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They share the same approach of focusing on poignant moments, and they also share a theme. Haiku is about the standard definition of nature, but the American Sentence is grittier and focuses more on urban nature. I think of it as haiku being the countryside and the American Sentence being the city although the American Sentence can fall into both categories. Here are some examples written by Allen Ginsberg: 

Four skinheads stand in the streetlight rain, chatting under an umbrella.

Propelled by my feet, chunks of frozen snow skitter down gritty sidewalks.

That grey-haired man in a business suit and black turtleneck thinks he’s still young.

As you can see from these few examples, there is a lot of humanity in the American Sentence, in a more direct way than in haiku; however, over the last few weeks, we have been discussing the aspects of human seasons and their overlap. If we are to consider a city as nature then would that make humans the animals of that specific habitat? Next time you are outside, look around, not at the trees, but at the people. Pay attention to their doing, and try and contain it in a 17 syllable poem. Then look at the common aspects of city life such as trains and technology. Here are a couple of my own:

The men in suits at the bus stop compare briefcases as if they’re hearts. 

The morning train powers through the rain trying to shake off the droplets.

Give this a try and please share them. Keep Kind & Stay True Woofenberry’s

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To truly understand the concept of the American Sentence listen to Allen Ginsberg below and it gives the exact feeling he was going for when he invented the American Sentence.

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Since I began thinking about this concept, I have undergone many changes in my understanding of additional seasons, yet I have always maintained that grief is a season. We must define grief before we progress. Of course, we are talking about the loss of people we love, but we feel grief in a multitude of places. I would consider heartbreak a grief. Grief isn’t always a death; it is sometimes a drifting. It is the distance we find ourselves from the people we love, and the moment we realise how far apart we’ve grown is a grief. Then there are the smaller sorrows. The McDonald’s special we miss, or the restaurant we love, is shutting down. Grief, in its most simple form, is a loss of joy, no matter how small that joy is. We mourn on a spectrum, and some things require a minute to grieve, and there are things we might never stop grieving.

The counter that I was presented with during a lecture was that sorrow itself is a season. Sadness is a state of unhappiness, whereas sorrow goes beyond. To me, however, sorrow is synonymous with grief. We feel sorrow for another person’s loss and can inherit grief secondhand. Typically, I come into these newsletters with certainty and present what I have learned, but with this topic, I am continually learning and adapting it. It is also entirely personal, so instead of a strict informing, I want to give you the tools to create your own structure. Sure, grief can exist in other seasons, but would you consider this a quick shift season? When I think of growth, Spring remains the season of growth, but that doesn’t mean I don’t grow at other times; it just means that’s where I grow most. Anytime I am experiencing monumental growth, I am affirmed that I am in the human Spring. Some growth we don’t even feel or recognise until we have gone through it.

Again, we are now weeks removed from our last look at this topic. Take a note of how you’d currently define your seasons, but this time only allow yourself two words. These are mine:

Spring - Growth. Admiration.

Summer - Social. Appreciation.

Autumn - Loneliness. Hopelessness.

Winter - Creativity. Comfort

I am hard set on these four now, and my brain goes to these definitions immediately. I am a five-season man contemplating a sixth. How would you define yourself? These are some other seasons that people suggested:

Pregnancy

This one was something I had never considered. It is essentially bundling together the preparation for birth and feeling it to its fullest. It is a heavy season filled with anticipation. I picture this as early Spring.

Desire

If we compare this to a nature season, then it would be high summer. Is there a specific time in your life when you often find yourself desiring more? Where is there more hunger than in other seasons? The person who gave this season to me defined it as passion at its peak. If we follow the ruling of growth at peak for Spring and grief at peak for grief as a season, then desire must surely be one.

Love

If I were to include a fifth season to my human calendar, then it would likely be love. Although I experience it everywhere and in everything, there is definitely a time when I am fully open to falling in love with the world. It is when I most want to explore and connect. I am more observant and patient. I move more slowly through the world, but differently from the slow of winter. There is a vividness to people, places and experiences like no other.

