THE LOW ANTHEM TONIGHT ~

 

ONCE UPON A TIME CINEMA ~

 

R E A D   M E

     NYRB,  2023

VAN GOGH AND THE END OF NATURE ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Yale University

     2024

WOLVES & MEN ~

 

W O L V E S

       photo ~ Kyle Artelle

LESTER YOUNG ALL DAY ALL NIGHT ~

 

THE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHY ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Seven Stories Press

      2024

A FEARLESS EYE : BARBARA RAMOS ~

 

B A R B A R A    R A M O S

       “Man Sleeping at Altamont.”Credit...Barbara Ramos

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER TONIGHT ~

 

1955

     Charles Laughton, director

EUGENIO MONTALE ~

 

R E A D   M E

     NYRB 2024

BLIND BLAKE TONIGHT ~

 

JIM HARRISON DEVOURING TIME ~

 

R E A D   M E

      Black Stone Publishers

      2025

NACHOEM M. WIJNBERG ~

 

When I Was With You Song

When I was with you

I said to you:

take off my clothes,

remove my jewels,

lay them down carefully.

To help you

I will raise a foot

I will hold up an arm;

undress me slowly,

take off my shadow.

When I was with you

I said to you,

while my shadow moved

left, then right,

trying to hide.

Song

I have forgotten

what I discovered

because it is so long ago,

where do I sleep?

When I was a child

I thought I could be

between everyone

and the lights of the night.

That is what I thought,

that someone gets

what makes them shine

when they think of it.

That someone only knows

words for ever

and a day, quieter than

the day before.

Song

The joke is

I would have liked to be with someone

who was the beginning and the end for me.

When I am old

I will say what I like about love

like a girl who's not afraid of it.

Because I thought

it wouldn't happen again

that someone could love me.

That's me, put me down somewhere

where something is about to begin

and I will start.

Is there something

I mustn't joke about here

but only outside?

But if you're with me

you don't need to laugh at it

or only after you've turned it into a song

And sung it bakwards,

from the end to the beginning,

and then laugh as if in a gale.

At the Seaside

The girl walks to the sea

and at the seaside a man

asks: are you the girl

I was looking for?

She shakes her head,

holds out an open hand

on which he puts a ring

she will never lose for long.

He tells her how

she can recognize him

if she sees him again: he will

choose the other hand.

_______________

Nachoem M. Wijnberg

translated by David Colmer

NYRB 2022

VIDYA BY ANDREW SCHELLING ~

 

Old Time Love Song Magic

2

My lord,

your eye

is a fresh blue river

                a balance of soft grass —

to your nearest friends luck

to the enemy ruin

unseen through my woman's

                 body it races.

                                    Meter: Puspitagra

                              Flowering Branch Tip

18

What rival warlords

beneath the orbiting moon & sun

have you not deposed?

Deva, I think you

the earth's finest warrior.

                You circled my body

                seized the black ropes of my hair

                                slipped the blouse off

                                and clasped my hips freely

                your hand now approaches the

                fragrant zone.

                                             

                                        Meter: Sardula-vikriditam

                                                       Tiger's Play

20

Black swollen clouds

drench the far

forests with rain.

Scarlet kadamba petals toss on the storm.

In the foothills peacocks dance

they make love and none of it

                touches me.

It's when the lighting

exposes an amorous flash

bright legs and arms

like a rival —

in grief

lonely grief

                I am drenched.

                              

                                   Meter: Sardula-vikriditam

                                                Tiger's Play

26

Monsoon season

                the Rainbow Girl rises

her heart childlike

shifting about

one hue for another

she's a lute with no string

a song that changes

                she dares you

               to catch her.

                          

                        Meter: Arya

                            Noble Lady

                            

31

Shamelessly orange like a

parrot's beak,

arousing with a lover's

touch the clustered

lotus buds,

I praise this

great wheel the sun

Rising

it is an

earring for

the Lady of the East.

                

                Meter: Arya

                Noble Lady

______________________________

Vidya

Old Time Love Song Magic

translated from the Sanskrit by Andrew Schelling

Circumference Books, 2025

               

AMITAV GHOSH'S PLANET ~

 

E A R T H   T O   E A R T H

     University of Chicago

   2016

LIGHTNING HOPKINS TEXAS BLUES MAN TONIGHT ~

 

All songs composed by Sam "Lightning" Hopkins Recorded by Chris Strachwitz on portable equipment in Houston, Texas, on December 18, 1967 Cover Photo by Chris Strachwitz Cover design by Wayne Pope Producer: Chris Strachwitz

TATSUYA NAKADAI ~

 

TATSUYA  NAKADAI

WALKING ON THIN AIR ~

 

R E A D   M E

     Westbourne Press

     2023

AMY LOWELL ~

The Garden by Moonlight

A black cat among roses,

Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,

The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.

The garden is very still,

It is dazed with moonlight,

Contented with perfume,

Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.

Firefly lights open and vanish

High as the tip buds of the golden glow

Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.

Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,

Moon-spikes shafting through the snow ball bush.

Only the little faces of the ladies' delight are alert and staring,

Only the cat, padding between the roses,

Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern

As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.

Then you come,

And you are quiet like the garden,

And white like the alyssum flowers,

And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.

Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?

They knew my mother,

But who belonging to me will they know

When I am gone.

_________________________________________________

AMY LOWELL

Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, 1914

JOHNNY BOND TONIGHT ~

 

      Columbia 1941

BANDIT HEAVEN ~

R E A D   M E 

St. Martin's

2024