from JAKE LEVINE’S Collage Of All 348 Of My Failed Loves Combined Into One Meditation Loosely Located In Gate’s Pass Concerning A Sunset And Its Vague Relationship To My Relationships But Also Dreams And An Angel For Mayakovsky’s Immortal Soul

LISTEN: from Collage […] Soul by JAKE LEVINE

Read the text here!

BTW I’ll be taking requests- So, if there is some writing from here or published else where you would like to hear a recording of let me know by commenting on the piece you would like to hear or commenting here or if you are a contributor who would like to send me a breif recording of your contribution (3min or less) email me a voice file!

HAPPY SATURDAY+V

CHECK OUT SPIRAL ORB 5

SPIRAL ORB is an experiment in permaculture poetics, juxtaposition, interrelationships, and intertextuality—a cross-pollination. The opening poem composts fragments from each of the pieces in Spiral Orb. Standing also as the table of contents, each line is embedded with a hyperlink to its original piece. Once at each piece, you will find links to the other pieces.  Spiral Orb Five is a special issue on A Poetic Inventory of Saguaro National Park.

Listen to my poem VERDIN Auriparus Flaviceps HERE

READ the text on Spiral Orb

GENTLENESS by Wendy Burk

THANK YOU WENDY Happy Day +V

mp3: GENTLENESS by Wendy Burk   TEXT

Marisa Prietto- You’re mine you

SUDDEN SOUNDS by MARISA PRIETTO +V

for the text click here

BROADSIDES ! MASSEY ! HARJO ! KAHLO ! HASS !

click to hear: AT ONCE by Joseph Massey

click to hear: from FOR A GIRL BECOMING by Joy Harjo

click to hear: IN THE SALIVA by Frida Kahlo translated by Robert Hass 

Happy Saturday and Happy Listening +V

! DUNCAN ! REYES ! TWO POEMS FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE

click to hear: [ASKING] by Barbara Jane Reyes from Poeta en San Francisco

click to hear: THE SONG OF THE BORDERGUARD by Robert Duncan 

I’ll be back next month with more favorites- ANY REQUESTS…

Happy Saturday +V

EMPATHIC ATTUNEMENT by Valyntina Grenier

click to hear: EMPATHIC ATTUNEMENT by Valyntina Grenier

EMPATHIC ATTUNEMENT

I LOVE YOUR BRAIN

Here. Will you take this stone
and make a wish, then give it to the miller.
She’ll make you a page
while I sleep so the robot
can change me. I’ll wish for ice cream.

ICE CREAM

Surrounded by these columns, each heart-shaped capitol crowned w/ a brain,
I’d like to give you this tiny robot.
Hold it like a river stone,
here, in the palm of your hand, while I light the page.
Here’s to watching the sky change w/ my love, the miller!

“I’ll STAND BY YOU” SANG THE MILLER

waiting in line for a scoop of ice-cream.
She hid a love note on a page
of our notepad for me to find. Her brain
suits my heart like a precious stone
in its circle of rose. I hope she’ll forgive me this robot.

DEAR DA VINCI ROBOT

Thank you for helping the miller,
her Quern-stone
was blocking our path to the ice-cream
parlor. Origami brain-
I’m so glad you answered our page.

PAGE

Thank you for being brave enough to use a robot
to remove the endometriosis and organs that pained me, that seized my brain,
my spirit, the heart of the miller.
Now we can argue about ice-cream,
a simple scoop vs. blended w/ toppings on a cold stone.

DEAR DR STONE

Thank you for wondering. I feel as light as a page
descending in air. I feel hope. Eating ice-cream
can bring about joy. I stopped for some on my way to the miller.
It helped ease my brain.

“Ice-cream,” I sang at the cornerstone,
“Brain and Heart–” right here on the front page:
“Robot surgeon grants a wish,” for my love, Jane Miller!

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Sunday Love Songs ! feat. SMOOTH TOAD !

click to hear: ASK THE RIVER by Smooth Toad recorded a few days ago in  G. P. Skratz’s living room by SMOOTH TOAD:  Hal Hughes, vocal & guitar; Bob Ernst, country harp; G. P. Skratz, guitar.

ASK THE RIVER
(words & music by Hal Hughes)

If you don’t know
Why the moon hides its glow Behind the clouds
It’s just because
It’s up there all alone

If you don’t know
Why the willow weeps all day It’s just because
There’s no one there
To wipe its tears away

Bridge:
If you should ask the river
Why it flows unto the sea
You’d understand why I keep
Running back to you
Now don’t you see

When I’m alone
There is only one way home My love, it’s true
That winding road
That calls me back to you

 

click to hear: LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI by Smooth Toad This SMOOTH TOAD performance features G. P. Skratz on vocal & guitar, Hal Hughes on fiddle, & Bob Ernst on percussion.

