A.E. STALLINGS ~

 

Momentary

I never glimpse her but she goes

Who had been basking in the sun,

Her links of chain mail one by one

A glint with pewter, bronze and rose.

I never see her lying coiled

Atop the garden step, or under

A dark leaf, unless I blunder

And by some motion she is foiled.

Too late I notice as she passes

Zither of chromatic scale —

I only ever see her tail

Quicksilver into tall grasses.

I know her only by her flowing,

By her glamour disappearing

Into shadow as I'm nearing —

I only recognize her going.

________________

A. E. Stallings

This Afterlife

Selected Poems

Farrar, 2022

LYDIA DAVIS ~

 

R E A D    M E

ADA BLACKJACK ~

 

A D A     B L A C K J A C K

HOMERO ARIDJIS ~

 

The Dreaming Body

The day will come

when an unfamiliar voice

will call you by your name,

and your eyes will comb the street

searching for nobody.

The day will come

in which your hands want

to trap your ghost

only to catch

the heartbeat of a stranger.

The day will come,

on the street, when your

double appears in person

and on its becoming one with you,

you disappear.

The First Dream

Against political harassment,

against criminal violence,

against fear

I built a wall of poetry.

Not All

                  For Norman Manea

Not all the stars are angels in flames

not all the rivers reach the sea

not all rains are crystal clear

not all hunger is the best sauce in the world

not all things that have teeth hunt down someone to eat

not all wombs are the door to paradise

not all dreams have an awakening

not all that I say is for sure

The Tree

                  For Chloe and Eva Sophia

Then the tree had a dream

it dreamed it was in a wood

and its branches that leaned out

onto my window were full of birds

it dreamed its seeds fell to the ground

and turned into other trees

into other dreams that grew

inside and outside us

it dreamed there were two roads

one which went down to the underworld

and the other which rose up to the Horizon

where evening never fell

it had to stay in the same place

staring through a thousand green eyes at man

who came in trucks with chainsaws

to cut it in two

at that moment the tree awoke

saw itself with shoes on its roots

and like an uprooted angel

took to the road

____________________________

Homero Aridjis

Self-portrait in the zone of silence

New Directions, 2023

translated from the Spanish by George McWhirter

ANATOMY OF A JERUSALEM TRAGEDY ~

R E A D    M E

Very well told but a

 tragedy bounded by more tragedy

 — better catastrophe —

in that none of the life of

this text since

October 7, 2023

 any longer exists

JAMES KOLLER'S B O N E S H O W ~

COYOTE

I keep coming back —

born again, born again,

Like the Blue Sky.

I know what comes before

& after, what will be.

I know all about it, ask me.

It's all going to happen.

Everything in its time.

Everything like it's supposed to be.

Just watch how I do it.

Keep at it, keep your head straight.

Day after day, Blue Sky.

Just watch. Do it like me.

WOLF WOMAN

What is thought will happen —

first you must think of it

& then you must do it.

The timing must be right.

What is done must be right

for the time, suit the time —

summer's work in the summer

One foot must follow the other —

they cannot go their own ways.

First there is the pattern

& then it's unfolding.

She who takes the seed with love

gives birth with love.

BABA YAGA

Rain & rain & rain & rain.

There is water everywhere!

Everything is afloat!

This is the beginning.

You can't stand still.

Where will you go?

What can we do?

Make the right choice.

HOMBRE

Tie the right knot

at the right time.

You know what it has to do.

Know how to untie

what you tie.

JACK

I won't stand & wait

until all becomes clear.

A spring bubbles up,

fills what space it can,

& flows as it has to,

makes its own way.

I must move on,

find my own way.

BABA YAGA

I'll answer your questions

when you can ask them.

Do you really want to know?

Does it matter

what you're told?

COYOTE

Sometimes you can smell trouble,

you know it's waiting to happen.

You don't have to help it along,

it'll come looking for you.

It'll come in its own time.

Don't get too curious.

Don't rush into it.

Maybe it won't find you.

BABA YAGA

I don't worry. Not me.

I know how strong I am.

I see things the way they are.

I always take time

to treat myself well.

BABA YAGA

I know what I want.

Things will go my way.

I will do anything

to make things go my way.

Don't doubt me.

I can do it.

I will do it.

I know what I want.

COYOTE

I'm not always right —

usually, but not always.

