Owl Who Laughs

Release: Gloom Cupboard, Poetry #141

2012-01-26T12:26:00.003-05:00

Gloom Cupboard, venerable yet always new, eloquent in its goal to hold injustice up by the neck, has released its “Poetry #141,” which includes “Plague,” one of the best Neruda-style poems I have ever written.

You can read this poem, which took over six months to craft, by clicking the following link and, afterward, scrolling down:

POETRY #141

The editors often say courageous things of the sort that will get you banned from the mainstream media. They are like Noam Chomsky. The New York Times called Noam Chomsky one of the greatest thinkers of our time, and yet he is almost never allowed to speak up where he might be widely heard.

In addition to painful truths, Gloom Cupboard presents dreamy hypnotic poetry of all kinds, from the arcadian to the stygian. The phrases flow like absinthe into your widening pupils.

Please consider spending some time with this fugitive website. Imagine a world where most people are in a dull jail that monitors their senses and minds carefully; and yet one inmate escapes, pulls off the hobbles and the gag.

What would you give to listen to that inmate?

Best to all,

Owl

PS: See my review of Gloom Cupboard here:

Hoot Marks The Spot

Acceptance: Lily Lit Review

2012-01-24T21:43:00.002-05:00

-----------

VISIT LILY

Lily is a special journal in the world of poetry. For four years, it published a new issue every single month, an amazing feat of editorial prowess. Not just the quantity but also the quality of the poems, paired with evocative photography, drew attention.

As Editor Susan Culver-Graybeal says in the "About" section:

In those four years, Lily published interviews with, and work by, writers such as Pushcart Prize winner, Beth Ann Fennelly; National Book Award nominee, Alicia Ostriker; Pulitzer Prize poets, Paul Muldoon and Claudia Emerson; and former U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser. Conversely, Lily has also been the first publication credit for a number of emerging poets and writers.

After these four furious years of intense excellence, Editor Culver (not yet -Graybeal) took a well-deserved break. A few years later, she returned with the blog site, Poetry Friends, which published absolutely stunning poems one at a time, but only at a sporadic rate, averaging a handful a month.

Now Lily is back. It is very exciting. Volume 5 started up in May 2011, and has been proceeding along with a new issue every month.

Folks, I recommend this journal very highly. The combination of intense poetry and evocative photography works; in fact, it sings out in a variety of beautiful literary voices. The poetry isn't always happy. Sometimes it is dark and harsh. But it always reaches into you and grabs you by the deepest chords of your heart. You wouldn't want it any other way, and Lily dares to take you up on your challenge.

I'm intensely pleased that my poem "New Skin" will be appearing in the next issue. Susan Culver-Graybeal is one of those rare talented poets who also dedicate themselves to editing with equal passion, and the result is phenomenon of grace, insight, music and eloquence.

Thanks for reading,

Owl

Homeless Story of J, Part 16

2012-01-20T14:15:00.001-05:00

All fiction, no worries...

----------------------

XVI

I have seen the Devil. It is simple. Nothing but a great Cookie Cutter that stamps not dough but minds. Once a mind is stamped, it takes in miniature the form of the Devil. It attempts to encircle and shape other minds.

When people talk nowadays, I hear mostly cookie cutters. You can see the mental cage--for that is what it is--through the medium of words or body language. Sometimes, I hear only one sentence, but that is enough. I have been known to approach those who are especially gone and exclaim, “Aha! you have been stamped, molded, soul in a box.”

If Jesus comes to me, I chant my warding spell, “soulinabox, soulinabox, soulinabox” and Jesus goes away.

Because the cookie cutter lives through words, it can move as fast as fire and lightning. Since the rise of the machines, words have been able to strike anywhere in the world, assassinate from thousands of miles away.

Once the cookie cutter is a multitude, it is even harder for an individual to resist. Cookie cutters in hordes of little minds begin to piece together the full contours of the Devil, and these are Hate.

If the cookie cutter fails to stamp you, it will try again and again. It knows. You can fool it by pretending to be caught in its sharp edges. Obedient. Trite. The Devil’s banal echo.

If you pretend or protest, you will be gnawed at by the constant knife. It hits softly, again and again, seeking to infect your will power, your stamina, your patience. It hates the philosophy, art and spirit that not only protect your mind but regenerate you. REMEMBER: If you cannot regenerate, you will lose in the end, your defenses nothing but rocks gradually eroded by constant waves.

Words said in kindness can be the most evil of demons. Think of missionaries fervent with cookie-cutter Love while they go about dismantling culture and independence, filling minds with the equivalent of Santa Claus.

You cannot trust those who approach you with the cookie cutter’s shallow simulacrums. You will want to, because you are alone, tired, frustrated, abandoned, penniless.

But if you accept, you are lost. The blade comes down like a psychic axe, chopping off your metaphysical limbs and wings. You get brutally reformed into a copy of the cookie cutter. You bleed deep invisible blood--the most heartfelt and meaningful sort--but it is trapped within the penetrable sides of the hard device. Nothing is more callous and impenetrable than the cookie cutter, once you must rely on it to function.

Once you are inside, in anguish from losing your limbs and wings, you will never heal, because you aren’t free. You will smile and hide from your own anguish, the loss of what you are, while you parrot the mundane tune of hell.

Which is worse? To be dismembered and paralyzed in a quadriplegic replica, not of yourself, but the banality of the Devil? Or to feel the attack of the blade and yet deflect it, over and over, to keep your wisdom and sight?

Never forget the Good. It is not religious but beyond any religion. It dwells in the nature of things, a beautiful possibility in the soil of the cosmos. The Divine Good is what regenerates you. In my case, the Good has become a Goddess with many forms. It will approach you as you are, if you are brave.

Never forget that this world is purgatory. A test. If you embrace the Good, you defeat the Devil, even if it is merely a secret show of resistance.

Remember what I have told you: Busyness is the enemy of hard work and, crucial, there are worse fates than death.

J

------------------------

Acceptance: Gloom Cupboard

2012-01-18T13:24:00.004-05:00

The chief poetry editor at Gloom Cupboard is Luis Albert Rivas and I am sitting here in anguish thinking he is a great man. I say this because of the way he sees and talks: where he has been with his mind, how he steps forward with terrible wisdom, and where he makes me go. This is from his intro to #138:

For some reason I’m in Chicago. For some reason thousands of people are occupying both public and private spaces in my country that’s not my country – that has been steadily and speedily destroying the Earth – flirting with the potential of an all-out uprising. Poetry, much like Bertolt Brecht’s take on art holds true:

“Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.”

I dig that. So as you read the poems, keep that in mind. Question everything. Break things. Fuck shit up.

http://gloomcupboard.com/2011/10/15/poetry-138/

There it is! Do you see what is filling my eyes with tears of necessity?

In #137, he commemorates the anniversary of 9/11 this way:

Here in the United States of America there is a lot of news coverage on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, which is necessary journalism, for sure. But, unfortunately, it has overshadowed another Sept. 11 event, which most of you might not have been aware of, or–worst still–forgotten about. Thirty-eight years ago on Sept. 11, 1973, there was a bloody U.S./CIA-backed Coup in Chile against President Salvador Allende and his democratically elected socialist government. The attack was carried out by General Augusto Pinochet in compliance and with the full collaboration of the CIA and other covert U.S. agencies.

http://gloomcupboard.com/2011/09/13/poetry-137/

This is exactly essential. The problem in the Empire is that we are picky about which massacres we acknowledge. There is something damningly wrong about feeling only those hell-worthy crimes suffered and not those inflicted. Yes, we have inflicted numerous massacres of our own! We paint with weapons and lies in colors incarnadine.

Did you know? Maybe, as Rivas says, you never heard about the US government’s practice of overthrowing democratically elected leaders and replacing them with dictators who use death squads?

(Surely, though, you are aware at some level, that we ushered millions of Native Americans to their doom to found our Nation of Manifest Destiny?)

Or maybe, as Rivas says, you and I have committed the most awful failure of all: forgetting.

He continues in #137 to discuss the horror of Pinochet’s regime, including the unspeakable chance that Pablo Neruda was poisoned. This hurt me greatly. Rivas took a knife to my complacence:

After Pinochet took over Chile, he began rounding up and killing dissidents, Allende-loyalists, students, intellectuals, communists, socialists, writers, singers, musicians and poets, most notably Pablo Neruda (although it has been accepted that Neruda died of cancer on a hospital bed, a recent investigation has been launched into allegations that Neruda was deliberately poisoned by Pinochet’s forces).

Did you know that a US/CIA backed coup led to the arrest of Pablo Neruda, maybe (please gods no!) poisoned him?

(Honestly, the future will remember the US Empire as short lived and incredibly wicked, hedonistic, and self-righteous. Can we turn around the Decline?)

It has been so long since I heard an editor speak out with Neruda-worthy oration and condemnation and investigation and aberration. Rivas makes the rest of us seem like telltale sheep. Rivas is living in the painful energetic beautiful moment of taboo justice. He does not visit, he dwells.

It may be that he and I diverge in ideological ways. I am not a “card-carrying Communist” as he seems to claim for himself. In fact I would like Scandanavian-style mixed economies to spread throughout the world.

Free health care, childcare, and college education, plus paid vacations for all, and much more, from “cradle to grave.” This is a hearty socialism, combined with creative markets that prevent Greed from taking over. I think Neruda would approve. I hope so.

Our country, our Empire, banned Pablo Neruda, my poetic hero, from visiting. It installed monstrous tyrants who killed thousands and thousands of citizens with death squads, who used torture of the most hideous kind, all with our blessing.

In Indonesia, five hundred thousand people were killed after a US-backed coup (1965 in support of Sukarno).

Rivas is speaking with a philosophical razor. He isn’t afraid to use words like “fuck,” which I am afraid to use. Rivas is my hero. Introvert that I am, I haven’t heard anyone speak so well so forcefully so frankly in such a long time.

Everything we learned from the Great Depression, which was brought on by huge businesses dominating in unregulated markets, the free market capitalists would now destroy. They would dismantle Social Security and Medicare and the entire government-run safety net. (read Noami Klein, The Shock Doctrine).

Listen to Rivas. Read the poetry he publishes. There are two other editors listed along with him in the commentaries, Amber Bromer and Henry Ajumeze, and they are my heroes too.

It has been so long, it seems, that I have heard someone speak intelligently, passionately, wisely from Neruda's place of daring. Someone who brazenly, and yet with poise and sorcery of voice, challenges the money-led takeover of countries and souls.

What is "money" anyway? Some abstraction that bids us strangle love.

Please listen. We need to change. We need to occupy our minds with resistance and poems of healing and, yes, at this juncture in the fate of the world, ferocity.

Rivas quotes Brecht:

“Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.”

Listen! Do it! Speak from the aching lava under your trembling ribs.

As Rivas says, Fuck the world!

Occupy!

Owl

Fanatic Capitalism is Killng Us

2012-01-14T13:37:00.004-05:00

It is time for me to remind myself how sick and disturbing the economic system called “free market capitalism” or “laissez-faire” really is. If humanity survives the current Age of Narcissus, attaining a perch of insight, it will look back with gaping disbelief and gross horror.

If we act as ants, we are ants to the gods.

The cancer in our financial heart is easy to outline: our business elites have found a way to worship greed and convince themselves that it is the most beautiful force in the social universe. It’s that simple. You can stop reading here. If you do, imagine how ridiculous we will look to enlightened civilizations in future times (if by some miracle they ever manage to exist).

If you want details, you need look no further than the core premises of free market capitalism (which I sketch below). They are embraced with faith and fanaticism by their apostle economists; and also advantageously and slyly by kingpin entrepreneurs.

The origin of this fundamentalist economics is the so-called Chicago School at the University of Chicago in the 1950’s, with Milton Friedman emerging as the charismatic, tireless leader of the movement. His mentor was Friedrich Hayek, whose books are now sources of unwieldy mantras to his followers.

In its idealist form, the theory of capitalism states that markets can regulate themselves to produce a perfect equilibrium via an "invisible hand." Government bad, corporation good. It is a mathematical model based on unchallengeable premises, such as the all-importance of the urge for stuff.

To its adherents, it is a beautiful system of ideas, mathematically focused on an unregulated dance of buying and selling, which they praise in the way that Greek philosophers upheld the Platonic Forms or Christians worship God.

At the core is the pretty canard of self-interested materialistic desire. It has to be materialistic, because swiping our credit cards, on this view, is the essence of what makes us happy. Non-quantifiable sources of meaning, like spirituality and friendship, are microscopic compared to our insatiable want for more and newer things with competitive price tags.

Do you see how this view promotes Greed behind a guise of precious and abstract principles? The truth, though, is that the economic emperor of our time, free market capitalism, wears no clothes.

It was deregulated markets that brought us the Great Depression. After this destructive orgy of investment speculation, Franklin Delano Roosevelt remarked, “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.”

It was also deregulated markets that brought us the Great Recession in 2008. Monopoly and corruption inevitably follow when billionaires are not policed. But the fanatical followers of Friedman never learn.

Nowhere does a pure laissez-faire exist, and where it has been tried, the results are predictable: a cadre of crony entrepreneurs, a disappearing middle class, raging unemployment, and the dismantling of workers’ rights. A common tactic is to privatize, say, the transportation industry, destroy the union, fire the majority of workers, and watch the company stocks rise due to the “greater efficiency.” The corporate raiders then cash in while the company burns.

Laissez-faire is so callous and single-minded that the beauty of nature and respect for animals are not even on its map. It can’t understand non-human lives and ecosystems, except in terms of dollar signs, or more often a lack of dollar signs-- which leads to “development,” that Orwellian euphemism for destroying wilderness and mutilating millions of animals in lightless factory farms.

One of my favorite quotes in this regard comes from an apocalyptic work of fiction: “The [capitalists] fear what may not be purchased, for a trader cannot understand a thing that is priceless.” (Alpha Centauri)

The unworldly doctrine of free market capitalism is fully involved with the Satan-worthy practices of the US empire over decades. These include widespread torture, oppression, and self-serving wars. At the helm are extremely wealthy people whose conscience is unbothered by mass cruelty and evil.

This is but one of the horrible consequences of the Friedman-Hayek myth: it puts sociopathic moguls in charge of the world, accumulators who thrive on conquering and acquiring, and who have risen up through the competitive and corrupt world of the ‘free’ market by whatever callous and brutal force necessary.

I recommend the book “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein for a brilliant and life-changing introduction to these chilling issues. Another great book is “A Legacy of Ashes” by Tim Wiener. The best overarching reference is perhaps “Killing Hope” by William Blum.

Release: "Snowblink" at Bolts of Silk

2012-01-11T12:45:00.002-05:00

My poem "Snowblink" is currently featured at one of my favorite websites, Bolts of Silk, which is edited by the talented writer Juliet Wilson (aka Crafty Green Poet to hundreds of adoring fans):

SNOWBLINK

Wilson has published and archived eighteen of my poems, all of which you can access with a single click at the right side of the screen. Reading them over, I see how my work has evolved and my voice has become more honed and concentrated.

Needless to say, I am extremely grateful that Bolts of Silk, based in Scotland, is showcasing my poetry to an international audience. Many times, Wilson has provided me with a sturdy steppingstone of confidence. Given the murks of doubt and swamps rejection that plague the poet's journey, I sure am grateful for those steppingstones!

Owl

PS: I'm badly jet-lagged at the moment (east coast to west) and apologize if this seems terse.

Release: Xenith.net showcases "Constrictive"

2012-01-08T09:29:00.002-05:00

Read Now!!

This poem is one of the darkest I've written and the Editor at Xenith frames it with apocalyptic photography and ambience. I am very pleased with the presentation, more than I have been with any presentation in a long time.

This is a great site, the editor is brilliant and socially mordant. I felt like I was reading "Constrictive" for the first time.

Here is my previous review of Xenith. Visit this website and you will find yourself sudden frightened of our society. Your heart will feel far more alive.

Review of Xenith

Best to All,

Owl

"The Dark Touch of Genius"

2012-01-06T15:53:00.002-05:00

Check out this mini-review of my poetry by Karla Linn Merrifield, a blogger for YB Poetry:

The Dark Touch of Genius

I'm honored by her praise, even more because she is a most talented and prolific poet herself.

I don't think anyone in the poetry world has mentioned me in connection with genius before. Heck, I'll take it. I get so many rejections that any positive feedback is like a ladle of water to a faltering sage whose heartbeat thirsts.

I'm in the Bangor Daily!

2012-01-04T09:04:00.002-05:00

Bangor Daily News, one of Maine's best and most-read newspapers, ran a very positive article on my chapbook, Rebellion, which won 1st place in the Medulla Review competition. This following link will take you right to the nitty gritty:

REBELLION Press Release

In case you are shy about clicking on a nocturnal purple font, the entire article is reprinted below.

The following links are related to the article, and give biographical information and details about my artistic-philosophical sense:

Rebellion for sale at Medulla's website

A poem from Rebellion read online by Nic Sebastian of Whale Sound

(If nothing else, I strongly recommend you listen to Nic Sebastian at the above link. It is the best reading of one of my poems. Period)

Here is the Bangor Daily News article, in full.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment under the article on the BDN site. That would be most wonderful and might even make me attempt a backflip.

Owl

--------------------------

Lubec poet wins national competition
Posted Jan. 03, 2012, at 1:19 p.m.
Print this E-mail this Facebook this Tweet this

Poet Chris Crittenden of Lubec won first place in Medulla Publishing’s national competition for his chapbook “Rebellion.”

