JMG: You’ve quite a large portfolio of published poems. How did you first pursue publication of your poetry?

DM: First I sent in a few I wrote in 1994, after maybe four acceptances I just stopped since I felt it was pointless being a large scale customer of the postal services then. Three years ago I wrote again more seriously, and noticed that email was much better.

JMG: What elements, do you feel, make for a “good” piece of poetry?

DM: Earth, air fire and water. Not ether though. Mainly that the writer, in the course of her/his entirely justified ripping off of some canon, introduces some personal slant. I don’t like the idea of assembling elements, poetry like amateurish cookery where the writer/cook slavishly follows a recipe.

JMG: Do you gravitate more towards contemporary or classical pieces when you read? Who are some influences?

DM: As influences Trakl, Larkin, Eliot, Plath, Sexton, Dylan Thomas, WH Auden, Pound. A few others. I don’t read modern poetry much, though I am exposed to it by reading e-zines that I might submit to, a bit like prostitutes, who are exposed to the risk of infection in the course of submitting to their work.

JMG: Do you wrestle with the line between writer and salesman?

DM: Never, I can let you know if I ever sell things

JMG: Can you point to any events or life-milestone that have shaped your style or influenced your output?

DM: I don’t really know that. Possible being born, though I seem to have forgotten that, unlike Dali. More the slow process of attrition.

JMG: You’ve been living in Sweden since the late eighties. How has that affected your poetic slant? Do you write exclusively in English? If so why?

DM: I only write in English since I don’t have much of a feel for Swedish poetry. I tried writing poems in Swedish a few years ago and they were all crap. I only ever speak Swedish, though. I think that it’s best, at any rate for me, to write poetry in my native language. It also works well since never speaking English means that it retains a special status as purely literary in my usage.

JMG: How much fiction do you write?

DM: I have written one novel, I would be highly surprised if that ever gets published. It’s a sort of novel where very little happens.

JMG: You have a number of chapbooks as well as some full-length collections out. What can you tell us about these works?

DM: I have very little idea about the best way to do these things, most have been spontaneous. Planning things seems craven. Of the three full lengths I think Cadaver’s dance may be most unpopular and best, at least the one edited best by Dylan Garcia-Wahl at Whistling Shade. The new laughing at funerals is pretty OK. I want to sell more of Pushing Lemmings though. That’s pretty good if not very edited, since I was lazy. The chapbook living dead girl was written while watching the Jean Rollin film of that name. And reading Verlaine, thus the content. It’s pretty good I believe. The collection of dead snakes was put together by Humphrey Astley at Rain over Bouville – that one’s pretty good too I think.

JMG: How do you feel about the state of print publications? Do you think the internet has helped or hindered contemporary poetry?

DM: I don’t actually read any print publications so I am perplexed a little here. The Internet, however, is good. It activates people, gives free venues, gives more opportunity for peer help. It is also hugely entertaining to watch the M$ Windoze fuckwads constantly fuck up.

JMG: Are you a dog or cat person?

DM: Both. I don’t like small dogs though. Who does? (Small =df less than a Labrador)

JMG: Anything to share about your particular creative process?

DM: Nothing, except to say that the idea of writer’s block is a cheap excuse for lazy pussies.

JMG: How do you get beyond “writers’ block?”

DM: I don’t know what it is, I’ve never experienced it. Sadly, lots of poets nowadays think that they are obliged to be “artists” which implies they are Bohemian and profoundly creative and thus entitles to be “difficult” and “deep” and “madmen” and have lots of pussified little problems. We who do have various diagnoses know that this glorification of the difficult, mad, and isolated artist struggling against problems, or what i call “being a whiny little pussy,” is garbage. Just write ffs.

JMG: Formal education. You have quite a bit of it. Has that helped you as a poet? How relevant is a master’s degree to the aspiring writer?

DM: As long as it’s not an MFA, which is not really a proper degree at all, and not taught at the better universities, education does not hurt. Of course if most of the poets who discuss philosophy knew some they might shit themselves with embarrassment when they realize how stupid they are. You know, the ones who talk about non-being, the subjectivity of whatever, about various categories of ill-defined “nihilism.”

Intelligence combined with education will often cure nasty tendencies to religious belief too. Education on its own, without thinking, is useless. Thinking without education can go wrong easier, but is better than a chain of qualifications and a dead head.

