39 Boys on Ground is now available

39 Boys on Ground is now available on Smashwords as an ebook. There’s several formats to choose from including Kindle, EPUB (for Apple devices, Nook and others) or just regular PDF file for reading on just about any computer. You can also get it at Barnes & Nobles or via your Apple device at the Apple Store.

From the description:

With these 39 interwoven snapshots, you will enter the darkly humorous, insightful, surreal and brutally honest worlds of boys as they climb from the hollows of their youth into the world of men. On their way to an imperfect redemption, and with a determined spirit of compassion, these 39 boys and those who at times narrate their stories for them must pass through the formidable shadows of deprivation and war with only an intensely lyrical and allegorical lamp to light the way.

It’s priced at $1.99, but if you would like to receive a 100% discount, contact me and I’ll send you a coupon code so you can download it for free.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/281618

Please consider adding a review on Smashwords. I’d love to get some buzz going, but I need your help to do so.

Also, see some excerpts from 39 Boys.

Poems on Other Web Sites

• And gardens of the city may grow (LQQK)
• Daniel Raskovich and The President (Milk Money)
• Deepwater Brazil Deal (New Verse News)
• La historia de los ángeles (Cerise Press)
• Must climb his neck (Labletter Monthly Notes)
• Teeth in my hands (with audio) (Qarrtsiluni)
• The Strange & Beautiful Life of Daniel Raskovich (book available on Amazon)
• Three poems from The First Book of Muwadi (Prime Number Magazine)
• We all perfectly robust (LQQK)
• Y jardines de la ciudad puede crecer (LQQK, español)

After the Mouse war

After the war, Mouse returns to his palace by the ocean. In a fit of rage over his humiliation and defeat, he has several of his advisors lashed  with thorny branches.

His wrath spent and quivering, Mouse enters a lower portion of the palace where a servant girl lives. At first, the girl cowers but Mouse commands her to stand. He orders her to take Mouse’s closest manservant and flee south. As customary, this must be done without question. Mouse gives the girl a few moments to gather some of her things while the manservant is summoned.

“Jacob,” he says when the manservant arrives, “begin your journey at once. Take this girl and go south before the war follows us here. You have served me well and are free to start your lives anew.”

As he bids them farewell, Mouse leaps forward and bites the girl in the hand. The girl rears back more in surprise than pain but says nothing. In later years, after several retellings of this incident, the legend of the Mongoose is born.

Jacob and the girl leave the palace quickly and take the southern road. Along the way they meet others who are also fleeing south. The smoky smell of unrest is in the air. They band together and the group grows larger.

Before long, bad tidings catch up with them from the north. Fickle Mouse is now hurrying south to catch and punish those who had deserted him. Mouse’s forces are small but well trained and equipped. Although a larger group, the band of refugees has no weapons or training.

They quicken their pace and go only a few more miles before they come to a banana grove. Jacob takes charge and urges everyone to take a stand against Mouse.

Everybody arms themselves with as many bananas as they can carry. When the forces of Mouse appear, they surge forward and use the bananas as clubs and spears. There are no injuries or casualties among Mouse’s forces but the vigor, surprise, and oddity of the attack drives them back. Dispirited, they return to the north. In later history, this conflict is referred to as The Battle of The Bananas.

Soaring scent of angels

Look at me: My face is full of tin. More than scraps of meat, I need faith to defeat my hunger. My smelly fingers, stubs of clay, are as they were the day I left the oven of my mother’s womb and stood outside the world consumed by wonder.

See the image that is painted in my eyes. It’s glorious to face the mirror alone and know that you have crumbled from the cradle of your birth back into the haven of our earth and from there climb a sky of dusty wind to blow the dirt and deeds that covered you in other lives away.

It’s time for feet to trample on the dust of my bones, to appreciate the kindred  spittle that flowed from the spigot of my father’s rage, but let him leave this stage of life a better place alone.

My days are throwing rocks at me, my past and I must come to blows. For now, only my eyes see into this crystal coming phase. But from the coffin of my chest, my heart beats the wooden earth with bloody drums.

Subprimal Poetry Art
Posted on 05-13-2013

39 Boys on Ground is now available
Posted on 02-06-2013

Preparing 39 Boys for Ebook
Posted on 12-02-2012

How to destroy the internet
Posted on 12-02-2012

Let's call him Charles
Posted on 10-13-2012

Y jardines de la ciudad puede crecer
Posted on 10-02-2012

›› view all entries

39 Boys on Ground
Portions of 39 Boys on Ground, volume one of the pentology. Written in early 2007.

57 Women of The Earth
Poems from 57 Women of The Earth, volume 3 of the pentology.

Raining Baltic Soap
Various poems from the last few years

The 87 Faces of Creation
Poems from The 87 Faces of Creation, volume 5 of the pentology.

The Poetry Pentology
In the spring of 2007, I wrote two poems which (unknown to me at the time) turned out to be the beginning of a multi-year effort to create an overarching five volume set of poetry.

After the Mouse war
A bit of history from the annals of Mouse

Insert poet, ruin poetry
An opinion piece about poetry

About Blind Carbon Copy (BCC)
Using blind carbon copy email to prevent spam and viruses

Victor David Sandiego’s The Strange and Beautiful Life of Daniel Raskovich, an imagined biography of an odd everyman character, is darkly funny and strangely poignant. Sandiego offers a frank take on contemporary society with verse that is clean, clear and direct, and tantalizing enough to keep us wanting more. Episode after bizarre episode leaves the reader feeling off-balance, hopping on one leg (the good one) like Daniel, but perhaps this is the precise vantage one needs to view our lives more candidly. The starkly lovely, sometimes mysterious, graphical images throughout from photographer Ethan Hahn provide visual texture and figurative subtext to the Raskovich tale. As alarming or reassuring as it may seem, Sandiego’s collection reveals that there is a little bit or quite a lot of Daniel in every one of us. - Lana Hechtman Ayers, series editor, author of A New Red

Available on Amazon or via the publisher, Moon Path Press