AMERICAN FOLK SONGS ~

Cornell University Press 2015

R E A D     M E

FINN WILCOX ~

Women




I'm doing the dishes.

It's summer.

My wife and my mother

are outside

sitting by the fire

laughing so hard

I have to set the pans aside

and watch.



It's important to

pay attention to joy.

To love that is serious.



Now they are showing

each other earrings,

mom's silver bracelet,

Pat's jade teardrops

looped around her neck.

The night sky

bringing its own

slow jewelry to bear.



It hasn't always been like this.

I wasn't an easy son.



To those who say

redemption

dwells only in the house

of the Lord:

I say

you haven't met these women.







Outdoor Work




The one time

I experienced what my Buddhist friends

call enlightenment,

that recognition, sharp and clear

as a shot of cheap whiskey,

was packing my tree bag

on a landing pooled in drained skidder oil

in a clear-cut

big as the town I lived in,

understanding

finally and fully,

the rotting extravagance of greed.







Hard To Believe




Hard to believe only

yesterday

we stood on the cliffs

of Cold Mountain



watching swallows

    sweep and skip

across a drifting

cloudless

sky.



Sat in the mouth

of old Han Shan's cave —

smoked our last sticky ball

of Hong Kong hash —



and watched in silence

    the billowing dust

rise behind farmers

in the valley below.



Tonight though —

from the roof of

the Friendship Hotel —

the wet streets of Ningpo

shine with city lights

and are filed with Russian sailors

so drunk

they couldn't hit the ground

with their hats.



Sure, it's not Cold Mountain.

But from here —

above the fray

and narrow lanes —

you see

where this harbor town ends



and the East China Sea

begins.





——————————————

FINN WILCOX
Too Late To Turn Back Now
EMPTY BOWL, 2018

JAMES SALTER ~

J A M E S      S A L T E R

THE COMPANY THEY KEPT ~

R O B E R T   B.   S I L V E R S

BASIL KING ~

Marsh Hawk Press

R E A D     &     L I S T E N

This is one of my favorite books for 2017

and I'm reading all the time.

The book has all the patience and spontaneity I find lacking

in too many books of poems published in the United States —

King's more resembling an era when Ted Berrigan's The Sonnets and

Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems snapped crackled and popped.

King is as brave and honest as another marvel, Muriel Rukeyser.

His overlapping text structure and flow of thoughts

make for extra fine mingling — he is indeed a
jewel thief or perhaps the Prime Minister.

I started to well up on page 138-139

but then I'm a Leo.

Don't hesitate.

[ BA ]

BIG BOSS MAN ~

SMOKE IN YOUR EYES ~

HOUSEKEEPING ~

Housekeeping

What bedspread

what blanket

what cloth I

have watched her

hand spread smooth

with an elegance

felt

on my-

self

The Garden

I see her out a window the one I love

She sees me and smiles

Looks at me again and smiles

Really, she was leaning to look 

At the start of spring lettuce

Duo

The same bird every night

In the same tree singing

The same song that does

The same very songful

Thing inside of me

Is It 

river

flowing

beneath

the stars

or stars

flowing

over the 

river

————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

BORGES IN CONVERSATION ~

R E A D       M E

JUNICHIRO TANIZAKI ~

R E V I E W

JUNICHIRO TANIZAKI

DOOBY LANE ~

H A V E      A      L O O K

Counterpoint,  2016

FEATHERS ~

The Dirty Secrets Saved in Dead Birds’ Feathers

R E A D      M E

ANTONIO MORESCO ~

R E A D      M E

if you like Jean Giono. . .

KOON WOON ~

A Season In Hell


"When you come in to work each morning,
remove your bodily organs and limbs
one by one. Hang them up on the hooks
provided in the walk-in-the-box, then put a white apron
onto your disembodied self, pick up a knife,
and go to the meat block," said Alex, the manager.


I was also drained of blood and other vital bodily fluids.

After the morning rush
preparing pork adobo and chicken curry,
I ate lunch with Fong the chief cook
and Lee the dishwasher.


In the afternoon, I examined souls and kept their
merits and demerits in a ledger.


For the three months I worked at City Lunch near the BART Station.
I paid my rent and gradually became robust enough to walk yo work.
The entire city of San Francisco swung with the rhythm of my walk
and stars appeared in the middle of the afternoon with a sliver of the
   moon.


Meanwhile, at Fisherman's Wharf, the stingrays came to the jetty
and whipped their tails against rocks. Tourists paid me to dance
on the waves; I carefully tread water and remembered to breathe.


In the end, I was evicted anyway from my castle that glowed at night.
For lack of anything better to do, I walked from hilltop to hilltop,
burned newspapers to inhale the smoke, then climbed down to the
   water
beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and harvested seaweed.


I waited until one sunny day when the water was warm and calm,
then swam all the way to Asia and got replacements for my
   disembodied self.
I did not forget that I was a ghost.
And that was my first season in Hell.



————————— 
Koon Woon
Water Chasing Water
Kaya Press, 2013     

EPISTROPHIES ~

Harvard 2017

front cover photograph

of Louis Armstrong

by Charles Graham

R E A D      M E

LIFE IN THE WOODS ~

Life In The Woods

It is this lemony light

Washed under pines in the grove

Smaller birches and maples and beech

That takes my breath away —

I’m only sorry you aren’t with me

Your own yellow hair

The packs we carry empty for

Firewood brought down later

From the hillside, heavy & full —

I’m lugging your share today and missing you

Tonight we will meet at a table made of

Soup and low lamps and all the day’s news

Come back and fill up these rooms

I Like

I like taking

my boots off

in the summer

then crossing

my legs

reading

and I like it 

even more

when her

skirt

brushes

by

The Writing Life

We will go to town together

We will then send the mail and wash rugs

We will first make love but are too busy kidding each other

We will hold one another in the kitchen

We will decide that you will go to town

We will decide that I will stay home and write

We will separate with difficulty

We will know that I am home writing but really waiting for you

Not Just Married

Just having you

On the job holding

Ropes, carrying

One end of the

Ladder, catching

Gloves I toss

Down from the

Roof is more

Than enough

Since we can

Kiss whenever

We want you’d

Have to agree

————————————

BOB ARNOLD

I'm In Love With You

Who Is In Love With Me

Longhouse 2012

CLASS ROOM ~

JOANNE KYGER ~

Backroad Chalkie

Joanne Kyger

"LIVE !"

"So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

___________

LIVE!

the young soldier

home from the

war in iraq just

long enough to

grow a beard

listens to the mass

killer’s firepower

on the streets of

America he was

told he was making

safe and tells everyone

to duck for cover

it isn’t fireworks!

it’s live ammo!

fired by someone

that could be

your neighbor

—————————————————————

oct 6 ’17

BA