Even I know that.

Sometimes it pays

not to be right.

WOLF WOMAN

Know where you stand.

Know where you move to.

Know who goes with you.

Know that they know

where you stand, where you move.

Know that they know

why you stand, why you move.

Know that you are right in what you do.

BABA YAGA

You're not alone,

you just think you are.

The others will help.

Treat them well

& they'll treat you well.

BABA YAGA

The rivers will run to the sea.

That's the way it is.

Sometimes more, sometimes less.

They do it in their own time.

No one will stop them.

WOLF WOMAN

The time is right.

Everyone is known.

Things have been done together.

They will be done again & again.

Be yourself, as the others are.

What you do together

brings you together

& holds you together.

KWAN YIN

Being here is enough.

That you are here.

However gentle

you might be.

The wind must pass around you.

COYOTE

You have to know when it's time to wait.

You have to take it all into account.

Sometimes you have to wait.

Twiddle your thumbs.

Watch the clouds go by.

Practice your smile.

It isn't easy, but sometimes

there is no other way.

COYOTE

When I think about what I'm doing

everything turns out as it should.

I have to pay attention

or things just don't work

the way they're supposed to work.

To get things in order

I have to do them in order.

It's just the way my mind works.

FREYA

He knows what he knows

& I know what I know.

Only when I tell him

what I know

does he know.

WOLF WOMAN

We work together.

We know what we want.

We do what it's time to do.

Things get done.

What more can we ask?

COYOTE

It doesn't get any better

than this —

everything is where it belongs.

Everything has a name,

everything has a place.

There is a time for everything.

I could put it all together again

if I had to.

COYOTE

You can't talk me into anything.

I listen to my own mind.

I know what I want to do.

I don't take advice.

I decide if I'm right.

I decide if I'm wrong.

I do things my way

when I can get away with it.

WOLF WOMAN

When you're working alone

you can only do so much.

It all takes a long time,

but if you keep at it

what needs to be done gets done.

COYOTE

In the beginning

we gathered

around

& nobody knew

who anybody was.

I figured it out.

We needed names

if we wanted to talk

about one another.

SPRING

Sometimes someone

who is strong & clear

sees more of it all

& makes happen

more than we knew was needed.

SPRING

I have to know enough

to keep things straight.

I have to know enough

to keep my mind

where it belongs.

COYOTE

I didn't see it coming

but I can't let it go by.

There's a place for her,

all she has to do is remember

what it is —

why she's here.

If she can remember

we'll both remember.

WOLF WOMAN

Try to keep things in balance.

Try to keep things equal.

If a cup is too full it will spill.

If a cup is empty it can only be filled.

Give away what you don't need.

Be thankful for what was given to you.

Be sure to finish what you start —

don't get ahead of yourself.

JACK

A mother teaches her son

more than she knows.

It all goes through her hands.

She knows what to do with it.

She passes it all along.

HOMBRE

The rite of first thunder —

earth opens for the rain.

It has always been that way.

The old ones show the way.

These who believe in what must be done

are happy to be part of it.

Nothing holds back

what must be done.

WOLF WOMAN

If you believe in him

what he does is right.

You know he is right

& open doors for him

& sing to him.

___________________________________

I type out these poems from the opening pages of

James Koller's The Bone Show on the day he passed

away 10 December (2014). Hey there, Jim.

____________________________________

The folk literature of the world speaks from the accumulated traditions of its own diverse beginnings. Common to all these traditions are the desires to understand and to participate in both the known and the still-to-be-known worlds. It all adds up, the folk tell us, will all make sense, someday, to somebody.

THE BONE SHOW is a ghost dance, a chronicle of characters and ideas that, because of their folk origins are able to interact in and with the Present. They remain able to move beyond the known, are able to recreate from the Past, a Now and Future.

The inspiration and focus of the dance, the I CHING, first appeared as an outgrowth of folk traditions in ancient China. We know the eight characters who move through the dance from European and North American traditions as well as Asian. We know that what was done before will be done again. We too, have watched it happen. We know, even as we watch the dancers change, that it's all the same dance.

