Joe Milford Returns!

Tonight I will post several poems by Joe Milford, a number of them being on classical and/or mythical themes.  These poems suit me well while I get ready for the fall semester and its classes.

Ithacan 

under the belly of the rancid sheep 

i keep asking myself how the hell 

did I get here—how far from the groves 

of olives and the cliff where I sired 

my first daughter, and now, as I hang 

here under this beast, a barbaric one- 

eyed mongoloid wants to eat me 

and my brethren as I follow a madman 

through his rites of passage—they 

should have never had let him read 

Campbell—I am going to die for his 

new tattoos, his new scars, his new 

sexcapades in foreign lands—that wild 

boar should have killed him as a boy,  

but he was loved by the gods—yet 

the rest of us are not so privileged 

and can’t even pay our union dues 

without these regular suicide voyages 

historian 

consciousness is its own rape. 

endless recovery—the fence builder 

fighting the gatekeeper. 

I held the grain of your DNA in my teeth 

and chewed you like papyri. 

we all eventually knelt 

at the factory. tell me how you broke 

your cage—then tell me did you 

make armor or bombs with the scrap? 

I want to be a boy again; I was more 

of a man then. pin a holocaust 

to a constellation. extracting the nails 

from the walls of museums. we fear 

that what could be left is a simpering 

squidesque cthulian moistness underneath 

which has eyes unable to focus. keep  

scribing until our backs are broken. 

heaven is a guitar you can’t break  

and hell is the never ending guitar solo. 

we will have taquitos in Valhalla. 

we will put down our pens, our ink-stained 

feathers so that they can maybe make  

wings again. for now, we keep cutting 

off the heads of the hydra, but no one 

is cauterizing. 

homo xenomorph

mishmash of sundials, weathervanes

historic monoliths, grave pillars and austere

iron gates that the drones fly over

like Orwellian mosquitoes

the two lovers on the beach made of sand

dissipating like the half-life of a radioactive

element the salt that is us all

the white gold alchemical that it is

the ash to come that the feathers

of the peacock will emulsify from

that the fangs of the python will

condensate from and the drones’

batteries failing and they are calling

home calling the laboratories

we are there speaking more robot

than sand, more phosphates and

polymorphs than gastropods or sapiens

monks of the holograms in anti-gravity

bliss above city basins and sprawling

valleys and the two lovers made of

pixels dissipating in phosphorous

filaments quivering under droning

moth volleys and neon breaths

of urban halitosis and salt-lamp halos

illuminating that coast of your plans

and your placements of silverware

during times of war and your salutations

feed the correspondents freeing them

to navigate the cul de sacs to provide

further gunshot reports coming back

with drones lodged in their mouths

you fall like a birdling from the nest

and bubble into pinestraw not lucky

enough to die from the impact

of being spit from the great grid

lying there staring up at the incredible

intricate latticework as shrapnel shatters

marble all around you and the sundials’

shadows splintering across your

hands full of scattering nanobots

like salt or sand that can feel

like a man, like what was human

ancient aliens and history channel 2

if ancient alien reptilian giants

the Annunaki and the Nephilim

planted our DNA here millennia

ago, then their agenda led to

reality TV shows, and so, I really

am not that impressed with

interstellar geneticists

summer affair

she stripped off my armor

and made it into luxuriant furniture

and lounged on it topless

with that knowing smile

later, after kissing her

goodbye, a lizard stares

up from the edge of the oil spot

left by her car

and I try to say

it’s no omen

classical

writing with pencils

made from the splintered ships

of Odysseus

postmodern edit

I can’t read birds or guts

To tell the future.

I’m no polymath.

I can’t remember the last time

I had butterflies in my stomach.

Tolerance is my favorite continent.

Piracy is my favorite city there.

I had a corporate venture last night,

And while all of you slept,

I replaced your hands with pianos

I replaced your eyes with planetariums

I replaced your mouths horns of brass

I replaced your ears with gramophones.

We can’t hear or see each other now,

But I do like our future.

