Off the Shelf

I pulled a small yellow book off the shelf this morning, brought it to work, thumbed around in in.  A small book of poems by the poet John Brandi, known for his connections to the beats and his itinerant ways.  It's a lovely little book dedicated to "mortals & angels & the ghost of Ryokan" called That Crow that Visited Was Flying Backwards.  The poems and ink drawings that inhabit this book are simple and often elegant observations, insights, aphorisms into love, writing and living. 

 

My neighbor's house

moves a little closer

this cold

autumn night

or this one

My son's journal

my own journal

2 books, 2 pens

2 partners

by the wood

stove

or this one (reminding me of Issa and Patchen)

The polywog

is the biggest animal

in the world

this first day

of spring

One might ask the use of being a poet of little poems...no use at all.  That's the beauty.