NEWS OF THE DAY
POEMS OF THE TIMES
JOHN
140 pages, Price $15.00
ISBN 978-09789597-3-9
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I call this collection News of the Day to indicate two things.
First, some of these pieces were written for specific events;
momentary poetic statements of the events of the day. The Social,
written as a comment on the legacy of the left in the early days of
Clinton’s Presidency, was one of these pieces, as was 28 Years
written after an invitation by Terry Hertzler to read at a Veteran’s Day
poetry reading. Second, some pieces were written with specific
events in mind like Voice, written as a statement about Reagan’s dirty
war in Nicaragua. Certainly the piece written on hearing of the
passing of Allen Ginsberg, that is the dedication piece, is one of
these. And Impeachment, written about, what else, the Clinton
Impeachment, took a long time to write and had to be concise given
the excess of the thing itself. - John


The poems of the second section, Poems out of Philosophy,
were written in the aftermath of September 11th and during a period
of travel, mostly in the south. They seem to be more philosophical
which, like poems associated with timely events, can lend a weight
that if not handled well can crush the poetry. This is a chance I am
willing to take to say what I feel need be said.

from Acknowledgments

Bio

i have tried over the years to find a bio that fits and is suitable and
i have failed still i was oddly blessed with a name that opens vast
landscapes so this name is my bio

john is found in more than 85 variants from many countries of the
world  juan  jean  jianni  ivan  jan  johan  jon  jahn  jack  johnny
joao  juanita  juanito  joan  ivanovich  jonathon  johannes
joannes  johnson  jock  ovan  yohanan  ioannes  jeannot  jehan

john is found in peculiar reference in the most unlikely settings  as
reference for toilet - going to the john   as the prostitute’s liaison -
the hooker’s john   biblically as - john the beloved   john means
yahwah  there have been 114 saints named john and an infinite
number of the hooker’s johns
November 29th
Upon the Death of George Harrison

First, we were born the same year only weeks apart,
the heavens opened terribly at that moment.

We streamed through the opening when the world
was full of grief, and we share with others that grief.

‘My sweet lord’ he sang out and I like many others
found a momentary blissful connection.

Enlightenment some say is but a stringing together
of momentary blissful connections.

They come, they go and they alter us, only so
that we can realize who we are.

We string them together, he in his moment of birth
and in his moment of passing and all the songs in between.
Gathering

We gathered at Quel Fromage after Christmas as the bombs fell,
tiny children of Panama, their gifts coming.

This time we gathered at Soho reading poetry.

The small children screaming blood in the Baghdad bunker
are part of no conspiracy of history, they cannot indict
either one of their raging killers.

I remember a boy in Estelí playing with a cow
near the old theater while M-16 rounds tear
the heart from his older brothers
and a young girl with ancestral eyes at the orphanage
in Bien Hoa, standing as B-52s turned her village
into shrieking vapor.

We read again, collect clothing for the children on the cold
avenues of Tijuana, greeting the Buddha, homeless
and forgetful on San Diego streets,

Finding charred roots and the curling up,

Finding in the chilled air a conduit to the future, a believable rain
to water these children’s deep places.