JMG: From what areas of study does your education come?

DM: I have an MA in philosophy from Stockholm, majoring in ethics. Also an unrelated BA in History taken much earlier, and much more lazily, from Balliol, Oxford. I also studied the history of ideas, philosophical aesthetics, feminist philosophy, and gender studies.

JMG: We live in a reality of labels. If “poet” were not available to David McLean, what label would people likely apply to you? What would you fill your time with?

DM: I don’t like the label “poet” and hope it isn’t applied to me too often. Psychiatrists like labels too. I would rather collect new and fundamentally incompatible diagnoses just for kicks.

JMG: Any interesting projects on the horizon?

DM: Not really, at least no literary suchlike. I want to get the new dog to understand that the recall “command“ isn’t just a joke.

For a listing of McLean’s available titles, follow the electronic breadcrumbs . . .

http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com/

I think it has come to be a default title of sorts, for lack of another term. An editor doesn’t necessarily fix mistakes and correct spelling these days, but an editor often controls content: what goes in, what stays out, a barrier to entry.

On the other hand (and this is what I prefer to focus on, regardless of the term) an editor can be a person who greets you at the door, who asks if you could use a drink. Over the next few weeks in this section, “Around The Presses”, I want to talk about editors and the different ways they view their roles, tasks, mission.

Eclectic Flash

Brad Nelson is the Editor-In- Chief at Eclectic Flash, a great site that showcases short fiction. I wanted to hassle Nelson with questions because his editing “model” is a bit different as he uses a collaborative editing process for content. What that means is that a potential contributor submits a story to Eclectic Flash and it is considered not by one editor- but by a panel of editors. A story has to make the cut with all of the editors in order to get into the next issue. It is then posted, if accepted, in a list each Monday which is also how a writer learns of the fiction’s fate.

Nelson admits that there are drawbacks to this process, but defends it as a system that ultimately works best for them and serves the interests of readers:

“There are pros and cons to our submission review system. The biggest pro is that it keeps all the pressure of choosing pieces for each issue from falling solely on my head, and it keeps Eclectic Flash from becoming Flash Only Brad Likes.

We are attempting to appeal to a wide audience, and you can bet if our editors—ranging in age from 22 to 77, with both males and females—all agree on a piece, then it definitely has merit and will appeal to the broadest group of readers. We are also able to guarantee a response within one week, because we update the accepted page every Monday with the titles of pieces accepted from the previous week’s submissions.

The major con is that we don’t offer editorial feedback on pieces we reject, and this is one of the sacrifices we make to keep response times down to one week. The other con to our system is that sometimes a piece I really love doesn’t make it into an issue because my other editors may not like the piece. And, though I am the Chief Editor, I choose not to overrule my editors’ votes.”

If a piece doesn’t make it in, Nelson hopes that writers will be encouraged to try again. Easier said than done? Maybe, but I think he really means it.

You can find out more about Eclectic Flash here.

Around The Presses is intended to highlight the people, publications, and personalities in the small press beyond promotion. Sure, we want to know about your latest book and where people can buy a mug with your mug- but we don’t want to get into that here. If you want to be probed about your press, pushed to share your processes, or have opinions you feel compelled to tell- tell them to me, because this is where we do it. lynn@fullofcrow.com.

One is Joseph Gant, who I crossed paths with a few weeks ago on our poetry open

mic show. He is the editor of Sex and Murder Magazine: “a magazine of extreme horror, dark fiction, and splatterpunk.” Now I admit that I have a soft spot for splatter, and while it can certainly be found on the web- Gant’s is a niche for the extreme. Horror writing is something that is done often but is not necessarily done well and some of the reason for that might well be the restrictive nature of horror publishers. Gant invites the writer to push the envelope, to bring on the twisted, and leave it at his door.

What scares me IS what disturbs me, upsets me, makes me squirm. I like a good zonbie story, but really- that’s not the stuff of my nightmares. Cannibals and Plagues? Now you’re talking discomfort. We’ll see what the next issue holds.

Disturbing things often have a way of surfacing, and they aren’t necessarily things that slice in the night. What about our own worries, mortality, thinking the damn “deep thoughts”, sobbing in the beer about a life of suck-hood, thinking about the point of things. These things preoccupy and disturb people constantly, the realization of our limits and our short petty lives can be a sort of horror in itself. These thoughts suck, and they nag, sometimes we can’t push this shit away. Maybe spiritual, maybe philosophical, maybe some theology- it all ends up in the wash. And these are the kinds of things they want to hear about at Divine Dirt Quarterly.

