FAREWELL JAMES COTTON ~

Tunica, Miss. 1935 ~ Austin, Texas 2017

LEONARD COHEN ~

PAUL KLEE ~

R E A D      M E

Hatje Cantz, 2013

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ICELAND ~

SEMIOTEXT(E)

2009

R E A D      M E

BEAUTIFUL DAYS ~

Amongst the Rocks

Just who are those women

bent over on the rocky

shoreline searching and

searching and seemingly

searching for more, a pail

at their feet, plastic and

colored, not a work pail,

and these women seem

from another place in 

time, not in beach wear,

skirts and hair wild with

the wind

It was only days and

days later, when we 

were off the road

back home in the

woods that we spoke

with our son who asked

“where did you go”

and we told him of our

travels from mountains 

and streams and rivers

and finally to the sea

and about these women

one morning bent at the

shoreline, amongst the

rocks, that he told us,

years earlier, right there

amongst the rocks, he

had thrown his wedding

ring away

Men's Room

even

the

bum

( bless him )

looks

in the

mirror

Beautiful Days

Beautiful days

when we are home

at work in the woods

far from the maddening crowd

today we lugged

out on shoulder (me)

arms (you) ash and

maple logs from a

glade I cleared

early in September —

it topped off a cordwood

stack we started last week —

wouldn't you know

by day's end

right on that woodpile

is where the sun falls too

—————————————

Bob Arnold

BEAUTIFUL DAYS

Longhouse, 2013 

HANS MAGNUS ENZENSBERGER ~

R E A D     M E

TIME, AGAIN, FOR RALPH EUGENE MEATYARD ~

P H O T O     B O O T H

M U C H     M O R E     M E A T Y A R D

TERESE SVOBODA ~

L O L A     R I D G E

Anything That Burns You

A portrait of

Lola Ridge, Radical Poet

Terese Svoboda

Schaffner Press, 2016

B O O K     R E V I E W

DAVID HADJU ~

Farrar 2016

D A V I D      H A D J U

The latest from the songful mind and memory of David Hadju, who remains

in the long list of music critics, one of the best at keeping his head in the clouds

and his feet firmly on the ground. 

Each of his books — whether on the jazz world; Bob Dylan, Richard Farina and the 

orbit of American folk music, are rich in portrait and analysis

steeped in enriched storytelling. In this new book on pop music at all

its staggered levels, he shows a knack for historical research 

as well as rekindling his childhood.

[ BA ]

INUA ELLAMS ~

The Forced


One day when you are pissing on the roadside,
your cracked bare feet on grass streaked with feces
and porewater plastic bags, you will hear his name
and turn to watch his convoy, numerous as the aunts,
the uncles and ancestors you have never known, inch
down the crowded Mushin street singing his praises
as if a capitalist black Jesus, dishing cold hand cash
to those pressed either side of his jeep, hands out —
stretched, pleading with a hunger you know too well.

One month later, when another born-troway smoking
stolen Indian hemp talks softly of the crude oil rags
and patchwork dishcloths you both wore as nappies,
shivers from the same foul breeze blowing the truth
of your fractured life, you will call his name, Oluomo,
speak its solid weight and wonder if it is worth a try.

One year after your quick slim fingers have caught
the attention of his boys who dance drunk on paraga,
the oil drum fire flickering in their eyes, you will hear
they too were born and thrown away, they had snakes
for mothers too, but were lifted from gutters and now
are this citywide tribe of hard men spidering through
the night Oluomo alone controls: homes raided, rivals
knifed, politicians bribed, the rich ransomed and each
area-boy willing to die for each. You marvel at such
family, ask if they need help, anything you will do.

One decade from now, when police who are vicious
as they are duplicitous have beaten you senseless,
have dumped your swollen self in a concrete cell,
when you deny them the satisfaction of betrayal
/ no be by force o, no be by force / you will cry
your throat dry as cracked feet, sob uncontrollably
as blood bubbling your torn nostril bursts, you will
call for your brothers, but for now you are free.



——————————

INUA ELLAMS
The Wire-Headed Heathen
Akashic Books 2015

Inua Ellams was born in Nigeria in 1984.
He now lives in London and works as a poet,
playwright, performer and graphic artist.

NANCY WILLARD ~

N A N C Y      W I L L A R D

photo 1998. CreditEric Lindbloom

1936 ~ 2017

The Poetry Foundation

New York Times Obituary

HUMMINGBIRD ~

ROBERT OSBORNE ~

FORGIVENESS ~

Herta Müller ~

THE PARIS REVIEW INTERVIEW

RELIEF MAP ~

PIERRE REVERDY ~

P I E R R E      R E V E R D Y

From hand to hand

I no longer think of anything but the night

The long thawing winter of sovereign thoughts

Now that the circuit is closing

A dead star drags a fire without sparks though the black sky

Cold hands unshackled but always at a cost

A timid distorted glow around the unsheltering hearth

At the roundabout of failures

Destitution      paler than an egg

Against the battered fence      in the foul breath of hate

I walk the parched trail of happiness

The distance open to its hour

In the furious rattling of links shaken free

Desertionless days held back with a chain

No room any more     not here    not there

Fixed      at a standstill

The hive of light

———————————

Pierre Reverdy

translated from the French by Dan Bellm

Black Square Editions

WE USED TO KNOW ~

POETS WHO SLEEP ~

[ imagined ancient love poems ]





MY LIPS are shy,

like a candle that will not flicker.















I WOULD twist my arms like coral

if that made them delicate enough to hold you.









COLOR IS sleeping in some birds

when the sun is too early

to make use of it.









THE SEASON is yet unlit

by the glint of the sewing needle.

The thread is stored away, the light

is an unwoven shirt.









I EMBRACED YOU by mistake

when I was only trying to caress you.

Now you love me.









WE CAME across a hunter disguised as a bird.

The towns pay these lords for protection. This is revealed

in a parable the women tell. They speak of a rose

that grew in the desert from a drop of blood.









WHO ARE you going to meet tonight

in the tall grass

where even snakes cannot find each other?



Your bare feet

will be the safest part of you.









CLAY pots, shaped from the inside

like a sun

when the sky was spinning.



_____________________

DANIEL NADLER
Lacunae
Farrar 2016






DANIEL  NADLER

TRIVIAL FIGHTS ~

______________________________________________________________________

And Trump said the time for “trivial 

fights is behind us.” He just didn’t say

which trivial fights he meant.

Protecting the rights of gay, lesbian 

and transgender people? 

Safeguarding voting rights? 

Investigating whether members of the

Trump team had colluded with the 

Russians to influence the 2016 

presidential election? Or maybe

finally getting him to release his tax 

returns, as every other modern

president has done?

_________________________

A N D R E W     R O S E N T H A L 

March 1, 2017 (New York Times, excerpt)

                    Donald Trump, Master of Low Expectations