Category: poetry

one million words

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A milestone passed. I hadn’t really thought about it until I saw the tally. Over a million words since January 1st, 2024. A little over two and a half years, averaging about a thousand words a day or so currently.

Not bad. Too bad my original estimate was three thousand words a day, which would put me closer to three million, but hey, life, am I right?

Not bad at all.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 819 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Grey Seas Under, Farley Mowat
Comics: Invincible 40-41, Noble Causes 29, Dynamo 5 3
Music: The Fragile (Left), Nine Inch Nails

eight-hundred-ninety-seven

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That’s how many days since I first sat down and said, “I’m going to try this writing thing,” and put together a haiku about birds falling as a metaphor for our blind spots and was promptly rejected by a magazine that prints exclusively haiku, because I hewed too close to the five-seven-five rule, even though I made it split-sentence run-on, for literary twist.

That’s how many days since I started thinking about monsters under the bed, which led to more short stories about misogyny, a comic about a woman’s revenge and her self-persecution, one about astronauts saving the world by killing innocent aliens, and a book about the Odd Couple, if the odd couple were virtue signaling hypocrites and MAGA monsters.

Eight-hundred-ninety seven days since I wrote down thirty-seven book ideas, a baker’s dozen comics, and vowed to write as many short stories and poems as I possibly could.

And still, I don’t have the guts to send them out to publish.

What is wrong with me?

Wait, don’t answer that. I already know.

I’m scared.

Rejection is the worst feeling. You’re the hero of your own story, tossed away like a background extra cut from the final scene in someone else’s.

My step-son did that once; he and a friend were extras on some dance movie. His friend was considered good-looking enough to make the background cut. My step-son danced for hours to never even get in the frame.

Target: 1600 words
Written: 1563 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Well Of Shiuan, C.J. Cherryh (I'm in love all over again)
Comics: Voodoo v2 2-3, Grifter v3 3-4
Music: Fleetwood Mac Essentials, Fleetwood Mac

bobby loves jodi

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Bobby loves Jodi
Who loves Jenny
Who loves both of them together
(from time to time)
Plus Peter down the way
and his best mate Damon
(in Lego block formations, interlocking wherever the pieces fit)
Damon fancies a pint of Gina
who loves nothing better than muscles on a man
(or men)
And she loves Adam who loves Joey
who bleeds Joey
and only Joey
in defiance of Gina
And what one drunken night descended to
(and descended a lot)
(like, really way down)
And didn’t involve Jordan
Who fancied Terri, Amanda and Tariq
At the same party where he fancied Lisa, Donna and most of the lower half of Angie
(what a time that was)
And we all laughed because it’s just tits
And ass
And cocks
And cunts
But it’s so goddamned complicated
(and so goddamned simple)
Like the most pungent game of Twister
Where everyone collapses in laughter
Save one or two who lay uncomfortably on the bottom
and draw back
Because Bobby loves Jodi
And sometimes Jenny
Who loves both of them together
and isn’t that nice

Target: 1400 words
Written: 3673 words, short story: The Run

Read: Plot & Structure, James Scott Bell
Comics: Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love 3-4, Jack Of Fables 42-43
Music: Wild Horses, The Rolling Stones

constrained

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Bound, constrained.
Surrounded by rough ropes crafted by these hands
These hands, that tapped keys in wispy prose
Slammed harsh declarations
Strangled like a noose
Hewn strands of wound steel
Wrapped in silk
Intent on withering on the vine
No bloom
Only brown petals
And cracked dry leaves
Is it soft inside?
Or cast iron hard?
Torn between hardline and open arms
Are they one and the same?
Could they be?
Solid, but moving, like mercury peanut butter
Flexible, but unmoving
Always in motion, but stuck in your throat.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 315 words, poem: Bobby Loves Jodi

Read: Plot & Structure, James Scott Bell
Comics: Fables 91-92, Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love 2, Jack Of Fables 41
Music: Wild Honey, The Beach Boys
There's a lot to be said about knowing what you want to say, but not knowing how to say it, and that's all I can say about that.

kill everything

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You wanna kill?
You wanna kill.
Slithering, sliming kill.
Tortuous, driving, stabbing, kill.
Kill your darlings?
Kill yourself.
Kill yourself.
Kill your self.
The little clear ball of essence at the centre of your being.
You wanna kill?
Kill the construct.
Tear down the scaffolds of perception.
The told of who you are.
The thought of what you’ll be.
The picture of Dorian Gray,
Superficial.
Paint on a wet window pane.
Slitherslide to the dirt.
Strip it away.
Tear off its clothes.
Stand it naked on a pedestal.
Scrub it raw.
Finger it.
Finger all the dark places.
Strip off the skin.
Pull the nails.
Pluck the hair, face, eyes.
Rip muscle from the bone.
Throw bone into the chipper.
Leave the heart, and its veins spread like lightning in blossomed freeze.
Carry no blood.
Somewhere behind the sinew,
the tough and liquid mass,
That’s where you’ll find you.
In place beyond being,
not-being and the same.
You wanna kill?
Kill everything.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 175 words, poem: Constrained

Read: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Shunryu Suzuki
Comics: Jack Of Fables 39-40, Fables 90, Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love 1
Music: Wilco Essentials, Wilco (so underrated - Heavy Metal Drummer is the vibe I always wanted)

still crashing out

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I know this is because I’ve got myself under a ton of pressure to finish this book before Christmas.

