The Maenad's Bone Garden

No matter what no matter where Keep it nice, keep it clean, don’t make waves Don’t speak of white supremacy or white treason Don’t speculate about bullshit liberal reasons Why it’s not cost effective to care for Americans Or stop the onslaught on our seasons Bought, stock, and full of quarrels. Keep the state as quo Let me Be silent nevermore   Family friendly and inoffensive Nothing that interferes with The arts serving as a digestive No tits, no sass, no smarts, no ass, Only simple ways, to look and be Say what we want you to, Don’t’ talk about class or fiscal inequality Or how it intersects with, Others Oppressed by your racist whiteness, by your Heteronormativity Look at me not my advertisers, not at what’s on your screen What’s the price to look at me Look like me, be me, it’s pretty tremendous  

This was written December 25, 2020.  A year ago today.  Endurance?   ‘It’s all the same babe’ Bullets and bottle rockets.   New Year’s Day No matter where I live, East Dallas, Everett, or San Jose. Zippity bullets - are you going to come my way? Just some girl dying 100 feet away Music in passing, Lenny Kravitz. People without assets, meth heads maskless,   indulging in habits Behind the local bus stop, a small flick of rabbits. I want to shelter, to keep them safe But can’t just part of the world I cannot save. A lesson to be learned in January not March, April, or May. Hunger pains make the lessons stay. Here in the ghetto, it’s just another day,   that’s What Vallejo say. Don’t worry babe, Christmas day, New year’s day, it’s all the Same day after day after day

A maenad princess picking Bitter Crown from her Garden   Blue December, creeping, these are old and lost phantoms, abandoned, stirrings.    Yearning.   Needing to be distraught once more. Needing to take you home again.   Yet thorns are needful things Without them no bloom, No rose or rye, Nor dawn or moon Thorns that grasp and Catch, bite their prey Here is your bitter crown o princess Wear the thorns and See You are made just like me And to die, Here in this This Garden Where all my friends stay A metaphor but it Might as well be A real place It’s quiet here, at last Out in the world No one takes more risks No one looks at your shit Or care what risk you took This time There is no perimeter, no edge, no limitation To the colours, shapes, and thoughts you see,

  Regardless of it’s other “interesting qualities,” I have had a mighty fucking year.     With the release of Sub-ether 03 later this month, Dreaming Gynoid studio has released a book a month (at least), each month, all year.    (While this is a fine achievement it is one I note most enthusiastically in the passing. I have no intention of working myself so hard next year thank you very much. Not like this.   Work better not harder.)  With the release of Galaxy Black this year , all of the major books I wanted to do there originally have been done and are out.    More relevant to this place,  I’ve had my words appear in six other publications this year (look left for links).    Come spring I will have work in three different anthologies, including another print book.   I had my first print publication with Lupercalia Press in the form of the Ishtar Cycle    which is – so far – the most important thing...

  2021 – a noose like no other   A tumorous bouquet of opportunities Parliaments of insufferable groupthink Shaking hands with drawn daggers My friend,   do you know the liberating power of total damnation? Just because you are trapped somewhere doesn’t mean there is a way out. Fundamental chaos Not gold, not silver, not bronze Moments and gone Moisture from the Metacosmic Condensation on wet clay. Time is the only coin, Pay & play.

  This shit pisses me off SO goddam much   Entry fees   XXXXXX one poem. XXXX   for each additional poem. XXX   for five poems. A maximum of five poems per single entry. But you can enter as many times as you like.   (Emphasis most definitely mine;   actual fees removed to hide the identity of this bourgeois asshole pub)     Opportunities but never the same opportunities, nor as many.  We’re not pay to play but hey if you can afford to send us dozens…..  Good thing all us po’ folk are uneducated illiterate morons then huh?    By the way, fuck you,  a quite annoyed working class Goddess 

  2020, the Maenad From the Bone Garden (unpublished) 

It’s no secret that I am not fond of this day.   (Honestly for most of the last decade I’d just as soon a skipped over November – December and jumped right to January after Halloween but I am sadly in the minority on this.)   Pigskin tribalism aside, I do have things to be thankful for Living on a planet that is life bearing despite our best efforts to change that Living in a time when there are people trying to change things even if I don’t think we any of us do near enough The possession of my senses, my self, my imagination, and my endless ability to pick things apart.   I am thankful for the sense and sensibilities I have as pertains to freedom and the benefits and responsibilities thereunto. I am thankful for the clear heart.   I have struggled so hard to find this.    I am thankful for the many opportunities I have been shown this year. I am thankful for the handful of people who have published my work. You have my eternal gratitude...