ALWAYS READING RICHARD SEAVER ~

R E A D      M E

Farrar, Straus, Giroux

2012

Richard Seaver, quietly, surely, was behind
many of the terrific books of the twentieth century —
whether as editor at Grove Press, Viking, and his own
publishing house, ever the reader, seeker, doer.
One of the invaluables.

[ BA ]

RE-READING HAN SHAN ~

 

J.P. Seaton

Cold Mountain Poems

XLVII

I was born just thirty years ago,

but I've wandered a million miles already.

Along the River through the green grass on the banks,

out to the borderlands, where the red dust roils.

Chewed herbs, cooked up alchemical elixirs,

trying to become an Immortal.

Read all the Writings, chanted the Histories aloud,

trying to learn them all by heart . . .

Today I'm on my way

home to Cold Mountain.

There, I'll bed down in the creek, just to wash out my ears.

_____________________

Cold Mountain Poems

Han Shan

edited and translated by J. P. Seaton

Shambhala Library, 2009

Imagine a world without Han Shan.

I can't. Won't. Like millions of others,

when young, I came first to Han Shan and his

Cold Mountain (location & poems) thanks to Gary Snyder

and every other one who came before and after him, they

all were wonderful because we're talking about Han Shan.

The natural wonder. I published and hand printed some of these

poems for Sandy Seaton once upon a time. How I enjoyed designing

and later folding in the decorative accordion booklets.

POETS WHO SLEEP #24 ~

P O E T S     W H O     S L E E P

______________________

                                           drawn & scribed by Bob Arnold

  

all drawings

copyright

Bob Arnold

The complete series to date ~ please link here

SAVE A TREE ~

 

S A V E      A      T R E E

photo: Khadija Farah for The New York Times

RE-READING ISSA ~

The Spring of My Life

Once snows have melted,

the village soon overflows

with friendly children

A gust of spring wind —

unhappily — lifts the skirts

of the roof thatcher

The turnip farmer

with a turnip points the way

back to the road

Calm, indifferent

as if nothing's transpired —

the goose, the willow

Give me a homeland,

and a passionate woman,

and winter alone

With my folding fan

I measured the peony —

as it demanded

In early spring rain

the ducks that were not eaten

are quacking happily

A child has drawn

a river from snowmelt lakes

leading to my gate

As old age arrives,

considering just the day's length

can move one to tears

All alone at home,

my wife, like me, is watching

this full moon rise

________________________

Kobatashi Issa (1763-1827)

from The Spring of My Life

and Selected Haiku

translated by Sam Hamill

Shambhala

___________________________________

Nothing can go wrong with Issa, nothing.

First of all, even a bad translator can't quite knock

the Issa touch and wisdom off the tracks — somewhere

in that tangle of Japanese to American there is a light.

And no matter how miserable your life may be, or

is going to be, Issa is ready for you — more than likely

his life has been more miserable, and still he counsels

with the grasshopper, the stars, the breezes, the tears.

He's your guy. Maybe more than anyone away

from your home. Take him along. Most of his

books are lightweight, thin, pocketful, treasures.

For a translator here, we've got a good one in

Sam Hamill — poet, translator, essayist, printer,

publisher, jack of all poetry trades, and like

Issa he's dead, and also like Issa, not dead.

Hello, Sam.

[ BA ]

THE FACTS AT DOG TANK SPRING ~

 

The Facts At Dog Tank Spring

Three broke-down gnarled cottonwoods at Dog Tank Spring

they're older than anything at Dog Tank Spring

The cloudy iced water the high desert

two or three inches fresh rabbit track snow

Blaze orange and cobalt tents at Dog Tank Spring

The crackling juniper fire at Dog Tank Spring

The night stars wheeling close and mythically overhead

you could reach up & touch the sharp edges of

constellations at Dog Tank Spring

Half human petroglyphs haunt the dream at Dog Tank Spring

but who talks about Aeschylus at Dog Tank?

Orange sparks sift into the night

a coyote cries off in the sage at Dog Tank

Wonder where the dead go at Dog Tank Spring

Dog Tank Spring turkey buzzards go where?

