The traverse
--Jill Jones

Each day fills full
heaves a word past blot
with much to tell
on each strange street
not without love
nothing will tell
on our groove
until we can be still.  

Forget how to time
night's wee tomb
or what is home
must be warm.  

We can't say one
but picture stone.  

*  

That talk about morn
each day's small pain
too late to return
to mistimed noon.
Strange how we burn
skin to rosy bloom
the holes in the sun
turn age to crime.  

If only we'd seen
the leaf's green hem
without heat's harm
in a car's long dream.  

No cloud obscures
the drape of flowers. 

When Planets Softly Collide
--Jill Jones 

This is not a poem about dust,
there have been too many of those,
but may be about wind, who knows,
the remaking of deserts, endlessly,
when sand becomes a definition
of scale or boundaries or change
like weather squeezing out lines of heat
that drives from solid midnight freeze
up into the sweat pressure of midday.
These conditions are inescapable, no relief —
still there are flowers, stubborn and pink. 

Yesterday, strangely, began with showers,
laying the heat demons down and out
for a moment and the air, wet
with the ghost of something old.
Whispers like clouds of aimless particles
which one day could form something solid,
whispers and the slight reverberation
of planets softly colliding,
showering each other with dust,
which they have been trying to avoid,
hoping for a poem about something greener. 

As if rock didn't survive,
and dust didn't dance on air.

From the nightstand, 'News from the Sun' by J. G. Ballard:

'Clock time' is a neuropsychological construct, a measuring rod confined to homo sapiens. The old labrador owned by the geologist next door obviously has a different sense of time, likewise the cicadas beside the pool. Even the materials of my body and the lower levels of my brain have a very different sense of time from my cerebrum-- that uninvited guest within my skull. 

Simultaneity? It's possible to imagine that everything is happening at once, all the events 'past' and 'future' which constitute the universe are taking place together. Perhaps our sense of time is a primitive mental structure that we inherited from our less intelligent forebears. For prehistoric man the invention of time (a brilliant conceptual leap) was a way of classifying and storing the huge flood of events which his dawning mind had opened for him. Like a dog burying a large bone, the invention of time allowed him to postpone the recognition of an event-system too large for him to grasp at one bite. 

Notes on the Articulation of Time
--Donald Britton 

It becomes a critical account
of all that’s spoken, done:
the drawing in of breaths, even,
these nights whose atmosphere
reminds us of mountains,
white volumes of air. We need 

these narratives, we want them:
the city lies before us
and some one person in the sleeve
of a streetlamp awaits
our enraptured attention
as we await the concept of the city 

which tells us how we move
in the particolored geographies
about us. We can’t be certain
we are moving toward this person
nor do we require certitude.
It is enough to acknowledge 

the movement itself, shavings
of light inscribing a circle.
Our childlike sense of the other
bears these forces toward
completion and renewal,
a lexis of infatuated sounds.

The Sky Is Clear, But It's Raining
--Donald Britton 

Under the trees, where everything
Is still possible in prescribed doses:
Hundreds of accordion-like units
Without edges. But there is no unwinding

Of minutes to stay the execution
Of a rain-shot weekend in early
Beach weather, no elixir
To revive the amputated flower

Still kicking on its ghost-stem
In a bowl of water, no direction
In which to steer
The hapless, puzzled out-of-towner

Other than straight ahead,
To the sheer drop-off
Where his guidebook gutters
Or deposits him, addressless,

In thin air.

Haiku- Spring, 2018

peewee crocus

a whisper of patience

in a dust of snow

black water lake,

and the graceful brush

of white swans

southern breeze,

a robin perches upon

the visitor guide

street musician-

a city without

superheroes

backseat doggy,

through the window his ears

speak a loppy french

sky unfurls the green a crow flies through

may day-

not a single conclusion

afloat in the breeze

counting those years

on the tips of her fingers-

cherry blossoms

saying hi

to sleeplessness-

spring moon

morning songbirds-

the translation

of sunlight

[ Garrowby Hill ; David Hockney (1998) ]........

On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word. 

......--Jack Kerouac; from Big Sur (1962)

from The Garden
--Andrew Marvell 

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness;
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find,
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.  