I had to ask Andrew Bowen about his site. Theo-lit? I mean, are we talking moral message stories, preachy themes? Charles Ingalls-style adversity, virtue commentary, affirmations of faith? But that’s not what they are about:

“I started the journal to give folks who write material that falls in the cracks and shadows between religious fiction and secular fiction. This is in part because I personally had a hard time finding such a market for my own fiction. Call it “theo-lit” if you like.

We look for work that displays the all too human struggle with spirituality. We don’t like easy answers. This struggle is real, it’s dirty, it’s bloody and it rarely ends in some dramatized awakening or tidy eureka. Real, gritty characters running face-first into the realities and elements of theology. That’s what rocks my world.” -Andrew Bowen

OW Press author, Caleb J Ross is undertaking a blog tour in support of the chapbook, Charactered Pieces: stories. From the announcement at his site:

Tune up your virtual groupie van. I’m hitting the wwwD.O.T for a blog tour to promote Charactered Pieces: stories.

Blog Orgy Tour oh9-ohohoh10

promises to be a beautiful bastardization of legitimate blog posts and self-serving salesy talk, the likes of which will leave you itchy and raw.

What is a blog tour? It’s a way for authors with no actual-tour budget to use the term “tour” when describing their marketing plans.

Why a blog tour? The concept seems fun. I’m going to make stops at various personal and writing-related blogs, offering posts about Charactered Pieces, about me, and about writing in general, that will both promote my chapbook and honor the integrity of each blog I visit. These aren’t gimmicky advertisements. They are cleverly disguised advertisements.

Where are the tour stops? Great question, hypothetical reader. [...] visit the dedicated Blog Orgy Tour page for all the stops. Also, as a bonus for die-hard groupies, some guest posts will contain notes regarding specific stories from Charactered Pieces. There are seven stories (eight if you count the acknowledgments, which is written in a story-like way), so there are seven author notes to track. A full list appears at the bottom of the dedicated page.

So get out there and leave your mark in the tour bus exhaust. Comment on the posts, let people know that conversation about books thrives.

Charles Alvin—
you are fabled.

Checker champ—
they say you never lost, never failed to be kinged.

Coal miner—
alone at night, you’d crawl into the earth, setting off dynamite.

Farmer—
they say you could plow all 141 acres
by tilling the soil with your bare hands
while pulling all 8 of your children
riding on the back of a broke-down tractor.

But that wasn’t the only family you ever pulled.

Rabbit slayer—
Bludgeoner of bunnies—
you conserved shotgun shells by inventing whack-a-rabbit
on some flood stranded hares
to feed your mother & siblings
while your father drank.

I’ve heard there is still no Easter on that river’s island.

Arc welder—
with pressure & heat, you fused together tanks
joint by joint, for Uncle Sam during
The Great War.

& the Nation with her Allies gave you thanks.

Heart attack—
Stroke—
I never knew your health
& in the winter of my asthma,
I stayed with you
shaded on the hillside
perched above the old farm.

We watched Hee Haw
& sliced apples with your pocket knife.
We read the Book of Jeremiah
& a National Enquirer—
I vividly recall the article
about the lady in a pizzeria.
She ate 21 pizzas then exploded
mozzarella to the ceiling.
That earned the largest laugh from you
I’d ever seen.

We both split our sides.
In that winter
we faced frosty air as we worked together
for the first & only time.
I was wheezy; you were off balance
with your Fred G. Sanford waddle
putting boards down on that deck—
& whenever I bent a nail,
you told me it meant
my pecker was still growing.

Grandpa, I still bend nails.

Convalescent—
in the final moments
with your eyes closed, occasional moan
& gentle breath.
The whole family gathered around—
you were the weld puddle
that coalesced us.

I whispered the pizza-lady story in your ear
& in your translucent state
you stretched a toothless smile
that went for a country mile
to make space for the heaviest expiration.

You smiled through death.

Charles Alvin—
you are fabled.

