Posts Tagged ‘writer’
30/30, atx, Jim Trainer, national poetry month, poem, Poet, Poetry, thirty for thirty challenge, writer, writing, writing about writing
In Uncategorized on April 16, 2018 at 7:16 pm
most of adventure is doleful
you sink within
until you’re in the good place
hold on to what you’ve got
and go with that
don’t get sold on promise and prize,
or a dream of the future
the day that never arrives
this isn’t to say it’s simple
or easy or black and white
the truth is, another day is victory
and how you spend it is on you
I’ve worked for them enough, though
choked whole days off, for their profit
at their worry—it’s a troublesome lot
to be beyond small minds but
still under the thumb of the masters
ain’t it though
I always found my work deserting theirs
made this language safe-cracking
and white-hot, ran past the guard
into the sky
and the world and all it knew
fell away like loose change
till I was drunk on the high air
broken, spinning, terribly free.
Please visit jimtrainer.net for 1 of 4 full length collections of poetry and prose.
Austin, being a writer, day job, Jim Trainer, Philadelphia, Poet, writer, writing, writing about writing
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Being An Artist, day job, mid life, middle age, Poetry, Uncategorized, Writing, writing about writing, WRITING PROCESS on June 29, 2016 at 3:45 pm
being a writer, writer, writing, writing about writing
In alcoholism, anger, anxiety, Being An Artist, blogging, depression, getting sober, mental health, recovery, self-help, sober, sobriety, WRITER'S BLOCK, Writing, WRITING PROCESS on March 17, 2016 at 11:11 am
When will I end this bitter game?
When will I end this cruel charade?
Everything I write all sounds the same
Each record that I’m making is like a record that I’ve made
just not as good
–I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It), Randy Newman
Thirteen months without a drink. 81 days without a smoke. I haven’t sworn off sex but I haven’t had any since Portland. In my rip torn and agitated state that’s probably for the best. But the hardest thing for me to quit was hash. I might as well come clean and I might as well do it here. Anytime I try and walk sideways around the truth, the blog suffers. I get by with letters and poems because I’d rather not post anything that isn’t true. We’ve come too far down the savage road together for me to hold back. Conspicuous lulls at Going For The Throat have names, names I’ll never write. There’s the 4 month lull in late ’13 and I miss her still. There’s a lull in the terrible summer of 2014, and I will hate her for the rest of my life. Rather than ingratiate anybody in reverie or venom I just disappear. I opt to suffer all by myself and suffer I do, good reader. Blogging clears the chamber, it’s a high wire act with the blues and it’s surgery without anesthesia. I’m a transmission junkie and I’ll never kick. Without the lifeline of this blog I gnash and isolate, I sink and writhe in utter rue. As bad as it can get, it’s still better than her knowing that I think of her at all. Spite wins the round. I spite myself this holy release just so she can wither away, maybe scroll down the archives for awhile until she’s hooked some other sucker to wag her dog and feed her head. My well documented success and failure with women isn’t the point, nor are my colossal oedipal issues and attraction to narcissistic bitches. My point was about quitting hash and being honest with you, good reader. Honesty is the rule. I wasn’t heavy into the stuff, I never took more than one hit in a 24-hour period. It always put me in a good mood or at least changed the channel in my mind. I could blast off with it and there have been many afternoons at the writing desk bracing myself like an astronaut:
Phone:off Coffee:iced Vaporizer:full Earplugs:in Sunglasses:on FIRE!
