New Year's Day--
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.
--Kobayashi Issa
"*Vraiment*,
Poetry can be so many more things
Than what people mostly believe it is."
--Anselm Hollo
Halvard Johnson
================
[log in to unmask]
<http://www.amazon.com/Remains-To-Be-Seen-Works/dp/1933132787/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367618323&sr=8-1&keywords=Halvard+Johnson>
Poems by Others . . . <http://anotherpoetrysite.blogspot.com/>
On Barcelona <http://onbarcelona.blogspot.com/> (submissions sought; email
to my address above)
Truck <http://halvard-johnson.blogspot.com/> (no submissions; new
drivers/editors monthly)
Entropy and Me <http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/>
Images without Words <http://imageswithoutwords.blogspot.com/>
Hal & Lynda's homepage <http://sites.google.com/site/halvardjohnson/Home>
Hamilton Stone Editions <http://www.hamiltonstone.org/>
Hamilton Stone Review <http://www.hamiltonstone.org/hsr.html>
<http://www.hamiltonstone.org/>Vida Loca Books
<https://sites.google.com/site/vidalocabooks/>
*Songs My Mother Taught Me
<http://gradientbooks.blogspot.fi/2014/06/halvard-johnson-songs-my-mother-taught.html>,
Remains
To Be Seen <http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/remains-to-be-seen.html>, *Sonnets
from the Basque & Other Poems <https://sites.google.com/site/vidalocabooks/>
*, *Mainly Black
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i_JGJ_FqQldEnUq7cwjV8giYykz_tsGbTkC2EkAP3IM/edit?usp=sharing>
, *Obras Públicas <https://sites.google.com/site/vidalocabooks/>; **The
Perfection of Mozart's Third Eye and Other Sonnets
<http://www.scribd.com/doc/27039868/Halvard-Johnson-THE-PERFECTION-OF-MOZART-S-THIRD-EYE-Other-Sonnets>;
**Organ
Harvest with Entrance of Clones
<http://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Entrance-Clones-Halvard-Johnson/dp/0965404390/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283182804&sr=8-1>;
**Tango
Bouquet <https://sites.google.com/site/vidalocabooks/>; **Theory of Harmony
<https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://xpressed.wippiespace.com/fall04/theory1.pdf>;
**Rapsodie
espagnole
<https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://xpressed.wippiespace.com/rapsodi.pdf>;
**Guide
to the Tokyo Subway
<http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Tokyo-Subway-Other-Poems/dp/0971487316/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283183153&sr=1-3>;
**The
Sonnet Project
<https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://xpressed.wippiespace.com/hsonnet.pdf>;
**G(e)nome
<http://xpressed.wippiespace.com/fall03/genome.pdf>; **Winter Journey
<http://capa.conncoll.edu/johnson.winter.html>; **Eclipse
<http://capa.conncoll.edu/johnson.eclipse.html>; **The Dance of the Red
Swan <http://capa.conncoll.edu/johnson.dance.html>; **Transparencies &
Projections <http://capa.conncoll.edu/johnson.transp.html>*
On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 5:11 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Bad form. It's funny isn't it, Max. You both so seem to agree with the
> ludicrousness of all the festivity and yet some vestige of hankering for
> surprise and/or ritual play lingers.
>
> Hadn't thought about that chimney lack being such a 'fretful' thing. But I
> suppose it could be, like another diminished thing: backyards, no longer
> available to go out and play in, new houses being banged up hard against
> fences, no room for a clothesline much less a makeshift cricket pitch.
>
> Ho ho,
> Bill
>
>
> > On 31 Dec 2014, at 4:39 pm, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > Christmas Trees
> >
> > Days to go before Twelfth Night
> > and I’m stumbling on the pavement
> > stubbing my toes on pine trees -
> >
> > last week in those apartments
> > they were propped up, lit up,
> > crowned with angel or star.
> >
> > At the base piled up gifts
> > wrapped in red and green, tied
> > with gaudy ribbons. Kids
> >
> > wrote notes to Santa, helped
> > mother in the kitchen, fretted
> > that they lacked a chimney.
> >
> > Red stockings fastened
> > to high window ledges.
> > The shopping! in the elevator
> >
> > dog and I, nostrils twitching,
> > leaned towards bulging
> > bags of food, leaned back
> >
> > as pine-tree pongs assailed us,
> > and prickly pine-arms pushed
> > us to the elevator corner.
> >
> > I spoke to a human behind one,
> > smaller than the tree he’d bought.
> > Wonderful custom, he grumbled.
> >
> > Outside town, acres had been
> > clear-felled of these, next year’s
> > crops were in the offing.
> >
> > Have a good one, everyone
> > was saying to everyone.
> > These days, happy for others,
> >
> > I don’t do Christmas.
> > Music, yes, croaking first
> > verses of old carol favorites,
> >
> > leaving the choirs to finish.
> > I wrapped some books, recently
> > smuggled in (unwarranted expense),
> >
> > propped them by our bed
> > at midnight, saying Let’s open
> > our parcels now, then sleep.
> >
> > Bad form. Christmas breakfast,
> > two of us and the dogs,
> > a certain ruefulness.
> >
> > At least we didn’t have a tree.
> > Now I’m walking a dog,
> > our nostrils twitching -
> >
> > superfluous evergreens
> > endanger our outing -
> > wishing the world preferred
> >
> > the artificial everlasting
> > totally kitschy trees that get
> > squeezed back in their box
> >
> > like resolutions briefly
> > on show for the time of year,
> > seeing out the old, seeing in the new.
> >
> > 29 December 2014 / Seattle / Max R
>
