A Longhouse Birdhouse

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

M E R L E H A G G A R D

passes away on his birthday

6 April 2016

b. 1937

Oildale, California

photograph by marty stuart

WHY YOU MAY HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR SOUL ~

THE PANAMA PAPERS

NEW JAMES KOLLER ~

James Koller

Selected Poems 2003-2004-2005

Longhouse 2016

72 pages, perfect bound, 5.5 x 6.25 inches

$12.95

order here through Paypal, plus $3.95 (US shipping only)

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Check or money order to

Longhouse

PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro, VT 05303

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

FOR, IDA VIVIAN ARNOLD ~

born at the tail end of March on a spring day

Monday, April 4, 2016

LAMP ~

Lamp

After supper

No longer summer

A windy night ahead

We sit in the kitchen

One lamp

Read before the fire

Nothing else in our lives

Boots drying

Rain on the windows

Finding Open Water

There are these things

That make lovely creatures

More lovely —

A red-tailed hawk sweeps

From one moment of the hillside

To another

Rising mist will not lose him

3 deer wade into the shoulder of a field

They feel safe in the holler of rain

Then you, rolling up your pants

Before a bicycle ride

Your hair just touching the ground

I tell you I will do something with that

Your smile makes the beginning of all this

Loss

Put no trust in nothing, not even yourself

Yesterday was like summer, today snow blows

I’ve walked six miles with an axe and wedge

Actually make my living near a river running bright water

Home to a small hawk found mangled in the woodshed

Eyes opening, I load my rifle but won’t use it

Instead talk with the closest thing to me right now

Heavy gloves moving back short feathers

The break in its neck, claws no use, eyes closing

Rope of Bells

It is the

Rope of bells

You have put behind the door

That let me know

Whenever one of us goes

To the privy

The woodshed

The outdoors

Lovely

_____________________

Bob Arnold
some of these poems were first published in
Rope of Bells
CHERRY VALLEY EDITIONS

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Saturday, April 2, 2016

P O P A R T S C H O O L T A O I S T ~

R A Y J O H N S O N

Friday, April 1, 2016

HARRY CREWS ~

from the documentary
"Searching For The Wrong Eyed Jesus"
(Jim White)

Thursday, March 31, 2016

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

B L A C K     P R E S I D E N T

If a black man could be president

Could a white man be his slave?

Could a sinner enter heaven

By uttering his name?

If the terminator is my governor

Could a cowboy be my king?

When shall the cavalry enter Deadwood

And save my prince?

An exo-cannibal eats her enemies

An indo-cannibal eats his friends

I'd rather starve myself silly

Than to make amends

Blood on the altar       Blood on the lamb

Blood in the chalice

Not symbolic        but fresh

_____________________

Marilyn Chin
Hard Love Province
Norton 2014

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

STARLEP SIGNS ~

Monday, March 28, 2016

BOB ARNOLD ~

sweetheart

photo ~ bob arnold

Love and Landscape

Don’t ask us how we crossed the saltwater marsh

Grasses were high and easy under foot

The last stream was spanned by a driftwood plank

Thrown carefully into the muck

I didn’t sink and you didn’t sink

And when we came to ocean

Skittering of sandpipers

You held your dress and walked into the spray

It must have been also the sudden daylight that I loved

What I Hear

This river water is

The warm breath of

Her whisper, what I hear —

The brown and white flurry

Of her thin clothing

The sweat of handwork

That musses the long

Blonde hair — dirt across

The forehead, may I wash

It off? thicken my hands

In that hair, kiss what I love

Away from our work and bathing

Part whisper and part water

Hummingbird

Rarely pausing

Though I have seen

It stop the flutter

Of its amazing

Wings and perch

Nearly invisible

On a wire against

The evening sky —

And be sighted —

And being very

Still, be thought

Of as not there

How We Build

It is a day

Of sawing slab wood

Splitting

Then stacking

And be done

Tucking away insulation

Fixing windows

Sharpening every tool

The happy moment

Is there are still

Small grasshoppers

In the slip of meadow

That it is 28 degrees

At 7 this morning

And I wash your hair

In one bucket of

Strong spring water —

There is nothing like it

__________________________

Bob Arnold

WHERE RIVERS MEET

Sunday, March 27, 2016

SO LONG, JIM HARRISON ~

J I M H A R R I S O N

(Grayling, Michigan 1937~ Patagonia, Arizona 2016)

Bird Nightmares

The worst dream ever that all the birds in the world died overnight.

Science couldn't figure it out but then a humble graduate student

from Caltech said that a prodigious number of quasar particles were

speeding toward earth at 5,0000 miles per second. These particles sup-

posedly pass through us harmlessly from a galaxy that had a black

hole the equal in power to five billion suns. Is God thinking too big? I

wondered. So the birds were destroyed by this surge in cosmic power.

Bird-watching groups committed suicide en masse. They were in a

medieval hell without birds. It was soon discovered that the quasars

were reducing human intelligence by a fatal half. Minor wars broke

out everywhere in the world. Luckily no one was bright enough to

press the red button. Dogs ate dogs. Married couples murdered each

other in great numbers to no surprise. Animals went berserk, unlike

us they couldn't adjust to being stupid. People were reduced to read-

ing poetry because it was shorter. A raven on the verge of death said

to me, "Why did you do this to us?" The same question they always

ask us. A few swallows were found in Brazil deep in a cove behind a

giant waterfall. Brazil kept these for themselves, wanting to be the

only country with birds. There was money in it. Thousands died try-

ing to visit the birds. The waterfall made Niagara look like a trickle.

Many stayed with the birds until they starved to death.

___________________________

JIM HARRISON
Dead Man's Float
Copper Canyon Press 2016

Jim Harrison's New York Times obituary

Thomas McGuane on Jim Harrison