Regrets

those stupid drunken nights

crazed craving the spotlight

yelling my insides out loud

splitting my mind into betweens

mad midnights and decorous days

bodies writhing blanket wrapped

mind wrapt between the stacks

trying to swallow my feet whole

even now sleepless so many years later

the bump in the 3am dark

just my mind knocking about

a crumbling attic infested with old shame

Dead Ringer

again i am shaken

some convulsive shock

where can’t or won’t are equal 

eagerness is satisfaction

shovel in the ditch

deranged depressed

tied in knots

stranded in your mirror

blink itch and dig

my anger sickens

and laughs

i keep confirming it

even bereft 

all nights are stunning

the binds slowly lessen

leaving me free and

alone with ghosts

Progress Cultivation

planted in new conditions 

combinations of soil

adaptation is a boon in the field

more likely to survive shifting

transplanted in stress

the inexperienced evolve

to simulate inert plastic sheets

and linger beyond abundance

The Persistent Color of Absence

now we’re approaching the time when

the carelessness of your absence

tinges the late afternoon light

in the distance of our son’s eyes

the peppered rind of your defense

the seed shell lying at his roots

still my anger and disbelief

one moment texting me requests

the next you were off with a shot

Fisher Kid

they say time heals wounds

but i learned young scraping knees

i like picking scabs

From Shadow Sublime

i was cold and low on a country road

when i came upon the evening sun

pouring through young leaves in a copse of trees

illuminating high grass brass and gold

i hastened my step to that glow then slowed

and decided the shadow is better

because it’s hard to see in glaring light

No Poem For 5/26/23

This past night, instead of writing, I painted and time got away from me.

I'll try to post twice in the coming day: a poem and ... something else probably.

Be good to each other.

~MS

One Star Review of an Emotional State

when weariness takes hold

eyes aching from the hours

when the day’s frustrations

sing a tired mind off key

it becomes easy to 

imagine giving in 

crumpled under covers

bereft of artifice

seething desolation

i have explored that place

the food is terrible

Manning The Lines

destructive luxury diversions

boiled down breed lethargy

tedium is underappreciated 

changing their capacity for risky bets 

can decide dullness is a good place to start

men silently hanging laundry 

white sleeves rolled up forearms flexing

the breeze-blown smell of fresh linens

bare feet cool and wet in the grass

sustained connection to environment

becoming open and sensitive to pain 

backs into it please boys fill the void

First Cup

before the day breaks

like a roaring wave crashing

over languid shores

predawn morning steams

holding pristine silent peace

over hot coffee

An Introvert's Fond Memories of Lockdown

i didn’t miss the world

his incessant noise and chatter

the charlatan salesman’s lures and hooks

i had my family shelter food and work

and lots of lovely books

Stop Signs

there is no more 

obvious manifestation 

of the social contract 

than a stop sign 

so when i see 

someone run one 

my heart breaks a little

and my hope erodes

and i admit

it broke my mind a bit 

when i got hit

Astray

i walked a narrow mile through the wild

guiding those i had with wiles beguiled

killers, schemers, thieves consumed by greed

dispatching detractors to add them to the feed

we trod the path enjoying fruits of power

took our time and made the throne room in an hour

and none could stop our rise though so few tried

wealthy liars with hopeful poor beside

we undermine their rights before their eyes

for none can now distinguish truth from lies

Human Voices

some truck roars and revs violent noise

through the open spring windows into our house

on the street some kid shreds rubber

from the tires of a motorbike peeling

the party next door thumps until midnight

the toddler’s window stays closed in the summer

Independence Day fireworks start around 

Memorial Day and last to Labor Day

here in the suburbs you quickly learn

no neighbors at all make good neighbors

State of The Blog: One Year and Nine Months

 I figured it was time to look at where this blog has been and where it's going.

Currently with 680 posts on this blog, even with missed days, I'm ahead of target to meet my goal of a poem a day with posts to spare. The goal will be at least 730 poems here (among other posts) before August 17th, 2023, the two-year anniversary of Dionysian Blunderbuss. Even if I only wrote one poem a day between now and then, it would be easy to meet that goal. So I'm going to continue this poem-a-day project/writing practice until then. Then, I'm going to switch things up a bit.

