THE FIVE KEYS ~

 

AH, LENORE KANDEL IS NOT FORGOTTEN ~

 

L E N O R E     K A N D E L

    The New Yorker

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ABED SALAMA:

"My homeland is a suitcase"

MAHMOUD DARWISH (1941-2008)

R E A D    M E

ALSO READ:

"Heading Toward a Second Nakba" by David Shulman

New York Review of Books, October 19, 2023

Posted September 20, 2023, weeks before

the savagery in, and from, Israel

 

LOUISE MERIWETHER ~

 

L O U I S E    M E R I W E T H E R

1923 ~ 2023

photograph: Fern Logan

JOHNNY ACE ~

 

ELAINE MAYES, PHOTOGRAPHER ~

 

E L A I N E    M A Y E S

JERRY MARTIEN ~

 

Issued from Longhouse 2023

Limited to only 100 copies:

$10

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or contact us by email for information

THE JUBALAIRES ~

 

VICTORIA ADUKWEI BULLEY ~

 

There You Are

There you are

this cold day

boiling the water on the stove

pouring the herbs into the pot

hawthorn, rose;

buying the tulips

& looking at them, holding

your heart in your hands at the table

saying please, please, to nobody else

here in the kitchen with you.

How hard, how heavy this all is.

How beautiful, these things you do,

in case they help, these things you do

which, although you haven't said it yet,

say that you want to live. 

Ana Luisa Amaral ~

  

The Call

"No" is the wildest word we consign to Language.

                EMILY DICKINSON

Come, I'll give you everything: every glory,

the rarest and most beautiful of seeds

so as to plant more glories, flowers

that will explode from those seeds

and then bloom, poisonous and sweet

with an aftertang of delight and loathing —

look at this one, so dull, and yet so bright.

Even the leaves that will at last

all fall, in the guise of leaves,

more cutting than piano wire,

cruel, piercing music, splint-

ers of gold and death — all yours.

Yes, all you need ( how easy! ) is to say yes.

_______________

Ana Luisa Amaral

WORLD

translated by Margaret Jull Costa

New Directions, 2023

JAMES BROWN (HOME AT LAST) ~

 

Little Willie John

THOMAS MANN ~

 

R E A D    M E

A bright introduction by the translator is one draw, and time for a

new reading of 'Death in Venice' (at least)

Liveright 2023

JEWEL/PAULA ROCK STORY ~

 

RICK RUBIN, THE CREATIVE ACT ~

 

   Penguin 2023

POEM BEGINNING WITH A LINE BY FRANK LIMA ~

 

Poem Beginning with a Line by Frank Lima

And how terrific it is to write a radio poem

and how terrific it is to stand on the roof and

watch the stars go by and how terrific it is to be

misled inside a hallway, and how terrific it is

to be the hallway as it stands inside the house,

and how terrific it is, shaped like a telephone,

to be filled with scotch and stand out on the street,

and how terrific it is to see the stars inside the radios

and cows, and how terrific the cows are, crossing

at night, in their jaundiced way and moving

through the moonlight, and how terrific the night is,

purveyor of the bells and distant planets, and how

terrific it is to write this poem as I sleep, to sleep

in distant planets in my mind and cross at night the

cows in the hallways riding stars to radios at night, and

how terrific night you are, across the bridges, into

tunnels, into bars, and how terrific it is that you are

this too, the fields of planetary pull, terrific, living

on the Hudson, inside the months of spring, an

underwater crossing for the cows in dreams, terrific,

like the radios, the songs, the poem and the stars.

________________

Lisa Jarnot

Ring of Fire

Zoland Books, 2001

ARVIND KRISHNA MEHROTRA ~

 

Cage

It has slate grey fur,

matching button ears,

pointed pink-tipped nose,

a long tail.

I've been seeing it

occasionally,

beside a table,

running along a wall.

When I open the cupboard,

the one with suitcases

on top, I'm afraid

it'll jump out.

