LOVE LETTERS TO GHOSTS

I've been dreading this post for a long time, simply because I am adamantly against self-promotion.

Despite the faux brashness that I sometimes  project on my blog, my desire to indulge in blatant egotism is non-existent (or nearly non-existent).

It is with genuine humility that I'm announcing the second edition publication of my poetry book Love Letters to Ghosts. It should be available on Amazon sometime next week (it's presently on their Coming Soon list).

Love Letters to Ghosts was originally published about four years ago. I decided that an update was necessary, to make minor revisions and to add eight more poems. The new volume contains 54 poems and 112 pages.

No Kindle edition is yet available but it probably will be at a later date (although I personally dislike e-books, especially for poetry).

About 95% of the poems have been previously published, during that distant time in my life when dark drama and youthful romanticism invaded my sensibilities. I seldom write poetry now, although a future volume is not completely out of the question.

These poems are resurrected laments of my past: the haunted memories of lost loves, lost lives, and distant places that I once knew.

I'm certain that my poetic style will not be appreciated by everyone. As stated in the introduction:

Much of my poetry is composed in minor keys: melancholy, sentimental, somber. They are often tainted nocturnes of lonely midnight streets and one night stands.

If I had to critique my own poems with absolute honesty, I'd have to say that there is a bland sameness about them with little variety of style - - yet it is my genuine voice, so I'm reluctant to apologize.

I designed the cover myself, which was a maddening endeavor - - since I had to try dozens of images before getting one with the perfect visual texture and resolution. I'm no graphic artist.

After viewing an incredible amount of published poetry book covers, I was determined not to use the usual trees, sunsets, flowers, or puppy dogs. A fragile cobweb was more suited to my literary intentions.


I soon plan to revise my book Notes From the Midst of December, which deals with the subject of death, loss, grieving, and the final three weeks of my mother's life. This book has been previously published in a private edition, but it needs a revision before ever being publicly released. Problem is, the entire heavy subject is too emotionally taxing for me to deal with.

More than anything, I want to complete my memoir as soon as possible (untitled as yet). This will be a raw, honest, lengthy, unapologetic account of my turbulent life - -
actually a bold, self-sacrificial endeavor in which I will cut veins and offer my blood.



Sample poems from Love Letters to Ghosts

(Sacraments is one of the early poems, written when I was 21)




SACRAMENTS

You have not given your blessings here.
They are singing on the steps of the altar,
Breeding darkly through weary confessionals.
This morning I accepted your finger on my tongue
And the bread lingered there like a lie.
All the while the room grieved in silence
And your face was masked with that of a saint.

Tonight you are whispering a litany of words
That shimmer like candles in the alcoves,
Words that burn only for me and my possibilities.
The silence around us echoes.
Muted ghosts are kneeling in empty pews.

The heavens have become a burden.
Outside the night is trembling
In the wake of thunder washed ripe with rain.
It is too easy to become intoxicated
With the numbing wine of your words
The sweetness of your tongue
The voiceless music of our embrace.
In the shadow of an altar,
In the flutter of slumbering candles,
In the presence of tear-stained saints,
We have begun our own private sacraments.




WHAT I WAS TO YOU

I will soon be an old man
that you may not remember,
a vacant ghost lingering
in all the memories you've forgotten
the photos you've lost
the letters you've discarded.
The name you once called me
is on the tip of your tongue
but your palate has other reasons
to ignore distant tastes.
The fabric of what I was
is now unclear,
the threads unravel
and the thoughts
you once perceived as absolute
have dissolved
into a percussion of uncertainties.
I will soon be a young man
on the edge of your faulty coherence.




BEING SEDUCED

It is simple at first.
The night will caress you
encourage you
whisper what you imagined
you wanted to hear.
In time she will tempt you

to taste the danger
of your desires.
You enter her possessed:
the anonymous rooms
and unwholesome haunts,
the empty womb

of hungry, desperate places
buried in neon-winking streets.
When you have exhausted
all the possibilities
she will taunt you.
Despite your protests

she will force you to retrace
the paths of her loneliness.
Soon she becomes brutal.
You suddenly wake
to find her gnawing the years
from your astonished flesh.








Note:
There's a new post on my photo blog
Cars of the 1950's

http://cabinetofcurioustreasures.blogspot.com