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
I . Me .We so much depends upon the tale we tell ourselves, words have the force of love or death, they can raise or raze. In fact, the typhoon of a single letter, incessantly said, can ruin nations the simplest vertical stroke “I” or its Russian solo “Я” not to mention the tiny bleating…
—on scanning the news feed this morning: Stasis—a collateral effect of nuclear power We face the conundrum of dealing with Tony Soprano. Tony, you know, will stop at nothing while you, being disinclined to fire a nuclear warhead (when Tony has some too) are left with the fist of cutting off his credit. This is…
“I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.” —Daniel 7:9 William Blake’s Mandala in Blake’s split mandala Being asymmetrically stoops…
“Parrots, songbirds and hummingbirds all learn new vocalizations. The calls and songs of some species in these groups appear to have even more in common with human language, such as conveying information intentionally and using simple forms of some of the elements of human language such as phonology, semantics and syntax. And the similarities run…
That Came, Not Chosen 7 a.m. sungold flings photons from mountaintop across the river yesterday’s snow clings to a hedge of arbor vitae’s shadowgreen just as Mom’s flour dusted the tools of her art upon the table sifter, spatula, cups and spoons as if a painting of an arctic fable her baked art emerges from…
Lush Misunderstanding —of an interview with Jane Goodall _____________________________________ life from dying comes —life after life: a ballet of treed chimps, a great defining roar, a thin thread lost where are you, father? (a name I never called you, I called you, Dad) yet there it is: father half-ground of my issue, half-ground of my being,…
“I don’t think I ever was a child.” –Coleman Hawkins, top sax jazzman Jazzman Said I don’t think I ever was a child Was I a child? I don’t think— If I ever was a child I’d know. …..I don’t. I don’t even know, jazzman said,…
Autistic —for Danny, 1949-1976 When you caught that bird in flight, that was a wild moment, the reflex of it, as if you’d had the mind and eyes of a hawk, as if in your world, mysterious to us all, mother father sisters brothers— as if in that world you flew above less bewildered than…
Having Coffee i’m having coffee i’m dreaming I’m having coffee with Whistler’s mother i’m out of the frame to the left meeting her gaze i’m scratching a knuckle with my nose i’m not listening to my wife while gazing out a window i’m imagining our small distant sun rising over the horizon of Neptune i’m having coffee —paper…
Uroboros new year, end day of a beginning, two limits of an endless rope, sunup/sundown, the day we split infinity that lazy 8 napping on its side as time goes by, the day we draw a deep breath in belief that its undulant line may really be broken regardless of the will of a universe…
Temporal Christmas the verge of something new— solstice, sunrise, a comet coming through, sometimes it seems that angels tend, stars align, low meets high—- even ass and oxen gain a sense that mutual otherness has been pretense, a tale begins that glorifies the plain, low things are magnified: a snowball rolls through time, gathers rituals, books, saints, gains velocity, and multitudes…
Gabriel’s Mad Ave. Apocalyptic Horn …. “I’m still dwelling on how ironic all the feverish proclamations of capitalism …. are going to look someday.” —Justin E. H. Smith, Philosopher I’m through with dumpster dinners at the corner of Wall Street and New I’m so unsold by the Coke sign’s faded blush that thrusts from desiccated…
Woke up, fell out of bed, Dragged a comb across my head Found my way downstairs and drank a cup, And looking up I noticed (it) was late ………………—John Lennon, A Day in the Life Mystical Fun Jim Culleny 9/14/16
A Question of Necessity “Can you tell me a certain thing that is a moral fact?” is a specious question because the fact of the thing exists as something essential to the survival of homo sapiens in creating civilization, though civilization does not always live up to the necessity of its essential thing.(the root of what…
“Facts are surprisingly delible things.” ………….— Bill Bryson, author “Trump won.” ……….…— Fox Skews Facts Are Delible facts are not indelible after all— imagine that now U S headspace is one of delibility, if such a word exists —but of course it may, nothing moors every word to dictionaries: fresh definition embraced, case closed. now…
Drinking It All In a long way up Bray Road past the point where the first of two small brooks cross beneath it came to me in a new way that you and I are still breathing four decades after we met at the threshold of the unknown, the part that comes after now, and…
Walking overlooking a river rife with history that runs along the bottom of an ancient gorge between two mountains autumn rusts. in yellows, russets, remnant greens, drapes of leaves cascade down their opposing slopes liquid as runoff, colors sluiced into the wide wet rush of that streaming source of being boiling white over rocks tumbling…
Nothing But Light reflections stutter in the picture plane as if Vincent were still alive dragging oils across canvas in French light inhaling the color of things expiring his incandescent translations in spectacular conjugations of frequencies setting fire to a field with crows turning night into pinwheels, vibrations underpinning everything in sight nothing still but…
Show Moon look out your window, the moon is huge! though not bigger than life, smaller than that but big enough to have life take a look and admire a midnight sun with hint of rouge upheld in a mosh-pit of trees bare limbs a dark mesh beyond a field upon a sky of blue-grey…
Reply to Ricardo who wrote: How U b? .I b well enough. work’s fairly regular— ’bout 4-5 hours a day at regular pay, plus a couple of side jobs drawing, lucky to have work chug chug keep my hand in the writing game: blogs, two local paper gigs shooting my mouth off at greedy vampire windmills sucking…