Harry´s Blog

Jazz Brunch with Harry Kuhner
“The No-Nosense 4″ are:
Eddie Salmen on Trumpet
Harry Kuhner on Drums
Jürgen Pingitzer on Piano
Peter Strutzenberger on Contrabass
Harry Kuhner reads some of his great Jazz-Poems
11:30 a.m. Sunday July 6. 2008 at Wienerwald. Waehringerstrasse 85, 1180 Wien Tel.: 050 15 16 118

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David will be visiting Vienna from July 14th to 18th.
A meeting can be arranged by contacting Harry Kuhner.
The following poem was inspired by our mutual friend Jozo Boskovski
who left us this year for the Universe.
- H. K.
The Man Who Said “Maybe”
He said a European flight
from Macedonia
took more time going
than returning
because the earth turned favorably.
Try to […]

Nat Hentoff

From Swing Men and Women by Herbert Kuhner
You could call Nat Hentoff,
the Dean of jazz critics.
I’ve already expressed my
admiration for him.
Nat has always been politically minded
and he certainly knows how to write
a political sentence,
as well as a sentence about music.
Nat is now “pro-life.”
He’s opposed to,
what some refer to
as murder before birth.
Abortion is not exactly
a […]

Herbert Kuhner
from Swing Men and Women
Hans Weigel,
who was reputed to be
the dean of Austrian critics,
claimed that Uncle Sam
had committed “mortal sins”
in the music category.
Porter, Berlin and Kern
are named as the greatest sinners,
but the sinner of sinners,
according to Weigel,
was George Gershwin.
He calls Gershwin
“a second-hand syncopation profiteer.”
Hans, there’s a song I’d like to play for you.
It’s called […]

divisible morals
sports and politics
they say
are two different things
they say
referring to the dark years
of murder and death
in the past
they were fellow travelers
they say
nazis
and knew what was going on
and bore responsibility for it
they say
referring to the past
sports and politics
they say
are two different things
they say
and mean murder and death
today
in tibet
-translated from the German
by Herbert Kuhner

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Jozo has left us
My friend Jozo has left us for the Universe.
I first met him when I attended the Struga Evenings Poetry Festival in 1972. I last saw him at that venue in 1982. We kept in touch after that. I didn’t think I’d never see him again. God, how I miss him! He was […]

Habsburg 1967
Long after, after the catastrophies
his people had experienced,
Habsburg walks through the remnants
and unties the knots.
As he enters the gates of the Republic,
porcelain rattles and silver jingles
in the Hofburg, and a Pannonic swan
wearing spurs climbs to the pulpit.
Lichtentenstein rigidly witnesses the spectacle,
holding a Sudeten glass of Helvetian wine,
and Bohemian camp followers scrape their feet,
giving the […]

Hillary’s Hands
If Hillary’s in the White House
and the red phone rings,
the little girl sleeping in her bed
can go on sleeping safely
‘cause her life’s in Hillary’s hands.
The child in the eight-year-old clip
is approaching her eighteenth birthday.
She objects to being used in a Hillary ad
and wants to cast her vote for Obama.
- Herbert Kuhner

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Hillary - Hope for the Jingoists
Bush is Nixon all over again
and it’s hitting the fan every day,
McCain is ready to replace W.
but it’s hard to duck the substance
that’s being spluttered by the fan.
The born-again jingoist cruds
have one hope - and that’s Hillary.
Obama is ahead in the Delegate count
and she cannot overtake him.
Dem-Super-Delegates Harold Ickies,
Geraldine Ferraro […]

Herbert Kuhner
No foe is hated as much
as the honorable foe.
No foe is countered with such brutality
as the foe with integrity.
That foe is placed at the top
of every hit list,
and when he is beaten, he is beaten
within an inch of his life.
The world must be cleared of heroes
and anyone who stands in the way
of power and […]

There are people on our side
who write for
racist and revisionist tabloids
in order to make their liberal ideas
available to a large readership;
there are people on our side
who forge documents
to exonerate people on our side;
there are those who favor dictatorship
and oppose
a democratic form of government;
those who declare solidarity
with political leaders
responsible for massacres;
those who recommend assassination
as a means […]

told me to tell the truth.
The dishonest man
told me to be honest.
The dishonorable man
told me to behave honorably
The indecent man
told me to be decent.
The con man
told me not to con anyone.
The rake
told me to live in celibacy.
The thief
told me not to steal.
The murderer
told me not to kill.
That’s what’s known
as morality.
But what counts
is the validity of […]

Only a liar
can lie,
only a cheat
can cheat,
only a thief
can steal,
only a traitor
can betray,
only a murderer
can murder,
only a criminal
can commit crimes.

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A Propos Cleanliness!
This is where
you learn to be clean.
I’ve never seen
so many faucets and sinks,
so much soap
and so many nail brushes.
There’s soaping and soaping,
scrubbing and scrubbing,
brushing and brushing,
rubbing and rubbing,
drying and drying
and wiping and wiping.
At every occasion
the plugs are put in,
the faucets are turned on
and soap is generously applied.
Hands are washed and washed
until they’re chaffed […]

Padhi at the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna 2007
“A genius is at work here - and nobody takes notice”
But now they are taking notice!
Padhi Frieberger’s One-Man Show
Padhi’s Key: “I not only conceived my work, I lived it.”

