LIGHTNIN' HOPKINS ~

 

CHARLES MINGUS HAPPY 100TH ~

 

    G O    T O    T H E    P A R T Y

                                                             Tom Copi/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty Images

KURT VONNEGUT ~

 

R E A D      M E

MURIEL RUKEYSER ~

 

Poem

I lived in the first century of world wars.

Most mornings I would be more or less insane,

The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,

The news would pour out of various devices

Interrupted by attempts to see products to the unseen.

I could call my friends on their devices;

They would be more or less made for similar reasons.

Slowly I would get to pen and paper,

Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.

In the day I would be reminded of those men and women

Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,

Considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.

As the lights darkened, as the lights of night brightened,

We would try to imagine them, try to find each other.

To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile

Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,

Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means

To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,

To let go the means, to wake.

I lived in the first century of these wars.

_______________

Muriel Rukeyser

The Essential Muriel Rukeyser

Ecco 2021

BRIAN DOYLE ~

 

Joey

A while ago I got sick.

It was a thorough and major sick.

Lost use of the old hands and feet,

Which was, as you can imagine, weird.

My kids called the sickness The Thing.

The Thing went on for months and months.

I could tell you lots of stories about The Thing,

But there's only one story that I want to tell you:

Every morning my son got up early to help me

Put my socks on. I would sit on the back stairs

In the dark and he would wrestle my socks on

And neither of us would say any words and I

Still can't think of anything cooler than that.

I have racked my brains and considered

All the possibilities of love and I still

Return to that boy and those socks.

No matter what happens to me,

That happened to me.

______________

Brian Doyle

One Long River of Song

Little, Brown, 2019

photo: Brian Doyle & his family, 2017

WORK DAY ~

 

Hull Oakes Lumber Co.

A FAREWELL TO GABO AND MERCEDES ~

 

R E A D     M E

PAUL SIEBEL ~

 

Paul Siebel

1937 ~ 2022

O B I T U A R Y

WHOLE EARTH ~

 

Whole Earth

The Many Lives of

Stewart Brand

John Markoff

Penguin, 2022

WOODY GUTHRIE, SONGS & ART . . . ~

 

R E A D     M E

CLIVE FAUST ~

 

"Light flickers on and off ruffled layers of leaves."

_________________

TODAY

WE REMEMBER

THE PASSING OF OUR FRIEND

CLIVE FAUST

PLEASE READ MORE ABOUT THIS FINE

POET

E.B. WHITE ~

 

ALICE PAALEN RAHON ~

 

Varda Poem

                                     for Yanko

You who taught numbers to know the rainbow

Who opened every door in the celestial city

Who always made more when there was less

Who enchanted birds

Who loved all things except the mean

Should you be seen

Dancing in your golden ashes

About half a league off our port beam

As we go out the Gate

While the sun sets clear

Will you tell us one more time

How hard it is to be human

When it's so easy to be divine

_______________________

Shapeshifter

Alice Paalen Rahon

New York Review of Books

Translated by Mary Ann Caws

2021

IN A CLAY PIG'S EYE ~

 

screeching like baby birds

in a crowded nest ~

dumplings frying

on the fourth day

I named the fly

howard

my senile father

eats the fortune cookie

and the fortune

our beautiful old love

on such thin ice

we can't even shiver

a splinter

pulled from my thumb

spit into the fire

because of my old father

my old mother has learned

to make baby food

after the storm

an apology

of soft rain

going out the door

i pass a grape that had

rolled away from breakfast

a fence between

the cemetery and the road

leans toward the road

mountains disappear in fog

and i want to go right along

with them

_____________________________

selected from ~

Ronald Baatz

In A Clay Pig's Eye

Seastone Editions, 2005

NIKOLAI ASTRUP ~

R E A D     M E 

The Clark

Yale

2021

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR ~

 

R E A D      M E

TADEUSZ BOROWSKI ~

 

R E A D    M E

Yale University Press

CHRISTOPHER STEELE ( RUSSIA ) ~

 

YOU DON'T KNOW US NEGROES ~

 

R E A D     M E

Harper Collins, 2022

PETER HANDKE ~

 

P E T E R      H A N D K E

M O R E