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.