Today’s poem is brought to you by The Waggle Magazine. I was thrilled to be featured in their pages again this Spring among so many other incredible writers. Enjoy.
And thanks!
Jim Trainer
jimtrainer.net
Austin TX
Posts Tagged ‘Jim Trainer’
THE GAMBLING LIFE
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Poetry, poetry submission, published poet, publishing poetry, submitting poetry, Uncategorized on June 16, 2016 at 6:03 pm41
In mid life, middle age, poem, Poetry, Uncategorized on May 31, 2016 at 11:13 pmshook out’s about the best
I can do for myself now
there’s no harking back
or reclaiming,
when the sun sets it’s gone
and rises with less momentum
these creaking mornings
but my disappointment
stops shy of my pride
I never asked for solace
never paid in, made no deal
and shook out I’ll face it
but who is this stranger giving rise
and rent through in blue twilight?
what are these dreams, this love
that seem to flow like a banner
down the night skies
and distill these jangling
numbered daybreaks
into a keen and raring loneliness?
Two for Today
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Being An Artist, poem, Poetry, poetry reading, Submitting, submitting poetry, travel, travel writing, Writing, writing about writing, WRITING PROCESS on May 9, 2016 at 10:03 pmGood Reader-
I couldn’t be happier about all your subscriptions, views and likes down here at Going For The Throat. I’d like to offer you a couple poems today, brought to you by the wonderful Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review. I’ve felt on board with them as soon as I submitted. I heard from their editor the very next day and she has even linked up Going For The Throat on their Facebook page.
These two were written together on one of the first days of the year. They’re about travel, as allot of my stuff is these days.
I’m booking Houston, Philadelphia, NYC and Boston. And I’m reading and performing right here in Austin 4 times next week. September will get a second pressing as soon as I get a few kinks out. Hope to see you this summer.
Please enjoy two of my poems today, “passage” and “oxbloods ‘neath the cuff“, featured on page 146 of this Spring’s FLAR. Dig around. There’s allot of power and talent in this issue.
Yours,
Jim Trainer
jimtrainer.net
Austin TX
Shrieks from Paradise, Correspondence&Rails#28: Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Being An Artist, Letter Writing, National Poetry Month, poem, Poetry, poetry submission, publishing, Submitting, submitting poetry, Writing, writing about writing, WRITING PROCESS on April 29, 2016 at 10:08 amDear Jim,
Congratulations! Our literary panel would like to publish “Oxbloods ‘neath the Cuff” and “Passage” in the spring edition of FLAR. “Memo From The Crematorium Desk” is still under consideration by our panel, and I will let you know as soon as I am able whether they will publish it, too. Thank you for sharing your work with us. I will be in touch closer to May about publication.
Best,
With gratitude,
A.E. Bayne
Editor in Chief
Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review
Read the issue here!
EUNUCH BLUES (18 of 30)
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, National Poetry Month, poem, Poetry, THIRTY FOR THIRTY CHALLENGE, Writing, writing about writing on April 18, 2016 at 10:23 pmpanhandling the muse
slipshod
black ribbon blues.
up with the machine
editing
on a computer screen.
laying down at night
time fucking me better
than you ever could.
The Best Man
In poem, Poetry, Uncategorized on February 29, 2016 at 3:34 pmshe sends me to the store
in my Valentine’s day boxers
to get some pale ale&Maduros
and I don’t argue.
When I return
there’s Steve James on the stereo
and she’s wearing my tux shirt
the windows are open
and it’s dusk and it’s springtime
in downtown L.A.
looks like the wedding is off.
someone should probably tell Ray.
(c)2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
In magic, magician, Performance, Poetry, poetry reading, self-publishing, singer songwriter, singer-songwriter, Spoken Word on February 15, 2016 at 11:33 amPOET AND SINGER SONGWRITER JIM TRAINER RELEASES “SEPTEMBER”, HIS SECOND FULL LENGTH COLLECTION OF POETRY, AT THE 709 MANSION IN DOWNTOWN AUSTIN
Jim Trainer will perform and read from September at the 709 Mansion in downtown Austin on Friday February 19. Also featuring Magician Jack Darling and singer-songwriter D.C.Bloom. The Reverend Jason Woolery will host the evening.
