The anxiously awaited new Radiohead album, “The King of Limbs,” is available for download now here.

Though it consists of only eight songs spanning a scant 37-ish minutes, the quality-per-second factor is very high indeed and sure to sate their fans and newcomers.

Below is the band’s video for the song Lotus Flower off the new record.

We anxiously await the band’s hoped for arrival at its home away from home:  The Santa Barbara Bowl.

Check it out.

In case we haven’t gushed enough about Sufjan Stevens’ record “Age of Adz” and his worldwide tour, check out the links below to stellar HD videos of Stevens and crew performing the songs All Delighted People, Too Much and Age of Adz live last month at the Sydney Opera House in Austraila.

Sydney Opera House – “All Delighted People”

Sydney Opera House – “Too Much”

Sydney Opera House – “Age of Adz”

NPR recently posted a classic compendium of songs related (in some fashion or another) to the great State of California.  You can listen to it here.  As is pointed out in the comments below the NPR mix, they left out a few phenomenal songs about California, including Admiral Radley’s great I Heart California (our No. 37 Song of 2010, which you can scroll down to here).

One of our favorite California girls recently introduced us to another superb song of California that didn’t make the NPR list. On Valentines Day it seems particularly appropriate to check out The Smiles’ California Girls below and another worthy song from them (Cala Cola).  The Smiles have only been together one year and are a self-professed “beach rock quartet from Southern California.”  We’ll reserve judgment on their songs’ lyrics, but they have a lively sound that seems heavily influenced by the seminal early-80s Scottish-pop band Orange Juice (more about that great, but short-lived, band at a later date).  Make no mistake:  that’s a good thing.  Suffice it to say that The Smiles’ sound has verve and melodies galore.  Check ’em out.

The Smiles–California Girls

We love the repeat of:

“California girl take me back to the West Coast.
California girl you are the one I miss most.

California girls, California girls….”

The Smiles–Cala Cola

We are nearing the 40th anniversary of the release of one of the (largely) forgotten masterpieces of modern music–the eponymously titled debut album of Stephen Stills’ band, Manassas.  The record was released in 1972 during what was a watershed year in modern music.

Stills had gained his fame as an integral part of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash (& Young), but following a CSN&Y hiatus he gathered together a group of great musicians (featuring ex-Byrd and Flying Burrito Brother Chris Hillman and Al Perkins on pedal steel guitar, and the others shown on the album cover above) and cameo artists (the Rolling Stones’ Bill Wyman and Byron Berline, amongst others), and created a multifarious  masterpiece that was not (in scope) unlike the Stones’ “Exile on Main Street” or Wilco’s “Being There.”  Stills and his band were not afraid to dabble in multiple genres, and the Manassas album featured rock, country, folk, blues, and even some Latin music.  And while this sounds like a potential hodgepodge disaster (especially given the amount of drugs and booze being consumed at the time by certain members of the band), the album held together extremely well.  Stills had the sense to group the songs together somewhat by genre.  Side One of the record was titled “The Raven,” and was a brash mix of rock and Latin influences.  Side Two of the record was titled “The Wilderness” and was focused mostly on country and bluegrass, and included great songs such as Colorado and So Begins the Task.  Side Three of the record was titled “Consider” and was predominantly folk and folk-rock, and featured some of the album’s most compelling songs:  Johnny’s Garden, It Doesn’t Matter and Move Around, the latter song incorporating one of the earliest uses of a synthesizer in rock music.  Side Three ended with The Love Gangster (co-written by and featuring Bill Wyman on bass) which rockingly segued into Side Four.  The final side of the record (Side Four) was titled “Rock & Roll Is Here to Stay,” and was a rock, funk and blues set that featured the song The Blues Man which was dedicated to (at the time) recently demised Jimi Hendrix, Al Wilson and Duane Allman.

One doesn’t hear this record’s praises sung very often, and we think that’s a crying shame.  While the sound has aged a bit in the 40ish years since it was released, the instrumental playing, coupled with Stills’, Hillman’s and the others’ stellar harmonized vocals, is still very impressive.

Check out a few of the songs (presented in the order found on the album) from this masterpiece and consider adding it to your collection.  And below those songs are some rare videos of the band more raw and live on a European music show.

Manassas–Colorado

The harmonies heard in the chorus are alone worth the price of admission, not to mention Al Perkin’s pedal steel and other picking.

Manassas–So Begins the Task

A great song later covered by Stills’ ex-girlfriend, Judy Collins.  Again, the harmony vocals are beauty, and Perkins conveys the song’s emotion well.

