GIVE MY POOR HEART EASE ~

 

M O R E

https://www.lecinemaclub.com/now-showing/give-my-poor-heart-ease/

DO YOU WANT THE NIGHTMARE? ~

 

March 8, 2024

w/ Bill Maher

WOODY PINES ~

 

VINOD KUMAR SHUKLA ~

 

A city person,

I was strangely disoriented

in the midst of nature.

In the bus queue

it looked as though

a roadside tree

had come and joined in too.

I was right behind it,

the last in line.

Now I'm an educated man.

When the bus arrived

I waited for the tree to get on first

when it struck me that trees

do not board buses.

And I who am a city dweller,

was separated from nature

in such a way that leaving the tree behind

I took my seat on the bus.

Once seated, my only wish

was to see trees on either side of the road

all the way back.

In my room I've hung a picture

of a whole forest.  

                                   (1976)

A dry river

was dry again the following year.

Deep below,

it would've been drier.

Below dry rivers

are channels of more dry rivers.

In a village

along one such river

its oldest man,

the last one alive,

will eventually find

buried in the sediment

a transparent rock

in which are fossils

of river vegetation,

river fish,

organisms, and snails,

and also locked inside,

one drop of water

millions of years old.

Preserved in the soul of the oldest man

is a single seed of rice.

I'm at the place

where it was decided I'll be

and from where I've always

been observing

those who go by.

This is where we'll gather,

though come to think of it

we could've gathered

at any place and there's no place

where we couldn't have gathered.

No matter where we meet,

we invariably meet at the place

meant for gathering.

With birth is born its twin, death —

it's a double birth.

Wherever I go, I carry this inborn death with me.

I'll save it

for as long as I live.

But after death, somewhere in the piggy bank,

you'll find that life's been saved.

I walk around as though I were the treasurer of piggy banks,

even of their piggy banks.

The Chhattisgarh to Bilaspur

on which I was traveling

would stop unwontedly.

Suddenly, at Gondia,

everyone disembarked

and rushed towards the Calcutta train

that had arrived.

Getting off, a passenger,

he was older than me, said,

You better get off too,

or you'll be waiting until your next life

for this one to reach its destination.

In no great hurry,

I was happy to be sitting where I was,

I was only going up to Rajnandgaon,

a few stations away,

where I was born.

_________________________

Vinod Kumar Shukla

Treasurer of Piggy Banks

translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

Circumference Books, 2024

KAFKA'S SON ~

 

R E A D    M E

     Seagull Books, 2023

STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN / JOHNNY COPELAND ~

 

HANNAH ARENDT ~

 

R E A D    M E

in short — an excellent primer 

& biography of Hannah Arendt

WILLIAM SLOANE ~

 

R E A D     M E

NYRB, 2015

MERRILL MOORE ~

 

PICTURED WORLDS ~

 

R E A D   M E

   Abrams

SAINT GHETTO OF THE LOANS ~

 

R E A D    M E

In 1945, after wartime on the run and in the Resistance, Gabriel Pomerand (1925-1972) met the young Romanian refugee Isidore Isou and together they launched the Lettrist movement. They espoused a philosophy of constant creative renewal in which, among other things, letterforms were to be the basis, the underlying principle, of future artwork. Along with their followers, Pomerand and Isou instigated dozens of performances, exhibits, and publications in a decade-long burst of energy. Pomerand was the mouthpiece of the movement in its first years. He organized scandalous public lectures, gave reputedly remarkable performances of sound poetry, painted oils, and made an award-winning short movie. His prolific writing over the years included innovative artists books and novels, including Saint Ghetto of the Loans, 1950 (republished by UDP in 2006 with an English translation), as well as screenplays, cultural criticism, and book reviews.

UGLY DUCKLING PRESSE

RON PADGETT REMEMBERS JOE BRAINARD ~

 

          "His watchword was to be open"

JOHN KOETHE ~

 

Fear of the Future

In the end one simply withdraws

From others and time, one's own time,

Becoming an imaginary Everyman

Inhabiting a few rooms, personifying

The urge to tend one's garden,

A character of no strong attachments

Who made nothing happen, and to whom

Nothing ever actually happened — a fictitious

Man whose life was over from the start,

Like a diary or a daybook whose poems

And stories told the same story over

And over again, or no story. The pictures

And paintings hang crooked on the walls,

The limbs beneath the sheets are frail and cold

And morning is an exercise in memory

Of a long failure, and of the years

Mirrored in the face of the immaculate

Child who can't believe he's old.

___________________

John Koethe

Walking Backwards

        poems 1966-2016

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

ALBERT KING ~

 

Stax 8546

RE-READ: BEI DAO, MIDNIGHT'S GATE ~

 

R E A D    M E

New Directions, 2005

SAX MALLARD ~

 

(ARCHIVE) ALLEN GINSBERG READS TO WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY ~

 

A long time ago but still present

Allen Ginsberg read his poem of Wales to William F. Buckley

and opposing but charmed host

ALICE NOTLEY ~

 

R E A D    M E

      The Song Cave, 2023

THE MAN WHO SKIED DOWN EVEREST ~

 

    Yuichiro Miura

CAT POWER, "WOMAN" ~

 

featuring Lana Del Ray