This is a reading by Jack Foley of three of his most recent, most significant poems. The first is a portrait of the astonishing French poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891). Jack writes in the second, longer poem--revised from the previous listing on Sound Cloud), "My writing is extremely varied but the task is not to unify these variations. The task is to find a structure which can contain them all. The task is not to lose any." RATTALK is an attempt to find such a structure. The third, short poem, "Day of the Dead," is a lament for all the dead.

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Rimbaud Rattalk (Revision) Day Of Dead

Americans don’t memorize poems but they do memorize song lyrics. What is the difference? The poet Basil Bunting described Ezra Pound’s Cantos as “our Alps.” Would anyone say the same thing about Cole Porter’s work? Or Duke Ellington’s? Might they say it about Bob Dylan’s?  Or Leonard Cohen’s? Or the work of The Beatles?  PART ONE

JACK FOLEY: SONG LYRICS & POETRY, PART ONE

In the 1960s young people felt that the new popular music to which they reacted so strongly was deeper, more significant than the popular music their parents listened to. They wished to refer to people such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, the Beatles and others as something more culturally important than songwriters or entertainers––which is of course what they were. But to call them that seemed to diminish the effect they were having on their listeners. They were not “songwriters”; they were poets.

JACK FOLEY: SONG LYRICS & POETRY, PART TWO

The aliveness that I associated with the intense experience of poetry thrust me into a larger world––a world in which the solidity of “I” disappeared and moved me in various directions. For me it wasn’t LSD or Indian philosophy or any philosophy (though Heidegger had a powerful influence) but a sense of the infinitude of language that brought me into poetry. I have recently thought of poetry as words constantly in motion, constantly moving beyond themselves, whether they appear in the form of verse or prose. Ecstasy seems to be linked to the instability of language.

Poetry in the sense I mean it is not so much self-expression as it is liberation from the notion of the self, though “self-expression” may be an element in it. It connects us to a larger, more expansive consciousness which differs from our ordinary state. Language can accomplish this transformation because language itself has this kind of being. Words may be separated out, contemplated as “individual” entities, yet they are fundamentally in a state of connectedness to all other words, through grammar, through sound, through etymology, through the thousands of contexts in which we encounter them. In how many contexts have we seen the word “love”? Once we open ourselves to it, language IS that more expansive consciousness, which is poetry, and which is why poetry—always in love with language, always “caught in the web of words”—can bring us to the deep awareness (perhaps the deep fiction) of the interconnectedness of all things.

Transform yourself
Cry the butterflies
Transform yourself
Cry the trees
Transform yourself
It is what you are made of
There is no glue that can hold you
No prison that can keep you or finalize you
You are night, day (diurnally they change!), a feather in the wind,
The light in the window of the dark, unfinished house.

Audio Files

JACK FOLEY 83rd BIRTHDAY SHOW   PART TWO

A MUTTER OF HOPKINS: A SONNET

Hippity Hop-
kins drowned in the verbal nerve of underovering
hovers in care of stepping stones to stop—
kin to the windhover, spring
flung down to plover
I in heaven haven
mutter like a sound-struck lover
craven
before the final fierce
ecstasy of ecce homo—
Dolben’s death pierce-
s the faith of Rome oh,
Seigneur, clutch
With thy hands me, my sole soul, sweet touch!

an homage to the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins performed by Jack Foley and Helen Wendy Loo. Written by Jacck Foley.

A MUTTER OF HOPKINS  JACK FOLEY WITH HELEN WENDY LOO

DAFFODILS AND JUNIPERS:  a song

Daffodils and junipers
And music in the air
Sweet tempered hollyhocks
Haunt my lonely longing

Listen to the wind and stars
And listen to my heart
Nothing to comfort me
Where am I belonging

Where’s that promised happy ending
Where’s the love that you were sending
Was it all a dream
Who can tell what comes before us
In the endless mocking chorus
Fate’s a river streaming

Daffodils and junipers
And music in my heart
Your image comes to me
Bringing sweet memory…
Our love is singing in my heart!

music: Warren Wechsler
lyric: Jack Foley

	––for Ms. Juniper Kestrel Leihe (b. June 14, 2023)

PERSONNEL
Conroy Jing , vocal;  Jon Dryden, piano;  Will Graefe , guitar;  Doug Pohorsky, bass;  Ron E Beck, drums;  Tony Perez, flugelhorn;  Jamie Dubberly, bass trombone;  Paul Cantos, alto flute. Arranged by Jon Dryden. Engineered by Doug Pohorsky.  Mixed and mastered by Steve Glaze.