It was instant inspiration and something different. Something different goes a long way when the mind is full of the tired and repeating reel of failure and regret, doom and dread. You could say it lifted my spirits but putting it that way makes it sound harmless and whimsical-2 things that my poetry will never be. While high on hash, I also run the risk of encountering a tall blonde actress in the court, crunching down black heels and looking up to say hello to me, golem-like, on the roof, but, stoned to the gills I would have no clever retort and in fact only drop my cigarette, grunt and regret this moment for the rest of my life. Hash took me outside myself, which isn’t a bad proposition when my mind is full of knives-but ultimately it disconnected me from myself and for the type of work I do that is heresy. Writing and rock and roll connect me to the deep and innermost parts of myself. Parts I’ve learned to gloss over when dealing with a cheap and fast world looking for soundbite size validation, nothing to deep or pestering, no heavy questions but only placid answers and cocktail conversation. Whoops. Sorry for the anger but not really. The anger is what I uncovered as soon’s I stopped chasing the black dragon and burning that horrible, horrible wonderful drug. Last we spoke it was bad anxiety on the dais but now it looks like I’ve gone nuclear. Now it’s a sun of anger that never sets. I should hope that underneath these maelstroms of emotion is energy, energy better served advancing the real work and fueling me on to the next plateau of a 20+ year career as a lion tamer, fire walker, acrobat, bullfighter and blue collar soldier-Writer. Which is also the point. Ain’t living long like this. This caregiving gig’s been a godsend. It gave me things like a bedtime and meals. Christ, anything besides the movable feast my life had become when I got this job would’ve been welcomed, and it saved me. It saved me from madness, from the ghastly depths of alcoholism and the wicked tyranny of sexual obsession. It cut the drama way down and I really found out who my friends are. My life now is on an even keel, there’s no high drama or conquest, nights are quiet and slow and the mornings are bright and clever. I’ve nothing to hold on to when the monkey of my mind starts throwing knives. When the heart starts roaring I get sucked in, I’m lost in the blast without a whisky or stockinged thigh to brace me. I vacillate between volcanic states of anger and the terrible anxiety of the hunted hare. I’m bored and boring all the time. I’m dead but I don’t know it. It’s everything I ever wanted.
atx, Austin, bob dylan, Farewell to Armor, health, independent publishing resource center, iprc, lucille clifton, PDX, Poet, Poetry, portland, recovery, self-publishing, WragsInk, writer, writing, yellow lark press, yoga
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Being An Artist, Poetry, recovery, self-publishing, sobriety, Writing, WRITING PROCESS on November 4, 2015 at 1:23 pm
…one day I will finally and fully unreel the inner-diatribe of self sabotage. I will have fully documented the script that grinds out any high hopes or goodwill about living like a cigarette butt. And it will be here, online, out in the open for all to see. And we will laugh.
–Emotional Physics
come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
–Lucille Clifton
Aho good reader. I have gone independent. Thanks to Rubina Martini and the Independent Publishing Resource Center, I have 83 poster pressed and perfectly bound, black on yellow copies of September, my latest collection of poetry. Sometime after Farewell to Armor was released, I came to the sad realization that a publisher isn’t required to do anything for you. Assuming it’s in their best interest to sell books is a mistake and grossly overlooks what a publisher actually does for your publication. I owe allot to WragsInk. They came along at just the right time. I just got off a 2 year unemployment jag/drunk. I had to leave the premises, I had a little over two grand in savings, $2,500 of which was owed to Gioconda Parker for Yoga Teacher Training, and I totaled my car on the onramp to Ben White one rainy night that spring. I was in trouble. It was the usual kind, nothing that couldn’t be beat with a few years of hard labor or shifts as a bartender-but my real work would suffer and I’d have to stay underground for the remainder of my 30s. Without the work, the sum total of my life would be a brutal and tiresome slog and succession of day labor, shit jobs and dysfunctional relationships. I’d have to consider all options including the great shame of going back home, with my tail between my legs and not even a college degree for all my trouble. In a last ditch effort I called up Maleka Fruean and booked a reading at Big Blue Marble Bookstore. It was at that reading I would meet Richard Okewole; and begin sifting through over 250 poems to come up with the final manuscript for Farewell (and fall in love with the editor in the process). That book kept me alive. Kept me current. Prompted me to reach out to great writers like Don Bajema and reconnect with great writers like Butch Wolfram. The rest is history except I wasn’t pleased. I wouldn’t be pleased until I published my own book and founded my own press. A heaping 2/3 of that goal has been completed. I’m back from the Pacific Northwest and I’ve got 25 days left to achieve my goal. Looks like another crash course and this time it’s business. But if the past 2 months are any indication of how this’ll go down, I’m gonna have to make some changes. Some much needed ones, long overdue. My psoas is cranked tighter than a clock spring. I’ve been smoking a pack of triple-nickels every day since the summer. I’ve got big ideas but most of the time I just sit in their thrall, daydreaming and smoking on the roof. I understand the importance of rest. And I know for sure I’m gonna need a partner in crime. It’s high time for me to finish my teacher training and get back on the path of health and happiness. We both know about the dirty decades I spent, living with my Art above all else. My goals seared through romance and contentment. My focus narrowed to the barrel of a gun. I was never sure if I could make it but was certain I would die if I didn’t. It’s time for some integration, some inclusion, something other than the madness of a dayworking poet, at odds against the fucking world. I quit drinking. And I can’t really see a reason to go back to that lifestyle. “No-chance” was a great myth. It fueled me on but it’s just a myth. As it is I feel like my days are squandered in a retroactive doubt, which is another blog post entirely.
