At the end of the wee hours… Beat it, I said to him, you cop, you lousy pig, beat it, I detest the flunkies of order and the cockchafers of hope. Beat it, evil grigri, you bedbug of a petty monk. Then I turned toward paradises lost for him and his kin, calmer than the … More Va-t’en mauvais gris-gris

I have been working all weekend. When I work, I get headaches, because for the last fifteen years I have been unable to work without also hearing in my mind my father’s voice, speaking in loud tones to me about how I should work. If I am to work at all, I must work through … More Loud Voice

Fortified by having discovered late last week that my honors thesis student is doing as well as a good graduate student, and by having attended one of those lovely, sumptuous, intellectual parties Friday evening, which in everyone’s fantasies professors fairly live at, but which in reality take place only rarely, I have spent the entire … More On Feeling Demented

Here is yesterday’s poem, in English. It is a mysterious text alluding to a ceremony in which a poisonous snake is killed, ostensibly with an axe, but also by singing. Sensemayá (Chant to kill a snake) ¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé! ¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé! ¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé! The snake has eyes of glass; The snake coils on a stick; With his eyes of … More ¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé!

This is a santería song, to kill a snake.  Listen to the drums, echoing up from the town squares and down from the mountains. Canto para matar una culebra. ¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé! ¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé! ¡Mayombe—bombe—mayombé! La culebra tiene los ojos de vidrio; la culebra viene y se enreda en un palo; con sus ojos de vidrio, en un … More Sensemayá

My youngest brother was born after my aunt, who paid for the rest of us to go to college, died. And we do not have the savings she had, and he worked his way through college, here. First, he waited on tables. Then he moved up to installing DirecTV. At that time circumstances dictated that … More T-Frère

One of the things I liked about living in the great state of Illinois was that not just one, but several radio stations played rhythm and blues 24/7. I would drive along maple-lined streets, past tidy houses with wraparound porches, and out through the regular lines of industrialized cornfields. The view was one thing, the … More Leaving Union Station

Dictes moy où, n’en quel pays, Est Flora, la belle Rommaine; Archipiada, ne Thaïs, Qui fut sa cousine germaine; Écho, parlant quand bruyt on maine Dessus rivière ou sus estan, Qui beaulté ot trop plus qu’humaine? Mais où sont les neiges d’antan! The new torture/habeas corpus legislation has come with the anniversaries of Hurricanes Katrina … More Neiges d’antan

I have now as a header image a different slice of the same image I have used before, of the market at Chichicastenango. The smoke and mist you see is incense mixed with evening dew. Ian Frazier’s article “The New Poetry”, in the July 22, 2002 New Yorker (34-35), reminds us that several British and … More Anglo-American Avant-Garde

César Vallejo wrote a ‘poem to be read and sung’, which we can read in English as well as the original Spanish. This and other Vallejo poems have actually been read, sung, and recorded by the late Noel Nicola. My song sources this weekend are WWOZ and KPFA. On WWOZ, Saturday shows I particularly recommend … More Poem to be Read and Sung