The editor writes that Crittenden “is a master of brilliant metaphors, vigorous verbs, and universal socio-spiritual concepts. He creates a unique world … and challenges gods, wars, machines, and the psychology of-being and everything.”

The title is based on a chapter from Dostoevsky’s “The Brother’s Karamazov,” in which the foundations of reality are put to devastating tests. All the poems have been previously published in various journals. To whet your literary appetite, an audio version of the lead-off poem, “The Gods Reflect On Creation,” is available free online, read by the sonorous bard Nic Sebastian of Whale Sound.

The prize includes 30 free copies and a share of royalties from sales on the Medulla website. Crittenden is a seasoned writer with more than 600 poems published, including work in Portland Review, Atlanta Review, Disquieting Muses and Chelsea. His poem “Protest” is anthologized in the upcoming collection “Liberty’s Vigil, the Occupy Anthology: 99 poets in the 99%” from Foothills Publishing. He teaches ethics and philosophy courses for the University of Maine at Machias and lives with his wife, artist Shanna Wheelock, in Lubec.

Release: Blast Furnace, Volume 1, Issue 4: Autumn 2011

2012-01-03T12:48:00.001-05:00

Read Blast Furnace Autumn 2011 Now!!

Rebecca Clever, the Editor/Publisher, has just released the latest compilation of poems from Blast Furnace Press. I've written about this venue at length before, and this fresh offering only reinforces my admiration.

Blast Furnace hails from the Pittsburgh area, and Pittsburghers ought to be quite pleased with the siren call of sonorous sounds emanating from this journal. It is nothing like the shriek of a ironmongery whistle, but local culture and local poets get wonderful representation. Editor Clever has expertly blended a wide range of voices. She offers a spider web of fascination to us readers, with literary phrases as hypnotic strands, and in the very center, the brilliance of Pittsburgh writers themselves.

Let the wings of your reverie get caught in this web. You will find yourself uplifted and ultimately left to soar on your own, your day more enlightened, impassioned, and intellectually stimulated.

You'll find my poem "Leaf Struck" within the offerings, and there is a nifty surprise attached, something I've never seen in all my 300-or-so publications.

What is this surprise?

Well, I'll give you a little: It is an EDITOR'S NOTE in a shocking and eye-grabbing blood-crimson font. As far as I know, my poem is the only one in all the issues of Blast Furnace to ever receive a special editor's note. It's an ominous and intimidating one, too, at least prima facie.

What does the note say? Well ... You'll have to visit Blast Furnace's latest issue to find out. And I hope you do! While you're there, why not send Rebecca Clever an email, thanking her for her hard work and also indicating which poems you like best? Editors almost never receive fan mail like this--and this editor certainly deserves kudos.

Owl

2011-12-31T16:49:00.003-05:00

Those who progress, through the anguished yet learned struggle of the mind, reach a stage where they must assume the full mantle of Cassandra.

She Who Scolds Ravens

----------------------

Liberty's Vigil, the Occupy anthology, Launches!

2011-12-30T10:35:00.005-05:00

Liberty’s Vigil, the Occupy anthology, 99 poets among the 99 percent, has been given a web page at Foothills Publishing:

FP and Liberty

See my review and praise for the editors, Karla Linn Merrifield and Dwain Wilder, here:

Owl On Liberty's Vigil

You’ll find one of my best anti-war poems, “Protest,” among the offerings--but the really interesting thing about this anthology is the fertile enthusiasm among the contributors. We have each other’s email, and the electronic bombination has been travelling this way and that faster than bees pollinate a bower.

Readings are being organized all over the United States. Some of the poets are in other countries, spreading the effort there as well. In my ten years as a poet, I’ve never seen this much fervor over the launch of an anthology.

Poets are the bellwether of any country’s moral compass, and many of those in the Empire are frenetic from the sad truth: America is sick with decadence, riven by cruelty, obese with greed, atrocious from war. The bulk of the people are not protesting (yet); but poets are speaking out, yelling, proclaiming with the literary equivalent of a clarion that we need to overcome the inequality and bellicosity that dominate our lives, and in truth menace the entire world.

Buy this anthology, or write your own anti-Avarice poem, or pick some work by a great prophet like Pablo Neruda or Wilfred Owen--and then read your piece aloud at a gathering, or post it where others can and must see. Pin your anguish to the words. Let the public know you care about the descent of American into tyranny, plutocracy, and dissolution.

Courageous artists are speaking. You are one of them, if only you challenge the invisible yet insidious walls of silence. An honest poet speaks freely, fights the momentum of malfeasance.

Whether or not you use a pen or a keyboard, or call yourself a protester, is immaterial.

Owl

Poem: December Trees

2011-12-28T12:20:00.001-05:00

Another poem published originally in Wilderness House Literary Review, under the auspices of Poetry Editor Irene Koronas. All this month, I am posting some of my WHL acceptances to honor this venue and its leadership.

Owl

------------------------------

December Trees

half-melted popsicles,
rain-slathered,

bark spongy with drench,
a lettuce of wood,
and spiny

like squished crabs
in a tubular crate,

icy as rejection,
twitching gale-numbed
claws.

don’t climb them
they snap like horns
of dead ibex,

and grimace
from fangs in notches,
revealing the crush
of hungers inside--

decades of lives
sucked by roots
to lard the pith--

every splinter an ant,
every rumple
some hapless sprite,
the twigs pedipalps

stolen from spiders
after they veiled
oaken bones.

--------------------------------

Acceptance: IthacaLit

2011-12-21T10:09:00.001-05:00

IthacaLit is a new journal that has taken its recent flight very seriously. As a result, it has already learned to soar. Currently, a small number of poets, only twelve, have work on the site; but the quality is outstanding, and so IthacaLit spreads young yet magnificent wings. You will find the work of seasoned and extraordinary voices like Diane Lockward and Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé, and also lesser known yet scintillant silver-tongues as well.

Founding Editor Michele Lesko has done everything right (with assistance from Editor Sherry O’Keefe, who also edits at YB poetry). She no doubt realized that if the name of your journal is eponymous with place, you de facto become a representative of the personality and eloquence of place. By claiming geographical kinship, you contribute to a communal aura.

In my sincerest opinion, the city of Ithaca can be quite proud of this nascence--and better be. IthacaLit is like a star that pulls your eye to a certain quadrant of the sky.

Today is Solstice and I’m not swimming in an abundance of time (maybe a little ice), but I want to add that the ambience upon arrival at the URL (ithacalit.com) is absolutely pro. Expert and stylish organization, including font and color, synergize with a generous assortment of starkly good photos. You feel emotional roots as soon as you cross the threshold.

Once this journal gets known, the chance of acceptance is bound to plummet; and I suspect it is already a camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle kind of thing. Polish your best pieces with lapidary care, and send them out quick. Keep in mind the Yule song that goes, “Up on the rooftop quick, quick, quick” and move even faster!

I’m lucky and honored that my poems “Hermit Thrush Song” and “On the Couch” will be included. A rare and special gift.

This journal is a must-see.

Owl

Poem: Under the Silver

2011-12-20T12:15:00.001-05:00

Continuing my tribute to Wilderness House Literary Revew and Poetry Editor Irene Koronas, here is another poem originally published there.

May the silver in the darkness guide you.

Owl

---------------------

Under The Silver

the moon gazes
like a denarius
on the lid of Venus,
and we wonder
what else is buried in the mists;
if truth is a victim
or a willing sacrifice;
and whether we ourselves
are under the silver.

the soil-like sky
shuffles its den of coffins,
each a mansion of mutable doors.
how long have we been
sawing with harsh prayers,
trying to get out,
or to rescue the eyries
trapped within?

when clouds mesh
into a metropolis,
their eye sockets
yield an immutable rain;
and if we are to earn daylight,
we must decipher the turbid sorrow,
untangle the beasts hinted at
by clumps of vaporous
and angry bone.

------------------------------

America and Johnny: Both Seduced By the Devil

2011-12-19T10:04:00.009-05:00

The Devil Went Down To Georgia is one of the best known songs in the US, embodying what has become a legend of Americana. The devil challenges a talented boy named Johnny to a fiddle-playing contest, wagering a golden fiddle against the boy’s soul. The boy outplays his infernal opponent, and wins the expensive and shiny prize:

The devil bowed his head because he knew that he'd been beat.
He laid that golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny's feet.
Johnny said: "Devil just come on back if you ever want to try again.
"I done told you once, you son of a bitch, I'm the best that's ever been."

The underlying message embraces values of competition, materialism, and individualism. Unvarnished praise of gold-lust is given a special twist: as long as you are very good at what you do, it is okay to be reckless and immoral. In the song, Johnny admits that accepting the Devil’s challenge is sinful, but he doesn’t care, boasting with unflappable and audacious arrogance:

The boy said: "My name's Johnny and it might be a sin,
"But I'll take your bet, your gonna regret, 'cos I'm the best that's ever been."

The cultural encryptions in the song support the kind of norms you would expect in America, an imperious and self-aggrandizing place. In good Roman fashion, the US has battened on wealth, and imploded into a lopsided aftermath of decadence and poverty. It is now descendant after a brief run on top, making it the shortest-lived empire of all time.

This precipitous decline has a lot to do with the theme of Charlie Daniels’ song, a surreptitious message in the psyche of extreme capitalism:

If you try hard and have great talent, you can beat the Devil.

This message is not only flawed, poisonous actually, it is a gateway to disaster. The real truth in the song, The Devil Went Down to Georgia, is that the Devil cannot lose. As soon as Johnny takes the bet, the Devil wins, no matter the outcome of the competition.

If the Devil outplays Johnny, the boy’s soul is lost in a blink. Reckless is a stupid way to gamble.

If Johnny outplays the Devil, he gets a golden fiddle. Okay, what next? The fiddle becomes the Eye of his life, the lens of his great moment. It fixates him on risky triumph and associates thrill with gold. The fiddle enamors the immature upstart, making object master.

We can imagine the insidious way this glittering possession possesses. To justify his outlandish risk, Johnny convinces himself that his soul has no more worth than a fancy yet simple instrument.

By handing Johnny the fiddle, the Devil spreads an itch for wealth, a pride in danger, and scorn for humility. Life becomes a trophy hunt.

A plausible ending: Johnny, haughty already, goes home and brags about his prize, tucking it under his pillow at night. He does a fine job spreading seeds that the Devil wants spread: selfishness, avarice, impulse. Johnny’s virtuosity wanes. He has convinced himself that he plays for riches, not excellence. The rest of his life becomes a monetary quest.

Eventually, the boy who 'beat' the personification of Evil is shot and killed by covetous thieves.

In “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” the satanic bard cannot lose. In fact, taking Johnny’s soul is probably the lesser way to debauch humanity. Why not let Johnny have the fiddle so he can infect others and sow discord?

The United States acts like Johnny. It thinks that if it blusters and saber-rattles, it can beat the Devil, and do whatever it wants.

Big corporations act this way too. Sociopathic of ego, incautious, they push us into a bewildering future. As the victors rush ahead, accelerating the profit craze, tens of millions of people get left to languish in irrelevance.

The United States thinks it can beat the Devil. But just like Johnny, the US is trapped in a no-win situation. Once you take the bet, you're in chains. When arrogance makes you think you can step beyond good and evil, you lose.

Owl

Poem: Stormy

2011-12-17T18:56:00.003-05:00

Another poem published in Wilderness House Literary Review, edited by the talented Irene Koronas. I am very pleased to showcase WHL poems this month.

Owl

----------------

Stormy

what some call fatal
others deem food.
the wounded reach up
alongside the supple.
a crow bleats as fractured nests
sift down.

animals of water
orgy in flooded streets.
their moans gorge
on a mill of shapeless skin.
streetlights swing like biceps,
fiercely working slush.
the wail of an ambulance
scissors liquid, cutting
its sheets of sighs.

some of us dance nude on
greased tar while rainbows
lick our feet. others wrap in
hurried layers of pelt and rubber.
ripples slither-slip over
the anguish of the pummeled stage,
reminding us of shattered
rules.

a pigeon swerves
then jackknifes madly,
becoming the story of a whip.

---------------------

Poem: Closet

2011-12-11T20:57:00.001-05:00

Another poem published by Wilderness House Literary Review. This poem concerns my brother, who was born on December 9, 1969 and died on February 5, 2000.

---------------------

Closet

in the dark the shirts
in the closet are ghosts,
suicides that hung themselves
that way. faint
moonlight dredges up
a slump of someone’s collar.
the boy on the bed
wants to go inside, stick his head in--
to try on every limp body,
find out every why
from these skeletons
that hang on hooks
shaped like the letter Y.

he wants to be in the middle.
wrapped up, strangled, hugged.
he wants all these bodies
to be fabrics of snatching web.
and as he struggles
he beholds the intri-
cacy of the monster,
its cheekless face,
how it torments in echoes,
reminds him of love
that died mangled in its beak.

somehow, fitting into
the agony of all his fears,
he must go down.

Poem: Flooded Gutter

2011-12-07T14:39:00.001-05:00

This poem originally appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review, edited by the exceptional poet and thinker, Irene Koronas.

Owl

PS: You never know what you will find in a gutter.

-------------------------------

Flooded Gutter

trash floats thick
like a python slow
with cancer.

we watch soiled husks
bob toward drains,
nodding

like sycophants
and barely able to swim.
they stink

of the trouble
of denied decay,
of stress held hostage

in antsy cars.

we do our best not
to fathom their pall.
their ignominy.

their lack of face.

-------------------------

Acceptance: Liberty's Vigil

2011-12-05T23:56:00.006-05:00

Liberty's Vigil: The Occupy Anthology, 99 poets among the 99%

It’s a great honor and privilege to be part of this justice-seeking anthology, along with 98 phenomenal poets, many with national reputations. The release date will be some time in January and the publisher is FootHills Publishing, a wellspring of quality books and stimulating literary endeavors.

The up-front Editor is Karla Linn Merrifield, a brilliant and prodigious writer whose voice strives with skill and emotion not only to praise the Earth, its beautiful animals, ecosystems and plants, but also to alert and educate, to reach into our hearts through layers of conformity and wake us to the perils of the Tech Rush (think California Gold Rush, circa 1848, expanded to include the entire globe). She writes books, she edits multiple venues, and she puts together anthologies. I worked with her briefly in her capacity as co-Editor at one of the best-produced small-press journals of all: The Centrifugal Eye. You have to see--not just read but SEE--this journal to believe it. Anyway, I worked with her briefly and was overwhelmed by her competence, ethical passion and charm.

(What is “ethical passion?” It is the result of living without denial about the dangers and wonders of life when it could all be destroyed by nuclear weapons, genetic tampering, or cyborgery. It is the ability to soar to bliss and dive into vicarious grief, an emotional flight born of candor, with a deep-seated yearning to heal and protect the Earth from further damage, and to help the human species continue to mature and evolve its fledgling conscience)

In short, Merrifield is the human equivalent of an earth calyx. An earth calyx is a magical place of natural beauty and aesthetic/spiritual confluence. Merrifield is a leader, not authoritarian, but rather a humble and discerning artist and philosopher, who brings the best of many souls together in journals and anthologies.

I haven't communicated directly with the Behind-the-Scenes Editor Dwain Wilder, an equal partner in the project with Merrifield. Go to the 99-poets website (see the purple link above) and read his bio. You will find a fascinating spectrum of adventures and skills that, I have feeling, barely scratch the aptitudes and avocations of this bardic Renaissance man. This erudite fellow is truly fascinating. For instance, I learned a new word, "luthier," the name of his artisan and euphonious trade. As a coup de grace, he is an exemplar of progressive courage, having worked extensively in leadership roles for Civil Rights and also to end the Vietnam War.

What a magical duet of editors. The synergy between them is a sure seal and signet, attesting to the excellence of this anthology.

It’s late here, and I am sinking. I needed to write this now, because I hardly have time for anything beside the pillars of my existence: my poetry and dwelling in mutuality with my incredible wife.

I will add that all copies of this anthology will be hand-sewn. What a special and rare touch (double-entendre intended).

Owl

Anesthetized

2011-11-30T18:25:00.000-05:00

The American people have become anesthetized to the horrors of war.

That one sentence cries storms. If true, something has gone tragically wrong. There is no need for a disquisition, or an Homeric tour de force, or dozens of chapters of any kind.

The American people have become anesthetized to the horrors of war.

Let that phrase sink in. You could attend a marathon reading, listen to hundreds of poets give heartrending testimony; or you can dwell on the ramifications of this single crucial key:

The American people have become anesthetized to the horrors of war.

If we humans were brilliant beings, angelic of genius, this one truth would mobilize and shock us, outrage and invoke vehement yet catalyzing acts of protest.

The American people have become anesthetized to the horrors of war.

But we are terribly flawed and, yes, sheep-like entities, who can see vast dysfunction without seeing, and speak voluminous rhetorics without speaking to help heal our plight.

The American people have become anesthetized to the horrors of war.

That one exhalation should be enough, if we dare dwell on the concise yet world-changing import.

The American people have become anesthetized to the horrors of war.

We can use this line of symbols like a pin, pop the empty layers of non-emotion keeping our zeal for justice inside. We need to let the power of words arrest then liberate us, subdue then embolden--

We must, we must, we must! Because

The American people have become anesthetized to the horrors of war.

Acceptance: Bolts of Silk

2011-11-29T18:38:00.003-05:00

Juliet Wilson at Bolts of Silk recently took my poem, "Snowblink," which will appear sometime in December. I have written about Wilson before, calling her a Druidess in an informal way, for she does more to raise awareness and champion the magic and spiritual riches of nature than anyone else I have had contact with as a poet--and I have about 600 poems published now.

