Plutocrats

plutocrats

ticks 

cockroaches

one is at best

useless

at worst

actively evil

one lives on trash

scattering in the light

one is a bloodsucking 

arthropod

you have to look closely

to tell the difference

Admit

destroy the part of yourself

unwilling to admit

to break the hold

admit it to someone 

admit it 

to a dear friend

or dance madly or sing too loud

whatever you do

create your undoing

cry out clear and free

make your body

a portable church

Work-A-Day

i woke as i always do

pissed washed and shaved

as is the way

and sat calmly at my desk 

to begin another day of company work

as i must

and all the while in my mind 

a persistent and barely muffled screaming

like the whistling of a kettle from down the hall

or the sound a man might make

caught in a collapsing house on fire

frantically searching through the flames and smoke

for an exit

Yard Sale Sketches and Future Hopes

We had a yard sale this weekend. We were less about what money we could make and more about hoping things like my son's old crib and some unused gifts could find good homes. There was a lot left over from the sale which we are happy to donate. 

While I waited I spent a little while doing ink and watercolor wash, and watercolor and gouache paint sketches in my little Stillman & Birn sketchbook. The results are below.

To live a life of painting, writing poetry, and caring for my family without having to have some other means of financial support is a dream I feel myself slowly dying to day by day, and it breaks my heart. I know that writing and drawing and painting are just in my blood though. I could never stop.

I was so happy to have given an abstract art card to a neighbor this morning, and to have sold a small painting today to an early customer. I'm sad to not know his name, but he has my contact information. Maybe he'll reach out here.

The little 4"x6" acrylic painting was called "Moon Over Denali". I think it may have been the first landscape painting I did after expanding my mediums into acrylic.

This was the piece on the abstract art card. I called it "Abstract II - Jazz".

I am considering announcing open commissions on social media, but I want to finish a body of work demonstrating my skill in not only landscapes, but portraits as well. Perfect opportunities to continue experimenting in oil paints as well as acrylic. I need to develop my portfolio.

That's all for now. Goodnight.

Two Years

Today marks two years of this blog. That’s two years of posting an original poem almost every day, some ventures into short fiction, a few pictures, and a few more traditional blog posts. Seven-hundred and seventy posts over seven hundred and thirty days.

At its most basic, Dionysian Blunderbuss is a chronicle of the greater part of my daily writing practice. I posted something nearly every day, even if that post was only a brief explanation of the circumstances around me deciding not to post a poem.

Over the previous year, I’ve discovered some techniques I know I’ll be carrying forward in my writing, and in my teaching this fall. I’ve written a few of what I consider to be my best poems. And I got a couple of poems published!

So, What Now?

I have a few developed thoughts about how I would like to move forward from here, and a few ideas I am still mulling over.

1. I want to continue posting poetry here, but I think this past year has taught me some limits. Forcing myself to write a poem every day at the best of times was a fun challenge, at the most mediocre of times impractical, and at its most frustrating, just another task I had to do without much desire or interest to the point that I might take the day off.
   
   Writing shouldn’t feel like a chore, so I might be slowing down my posting schedule to several times a week, and not always poetry. Maybe eventually I’ll settle on a specific day of the week for poetry posts … like Meter Mondays and The Thursday Verse … or maybe it will happen more organically.
   
   
2. I’d like to share more thoughts on writing and writing process. From mid-September to November, on Monday nights, I am teaching an Adult Education course on creative writing that focuses on poetry and flash fiction. It’s going to be a fun way to share my knowledge with those who sign up, but I would also like to chronicle some of that teaching and learning journey here.
   
   To that end, in addition to insights and thoughts about writing, I’m thinking of posting writing exercises for people to try. Perhaps we can get a little more of a community going here. What all of this looks like will take some more planning though. I’ll keep you posted.
   
   
3. I never finished the poetry zine I set out to make this past year. I don’t consider that a failure. But I do recognize that with the wealth of poems I have here, it’s time to consider putting together some kind of zine or small chapbook of revised versions of a handful of what I consider my best. If I am going to make that a project on the nights I’m not posting here, then I may as well illustrate it too.
   
   I will post progress “snapshots” of that project here to try to stay motivated, so expect more art and random photos as possible standalone posts.
   
   
4. I still post paintings and drawings on Instagram, but only once or twice a week. That being said, I think I’ll make art, and the craftier side of my hobbies more of a part of what I put here, possibly even more frequently than Instagram.
   
   I am also considering posting paintings for sale here … but that’s something I’m still only considering.

Thanks To My Readers

This is not a successful blog. 500 hits in a month makes a good month for Dionysian Blunderbuss. 

