A Sacred Madness<\/strong> I turned my thoughts inside my ears Behind the sky, the moon succumbed My head bowed to darkness, Years later I lay down in woods The Abyss<\/strong> Bio<\/strong> The Way Out<\/strong> The Windows For a while we hear the larks, What happens when birds sing One late summer night a voice things calm, the windows close ISBN: 978-1-929878-33-8 Leonard J. Cirino passed away on March 10, 2012\u2028He is greatly missed.<\/em><\/p>\n Leonard J. Cirino (1943 – 2012) was the author of nineteen chapbooks and seventeen full-length collections of poetry since 1987 from numerous small presses. He lived in Springfield, Oregon, where he retired and worked full-time as a poet. His full-length collection, Chinese Masters, is from March Street Press, 2009. His 100 page collection, Omphalos: Poems 2007 was published in 2010 from Pygmy Forest Press. A 64 page selection, Tenebrion: Poems 2008 is from Cedar Hill Publications, in 2010. His 60 page collection, Triple Header is due from Cervena Barva Press, E. Somerville, MA in 2012. His collection, Homeland, Exile, Longing & Freedom was published by AA Press in 2011.<\/p>\n About the book:<\/strong> I still devote most of my reading, except for magazines, to poets in translation. I\u2019d say that 75-80% of the poetry I read is in translation because I find people from around the world have far more to say than the poets in the US who are either self-described \u201coutlaws\u201d or belong to the privileged or academic classes and I don\u2019t relate to either of them.<\/p>\n As one of my poems says, \u201cHe was hard at work being unemployed,\u201d and only in the last five years of working did I live above the poverty level. I always had food and shelter and enough street smarts to trade for used books and I didn\u2019t want for much more than that. As far as where my writing is going I just keep on keeping on. I have received no awards or grants, won no contests, yet I am among the most devoted, well read, and hardest working poets in the US or anywhere. I don\u2019t have many illusions about success\u2014especially in today\u2019s literary market\u2014so I will go on in my suburban hermit mode and do the real work. Most likely I will keep on reading translations from all over the world and use the poets I read to \u201cinspire\u201d my own work. As this title says, I have become \u201cThe Instrument of Others.\u201d \u2014 Leonard J. Cirino<\/p>\n “Poets like Cirino, who trust in metaphor as a path to poetic and perhaps spiritual enlightenment, who follow European symbolist models in the attempt to de-familiarize the ordinary and expose its full dimensions, and who approach the world with a generosity of perception rather than an intellectual full-court press are not currently in fashion. The publishing world is only occasionally friendly to them.”
\nI didn\u2019t want to listen but the wind, the sea,
\nhowled the world\u2019s blood-stained torments.<\/p>\n
\nand there a scarlet madness screamed.<\/p>\n
\nto dawn, the twilight gleamed in pain.<\/p>\n
\nlife was wretched, struggle dreary.<\/p>\n
\nand bloomed among the ferns.<\/p>\n
\nIt was clear at first, later my brain shattered.
\nAfter a few years, suddenly I\u2019m old. Back then,
\nwhen the wind called I would answer, the birds
\ntormented me and the ocean\u2019s cries caused aches
\nin all my tissues. Now, I spy on nature\u2019s aspects;
\nthe alders blow away in peaceful thoughts,
\nrivers lament the passing of loved ones
\nI remain grateful to. Man of few talents,
\nwith even less to do, I guard my leisure jealously.
\nThe times are fast, and I am even slower
\nthan past centuries when people carried on
\nat a graceful pace. Methodical, I walk my dog
\nin the woods, go out to the hills and streams
\nfearing the abyss will crush me for having too much.<\/p>\n
\nBorn a small stream, bare trickle,
\nI grew into a storming river
\nbut learned my place
\nwhen I entered the great sea.<\/p>\n
\nafter Du Fu<\/strong>
\nThe way out of these mountains forgotten,
\ncheckered moonlight covers the forest floor.
\nI walk with old ghosts at my side,
\nmy feet make little skitters in the duff.
\nI don\u2019t know which path to take. A glow leads
\nus to a logging road. Dog at my knees,
\nwe\u2019re down to meadows and streams. The clearings
\ntemper my fear. Not too far ahead,
\nmy brother\u2019s barn where we will find refuge.
\nTen thousand sad atoms twist in the wind.<\/p>\n
\n<\/b>One\u2019s life lasts an hour or two
\nin the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n
\nthe blows come later.<\/p>\n
\nand then death stabs hard?<\/p>\n
\nreaches down to life\u2019s remains,<\/p>\n
\nand open to a different scheme.
\n<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nPages:120
\nPublishing Date: Mar. 2012 <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n
\nIn the late 80\u2019s some friends of mine traveled to Europe and left me with several anthology translations from the southern and eastern Europeans and my interest in poetry was restored. I had become very despondent with the quality of US poets since the deaths of Lowell, Berryman, Sexton, Theodore Roethke, and James Wright. Very few US poets spoke to me then and they still do not now. I think this is when I began to find my own voice mixed among the voices of many poets I could relate to \u2013 men and women who had been through either the Spanish Civil War or World War 2 \u2013 either under Nazi or Communist occupation.<\/p>\n
\n\u2014 William Doreski (from the preface)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":4967,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[292],"product_tag":[305,298],"class_list":{"0":"post-4966","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-books","7":"product_tag-leonard-j-cirino","8":"product_tag-lummox-press","10":"first","11":"instock","12":"taxable","13":"shipping-taxable","14":"purchasable","15":"product-type-simple"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/4966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=4966"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=4966"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lummoxpress.com\/lc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=4966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}