Manassas--It Doesn’t Matter

One of our favorite songs on the album and sounding like it came right off of a CSN&Y album.

Manassas–Johnny’s Garden

Many thought this song referred to John Lennon.  Regardless, we liked this stanza:

“As the swift bird
Flies over the grasses
Dipping now and then
To take his breakfast
Thus I come and go
And I travel
And I can watch that bird
And unravel”

We too have unravelled.

Manassas–Move Around

We love the segment found from 1:18 to 1:45 where, in the lyrics below, Stills almost seems to be singing in tongues.

“A superb point of reference detected
becomes absurd with a moments reflection
leaves one a simple thought
not sagging with the excess weight of excess baggage
and we move around
We move around”

Manassas–The Love Gangster

The sound, we’ll grant you, is dated.  But it is classic early-70s rock, replete with wah-wah pedal, cowbell and Bill Wyman (the song’s co-writer) on bass.  We especially espouse the group vocals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESo0UvcRBY4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeGuwZxXJPQ&feature=related

We have been long-time fans of Chuck Prophet, dating back to his days in the early psych-Americana band, Green on Red.  From this foundation, Prophet has evolved and become one of our better songwriters, praised by both critics and fellow songwriters (Lucinda Williams selected his song, No Other Love, for her “Artist’s Choice” record).   In addition, he plays a mean electric guitar and has been the producer on many fine records.  He can be a little too straightforward musically for some, but if you appreciate great songwriting and delivery, he’s your man.  We caught him live a while back at a Tales from the Tavern show at the Maverick Saloon in Santa Ynez. To put it simply:  Prophet kills live.  Now you too can catch him when he comes to the Lobero Theater, courtesy of Sings Like Hell, on February 19th (a Saturday).

With respect to his current events, for a recent interview discussing Prophet’s latest tour in which he and a colleague performed the entirety of The Clash’s seminal “London Calling” album, go here. Now that’s a funny lad.  Also check out his website here (one of the smartest and funniest around). And finally, check out a few of his great songs below.

Chuck Prophet–No Other Love

Prophet has said this about the song:   “I involuntarily wrote this song in a hotel during a commercial break in one sitting … top to bottom! All three chords and two lines or whatever it is. We were ‘rehearsaling’ some stuff and setting up mics to record demos at Pigshead Studio/Rehearsals. It was so cold that day in that cement bunker of a studio, I can remember seeing my breath in front of my face. Tim Mooney surreptitiously recorded us running it down. Not the first take: he actually recorded us learning it. That’s why it takes so long for the band to come in. They’re pretty quick – by the time we’re two verses in, key change and all, they got all three of the chords in the right order. No point in trying to recreate that crime scene or write a second verse for that matter … not that I didn’t try in vain. We later recovered the original multi-track cassette it was first captured on and Greg Liesz and I over-dubbed onto it in my living room. Hats off to Tim Mooney for rolling the tape. Now that’s production! And props to Jason Borger, who charted the beautiful string arrangement.”

This song and the above description are proof that musical magic can ensue at any time.

Chuck Prophet–Would You Love Me

One of our favorites, this song provides a good example of his use of both pathos and bathos in the lyrics of his songs.   We love the opening lines:  “Sittin’ in a movie, and I’m staring at the screen/They’re dragging Jesus from the town/It don’t look good to me.”

Chuck Prophet–Small Town Girl

Prophet has said this about this song’s inspiration:  “Every time you blink, every time you rest your eyes, there’s another new crop of tragedies off the bus.” With a simple guitar riff, backing vocals from his wife, Stephanie Finch, and stacatto percussion, Prophet gently delivers this song of innocence.

Chuck Prophet–Doubter Out of Jesus

Just so you understand that he’s not limited to balladry, check this rocker out.  Prophet has said this about the song: “Doubter Out of Jesus (All Over You)” is a kind of electro-punk blues produced with digital keyboard, drum machine and a couple guitars plugged directly into the board.  I love guys like Alan Vega, Alex Chilton, Mink DeVille…guys who’ve been able to take classic Brill Building pop and deconstruct it.”

Chuck Prophet–Talkin’ New Kingdom

Another rocker of sorts.  Again, the opening stanza is classic Prophet:  “Well life is for the living, and death is for the birds/Hell is for children, or so I have heard.”  While a little too bluesy in general for our tastes, we like the production values and tale.

