is this craft
that chose you,
not defined by millimeters,
precision absolute,
curvatures, so eye pleasing
they demonstrate
no tolerance
for tolerance
of the
ordinary

the skill of words,
too, cut so fine,
find the
extraordinary within,
refine, refine, refine,
shave away the trite,
the reused, discard,
instant recognition,
unusable

cut new cuts,
thy spirit tolling,
thy soul trolling
anew
is thy
toolings earth sourced
from and of the
ever better,
ever closer,
always newer

make thy own designs,
faithfully execute
the new born original,
by elevating,
with the tools
in you, provide us,
by illuminating

no thing machined,
can ever be as fine
as the originality
that requires
soft spoken definition
in new ways,
heart and hand
guild crafted

when God designed the Connecticut
autumnal leaves,
overriding the summers's single green, good
but not miraculous, insufficient,
when contrasted with the
shades of red, yellow,
purple, black, orange, pink,
magenta, blue and brown
of newly fallen
words and worlds

in the season of change

write me a tool
so elegant, so complex,
so refined and yet so simple,
that its point will force no choice,
but engrave gasps of pleasure upon
my faltering eyes,
my slowing heart,
my exhausted limbs,
and make me
live again
through your
finest creativity

heat heat heat
burn to look beyond

A lot of people think they can write or paint or draw or sing or make movies or what-have-you, but having an artistic temperament doth not make one an artist.


Even the great writers of our time have tried and failed and failed some more. Vladimir Nabokov received a harsh rejection letter from Knopf upon submitting ******, which would later go on to sell fifty million copies. Sylvia Plath’s first rejection letter for The Bell Jar read, “There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice.” Gertrude Stein received a cruel rejection letter that mocked her style. Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way earned him a sprawling rejection letter regarding the reasons he should simply give up writing all together. Tim Burton’s first illustrated book, The Giant Zlig, got the thumbs down from Walt Disney Productions, and even Jack Kerouac’s perennial On the Road received a particularly blunt rejection letter that simply read, “I don’t dig this one at all.”

So even if you’re an utterly fantastic writer who will be remembered for decades forthcoming, you’ll still most likely receive a large dollop of criticism, rejection, and perhaps even mockery before you get there. Having been through it all these great writers offer some writing tips without pulling punches. After all, if a publishing house is going to tear into your manuscript you might as well be prepared.

1. The first draft of everything is ****. -Ernest Hemingway
2. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ***. -David Ogilvy
3. If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy. – Dorothy Parker
4. Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home. -Paul Theroux
5. I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide. — Harper Lee
6. You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. ― Jack London
7. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. — George Orwell
8. There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. ― W. Somerset Maugham
9. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time — or the tools — to write. Simple as that. – Stephen King
10. Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. – Neil Gaiman
11. Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die. – Anne Enright
12. If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do. – William Zinsser
13. Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college. – Kurt Vonnegut
14. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. – Ernest Hemingway
15. Write drunk, edit sober. – Ernest Hemingway
16. Get through a draft as quickly as possible. Hard to know the shape of the thing until you have a draft. Literally, when I wrote the last page of my first draft of Lincoln’s Melancholy I thought, Oh, ****, now I get the shape of this. But I had wasted years, literally years, writing and re-writing the first third to first half. The old writer’s rule applies: Have the courage to write badly. – Joshua Wolf Shenk
17. Substitute ‘****’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. – Mark Twain
18. Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that — but you are the only you. ― Neil Gaiman
19. Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. – Oscar Wilde
20. You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ― Ray Bradbury
21. Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously. – Lev Grossman
image – christine zenino

T'is a man's natural bias to ***
as a **** sapiens erectus,
positioned standing up
celebrating the evolutionary advancement
of his genealogy, his ancestors' first
ah ha moment

but as time went on,
and much time did he possess,
in the course of a single life
full of multiple urinations,
to think upon this

deduced that a man peeing,
but a metaphor
for the unpredictably of life

to the right,
to the left,
but never straight ahead,
such is life denatured,
when you think the path is clear,
you *** on yourself unintentionally

We will grieve not, rather find
                        Strength in what remains behind;
                        In the primal sympathy
                        Which having been, must ever be.
      
