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Coyote Mercury Posts

Highway Sky is Live

March 8, 2016 • • 2 Comments

highway-skyI’m very happy to announce that my new book Highway Sky is now live.

Highway Sky is a collection of road poems published here on Coyote Mercury and in various fine journals, ‘zines, sites, and anthologies over the past seven years.

As of right now, Highway Sky is available in paperback in the following places: Amazon, my e-store, Barnes & Noble, and probably most anywhere else you can order books. There is also a Kindle edition and a free .pdf edition version is available for review or creative remix. Contact me for more info.

The following poems from the collection were previously published. Where there are working links, they can be read online. My thanks to the editors of the following journals for publishing these…

“Sonnet Found in a Road Atlas” Verbatim Found Poetry (Jun 2015)

“a hundred miles out” tinywords (Apr 2015, Issue 15.1)

“All the Way” Synchronized Chaos (Mar 2015)

“Three Scenes from the Road” The Lake (Mar 2015)

“windshield rain” A Blackbird Sings: A Book of Short Poems (Woodsmoke Press, Sep 2012)

“if there are angels” feathers (Apr 2012)

“North Through Fog.” Houston Literary Review (Feb 2011)

“Night at the Interstate Diner.” qarrtsiluni (Dec 2010 – The Crowd issue)

“Highway 73 to Port Arthur.” a handful of stones (Jul 2010)

“Deeper into Texas.” America Remembered (Virgogray* Press Chapbook Anthology Jul 2010)

“Miles (Never Once Imagined).” Carcinogenic Poetry (May 2010)

“I-10 Eastbound.” Carcinogenic Poetry (May 2010)

“We Talk of Trains.” ouroboros review (Jul 2009 – No. 3)

“A Texas Highway in Springtime.” Bolts of Silk (May 2009)

And, thanks to The Poetry Storehouse for making “For Gasoline” and “angels” available for creative remix. (Incidentally, all of the individual poems in Highway Sky are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike-NonCommercial license so if you want to envideo/remix… have at it.)

Many of the poems first appeared here in draft form. You can read those early drafts here. Some are draftier than others, but I offer my sincerest thanks to the many people who commented, critiqued and left feedback on these drafts over the past seven years. It has meant a lot to me.

I hope you’ll check it out and help spread the word. Thank you.

dogsbody

March 6, 2016 • • Leave a comment

the stiff-legged dog still
wants to play and race
old bones, stretched
taut muscles like lightning
through molasses across
the yard like she tore up
the house as a puppy once
a white storm with black ears
and teeth           she flinches
when I put the ointment on
the scrapes from falling, but
I think she knows I’m helping
her           know I understand you
are not having fun          if
you’re not getting hurt

 

///

This Is Not a Literary Journal :: Inside of a Dog

You Get What You Get

February 23, 2016 • • 2 Comments

The polished geniuses on TV talked relativity the day my favorite chili joint closed down. Rumors say it’ll be resurrected someday inside a luxury condo retail office project, which just reminds me of the punk clubs of my youth—old warehouses now torn down as the knights of progress routed the nights of rock n roll, leaving behind one faint note, the endless sustain of a beautifully overdriven pawn shop guitar fading forever beneath silent city stars, a ripple in passing gravity waves.

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This Is Not a Literary Journal :: The Prompt that Keeps on Prompting

You Do Not Have to Personify the Mountain

February 9, 2016 • • 8 Comments

Blue eyes mean avalanches, the old climber warned. Passersby glanced up at condos rising downtown like fingers set to claw the sun. So little light filtered down through the shadows, everyone shivered in the heat. Two panhandlers played the same song in different keys on opposite sides of the street. One man, with crampons and ice axe, started to scale the tallest condo. His friend watched him begin his ascent then ducked into a Thai restaurant where members of his support group met on Tuesdays to start a new political movement. Avalanches could be metal, bricks or piles of trash, stony absences where everything that mattered used to be.

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This Is Not a Literary Journal :: Leaving Mount Everest Alone

Rule

January 22, 2016 • • 4 Comments

Regulations demand
our silence. We must bear
the barbed weight of law.
Statutes and tradition
compel us to remain
quiet, blind, mute. We
become security cameras
with corrupted hard-drives
and though rules must
be followed, the hackers
are getting in. Let there
be light, more light, noise
and outrage, memory for all.

 

///
This is for the prompt at This Is Not a Literary Journal, Carolee Bennett’s new poetry effort. I’m helping out as an occasional “Provider of Prompts,” and I did provide this one called The Rules. And, lemme tell ya, it’s hard to write to your own prompt. Come check it out and join the fun.

Some Recent Publications

October 19, 2015 • • Leave a comment

Six October Stones CoverI’m very happy to announce that my micro-chapbook Six October Stones is published by Origami Poems Project.

Like all of Origami Poems Project’s micro-chapbooks, this collection of six short poems woven into a longer poem is a free PDF download that can be folded into a very small chapbook using the instructions found on the site. Check it out!

 

 

Next up, I’m thrilled to share that the Take2 Guide to LOST is now available for download. This is a massive compendium of online writing about the ABC TV Series LOST, and it includes all of my LOST book club blog posts (explained and indexed here) as well as my reflections on “The End.” Yes, I really did read and blog about all the books that appeared on the show, and it’s nice to see all that collected with so much other fine LOST writing. More info here.

 

Finally, I’m proud to have had a poem featured at Autumn Sky Poetry Daily: “Made or Just Happened.” Do check it out if you haven’t already.

And, yes, I’m still putting finishing touches on Highway Sky and The Corner of Ghost & Hope. Things move slow.

Poems in Other Places and Some Sneak Peeks

August 10, 2015 • • 1 Comment

Oh, hi there. Thanks for coming round this old blog. Here’s some links to a couple of my poems that appeared recently in other places:

a hundred miles out… in Issue 15.1 of tinywords back in April

Sonnet Found in a Road Atlas at Verbatim Found Poetry back in June

My poetry-ing has been behind the scenes of late, editing and publishing Gnarled Oak (which if you’ve not checked out you should) and putting the finishing touches on two books, a collection of road poems called Highway Sky (which includes both of the poems linked above) and a short collection of short stories titled The Corner of Ghost & Hope. Stay tuned for more about each one, but for now, here’re the covers…

2bookcoverscmp

 

Also, I’d love to have some reviews online (Amazon, Goodreads, blogs, wherever and etc.) so please contact me if you’d like to review either book. I can send a free advance .pdf or Kindle copy if you’re interested.