New Poem Published: Pacing [Op. 51]

My poem, "Pacing", is featured at the very tippy-top* (*Will soon move down the line) of the Poetry Forum of Mad Swirl. Since unfortunately these things get lost in the jumble pretty quickly as far as forums are concerned I'll post it here for a little more posterity.

P.S.- Do you read Portuguese?

Pacing

Back
           Forth
Back
           Forth

“Do you have
To pace like that?”
Asks my Mom,
“You make me
Nervous when you pace
Like that.”

I sit down
But she doesn’t understand
I pace because
Movement of the body
Better facilitates
Movement of the mind

I pace because
I’m too excited
To sit still

I get an idea

I need to walk it

In order to find

Out whether

It has legs

To stand on

And when I’ve sat back down

I have my answer

Pushcart PRIZE!!!

So, I'm trying to act all sorts of excited for the Pushcart Prize nomination with which my publisher has seen fit to honor me. Hence the exclamation points! The problem is I am completely out of the loop on what the "Pushcart Prize" entails. I understand that I'm nominated and that's about how far I've honestly gotten. I guess there are winners? I don't know. Keep in mind this is after I took a gander at the website. Nominations are done by publishers, ye-yup. The stuff goes into a book of some sort. Okay. God, is my ignorance about the poetry world at large really this... vast?

In other auspicious news I've gotten some niblets from heads of venues that might feature me in the future. Stay tuned and I'll update as updates come. So far it's just prospective but I can see at least 1 or 2 of them turning into something. I hope a win with the Pushcarts can bolster my self-esteem after having lost the N.E.A. I was pretty bummed about that one, but on with the show! I found out just before Thanksgiving.

I leave you with a promo from my publisher. This time geared toward the Christmas season. Happy Holidays, folks! I know I've got my Elvis, my Phil Spector, and my Vince Guaraldi playing.

Publisher: Forget the Calling Birds and Golden Rings...may we suggest the recent release from Euphrates Arnaut Moss, Early Harvest. 

Hello, this is Euphrates Moss, it is so difficult at this time
To say words that would express my feelings
About the book to which you have just read
A book that has been in the planning for many, many months

First, let me thank all the people who worked so hard with me
In the production of this book and in my endeavor and desire
To bring something new and different to the words of Christmas
And to the publishing industry which is so much a part of my life

Of course, the biggest thanks goes to you
For giving me the opportunity to relate my feelings
Of Christmas through the words that I love

At this moment, I am very proud of all the artists
And on behalf of all of them, The Crystals, The Ronettes
Darlene Love, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, and myself

May we wish you the very merriest of Christmases
And the happiest of New Years, and thank you so very much
For letting us spend this Christmas with you

Silver, As The Mosquito Sucks..., Tender Is The Night [Op. 50]

Big thanks to Section 8 for featuring me. Although I did not get correspondence indicating they had published my work, so this is probably some pretty vintage stuff.

Ah, what can I write [Op. 49]

unFold has accepted a short piece of mine. The title of this post is the very first line. How will it all play out? I will update as news arrives. This is my second accepted piece of the year.

Update 29 October 2014: This poem will go live 5 November 2014.

Here's a direct link to my poem for posterity. Thanks again to unFold!

Newspaper article, "Telos: Overture" [Op. 48], first accepted poem of the year

Excellent artilce, Issaquah Press!


I'm in my local newspaper. There's an attached poem at the bottom of the article called "Telos: Overture." It's my first "accepted" poem for publication of the year all the way towards the 4th quarter of October. Hah! I can't really explain the lack of publications in recent times but for the fact that Duotrope has become a pay service. (Le sigh.) I've been using New Pages instead, but still there have been no nips at my buds. Is it that my poetry has become more difficult as I've grown as a poet? Perhaps too difficult? Could I be losing my touch, even? There's an example of the profound musings which keep me up at night.

