upright against the savage heavens

a guy I know...

2010-01-04T21:14:00.008-05:00

ever hear about the guy who ran a poker room and spent his time hustling pool in the underbelly of early nineteen sixties tennessee? you know, the guy whose dad was a cop and his mother a righteous church going country lady who ran the house with an iron fist but still he managed to cut a swath of sideburned hell-raising thru the gamblers and punks he ran with? the guy who gave it up when his kid was born, put away the easy money and dangerous thrill of taking it off another man with his wits and cunning so that he could have a steady reliable means of raising his new son and caring for the young italian wife he met crashing a party at a local catholic school? ever hear about that guy?

the guy who raised three kids, kids who turned out to be a dynamite mother, a tattooed businesswoman and, much to his chagrin and pride, a degenerate gambler and hustler who also wrote a couple of poems here and there? the guy who bought said son a guitar and forever altered the course of his possible futures and also instilled in him a love of reading and books? who taught him about responsibility and its proper application, explained the reason for having two bankrolls, separately wrapped in rubber bands when at the table, to play small cards out of position sometimes, to focus risk and know when to ignore the odds? who supported said son no matter what insanity the kid threw at him?

the guy who spent more than forty years with that italian bride and loved her more than himself, the guy who worked his ass off to make sure his family would prosper, who traveled the country building railroads, carrying upon him the romantic aura of a lone black steam engine rolling and smoking thru the american countryside?

who welled up with pride holding his grandson, and then, grandsons?

ever hear about him? the guy who lived a wondrous life, a rich life, the guy who dripped wisdom and intellect and a driven curiosity about everything he encountered? who papered his walls with newspaper clippings and post it notes and memos to himself and who passed that knowledge of things both large and small, of things emotional and clinical, matters of the heart and mind and spirit and future and past and things stupid and silly and hilarious and important, passed it on to his kids, his wife, his friends and all the rest?

the guy who could perfectly shuffle a deck of cards and also loved motherfucking penguins?

ever hear about that guy? who split this mortal coil on saturday, january second?

no? well, now you have.

I'll miss you, dad. we all will.

love,

your son.

happy new year

2010-01-01T13:58:00.001-05:00

cya aughts.

you almost crushed our spirits, you crappy decade.

but not quite.

nice mention...

2009-12-18T20:21:00.001-05:00

of Sunlight in the indie blog Deckfight's year end list H E R E.

also, if you click the Sunlight link above, you'll find that OA Press is having a holiday sale and you can pick up your copy, if you lack one, for a mere eleven bucks.

check it out.

or don't.

your choice. I'm going to go have a Ninety Minute IPA and listen to the rain.

a chapter from something bigger than a poem...

2009-12-10T02:20:00.005-05:00

Old National Highway is the next exit past the airport, south of Atlanta, and during rush hour the cars line up in terrible double rows, jamming into the heart of every intersection. They block all lanes and you can see the rage vibrating behind everyone’s eyes, but nobody ever blows their horn. Planes come in low, skating over the edge of the freeway and down onto the tarmac, trailing faint grey smoke. Sitting in the traffic, the sound of bass curls and wisps along the ground. It leaks into any open vehicular orifice along with a pervasive fried smell which permeates the greasy air, thick with jet fuel and asphalt, emanating from the endless fast food restaurants. Red and yellow signs glare while digital readouts note the increasing cost of gasoline. At every bus stop, trash cans overflow into the dirty street and black spray-painted graffiti covers most surfaces. Old women with strollers, young black men with dreadlocks, fat children and their handlers wait in clumps of faceless humanity. A man smokes a tragic cigarette. People with cell phones affixed to the sides of their heads wander in and out of traffic, heedless of the world they’ve made as it screams and veers around them. A man wearing a bowtie and selling folded newspapers asks a driver to buy a copy and is rejected.

