These Literary Works Can Hit My Backchannels All Night Long

Backchannels Journal has come out with it's newest issue, it's second overall. Of course, I've got a poem in it: Untitled Blue.

A Bleached Butterfly Has Come Out from Its Cocoon

Two poems of mine are in the fall issue of Bleached Butterfly.  Scroll through the PDF to find them.

I also have another poem at the Rye Whiskey Review.

Enjoy!

Pay Attention to this Update

Issue 23 of Really System is out, including a work by me. It's a poem. The way it works is you just go line by line to the last one. That's what we call the end.

Come See and Hear Me Read! (And some other people...)

So I'll be reading at Unnameable Books this Thursday. The reading will be part of a series to promote the release of Christine Stoddard's book launch for Desert Fox by the Sea. It'll probably be poems, but who knows. Maybe I'll read a Death Compromise from work, and then expound on how a poem is like asbestos, but good. The best of asbestos? Other readers include Jeanne Joe Perrone and Lana C. Marilyn.

You Don't Actually Have to Drink to Read My Poem "A Treatment"

But it probably helps when going through the blog that published it, Drinker's Only

A JAB of Poetry

JAB Fiction and Poetry has published a poem of mine, "Caroline's Crash." It's right there at the top of the poetry page. Will it remain there for long? Who knows. The artwork is not by me and I can't seem to find whose it is.

A Minor Festival...

...awaits you over at the Rye Whiskey Review, where my poem Festival Minor was published. There's also a young picture of me back when I called New Jersey home.

NYC POETRY FEST 2019

Come one, come all. Come to the New York City Poetry Festival. This year, as in years past, it's on Governor's Island. Unlike last year, this year I'll be reading with Quail Bell Magazine. Come hear us do LIVE readings at the Algonquin Stage at 5:30 on Saturday. The Festival will go on both Saturday and Sunday and it's FREE!

Keeping Them Down at the Last Exit

Last Exit has produced an issue. In this issue is a poem. It is a poem by me. The name of the poem is Keeping Them Down. Please read. Thanks!

Ok, I'll Confess...

...I have a poem in the first issue of the Confessionalist, an online zine that collects "poems written at 3AM when the rest of the world becomes static." All well and good. However you'll have to do a little scrolling and a little digging to find my work. Think you can do it? I hope so. While it's not at the bottom of the issue, the poem is called "At the Bottom Quantum." Don't overdoes on verse on the way down.

Hammering Away at the Charleston Anvil

Good news everybody, I published a poem in the summer issue of the Charleston Anvil. That's Charleston as in the West Virginia kind. Chew on that.

A Poem About Social Media, on Social Media

Another poem of mine at the Rye Whiskey Review. Enjoy the old picture of me. Among the ways it's dated? I have a beard and I can;t fit into that suit anymore. I can't really fit into any suits anymore, except my birthday suit, if I hold my breath.

Come See Me in Issue 4 of the Northampton Poetry Review!

This folks is the flag of Northamptonshire. It's a shire in England. It's also where they publish a poetry review, where I am the featured poet for their fourth issue! In case you're confused about the subject for one of the poems, here's the Figure from Sedona.

Pulp Fiction Was Ahead of Its Time

Tarantino predicted the rise of social media and drinking bleach

Part V: The Final Frontier (So Very, Very Tired)

Wow, I’ve spent so longer talking about who I think shouldn’t win and there’s little space to say who should get the nomination. I guess based on what I’ve previously written, you the reader can understand now where I’m coming from and where I hope the party and the country go from here on out. We need a candidate that will deal with the problems we face, rather than seek compromise right after their inaugurated. We need someone who will bring progress rather than a return to Neoliberalism and austerity. America has to end the endless wars abroad, and the War on Drugs at home. There needs to be healthcare for all, education for all, labor rights for all, and reproductive rights for all. The Democratic Party needs to become a working class party in order to remain viable, and a Green New Deal has to be pursued in order for human existence on this planet to be viable too. We need a candidate who will fight and will leave no options off the table. Packing the Court? Declaring a Climate Emergency? Nationalizing industries? They all have to be considered.

