THROUGH ~

Back Road Chalkie

R O B E R T      F R O S T

Spring 2020

ROBERT DUNCAN ~

Roots and Branches


      Sail, Monarchs, rising and falling

orange merchants in spring's flowery markets!

messengers of March in warm currents of news floating,

      flitting into areas of aroma.

tracing out of air unseen roots and branches of sense

      I share in thought,

filaments woven and broken where the world might light

      casual certainties of me. There are



      echoes of what I am in what you perform

this morning. How you perfect my spirit!

      almost restore

an imaginary tree of the living in all its doctrines

      by fluttering about,

intent and easy as you are, the profusion of you!

awakening transports of an inner view of things.



__________________
Robert Duncan
The Collected Later Poems and Plays
edited with an introduction by Peter Quartermain
U Cal Press, 2019



Put your good hands into the good hands of Peter Quartermain's
guidance through the later world of Duncan, fertile ground

FAIL SAFE ~

President Trump participated in a prayer before speaking at an Evangelicals for Trump Coalition Launch at the King Jesus International Ministry in Miami in January 2020.Credit...

                                                                   Tom Brenner/Reut

Donald Trump rose to power with the determined assistance of a movement that denies science, bashes government and prioritized loyalty over professional expertise. In the current crisis, we are all reaping what that movement has sown.

                          T H E     N E W     Y O R K    T I M E S    27 March 2020

BOHUMIL HRABAL ~

My favorite of all Hrabal books

Whenever I want to go to masters of the

very short text (or the longest)

I head to eastern Europe ~~~

whether Peter Handke and his gemstone

A Sorrow Beyond Dreams

or here with Bohumil Hrabal's

All My Cats

read astonished

R E A D      M E

ONCE UPON A TIME w/ MAL SHARPE ~

SCENES WITH PHILIP WHALEN ~

This is the design, cover photograph, and overall

Philip Whalen while alive book I fell for

over 50 years and I still hold it close to my heart.

I'm more than grateful that the good folks at Wave Books

have reissued the masterpiece, with this cover photo

as frontispiece at least, and an afterword

by David Brazil.

(Wave Books, 2020)

ANNE SEXTON ~

Jesus Cooks




Jesus saw the multitudes were hungry

and He said, Oh Lord,

send down a short-order cook.

And the Lord said, Abracadabra.

Jesus took the fish,

a slim green baby,

in His right hand and said, Oh Lord,

and the Lord said,

Work on the sly

opening boxes of sardine cans.

And he did.

Fisherman, fisherman,

you make it look easy.

And lo, there were many fish.

Next Jesus held up a loaf

and said, Oh Lord,

and the Lord instructed Him

like an assembly-line baker man,

a Pied Piper of yeast,

and lo, there were many.


Jesus passed among the people

in a chef's hat

and they kissed His spoons and forks

and ate well from invisible dishes.




____________________

Anne Sexton
The Book of Folly
Houghton Mifflin
1972

TOM LEHRER, ALL TOGETHER ~

LIU TSUNG-YUAN ~

R E A D      M E

Miscellany Presented In Reply To

Scholar Lou About To Leave For Huainan

I was sent far away to enjoy life alone

who would have guessed I would meet an old friend

taking pity on broken wings with kind words

soothing ragged fins with life-saving water

our feelings as colleagues haven't changed

but the joys of companionship are new

wandering without a goal wasting time

immune to the pains of spring dancing drunk

even if the pleasures of wind and moon have ceased

the stars and frost we've shared has brought us closer

treating fame as a calamity

we chose the Tao for our neighbor

our schemes were roof tiles in a storm

our suspicions simply misperceptions

wearing an official's hat I still write poems

despite your poverty you still carry a sword

suddenly our parting is today

this happy time won't come again

what is it that's dragging you off

my spirit is leaving with you on the river

I'll have to console my shadow on this side of Heaven

what can I do on that stream to the west

what can I do alone but go fishing

_________________

Liu Tsung-Yuan
translated by Red Pine
Written in Exile
Copper Canyon Books

YOKEL ( 24 ) ~

Parallax

Two carpenters

Rebuild the church steeple

On the ground

for Greg Joly

Farmer

A beautiful pickup truck with the fanciest side mirrors

on both doors. It seemed like 3D. This is the truck the

heavy set worker arrived in. The t-shirt was gray and

molded over a barrel chest and double barrel gut. The 

arms the size of my thighs. Something happened along 

the years because he couldn’t hide the limp. He was 

coming to measure up a wood pellet furnace. I could

tell he didn’t know all that much about the furnace

except he burned pellets in his own wood pellet stove.

He knew the pellets were shipped to the northeast

from the Rockies, Pennsylvania and somewheres in

Canada. Canada always gets a “somewheres”. It’s a big

place. Since he didn’t know much about pellets, and

his body was a steady worker’s, I asked him what he

did before pellets. Farmer. One word sufficient. But

said with the great tongue of a cow so it sounded like

I suddenly loved the word more than ever.

He said he once had a farm called River Maple. And I

said my wife and I for thirty-five years have passed the

large barn sign for this place and always wondered why 

it wasn’t Maple River. Well, which came first: the river or 

the maple? he asked me. I said, The river — it feeds the

maples to grow. He smiled at that, as if his grandfather 

who gave the farm this name once explained it to him 

this way when he was a boy. Yes, he suddenly looked

boyish as we said goodbye when he left.

July in the Sun

We pick blueberries this way —

I wear jeans and t-shirt

you wear a pretty dress

the rest is easy

After the War

He’s hobbled around on one good leg and

The other fake leg for nearly forty years —

That’s what his government gave to him

No one could give him the tenacity to survive

He did that all on his own, plus with 

A monthly pension paid by the same government

The best thing that ever happened, is how

He sized his injury up — a hard drinker’s grin

One leg for all these years paid income. Not bad!

