short poem

77°

birdsong crashing into my skull
backyard
77°
arms burned from reading in noonday.
now,
that star buries deep into the west,
casting shadow over greening grass.

- Hoc Scripsi

also: don’t forget to go to here and download your own FREE copy of ark and other poems
It will print as a letter size but can be had as a normal chapbook if you would like. Simply contact me with your desire (at jhonbaker@att.net) and I can lead you to the promised low price ($6USD) chap which comes with a copy of gypsy bars chap – both with art by Micael Chadwick and poetry by yours truly.

ark and other poems

A new chapbook that is ripe for the reading! Available for free download at the following link

ark and other poems

you can always get a hard copy if you do desire by contacting me with your request. To cover most of the costs I will charge 6 even and accept payment via paypal. All hard copies will include a hard copy of 'gypsy bars, back alleys and one way streets' as well.

I do recommend the free copy because it is free. Also, gypsy bars is a free copy at the link provided.

and lastly as a reminder - my normal blog can be found at willfulresemblance.com

 - Jhon

and I'm still tired. Bukowski suggested that one ought to take a three day nap every now and again to recharge the batteries, being a father and husband does not allow such naps but would I ever indulge if there could be a way.
Two links - you might recognize them from yesterday but then again, you might not..

Take it to the streets
Conjectural Figments

These are both truly good issues put out by two very good publishers containing poetry by good poets and of course - myself - the first has one and arguably two poems depending on how you read them - I wrote it as one and a half so there it is. The second features me as a poet and contains three poems- both contain a lot of good writing besides mine and should be read a few times through for affect/effect.
 - Just for updates sake - Yesterday my truck was broken and my diagnosis was spot on. Now it is fixed and waiting for the next coil to go.
Yesterday I wrote nothing after the blog post and today I think I am going to scribd something - my new years sort of poem.
Writing will become the object of today after I take a shower when I get home from the hospital where my MIL is receiving today's infusion and tomorrow morning will be more of the same while the afternoon finds me in a tattoo parlor getting the design finalized for the next portion of the left arm half sleeve.

Happy 4th!

 (if only I'd gone to school to learn to blow shit up, I could have done this for a living)

For my overseas readers - read the title line as - Happy Monday!

(this will have to do as finding an image for happy Monday that wasn't cheeky or didn't involve breasts and kittens was too much work.)

What I think is that we celebrate on the incorrect day. Unless what we are actually celebrating is the declaration of war or the intent to be independent and taxed by our own people.

To celebrate our actual independence it ought to be moved not to the sixth of July (which was the original celebratory day but the fourth sounded better (citation needed)) but to September 3rd in recognition of that fateful day in 1783 where we actually gained independance and collectively said "what now?" - to be answered by "I don't know, we're fucking broke - someone call China or start taxing the peeps, or both." (citation needed).

But, I write this in America where we love our violence and wars, bloodshed is best remembered with a lot of explosions and many many missing fingers.


So, today I am playing the hell out of my ukulele and spending much time on the about to be painted deck.
here is another image which I found but couldn't fit in anywhere else.

(this is the kind of stuff that eliminates fingers from children and stupid men.)

premature ejaculation

firecrackers, bottle rockets and gunfire.
July 3rd premature ejaculation punctuating
already poor sleeping summer night.

roman candles blue center light sizzling
like so many horribly dangerous sparklers
blinding and burning.

mortars shake the house and

dozens of fingers and hands sacrificed
at the alter of popular patriotism.

 - Hoc Scripsi



A few links which contain the ability to have new poetry not only by myself but by others as well.
Pre-order - PigeonBike (beyond the broken bridge) here - DO IT NOW!!!

and free to read on the internet and/or print copies to keep and give away! If you give some away get photos and send them to me and I will get the to the proper place where each image will be celebrated.
Get one or all eight issues here - also, DO IT NOW!
I appear in volumes 1, 3 and 4 - however, a lot of my good friends and some excellent poets appear across all volumes so I suggest you read them all.

coffee

I need to start drinking iced coffee or maybe iced tea. I'm the only one I know that really doesn't care for iced tea and I absolutely cannot stand iced coffee. iced soy chai - now your talking but why go out and spend five bucks just to sit outside and fuck around on the laptop. It is never too hot to enjoy the home brew - it is never too cold to eat a bowl of ice cream, and all movies watch better with popcorn.