Bright Eyes:  you either love ’em or hate ’em.  There don’t seem to be any inbetweeners.  For those of us that love ’em, exciting times are upon us.  The band (consisting of permanent members Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis and Nathaniel Walcott), is set to release its seventh proper record, “The People’s Key,” on February 15th on Saddle Creek.  The band will begin a tour in support of the new record that will bring them to the Fox Theaters in Pomona and Oakland in mid-April. We highly recommend you attend.  We’ve seen the band live at the Arlington and at the Santa Barbara Bowl (a magical night in the mist), and caught Oberst and Mogis in Mothers of Folk at the Granada (the best show of 2009).  And of course we’ve caught Conor in his various solo-esque permutations in LA and Santa Barbara (most recently in October at Soho).  We have never been disappointed by any of these shows.  Oberst doesn’t hide his humanity on record or live, which galls many, but we appreciate his unceasingly passionate delivery and art.

This is Bright Eyes’ first record since 2007’s “Cassadaga” and, after a few listens, the “time off” (Oberst never seems to take time off from writing and touring) seems to have served them well and enabled them to venture out and improve upon Cassadaga.   The new record has new sound textures and influences (added to the usual strong melodies and delivery), and Oberst seems lyrically older and wiser, focusing on larger concerns (omnipotent love, spirituality, the cosmos, etc.).  As usual, his lyrics are amongst the best in indie rock.

Prior to the record’s release you can listen to the record in its entirety at NPR.  And you can download two songs from the record at Saddle Creek.

Below is “The Peoples’ Key” track list, two new songs from the record, Shell Games and Haile Selassie, and a short video on the physical making of the new record (might have to get us one of those red vinyl versions!).

Track list for “The People’s Key”:

1 Firewall
2 Shell Games
3 Jejune Stars
4 Approximate Sunlight
5 Haile Selassie
6 A Machine Spiritual (In The People’s Key)
7 Triple Spiral
8 Beginner’s Mind
9 Ladder Song
10 One For You, One For Me

Additional Bright Eyes players on The People’s Key: Andy LeMaster, (Now It’s Overhead), Matt Maginn (Cursive), Carla Azar (Autolux), Clark Baechle (The Faint), Shane Aspegren (The Berg Sans Nipple), Laura Burhenn (The Mynabirds) and Denny Brewer (Refried Ice Cream).

Bright Eyes–Shell Game

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-Shell-Games.mp3|titles=02 Shell Games]

“Took the fireworks and the vanity
The circuit board and the city streets
Shooting star, swaying palm tree
Laid it at the arbiter’s feet

If I could change my mind, change the paradigm
Prepare myself for another life
Forgive myself for the many times
I was cruel to something helpless and weak

But hear it come, that heavy love
I’m never going to move it alone
Here it come, that heavy love
Tag it on a tenement wall
Here it come, that heavy love
Someone got to share in the load
Here it come, that heavy love
I’m never going to move it alone

I was dressed in white, touched by something pure
Death obsessed like a teenager
Sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar
I’m still angry with no reason to be

At the architect who imagined this
For the everyman, blessed Sisyphus
Slipping steadily into madness
Now that’s the only place to be free

But hear it come, that heavy love
You’re never going to move it alone
Here it come, that heavy love
Tattooed on a criminal’s arm
Here it come, that heavy love
Someone got to share in the load
Here it come, that heavy love
You’re never going to move it alone

No, I don’t want to play
It’s a shell game, it’s a shell game

Distorted sounds on oscilloscopes
Distorted facts, I could never cope
My private life is an inside joke
No one will explain it to me

We’ll be everything that we ever needed
Everyone, on the count of three!
Everyone, on the count of three!
All together now!

Hear it come, that heavy love
We’re never going to move it alone
Hear it come, that heavy love
Playing as the cylinder rose
Hear it come, that heavy love
I only want to share in the load
Hear it come, that heavy love

I’m never going to move it alone.”

Bright Eyes—Haile Selassie

We’ll have to give this one a few more listens to attempt to gain the meaning of the song and make the connection to Selassie (the Ethiopian Emperor who Rastafarian Jamaicans believe, despite Selassie’s protestations to the contrary, to be a new Messiah–as we have said before:  Haile Unlikely!!).  We hear the “one drop” reference to reggae’s bottom line and the “bubbling” of the Jamaican music.  We may end up just deciding to focus solely on the lines “One Love!”, but it’s a compelling song.

