In the Midst of the Years (Excerpt)
****** Have not been totally dormant poetically speaking. I am working on a long poem which will be called “In the Midst of the Years,” a phrase from the Book of Habakkuk 3:2. The poem is anticipated to be about 750 lines, of about 10 or so sections. Right now I am on section 6. […]
A Reading of “Genie,” by Arthur Rimbaud (trans. by A. S. Kline)
Genie (translated by A. S. Kline) (Illuminations XL: Génie) He is affection and the present because he has built the house open to the foaming winter and the sounds of summer, he who purified food and drink, he who is the charm of fugitive places and the superhuman delight of halts. He is affection and the […]
Jolly Roger
Cogito, and thus I am damned, and thus I suffer,eclipsed like a moon in a sandstorm of light. Thinking is the beginning of my Fall,when I took up the hammer, and the anvil,like Tubal, and built a tomb with words. Words, words, words, the sum of my labors,my being the dust that is blown. When […]
The Wandering Prophet
The Wandering Prophet why do you love like a child, or a dog,with your mysterious sixth senserunning like a horse in an open field why do you skip with a delicate random,as if you didn’t want to soil your soulwith the predictable why do they go blind in a room full of light,or cripple up […]
Black Hills Evening
We await another trigger dayanother rope tighteninganother bone shakingwith the old man reading deathin the scattering Crazy Horse on his horseagainst the stone mountains the sun was shining todaythe ducks were happythe water clearthe ponies grazing we must movebut we want to staynear the crystal riverthe trout breaking why did you whisper to mefrom the […]
Madre De Los Dolores
She made my life a living hellbut oddly I somehow loved her. She was like a noxious weedthat breaks through the cementand keeps coming upwith belated “fuck yous”to the weed killer. She had her roots deep into my earth,my wife, not my mother(who hated her) and her gin bottles were tied tothe car when I wed herdaughter (which gave […]
The Closers
They get whatever they want.Sometimes they want to talk of justice,or they deign to talk of justicewhen what they want requires justiceto be spoken of. They want power. One time I sat in a jazz club,and the spider web spunfrom my cigaretteshowed no traceof any victimbefore making itselfinto a smile,merging into theartificiallight. Outside the clubthey […]
Reading of A. Rimbaud’s “After the Flood,” trans. by Tom Baker
After the Flood After the idea of the flood had receded, a rabbit paused in the clock flowers and the holy clover, and said his prayers through the rainbow of the Spider’s web. Oh! The precious gems hid themselves away,–and the flowers were already regarding the world. Down the sprawling main drag, stalls were erected, […]
Ruined Choir 