Wilson has more than one very popular website. Her profile has something like 25,000 views. Bolts of Silk has 366 followers at the time of this writing.

Another of her blogs, Crafty Green Poet, is also charismatic and hypnotic. Beautiful writing and photography, and wise words for green living. She has won awards and prizes, been invited to give lectures, and teaches literature at a local University near her home in Ireland.

This is a feeble post. I am not doing justice to Wilson's skill, diligence, passion, perspicacity and creative intellect. I wish I could write a lot more, but time is not on my side. I'm feeling crushed.

I will say this: She is one of a few editors and poets who have helped my artistic journey tremendously, and who has inspired me with her ethical wisdom and courage.

It is rare to meet people like this in life, and I am glad that all my struggle and toil as a writer led me to Bolts of Silk.

I recommend this venue as both a philosopher and a bard.

Owl

A Plug for My Chapbook: Rebellion

2011-11-26T17:39:00.002-05:00

I’m going to be plugging my latest chapbook, Rebellion, now and then. It did, after all, win first place in the Medulla Publishing competition!

The first poem in the chapbook is “The Gods Reflect On Creation,” a philosophical and spiritual satire on the nature of human life within the overarching parameters of cosmic evolution.

Listen to Nic Sebastian read this poem, one of the best I’ve written (click on the play button; and if you want the text, click on the text button):

THE GODS REFLECT ON CREATION

Are you convinced yet? Why not go to the following link and at least consider purchasing the slim volume of poems that represents my soul? They have all been published somewhere snazzy.

REBELLION

Owls rarely hoot in happiness, but, as they say, you’ve got the power ...

Cheers And All That,

Owl

Release: Prime Number 13.3

2011-11-22T18:27:00.000-05:00

My poem "Rock Wall" is now up at Prime Number Magazine, including a photo of me frazzled:

ISSUE 13.3 PRIME NUMBER

Also, see my review of Prime Number here, if you wish:

PRIME NUMBER REVIEW

Thanks!

Owl

Release: Emprise Review, Issue 22

2011-11-18T17:01:00.003-05:00

Issue 22 of Emprise Review has just been released, including my poem, “Bottoming,” inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Here’s the link:

READ ISSUE 22

The Poetry Editor of this established and superb journal is Tracy Youngblom. According to Duotrope Digest, only about 8% of submissions are accepted, which makes sense given the stellar and arresting work in Emprise. Youngblom finds poems that are pithy and succinct,and yet usually of pretty good length. They are lyrical and original pieces that bristle with intense meaning, the sort that salves and stings at many levels, often with a subtle undertone of ethos. In short, brilliant stuff with a purpose that transcends and yet co-opts good sound.

Youngblom made a suggestion on my poem which improved it greatly, though I’m still not sure it is worthy of Emprise. I sure am grateful to be included though! The poem was edited over a dozen times.

The Poetry Editor’s Introduction was fascinating for me to read, because it concerns feminism and I am teaching Women’s Studies this semester. Youngblom puzzles over the fact that all her contributors in this issue, inadvertently, are male, which seems ironic given her dedication to promoting women’s equality. However, she works it out, and shows that feminism is a flexible and accepting philosophy, one that continuously seeks to end oppression but does not adhere to a simple male-vs-female mathematics.

It is not easy to be a feminist in our global society today, and I admire Youngblom for launching a tough discussion about trying to be ethical once the Women’s Studies class is over, and the camaraderie of the classroom has yielded to the inevitable branches that take feminists on separate journeys. How do you sustain your imperative for justice? What strategies keep you energized when you are ‘out in the world’, away from others who agree with you, and faced with situations that don't allow simple choices?

Youngblom shows us it can be done and that the struggle to understand life’s confusing and complex contexts can spark some sagacious and absorbing prose.

Owl

My Prize-Winning Chapbook Now On Sale!

2011-11-15T08:35:00.004-05:00

My chapbook “Rebellion,” which won 1st place in the Medulla Publishing competition, is now on sale at the site, using PayPal:

REBELLION

The theme is challenging the system. The system could be anywhere or anything. A city, a drug, a corporation, a senator, God, death, a desert, a chainsaw, dark love ...

The pieces in this booklet are some of the best I have produced in my ten years struggling to write. It’s somewhat sad that my essence and philosophy can be distilled into such a slim volume--but there it is.

I’m not going to beg for anyone to purchase “Rebellion.” That would be like begging to sell my soul. The bottom line is this: if I sell some copies, it will bring pleasure; if I don’t it will annoy and depress; but these emotions are ephemeral either way, and I don’t think I will ever stop writing.

My goal is to let my most honest attempts at verbal beauty fly free. Not a single one of my poems is more precious than a butterfly, and like most butterflies they will live unseen and die lonely and sometimes cruelly. The world we live in dictates that miracles are commonplace and most will be crushed without awareness by blinkered beings who themselves are used by others.

This doesn’t mean we can't be judged. Each of us, for better or worse, is liable for our choices, including what we decide to see. My pamphlet intends to be part of a quest for better living. The path taken is one of unfettered passion accusing the system. My mode of travel is the most intense and evocative phrases I can, with great pain, discover and combine into a ferocious yet somewhat angelic beast.

This is the purpose of my life, this is what I was put here to do. My poems are my fig tree. At this stage, given what I’ve seen of humanity, I don’t expect anything more.

Owl

PS: Here is the chapbook blurb from Medulla Editor Jennifer Hollie Bowles, a disarming, original, surreal and dangerously good poet in her own right:

----------------

On Rebellion

Master of brilliant metaphors, vigorous verbs, and universal socio-spiritual concepts, [Owl Who Laughs] creates a unique world of intoxicating poetry in his chapbook, Rebellion. This world reveals and challenges gods, wars, machines, and the psychology of—being and everything. Read and become instantly: “...reminded of their squelched pulse/and the storms in heartbeats...”

[Owl Who Laughs] teaches environmental ethics for the University of Maine and does much of his writing in a hut in a spruce forest. There are no traffic lights for fifty miles and moose can get dangerous during the rut. His creative angst can be described as obsessive, lycanthropic and apocalyptic. He has about five hundred poems published, including work in Chelsea, Atlanta Review, Portland Review and Disquieting Muses. Regarding his fifth chapbook, Gordian Butterflies, the Poetry Editor at Arsenic Lobster said, “[it] may just become a collector’s item one day.” He’s been nominated for various awards, including the Pushcart, Best New Poets and Best of the Web, and was interviewed twice on Poets Café, a radio show of KPFK Los Angeles. Both interviews and more extensive biographical background are available here:

http://www.timothy-green.org/blog/chris-crittenden/

He lives with his talented artist wife and their cat Portobello, and any bears, deer or bald eagles that might wander through the yard.

--------------------

Acceptance: Prime Number

2011-11-09T10:12:00.005-05:00

Prime Number: A Journal of Distinctive Poetry and Prose

I’m very excited that my poem “Rock Wall” will appear in issue 17 of Prime Number, a new yet outstanding source of literary delight. “How could it be new,” you ask, “when they are on issue 17?” Answer: you need to break out of the reductive routine, your evenly spaced same-old-same-old, and enter into the weltanschauung of a rare, special and unpredictable beast: the prime number.

Every prime number is unique, after all. There is no formula to predict when the next prime will occur as you race toward infinity on the staircase of natural numbers (1, 2, 3, ...). No prime number is dividable into the product of other numbers. Unique, independent and fascinating, these special entities become more rare as the number of digits in their stride increases. It was proven true by the classic Prime Number Theorem in the 19th century.

The largest known prime number is currently listed on Wikipedia with its own special name:

M43112609

which represents 2 x 10 to the 43112609 power, minus 1.

If Prime Number becomes the most legendary and long-lasting zine of all time, spreading through the galaxy among all (un)known species of xenoforms, it might someday reach Issue M43112609. This feat will be aided by the fact that the journal uses only prime numbers for its issues.

So, while I am appearing in 17, it is actually the seventh issue, if you want to revert to the old boring way of thinking. Contributors appearing in issue 127 will be, in prosaic terms, gracing the pages of the 31st offering. Currently the journal is on the quarter system, so 127 will come out just before the ninth year of publication.

Enough of the math! Except to say that I hope this literary oasis does reach M43112609. The contents are exquisitely non-mathematical and consummately fine. The Poetry Editor, Valerie Nieman, sets a highly professional standard for bona fides. She might be the most accomplished editor I have ever worked with. Here is her biography from the site:

Valerie Nieman worked for three decades as a journalist while honing her skills as a poet and fiction writer. Her third novel, Blood Clay, set in Piedmont North Carolina, will appear in fall 2010 from Press 53. She is the author of a collection of short stories, Fidelities (West Virginia University Press), and a poetry collection, Wake Wake Wake (Press 53). She has received an NEA creative writing fellowship in poetry, two Elizabeth Simpson Smith prizes in fiction, and the Greg Grummer Prize in poetry. A graduate of West Virginia University and the M.F.A. program at Queens University of Charlotte, she teaches writing at N.C. A&T State University and is a regular workshop leader at the John C. Campbell Folk School and the North Carolina Writers Network. Visit her blog at http://worldwright.blogspot.com/ and her website at http://www.valnieman.com/.

As you might expect from this stellar background, Nieman’s choices of poems are in the top quintillionth of the best (okay, I’m exaggerating, but I always wanted to use the word “quintillionth” in a sentence, and the hyperbole fits). In past issues she has given a lot of extra time to contributors. In 13, for example, she asks each poet three questions, thereby adding the author’s background, philosophy and creative impetus to the mix.

Anyone who knows how hard editors work can validate the generosity of this embellishment. Icing the cake, all poems are accompanied by a sizeable photo. More toil and moil for the editor, and yet more nuance and impact for the reader.

Not only that, when the contract for publication arrived in my email, the dull legal aspect was palliated by Neiman’s congenial demeanor as she welcomed me “to the Prime Number family.” I have over 600 publications, spanning a decade, and I will step right up to the plate and say that Nieman’s acute discernment and gracious mannerism establish Prime Number’s place as a high-end poetry journal at the national and international level.

True, it wouldn't be wise of me to show up on Thanksgiving and ask to be part of the PN family; but her introductory elegance is appreciated!

Based in North Carolina, Prime Number is affiliated with Press 53, an independent publishing house. The Publisher is Kevin Morgan Watson, founder of Press 53. The Editor is Clifford Garstand. The Non-fiction Editor is Tracy Crow. All the staff have jaw-dropping bios, available on site. Seriously, this is a talented group of people and they are not fooling around. If you’re looking for a lax zine with low standards for acceptance, this is not the place. No slide-rule guestimations here.

I give untethered approval to Prime Number. If I could hoot in praise as many times as there are prime numbers, I would; but since Euclid proved they never end, ad astra, I am content to hoot until this owl sounds like a hoarse thrush.

Go to Prime Number, read the great material, tell the editors what you liked. You won’t feel like a square afterward, I guarantee you.

Owl

Poem: Denied

2011-11-06T09:11:00.000-05:00

This poem about denial originally appeared in Vox Humana.

I hope it edifies and stings.

Owl

--------------

Denied

the haunted outliers of pain,
unheard and defaced,
have learned to speak a different way,
to prowl in slips
at the end of sentences,
and breaths in caesuras.

they have their own subtle creole,
much like a thieves’ cant,
sibilant in lisps,
so deep even the speaker
doesn’t hear.

they are the rages of children
who were stabbed or burned,
or pummeled or worse,
existing now as kinks
in the mental labyrinths
of torn adults.

they have bled
from the punch of treachery,
and could never fail to recognize it again;
and so they are damned.
a threat to the castle-grey faces
and the yield in their walls.

-----------------------------------

A Fan Writes a Poem to Me

2011-11-02T13:08:00.001-04:00

On the 1st day of the New Goddess Year, a fan dedicated a poem to my blog:

The One and Only Fan Poem

Many thanks!

Owl

Poem: Samhain Prayer

2011-10-31T09:12:00.001-04:00

Here is my Samhain Prayer from last year, edited a bit.

Have a magical, meaningful night!

Owl

---------------

Samhain Prayer

Let us hope the humanosphere moves swiftly to break from its vector of nuclear doom.

Let us hope war is recognized for what it is: a black hole sucking us all down.

Let us hope mutual care trumps greed, and soon nary a person shall hoard money and ignore a starving child’s ribs.

Let us hope that wagging tongues yield to wide ears, and that the soft-spoken are honored rather than circumvented.

Let us hope fanatics lose their grip, and that all gods are validated except those that seek to be the only one.

Let us hope our leaders stop spitting terror out of angry mouths; and that misled flocks stop kneeling before them in collars of fear.

Let us hope all cultures mingle and mate in spiritual companionship. Should not we all be lovers in this sense?

Let us hope the light of education burns through webs of ignorance, freeing untold numbers of wings.

Let us hope denial and discord melt into delight, and that we see as children, with tears in our eyes because each color or scent or taste or touch or song is rare.

Let us fall down and beg the Fates to guide us away from our planet-killing path, the one we take when we buy earth-poisons in the name of a shallow shine.

Let us pray we can be more than fussy ants, led by the pheromone of purse strings, rushing into Discount Hives where nothing was manufactured with love.

Let us take a deep breath, and realize what a treasure that one breath is, more so than any ingot or jewel.

Are we not all winners in the most important lottery of all: the journey of Life.

----------------

Poem: Inside Metal

2011-10-27T20:30:00.001-04:00

This poem originally appeared in Blast Furnace Review.

It's a criticism of car culture.

Enjoy.

Owl

-------------------
-------------------

Inside Metal

it is hard not to hustle
the wheel over the continents
it has shaped. the land itself
wears a corset of scars.

a mountain isn’t so great anymore,
just another back to ride.
deserts that once schooled prophets
gleam like casino jaunts.

inside metal, speed is a game.
you cruise on the burning blood
of jungles and tundras.
a large herd of muskox.
the sea.

you fidget
with dials and buttons
like a fetus in a robot’s womb.
under savage pistons,
the machine can feel you kick.

inside metal,
you never want to sweat again,
or canter a horse.
you can’t imagine
sitting on a ziggurat,
cross-legged under Draco.

your life waits before you,
laid out on crushed stone.
in a long dark tunnel
unheard victims curse obscene
in reflective glares.

---------------------------
---------------------------

Our Moment of Circuitry

2011-10-24T12:02:00.002-04:00

A sense of appreciation for hundreds of millions of years of nature, and its recent demise, is imperative for us; otherwise, our trajectory into the future will be reckless in the extreme.

There was no such thing as a television less than a hundred years ago. Computers, which are now like proteins in the great beast of society, have even less tenure. Think about how electricity, in a slice a geological second, transformed the nightside of our planet into a pimple-patch of lights. Think about watching the peace of Orion, and then all at once an orbital pest of satellite cuts across his waist.

Before our Moment, evolution produced mighty trees of variegated creatures, many with skills that are unbelievable. To name a few: the flame of fireflies; the camouflage of chameleons; the marksmanship of bats; the grandiosity of the brontosaur. The exquisite butterfly wing culminates three stages of metamorphosis. With many insects, the larva, the nymph, and the mature, span an elemental range: from stream to soil to sky.

The mathematics and majesties of nature are patient and reliable. Their vast scale effloresces with creation. The elegant simplicity of the physical formulas that cradle these miracles cannot limit or define them. We are surrounded by teeming beauty, and so we forget to marvel. We not only forget, we destroy. In our headlong ache to achieve more power, more thrill, more success, we transform the world into our possession, relying on the bully-might of our technologies. We arrest evolution and substitute our own genetic tampering. We slaughter untold species to extinction, modify others to serve us instead of run free. We amass power enough to annihilate the continents in a hell rain of tens of thousands of explosions. Our war-lust means that every day we risk a "nuclear winter," which would ban sunlight from touching the ground.

No green would grow for a dozen years. The soil would soak with lethal and almost immortal radiation. It is impossible not to wonder if life itself could persist.

Computers are essential to our Beast. I described them above as a protein in the biochemistry of the collective; and in that role they act as catalyst, accelerating our gluttony for data. The time will soon come when we--already married to computers, which are smaller and smaller--will wear them intimately, closer even than our current relationship, tete-a-tete, with cell phones.

What are we becoming and why?

We need to remember that our time, this Moment of Circuitry, is a dust speck in the life of Gaea. Most of us rush from stress to stress, paycheck to paycheck, focused on a few simple yet overwhelming goals, ones that do not relent for spiritual or philosophical contemplation.

It’s up to you. You can be a chemical in the cybersystem of the Beast, as dutiful and unthinking as your computer, or you can be something much more.

Owl

Acceptance: Xenith

2011-10-21T12:16:00.004-04:00

Xenith

Xenith is a long-standing and absolutely excellent literary nexus. I am very proud that my poem “Constrictive” will be appearing.

I don’t have a lot of time, and even if I did, there is no way I could describe the fresh, socially incisive feel of this site. It started as a child of a pioneering digital impetus, something that previous generations couldn’t possibly understand. Quoting from the “About” page:

Xenith began life as an ASCII text zine that existed only in late 90s AOL inboxes. We began dual publishing issues on our website just before the new millennium in an attempt to broaden our audience. We released over forty issues in less than five years, earning a devoted following and press exposure, including an appearance in the New York Times Upfront Magazine.

I read this and thought, “This is it, an epoch-changing thin line in the history of civilization: brilliant minds merging the social arena of computer-driven technology with the august realm of literature.