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/05-Haile-Selassie.mp3|titles=05 Haile Selassie]

“Pilgrim across the water
We are the same, brother
Hitchhiking back to Zion
Holding our tears as we flip the album
What if this leads to ruin?
You got a soul, use it
All this despair forgiven
Rolling away on a wheel of sevens
Seems like the Queen of Sheba
Voice through a blown speaker
One drop and bubbling Leslie
Calling me home like Haile Selassie

Pilgrim beside the fire
Its been a long winter
We got a lot in common
Cover our heads as they split the atom
All of our days are numbered
I take in some comfort in knowing the wave has crested
Knowing I don’t have to be an exception
Children they fill the bleachers
One is the next Caesar
Keep all their minds collected
Until it comes
Until it comes
Hide the Omega day
In plain sight
Too good to be true

I’ve seen stranger things, man
I’ve seen that tree of smoke
Yeah I’ve seen stranger things happen,
Happen before

Pilgrim upon the mountain
Bare foot and still climbing
Filling the book of hours
Day after day in the filth and squalor
We are the chosen people
Safe from the next evil
One Love! Magnetic memory
Reel after reel, spinning within me
I had the wildest dream last night
I was swimming with you in that cenote the Heavens made with black fire
Just woke up too soon

I’ve seen stranger things, man
I’ve seen that tree of smoke
Yeah, I’ve seen stranger things happen,
Happen before

I’ve seen stranger things, man
I’ve seen that tree of smoke
Yeah, I’ve seen stranger things happen,
Happen before”

We rolled down the 101 on Wednesday to the Wiltern to take in Iron & Wine in concert for the first time.  Like many, we’ve been spirited away by this “band” since their first record (“The Creek Drank the Cradle”) was released in 2002 on the prescient Sub Pop label.  Despite efforts to the contrary, we had never been able to catch Sam Beam and his entourage-of-one (or more) in a live setting until this night.  This was the second night of a sold-out, two-night stand at the Wiltern in LA, one of only two U.S. cities (NYC being the other) to be graced by the band before they head off to Europe to tour in support of their new record, “Kiss Each Other Clean.”

Like many in the audience (one of the most respectful, though ardent, audiences in recent memory), we were there to hear the songs performed live that have been burned into our minds and hearts from that first record forward–songs with carefully-crafted lyrics and hum-worthy melodies.   The original one-man-band of Sam Beam has grown since that first record from guy-and-guitar to legitimate large-band, and in large part the 11-member Iron & Wine did not disappoint at the Wiltern.  Beam and the band have evolved over time from hushed solo singing to a more dynamic and varied sound, that evolution beginning with the comparatively hi-fi second record, “Our Endless Numbered Days,” then progressing further with 2007’s varied and Waits-ian, “The Shepherd’s Dog,” and finally breaking more barriers with the new record, “Kiss Each Other Clean.”  Though Iron & Wine throws in some serious twists and turns on the new record (Caribbean, Motown, 70’s rock and dub reggae elements are added to the mix and embellished with horns and synths), Beam hasn’t gone to Adz-ian extremes like Sufjan, and his lyrics, stories and vocals are largely still intimate, aching and haunting, filled as they are with romanticism and Biblical iconography.  We have marveled over the years at his ever-evocative lyrics, the art of which goes unabated on the new record (a few of our favorite Iron & Wine stanzas are set forth at the end of this post since they are worthy of reading if you haven’t).

The band immediately drew the audience (including Scarlett Johannson–oh we are feeling so TMZ here at Lefort) in by starting off their set small, with just Beam on acoustic guitar, a mandolin/banjo player, a keyboard player, and backup vocals (the perfect Rosie Thomas and Marketa Irglova–the latter of Swell Seasons/Once film fame).  The small group matched the intimate opening sounds well as the audience sampled its first taste of Beam’s valid vocals, including a newly-added high-howl-away-from-the-microphone effect that was striking and effective.  And we all leaned in to grasp our favorite lyrical moments and resonant storylines.

Beam began this small-group segment with a number of older songs, including He Lays in the Reins and crowd-favorite Naked as We Came (in which two lovers grapple with their inevitable mortality), before moving to the new album’s Big Burned Hand and Godless Brothers of Love, and then returning to older songs Bird Stealing Bread and Teeth in the Grass. These older songs were given new arrangements which added complexity to the originals, all of which was well-received by the crowd.  But it was the lyrics and singing which drew us further in, with lyrics like the following from the new Big Burned Hand that rendered the audience rapt:

“When the arrogant goddess of love came to steal my shoes
She had a white-hot pistol and a homemade heart tattoo
Singing, ‘one’s to give and one’s to take away,
But neither of them will keep you off your knees’
Her children bowed and bolted off the stage
While the lion and the lamb kept fighting for the shade tree.”