                                                                ­                 William Wordsworth



stunning and stunned,
perhaps even life momentarily,
            stunted  angry but enraging confusion

this notion, stirs a commotion,
primal sympathy, spawns poem

not a broken totem
not a stolen token
hand writ, inked in pen,
no golems in a modem
to assist

this just pure human spoken
an omen giving,
notice total,
this is one true ether,
or either it is not!

this primal essential assertion
a conditional propositional
that it is natural for man
to be deep sympathetic to his kind,
for which having been,
must ever be*

in Syria, snipers shoot children for sport,
in Nigeria, young girls to slavery sold,
the list, matter of many facts, well known,
needs not embellishment or addition,
the history books teach the children well

so vaunted primal atmosphere,
in these places,
are you absent, non-existent?

when primal was pre-creation,
spelled first as primeval,
in the era before the appearance of ratiocination
of life on earth
Prime and Evil,
was a combustible fuel of necessity survival

primeval became primordial,
man essayed to improve,
aging onwards himself to enlightenment

yet rooted in this prime number of humankind
is a cellular tissue that springs to life
in those who allow it, residence of the remnants,
original origin of the evil that can subsume
and assume

do not allow it

I can tell you I
will not lay quiet

for the murderers of children,
I have primeval hatred

the rage of primal sympathy denied
unleashed ten times greater

be wary when the best of us rises up

the snipers and the enslavers will die
by their own weapons

for pennies, an app
to do the heavy lifting,
rhymes, pentameter,
all the quatrains ya ever needed

strained fever, emotions rampant,
insufficient and unnecessary conditions
for poverty poetry evocation,
even autocorrects insipid
really bad tiresome love poems,
après endless generation (degeneration?)

who needs you

you think
no such animal

you be write

for the art of life
cannot be mechanized

wrote a poem,
a wistful sad lament
on mothers losing children,
a prayer, a yelling, a condemnation,
the app was,
on this subject
uncommunicative,
un étranger
of silence
in all languages

you can buy love
but you cannot buy pain

too costly and
3D printers
give you plastic, disingenuous
wholly unsatisfactory

for a lousy $1.99
I'll write you customized,
supply the situation,
a few descriptive phrases,
60 minutes later,
et voila!

am you app,
am your scrivener,
don't do roses or violets
but yes to
rhythm and blues

will take
PayPal
PenPal
but no credit cards

you may take my words
as you own,
take my credit,
but I won't take yours...

I am app human,
bring me your lush, winsome,
plain vanilla, tutti frutti,
all acceptable,
for where the real stuff
comes from

I have only mined
the surface,
the veins beneath
richness for the asking

You: it is 2:10 am
Me:  Eastern Standard Mystical Time, yup...
You: why are you up, writing?
Me: the drugs wore off
You: *** the drugs?
Say it ain't so, kiddo?
Me: yup, I did engage
with some strong stuff
ce soir, the woman too,
and she is drowning in her dreams.
Easy and cheap,
scored some us some................
Asian Fusion
Thai Food, Indonesian small plates...

You: idiot!
Me: just answering your question
You: so where is this poem, shaman?
Me: You!
You: Me?
Me: yup.
You are my early morning poem,
which I have entitled Notification: You!

Notification

I am deeply unsure.

Am I notifying you,
or am I notifying myself?

Lost command of my
native language,
the emotions too strong,
Blue Java
the color of my word blood,
strong swirling,
uncontaminated by cow's milk,
but by cows jumping over the moon,
who have come to give me gifts of
Notifications.

Hey ****** ******,
The Cat and the fiddle,
The Cow jumped over the moon.
The little Dog laughed,
To see such sport,
And the Dish ran away with the Spoon

Perfectly clear to me.
I am the Spoon,
You are the Dish.

(Shaman, Shaman, hey man,
you still sound drugged,
we urgent need some clarifications!)

