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
In Books when words make love sentences are bornthe world’s heft is changed by the weight of nouns,the hesitations of hyphens and commas, like the space between breaths, tell the rhythm of what’s new and what’s been, the dead stops of periods spell the end of what a breath holds,adjectives, like the blood blush of…
Darwin's Surf…. —ode to cells Before metaphorical allusionswe are warm and wet.Seas surge within us. In little cytoplasmic bays, tiny ships of golgi moornear lysosome cays enclosed by permeable breakwater membranes that all rise and fall with nucleo tidesin ebbs and flows through generationsrendering noses pug or aquilineand eyes skybright or in colors of loam;…
Death of NGC 2440 although you are distant distant distant I can see by your last aura against a black further distance, the most distant distance… I can see by your billowing halo of expanding gasses fluffed like god’s pillow that you are ruled by laws that also rule terrestrial things I see the colors…
“(Swifts) feed in the air, they mate in the air, they get nest material in the air. They can land on nest boxes, branches, or houses, but they can't really land on the ground.”— Researcher Susanne Åkesson Swift I’ve been airborne since Augustus layed the footings of the Roman Peace ……—in that alone I flew…
Of Enlightenment clicking buttons of a remote I dream of enlightenmentof crammed refugees in boats I dream in flickering glow of screens I dream of enlightenmentof history that still careens I dream hearing sirens in the dark I dream of enlightenmentof popping guns in parks I dream seeing new corpses in the street I dream…
Many Diamonds if I were to cross this bridge a thousand times no— I’ve crossed this bridge a thousand times along the length of its steel lattice rail through which my small daughter wanting to look down at small-town icebergs sailing in the swift spring surge had stuck her head, turned it just so, and…
Don W. in Manhattan —eating the dust of 2001 Dining in Soho alone, a manserved by a girl with lip studs, nose ring, and serpent tattoo uncoilingfrom deep cleavage,sees the new man of La Mancha, in dim light across the room,seated with his back to the street: This new La Mancha mantopples a pepper mill…
Now the bricks lay on Grand StreetWhere the neon madmen climbThey all fall there so perfectlyIt all seems so well timed……………….. —Bob Dylan. Wabi-sabi upon first hearing I knew the perfectionDylan wove that verse around(as if anything on earth could be so flawlessas to deserve the divinity of that word)which says:…………………could be here nowand so…
I Hold Things Up As a carpenter I learned, before you can leverage things apartyou have to find purchase. You have to have a place where a pry-barcan be slipped in or driven with a hammer to separate.That being done, whether by violent or pursuasive means,when two factions have been splitthey're easier to manipulate. These…
Asamprajanya I’m in the weeds on my knees pawing dark earth looking for my squash among prolific opportunist grasses and broad-leafed virtuosos at finding sustenance in the garden of a part-time farmer— finding advantage in his jammed schedule, in life’s necessary distractions and precious irrelevancies, his asamprajanya On knees I sweat under an indifferent sun…
“When you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note you play that determines if it’s good or bad.” —Miles Davis Next Note There are no bad notes if you’re open, cool and quick there’ll be a next note: first rung on a ladder from a ditch new rudder of a boat you'll sail to…
Elemental skysea sliced by bladehoned to a slick edge by the god of knivesdrawn now across a bluegray scrim bloodless sharp whiteclean as a whistle you might almost hear it whisperbut for its mystic stillness more thought than thing,free of bone and gristle. by Jim Culleny8/3/16 Photo by Terri Amig.
“The Holy Land is everywhere” —Black Elk Holy Land moving to one side out of traffic, off the shoulder into the weeds, listening it occures to me that nothing is tangential, life happens here regardless not unscathed by the mechanical operations of man, just essentially unmoved not unscathed by the myopic visions of man, but…
5 White cops fatally shot in Dallas: 7/7/2016 Philando Castile fatally shot in Falcon Heights: 7/6/16 Alston Sterling fatally shot in Baton Rouge: 7/5/16, David Duke’s back: 2016 … and more. ………………………………………… —US News. Jittering on a Rim with all this shooting going on it’s hard to tell who’s good and who’s bad. it must…
No Address —in memory of B.D. my oldest friend has left us he now has no address or his address is now not numbered there’s no street to be remembered no place that I can place him and now ephemeral I miss him he was a bollard I could tie to I could call him…
Eden the 5 pm Magnolia tree is flaunting its lemony green leaves again lush as every rite of spring, fresh, pregnant with light, it makes the quaking Aspen near the hoop house tremble its leaves aroused by breeze as we all, in this utterly new ensemble, excited as if on some brink, are poised, unprepared…
At The Milken Conference: “Attendees want to know about … politicsand global military campaigns only insofar as (they) produce newopportunities to make money. A panel called “Value in Turmoil” waspacked (and) ‘Opportunities in distress’ was a recurring theme.”…………………………………………. —David Dayen in The Intercept Das Kapital In a conference of elites the distress of others is…
Pakistan is digging trenches —graves for people who have not yet died as the country prepares for another record-breaking heat wave. Scientists place the blame for rising temperatures squarely on climate change. ……………………………………………………. —IndiaTimes, May 23, 2016 Diggers Dig …diggers dig.spades trace dolorous arcs in dry airmaking long scars for many corpses. diggers dig. sharp…
Twilight You waken with Uneasewho’d slept quietly beside you until the moment you had stirred Perhaps a tree had brushed a windowmaybe an attic squirrel had been perturbed,just as shadows begin moving when darkness is disturbed Unease upsets your mindwheelthe moment eyelids partwhich sets your mindwheel turning,working, opening the harbor gates of daylightto the terrifying…
Segue. in shifts from bright to dim there is no edge, no interim, as also none exists from wide to slim . the sun comes up in orange blaze night evaporates in such displayslines are indiscernible in nights to days . when life from bud to apple goes and succulence and color grows earth is…