Back to school means that it's time for me to go back to playing Art Blakey while I grade papers.  These songs will feature or at least include musicians born in the 1950s.

On this version of "Moanin'" from 1988, Robin Eubanks (b. 1955) plays trombone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwbTB_RX-j4 

This video is of a 1980 performance when Robin Eubanks, his brother Kevin (b. 1957), Bobby Watson (b. 1953), James Williams (1951-2004), and Charles Fambrough (1950-2011) were part of the Jazz Messengers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4yW9kN3bTE

Mulgrew Miller (1955-2013) appears on this version of "Tenderly": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RezwY8zAAIs

I'll finish with a 1986 version of "Little Man" with Charles Fambrough and Donald Brown (b. 1954):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU4y1zJx908

Enjoy!

A Review of Jessica Purdy's Starland

Summer is the best time to read poetry.  Tonight I'd like to post a review of a book that I recently read.  It truly takes me back to the coast of New England, a place that I didn't visit this summer.

Starland by Jessica Purdy.  Nixes Mate Books, 2017.  60 pp.  ISBN: 0999188291.  

Rooted in dreams, daily life, and the landscape of coastal New England, Jessica Purdy’s subtle poems reward the reader’s attention in ways that flashier, more direct poems do not.  This seemingly slender collection encourages readers to pay attention to the transitions between poems as the poet paints a variety of scenes from childhood, parenthood, the loss of a mother-in-law, and marriage.  These transitions add layers to the poems themselves. 

Indeed, the last stanza of this book’s first poem, “After Rain,” provides what could have been an epigraph for this book: “Why, in my contentment, do I still thirst/ for other worlds, words for beauty that reveal/ themselves as messages from the sea?”  The lines lead from a watery meditation on a landscape of trees, iris petals, and a hummingbird to a summoning up of the poet’s childhood home in Harwich Port, Massachusetts through profound scrutiny of objects and actions.  The book’s final poem, “The Jar with the Dry Rim,” is the culmination of this process, being both an object that the poet scrutinizes, revealing its “kiss of a salty lip” and a metaphor for the speaker’s marriage, picking up the thread of “Perennial as Love.” Upon reflection, it may be that the speaker’s “contentment” is external and that internally she is feeling other emotions that bely her appearance. Similarly, the “messages from the sea” evoked in “After Rain” may represent insights gained from not only one aspect of nature but also all nature and the poet’s life experience.                                          

Although the sea is an important element in this book—and tellingly, in “What I Love About Dreams,” “the architect has put an ocean in the basement,” it is not the only one.  A number of poems take place on roads through the woods, roads that Robert Frost might have traveled with his horse and cart over a hundred years ago.  One is “Driving to Your Parents,” where the poet contemplates not only the bickering of her children but also the vestiges of Frost’s New Hampshire in a seemingly abandoned barn and a “tarpaper shack.” There she imagines an elderly man living, a contemporary version of a Frost character.  Other poems occur in houses, including the one where her mother-in-law is dying.  In “The Beekeeper’s Daughter,” the speaker looks out of a window while washing dishes, only to glimpse a developmentally disabled girl “’washing’ her arms/ with green leaves she has picked” and enacting a naïve embrace of nature that turns out to be poison ivy.  Simultaneously a vigilant mother and a poet contemplating nature, the speaker occupies a complicated position; ultimately, she turns away, and the reader turns to another poem about motherhood.  Conversely, in “After Watching Rosemary’s Baby at Age 46” the speaker imagines herself intervening, perhaps rescuing the young Mia Farrow’s guileless character as she does not rescue her neighbor’s developmentally disabled daughter.  

Often, when reading a collection of poems, one wonders about the connections between individual pieces. In Starland, these connections are especially important, not for biographical data but for the light that each poem sheds on its neighbors, both near and distant, bringing them together into one collection.  For this reason, this collection is well worth reading and rereading.