JAMES KOLLER

THE BONE SHOW

James Koller

Coyote Books

Rete Bioregionale Italiana

2004

THE GENOCIDE IN GAZA ~

 

   Chris Hedges

IN THE BEGINNING ~

 

                                                                D I A N E    A R B U S

Photograph by Tod Papageorge, 1967

The Met, 2016

FRANCOISE MOULY ~

 

R E A D    M E

Coach House Press

2013

ANNA BADKHEN ~

 

R E A D    M E

SEA CHANGE ~

 

R E A D    M E

University of California Press

2023

VILE DAYS ~

 

R E A D   M E

      SEMIOTEXT(E), 2018

YIELD ~

 

Anne Truitt

  R E A D    M E

THE PILGRIM TRAVELERS ~

 

RUSSELL ATKINS ~

 

TRAINYARD AT NIGHT

TH  UN  DER  TH  UN  DER

the huge bold blasts black

hiss insists upon hissing insists

on insisting on hissing hiss

his s sss ss sss sss ssss s

ss sssss ssss

when whoosh!

the sharp scrap making its fourth lap

with a lot of rattletrap

and slap rap and crap —

I listen in time to hearing coming on

the great Limited

it rolls scrolls of fold of fold

like one traditionally old

coldly, meanwhile hiss hiss

hiss insists upon hissing insists

on insisting on hissing hiss

his s ss ss sss sss s

sss s s

s

___________________________

Russell Atkins

World'd Too Much

The Selected Poetry

CSU, 2019

HENRY KISSINGER ~

R E A D     M E     I' M     A     C R I M I N A L 

MENG JIAO ~

 

Why Complain

Bad poetry gets you good posts.

Good poetry

Gets you to a mountain.

Hugging the mountain

You shiver

Daylong you hug it

For cold

With a dour face.

Some position, that.

Poetry,

Good for nothing, you think,

— It courts envy.

Daggers drawn soon point at your clenched teeth,

The good & the great are long dead.

You chew over their work.  Best dead.

For what it's worth.

& shall I not, now nearing the end of life,

Have some peace of mind —

A person of few words

Who has withstood his time?

The pack descended,

Glowering

You are wanted.

______________________

In the Same Light

200 Poems for Our Century

translated by Wang May

The Song Cave, 2022

SHANE MACGOWAN ~

 

SHANE  MACGOWAN

The Pogues

GUARDIANS OF THE VALLEY ~

 

Yosemite’s “Three Brothers,” taken east of El Capitan, 1865Credit...

Carleton E.Watkins, via Library of Congress

R E A D    M E

Scribner, 2023

VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~

 

Dear Michael Boughn,

I’m not sure what has happened — you invited me into the fold to send a piece about Kent Johnson for your proposed anthology I ONCE MET KENT JOHNSON. The title, of course, drawn from the two titles Susan and I edited, designed and published from Longhouse of Kent’s delicately mountaineering written portraits I ONCE MET. It sounded like a terrific idea and you sent me the almost finished manuscript of all those already involved. I wrote a little piece for the anthology, sent it along, and the rest is history, which I believe I will share in all our correspondence shown below — and why not — also with the general public. Kent would understand. I’ll also show my tribute to Kent at the closing, since all went quiet (never a good sign in publishing) after you accepted my tribute, revealed you wept reading it, and then months later published the anthology for Kent without my tribute. Why not tell me why there has been no explanation to my tribute being erased, nor any word here to the book's release.  I had to ask an old friend of Kent's and mine who let me know about the book's publication. My copy arrived a week after his, which I thank you, but not for this treatment. 

[BA]   

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Kent
Date: March 13, 2023 at 2:09:36 PM EDT
To: longhousepoetry@gmail.com

Hi Bob and Susan--

We are putting together a collection of tributes to Kent called I Once Met Kent Johnson. I attached some below so you can get a sense of what people have written. We'd very much like it if you could contribute something, especially since you published Kent's book. I'm hoping to get something together in next couple of weeks. Let me know if you'd like to add to it.

Best,
Mike

-- 
Michael Boughn

 

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Kent
Date: March 13, 2023 at 10:01:56 PM EDT
To: Michael Boughn

Mike,

What a cherry idea!

What’s you latest deadline?

We have too much snow and too much mud to deal with.

Plus Susan just got out of the ER.

Time, at the moment, is funny.

