Daily Archives: February 16, 2015

A note to subscribers

I just wanted to thank all of you for signing up to read this blog, whether that be in your reader, in your inbox, or via Facebook.  It’s gratifying to know that what I do touches some of you enough that you want to have it in your lives regularly. 

Since I made the decision to not make the standard journal/manuscript route for writers my own primary path, but to put more of my time and effort into being read more often by a group of readers who would see my progress and my body of Work on an ongoing basis, I’ve had multiple occasions to question the decision.  

Many of my writer friends think I’m nuts, that I’m missing out on more standard acceptance and reward by doing this.  Certainly it has made it more difficult to submit to some opportunities and journals in which I DID wish to appear.  But overall, I’ve never looked back with anything more than a small twinge of regret.  Knowing that the Work will be read is all I’ve ever cared about and I still think this is the best way to do that.

I appreciate your loyalty and your attention and thank you again deeply, with all my gratitude, for your kindness, your comments, and your time.

Tony


Auction

stiff-standing
antique figurines
are being sold
at auction

one’s an iron jockey
holding a hitching ring
clad in red and white
and blackface paint

another is 
offering cigars from a wooden hand
the old wood’s
brown through and through

people are bidding them up
for (they say) the sake of
historical preservation
and the marking of bad memory

hard to believe
the prices such things command
among people who profess
to understand the offenses they bear

it seems the privilege
of being able to buy and sell
the past
is not cheap


Charles LeVasseur, 58, Of Bridgeville; May 17.

Originally posted 5/18/2012.

Stupid you, cold drunk crashing
right through the knee-high fence
in your own front yard
and planting your face

among the weed-strangled old tulips.

Through the old weak fence
right on your old weak face 
in the front yard where the neighbors can see,
and you don’t seem to care enough
to run and hide in shame this time;
you seem content
to lie there ass up
for all of us neighbors to see.

You’ve been stupid since you were a kid,
a drunk since you were just past that,
and none of us can count how often
you’ve tripped over that fence stupid drunk.  
Stupid drunk, that’s what you are —
our object lesson, our signal disaster;
face down in the dead tulips with ass sticking up.

You’ve been in that position for a bit now,
at least an hour, and we’re all still laughing because
it’s likely the best job you’ve had, the perfect job for you —
no real effort required: just lie there,
let the neighbors point and laugh
and say things to their kids
about being drunk and stupid
and a public spectacle.

Now a crow, a real live crow,
has landed next to you and is inspecting you
up close and personal.  

Never gonna let you live
this one down, asshole.  
Priceless.  I’m gonna see
if I can get close 
and snap a picture —
if you can’t get up on your own,
you deserve this.