Today's poem is a few years old and has been published twice - once in Roadkill zen Journal and again in my book, hands on the hips (available from Amazon or signed if you order through the buttons in the upper right hand corner), I have put it up because RKzJ has closed their site and it is no longer available there - this is the bad thing about internet publication, it creates no history. I think I should take screen shots where my poems appear on this world wide web just to have the history for my self - kept in a box at the bottom of a closet.

togethercoloured

roadside diner,

a dollar for bitter coffee.

I want the hard rain.

I want the long rain,

HARD on my shoulders and face

with hands stuffed in pockets

clutching three dollars.

I want the drowning rain,

pooling underneath

walking feet. Running

shoes cleaned and soaking;

peregrination of two miles

in a Chicago summer,

toward a phone call, paper towels

and over-extracted coffee.

- Hoc Scripsi 

for our second post today - we give you a link -
click here.

a few publications of interest

The new issue of Bicycle Review is now out - I strongly encourage everyone to go there and read the issue and pay special attention to a little poem called - still untitled - This issue is the first issue which features Lynne Hayes as an editor and it is an astounding issue.
Also, if you haven't gotten your issue of PigeonBike "trash and crackers" yet I strongly encourage you to do so. By strongly I mean that if you don't I may have to pay you a little visit.

 - me

Mad Swirl

or also

Mad Swirl

American Balls

American Balls debuts today with an article written by yours truly. It is an expansion of my Huck Finn commentary. The site is not intended for an audience of the sensitive or under 18 - so be warned.
To go directly to my article click this.
The original commentary may be found here.

As the future progresses there will be more articles on freedom, second amendment, fifth amendment and other constitutional forays - including the occasional fiction piece. Currently I am working on a second amendment article, should be interesting.

Other contributors on the site are...

Brent Allard
Jack Dollar (editor as well)
Mr. C.C.
Rebecca Fitkin-Jones
Mick Parsons
F.N. Wright

while in a diner some months ago

 

late or early

 

some people are indifferent

to the early morning hours

classifications.

 

but, we’re singing.

singing!

serenading the stars,

wooing the moon;

without sleep or

the song

            of song birds.

only the chatter of

            nocturnal

               animals and

            feet

shuffling along the

            ground.

regardless of it being

early or late.

 - Hoc Scripsi 

recently there was a poem of mine in Madswirl and if you haven't been there to check it out - Go Now! Second from the bottom -       

The Best of Mad Swirl's Poetry Forum : 01.15.11

Mad Swirl

GO TO:

Mad Swirl

for this weekends poem!

creative drought

I keep thinking that I am in the middle of an existential crisis and am existing through some kind of creative drought. Neither are true, which gives credence to the former, but even still, existentially I am already aware I am wholly responsible for all my actions. Or I should say I already understand and accept as it conveys the proper truth that simply saying 'aware' does not.
As for the creative or Literary drought, I can look and see the output - it is higher than any previous year except when I was a teen and early twenties when I mostly wrote crap and was going out of my mind, delusional and electrocuted. Mostly then I excelled at being an asshole - a reflection of my surroundings which the insanity was also or maybe not but probably.
It is that I want to be writing more, I want to be creating constantly, the two finished stories and one nearly so along with forty some pages of poetry and a handful in the works all go to state my creativity is high then in those moments where I am not writing I start to think that I need to be. It is that my mind used to teem with ideas and now it does not. It comes up with an idea and then dedicates it to paper and works it out.
The ideas are still there, they just no longer scream, I should have said noise instead of ideas or go back and correct it now but I am not going to.
There is little noise now, and it makes creating easier. I don't require the chaos but thinking now that it is enjoyed to some degree. They were surprised when I said I felt I was getting better when they say most people report they cannot create on similar medications. I think that there is a genuineness behind an ability to perform while on multiple medications. I think if you cannot be creative on things that stabilize you and quiet the noise to a degree then maybe you really ought to stop trying altogether and try something else.
I was going to qualify that and am not now, it needs no explanation.


margins

   I find poems in the
margins of books I’ve read
   or tried reading
only to find them
poking out and asking
to be recognized.
                 and I may.
such as…
I run to catch up to you
tho my hair is mussed
and I’ve forgotten my glasses.

   well,
I’m left now to wonder
if I caught my presumed lover.
   I don’t know.
should it be recognized that it
may have been
someone else?

