moon traveller herald

  The Friends Basement book sale was an occasion to thin out the books around here – many which basically overfill the space, un-re-read. Said good ‘buy’ to this grimy tome: The Dream Songs (1972) by John Berryman. Before I knew it, I got to thinking. John Berryman today is probably in the category called cancelled, where he hangs out with Hemingway, the king of cancelled, and others. Like Hemingway his father shot himself, and like Hemingway he would commit suicide, jumping off a bridge in Minneapolis. Back in his day, pre-1972, he was a hard drinking big-ego professor poet full of confessional angst, in my humble opinion. His songs were an endless song of hisself in an un-understanding world. Great bearded poet who spilled out his guts at poetry readings, and later, probably, fell into the punch bowl, to be saved for a while, in my dream song,   by a caring co-ed. You see in his poems his battle with drink, which I should say does demand some sympathy. In his writing...

Box of Glass Eyes  : Rewrite                i. A box of glass eyes At the Harvard Museum Glass eyes that look at me with tenderness like the glass sea anemone That echo the whimsy Of the visible golden rod dirty That carry the pacing meanness of Dingoes in the zoo The eyes like dreaming butterflies cased before Jerry Lewis comes dusting eyes for the big day waiting.                ii. Like the bones in the valley set to jump up and start dancing The glassine eyeballs too will fly Until that day they rest the pleasant rest of chocolates In a box Eyes that were made by Von Meyer The glass shop pipette wizard Visage manifester alchemist of a mélange   hearty transparent and fragil e People will visit and eye Until the great day of rumbling. Of great spirit dancing The day of glass eyes leaving their box .               ...

Been playing hooky from the School of Hardknocks lately, transferred to Bob Watt School of Inferior Poetry. There is no best. There is a year. No try. Just do. - Jack Vaughan    Bold Stump Reunion in my imagination was a little journey on music toward the "castle of heaven." - Aug 2022   Kerouac Bardo Poem - I searched the graveyard - May 2022   Al compas del mundo on the March Jim Haas onboard  - All through 2022   At night the dispatches. -War Blues Prose -Apr 2022 This stuff goes back to Shakespeare and Alexander||There may be only 10,000 sidewinder missiles in US arsenal, and replacing them means production lines like JI Case or Hingham BoatWorks set up in WW11.||The Ukrainians have been fighting this war for several years and have developed methods. and they have intangible desire.||Russian capability for cruelty astounds|| They show a city utterly destroyed by artillery… and say the Ukrainians are blowing things ...

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Jim's show on Demand Radio Show Playlists (and this Video)

 On the passing of Luther Guitar Junior Johnson Christmas Day 2023 at 83 - I post here some excerpts from liner notes I wrote for his 1984 Rooster Record: “Doing the Sugar Too.”  He was a hard-working and riveting performer with a great sense of Time, Dynamics, Emotion, and Blues.  And a thoughtful individual I recall, as a read a bit of the liner notes.  Cringing too, as it's pretty clear I must have asked him some pretty dumb questions. But he fielded them manfully, and they tell a story. He came up from Mississippi to West Side Chicago, and played extensively with Magic Sam, but most notably with Muddy Waters, playing a role as something of a bandmaster for most of the 1980s, counting off numbers in one of Muddy Waters’ greatest ensembles. Here are some portions of the notes: Luther pursues a sound that represents his feelings. “I take my guitar and go into a sound,” he says. “I pick up an acoustic and think about different arrangements of music.” He sometimes com...

A few years ago I self-published “Sunnyland Blues”. The 1990 book is still available on-line .  We named our home press “Proud Truth Publishing,” after the same-named race horse – [By Garustark/Wake Robin] – Proud Truth - Winner of the 1985 Breeders’ Cup Classic (where he defeated a strong field that included Chief's Crown, Gate Dancer, Turkoman, and Vanlandingham.) Proud Truth Press is now a part of Progressive Gauge LLC. We often find people that seek us out, but have difficulty. To reach us, write to: Vaughan Proud Truth/Progressive Gauge 30 Delle Ave Suite 1 Boston, Mass. 02120 Proud Truth also published “Blues Poetry Manifesto” 1995 and “A Wet Bird Never Flies at Night” 2020. Competition for the Bickersons! HA HA