If you would like to purchase Ms. Purdy's book, please follow this link: https://www.amazon.com/STARLAND-Jessica-Purdy-ebook/dp/B0762Z1FSK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1533602220&sr=8-1&keywords=Jessica+Purdy+starland

This link brings you to an interview with Ms. Purdy:  http://penmenreview.com/spotlight/a-conversation-with-poet-jessica-purdy/

While I've been on a Woody Shaw kick, here is his version of "There Is No Greater Love":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iiMpuHcsp8

I did not know that Dizzy Gillespie covered Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fl6d5a7B9o

For a change of pace, here is Cassandra Wilson's version of "Time After Time" from her Traveling Miles CD:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySVWeao57m8

I'll finish with her version of Neil Young's "Harvest Moon":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq9qw_Saj1g&list=PLFW5m6HCyUmbFGgrKJB6L-VYLEmpyGaQs

Enjoy!

Karen O'Leary Returns!

Image by Candiix

Tonight I'd like to return to poetry with haiku by Karen O'Leary, the  editor-in-chief of the late, lamented Whispers, a poetry site that became a community for many of us. 

Celebrating Song in Haiku...

By Karen O'Leary

ballroom dance...

the belle tucks stars

into dreams

~~~~~~~~~~~~

tinkling of chimes

and a robin's song...

a garden  wedding

~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

midsummer...

her arms float in music

exploring dreams

