todd moore
“blind whiskey and the straight razor blues”
Iniquity Press/Vendetta Books
POB 54, Manasquan, NJ 08736
Reviewed by: Victor Schwartzman
Victor emails regularly with Todd Moore.
As this review is being written, Israeli ground troops are invading Gaza in a both brutal and hopeless attempt to crush its enemies. Violence is being used to stop violence, although in the end it only creates worse carnage.
Or, as todd moore writes in this chap:
all jerry
did
was turn
on the
ignition
the dy
namite
blew the
hood
straight
up &
jerry’s
head was
a torch
on a
telephone
pole
Ok, moore wasn’t writing about Israel, but he could have been. Much of his work can be seen as a parable of modern life. Most of his work is on the dark side of the dark side. He may be writing about gangsters, but take away some of the blood and it could just as well be politicians, bureaucrats or that neighbour you find scarey. That is what I have found intriguing about his work—it seems to be about one part of society, but it is actually about all of us—about who we are, or, worse, who we want to be or might become.
Moore continues to explore themes scratching at his heart, and each of his poems is usually a neat, economical slice of life (or slice of someone’s finger). The poems are often mini-stories, creating a sharp picture of a moment in the characters’ lives he writes about. If you like poems that rhyme and insist on telling you what colour the sky is, stay away. moore doesn’t even look at the sky. His work is on the ground. His characters rarely look up (and, if they did, they’d probably see Jerry’s head).
Despite his regularly mining the American underbelly, strangely none of it feels repetitive. Yep, he’s writing about gangsters, cut-throats, people who are self-involved to the point only a bullet will get their attention. Yet each poem is different, each tiny sharp beam of sunlight focusing on a different aspect of the same picture. By looking at each piece of the jigsaw puzzle carefully, you can eventually see the entire picture. Especially if you substitute a gang hotel for an office, and a gun for a file folder.
His writing style continues to grow more iconic, and if you don’t like taking an extra moment to see what he is doing with words, frankly he doesn’t give a fuck:
the way
i write
is strictly
fuck you
no cap
ital letters
no punc
tuation
the words
jammed
together
or all
smashed
up like bro
ken glass
crushed
pop cans
& used
condoms
the ameri
can sen
tence is
either a
stutter
or a
scream
& I’m
waiting
to watch
it explode
The chap is full of great lines (a character’s blood “was a smile on the sidewalk”, eat that Joker!) and doomed players in a game where the other guy controls the rules. There is always another guy, and usually that guy will plug you if you steal his lunch. Or shove the lunch down your throat. These characters have no escape, no way out. They just live for the hope they will escape but know they’re more likely never to reach thirty.
The chap is on the stylish side, with some very nice artwork thrown in at the beginning and towards the end. No Dillinger here, but his ghost hovers over it all.
Wow, those bad ass Israelis. Can you imagine they would want to go after the fuckers who have fired rockets at them for years? Isn’t it terrible.