Throughout the evening, Sam was greeted by loud cheers mixed with good-natured heckling, and Beam deflected the heckling in a relaxed, ingratiating manner.  When Sam asked if the audience had attended the prior night’s show, an audience member jokingly yelled out that Sam better do a better job, and Beam just smiled and reassured the audience that he’d try. He later commended the balcony for not being afraid of heights. When certain songs were called for from the audience Beam patiently grinned and said he didn’t “want to let the cat out of the bag, just yet.”  Throughout  he was conversational and clever, and in short order we all just wanted to buy him a glass of the red and have a good chat.  But after a while, as nice as he was, we grew somewhat tired of the banter and wished, given the breadth of his discography, that he had spent less time talking and more time singing more songs.  We admit being greedy.

At the end of the small-group segment,  we sensed that the crowd was drifting a bit despite the band’s mesmerizing delivery on Teeth In The Grass.  Fortunately, Sam shored up the proceedings by adding to the band’s ranks with a three-member horn section, bass and drums.  The crowd’s interest renewed, Beam used the larger-band to great effect with a rousing reading of the new Tree By The River.  For better and worse, this was not the same old (Iron &) wine.  The big band brought some funk and 70s sounds to the proceedings and, get this, this Iron & Wine audience was seen to (gasp) dance and rock a bit.  The horns and drums, and altered arrangements, lent some new life to old favorites like “Boy With a Coin” and “Cinder and Smoke.”  Fortunately, Beam is less mischievous and more-respectful of his fans than Dylan circa Rolling-Thunder-Revue, so the songs were still recognizable and hummable.  But if we had one particular complaint it is that the bigger sound dilutes some of the emotional wallop and confessional tone of the old stripped-down Iron & Wine settings.  Like seeing Sufjan this past Fall when he purposely left out his old banjo-and-hush songs, at times this night we yearned to just have Sam by his lonesome with solo guitar (perhaps with one background vocalist).  We understand, though, the need for artists to evolve and stave off the crushing boredom of singing the same song in the same fashion for the thousandth time.  So the old-school fans may have been somewhat disappointed by the big band, but in general we laud and respect the new tact from Iron & Wine.

With all of these thoughts rumbling ’round our graying gray-matter, and Sam having apparently read our minds, for the encore Beam came back out solo with only his steel-stringed guitar and proceeded to overwhelm us with one of his finest songs, The Trapeze Swinger.  We’ve never heard such a quiet Wiltern crowd, and we all sat enthralled by the storyline and sheer poetry of this song.  Sam began appropriately plaintive, while singing his request to another that they “please remember me fondly.” But in short order he gathered momentum in telling “that the pearly gates had some eloquent graffiti like ‘We’ll meet again’ and ‘Fuck the man,’ and ‘Tell my mother not to worry.'” Sam described the eloquent graffiti in earnest, giving one the sense that these pearly gates may have been tagged by those that were rebuffed from entry and intimating that we all are trapeze-ing between our own heavens and hells.  And so the audience trapezed with Beam throughout the near-nine minutes of this powerful song.

This was the Iron & Wine that we had come to hear in all its (his) glory.  A man, a guitar and some of the best songs ever written.  Done, Sam.  We will remember you and this evening fondly. 

You can see the encore in all its glory at the link below, followed by a fine Austin City Limits version:

Also check out this intimate duet courtesy of the great Daytrotter:

http://www.daytrotter.com/vi/iron-and-wine-concert-video/1002675.html

Below is the band’s set list, followed by a translation thereof, and our favorite stanzas.

He Lays in the Reins

Naked as We Came

Big Burned Hand

Godless Brothers of Love

Bird Stealing Bread

Teeth in the Grass

Tree By the River

Love and Some Verses

House by the Sea

Monkeys Uptown

Sodom, South Georgia

Carousel

Boy With a Coin

Me and Lazarus

Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car

Cinder and Smoke

Encore:

The Trapeze Swinger

Some of our favorite Iron & Wine stanzas:

Two Hungry Blackbirds

Spoke to a mother whose baby drowned
Gave me advice, or a rumor she once heard:
“Heaven’s a distance, not a place,”

The Trapeze Swinger

But please, remember me fondly
I heard from someone you’re still pretty
And then they went on to say
That the pearly gates
Had some eloquent graffiti
Like “We’ll meet again” and “Fuck the man”
And “Tell my mother not to worry”
And angels with their great handshakes
Were always done in such a hurry
—
So please, remember me mistakenly
In the window of the tallest tower
Calling passers-by but much too high
To see the empty road at happy hour
Gleam and resonate, just like the gates
Around the holy kingdom
With words like “Lost and found” and “Don’t look down”
And “Someone save temptation”

