Curiosity

Charcoal and graphite drawing, 6 ½” x 8 7/8”.

Hurt

                                                                                                photo: Wikipedia

Pain is the first teacher: My poem 'Hurt' at The Blue Hour.

New Year's Day

Much respect to Otoliths editor Mark Young for continuing to demonstrate how to publish a great journal, and how much can be achieved on a free platform like Blogger. Thanks, Mark, for including my little piece 'New Year's Day' in the new issue- and for making it better, as well.

Increments of Regret

"In this dream one typically struggles to review the distance between intent and achievement."  Read my poem Increments of Regret at litbomb.

Small Truths

Happy to have my poem 'Small Truths' included in the new issue of Scissors and Spackle. My thanks to editors Jenny Catlin and Matt Schmid.

Last Chance

Happy to have a cheery little poem, Last Chance, in one of my favorite journals, Right Hand Pointing. Thanks, Dale!

Tips From The Lucid Dreamer's Handbook

From The Lucid Dreamer's Handbook (page 44): 'Enter scenes as late as possible. If they conclude without your intervention, so much the better. TIP: Not all the old doors are sealed.'

Only Dreams

A little kinky train noir, Only Dreams, in Horror Sleaze Trash. My thanks to editor Ben Smith.

Slow Time

Slow Time                                        Charcoal, Graphite

This drawing, Slow Time, is available at West End Gallery, Corning. Call or email the gallery for info.   More recent drawings are here.

My poem Collegetown is included in the May issue of Short, Fast, and Deadly.  My thanks to editor Joseph Quintella.  A related flash, Caitlin's Boots, will appear in the May issue of Word Riot.

As friends who stay in touch via facebook may know, I'm gradually becoming more comfortable calling one current project a novel. May not pan out that way (he sez cautiously) but it's starting to look at least somewhat more likely. Our Story So Far: Rock and roll noir with tragic deaths doomed guitar heroes ruthless women and a smalltime weedseller trying to keep his custodian job at an Ivy League university plagued by student predators and suicides and ex-Seal security leaning on Our Antihero.  Minimalist, unapologetically genre, big fun. Here's the link to an outtake called Little Yappy Dog. 

Thanks for looking, and reading. Hope you enjoy.

Lost

Hope you'll stop by Our Day's Encounter and read my little poem 'Lost'. My thanks to editor Lennie Cox.

Opening Act

'She finds her first certainty
at a garage sale. One latch is broken.
When she opens the case
crushed velvet echoes too many
cigarettes, cologne she almost
remembers. Maybe hers.'

Hope you'll stop by and read the rest of my poem Opening Act at Orion headless. My thanks to editor Sara Fitzpatrick Comito.

That'll Be Two Bits

My poem 'That'll Be Two Bits' is included in Right Hand Pointing #45.

I Am Not Here

Happy to have my poem 'I Am Not Here' included in Blue Fifth Review's Poetry Special. Thanks, Sam and Michelle.

If I Could Find The Way Again

A Markie drawing and poem, If I Could Find The Way Again, are up at Amaranthine Muses. Thanks, Carmen.

Small Awakenings

My poem Small Awakenings is included in Shot Glass Journal #3. My thanks to editor Mary-Jane Grandinetti.

So Few Dreams

A new poem, So Few Dreams, is up at Orion headless. My thanks to editor Sara Fitzpatrick Comito.

Third Shift

A poem, Third Shift, is up at amphibi.us. My thanks to editor Shannon Peil.

All That Remains at Blink/Ink

Blink/Ink Editor Lynn Alexander chose four of my drawings and a poem for this month's Featured Artist Gallery at B/I. Thanks, Lynn.

Stace Budzko, Shannon Peil

Morning reading:
Stace Budzko's flash Hands, from the Smokelong Quarterly archives
Outside, a poem by amphibi.us editor Shannon Peil

A Calming Effect

La Petit Chou learned yesterday that an old friend had passed away. I’d never met Ron, and in the course of telling me a little about him, she said, ‘He had a calming effect on people.’

That’s stayed with me. I’ve been thinking this morning: How many of us have that kind of positive impact? Not nearly enough, I guess, or it wouldn’t seem remarkable. How do I impact those around me? How should I? No new questions, and the answers aren’t easy.

I told a friend recently that I want my work to be intriguing, encouraging, inspiring, to bless viewers- buyers or no- in at least some way. Today I’m remembering that I should have added calming to that list of qualities.

Calm doesn’t sound like much, does it. It’s not exciting, it doesn’t get you up on your feet, pumping your fist, throwing horns, screaming your throat raw. But even the most adrenalized dream-driven wired of us need calm sometimes. The tighter we’re wound, the more we need somebody like Ron in our lives. So even though I didn't knew him, I know he’ll be sorely missed, and the world’s a little poorer now he’s gone.

From Amanda Palmer’s blog:

life will break you.
nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearnings.
you have to love.
you have to feel.
it is the reason you are here on earth.
you are here to risk your heart.
you are here to be swallowed up.
and when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt,
or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree
and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.
tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.

- Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum