brief sensation of movement

Fighting off a cold that threatens to be an annoying impediment to my evening's duties as the host of the open microphone reading at B&N for Election Day.

Still a bit tired, but getting it all back.

Gearing up for my next few miracles.

I will be voting momentarily, then hoping for the best in elections around the country. If we can't impeach the Pretendent, let's at least neuter him by removing his rubber stamp legislature while we still have a country left.

FiW 2007, here I come

Well, alive and well...still a bit sluggish (interesting image conjured by that word...I refuse to check and see if I am leaving a slime trail).

Was editing down my side of my collaboration with Dan McTaggart last night and found a few pieces I did not like...so I threw myself into cleaning the whole section up. EJ is probably right...I need to get a social life. Maybe I'll meet someone nice at the reading tomorrow.

I have accepted an invitation to be a preliminary judge for the poetry chapbook contest for the Frontiers in Writing conference, in Amarillo, Texas, June 8-9, 2007. The convention and contest are sponsored by the Panhandle Professional Writers, the longest running writers' association in America. It is an honor to be invited and an honor to accept and I hope to be of some value.

I have also decided to attend the conference, so if you have been dying for a chance to get some face time with me (and who hasn't?) be in Amarillo that weekend. Maybe they'll give me something to do...otherwise, I'll just have to spend the weekend working on some new poetry inspirations with some limber, literate poetry groupies in the hot tub. What would be a good name for a totem-muse from the Texas Panhandle? Sagebrush? Armadillo? Coyote? Third wife? Now that I think of it, there was this one graduate student in Victorian literature from Texas who had worked as a dancer...(off on a reverie)

For further information on the conference: FiW 2007 holds the info.

Funny, hm? I have been the host and or guest of honor or featured speaker at a half dozen writers' conferences in Mississippi, California and now Texas (a state I have never even lived in)...but in West Virginia...still nothing. Makes one feel positively unloved.

Why I hate my guitarist

In his never-ending drive to be more of a pain than E.J., my guitarist with The Gods of Love, Izzy, just sent me a musical offering. And a challenge. I'm to build a lyric to go with this two minute and four second dance riff. He's already provided all the musical layers, and I am not to edit the music in any way, just assemble and perform a lyric.

I hate my guitarist, Izzy.

The music is uptempo, bouncy. Usually when I hear music I can close my eyes and get an image. When I close my eyes for this I see a room full of people, dancing and laughing. It's like a big beer party. In Philadelphia. In the Seventies. A definite secondary layer of funk in there. And how many drums does he have on this thing? Sheesh.

I don't do beer parties, but I do accept challenges (especially from the guy responsible for the remarkable sound that is "Wordslinger" and "Brisant Revelations"). So, Izzy, m'boy, you are most definitely on. I'll include the final product in next week's podcast.

Now I must begin to marshall my forces for Tuesday night. I have been very tired of late, worn down to the quick. I am trying, with mixed success, to force myself out of it. I may be coming down with something, or have just, finally, found the limit of my endurance. I have a had a year most people would envy as a lifetime, in terms of sheer creative productivity.

Aeons ago my first love, Nancy, introduced me to a song by Cat Stevens entitled "But I Might Die Tonight"...and there have been times in my life when it kept me moving when all purpose went out of me. I am not without purpose today, just energy. Unusual for me, but not unique.

Very excited, I am, about the book and CD release party next month. But, before I can get to that...a CD and a book and a half remain t complete.

going amazon

Over the next few days I may be closing an arrangement to get my CDs on Amazon.com, starting with NEMICORN, then THE NAKED READS. We'll backtrack to THE LAST ROMANTIC VERB, later. They'll also be available to record and CD stores that carry works by independent artists.

There are days I am the whirlwind and days I am but a leaf blown about within it. I will miss this life, when it is over. But there will be evidence of my passing.

To do list (next 25 years):

1. 25 more books of poetry.
2. Read at an inaugural, at least at a gubernatorial level, if not Presidential. I volunteered to read for Gore's inauguration in 2000, I believe the reason he lost was his people didn't take me up on it.
3. Twelve more CDs. Knowing me, more like twelve hundred. I like to talk.
4. One love. I have wasted too much on a shotgun approach to romance. I want that one final arc that sustains me through the rest of my life. No insult on those whom I have loved in the past, I just would like a final meal.
5. A MacArthur. I've earned it.
6. Leave this life with no financial debts.
7. Hold my grandchildren. Meet my sons' wives.
8. Finish a screenplay or ten.
9. Six novels. One textbook (on poetry). Outlive everyone who might be offended by my memoir.
10. Find out what happened to all the people I have cared for who have drifted away over the years.

I think it is mostly accomplishable, and all of it worthy.