Monday Poem
Jim Culleny
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
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
When Bach was a Busker in Brandenburg When Bach was a busker playing for humble coin he’d set up his organ in the middle of a square regardless of pigeons, ignoring the squirrels who sat poised at its edges waiting for their daily bread and work to build its impossible structure of intricacies, assembling its pipes…
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
The Politics of Wind There is something that loathes a vacuum, high pressure to low, breeze is of disequilibrium, there will be calm without it. The greater the absence here the fiercer the blast from there, the more thorough the vacancy there the deeper the absence here. To breathe, lungs must be partially void, it’s in…
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
Whatcham’callit She’s dead, he said. So’s he, said she. Kicked the bucket, he said. Bought the farm, said she. Under the clover, he said. Crossed over, said she. Iced with a heater, he said. Sleeps with the fishes, said she. Taken for a little ride, he said. Gone to the other side, said she. Flat-lined, he said. Out…
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
(Known Miniscule) + (Unknown Immense) is . . . before the sun rose, they rose, they were soft-spoken to shadows so as not to stir them they let blood and would sometimes sweat and spit. when shadows were too cruel. they prayed for light tree’s sunlit shadow: big trunk moves in wind limb dangling, brushes…
Monday Poem
Race is a Political Animal white is a color not a race red is a color not a race black is a color not a race yellow is a color not a race brown is a color not a race human is a race of many colors equines are animals that come in colors, not…
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
Newton’s 2nd Law & Uncommon Sense 3 things: 1. the future’s unknown, 2. I’ll never know what it meant till it’s past, neither its force nor mass, nor 3. the speed with which its die is cast moving straight ahead in time, if nothing’s pulling me aside I’ll move this way forever in an infinite line if…
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
What’s More . . . who was the woman who, 13.787 ± 0.020 billion years ago, birthed the universe from a bang? what an extravagant nativity, what an immense and unruly child came forth, unfurling, emerging in the space it made how could she have imagined how singular and varied her child would become, how…
Monday Poem
The Hunter I hike up the hill at a clip to keep this heart alive Orion’s over my left shoulder with arms raised always in his almost-never-ending black place in sky immersed in blazing stars in utter space Skirting single Cheryl’s I wonder again what it is she does in summer her shingled house is…