It’s time to finish what I started. I’ve pulled myself up and out of the ashtray. The struggle to become an aritst is over. Now is this surrendering to being one. To go forth into this world I’ve made. The dream cracked wide. My chosen destiny.
stick with me baby, anyhow
things should start to get interesting
right about now
-Bob Dylan, Mississippi
Join me.
Trainer
being a writer, Farewell to Armor, going for the throat, Henry Rollins, Jim Trainer, Philadelphia, Poet, Poetry, punk rock, rock and roll, writer, writing, writing about writing
In alcoholism, anger, Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Being An Artist, blogging, getting sober, going for the throat, Jim Trainer, media, mental health, Poetry, publishing, punk rock, RADIO, recovery, singer-songwriter, sober, sobriety, Writing, WRITING PROCESS on October 14, 2015 at 12:26 am
I’m about to have a nervous breakdown, and my head really hurts…
-Black Flag
Sooner or later we all hit the wall…
-Nathan Hamilton
How would you like a worms-eye view of your own psychology? The nuts and bolts of the machine, the blood and guts of the monster, your reasons, your dreams, your desires, your doubts and fears? Any of you curious about what really makes you tick should publish your own book of poetry. You’ll be pulled through the eye of the needle and shot from the mouth of the cannon. Hours of synchronous bliss working on a dream coupled with marrow scraping minutes doubting every decision you ever made. Putting your work out into the world can prompt some gnarly questions. The design of my book saw my coveted verse suddenly swarmed by an army of critical voices. And but Christ the questions. Keep in mind that you’re the one asking, especially if you’ve been sitting in the same chair in your apartment for 14 hours on your day off. Best believe you’re the only one there. You’re on your own and these questions of worth and purpose will surface, and pass through you like hot shrapnel. In fact it could just be the emotional equivalent of Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Translated, for every wild desire to be manifest there is a nightmare of Karma rearing at the same speed.
One of the biggest inspirations for this blog, its main thrust, is that one day I will finally and fully unreel the inner-diatribe of self sabotage. I will have fully documented the script that grinds out any high hopes or goodwill about living like a cigarette butt. And it will be here, online, out in the open for all to see. And we will laugh. And laugh and laugh and laugh. We will die laughing. It’s the byline of this blog for a reason. I really feel like I can do it, finally get it all down and slay the dragon, using words as brick and mortar to wall the fucker in. I bring this up because I smell like shit. I’ve been smoking a pack of triple-nickels every day since I first opened InDesign. I don’t answer the phone, don’t go to Yoga. My diet is the simplest form of protein which means bacon and eggs, every day, gross, and caffeine aho I been mainlining the shit. Espresso, iced mocha, bullet coffee (thanks Ceci!) and iced tea. I drink more seltzer than 10 recovering alcoholics and I hate my computer. I’m suffering a certain and specific stabbing pain which can only mean that my hips are cranked beyond any reasonable range of motion and I woke up, this of all mornings, throwing my phone against the wall, for reasons unclear but in doing so jarred something loose and nasty in my shoulder and I can’t wave my right hand without looking like I’m heiling Hitler.