It’s true. Xenith is the first generation of a new way. It is expressed through the verbal artistry of young minds (sometimes with old bodies) who capture something profound about the Generation Y experience. This profundity is consciousness-cracking. It is techno-shamanic and spiritually scientific.

What is the Gen Y experience? Here is where I tell you to read Xenith. All I can say is that the world is now, at least in half-real metaphor, an internet connectedness, Something it never was before, going back billions of years. At the same time, globalization and earth-shaking robo-drone-machinery transform our animal minds, everything from views on spirits to corporations to sex.

Xenith has its many-fingered Hand of Shiva on the pulse of all this. It is prophetic and yet somehow humble and friendly. It is dangerous while making you feel we must all face the danger as part of being human in these tumultuous times. Peril, on a planet where someone in Thailand talks intimately with someone in Canada, via the ether, breeds camaraderie.

The Publisher and Founder is Kelly Joi Phelan. The Managing Editor is Patrick Nathan. My communications with him were brief, and yet he comes across as very human, very real. What does that mean? It is, first and foremost, a serious compliment. No fakeness, no hubris. Just heartfelt interaction. A feeling that I was part of an authentic moment.

Sadly, this is rare.

I recommend this journal without mitigation. After reading its superb fiction or poetry, drop Editor Nathan an email about what you liked. Editors love to get encouraging feedback--and Patrick Nathan especially deserves it.

Owl

Poem: Enlightenment

2011-10-16T14:00:00.000-04:00

A different version of this poem recently appeared at Blue Lake Review (See my entry for Oct 4).

Happy Reading. I am off to Occupy Wall Street!

Owl

----------

Enlightenment

nothing but flimsy
pretense holds doubt
over a complicated pit.

when the tissue snaps
it’s like a red ocean
chewing on a drop of water.

your scream opens
down a long revelation:
your eyes have been wrapped

in cellophane.
you sold them to a list
of approved ruled.

the toys you counted as trophies
rise up like nails,
out of a coffin’s clench.

your reward for resurrection
is weakness, and a hundred angels
on a leaf.

----------------------------------------------

Poem: Suffering

2011-10-13T12:55:00.002-04:00

An alternate version of this poem recently appeared in Blue Lake Review (see my post on October 4). I don't know which version is better. This is a more recent formulation. If you have time to read both versions and have an opinion, I would be very interested to know.

Best to all readers.

Owl

--------------------------------------

Suffering

the wolf is under the bed.
or at work.
or in a box of cheerios.

you’ve been killed by it before.
every place you hide
you’ve been found before.

there wasn’t really a time
without this.
that past is fake.

the hunt expands
to encompass everything,
circles the cosmos.

you stare into oceans
of dark matter,
disbelieving--

like running inside a stone,
faster than
the escape of light,

as you sink.

---------------------------------

Acceptance: Rose & Thorn Journal

2011-10-10T12:56:00.002-04:00

Rose & Thorn

There have been rare yet special times in my life when I wished to write with great eloquence, urgent to convey the full intensity of my pith. This is one of those times. I know from experience I will fail to encapsulate my gratitude, let alone succeed in masterful prose that might capture some bit of its inner fire. As always, all I can do is fret, trying not to damage my lower lip, when I am forced to confront my limitations.

Poetry has been my vehicle of soulful purpose from over a decade now, with no signs of abating; and Rose & Thorn has been essential to that journey. They accepted my work more than once when, despite best and painstaking efforts, my good poems were like a pittance of gems hidden in tonnages of coal.

Miraculously, the Poetry Editors at R&T ferreted them out. They were personable and spoke to me outside formal templates. My first acceptance with them was in 2006. The poetry chief at the time was Cesar Garza, who was friendly and generous in sharing. He arranged for me to write three guest blogs and also posted a podcast of one of the best poems I ever wrote: “Owl.”

The staff today is every bit as competent and patient with my submissions (which are hopefully less flawed than in the past). It has been a true pleasure to correspond with Cynthia Toups, Senior Poetry Editor. It is under her leadership that R&T transitioned a few years ago from the old website to the new one, which included a complete change in tone and aesthetic while preserving the excellence and mission of the journal. Judging by the quality of the quarterly issues, her diligence, fortitude, acumen and organization skill are astounding. No doubt a huge amount of talent and effort are prerequisite to make the brilliance that is R&T coalesce.

Toups must also possess fine networking skills because she works with three other poetry editors. One of them is Wil Hough, one of the founders of R&T, which qualifies him as a luminary by itself; and yet his presence in the literary world is legendary for other reasons, too. I am going to share his bio from the website:

Wil Hough, one of the founding editors at Rose & Thorn, first spent a decade as NOVLPapa in the old AOL Amazing Instant Writers Group. While earning his living as a faux finishing artist specializing in Impressionist and Post Expressionists wall art, he best expresses his contrarian outlook through poetry, essays, and short stories.

I’ve submitted to thousands of journals and yet Hough surprised me by doing something that has never happened before: while my work was being considered at R&T, he contacted me to say that my poem “In the Philosopher’s Condo” resonated deeply with him on a personal level; and he also told me why in specific terms. I thought this amazing, since it is rare for anyone to express that my poetry affected them deeply, much less to say why. Furthermore, this occurred during an evaluation process, a delightful deviation from protocols.

My opinion, bolstered by Hough’s note, is that we all ought to break out of the box more often. By doing so, Hough left me with a permanent memory and a story to tell about my poem. He made the poem more alive for me, gave it a Lazarus quality.

(As an aside, I am curious how Hough’s “contrarian outlook” adds to the dynamic of the Poetry Staff, and how it affects the chemistry of the team. I don’t mean to imply that it makes things more difficult. As I have learned from studying psychology, it is good to have many perspectives, and for each individual to speak their mind, to avoid the insidious conformity of Group Think).

There are two other poetry editors at R&T whom I have never had the privilege of communicating with directly. Yu-Han Chao has a Masters in fiction from Penn State and teaches at Merced College. Among her other accomplishments, she has published a book of poetry, We Grow Old, with Blackwaters Press. On amazon, it is described this way by Joe Farley:

Yu-Han Chao writes with delicacy and power. Her poems speak on many levels about life, relationships and personal nightmares. Her work flows from a mix of traditional Chinese culture, contemporary Taiwan and post-modern America. The resulting poems contain beauty and often wisdom. Many are worth reading over and over again.

The following short excerpt from the book has changed the way I view clocks--has sunk through layers of reflection to nestle deep. The title of the piece is “Song Zhong,” which means “Give Clock”:

The Chinese do not give each other clocks as a gift, because to song zhong, give clock, means to see someone to their grave, to be present at their deathbed, to give last rites.

The next Poetry Editor is Marilyn Shapley, self-described as a “life-long lover of poetry.” In her essay “Why Read Poetry,” she contrasts novels with poems. Of the former, she writes:

These books are places to lose your life, page by page; like sleep, a way to waste time, to follow another’s words down a lane of forgetting. Afterward, they sit on shelves or lay in dusty corners, are stuffed into rotting cardboard boxes and congregate in attics, waiting to grab my attention once again.

Shapley's Essay

The latter, on the other hand, transcend words to challenge and instruct many facets of her psyche:

How could they know that their words cease to be words at all to me but become, instead, an artist’s brush (or more nearly the paint itself ), bold strokes and small nuances that I am sure to miss on first reading. I sit with them, study them as I would a work of art in a gallery, straining to discover the artist’s essence on the canvas or catch the one detail of great importance to him. Sometimes it is a fleeting beauty that cannot be described regardless of the medium used — paint, glass, ink or paper — whatever it is, is just there, a moment of discovery tucked away in a remote place, preserved for the discriminating viewer or, in my case, fearful reader.

As you can see, the Poetry Staff at R&T is eclectic and iconoclastic, sagacious and meticulous. It’s an amazing team, a complex yet effective synergy. I want to thank them most fully for taking my poems, “In the Philosopher’s Condo” and “Cat Among Curios.” Look for the them in the Fall issue, due out October 15!

I didn’t get to mention (tempus fugit!) the interviews, reviews, podcasts and essays that appear in R&T. This is indeed a fantastic venue. As mentioned, without their support, I might have given up. Today, I am a little less worried about recognition. I know I will continue to pile up rejections, and that greatness will most probably elude me. I want to be the best writer I can; to work at it continuously because it feels right; and to express my ethos, passion, worldview--and also that mandalic phantasmagoria which courses my veins, daring to be visionary.

In all these things too, R&T has helped me.

Owl

Release: Wilderness House Lit Review # 6/3

2011-10-06T14:19:00.000-04:00

Five of my poems just went up at Wilderness House Literary Review. It’s dark jaded stuff. I love this journal. If I were Dorian Gray, this journal would be the portrait I keep hidden.

The first poem, “Closet” is about suicide and is very close to my personal life:

Closet et. al.

I can turn my neck all the way around, because I’m an owl.

CCC

Acceptance: Blue Lake Review

2011-10-04T14:51:00.001-04:00

Two of my poems were recently accepted and just appeared at Blue Lake Review:

Blue Lake Go!!

This great honor is extra special because the Poetry Editor, Diana May-Waldman, is a champion of women’s rights and the affirmation of women’s voices. It is clear from her writing that she understands the sad truth: oppression is a powerful and very damaging force in our own society, and also, of course, across the world.

Yes, some things have changed for the better. Women can now vote in many countries, a privilege that culminates centuries of struggle and protest; however, it took civilization 6000 years to get to this fragile perch of universal suffrage.

May-Waldman’s recent book of poems is titled A Woman’s Song:

A Woman's Song

It courageously challenges patriarchy, daring to study and criticize the traditional gender roles, as in the following excerpt. The poem is titled “Penis” and starts off with “I want a penis” and later gets here:

I want my penis to feel the tears of women
and understand the animal cruelty of its nature.
I want my penis to be deaf, never listening
to the voices that define what it means to be a man.

These are courageous words that disrupt the cultural programming which insidiously affects deep levels of our being. If this poem is uncomfortable, perhaps it is because it tells us we are biased about what women and men can and should say and do.

I am very grateful that my poems “Enlightenment” and “Suffering” appear in the latest issue of Blue Lake Review. And I want to thank the talented Diana May-Waldman not only for her diligence as an editor and poet, but also for her virtuous stand for equality, fairness and healthier relationships.

Owl

My Poem, Read by Nic Sebastian, at Whale Sound

2011-10-01T17:11:00.000-04:00

The day has finally arrived for my poem, "The Gods Reflect On Creation" to appear at Whale Sound:

Owl Who Laughs at the Gods

This is the best reading of my poetry I have every heard. Nic Sebastian is a genius!

My predication is that she will become very famous in the poetry world. Not only for her voice and editing, but for the quality of her own poetry as well. For example, these poems at Escape Into Life:

Sample of Sebastian's Poetry

More of my thoughts about Whale Sound:

Review of WS

Thanks for reading,

Owl

Two Monks Burn Themselves, No One Cares

2011-09-30T11:20:00.003-04:00

A great shriek of agony, loosed in the name of justice, has been heard around the world; but only with the effect of a drop of water hitting a sink. I’m talking about two Tibetan monks who set themselves on fire to protest what is basically the destruction of their entire religion.

You see, China seized Tibet, proclaimed ownership, and attacked Tibetan Buddhism, a potential source of trouble. Traditionally, the Tibetan monks chose their own leader, their Dali Lama, through an exquisite ritual honoring their belief that the Dali Lama reincarnates over and over.

No, said China, we are picking your next divine head. And they have.

What we have here is the blatant rape of freedom of religion, backed by extremely violent oppression. Two monks made the most excruciating and heartfelt statement they could. It made the newspapers, at least the Washington Post:

A Great Shriek of Agony

The current Dali Lama is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, famous throughout the world. He faces a nightmare: the destruction of a spirituality going back to 650 AD. If Tibetan Buddhism is stolen and disfigured by China, it will happen under his tenure.

Quoting the article:

On Saturday, the 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate said that if he is to be reincarnated he will leave clear written instructions about the process. He said in a statement that when he is “about 90” he will consult Buddhist scholars to evaluate whether the institution of the Dali Lama should continue at all.

The United States has issued a tepid statement that dares not challenge Chinese Communist expansionism. Supposedly the champion of freedom, the tenets of which are emblazoned in the Bill of Rights, the USA is far more interested in money than decency. If monks burn themselves to defend the cause of freedom of religion, it means nothing weighed against economic factors.

For a long time, the people of the United States have been buying goods made in China because it saves them cash. In other words, the people of the United States could care less about supporting freedom of religion, if it doesn’t affect them directly.

Due to ignorant and selfish penny-pinching, the US citizen has made China stronger and stronger, until now it is inevitable that Chinese policy will soon dominate the Earth. The good people of the USA have prostituted their own Constitution to save a buck.

The leadership of the US does nothing. The people do nothing.

Baah Baah Baah.

Didn't the same thing happen in Europe, denial and greed, while Hitler rose to power?

Until and unless humanity puts virtue above money, it will continue to suffer due to its ethical immaturity, its failure to rear its collective head out of the muck of myopia, its pathetic inability to take the obvious enlightened path.

Shit Creek Craziness

2011-09-28T16:26:00.001-04:00

It's hard to be upset with Shit Creek Review when they send you a rejection letter like this--even if you won't be appearing in their ultra-cool, very special End of Days issue.

You've gotta love 'em or hate 'em.

Owl

--------------------------

[rejection letter from SCR for their End of Days issue]

Dear [Owl Who Laughs],

Unfortunately you will miss out on the End of the World. The Four Editors of the Apocalypse, in their anonymous selection process, failed to choose your work for the coming End of Days Issue of Shit Creek Review. I apologise for their silly ineptitude, but seek to console you with the thought that at least you will endure on in this interesting World of Sin after the Elect have all buggered off to The Rapture. Carpe diem, and thanks for submitting!

Regretfully,

Paulus Stevensis

Shit Creek End of Days Scribe

--------------------

Acceptance: Whale Sound

2011-09-24T13:21:00.001-04:00

If you are an active poet or just love listening to poetry, you are in for a truly consummate delight if you have not yet discovered Whale Sound:

Whale Sound

I found Whale Sound because some friends of mine (from Rooster Moans workshops) had their co-written poem read by Nic Sebastian. You see, Whale Sound is about listening to poems, and there is almost no one in the world I would rather listen to than Nic Sebastian.

Why? Follow this link to hear the darkly erotic "Closer," co-written by my friends Lissa Kiernan and Susan Yount (be sure to click on the PLAY arrow):

"Closer" read by Nic Sebastian

All poems on Whale Sound were originally published elsewhere. Sebastian is emphasizing sound: the sonorous experience, the siren call of eloquent timbre, cadence, flow, caesura and elision.

And no one does it with such inimitable virtuosity.

You can also see the written text of "Closer," or other poems on Whale Sound, by clicking on a link; but my recommendation is simply to listen to the voice--the voice of verbal genius.

Another benefit of Whale Sound is that you get introduced to fine journals. Simply click on the link provided with every poem, and you are whisked off to some editor's idiosyncratic kingdom.

I have been using Whale Sound to help me find quality journals for my submissions. Not only do I get good leads, I also have an idea of what the editors like--because I've listened to Sebastian reading one of their pubs, exposing nuances of meaning I would have missed.

I absolutely excruciatingly recommend this site. It is already mucho popular and has accepted work many great active internet poets. I must be one of the last net zine junkies to find it.

I'm honored that my poem "The Gods Reflect On Creation" will be read by Sebastian some time in October. This is a challenging poem to read, and I look forward to seeing what she does with it.

Here's the poem, if you want to see what Whale Sound will be up against:

The Gods Reflect On Creation

Whale Sound only publishes poems of people with an "active" web presence in poetry. This basically means you edit a journal or maintain a pretty busy blog. For the specifics, visit the site.

Thanks for reading. Now go to Whale Sound and listen to a most ensorcelling muse.

Owl

Release: Boston Literary Magazine, Fall 2011

2011-09-21T09:41:00.000-04:00

The latest issue of Boston Literary Magazine is here, including my poem “Truman,” inspired by the movie, The Truman Show. The last stanza of this poem took months to shape into its final form:

whatever was going on
moved in my circles and the center
was my grope. i didn’t
learn the lines or know
the writer or see which
why was who on stage.

To read the rest, go here, and scroll WAY down:

Fall 2011 BLM

To read my review of BLM and its very talented and accomplished editor, Robin Stratton, go here:

Owl Visits Boston Lit

Thanks for visiting!

Owl

My Poem Up at Unison Active

2011-09-17T13:01:00.001-04:00

My poem "City Mirrors," a scathing commentary on urban materialism, just went up at the blog Unison-active, which:

is written, collated and edited by a range of UNISON activists who are committed to the union's objectives. They come from differing branches, backgrounds and opinions, sharing a commitment to trade unionism, collectivism, international solidarity - supporting a trade union that is committed to a fundamental change in society and that puts the interests and values of working people at its heart, working through the democratic process of society.

I'm honored that they chose to include my poem, which you can find on their site here:

Glossy Walls Mirror Ugly Souls

The poem "City Mirrors" originally appeared in The Recusant, a UK journal, which has had over half a million hits. Here is the entry page:

The Recusant

Viva la UNISON and viva la Recusant!!!