When I wake up,
uncertain about a slew,
a portmanteau
of important life~things,
(Example: when should I
Capitalize a word,
a life, a me, a You?)

there are strangers,
Strangers still,
yet strangers no more,
sending me uncoded messages
intended to decode me,
Notifications,
they are called,

and they
Explode me.

capsules of comments
that encapsulate me,
emasculate my speaking abilities,
reduced to rolling in the gutter,
guttural cries to emit and utter,
man, I got friends I never met,
and that's ok
we just notify each other
thinking of you
and no more words necessary

life is groovy...

lead only,
read only,
craft yourself a better poet,
after you have crafted yourself
a better being

leaders are dragged to the fore

selected and elected,
pushed and pulled

be wary of those who shout
and boast
Follow Me,
for they think not of you,
they think only of the me in us,
their glory in your gore

do not follow me,
I shall not follow you.

let us each lead by example
and upon the shoulders
of our fellows will we be lifted
spontaneously combined, but not combusted

then, especially then,
go quietly inside yourself amidst the haste

for fellowship endures,
but fame fleeting,
and the adorers will soon flee
to the next prince of promises,
and when to the ground you slide,
slipped from their tilting shoulders,
be unsurprised

dedicated to all of the women~poets here I love not-so-secretly*

early to bed, early to rise,
stunned to sleep by a superhero trio,
sunset extraordinaire, food and drink,
but, nonetheless  I am awakened
by a poem birthing,
water breaking,
now in full labor, burning borning,
inside a man's womb

full wattage, thus empowered,
the moonlight
nudges me awake at 300am
with something real
halfway between a slap and a tonguing kiss
of pure white ****** light

This night sun has an entourage
clouds in attendance,
attend-dance, exactly,
so many fawning, that the bright light
upon the water, normally a claro path,
tonight, but, just, a moon spot
smudged by the shapes of
cloud interlopers intervening
tween me and she...
(nature is female,
everybody knows that!)

yet, the night sun is so overwhelming bright
that everything is perfect outlined

edged sharp in relief,
the stand of six,
our bedroom guardians,
six oaks strong,
are quiet, at-attention still,
their leafy dress uniforms
perfectly pressed,
as I am too,
at full attention

now I understand why soldiers
award themselves oak leaf clusters
as medals of decoration, bravery

poor man's mind weak with admiration,
plots alternative W courses,
a. Walk on water as invited
b. Wake her with your tongue,
in order to put her back to sleep,
                                       (with your tongue)
c. Write a poem with eye light
d. W-all of the above

unable to decide,
no, that's wrong,
incapable of decide,
I do the bravest act,
self-decorate myself with a
white badge of courage,
go back to sleep,
thinking I should not
drink so much wine on weekends,
but write of love and desire,
moons in July not June,
like the inner kid
wants to

and I look at the title this poem gave itself,

Full Moon Woman Life

wondering where the commas should be placed,
then realize it is all
one word

Dan Fogelberg – Leader Of The Band Lyrics

An only child alone and wild, a cabinet maker's son
His hands were meant for different work
And his heart was known to none
He left his home and went his lone and solitary way
And he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay

A quiet man of music denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once, but his music wouldn't wait
He earned his love through discipline, a thundering velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand

The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy to the leader of the band

My brother's lives were different for they heard another call
One went to Chicago and the other to St Paul
And I'm in Colorado when I'm not in some hotel
Living out this life I've chose and come to know so well

I thank you for the music and your stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go
I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough
And papa, I don't think I said I love you near enough

The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I'm just a living legacy to the leader of the band
I am a living legacy to the leader of the band

Songwriters: Fogelberg, Dan
Leader Of The Band lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

summer incisions on a crystalline day*
(it sorrows me to end a poem this way)

every leaf, every tree,
edged silhouetted sharp
against the pale blue cadet uniform color of a
portrait background framing sky,
this museum piece painting,
unsigned, unguarded, uninsured,
yet, surely the worlds most valuable

the sun's early morn golden glint reflection,
somehow pools in the palm of the each chlorophyll green flat goblet,
this necklace of carat gold cavatine melodies
gets me happy drunk on an aurora of
the green n' blue seasonal summer's glories,
upon the skin-stamped a caramel hallmark,
what we wait for all year long,
all the earth's colors crystalline pure,
my senses say it's as it was
on the first day of creation

this is not the first day of summer 2014,
yet, it should be so remarked,
for summer visions so perfect crystalline
are summer incisions,
allowing entry of interferon hopes of we irregular,
imperfected assorted human shapes,
the marvel of a free-for-all serenity,
nature's sweet permanent kindness to
wayfaring temporal humans

