RE-READING ELLIOT CHAZE ~

If there's one crime novel Jim Thompson

could have written, and it would have been

one of his best, but he didn't, because Elliot Chaze did,

it's the rough & tumble Black Wings Has My Angel ~

reissued by the literary godmothers and godfathers

of The New York Review of Books after it

was first published as a pulp from

 Gold Medal Books in 1953

smack dab in the Jim Thompson era.

It's an armored car heist.

There's a bad boy and a bad girl.

What are you waiting for?

[ BA ]

BONFIRE ~

I went out last night at 1130 to finally douse the lingering bonfire embers with the three 5 gallon pails of rainwater I had gathered for the fini of the bonfire after almost 48 hours. It had burned down to one final speck of log and the fire looked perky enough to carry it off through a few more hours but I had to end things and bed down. The bonfire had started huge, logs and logs and brush and stumps. All from clearing work we had done over the last few years. We thought, for a change, we might hire an excavator to come in and sweep the land clean but the price was far beyond our means, so you gather for days and burn. Tonight I carried out with me my Makita hand lantern that can go with a bright light up to eight hours on one battery. Certainly the lantern lasts longer than any of my power tools. I was going to set the lantern down on one of the large table top pine stumps I had saved from all the cutting the last few days. The way I cut, and the old pine trees toppled over or rolled, I was able to make some furniture pieces, as Sweetheart called them, so we had a love seat, two chairs, and one large table. Come on over for dinner! But what was that so close by in the young maple tree, on the lowest branch, six feet off the ground? And staring right at me. And not at all bothered by my sudden appearance, or the big light, and in fact it appears like my visitor-friend has been perched over the bonfire all the time I have been away as if guarding the fire for me while away, or else simply enjoying being around a camp fire light. What is it about a camp fire and all of us? We seem to want to gather by it. And here was a barred owl, not more than ten feet from me, not stirring in the least, hunched there before I was, and liking my company. I’ll never get this close to a barred owl again. This friend, and I believe it is an old friend — one I will leave unnamed but one Sweetheart and I in unison one day said aloud when we had another barred owl with us — in a snowstorm, again on the edge of the woods, and again watching over us, our work, our life, and wanting to be there. No matter how I moved with my rake and the buckets of water stirring into the hot coals bright as any universe there flat on the ground, did this bother my owl friend. When the owl wanted to leave it would leave. It would be a short hop from facing me to not facing me and then with a curve of the hand swoop down off the branch and be away. That’s how I would describe it all to Sweetheart with my hand when we were together in the morning. In the morning I went out to the bonfire to fetch my rake and retrieve the buckets. There was the maple tree. Just a maple tree.

[ BA ]

 

POETS WHO SLEEP #25 ~

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

RE-READING INGER CHRISTENSEN ~

 

Re-reading not the poetry this time

which is wonderful and immense,

but the poet's essays, slim book, and overall

her background and working methods as a

writer. A poet one can put beside your

reading of Newton and Blake, and no fooling.

[ BA ]

New Directions

FUTURE PLANS ~

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
   

CRIMINAL ACTIVITY ~

 

RE-READING GIOVANNI PASCOLI ~

Birthplace



Dream of a summer day.



Limitless cicadas

trilled and quivered.

Wind from the north

whipped crumpled leaves

through a line of trees.



Sun fell between elms

in strips of dust:

From the sky, two clouds

hung threadbare:

white brushed



across wide blue air.



Tamarisk shrubs,

pomegranate trees, the far

throb of a threshing machine

and the silvery swell

of the evening call to prayer. . .



Where was I? The bell

for the prayer said where,

in tears, while a dog

bayed at a stranger

who walked by, head bowed.





_________________
Giovanni Pascoli
Selected Poems
translated by Taije Silverman with
Marina Della Putta Johnston
Princeton 2019 






Tell me you don't have the outdoors circulating through you

CAESURA

 

WOODLANDERS BY BOB ARNOLD. LONGHOUSE PUBLISHERS, 2019, $15.95.

In the age of the tweet, you’d think there’d be a renaissance of the short-short poem. Yet there’s no sign of this, except for Bob Arnold. For decades he’s been creating evocative short poems, in the tradition of Cid Corman and Lorine Niedecker, making use of every word as only someone who works with wood or stone can do. And yet for decades he’s been ignored by the poetry cognoscenti, who all reviewers must bow down to three times a day. In this poem, even the title is put to use as if it were the first line: “I Saw Her Snow Tracks // from earlier in the day-- / I followed them to / where I am today.” In fifty years, if the planet survives, some scholar will “discover” the poetry of Bob Arnold.

 

R E A D M O R E

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 ]