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
As the Minute ClicksJim Culleny A new night(as they always are)and cool —unlike Junein Jersey when I was greenbut June anyway anyway it comesit’s Juneit’s Juneregardless of you June then June now in mid-late evening8:30 by the clock—the night darkalmost in the window the skyglows grey behindsilhouettes of trees slate-skin cloudswhich if seen from a…
Odder StillJim Culleny…………………….. As odd as it is that a moon comes upbehind the inelegant tree behind our houseover the dark mountain, grey-whiteand silver-dollar like –a night eyecrying silver– it’s odder still to thinkof a moon that never was…………………… As odd as spring seems, fresh and greenas the crisp salad before the salmon fillet,as odd…
FigureheadJim Culleny Sometimes a poet will sail the line of a poemlike Leonardo DiCaprio: a figurehead on Titanic, arms spread, embracing the wind, the air, the fabulous future, poised before the next word, only to find it isn’t there: the right word, the one that says it all, the one that pulls the rabbit out…
New ThingJim Culleny I opened a Twitter acccount out of curiosity. I admit it, I was born into a far simpler techno world —pre-TV, prime-time radio, number-please phones on party lines, straight-6 engines with carburetors, 78 records with needles the size of ten-penny spikes —an antiquated world. And although it’s a little murky to me…
All things were together. Then the mind came and arranged them. —Anaxagoras Deep Ecology —from boy to man to boy Jim Culleny At first I thought that trunk and limbsand leaves were one which they called tree.But then I learned that tree was cleaved in thirds with blades of brain and set apart in boxes…
The reality of time has long been questioned by an odd alliance of philosophers and physicists.–Robert Lanza and Bob BermanThe Problem of TimeJim Culleny Then was now once while now always is the train leaving the station and Is (itself) is pretty much a matter of interpretationas murky as the dilemma: to be or not…
“Hitler remained a serious reader all his life, spending much of his disposable income on books during the 1920s and regularly passing quiet evenings in his library during the 1930s and '40s, no matter how dreadful the orders he'd been giving during the day.” –Michael Dirda’s review of “Hitler’s Private Library” by Timothy W. Ryback…
Time EnoughJim Culleny A clock and you me alone in a room with timeto settle accounts, still time enough to bare and binge,to rewrite ends, swapping thoughts that make us cringe, some so hot & fierce they make our memories singe. The clock and I are willing but the flesh is weak.I worry what the…
New MorningJim Culleny First I check to see if the sun's up –yes.There it is in the sash of the second window from the righta third of the way across because it's the 25th of March.It blazes in blue beyond imaginationradiating like a lover's heart. Then I look left for you –you're there.You under the…
HydrantJim Culleny Steel sentinel on our street.Its domed yellow cap topped with a wrench-ready fitting,its three short blue arms wrench-ready too, its stumpy red torso squat in the snow ringed round its base with brown March mushin late winter when our longing for sunis most poignant; when it hallucinatesbuds and birds; when it wants to…
“It's all just one big lie … basically a giant Ponzi scheme.” —Bernie Madoff Life in the Fast LaneJim Culleny A crow atop a phone polelike a cocked hat –a selfsure birdeyeing a white line lunchwho understands the nuances of trafficwaits, patient as a tick,until the last ten-wheeler grinds bythen swoops down quick.Caaa! he says,…
Hormones in LoveJim Culleny Only one can have this thought.Did you think your thoughts were mine? We lie apart as close as this:thinking still alone combined. Two skulls each with a budding brain.Two “I”s distant as two moonscatching light from somewhere elsetoo bright to be too far and soon we come together touch and kisswe…
///Past PrimeJim Culleny Knowing I once could whiptwo 2 by 12 by 12s to shoulder heightfrom a ground-level stackwithout ripping a ligament; or haul two sheets of drywallat a time across a room alonewithout reaching for the liniment, I’m pissed at being humbledby a mere rock-salt sackI strain to lift and lug and spread so…
//Black Sunday ShoesJim Culleny Grandpa was stiff and starkas the handle of an old world hoe but grandmother must have had her dreams……………………..At a window in a stuffed chair she satfingering a rosary gazing down Roessler murmuring Hail Mary’s through the pane bead by bead……………………..At other times in that chairshe stroked her long greyblack hair…
///House of an Evil JinJim Culleny Smoke snakes from house roofsin lazy loops of loose thought as idle as the wisps of dreamerswho burn to know why god has wrought I drive by with windows openthe smell of char comes drifting in It's more like March than Januaryso odd the way this year begins Malingering…
///Where Buddha WasJim Culleny I thumb down the pile of books: Paper Dance, 55 Latin Poets Wislawa Szymborska, PoemsNew and Collected Poetry Like Bread (maybe the waymy mother made), Poets of thePolitical ImaginationAnd Billy Collins Sailing Alone Around theRoomwhich is pretty much what we all do to a great extent until, at the bottom: Precise…
////../ Kneedeep as LeavesJim CullenyToday, in a java shopamong caffeinators, wired, Ireceived a poem from a friendwhom I've known sinceit didn't seem importantto understand friendship But now I doand appreciate his calling me into the world of this poem(which is not his, but hisanyway because he saw some truth in itand supposed thatI might see…
///Pythagoras and me @ 2 amJim Culleny I could be up all nightwithout a single line to write;………………………I might be ass-in-chair till 1st lighteyes propped with toothpicks.………………………Open, I might sit with digitspoised over a keyboard………………………like condors on thermalsscanning the earth for a bite ……………………… the desert page dry and white. I might even catch some…
///The HunterJim Culleny I hike up a hill at a clip just to keep this heart alive. The Hunter’s over my left shoulder with arms raised, always in his almost-never-ending black place in the sky surrounded by blazing stars in utter space. Skirting single Cheryl’s I wonder again, what is it she does.In summer her…
//Dear Joe The Plumber, In E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, Emma Goldman explains to character Evelyn Nesbit why Evelyn (having become recently newsworthy) has become such a celebrity:“I am often asked the question,” says Emma, “how can the masses permit themselves to be exploited by the few. The answer is By being persuaded to identify with them.…