Ignore the Dead, Sept 1st
New Poems
Poem for Cormac McCarthy
The Storyteller
~for Cormac McCarthy
If all stories have been told
and there’s only variance in their telling,
what of gods then,
who know all things?
Future, past, present,
swirled like honey around a silver spoon
before stirring through so much bourbon
meant to coat a singer’s throat.
Perhaps God is the story.
Or it becomes the story
through the sacrament of telling,
the sharing of experience,
of details flitting like weightless spiders
across the surface of a pond
where that pond embodies the essence
of human spirit
cupped and passed between
strangers thirsty from their travels,
much spilling through aching fingers,
dribbling to the ground.
Some losses can be felt
before their arrival.
A thirst before physical exertion,
before pain.
They hang like malevolent clouds
beyond the precipice of our world,
unseen yet present
in an atmosphere thick with expectancy
like the scent of blood
in a toolshed, where something happened
both unspeakable and haunting.
This is the nature of stories,
and all have a role to fulfill
in their making, in their living,
each tongue a gear work
in the mechanism of the universe.
Today, the gods frowned
and shook their collective heads,
they dragged their gnarled knuckles
through their beards
or across the gruff whiskers of their chins,
and they acknowledged
that another ramshackle room
had been emptied of its guest,
a flicker of lightning
gone to wander the outer rim,
returned to the story
from which his ether had been birthed.
The telling, however, remained,
for nothing once spoken can be unmade.
Thank You
This is just a note to say, thanks to everyone who has given my debut novel APNEA a chance.
Since its release in January, it has sold 261 copies. It has 45 ratings on Goodreads and 35 on Amazon, with an average rating over 4 stars on both sites.
Reviews for the work have been overwhelmingly positive, and encouraging. Five reader comments have referred to the novel as a “masterpiece” which is a truly humbling and unbelievably amazing thing for an author to hear.
I have submitted it to be considered for The BookLife Prize, The Writer’s Digest fiction prize, The Stoker Award for first novel, and a couple other indie awards.
Now, I am working on my next book. I am 120 pages into it, currently over 40,000 words, and feeling good about where it is going. It’s a horror novel, and this time I am aiming to really get under people’s skin. I am trying to write something so scary, you will have nightmares for weeks after you read it.
I have written a novel
I’m so excited. After years of failing to complete a book of prose, during the final two months of 2022 I finished the first draft of a novel.
This is a goal I set for myself at the beginning of the year, and I consider it a small miracle that I was able to see it through to completion, with so little time to spare. When I saw the NaNoWriMo posts begin online from others who were trying to write their first books, it spurred me to dedicate my efforts with my full attention.
I began my novel draft on November 3, and I finished it on December 23, just in time for it to be a Christmas gift to myself. The first draft was 42,000 words.
This morning, I completed work on re-writes and initial edits. The second draft is 52,000 words. I’ve sent drafts to beta readers to gain insights on what works and doesn’t work. Responses from the first draft were highly positive, and I feel that the second draft is a vast improvement in nearly every aspect. I look forward to hearing from readers on what they think.
The novel is a work of dystopian sci-fi, in the tradition of I Am Legend, Fahrenheit 451, and The Handmaid’s Tale. I’ve tried to marry my key influences into one cohesive style of prose that is not only readable, but compelling. I think this book succeeds in those goals, and at least one reader commented that it was “really original” and a “page-turner.”
Below is the cover I designed for the book. Be looking for it to come out this year. I can’t wait for you to read this.
SHAME: A new poem
Please check out my newest poem, “Shame,” which I published yesterday on Medium.
I think it’s pretty good. I know, I know, my own opinion is worthless. But maybe you’ll agree anyway?
Also, I reviewed the latest Ryan Adams album, “Chris,” which has for some reason stopped showing up in Google search results. I find that odd, since like no one else has reviewed it at all. If that interests you, please check it out.
As always, I appreciate any support you give through sharing my work and of course, reading it.
Thank you.
Politrix: political poems, is out now
Just a note to say that my full-length collection of political poetry has now been released.
POLITRIX: political poems, is a collection that puts most of my poems about social issues into one cohesive volume. While I did not want to just combine my other three political books into this one, some of the better poems from those works did make the cut in this mostly new and unseen collection. These poems deal with issues such as the Trump presidency, gun control, immigration, climate change, racism, censorship, and more.
Over 120 pages of new poetry for you to read and enjoy.
This is the last poetry collection I had in the hopper, and I have no plans to release any more. For the foreseeable future, my focus will be entirely on my fiction.
As always, thanks for your support.
My Instagram poem coffee table book
Just wanted to drop a line and pimp my latest offering, which is a full-sized, full-color coffee table book of the photo poems I once shared to Instagram. It started off as a parody of sorts, mocking the superficiality of the trend, but as I progressed with it, my attempts got more serious and elaborate in their use of the medium to convey a poetic image.
The book is called NOT ART. There are two versions. The paperback is a sampler of sorts of about thirty pages of the pieces. The hardcover, is a full-sized coffee table book, that is over 100 pages of content.
