WILLOW POND POETS ANNUAL INDEPENDENCE DAY READING

photos by Dave BrunerJoel Kovel read a poem by WB Yeats:
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds.
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.



Dave Channon's poem is on Youtube.The Eve Of Impeachment © Dave Channon 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbPhhXRQGkw
George’s world, it is implodin’
Like MREs from Haliburton
You’re old enough to vote, but it’s verboten
You don’t believe in war, but that’s what they’re promotin’
The Potomac river’s brown from all the bullshit floatin’

But ya tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of impeachment.

Rummie is cryin’ “Waah, I want my Momma!”
Hillie’s wastin’ time racing black Obama.
The Supreme Court ruled and jacked up the election
With politics first… but justice second-
There’s Karl Rove and Jeffrey Gannon in Lincoln’s bedroom closet neckin’!

And ya tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of impeachment.

Cheney’s blood clots are coagulatin’
Chicken hawks are still escalatin’
Fox is in the hen house, there ain’t no regulatin’
And Nancy Pelosi won’t start investigatin’
And marches alone don’t stop the devastatin’
The evidence is just too damn incriminatin’
Bring the troops back home to our Americanation!

But ya tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of impeachment.

Gonzales is lyin’, so is Scooter Libby
They’re droppin like flies because of all their fibbies
Abramoff, Delay and Kenny Lay are frightened
Who is next in line to get an inditement?
Bush is readin’ “My Pet Goat” gonna miss all the excitement.
The poundin’ of the gavel, Republigoons are sweatin’
Armageddon sick and tired of all their Armageddon.

Yetcha… tell me over and over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of impeachment.
Mm, ya better believe
We’re on the eve of impeachment.Dove Cottage by Janine Pommy Vega
(for Margaret & Peter)

In 1800 the busy life
of the newborn middle class
with neighbors dying as they crossed
the mountains at night in winter
and the eldest daughter seeking out a cloak
from the next door neighbor, to search
for her parents, thrust at eleven
into the adult business
of survival

Amidst poets walking eight miles to see
if you had another stanza to that poem,
or he had an idea, or if she did
walking in company around the mere
on a cloudy dry day with the robin
singing extravagantly
the thrush with his head cocked
listening for nightcrawlers under the earth
in the quiet garden

pulls one out and slams it this way
and that against the ground, another tiny
murder in the bucolic life
When the child workers sleeping inside the cogs
of wheels in the machines were let go,
no longer needed, someone pointed to
the village across the estuary,
There, there’s your home, and as the tiny
band trooped out the tide rushed in

The middle class supported
not by a king but their own consequence
Wordsworth writing for his life
the populace eating oatmeal bread
and hasty pudding
the wide view over the lake lending itself
to contemplation, a consciousness
connected to particularities of nature


particular lemon thyme on the stone walls
lady’s smock and lady’s slipper
the blue-eyed jackdaw and black headed
oyster catcher, until somebody
points it out you may not see it
The sister and brother, Dorothy and
William, love companions
busy about survival in the wet cold weather
he focused on a thought in mid-air, she papering
the bedrooms to keep out the wind,

come at last to this:
a daffodil reflecting inner light,
the shout of laughter from a dusty couch
in a dark room, the singularity of spirit
reflecting a totality
reverberating like guitar strings
at the door

The becks and hows and fells and tarns
and crofts and meres of another time
leapfrog through literature
to the present, the ancient people
busy about survival with one syllable
place names, geographical landmarks
a history of galloping consciousness

wild things brought back to the garden
heckberry blossoms, buttercup and orchis
brassy rhododendron and azalea
taking root under the watchful
magpie, the finch and raven
the black lambs bleating at heaven’s gate
Derision of these people at one’s peril

who opened chinks in the wall
of the everyday,
who insisted on their visions
grew sick for the lack of them
persisted in them, eyes far-distanced and
heavy-lidded with laudanum, who pursued
the dandelion of common prayer.
Grasmere, Cumbria, England, May 2007.