After the two-year anniversary of this blog, instead of continuing with a poem a day, I'll be writing one long-form poem a week (plus any other posts I think are worth going up). This means the quality of the content will improve, but it will be longer between posts. 

Engagement here is next to none, so I don't think switching to a weekly model will have any meaningful effect except that I will be developing poetry that I can take a little more pride in; poems that may make it to other forms of publication as I pull those things together.

I'm happy to have published a poem in The 2023 Suffolk County Poetry Review. It's the poem "The Impure Work", a version of which can still be found on this blog.

I would like to publish more. I plan to self publish a poetry zine sometime in the near future, but I am still pulling together the resources and trying to find the time and energy to do so. My goal is to have it done and printed before the end of this summer. This will be the first place I post the news so stay tuned.

I am still drawing and painting. I may post some of it here, but most of it goes up on Instagram, do check me out there if you get a chance (info in my bio). I'll also be having a small sale this summer, and next year will have enough work to show at a local library gallery for a month, so keep an eye out for information on that as well.

Thanks again to all my readers. I'll keep writing as long as it has value to me. I hope you're finding value here too. 

Now I need to go write today's poem ...

Be good to each other.

~MS

Chronos

inexorably moving across the quantifiable background 

we humans in awe projecting onto divine existence

artificial constructs

such as time

this portrayal of passing 

an egg of chaos the constant of change

memory flowing over a ripple warping through space

a literal illusion of time out of mind

Yours To Disobey

life is as soft as down feather pillows

every day we are given carte blanche

break free and do as you please wherever

you fall something starts again

what doesn’t kill you is a game to play

shit in the street if you wish spit in the

eye of authority always watching

cloud the lens with vilest effluvia

if taking from the rich to feed the poor

is somehow unfair churning the poor on

the wheel of progress to squeeze out labor

is proportionally atrocity

Failing For You

certainty held tightly is repulsive

unshakeable faith is hari-kari

show how you live with and own your mistakes

keep making them in passionate pursuit

something from within truly your own

Dissemble

an avenue without sight confirms

only the point of the question mark

so sure of your words’ aim

when you play in secret and pretend

but soon your mouth overflows

Is It Human To Forget?

