As a guest on the Arts Calling Podcast, I got to babble somewhat coherently with host Jaime Alejandro (@cruzfolio) about all things writing, my forthcoming book, and my childhood obsession with Costco boxes.

Arts Calling Podcast - Episode #21

As a featured writer on the HOWL open mic night, I performed a reading of my poem "All the Broken Men" as well as an excerpt from my forthcoming memoir. My reading begins at the 6:45 mark. 

CIUT 89.5FM "HOWL" Open Mic Night - 4.26.22

"firecracker pop floatie, how much air?
how much air to hold me, 
to carry me across the river
where sugar-dusted daylight
pored through my sleeping eyes, 
icing my rods and filling my cones
with a double scoop of sky"

firecracker pop floatie

"The George Frederic is located on a small side street called Fishamble which no Dublin local has apparently ever heard of. Ever. I mean no one. Don’t even bother asking. You’ll have better luck finding out how to locate the lost city of Brigadoon."

5 Stops on the Road to Ruin

"When something awful happens
-I mean, truly devastating -
assumptions are made.
Lines are drawn in
the wet, wet sand
and you’re forced to pick a side.
People ask if you still believe
in God, when your Holy
Spirit is Diablo Sauce."

BA-JA Moment

"A plan is formed:/
a stick in every location,/
a stick for every occasion./
One stick, two stick,/
lost stick, new stick."

I Wash the ChapStick

"James Bond ruined the martini. That is an unequivocal fact. And, he did so with three words: 'Shaken, not stirred."

Stir

"...reds, ambers and persimmon blanket the streets and drift throughout the town. We’re also pleased to announce that, after last year’s incidents with severe gutter damage, doggie gastritis and badger deaths, these leaves are now 100% water soluble"

From the Municipal Council of Celebration, Florida

"When Roy said liver cancer, he confirmed what everyone already knew. Just two little words. Worlds are built and destroyed on less."

PARAPRAXIS

"Whiskey was cheap. But, again, Samuel said nothing, mostly because no matter what he said, it wouldn’t change the way they looked at him, the way their eyes from behind their computers and clipboards saw some variation of the same thing: drunk..."

Wasted

"The familiar play begins, in which intimacy is a concept, to which there is always an audience, a watcher. HE is there, two or three steps away from us, buried waist-deep, long dead. Immemorial, therefore never dead, therefore always, actually..."

Wyoming is Bleeding

"The Drake Hotel and an itch/
to scratch. The kitchen closed/
but the city delivers. Choices/
wash across post-flight eyes/
and, with the twitch of a finger,/
I order him like takeout./
Your item is on its way."

Junk Food/Recorded Earlier/Zip

"Something about you felt/
second-hand, marked down emotion/
confused for clutter by a buyer unwilling..."

All the Broken Men

"You were Clark Gable and I was quick-dry cement. Freshly poured and sloppily pliable, I spread myself underneath as the weight of you sunk in, burying footprints too deep to ever be smoothed away."

The Mason

"Ice cold metal and wire snaked its way under my shirt and coiled against my back, listening, seeing what it could get my body to reveal. Not a difficult task. I'm beyond terrible at keeping secrets."

The Hypochondriac

"Somewhere there, between human and human representation, between design and configuration, it became increasingly difficult to separate the real from the simulation...Both were seemingly subject to the rules and limitations of a game..."

Wading Toward Willamette

"He was still pink, still warm. Blood still moved through his veins. It was only after his chest didn't beat back against my palm that I realized what had happened. We'd missed him by minutes, seconds even."

The Space Between the Tenses

"...far more damning than the words was the weeping. That this man, the man who did not cry at his own father’s funeral, was shattered by the discovery of who his son really was. That what I’d done to him was worse than death."

Little Murders

"To these fishers and swishers, you are not the sad creature still reeling in the wake of death.   You are not the mournful soul in need of a perfunctory shoulder. You, dear reader, are the nameless American tourist of the day."

The Simple Guide to Redefinition in Oslo, Norway

"It was as if all of the diners, waiters and owners had collectively decided to go home one night and just never return. And, so, it sat there, unwanted, unnoticed and unattended for years; a memorial to herb roasted prime rib and Hawaiian chicken."

Joseph Lezza

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