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,
Or at some fruit tree’s mossy root,
Casting the body’s vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets, and combs its silver wings;
And, till prepar’d for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

In Perpetual Spring
--Amy Gerstler 

Gardens are also good places
to sulk. You pass beds of
spiky voodoo lilies 
and trip over the roots 
of a sweet gum tree, 
in search of medieval 
plants whose leaves, 
when they drop off 
turn into birds
if they fall on land,
and colored carp if they 
plop into water. 

Suddenly the archetypal 
human desire for peace 
with every other species 
wells up in you. The lion 
and the lamb cuddling up.
The snake and the snail, kissing.
Even the prick of the thistle, 
queen of the weeds, revives 
your secret belief
in perpetual spring,
your faith that for every hurt 
there is a leaf to cure it.

.............He was a wise man who invented beer. ~Plato..................

.............[ Sticky Boots ; Short's Brewing, Bellaire, MI ]

Talk to Strangers
--D. A. Powell 

don’t talk to stranglers
when yr wasted do
talk to swingers don’t
talk to swindlers if
you can tell them apart
from the strangers who
are just strangers no
stranger than you alone
and afraid to be alone
cuz they might want
to touch your throat

 [via POETRY May 2015]

Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark
--D. A. Powell 

I play the egg
and I play the triangle
I play the reed
and I play each angle
I play the lyre
and I play the lute
I play the snare
and I play the flute
I play the licorice stick
and I play the juke
I play the kettle
and I play the uke
who ever thought of the triangle
who ever thought of the clarinet
the castanets the cornet the
discotheque the harmonium
the euphonium marimbas and
maracas harmonicas
tom-toms and tatas
I play the fiddle
and I play the jug
I play the washboard
and the washtub
I play kalimba
and I play the koto
I play the organ
and I play the banjo
I play the fool I play it cool
I play hot and I play pranks
I played your mixtape
forgot to say thanks

[via POETRY May 2018]

Glitter in the trees
--Jane Yeh 

Glitter in the trees.
Glitter and shadow.  Leaves 

Massing like birds or
Faces, clusters of people passing 

Through the narrow
Streets, full of litter 

And heroes.  A serenade
Of buses down the road 

From the spaceship
Library!  Our incense 

Is the smell of raw chicken
And tilapia in summer, 

Our rough cassavas
Precious gems -- no 

Stopping between the hours of
Primark and Rizla, only dancing 

On a reservoir on top of
The world:  look what 

The cat dragged in.  Oh angels
Of Peckham, from the nail bars 

To the Common, we sweep
Your fiery steps clean.  The 

Clink of glasses
Is found music, a belated 

Poem:  our temple to lager
And order, archive 

Of dogs lost, old
House holding our stories between 

Its boards (please
Respect the neighbours).  In 

This ragged and ordinary
Palace, our voices merge 

Like rustling leaves.  The way
A dozen tea lights make 

A constellation:  stars
In the dark, our collective dreams.

The Detectives
--Jane Yeh 

No matter where we go, it always looks like California.
Get in the car and drive. Our invisible friend
Comes with us everywhere, like a shadow.
He tells us how to keep moving on. We’re haunted 

By news of the absurd, by doors without locks, by bottles
Rattling in six-packs like bones. The game of
What’s behind the dumpster. The game of Don’t be
Such a dick. Behind every door is another 

Motel room: light as a feather, stiff as a board,
No place for the weary. By the time you read this
We’ll be gone. We can play air guitar for hours.
We can go anywhere, as long as it’s east. 

The needle points a finger, the birds in the sky
Make a V, the road to hell is paved with fresh
Burritos. The case of The unwashed thermos. The case
Of Sit and spin. Behind every day is another 

Freaking day: trail of breadcrumbs, devil dog, a long
Line of shrunken heads. We study the book
Where all the words are written down. We follow
The script. There are more endings than we remember.