I set up the rat trap

under the sideboard

and waited. A day passed.

Another. I forgot about it.

Surrounded by

bread crumbs,

it was sitting inside,

making no sound,

its tail caught

in the cage door.

I tried to read

its expression,

wanting to

reassure it,

to tell it

that all was well

and I'll soon bring

something for it to eat.

After lunch I thought

I'd go out

and release it

in the open somewhere.

The street was empty.

On one side

was a greasy ditch.

I released it in the grass

thinking it would

run away but it hobbled

towards the shops

and was run over.

I don't know how

it happened.

It was the middle

of the afternoon,

there was little traffic,

not all shops were open.

It would have felt

no pain.  Its tail

was the only thing left

that was recognisable.

Its last meal was

an arrowroot biscuit

I'd slipped through

the wire mesh.

__________________

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

Book of Rahim & Other Poems

Literary Activism / Westland Books, 2023

DEBORAH LEVY ~

 

RONALD JOHNSON ~

 

Three Painting by Arthur Dove

I. PLANT FORMS

Dove once pulled up a cyclamen

& tore it up

to show

how the color went

down inthe stem

& on into the root.

Color is a condition of the plant —

color of the flower,

& pod,

embedded in the bud.

At the perimeters of growth

the plant

has lines of force —

as the 'wind

has weight.'

If we could look at an orange flower long enough

it would become blue:

spathe, sheath,

petiole, blade,

stalk, & root —

'these moving circles, in which we walk'.

II. COWS IN PASTURE

What is wanted

is someone who can open the chestnut-burr

with his bare heel,

& bark, hide, the bull-calf eye,

as forms.

Once open, form is wind, 'water in an old hoof-print'.

but most branch an eye,

the bull's or buck-eye,

as if —

it grew bark.  Give it hair, turf,

willow.

'Raw sienna, black & green'.

Form has no

size.

The burnt-out log

is not a whale.

Nor is it

'silver burnt brown

wood

color dark'.

And there are no cows.

We walk,

careful not to step on snails.

The grass is very

green.

That the mountainside

looks like a face

is accidental'.

III. MOON

It is, of course, as great as any

Ryder.

The sensation of sound

as if someone

had hit a tree with a club,

fog-horns, the Ferry Boat Wreck—Oyster Bay,

& all his

Dawns, Moons, Suns,

are a new form, 'boundaries of other

events'

such as cross-section

of sequoia,

scales of haddock, agate,

are. 

'On the levels of the very large, the very small, the very slow,

the eye sees as constant, & at rest,

what our memory assures us to be fluid & moving'.

The moon is on a tree-trunk

& there are rings of growth & brightness.

At the heart of this

light

it is dark.

This is a man who has looked at a moon in the face, night

& day

dove, dove.

A New Edition (with a Ralph Eugene Meatyard cover photograph)

 — many of us own the original Norton copy —

Ronald Johnson

VALLEY OF THE MANY-COLORED GRASSES

The Song Cave, 2023

MAHOGANY L. BROWNE ~

 

If Love Is For the Fishes

i breathe them in each night

a shallow breath of scaly skin

i breathe deep & think

of the shrimp's crooked smile

i breathe deeper & am thankful

for the lobster's claw

i know this is a type of love

and dream for their flesh to never know harm nor hurt

to never know run and hide

i know this is a type of love

because my cheeks grow warm

              my hands fling at the stars

              i dance a dance all my own

              there is music in my chest

i know this is a kind of love

because i think of my family

how they smile & i smile too

i always think of love & soft feather beds

the water is perfect for here & when i close

my eyes i only see a garden growing upwards

towards the sun that is really a smile

& the water washes away the dust

of my night screams

love is an open door

a boat swimming against a purple glory

& syrup spun sugar

& i breathed & breathe & breathe

love 'til we become

________________

Mahogany L. Browne

Chrome Valley

Liveright 2023

RAQUEL GUTIERREZ, BROWN NEON ~

 

R E A D    M E

Coffee House Press