There are endless possibilities, and it is very likely not everybody will agree with your classifications, but it is undeniable that seasons are complicated. If we focus on nature and Japanese culture, they split the year into 72 microseasons. There are 24 major divisions within this system, each split into three, for a total of 72, lasting roughly five days each. The biggest takeaway from this is that all the divisions are named, and although human seasons shift more often and don’t fit into a specific pattern, this shows the extent of the capabilities of mapping seasons. For example, the year begins with the Beginning of Spring, then moves to Rainwater, and then to Insects Awaken. Within the Insects Awaken division, you have hibernating insects surfacing, the first peach blossoms and caterpillars becoming butterflies. Take a look at the dates and the full list of seasons here.

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I have a final part to write on human seasons to summarise why this is such a helpful line of thought. I want to elaborate on the comfort knowing that everything has a season, and when we cannot do something, we don’t suck, we are just in the wrong season, but until then, think of your seasons beyond the standard four. Ask your friends what season they feel they are in, talk with a loved one about this and see where the conversation takes you.

• What do you classify as a fifth season?

• Is there a sixth or even a seventh in your mind?

• What are your thoughts on viewing the world in 72 parts?

• Are you enjoying this discussion?

Talk in the comments below, or I have started a chat thread. Until next time, keep kind and stay true, Woofenberry’s.

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A Short Stay In Hell by Steven L. Peck

A few scenes in this book are quite graphic, but overall, it is a tame read. It might even be a stretch to consider this a horror. The premise is simple. A man dies and is sent to hell, but he isn’t trapped in hell forever; there is a way out. At first glance, it isn’t even that difficult, and he is given a bed and a vendor that can produce any meal he pleases. There is no hellfire or strict torture; it is more mentally taxing. Once the extent of the conditions sets in, it is truly terrifying, and you can imagine the battle you’d have with your sanity. This book comes in at 110 pages, and I wouldn’t recommend looking more into it. It is a great read, and going in blind will benefit it even more. I read this twice in quick succession, and it made me think of different versions of hell that are secretive in their hellishness.

Sour Candy by Kealan Patrick Burke

This book is super weird. It comes in at only 84 pages and features a man who takes candy from a child at a grocery store, which changes his life forever. It is a play on the old warning of not taking candy from strangers. A few parts are stomach-churning, but it is mostly just a small haunting story that will stay with you for a long while. I love the pacing of this book and how it doesn’t waste time getting into it. The kid is creepy, and I would likely kick him over the garden fence if this happened to me. This experience gets a big nope from me, but it makes a great read.

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Last Wednesday, I did a lecture about the human seasons and wanted to bring that discussion here. The concept of human seasons is that everything we feel belongs to an internal season. Some things can leak into all seasons, much like rain does, but there are specific indicators to tell us what season we are currently in. This is a big, complex discussion, so I will be breaking it into parts to make it easier to digest.

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Last week, we discussed kigo and how seasonal words belong in a dictionary called the saijiki. Well, I believe there is such a dictionary for the human seasons, but this is much more personal. Much like the otter tells us it is Winter in haiku, what tells the world what season you are in? We have all heard of spring cleaning, but what obvious things indicate what season we are currently in? Human kigo feels more like actions or phrases than words. If a friend is acting a certain way, then it can indicate mood, but are these moods indicative of their seasons? I have a friend who identifies Winter much like the outside season. Full of snow, and arduous to get through. I can tell when they are in Winter because they hold tighter to their comforts and are in need of warmth. In my mid Spring, I am busy and would associate cold coffee as a kigo, as I am so preoccupied, I forget to enjoy things to their full extent.