Let me know.

stay warm & well,

Bob

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: Re: Kent

Date: March 14, 2023 at 7:15:45 AM EDT

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Hi Bob — sorry to hear of your various travails.  There’s no tight deadline, but I’m hoping to be able to put something together in 2-3 weeks.

m

Michael Boughn

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: Kent

Date: March 18, 2023 at 10:19:53 PM EDT

To: Michael Boughn

Hi Mike,

Nor’easter here gave us over three feet of snow. No power, phone, water, road for days. I’m writing now but no way to send it because the Internet is out. It may be out for a week or weeks. The power is back after five days. We’ve been moving snow everyday. One day this note will go out and get to you. With luck, I’d like to have a piece for Kent in your hand by the end of the month.

See you when I do.

Bob

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: Re: Kent

Date: March 19, 2023 at 2:06:41 PM EDT

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Terrific, Bob.

m

Michael Boughn

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Kent Johnson

Date: March 27, 2023 at 7:18:14 AM EDT

To: Michael Boughn

Hi Mike,

After the Nor’easter here (42 inches of snow in 24 hours) we had no power for a week and no phone or internet for almost two weeks, plus there is no wi fi reception in this valley, period, except by the phone line — finally some restoration at the end of March — getting this piece for Kent off to you. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Will this gathering be both on-line and book form?

all’s well, Bob

Bob Arnold
P.O. Box 2454
West Brattleboro
Vermont
05303

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Re: Kent Johnson
Date: March 27, 2023 at 3:18:23 PM EDT
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

That’s terrific, Bob. Had me in tears. I really miss him, too.

I’d explain why you got drawn in later than some others, but it’s complicated. Suffice to say, the whole process was ad hoc and anarchic. And it was all on me, and I am grossly ignorant and isolated when it comes to the poetry world. Not mention usually stoned.

Thanks for this. If Susan is sending something, I will wait.

m


Michael Boughn

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Kent Johnson
Date: March 27, 2023 at 4:41:30 PM EDT
To: Michael Boughn 

You’re a good sport, Mike, appreciate it.

Susan is quite happy with what I wrote. 

She likes Kent in there, voice man and all.

When is it all appearing?

all’s well, Bob

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn 
Subject: Re: Kent Johnson
Date: March 27, 2023 at 6:09:16 PM EDT
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

It shouldn't be too long, at least in PublishingTime. Billie Chernicoff and I started collecting these when Kent told us he was terminal. There's a small  group of us, most of whom were on the Dispatches editors list. It was half social and half Dispatches sounding board. We kept up a conversation after Dispatches closed up shop. When he broke the news to us, we all wrote something to give him cheer and let him know how much he was loved and respected. He sometimes had a hard time recognizing that, and according to Deb, his wife, while he was sick he was frequently despondent about the universal enmity he felt. So we decided to ask a few others to join in. No one was in charge. Everyone reached out, but mostly it was me. I knew the names of a lot of the people he had close relations with because I witnessed it during Dispatches. So I reached out to them. The manuscripts collected in Billie's computer because there was just too much else going on to make a book, too. I was out of the country for a while, then had a cardiac issue. Anyway, you know how it goes with time at our age. Poof. When we got back to it last week, I decided to reach out to people I had missed the first time around. And you and Susan came up. And now you have the whole sordid story I said I wasn't going to bother you with.

I think it will be available in a couple of months -- say June. Or July. I definitely want to make a book and I have some very reasonable ideas how to do that. As well as get it online.

All the best,

Mike

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: IOMKJohnson
Date: August 7, 2023 at 10:37:53 PM EDT
To: Michael Boughn 

RE: I Once Met Kent Johnson

Hello Mike,

Deb has sent the lovely memorial booklet of and for Kent which includes a brief passage or two from IOMKJ.
Has the book now been published?
Please let me know.

all’s well, Bob 

________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Re: IOMKJohnson
Date: August 7, 2023 at 11:16:19 PM EDT
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Hey Bob --

It's on hold. I am waiting for one last important contribution that's been held up because of health issues. I've been led to believe that I should get it soon.

Deb took that from the old pdf. 