Owl

Release: Wild Violet Volume X Issue 1 (Passion)

2011-09-15T08:52:00.003-04:00

Alyce Wilson has released a long-anticipated issue of Wild Violet, that mighty and memorable literary zine. It's the tenth anniversary issue, a huge triple dose of writers in what could be the most powerful presentation ever. I am honored that my poem “A Moment” is included in this special array. The theme is nothing less than passion itself.

In testament to the editor’s diligence and aesthetic sense, all poems are accompanied by visual art!

As I say in my review of Wild Violet:

Owl On a Violet

Wilson recently, about a year and a half ago, gave birth to her first child, a most joyous and yet also time-intensive watershed in the journey of her life. Indeed, her son’s nickname is “Kung fu Panda.” Rather than give up Wild Violet, she somehow juggled it into her busy schedule. The result is a brilliant culmination of ten years of excellence.

Editors like Wilson are the soul of poetry. They are cynosures who draw us needy and sometimes talented bards together, where our voices sing out in a group, despite the vast distances between our physical locales. Very few people have the special virtues necessary to give a decade to editing a journal, a noble act that garners little or no money. It is great, giving people like Wilson whose empathic intellect leads the rest of us to see that stacks of gold are not everything--in some ways, they are nothing.

I suddenly remembered this quote from the Dead Poet’s Society:

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

Wilson has invited all contributors, past and present, to a grand jamboree:

In celebration of Wild Violet’s 10th anniversary, we are holding a special reading and celebration. The event will take place at 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 1, at Milkboy Coffee, 2 East Lancaster Ave. (U.S. Highway 30), Ardmore, Pennsylvania. There will be a $5 cover charge.

I unfortunately, living many States away, won’t be able to attend. There are art and poetry events planned, including a special 10th anniversary book, to which previous contributors can submit. Go here for more info:

10th Anniversary Delights

In the introduction to Volume X, Issue 1, Wilson writes that her completion of an editorial decathlon does not signal the end of Wild Violet. The show will go on! It is more than a show, of course, with wrenching and ecstatic offerings (Wild Violet was originally started as a conduit to deal with the agony of September 11, 2001)--and I hope this fine journal will give Wilson much edification and gratification for many years to come. She deserves it!

Owl

PS: To read the Tenth Anniversary Issue, including my poem “A Moment,” go here:

Wild Violet's 10th Ann Passion Issue

Release: Blast Furnace, Volume 1, Issue 3

2011-09-11T09:44:00.000-04:00

Blast Furnace, orchestrated by Rebecca Clever, has released its Summer issue, full of outstanding poets. Although gloom engulfs me these days, a serious joy emblazons my heart when I remember that my poem "Inside Metal," a naked commentary on the alienation of the Machine Era, is included in the issue. This is one of my best ever. Let me share my favorite stanza:

you fidget
with dials and buttons
like a fetus in a robot’s womb.
under savage pistons,
the machine can feel you kick.

To read the rest, go to:

Blast Furnace Press

And scroll down to Sept. 10, where the Issue is located (the site is arranged in blog format).

To read my review of this highly impressive journal, go here:

Owl On the Furnace

A huge hoot of approval to Rebecca Clever on the quality and power of her latest offering.

Well done.

Owl

Poem: Pink Panther

2011-09-08T10:50:00.000-04:00

This poem was written for my brother. It was originally published in The Iconoclast.

Take care, my awesome, beloved friend.

Owl

--------------------

Pink Panther

little pink panther
of rubber and wire,
moldable toy
coiled around
a reading lamp,

my brother hung it there
eight years ago
when he moved into
my father’s spare room,
having left college
from depression.

my father never dusts
and my brother died
from a self-inflicted noose,
so the little pink panther
clung dirty and forgotten
until i noticed it,
unkinked its limbs,
musing about my brother’s fondness
for audacious felines

(Garfield, Pink Panther, The Cat In The Hat).

little pink panther
of rubber and wire,
i moved its arms and legs out,
pulled its tail straight—
the opposite of its long inward
contortion.

-----------------------------------------

Greed, Corruption, Cruelty and Stupidity

2011-09-03T09:30:00.003-04:00

The empire of the United States has arrived at a dismal moment when about half of the American people live in delusion and denial, refusing to accept that global warming is human-caused or that evolution is the origin of species. About 40% of the citizenry believes we live in the Biblical end time, where Christ and Satan will engage in the final battle, resulting in the damnation of the majority and salvation for a select faction of unflinching zealots.

These irrational and faith-bound beliefs are encouraged by power-seeking politicians, who proclaim that the Empire is not only the greatest country in the world but the one special moral exception among nations, meant to challenge evil everywhere. Anyone who thinks otherwise has fallen into the grip of demonic darkness. Given such an eschatological foundation, it is easy to stoke fear, anger and hatred in a populace that wants to live in denial of the truth: that greed, corruption, cruelty, and stupidity are battering rams of karma which have struck the United States off its perch of greatness in a matter of decades.

An example of greed and corruption is Wall Street destroying not only the US economy but also the world economy in 2008, due to unethical and profit-grubbing dirty tricks. Not only that, the bankers and financiers got away with it: both Presidents Bush and Obama bailed them out and failed to insure more policing of WS's outrageous gambling (“investment” is a euphemism for roulette gone wild)

Stupidity requires two factors, both of which are in play: (a) contumacious belief on faith (or wildly irrational grounds, which is basically the same thing) in destructive theories or religious dogmas, (b) vulnerability to mass manipulation by narcissistic politicians because of such contumacy.

Cruelty is everywhere in the Empire’s leviathan military. Some classic and numerous examples are the overthrow of democratically elected leaders by the CIA (see the book, Killing Hope). Other examples involve supporting vicious dictators and tyrants when it serves the purposes of corporations and their politician minions.

We supported Saddam Hussein, giving him plenty of weapons, training, and intelligence, even when he gassed his own citizens (see the book, Spider’s Web). Here ya go:

http://www.amazon.com/Spiders-Web-Secret-History-Illegally/dp/0553096508

Wikileaks just reveals another case of US soldiers slaughtering an innocent family. These things are commonly hidden from the public through complicit and docile mass media, owned by billionaires. Here ya go:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-onthemedia-20110903,0,435906.column

There are only two major political parties in the Empire, and one of them, the GOP, is the party of denial, dysfunction and delusion. The other party, the Democrats, is also corrupt but struggles feebly to bring moral progress, things like providing affordable healthcare for everyone (currently, around 50 million people do not have access to a doctor without going into extreme debt).

Behind the scenes, billionaires and massive corporations, like Big Oil, Big Insurance and Big Pharma, puppet Congress with vast infusions of cash.

I can complain and protest all I want, but I am largely irrelevant. Long ago, the masters of the Empire figured out that granting the right to free speech is no threat to plutocracy, not when a large segment of the population is gullible and malleable.

This concludes my latest rant. I am now going to go out into the woods, where I can enjoy the ancient miracles of simple things--like trees and birds--the sorts of divine gifts that consumerism and materialism have blinded most people to seeing.

Owl

2011-09-02T16:28:00.000-04:00

As bad as Narcissus, though opposite, is the poet so awed by water she never moves.

Panthera Rayling, Yerba Santa Clan

-----------------------

Poem: Hobo

2011-08-30T18:00:00.000-04:00

Here is one of the three poems that recently went up at Carcinogenic Poetry:

http://www.carcinogenicpoetry.com/

May it edify in some small way.

Owl

----------------------------------------

Hobo

the struggle
has turned his urges
into railroad tracks.
a wanderlust that pokes
holes in his penniless coat.
he scrounges for copper
among roadside gabble,
mingles with nameless folk
hot with sin in torrential cold.

lustful ribs
trap them all within a single cage.
he gets dragged into the muck,
earning a few claps,
and then off on a binge
whiny with joy, wiggling
against a late asphalt
shapeshifting lover.

it turns out to be the wind,
only she--she who has been tying knots
through sobbing throats.
he is not happy with the sex
as they slur and blur into one,
surrendering as addicts do.
when she finally goes, he lies down,
irrelevant in numbness,
except for dried grass
which crackles against his nape.

--------------------------------------

Acceptance: Carcinogenic Poetry

2011-08-27T13:02:00.001-04:00

carcinogenicpoetry.com

Three of my poems ("Hobo," "Big Collapse," and "Prophecy") just went up at this incredible blog-style journal. They are currently the featured works.

(However, if you are reading this in retrospect, scroll down to August 26)

If all else fails, here is a direct link:

Owl in Carcinogenic Poetry

Michael Aaron Casares is the editor, and under his leadership the website has amassed a large and steadily increasing group of followers. If you're wondering about the name of the journal, the site's motto is helpful: "The truth is to lies like cancer."

Casares' own poetry is most beautiful and eloquently wrought. Scroll down to August 20 to see two of his evocative pieces.

It is a great honor to be published, once more, by the discerning and empathic Mr. Casares. I wholeheartedly recommend Carcinogenic Poetry as an oasis in our toil-ridden world.

Owl

Poem: Pharmaceutical

2011-08-25T10:22:00.001-04:00

This poem originally appeared in Offcourse, run by Ricardo and Isabel Nirenberg, and is one of my favorite creations.

Enjoy!

Owl

---------------------

Pharmaceutical

granular mixture,
once root, bud and agave teat,

now synthesized, brainwashed
and hoodwinked

into a clean cousin
of LSD, capsule
that settles the suicidal,

alka seltzer for the head,

bathing neurons in fizz
till they’re too numb to think.

such white pure beach sand,
dissolving in the boudoirs
of the intimate mind—

like Jamaica ingested,
complete with Mai Thai,

and a hammock so limp
and spineless you hardly know

the fabric is you.

-----------------------------------------

Acceptance: Boston Literary Magazine

2011-08-22T11:55:00.003-04:00

http://www.bostonliterarymagazine.com/

http://www.robinstratton.com/

It’s a tremendous honor to me that Robin Stratton, editor of Boston Literary Magazine, has decided to take my poem “Truman” for the fall issue. BLM is an extremely fine venue, which alone makes this acceptance wonderful; but what truly adds to my joy is that Stratton is a marvelous, special person.

First of all, Blue Mustang Press recently published her first novel, On Air. It already has splendid (5-star) reviews on Amazon. I purchased a copy and look forward to the read. I have know Stratton for years as a distant acquaintance (she published me a few years ago), and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of a book contract. She works ferociously and also (here’s the kicker) spends a lot of time helping and advising other writers. Her kindness is outrageous. I don’t know anyone as giving as her in the literary world.

She runs BLM as Editor-in-Chief (with the assistance of Managing Editor Lucy Spinetti), and what a job she does! For instance, when I submitted a few years ago, she responded within 5 minutes. It was a witty, memorable and slightly ribald acceptance note--nothing boilerplate, but instead original and personalized. This was my fastest acceptance from a professional journal, not one of those pay-us-$20 kind of scams that hit you with an auto response. I will never forget this fantastical and a little eccentric introduction to Robin Stratton. Her vivacity, intelligence and discernment were apparent right away and took me by sudden storm.

On top of all I’ve said above, she has a good heart. She is always working to help others, to spend time with her family, and somehow, miraculously, to nurture her own projects. She is much more talented than the vast majority of folks; and yet she is humble and generous to all. If there is an angel in disguise on this planet, it must be Stratton. No one is more worthy of having their novel published and I am thrilled vicariously for this great moment in her life.

Check out BLM! And then go to Robin Stratton’s website to learn more about this scintillating person, one of those magical outliers who makes the rest of us raise our heads up out of our own selfishness and stare at a nascent star.

Owl

Link To My Jane Crown Radio Interview!

2011-08-17T12:42:00.002-04:00

http://www.janecrown.com/show_download_page.html

(Click on Crittenden)

My interview with Jane Crown is up and ready for download! What a great honor to be on her show. She has interviewed many luminaries. As she says on her website: “interviews with some of America's best and brightest poets, from the renowned to the underground.”

Who knows why I was included? Maybe because I obsess on details. A few good poems have evolved from the primeval cauldron of my heart. If only it didn’t take many months, or years, to find some bit of glow.

Jane Crown was a marvelous host, who asked soul-touching questions that trembled my cordial facade. I mumbled and said “Um” countless times, but her quick-witted verve and fleet skill led me along. In less than an hour, she unpacked and polished my poorly presented worldview. I laughed awkwardly and rambled. I spewed flawed bits of wisdom wrapped in clumsy phrases, which lurched about like drunken sparrows.

If you listen to the interview, you will notice two things: how poorly I read my poems and how thrilled I am to gab. I consider myself an introvert, but I sure seem to love the spotlight. What can I say? It has been years since my last interview. I may never get another.

Maybe vanity is acceptable in moderation?

Ugh! I don’t know who I am. Being interviewed makes you ponder yourself in fresh ways. My personality seems to have sprouted new sides. Maybe art has fractured any hope I had of being a unitary person. Art is all. Creating at the poetic level is like injecting yourself into yourself. Even being 10% honest is a flirtation with the unstable.

Of course, who wants to live in a stable?

The real star, of course, is Jane Crown. She has interviewed hundreds of poets, a monumental cross-section of a sizeable pantheon. She knew me through her research, knew what to ask, everything from suicides to cyborgs.

Thank you, Jane. It was an absolutely unforgettable experience. You’ve elated a jaded philosopher-poet. You made me dance. I didn’t even waste time asking why.

Owl

2011-08-13T23:02:00.000-04:00

They are like cows and anxiously bored, while I am alive and free. But I am going to die soon and they will live on for many muted decades. There are worse fates than death.

Ozcar Crane, Outside Liberation

-----------

Fan Mail for "Evil Queen"

2011-08-10T19:07:00.001-04:00

I don't get fan mail very often, but when it happens, it's a very much appreciated boost. Someone (name unknown) contacted me recently to say they liked my poem "Evil Queen," which recently appeared in Red River Review.

I'm going to re-post the poem here. Thank you anonymous fan!

Owl

------------------------

Evil Queen

ugly and unanswered,
she no longer sees herself
in her face.
each wrinkle a ligature
that strangled a sin.

some lines knots
caught up in how everything
came to this.
no kudos for outliving
the secrets in her bones,
or her critics who died
of disaster.

years have gone down
like poker cards, pretty faces
hostage to shovels or sex.
no one left at the table now
except Hades, who always
ups the ante and never fails
a bluff.

staring into his eyes,
blank as hell-fired chips,
she can feel their weight
and the little numbers
etched in granite.
this time she will lose,
even with diamonds
to play.

Interview: Jane Crown Poetry Radio

2011-08-07T15:14:00.001-04:00

I'm being interviewed by Jane Crown at 5pm today for her radio show:

http://www.janecrown.com/

Being a hermit in the woods has pretty much destroyed my verbal and social skills, so it should be very interesting, though perhaps not in the way I would like.

I will post a link to the interview on this blog--or you can simply go to the above website.

My tongue is turning into an ossified pretzel already.

Ugh!

Owl

An Epitaph For The Damned

2011-08-04T12:10:00.003-04:00

The quote below, from an article announcing the creation of a huge shark sanctuary in the Pacific, somehow seems to capture the stupid cruelty of the human beast, and also how human society feeds off and fosters paranoia and gluttony, while mutilating the great natural magic of this Earth.

Here, then, is an astute epitaph for the damned:

While watching sharks stalk their prey to eerie soundtracks may make for heart- stopping television, the fact is that sharks are responsible for the death of only two to three people each year. Yet people kill nearly 73 million sharks annually, primarily for their fins to meet a demand for shark-fin soup in Asia. Nearly one-third of all shark species are threatened with extinction.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/pacific-islands-band-together-on-a-shark-sanctuary/

-----------------------

Acceptance: WHL Review

2011-08-02T16:20:00.000-04:00

WHL Review, whose Poetry Editor is Irene Koronas, took three of my poems: "Stormy," "Flooded Gutter" and "Half Awake."

This journal has been a steady supporter of my work, and without them I might have crumbled. This is my only acceptance for a while, and it probably will be my only acceptance for quite a while longer--because I am just too tired to do any submissions.

I keep writing poems, draft after draft, polishing them up. But I have nothing left afterward. All my heart goes into the words and afterward, I'm spent. Totally spent

Release: Red River Review August 2011 Issue

2011-07-30T10:41:00.001-04:00

Go To Red River Review!!

Red River Review has been revivified by editor extraordinaire Michele Hartman. If you go to the website, you’ll find a quirky dichotomy. On the left side of the screen is a statement that says RRR began in 1999 and ended in 2007, during the noble and impressive tenure of Bob McCranie.

On the right side of the screen is an announcement for the August 2011 Issue and an announcement titled, “What’s New With Red River Review?” (What’s new is that they are currently receiving a lot of submissions from Canada).

Michele Hartman has taken the journal out of desuetude, scaling back up the pedestal of greatness with a trove of fantastic new poetry on her back. I am proud that my poem, “Evil Queen” is included in the August 2011 issue, and that my chilling piece, “TOD” is in the previous (May 2011) issue.

To read these poems and others, you must go to the main page and navigate from there, either to the current issue or the archives. For some reason, no matter what page you are on in RRR, the http pane always reads “redriverreview.com” and nothing more. This makes it impossible for poets to provide links to their particular work; but it also insures that the reader gets a good look, or at least scan, of the magazine when ferreting out a specific gem.

I don’t know of any other magazine that has been revivified in this way--by an editor different than the one who started it. I have seen editorship change hands midstream, but never after a hiatus of years.

Brava to Hartman!! She is a champion of recrudescence! When you submit to this fine literary venue, be sure to thank her for keeping the waters flowing.