[ On Green Dolphin Street ; Grant Green (1962) ]

b - Sam Jones

d - Louis Hayes

g - Grant Green

p - Sonny Clark

Original by Bronislaw Kaper / Ned Washington

From an interview with Mary Jo Bang at Katonah Poetry:

For me, every poem is about consciousness. Primarily mine, but also consciousness as I understand it from what I’ve read and from what I’ve seen in a lifetime of observing others. What the reader is being offered when they read a poem written by me is the movie of my mind, but in flux. The film has to be in flux because the mind is not only multi-layered but also dynamic. If you limit yourself to language to represent a fluid mind—then, of course, the representation will be inexact, abbreviated, and it might sometimes seem chaotic, or at the very least acrobatic. 

In order to better represent “what I mean,” in the poem, I try to exploit the sounds inherent in language, as well as the fused layers of meaning that accompany sound (sonically, for instance, tail evokes tale if you put it near the word “fairy”). But no matter what I do with language, I can’t open the cabinet door and allow the reader to see everything that is in that overstuffed Fibber McGee-ish closet that is my mind. That’s the problem, isn’t it? No one can completely know the mind of another. 

The Expression of Emotions

--Mary Jo Bang 

Darwin dreams of orchids while I dream of Darwin saying mutability isn’t always elegant, not like the cult objects we once loved. The now-past post-utopian scene is so frayed that the residual sounds like a disintegration tape. What is missing is what we were when we were the gorgeous beginning. Silence can be the gray painted edge of a ship where the water’s nothing takes the shape of the mind forestalling deciding what to do next. Going downstairs and out again onto the patio, the movie of your mind returns you to the dodo, a bird now only believed in. We believed and that brought us to the drowning of the ticking clock and to air filling a well-defined building and years.

In the Street
--Mary Jo Bang 

Here we are, on top of the utopian arc. The water is shallow. An oil spill shimmers on the surface like a lens catches light and folds it in front of a mirror. If someone stands next to you, they are there, even when outside the picture. Which makes total obscurity relative to luck and such. Unlike the law, architecture lasts. A façade, like an ideal, can be oppressive unless balanced by a balcony on which you can stand and call down to those in the street, Come over here and look up at us. Aren’t we exactly what you wanted to believe in?

[ April 20 Bulb Fields in Lisse, Netherlands ].......

[via cnn]

There is a proverb that says, "If you seek shelter, then rest your wings beneath the largest tree." And indeed there are always some who are willing to kneel down before the wealthy or to oil their tongues in the presence of the powerful. 

Here in this village is a large chestnut tree that stands near Suwa Shrine. And although the tree does not seem particularly heavy-laden, not a person comes by who cannot pick up a chestnut or two every morning. 

...................................~Issa

How Could I
--Ryszard Krynicki (trans. Clare Cavanagh) 

What are you doing, little snail, on my balcony,
so many floors above the ground?
Are you coming back from Fuji?
Oh, how could I 

not know you, Issa, at once?

Who Finds Comfort
--Ryszard Krynicki (trans. Clare Cavanagh) 

......................................................to flee with your soul on a leaf...
.........................................................-Adam Mickiewicz 

Who finds comfort
in a sentence made of metal?
I'd rather read on a little leaf
a poem by the snail Issa,
who once before, after centuries,
brought me urgent news 

from a free world. 

Like a Dream
--Ryszard Krynicki (trans. Clare Cavanagh) 

Truly, your life is like a dream;
a train trip, a stroll down a surviving avenue; 

it continues imperceptibly, alters invisibly: 

it drags on--and--crisscrossing
itself only by known roads-- 

relentlessly delivers you
to bygone afternoons 

or generations. 

[ Green River Lands ; Wayne Thiebaud (1998) ]

[via Trees In Art]

Thaumaturgical Topgraphy 

The road home overly dolloped
while a habit prone compass
is only uninclined geometry.
Absence of any afternoon lift
drawn from felt direction

as a way through a stop sign
paved onward with side road,
slyly over rooftops slanted
xylophonic by riverbed wind,
partly cloudy, bent antenna. 

Where balanced trees whisper
sighs of visions. Those translucent
aspects natural congress aspires.
As if how to live. Welcomed
inference by way of gesture 

passing as it is all unknown,
so humbly allowed. Below lies
neither coupled to never to beget
sure footed clover, bracelet born
mint, double round insolence 

by the young bounty surrounding
what gets toed over. That dead
deflated weight- maybe it'll take
a new heart. Miraculously unlike
any stone warmed by the sun.