I hinged a lot of this lecture on haiku because of how seasonally based they are. They are also fundamentally about nature, but the human cannot help but leak in. This then poses the additional question: Is human, nature? There are poems by the four haiku masters that are clearly written about smaller creatures, yet metaphorically they can stretch to being about us. Take this snail poem by Issa:

O snail,

climb Mt. Fuji,

but slowly, slowly

It is easy to see the connection to humanity and how we are all stretching for some shade of sky. There are three stages of the human journey: the uphill, the flat land, and the fall. This is an entirely separate concept, but much easier and quicker to explain. The uphill is the hard times, the flat land is when we are content, and the fall, despite the name, is the payoff. It is where we get to feel the most joy. Think of the rollercoaster and the chug of the climb compared to the rush of the fall. It is very much this.

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As for the human seasons, what season would you consider the climbing? To me, climbing feels like growth, so I consider it human Spring. What about admiring the view? What season does that exist in for you? Is summer the kick back, where we admire what's bloomed? I realise this is an odd concept and you may be struggling to grasp it at this juncture, but I promise there is a benefit to this thinking which we will get to very soon. First, I want to show you the poem by John Keats that encouraged me to fully explore this idea.

The Human Seasons by John Keats

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of man:

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high

Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings

He furleth close; contented so to look

On mists in idleness—to let fair things

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,

Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

This here is a sonnet, and I am not a huge fan of this poem, but that is besides the point. Personal feelings aside, sonnets are good for capturing specific feelings and concepts, but this one feels too large to be contained in a form. The thing I have always admired about haiku is that it doesn’t attempt to capture the entire room, but rather isolates every object. Within the Keats poem, he mentions how there are four seasons in the mind of man, but we are far too complex to be limited to only four seasons. The analogy that fits this poem would be ‘too many fish and not enough net.’ How many seasons there are and what we consider seasons tend to differ between people, although there are similarities. Once you begin exploring this, you learn quickly that human seasons are more the seasons of you. We all have a Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter within us, but how we define them will alter slightly. My base four seasons look like this:

Summer is when I enjoy being social more, and when I work less, and just appreciate what is around me with full admiration.

Spring is full growth. Where I am taking the world in and letting it shape me.

Autumn is when I am a little lost and struggle with purpose. For me, hopelessness and loneliness live here.

Winter is the slow season, but also where my creativity is most alive. This is my comfort season.

These don’t align with the outside seasons. In nature summer I am quite sad and struggle to find things to appreciate. Autumn is my favourite nature season, but my least favourite human season. Without too much thought, just jot down who you are in these four seasons. When do you feel growth? In what human season does joy live? You can refine these later, and it is a guarantee that the deeper we delve into this concept, the more they will shift.

The big difference between nature and human seasons is that they don’t stay for specific lengths, and they don’t follow an order. You can go from Winter to Summer and back again, whereas nature follows a strict schedule. I find peace dividing how I feel into seasons because it allows me to look at it in the same way crops grow. What’s in or out of season changes depending on the weather, and human seasons have consistent weather. Whatever climate you associate with human Winter will always stay the same, but can differ in extremes. A winter can go from being cold to freezing, for instance. You can also grow vegetables out of season, and you might succeed, but they will not be as colourful or as fresh. There is a time for tomatoes and a time when the ground must rest and prepare for growing. In humans, we fluctuate in and out of different sorts of creativity, and we must learn when to plant certain seeds. I have times when my ideas are at full growth, and this is when I am in my human season of Spring. I have spent many seasons forcing poetry instead of listening to my seasons and trying a different strand of creativity.

As for a list of things that exist in all seasons, these will also change for you, but from my perspective, burnout can be seen as a drought, overwhelm can be seen as a storm, and anxiety can be a fog. Doubt can be seen as a specific sort of rainfall, and hope could be a heatwave. Over the next week, ponder your seasons and ask yourselves the following questions:

• What season are you currently in?

• What is the indicator of your current season?

• What are some of your human kigo?

• What are the human seasons to you? For example, is spring growth, and if so, what version of you exists in spring? Are you more curious? Is there where growth feels most possible?

For part two, we will explore the number of seasons and debate what is and isn’t a season. We will also summarise why all of this matters and how it can help you. You might already have thoughts or disagreements about what I have said, and that is great! I don’t believe we can grow without conversation and collaboration. Talk in the comments below, or I have started a chat thread. Until next time, keep kind and stay true, Woofenberry’s.