-Dedicated to Charles Alvin Jackson
(February 1, 1915 – February 9, 1995)

crutch

she says to her
crutch
I’m gonna ride you
so hard,
I come alive

behind eyes
frozen ponds
thaw
into a trickle
down her thighs

clenched fingers
bruise
prints
grasping for a
ledge

pulled hair
rubs like
shattered glass
ground against her
breasts

headboard
bashes
a morse code
of hate telegraphed
to her other man—

fervid kisses
lick
razor slits
to open his faraway
flesh

thrusts scorch
phantom
burns
between
his distant legs—

& she’ll dismount
not even bathing—
just hobble home
to her bloody
husband

WWBD

I was sixteen.
it was my father’s wedding
where I swilled old drunkard’s puke,
champagne,
up in the loft of the old barn.
after that bubbly night of crooning
Gun N’ Roses,
the morning brought
a crippling hangover
& Herculean throw-up—
it was in the violence
of foamy vomit
I first made out your face—

Bukowski,
back then, I didn’t even know who you were.

like an Orson Welles
hitchhiker,
you’d appear & vanish before me,
Bukowski—a phantom looped in scenes:
clubs in full swing
loading rounds of shots
for drunk-tank depressions—
poor people at the racetrack
betting against sleeping
another night upon
cold benches of loss—
the wealthy burning dollar bills
to light cigar’s
braggy puffs
rung atop the hollywood hills—
heavy-petting in scarlet alleys of
infidelity
perfumed by dumpster grease
& sweaty genitals—
truck stop peepshows
logging 1,000,000 miles
of tire tread
upon one tired
lot lizard’s face—
chevy camaro yard-jobs on church lawns—
hippies drugged up & beat down—
tyrannical fathers beating their sons—
worn soles of L.A. postmen—
& writers
hopeful in dreams
of grasping the perfect
word
that will touch
a reader’s
face.

I’ve gotten to know you.
I know what you do—I know what you drink.

Bukowski—between the city lights
& ebony ladies of night,
I saw you hung
like a crab louse
from the suspension cables on the
North Avenue Bridge in
Chicago.

Bukowski—you kicked sand in my face
as I was sucking
applesauce
off a plate
as tequila leaked from my ears in
Cancun.

Bukowski—you told Mel Gibson & I
that Hitler
tied his shoes in Nazis
as I burrowed into a bottle of
Kettle One
for warmth
with a splash of cranberry
for my UTI
behind the SoHo Grand in
New York City.

Bukowski—whenever we’re boozing in the Columbus Bar—
I’ll sit beside your barstool for camaraderie,
insulate decades with the cat-piss smell on your clothes
& stale vino riding your exhalations
delivering bottom-shelf-sucker-punches
against all who can rhyme
thinking they are
poets…
you’ll then leave me—
& through the ruination of your teeth
you’ll sputter the same damn two words
you left for all of us—

don’t try

-In tribute to Charles Bukowski
(August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994)

davenport

Sears, Roebuck & Co tan work clothes
wrinkled underneath his brown, quilted down jacket
he lay in fetal position
on a golden tweed davenport

dark rimmed glasses, chewed toothpick,
a lamp, framed by King James’s & The Republic’s
versions of truth
at rest on the end table beside him

a field of shag carpet
waved to the poised dance
of his skin-dust snowing—
vying to be the freshest layer
prevailing over sliding glass doors,
bookshelves & window shades—
accrued in the quietness
of this repetitive moment
for decades

my patriarch napped daily

later, in my accession,
his mate laid me down on that davenport
she covered me with a magic blanket
telling me it was my time to sleep
& snow

& although he had no sons
I dream in his name

drink or drive

sober
is the most uncomfortable gear.

sober shifts me to feel,
to feel more than any
whisky-bleeding-bearded-fat-Jim-Morrison-in-France reverie
ever did.

drunk slips my transmission from revenge to neutral,
curbing my spite.
lets me smudge smiley faces upon
fogged rearview mirrors—
it idles my desire to put a jaywalker like you
in my hood ornament crosshairs.

when my girl told me you called,
compared your body to a car,
& begged to be further road tested,
she choked back the aftertaste of lemony vomit.