the passing hours ripple

peaks rising to light

troughs into obscurity

in time moments 

flash as they unfold

until there is still 

shameless water 

a perpetual present 

held up by its own 

dense impenetrable darkness

Horizons

i know the sandlots long for autumnal violins

but don’t languish in monotony kindred mongrel

blame the suffocating quandary of summer hours

and kiss me as a souvenir of brief and ancient joy

my eyes feast upon the shoreline the red lake light

this decadent sunset reminiscent of mortal peril 

these high wine drunk endings becoming

temporality a fuel for sudden impassioned parole

The Wilds Devour A Heart

a mouth opened in the leaves beside the lot

full of straight black teeth

uneven latticed mesh between

at the back of the maw 

a brilliant light caged

and the forest swallowed the sun

Fusion of Fissile Souls

devoted you have my serene attention

turning simple opposites into a continuum

conversation into song into enchantments

delicate interwoven threads and pensive mazes

love becomes so alive in our momentary cadences

heights of empathy echoing in the high halls

irresistibly our families begin dancing

until inebriate with contentment we lay where we are

when we part the anguish is mortal but brief

our lives our solitudes firm alma maters we return

your work my work our friends 

gather us back into ourselves

then when we are newly whole 

we meet and begin again

The Cultivated Heart Gone Fallow

there were a few before who knew that place

the garden where you kept your finest stock

but since then it lies fallow gone to waste

all flowers compost mosses eating rock

but when you meet a loving soul your kind

what ground profound with richness you will find

Haleakala Blue

for Jufe, Jenny, and Aidan

past behind feet firm on gritty red rock

you stood above the clouded-over haze

a blue expanse above your head netting

dreams steaming off for now cooling like sweat

to be held as rain for the right moment

long after descent perhaps sky opens

joining you there in possibility

May

May is the month with no foundation

you see what travails it sends me on

two eyes uprooted from the earth

i don’t know why you ignore it

how new leaves remain under a freezing night moon

notes always hinting at afternoon rain

the words we say are cut flowers in vases 

that bloom and endure in May

without love without unhappiness

branches filled with dangerous roses

the soulless come to aid the garden

but instead enchant the soil with pests

so May requests an immutable corner

situated between cream spring and honey summer

where the bodies that fell so long before turn and

at last at once all burst into beauty

Faithless

come lay your lips upon me at dawn’s inquest

i won’t swoon for festive laurels

such fire costs three fountains and a laughing rose

while leaking a twisted vermillion river of ammonia

fidelity sings rich piousness 

these free songs echo in the palace

but only alone with my various companions

do i know stability

State Of The Blog: Doubts

No poem tonight. I am taking time to run a D&D adventure for my oldest son. Planning for that, and working on painting has taken most of the day.

But here’s a quick update on my doubts:

I am a little over twenty months into this project, and if I’m being honest, I'm feeling pretty low. While I know this writing practice has helped me develop my style, and more than ever I am writing poems I actually like, and while I am tremendously grateful for the very few of you who read and return to read, I can’t help but feel disheartened by what little readership this blog gets week by week and month by month. 

I have come to the conclusion that either (1) my poetry and other writing royally suck, (2) nobody cares about poetry anymore, or (3) all of the above.

One of my poems has been published in a recent anthology of Suffolk County Long Island Poets. I am waiting for my copies to arrive. I’m excited to have been published, but this kind of vanity press charges its poets for copies of their own work, and won’t get much attention outside of the circle of poets who published and then purchased the anthology. 

I have entertained the idea of self-publishing a chapbook of poems and art as a zine, but have had some difficulty working up motivation to continue the project with such low readership here. Social media feels like an increasingly poor way to advertise for the arts though, so a paper zine with a somewhat wider distribution, and possible electronic distribution, may be exactly what I need. Anyone who reads this blog will find out here first if that happens.

Ultimately, I’ll continue posting here until I don’t. I don't see stopping this practice any time soon. I only hope people will read, and share, and find some value here.

Be good to each other.

~MS

Blues

the last kids went in for the night so

i sat lonely on a wooden bench

the night sky was indigo

the full moon reflected down indifferent hazy light

the streetlights were off in the cul-de-sac

brick apartments dark courtyard quiet

across the street windows flashing blue

squat white houses with black-shingled rooves

someone hung their laundry on the line late 

and the damp white sheets shifted and shone dancing 

in the breeze 

and the moonlight

like a ghost lady’s gowns

Graduation Party

seventeen and old for my age

backyard party with classmates

thinking i fit in with the adults

the stupid teenage things i said

everyone thinking just wait kid

the shy smiles and me singing

drunk on youth without shame

A Few Lines On Capitalist Self-Estrangement

no mystery left to a modern life

no magic nor wonder but grift of wealth

distraction is dear when despair runs rife 

and thrift a weakness in spite of itself

When I Finally Left

and last the empty living room complete

rain running down curtainless patio doors

gray daylight floods the faded carpeted floor

shadow depressions of once stable phantom feet 

the thrift store armchair with magazine pouch

and mismatched-cushion curb-acquired couch

hand-me-down ring-stained coffee table

burn hole from a fallen cigarette ember

conglomerate smells smoke food and dust

and musty old mildewed spills forgotten

startled by my own echo remember

the truck is full now and waiting in the lot

Law Makes Bad Science

"Since 'tis Nature's law to change,

Constancy alone is strange."

~John Wilmot

blind they decide all we 

need to know about sex

biological binary

man woman

missing all nuance

bodily systems overlap

some worms make 

both gamete cells

some fish switch

back and forth fluid

it’s queer how

law attempts to bind

while bountiful 

nature transitions