That being said, I am deeply appreciative of those of you who come here daily or weekly and peruse my writing. Moving forward into year three, just know that you will be rewarded with a wide variety of options that still include poetry, prose, photos, art and more.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

A Short Break?

Last year, I took a week or two off from posting after my first anniversary post. I don’t know that such a defined hiatus is necessary this time. You can probably expect something as soon as this weekend. I’ll be finishing a painting commission and embarking on a flurry of other, smaller, artistic ventures that I’m sure I’ll be bursting to share.

Here’s to the beginning of year three!

Cheers!

~MS

Packing For My Vacation: A Zine

Hi all. What follows is what's called a "perzine" (personal zine) that I chose to make in lieu of just a regular old packing list before I went on vacation the week before last. Here it is in panels. Enjoy!

 

Flying Fish

wrapped in shallow thoughts

the day to day to night to night

how it all ends how everything

sheds its meaning into time

fading into some new 

muddy color a reminder 

why nostalgia still has hooks 

why sink any deeper or tie 

yourself to that slickened silt 

bottom of personal history

living is so light just fly

just break all surfaces

just fly fly fly

Bound

around the time i learned to tie my shoes

they started lacing my mind with ideas

telling me to follow the threads

but none yet had frayed to freedom

stopped by the rigid plastic aglets

then they started in with the knots

Holding Fire

those heady moments

before the first kiss

cupid need not fire

the quiver resides

already in me

Tower Of Power/Tree By The Sea

 

A once giant tree holds a gem great in power.

An evil corrupted and made it a tower.

Beware of the dragon high in his tree

who covets the gem by the sapphire sea.

Untitled 8.12.23

being is so various a flame

how quickly my awareness flickers

in the flow of moment to moment

only if i am attached to a moment

it ends

Lines

what lines we walk

the whirlwind of arms and hands

for balance to the center

what would you give for everything

look what lines lead to heaven

in one day of being human

turn with new eyes seeing

parallels as warning reflections

the lines lead to the lost and their bowls

and tomorrow’s day of human being

the pillaging bank at the center

whenever you are sent the key

please unlock the gate

Pennsylvania Dream

the worked hand dry cracked 

bleeds into red rust

shortened days the humming 

head bears houseward

dinner outsourced delivered

bread and cheese

a carbonated 

grain-based alcohol

shore up the mind against

dread for the day

whatever it takes

to get unconscious

counted blessings just

making the ends meet

i guess we made it

things are looking up

Vacation Day 5: Back To The Fossil Pit and Painting At The Preserve

We started the day back at the fossil pit in Montour Preserve. We didn’t find any fossils, but my wife admitted she is now addicted to fossil hunting. I couldn’t be happier for her. Our four-year-old was just happy to play in the shale.

We returned to the hotel for lunch and relaxation.

After several hours, my wife, our four-year-old, and I returned to Montour preserve. Some rain showers hit just after we arrived, but slowed and then stopped shortly.

They dropped me at a pavilion overlooking the lake, and continued to the fossil pit where they met with some success finding a few small fossils. I painted the gorgeous view with watercolor in my sketchbook. I didn’t have long, and it was a very loose painting, but it felt good just to paint.

It turned into a beautiful evening. We grabbed dinner and came back to the hotel to wind down.

We made the decision as a family to cut our travels short by a day. Tomorrow morning we rise, load up the car, and head back home. Our oldest is looking forward to tomorrow night’s marching band practice. The four-year-old is excited to return to his toys. My spouse wants to return to familiarity. I’ll be happy to just be in the comfort of our house with a few days left before I have to return to work.

I’ll likely resume posting poetry here tomorrow night. Until then …

Be good to each other.

~MS

Vacation Day Four: Fossils, A Snake Encounter, and No Obligations

We took breakfast to my mom this morning, and had a nice, short visit before getting on the road to Pennsylvania.

After arriving in Danville, we couldn’t check in the hotel until 3pm, so we went to the Montour Preserve to check out the fossil pit. We passed some gorgeous scenery, parked in one of the small lots, and walked the short trail to the amphitheater-shaped fossil pit.

The makeup of the fossil pit is 350-million-year-old Devonian shale. It’s too old for dinosaurs, but I was pleased to learn that trilobites lived in the shallow seas that once covered this area. I’ll be very happy if we leave here with a trilobite fossil. Otherwise, I think we’re all content just to dig. 

My sons and I were also pleased to make the acquaintance of a Butler’s garter snake just chilling out while bumble bees bumbled from flower to flower.

We checked into the hotel just before 3pm, went to our room, and washed up. Exhausted for no apparent reason, I promptly fell asleep for 2 hours. 

After waking, we called in a takeout dinner order (pub food). On the way to pick up our order, we stopped by a local hardware store where we bought a small hammer, a bucket, gloves, trowels, and a spray bottle for water – paleontology supplies for our return visit to the fossil pit tomorrow morning. 

