i heard this poem long ago recited live by the poetess herself

             








     -    Kalaloch               

                                                        

The bleached wood massed in bone piles,   

we pulled it from dark beach and built   

fire in a fenced clearing.

The posts’ blunt stubs sank down,

they circled and were roofed by milled   

lumber dragged at one time to the coast.   

We slept there.

Each morning the minus tide—

weeds flowed it like hair swimming.   

The starfish gripped rock, pastel,   

rough. Fish bones lay in sun.

Each noon the milk fog sank

from cloud cover, came in   

our clothes and held them   

tighter on us. Sea stacks   

stood and disappeared.

They came back when the sun

scrubbed out the inlet.

We went down to piles to get

mussels, I made my shirt

a bowl of mussel stones, carted

them to our grate where they smoked apart.   

I pulled the mussel lip bodies out,

chewed their squeak.

We went up the path for fresh water, berries.   

Hardly speaking, thinking.

During low tide we crossed   

to the island, climbed

its wet summit. The redfoots   

and pelicans dropped for fish.   

Oclets so silent fell

toward water with linked feet.

Jacynthe said little.

Long since we had spoken Nova Scotia,

Michigan, and knew beauty in saying nothing.   

She told me about her mother

who would come at them with bread knives then   

stop herself, her face emptied.

I told her about me,

never lied. At night

at times the moon floated.   

We sat with arms tight   

watching flames spit, snap.   

On stone and sand picking up

wood shaped like a body, like a gull.

I ran barefoot not only

on beach but harsh gravels   

up through the woods.

I shit easy, covered my dropping.   

Some nights, no fires, we watched

sea pucker and get stabbed   

by the beacon

circling on Tatoosh.

2

I stripped and spread

on the sea lip, stretched   

to the slap of the foam   

and the vast red dulce.   

Jacynthe gripped the earth   

in her fists, opened—

the boil of the tide   

shuffled into her.

The beach revolved,

headlands behind us

put their pines in the sun.

Gulls turned a strong sky.

Their pained wings held,

they bit water quick, lifted.   

Their looping eyes continually   

measure the distance from us,   

bare women who do not touch.

Rocks drowsed, holes

filled with suds from a distance.

A deep laugh bounced in my flesh   

and sprayed her.

3

Flies crawled us,

Jacynthe crawled.

With her palms she

spread my calves, she

moved my heels from each other.   

A woman’s mouth is

not different, sand moved

wild beneath me, her long

hair wiped my legs, with women   

there is sucking, the water

slops our bodies. We come

clean, our clits beat like

twins to the loons rising up.

We are awake.

Snails sprinkle our gulps.   

Fish die in our grips, there is   

sand in the anus of dancing.   

Tatoosh Island

hardens in the distance.

We see its empty stones   

sticking out of the sea again.   

Jacynthe holds tinder

under fire to cook the night’s wood.

If we had men I would make   

milk in me simply. She is   

quiet. I like that you

cover your teeth.

    by: Carolyn Forche'

...

said the joker to the thief

                                              Luke 14:A Commentary












He is there, like Clouseau,
at the odd moment,

just right:
when he climbs
out of the fish pond

into which
 he has spectacularly fallen,
and says condescendingly
to his hosts,


the owners of the estate:
"I fail where others succeed."


You know this is truth.
You know he'll solve the mystery,

unprepossessing
as he is,
the last of the great detectives.

He'll blend again into the scenery, and
more than once, be taken
for the gardener.
"Come now," he says, taking us
for all we're worth:
 "sit in the low place."

Why not? We ask, so easy
to fall for a man
who makes us laugh. "Invite those
you do not know, people
you'd hardly notice."


He puts us on, we put him on;
another of his jokes.


 "There's room,"

he says.


The meal is good,
absurdly  salty, but delicious.


Charlie Chaplin put it this way:


"I want to play
the role of Jesus.
I look the part.
I'm a Jew. 
And I'm a comedian."




                  Kathleen Norris












.....

'twas good enough for me

differences                                               










The sense of time goes unquestioned
Entelechial questions go unanswered
The sense of a nation's promise lost
The idea of a forward march is imperialism now
Aristotle's notion of a better world to come
Has been replaced by Schopenhauer's nauseating ID
Nietzsche picks it up
Hitler picks up on it, too
Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will

Thanksgiving:
The Indians lay out a feast
The whites slaughter them

The ideas of our world-views aren't clear
I'm fighting to clarify them
Yes to two kingdoms
Yes to meaning
Yes to the entelechial
Jesus as the primary figure of the avant-garde
He could walk on water
He could insist on justice for the poor.




                                    Kirby Olson








....

love's nurtured potential

              WHILE IN WAITING










While in waiting rooms dimly lit,
The ghosts of ourselves do dances,
From lethargy to frenzied fit,
At each stage of their romances.


So do we while our hours away,
Court time to kill it with a kiss,
Impatient for the dreaded day
When doubles shall unite in bliss.






                                Andrew Hoyem




















...

some light on the matter

LANTERN FESTIVAL                                                                              










The east wind caresses the face and hastens the peaches and plums.
A sparrow hawk spreads its wings, unfolding a bright future.
The moon reflects in the sea, bringing hot tears.
A traveler ascends a tower, remembering his home.
I shall not fail to live up to lifelong aspirations to serve my country.
The people who raised me are more valuable than 10,000 pieces of gold.
We must do all we can to catch up and reinvigorate China.

We wait for spring to spread across this sacred land.






