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
…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…
.. –yesterday at a local wired coffee house: the place is full, but no one’s talking —McSorley’s Bar it’s not. Internet CafeJim Culleny where virtual folk with cappuccinos gather at tables like islands of stone in zen gardens,faces lit by laptops—and no one’s apt to stepinto the cool raked space between, to be laughingly hugged…
Once Upon a Spacetime — to P. on our 40th anniv. . . . . . .A couple of hours before twilighta gibbous moon rose in the eastover the serpentine spine of the mountaina bright hole in a bluegrey scrim,just there without reason,as uncomplicated and expectedas a shard of granite on the slope of a…