Dog Tank hiking comrades shout over wine at the night sky

At Dog Tank Spring your cell phone won't work

the news went stale a thousand years past

night drops to 12 degrees

the water jug freezes at Dog Tank Spring

Plans hopes aspirations irresistable ideas at Dog Tank Spring

but human designs at daybreak seem the raving of idiots

dawn is for coffee at Dog Tank Spring

At Dog Tank Spring the bow saw the axe the work gloves the matches

the Cedar Mesa map at Dog Tank Spring

spires hoodoos pinnacles of polished red sandstone

cream colored stone shelves at Dog Tank Spring

The trail guide says anticline & unwrap at Dog Tank Spring

Greasewood rattlesnakes blue wavering laccoliths

the tiny oil painting tacked to a pinyon

by someone last month at Dog Tank Spring

A hundred years are what at Dog Tank Spring

Dog Tank past and future lead nowhere

What are spilloffs chockstones scorpions the dugway the sidereal

what's a rowel at Dog Tank Spring?

The faraway ranch-house the constellations the rabbitbrush

the anvil-headed clouds over Navajo

Let's talk about the old ones at Dog Tank Spring

Tobacco Canyon Bullet Canyon Kane Gulch the turkey pen ruins

want to meet here in late March?

Embers whiten and fade they're fleeting books or old loves

a wool blanket over the cold sleeping bag.

These things are facts

at Dog Tank Spring.

                                             18-20 December 2019

                                              for Mike Gordon

________________________________

Andrew Schelling

The Facts at Dog Tank Spring

Dos Madres, 2020

THE TIME HAS COME TODAY (AND) ~

 

A N D:

M A S H A    G E S S E N

RE-READING GEORGE OPPEN ~

Waking Who Knows






the great open




doors of the tall




buildings and the grid




of the streets the seed




is a place the stone

is a place mind



will burn the world down alone

and transparent



will burn the world down tho the starlight is

part of ourselves



_______________________
Primitive
George Oppen
Black Sparrow Press, 1978





a photograph to love —
George & Mary Oppen
Pt. Reyes, CA. 1977

RE-READING ALFRED STARR HAMILTON ~

Dark Corner

I wonder if I lived

in a dark corner

all by myself

until the only sun I ever saw

came around in the morning

I wonder if the sunlight

worked its way

through a keyhole

and little by little I was taught

never to tell a lie

I wonder of how the light of day

exerted itself

in my presence

Shoe Factory

Schenectady is a name

Schenectady is a person

Schenectady is a shoe town

Schenectady is a workingman

Schenectady works in a shoe factory

Schenectady is walkative

Schenectady is talkative

What do you know of the road to Albany

What do you know of the road to Rome

What do you know of Troy Hills

What do you know of your shoeleather

What do you know of a similar person

What do you know of the road to Schenectady

Laffs

I laffed

The moon laffed

I couldn't stop laffing

The moon kept on laffing

The moon was for a comedy of errors

I laffed

The soldiers laffed

The moon laffed some moreso

I laffed

The soldiers laffed

There was a ceremony on the moon

The moon was for a sword swallower

I laffed

The soldiers laffed

The moon laffed some moreso

The moon was funnier

There was a madcap on the moon

I laffed

I laffed some moreso

Everyone else laffed

I laffed

The moon laffed

The moon was being celebrated

The moon was being crowned

There was a comedian on the moon

City

The best thing I could think to do

Was to take a brown Crayon over a pair of shoes

And walk as far as I ever did

____________________

The Big Parade

Alfred Starr Hamilton

The Best Cellar Press, 1982

A L F R E D     S T A R R      H A M I L T O N

In another lifetime

I corresponded with

Alfred Starr Hamilton

of Montclair, New Jersey,

even published him,

and now and then I return

to read his poems —

I think this little book

from Best Cellar Press,

a press with another poet behind it,

catches the delights

T H E     B I G     P A R A D E

IN THE JAILHOUSE NOW ~

 

MAYBE THE PEOPLE WOULD BE THE TIMES (LOVE) ~

 

RE-READING CESAR VALLEJO ~

The Miserable Supper





    How long will we have to wait for what is

not owed to us . . . And in what corner will

we kick our poor sponge forever! How long before

the cross that inspires us does not rest its oars.



    How long before Doubt toasts our nobility for

having suffered . . .



                                     We have already sat so

long at this table, with the bitterness of a child

who at midnight, cries from hunger, wide awake . . .



    And when will we join all the others, at the brink

of an eternal morning, everybody breakfasted.

For just how long this vale of tears, into which

I never asked to be led.



                                               Resting on my elbows,

all bathed in tears, I repeat head bowed

and defeated how much longer will this supper last.



    There's someone who has drunk too much, and he mocks us,

and offers and withdraws from us — like a black spoonful

of bitter human essence — the tomb . . .



                                                         And this abstruse one knows

even less how much longer this supper will last!





_____________________________
Cesar Vallejo
The Complete Poetry
California, 2007
translated by Clayton Eshleman


         
here we are, election day in America —

are we having a miserable supper?