Jim Trainer’s work has appeared in Raw Paw 6: Alien, The Waggle, Philadelphia Stories, Divergent Magazine, Anthology Philly, A Series of Moments and PoetryInk. The release of September, his second full length collection of poetry, coincides with the founding of Yellow Lark Press. Trainer lives in Austin, Texas where he serves as curator of Going For The Throat, a weekly publication of cynicism, outrage, correspondence and romance.
jimtrainer.net
Jack Darling is a magician, actor, writer, comedian and founder of magic troupe Turning Tricks with The Darlings, who were named Frontera Fest’s Best of Fest 2012. Stirring up trouble on stages all over town is Jack’s specialty, in appearances including The Velveeta Room, The Charlie Hodge Show, Bedpost Confessions and Adriane Shown’s Hell&Back Cabaret.
jackdarlingmagic.com
Singer-songwriter D.C. Bloom has released 3 full length albums and one EP, including his latest, “The Rest Is Commentary”, debuting in 2014. This former speech writer for the FBI will talk about mortality and open heart surgeries, friendship and the love of a good woman, and the many things he’s learned whilst streaming Ferris Bueller’s Day Off over 800 times.
dcbloom.com
Reverend Jason S. Woolery teaches full time in the College of Education at Texas State University, and divides the rest of his time between acting, songwriting, and writing…always writing. He’s also the father of 2 girls, a 6 year and 6 month old, and a 2 year old boy. When he’s not fostering the healthy writing habits of his students with the Central Texas Writing Project, he manages to read an awful lot of comic books, which he’d totally blame on the aforementioned kids, but that’s just not true.
about September:
“…tough as crucifixion nails, with a switchblade wit and as sensitive as a Geiger counter.”
Jim Trainer could easily be writing about his scrappy past as a day laborer, a tempestuous old romance or even the muse itself. All appear and disappear throughout September, leaving Trainer in turns marveled and stumped, sitting at his typewriter at the end of summer. He’s hardly mournful. His past and his love and even the muse may have gone but the wonder of Trainer and the poetry in this collection is that he’s able to make an altar of their graves, and find repose in the Autumn of life.
“Every single poem has the teeth of a 20 year old, tempered with the wisdom gleaned from twice that much time living the life.”
–Central Texas Writing Project (CTWP)
“September” Austin Release-An Evening of Poetry, Spokenword and Magic
with
Jim Trainer (SWAMP EP/Farewell to Armor, September/Yellow Lark Press)
Jack Darling (Turning Tricks With The Darlings)
D.C. Bloom (The Rest Is Commentary)
and host Reverend Jason S. Woolery (Central Texas Writing Project, Texas State)
Friday February 19, 2016
at the
709 Mansion
709 Rio Grande
Austin TX 78701
8pm
Poster pressed and perfectly bound copies of September available for $15. Cash only.
CONTACT:
Jim Trainer
Shrieks from Paradise, Correspondence&Rails#25: Victory
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Correspondence, Poetry, poetry submission, publishing, submitting poetry, Writing on February 12, 2016 at 10:39 pmDear Mr. Trainer –
Thank you so much for your submission. If it is still available, we would like to publish your poem “The Gambling Life” in the next issue of The Waggle. If this is acceptable, please let me know, and send an author bio of 3-4 sentences.
I look forward to hearing from you.
sincerely,
Annette Lapointe
Managing Editor
Ugh
In Being A Writer, Being An Artist, blogging, Jim Trainer, mental health, TOUR, travel, travel writing on February 2, 2016 at 5:04 pmThe present paints the past with gold. The past paints the future with lead.