Further down Old National, past Wal-Mart and Kroger, past the fifteen gas stations and their bright fluorescent shine, is our neighborhood. We live in an old house with a small yard where a big oak leans its limbs upon the roof. It’s me and my girl and our dog. We’ve been here for ten years, or forever. Here is where we watch the days pass among the housing tracts vacated by a fleeing white middle class in the early eighties, left behind by those seeking gated communities, planned golf course housing developments with signage restrictions, neighborhood covenants, a loyal police force. Now it is populated by strangers uninterested in the idea of a neighborhood, instead only seeking four walls to store their lives. Now this place belongs to no one. Now a sinister feeling pervades each cul-de-sac, each dead end street and indifferent darkened driveway. Now there is a sense of being shackled to the world by a fraying thread.

It has become like a memory of someone else's childhood.

I work nights and come home to this place. I work and when I leave, I say I am going home, but I wonder, sometimes, about that word.

I drive thru the dark streets and catch glimpses of stray cat eyes darting behind bushes. Flickering blue light from flat screens presses against covered window panes. I rub my face and put my blinker on even though nobody is around. I turn down the hill. Across from us is their house, the brown house where Johnny and the grandmother, and all the unknowable children live, the house where the trouble began. Next to us live Mr. Adams and his wife who was a widow up until she met him a few years back. He keeps his yard clean and full of flowers. It is the only place like it on my street. On the other side is Ms. Sue with her endless parade of relatives and church people. I pull up close to the garage and get out. I lock the doors and set the alarm. My girl is waiting. The dog presses her nose up against the screen door. I walk up.

Inside is one of the last bits of sanity anywhere in the world, a place where the lamps aren’t too bright and there is cold water and coffee. A place to read something good, to sit at the typewriter and write, a place where someone can cook a meal, not a big meal, something simple and warm, something quick and easy after a long night of cleaning up other people’s leftovers, other people’s lives. We can argue here too, we can scowl and frown and yell. We can let things go when we need to.

Inside is everything we have left, after so long together.

But out there is the neighborhood, and our little island is no defense against the rising tide of everyday horror. After the sun goes down, if you are quiet and still, the sounds begin to seep into your mind, to crawl into your ears and urge you to madness.

At night a chorus of lonely animals in yards overgrown with weeds begins to sing. An orchestra of barking dogs performs with quick shouts, intermittent howls, choked yelps, a machine gun rapid beat, a low rumble from each individual voice conveying personality and determination, a need to be heard. There are special tones, odd frequencies and strange patterns reverberating between the split level homes, with new phrases echoing in response to the vanishing wave of sound. And then, even louder, the silence in between movements rising like a held breath with all ears waiting, listening, desperate for someone to come into their theatre and relieve them, release them.

But no one ever comes and the College Park symphony drones back into life, every few minutes, every goddamned night.

Always.

something to read...

2009-12-08T23:07:00.002-05:00

stones

she picks up
stones
with
fool’s gold
embedded
within
the
layers.

she piles them
up in a glass
vase
and watches
them shine
in the sunlight.

time and
pressure,
chance
and
determination.

she finds
what
she
is
looking for.

rock...

2009-11-22T01:39:00.001-05:00

one of my favorite zappa songs played by a zappa. the sax playing will destroy you.

fuck you, corporate politicians...

2009-11-19T06:06:00.004-05:00

did you know that without insurance, an MRI will run a person around $1200? I read that in a report about such things.

then a person will know what, if anything, is wrong. the price of the test is also an indicator of how it will be too fucking expensive to fix the problem, if there is one.

universal single payer. medicare for all. I mean, it wasn't ever even "on the table." you motherfuckers with your cop-out legislation can cram it up your fat soft well-taken-care-of asses.

but in the meantime, lots of americans will die needlessly.

way to go, america.

the new sound...