Immortality Ode
--Bruce Smith 

Miss Bliss, once I thought I was endless
since father was perpetual in his grade school
of seedlings in cups, the overly loved pets, and recess
while mother was the lipsticked dancing girl
on the Steel Pier who would outstep Hitler. 

I was insufferable when I rolled
the Volkswagen bus two times and lived
with the snow chains like costumed jewels
slung over me and the spare rolled
away as in a folktale.
The pact I made in the spinning instant
said in my language of American
boy, Put up or shut up, to God,
the State Trooper who was kind
and spoke of service and punishment
and giving yourself away. 

Now, I’m alive through the agency
of iron and contract work and appeals
to the fallen—angel and dusk—
but wet-winged and still without you,
Miss Bliss, who took me inside
where there was an ocean
before which we were children.
That calm, that fear,
that witness of the two-thirds
of everything else.

The Game
--Bruce Smith

The artist is a creep with his little boxes, but the athlete is a man
who has stolen glory in all its forms, stolen honey in a cup
...............from the gods
and hidden it in his insides where the bees drone. I’m always a boy
as I sit or stand in the shouting place and breathe the doses of men—
smoke and malt—as the night comes down in the exact pattern
of a diamond, a moonlit hothouse of dirt a boy knows is something
to spit on and pat into a shape. Dirt’s a cure for the buried someone.
Even as it begins with its anthem, it’s lost to me, the exact color
of devotion. So goodbye to the inning and other numbers
...............on scoreboards
and the backs of our team, our blue and red, our lips, our business,
which is to rip into them, a boy learns, or bark at the hit or miss.
Men have skill, although I see them fail and fail again and fail to hit
the curve. I’m always a girl as I aww and ooo. What’s
...............the infield-fly rule?
I tried to watch the grips and tricks, the metaphysics, the spin,
the positions of fast and still, scratch and spit . . . but I thought,
in all this infinity, of the Clementes, the Mayses, and the Yogis,
of the bats of ash I would have to crack and would I have to squeeze
them home? Would I be asked to sacrifice? Would I belly-button it
or break my wrists trying not to swing? There’s a box and a zone
in the air and the dirt I must own. To find my way out
or know where it is I sit, I keep my ticket stub in my fist.

.............[ Poe's Raven ; Emmanuel Polanco ]

[via nowthatithinkofit....]

From an interview with Lisa Olstein at Barnstorm:

Interview: I have a favorite quote on creativity. Czeslaw Milosz said that creativity comes from an 'inner command' to express the truth. I wonder if you can give me some ruminations on that idea... 

Olstein: We live in such a complicated and troubling time as it relates to "truth". It's bizarre and horrifying to see so many of language's powers and possibilities- powers and possibilities writers and theorists have long explored and often championed- being put to such malicious and destructive use. I love the idea of  "inner command", though, and  I feel like when it comes to creative work, discerning and pursing what feels deeply, idiosyncratically urgent usually leads to art that resonates as true. Ann Carson said something in an interview that I love: "Every accuracy has to be invented." To me, poems are driven by and expressive of discovery and inherent, I think, to discovery is that what is discovered is somehow real or true- emotionally, intellectually, perceptually- and unable to be ascertained by other means. That is, the poem is an experience of the body and mind, and experience is a form of truth.

Unknown Beloved
--Lisa Olstein 

The canopy is singing.
Sloths in sleep look like the dreaming
dead. Awake little different
under eyelashes stalwart as sapodillas,
fringed as palms. If to attain true mastery
ten thousand hours are required, yes.
If it is the habit of geniuses to nap,
yes. If the highly successful sleep fewer
than four hours per night, the inverse.
If expert survivalists sleep while
maintaining partial consciousness,
the reverse. But you sleep fitful in a bed
at the average, appointed intervals
and under it you keep only some number
of heaped up words. What is our dreaming
good for, it is reasonable to wonder,
in what are we expert? A certain fumbling
in the hours when we make good habitats
for other organisms which is where
dimly we first recognized each other.