With no need to go anywhere else or visit anyone for the first time on our trip, we just relaxed for the rest of the night. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s dig with our very enthusiastic 4-year-old, and (hopefully) some more painting/sketching in and around Montour Preserve.

Be good to each other.

~MS

Vacation Day 3: Politics and Painting

We brought my mom brunch today and then left in the afternoon shortly after the conversation turned to politics. It's bad when we've become so divided as a country that, regardless of who you support politically, it's hard to admit that anyone who breaks the law should be held accountable.

I wanted to do some plein air painting today, but the constant threat of rain prevented me from setting up outside. Instead, I took a few photographs before we left my mom's house this afternoon and painted from one of those in our hotel room. Here's my first attempt with oil paints:

It took about an hour to do this 5"x7" sketch of my wife's car from the backyard of a corner of my mom's house. It always feels good to paint, and I know it's going to take some time to get used to oils, but ... I don't know. I'd hoped painting with oils would feel like I'd finally found my medium. Instead, it's like everything else. It's awesome that the paint doesn't dry out on the pallet like acrylics and it sucks that it takes so damned long to dry on the canvas, unlike acrylics.

We returned to my mother's house with dinner and had a more pleasant visit before heading back to the hotel for bedtime.

Be good to each other.

~MS

Vacation Day 2 - Tectonic

A little hand held a weathered shard of rock up to me as we were leaving. My four-year old had found a fossil impression of a bivalve today around my mom’s house. I was impressed at its fidelity, and said as much.

My mother witnessed this while standing on her porch and said, “That’s something I don’t understand. How did that get here.”

“This shell fossil?” I asked, not sure if maybe her attention had wandered.

“Yeah. How did all those shell fossils get all the way up here?” She gestured around at the forest, and the hillside where she lives.

Recalling my geologic knowledge from a childhood spent collecting hundreds of similar fossils from the surrounding forest, I explained to my mother that millions of years ago, all the land around her was underwater in a sea created when, hundreds of millions of years before that, the continents of Africa and North America moved apart.

“Underwater? Like Noah and the flood?” She seemed incredulous.

“No, mom. Hundreds of millions of years before that story takes place, in a slow process of continental drift that takes millions of years.” 

I even mentioned how the Appalachian Mountains, this hill, and the hills around it, used to be as big or bigger than the Rockies. They were formed when Africa and North America collided in the first place, but eroded down to what they are now over entire epochs of time.

The look on her face – it was like she thought I was just making shit up to have a laugh at her expense. 

It’s hard, but I have to remember that there are people in the world who don’t know or believe in the theory of plate tectonics. One of those people is my mother.

There’s a poem in there somewhere. 

Be good to each other.

~MS

Vacation Day 1 - Sunset

Some hills and a gorgeous sunset behind a young tree farm, captured by my wife as we drove back to our hotel from a visit with my mom. Weather permitting, I may try to paint in this area tomorrow or Monday. There's a really nice creek on the other side of this road I wouldn't mind capturing in a painting as well.

Exhausted now though. More tomorrow.

Be good to each other.
~MS

Anniversary

 Hi All,

It's my 7th wedding anniversary with my spouse, and we've spent the day getting ready to leave for vacation with the kids tomorrow. So no poem tonight.

I will be writing and painting and taking photos while on vacation though, so I'll be posting every night while we're away. I'll try for poetry, but don't be surprised if what you get is a painting or some nature photography instead.

Also, this week when I was thinking about what I should pack for my vacation, I made a zine! More fun than just making a list.

If I can figure out a way to upload it so people can read it as a comic, I'll either put it here or on my instagram. I can't recommend making stuff like this highly enough. It's just fun and silly and sometimes fun to share.

Be good to each other.

~MS

When Walking Among Orchids

when walking among orchids

do you remember our friendship

as i do so long ago laughing

adapting to each other’s tastes

your probing questions

deep as a mosquito’s proboscis

my monkeying around

in shameless display

the acquisition of attributes 

i still see sometimes today

perhaps it was only one way

Petitioning The Muse

empty oh muse 

the old rituals have turned away

lend your gorgeous voice a minute 

or nine

leave me no peace from your ruby mouth

only an airy palace of lines

high flags waving 

against a fresh blue sky

Solitary

those pensive middle summers

quiet solitary dinners

the tenderness of some autumn’s wine

i would walk into the night 

down half lit streets walled in vines

beneath the trees 

dark-eyed houses

through rain into the small hours

returning home to a warm towel

dozing alone in an armchair 

until dawn the creaking silence

swaddled me like linen

then in my bed alone

sleep closed over me

heavy as the earth