BILL BERKSON

The One God           

Once heaven was just a boy and a girl

And a path to the beach.

That was before the rooms were gutted and you learned

How to exhibit bereavement

Would earn your weight in brimming

Moon lagers.

Literally, “the bee’s knees.”

The shoulders of Roland de Smoke

Cuddle two abreast on a tray.

While air lasts, cities also die, old gasbags 

With quilted manners, prepuce because the English

Taste in pictures slackened.

Then again, despite the poison crumbs,

The two just walk on tiptoes out of doors,

Pressing along the keen incline.

What will happen, what to say

If and when the first door opens, the wings

Flutter in turn as nights subside?

                  ---Bill Berkson

Bill Berkson is a poet, critic and professor emeritus at the San Francisco Art Institute. His books include Expect Delays, Portrait and Dream and Repeat After Me. He divides his between San Francisco and New York.

SUSAN COLLIER LAMONT

Triptych

I.

You lie in your bed dream-wracked. The moon-launched arrow, silver-tipped, misses its mark. Wasted, it disappears deep into your star-washed pillow. You will not remember. Love-crazed, I pace outside your frost-etched window. The golden candlesticks blow over, dream-toppled, as from a memory-bladed wind. The passion-hooked bits of debris that make a life ignite. An inferno ensues. Every haunted second is different now. I have dreams, too.

II.

Cinders of your dreams come falling in silence as shooting stars. Every waking second reverberates with their hiss and pop. Wanton, you haunt the night. The Chinese poets meditate chastely on the edge of the pond, dusted in bits of debris: feathers, pine needles, hollow snail shells. Radiantly they stand, candlesticks on an altar, with their beards of glowing ash and their hair aflame. The pond's polished window reflects its depths and calls my name. I hesitate. The screams of a circling hawk interrupt the night. He cries, “I have dreams, too,” once, twice, thrice. You are absent. The poets say simply, “Lamps might be safer next time.”

III.

When, with hearts aflame, the Chinese poets abandon their wheelbarrows of thunder on the blank pages, we will know. When, beneath the pines, we sit in the forest's dogwood-snowed beauty, we will rejoice. When, with time noticeably absent, the golden beeswax obliterates the silver candlesticks, we will understand. When, behind a cloud of snow geese, the trees become illegible, we will begin. When, under a tear-misted moon, we sift through the bits of our heart's debris, we will forgive. When, on the white pillow, every waking second is laid bare, we will sleep. When, across the glacier-spaded valley, we see ourselves reflected in the window of a scrub jay's eye, we will drop to our knees and cry out loud.

                                   

                                                            ---Susan Collier Lamont

Susan Collier Lamont is a social justice activist in Sonoma County, California. She is also a landscape designer, photographer and writer.

BARBARA BARG

I Like People

I like people.

Okay?

I like persons.

O — kay?

I like personas

done well.

One unwell persona

tried to hack another persona’s

personal preferences

and called that hacking love.

Notta lotta personas

respond well 

to personal preference hacking.

Uncomfortable it is

not liking this persona

who is a person

who thinks I’m liking 

their persona.

Uncomfortable is 

kind of living a lie

not liking who thinks I’m liking

is uncomfortable.

However.

That uncomfort is lower voltage

than confronting that assumption of personhood

crouching in that cramped persona 

which does not wander a mind field large enough

to warrant heart burn

mind burn, tongue burn stoked

by the confrontationally unsatisfying.

Unsatisfaction can burn in my head for days

in replays of the shoulda saids.

And that is most uncomfortable.

Why do that to myself? 

I’m a person.

One of the people.

And 

I like people.

Okay?

            --- Barbara Barg

Barbara Barg was born out of formless chaos. For billions of years, she grew in a cosmic egg, working ceaselessly to create order by separating her clear yang from her turbid yin. She likes exploring mutability and is working on paying better attention. She hopes to out-live fascism and imperialism, but doesn’t let the demise of democracy destroy attainments of personal happiness and peace where appropriate.

Truck's driver/editor for the first month of the New Year

Please welcome Michael Rothenberg, who will be our driver for January 2016.

And many, many thanks go to Jane Joritz-Nakagawa for being our editor/driver during December.

MICHAEL MCCLURE

I AM WHAT I HAVE

THE NERVE TO BE

HUGE SUCCESS

HIDING IN MEAT.

MAMMAL SHIVERING IN RAIN.

Alarms blast on.

A lion "GRAHHR" and a hummingbird necklace

on an island where creatures tremble

with superstitions and delighted awe,

holding out skull cups

for a fill of Arab blood

And they stand to their knees

in piss flooding their legs,

between war cries.

