Head Lines: Poems and Passages

By John Yurechko

Head Lines: Poems and Passages is a collection of poems that were written to be read out loud, either alone, or with one another, or in a group. They chronicle the life and experiences of author John Yurechko. They are written in a style and format that lends itself to reading out loud, with line breaks, BIG VOICES in ALL CAPITALS, and whispers in italics, pauses, rushes, vocalizations, etc. These visual guides are as much a part of the writing as the words themselves.

Head Lines is a collection of the authors writings spanning fifty years. He reflects on topics ranging from his childhood in a steel town, to life in California, Virginia and North Carolina, and to everyday events that he describes in these poems and passages.

Raking Leaves . . . Then to the Masters own backyard: there are rake hands on the Rovers of Mars, to scrape deep into all the sustaining planets. And rakes in Voyagers arms, sweeping up the swirling mess of the galaxies, raking time and space so the heavens will look gloriously orderly and ready for pickup on The Last Trash Day. With this work, we reverse the billions of autumns, raise up all the droppings, and resurrect The Very First Tree. Nailing the leaves to the branches, stabbing the branches back into the trunk and the trunk into the ground; the roots back into the seed; and the seed back into the Godhead who proclaims: This is The Law That Makes Things Rise and Makes Things Fall.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491745045

John Yurechko

John Yurechko was born in the coal mining region near Hazleton, Pennsylvania. He went to graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, earning an MA and PhD in history. He became one of the founding members of the Berkeley Poets’ Commune. He is married and has three daughters.

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HEAD LINES

Poems and Passages

Copyright © 2014 John Yurechko.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-4505-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-4504-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014916686

iUniverse rev. date: 11/06/2014

Contents

Preface

Year 1970

Night Shift, Fairless Works, US Steel, Summer 1970

Year 1972

Are These Stones from Olympus?

Year 1976

The Lunch after Life Was Better

Year 1998

Planned Precision

In the sea foam,

The youngest taunts

The oldest child,

The girl in the middle

Each Day

Year 2000

The Ocean

You know an Angry Sea.

What is an Angry Sea?

If the Sun

The Anger

Socrates

And Then the Days

Sometimes

Year 2001

Six Stones

Ten Time Swimmer

I See What You’re Seeing

The Blue Net

The Attack of the Krill

We Need a Word for It

Over, Under

Exiled

Year 2002

Please Pay Attention

It Can’t Make It

How Did Those Men Do That?

My Butt

Everything I Do

Year 2004

The Natural Law Governing the Disappearance of Desire

Take a Flat Sea

The Supper’s Nightcap

If Only

I Want it

A Memory of Buenos Aires

Arrival

The Second Day

The Second Day (A Kid’s Perspective)

A Glass of Water by My Bed

Encounter

The Approaching Storm

Year 2007

The Left Leg

He’s a Forceful Fish

The Stare

The Family Wants

The Coming of the Wind

Year 2009

The Chronicle of Constant Pain

The Eyes

Calibrating the Hurt

What Should I

A Horse with Wings Like the Wright Brothers’ Airplane

And Now I Am Afraid

Year 2010

Love Lost

And This Is How Each Day Begins

Do Not Fool

One Hour or Two

Different Shells

Ever Matter

Thinking

I Can’t Stand

Today’s Report

The Clinical Depths of Rudeness

Year 2011

Hospital

Alien Device Implanted to Control My Very Heart

Black Spot

Year 2012

Last Year

The Gulf II

The Gulf III

Chichen Itza

It’s Become

Lines

Raiatea/ Le Taha’a

The Massage

Le Taha’a

The Sex Life of the Vanilla Bean

And Back Again

I Am Sorry, Very

Friday Takeout Chinese Delivery

Sunday

Monday

One Yellow Candle

Tuesday

Wednesday

Friday

Which Way?

These Lands

Old Men

Seville-Seeing

To Lisbon

Better Wine

Year 2013

You’ll Never

The Laws of Nature

The Loss of Simultaneity

I Am So Frightened

Finding in a Constellation of People

All of You

Two Frogs on the Glass Storm Door

A Few

Grand Force

Malt

Year 2014

Raking Leaves

How I Spent the Fourth of July 2014

Images

Image 1—Planned Precision

Image 2—Giggles

Image 3—Taunting the Sea

Image 4—The Oldest Child in Transition

Image 5—The Girl in the Middle

Image 6—The Snake Mouthed Hatred

Image 7—Over Under

Image 8—The Universal Theory