ZED BOOKS, LONDON 2016
Saturday, May 20, 2017
Friday, May 19, 2017
Thursday, May 18, 2017
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Monday, May 15, 2017
BEING ALIVE IS ALL THERE IS ~
After The Flood
The yellow birch logs split tough
Those are the trees standing after the flood
The sycamore splits with ease
The Searchers
We didn’t ask for any help
where we worked in the woods
along the river and we worked
steadily for weeks on end, no
one ever came by to visit or to
lend a hand, except for a stranger
who said he was a rock hound, he
hunted for precious rocks, and he
was curious to investigate our river
land where we worked, even showed
us special containers where his findings
shimmered, and since we were working
on the damage caused by a flood we in-
vited him down with us and continued our
woodcutting huge driftwood trees, as he
drifted off, young with shaved head bent
searching and dreaming as miners do
Being Alive Is All There Is
Maybe you saw him too —
the happiest person in the world
not more than a boy
being interviewed
and his father was
interviewed too and
he was clearly not a happy man
he was but a man
with all the thoughts of men
I had a father just like him
I bet you did too
and this boy must have known
something, because the way he
told his story was that he one day
jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge
in San Francisco, and somehow he
lived to tell his story, and I think he
lived because we were supposed to
know, and now that we do
now what do we do?
River Flows
After the flood
it took four very long weeks
for our woods river to clear
no longer muddy
no longer murky green
no longer running toxins
people drowned in such a river
houses were destroyed
gas tanks, hot tubs, ATVs went down
trees by the 1000s, animals lost, and
just by its thundering new sound
people were frightened for miles
especially in the pitch dark woods —
then one day the river cleared
the sun played in it again
you sat down beside it
lifted off you boots
and stuck your sore feet in
————————————
Bob Arnold
BEAUTIFUL DAYS
Longhouse
Sunday, May 14, 2017
DAVE ETTER ~
Henry Lichenwalner: Living in the Middle
Here in Alliance, Illinois,
I’m living in the middle,
standing on the Courthouse lawn
in the middle of town,
in the middle of my life,
a self-confessed middlebrow,
a member of the middle class,
and of course Middle Western,
the middle, you see, the middle,
believing in the middle way,
standing here at midday
in the middle of the year,
breathing the farm-fragrant air
of Sunflower County,
in the true-blue middle
of middle America,
in the middle of my dreams.
____________________________
Dave Etter
Alliance, Illinois
Spoon River Press 2004
Saturday, May 13, 2017
KATHLEEN RAINE ~
Counterpoint
Berkeley
2017
"If, on the other hand one takes not the materialist approach —
man's rights — but the spiritual approach — man's duties — the
poet has his place. It is not the State who should support the
poet, but the poet who should save the State — the poet together
with the saint and all lovers of the three verities. For civiliz-
ation depends finally upon those who give more than they receive."
K A T H L E E N R A I N E
Friday, May 12, 2017
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
JOAN DIDION ~
Knopf 2017
Joan Didion's "notebooks" are often as well wrought
and interesting as others finished essays
and interesting as others finished essays
Monday, May 8, 2017
ORDINARY EARTH ~
The Man Who Never Rode In A Plane
Hounds
Hunting hounds are again across the river barking and carrying on, lost to their scent and trail and blocked by the river. This happens rarely now but it used to happen all the time. We hear the dogs for the longest time and then the hunters get down here with their old pickup trucks and cages in the back bed rattling. They are trying to catch their dogs. The dogs have gotten away from them following a scent and the hunters weren’t aware of the river. They hiked all over the mountain and woods to locate their dogs only to find them long lost and better to take their trucks and catch the dogs where they will be at the border of the river. No way to cross, too deep. But a hunter in high waders can get across, water to his chest. He will carry the dogs across the river in his arms to his truck. The barking will stop. Before this all happens it seems like the mountain is moving horizontally with a wild and strange sound.
Ordinary Earth
Today I sat on the step stoop at the cabin I built in the woods 12 years ago. A lot has not happened and a lot has happened since then. The helper that worked with me moved away. The twin towers in New York City went down. We lived through a hurricane. A flood. The cabin didn't care, its back to the world. At the dutch door I built and the only door in and where I sit and look to the woods all the woods did was grow, much brush. Right to the door. You sat there and couldn't see a thing, only the brush. So you thought, often deeply, breathing and feeling the brush at your feet. Years of this. One day I got tired of the brush and no view and took my tools and chain saw for a few days and cleared all the brush. Not only at the cabin site but away from the cabin and up through an old sugar bush. Trees too. Made firewood. The more I cut, the more I cut some more, until I was to the top of the hill, looking back at the cabin through a glade of massive sugar maple trees. The sunlight coated the trees now, so did the shadows. It was a splendid work effort. The brush all piled. I went back to sit on the step stoop. The cabin hadn't moved.
———————————
Bob Arnold
BEAUTIFUL DAYS
Longhouse
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Saturday, May 6, 2017
THE FIGHT (DON'T TURN AWAY) ~
People with disabilities are among the most discriminated against in Bolivia. Fed up with being ignored, a group of them march across the Andes to the seat of the government in La Paz, asking to speak to President Evo Morales. They are met with riot police, barricades, teargas and water cannon
Friday, May 5, 2017
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