Evocative

"My view of poetry is the description
of a thought evoking a mystery."
--Magritte

So beautifully
thought, so beautifully

said, so beautifully
evoked, a mystery

mystery's taken away.

(from The Intricate Evasions of As)

Temporal

tintinnabulation

of
sheep

bells
flock
below

open
window

herds
songs
through
tempo

airily

(from The Intricate Evasions of As)

(De)crypt(ed)

Who will calculate for us the cost of our decision to forget?
--George Seferis

Of those departed
and of their deeds

(most haunting,
most memorable)

naught was left

(undeciphered,
unforgettable)

to remember.

Thomas Alva Edison, 1949

I knew who Thomas Alva was by heart;
he was always twenty-five, suspended

over my bed like a bat, though
he was really a light bulb.

Thomas must have flickered and died
about twenty-five times before Momma said

she'd had enough: I'd go blind reading
comics in that bad light. She was right,

besides, it was cheaper,
so she burned them all one night.

.

Thomas Alva, wherever you are,
you helped me with the English I know,

it was all Greek to me, though
you never knew it--

I hope you're resting
yours truly, your enlightened

incandescent soul.

(First published in Maverick Magazine 6/7)

Saturation Point

radio

active


bee

sieging


deci-

mated


hearth.

(first published in NOON: journal of the short poem, #2)

Confluence

Nightingales near
the river.

No superfluous noise.

(from The Intricate Evasions of As)

Prehensile

Grasping, but not man-
Handling the language,

As if the poem were,
So to speak, a glass

Mandible.

(First published in Poetry Salzburg Review #11, Spring 2007)

Richard Hugo 1974 Madrona Interview

I first met Richard Hugo in Boulder, Colorado at the 1970 Writers' Conference in The Rocky Mountains--a particularly exciting one with Denise Levertov, Mitch Goodman, Herbert Gold and Isaac Bashevis Singer comprising the roster of writers present during the two weeks of workshops. This was also where I first met Ken Osborne and John Levy and where we talked about the possibility of starting a poetry magazine once Ken and I returned to Seattle and John to Oberlin College. With Ken and I as co-editors and John as contributing editor, Madrona's inaugural issue came out in the summer of 1971 and continued until 1977, ending with Volume 4, Numbers 13 and 14. During its rather short life, Madrona published many known, lesser known and completely unknown poets; it also featured interviews with Richard Hugo, Denise Levertov, David Young, Kenneth O. Hanson, William Stafford, Nelson Bentley and James Weil, among others; most of these interviews were conducted by Ken Osborne, who was the first to suggest starting the magazine and who also carried much of the magazine's financial burden until its demise.

Thanks to Vahan Michaelian who stitched my scans together and to William Michaelian who volunteered to host the 13.3 MB PDF file on his site, you can now read the complete Richard Hugo interview here.

from out of the abyss

My thanks to KatherineZ at Sorting out Abyss for providing a link to my blog--nice surprise!

Sour Grapes

Succinctly.

One of them poet words.
Sounds queer, I mean
like you was a damn dwarf
plumber sucked down some wife's horny
crawdad hole of a cunt
and just staying there, period.

There oughta be a law
against words like that.

Never could
say it anyway.

(First published in Poetry Salzburg Review #2, Winter 2001/02)

Small Street Song

below me, the
tin-

smith bangs his
hammer, the

old man sells
grapes, sweet

he says, try
some you'll see

sunshine his donkey
sways in

time
you can almost

taste it

(from Sentences, 1976)

Convergences

dusk ga-
thering
dove

in eaves.

(from The Intricate Evasions of As)

Another Version of Pastoral

The bucolic poet?

He was last seen milking
His latest poem to death.

(from The Intricate Evasions of As)

To a Poet Who Thinks He Has No Need of Revision

On second thought,
You need to

Turn over anew
Leaf through whatever

You thought you knew.

Venus

all
ready
heavenly

body,
she

enters
the
evening

stars
anew
again.

"Jimmy's Girlfriends and His Late Mother"

Bob Arnold has just published a short story online by John Levy--well worth reading. Here's the link to Bob's always excellent blog.

Footbridge

Frost. The morning
arches

over a marble
river, fast

melting whispers
underfoot.

(First published in Shearsman 1, 1981)