Thursday, March 30, 2017

ROBERT GRENIER ~









C R O S S I N G       O N T A R I O



joking and somber

and joking and sober




.




all the stores closed

afternoon Wednesdays



very dark

snow clouds in

July

in

the first days

of August



west southwest to

east northeast

it flows



cafe brightness

light blue walls

mirrors lake scenes as if

reflected off snow



hard to order

a vanilla sundae easy

one small cold ball

round in stainless steel



see the model station over the road

spur line here

to Hudson's Bay



where the railroad must stop

Esquimaux


they want you to work

they don't want you to sleep




.




what

I move so

thickly through into

very furry




.




not so much

the forest



with its

gleams of silver



meadow fucking

meadow meadow




.




blue birds

mountain rings



the tow

of the body






H O R S E S




grass

brush

fire




sky

oaks




smoke




wood houses

wood houses




warm greys zone




sun

in the ocean




sand

river bed




California

Almond

Growers




————————————
R O B E R T     G R E N I E R
Series
This
1978











Wednesday, March 29, 2017

DONALD KEENE






COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996











Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Monday, March 27, 2017

KNOW IT ~











Know It





All


of

us



are

only




so


much







Job Today







I turned the bird-

bath around —


looks better






Chores







an


unbeatable


word






Memory






we

live



long-

er



than

we



will

live



——————————

Bob Arnold
BEAUTIFUL   DAYS
Longhouse



Buster Keaton & friend






Sunday, March 26, 2017

JOHN ASHBERY ~









Hillbilly Airs and Dances




The same ideas or different ones condense,

and you don't have to sleep again.

Garbage is necessary. That's another issue

that hasn't been talked about.



I hear what you're saying.

Now all together: Everyone is standing

outside some movement: French spenders,

my business train, millions

of irregular plurals. Like we were all

gone together at some point,

something one could understand.



to confront you with our country,

smoking cloud,



vintage treat, village street.

The other is all mind.

In world aesthetics, a bundle in the straw.



_________________________

JOHN ASHBERY
Commotion of the Birds
Ecco 2016











Thursday, March 23, 2017

JOANNE KYGER ~









FAREWELL
JOANNE KYGER
Vallejo, CA 1934 ~ Bolinas, CA 2017

Longhouse published Joanne over the years
and wish her only safe passage
she has left us beautiful poems







NIGHT AT SEA ~



















Wednesday, March 22, 2017

ON PHOTOGRAPHY ~














REACTION BOOKS
(London)
2016




Monday, March 20, 2017

ROBERT SILVERS ~





Robert B. Silvers in his office at 
The New York Review of Books in 2012. 
CreditFred R. Conrad/The New York Times













MODERN ASSEMBLY ~









Modern Assembly




Man’s gift to himself —



Eliminate himself






Uncle







I see his face —



it can't be helped

because he sees every

face who sees his face

and this concerns him



the sexual predator

as he comes into the

restaurant and good-uncle-

like chats with the prettiest



girl at the cash register,

barely 15, willowy, and the

reason he is here, her face not 

at all developed or trained —



she shows crushing boredom

overwhelming confusion

grimace with genuine sparkle

if given the chance, a breakthrough



smile —

which she allows the predator

sensing him as an uncle

and when she drops her eyes



and he lifts his, dripping

over all of her, a split second is

all, I can't tell you how much the

blade of a shadow makes me cold




I Saw Porcupine





I saw porcupine as soon as I pulled the truck into the meadow. There is nothing that moves on the earth like a porcupine. Imagine carrying a body of hollow pointed quills around everywhere all through your life. Porcupine stopped his ground when he saw the red truck. I got out and slowly walked to porcupine and porcupine reared up the quills and turned its back and slowly moved into the woods edge brush, then stopped and waited. Porcupine didn’t leave, and neither did I. We were five feet from one another. His chiseled full brown face and patient eyes studied all parts of what was around him. I knelt near him awhile and waited awhile with him, there was something that made us both cautious. The truck was off and way over there. The sky was blue, the foliage still green approaching fall. Two days later I would hike my morning path and nearing the meadow wonder what had happened to porcupine, and there he was in the sunshine and large leaf ginger plants munching at his breakfast. I sat down in the sun myself and watched awhile. It was the best way to be.


