///Tabula RasasJim Culleny In our town new mothers spring up like weeds.They roll fold-up strollersalong Bridge Street ortote sleeping babes that loll liketot marsupials in sacksstrapped across breasts:gene parachutestrussed over shouldersand buckled in back. A moment agothese moms were totmarsupials too. Now, out of nowhere–ignorant as saints or immune from despair, or both–they come toting…

by Jim Culleny in a blink the sun comes upover mountains sublime and the sea laps its brim like a pup regal elms come and gosplayed trunks broken by blightlimbs corrupt future and past collidewinds whistle side by side bodies touch and often burn up wars ragescriptures are taughtgood and bad divide killers are caughtdoors…

//Blue under BlueJim Culleny We were sitting on a bench under blue under the bush of a willow admiring her garden whenI saw an Indigo Bunting but didn’t know it when I did. Look, I said, a bluebird on the wall! No, the fabulous near-turquoise of it,its deep and tiny beyond-blueness makes itan Indigo Bunting,…

///Backyard HaikuJim Culleny Damn!under a flat rockthe chipmunk, scooting, is gonethe cat’s tail twitches. Politicsbefore time runs outit’s important to breathe freeat least once, no less. SuddenessA cat waits underthe wisteria, so cool.A bird flies too low. Chimineahere’s the fire, red inthe chiminea, flamingin fall before snow. Emissionsit’s snowblower timeyellow overalls appearexhaust and white plumes…

///Everybody Loves Their ToolJim Culleny Word has it that in the beginning was the word and that may be true but(just as a matter of shameless self-promotion), it’s clear that opener was written by a bard If the same thought had sprung from a painter it would have read:In the beginning was the line or…

///A Weekend in the Garden of My SixtiesJim Culleny Two days behind a roto-tiller panting like a spent muttyou get to meditating on poor Yorick’s skull. Barely holding back the stallions of a Briggs and Strattonyou smell the nearness of becoming void and null. You wonder how’s my ticker doingand will I soon me caving…

///Hazy Moon Jim Culleny Last night I almost hugged the hazy moon, that crazy bubble in the skywho is ever entering new phases. She rose red, round, and hugeas a melon of imagination. She loomed listening to the pine pitchand birch bark, an ear for the night choir.She tugged,I leaned as she rolled higher. Two…

/// Frida Kahlo’s BrowsJim Culleny Who would not be blown awayby Frida Kahlo’s brows? They soar over her eyes like a crowbroad      black      wings      spread two hooded planets in its gripscanning for a place to light and dine the back-to-back parentheses of her nose poised beneath, but above the pursed lips of…

///On finding a lifelong friend and lover while reading Martin Buber in a diner— Over the CounterJim Culleny I lean from behind Buber whileThou serveth me caffein and smile. I know my elbows rest upon the sky.O! the blue formica shines. I see your red cheeks blarein oval frame of hair. Arthur stares me down.He’s…

///SugarphoneJim Culleny Your voice on the telephoneis sugar to my ears. Your electric breath nudging magnets,eating miles as it comes — meeting relays, swelling,exciting antennae… Your voice runs with light. It enters at absurd gatesconvoluted to catch frequenciesof love and death; appendagesthat on my young freshcut headonce stood out like pink wings. Now on this…

///The Tao that can be thought of is not the real Taoso the Tao that can be spoken is not the real Tao either soooo, the Tao that can be named is likewise nothing too..………………………………………–Lao Tzu, sort of 'The spirit of the best of men is spotless, like the new Lotus in the [muddy] water…

/// The Four Horse’s Asses of the NecropolisJim Culleny Why would the Four Horse’s Asses of the Necropolis still strew fetid flowers upon the pathof the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as an ill-wind blew the scent of aftermathinto the faces of a peoplebarely mewing? Would even horse’s assesherd us down the trail of our…

…Cat Dance MusicJim Culleny Dance! Delphiniums winddance   with phlox in Pat’s garden. They sway in quiet concord, rooted in motion. Dancing’s a vital sign of endless youth;even my grandmothers danced:one danced to accordianed polkas;corseted cantileverd bosom bouncing.The other jigged across her chicken yard with handfuls of eggs –having just left her henswithout yield– acting…

..“We’ll fight them there so we won’t have to fight them here, regardless of innocents.” —a patriot. From the Same Root—the prayer paradoxJim Culleny The French call a wound a blessure;but a blessure sent by Godmight be be a blessingfor all we know. If so, couldn’t a blessing be a blessure? Certainly. Depending uponwho’s the wounded…

WakeningJim Culleny 1 Facing Goliath Like wound springs we wait inside a medic’s roommy dearest friend and lover sits upon the table. We do the ritual things we dowe laugh against doom. Like David with his stone we do the tiny things we’re able. 2  The Surgeon Said Some days I think lies would serve…

Back on the night 1999 arbitrarily became the year 2000 I stood in the middle of an intersection in Northampton, Massachusetts with friends.  Some in the crowd were wearing absurd 2000 eyeglasses, those with horns blew them, others yelled and stomped, confetti exploded from hidden places, and hugs and kisses were exchanged as the ball…

Rags to RichnessJim Culleny Sitting with a coffee in the morning sun seeing the high ledges a mile off We go up there to perch on edges and peer down into the bowl that cups our town’s tiny sprawlinto the creases and pleats between the treed knobs of old mountains—a serene sprawl except when cars…

Looking for EvidenceJim Culleny Poor Darwin.Forever dissed by people-of-the-book, he rummaged through bins of bones flinging one after another over his shoulderlooking for a missing link. Femurs and fibulas went flying. Knuckles and kneecaps rained.Disks —the pride of vertebrates— hit walls and ricocheted like pucks slap-shot by blood-thirsty Bruins.The thud of ulnas and clavicles drummed…

..Heaven conforms to the Way (Tao). The Tao conforms to its own nature. —Lao Tzu, Poet; 6th century BCSomething unknown is doing we don’t know what. –Sir Arthur Eddington, Astrophysicist; 26 centuries later Tao Meets (E = mc²)Jim Culleny I’m as left as I am rightas up as I am downas in as I am…

..“Faith is a window or a mirror, you never know which. But every once in a while they both could use a little Windex” –Clara Lichtner Dim Bulb on Watch —North AtlanticJim Culleny  At sea in a cork on the back of a frothing bull grey to infinite horizonsmack in the middle of itstupid in…