2009-11-02T14:39:00.011-05:00

here at the Spider House we spent Halloween dancing in the rain and studying under the tutelage of Pure Freaked Out Madness. as a result of the Cosmic Cleansing, I have a new program, and I've got my Door of Kukundu now. here's a mere taste...

driving at sunset with an empty tank

at four thousand feet
clouds crawl
over the mountain
peaks
and reach out to
touch the autumn sun’s
slowly draining glow.

their wispy fingers
melt upon contact
and are curled back
into faint mist and
a memory
of
motion.

near barren trees
collect
what remains
and
stand
firm,
casting long shadows
against the
coming
of
the
night

and the
inevitability

of
another
winter.

four seconds to keep living

as storm clouds
dissolve
and
purple blue sky
prickles with hot yellow
sunbursts,

tall grass
beads
with
trembling glass.

high above,
a rainbow forms.

and
then,

for impossible seconds
before vanishing,

another.

curve

he steers hard
into the tight
curve
and can hear
the tires
chirp
as
they slip across
the center stripes
into the other
lane,
but
only for a
moment.

there are
no other cars
on the road.

he
presses
down on the gas.

up ahead
is darkness.

he smiles.

cunningham
09

autumn in heaven...

2009-10-29T11:27:00.003-04:00

come up and see us...

well, not you.

read this...

2009-10-16T16:32:00.003-04:00

interview with Luis C. Berriozabal, one of the small press' finest.

death's press release...

2009-10-15T14:23:00.000-04:00

read the press release for Death Is My Subject H E R E.

tell your friends. there are only a few Deluxe Editions left, kids...

death is my subject...

2009-10-11T00:14:00.012-04:00

my latest chapbook Death Is My Subject, published by the fantastic inmates/lunatics at Propaganda Press, is now available.

it is one of the Pocket Protector books, #12 in the series, and can be had in two different forms; you can pick up the standard PP version H E R E for three bucks plus postage, or you can get the really fucking incredible "Deluxe Edition," which comes with the PP chap plus an additional chapbook of poems not in the PP book as well as a laminated, signed bookmark and a signed, full-color cardstock broadside all wrapped in a black crepe paper package. the Deluxe is a limited edition and will run you six bucks plus postage; you can pick it up H E R E.

the Deluxe Edition:

I hope you take a chance on this chapbook, it represents the retirement of all published and unpublished work up to 2009, and the beginning of writing all new stuff for as long as I can drag my old ass over to the goddamn typewriter.

I can't say enough about the awesome job Leah Angstman did putting this package together. thanks so much to her for the incredible design job. remember, buying it (or any of the other great Prop Press releases) supports a kickass indy press, and that can't be bad, right? right. go do it now. do it. go. now.

oh, plus: it's scary, because it's all black. and black is scary.

oh, and plus and also: for Halloween.

read this...

2009-10-08T22:54:00.004-04:00

interview with the publisher of my book Flowers In The Shadow Of The Storm, David MacNamara, the head freak over at sunnyoutside.

click H E R E.

want this?

2009-10-08T01:13:00.006-04:00

I have ~~three two one~~ none signed author copies left of the color broadside being included with the "Deluxe" edition of my Pocket Protector book Death Is My Subject from Propaganda Press; I hope everyone purchases one of the limited "Deluxe" copies for a measly six bucks when it's available sometime next week or so (I'll post a link), but in the meantime, if anyone wants one of those three, email me and I'll put it in the mail.

the poem is "like some mutual disease" and it's one of my personal favorites; the kind of poem I'd like inscribed on my tombstone, if I planned on having one of those things. which I don't.

I'm going to be ground into fine powder, mixed with ink and then be scrawled across a thick piece of paper. I'll say, "fuck you, assholes! I had more fun than you!" then I'll have the paper photocopied, scanned and spam-emailed around the world. then the original will be crumpled up into a tight ball, tossed to the dogs for a good chewing, set on fire, then thrown into the creek behind our house.

it'll be nice.

go read this...

2009-10-02T00:25:00.003-04:00

Poethound posted a rare interview (the only one I've ever read, in fact) with Joe Shields, one of the editors of the greatest small press mag out there, Nerve Cowboy. read it H E R E.

something to read...

2009-09-30T03:55:00.003-04:00

The Mailbox

“I don’t believe in writer’s block,” he told her.

They were sitting at the table in their kitchen. Sunshine slipped thru the barely parted curtains and climbed across the empty breakfast plates. He looked at her when she didn’t say anything.

“I know you think I have it, but I don’t.”

She was picking at a crust of toast drying on a napkin.

“I never said anything like that and you know it.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to say it. It’s all over your face.” He scratched his nose. “I can finish that fucking book.”

