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
The Algonquin tribes knew this moon as thetime to gather ripening strawberries……………………………………–Old Farmer's Almanac Strawberry MoonI read you Strawberry Moonyou pull the sea in the summermore than two-hundred-thousand milesI see your reach is so longyour arm of gravityyour face of sunlight at midnightthey hold me too But in the moon when the deer shed their…
Song Behind a Rear-Tined TillerThey believed consciousness resided in the heart Aristotle believed this, and the Egyptianswho scooped out dead Pharaoh's brainthrough his nose with a spoonand stuffed his skull with rags assuringhe would not be thinking in the other worldto which he'd travel by long boatbeing wrapped in cloth, speechless, supine in gold,embarked with…
No One in ParticularAre you looking at me? I say to the mountainwhich moves as I run the tiller down the row. But it may not be the mountain I address. Are you talking to me? I say to the pale moonwhich hangs in the blue sky like a ghost ball. But maybe the moon…
Victor Borge and the Player PianoWe lived on Oak Street when one daymy father came home with a white pianobig and heavy as a horse that hadtwo large pedals under its keyboard whichif you placed a paper roll titled Lady of Spainbetween two spindles behind a sliding doorabove the keys like a wood block in…
Spirit Level I've been a carpenter most of my lifeand so have had occasion to usewhat used to be called a spirit-levelbut which today we call a level–ditching spirit for the sake of efficiencybaby-with-bathwater-like as we so often do, way past what's necessary but the hole heaps up this level is used to set things…
Better to say NowI almost didn't get up this morningsleep was so I-want-to-stay-here-the-world-is-fuckedbut there's still something blissful about breathingand notwithstanding what's all too typical in this worldI opened my eyes and found you thereas startlingly usual and knew that with you and our daughtersand friends and the means to ambulate, see, hear, and helpI'd miss…
Forty Thousand Two Hundred Eight I’m out here stacking days as if it were a sportI’m up to forty thousand two hundred eight I sweat memory. I’ve taken off my shirt,I’m feeling great. But as I stack them upthey’re growing short I tally what till now I’ve done Not far from a stupaI eye the…
“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.” ………………………………………… –Bob Dylan Eclipse at a wall on a corner of the worldI’m still waiting for Godot as mullahsand priests go by in the robesof their pride incensing andmurmuring. I’m thinkingburn-poles and bombs and wonderhow many gods must there bein the world before too manypeople have…
To Question a Corpse I cannot call a poem, it calls meIt comes, I never go to it. Some days working aloneone will muscle in and say let’s scope this out—it’ll pry at essentials and tuglifting the lid on the casket of the pastto question a corpse. think happenstance—a thing coincidentally side-litglancing off bone, or…
“Abraham said to his father and his people: 'What are these images to whose worship you cleave?' They said: 'We found our fathers worshipping them.' He said: 'Certainly you have been, you and your fathers, in manifest error.'” — Koran, Chapter 21, verses 52-54 The Tughra Loophole Warnings in the Hadithto make no image of…
The Furnace Coffee’s made, the tea-water’s on and here's a glazed pane of iridescent froststroked by a ghost etcher’s point —struck through with silver and laced with light: its gravure of fern fronds glistens on a clear silicon plate……………….…………And there's a brilliant postage stamp of bluepiercing an otherwise stratocumulus domemarking a bit of sky beyond…
“Fish and other marine life could be left gasping for breath in oxygen-poor oceans for thousands of years to come if global warming continues unchecked, scientists warn in a new study.” –National Geographic News; Jan. 28, 2009Dead Zone You are sequestered in waterI am confined by the air You are scaly and finnyI am soft-skinned…
GeeseThis morning when the sky’s red skin isdrawn across a beginning and the grassis taut with frost and the clarityof the edge of things recallsthe precision of an engraver’s pointan irregular V of geese passes left to rightlike beads of an animated rosaryeach a honking Hail Marya striving prayeran individual articulating dotan I-am of we-are…
Making Way —Narragansett Bay 1960 We part from the dockslow as disengaging loversone landlocked the other afloater who won’t bekept at bay The diminishing pier slides back its bollards and planks deployto some other place not herebut to a distancing otherworld—the tether breaks as stern-first we pass the channel buoy ….Quarter back, the O-D says.….Quarter…
Icon ………………………………………………………………………………………….I received a snap of Duke the Dog in which duke in radiant atmosphere standsquintessentially dog-like ……………………………………open-mouthedlolling tongue four-squarepaws planted in green earth ……………………………….…..expectantpoised to please …………………very Christ-likein mist halo silent light still ………………………………. ….all aware I’m yourshe barks standing by……………………….. throw that last stick nowbefore I mount this brilliant torchand rise to sit…
“… scientists (have been) able to trick (fruit) flies into having associative memories of events they had not actually experienced.” …………………………………………………… –Nature News, Oct 15, 2009Which is Which or Who is Whom They say fruit fly brains may be made to have memories of where they've never flown I’m like a fruit fly in this…
To Roof Ah, to put a roofing spadeto desiccated shingles To lean upon the spade-handle’s endleveraging stubborn nailsfrom their impacted seats To wrench my back To abrade my bleeding hands againstroking the asphalt’s pebbled face To fight a wind while laying felt which, like Ahab’s sails, would whisk me to a mad roofer’s end To…
“Gravitational corridors could help spacecraft ply the solar system like shipsborne on ocean currents, (say) scientists investigating space travel.”…………………………………………………………….–The Telegraph; Sept. 10,2009 Ignorant Explorers In what seems void are corridors:avenues in nets of gravity between planetssuns moons meteors dust, channelsin nets of love between us ………………We set out through themfirst in flame machinesburning hydrogen and…
The Ghost of the Arrow of Time An hypothetical-resurrected-formerly-dead in a daydream arrived with a scent of dreadwhich I could not put my finger on yet knew that I knew the way I know a déjà vu andyou came as something I ephemerally knewcame as something ephemerally new as a bud for instance at the…
Lucky Again Yesterday todaymight never come butI'm lucky again It did and here you aremy bulwark againsta stark sea In the garden you beganyears ago in our plot of sandwhere little grew but wild strawberriesclose to the ground theirtendrils groping dry earth we now have hibiscuswith blossoms the size ofdinner plates and day lilies in…