Glad to hear all's well. Here, too. I have been up on Georgian Bay a lot at our cabin. With my dog. It's good.

m

______________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: IOMKJohnson
Date: August 7, 2023 at 11:18:12 PM EDT
To: Michael Boughn 

Thank you, Mike — we’re all looking forward.

stay well, Bob

______________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: Kent

Date: November 19, 2023 at 3:07:33 PM EST

To: John Bradley 

Dear John,

Between letters, a question — have you ever received the anthology Mike B and others were planning for Kent Johnson?
I thought I had heard from Mike they planned to have the book out this year.
Please let me know whatever you know.

all’s well, Bob

______________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: John Bradley
Subject: Re: Kent
Date: November 19, 2023 at 3:23:36 PM EST
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Dear Bob,

I just received a copy of the book this week.

I don't see your essay in the book, though, Bob.

John

__________________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: Kent

Date: November 20, 2023 at 9:52:21 AM EST

To: John Bradley 

Dear John,

That is a bit of shameful news to receive on a Thanksgiving week, but thank you, John, I thought those involved in this project might be capable of such a cowardly move. 

Glad the book is out for Kent. Glad those contributing are there for Kent. More than glad Kent and I were together and Susan and I were able to publish I ONCE MET not only once in a hand-sewn gold cover booklet but the expanded and perfect-bound edition that Kent knows we plan to keep in print.

However, to never have Susan and I included in the first place (and I have to ask) and then to be invited, my submission taken (all shown in the spool of this brief correspondence) and then be dropped without any explanation — heavens to betsy!

I believe I’ll show all this correspondence to allow what happened to speak for itself, and then post my piece to Kent, which turns out to have a little wave of foreshadow.

all’s well, Bob

___________________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: i once met

Date: November 25, 2023 at 10:46:42 AM EST

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Dear Bob Arnold --

First of all, please accept my profoundest apology for omitting your contribution to I Once Met Kent Johnson. It must have been hurtful to discover that and I feel horrible about it. I'm not sure exactly how it happened--especially after I went to the trouble of tracking you down and requesting a contribution. I was diagnosed a few years ago, along with my then teenage son, with ADHD and mild dyslexia, something I have spent most of my life covering up and feeling less because of it.. Somehow your contribution to the book fell into the hole in the corner of my mind where I am wont to lose things. This is not the first time this has happened. I probably shouldn't be in this business at all. My very first published book (by the University of Virginia) -- the bibliography of HD -- failed to include in the bibliography a crucial article I referred to in the introduction, a failure I was humiliated to learn from the book's first reviewer. I still agonize over it. I could go on and on with other instances. All of which is to say, your omission was a terrible mistake I am deeply apologetic for and will continue to feel awful about for the rest of my life.

 

That said, your response--to publicly excoriate me online in your blog without any attempt to contact me first--was what we we in the olden days called "chickenshit." That was really a chickenshit move, Bob. We also sometimes referred to such a gesture as the act of an "asshole". The truth is, I don't know you well enough to know if you are truly an asshole, or if you just acted like an asshole because you were feeling hurt. But it was an asshole thing to do.

 

All the best,

Mike

______________

The message below was written as a combined email to MB and his “co-editor” Billie who I have had previous correspondence with in the past. Billie requested not to have her two emails included in this thread, which is fine and understandable.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: i once met
Date: November 25, 2023 at 9:33:04 PM EST
To: Michael Boughn

Thank you, Billie, and I would never post your email since none of this was business between you and me.

I posted Mike’s emails, and mine, and carefully removed Mike’s email address in each of his emails ( and not mine ) but apparently from an email from Mike today, he can’t live with his words.

History is tough.

Stay warm and well this winter.

all’s well, Bob

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn 
Subject: Re: i once met
Date: November 26, 2023 at 6:24:51 AM EST
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Dear Bob Arnold —

I can live with my words. That’s not the problem. 

Your failure to talk to me before posting a private conversation on line is the problem. 

You are rude. 

But, hey, etiquette is tough.

_________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough

Date: November 26, 2023 at 10:02:41 AM EST

To: Michael Boughn

Etiquette is tough, Mike, but notice you failed to sign your name in your letter below.

Please understand you made a dreadful mistake in developing and presenting the anthology I ONCE MET, whether it was done to me or any other author. And you have no wherewithal to know what to do about it. I’ve been 52 continuous years in the writing, editing and publishing world. I have made mistakes, and I learned and lived through them. It isn’t up to me to contact you about anything here. You made the mistake of leaving my work out of the anthology. You aren’t built to advise, so please don’t. Please heal. And I mean this Mike. Addressing me as an “asshole” is dire weakness. Either scrap the anthology and with dignity re-print it correctly, including everyone who was promised and should be involved, or go about thrashing and making excuses for yourself. If you do the former, you’ve done your job. If you don’t, you haven’t. Continue to surround yourself with people who give you kudos, but know you have learned nothing.