—

And please, remember me seldomly
In the car behind the carnival
My hand between your knees, you turned from me
And said, “The trapeze act was wonderful
But never meant to last”, the clown that passed
Saw me just come up with anger
When it filled with circus dogs, the parking lot
Had an element of danger

Carousel

Almost home and got lost on our new street
While your grieving girls all died in their sleep so the dogs all went unfed
A great dream of bones all piled on the bed
And the cops couldn’t care
When that crackhead built a boat
And said, “Please, before I go,
May our only honored bond
Be the kinship of the kids in the riot squad”

Lion’s Mane

run like a race for family
when you hear like you’re alone
the rusty gears of morning
and faceless, busy phones
we gladly run in circles
but the shape we meant to make is gone

and love is a tired symphony
you hum when you’re awake
and love is a crying baby
mama warned you not to shake
and love’s the best sensation
hiding in the lion’s mane

so i’ll clear the road, the gravel
and the thornbush in your path
that burns a scented oil
that i’ll drip into your bath
the water’s there to warm you
and the earth is warmer when you laugh

and love is the scene i render
when you catch me wide awake
and love is the dream you enter
though i shake & shake & shake you
and love’s the best endeavor
waiting in the lion’s mane

Upward Over the Mountain

mother don’t worry, i killed the last snake that lived in the creek bed
mother don’t worry, i’ve got some money i save for the weekend
mother remember being so stern with that girl who was with me?
mother remember the blink of an eye when i breathed through your body?

so may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
sons are like birds flying upward over the mountain

mother i made it up from the bruise of a floor of this prison
mother i lost it, all of the fear of the Lord i was given
mother forget me now that the creek drank the cradle you sang to
mother forgive me, i sold your car for the shoes that i gave you

so may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
sons are like birds flying upward over the mountain

mother don’t worry, i’ve got a coat & some friends on the corner
mother don’t worry, she’s got a garden we’re planting together
mother remember the night that the dog had her pups in the pantry?
blood on the floor & the fleas on their paws
and you cried ’til the morning

so may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
sons are like birds flying upward over the mountain

Passing Afternoon

There are times that walk from you like some passing afternoon
Summer warmed the open window of her honeymoon
And she chose a yard to burn but the ground remembers her
Wooden spoons, her children stir her Bougainvillea blooms

There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days
Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made
And she’s chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings
Sunday pulls its children from the piles of fallen leaves

There are sailing ships that pass all our bodies in the grass
Springtime calls her children until she let’s them go at last
And she’s chosen where to be, though she’s lost her wedding ring
Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds

There are things we can’t recall, Blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers, rolling around the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I’d never learned

There are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the window closed, she’ll sit and think of me
But she’ll mend his tattered clothes and they’ll kiss as if they know
A baby sleeps in all our bones, so scared to be alone

Resurrection Fern

In our days, we will live like our ghosts will live
Pitching glass at the cornfield crows and folding clothes
Like stubborn boys across the road, we’ll keep everything
Grandma’s gun and the black bear claw that took her dog
And when Sister Lowery says “amen”, we won’t hear anything
The ten-car train will take that word, that fledgling bird
And the fallen house across the way, it’ll keep everything
The baby’s breath, our bravery wasted and our shame

And we’ll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

In our days, we will say what our ghosts will say
“We gave the world what it saw fit and what’d we get”
Like stubborn boys with big green eyes, we’ll see everything
In the timid shade of the autumn leaves and the buzzard’s wing

And we’ll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Our tender bellies wound around in baling wire
All the more, a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

Sodom, South Georgia

Papa died smiling
Wide as the ring of a bell
Gone all star white
Small as a wish in a well
And Sodom, South Georgia
Woke like a tree full of bees
Buried in Christmas
Bows and a blanket of weeds

Papa died Sunday and I understood
All dead white boys say, “God is good”
White tongues hang out, “God is good”

Papa died while my
Girl Lady Edith was born
Both heads fell like
Eyes on a crack in the door
And Sodom, South Georgia
Slept on an acre of bones
Slept through Christmas
Slept like a bucket of snow

Papa died Sunday and I understood
All dead white boys say, “God is good”
White tongues hang out, “God is good”