“I know you can.”

“Bullshit. You lost faith in me a long time ago.”

“No, you lost faith in you.”

He bristled.

“What do you know about it?”

“I watch you, I listen to you, I remember how you used to be.” She stood up and carried her plate and empty glass to the sink. Dropped them in. Ran some water. “You used to smile. Now you don’t.”

He picked up her napkin and the crusts and the crumbs and the rest of it. She stepped out of the way. He finished clearing the table as she watched him.

“Well, so what? Who cares if I smile or not?”

“It’s symbolic.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You think ‘smiling’ is my problem?”

“No.”

“Well, what the fuck are you talking about then?”

“People who are happy smile. You don’t.”

“Bullshit, I smile. Watch.”

His twisted his lips into an echo of a smile. His cheeks wrinkled with effort. He showed her his teeth.

“Wow. That was terrible.”

He made a sound almost like a laugh.

“You used to really laugh,” she said. “There was a light.”

He scowled. Light, he thought. How ridiculous. He didn’t remember any light.

“Whatever. I’m going to take a shower and get dressed. We got some shit to take care of, you know.”

“I know.”

He headed down the hallway to the bathroom. She heard the door close and water pour into the tub. She parted the curtains and stared out into the yard. She listened to the sounds coming from the shower. She could hear the pattern of drops change as he moved around. She thought about the day ahead, how it was just exactly like so many other days.

After a while, the water stopped. In the silence, she could hear birds calling outside. She walked over to the front door and looked out the screen. Out by the mailbox she could see a murder of crows digging in the grass and hanging from the trees like dark jewels. They shined in the morning sun, barking at each other as they worked.

Then, one by one, they flew away.

also...

2009-09-30T00:37:00.002-04:00

I don't know if you people have good breweries in your town or what kinds of beer they brew, but even if you do, the Iron Rail IPA from Wedge Brewing here in Asheville kicks its ass.

it is the best beer I've had in a long, long time, citrus and pine and caramel and deep orange/rust color with a long lingering aftertaste of deliciousness, dry hopped and barely bitter...oh mama.

shame you can't get any. I'll drink one of these beauties for you, loser.

down this crooked road...

2009-09-29T14:37:00.007-04:00

is now available. Bill Taylor, Jr. chose the work for this anthology, and it's a fine bit of gathering indeed.

you can pick up your copy (and read a few sample poems) H E R E.

lit shiz...

2009-09-09T11:30:00.003-04:00

my new chap Death Is My Subject, the next Pocket Protector book from Propaganda Press is almost ready to roll. it will be available in a "Deluxe" edition, as well as the regular chap, and it will feature the PP chap with its black cardstock cover and black lettering, a bonus 1/8 size chap with poems not in the regular edition, a color broadside on cardstock, signed by yours truly, and a limited edition laminated bookmark with black tassel and bead, all wrapped in black paper and bound with a black ribbon. I think the "Deluxe" edition runs around six bucks and the regular is around three (plus shipping). I'll post an exact link when the book is finished. thanks much to Leah for such a stunning job on a great little book.

still don't know enough about Hosh and I? still haven't read Sunlight at Midnight, Darkness at Noon? then head over to PoetHound and check out a new interview: H E R E.

also, I am a Hunter S. Thompson ripoff, not Bukowski, just FYI, Paul. I can't say who Hosh is ripping off.

outside the last grasses of the summer are being slaughtered by suburban madmen and the whine of their gas powered killing machines smokes thru the early afternoon air. dogs howl. the sun bakes. thank god winter lurks somewhere over the sweating horizon. we can hold out until sundown, I think. then there will be some manner of reckoning...

go read this...

2009-08-31T14:12:00.002-04:00

check out this great write up of Overcome by Luis Berriozabal and my lady, Cynthia Etheridge over at Orange Alert: H E R E.

review of Sunlight at Midnight...

2009-08-12T22:25:00.001-04:00

you can read it H E R E.

interview...

2009-07-27T21:36:00.001-04:00

with Hosho and I in re: Sunlight; you can check it out H E R E.

lit shiz and other...