~~~~~~~~~~~~  

sunset songs

relieve taut muscles

the valleys cradle

~~~~~~~~~~~~   

silk ribbon--

the smooth stains

of her song

~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

  

Karen O’Leary is a writer and editor from West Fargo, ND.  She has published poetry, short stories, and articles in a variety of venues including Frogpond, A Hundred Gourds, Haiku Pix, bear creek haiku, Shemom, Creative Inspirations and NeverEnding Story. She edited an online journal called Whispers http://whispersinthewind333.blogspot.com/ She enjoys sharing the gift of words.

Let's start the music off with Nat King Cole's version of "Stardust":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjU6ZjrQulc

We'll move on to the Herbie Hancock Quintet's performance of "Finger Painting" in Tokyo:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=qof2fVHqsbo

Next is Ben Webster's version of "The Nearness of You": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eOZhVPRwbo

I'll finish with Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw's version of "The Moontrane": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNLLFmGL6y0

I hope that you have enjoyed Karen's haiku and this romantic music!

Bill Cushing's Review of Linda Imbler's Lost and Found

From time to time, I publish book reviews.  Tonight I would like to share with you the celebrated Bill Cushing's review of Linda Imbler's new book.  As you may remember, I posted Linda's poems in the 1940s contest just last month.

REVIEW: LOST AND FOUND by Linda Imbler (2018: Emerald Bull Publishing)

Linda Imbler’s second collection of writings, Lost and Found, consists of 17 pieces of writing, most accompanied by her own illustrations that correlate with the general theme of the writings themselves. The line drawings associated with the book are frequently “titled” with a quote from the connected composition.

The book itself is divided into segmented sections that begin with “Lost and Found” and “Paradise Lost” and conclude with “Paradise Found.” Each intervening segment is a reflection of corresponding theme and contains work focused on the thematic elements presented.

For example, check the “sense of humor” that is “found” in her poem “Fly Me to the Moon,” wherein a hip (dare I say “fly?”) fly lives its life to the fullest before too quickly learning how short that life span actually is. Other elements, both “lost” and “found,” include Courage, Family, and Reputation.

Imbler’s musical background is also displayed in the poems, which range from free form improv to highly structured formats. As she advises in “Blood,” her readers should “see me as you will.”

These pages also include some poetic-prose pieces, each displaying Imbler’s deft descriptive skills. This is especially evident in her melancholy recollections when meeting an elderly widower in “The Visitation,” which the narrator bases on the fact that, like the couple in the writing, elephants also “mate for life.” And apparently beyond.  

Although spare in length at 31 pages, Lost and Found is—as stated in its notes, a ”poet’s guided tour through the peaks and valleys of the human heart”—making it a volume worth repeated visits. 

If you would like to purchase Linda's book, please see this link:  https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Found-Linda-Imbler/dp/1981854177

Linda's poems recently appeared at The Song Is...  http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2018/06/welcome-to-linda-imbler.html

Let's turn on some music as well, starting with "Fly Me to the Moon":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U5VdSQwkl4

"Little Girl Blue" fits into the theme of lost:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnir-mPERbY

I'll finish up with Charlie Christian's version of "I've Found a Brand New Baby": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StIk6pjRt78&list=PLN_4spwUMszw0eXF51YBDkBE6_1j7aRY3

Welcome to Nsah Mala!

Photograph by Freedom House

Tonight I would like to post some poems by Nsah Mala, a poet and teacher from Cameroon.  Recently he published Constimocrazy: Malafricanising Democracy with Pski's Porch.  The poems below are from this book, his fourth book of poems. 

The Refugees

Wealthy at first were all refugees.

Ancestral blessings have been on all refugees.
Out of their abodes, something pulled them: 
natural – earthquake, flood, eruption, tsunami... 
man-made – strike, coup, war, terrorism...
War and terror are the worst of them all.

When on the way out, no eye looks back again: 

only mouths may mutter, O God! O God! O God! 

Muddy and dusty feet, little and ageless infants, 

hearts panicking, watery eyes, dry lips...

Here they are, in a new and foreign land. 

Though received with warmth, and resentment at times, 

they are shy and their hearts are filled with shame

 for it isn’t their land, anyway...

Bath, walk, speak, eat...they do without choice. 

Bodies and persons worldwide come to their aid, 

taking them for babies, but they are world-less there 

since choice is no longer theirs.

One day if their problem is solved,

they’ll hope to see darling ones who remained afield 

and to meet their abodes or rubbles thereof.

In joy and fear, they all dare homeward. 

Undigested troubles will deliver unfortunate ones 

whose aid can only be SORRY, even from above. 

They’ll march ahead either to the world of phantoms 

or to their nouveau village natal.

(Njinagwa, 21 February 2007)

-----------------------------------------

Who Hates Mankind?

Ask me who hates mankind?

I will point to those who
take glory in inventing weapons
and measure progress in missiles. 
Ask me who hates mankind?
I will point to those who
brag about military prowess
and measure might in warfare.
Ask me who hates mankind?
I will point to those who
do business in ammunition
and brighten up as war darkens. 
Ask me who hates mankind?
I will point to those who
preach terror and violence
and forget to spread love & peace. 
Ask me who hates mankind?
I will point to those who
pull triggers and launch grenades
& decrease mankind to increase grades. 
Ask me who hates mankind?
I will point to those who
prey on humans and other animals 
and suck the earth pale for gains. 
Ask me who hates mankind?
I will point to those who 
enmesh the weak with economic strings 
& suck lipids below their ancestral soils.

(Perpignan, 29 December 2016)

Man, Follow Me to Class!

Man, follow me to class

and let us learn from
the speaking silence of Nature,
and be wise. No grass ever
harms another, not even parasites, never.
But we humans strive to ruin ourselves:
we start guns that finish us;
we make bombs that mar us;
we assemble philosophies that divide us;

we resurrect sins that bury us;
we destroy nature that protects us!
Man, get your books and pens,
let’s go into eco-school,
observe other beings and repent
before our world gives way. No animal ever
preys on its kind; no other animal pollutes, never.
We humans invite chaos on ourselves:
we manufacture arms that fracture us;
we adopt laws that dehumanise us;
we overstretch technology that maims us;
we ignite wars that quench us;
we evolve quickly to dissolve Nature and us!

(Perpignan, 18 September 2016)

If Nsah Mala's poems have piqued your interest, you may buy Constimocracy: Malafricanising Democracy on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/CONSTIMOCRAZY-Malafricanising-Democracy-Nsah-Mala/dp/0998847666

Sample some jazz from Cameroon here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIzrwsGo2V8

This recording by Freddy Ngana Bidzongo and Vedette Jazz is from the 1970s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ahKuN8hles

I'll finish with "Lonely Fish," a collaboration between jazz musicians from Cameroon and Germany: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13QSFhKQHQg

Enjoy!