THE TRAPEZE SWINGER

please remember me, happily
by the rosebush laughing
with bruises on my chin, the time when
we counted every black car passing
your house beneath the hill, and up until
someone caught us in the kitchen
with maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank
a vision too removed to mention

but please remember me, fondly
i heard from someone you're still pretty
and then they went on to say that the Pearly Gates
had some eloquent graffiti
like: “we'll meet again” and “fuck the Man”
and “tell my mother not to worry”
and angels with their great handshakes
but always done in such a hurry

and please remember me, at Hallowe’en
making fools of all the neighbors
our faces painted white, by midnight
we'd forgotten one another
and when the morning came i was ashamed
only now it seems so silly
that season left the world and then returned
and now you're lit up by the city

so please remember me, mistakenly
in the window of the tallest tower
call, then pass us by, but much too high
to see the empty road at happy hour
gleam and resonate just like the gates
around the Holy Kingdom
with words like: “lost and found” and “don't look down”
and “someone save Temptation”

and please remember me as in the dream
we had as rug-burned babies
among the fallen trees and fast asleep
beside the lions and the ladies
that called you what you like and even might
give a gift for your behavior:
a fleeting chance to see a trapeze-
swinger high as any savior

but please remember me, my misery
and how it lost me all i wanted
those dogs that love the rain, and chasing trains
the colored birds above there running
in circles round the well, and where it spells
on the wall behind St. Peter's
so bright with cinder gray and spray paint:
“who the hell can see Forever?”

and please remember me, seldomly
in the car behind the carnival
my hand between your knees, you turn from me
and said the trapeze act was wonderful
but never meant to last, the clowns that passed
saw me just come up with anger
when it filled the circus dogs, the parking lot
had an element of danger

so please remember me, finally
and all my uphill clawing
my dear, but if i make the Pearly Gates
i’ll do my best to make a drawing
of God and Lucifer, a boy and girl
an angel kissin’ on a sinner
a monkey and a man, a marching band
all around the frightened trapeze-swinger

nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah …

This is the beginning of what appears to be a great year for poetry in our lives.

Someone finally had the sense to gather in one compendium, the poems of all the American poets who have been appointed over the last 75 years to the office of “Poet Laureate.”  The sensible one here is Elizabeth Hun Schmidt, “Forwarded” and abetted by none other than justly-popular poet, Billy Collins (who held the Poet Laureate office from 2001 until 2003).  The book is a treasure trove for those who love American poetry (legions, I know).  The surprise is that the book, while presenting some of the best poetry by the normal suspects of 20th and 21st Century American poetry (Frost, Lowell, Bishop, Williams, Lowell, Kumin, Brodsky, Haas, Gluck, Pinsky, Merwin, etc.),  manages to introduce us to some great poetry from poets that were previously unfamiliar to us (we’re ashamed to admit: Kay Ryan, Rita Dove, Stephen Spender, Leonie Adams and Louise Bogan).

Below is a sampling of our favorites from this fine collection.  Please give a close read, and give poetry a chance to immeasurably illumine this life.

The first reminds us of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the Live Oak Festival and other enchanting environs where folk music flourishes.

Song from a Country Fair

by Léonie Adams

Solitary Observation Brought Back from a Sojourn in Hell

by Louise Bogan

At midnight tears
Run in your ears.

Halley’s Comet

By Stanley Kunitz

Miss Murphy in first grade
wrote its name in chalk
across the board and told us
it was roaring down the stormtracks
of the Milky Way at frightful speed
and if it wandered off its course
and smashed into the earth
there’d be no school tomorrow.
A red-bearded preacher from the hills
with a wild look in his eyes
stood in the public square
at the playground’s edge
proclaiming he was sent by God
to save every one of us,
even the little children.
“Repent, ye sinners!” he shouted,
waving his hand-lettered sign.
At supper I felt sad to think
that it was probably
the last meal I’d share
with my mother and my sisters;
but I felt excited too
and scarcely touched my plate.
So mother scolded me
and sent me early to my room.
The whole family’s asleep
except for me. They never heard me steal
into the stairwell hall and climb
the ladder to the fresh night air.
Look for me, Father, on the roof
of the red brick building
at the foot of Green Street—
that’s where we live, you know, on the top floor.
I’m the boy in the white flannel gown
sprawled on this coarse gravel bed
searching the starry sky,
waiting for the world to end.

Daystar

by Rita Dove

She wanted a little room for thinking:
but she saw diapers steaming on the line,
a doll slumped behind the door.
So she lugged a chair behind the garage
to sit out the children’s naps

Sometimes there were things to watch–
the pinched armor of a vanished cricket,
a floating maple leaf. Other days
she stared until she was assured
when she closed her eyes
she’d only see her own vivid blood.

