Here is where things are at:

1

My own take on monsterishness…
Mwhahaha

My partner in all things of art and life, David L. White, has three poems up at The Knicknackery, “Low Tide”, “Crochet”, and “At Oven’s Door”, which I can’t even read because it breaks me. Intensity. I love the seeming simplicity of “Low Tide”, how it jolts you at the end, and “Crochet” is a favorite of mine–it’s like a weird incantation. It does something when you read it, when you speak it, but it’s unclear exactly what.

Hackles? Prepare to raise them.

You’ll be hooked by the nerve on David’s monster poetry in this edition of monster-themed lit–the spooky factor is always fun. More goodness: to complement their issue-of-freaky, The Knicknackery folks have chosen some vintage art I find particularly good, ghoulish fun. And I’ve already staked out my in-this-edition-crush (besides David, who was a shoe-in for my wow vote), Brett Elizabeth Jenkins, who has some lovely, ghostly pieces.

2

Olivia wrote this for me a couple years ago when I was away at a residency. Who knew owls would be such good friends?

No sooner did I write a sad song to our lifeless concrete suburban community, when what should take up residence in an overgrown palm tree directly across the street from us? Barn owls! They fly south at night and most likely hunt the freeway berms and industrial zones (rodents), but those are guesses. We do have an abundance of feral cats around. Gruesome to consider this, but the presence of owls are not more dire than other perils stray animals face. Bygones, owls. Of course, pigeons factor into their diet, I would wager. We’ve been searching for castings to get a better idea of what’s going on, but any such thing would most likely be swept up by the HOA crews before we could find it.

Falling asleep to their kleak-kleak sounds has been nothing but joy and twice I’ve been stealthy enough to get glimpses of them soaring out of their tree–well, it’s more of a shove off and then a ghostly swoop–silent, elegant, powerful. Took my breath away. Just as I thought our everyday environment had lost the last vestiges of natural surprise, these dangerous angels turn up, hunting, haunting.

On the worrisome side, they’ve made enough noise a few nights to wake us up around 3 a.m., not that they bother me–I find it thrilling–but I heard what I believe to be (cannot confirm actually were) gun shots. No doubt, someone was trying to take them down. I suppose some people have so acclimated to endless asphalt, they’ve paved right through their souls.

But we love our owls. And we hope they will stay awhile, and also that our hateful neighbors have bad aim and better meds.

3

I’m spending the next three months in deep writing mode. I have to finish a project and I’m at the point with it, I need to declare my commitment. Sometimes you have to stop balancing, stop trying to make life evenly managed, stop giving everything a fair share of yourself, making every daily task equally important in the moment.

Sometimes, it’s just that easy. Other times…no…

Sometimes my writer self can skip around, smelling roses and returning phone calls. Sometimes I have to surrender and become the bear in the cave. When I’m done, I’ll come out.

But I’ll keep meto-ing. A little light goes a long, welcome way in a cave.