10 December 2014
Love, Bob & Susan
It's all a great loss
But the greater loss
is not wanting to have
a world without your dad
I've never been in
this world
without him
James Anthony Koller Jr.
30 May 1936 - 10 December 2014
LAST WILL & TESTAMENT
I want only blue sky over me.
I want the clouds, so many
of them, variations, passing,
changing as they pass.
I want the blackest nights
filled with turning stars.
I want birds to find me,
want the hot breath of animals.
The wind too shall pass,
on its way to places
I have been.
30 Nov 95
Battle Mountain
I want only blue sky over me.
I want the clouds, so many
of them, variations, passing,
changing as they pass.
I want the blackest nights
filled with turning stars.
I want birds to find me,
want the hot breath of animals.
The wind too shall pass,
on its way to places
I have been.
30 Nov 95
Battle Mountain
from Cirrelda Snider-Bryan
here is another photo from that June of 2006 time in New Mexico … along the walk we found this sculpture
solidarnösc, cirrelda
From Patsy to Jim
Dearest Jim,
almost 50 years of knowing you
loving you
missing, greeting, apart,together
connecting, missing again and again
don't know where to start
can't get arms around you not there
not here
your voice
that precious voice on the phone
instantly making me smile
all is forgiven
all is just right
all the letters
later the emails,
filled with your narratives,
your poems
we married others,
had our children with others;
this was how it was
some things are never completed.
now you are getting ready to fly away
this is how it is
all who love you are trying to let you go,
to cheer you,bless you on your journey
I know I should too.
Am working on it.
For now am sending you all love
on every sparkling channel
I can dial in:
love to you
and to your dear family, encircling you.
In the woods I looked up,
saw two Flickers high in a tree.
Watched them a while.
Suddenly one took flight.
There was a little pause,
then the other flew after.
They were calling to each other.
Love, Peter Coyote
Ceremony
Shrouded in coast fog, the chitter
of Nuthatch and Junco
crisp as a shaman’s
rattle. All morning
late plums drum my garden
steps. I am mixing my mother’s ashes
with birdseed, elbow-deep
in a galvanized pail.
I am swishing the whispering
seed with ghostly flour
ground in the flower-blue bell
of the crematorium’s roar
pollinating each grain
with her smoky voice, the ghost
of her elegant pearls.
Plunging my hands into the seed
her flesh a gritty surprise
more sand than smoke.
The seed, the chaff, the hazing vapor
stirs memory --a downy puff dusting her angled cheek
the glow of her in a child’s eyes---
the scented fog,wobbling motes
hopping,
waiting, head-cocked birds and songs
flow through my fingers,
ticking into the tinned tub
These powdery seeds offered
to couriers carrying her
through the dilated iris of the sky
rustle the tips of the grass,
slough off her exhausted flesh,
with acrobatic abandon
and detachment.
Rising from this meld of future and past
my spooky hands.
August 17, 1999
revised 2003, 8-14-2013, 03-24-14
Lethal Grain
for Daniel Pearl
Insoluble grit
stimulates nacre
shielding tender
oyster flesh from pain
creating
the splendor of a pearl.
Suffering is
lodged in the heart of beauty.
Conducting
an interview
he never
suspected the story
featured
his assassin. A few quick strokes
sketched a
plum-colored tulip of his throat.
Wide-eyed
at the final instant
did he
understand
the debt
of red-ink pooling in his lap?
His head drops
like a petal.
The camera
he assumed would guarantee
a ransom,
scooped him.
He became
the last editions
of himself.
He became:
“the Jew”,
“the Journalist”, “the American”
and
finally “the Patient”
in a
straight-to-video snuff film.
Had he no
notion that he would be held
responsible
for the deaths to which others
had signed
his name? No notion that rocks for
the Jews
of Nablus and Ramallah were also pitched
at him? The
‘doctors’ struggling to vanquish
foreign
disease mock his wife
compound
bitter ironies from gall,
inoculate their own hearts against remorse
with homeopathic doses of their own
dismembered
wives and children.
