The head is shrunk, the bud is skunk, the punk’s a monk
for Mike Parker
I am lucky enough, having heard this poet read several times,
that I can hear his voice when I read the poems on printed pages
the rhythms and repetitions of wit, grit and woodstove ardor,
the raucous rumble and Stellar’s Jay squawking,
a socially conscious voice that exists as a pacifists fist,
mocking those more focused on shares than on sharing
the sudden shift in the timbre of the weather
when the clockwork winds blow him home
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This poem is in commemoration of the publishing of Mike Parker’s latest book of poems Walking on Water in a Razorblade Breeze by D’Spare Press. His previous books, Sunflower Sutra and Don’t Fall off the Mountain are available at Amazon.com.
This poem is from my notebook The nameless way woven with crooked genius and will be considered for inclusion in my next book of poetry currently being set to manuscript, Deepening the Map. If you like this poem, please check out other samples of my poetry here on my blog. You might also be interested in the poetry in Span, my collection of poems published by Rhizome Publishing which has just gone to paper back.
with cover art by Matthias Valdez (Mo) of Last Leaf Printing
and published by Rhizome Publishing.
Span is a selection of poems in what has been coined the Human Ecology genre written by David A. Martin, reflecting a unique undercurrent in the reawakening of environmental consciousness in the American west. (Read detailed description and reviews of Span below)
“David Anthony Martin is a nature poet the way Frank O’Hara was a city poet. He has paid attention, assimilated the beauty and mystery of his surroundings, and let it color his poetry in delicate ways. He says, “everything will be alright just shut up and listen.” He draws from dreams and folktale and myth. He contemplates streams and trees and bears. And he does it in language that is beguiling, sly and as lovely as a September peach. These are poems to carry in your metaphorical pocket like small runic stones, with lines that you will want to contemplate again and again. Like this brief poem called “stream of consciousness:” “the moon is not in the quick silver stream, the moon is in the still, void-dark lake.” Span is delicious reading.”
~Corey Mesler, author of Before the Great Troubling and Notes toward the Story and Other Stories
“Thoreau, Cid Corman, Lorine Niedecker, Whalen & Snyder, Sam Hamill and now David Martin, a wilderness walker returning as the missing lynx in the lineage of nature based poetry heartbeating it’s way into our gorges & forests – it has the aroma of wild mushrooms & the flow of a raging springmelt. The poems span the distance between old friends. ‘Less like a voice / more like a knowing’”
~Mike Parker, author of Don’t Fall Off The Mountain and Wallflower Sutra
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To buy Span now with Paypal, Click on image below.
Paperback, 144 pages.
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SPAN
About the book
David A. Martin, an environmental educator and naturalist, holds hands with man’s separation from nature and man’s return to union with nature as he focuses on the beauty and elegance of Nature wherever he finds it. These poems illuminate the simplicity and complexity of the inner and outer worlds of the poet.
Much of Martin’s earlier polemic works expressed the consequences of alienation from nature as being disastrous to the individual, humanity and the rest of the world. The poems in span exemplify the reunification, or possibly, ascension of man living in harmony with nature as a place of hope, healing, redemption and salvation of not only the individual, but also the human race and the rest of the world.
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an illuminated path of heart 