She had an hour, at best, before Liza appeared
pouting from the top of the stairs.
And just what was mother doing
out back with the field mice? Why,

building a palace. Later
that night when Thomas rolled over and
lurched into her, she would open her eyes
and think of the place that was hers
for an hour–where
she was nothing,
pure nothing, in the middle of the day.

Love Song

by Joseph Brodsky

If you were drowning, I’d come to the rescue,
wrap you in my blanket and pour hot tea.
If I were a sheriff, I’d arrest you
and keep you in the cell under lock and key.

If you were a bird, I ‘d cut a record
and listen all night long to your high-pitched trill.
If I were a sergeant, you’d be my recruit,
and boy i can assure you you’d love the drill.

If you were Chinese, I’d learn the languages,
burn a lot of incense, wear funny clothes.
If you were a mirror, I’d storm the Ladies,
give you my red lipstick and puff your nose.

If you loved volcanoes, I’d be lava
renlentlessly erupting from my hidden source.
And if you were my wife, I’d be your lover
because the church is firmly against divorce.

Money

by Howard Nemerov

an introductory lecture

This morning we shall spend a few minutes
Upon the study of symbolism, which is basic
To the nature of money. I show you this nickel.
Icons and cryptograms are written all over
The nickel: one side shows a hunchbacked bison
Bending his head and curling his tail to accommodate
The circular nature of money. Over him arches
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and, squinched in
Between that and his rump, E PLURIBUS UNUM,
A Roman reminiscence that appears to mean
An indeterminately large number of things
All of which are the same. Under the bison
A straight line giving him a ground to stand on
Reads FIVE CENTS. And on the other side of our nickel
There is the profile of a man with long hair
And a couple of feathers in the hair; we know
Somehow that he is an American Indian, and
He wears the number nineteen-thirty-six.
Right in front of his eyes the word LIBERTY, bent
To conform with the curve of the rim, appears
To be falling out of the sky Y first; the Indian
Keeps his eyes downcast and does not notice this;
To notice it, indeed, would be shortsighted of him.
So much for the iconography of one of our nickels,
Which is now becoming a rarity and something of
A collectors’ item: for as a matter of fact
There is almost nothing you can buy with a nickel,
The representative American Indian was destroyed
A hundred years or so ago, and his descendants’
Relations with liberty are maintained with reservations,
Or primitive concentration camps; while the bison,
Except for a few examples kept in cages,
Is now extinct. Something like that, I think,
Is what Keats must have meant in his celebrated
Ode on a Grecian Urn.

Notice, in conclusion,
A number of circumstances sometimes overlooked
Even by experts: (a) Indian and bison,
Confined to obverse and reverse of the coin,
Can never see each other; they are looking
In opposite directions, the bison past
The Indian’s feathers, the Indian past
The bison’s tail; (c) they are upside down
To one another; (d) the bison has a human face
Somewhat resembling that of Jupiter Ammon.
I hope that our studies today will have shown you
Something of the import of symbolism
With respect to the understanding of what is symbolized.

I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great

By Stephen Spender

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

In addition to these great poets and poems, we were struck by a portion of the introduction to the collection.  In these times and with recent political events and histrionics we would all do well to stop, read and consider the words of John F. Kennedy and the verses of Robert Frost, who was Poet Laureate from 1958-1959, and whom JFK invited to speak at Kennedy’s Inauguration in 1961.  Kennedy had this to say:

“I asked Robert Frost to come and speak at the Inauguration…because I felt he had something important to say to those of us who are occupied with the business of G0vernment, that he would remind us that we are dealing with life, the hopes and fears of millions of people….  He said it well in a poem called “Choose Something Like a Star,” in which he speaks of the fairest star in sight and says:

It asks a little of us here.

It asks of us a certain height,

So when at times the mob is swayed

To carry praise or blame too far,

We may choose something like a star

To stay our minds on and be staid.

In other words, let us be methodical and slower to anger, and let us resist the urge to canonize or excoriate.  Instead, let’s be thoroughly thoughtful and give wisdom at least a toehold’s chance before speaking or acting rashly.  We have miles to go on this front before we sleep (yours truly, especially).

And as for poetry itself, in Tom Stoppard’s play “The Real Thing,” the main character has this to say:  “I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are.  They deserve respect.  If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little, or make a poem children will speak for you when you’re dead.”

We hope that poetry will nudge your world a little this year.