They
cannot claw pilots from the sky
so slice this Pearl
or whatever they can catch.
Feed it to their God, Kalashnikoff.
The robed men milk poppies--
calculate
his life an overdue bill
resent the
shade he casts on the goat
they’ve
staked for slaughter. Their parched lips
calculate
goat and reporter equal.
And the pearl
is passed from hand to hand
the hand
of the giver shadows for an instant
the hand
of the receiver, passing
the
darkness with the gift— the sharp-edged grain
disguised,
transmitted through time
as an
accumulating viral load.
Feb.
25, 2002
rev.
April 14, 2014***
Earth is a Woman,
Sure
I.
Earth is a woman, sure
but most beautiful when
she weeps. Tears shining, falling
from fluttering ravens lashed
to the cheeks of the sky.
Soot-streaked hills
softened by mist and stinging rain
the cries of wild geese singing
Avalokiteshvara’s pity for
the passing world.
II.
And you who know me well
who question my proclivity
for women in perpetual shade
hiding their flesh from the sun,
Beside the mystery of myself
I can only add that tears
are the heart’s juice, some balm
against the diamond chill
of beauty.
III.
A young boy safe in the fragrant loft
of a tin-roofed barn, wrapped
in the blanket sheltering his sleeping father
from the fury pelting the roof—
the heaving flank of mountain-- his
chest--
an unusual comfort.
April
25, 2014
***
The Dogs of Bucharest
The dogs of Bucharest are dusted
with crumbled mansions, ash
of red flags. They doze
in ruined dreams abandoned
by their masters. They bark
whelp and die without
plan or permission. Occasionally,
like thinkers, like poets,
they are rounded up
and shot.
A bitch with flapping teats
haunts the ruined foundry
where I film an entertainment
for my country.
This feral dog eyes the roll I proffer
trembles, intention whittled
to a point. The whimpering
pups beneath a wrack of ruined iron
cannot soften her stiff legged fear.
Sad and sooty sumacs,
tattered sorrel, small luminous, lavender flowers
conquer the twisted rubble
vanquish the iron track.
Seed, stem, and
bramble
trump the stained concrete
trump all, except
the gnawing hunger of the dogs.
June
26, 2004
***
Hunting
Rubies
Empty
even of hunger
the
bones of your heels
are
restless to leave the rail.
Loss
is in the air
and
underfoot.
A
cord has snapped.
My
love once sought
her
rubies in the deep pile
of
our scarlet carpet.
Eyes
shadowed by loss,
Owl’s
keen sight piercing the dark
She
anticipates the finish
where
pavement and clear sailing end
and
her feet will seek mercy
between
the stones.
My
beloved,
my
hands too are empty
dusted
only with the pollen of your body.
Can
you not follow my tracks
to
where I’ve dried and stored the corn?
“You give me champagne and I’m
starving.”
Has
all of me been refused?
Have
I stolen your portion of the bee’s gold--
the
bird’s songs from your throat?
Have
I taken the best of you?
Oh,
wait! Please just wait!
Can’t
you see how feverishly
I
am tying feathers.
to
your arms?
June 30, 2008
rev. April 14,2014
***
The Dogs of Bucharest
II
Romanian dogs have drum-tight skin.
Hearts slap the ribs drumming loss
through jungles of ruined concrete.
Heads down, clustered like jackals
scanning the broken streets
they are afraid of men.
American dogs shine like gold.
Are sleek with oil, have energy
confidence to burn.
They have vitamins in their feed
by law, are better fed
than our own poor.