Jack Foley / Warren Wechsler: Daffodils and Juniper: a song

MUSIC & VOCALS Tony Perez
LYRICS Jack Foley


HOLY BOURGEOIS

At long last I am finally booshie
Behold me, I am a bourgeois
So, lower classes, 
Go fall on your—faces
I have risen above what you are

I’m a fan of the great Leonard Bernstein 
Not Jimi but SegoviAH
Like JC I have risen
From my class-defined prison
I’m a sterling cane-whirling bourgeois

To the symphony I have a pass, kid
To the opera I go with my glass, kid
Someday I’ll be an upper class kid
While YOU remain just where you are!

To Cartier’s I go looking for bargains
I discovered I LIKE caviar
So listen you lummox
I’m no longer a dumb ox 
I ain’t lowly I’m wholly bourgeois

CHORUS He ain’t lowly he’s wholly bourgeois


photo: Sangye Land & Jack Foley performing

HOLY BOURGEOIS

GEORGIA SAND

(Verse)
Georgia Sand was an authoress
Who all through her life had great success
Not only with her books
But also with her looks

Among the boys who gave her fun
Young Alfred de Musset was the one
That Georgia loved the most
For he was such a good host

Every night that beau of Georgia's
Gave an affair that would scare the Borgias
French champagne and Russian ballets
Ellington's band and Rudy Vallee's

All went right till one fine night
Her favorite of males
Gave a ball and to shock them all
Georgia came in tails

When he saw his best girl in trousers
Alfred nearly died
And in front of all those carousers
Alfred loudly cried:

(Chorus)
Georgia Sand
Dressed up like a gent
Georgia Sand
What do you represent?
Where are your frills
That gave me such thrills?
Where are those undies
That made my Saturdays to Sundays?

Georgia Sand
Can’t you understand?
Though I worship you
You’re a little too
Plump, I fear,
To pull a Marlene Dietrich, dear,
Georgia Sand, go home and change!

Song by Cole Porter
Performed by Andrea McArdle and the Stephen Hill Singers

GEORGIA SAND

NEELI

an old friend
so strongly looking forward
to the imminent publication
of his work by City Lights––
suddenly stricken
by a heart attack.
one person says Thursday
one says Saturday.
“Jesse found him bleeding from the head 
and thought it was only from that fall. 
It wasn’t until they got him to the hospital 
that Jesse discovered he had 
that heart attack.”
“He’s on life support
and it doesn’t look good.”
someone else says,
“induced coma.”
what viciousness
the gods display
should they take
this moment of his
joy,
the moment in which
he understands his life’s work
to be vindicated––
what contempt, what cruelty,
what carelessness of human toil 
if they should take
this moment
from him.
live, Neeli, live.

.

3/19/24

goddam, Neeli, you didn’t make it
goddam, Neeli, you didn’t make it
goddam, Neeli, you didn’t make it
not your fault, not your fault
nothing wrong with your heart
which was big and strong and open to all
not your fault, not your fault
you blamed yourself for so much
goddam, Neeli, you didn’t make it
goddam, Neeli, you didn’t make it
the heart in your body failed
not the heart in your mind
not the heart in the poetry
all of that lives
in everyone who knew you
in all who read you
goddam, Neeli, you didn’t make it
goddam
goddam
may that book launch
be the biggest book launch
City Lights ever had
may all the poets, living and dead,
may Hank and Lawrence and Bob and Diane and Jack welcome you
and put their hands on your shoulders
and say what great work you did
may all your lovers all your lovers
(and who failed to love you?)
weep as I am weeping now
why did it take City Lights so long
to publish you?
no matter now.
all of the lights
of this great city
of san francisco
should be dimmed tonight
we have lost a luminary
we have lost
Neeli
still boyish in his 70s
still the poet
still the gay man
who wrote about so many
and whose words
gave heart
to all.
*Whitman’s wild child
goes home.*