In the book you will find photos such as these examples below:
If this sort of thing interests you, please consider giving it a shot and ordering a copy of the book. If nothing else, it could serve as an interesting conversation piece for your home or office.
My many thanks for helping support independent publishing.
some announcements and housekeeping
My new poetry collection, Canon Fodder, has been out now for a few weeks. Kudos if you’ve picked one up. It currently has three reviews on Amazon, five star rating. Thanks to the reviewers!
I must say, I expected to have more reviews by now, considering how many advance copies I sent out, but such is life.
I have deleted all my social media presence. I do not think I will return. The absence of that toxicity from my life has already been a tremendous boon for my productivity and my overall mentality. You should consider eliminating it from your life as well. I believe you will find it rewarding.
When I say rewarding, I’m not joking. In the few weeks since I’ve deleted my social media platforms, I’ve published two new books, and have another on the way.
The first one I did is a collection of social commentary essays, largely refuting the notion set forward by a bestselling one called “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,” in which I suggest the popularity of such a philosophy is turning society into a bunch of narcissistic crybabies. My book is called Choosing to Give All the F*cks: More Empathy, Less Apathy for a Better World, and it is up now on Amazon. It contains several of the essays I’ve written over the last two years on Medium, and a substantial portion of brand new work that I wrote especially for the book.
The next new book I put out is a collection of work that I posted on Instagram, combining satirical poetry with artful photographs. It’s a small collection, as I did not pursue that medium for very long, but I think it’s pretty cool. For this book, called NOT ART, I had to make a full color photo book, with high quality paper, so that the photographs would all retain their attention to detail. If you’re interested in such a project, it would make quite the conversation starter for your coffee table maybe. Check it out.
Lastly, one project that I tackled this week was revamping a majority of the book covers of my old books. I realized, looking them over one day, that I had significantly improved as a designer of books since I started publishing stuff over eight years ago. Many of my old books, their covers just sucked. I either was too lazy, or just didn’t care, to notice. I decided to publish new versions of those books, with much better covers, and hopefully you will agree it has been a heck of an improvement.
My first poetry collection, Father Figures, now has one of my favorite covers of all of my works. It’s a real family photo, taken of me as a baby with my mom and biological father. I also updated the Kindle versions of books like this one, which were quite bad, because I honestly had no idea how to produce a good Kindle book up until quite recently. Sorry to anyone who had downloaded one of these glitchy, and not properly formatted Kindle versions. If you update your download of it, it should be fixed now.
Below, I will just post the new covers of the other collections I updated.
And lastly, I have a new collection that will be out soon, comprising the majority of the political poetry I have written over the years. It will be called POLITRIX. This one is still in development, but should be done within the month.
That’s all I have to report at the moment. I hope you like the new updated look of most of my books. If you bought an old one, and would like a new version, feel free to contact me via email (you can use the Contact Me page on here for that if you don’t have my email) and we will see what we can do.
In the meantime, thanks for supporting my work. And be on the lookout for future projects. I fully intend to have written a fiction novel this year. And it’s going to be great.
Taters!
Canon fodder’s publication draws near
My new poetry collection, Canon Fodder: Poems Inspired by Classic Literature, is now available for pre-order on Kindle. It will be live along with the paperback and hardcover versions on January 1, 2021. I am very excited for this book to be in the world, and I hope those who enjoy reading poetry and literary fiction, will give the book a chance.
In the meantime, several more of the pieces from this book have found homes in publications.
Two pieces were published with Outcast Press!
Three poems were published with A Thin Slice of Anxiety!
One poem found its home with The Dead Mule of Southern Literature!
Two pieces were published with Misery Tourism!
And finally, two pieces were posted with ExPat Press!
There are also two more poems coinciding release with Slipstream Press in January that I do not have the link for as of yet. I extend my humble thanks to the editors of these journals for giving them a place to exist outside of my own imagination.
I also published my favorite piece from the collection, and my favorite poem I have ever written, on Medium. I could not get anyone to take it for publication, probably because it is ten pages long.
The early reviews and responses I have received from the beta readers of this collection have been extremely positive, as have been responses to the work I have put out at the various publications. I hope that this means the collection will be as positively received by everyone else who happens to check it out.
If you want more information about the book, please click the link at the top of this post and read the description to see if it might be of interest to you.
Thanks as always for allowing my voice to live in your head for these briefest of moments.
New publications
Very happy to announce a couple new publications.
Punk Noir Magazine published a set of five of my recent poems.
My poem, “A Writer Dreams of America,” appeared in The Dead Mule of Southern Literature this month. This poem was based upon a reading of On The Road by Jack Kerouac. It will most likely be the opening poem of my new manuscript.
The new manuscript has really started taking shape. It’s now titled Canon Fodder : poems inspired by classic literature, and it will most likely be released early next year. For my info on the project, I published this piece on Medium talking about how it started and how it developed.
I’m hoping to get some more of the pieces published, but I am having some difficulty finding homes for them. If you are interested in the poems, feel free to contact me.
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