June
26, 2004
rev. July 11, 2014
from Stefano Panzarasa
Noi cambiamo per mantenere tutto il resto uguale
Corvi riempiono l’albero, si alzano
Uno ad uno, pesanti, insieme
Ondeggiano neri attraverso il blu
Si posano, uno ad uno
Insieme, riempiono l’albero senza foglie
Io accendo sei candele
Candele bianche su un piatto bianco
Se cervi, neri sulla neve, le loro corna tese
Si voltano verso di me, & falchi
Volteggiano in alto, cielo blu
I cervi non si muovono
I tuoi capelli sono diventati piume di gazza
Corvi riempiono l’albero, si alzano
Uno ad uno, pesanti, insieme
Ondeggiano neri attraverso il blu
Si posano, uno ad uno
Insieme, riempiono l’albero senza foglie
Io accendo sei candele
Candele bianche su un piatto bianco
Se cervi, neri sulla neve, le loro corna tese
Si voltano verso di me, & falchi
Volteggiano in alto, cielo blu
I cervi non si muovono
I tuoi capelli sono diventati piume di gazza
from Ana in Turkey
AMARE'A DADE'A
Amare la dade lu, kai san and-o ćèros!
Te sfintzil pes tirro anav!
Te avel tirri ïmpäräcìa!
Te kerel pes tirri vòia,
Sar si and-o ćèros kadiă, vi p-i phuv!
Amaro děsutno manro
De les amen aděs!
Thai iertisar amenghe amare bezeha
Sar vi amen iertisaras äl bezeha e amare bezăhalenghe.
I Thai na ingăr amen and-i ispita,
Thai skäpisar amen e nasulestar!
Amin!
Amare la dade lu, kai san and-o ćèros!
Te sfintzil pes tirro anav!
Te avel tirri ïmpäräcìa!
Te kerel pes tirri vòia,
Sar si and-o ćèros kadiă, vi p-i phuv!
Amaro děsutno manro
De les amen aděs!
Thai iertisar amenghe amare bezeha
Sar vi amen iertisaras äl bezeha e amare bezăhalenghe.
I Thai na ingăr amen and-i ispita,
Thai skäpisar amen e nasulestar!
Amin!
09 December 2014
from Susan
2 winters in the green house
I remember when I unknowingly said to you:
"If you don't like me, leave me alone", and then
you did not.
I remember living in your green house where there was little
difference between the out and the in,
the pans and the bells hanging from the trees in the woods
Reading by the stove in a room closed against the cold
by worn blankets tacked to the door frames
You told me that I would be Buddhist, and now your photo
will be on the altar, and your friends will be there
It doesn't surprise me
Thank you for helping me along the way. Here is a blazing sun for you.
Susan
Love, Thea Koller
A
few months ago, I was skyping with Dad and he read me this poem. He
teared up in the middle of it and his voice cracked. Thinking back on
that, it falls in place that we are now in the MidWest, and that all of
this happened while he was on a road trip with those engines running.
Untitled - 1987The real world stretches between mountains.
Big rivers run through it.
On summer nights it is lighted by fireflies.
In the real world
small towns are filled with kids eating icecream.
(I smell the gasoline - hear the engines running
The real world is one I've carried within me -
(I hear the women in their cotton dresses laughing)
from Agnes ( a Greek friend in Geneva)
Agnes held a poetry reading of Dad's at her house near Gex, France in 2003. Words from her now, on 9 December 2014:
"I am now close to the North Pole - best place to be- and saw the Aurora borealis.
I send him the magnificent light dantelles -pinkish - which I see in the skies."
from Rita Degli Esposti - gorgonzola, gnocchi in the Grotto
"you can't eat gorgonzola every day"
"I do"
"I do"
08 December 2014
message to Jim from Alba
Dear Jim,
Here I am in our new house. It's full of boxes. I hope you're feeling better and better.
Love,
Alba
Here I am in our new house. It's full of boxes. I hope you're feeling better and better.
Love,
Alba
Love, Roseanne Rogosin
Dear Jim,
we want you back in Pavia as soon as possible. Take care!