I sat down my bottle.

my internal ignition burst into a meta-combustion hellfire.
outshining the fueled fury of road rage
from the last time you cut into my lane—
clunking along junker,
eager to pile my two children
on your three unbelted spares—
feeding them old jerky wrappers & parking tickets
you wiped your ass with—
encased in your frame of phyllo dough
that burns when held to a welder—
flaking an ash blizzard—
deeper than your Mother’s rawhide labia.

here comes my tire iron tongue
with acceleration—
steering me to free the crows locked inside your ribcage,
switching out your plug & wire vestige
of intestines & spleen.
I scream,
you never had guts!

you were wrecked & totaled at birth!

no matter that you make believe
to be a muscled-up sportster—
wax & buff, tattoo your
cheap racing decals
or spin custom wheels,
the mileage in your face gives you away—
as a misfired mullet
strutting to the white noise static
of your greasy frequency.

& as I sober
I no longer can tune you out.
my rhythm of detest for your lecherous passing
makes my front-end incisors grit
& set a course to mash the hapless
with unbraking mercilessness.

I could speed to you—
with agony unleashed—
evil burning diesel—
pedal crammed metal—
four barrel flooded unethical leaded—
rolling route six sixty six—
with vim, vigor & piss—
pistons pump amiss—
pedestrian liar bones pulped under tires—
unforgiven—
tragedy driven—
over rusted bondo crunched—
rising my rage off this page
throttling your throat.

so unless you’re ready for that ride
as my road kill, BOY!
I better keep drinking
so I don’t drive.

As part of the Charactered Pieces: stories preorder, I promised to fill every copy with the delicious smell of ACID cigars, as part of the completely made up Lungs for Readers program. The experiment semi-failed, as most of the books instead acquired the nasty smell of burnt paper and stale smoke. Lesson learned. Though still, the books are special, containing, in addition to the ‘dive-bar’ flavor, VERY personal inscriptions, limited numbering, and random bits of trash I’ve been meaning to toss. You’re welcome, readers.

Take in the shenanigans above, set to the sweet sounds of Cecada and helped by my friends at ArtJerk.net.

Thanks to everyone!

You can buy Charactered Pieces: stories at Amazon.com or direct from the publisher.

Info and biography

JD Roland
PO Box 31
Cortez, Co 81321
970-560-8916
jdroland@msn.com

JD Roland is a published poet and creative writer. JD has been a musician and songwriter for forty plus years, it is strikingly apparent by his sense of rhythm and structure. Having grown up in a family of talented artists, he approaches his writing much the same way an artist approaches each brush stroke. His writing is both visual and expressive.
A renaissance poet (rebellious) rarely holding anything back. Graduated from Colorado Institute of Art in 1991.

Website: http://jdroland.webs.com/
Blogs: http://jdroland.blogspot.com/ ~ http://usa101jdr.blogspot.com/ http://www.blog.myspace.com/jdroland
Facebook: http://profile.to/jdroland/

JD has been published in Ezines: The Blue Doodle, Underground Voices, Word Salad Magazine, Sylvan Echo, World Speak, Helium.

Two Anthologies: Satiated Heart, A World of Love

Featured on Websites: 10k Poets, Harmony Pub, Flex Writers.

Table of Contents
all works ©2009/jdr

Another Day
7th Ave
Painted Blue
I Ask Myself, Why?
Early Enough to be Late
Terminal at 3am
Surrender the Night
In Another Life
She’s Alone in Paradise
Full Moon Feast
Hands Across the Middle
A Sunday Rain

Poems

Another Day

Another day passes to night,
nothing ever changes,
the clock gently pushing each minute
through each hour,
I turned down the chime long ago.

I didn’t take the bus downtown today,
the air hissed from its brakes outside my
front door,
where kids play,
and rogue cats sort through dumpsters,
just like so many yesterdays.

I heard a plane pass overhead,
another missed adventure,
like landing in a Mayan field,
my pick hammer and brush seeking out
artifacts of a lost civilization.

The silenced TV,
with blackened screen,
eats at my boredom,
chipping away at my resolve,
the outside world,
masked in clichés,
no longer feeds my curiosity.

Life is a trickle,
controllable,
confrontation at my request,
screening calls,
sorting email,
loneliness an unexpected debt,
it’s taken me so long to get here.

Here I am,
the place I thought I wanted to be,
no commitments,
no attachments,
I can’t remember what the attraction was,
yet knowing,
should I pass through that front door,
I would soon remember.

7th Ave

There’s a graveyard on 7th Ave,
where the least desirable
wait for heaven.

