Heavy Weather (poetry)

Severe Weather Advisory

A system of fast-moving clouds
high altitude winds speeding
them toward their destination

If it storms, will it rain?
If it rains, will it pour?
If it pours, will we drown?
If we drown, will you mourn?
 
When the heavens finally open
a torrential shedding of tears
overflows every ocean and sea

If it storms, will it rain?
If it rains, will it pour?
If it pours, will we drown?
If we drown, will you mourn?

Find yourself an Ararat
from the highest precipice
watch for a flicker of wings

If it storms, will it rain?
If it rains, will it pour?
If it pours, will we drown?
If we drown, will you mourn?

 

 

August, 2017: Update & Coming Attractions

You knew I had to be up to something and you were right.

A month between posts? C’mon, you know me better than that.

This summer has been my most productive, writing-wise, in several years. It’s like the taps were turned on again and I’ve been writing with all my focus and concentration, feeling the juices flowing again.

Two, count ’em, two long stories since June, quite a few poems, a short prose piece that’s one of the best things I’ve written in quite awhile…

And everything registering strongly on the aesthetic Richter Scale—nothing slight or inconsequential. Intelligent, literate efforts, not pandering to any school or taste.

I haven’t lost a fucking step.

Oh, and I’ve started work on a new novel. Well, not quite a new novel—I’m completely overhauling a 250-page manuscript I originally conceived around 2002. If I had to guess, I’d say I’m looking at 12-15 months worth of revisions, so you shouldn’t expect to see that one in print until, ballparking it, mid-2019. No teasers, except that it references a classic Victorian thriller and will be darker and more horror-related than some of my recent work.

But fear not, impatient readers, I shall be releasing not one but two full-length efforts in 2018: first, The Algebra of Inequality and Other Poems, a selection of verse culled from the past five years. The title is nicked from a line in a Don Barthelme short story that caught my eye. Ol’ Don had some zingers.

I know poetry is a hard sell to some folks but I believe it gives me the opportunity to address profound philosophical and spiritual and existential questions in the most spare, personal, unforgiving literary format. Poetry permits no artistic missteps—it really is like walking a tightrope.

And there will be (drumroll please) a new short story collection next year, Electric Castles: A Book of Urban Legends. Original tales, all centered around everything magical and terrifying about cities, near and far, real and imagined. Killer stories, spanning just about every genre, guaranteed to amaze, disturb and warp your puny perceptions and sensibilities. Consensual reality? What the hell is that?

Both books will feature, as per the custom here at Black Dog Press, gorgeous cover art and will be professionally formatted and bound. There will be an e-book version of Electric Castles, still mulling it over re: the poetry. Poetry is so unique and personal and analog…does it really belong on a tablet or phone screen?

Lots of writing and revisions in the months ahead, some highs and lows, good days and days when, as they say, “the bear gets you”. All part of the creative process: painful and terrifying, but also exhilarating and inspiring. No doubt you’ll be reading something of my triumphs and travails here…and I hope it will serve to remind you that the writing life is not easy and requires a great deal of courage and fortitude. Perseverance and sheer guts get you a lot further in any profession than mere talent. Surely you know that by now.

Some mornings I can’t imagine facing that page again.

And yet I do.

That’s the difference between an author and a poser.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: for real writers, girls and boys, every fucking month is “National Novel Writing Month”.

You heard it here…

Photos by Sherron Burns

The State of the Union (2017)

street1.JPG

Disorder in the Real

Something has gone wrong, somewhere along the way the polarities were switched or we missed a critical turn or…?

Power has devolved to self-interested, greedy individuals in the thrall of capital.

We have been passive observers, happy to cede control and responsibility to others as long as that means we’re free to pursue our frivolous entertainments and distractions.

But all of a sudden it’s like someone has decided the illusion need no longer be maintained. The elite have grown wary of even the tepid, paltry democracy we celebrate every four years.

There will no longer be elections, key positions will be appointed from a trained, compliant technocracy.

Not politicians, autocrats.

Graffiti

Aided by a permanent state of emergency, which helps rationalize the curbs to freedom, the removal of basic rights, judicial oversight, etc. When liberty, personal or collective, impedes commerce (they claim), the natural order is disrupted and economic stability threatened.

Rich, as a reward. Poor for a reason.

Alert for dissent, some budding Robespierre waiting in the wings (the creak and rumble of tumbrils still haunt their dreams). Discredit or kill potential opposition leaders (give ’em the “Assange treatment”). No quarter for class enemies. To the victors, the spoils.

Idolizing Lee Kuan Yew, while demonizing Marx.

Controlling the means of production and the dissemination of information.

Governing a cowed and stupid populace, relegated to low wages, uncertainty, fear; resigned to their diminished station.

Militarizing and privatizing the police, just in case harsher lessons are required.

Resorting to patriotism, should every other artifice fail.

Red Glare

Letter From Istanbul

It’s been a year since the coup attempt in Turkey.

Sherron and I arrived a few days afterward and found the atmosphere in Istanbul remarkably calm. But there were underlying tensions and anxieties–what would Erdogan do next? Most people we spoke to mistrusted their leader’s motivations and believed Turkey risked autocracy unless wiser voices prevailed.

It seems those forebodings were justified. Erdogan clearly wants to be another Putin, with all the ugliness that entails; gradually moderate, democratic voices are being silenced by jail or purges.

And it was already starting to happen when I wrote this post, back in August, 2016.

Beautiful Desolation

TaksimRecently, my wife and I returned from a dream holiday: a month in Greece, Turkey and the Czech Republic. Mere days before we were to leave for Istanbul, however, Turkey experienced a coup attempt in which nearly two hundred and fifty people died, many of them civilians. Friends and family urged us to cancel this leg of our trip but, then, some stability was re-established and we decided we couldn’t miss visiting that ancient capital, truly one of the world’s “eternal” cities. We flew into Kemal Ataturk Airport and spent an incredible ten days walking its teeming streets. But while we were out and about, chatting with waiters, hawkers and people from various strata of society, I started composing an article on the attitude of ordinary Turkish citizens to the bungled coup and their autocratic leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Here it is:

The woman in Taksim Square is insistent: we must…

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