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News of the Day

poems of the times by john

Published by Poetic Matrix Press
140 pages, Price $15.00
ISBN 978-09789597-3-9

Available from Small Press Distribution (SPD)

Description
The Book

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.

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.

john

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

Reviews

News of the Day review by Paul Dolinsky

From News of the Day:

Gathering	November 29th: Upon the Death of George Harrison
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.	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

November 29th: Upon the Death of George Harrison

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.

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.

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