Jim Culleny is the Poetry Editor of 3 Quarks Daily. After a stint in the navy, Jim received a BA in Art Education from William Paterson University and did graduate work in art at NYU. He taught art for several years in NJ public schools in Newark and Bergen County. Taught a little bit of everything else during two years at a remote residential community school in New York’s Adirondacks. Was a social worker in Lower Manhattan before Soho was Soho. Made a living most of his life as a carpenter, designer, and builder. Did regular radio commentary for about 10 years during Morning Edition on WFCR.FM in Amherst, Mass. and some for NPR on All Things Considered. Played and sang his way from rockabilly to jazz in numberless band permutations over a period too long to believe. Came to poetry through songwriting. Has had work published in The Third Muse Poetry Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, Penthouse Journal, and in 5-Minute Pieces, a chapbook published in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. He’s also been writing a regular op-ed column for the past 12 years for the Greenfield Recorder along the beautiful Connecticut River, and is presently making a living as project manager for an Architectural firm. Jim lives with his wife, Pat, of 31 years, and his 17 year old granddaughter. He has three daughters and four other grandchildren. Email: jimculleny [at] comcast.net
Hedge we unload the freight of dayas night wraps up what day has toldthere’s not much more to say—myself in shade, eagle in her hold both are restless in day’s throes.who among us really understandswhat night becomes, where daylight goes,who know the ground, the place we stand? still the worm in unturned earth makes way,a…
Early Autumn Surf …… it’s still the birds have gone knowing it’s time but today is an anomalous summer daywhich, breaking protocol,has oozed into early fallwith temperate trappingslulling me with spacious softnessand late brilliance,being the last echo of July,the final peal of August’s bellexpanding as I surfdown the hump of its luxurious waveformunder the comfort…
Add 30 Seconds add 30 seconds to anytime, what’s that interval? hell, double itwhat’s that? have you ever had a day that lasts threeor one that goes so fast it’s past —instantly? are those durations short or long,if hours mean anything? subtract 5 hours from anytimedo we really think we’ve minced minutes?as we tick them…
Parallel Universe everything unknown returns to lifeupon awakening in my bed supine in lightsun bequeathed day ignites a fire beneathmy blankets burn mind’s the filament of a lampupon awakening stupidity tumbles down a sheer of chancesmall thoughts plunge they start an avalanchethe ground gives way beneath my feetupon awakening where am I?light ricochets from every…
Tide the way it comes, goes, surges, disappears, a perfect metaphor for shapes of time, overused as moon for that which vanishes and reappears. quiet now, the wedding past too much so— a house that buzzed now hushed, silence loud sharp, slimmer than a midnight crescent silence also comes, goes empties, spills, ebbs and fills,…
History before a beginningis the end of a previous beginning history’s a tangled skeinnot a straight-laid thread it’s full of knots of strands of varied weightsand counter-weights of light and lead when teased apart we learnwho today has lost and who is winning who is floatingwho is falling who is free, or who is haulingsomeone…
Invisible Disassembling the invisiblehas its own mathematics, different rules apply,the process has its special calculusbecause the unseen is huge and impudent,powerful and odd When we were dumb and ignorantthe spirit wind would startle us, would frighten us,shatter shelters, split the sky with light—unseen, but real, we named it God The invisible has popular cachet,being as…
In the beginning was the word —John 1:1 Entreaty send me a poem that hunkers on hauncheswatching for the day to begin, that waitsfor the right word to come with the sunduring the last hours of the night-watchwhen all are asleep except the watcherand there is still rustling in the underbrush,the wordless sounds of something…
Again My father, at the kitchen table, in a rare expression of mystery,said, I think life is a cycleBut he was not a mystical man to me,nose to the grindstone he groundday after day, pressedby incessant work, boundto contingencieslike Sisyphus to his stonelinearly, but uphillin his black boots and sockshis blue shirt and pantscinched with…
Future Self I imagine my inner workingwill be more playful then than now,less attention to survival paid,finally getting to the sparkling black hole of day,a moment of arrival: of at-once knowing andunknowing Tao. I was told by a monk who’d kept silence for yearsof when his inner dialog disappeared,when his chattering selves came to accordand…
Hummingbird Acetylene The turquoise flame of a hummingbird’s head is a blazing torch of acetylene burning, as when my father put a welding tip to steeljoining parts of his world with the bluegreen flamehe held between this hummingbird burns in afternoon lightat the mouth of a flower in god’s machine jabbing her tip at a…
Dignity. …. I sit still in the garden…. falling away…. among Pat’s lilies falling too …. hummingbird…. tiny as a big bee…. red-head harvesting…. hovers, not falling, but…. falling too, around a star bud…. also falling at the fringe…. of a galaxy freefalling…. among what? …. hummingbird slingshots to hydrangea…. impossible wings against falling…. invisibly against falling…. determined as one oppressed…. not to fall, or to fall…. of her own choosing…. by her…
First Love I’m fallingfor youfalling falling the ground’s given wayI’m tumbling sprawlingspace space —my mind my heart, my heartis in a parabolic arcin a plane devoid of gravity and time I float I floatI’m in a massless boatsailing sailing the truth of gravity is failingthe sadness of abrupt conclusions goneI’ve come apart, I’m flailingflailing up…
Birds on a wire are made a melody Synchronous the universe is synchronousits beauties overlaptunes are made of birds on wiresLeonard Cohen taught us thatand now another gives this song to us nature plays its songs for usits riffs are made of daysits melodies are made of suns and moons,of particles and wavesthat are each,…
“Did you like your father,” my friend asked? The Tongues of His Black Boots Say as my father sleeps the world goes onhis black boots are by the doorhe left them there unlacedthe right run down at the heelthe left toe scuffedhis blue shirt hangs on a hookwrinkled below the belt linewhere every morningits tails…
“Faith is a fine invention…”…. ……… —Emily Dickinson, 56 Different Choice faith is a fine invention,a spade to shovel doubt awayand bury apprehension,keeping disbelief at bayit sidelines skepticism,confining incredulity to a boxit becomes a soothing salveor cell with locks faith may boost the probabilityof inattention and final answersdiscounting anything that challenges its endsso that, faithfully,…
Who's Urizen In William’s crisp mandala Urizen asymmetrically stoops Laying duality on the world, cleaving philosophers’ minds, inspiring theologians to settle scores, he undoes the unity of chaos splitting it to bits like chips to feed the dogs of wars Reaching down, this buff, man-like self curiously in his prime with old head coiffed white…
Posterity: ………… all that follows every generation since Oldowan man chipped obsidian and flintto make a stone ax to lay open the skull of an adversaryfor food or turf, honing technique until at this end he’s chipped them into ICBMs the inner stuff of blind surgethe inclination of instinct down a slippery slope …………the popped…
Un About snow glittered to the wavelength of a streetlamp on swells and bellies of the yard slopedown across a white savannah from asphalt to nirvana at a window I stood looking out forever in a momentin today or yesterday or mañanaenmeshed, engaged, rapt and un about senseless to the dialogic loop ever playing in…
What God Says I place before you a bowl of evidencebut will never make you eat Chance is what you’re up against,and the only is of me you’ll meet You can pray until your tongue expiresand never know my heart’s desire I roll the future out mysteriously,you trace my trail of crumbs through mires You…