DRAWINGS BY BASIL KING
This is the first book of Pines work, published in 1972 by Mulch Press, with images by Black Mountain painter Basil King, also the publisher, until the press ended in 1976. Some of these poems appeared in Lillabulero. This significant small press published a catalog that included Allan Ginsberg, Joel Oppenheimer, Susan Sherman, Toby Olson, Harry Lewis, M.G. Stephens and Paul Blackburn. This last poet, Paul Blackburn, was a friend and mentor to Pines, who even now grieves his early death, at the age of forty-five, on September 13, 1971, the year before this book was published.
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CHANNEL FEVER
First Henry Leghorn the baker wearing white shoes
comes up to me on deck and says, We’re really down,
here, man, you dig what I’m telling you? Then
the chief cook with a rag tied around his head
pipes up, We stick together, man, go out, get drunk
together, make whores and everything man together.
Then the rivers of the world start leading out
as well as in & oil and graphite from the engine
room are ignited in my lungs & I’m leaning on
the rail watching our screws kicking up suds
& the gallyman from Gulfport Mississippi suggests
someone’s added bluing to the mothafucking sea
THE BACK COVER FEATURES PAUL AND BASIL KING. PHOTO BY C. LASKY.
About the Artist:
Basil King goes ".... back and forth between painting and writing, on two different floors of my house in Brooklyn. One feeds the other and in both I bring disparate things together." For more go to his web site.