                                                      Zhu Haihong












......

presidential honor

LESTER YOUNG                                                   







                               By




                         Ted Joans






Sometimes he was cool like an eternal
          blue flame burning in the old Kansas
          City nunnery
Sometimes he was happy ’til he’d think
          about his birth place and its blood
          stained clay hills and crow-filled trees
Most times he was blowin’ on the wonderful
          tenor sax of his, preachin’ in very cool
          tones, shouting only to remind you of
          a certain point in his blue messages
He was our president as well as the minister
          of soul stirring Jazz, he knew what he
          blew, and he did what a prez should do,
          wail, wail, wail. There were many of
          them to follow him and most of them were
          fair — but they never spoke so eloquently
          in so a far out funky air.
Our prez done died, he know’d this would come
          but death has only booked him, alongside
          Bird, Art Tatum, and other heavenly wailers.
Angels of Jazz — they don’t die — they live
they live — in hipsters like you and I


















////

sweet intimations

Love Song after Lorca                     

  

Doe-eyed and deaf to all

but his own fears and pain,

he longs for what

the silence overwhelms.

She who loves him sings

what his longing longs to hold.

She doesn’t know

what he can’t hear,

if it’s his own

pit thick with pitch

or an emptiness

she might begin to fill.

How does she say

she loves him so

he knows more than the quiet

between every pretty sound?

                       James Edward Tolan

....

blend the place and time immortal

                            








                                                               The Prophet








I thought the robin was playing drunk
but it turned out he was a hunchback with rheumatoid arthritis.
He hobbled about the courtyard dragging his bad foot like a tuba.
Later he would drag me behind his pickup as he drove into town for more seeds.
Thinking back on this, only now can I chuckle.
I pour myself another small glass of Dickel.
I am reticent.
I have blue eyes.
I see things others don’t.




                                                          


                                          Michael Earl Craig - Montana poet laureate




















....

a prophet in grey eagle

       Planting the Cemetery Box              
















How easily a person falls
Into certain attitudes!
Here I stand, hands clasped, head bowed,
Looking at your gravestone
As if I needed help
Reading the name on it,
The name both of us married
In different generations.
But kneeling is natural,
Though I was never a kneeler,
Have never had your closeness
to that bearded old heathen-slayer
Up in the blue May sky.
When you talked about heaven it sounded
Like a big family picnic,
Potato salad and nectar
And Swedish sourdough rye.
Nobody having an argument,
None of the kids crabby,
All the folks you loved, together,
Picnicking forever.
I was never that sort of kneeler;
But kneeling to plant is easy.
I set down the flats, I break up
The good dark soil, I water.
I lift and transplant two geraniums,
Two petunias, an impatiens,
And two tufts of sweet alyssum,
Pouring more water around them,
Firming up the soil,
And your old competent hands
Rise up around mine,
Passing on wisdom, pressing the earth tight.
Something pours into me,
Not down from above,
But up, from the thin grassed dirt
Of Oakland cemetery.
It is good to be brought low,
To be borne down, to feel
This hot rush in body,
Face, and eyes. To kneel
With our hands in dirt
And the dear bones
Of our loved dead under us,
Pressing against our knees.




                 Edith Rylander
















,,,

                

THE   OLD   WOMEN                                                   

  

  That day I sat over a cup of tea

  amid the high society of grannies

  there reigned the atmosphere of courtesy

  something these days one doesn't often see, -

  intact and unaffected manners.

  

  The high-bred mischief in the playful eyes

  the subtle curiosity, well hidden,

  were telling me about the former times

  much more than what historians had written.

  

  

  

  To me whose mother tongue is scant

  as poor as a house, robbed and damaged,

  the pure Russian phrases were like cant

  and phrases borrowed from a foreign language.

  

  In fact, the grannies were famous just

  because of famous people's admiration.

  The sign of the invisible Masonic caste

  upon the feathered creatures cast

  a lofty shadow of participation.

  

  Somehow at cutting in I drew the line,

  at times a glance would really make me shudder.

  I felt out of place like home-made wine

  amid such nectars as 'amontillado'.

  

  It would have been a brutish thing to do

  to call them snobs, or highbrows, or whatever.

  They were superior to me, and yet I knew

  they didn't think they were too clever.

  

  I thought about the devastating wars

  they had gone through and still were waging -

  The two world wars and thousands of those

  they'd been perpetually engaged in.

  

  They had been forced to go so far!

  Behind the grinding sound of wires

  I saw such places as Karaganda

  at table over tea with cakes and pies.

  

  And yet the grannies hadn't grown profane

  like ladies, dressed in quilted jackets, really,

  they would cut short the swearer with disdain

  by looking down on him or her austerely.

  

  They'd dig the frozen ground for hours and days

  the stormy blizzard knocking down the diggers,

  they would disparage muttering the names

  of some distinguished outstanding figures.

  

  A super power of supersonic sound,

  of super- sciences and engineering,

  to me, my dear Russia, you're a land

  of grannies, p'rhaps too strict but all-forgiving.

  

  I noticed that the clothes they wore

  and their turn-down collars were quite old fashioned...

  I watched them and with gratitude I saw

  they were, actually, the embodiment of Russia.

  

  I listened to them pricking up my ears.

  What would I say getting a word in edgeways?

  I'd rather write for grannies such as these,

  let others write their poems for teenagers.

                                           Yevgeny         Yevtushenko
                                                           (  +  1 April 2017    )








     trans.     Alec Vagapov






.