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This song was designed for the low volume. Let it live amongst you

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Limited space within a poem is often seen as merely limiting; however, there are many times when the lack is actually a gift. When it comes to haiku, four poets are often considered the great masters: Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa, and Masaoka Shiki. These poets helped refine and shape the haiku tradition, which is commonly structured in a 5-7-5 rhythm.

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Traditionally, haiku focus on nature and fleeting moments of everyday life. They are deeply seasonal, and many include a kigo, a word that signals the time of year. Collections of these seasonal words are compiled in reference books called saijiki, which function like seasonal dictionaries for poets. Each season is then divided into early (初), mid (仲), and late (晩) periods. In kigo, there are the standard four seasons, but the New Year is seen as a fifth. For example, Scarecrow (Kakashi) immediately tells the reader it is autumn without using extra syllables to describe the season. This is a famous poem by Bashō:

An old silent pond
A frog jumps into the pond—
splash! Silence again.

The mention of a frog signals that the poem takes place in spring, since frogs are a traditional spring kigo. The inclusion of ‘frog’ tells the reader that it was a warm spring night, and the frogs were ribbiting with a single word. Kigo depicts weather, plants, and temperature in single words. Mosquito net (kaya) is used to indicate summer and gives the reader a sense of humidity and buzzing insects. You can view the full 500-word dictionary here.

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As there is limited space, its use needs to be clever. Think of it as furnishing a studio apartment. Every decision needs to be deliberate and thought through. The lack of space doesn’t mean that you can’t do something beautiful; it instead forces you to pay attention and put an urgency on each word choice.

Below is one of the most devastating poems wrapped in beauty by Kobayashi Issa. The word tsuyu means world of dew, which is a distinctly Buddhist concept. Drops of dew symbolise human life and the fleeting nature of it.

Original

露の世は
露の世ながら
さりながら

Romanization

Tsuyu no yo wa
tsuyu no yo nagara
sari nagara

Translation

This world of dew
is a world of dew —
and yet… and yet…

It requires a little backstory to fully grasp the devastation. In its simple form, it is saying that the world goes on no matter what happens. Even in a dystopian landscape, the world is still continuing. The tragic life of the author includes him witnessing his mother’s passing at two years old, having to nurse his father through death, and experiencing his first son pass away after only a month. His second son died even sooner. His third child was a daughter who survived only a year before contracting smallpox. The third son suffered the same fate, and then, during the birth of the fourth, his wife died. The fourth son would only live through his infant years. The end of his misfortune doesn’t end there, yet despite all of this hardship, Issa kept writing haiku. The above haiku is about the death of one of his children and acknowledges the temporary nature of living while simultaneously admitting it doesn’t make it easier.

Although Issa remains a poet and continues writing about the nature of the world, it doesn’t mean nature isn’t cruel sometimes. It displays a great resilience to continue writing through such times. We are all temporary, and despite that being a fact, it doesn’t make our leaving hurt less for those that we love. Issa also wrote this about their child with smallpox

After two or three days, however, her blisters dried up and the scabs began to fall away — like a hard crust of dirt that has been softened by melting snow. In our joy we made what we call a ‘priest in a straw robe.’ We poured hot wine ceremoniously over his body, and packed him and the god of smallpox off together. Yet our hopes proved to be vain. She grew weaker and weaker and finally, on the twenty-first of June, as the morning glories were just closing their flowers, she closed her eyes forever. Her mother embraced the cold body and cried bitterly. For myself, I knew well it was no use to cry, that water once flown past the bridge does not return, and blossoms that are scattered are gone beyond recall. Yet try as I would, I could not, simply could not, cut the binding cord of human love.

The heavy topic and the agony he must have felt did not deter him from writing something truly poetic. It seems oftentimes that grief and heartbreak are also seasons poets thrive in. More on this next week, but for now, take a look at some more haikus from the masters and read the backstories. There are some incredible stories linked to traditional haiku. Here are a couple more by Issa to close us out this week. Tell me below what they mean to you. Keep kind and stay true, Woofenberry’s.

