A review I especially liked

My friend Dean wrote a review for Periphery that I especially liked.

So, I finally finished Periphery, my friend and compatriot  Alexx Bollen’s debut novel.  It’s that rare first effort that sets out to challenge the hell out of you by wrapping metaphor within metaphor within mystery within immensely internal and personal themes.  Even when it stumbles in that first novel kind of way, you never lose the feeling that you’re watching one of the most stylized and allegorical voices to hit the scene find its footing in the literary world. So if you’re into books or art rock lit or giving new authors a spin, you should check it out.  The kindle version is only $5

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Tiny Poem

There is no she
or her
or the thought
of she or her
Just the aching alone of void-
an ever fading memory
growing too dim to recall

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Tiny Poem

Your lipstick
on the edge of a coffee cup
still tastes like cigarettes
as the watery grounds
spell out our future.

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The sound of her voice

The sound of her voice:

She whispers as if her throat had turned
to the shattered glass of last night’s screaming.

As if her words were a recitation from some arcane source.

She punctuates with the stuttering stops
of a voice quivering between tears and ecstasy.

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I wrote a book!

Hello friends,
Please check out my new novel “Periphery.” it’s an experiment in quantum storytelling, in the magical reality tradition; and I think it’s swell. Please make sure to leave a nice review on Amazon if you like it… or didn’t and are good at lying.

From Amazon:

“There is an old Victorian house posing as an office in “The Burned-Over District.” In that office, a giant, a waif, and a child wait for someone who can be shown the true nature of the world. John is a man with a talent to see what is not there, or, at least, what was not there until that fateful day when a want-ad caught his eye and sent him into the depths of the woods… into the periphery.”

Paper:

Kindle:

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Novels and my crumbling play-dough brain.

I finished the rough draft of my novel. It may be good once I fix all the things wrong with it. The main thing is that I finished it. The other main thing is that the things wrong with it aren’t nearly as prevalent as I previously believed… I think. It’s in the hands of people I trust right now. The wait on review is killing me. Last night I had horrible dreams. Most involved a woman falling in love with me, and my phone not working to call her. It was frustrating. Not that hard to put some meaning behind that one. Last night I dreamt that I was holding my brain in my hands as it crumbled to bits, like old play-dough left out for too long. It was multicolored like the plastic brains in biology class or your old doctors office. I tried to set it with glue, but as I blew on the glue my brain would fall to chunks in my hands. The jawbone wouldn’t set right. I was too ashamed to ask for help. It would be embarrassing to have other people know about my secret old-play-dough brain. So I cried, lamenting how broken I’ll be for the rest of my play-dough brained life. Also, earlier today I had the thought that I’d go to the coffee shop and start work on the next novel. There is something seriously wrong with me, and writers in general. This is alexx, checking out. Go to alexxcast dot com for verbalization of this stuff.

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Ancient soda pop signs

I’m sitting in a cafe listening to music I don’t recognize
feeling steadily older
the sign across the street for the A-1 Market features a 30 years out of date 7up logo
and I think I like this song

Last night I dreamt we were alone in a room again
and then some weirdness about a haircut I don’t remember
and in the morning while making coffee enough to take me to the cafe
I start to feel steadily older, tired in all the old places
and I think I need new music

This song sounds vaguely familiar as the overweight girl in the corner stops typing as she taps her foot and I’m feeling rather like overstretched plastic as I think that I remember this song from that time nothing in particular happened one summer when you still existed Later, when it’s time to leave that same sign hangs as testament to my vision so I go inside and get some snacks pretending that I won’t eat them alone not that the clerk cares or notices my subterfuge. I’m feeling kind of old as I throw out a full bag of combos on the way to the vegan burrito place thinking of how you’d laugh at the choice if we still lived together having never gotten old.

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A secular rapture

The clock at the end of the world is quoting scripture, book chapter verse. The clock at the end of the world has become aware of its existence, using the small moments remaining to think about Sufism while writing folk songs for the people waiting. The songs are wonderful, full of mirth and rhythm, fragile bridges and soaring chorus. With sadness the End knows that no one will ever hear them. The place in the universe with the perfect view has no walls and no real sense of architecture in the traditional sense. But the placement is uniquely suited to the task and the clock keeps perfect time. The clock at the end of the world is quoting scripture, waiting for the completion of this thing, calling out book, chapter, and verse to an uncaring and increasingly entropic universe. An increasingly entropic universe which is cascading along with no thought to its inhabitants or the lovely music being made within, and without. The clock at the end of the world is supremely patient, humming under its breath hoping for someone to make sense of this whole thing. Waiting for someone to listen as it shouts important things into the void. And the void has no response. The clock at the end of the world is pacing the room quoting scriptures to the void, book chapter verse.

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Dead words

If I were Charles Bukowski,
I’d be dumb enough to find this romantic.

By “this” I mean the pervasive alone
and the constant mixed drinks.

If I were a fatter writer, content in my misery
I’d make gorging myself a gimmick.

But instead it’s just another hidden, dark, thing
tunneled under the over weight surface.

If I had half the sense I do now,
the girls would flow, without beauty, into my bed

but that’s just racetrack nonsense
for people that actually believe in Hank Chinaski

If I were as dumb as Charles Bukowski
I’d idolize Hemingway and forget my laptop at the airport

instead, the quiet tapping in a half filthy room is just sad
lacking the inner romance that marks the delusional

If I were a different voice I’d write nonsense and sell it with a boozers smile
and intimations that there’s something darker underneath

fortunately, I’m not Charles Bukowski, dead and gone
just some lonely fuck, half way between thin and stupid
sitting alone tapping on quiet typewriters.

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Poem for the Perseids

I’ll never understand your dispassionate view of music on the radio
or the way you insist on touching my arm
during the lulls in conversation.

There’s a meteor shower later tonight
and you promised to wake me with a kiss
or a phone call as proxy.

I can’t find my blanket
or the keys to the car
I know you’d be worried if you knew.

I’ll never understand your dispassionate view of music on the radio
or the way you make me leave my stubble in the winter

There’s a meteor shower later tonight
and I’m going to pick you up by the bridge
drive, so quietly, to that soundless area
over the hill,
by the school with the broken swings
and overgrown fields.

While we stare into the streaking void
you’ll awkwardly hold my arm
while humming an atonal song
and I’ll never understand your dispassionate view of music on the radio.

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