Arms and faces pocked
with crater disparity
Impatient
like camping-out for autographs.

Frail sobriety
emptied of passion
Manikins
stripped of worth.

Drive by hearse allocation
tiny baggies
Tube daggers
making tomorrow plausible.

Broken,
misspoken,
tucked away,
better left for future generation.

The rushers by
head down
out of place
skirt decay’s pronouncement.

There’s a graveyard on 7th Ave,
six feet under
horizontal lips.

©2009/jdr

Painted Blue

I crumple the swatch in my desperate fist,
this is my color, shouting, again and again,
shouting, I am selfish indigo, I feel constant,
not of moment, full body brew,
like furled waves on every shore.

You see sad eyes, rumpled skin, rutted road,
not of sunshine, not moon glow, look deep into
forbidden places, back alleys, soup kitchens,
4am subway, clutching desperate despair,
catalyst vengeance, tear soaked children.

I can mend your broken smile, your hasty judgment,
the scorn you paste on every walkway,
mine is tranquility blue, painted over mended heart,
my color, my shade, my purpose, water driven,
with a spot of green leaf and sage, painted blue.

©2009/jdr

I Ask Myself, Why?

I see the sky for what it is,
true blue reflected on water,
I feel the earth, man’s rendition,
eternal history of life.

I touch every tree,
melt in landscape,
push every petal,
so I may breath.

I understand my limitation,
it’s my strength,
I embrace each raindrop,
every storm, my torrent.

I respect the roaming creature,
the spider weaving art,
the mantis contemplation,
the crow majestic.

So much touches me,
I ask myself, why?

©2009/jdr

Early Enough to be Late

I entered the room and immediately
tripped over me leaving,
I hardly recognized myself,
a crooked walking stick, teetering.

Punished, pitted, like wadded paper unraveled,
my clothes were from my early years,
stretched over pot belly,
torn at knobby knee, wind blown.

“What? Did I think you’d live unscathed,”
bitter scorn, tobacco stained, toothless,
hunched over ground level, one thing
unchanged, bald as ever bald, old sod.

I leaving, didn’t remember me entering,
not surprising, my past a distant fog horn,
“Wait old man” I said to myself, “you
have unfinished business.………”

“There will always be loose ends,
remember Henry? He counted on you,
on your honesty.” point well taken, I
thought to myself in canyon echo.

I pushed myself aside, walked in as
I was leaving, I hoped I’ll make a
difference, leave my mark, if nothing
more than snail stain on the walkway.

Terminal at 3am

Track lighting swept across
walls like bug spray,
Stucco layers and spackle swirl
like designer mashed potatoes.

Deserted benches laid out
like pews on Sunday morning,
Missing, hymn book holders
and holy rollers, of course.

Little yellow plastic A frames
announce, “Wet Floor“, scattered
across dry linoleum, path worn,
an obstacle course’s constant change.

Gabriel sat indifferent about being
the only body in the massive enclave,
his thoughts tearing up his past,
understanding, the less he remembered,
the better off he would be.

Waiting for the 3:30am from Yuma,
he decided the loneliest place on
Earth must be a train station at 3am,
like a lone survivor of Armageddon.

He thought about how he would
feel if family and friends died
without warning, no chance to say
goodbye and thank them for their
impact.

Gabriel stood, his uncertain surroundings
swallowed him whole, his plan to abandon his
world dissipated, his friends and family
deserved to know he’s terminal at 3am.

Surrender the Night

It seems unlikely the easy path can
holds me, this fit of confusion that
swirls over me like a whirling dervish,
less a pattern holding no harbor,
opiate release, slightly foreign.

That I could somehow be capable
of collective thought simply regulates
my bewilderment further, like a ‘51
Chevy spinning out of control, I hold
fast, shutter speed slowing reaction,
the more stable surroundings diffuse.

Then, when Eddie took the stage,
and I was there to egg him on,
he seemed reluctant to make a
splash, I clapped my hands over
my head, my Bic tucked away,
safe in my overcoat pocket.

At 3am life seems less notorious,
sidewalks turn up to greet me,
I list my reasons for living with each step,
it seems unlikely the lint in my pocket
would be considered litter but
I have been accosted for much less.

The drizzle pixilated walkway
reminds me of the media constant,
vying for my attention at any cost,
disappearing as fast as the rain spots,
permanence seems an abstract, fleeting
reminder of my early life, dysfunction
greets me at every corner.