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In this world

we walk on the roof of hell,

gazing at flowers.

The fly I swat

is the same fly

that keeps me company.

Bonus fact: Issa wrote 54 haiku on the snail, 15 on the toad, nearly 200 on frogs, about 230 on the firefly, more than 150 on the mosquito, 90 on flies, over 100 on fleas, and nearly 90 on the cicada

Today, we are going to look at idioms, which add fun and intrigue to your writing. The ancient Greek word “idioma” means “peculiar phraseology, which sums up idioms well. They are commonly used expressions with a figurative meaning rather than a literal one. There are subsections of idioms, but for now, we will look at the picture as a whole.

Did you fix the car?

I did, it was a piece of cake.

In this response, the car isn’t a literal piece of cake, but it’s a phrase you’re likely familiar with, meaning ‘very easy’. This here is an idiom. A thing that doesn’t mean exactly what it’s saying. It’s raining cats and dogs, adding insult to injury, don’t judge a book by its cover, and bite the bullet are all idioms you may have heard of. By definition, it is only an idiom when its definition becomes widely spread, but as a fun exercise, I thought you could define ones I wrote, then invent your own. Take a couple of the ones below and tell us what they mean to you.

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To sweep shadows with a broom

Stop staring at thunder

It’s like teaching trees to whistle

She could sell cages to outback lions

He could turn blue into purple

To invent your own idiom, think of yourself or somebody you know, and take a trait and make an idiom from it. Let’s say they were really good at getting a lot for their money, then you can make the idiom ‘a two penny feast’. This tells me that they were able to feed a lot of people on little money. The feast also doesn’t have to be food; it could be anything they bring to the table. Do the same for situations or basic expressions. Break a leg is an idiom meaning good luck, because the side curtains on stage are referred to as legs. It also has roots in theatre superstition, as actors don’t want to tempt fate by saying good luck, so they wish for something bad as a countermeasure. This has evolved into an idiom commonly used as a standard placement for good luck. Think of other daily phrases you could replace with an idiom.

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Take a swing and don’t be afraid to be ridiculous. What could ‘ghosts for shoes’ mean? If I told you, my friend ‘sold rain for water’, what does that say to you? You may already have idioms that nobody outside your hometown knows. I know American states have their own idioms; it can be quite a localised thing. Please leave a comment below with some answers to my idioms and leave your inventions. I’m very excited to see them.

Keep kind and stay true, Woofenberry’s

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I am fascinated by progress and how the world reshapes itself into the form of its current era. I am noticing such an increase in the unpracticed. People are taking on art and executing it without relevant experience or qualifications. Of course, art can be self-taught, but there seems to be less desire for the learning and a more immediate want to be something. For instance, I have seen workshops by people with no writing credits. I have seen graphic designers get jobs after spending a little time on Canva. There is more to art than the art. The practice is more than part of the process; it is the first brush stroke of any painting or the first line of any poem. The history of us details our discovery of voice. Our art is a species like any other. It starts animalistic, and we must hone our skills to know fire. There is such a hurry to evolve, a rush to weld the weapon before we even identify the enemy.

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I believe in learning slow. I am educated methodically, yet still learning. I attend beginner workshops, and when I run my own, I ask the people I teach for feedback on my work because every opinion is a watering. Everybody has something valuable to say, even if it’s negative. I have always believed in my work being universal. Through the language I use to the way I execute a poem. Sometimes I tuck in a hidden meaning for those who want to dig deeper, but I am always trying to leave something at face value that matters. This took practice. This wasn’t me deciding I wanted to be a writer and then waking up the next morning established. I had to go and get published, get honest feedback, and learn where my writing was struggling. If you pick up some of my older caveman poems, you’ll hear my voice, but there is less finesse, and a lot of them were bashed together with rocks. It is a joy for me to read through old work and see that my art has evolved. It is a testament to the work I have done. Even old newsletters feel incomplete or need to be executed better. I am still learning.