corporeal that I am, my being flooded
by all of this and a grateful satisfaction,
but my mind knows that as real as all this,
is as well, the not well, the ashen pallor inside,
the burnt tongue words that circulate
in my bloodstream, the status of my
reality, where my job, survival, is a
Monday day to one day thing, and where the luxury of being
summer incised
is a sometime thing

and it sorrows me to end this poem this way
but I come from another place this day

and the computer asks
save this poem?
and I answer,
no, save me, save my family,
even if it must rain every day for the rest of my
sunsetting life

and it sorrows me to end this poem this way
but I come from another place this day

tho summertime,
he lets his hair grow long

when he wakes,
mirror just laughs,
a volcanic holy hell headed revealed,
forehead flopping, ear covering,
an unruly mess,
as a secondary metaphor,
holy insufficient

and a man does what a man can do

turns both old fashioned porcelains,
medium luke gusher eruptor is cupped,
with a two handed utensil,
a couple of scoopings
he turn faded blonde grey,
wet jet black for awhile enough

and a man does what a man can do

with less than a handful of brush strokes,
straight back they lie,
and suppressed for awhile,
but he doesn't think
"boy it's good to be a man"

no,

he study's the mirror's new reaction,
when his Cain forehead mark,
is now readily seen,
most gasp or look away,
poor mirror is fixed
and thus,
transfixed, frozen

what he thinks is this:

"good,
let the world see,
know, who I am,
and how I am marked
my holy hell is continuous,
unforgivable, deserved"
(he made her abort their baby)

but the mirror,
a simpatico old friend,
thinks the splashes will hide
his fresh tears,
but the man knows better,
yet, loves his mirror friend,
truthful image reflected,
even more for it

you take a chance
and you say man
here my digits,
now shared,
here is my Rx,
call me as needed

weeks months later
a phone rings
at 2:30am

and one poet says it's me,
I am the living soul
of words you have appreciated

and the other says,
I'm glad you called brother,
how did you know I'd be awake?

and he laughs and says
I read your stuff,
you write best tween
midnite and dawn,
so the probabilities were favorable
that I would find you awake and capable

and you walk and talk and roam
roads and oaths that black and write
screen letters
can't full convey,
till one says **** man look at the time
and both laugh,
knowing a poem
had just been writ in
true voices
shared

and that kids,
is the chance some make,
when first your words you take
and the poetry you proffer
is product of genuine flesh,
beyond mere in vitro digitally fertilized

she makes my coffee
SoRight
she makes me think
SoRight
she makes me
SoRight
that two words become
one exclamation,
that is precisely
SoRight

7:52 am

This odd fellow took
a long drink at night,
rock n' roll long forgot,
hard driving,
reacquainting unused,
years ago seeded,
elements of a
young man's remembering soul,
Hotel California living life,
live before his eyes,
demonstrated, recalled and
well-played
on a double slide guitar,
so each note of distinction
new and familiar,
au courant from decades
then, now and when-forever

the odd fellow
listens happy high,
drinking the music's
rich woven countenance
to the thrumming bouquet
of a pale white coloration
a Sauvignon Blanc
newly arrived from New Zealand,
just because,
this odd fellow
liked the name,
Supernatural

just like the music

and the
odd fellow is
young and old
at the same time,
tipsy and sober,
fresh and forlorn,
days wasted past,
days made for memories to last,
feet move timed
to the beat,
his heart resonance timed
to the beat,
the odd fellow is thinking
nothing could be more natural
to recall the supernatural past
and the future natural best to come,

with wine, his woman and
those rock n' roll songs

One has a population of 1,700,00

The other 2,000 locals,
swelling to 10,000
come the summer people,
the likes of him,
and noisy day trippers,
neither like

both born and bred on their respective islands

he locks his car always,
when and where ever
where ever is

mostly,
she leaves her keys
in the ignition
especially when
she leaves
the car running
on the street,
when doing quick errands

both are life long islanders,
that from time to time come
avisiting each other's home plate

at night,
he just locks the doors
but once,
no deadbolt,
a sign he is cool
on her countrified territory

her house door has a lock,
but no one knows the
key's exact whereabouts
going on,
as long as she can remember,
which is most of
her twenty years total

he lives in a tall apartment building
on a finger shape island that probably has
10,000 tourists arriving daily

she from an irregular shaped isle,
twenty five miles as the osprey flies,
and they do,
hers, nestled tween two forks,
and ferry's connecting you to the
"off island" till about 1:00am running,
after that, well, find a beach...