The traffic light blinks yellow,
on, off, on, like slow motion strobe,
just as hypnotic, less chromatic, more
room for pleasure, Lisa once said,
“life is for the living” her razorblade
blood stain left no room for doubt.

I stall at the front door, understanding
this threshold brings reality home, my
front lawn slowly grows up around me,
each star cutting through the overcast
reaffirming my need to keep reality at
bay, if just until daybreak, dream big.

In Another Life

I wonder if,
in another life,
I was a lighthouse keeper,
I’d have lived a life of solitude,
except for my dog named Sam.

We would watch the clippers
head out to sea,
then watch them return,
again and again.

Dream of fantastic voyages,
of swashbuckling romance
beginning to end,
buried treasure to defend,
a damsel fair in every yarn.

Writing them down so
I wouldn’t forget,
in a journal for my eyes alone,
yet hoping in the back of my head,
they’re the best stories ever told.

Knowing my calling,
when all’s said and done,
I must have polished the bezel
with proud detail,
knowing without fail,
I was saving lives.

She’s Alone in Paradise

Standing tall before a new day,
looking thru each coming storm,
all the past roads she once traveled,
covered over, tattered, torn.

No more living in a shadow,
always giving, no return,
time to love inside her magic,
now her truth returns, reborn.

She’s alone in paradise,
rapture driven, no compromise,
if you try and walk beside her,
listen close without disguise.

She once felt uncomplicated,
those who drained her of her pride,
talking backward, crippled demons,
used her up so they may shine.

Left them standing in their darkness,
no one left to criticize,
leaches born from weakened fiber,
turned her back on their demise.

Now the day is filled with petals,
from the bloom shone in her eyes,
no more days of second guessing,
she’s alone in paradise.

Full Moon Feast

wide awake over covers peeping,
seize me not this full moon feast,
walls have eyes to search within me,
fear doest chill me to the bone.

shadows lurk in every corner,
whispers carry to the wind,
phantom glance descends upon me,
ghostly white this mirror mask.

remind me not past resident torture,
branches dance through window’s pane,
darkened halls of hardwood creaking,
night train beckons all-aboard.

toss and turn a black cat weeping,
distant shutter grip gale’s whim,
chimes the bell that steals the hour,
save this soul from specter’s hold.

haunt me not these evil minions,
Gideon’s book cast to the floor,
disregard my lost transgressions,
can repentance make me whole.

hear my pledge which echoes softly,
from this day and evermore,
I will vow a better person,
future cast my just reward.

counted sheep now gather around me,
calm reclaims my shaken soul,
full moon feast retires its warning,
redemption’s promise fades with time.

Hands Across the Middle

I stand on your side,
looking at each futile barricade,
your ancient contract pulses,
pushing me to action.

Blazin’ rocket torch,
innocence crying for involvement,
your faith tears,
burning each promise,
I want to act,
you want bare landscape.

Why must every dark hallway
placate our chained agreement,
I need only to stand before each martyr,
comfort each drifting truth.

Needing your survival,
your misstep,
your stabbing belief,
each dying sacrifice,
I can give you fire without destruction,
I can be your passion, without oblivion.

I need to stand,
side-by-side each
sunny-side-up,
Jew and Arab,
skinhead and mocha,
soldier and pacifier,
point and dome,
sun, moon, earth,
ice and heat,
lie verses harmony.
and pavement wane.

If I ask too much,
you must call me dreamer,
brand me each rusted gate’s acrimony,
deceiver,
then steal away each standard.

Within every lump sum,
lives a building block,
without one,
two becomes a transient theory,
hold my hand and live.

A Sunday Rain

That day it rained I didn’t see the sun, not that it could lay sway to my indifference. In so many ways I think myself nocturnal, drifting through days, dancing by night, my days are for the gathering in, my nights are my conclusions.

I thought of challenging Steinbeck to a walk among the unfortunate but felt it would only feed my melancholy. Possibly, Beethoven could have ignited my passion to write. Not in that moment, I had little use for writing in that moment.

As I gazed out into the Sunday rain I found myself counting raindrops, the futility seemed to comfort me. The drops exploding at journeys end, creating anarchy upon the blacktop, running to nowhere like commuters at rush hour.

