…from a great love and in to death’s thrall…

You goin’ for my throat next, baby?
—Laurie Gallardo

Well. I got the best and the worst news always. Ain’t it though. Been up north traveling, playing music and making friends. My new place has no oven and no fridge. I’m writing this in my blue plaid Ugz bottoms, with the door open to some of the best weather in what feels like forever. The courier job fired me and I ain’t even mad. I should head down to the Personnel store in my serving blacks–get in line to run that racket for $12 an hour. Deadline for the CORE grant is May 1. I got 2 checks coming to me still, a bunch of loot saved and a couple-two-three sidehustles to help get me by. I should be shacked up and throwing my hat in the ring just as soon’s I shake these unemployment blues. It’s not lost on me that if it were a horrible job I’d be up and at it by 4. Instead I lay around and fuck about, asking What’s wrong with me? enough times for it to become a masochistic mantra. It’s time to get on with it which includes the backlog of this blog. I’m writing this one live, good Reader, and I’ll do my best to break through the block and catch up with you. My charge with Going For The Throat was that I’d never have writer’s block again, and it’s mostly true, I just been trigger shy and dolefully terrible with sloth. Guess I been feeling sorry for myself and couldn’t admit it until now, with you here and on this page.

Could be I’m recovering, because, how fucking horrible was the winter, eh good Reader? The Fall wasn’t much better even if it was what it took for me to get free, find myself in the territory and one step closer to living my dreams. ‘Cause I still got them. They’re not going away. I wanna be: multi media, piqued and primed and rocking out in full regalia. The airwaves and pages, up under the hot lights and singing ’em out into the crowd. The crowd at Ox was the gig I’d been working toward in Philly for years. I left Hostile City and when I came back, there they were, gathered round me at the counter where I sung out and played. Josh and I got some in the can–Pauper’s Blues, Halloway and Slipshod Life. Kevin Aurer and I had coffee Saturday, talking plans for my latest book (2017’s Take To The Territory), and if it ain’t out before I leave town in June then I ought to be ashamed. It’s tough getting back into the swing, I mean–even while working brutal hours at A.E.D. I was able to come up with at least 600 for you. There’s been some bumps in the road, kinks in production that I’m trying my best to rectify by writing this with you now. It’s true I don’t have writer’s block anymore but I wonder what it is I have to say.

My new charge is to maintain the work no matter what’s going on around or within, no matter the lack of furniture or appliances, 55-hour North Texas grinds or this groovy copacetic place I’m in now–the presses have got to keep rolling. I still got a deadline and travel plans. I’ve got poetry to write and publish, songs to play and sing, a grant to apply for and 600 words to come through with, for you and me and my slipshod sanity. I’ve got to write this column to keep grips and clear the chamber. I’ve got to write it, even if it’s only to keep us together and to say: I’ve nothing to say but I love you and I’m gonna keep on pushing til the light of day. I’m done feeling sorry for myself, and now I’ve got to hit it and hard. Death’s not getting any farther away.

Momento mori. Welcome back motherfucker.