2009-07-16T13:30:00.003-04:00

thanks to everyone who sent their kind words of support and consolation; it means a lot to us.

onwards.

Kendra Steiner Editions just issued their latest offering, a joint chapbook of poems and photos by Luis C. Berriozabal and my lady Cynthia Etheridge. it's a well-done b/w affair featuring the usual stunning poetry of LCB coupled with textured, atmospheric photographs taken by Cyn. she also did the covers of two of my chaps, In Gambler's Blood (sold out) and A Sound To Drive Away The Coming Darkness (still available). you can read more about it or order your own copy of this limited release H E R E.

in the very near future, some of my work will be appearing in an anthology put together by William Taylor, Jr for Lummox Press along with Miles Bell, Hosho McCreesh, MK Chavez, Father Luke, Christopher Robin and Bill. this is a collection of some of Bill's favorite writers, and I'm honored to appear. the title of the anthology is Down This Crooked Road, taken from one of my poems, which is nice of Bill, and I'll post ordering info as soon as the book is available. I hope you google the above authors and find out more about their work if you don't know it; you'll be pleased with what you find...

one of my poems will be appearing in the forthcoming Bottle, an all broadside "magazine" from Bill Roberts at Bottle of Smoke Press. these are some of the finest broadsides you'll ever see, and mine is no exception. the title is blindstamped and the artwork is a four color letter pressed masterpiece of perfect interpretation. you can see it being printed H E R E and I have a few author's copies. I'll send a signed copy to the first TWO people who email me who aren't already getting a contrib. copy of Bottle.

Hosho and I will have the next section in the timeline of our letters published in BukScene #2 (you can read about #1 H E R E), due out in the near future. this segment covers the first couple months of 2003 and Hosh's time in Paris. if you've read Sunlight, you might be interested. again, I'll post info when the issue appears.

speaking of Sunlight, I just want to say thanks to all those who've emailed us and told us how much they enjoyed reading it. anyone who wants to take a small peek inside can click H E R E.

lastly, my new chap Death Is My Subject is forthcoming in the next month or two from Propaganda Press as part of their Pocket Protector Series. there will be links, I promise, when it's ready to roll.

okay for now. more later.

sorry...

2009-06-27T15:59:00.005-04:00

I've been away for a bit; we've had a death in the family. such things help one realize exactly who and what's important and how everything and everyone else can go get fucked.

but you get emails like this one from Doug Draime and it helps one understand why making art is an important thing, no matter the level of suffering, no matter the difficulty of enduring another withering day in the shitpile of humanity. thanks again for the kind words on Sunlight, big Doug:

"...Received my hardback copy a few days ago, and I honestly can't think of a book I've read in recent history that I am more impressed by. The way you guys so fearlessly question the human condition, and the artist's place in it, is a must read for anyone who passionately seeks the purpose of our existence, and our reason for creating. IT IS ONE ASS KICKING MOTHERFUCKER of a book..."

this then is the crux and function of all good writing and of all good art: the forging of a deep connection and thru it, honest communication with actual, living, feeling human beings. this person who died was not a "poetry type" (whatever that is), but he read, in his later life, some small press poets who reached him in a way I always belived to be possible, and saw, thru this man, the actual accomplishment of poetry cutting thru the ugliness of years of hard life, and shining a melancholy light and shades of hope on what remains.

and if that's not what you strive for as an artist, to save some portion of the beauty of humanity to show to the lost and miserable, the dead and dying, the lonely and hopeless, to alchemize the suffering of the everyday into something that helps us go on despite our inevitable walk into those dark woods at the end, then you are just a finger painter fiddling with turds, just a child with a chip and a shoulder, just a weak masturbating diarist, doomed to wallow in the misery of your choices for as long as your sad little lives manage to creak along before the big fall.

real life is out there, kids; pay attention and "do not waste it lightly," sayeth the kamikaze...

go read this...

2009-06-19T10:33:00.003-04:00

interview with the earthly representative of that Cosmic Funk Machine and Psychedelia Factory that is Noot d'Noot, Mathis Hunter, H E R E.

find out what makes a person do the kinds of things a person like this does.