——————————

Bob Arnold
BEAUTIFUL DAYS
Longhouse, 2013 







Saturday, March 18, 2017

ROCK 'N ROLL ~









1926 ~ 2017



John Lennon & Chuck Berry
1972














TAKE A RIDE ~







“It’s very easy to have a good meeting with Trump,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official who is the research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London. “He’s very pleasant in person. He’ll promise you the world. And 48 hours later, he’ll betray you without a thought. He won’t even know he’ll be betraying you.”

New York Times 18 March 2017











CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON ~







Two Water Poems



1



Swim in the spring

it's cold

and bites like

you slept with your daughter



At summer's end

glowing waters close

like silk over your shoulder



This time it's mother

such an evil hobby

envious

comparisons



2



Labyrinthine roots

of the water cypress

anchor

this green dove weighing

dozens of tons

this hairy cone haunted

by the cuckoo



and vanish

far under water

yours

my friendly purse

of bloody fly up



through speech-

bubbles past

their faint boundaries

into thin air



_______________________

CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON
The Lonely Suppers of W.V. Balloon
Godine 1975












Friday, March 17, 2017

BIG WHITENESS ~







Big Whiteness



We are recovering (the word) from a full-fledge blizzard on Tuesday. Not that it’s our first! It’s more that we already had a taste of Spring, the ground almost bare, open, free, even bird calls were changing, and now this. When I was 30 years old it was thrilling. At this age it seems cruel, except it is all the same, get out and work in it, get involved, and since there is no choice, we do our own plowing and shoveling and unburying (a word with snow), we get it done. It takes many days to fully recover the way we live after a blizzard that brings almost two feet of snow, most of it blowing sideways at you as you work. The blowing lasts a few days long after the snow is over, so the snow drifts take effect. Clean up again where you already cleaned up. Then there’s the ice under all the snow so the plow doesn’t manage well. Our yard was built as an increasing paradise all these decades by acoustic living people, no plow, no modern machinery but a push mower, so everywhere are these defined stonewalls I built, pathways, raised beds, ideal for the eye and the ground living Thoreauvian. But introduce a plow and a first winter using one and now the stonewalls are often in the way. Can’t push the snow away. Now we’re boxed in with too much snow and frown at the thought of another snow storm because now we are having to hand shovel five foot banks of snow where the snow plow had to stop (stonewalls) and we are shoveling those high snow banks back further. A fiasco in the making. Keep thinking it is March and April is around the corner.  How many blizzards have we seen in April? Many! Yesterday, second day of the blizzard, wind starting to die down, instead of snowshoeing off somewhere like I often do, I’m snowshoeing back and forth a long trek from house to faraway cottage so Sweetheart has an easy enough hiking trail to reach the cottage in the morning to retrieve book orders. We have a bookshop. Back and forth tramp down a snowshoe path. Tramp back and forth four times, five times, six. Keep in mind someone I love lugging back a satchel of books in the dim early morning. The path looks winding with curves and neatness. A lovely path. 15 degrees. I can’t think of anything cleaner: has to be done, simple, cut into snow,  rounding around tall trees, get to a door. Perfectly clear. A duty. The plow is a beautiful blue, new, hardy, but it’s now boxed in and wanting no more snow. Those spring bird calls have all but disappeared. Owls are back. I hiked under a barred owl the other day, before the snow, and it appeared as happy and freewheelin’ with the open ground as I was. He could catch mice. I could get a look at him. All gone in the big whiteness. The temperature is 20 degrees below normal. Plenty of firewood.


[ BA ]


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