The current issue of RRR contains a lot of soul-biting work. Ann Howells, one of the editors of Ilya’s Honey, has some great poems included. Another excellent poet represented is Jennifer Hollie Bowles, who runs The Medulla Review (albeit Medulla Publishing, a separate venture of hers, seems to be fading out).

Enjoy your visit to Red River Review. Say hi for me!

Owl

80 Ideologues Hold the World Hostage

2011-07-27T09:05:00.002-04:00

It should be obvious to anyone how dysfunctional and twisted the Empire has become: about 80 Representatives in one branch of the government are holding the economic health of the entire world hostage. These Representatives are all members of the Republican Party, but more accurately they belong to an ultra-reactionary right wing subgroup called the Tea Party. They stubbornly and ignorantly cling to their ideology of slashing and burning government, which effectively transfers authority to the hands of billionaires and multinational corporations.

There was no crisis. Not until the Republicans decided to create one over the issue of raising the debt ceiling. The government effectively uses credit cards to make purchases, and has the power to raise its own credit limit. The purchases were made. The time came to raise the credit limit. The Republicans took this opportunity to extort everyone else, though they are the minority party. They demanded vast cuts to programs that help the sick, aged, and poor and utterly refused to cut one penny from the tax returns of the rich.

These rich are people like Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News, which spews distorted propaganda full of hate. Mammon-serving bullhorns like Fox have poisoned the minds of a large slice of the population. Murdoch and his minions are in trouble in England, where they have spied on the private communications of a family mourning the loss of their daughter to a horrible and lewd crime. All to make a buck.

How did the intransigent Tea Party ideologues get into power? When the economy crashed in 2008, the people voted wildly and naively for candidates outside the norm who promised vast change. Enough votes were cast to get 80 dangerous politicians into the freshman class of the House of Representatives. When the Republicans decided to extort the government, and the world, by creating a standoff over the debt ceiling, these 80 dug in their heels and refused to cooperate with even their own GOP members, let alone the Democrats.

Why did the economy crash in 2008, creating the Tea Party? It was Wall Street, the financial center of the Empire. It became so corrupt that it encouraged the practice of granting bad mortgages wrapped in complex jargon. It made bets called derivatives on the collective fate of those mortgages. The money came rolling in to the banker’s coffers, but the train of greed, as always happens, slipped all control. There was a sick deceit at the core: the bundled mortgages were effectively junk but they were being rated as very high quality investments by the corrupt Wall Street appraisers (who were in collusion with the bankers).

Bad times breeds dangerous and fanatic politicians. And so, as the world watches, several dozen Tea Party fire-eaters are leading billions of human beings into misery and grim peril.

We are caught in the jaws of Greed and Stupidity, one and all.

Release: Rufous City Review, Issue 4

2011-07-21T12:01:00.000-04:00

http://www.rufouscityreview.com/

Rufous City Review has released its Issue 4, which includes “Possession,” an elegiac and lonesome poem by Owl Who Laughs. I was very lucky to get into this journal. The Editor, Jessica Bixel, gave me a chance at a rewrite but my soul locked up and wouldn’t produce. At the last moment, after a sweat lodge, I had a breakthrough.

Editor Bixel is a great writer herself, as you can see from her prefaces and, perhaps more importantly, her reviews. They are exquisitely crafted.

Here is an excerpt from her words about Issue 4:

[These] songs are old and they seem to know their own burdens. Here memory is like thick perfume, cloying—a scented cover for panic. Things are disappearing, between these pages, and uncertainty is rife. It is easy to get lost, cloaked in dust, shadows of unreliable light between freight trains.

I have looked over the issue and the poems, indeed, haunt as much as they tantalize. Are we 21st century citizens already walking in a world that was?

Regarding Rufous City, if you spend some time in its ethereal yet gritty halls, you will find it an addictive yet satisfying place. Be careful!

Owl

Poem: A Hummingbird

2011-07-18T11:32:00.000-04:00

This originally appeared in Off the Coast, an international journal based in Maine.

Enjoy!

Owl

-------------

A Hummingbird

thought me a mirror,
then realized, two feet away,
i was too solid,
more brick than free.

it sported emeralds,
flawless of gorget;
yet i an ogre
of clay and iron.

it hovered,
birthing its wings
through many incarnations,
as i managed once
to blink,

grasping, too slow,
that it had offered me
a vanishing act of doors—
and i would have found heaven
had i entered

just one.

-------------------

Me and 42opus, aka My Worst Nightmare

2011-07-15T12:56:00.004-04:00

On December 9 2009, I submitted five poems to 42opus using their online form. This zine has a great reputation and deservedly so. They have done marvelous work over many years. I was pleased to see my submission making progress toward acceptance. There are three stages in the process, all of which you can track by returning to the submission center:

Editor 1: makes a recommendation

Editor 2: makes a recommendation

Final Recommendation: publish or not

On April 7 2010, Editor 1 finally made a recommendation on my submission. Since I did not receive a rejection letter at this time, I assumed it was positive. (Note: the submission center does not tell you the nature of the recommendation, only the date on which a recommendation was made).

On August 4 2010, Editor 2 logged in, and made a recommendation. Still no rejection letter. I waited with bated breath for the wonderful moment, when my acceptance, or I guess rejection, would finally come and ease my building sense of anticipation.

As of today, Friday, July 15, 2011, no final recommendation has ever been entered. My submission remains in limbo, almost certainly doomed. However, I admire 42opus so much that I keep clinging on, desperately and pathetically (translation: I’m a selfish bastard who wants 42opus on my résumé ... )

I have directly emailed the chief editor, Brian Leary, twice about my submission. Both times, I received no responsive. Now I simply bite my nails and wonder.

The poetry editors, if they truly exist, are Caroline Klocksiem and Sarah Vap.

The sad fact is, 42opus has virtually shut down operation. They haven’t published a fresh bit of poetry in a very long time. The last poem they published was by John Donne on October 13, 2010. Yes, that John Donne, the dead famous one who could care less about whether he gets into 42opus.

Meanwhile, I neurotically and ridiculously continue to wonder about whether I’ll ever hear back from Editor Leary. The obvious thought is, “No, you won’t, they are experiencing difficulties which are probably far more important than your petty, whiny ego.”

It’s true, something very bad might have happened to one of the editors. I truly hope not. I hope it is just a mild case of frazzle, which is totally forgivable.

Whatever happens between me and 42opus, I hope this journal gets placed in the Poetry Journal Hall of Fame. Admittedly, the Poetry Journal Hall of Fame doesn’t exist yet, but then neither does my acceptance from 42opus.

Brian Leary, wherever you are and whatever you are doing, I hope you are all right, and--

I FORGIVE YOU!

A despondent Owl

Zombie Hedonism

2011-07-12T10:47:00.003-04:00

-------------

Every day I marvel that we walk in a landscape which could be destroyed by fire in an instant. Humanity has the power to annihilate the vast bulk of life with the current global arsenal of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Who is to say they won’t be unleashed, en masse, in a great tide of fear?

It only takes one launch to spark a fearful counterstrike. And then another. And another.

Aaren Greystrom, Zombie Hedonism

-------------

Poem: Scissors Cut Newspaper

2011-07-08T11:06:00.000-04:00

This poem originally appeared in Pemmican Press, and was written to criticize the policies of George W. Bush.

Enjoy,

Owl

------------------------------------------

Scissors Cut Newspaper

stork beak
squawking in snips,
gabbing as shreds
form a nest below its
loquacity,

it deceives
with a peace sign,
two glinting fingers
that close with the grace
of long teeth—

extracting another organ
from the cadaver
of the newspaper,

dissecting politics
into nothingness,
stripping the economy
down to paper ribs,

laying a bite
across the smile
of the president,

as if the two deserved
each other’s kiss.

-------------------------------

Thank You to My "Followers"

2011-07-07T09:41:00.007-04:00

I would like to thank the people who have taken a moment to become a ‘follower’ of my blog. You’re a great group of editors, poets, artists and simply intelligent people who tolerate the cantankerous. I encourage anyone reading this to click on the icons at the right. You’ll find souls better than mine, more insightful, more generous, more rich in thought.

I babble away in my own little world, hermetically absorbed. I suppose I am interesting, in a way, as a symbol of fixated angst -- but I do not give much time to the realms of others. That takes courage I don't possess. I am too selfish to take the time to possess it. Even responding to comments is often a chore. I am horribly neglectful in terms of tending to bridges.

Thank you for enduring my serious faults.

I don’t have a zillion followers, and I know that many of my followers have moved right along and don’t read my blog. But I am very proud that I attracted some notice from a select randomness of internet wanderers.

Best,

Owl

Homeless Story of J, Part 15

2011-07-05T12:54:00.004-04:00

This is a work of fiction.

-----------------

XV

I became homeless because there was too much deceit, the sort that owns you. I was born into abuse. My parents have never admitted that they used their child to vent their brutal sexual anger. No, they are innocent and loving, so they profess in their bourgeois circles of admirers. I suffered their halls of lies for so long that their theater defeated me. For years, I thought I deserved everything that happened. Angry, bad little boy. My privates deserved the belt and needle.

Finally I broke away from that home-life, blamed and scorned. I found the world to be a macrocosm of my parents: cruel leaders and manipulators abusing others to get power, status, sex; and yet lying about it all the while, proclaiming with fine speeches how good they were, how fair.

The society around me, I learned, was as dysfunctional and wicked as my beginnings. Evil rose to the top.

There are honest people somewhere, but I was taught that honesty is the biggest lie. Liars can put on a fine show of candor even as they break you down and beat your hope into their plaything. Truly honest people find each other somehow, some special ability so subtle it is unconscious. Something absorbed by growing up in a decent home.

Unfortunately I was raised with narcissism and molestation, the sort that dares, with great iniquity, to call itself gentle and kind. To disagree was to get beaten, or worse.

I walk around homeless now, looking for one honest heart. I wish I had Diogenes’ lamp, the one that reveals the inner condition of the soul.

On the other hand, if I had such a lamp, how much ugliness would assault my eyes? The large majority would expose disturbing, disgusting hearts, their veins a slither of moral decay and parasites.

I do not have the strength to play games of flesh (and desire is mostly games). Before you know it, some monster gets past your defenses, sucks on your kindness like a succubus. This is what happens when a sexually sadistic mother makes you into the father she hates, and your real father does not want to know, and beats you when you try.

When you have never been heard, you seek out the wrong people, because they are like anglers with little hooks of warmth, just enough for people like me to bite.

J

------------------

Poem: Twister

2011-07-04T15:17:00.001-04:00

Another piece from Danse Macabre (see "Slave Ship" below). Life is full of inspirations for such poems, unfortunately.

Owl

----------------

Twister

some hearts have only
ornamental doors, the sort
that prettify brick walls.

it seems they want
to invite you in, and learn
about where you came from.

you even have a key,
gold and ornate,
entrusted with a smile

under eyes as open
and accepting
as graves.

as dutiful.

yet there’s no warm bed
as you shiver in search,
losing your heat.

what kind of home is this?
you think.
where are the mementos

and the drawers?

--------------------

Release: 2River View 15.4

2011-07-02T15:29:00.001-04:00

This world-class magazine just released its summer issue, including "Ghost Trance" and "Crow In a Gale" by yours truly. There is audio available of the contributors reading their work:

2River 15.4

The above link zips directly to the issue; but I recommend visiting the home page (2River.org) and looking around. This is a great journal. I've written a review, available here:

Owl on 2River

I hope you have time to peruse. Enjoy the writers' offerings, including audio!

Owl

Poem: Slave Ship

2011-06-29T09:50:00.001-04:00

This poem was published early this month in Danse Macabre (see the announcement and link to other poems in early June post).

These are painful topics that we ignore at our peril. And yet we ignore.

Owl

----------------------------

Slave Ship

cold of shackle
gnaws warmth of ankle,

steel of ice
slays sun of chest.

coins

in white palms
stare like gold irises

at whip marks
across black backs

while the civilized

stuff their sisters
in the hulls of obese

ships,

where feverish breath
frosts like scared

ghosts,

and the stolen
get locked in sprinkles
of blood,

fecal and bitten
by lice and rats.

outside
in the marketplace
sweet benefits swarm,

sugar and rum.

------------------------------

Annoying Fly at Bolts of Silk

2011-06-26T17:26:00.001-04:00

My poem "Annoying Fly" is currently featured at Bolts of Silk:

The Featured yet Annoying Fly

After a few days, it will be dislodged as the feature and then you can find it by scrolling down to its debut date: June 26.

Bolts of Silk is run by Juliet Wilson, a fantastic poet and legendary editor in Scotland, with over 20,000 hits on her blogger profile. In addition to her literary accomplishments, she is also a protector and votary of the environment.

I recommend visiting her blog, where you will see aesthetic and vivid pictures of the Scottish wilds, read great poetry, and learn about how to protect our planet:

Crafty Green Poet

Great leaders are hard to find, especially ones who are brilliant poets--but Juliet Wilson has succeeded on both fronts.

OWL

His Moment In Court

2011-06-23T21:05:00.001-04:00

Long ago, I had my first publication, and it wasn't even a poem, but rather a short story. The title was "His Moment In Court," and the setting was a Kafkaesque afterworld.

Now, amazingly, it is available online, courtesy of my alma mater, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Their literary magazine, The Phoenix, is digitally archiving past issues.

And so, if you wish, here is my one and only short fiction pub:

His Moment In Court

Carry Forth!

Owl

Greed is the Word

2011-06-20T13:50:00.001-04:00

Greed is extremely dangerous.

This has been shown time and time again. The situation is this: a certain percentage of greedy people achieve significant power and employ that power to maximize their own wealth at the expense of everyone else. The more they succeed, the more they corrupt their society and the wider their sphere of corruption. They get more and more, everyone else gets less and less, and the pattern continues as long as the greedy can maintain it.

Characteristically, the greedy hide their ugliness by surrounding themselves with as much material beauty as possible--art, fashion, jewelry architecture, and so on. Don’t forget the philanthropy. It is the best smokescreen of all.

Ugly hearts love beautiful (read: expensive) trappings.

In American, 400 billionaires currently hoard an amount of wealth equal to the worth of the bottom 50% of citizens. We basically live in a covert monarchy, the barons and dukes being the mega-rich moguls. They buy politicians, and they buy the media (Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is a glaring example). It’s a classic syndrome of sin, going back all the way to Egypt and Sumer.

I guess I shouldn’t be appalled by the denial of the American people, given that they are following a time-honored path of ignorance, but, what the heck, call me a dreamer. It is absurd that about half of Americans think global warming is not human-caused. They believe Rush Limbaugh, a fire eater with a radio show, rather than the overwhelming consensus of scientists (see my last blog oped).

My statement about greed needs a corollary: Greed is dangerous because people are prone to hear what they want, which makes them fodder for social puppeteers.

Opposite greed is ethics. Ethical people don’t want more and more stuff. They tend to focus on things that are too precious to be given a price. They see the folks around them as more than pawns. Animals and nature are more than resources to exploit.

On first glance, you’d think it easy to distinguish greedy people from ethical people. Two problems here. First, greed is a master liar. Second, master liars can brainwash the public.

Also, mind-viruses like racism make things easier for Greed. If the population is racist, Greed plays to their racism. Another trait that makes the masses an easy mark is religious fanaticism.

Play the Jesus card, and the herds flock to you.

Greedy people never admit they are greedy and might not even know they are greedy. When someone does a lot of awful things, there is a tendency to hide that evil, to lock it away in the mind where it can’t be seen. The right hand doesn’t know that the left hand is doing.

Imagine what kind of sick discipline it takes to tell bald lies to everyone you meet while you backstab anyone that gets in your way. Do you want that kind of mind in your skull?

I guess no one wins when greed wins. Those who built their many mansions on the backs of the rest of us have to barricade their souls from their own eyes. It’s a world where the only true victors might be sociopaths, whose minds have gaping holes to begin with.

Moral of the story: If you live in a world where conscience is an impediment to happiness, follow the money trail. It will lead you to the root of your problem.

2011-06-17T15:39:00.001-04:00

That which we do not bring into consciousness
appears in our lives as fate.

Carl Jung

Poem: Lust

2011-06-13T23:16:00.001-04:00

This poem originally appeared in The Toucan, one of the funnest pun-happy magazines around. It has a type of wordplay that I have never done before or since, despite writing thousands and thousands of poems.

Owl

--------------------

Lust

the pen nudges her hand
like a seed, trying to nestle
in her grip. she becomes its lover,
unretractable, and they write
clouds of ink, monsoons of letters,
until desires rage, form liquid lions
that snarl and moan,
rippling across each other,
hungry in streams.
the pen sucks on her fingers
as if they were roots
and she gets pulled down,
turning into muscles
of the loins that merge
on the tortured sheet.
the pen branches through her,
binds and spreads. she stretches
into the pulse of the lions,
feeling herself bloom in a
starburst while the beasts blur
into tawny fire. she wakes up later
to find the pen empty
and withered, the sheet
of paper rumpled, the loins
slain.

Sinking in Our Stupidity

2011-06-10T11:05:00.001-04:00

Every once in a while I feel a need to reiterate how dumbly humans have populated and spread over the planet. To maintain our burgeoning billions, we rely on brute tactics, like massive aqueducts that drain ancient paisleys of lakes and rivers, and unruly technologies with massive side-effects and risky ramifications.

In the midst of our breeding, guzzling, and competing to grab rings of gold on carousels of envy, most of it pomp and illusion, we fail--somehow--to take notice of how radically the Earth has changed over the course of a terribly brief time-span. Take Los Angeles. It didn’t exist much at all a hundred years ago. Yesterday, I flew in on a jet plane, a kind of vehicle that didn’t exist sixty years ago, and saw lattices of electricity stretching to fill plains as far as the eye could see.

