Saturday, March 16, 2019
DERMOT HEALY ~
Colours
You'd be surprised
how black black is
when it's blue with rain.
And what do you do with the light
that comes in off the sea?
You might as well
forget what you look like
before you could ever begin
walking in it.
September
The greatest high-tide,
the happiest birds,
and the drunk on the road
who has been hurt in love.
The Prayer
for Noel Kilgallon
When Peggy was dying
her son leaned over to whisper
the Our Father into her ear.
She opened her eyes.
'Things must be bad, ' she said,
'that you've started praying.'
The Wandering Cat
If you find your cat
wandering far from home
don't lift him!
He'll weigh so heavy
he'll never leave your hands.
My House is Tiny
My house is tiny
and my sorrow
is the smallest
at this end of the country.
And yet the whole sea
at my back
can fit into
the most frightened
human mind.
Fire
in memory of Aidan
If you let the fire die
the soul scurries across the field
like a burning coal
off to another hearth.
Oh disloyal soul
separated from me
in my cold house!
____________________
Dermot Healy
What the Hammer
Gallery Books (Ireland)
1998
A marvelous Irish poet, and this small clutch of poems
may be my favorite of all his books. He catches where he
lives and works and eats and breathes, and who with. Healy
writes much longer poems as well, and as well, but I first
got smitten by these.
Friday, March 15, 2019
JEAN FOLLAIN ~
Where are you lying
secret of the world
with so strong an odor?
Sometimes a gentle workman
in the feverish town
falls from a scaffolding
and the wind always smells of lilac;
a tenacious misfortune
lodges in the loveliest bodies
hands tighten in the evening
an animal sleeps
within walls rough by men
peace forever decays
and war no longer
has an age.
Death
From the bones of animals
the factory had made these buttons
which fastened
a bodice over the bust
of a gorgeous working-girl
when she fell
one of the buttons came off in the night
and the water of the gutters took it
and laid it down
in a private garden
with a crumbling plaster statue
Pomona
naked and laughing
Life
A child is born
in a vast landscape
half a century later
he is simply a dead soldier
and that was the man
whom one saw appear
and set down on the ground a whole
heavy sack of apples
two or three of which rolled
a sound among the sounds of a world
where the bird sang
on the stone of the door-sill.
————————————
JEAN FOLLAIN
W.S. MERWIN (translator)
Transparence of the World
Atheneum 1969
what a book to discover back then, as now!
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Monday, March 11, 2019
HEAVEN LAKE ( 24 ) ~
My Doctor
Is Chinese—
Left China with his wife and young
Daughter while leaving a son behind
Arrived in America and worked as a janitor
Now resides on a second floor of a building across
From the town hospital with its plush parking lot
My doctor practices his calligraphy between patients
Naps on the same mattress his patients use
After a two year absence I came for a visit
I met a hooded worker brushing fallen
Snow from a walkway with precise strokes
Peering into the hood I surprised my
Doctor who nodded with a smile
Patting my chest and taking up his broom
He followed me inside
Message
Owl calling out
Of nowhere at dusk
Was as good as spoken
Tracker
I’m telling you —
While you all think
You may know me
My cat’s been
Studying me
For all I’m
Worth
From a
Window
Companion
Ah, if my axe could talk
It would be something!
It’s been everywhere with me
For over 45 years at a life in the woods
But get serious, it’s an axe, it’s
Sharp and quiet, and some
Might say
That’s what I should be
Find Me
Today we hiked in the forest where both the
geese of the lake and the train can be heard
the geese are just past the trees
the train is faraway but its whistle is close
we stop on our path when the whistle comes to us
we look at one another, say little, we have been on many trains
where we go today is where all winter was a tundra of ice
she remembers sitting down to slide many times on an incline
I remember we forgot our walking sticks so we made a pair
the forest has everything
geese, train whistles, ice, and then no ice at all
it is spring and we go to search and find
one small puddle of ice
withdrawn into the
shade of the forest
_____________________
Bob Arnold
Heaven Lake
Longhouse 2018
Sunday, March 10, 2019
ANNETTE WOODWARD ~
On a visit recently to the Hood Museum in Hanover, after some years of the museum having its refurbishing and face-lift and being closed to the town, it's a pleasure to have it back. Opening just as the town has lost it's once sprawling and teeming main street bookstore. Susan and I still recognize the floor plan, the steep stairways, the flooring, even the old large rooms now dained with gallery titles (Ivan Albright being one — I saw my first Albright brutal homely and astonishing portraits over 45 years ago at The Hood) and despite the magnificent Rothko and Ruscha paintings (one each)
it was this Annette Woodward, placed in one corner, that really caught my eye. Bring that eye closer and look at the heavenly embroidery of silk thread, hand painted. The artist was twenty-three years old. I should have liked to have met her.
[ BA ]
Saturday, March 9, 2019
KING UBU ~
"With
this
system,
I'll
soon
make
a
fortune:
then
I'll
kill
everyone
in
the
world,
and
go
away"
(KING UBU)
Alfred Jarry's
Ubu Roi
Sound like anyone you know?
Friday, March 8, 2019
BEI DAO ~
At the Sky's Edge
love among the mountains
eternity, that patience of the earth
simplifies our human sounds
one arctic-thin cry
from deep antiquity until now
rest, weary traveler
a wounded ear's
already laid your dignity bare
one arctic-thin cry
___________________
Bei Dao
At the Sky's Edge
translated by David Hinton
Poems 1991-1996
New Directions
Thursday, March 7, 2019
MARK STRAND ~
When I Turned A Hundred
I wanted to go on an immense journey, to travel night and day
into the unknown until, forgetting my old self, I came into
possession of a new self, one that I might have missed on my
previous travels. But the first step was beyond me. I lay in bed,
unable to move, pondering, at one does at my age, the ways of
melancholy — how it seeps into the spirit, how it disincarnate
the will, how it banishes the senses to the chill of twilight, how
even the best and worst intentions wither in its keep. I kept
staring at the ceiling, then suddenly felt a blast of cold air, and
I was gone.
Once Upon A Cold November Morning
I left the sunlit fields of my daily life and went down into the
hollow mountain, and there I discovered, in all its chilly glory,
the glass castle of my other life. I could see right through it,
and beyond, but what could I do with it? It was perfect, ire-
ducible, and worthless except for the fact that it existed.
Anywhere Could Be Somewhere
I might have come from the high country, or maybe the low
country, I don't recall which. I might have come from the city,
but what city in what countries beyond me. I might have
come from the outskirts of a city from which others have
come or maybe a city from which only I have come. Who's to
know? Who's to decide if it rained or the sun was out? Who's
to remember? They say things are happening at the border, but
nobody knows which border. They talk of a hotel there, where
it doesn't matter if you forget your suitcase, another will be
waiting, big enough, and just for you.
——————————
Mark Strand
Almost Invisible
Knopf 2012
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
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