My creative flow was blocked. Which could explain the colorful language of this post. But at least that shit still works. Like wildflowers sprouting from my skull. I mention this morning of all mornings because today was the day, or, depending when you read this, yesterday was, but today really is. Final file time motherfucker. Last proof before I get a mockup from Minuteman Press. After mockup and final file and any last edits there is no turning back. I’ll have 100 copies of the book-block of September. I’ll have accomplished a heaping third of actualizing a dream I’ve had since I was 17. But it came with a price.
This wasn’t free. Remember that?
Please live your dreams. It’s the best and worst thing you could ever do to yourself. The most ecstatic torture. While reaching for the stars you’ll feel the cold pull of the earth, and old voices will waft up from the grave, telling you a story of a 17 year old kid sitting on a stoop at his friend’s house in Upper Darby, looking down in awe at Rollins’ One From None. That’s when the dream gripped me and this whole thing started. We both know what happened next. The dream laid in my guts for 23 years, while on shift and in the yard, pissing my time away for a dollar, heinous in itself but tragic if my stagnancy came from a deficit of confidence. As it turns out all I had to do was confirm that that way of life was killing me.
When I say Karma I mean history. The dream won’t be wrenched free easily. Reaching for a dream you’ll be checked at every venture, Brother,and every task and turn from frame to finish, with every edit and redo—you’ll hear a a nagging voice telling you it can’t be done, shouldn’t be done and you’re only your parents failure, you never should’ve left your hometown, should’ve stuck around the campus of community college and bided your time with a new drug addiction until you found your rightful place on Megan’s List. You’ll feel a fatal gravity of doubt-but none of that matters because if you keep bucking and kicking you will confront yourself. You’ll live through it and have confronted yourself. You’ll come to the new understanding that Karma is behavior. And you’ll know what you always knew. The writing life is a courageous life.
Austin, being a writer, Jim Trainer, Poet, Poetry, rock and roll, writer, writing, writing about writing
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Jim Trainer, poem, Poetry, self-publishing, Writing, WRITING PROCESS on October 8, 2015 at 9:16 pm
“you know you get up there
and tell these stories about how
all these crazy bitches have
done you wrong…”
-Pauper’s Parade
Me and my therapist never talk about women. We always talk about my career. Dr. Jones came recommended from the good folks at SIMS. They said he was confrontational, not the kind to let you get away with anything. Sounded perfect, and 7 months on the good Dr. is asking all the right questions.
Shame I couldn’t keep up with you, good reader. Have you here with me up in the high rooms where it’s killing time. Thanks to Josh Britton, I got 36 poems taped to my kitchen wall. I’ve just stared at them for the last 2 hours and they aren’t ready to tell me what their final order should be. Half are good, solid pieces in a logical order. As mentioned it’s a shame we couldn’t be together, but you can ask Ms.Hawk or any number of good-intentioned people who reached out to me thinking a break might do me good. They were right but I didn’t listen. I just smoked more. Cursed out loud. Blasted the Dropkick Murphy’s and Lords of the Underground. Basically, I behaved like a teenager, in turns proud and utterly destitute about the life I chose over twenty years ago.
Sometimes I draw strange but irrefutable connections in my work. Some days I walk around with the same poem beginning and ending, getting stuck on … in my mind, driving me crazy until I can get in front of the PC and load up InDesign to take a look. The point I keep coming back to in this seemingly pointless post is I wish I could’ve maintained our connection and continued with all other creative endeavor. As it was I had to put off KO, suspend Letter Day until further notice, change my mind about playing at the Brunch show and just show up at the gig and hope it’s entertaining. It’s not lost on me that I enjoy my work. It’s everything I ever wanted. You’re not lost on me either, good reader. I see you in my stats bar and it’s everything. I’d like to think that someday soon I’ll have it all together and I’ll be sending word out while I’m interviewing great writers, writing songs and practicing the harmonica, and all of it hinging on a robust Yoga/meditation practice. At the very least I could’ve bided my time making a business plan for the book, instead of staring at 36 poems and chain smoking on the roof on the verge of tears for the last 14 days.