Anyways, on top of that I am now actually 29. The paper got me wrong on that front. But my age changed on the 18th. "Which is it, Moss? Pick an age and stick with it!" I'm pretty proud of this article, I have to say. I put the right literary stuff into the interview and the writer of the article brought his A-game. Please check it out.

Oh yeah, I'm a fan of The Great Gatsby, too!

Going to comment on something literary? Then I guess it best to keep literary. OTT, just like The Great Gatsby himself.

"It's Fall, that means it's a good time for an Early Harvest."

A line Ah-nuld would be proud to use if he had my book. Look at that. My publisher did up this picture and posted it on her Facebook page. It's not great to give to kids on Halloween, but it IS great to read in between visit from the little monsters. And let's face it, you're going to need some comfort from all the scares.

My Office: U2 Bitches

I’m not really up for talking about my poetry 100% of the time. The poetry is there; I think it speaks for itself. I will try to share whatever news I can about what’s going on, but I’m not up for sharing until I have something down for sure. Life right now is just talking with the publisher, talking to my local paper (which I will post an update about when it goes live), getting review copies of my book sent to the right places, and tying up web loose ends. I’m learning to code over at Codecademy in order to program my own website. I’d like something with a better domain and more personalized. So with that in mind, let me take you on a rant with me:

First World Humans, will you step into my office? Yeah, we have to talk. I hear you bitching about U2 putting their new album on your iPhone for FREE. (Read that twice.) Yeah, what the hell is wrong with you? I mean other than the fact that you have another one of Steve Jobs’s overpriced iProducts? When has anybody ever complained about getting something for free? For free! And what's more, they've done it in the single most carbon-neutral way music could ever be transferred. And yet your first world problems have you bitching about how to get it out of your purchased folder even though none of the songs are downloaded until you click the iCloud. I feel like this new lingo is bogging down my prose, by the way, but that’s a different subject.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to defend the quality of U2’s new material or try to dictate what your tastes should be. Regarding your esteem of them, that’s your choice, and I can understand pretty much all the complaints anybody has about the group even though The Joshua Tree and especially Achtung Baby are masterpieces by just about any rubric. Yeah, Songs of Innocence is U2 past their prime but if we’re being honest so is some of the material on All That You Can’t Leave Behind when they graduated from weirdos to classic rock elder statesmen. You know what happened when NIN put out an album for free online that was way past their prime? I downloaded it and thought what a cool guy Trent Reznor was to put his latest piece of crap (maybe half piece of crap if you want to be generous) for FREE. I wasn’t going to pay for The Slip! Now that I’ve heard it I think I’d drop a couple of bucks on a physical release without shipping and handling. Maybe. It’s still a cool thing that Trent Reznor did for the fans. If I throw on NIN you can bet it’s most likely going to be Pretty Hate Machine or Broken, but I’m still thankful for The Slip. It’s still like a friend came by and hooked me up with a free album and I’d be a fucking asshole if I were to bitch my friend out for doing that… even if it was Metallica’s Garage Days Inc.

It's only privilege that has you looking a gift horse in the mouth and bitching about it instead of, oh, I don't know, just not downloading it? Ignoring the fact that it’s spam in your purchased folder? Deleting it? I mean, do you bitch about every single piece of spam you get in your inbox? I don’t think so. Otherwise you’d stop being a human and just turn into one giant bitch. Speaking of which, if you are a bitch please leave comments c/o Craxblorg here at http://craxblorg.blogspot.com/ I’m sending out an invitation to every single human being on this planet to shut up about U2's free album. Shut up about the “botched” roll out. Shut up about the money involved. Shut the fuck up about U2 “devaluing” their brand. Maybe you like complaining. That’s okay. Everybody likes to complain. But if you’re going to do so, I suggest you at least get good at it first or take a long hard look at Maddox’s brilliant take-down of How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. Now get the fuck outta my office.