-Henry Rollins
Have a seat. This could take awhile. I write about things to understand them, get an edge on pain or clear a vista, high and wide, so I can take the grand view. When I started writing in earnest I was a young man. The channels were clear, my health was good and life hadn’t broke my heart yet. With a CVS notebook I could tell the future. As a writer and an artist I could study motif, could meld the physical world and I could self-realize. But maybe I was just green. Innocent. The real challenge could be to try it now, prophesy at the stubborn age of 40, marked and beat by life, and some battles won-the argument could be made that only now can I self-realize and that’s because I’ve become who I am.
I believe in everything and nothing. I believe in that angry, young man. Looking back I think the kid really came through. I also believe that it was a young man’s thinking that I could somehow be whatever I wanted. As much I never wanted to be like my old man I am him, and at the same time nothing like him at all. I’ve heard that life doesn’t begin until your Father dies. It made sense then and it makes sense now. I am my old man, with his trappings, his strength, his aloofness and his bitter, black Irish loyalty. My mother is still alive. That’s a harder nut to crack. If I could’ve been whatever I wanted, I would’ve done so without any of her support either. Unless what I wanted was to stay in school for thirty years but only receive my PhD to retire in the sunny hills of Italy where I’d write part one of my memoir-I was on my own.
It’s hard not to be resentful. Just as hard to do it too, and get overcome with an old and tyrannical anger. When my dad left, she called the shots, and her shots amounted to sleeping in the park on Christmas Eve for not raking the leaves. What a fucking quagmire-to feel it sting and simultaneously surmise how pointless and inane it all is. My youth made me who I am. As mentioned, the kid came through. In fact he’s here with me and we shudder, and get struck by the lightning of anxiety when it’s time to get it on the books-that is, take it on the road and self-realize a dream of mine to be an artist full-time. If I’d of took his example I’d be dead in 10 years. If I took her example I’d of went to school on her dime and retire to a condo in the sky with two-thousand copies of my latest book in the closet, and plans to hit the big 5 by 2017.
Instead I sit here in the bright afternoon coughing up these words and performing surgery on myself. I look back and read over this post and it’s a living, throbbing thing. I’m caught between a torrential anger toward parents who never supported me and a crippling anxiety about the future. One could argue that these are heads of the same monster-one looking back in disgust and the other looking ahead in dread. There is no way out. Only in and through. As sure as these United States sprawling across the laminated map on the southern office wall. As sure as the Great White Machine and copier/printer/scanner propped up beside the desk. As sure as the Bose wireless dialed into 44 gigs, the half full SD card and the Tacoma Guild hanging on the wall. Have iPad, will travel. I’ll be stalking this dream awhile longer. As if there could be any doubt. Not from you, good Reader. Never. Wherever is your heart I call home.
The Winner
In austin music scene, Jim Trainer, Love, music performance, Performance, singer-songwriter, song, songwriting on February 1, 2016 at 12:36 pmWhen my Nissan died
on the corner of 49th
the morning we split
I slept in it
I had my nose
re set
in my good friend Butch’s kitchen
I always hated that car
now it sits in the very same spot
when we broke up I really hit the jackpot
She’s the queen
of the parlour scene
up in Philly
down to New Orleans
she likes to tell
everyone
what a cold hearted bastard I’ve become
she had very insightful, poignant things
to say that I forgot
when we broke up I really hit the jackpot
‘cause a lie is a lie
and a cheat is a cheat
there was too many heads
rollin’ round in our bed
and too many hands
around my neck
and the streets are filled with the dead
her millionaire dad
probably bent out of shape
when he looks back
to her Ivy League days
but her wedding
it was on T.V.
all that night and the next day
she’ll probably run around that way
until she gets caught
when we broke up I really hit the jackpot
My good friend
he lives downtown
if I get blue
Butchie’ll come around
We’ll watch the news
through our teeth
and we’ll stare at the tube in disbelief
27 rooms, a couple thousand-acre plot
looks like when we broke up she really hit the jackpot
Christmas time
in Guerneville town
her father’s face
her torn gown
I wasted him
I hit him so hard
they had to carry him out to his car
I wasted 7 years of my life
when I gave that quarterback a shot
shoulda said “Look buddy, you really hit the jackpot.”
Going for the Throat 