Your readership is not nothing. In fact it’s everything and so, the de facto business plan for September and Yellow Lark Press is to fly up to Portland in a couple weeks, run off 100 books on a letterpress, offset the cover and do some screen printed broadsides. I know I can sell 100 books. And I know I can because I know you. Preorder your copy of September and you’ll receive one of a hundred machine pressed and perfectly bound copies of my latest work.
The collection is largely about what we already know. Long hours on the sinking throne, writing poetry while staring at grackle and drinking iced coffee until I spot her coming up Judge’s Hill dressed business formal. The thrust of her hips is the prime mover of the universe, her boom swagger swagger boom boom swagger boom boom boom knocking some sense into me, believing in the dream again, setting the veins alight with the gamble of life, ripping the page out, loading the wheel and getting back to work.
being a writer, Bukowski, Charles Bukowski, Henry Rollins, Jim Trainer, Poet, Poetry, self publishing, writer, writing, writing about writing
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Jim Trainer, Poetry, Writing, WRITING PROCESS on September 23, 2015 at 9:02 pm
I’m loving reading yr poems, man. Seriously. I’m excited to be a part of this project, and honored again. Autumn is coming right on time.
Roughly forty poems sent out to Josh Britton at Snakes Will Eat You. He’s giving them a read over to get a feel for the design of the new collection, and to give me a much needed shot in the arm. I trust him. The SWAMP EP wouldn’t have seen the public light of day were it not for him. When I sent him the final mix, I told him those songs would only be used for promotion and booking. He talked me out of that right quick. Because he’s a badass and possesses the rare talent to get through to me, speak a truth of praise that can be heard above the calamitous din of deathly doubt and self sabotage. My trust in him and our collaboration is priceless.
Truth is, it doesn’t take much for me to go from hero to zero and base my entire existence on a line break in a free verse poem. I can get crushed. Despondent. Perhaps it’s my critical nature that gives the work an edge. Perhaps the same vulnerability that opens me up to what feels like crushing failure is the same naivete and openness with which I approach the blank page. Creator Destroyer. Artist.
Either way, I’m on my own. Out in the wilderness without a clue as to why I should be rewarded for my efforts let alone a rhyme scheme. I’m forging my own language with poetry. My vision is based on the one-in-a-million shot at ubiquity (fame) of Hank Bukowski. My business model relies on the audacity of punk rockers like Hank Rollins. I’m forging my own language with poetry, which makes editing it slippery and harebrained. Poetry itself is largely unrecognized and incorrectly assumed to be cryptic, only for intellectuals. The whole thing is an exercise in complete and utter solitude coupled with a dumb hope in alchemy-forging the lead of loneliness into the gold of solitude or even a few shekels for reading it into a microphone under the hot lights somewhere out there in America …
I’m inches from calling it a day, working 60 hours a week caring for a quadriplegic, without a car or a prayer and a slate white IBM Selectric II on a broad oak table. Savage. And then there he is, my compatriot. Out there reading my stuff and giving me a glimpse of something other than my total failure as an artist and other old stories I’ve been telling myself since adolescence. And there are all of you, why hello there good reader…how lucky, how fortunate we are to have each other like this.
Thank Christ for you. Breaking up the lonely long hours on the sinking throne, betting on the muse…it can get pretty desperate out here. Lonely. Alien. Outcast. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Farewell to Armor, Jim Trainer, minerva, north creek, tour, travel, travel writing, writer, writing, writing about writing
In alcoholism, blogging, Jim Trainer, sober, TOUR, travel, travel writing on July 23, 2015 at 4:58 pm
7/20/15, after noon
Ah sobriety. Sartre’s wet dream. Before I go on I should mention that I’m smoking about a pack of cigarettes every 2 days. Which is good, for me. Haha. I bring it up because nicotine is a drug and a fine one at that but is mostly consumed in the most wasteful and deadly way. Yep so high on Camels. Yuck. And a little of the Boss’ G13. Very little. You don’t want me to break down on this mountain all alone, do you? Naw keepin it straight bra. Totes. The only thing for me to do when my underwear is done drying is head into town and park at Stewart’s root beer stand until some college girls say hi. We can cruise together down the killing roads of North Creek-Damn I forgot about these! 28N and 87 as chronicled in Farewell to Armor. I was astounded the memory of writing some of that book up here and what a different, well, boy I was then. So much has changed. And I am still climbing.