WHILE

DARKNESS

WAVE-LAPS AGAINST MOTHERS

and children,

and the intelligent microbial

 ocean smiles on

*

 --Soft rain on nasturtiums--

Amidst electronics

                                    ---- Michael McClure

At the age of 22 Michael McClure gave his first poetry reading at the legendary Six Gallery event in San Francisco, where Allen Ginsberg first read Howl. His play The Beard provoked numerous censorship battles, in Los Angeles, the cast was arrested after each performance for fourteen nights in a row. Later The Beard received two Obies in N.Y.C. The play has played a role in U.S. censorship and free speech battles since 1966 when it won the first lawsuit. His many books of poetry include Jaguar Skies, Dark Brown, Huge Dreams, Rebel Lions, Rain Mirror and Plum Stones. His most recent collections are Mysteriosos and other Poems (New Directions) and Of Indigo and Saffron: Selected and New Poems (University of California Press). Michael McClure lives in the San Francisco Bay Area hills with his wife the sculptor Amy Evans McClure.

Truck's drivers past, present and future as of Jan. 1, 2016

Present

Michael Rothenberg

Future


Feb. 2016 -- C. L. Bledsoe
Mar. 2016 -- Paul Sampson
Apr. 2016 -- Lynda Schor
May 2016 -- Allen Bramhall
June 2016 -- Joanna Howard
July 2016 -- Robert Archambeau
Aug. 2016 -- Lori Horvitz
Sept. 2016 -- Tero Hannula
Oct. 2016 -- Laura Young
Nov. 2016 -- Ric Carfagna
Dec. 2016 -- Philip Garrison


Past

Apr. 2011 -- Kate Schapira
May 2011 -- Wendy Battin
June 2011 -- Frank Parker
July 2011 --  Skip Fox
Aug. 2011 -- Ken Wolman
Sept. 2011 -- Michael Tod Edgerton
Oct. 2011 -- Kelly Cherry
Nov. 2011 -- Andrew Burke
Dec. 2011 -- Lewis LaCook

Jan. 2012 --  Larissa Shmailo
Feb. 2012 -- Gerald Schwartz
Mar. 2012 -- Jukka-Pekka Kervinen
Apr. 2012 -- Lynda Schor
May 2012 -- David Graham
June 2012 -- Lars Palm
July 2012 --  Elizabeth Switaj
Aug. 2012 --  rob mclennan
Sept. 2012 -- Georgios Tsangaris
Oct. 2012 -- Douglas Barbour
Nov. 2012 -- Dirk Vekemans 
Dec. 2012 -- Erik Rzepka

Jan. 2013 -- Alan Britt
Feb. 2013 -- Mark Weiss
Mar. 2013-- Mary Kasimor
Apr. 2013-- John M. Bennett

May 2013-- Orchid Tierney
June 2013--Victoria Marinelli
July 2013 -- Volodymyr Bilyk
Aug. 2013 -- David Howard
Sept. 2013 -- Philip Meersman
Oct. 2013 -- Chris Lott
Nov. 2013 -- Alexander Cigale
Dec. 2013 -- Catherine Daly

Jan. 2014 -- Maria Damon
Feb. 2014 -- John Oughton
Mar. 2014 -- Colin Morton and MaryLee Bragg
Apr. 2014 -- Alan Sondheim
May 2014 -- Glenn Bach
June 2014 -- Bill Pearlman
July 2014 -- Edgar Gabriel Silex
Aug. 2014 -- Jerry McGuire
Sept. 2014 -- Karri Kokko
Oct. 2014 -- Márton Koppány
Nov. 2014 -- Anny Ballardini
Dec. 2014 -- Chris Lott

Jan. 2015 -- Marc Vincenz
Feb. 2015 -- mIEKAL aND
Mar. 2015 -- Eileen Tabios
Apr. 2015 -- Crag Hill
May 2015 -- Rudolfo Carrillo
June 2015 -- Gwyn McVay
July 2015 -- Matt Margo
Aug. 2015 -- Volodymyr Bilyk
Sept. 2015 -- Stephen Vincent
Oct. 2015 -- Maxianne Berger
Nov. 2015 -- Alexander Jorgensen
Dec. 2015 -- Jane Joritz-Nakagawa

Greetings from Michael Rothenberg - Guest Editor for January 2016

Happy New Year! 

Welcome to the January 2016 issue of TRUCK. 

My gratitude to Halvard Johnson for inviting me to guest edit this issue. It is always an honor to share the work of poets and writers that I admire. 

Hope you enjoy it! 

Love & Peace,
Michael Rothenberg