she, in a house,
outback,
behind the
country-package-store-deli
where the
most expensive gas on the island
for sale to touring folk
on the island's main gig highway

that store where
only the localest of locals
come in for
to buy their beer,
and the lost tourist,
looking for free directions
pays for them with expensive gasoline

he has one job

she has three

when not waitressing at Sweet Tomato,
she's planting flowers for the landscapers,
or working the counter at said store

she was prom queen

he did not go to his prom some 45 years ago

Two islands, two people,
one ancient, even borderline old,
one a student studying
modern farm management,
with the future openness of youth,
who won't take down college loans,
the other,
edging closer to his distinct extinction

but they talk for hours,
and he tips her more
than the cost of his meal
and the bottle of Pinot Grigio,
which loosened his tongue,
on a Friday eve
having traveled almost
four ungourmet hours,
to get to the island
he borrows from her,
in the summer time

and two days later,
one is encapsulating
the memory of the meet,
on an island of poetry

and he thinks he will go back
to conversation continue,
but that first meet
well, no repeat,
so he leaves
it's taste
here

for you to share

runnerman from responsibility
over the seas swim undone,
walk on water pretend saint,
don't deny culpability,
no using can't, weighted, ain't,

but never say
words failed me

liar on fire, name names,
name yourself
before the board of inquiry
first among sinners,
ain't you weakly proud, yet,
don't deny responsibility,

but never say
words failed me

pathway thru the kingdom of men
to reach the ways of heaven,
looking for excuses, indifferent,
look for reasons, insufficient,
looking for travel guides
guaranteeing a good time had
bye, bye all

but never say
words failed me

your body may fly away,
or just deteriorate,
so many choices to
drown yourself in sin,
paper, rock, scissors,
or just a handy mirror

but never say
words failed me

words alone,
true words,
words only,
of others,
your own,
can save you

when you are about to
fail yourself

fifty years young and she asks no one
directly,
how will she compete?

she is tail and blonde and thin and all that
='s
pretty,

but,

single and
pretty at fifty,
slender, athletic,
currently unemployed
knowledgeable sports fan,
courtesy of her dad and no brothers

is not good enough

none of it, cuts it
when, in summertime
she only sees
youths coupling and rosy
older men with
young babies rosy
every place,
every restaurant
we take her

(the 19 year old tan,
embarrassingly,
almost bare
dumber and meaner than dumb
hostesses,
all look up,
inspect our arrival,
yes, in need of seating,,
we are three
and stupid youthful smiles,
yes, three, smirking, I get it...)

she slips it
out loud,
@ our "dinner for three,"
loud and yet inaudible
because we all want it to be
invisible unheard

a private thought,
part gasp,
part cri du couer,
wail plain and female plaintive,
can't compete, can't compete

cannot respond with a fatherly
there, there,
for that would be ridiculous,
even insulting

she wandered in and out of
purposeless, prepared for failure
relationships, and now
it is a look-back, lost,
Thirty Years War

find her a friend!
reply, they are,
sad and married,
besides you know,
I travel alone
in the
company of women,
and so by now,
they have stopped asking

it hangs there,
a hanging atmospheric decoration,
till enough seconds pass
and it is restaurant-noise
clinked away,
time erased,
never was said

I kick myself under the tangible table,
so no one else has to,
reminding me that you cannot be
poet~healer to everyone,
always,
try as you might

The third mate is the Watchstander.

when all to rest, weary to unload,
eager to embark to station of quietude
he is at attention, full alert.

he is the Safety Officer.

your care to him entrusted.

you can read this all beneath his banner.

he to duty called,
sharp the alertness,
his whistle and his words
every ready, always, always,
a poem at the ready.

how else does a third mate make you safe?

write a hundred poems a day

the devil may care

but I don't

any fool can do it

even me

Sleep is a dream
for fools
who believe
in dreams