I have noticed that the passion for learning sadly feels low, yet the desire to be known for an art is at an all-time high. Which then poses the question: Without the work, can you truly teach? I see workshops from people who have only self-published, and I am not here to take away your achievements, but you need something from the outside world to challenge you. If I printed out all of my rejection emails, I could reverse-engineer a forest. I have been published over 150 times, but my success rate is probably under 50%. Every rejection allows me to reenter a poem or a manuscript and rework it slightly. Instead of being angered, I try to see it from their point of view. I look for ways to improve it. The more art we make, the better we get, and when we are rejected, acceptance means so much more. It reassures us that we are moving forward and growing. What we class as failure is often just a vital learning moment. We have to take those moments and really dig into them so we can naturally evolve. Art asks for time, and in return, you will be granted its secrets.

At a recent beginner workshop, I would wager that the person running it would benefit more by being an attendee. Again, no disrespect, but there was an obvious lack of understanding regarding line breaks and how to efficiently end a poem. You cannot do that with science or math. You cannot teach algebra unless you understand its concepts, and the same should go for art. I adore drawing and being a visual artist, but I have no clue about proper technique or the terminology associated with it, so I would not teach it. There is a steep learning curve I would have to conquer before that even became a consideration.

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Please don’t take this as something meant to discourage you; itis meant to do the opposite. Woofenberry exists because I want to give people the proper tools to improve their writing and reach a point where they have something to pass forward. This is my area of expertise because I have invested years of study and countless hours of reading. Now, I am lucky to learn through teaching people. The feedback I get and the ideas people share help me improve. An exercise I did three years ago might still be in one of my workshops, but I have chipped away at it and made it better based on feedback. There will never be a time when I am too good for anything. A workshop at any level is still a vital tool for me, and we should attend these if we want to improve, especially if we intend to teach people. It took me a long time to figure out how to properly reach people and critique properly. I still have a long way to go. I am still learning.

Whatever your art is or wherever you may be on your journey, I implore you to fall in love with the learning. No matter how experienced you may be or how good you are, I promise there is something more to learn. It may not be a technique, but it could be a style of execution. How are other artists pushing boundaries? If you are a spoken-word artist, then what other voices are out there? Last week, I heard a poet use one of the most interesting cadences, and it was so inspiring to witness something new. We’re in dire need of people teaching poetry outside mainstream environments, but we must ensure the learning is done correctly. Teaching bad writing habits or relaying misinformation is as damaging as outdated curricula. When it comes to children, engagement and making poetry fun are the most important. I recently taught a child what Cantos is, but we did it through Mr. Cantos and his clan’s story. It made them eager to learn, and by the end, they couldn’t wait for the next lesson. We owe the history of art to our existence within it, and we must always pay homage to it. No matter how much you may dislike Shakespeare or the complication of the sonnet, knowing the elements of it and keeping people aware of the traditional form is vital. This doesn’t mean we can’t deviate from the course. You can experiment with form and create different versions of it, but make it clear that you have evolved into the scientist. Always carry the echo of yesterday onward.

Finally, do not rush your evolution. Wherever you are on your art journey, you are supposed to be there. I know it can be frustrating to see people doing big things, and I know the feeling of wanting to be at a certain level, but if we rush our way there, the authenticity will get lost, and we will drown. You will get wherever you want, but there is no guaranteed timeline. Read, write, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Put your art out into the world and let it be perceived. It is an art within itself not to take feedback personally, but again, this is learnt. Evolution is an agony sometimes, but every word you write is advancing your skills. Take it slow. Take in the carvings on the cave walls, be proud of every fire you make without getting burnt. We are all capable of great things, but it takes time, and secretly, that is the best part. Starting small is okay. You will get bigger slowly. Remember, we will die unfinished and still learning, so enjoy every lesson along the way.

Keep Kind and Stay True Woofenberry’s

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Poem

I’m at the age where I kind of understand golf

but I’m young enough to still hate it.

When I hear the word party now

I assume nobody is dancing

other than the laughter

and the eagerness to leave.