POETS WHO SLEEP #23 ~

P O E T S     W H O     S L E E P

______________________

                                           drawn & scribed by Bob Arnold

  

all drawings

copyright

Bob Arnold

The complete series to date ~ please link here

WILLIAM SAROYAN CHALKIE ~

 

Back Road Chalkies

November 2020

William Saroyan

photo by bob & susan arnold

Good luck

RE-READING ERNEST HEMINGWAY ~

 

I'm re-reading Hemingway in October,

before November, and it's anyone's guess

what is coming for us in November.

Hemingway is good medicine during these times

and A Moveable Feast remains one of his strongest books.

The date on my book says 1972 and it's been with me

since that date in hardcover. As a teenager I loved the smaller

paperback edition which has since gone somewhere else, or is in

another building in the one, two and over three libraries we

have going on here. Last night I re-read "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"

If it's been awhile since you read the short story, go back,

you'll be glad you did. The same with A Moveable Feast.

There are those humorous and revealing wonderful pages

with Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald together.

I’m now on Hemingway’s non-fiction (By-Line) 

and he doesn’t let anyone off the hook. 

As soon as he arrived in Paris 

he had his eyes roaming and talking. 

Ever the hunter and fisherman, which makes 

his writing so smoothly balanced and declarative, 

different from everyone.

[ BA ]

RE-READING ALEKSANDAR RISTOVIC ~

from Whores



With me is a railroad man

in a railroad uniform,

with a railroad whistle and pocket watch,

and a railroad cap.



He talks about trains,

the express, the cannonball.

He remembers a girl

he left behind on the train.



Before he lies down

he turns off the lamp.

Outside, falling snowflakes

mingle with electric sparks.



Asleep he holds me

by my breasts,

still wearing his wool socks

with a toe sticking out of each one.



In the morning he runs

across the tracks.

He loses his cap.

He finds his cap.






~






With me is a man

who talks too much,

talks about everything,

so he sees nothing.



The washpan with red

and blue roses,

or the frog in the pan

with twelve baby frogs.



Sees neither my left

nor my right shoulder,

nor my cheeks caked

with thick powder.



Sees neither my thing,

nor his thing,

babbling so much he forgets

why he came.



I stuck a finger

under his tongue

and my finger stayed

in his mouth.






~






With me is a young woman

who loves only women.

She smokes unfiltered cigarettes,

sways while she walks,



pays for my services

in foreign currency.

Her breasts are still

just two drops of honey,



she uses a whip,

sips ghastly concoctions.

We dream of each other,

exchange places.



When I wake, I see beside me,

my own funny childlike face

with buck teeth

and high cheek bones.



At night, a beard and a mustache

grow on her. In the morning,

she is again herself,

neither better nor worse than she is.






~






With me is a long-legged,

long-eared stallion.

His other horsy virtues

I won't even mention.



He bolted from under

his master's whip.

He's tired of high-class mares,

he wants only me.



He strokes me with his head

and his tufted mane.

He's happy when I ride him

naked, wearing only boots.



His eye is human

and so is his impatience

and his well-developed

sense of humor.



He eats blue-tinted sugar cubes

out of my hand.

In some respect, he's a man.

In others, just a horse.






~






With me is a grinning

skeleton,

when he walks, the bones

make a racket.



At times he loses

some small bone,

so we look for it

among the bedding.



Expertly, I fit

the missing bone between two others

It's tiring work,

but it gives me pleasure.



At times, he tries to drink

from my glass.

The way the wine puddles on the floor

makes him truly miserable.



If he had any nerves,

he'd lose them in bed

having to listen

to the rattle of his bones.






~






With me is the God

of all gods.

I have no other god

but him.



Without fuss

he kisses me everywhere;

on my head, on my forehead,

on my undone hair,



on my mouth while I speak,

in my armpits,

on my wet tits,

on my left and on my right knee,



inside my lungs, in my heart,

in my bowels,

in both kidneys,

and in my full and in my empty gut.



With great art he handles

the venerable tool.

God is truly within me,

or any other girl like me.




____________________
Devil's Lunch
Aleksandar Ristovic
selected poems
translated by Charles Simic

I'm always returning to Ristovic.

There is a accent mark over the "c"

I can't do it, but I do it with a pen in hand.

And again Charles Simic at the helm.

They should give him a prize for his

decades of work as translator, always

sizzling, and maybe they have.

The only prizes I pay attention to now

are the birthdays of our two

granddaughters, the rest

is filigree.

I also adore this edition

and design from Faber & Faber.

Did you know there was only one Faber?