A deeply personal post on an already over-personalized blog (redundant). You’ll have to forgive the sensitive stuff. Marijuana. There just ain’t nothing doing up on this mountain, Brother. My sleep is fucked and I got 1 more day on shift before the big lazy. 3 whole days in Minerva with nothing to do. Hold on a second. I’ve got an idea.
Allow me to offer this, a post, as testament to the reason blogs are disrespected, often shagged by established or professional writers. I may be 40 but it ain’t no mystery to me-blogging is the shit. How else can I publish and send out my work to the world with just the click of a button? With no editor and no inclination whatsoever to cater to my audience or even find a target just hit ‘Publish’ and I’m published. It’s pretty fucking amazing and also trite and funny in a tragic way. I’m not innocent. I’ve posted many blogs on here like, well, this one-jagoffs and details of one life in seven billion, and nothing political or insightful to offer to the National Conversation.
And, I’ve been building walls. While some have sought to be a part of the world, make their mark, even make better, I have sought refuge from it and have found a way to work alone for hours a day and talk about what I want to talk about which are my feelings goddamnit and well, why not? Blogs can trump the establishment and big business of news reporting. Blogs can offer a truer voice than some earl grey-and-coattails choad newscaster. Or they can be much like dirty laundry-you look at it but only long enough to think to yourself why won’t he take that shit down? Speaking of which I think my skibbies are done. Sorry about this post. Next one’ll be a real dinger, I promise. I’ve got a hankering for root beer. This town sucks but it’s ok out here in the woods I guess.
Jim Trainer, Blogger
Going For The Throat
being a writer, national poetry month, poem, Poetry, thirty for thirty challenge, THIRTY POEMS FOR THIRTY DAYS, writer, writer's block
In Being A Poet, Being A Writer, Jim Trainer, National Poetry Month, poem, Poetry, THIRTY FOR THIRTY CHALLENGE, WRITER'S BLOCK, Writing on April 21, 2015 at 7:01 pm
I’ve been doing this for twenty years
but only the last 5 in earnest, that is
as a working poet, that is
one who works the keys every day
everybody knows the muse is fickle
and anybody who’s ever stared at a blank page
knows
it’s madness and folly
pulling things out the air
seeking communion with all you lost
maybe there’s some love back there
maybe there’s a purple in your blues
you ain’t seen before
it’s a strange gig and I’d be
hard pressed to describe
the sense of victory you feel
when you nail it
or the way seconds pass like cinder-blocks
when you can’t write at all
birds, national poetry month, poem, Poetry, thirty for thirty challenge, white-eyed vireo, writer, writer's block, writing, writing about writing
In BIRDS, National Poetry Month, poem, Poetry, THIRTY FOR THIRTY CHALLENGE, WRITER'S BLOCK, Writing, WRITING PROCESS on April 16, 2015 at 4:26 pm
there’s a cardinal out there the color of rust
she’s busier than the others, I see her quite a bit
and I like her just fine
the grackle always seem to be having meetings
they weave and bob in a loose circle
until one of ’em gets upset
meeting adjourned
the mourning doves are loners
I can only hear one of them out there
which, as anyone knows, is too many
there are the starlings all lackluster
varying between spot and speckle
or how close to gold their yellow
the bluejay must be the most temperamental
maybe it’s his military hair cut but
he seems to be marshaling the events of the day
yelling out occasionally for reasons unclear
and the redbird, the cardinal, has found a way
to steer clear of all the drama
rocking in his own corner of the shade somewhere
all this I can see from behind the beautiful machine
I’ve engineered it so I can see out there while typing
and it’s a slow day, at the office, nothing blazing through
no poems, no stories, the kind of day that stops some writers
before they even start
but that’s how it goes
somedays you’ve got to pull yourself through
sit down and type anyway
stare out the window at birds
waiting for inspiration or the white-eyed vireo.
Going for the Throat 