 - Hoc Scripsi


Published today at Literary Tonic. The poem - 'dying roses are not broken promises' - I am obviously going to support the site but I thought it was a great one before I submitted there, otherwise I wouldn't have submitted. Go there, comment, don't comment, light the candles, put on the incense, and give yourself a hard time.

John Wilkes Booth goes from famous to infamous.

April 14 1865, A. Lincoln is shot while trying to enjoy a night out with Martha. Who knows if he is saddened by the death wound or relived. Booth, a famous actor in his time decides this is the opportune moment to ensure his name will be burned into the memory of all school children from there on out. His plan works decisively, and the bastard breaks his leg living his last out in agony.

On 04/14/1941 Julie Christie came into being and sustained fame in her own right or by virtue of her body in addition to her acting skills, she did not kill a president and thus we are unaware of her middle name.

Made coffee this morning while badly limping and in incredible pain. Longing for the narcotics that I've given up I sit down to compose this.

I'm still on so many medications that I am not sure my brain works properly.

Today is another day I will not write much if anything at all as I am taken out to the garage to focus on other things that are temporarily important but currently necessary.

there was something I was going to write here but then someone started talking and I lost the thought.

6.9 earthquake hits Western China (400 dead for starters) and once again Mother Nature makes it painfully clear that she is not too happy, but, we humans are only bound by our self importance so the significance is lost on the majority of us. A cyclone gets 85 people in India.

Listening to Nick Cave and Warren Ellis soundtracks - best modern classical style music. Warren has a great Beard and plays a violin so beautifully it forces the sociopath to cry aloud where ever they are standing.

I am afraid to stand and keep writing in fear of the pain overtaking my self and leading to the darkest of places at nine O'clock in the morning.




My body still smokes – I don’t

Have I mentioned how much I hate pain?
Have I mentioned, yet, how much I fucking hate pain?
maybe it’s that I hate fucking pain;
but regardless, my leg wants to walk away without me.
my head wants to have a temporary separation from my hip
and my ass bleeds and says “fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”

- Hoc Scripsi


if you have not yet, be sure to stop by Theather Underground to check out the poem Blank Pages.
If you haven't been by the Roadkill Zen Journal either - go there to read togethercoloured.

this title has been sent in place of the missing one.

For the first time in my life my brain is more or less silent. I've wished this for years and now I find that it was better with the chatting and screaming, singing and forceful memories like forced voyeurism. I don't think I was crazy then but to try and will it back into existence is a little crazy at least. It might be that there is more tiredness, last night I fell asleep around nine while I was trying to write. What a change - going from insomnia to somnolence and now to sleeping hard with occasional hypersomnia. Last night was an anomaly where I usually get about six hours of the hard sleep -(usually: these past two weeks.).
I tend not to write much when I am creatively involved elsewhere, like building a lemonade stand of furniture grade quality for my son. Today is the last day of painting it and then I start on new drawers for my wife's kitchen cabinets. I will need to take time off to write consciously I think, and organize my embarrassing garage situation. Writing is the more important of the tasks, I would allow the world to fall to ruin (luckily it's already there!) before I allowed my writing to be negatively affected.

Theater Underground has just published another poem of mine on their blog. it's a good read and Patrick Tillett has already seen it and commented (thank you, sir) - don't be left out!
TUG is a production company doing some of the best and edgiest plays of anyone around. It is especially impressive because one step too far and they lose it all as they are so small still. They have probably taken a few stops too far but it's great theater. If you are in the McHenry, Illinois Area next weekend (16th & 17th) be sure to see the plays. they are not to be missed.
once again the link: Blank Pages


Today's offering


Forget that the kitchen is so full of knives

Forget that the kitchen is full of knives.
You are so serious and
I worry because I love you.

The watches are broken with dead batteries
filling the catchall in the hallway;
how do you use up so much nickel-hydride?

You are so beautiful and I
masturbate when I think of you,
specifically on the couch,

in mid-afternoon when you are at work.

oh yeah, thanks for the paper.


- Hoc Scripsi



Commenting on this blog: a quick reminder. click on the word comments below and it should either give you a window or a box or both, or click on the title of this entry and it will give you a box at the bottom of the complete post. I so enjoy the comments I receive via facebook and I would like everyone to see them - unless they are personal. Comments can be totally random or on point, I don't care I just like to read them.