We need to make up for lost time folks

We have to be as radical as reality. There are only two candidates in the race who understand this, and have a chance of winning. They have the ability to come down from the Mountain, conquer the Plain, seize the Dais, and crush the gatekeepers along the way. They represent the Only Real Hope Tier, and I wish it was the biggest bench in this contest. But what can you do, other than see them get elected? From a process of deduction, it should be obvious who they are by now:

Elizabeth Warren
Bernie Sanders

Yep. Two. Count them again. It’s a depressing number. I wish there was someone younger, someone of color, and someone more radical who could run, but alas, AOC is too damn young and Ilhan Omar was born abroad. I guess there’s something of a blessing here. The radical vote won’t be split and the it won’t be lost amid a cacophony clamoring for Medicare for All on the debate stage. If Warren or Sanders win, it’ll bring up a whole generation of progressives hopefully into office, and it will drag those in the middle to the Left. Victory leaves a garden in its wake.

Of these two candidates, I rank Sanders higher than Warren. In my dream world, Sanders runs, wins, gets a term, then decided not to run again. Instead, it’s his Vice President Warren who follows him into office. Maybe AOC will come after her. Then again, it might be Subcommandante Lee Carter. I understand the desire for a female president and I don’t believe Warren would have that much harder of a time getting elected than Sanders. She’d be just as electable

So why pick Sanders over her? I think Warren has great ideas and solid proposals. It’s good that she leaves other candidates clamoring behind in her wake, looking for policies of their own. Just as Sanders moved the party left in 2016, Warren is crystallizing the commitments of others. They can no longer wear a label like “progressive.” They have to explain their stances. However, I think there are differences between Sanders and Warren, which make me back him over Warren. Needless to say, I would be fine supporting either of them in the general (Tankies, feel free to call me a dirty, dirty lib in the comments)

The first difference is foreign policy. Sanders is much more anti-imperialist in his orientation. He doesn’t just want a “green” army like Warren. He wants to shrink it and bring it home. His whole life he’s opposed intervention and wars abroad and that’s crucial. People forget that the President’s greatest power is as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Congress and the Courts give the Executive the widest latitude here. Warren is nowhere near as bad as Biden, or the rest of the field. I don’t think she’ll get us into a war with Iran. But will she radically change our approach to the country? Or Cuba, North Korea, or Venezuela? Or on the other hand end our blank cheque of support to Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia?

The second different is the relationship to the Democratic Party. Warren wants to take the party as it is and lead it to a more progressive direction. It’s an admirable goal, but without changing the fundamental structure of the Democratic Party, she’ll be constantly blocked by the DNC. The donor class will try and put the kibosh on whatever she proposes. Due to his background running more grassroots campaigns and insurgent candidacies, Sanders has more experience building the mass movements necessary to change the party from within.  The Democrats have to become a party devoted and made up of the working class first and foremost. Otherwise, it’ll never be able to fight directly for the proposals of Sanders, Warren, AOC, or anyone on the Left. The Party needs to speak with one voice and fight as one instead of arguing and fighting amongst itself. Since the rich already have a party, the GOP, they can all go there instead. A Sanders victory will help accelerate that trend. He’ll push the rich out of the party like St. Patrick and the snakes in Ireland.

Lastly, Sanders and Warren have different visions of the economy and what needs to happen with American Capitalism. Warren is a reformist. To be fair, she’s a far greater reformist than anyone since FDR and that should be noted. However, she’ll leave in place the parts of the economy that have brought us back to levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s. What good is to merely reform things so that we may one day have to deal with finance wrecking everything all over again? A stronger approach has to be taken. Warren hints that she might be able to get there eventually. She has proposed putting workers on corporate boards. But Sanders sees the system as fundamentally unequal and unsound. He knows that attempts to regulate it while leaving capital in the hands of an unelected elite is no long-term solution. He understands that the democratic control of the economy is the only way forward. In Sanders’ American it will be for the many, not the few at all levels of society. So as in the ballot box, so as in the boardroom.

I know Warren has more concrete proposals than Sanders, or at least ideas for specific legislation that have managed to percolate to the top of the political discussion. Sanders’ campaign is more about emphasis and stressing values. Both of them have a vision, however it is filtered in different ways that reflect the different personalities running. Remember my old extended metaphor of the Plain and the Mountain? Sanders and Warren are both candidates from the Mountain who are uniquely situates to leave the rafters and seize the Dais. Each of them will do so with their own approach. Warren is coming down from Mount Sinai, with commandments and laws. Meanwhile, Bernie is coming down from Mount Olivet. Either way, they’re coming for your graven images, false idols, golden calves, and fig trees.