artist – Cajun Mutt Press

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 03/29/24

March 29, 2024March 29, 2024 James D. Casey IV

Finding New Ways to Eat Shit & Smile

remember
all of this
is temporary

you are not
your thoughts
which is fortunate

because you have
so few

that aren’t tied up in bullshit

also remember
that the text
message
you are
ignoring
is paramount
somehow

consider

having
the last laugh
watch

the runners
pounding their
meat machines

intelligent gadgets
calculating the distance
to inevitable death
calculating the need
for the next
feigned
elation

step by step
we abandon
ourselves

everyone
is older
& younger
than you
all at the
same time
the merry-go-round
won’t stop
& it sings & sings & sings
long into the aimless night

don’t forget
grit
&
what
will be

will be

get plenty
of defeats
under your belt
before pretending
to enjoy it
more than
you actually do

Danny D. Ford’s poetry & artwork has appeared in numerous online and print titles. He has seventeen chapbooks to his name, including the recent collections Rum Lime Rum (Laughing Ronin Press 2023) and Sucking on a Wet Pint (Anxiety Press 2022). He can be found in Bergamo, Italy.

http://www.theunfoldinghead.com || @theunfoldinghead (Instagram)

His poetry & artwork can also be found in Night Owl Narrative (a Cajun Mutt rag) Issue No.2
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTCJR9LY

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 01/24/24

January 24, 2024 James D. Casey IV

My Kind

All artists bend
Perspective
Allowing the soul in
Through the eyes
In the tiny moments
Around us
Defining beauty
In the ordinary
Love as basic instinct
Something intrinsic
In a smile
Reflexive and responsive
Connecting oceans
Over waves of familiarity
Something close
To the heart of things
Something in you
That reaches me
A past life perhaps
Something forever
Recognized

John is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology. He is the author of five books of poetry: March (2019), The Seasons of Us (2019), New Days (2020), Fragments (2021), and A Long Walk (2023). His work has appeared widely in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Artist 09/03/22

September 3, 2022 James D. Casey IV

Artwork by J.D.C.IV

James D. Casey IV is an artist, poet, author, and founder/editor-in-chief of Cajun Mutt Press. His work has been published in print and online by several small press venues and literary magazines internationally.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Artist 08/06/22

August 6, 2022 James D. Casey IV

WRATH
“The Masks We Wear”

A comic by David Alec Knight . . .

David Alec Knight grew up in Chatham, Ontario, Canada. David has had many poems printed in American and Canadian journals and anthologies. His poems have appeared in print and/or on-line in Verse Afire, The Rye Whiskey Review, Cajun Mutt Press, The Lothlorien Poetry Journal (some poems in Leper Mosh appeared in these publications, as well as earlier versions of some poems appearing at allpoetry.com). Recent poems have appeared in the anthologies By The Wishing Tree, Poets For Ukraine Volume 1, and Muse. In 2021, David was recipient of The Ted Plantos Memorial Award for Poetry. His first book of poetry, The Heart Is A Hollow Organ, soon followed. David works in healthcare.

Coming in September from Cajun Mutt Press
Leper Mosh by David Alec Knight

“David Alec Knight’s ‘Leper Mosh‘ is an amalgamation of beauty and darkness. From waxing nostalgic about a youth of heavy metal, horror films, and comics to turning mirrors into windows of a woman’s soul, this book hits with full-throttle force. Even at its more bittersweet or softer moments, there is an underlying edge that runs the gamut of this book. With lines like: “Outside, distant sirens prowl. We reach for the first dark and our desires make light,” Knight’s repertoire of emotive language makes ‘Leper Mosh‘ a poignant read and a definite keeper. Any fan of poetry will love this book.”
—Heath Brougher, editor-in-chief of Concrete Mist Press

“The secret Knight is letting the reader in on… Well you already know, but you hide from it, you ignore it, you bury it. But, there is no getting past Knight’s willingness to dive into the morose, the malaise and the madness of life. This collection of poems is filled with gems and insight, and an unflinching look at a life unfurled.”
—Rob Azevado (Don’t Order The Calamari, Turning on The Wasp)

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer/Artist 07/13/22

July 13, 2022 James D. Casey IV

The Anatomy of My Debris

This delirious poem is an embodiment of trash.
It has arms and legs a head
a drooling head
its feet clomp from the weight of being
detritus
the body contorts from
the pain of being discarded.

The eyes pressed into this fool face are plastic caps.
The hair on this clumsy head is composite small bits of plastic line
weed whacking line fish line
plastic tabs and pulls and cable ties.

This debris is a work of art.

This debris is an artist with cigarette butt fingers
and gumchew toes,
sunscreen sluffing skin –
tear off float off sheets of greasy coral-killing skin.
A rain of the artist pilfers resources clogs
seas and bays and rivers and our home stream
chokes off the ocean of all creation
shedding bits of garbage from the cloak of its being like Appleseed.

Dear gods can’t we burn this body as an offering?
The rank and the poisonous and the forlorn given up to you?
Let our crooked smokes climb to your nostrils through the black ruined air.
Let us be rid of everything.

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS THE NECTAR OF IMMORTALITY

Henry Stanton is a painter and a writer of poetry and fiction with a studio in Old Ellicott City, Maryland. His paintings, poems and fiction have appeared widely in print and online journals– most recently in Closed Eye Open, Door in The Floor, High Shelf Press, Poets Espresso Review and Tiny Seed Journal. His most recent published books include Moonbird, published by Cathexis Northwest Press, and The Reluctant Spirit published by Holy & Intoxicated Press. The Way Thru, a book of poems, and The River of What Was, a book of short stories, are scheduled to be published in 2022. A selection of paintings, poetry and fiction can be found at http://www.brightportfal.com.

Sculpture From Reclaimed Debris