Best to you and have a warm and kind winter yourself.

all’s well, Bob

_____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn
Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough
Date: November 26, 2023 at 12:18:49 PM EST
To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Dear Bob Arnold,

I’m certainly not going to compare publishing histories with you. You win, hands down. I have never been more than an occasional amateur. Nor have I ever made a cent from it. I paid for the printing and distribution costs out of pocket for the tribute to Kent and gave it to the contributor’s, and I am not really in a financial position to redo the entire process. I did have a possible remedy to propose. It would have been nice if you had written to me about the omission error before publishing my private correspondence to you. Then I would have suggested printing your contribution on a sheet the size of the book and mailing it to everyone with an errata slip and an apology. Which is still a possibility.

Most sincerely,
Michael Boughn

Ps: I did not call you an asshole. In fact if you read the note carefully, you will see I explicitly said that I don’t know you well enough to know if you’re an asshole or not, but what you did by publishing my private correspondence without consultation was an asshole act. Even the most pure among us occasionally acts like an asshole. I speak from personal experience.

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough
Date: November 26, 2023 at 7:20:43 PM EST
To: Michael Boughn

Dear Mike,

Ed Ochester has a terrific poem about an “Asshole”, old poem of his, very old, I once had it tacked up inside my woodshed door. Very short. The weather eventually took it away. You might be able to find it in the world of the Internet.

Those separate sheets, like errata sheets, almost always go lost. Few keep them. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Kent knows the truth.

all’s well, Bob

______________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough

Date: November 27, 2023 at 6:16:36 AM EST

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Bob, I hear your concern for loose sheets, but I would very much like to set the record straight about my omission. Some people may lose it, but some won’t, and everyone that’s part of the project will get a chance to read it. So unless you vigorously object, I will go ahead and send out an errata package in the next couple of months.

Best,

Mike

____________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn

Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough

Date: November 27, 2023 at 9:44:08 AM EST

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

is this the one ? 

Monroeville, PA

One day a kid yelled

"Hey Asshole!"

and everybody on the street

turned around

it reminds me of Kent's bar joke

______________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough

Date: November 27, 2023 at 10:11:55 AM EST

To: Michael Boughn

Correct, Asshole.

B.

_________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: i once met, and it's been enough
Date: November 27, 2023 at 10:17:21 AM EST
To: Michael Boughn

Dear Mike,

I simply object, because while all good intentions, it looks lame. The press looks lame, the editor, and me. Not my way.

I don’t want to go into what losses and pride I have gone through in 52 years of running a press correctly — if you wish to dig around, you could find the Longhouse story. But you made a mistake and a strong contribution was left out for Kent and there is only one way to correct it, since there will be only one book. One Kent. One Mike. One Bob. One future.

all’s well, Bob 

Nov 28: No reply from MB. I believe this ends the exchange. Regarding Ed Ochester’s poem to “Assholes”— I trust MB understands my reply was made in the same jest as the classic poem. We’re all assholes, folks. The other day, working alone in the woods, ready to fell a tall and dying cherry tree, I was into the work and reaching to my back pocket where I always slip in a felling wedge, it turns out I forgot it. I said to myself, “Go get it, asshole.” None of us are spared. My essay to Kent that was omitted from the anthology is down below —

 

(and since the very last messages above between Mike and I and posting it all on the Birdhouse, comes this addendum of very last messages below)

_________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn 

Subject: Re: VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~

Date: November 29, 2023 at 11:23:25 AM EST

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Interesting what you deleted.

_________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~

Date: November 29, 2023 at 2:56:20 PM EST

To: Michael Boughn 

Hello Mike,

If something was “deleted", perhaps be a supportive writer, and show me what is missing. Nothing was purposely “deleted.”

all’s well, Bob

__________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn 

Subject: Re: VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~

Date: November 29, 2023 at 3:05:06 PM EST

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Sure Bob. Here. Maybe I missed something. We know how that goes.

Thanks,

Mike. 