Padhi Is Here
(from the catalogue)
Herbert Kuhner
Charlie came first and then came Buster. Charlie pratfell and caused pratfalls, and he […]

Shades shielding his eyes,
walkman plugs
in his ears,
chewing gum
in his mouth,
a butt between his lips -
he’s safe.
Yes, he’s safe from
thinking a thought.
The iPod is his filter
as he goes from one techno temple
to another.
All the digital and techno accoutrements
are not the accoutrements of democracy,
but rather the accoutrements of dictatorship.
Techno music at full blast and multiple flatscreens
blot out […]

Here’s an except from an article in News August, 30, 2007 titled “Yes, we wanted to kill!” Three Styrian youths planned to murder a woman. They wanted to hear death cries, so they set bird chicks on fire. Nineteen-year-old Karlheinz recalls that Daniel told him how “terrific” it is to kill animals. “We got right […]

Max
Max has left us at the age of 83.
He started off with Dizzy and Bird
in the Forties.
Bebop was the name of the game.
Then Max went on into the Realm of Cool
and he never stopped moving.
Here are he is in his own words:
“You can’t write the same book twice.
Though I’ve been in historic musical situations,
I […]

We believe in redemption,
and a reformed enemy can
become a good friend.
It’s better to have a friend
than an enemy.
Or is it?
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was our enemy,
but now he’s our friend
He may have orchestrated
the downing of PanAm passenger jet
over Lockerbie way back in ‘88
and other acts of terror in bygone days.
but Muammar is our friend now,
and we’re […]

Schocken Books, 1985
Reviews and Comments - Pressestimmen
This fine bilingual anthology draws together the work of 45 contemporary Austrian poets. They are inheritors of a distinct literary tradition which combined strong linguistic self-consciousness with a tendency toward experimentation….This collection is of particular value because it makes many first-rate works of poetry available to the English public […]

Herbert Kuhner
Two is better than one,
and that goes for bass drums.
Now there are double bass drum peddles
for one drum
so that you can use the hi-hat as well,
while you’re at it.
Ray McKinley started using two in ‘41.
That went almost unnoticed.
Louie Bellson made a big splash with them,
or rather big thuds, nine years later.
But to this credit, […]

Herbert Kuhner
Jazz is a religion,
but it’s a nice religion.
The faithful don’t pray together,
they just listen or play together.
There are, to be sure,
various musical sects,
and there may be some fanaticism,
but it is not expressed by violence,
but rather on musical instruments.
-From Swing Men and Women

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Here’s a comment on Sermon I received from David Axelrod,
American poet and writer:
Hello Harry,
I would jump at the chance to see the Brody poem published.
It is a wonderfully blasphemous, scatological piece
which most people won’t understand as they are locked onto their faith
like passengers on a plane experiencing turbulence.
Others would have to work hard to say […]

Alter Brody
The Jew
Like a mad accountant
Trying to make sense out of a senseless ledger
Balancing the Holy Scriptures of his life
With double entry bookkeeping.
With good and with evil.
With reward and with punishment.
Juggling, the accounts
To make debit and credit meet.
To cover up
The latest overdraft on his agony.
But sometimes
In a moment of revulsion
In a moment of insidious sanity
He […]

Herbert Kuhner
I first came upon Alter Brody’s poems when I received a poem card from Anthony Rudolf of the Menard Press, London with The Holy Ledger. This striking poem, which is presented here, started me off on collecting the work of this significant poet and playwright.
I met the American poet George Wallace at a reading […]

LAMENTATIONS
Jews of the Old World in the New World
by
ALTER BRODY
Author of “A Family Album”
Lamentations are four one-act plays about Jews of the Old World who lead lives in the New World.
In Lowing in the Night a married couple who owns a candy store in the Bronx serve children every day but can have none of […]

Herbert Kuhner and George Wallace have edited
Before the Storm - The Complete Poetic Works of Alter Brody
The American Jewish poet Alter Brody published A Family Album,
a volume of poetry, in the last year of World War I.
He continued to publish in journals during the Twenties.
In 1928, Brody published Lamentations, Four One Act […]

Milena Merlak Detela
Her long hair
got caught
in the wheel of night;
she was brave.
Unjustly condemned
she suffered
as she spun around;
she was bright.

Poem by Alter Brody
Like a petulant child
The wind railed in the tree tops,
Tearing aimlessly through the foliage
Pulling plaintively at the twigs,
Shaking the branches,
Fretfully.
Like mothers,
Fondly-indulgent,
The old trees bent their heads
Chidingly, soothingly.

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Herbert Kuhner

The Nazis called
the great art
of the 20th Century
degenerate.

by Herbert Kuhner
There are people on our side
who write for
racist and revisionist tabloids
in order to make their liberal ideas
available to a large readership;
there are people on our side
who forge documents
to exonerate people on our side;
there are those who favor dictatorship
and oppose
a democratic form of government;
those who declare solidarity
with political leaders
responsible for massacres;
those who recommend assassination
as […]