This is my setting of John Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci.” I made a few edits here & there & tweaked a few lines:  eg he has, “And there she lulled me asleep, / And there I dreamed, Ah Woe Betide! / The latest dream I ever dreamt / On the cold hill side.”  Really, Johnny?  “The latest dream I ever dreamt”?  Happily, I’m able to cover for him here in the 21st century… G.P. Skratz

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

O what can ail thee, Knight at arms,

Alone & palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the Lake

& no birds sing!

m

I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist & fever dew,

& on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

*

I met a Lady in the Meads,

Full beautiful, a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot light

& her eyes were wild.

m

She found me roots of relish sweet,

& honey wild, & manna dew,

& sure in language strange, she said

“I love thee true.”

m

She took me to her elfin grot

& there she wept & sighed full sore,

& there I shut her wild wild eyes

With kisses four.

m

& there she lulléd me asleep,

& there I dreamed, Ah Woe betide!

The dream that beat my beating heart

Beneath the cold hill side.

m

I saw pale Kings, pale Princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried, “La belle dame sans merci

Thee hath in thrall!”

m

I saw their starved lips in the gloam

With horrid warning gapéd wide,

& I awoke, & found me here

On the cold hill side.

m

Alone & loitering

& palely loitering

& no birds sing

& no birds sing

SMOOTH TOAD is@ MySpace

SATURDAY READING ! Pablo Neruda’s POETRY !

click to hear: Pablo Neruda’s POETRY English translation

The text is from poemhunter.com.

Happy Saturday +V.

G.P. SKRATZ

Here’s a Valentine piece I translated way back in 1974.  It became my biggest hit at poetry readings & resulted in a video taped performance of it that was shown at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1979.  In 1997, the composer/guitarist, Andy Dinsmoor & I recorded the mp3:  I’m delighted with it & think you will be too.

M

Kurt Schwitters did his own English translation of his, “An Anna Blume.”  Mine is better.  For one thing, he extends his “thou thee thy” riff (as he does in the German) to include “I love thy.”  Well, there’s more tolerance for rank silliness in the German tradition than there is in the American one (at least in the wake of what Bennett Cerf called “The Golden Nashery of Ogden Trashery”).  I center my poem on the genuine statement, “I love you,” no fucking around, messing with archaic declensions there!  Also:  he translates her name: “Anna Blossom.”  O, come ON!  Anyway, like I say, mine is better!

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click to hear: TO ANNA BLUME translated by G.P. Skratz, composer/guitarist, Andy Dinsmoor

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TO ANNA BLUME

O mistress of my 27 senses, I love you!

–Thou thee thy thine, I you, you me–We?

That belongs (by the way) somewhere else.

Who are you, room of countless women?  You are–aren’t you?–

People say you’re–let them talk, the bastards, they don’t know

how the church tower stands.

You put your hat on your feet & wander off on your

hands, on your hands you wander off.

Hello, your red dress with white folds.  Red

I love Anna Blume, red I love you!–Thou thee thy

thine, I you, you me–

We?

That belongs (by the way) in the cold fire.

Red bloom, red Anna Blume, how do they say it?

Readers:  answer this question & win a prize:

1.  Anna Blume has a bird.

2.  Anna Blume is red.

3.  What color is the bird?

Blue is the color of your golden hair.

Red is the call of your green birds.

You plain maid in your everyday dress, you lovely green

beast, I love you!  Thou thee thy thine, I you, you me–

We?

That belongs (by the way) in the coal chest.

Anna Blume!  Anna, a-n-n-a, I trickle your name.

Your name drips like soft cattle droppings.

Do you know it, Anna, do you know it already?

One can read you backward, & you, you most magnificent

of all, you are the same from back or front:  “a-n-n-a.”

Cattle-droppings trickle stroking my back.

Anna Blume, you dripping beast, I love you!

–translated from the German of Kurt Schwitters

Join us LIVE at Conrad Wilde Gallery in Tucson Az Saturday September 18th at 6pm for readings by ! Karen Brennan ! Jane Miller ! Valyntina Grenier !

Conrad Wilde is located at 439 N. 6th Ave. #171 Tucson Az.

Life-long Press will be producing a limited number of handmade chapbooks featuring writing by each of the authors!

The writers, their writing, and voices will be posted here throughout the month. Scroll down to see whats up.