RoadKill zen Journal

The RoadKill zen Journal still has the issue up which contains the poem Togethercoloured.

Theater Underground has stated that they are going to be putting up accepted poem number two soon. I will make you aware.
Theater Underground and I were in talks for me to perform a reading during the intermission to their upcoming (this weekend, next weekend). I had thought everything was a go but have not heard from them since I last did when things were undecided. Well, it's opening night, I've kicked Narcotics or I am kicking them so there are now pain and withdraw issues to contend with and of course, it is too late for me to get ready for such a thing; even if they were going to ask which it is now painfully obvious that they in fact are not.

those be the noonish updates today, do not expect these everyday. Today I wanted to bring attention to RKzJ and to this: I hate when a submission goes out and there is no response. I hate it when people believe it is better to ignore an issue than deal with the problem.
here's what it looks like when I write the poison pen letters.

both of them are loaded.

Theater Underground

go to here and see a new poem published by Theater Underground's Blog.

Leave comments here or there in referance to that work.

I firmly suggest that you click follow on their site as they are doing some very cool things with Theater Production.
I firmly suggest that you do the very same thing here if you have not.

The poem there is one that I am fond of but you would know that by the fact that I put it out there for all to seem I very rarely post anything or put it up for publication unless I like.

okay, I have an early morning tomorrow and will probably not post again until Wednesday evening unless I don't sleep tonight in which case I will post after midnight.

Keep calm

 Waking up this morning from barely sleeping, a little here, a little there; the overrated nature of sleep is well known but not well appreciated.
I read in Theater Undergrounds blog (look for link to left) that my pleading to be included on their page of local sensitive artist types has worked so well that I've been invited to place some of my words there. Obviously a bit pink in the cheeks and thankful at this I will comply with said request. and gladly.

british war advert advising the best thing to do while the bombs are falling around your head. While this has nothing to do with the above or below I've been dying to post it as the advice is sound. No sense in losing your head while others are literally losing theirs all around you.


and so I sit,
in front of you with nothing else


and so I sit.

dawn.
on a bench drawn with broken pen.
tapping with my fingers through
the rain of last night.

October weather warm,
boots sole cleaned from
wet sidewalk walking.

and so I sit,

in front of you
with nothing else.

- I wrote this

hold,

have a weekend. - J.

Untitled (the sane)

The sane point fingers
    to keep themselves appearing sane
    to stay their definition
The glamorous point bejeweled fingers
    to keep their proportions
    as the definition of beauty

Well, stop pointing your
    sticky fingers at me
I will not obsess your definitions
I am comfortable in my own
    imbalance 
and deformed self


- I wrote this


This was previously published in GSR. I was thinking this morning about my deformed self while I was waiting for the meds to kick in and naturally my mind went to this poem again.
So, enjoy and as always - feel free to comment, question and what have you.

Weekends

I've decided that I want to spend my weekends playing chess with my son and not necessarily post more than once here. I ask for no-one to be offended as I am not entirely sure I would be able to have any sort of appropriate reaction to such a thing. Not sure, I think it entirely depends on the state of my medication at the time.
Anyway, posting here doesn't take long depending on the length of the poem I am posting - I do not cut/copy/paste - I retype and hope that I have the sensibility for something new in it. Mostly I like them or do not in the state they are and they remain unchanged.


Go here.

or here  it's last year but there are two there and I like them.

here is good as well. Again, last year but the one here I've always had affection for.

these made me feel good.

I will post more in the future when I am feeling this lazy again.

That's Charlie. I'm Jhon and you are going to have an excellent day.

ode to eyes open all night

Let us not forget to go here: 'I sketch umbrellas to remind'


but for today...
apologies for my lack of other wit or comment as my index finger makes it too difficult to write with any ease - I would say it was making excuses but it took over a day to stop the bleeding in the first place and I have already pounded out enough work for today to feel accomplished.

 early morning unslept


I am tired of dealing
with ancient memories

they ought to
invent           a machine
where I can
                      delete

I guess there is a pill
for that
and now I hear it comes
in bottles at every street
corner in every city
except for Salt Lake City
                    on Sundays 

- I wrote this