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 Hold Things Up As a carpenter I learned, before you can leverage things apartyou have to find purchase. You have to have a place where a pry-barcan be slipped in or driven with a hammer to separate.That being done, whether by violent or pursuasive means,when two factions have been splitthey're easier to manipulate. These…
Asamprajanya I’m in the weeds on my knees pawing dark earth looking for my squash among prolific opportunist grasses and broad-leafed virtuosos at finding sustenance in the garden of a part-time farmer— finding advantage in his jammed schedule, in life’s necessary distractions and precious irrelevancies, his asamprajanya On knees I sweat under an indifferent sun…
“When you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note you play that determines if it’s good or bad.” —Miles Davis Next Note There are no bad notes if you’re open, cool and quick there’ll be a next note: first rung on a ladder from a ditch new rudder of a boat you'll sail to…
Elemental skysea sliced by bladehoned to a slick edge by the god of knivesdrawn now across a bluegray scrim bloodless sharp whiteclean as a whistle you might almost hear it whisperbut for its mystic stillness more thought than thing,free of bone and gristle. by Jim Culleny8/3/16 Photo by Terri Amig.
“The Holy Land is everywhere” —Black Elk Holy Land moving to one side out of traffic, off the shoulder into the weeds, listening it occures to me that nothing is tangential, life happens here regardless not unscathed by the mechanical operations of man, just essentially unmoved not unscathed by the myopic visions of man, but…
5 White cops fatally shot in Dallas: 7/7/2016 Philando Castile fatally shot in Falcon Heights: 7/6/16 Alston Sterling fatally shot in Baton Rouge: 7/5/16, David Duke’s back: 2016 … and more. ………………………………………… —US News. Jittering on a Rim with all this shooting going on it’s hard to tell who’s good and who’s bad. it must…
No Address —in memory of B.D. my oldest friend has left us he now has no address or his address is now not numbered there’s no street to be remembered no place that I can place him and now ephemeral I miss him he was a bollard I could tie to I could call him…
Eden the 5 pm Magnolia tree is flaunting its lemony green leaves again lush as every rite of spring, fresh, pregnant with light, it makes the quaking Aspen near the hoop house tremble its leaves aroused by breeze as we all, in this utterly new ensemble, excited as if on some brink, are poised, unprepared…
At The Milken Conference: “Attendees want to know about … politicsand global military campaigns only insofar as (they) produce newopportunities to make money. A panel called “Value in Turmoil” waspacked (and) ‘Opportunities in distress’ was a recurring theme.”…………………………………………. —David Dayen in The Intercept Das Kapital In a conference of elites the distress of others is…
Pakistan is digging trenches —graves for people who have not yet died as the country prepares for another record-breaking heat wave. Scientists place the blame for rising temperatures squarely on climate change. ……………………………………………………. —IndiaTimes, May 23, 2016 Diggers Dig …diggers dig.spades trace dolorous arcs in dry airmaking long scars for many corpses. diggers dig. sharp…
Twilight You waken with Uneasewho’d slept quietly beside you until the moment you had stirred Perhaps a tree had brushed a windowmaybe an attic squirrel had been perturbed,just as shadows begin moving when darkness is disturbed Unease upsets your mindwheelthe moment eyelids partwhich sets your mindwheel turning,working, opening the harbor gates of daylightto the terrifying…
Segue. in shifts from bright to dim there is no edge, no interim, as also none exists from wide to slim . the sun comes up in orange blaze night evaporates in such displayslines are indiscernible in nights to days . when life from bud to apple goes and succulence and color grows earth is…
Only in myth is death an illusion,but there’s beauty in hopeand hope in mythand myth in true profusion…………….. —Angela DiSperanza.Grief to Myth When they came to the tomb’s stoneit was set aside as if the occupant they’d loved had gone to breakfast with friendsleaving a folded sheet for them and some linen strips or notand,…
Standing at the East End of a PatioSeeing a Mountain and a Moon I have no ears for moonsnor eyes for the snapping of limbs against each other in the windthese come to me piecemeal by different sensesto be assembled in a dark placeinto a dream of moonlit-windy-nightwhere all up sides are glazed in silverwhile…
Scientists are claiming a stunning discovery in their quest to fully understand gravity.They have observed (gravitational waves) the warping of space-time generated by the collision of two black holes more than a billion light-years from Earth. —BBC, 2/11/16 Gravitational Waves when I entered your orbitand you swept into mineI gave a gravitational wavewhich you returned…
A Revolution of Tenderness The pope suggests love in his“Revolution of Tenderness and Love,”and though popes have been on the wrong side of love,this one, this Francis, is right But a revolution of tendernesswhich goes against the zeitgeist grainto be rapacious is the Marianas Trenchof dashed hopes and, therefore,the drowning place of dreams.This is what…
The Milky Way, is destined someday to collide with the next-nearest spiral galaxy, in the direction of the constellation Andromeda. When they collide, our sun will likely be flung into a new region of galactic space. But when is that someday? ……………………………………………………………….. —EarthSky.org. When Andromeda and the Milky Way Collide. the night sky now is…
Frogs Watching Worm TV A bunch of frogs gather to watch a video about worms on a cell phone… Posted by Daily Picks and Flicks on Wednesday, September 24, 2014 . Like Frogs.we congregatelike frogs before a video of foodpiling on— poking, jabbing, jumpingat the mysterious fabric of reality. Jim Culleny2/3/16..
… Solar Filaments the sun's intense but placidteasing this morning’s fog from the river,at least from this vantage, sitting as we areat a perfect distance from its orange fireboxsafe from its arcing solar filaments,the eruptions which suddenly uncoil like snakesand would reduce me to cinderswith their dragon breath if not forcertain equations like those that…
You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger. . WWBS? What Would Buddha Say, I thought, of all that flows from lips of wealthy oafs who claim to know the shortcuts on the highway to nirvana? I’d guess he’d sit in stillness, smile un-perplexed, knowing discontent and bile…