_______________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Subject: Re: VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~

Date: November 29, 2023 at 3:08:17 PM EST

To: Michael Boughn 

Mike,

I found your letter before your return email here, and it is important, and it has been put in its place.

all’s well, Bob

________________

Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Boughn 

Subject: Re: VISITING KENT JOHNSON REDUX ~

Date: November 29, 2023 at 3:09:37 PM EST

To: Bob and Susan Arnold <longhousepoetry@gmail.com>

Thanks.

Mike

______________

KNOCK KNOCK, A Visit With Kent Johnson

I not only ONCE MET Kent Johnson, I saw Kent the other day — waiting for me up in my woodlot in Vermont, sitting with his legs comfortably crossed on the large ash tree Yuri the Russian and I dropped a few weeks ago. A very big tree, maybe 100 feet tall. The tree has been dying now for some years but still taking its time. Like a cat who finds the softest spot in a room to curl up or a dog who slumps into the warmest spot in the dooryard on a winter day, Kent knew where to find me. He, of course, asked about the tree. Pointed to all I had bucked up and hand-split. It’s nearly two cords of prime firewood. Kent wanted to know all the juicy details — like, who was Yuri? 

Yuri was from Moldova. He’s half my age. I was looking for a young tree-surgeon and one afternoon at the grocer’s Susan got out of the truck and cried, “Oh wow! the top of that pine tree just fell over.” That was Yuri up there. I didn’t know him yet but I was going to. He was working as a favor for friends from the same neighborhood church. Susan went off to shop and from the parking lot I watched awhile Yuri work. Then I walked over for a closer look. I got Yuri’s phone number from one of the ground workers since Yuri was too high up in the tree. Yuri was at our place a week later with his little family snug in a company work truck. Not his truck. We took down the ash tree when it was ten degrees, late February. The money Yuri earned would pad his pockets for a three week trip back to Moldova to visit his young wife’s family since they hadn’t yet seen the baby. Kent loved all the story. Told me again of his own travels to that part of the world, the poets he met. He then put one of his hands deep into the hollow of the big log he sat on. I still had the last twelve feet of the ash tree to buck up. It was three feet thick. The hollow rot would at least give me a leg-up when starting to split the large chunks. Kent asked how long it would take. He kept smiling and shaking his head as I described everything. Taking his hand out of the hollow he then asked was it true it was only after twenty or so others were invited to this anthology of I ONCE MET, I was then invited? 

I beamed and nodded. “Nothing new in club-house poetry America, Kent.” I added that the editor was kind enough to share with me many of of the contributing pieces. “I know, Bob, but you published the book I Once Met. Hell, you encouraged me to write this bigger book of memories from the smaller handmade golden booklet you and Susan published. Don’t you remember how I told you I planned to go to this bar I like and sit there and write? Well, I did! And then you added in all those great photos”. . . “By the way, how is Susan?” I told Kent Susan was back at the house keeping the wood fires up but as the sun gets warmer she’ll follow my snowshoe tracks and see us. Kent asked if I was going to write a piece for the anthology. I said I hoped to. We had a real true blue Nor’easter blow through the week the invitation arrived laying in over three feet of snow in twenty-four hours. We lost power, phone, water and even the dirt road along the river for days. But I read through portions of the anthology that was sent to me and saw mutual friends John Bradley & George Kalamaras in there, plus a sharp, warm remembrance by George Quasha. I never met Quasha but I bet maybe Kent had (he nodded his head). I bet you also felt the same thrill I did when young and finding a copy of his Active Anthology? Kent didn’t say anything, just kept smiling at me. Neither a nod or a head shake; he was a man in love. I waited while Kent came back from wherever he was, thinking or dreaming of poets and books.

He then blinked and looked me dead in the eye and said, “I died too young, Bob. I miss my family. I miss my dog Ben Jonson. I miss you all. Look at me — my hair’s grown back!” We laughed and let that all sink in. The sun had finally reached our spot in the woods. Snow was melting around the big log. “Yeah, you died too young Kent,” I said. “Everyone misses you. But you still lived almost twenty years longer than Basho.” Hello rolled into goodbye.

           

Bob Arnold

_______________                    

28 March 2023

Green River

This is a fine tribute anthology to our memorable friend, Kent,

packed with many of his cohorts and friends —

The book is published by:

Shuffaloff

11 Conrad Avenue

Toronto, ON. M6G  3G4

contact: razzamatootie@gmail.com