tender

[ BA ]

28 February 2016

HILLARY - KISSINGER ~

H E N R Y     K I S S I N G E R     H I L L A R Y     C L I N T O N

 

 

SPEAK TO ME ~

this is a cartoon, an immediate classic to my mind,

I took a photograph of off someone's fridge door

I still can't stop laughing

the artist: Jason Adam Katzenstein

from the New Yorker

 

UNCOLLECTED ALLEN GINSBERG ~

[ P O E M ]




3'd day down Yangtze River, yesterday

passed vast mountain gorges and hairpin

river-bends, mist sun and cement factory

soft coal dust everywhere, all China

got a big allergic cold. Literary dele-

gation homebound after 3 weeks, now I'm

traveling separately like I used to — except

everywhere omnipresent kindly Chinese

Bureaucracy meets me at airports & boats

& takes me to tourist hotels & orders meals. I'm

trying to figure a way out — envious of 2

bearded hippies traveling 4th class in

steerage eating tangerines & bananas —

sleepers in passageways on mats, Chinese

voyagers playing checkers. Saw Beijing,

Great Wall, tombs & palaces, Suchow's

Tang gardens, Hangchow's West Lake walkway

dyke to hold the giant water in years of drought

built up by governors Tsu-Tung-Po and Po-Chu-I.

Saw Cold Mt. Temple w/ Snyder who'd

heard its bell echo across ocean.


                                                   — China, November 11, 1984


Published in: Big Scream, no. 20 (February 15, 1985), p. 4, November 11,1984

Now, here's a poet and his editor who know how to honor its small press.

Each poem in this book is individually notated and graced.