Poetry

“Drowned Lands I-V” and 7 film stills published in Otoliths #48

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The first Otoliths of 2018 was released today; this is number 48 for the journal, and as usual it’s packed with innovative texts, visual poetry, and imagery from all over the world. The issue also includes some of my work: “Drowned Lands I-V” and seven film stills. The text work is part of my “Civilization’s Lost” series, examining the fragility of languages, cultures and nations. This piece is in five parts, each based on a different lost city, civilization or continent. You can read the full poem here.

stills-otoliths-48The film stills can be found under another link here. All seven images come from a video that has yet to be edited into its final form. Some of the text was drawn from a spam email and reads “Feel the call of your body.” Other text comes from the captioning on the source footage. I recently recorded some new music, so perhaps  that will motivate the final assembly of the video.

“Why I love Ouija” and two other poems published in Midnight Lane Boutique

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One of my favorite online journals, Midnight Lane Boutique covers underground and outlaw poetry with great features and graphic style. So I’m pleased to report it has published three of my poems: “Why I Love Ouija,” “Buying a King for the Price of a Twin,” and “About Our Entering a No-Sex Era.” You can read them here.

A few notes on these. The Ouija poem is part of a series featuring a ouija board as a character. “Buying a King” takes a mattress ad and hopefully blows it up into something bigger. “No-Sex Era” was originally accepted by Verbal Abuse magazine back in the 90s, but the journal folded before it put out that issue. Kind of a bummer, as it was a pretty rad mag.

“In the Engine Room” and 6 vispo in Angry Old Man

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The second issue of Angry Old Man was unleashed on the world last night. A massive issue of experimental works in many media, this one contains my text poem “In the Engine Room with Bettie & Andrea” and six video stills. You can check out the full poem here, and the vispo here.

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“Five Horsehairs and the Soul of an Afternoon” and two other poems published in Unlikely Stories

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I’m very pleased to announce that online poetry journal Unlikely Stories published three of my poems today: “Five Horsehairs and the Soul of an Afternoon,” “Big American Horn,” and “Saving the Day.” You can read them here.

Each of these has a genesis in real life events from many years ago. “Horsehairs” describes an unsuccessful attempt to earn money by busquing at the metro station on Dupont Circle in DC. I convinced my friend David Craig it was a good idea, but we literally made $1.02. Another bandmate, Finn McCool, loaned me his bowed psaltry, as I figured an “exotic” looking instrument would net more money. Another theory shot down.

“Big American Horn” was written during my Henry Miller phase, when I was reading a lot of his work. Not just Tropics, but everything–over 20 books.

“Saving the Day” comes out of my experience as a stay at home dad. I was feeling pressures to find work, stay creative and not lose my mind. Basic self-pity stuff. But then I realized what was really important.