My bedtime took up skydiving.

I’ve started looking at midnight

the way one might see a ghost.

My knees creak like a haunted house.

All of my dreams have mildew.

Peopl…

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The Cowbody Sextape sessions was a recording period where I wrote and recorded a bunch of poems for a Western Poetry book called ‘Cowboy Sextape’. Here is a little sample.

Keep Kind & Stay True x

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Fitting that I recorded this when it was raining. I thought I would read a poem to you, as I definitely don’t do it enough. Another frequent thing to add to 2026? I think so. Here is the transcript:

I Miss Cheeseburgers

and cold pizza in the morning.

I miss the way rain feels on my skin

and being drenched to the bone.

I miss bones

and the way

I’d crack my knuckles

when it was time to get to work.

I don’t miss work.

If I could haunt my boss,

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I began doing the challenges last year, and I adore the concept I created; however, digital badges, however hard I attempted to make them look good, fell off. It didn’t capture the vision I had, and it didn’t feel like an actual reward. This is why I am going to be doing the complete vision, which is physical badges. I will send mail every April, August…

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Granted, this prompt is a strange one. Please take an animal call and translate it, whether it is the neighbour's dog barking, the birds singing in the morning, or the crickets chirping in the distance. What are they calling out for? What are they feeling? This doesn’t necessarily need to be dialogue-heavy; instead, it details what the call means.

This …

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The beginning

Day 2 (E)

Okay, don’t panic. The rock has gone, and it’s now just a river, even underneath us. The boosters auto-started because tech is cool, or we’d be sinking right now. How does solid ground just liquify? I got Pep to run some tests, and it’s water. Plain, boring water. The climate is pretty perfect for a swim, and I would jump in, but the massive lillipad makes me think there’s some giant creature somewhere. The scans show nothing, but I don’t have 100% confidence in them after what happened to Stevie. R. I. P.

Day 2 cont (E)

I have made the decision to name this planet Yaga because it is a shapeshifting witch. At sunset, right before my eyes, the river became a jungle. The ground dried up, vines shot up from nowhere, and now we are being constricted by them. Likely to death. We are doomed, I tell you! DOOMED!

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This is another new poem I have performed only once, and since that performance, it has changed a great deal. It was written because of my obsession with aftermath, which I will discuss in a newsletter soon. Everything has an aftermath, and we exist continuously in a state of aftermath. You are where you are as a result of some decision. If you’re a believer in other dimensions, then there is a version of you in another aftermath. Before I derail and ramble for pages, here is a love poem stemming from this thinking.

Keep Kind and Stay True x

My love know this

I will hold you in any aftermath,

whether it be the flicker or the still light.

I will hold you until we are dust,

and in the next life

I will find you.

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For the first dip into the pool of writing for the new year, I thought we’d do another word pool. This time, I want you to think about belonging. Where are you? Do you feel held or at home? What is the hero to your calm?

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If you feel like an extra challenge, I will be adding two bonus words to increase the difficulty. These words are ‘desert’ and ‘soil’.…

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It is almost Christmas, and if you are a celebrator, then Merry Christmas; if you are not, then I hope you are well. This is a silly poem envisioning Santa as a cowboy that I wrote during the ‘Cowboy Sextape’ sessions. It is fun to read. I read it at a Christmas open mic recently, and people seemed to enjoy it, so here is an exclusive first reading.

If Santa Were A Cowboy

he’d have one trusty steed

who was half dying and fully alive.

Every gift he carried

would smell of pipe tobacco

left smouldering on the nightstand.

He’d ride like a house fire,

comprised of nothing

but heat and warning.

He’d go down chimneys

like a rusty bullet

from a revolver

of his own making.

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How we look at failure defines it. For instance, if we see all of our failures as dead-end streets with no redemption, then you are selling yourself short before you’ve even reached the market.

Hone your craft & join a community

This year, I reached out for some big grants, sent a lot of work to major publications, and saw little success. I managed to make it into the most significant Ne…

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