TAPES ON FIRE RELEASE

 NEW BOOK IS LIVE.

ORDER HERE. HOPE YOU ENJOY!

commemoration

 tomorrow...Tapes on Fire. Link when it's live. There's a bunch of other ideas in the works. more on that later.

consider it a spot of luck
that hell is below us.
and hell fire isn't raining down 
any time soon. any time. anywhere.

maybe in hell, but as we've already established:
we are at a strategic elevation. the advantage,
critical. let them make it rain all they want.
we're sitting pretty in the regular acid/microplastic
rain we've got topside. they'll have to think of something 
a little different to get us on their level.

in the spirit of fairness, though:

i will tell you our next moves, but it
will be in a coded language. taps, almost like morse code, but instead just one rule: 

3 taps is a 
surrender.

we: don't: ever: surrender.

take that how you will. we'll be transmitting until we receive a response. 
hell isn't other people, it's a deep cavern filled with pitchforks and fire and
ceramic swing sets. i'd be mad too. it might also have paid advertisements
interrupting your thoughts. what could be worse?

what could be worse? 

in another spirit i'll answer my own question:

not: a: damn: thing.

we aren't heaven, but we sure is hell aren't settling for anything less than what we've got.
and if you want what we've got, well

come on up here and make an offer. we're listening.

oppositional celebration

 In case I didn't say it here: Tapes on Fire (a book of poems I have been writing since 2018) drops on 6/1. I'll post a link when it goes live. Get it while it's hot, tepid, or something.

only when the sun says
hi there
or goodbye
do we know the issue at stake.

hi and bye
sit or stand
run with the best of them or walk with the other best of them. 
each a version of the greatest, each a mirror. each equal and opposite, bizarro version of itself
talking backwards and jumping instead of walking.
such oddity, such majesty, such normalcy.
geriatric and infant, here and there, blink and we might miss the moment.

beginning and ending, these are the changes i pay the big bucks to see.
i'm going to be watching to see what happens. i'm going to pretend whatever it is
matters. it might.

bristles follow handles

 If you don't know: Tapes on Fire, my first poetry collection, is in the final stages of approval, available soon unless you can find me and hustle one of the copies I ordered. More soon.

so, yes,
paint brush and broad strokes, impressions
of time in competing lines,
concentric swirls. i am rarely absolute
in the things i paint and the things i say.

smaller shrubs and trees, sing harmony.
nature yawns and the air is comfortable
warmth, the tinge of pollen, a light roast
coffee without dilution or flavoring. somewhere-
strings, not overstaying their welcome, adding to
the scene. the players moving their bows in concentration,
an acceptable amount of yearning loosed from their instruments.
from heart to string, from air to lungs, ear to soul.

notes of merriment. notes: content. insistence. it’s real, it’s here,
it’s now. drink deep, be satisfied. these are the golden times
promised to no one, here and now. yours and mine.

the brush dipped into water. purified, made almost-new. made ready.
nothing comes out the way i expect it. add, subtract, revise, revisit, rescind.

results. look for yourself.

mayday melee cosplay all day

going west and the going rate is going into a crater under the pools on the moon/conditional travel plans but air traffic lost sight of my boat in the water with their heads in the clouds/done with dead reckoning/deal me in, fate/throw my direction and my steering to the emptier sky/i am long for the abyss-long in the tooth/a long way from a destination/a wave, a plan-a man, arkansas/i've ruined the palindrome again/i couldn't help myself-seriously, it couldn't be helped/wouldn't be/from where we all well up and let the tears and the screams forth/rejoin the procession of grief/from there, find my way back/back again

more fun in may

...and back to a weekly schedule. 

Fear not,

Fear all. brinkmanship and the like.
We should all be so afraid. So very afraid. Enthralled
by violence. Ensconced. Sealed. Terror and Strife. I am ruled by my personal fears.
Little indignities. Decency cast to the breakwater, smashed against the line of patient
rocks. Patience, little one. Your time for ruin is soon upon us all. Patience, Patience. The waiting is the hard part. Harder than the doing. The coming and the going. Life is happening around us. Little known facts and lesser known truths.

Patience, little one.