Grizzly bears, wolves, deer and condors recently roamed these sage-peppered plains. Oops, they're not sage-peppered anymore. Can you say, “crammed cubic domiciles” many millions of times very fast?

And yet the entire Republican party, perhaps 50% of the Empire, shrugs as the polar icecaps melt, seas rise and ecosystems mutate. “We didn’t cause it,” they proclaim in numb counterpoint to the plethora of evidence that has convinced the scientific community otherwise. Make no mistake, this isn’t a slim majority of scientists. Around 97% believe humans are the main factor in pushing global warming along:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/06/scientists-overwhelmingly-believe-in-man-made-climate-change/1

With vigorous selfishness, we have incredibly and colossally altered the atmosphere of a 25,000-mile-circumference sphere. And yet most of us are ho-hum about it. We can’t be bothered with global issues, even if they are destroying the health of the globe itself.

We have business to attend to! Oh, and we have to raise our children so they can breed more people with more needs. And we might play video games on the side, maybe the ever-popular Angry Birds on our Ipod. When the Ipod rings, we dutifully stick it up next to our ear, rolling the dice with brain cancer.

Of course, a great chunk of the citizenry is in psychological denial or more concerned with making money by pandering to oil companies. These folks actively work to undermine progress in any way they can: smear campaigns, bribery, dissimulation.

As we infest and infect Gaea in disgusting and dangerous ways, not to mention the mutilation of great divine beauty, and the wanton torment inflicted on any animal nonhuman that gets in our way, or just looks fun to exploit, it becomes increasing obvious that we are as urge-driven as mice in a food bin.

We swill and battle for the goodies, keeping other mice at bay or shutting them out entirely so they starve. Meanwhile the food supplies dwindle, the bin fills with our shit, and yet we chow on and on, hating each other more and more.

When it all collapses, we have only our own pathetic and detestable selves to blame--but especially those who are in denial, do nothing, or who fight against reform with anger, propaganda and fear.

Acceptance: 2River View

2011-06-07T11:00:00.007-04:00

2River View has truly earned the status of legendary. It was in the vanguard of the online journal movement, setting up electronic camp in 1996. Ever since then, it has been going strong and has expanded to include the 2River chapbook series, and Muddy Bank blog, which includes podcasts and literary commentary.

This pillar of internet excellence was constructed by Editor Richard Long, who continues to sculpt the dynamic architecture of this breathtaking site. Visuals and audio (optional) embellish the written fare. This is a poetry only site, which accepts only ten poets per issue out of an average of three hundred submissions.

Given such a teeming pool of hopefuls, plus Long’s credentials as an Associate Professor of English (St. Louis Community College--Meramec), and also his obvious aptitude, the result is almost forgone: brilliant and stunning works by a generous variety of contributors.

I’ve been accepted by over two hundred journals, but only a handful of them have as low an acceptance rate as 2River coupled with such worthy prestige. I almost hate to use the word “prestige” because it sounds a bit hoity-toity, whereas Editor Long assumes a low-key and humble mantle on the website. You have to go from the masthead to his faculty page to start to get details:

http://users.stlcc.edu/rlong/

There you will find out that he is a marathon runner, a testament to perseverance that mirrors his dedication to 2River. You also find that he teaches, among other classes, Environmental Literature. This attests to a deep relationship with nature, which also manifests in a number of the poems he selects (however, I do not want to imply in any way that his choices for publication are narrowly focused).

You will also find two links to interviews conducted with Dr. Long, where finally you get some detailed information about him and also his journal. There are also links to his poems, well-crafted works that ferret out the sort of emotion so hard to locate during the daily grind, when we stressed chore-oriented citizens are barely able to wonder what we are missing, or why.

My favorite poem of Long’s is “Time in the Garden” but they are all precisely wrought and stingingly good.

Although my time is sadly short, I feel a great need to mention that Long is funding 2River all by himself. This despite the fact that students at SLCC-Meramec get a presence--not in the Issues of 2River--but rather on a special page in the journal devoted to multi-media projects. It is also clear that SLCC-Meramec benefits vicariously from the reputation Long has fostered over fifteen solo years.

In one of his interviews, Long relates that he once approached someone in administration for help with funding; and that person, some pooh-bah Dean, turned him down flat.

From my vantage, looking at the superb beauty of 2River, and the clear benefit to the college, pellucid as a stream, I think it reprehensible that Long pays for it all. This seems one of those all-too-frequent cases where the arts are being hideously undervalued by a spreadsheet-eyed bureaucrat whose mind has been dulled by money’s banal chafe and rub.

This callous treatment by the Dean only magnifies Long’s virtue. There are only a handful of editors in his exemplary category. There are thousands of online journals now, but 2River is among a special few run continuously for over a decade by one amazingly shining soul.

I want to offer a very special Thank You to Richard Long. His is the supernal kind of accomplishment for which one can never be thanked enough.

Owl

Acceptance: Danse Macabre

2011-06-03T21:17:00.004-04:00

Owl is just back from a two night backpack and his ears are still swarming with echoes of ravenspeak -- but it was marvelous to return to the world of humanity and internet-dom and find that three poems were accepted by Danse Macabre, two of them as poems Du Jour -- which is to say that Danse Macabre, a truly unique, eerie, dark and labyrinthian journal has a section called Danse Macabre Du Jour, which has daily features -- and for June 2, 2011 my poems "Twister" and "Slave Ship" are up.

To find them at this time is not easy. Your best bet is to go to the home page:

entree a Danse Macabre

Scroll down. Then click on Danse Macabre du Jour, which is a Tarot Card of the Moon, at least at this time. Next scroll down to June 2, or find the archives for June 2011 way way way down below.

The general rule at DM is if you are lost scroll down and play with the various slider bars.

Also, a third poem of mine appears in issue xlvii, Summer Nights. The poem is "The Skull" and the issue is here (I think):

Summer Nights, xlvii Danse Macabre

Scroll down to "The Skull."

The absinthe-mad mind that runs this ghoulish carnival of brilliance is named Adam Henry Carriere -- I think. To see why I am confused, bittersweetly so, you have to visit the site. You'll never forget. You may not be able to find my poems, but you won't care. You'll just be amazed, aroused and spine-chilled.

Yeah, Edgar Allen Poe is there. And other classic godlings. But so are contemporary writers.

Crazily, Danse Macabre claims to be the first online lit zine for the State of Nevada.

You really have to visit this place. It is the maddest most addictive injection of words and daemonic imagery going. If Carriere is the Editor-Impressario(a former NPR broadcaster and lit meister and many other accolades) he is one of the few real geniuses I have encountered -- he's channeling some kind of vivacious/nefarious spirit. Extraordinary doesn't even begin ...

I'm in an altered state myself from two nights of shamanic activities alone in the wilderness, far away from any trail for that matter.

Farewell -- don't dance to long at Danse Macabre. It could be a sign of literary ergotism.

Best,

Owl

Release: Stickman Review, V10N1

2011-05-31T23:05:00.000-04:00

I am absolutely and utterly honored to have poems in the 10th anniversary issue of this superlative and unforgettable magazine.

To read the issue (including my poems "Ouranophobia" and "Siesta"), go here:

V10N1

To read my review of this zine:

Owl's Appraisal

Congratulations to editor Anthony Brown on ten years of masterful leadership.

Thank you, Sir. You are a most rare, discerning and heroic soul.

Owl

PS: The sculptor, Guinotte Wise, featured in V10N1 is phenomenal. My favorite is:

Angel Tired of Avenging

That's how I feel!

Acceptance in Taj Mahal Review???

2011-05-28T14:31:00.004-04:00

I submitted three poems to Taj Mahal Review, based on its listing in Poets & Writers, which generally provides excellent leads. Unfortunately, this was not one of them.

Within an hour of submitting, I received this response:

Dear [Owl Who Laughs]

Hope this finds you quite well. You have sent your poem Sunset Walk for publication in June 2011 issue of Taj Mahal Review. Our Editor Dr. Santosh Kumar has approved it for publication in Taj Mahal Review to be released in June 2011. Proudly published by Cyberwit from the finest paper and composing including beautiful cover and design, Taj Mahal Review gives you the finest that the Publishing has to offer. A global feel with authors around the world. We are small press publisher so cannot afford international shipping and handling charges to send the book of more than 200 pages from India to your country. Will it be possible for you to subscribe the Journal in just $25 per copy only, after it is released in June 2011?
A kind reply will much oblige with your short bio.

Cordially,
Karunesh Kumar Agrawal
Managing Editor (TMR)
http://www.cyberwit.net/
HIG 45 KAUSHAMBI KUNJ,
KALINDIPURAM
ALLAHABAD - 211011 (U.P.)
India

I then did some research and found that Duotrope Digest had blocked Taj Mahal from its own journal list. The reason was as follows:

We received many complaints that they seem to require purchases from accepted writers. When we wrote them with questions regarding this policy, they did not respond.

http://www.duotrope.com/market_2443.aspx

Sadly, my experience backed up Duotrope. When I responded to Managing Editor Kumar that I could not pay the $25--and also did not include the requested bio--I never heard back. I've never received any response.

The good news is that I've spruced up the poems and re-submitted them elsewhere. The journey of submitting is an adventure in itself.

Every journal and editor has a different personality. It's part of what makes the journey meaningful and often fun.

Owl

Poem: Reflection In Cola

2011-05-24T13:06:00.002-04:00

This poem was published eons ago in a journal called Octavo, run by Alsop Review.

Owl

-----------------------------

Reflection in Cola

white hair against effervescent tar.
blue eyes gone black, unwandering,
while nose accuses nose,
ribbing a liquid mirror
with each breath.

man in a brown moon,
he cannot hide,
dimples bubbling up
near a mouth airbrushed
by curves of glass.
his head, more eggish than realized,
glistens with cracks,
following the tap of a fingertip.

his pedestal of volume
shrinks as he sips himself away,
ever smaller, maintaining
a mutual stare, bemused
that eyes could fixate so long
on someone as thin as a surface.

---------------------

Acceptance: Rufous City Review

2011-05-21T10:57:00.001-04:00

Rufous City Review -- Go!

Go to Rufous City Review and discover an anti-urbane (and anti-mundane) urbanism that breaks apart city life and turns it into everything else, or vice versa, or whatever, and yet it’s all good--brilliant actually--no matter how you define it: something that Chief Editor Jessica Bixel grasps fully in her own definition of this superb journal:

ru•fous cit•y re•view \ˈrü-fəs ˈsi-tē ri-ˈvyü\ (n.) Where industry encounters raw earth in a heightened passion of expression; see also: the best of what can be read. Origin: [Latin] red; rusted memories; russet sparrows; random whimsy; really great writing.

You are going to find rusted memories, russet sparrows and a lot more within the unhallowed halls, warrens, alleyways and towers of this mind-blowing metropolis. The current issue features a line-up of toe-curling, scalp-tingling poets, both the prestigious and the nouveau.

There is someone named Alixia Doom who writes sensuously about swans; there is a “green chemical engineer” who croons in stanzas; there is one of my favorite poets, J.P. Dancing Bear, and there are several others, including Mary Mackey, a true great, whose lead-off poem, “The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position Number Four” will twist you into a happy pretzel.

When I submitted, Editor Bixel took the time to do something rare and, to my jaded eyes, even shocking: she said she was interested in one of my poems, and would reconsider it; but only after I reworked the middle.

Why is this rare and shocking and especially kind?

Well, when editors show interest without accepting a poem, it is risky for them. The poet can get an unjustified sense of expectation, and become annoying. The poet can get overly enthused, and pepper the editor with requests for suggestions. The poet can, in other words, proceed to take up more and more of the editor’s valuable time, becoming pushy, whiny, beggarly, sly, pathetic or just straight up rude.

Editor Bixel took a chance with me, and I am honored that she did. In my initial response, I thanked her, and emphasized that I had no expectation of acceptance -- and then I went to work, putting in over a dozen hours on the poem over a stretch of delirious days. I even did a sweat lodge.

Of course, I made sure not to bother the editor again until it was time for the resub.

Luckily for me, my extra work paid off with an acceptance; but if it hadn’t, I would have done what I have many times before: said THANK YOU for the extra attention and wandered away with the joyful thought that my work merited serious appraisal.

The moral of this story is that Editor Bixel is open to giving poets an extra bit of consideration. However, if you get a suggestion from her on a poem, or from any other editor, don’t become a pest.

Editor-in-Chief Bixel is joined by Associate Editor Brittany Balyeat and Artist (“the one with the crayons”) Alex Parker.

This journal boasts talent as wide as a city can sprawl -- or a rainforest can expand -- and I hope you get a chance to visit. Even better, send Editor Bixel an email of encouragement, commenting on your favorite piece.

You don’t need a game face, stylish clothes, or a bullet-proof vest to enter Rufous City, only the anticipation that your emotions will be engaged by some great minds.

Enjoy!

Owl

2011-05-18T23:30:00.006-04:00

Unlike other species,
humans can choose not to compete;
and so we all win.

Setuva Puma Dancer, Soul Leaps

---

Release: The Toucan, including Lust

2011-05-15T14:55:00.002-04:00

Spring Issue Of The Toucan

The Toucan Magazine is an ongoing party of witty, perceptive and slightly ribald tropical birds. It is run by the talented duo of editors Liz and Laura. In this latest issue you can find one of my most prurient poems, appropriately titled "Lust."

This poem, in addition to being suggestive, has a neat kind of verbal trick that doesn't occur in any of the other 500 or so works I've published. Scroll down through the issue (see above link) to find the poem. If you discover the trick, I will send you a free copy of my latest chapbook! (limited to the first two sleuths)

In the past, I have given Liz and Laura a pretty rough go. At one point, I callously suggested that they were a Jekyll & Hyde: two personalities living in the same body. I even concocted some elaborate and rather schizo argument to defend my claims. End result: I ended up with mud on my beak and bedraggled feathers.

Fortunately, these editrices (as they prefer to be called) have a great sense of humor and took it all in stride. It was all a joke anyway, I never seriously suspected they were actually one person playing two roles ... Never.

If you want to submit to this awesome and rollicking zine, be sure to be extra polite and yet don't be afraid of a little humor (though nothing offensive). Odds are you won't outwit Liz and Laura, but it is fun to try.

Read this journal!!! You will find yourself immersed in a likeable, laughing community of intelligent players--I mean, word-players.

Nothing else need be said!

Owl out.

US Decadence Destroys Mexico, Starts a War

2011-05-12T08:53:00.000-04:00

It is pretty clear that Mexico is in a state of civil war. The mainstream media has not acknowledged it, but the evidence is there.

Huge swaths of the northern sector of Mexico are controlled by drug lords. De facto militaries have set up road blocks, taken over towns and now terrorize cars and buses that drive the national Highway 101:

Highway of Death

When a country has lost control of a huge chunk of its land to violent resistors, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that internecine conflict has gone beyond criminal wrongdoing into the realm of outright battle.

Again, the mainstream media is silent on the topic, but it seems like the system could be corrupt enough, and the drug lords mighty enough, to defeat the official government of Mexico. One way this could happen is if President Calderon is assassinated, flinging the nation into chaos and catalyzing a coup d’état by the military.

The military is currently described as vicious and wanton, and may be split into various factions under the leadership of particular generals. Some of these generals are probably willing to make a power grab if the possibility arises, perhaps with the backing of the drug lords.

If the official government goes down, the United States might have to go to war with Mexico. The reason is that Mexico will be controlled by pro-drug criminals and their allies in the military. The war on drugs will effectively cease south of the border, and tensions will escalate rapidly across the latitude splitting the continent.

There are millions of people in the US buying illegal drugs, and that voracious hunger has crippled and debauched the entire nation of Mexico. Wealth in America, coupled with hedonism, has lead to the destruction of the integrity in its neighbor, and also the moral character of the Empire itself.

Like the Roman Empire, the US is crumbling, but at a much faster rate, aided perhaps by (a) the power of advertising and consumerism to make the citizens neurotically needy and (b) the power of imperial capitalism to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few hundred billionaires while spreading stress and misery to the rest of the population. Another negative influence is militarism. Soldiers that return from war, if not crippled in body, are often crippled in soul, and they turn to drugs for relief.

Perhaps the most powerful catalyst in the quick destruction of the US reign is technology. Information, logistics, combat, commercial transaction, production -- all happen much faster than in the era of Rome or even that of the British Empire.

Americans’ addiction to illegal and potent drugs fuels the sadistic evil of the drug gangs. These gangs, for instance, treat women in the worst possible ways -- worthy of hell. The mass murders of women along the border has been well-documented and linked to perverse gang rituals.

The gangs also murder each other and innocent civilians in barbaric ways hailing back to crucifixion, impalement and dismemberment.

In conclusion, the United States is being eaten out by the greed that its wealth generates, resulting in immoral and doom-summoning failure. The disease of our national soul spreads far and wide to infect other countries as well.

Poem: Vultures

2011-05-10T08:32:00.000-04:00

This poem was published long ago (March 2004) in an online journal called Wings. It is representative of my 'early days' as a poet.