NEARLY...

upscale supermarket.
a woman is screaming,
“Neeli, hey, Neeli.”
no sign of Neeli anywhere.
she screams again,
“Neeli, hey, Neeli.”
I realize she is screaming at me.
“Excuse me, are you referring to
Neeli Cherkovski, the poet?”
I ask.
“Yes, yes. Hi, Neeli.”
I explain that I am Jack Foley,
also a poet but not Neeli.
“I am not Neeli,”
I explain,
“only *Nearly*
Cherkovski.”
The woman laughs.
“They hang together,”
she explains
to her boyfriend.

True story!


NEELI AGAIN

a younger poet friend,
in his late 70s,
surprised everyone
by dying.
the last time
I spoke to him,
he was certain
he was at
Death’s Door
but the doctors
kept telling him
he was fine.
Neeli!—
turned out
you were
right.

JACK FOLEY: POEMS FOR NEELI CHERKOVSKI (1945-2024)

AT THE CROSSROADS:
A LIE ABOUT ROBERT JOHNSON:
A BALLAD
 
there's a dark man waiting
down by the crossroads
they say he's older
than a thousand years
holds a knife in one hand
in the other a guitar
they say when you meet him
you flow with tears
I'll see, I'll see
 
he's got a million names
but one's old nick
seen a million things
go down the stream
he'll never be blessed
but he'll never die
I always thought
he was just a dream
I'll see, I'll see
 
my name is Robert
son of John
I want my hands
to learn to play
he says I have
an immortal soul
if I have it's his
I'm in his sway
I'll see, I'll see
 
Robert, dear Robert
says my soul to me
Robert, dear Robert
you still are free
you still can refuse
his foul commands
music comes pouring
from my willing hands
I'll see, I'll see

Tony Perez, vocal; Don Caruth, guitar; Jon Dryden, piano and Hammond B-3; Doug Pohorsky, bass; Ron E Beck, drums. Engineered by Doug Pohorsky. Mixed and mastered by Steve Glaze.

AT THE CROSSROADS   Jack Foley  (lyric) /Tony Perez (music, vocals)

JACK FOLEY READS MEMORIAL POEM FOR HIS FRIEND, FELLOW POET IVÁN ARGÜELLES

01 IVAN MEMORIAL POEM READING 1

RECORDING 2019

I wished only
to speak a message
into the mic.
suddenly song—
out of nowhere, 
unpremeditated.
*I got a woman
Sangye is her name
her eyes shoot fire
her hands are flame
I love her laughter
love to wake her up
her lips are sweeter
than a honey cup.
you got a woman
way cross town
I don’t want a woman 
I got to visit!
I want a woman 
in my bed at night
looks like Aphrodite
I may look a fright.
(she don’t mind!)
Sangye is her name
Sangye
mmmmmmmm
like “song”
like “ganja”
Sangye is her name.*
I wasn’t singing
something I knew,
I was simply following
whatever whispered
to me,
“performance” & “creation”
merging in those moments
as I sang
and recorded.
it wasn’t something
I “worked on.”
later, my friend Tony Perez
recorded the song
with musical accompaniment.
he did a fine job
but for him,
it was a song
like any other song.
for me,
it was something else.
*ma muse
m’amuse.*
a moment
of magic,
sudden
and transformative.
but perhaps
all songs
aspire to be
a moment 
of magic,
sudden 
and transformative.
*like song
like ganja
Sangye is her name.*



A SONG THAT RHYMES SOMETIMES (FOR SANGYE)

01 OLD AGE (SONG)

Marquis Who's Who radio interview with Jack Foley. Jack speaks of his lifelong involvement with poetry. Interviewer: Charles Varriale,

John W Foley

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