He’s built his own spot in the woods

Does everything another seems to be able to do

Complete with junker cars, thrift clothes, a garden

And maybe she’s a wife or a girlfriend

But she looks very close to dying —

I didn’t have the heart to ask her story

______________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011

WE ARE NOT ALONE ~

Just sent to me by good friend Kent Johnson ~ think of others ~

there are many ways to sing, or as Gertrude Stein has said:

"Anything shut in with you can sing"

FROM SCOTLAND ~

P O E T R Y      F R O M     T H E     F I E L D

We drove the muddy roads to town ~

see what we found and

gladly brought home with us!

     Gerry Loose

LETTERS TO JARGON ~

L A R R Y      E I G N E R

SPRING 2020 ~

JACOB LAWRENCE ~

R E A D      M E





Peabody Essex Museum
2020

JOHN PHILLIPS "HOURGLASS " ~

John Phillips, Hourglass

New from Longhouse, 2020!

An inventive chapbook of 17 new poems 

$10

US, postpaid

$13

International, postpaid

Please pay by Paypal or we can invoice —

poetry@sover.net

or check:

L O N G H O U S E

PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro

Vermont

05303

______________

WOLF KAHN ~

W O L F      K A H N

1927 ~ 2020

ERLING KAGGE ~

E R L I N G      K A G G E






Vintage Books 
2018

YOKEL ( 23 ) ~

P A S T U R E S   O F

Y O K E L

Because I believed in what I saw

 JACK KEROUAC

Field Guide

Blue jay never leaves —

Just changes

Its call

Pastures of Plenty

The truck we are loading is an eighteen 

Foot flatbed with two foot high side 

Panels welded on as thick plate iron. 

         

Native picked it up from another 

Backwoods boy who bought it for $200 

And sold it to Native for $1,000, though he

Doesn’t seem too troubled by the math since 

He had it paid off in a week hauling salvage.

Today we are hauling salvage, but instead of 

Cleaning it out of the lower pasture and

Getting  it off to a recycling plant in a

Far off town, nothing is working right. 

The loader is broken down mid-pasture, its

Bucket jawed-open in the air.  The dumpsters

Have never been delivered and there’s people

In town who want this place condemned now.

Native’s got cars and trucks and more junk

Already filling an upper pasture, and since 

No jurisdiction has been indicated by the

Town by-laws against that pasture, we heap

Four circus loads of junk this afternoon and

Watch its delivery go to the upper pasture 

Hearing its grumble roll off up there. 

So much for progress — which means

Someday it will all have to be picked

Up again — maybe not by Native and

His bunch, but a cleanup crew that will

Be hired by the town, with taxpayers’

Money (some of it mine), to load it all

Up once more and make these 

Pastures, pastures again.

Not on your life.

If it’s not a junkyard — then it will be real estate.

If it’s real estate — it will be a few new 

Houses built lopsided on turgid ground

Once made of potatoes and cattle and a few

Grazing horses, but the last twenty years ruined 

By oil spills, junk metal and pallets of old

Batteries clumped into a landfill.

For the past four hours we have been 

Tossing gas stoves, bottled tanks, busted

Computer monitors, truck hoods and

Bumpers, a Canon copier and Coke

Machine rolled up onto the flatbed.

It has nothing to do with mechanics and 

Everything to do with making a living the 

Old-fashioned way: moving other people’s junk. 

In another era the king-size flatbed would 

Be carting a towering hold of new baled 

Hay fresh cut off the neighborly fields and 

From these pastures — cowbirds following — 

The sting of sunburn and sharp prick nettles

A pecker wet sweat work as the load swayed 

Across the road and down dipped into

The dooryard toward the barn and 

Its upper swung-open hayloft hatch.

But since then it’s been a new dawn —

The barn has burned down and what

Was once grassland has been spoiled.

Three bruiser sons move around shirtless 

Like bears growling out at the road. 

While the old farmer that sold the place 

Refuses to return for a visit.

Lifetime

Clayton, who I haven’t

Spoken to for almost a

Lifetime, I read he shot

A deer first weekend of

Hunting season and the

Poor thing wasn’t more

Than 87 pounds, and I

Can’t help but think of

The youngster next town

Over who was pictured in

The newspaper with his

First buck and all 110

Pounds this boy seemed

To have his arms around

Clayton used to hate me

For my long beard and years

Later when I went to the river

And cut it off, threw it in,

I noticed right after Clayton

Had started one of his own

But we wouldn’t see one

Another until a long time

After that and to this day

I don’t think he even

Knew who I was — talking

Like I knew him — and where’d

I come from suddenly showing

Up in the road where he is

Running his tractor for the

Town chopping down brush but

He stopped a moment when I

Asked if he’d be interested

In signing a petition to help

Save the village covered bridge —

The bridge he drove over since

A boy on sled, manure spreader,

Pulled baler and old trucks

Hell no! how’d I get logs

Over if we don’t finally get

Rid of that bridge and put in

Something that makes sense

Is how he waved-off looking 

At me,  knowing he’d seen me

Somewhere but chewing the

Short hairs around his lips

He can’t remember where or

How so many years ago we killed

Snakes together, fixing fence posts

Shingling roofs and high-stepped

In cement to spread, tap pails

Soldered and slabwood bucked

Those cold blue mornings in the

Dooryard our two figures fiddling

Over a dropsy tractor and day begins

When at first cough of a greasy

Exhaust is all that spoils the air

______________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011