Book Review: My First Self-published Book of Pomes "Pomes to Get You Started". Me, Me, Me, Me, Me, Me. (Did I Mention This Book Review Is about Me?)

Oh, that's right. Firstly.

You can purchase my first book of self-published book of poems here.

And also here: Amazon.

And. Here: Kindle.

Okay. Gimme a few minutes. Yeaaahhhhhhhh.

***

Okay, so. The first three poems. Are about dreams (politically incorrect), hallucinations, and nightmares.

(Finishing the flat Heineken, opening the bottle of Yards, taking a big gulp...)

The fourth poem is a decent one, I can remember writing it. When the weather wasn't too bad, I sat in my kitchen and did my writing in there, instead of my bedroom, that's where my desk is. Constant noises echoed throughout the neighborhood and I'd heard it all day long, the wood like logs tossed around and the workers drilling, nailing, hollering, clanking shit together to build a house.

I imagine hard hats and dark sunglasses and grimy beards/
with bad breath/
or maybe it's a few laborers from Guatemala,/
El Salvador, Honduras,/
doing the work, getting things done/
and grinning after hours of pressing their bones and joints together/
to build up houses for rich developers and speculators and/
city councilmen to enjoy the fruits of thousands of dollars in/
fees and then the people who'll live in these houses --/
they'll now have/
some-/
where to/
go.

It always amused me that those dudes worked all day, from dawn until four, five, six at night. Sometimes they stopped at three. And whenever they did, they started hollering and yelping and it made me laugh because I knew they were riled from a hard day's work, and they were tough about it all. That was interesting to me....

More dreams. Mozart. Whiskey. Cigarettes. For whatever reason, I noticed everything around me. Like a magnifying glass up to my brain.

Uhhhh. Kinda annoying.

Next poem. One about Neil deGrasse Tyson. One of my favorite human beings, and I mentioned Georgia O'Keefe, too. She's another one. Okay.

I'm starting to sense the rigidity of my parents in these poems, a scary thought. I guess that's what happens when you "get older". Anyway, I can see where I bring the mundane and turn it into something creative -- not as a talent but as an escape. Good writing, good art comes from hard work. These pomes are like starting at the bottom of a giant mountain. Oh, fuck. I gotta climb this bastard.

Upcoming, or what I just read -- one of my favorite lines. Or passages. Blah, blah, blah.

out in Pennsylvania, somewhere/
where I used to ride out to the job on Baltimore Ave./
and the sunlit streets were perfectly aware of their/
opaque sobriety while the curbs were washed with crestfallen/
adults/
dying in a dream/
wanting and waiting for a cup of coffee, a muffin, a chance,/
a miracle/

and I gave a cup of coffee and a muffin to a brother of mine/
one time/
as he was hauntingly cavorting with phantoms on the side of/
a 7-11/

I brought him the goods/
and the first words out of his crooked mouth were:/
"what, no cream or sugar?"/

and later, I saw him through the rickety screen door of/
the establishment, which might as well have been a/
drug den -- he was taking a shit in the alley across the street/

I miss all those long drives/
to/
nowhere.

That dude. Had called me a Quaker. Sure, sure, sure. Whatever, man. Whatever you say!

***

Okay. Next poem.

I mentioned Walt Whitman for the second time in 30 pages. A poem about becoming a "cowboy".

An important line (to me, me, me, me, me):

I have everything I need -- and more/
while the radio talks about the Democrats/
in Atlanta/
I am calmly drinking, smoking, reading/
Walt Whitman/
knowing that I've got some work to do/
but/
why bother?/

like suicide bombers attacking government checkpoints/
I don't know what it means to/
get outside of my own/
head

Next pome is probably the best, so far. I'll drink to that. Switching to Heineken....

Next two pomes are about women. One is sad. The other is OH JUST LOVELY. (The pomes.)

Then, another pome about "not giving a fuck".

"I think I'm gonna/
vomit," I tell my brother in the darkness of/
his apartment/

"well, you better do it before I take/
a/
shit"

Next pome is called "what is emo?". Yehhhh.

Then, two pomes about working too much and forgetting oneself. And then, a pome about homeless dudes and Wall St. Pome about tears, early in the morning. Pome about drumming to music, alone, here in my apartment. Stomp, stomp, stomp.

Pome about the female artist, beauty and the beast. (I'm the latter. OOO. Fancy.)

A pome about writing a novel while staying with a friend in an apartment in Southwest Philly with no heat, writing like a mad frenzy, 10 pages a day, I'd finished a novel in about a month or two, I always write better under pressure, no hope, nothing. Just words.

My favorite pome's next. Mozart, you sweet bastard.

"pomes don't have to make sense"

I know that I'm here in this room/
saying something to nobody in particular/
like a rooster chuckling to his nighttime terrace/
the surrounding ghouls like goblins of mistrust/
a bubbling flummox of made up words and sentences/
I stretch/
my mind/
like a butterfly flapping its wings/
when the wet dandruff of last week is emulated in/
the repetition of my skin/
upon bone/
trapped there/
for the remainder/
of/
this poem.

Pome about drinking. Five-page pome about meeting a girl at the bar. Pome about a downstairs neighbor. (I elbowed him out with my poetic ways.)

The Wasteland. Of Philly. In a pome.

Final pome.

"the itchiest taint this side of Nebraska"

learn to fuck with people/
learn to denigrate the past with a spittle of sprig leaves/
roll your own cigarettes/
dump your bad thoughts into dreams/
when you can't take it anymore -- just forget it/
pop those thought bubbles in your brain like a bad debt/
or/
a toothache/

drown your sorrows in wine/

read Shakespeare/
listen to Beethoven at midnight/
make a plan for revolution/
don't listen to the people who make you feel unworthy/
scan your horizons for booby traps/

use the word 'boob' in a poem/
about yerself/

sketch your future into deadlines/
buy plenty of 7-day candles/
leave the forest fires to the firemen who volunteer their lives for the/
greater good/
know the difference between love and loneliness/
don't hide your bad habits from your lover/

the darkness will find you and it will eat you alive/

take it easy/
remember to breathe and tell yourself there's nothing to it/
don't be all about money/
fame/
fortune/
status/
diamonds/
all that bullshit/

just because you are successful doesn't mean you're fun or/
easy to talk to/

remember the birds outside your window/
remember that pigeons poop too/
just like/
you

Ah. A few lines more.

I'll stop now.

That's enough. Yes.

[You can purchase my first book of self-published book of poems here.]

[And also here: Amazon.]

[And. Here: Kindle.]