Literally. I’ve set the date as December 23rd.

Finished by that date, so I can sit back with a cigar and a whiskey and fucking kick some goddamned ass.

Then to lighten things up for a bit with some poetry, more short stories and comics, maybe a hip little ditty or three.

Then, maybe, by the time March rolls around, I’ll be ready for canon project #3.

And maybe I’ll head back to historical.

Paranormal.

Lovecraft country, baby. I am the man of a thousand ideas; and a thousand more I will never have time to complete.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1483 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel
Comics: Fables 16-19
Music: White Blood Cells, The White Stripes

icons i won’t be

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I used to want to be William Gibson or George Orwell or J.R.R. Tolkien. Even in my modern days, I idolize Doris Lessing, Andrzej Sapkowski and Thomas Wolfe.

I doubt any of them ever had to write a scene where a fat boor took a messy dump on someone’s front stoop.

Perhaps I should set my sights lower.

Like, MAD magazine or National Lampoon lower.

I’d love to be e.e. cummings or Gord Downie. I’d love to write with the sensitivity of Alan Moore or the abstraction of Kelly Sue Deconnick. Kafka, Chekhov, Palahniuk.

And I’m writing about a fat guy’s feces.

Maybe someday, I could reach even Second City.

Target: 1400 words
Written: 1488 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Never-Ending Present, Michael Barclay
Comics: Youngblood v7 #1 (oh dear god, another reboot, with a storytelling style that's no better than it was in the first Youngblood miniseries.  Give up, man.  This shit ain't working.)
Music: Where You Been, Dinosaur Jr.

twenty-twenty-five on speed

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Is it just me, or is this year moving like a freight train whose throttle is wide open and stuck down?

Barreling toward an inevitable conclusion that can only be catastrophe?

I’ll admit, Bad Neighbours, being largely about conflict and unreality, about dichotomy and the endless fight of us versus them, it’s done a number on me.

I know, as a writer, you have to live in the space about which you’re writing. When I did Romance #1, it was fun and goofy, ironic and sardonic. Western Cradle was about trying to make shit out of suffering. The Mungk was months of exploration into trauma and hopelessness.

The fatalism nearly got me.

But I’m largely conflict-averse in my life, so this obsessing over the fight, over being at war, over being at odds with each other, especially in light of the world’s political situation, it’s anathema. And it’s bleeding into the rest of my life.

I’ll be glad when this is done, for more reasons than just completion and the pride of having finished it.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1794 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: East Wind: West Wind, Pearl Buck
Comics: The Seasons 6-7, Escape 1
Music: Everything To Everyone, Barenaked Ladies (this IS Canada, after all)

forty-eight plus one

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And we’re back in the office.

And the office is making it very difficult to get done all the things I need to get done.

I need to get the Mungk in more hands.

I need artists, letters, colourists, an editor for Romance and Western Cradle.

I’ve more or less resigned myself to including the poetry and short stories in with The Mungk (well, maybe not the poetry – once I have enough of those, I may just do a volume of it).

But The Mungk – it needs to be seen. Romance, it’s just a calling card of a comic to build fans, a free giveaway I can hope someone enjoys, and then recognizes the creators later when we put out other stuff.

Western Cradle though – I think it’s good. It may be kind of rape-heavy, which sucks, but if we do it right, draw it right, it could be very, very strong.

But for now. The Mungk.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1141 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: A Study In Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle
Comics: Deadly Class 25-26, Seven To Eternity 4, Black Science 27
Music: Eminem Essentials, Eminem

it occurred to me

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That it might be funny to make little haikus out of the post listings on the right.

It currently says

i am also eating shit
we know you’re eating shit
never let it be said

Which isn’t traditional haiku, but it’s followed up by

so i went off the drugs
dogsittin’

Which in itself is kind of fun.

Something to think about.

It would lock me into the site’s look and feel, which is kind of hilarious.

Mornings are fucked when you’re thinking about barking dogs and yoga butt and the lack of porn in a main character’s movie collection.

Writing is weird.

Target: 1100 words
Written: 986 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
Comics: Shadowhawk v5 6-9
Music: Nowhere, Ride