I looked deeper into the cascading curtain, past the physical, beyond its nourishment, past the city streets, across the rolling hills, journeying to the very peak of imagination where the nameless leave their impression and design my day’s outcome.

I lingered there, among the sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, aunts, uncles, sisters and brothers, and forgotten child, where dreams are rarely realized and many are lost to wanting. Slowly, like picking apples, I collect only the ones that suited my mood, leaving the rest for future contemplation.

Retreating to my warm and dry solitude, I laid each out to examine, one before the next, it was at that moment, at that end of a journey taken, I found my inspiration to write about a Sunday rain. Just me and my conclusion.

If I had any doubts about the power of the Outsider Writers Collective (I didn’t), or the World Wide Web (I didn’t), or even social networking tools (I didn’t) they would have been wiped away recently when I was Facebook-friended by Subhankar Das, a Kolkata (that’s Calcutta to us) bookstore owner, poet and translator who has recently launched an English blogzine, Graffiti-Kolkata, to spread the word on the major–and majorly overlooked–Bangla Lit scene now making a push for our shores.

The basis for the Bangla Lit scene is the Hungry Generation Movement, which was was founded in November 1961 by Malay Roychoudhury, whose work and ideas, and deep connections with his spiritual and cultural roots had a major and life-changing impact on the Beats in general and Allen Ginsberg in particular. [Update: Subhankar explained in a follow-up email that he is part of a group of alternative/underground writers who "appreciate the Hungry Generation but do not follow them" --TH]. I’ve written a short blog post that has more links here, but I also dashed off two questions to Subhankar to give him a chance to introduce himself to the OW community.

Can you tell me about your book store? What does it stock, who are your customers generally, and how is it doing?

This shop once belonged to my father and he used to retail undergarments and ready made clothes for kids.I ran it for sometime but after his death I changed it to a book store.

With our kind of books it is very difficult to meet even the monthly expenses so I introduced a photocopying machine in the shop.But this fuck machine needs a kind of powder-ink to run. After a year I realized this ink is ruining the books of the store so I was bound to sell the machine off.

The rent bills, electricity bills were mounting and there was no one to turn to….it was almost the end of the line kind of situation…and lo here comes my long lost artist friend, who wants some space to show her talent and of course was more professional than me .

I created a mezzanine floor for my books and kept the rest of the shop for her talent and in return she takes care of the monthly bills.

We only stock books and little magazines of the underground scenario and related themes, that way we are very conservative and want to stay like that.

We are always with the young, mostly students. Though we have also a number of followers among  teachers who collects our books at regular intervals.

I feel we have failed to initiate the young generation.We who are in our mid forty’s may buy some more time but if the youth is not with us we are nowhere.I feel sad for this uneducated electric bastard generation of fame seekers…I am on TV therefore I exist types.No one reads a book these days.We have reached a saturation point of 400 loyal readers but after that I don’t know…Bangladesh has a better situation because the whole country speaks Bangla but in out country it is just a regional language.We have created situations so that our books are now selling in Bangladesh. It is a tough game Tim but we did not give up.

Is there as much apathy towards outsider, unconventional, or otherwise underground literature in Kolkata as there is here in the USA? Is there a corporate-owned “literary fiction” industry over there that controls access to “serious” writing and completely denies the existence of your movement?

Bengali literature in kolkata and India is ruled by Anand Bazar Patrika group of publications.Once a one man show business house now a corporate of course. If you do not write in there magazine or are not related with them, you are not a writer , no one at all.So no one publishes you. Another establishment is the ruling communist party(ha ha) of West Bengal who shot down farmers who protested against land grabbing operation of the government.They think we are the roughes of literature who are funded by the CIA.

Now comes the exiting part. We also have 100s of little magazines who serves the need for these corporates in disguise and make money with government sponsored advertisements.

Naturally the movement becomes diluted and the Ananda Bazar (The daily Newspaper) makes a small comment on little magazines, compares them with bundles of mosquitoes in the dark.

They even control the distribution of books.They have their own logistics. Anandabazar or any news paper or commercial popular magazine must carry your regular advertisements of books or you must have some rave reviews in some commercial magazine, then they can think of keeping your books in their stores for distribution.

Little magazines still can be displayed in 4 ,5 places in Kolkata but for books there is hardly any place, which also motivated us for starting this book store.