Hendrix Family: Re-issue Band Of Gypsies

I don't know if you've read this new Rollingstone article. If you just clicked that link, then of course you have. And if you did then the gist of it is as recognizable to any Hendrix fan as it is to me because I consider myself to be one of his greatest fans. Jimi Hendrix to me not only represents the "everlasting yeah" that Bill Hicks has described, a state of guitar nirvana that has never been reached before and probably will never be reached again, not only one of the greatest songwriters of all time penning thoughtful lyrics to juicy tunes, but the greatest single encapsulation of the Seattle attitude ever. My condolences to fellow 27-club member and Seattle-ite Kurt Cobain (although neither hailed from the city itself). Jimi Hendrix represents a blues player not only steeped in traditions Clapton could only approximate, but adept at all sorts of guitar trickery that Clapton never even dreamed of. In fact, I think Jimi Hendrix is the reason Clapton decided to mellow the fuck out and stick to the sidelines even on records credited to him. If you think I'm down on Clapton remember that this is from a guitar student who (like Eddie Van Halen) considers Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton to be perhaps the greatest guitar record of all time.

Now, as for what the article portends, I'd like to personally make an honest entreaty to the Hendrix Family and its overlord be she benevolent or malevolent, Janie Hendrix. Janie Hendrix, we have so much of Jimi's catalogue reissued at this point, in sound that may not be a new transfer but nonetheless is presented in superior quality. We have First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, which was meant to correct the sins of The Cry Of Love, Rainbow Bridge, and even a third posthumous album that record company scum at the time felt fit to issue after the musician's untimely demise. We also have South Saturn Delta, BBC Sessions, Jimi At Woodstock, Valleys Of Neptune, the truly awesome West Coast Seattle Boy, and even a reissue of The Jimi Hendrix Experience Box Set with bonus tracks- all of which show varying degrees of quality.

All of these are great in my eyes because they always represent new views of an amazing artist whose talents were so prodigious that even his out-take material represented better material than 95% of the crap that passes for entertainment- in all eras. But we have West Coast Seattle Boy now, which documents portions of those legendary New Year's Eve/New Year's Day shows of 1969-1970 with Band Of Gypsies. Hendrix Family, what I want as a fan, what I'm willing to pay money for, is for the rest of the recordings of these historic dates. I want "Who Knows", "Machine Gun", and "Power Of Soul" from Band Of Gypsies. I want "Stop", "Message To Love", and "Burning Desire" from Live At Fillmore East, but mostly I want you to dig deep into those tapes and give me the full experience of "We Gotta Live Together", Buddy Miles's masterpiece that for whatever reason hasn't seen the full light of day.

I don't know what the hell you're sitting on the complete tape for! Does Buddy break out into a totally anti-white-man rant in the middle of the "we gotta live together" chants that he's doing "just like in Church, now"? Does he break out like a Tourette's-syndrome patient into a bunch of "crackers" unexpectedly, mid drum-riff? Does he call for a revolution against the then-nascent Reagan administration over its activities in Vietname and kow-towing to Henry Kissinger? Speaking of which, this is becoming like that 18 minutes of tape missing from Nixon's private recordings that everybody was talking about for Watergate. I don't know what the hell he's up to for a mysterious some 4 minutes or so missing from the total song length, missing even from the extended version featured on Live At Fillmore East. Or is it even Jimi who goes off track during the recording? Maybe he's decided enough of the everlasting "yeah" and gone with the everlasting "no" instead for a change.

Whatever the case, I, as a Jimi Hendrix fan, want those god damn tapes. BTW, any bootleggers want to send me CD transfers of those original tapes are more than welcome. Contact me. Hendrix Family, you can do a lot better by us fans to release those concerts or even just the original Band Of Gypsies album by itself than you could to release those bastardization Hendrix releases, The Cry Of Love and Rainbow Bridge. Please see the error of your ways and understand that if even Robin Thicke can pay tribute to Hendrix/Band Of Gypsies, if only in an album cover then there has to be something there that you could bury the hatchet with Buddy Miles, no matter what his demands are for the portion of his songs that were included purposefully on the recording and approved by Jimi himself. Short of being a snuff death recording (of which I'm damn sure it's not!), Hendrix Family, release these tapes!