Owl

------------------------------

Vultures

vultures had their day of bliss,
sawing the air with sloppy wings
and christening wild tombs.
their feathers were black tongues
that spoke to the wind
or mumbled in a headdress.
calm and arcane, they watched
like cloaks the last battles
of long wars, then swooped down
without eulogy or burial
to chisel with slimy heads.

shaman astronomers
watched the weird orbits of these birds,
and divined the flow of galaxies--
that Earth had female curves
and danced around a fire of life and death.
they saw their own world shrink
in a ravenous feast, and then the
feasters stumble away
from cities of bone
to brood above cliffs in exile.
today you can still see
in the gloom of vultures
that they are the last spells
of an ancient orgy, when death
scattered itself about like spent petals
and forgotten clothes.

Acceptance: Blast Furnace Press

2011-05-06T13:58:00.001-04:00

This extraordinary new journal/press is run out of Pittsburgh by Editor and Publisher Rebecca Clever. When the very first call for submissions came out, Blast Furnace generated quite a bit of excitement. The site is rendered in blog format, and preparations were made well in advance through carefully timed and enticing announcements. All very professional and even savvy on the part of Ms. Clever.

So impressive was this pitch, that when we writers were finally allowed to submit, we reacted like thoroughbreds leaping out of the gate. My submissions, all chosen with great concern and worry, were rejected almost right away. I guess I was a draft horse instead of a Zenyatta. If you look at the premier issue, you will see part of the reason I fell behind: astounding talents such as James Robison and Jennifer Gresham:

The Incredible First Issue of Blast Furnace

I stubbornly stomped my foot and furiously began editing and selecting poems. After a month, I submitted again and happily Blast Furnace is going to publish two of my pieces (“Inside Metal” and “Leaf Struck”) in upcoming issues. This is a very great honor for me! The editor is a genius at finding her way. She has true publisher charisma. I have little doubt that she is going to make a significant name for herself, reaping the fruit of poets, distilling it, and showcasing the best.

Blast Furnace’s latest announcement reveals the results of a poll; and the conclusion is that BFP will run a chapbook competition in 2012. Five hundred dollars for the winner. If the entry fee isn’t too steep, I will definitely be entering the game, even though I’ll be up against some of the best poets in America and possibly the globe.

I suggest submitting your honed work now, before the inevitable trappings of prestige and glory make Editor Clever inaccessible to us mere mortals.

Clink on the link above and enjoy the molten excellence from the first smelt in the Blast Furnace. You will be scorched by a passionate glow.

Owl

Poem: Light and Air

2011-05-03T12:39:00.001-04:00

This poem, and three others by me, just went up in the latest issue of Pirene's Fountain. To read them all, go here:

Owl Drinks of Pirene's Waters

This is a high quality site that is ambitious and marvelous due to the superb synergy between the minds of the editorial staff. Pirene's Fountain gives off one of the best auras of any journal I have ever encountered. What this means, I don't exactly know--but it is my heart, speaking out from ineffable caverns of passion--that bids me say it.

Fly Well,

OWL

--------------------------------

Light and Air

light sits on an infant’s face,
frightens him--for the colors
are the fires in things,
shifting on a field
where contours burn and rub.
only liars can make sense of it,
this cinerarium.

air avoids such violence.
the infant does not drown
when suckling it
into his confused mouth.

air, that constant womb,
it regenerates him over and over,
deflects the pure bright stab
of light’s splinters.

air so dark and encapsullating.
light the hatchet, coming down
to slay the cosmic Egg.
once it was a universe unto itself.
no complications in the orbits.
no flame.

----------------------------------------

2011-04-30T07:53:00.000-04:00

Not the magnitude of an event, but rather the amount of passion it generates, determines its greatness in a person's life.

Arran Hecatus, Spider Face, Eagle Spine

Acceptance: Stickman Review

2011-04-28T09:49:00.002-04:00

It is a very wonderful, very happy moment for me to announce that two of my poems were taken by this great--and I would say unforgettable--literary magazine. Stickman was born in 2001 and is still richly vibrant. It is a tremendous testimony to the dedication and soulfire of Anthony Brown, the editor and founder. The following is from the “About” section:

I founded Stickman Review—along with Darrin English, a friend and former colleague of mine—in 2001 while living in Flagstaff, Arizona. As an MFA student at the University of Arizona, I had the pleasure of serving a few years as Editor-In-Chief of Sonora Review, the university’s award winning literary magazine. I enjoyed it so much that after eight years of deliberation and procrastination and “settling in” to a life outside the writing community, I decided to launch my own magazine; thus, Stickman Review was born.

About section of Stickman

The perseverance of Editor Brown is just one facet of this superb journal. Visit the archives to behold the first hint of an encompassing brilliance. The stunning cover art, the resonant ambience, and the absolutely beautiful display of ten years of compelling literature, are your gateway into a masterful editor’s domain.

What is the essence of Stickman? As you might intuit, it is archetypal and primeval--and yet fresh, modern and splendidly sensuous. It is the beast in us 50,000 years ago growling into the face of a Saber Tooth, or grunting around fire without the slightest scrap of civilization. And yet Stickman is the rest of our existence too, alloyed in a labyrinthine embrace with the warrens of our animal heart.

Don’t take me literally: This is not a single-face journal wedded to a caveman theme. The vast majority of the work does not bare the neolithic. Anthony Brown does not select poems to pigeonhole them in nicely defined niches of concept. You’ll find everything on most all topics here, excluding the distasteful. The only commonality is the genius and shifting filter of Mr. Brown’s indefatigable mind.

I would also like to take a moment to praise his laudable stamina in giving so much time to nebulous hordes of querulous writers.

Stickman used to pay contributors but harsh financial times have intruded on this hook, not that the journal needs it. Its reputation seems magnetic.

Not only that, Editor Brown is stretched even by our society’s frantic standards. The Great Recession hit him personally and yet:

I plug on ... reading as much as I can as quickly as I can. (With three young girls and a more-than-full-time job, it takes me quite a while to turn things around.) I enjoy keeping this small connection to the writing world active, and I hope that this small window I’ve opened offers others the same pleasure it gives me when I read a particularly compelling story, poem or essay. (from the About page)

The latest issue of Stickman Review presents a formidable array of apex wordsmiths:

Mary Christine Delea
Kate Krautkramer
Robert Hill Long
Ronald Moran
Lee Passarella
Simon Perchik
Helen R. Peterson
Don Russ
Erik Tschekunow

The collective accomplishments of these accomplished poets can certainly wow our collective consciousness. Read about them here:

Contributor biographies

I’ve had some good acceptances over the long, painstaking years. I was in Chelsea before that legendary journal sadly fell. Not long ago, three of my poems were taken by the Portland Review. I’m exceedingly proud to say that my approval by Stickman ranks among my happiest moments as a penurious, hair-pulling poet.

My happiness is due to the quality of the venue, yes! But also: I truly admire the persistence of Anthony Brown. He has found a place to be Good.

OWL

Reflections on the Empire's Idiocy

2011-04-25T09:50:00.004-04:00

The sick US Empire is now attacking its own teachers, firing them because the economy was destroyed by the greed of bankers on Wall Street. Why teachers are being attacked because avaricious bankers decided to cheat the country is beyond logic. It is, instead, a lesson in the ignorance of the masses and the sly hate-mongering of monsters on podiums.

The Empire has recently entered its third ridiculous war, with hardly a shrug from the people, who are so inured to long-term violence that dropping missiles on innocent children never troubles their daily routine of denial.

Every previous Empire, from Roman to Britain, was destroyed by the accumulation of wealth through unscrupulous methods worthy of a demon and infected by greed. What makes the US stand out is the rapid pace of its decline, which took about fifty years. It seems that advanced technology, and the greater short-term power it brings, magnifies corruption and the rate of moral decay. Narcissistic plutocrats, whose conscience is threadbare if it exists at all, swill as much lucre as they can as fast as they can get it. When they overdose, it brings all of us, hostage to their callous machinations, down with them.

Being on this planet is truly tiring when you have a decent level of ethical perception. You see wars waged so rich men can get richer. You see stupid hordes of citizens not only deny this fact but also attack teachers--some of the most noble and giving people.

It takes education to make most people even passably good and moderately aware of how leaders connive and manipulate. This is probably why education--especially the Humanities, a bastion of insight into the soul--is withering in my woeful country.

We slaughtered the Native Americans. We install dictators and undercut the freedom of our neighbors. We've turned ourselves into shallow, materialistic jingos -- all for boundlessly selfish needs.

I worship a Goddess, and I don't believe she did this. I believe other Gods are responsible for creating the malignant seeds of human evil. I shudder at these Gods and I struggle not to hate the dozens of millions of humans who serve them, unknowingly, with broken and mangled hearts.

2011-04-24T18:57:00.000-04:00

Ants have journeys too.

Vanessa Moonray

Release: Pirene's Fountain

2011-04-21T19:47:00.001-04:00

Four of my poems just went up at Pirene's Fountain.

Current Issue of Pirene's Fountain

OWL at the Fountain

This is a lovely, amazing, brilliant journal, which I have raved about before. I am just so tired now, I cannot rave on, at the moment. I will always be grateful that they took so many of my works. It is a great honor indeed. I hope you have time to stop by and read them, and if you send the editors an email, praising their journal, it would surely make their day. Editors are so under appreciated.

Very Best To All or Any,

OWL

Poem: Small

2011-04-18T07:38:00.002-04:00

Note: If you are looking for my poem "Owl" go here:

Owl

Originally published in Scythe Literary Journal. I wish I had more mental power to say good things about Scythe and its incredibly dedicated editors, Joe and Chenelle Milford.

Right now, I feel like a plastic zombie, whose every word is ridiculously lacking in substance.

Carry forth!

OWL

---------------------------------------

Small

i dissolve
into the gyri of a metropolis,
feeling like protein juice
swilled by an AI.

as if Twitter were galactic,
my sentience small.
vesicle in a capillary
of a hive.

what purchase
in this asphalt nest?
how to nudge the orbits
of vain colossi?

justice
bursts in me like a nova.
i have comets and craters
for tears.

but the great black
eye sockets of empire
pass right over,
as if i were a planchet.
nothing there.

Regrets On Missing the 2011 Plunkett Festival

2011-04-15T13:40:00.004-04:00

Terry Plunkett Poetry Festival 2011

OWL's Review of the 2010 Terry Plunkett Poetry Festival

I deeply regret with true sorrow that I cannot attend the Plunkett Festival this year. The reason is that my travelling money has already been spent on a couple of trips to protest the removal of Judy Taylor’s mural from the Dept. of Labor. During one press conference, I gave a speech, which you can find here, if you like:

My Press Conference Speech--Put It Back!

Anyway, the Festival this year has every indication of avoiding all the shortcomings that hampered last year's presentation. In my review, I had three main criticisms (and a number of compliments as well): (a) the poetry presented was spread out among too many community poets, resulting in mediocrity and a lack of focus on excellent invited individuals, (b) the panel discussion was depressing and demoralizing, (c) the Administrator who started off the Festival didn’t seem to take poetry seriously as a deep and evocative art.

Looking over the schedule this year, I see that Friday night has one featured poet (Ira Sadoff); statements by the Plunkett family; and a welcome by UMA President Allyson Hughes Handley. This seems like a good recipe for a memorable and magical evening. Last year, in contrast, four poets read on Friday night--too much, too weak. And the Administrator spent a lot of time telling one-liners and presenting a portrait to a retiring colleague.

Also I am very hopeful that President Handley will confer on the Festival an aura of importance and grace. The Friday program retains the presenting of awards to student poets, one of the best features of last year’s festival.

It is probably going to be a great night, and I am most sorry I won’t be there!

On Saturday, the Schedule is very different from before. First off, the emcee is Ellen Taylor. She did a great job last year and is sure to please again.

Second, the horde of community poets is gone, replaced by a select number of individuals. The Panel topic is Poetry and Communication In the Digital Age, which should produce positive feelings and motivate, given that the Internet has seen a proliferation of high quality sites.

Indeed, the art of poetry has burgeoned and spread in response to the freedoms provided by social media. Great outlets are everywhere. Not only that, poets can now easily start their own lit journal, or display their work on a web page. I only know one of the panel members, and only as a distant acquaintance; but I predict a lively, engaging discussion that encourages rather than dowses the struggling artist.

This year's Festival has every indication of excellence. It's going to be a wonderful gathering, a celebration of the aesthetic sorcery of words. Will someone write a review?? I will be happy to re-post it here.

Best To All and Keep Writing!

OWL

Poem: Street Addict

2011-04-12T14:42:00.000-04:00

This poem appears in my recent chapbook Man Watches January, and was originally published in Vox Humana.

If, amazingly, your interest in MWJ is piqued, you can go here to find out more, or even purchase(!):

Man Watches January

Enjoy,

OWL

----------------------------------------------

Street Addict

castration cuts his hope,
the hard-on untouched,
as the pieces windmill through bad days,
shred into fingers
stripping purses from old ladies.

his eyeballs on a carousel,
going round the head,
one the lion, the other prey.
he jibbers while sight devours itself,
sobs like the gazelle’s throat being torn.

someone juiced his balls
and squeezed the fury into his veins.
he knows what it’s like
to have nerves revolt, collapse,
become pitchforks and torches,

he the frankenstein.

the drug kills and pulls him back.
half way.
he smashes windows, yanks drawers.
screeches at car alarms, asks,
“how much for my darkness?”

it never was about Satan,
despite a mother in a church in a bib.
more about loneliness. he was always a tool,
never heard only used.
and so he’ll use.

Release: Ottawa Arts Review vol 5.1

2011-04-09T08:35:00.002-04:00

What a pleasure it was to receive in the mail a copy of OAR 5.1, beautifully bound in quality semi-gloss. The cover art, “Transient” by Tracy Drumhann, displays footprints fading into grey-shaded earth. It epitomizes the philosophical theme of this issue.

Editor Kathy Andrews explains, in her preface:

Impermanence is a fact of life. People die, and over the course of time (maybe years, maybe generations) they gradually fade into obscurity, their lives, their cares, and their accomplishments forgotten.

Given this grimly presented scenario, Andrews asks, In what fashion should we live during the precious time allotted to us? Should we be daredevils? Should we be cautious? What is best?

And then she dives into the essence of 5.1:

Whether they speak of life, of death, of memory--or of anything in between--the artists in this volume join the tradition of artists who, throughout the centuries, have speculated about the answers to these questions. Generations and generations of artists have considered the fleetingness of human existence, the shelf life of human creations, the relative insignificance of everyday human concerns.

After reminding us of the immortal words of Tennyson, Keats and Gray, and the relevance of their verbal sorcery to the conundrum of impermanence, she emphasizes in a boldfaced, centered line:

It is art, then, that is the thing

OAR, which has a fine logo--a regal O with an A and an R mostly inside--is a muse of many faces. It receives funding from various branches of both the English and Arts programs at the University of Ottawa, as well as assistance from Alumni Relations, the Development Office and individual private donors. The last few pages of the review are ads for literary magazines and contests in Canada, including Fiddlehead's 21st Annual Literary Contest.

This is clearly a well-received journal with a strong presence within Ottawa and yet also internationally through its varied yet discriminating selection of poems, stories and art. 5.1 contains one short story, one review, nineteen poems and eight pieces of visual art. It’s a svelte volume yet charismatically monumental.

The poetry is excellent and absorbing. Here’s a tiny bit from “Dark Angel In Baskin Robbins” by Laura Sobbott Ross:

Her black bra hooked
across a pair of wings--
tattoos of mitigated flight.
Feathers etched in tar
coloured ink. Arc of wing
spanning should blades,
then down the stark white
shimmer of her back.

William Doreski is a tremendous poet, and here is an excerpt from his “Jerusalem 1944”:

Squat before a goat-dung fire
in fifteen degrees of December,
I wonder how the Jesus-myth
plays in Berlin and London
these days. The plaster walls crack
to reveal the ancient adobe,
a mode of construction older
than the account of Yahweh’s beard
secreted deep in Exodus.

I’m honored that my “Hurt Faun” is one of the lead-off poems in this issue. Here is how it starts. If you want the rest, you have to purchase a copy of OAR, which I strongly recommend!

i wandered places
where butterflies were walls
and tempests confessed,
drank from the great
honeyed lip of pain,
and hid under quilts
of feasting that would never be.

This is one of the best little collections I have held in my hand in quite a while, full of philosophy, passion and sonorous depth. Go to OAR’s website to find out how to get a copy. You’ll also gain a window into the vibrant art scene of Ottawa.

Thanks to all the hard-working staff at OAR for offering the world such an outstanding trove!

OWL

Release: Yes, Poetry! April 2011 Issue

2011-04-06T12:20:00.001-04:00

Yes, Yeah, and Hooray!

The April 2011 Issue of Yes, Poetry!, including my poem "Assimilation," is up and available for your literary investigations. Scroll down the following link:

OWL at Yes, Poetry!

This is a wonderful fresh lit journal out of NYC, run by the dazzling and diligent editor Joanna C Valente, who will soon be attending Sarah Lawrence College as an MFA candidate in poetry.

Submit your most-inspired work and hope for the best, and do it quickly. MFA programs tend to be harshly demanding and unless assistant editor Stephanie Valente steps up to full-time, it is possible that Yes, Poetry! will go on a fairly long hiatus!

OWL

Acceptance and Release: Wilderness House Lit Review

2011-04-02T17:59:00.001-04:00

Five of my poems just went up at Wilderness House Literary Review:

Owl in the Wilderness

I’m honored and proud that they took my entire submission. These poems represent months of hard work and constant editing to finally achieve precision of sound and thought.

Poetry is not a game. It will let you be beautiful for a moment, but only if you give it months of pain.

Thank you Wilderness House, and especially Poetry Editor Irene Koronas.

OWL