Love,
roseanne
Thoughts about grandpa from Otis Koller
I miss my Grandpa very much! I wish I was there with him and everyone
that is there! He is the best Grandpa ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
with lots of love otis
with lots of love otis
07 December 2014
Love, Theadora Koller
Dad always loved this photo of the Sami, since it reflects family. It
reminds me a bit of us here in Joplin. It also reminds me of all of you -
his blood family and his wider family - connected online. What a family
he has...
love, Jessie Koller Miles
here are some pics you may or may not have
the two hands are maggie & dad during the chrismas visit O took that
one & while over exposed is one of my faves
the one at grandmas was right after she passed
I think we all have the xmas one
dad me & Will during a visit to ca in 2009
Love you all
J
Love, Peg Swift
A photo of the
corn that Jim and I grew on Back River, Georgetown, that still hangs on
the wall of my house, now close to 40 years later, and his poem. You can
use this for the blog, if you wish. Love, Peg
If I weed & I water
If I weed & I water
& the drought don't get you
then the corn worm will
If I weed & I water
If I weed & I water
& the coons don't get you
then the blackbirds will
1-12-75
a poem by Jaime de Angulo
she came into my dream
tall and young
with hair of gold
and glaucous eyes
and she made love to me
boldly
thank you my dear thank you
but why make love to an old man why
i am death
she said
smiling
i waited for you these many years
and now i will take you to my home among the swinging stars
where the atoms dance their saraband and numbers become real
where there is no time no space no joy no pain
only that which is
serene … come, my love
tall and young
with hair of gold
and glaucous eyes
she made love to me
FORT MILEY HOSPITAL
BERK MARCH 20 50
from Leslie Hoffman
Jim - so so much to say, but it is that sparkly eye i wish i could see again. been much too long.
did we all learn to talk, laugh and cry at the same time from you? oh my, what a gift to have shared. i am doing it with you from afar, but in reverse order now.
Leslie
did we all learn to talk, laugh and cry at the same time from you? oh my, what a gift to have shared. i am doing it with you from afar, but in reverse order now.
Leslie
traveling thoughts to Jim from J.D. Whitney
GRANDMOTHER
has
birdfeet point
the way--
3 toes
front &
1 back
but
Roadrunner wants
2 & 2
to
fool
that
following
pain-in-the-ass
Coyote.
Says
ok.
But can't
bring herself to
tell:
how
old
Coyote
he can
go
both
ways at once.
has
birdfeet point
the way--
3 toes
front &
1 back
but
Roadrunner wants
2 & 2
to
fool
that
following
pain-in-the-ass
Coyote.
Says
ok.
But can't
bring herself to
tell:
how
old
Coyote
he can
go
both
ways at once.
Jim's Poem - from Stefan Hyner
Fire built up, I step
new snow between my toes,
out, quiet night, under huge pine,
wonder, how many, right now
piss in the snow.
There are no beginnings
& no end. It is written
in yellow snow
for Nanao
(app. Winter1984
from: Great Things are Happening)
new snow between my toes,
out, quiet night, under huge pine,
wonder, how many, right now
piss in the snow.
There are no beginnings
& no end. It is written
in yellow snow
for Nanao
(app. Winter1984
from: Great Things are Happening)
from Shannon Rose Riley
Here’s how it is, old crow man.
You float high above me.
Dusk.
There are some things I know about you now, so listen.
Each from Illinois,
we both played accordion (or did I make that up?)…
You read your first poem the year I was born;
your first novel was Shannon,
Who was Lost Before.
But now I’m found.
And I found you in Georgetown, Jim.
Endless conversation around kitchen tables,
moss fern cold stone photographs.
When we saw each other, we would cry.
Talk while laughing, tears in our eyes.
Intensely holding each other there:
a shared custody of luminous liquid light.
We made appropriate ritual, friend,
and today, in your honor, my voice cried out;
I know you heard it.
Thank you coyote, old crow man.
You know the way home--
just fly one time over my head before you go.
Shannon Rose Riley
For James Koller, December
6, 2014, Chicago
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