dream – Cajun Mutt Press

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 06/03/24

June 3, 2024 James D. Casey IV

Eulogy Menage

Simultaneous terror 
Hair stood on end
500 million volts
 Bolt and Clap are one
Human Communion with
 An impersonal god and goddess. 
His load delivered
 to her surface 
Through blood and bone.
 Painless instant transition 
Is of no concern to them.
As all bodily fluids boil 
Boots burned through 

Bad end to a good day 
In the deep woods 
My Bleached remains found
By a fellow wildcrafter 
Years later
 amidst a huge chanterelle flush

Picked up my skull and said
"Ah the Heretic Vicar, I knew him once!"

_______________________

DEATHSTYLE

Hey kid welcome to the human race
Got your carbon chain shackles and a working cranium 
Prepare yourself to take your slice
Of Gaia's pie. 
This progressive linear resource butchery
Has been our phillistine practice 
in many ways 
throughout hominid existence. 
Rules are :
Consider yourself the last generation. 
 We all thought we were. 
whoever digs the deepest hole wins.
Blinders on stay focused.
 Never mind the noise or chemical smoke.
Give No quarter to the woke.
 Step on toes. Compete! 
It's the 4th Reich
Fuck the liberal elite! 
 Eat their lunch. 
Remain in denial. 
Never play fair or they'll win.
Dig like a pig for 80 years give or take.
If your lucky grab your chest.
Sorry you were born so late
You may BE the last.
No American Dream for your kids.
Bear Witness to human extinction.
30 or 40 ice ages from today 
The cock roaches will say
The monkeys had their chance.

_______________________

I don't know how deep the well.
 the angels won't tell .
they frequently speak through my pen.
 They're here again.
 Provide the only thing that makes me excited about life anymore. 
guided trips through my grey matter imagery. Hamsterwheel chatter..it never stops. 
Goddess forbid if it did 
of what use would I be.

_______________________

Memories of war
Abhorrent acts
On the Killen floor 
Faces live forever in 
Minds eye
Thin veil Rationale
It was them or me.
Thought I could drink away the feelings 
But it doesn't work anymore 
Thousand mile stare 
I'm back there
Like it was yesterday 

_______________________

Whats left after closing time
All the shred and drama done.
Only music fit for listenin
In my arrogant opinion 
 
More stories of the killen floor and my dying day
 played on some slack key resonator 
Preferably a Pegamule with an abalone inlay..don't make it sound no better
Just pretty like a full body tattoo girl 
Curled up around my soul
Might as well dream still
While I'm on this side of the dirt

_______________________

I have a part in all my wrongdoing 
I can no longer point the finger
Serenity exited long ago
Insomnia coupled with amoral thoughts 
Too much late nite chocolate 

_______________________

YAQUI TANKA

Ain't they the same place
Killen floor and prayen ground 
Transition spirit 
Death approaches from the left
Yaqui desert sorcerer 

_______________________

Looken foreward to
  tea with a coven 
adorable michigan druids.
 Dredlocks, snakebites.
Faces tattoo'd
With celtic knots 
And ravens.
Conversation kept light; 
as I'm the only man
 seeking divination advice. 
A misplaced word
 might be
misinterpreted as a slight. 
Resulting in a curse ,Jinx, or hexes 
Cast the bones, read the stone.
Melodic incantation 
Tell me witch! 
What do you scry? 
Does intuition say she's the one?
Do I give it another try?
Or preserve my occluded heart
And say goodbye.

Voracious reader but lately doesn’t have the time.

From an auld Bucks County family of poets (brother and grandmother were both published).

Despite working around the performing arts, Chris didn’t pursue creative writing or performance till a year ago when; through some introspective journaling to cauterize a broken spirit he noted certain phrases had a ring. After attending a fellow poet’s funeral he was invited to read at the New Hope Beats gathering and hasn’t looked back! He now seeks to be published, travels to many open mics and hosts a Thursday monthly read at the Living Room Ardmore. His work has been described as ruminating introspective.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 05/31/24

May 31, 2024 James D. Casey IV

Sobering Up

a small wooden pub with a beer tap on every table;
four beers in, I was already feeling the effects.

I pictured Emily sitting across from me, instead of the friends
I’d gone out with for a couple of beers; how we’d have broken all
the pub’s records
(they had a screen on the wall, the all-time record was 35L
by a group who knows how large),
how we’d have loved the ability not to chase down
bartenders more willing to flirt (or drink themselves to a stupor)
than do their fucking job.

few beers in, and my liver began protesting; growing soft,
losing my former championship shape. am I still
a pro, as a few bartenders used to tell me?
do I still have it?

the answer’s probably no, it hurts.
no more chasing the perpetual drunk while able
to function amidst the cloud of inebriation.

I sit sober now, too, recalling the hangover mornings
of pro wrestling and vodka-and-orange juice,
barely able to breathe, let alone walk,

and yet, I’d always find myself back to the bars come afternoon.
I needed the drink; I still need it, I just don’t have it anymore.

speeding towards the age of 28, just a couple of months to join
the CLUB, despite my being no musician, nor exceptionally talented.

I smell bourbon; the bar across the street, a fancy establishment
for Lamborghini-driving motherfuckers, is about to open.

I should go talk to the bartender about the possibility of replacing him.
could I work in a bar, without drinking myself to oblivion every night?

once, I just drank bars dry. oh, the irony, having to be the sober
man serving drinks to carefree drunks and rich assholes.

the coffee’s strong, I’ve nothing to do but dream of other nights and days,
early afternoons of tequila, late nights of bourbon.

I might be going out tonight too, with friends once more. and after a few beers in,
I’ll be ready to be tucked in and soundly sleeping. no more
aimless wandering through the dark streets, drunk, ready to fuck and punch.

lighting a cigarette, in the blue smoke once more I see
Emily’s eyes. almost sense her lips on mine. tasting cheap bourbon
and even cheaper cocaine.

love, I failed you; doing the one thing I promised I’d never do
the night before we went to the abortion clinic and lost it all.
I’m growing up, getting old as fuck; paying the price
of years-long stupors and failed love affairs that’d never replace
what we had.

it’s alright; I’ll just drink my coffee for now, try to make it
in the sex-novel business. soon, and certainly long before I make it to 30,
I’ll either be next to you in the Devil-dealing poker table,
or, in a rundown strip joint, drinking pimps under the table
and comforting dancers that are just too sick of cheap assholes.

Currently residing in Greece, George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and is the author of Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds (Adelaide Books), Of the Riverside (Anxiety Press) and Reeling Off the Barstool (Dumpster Fire Press). His words have also appeared, amongst other places, in Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Cajun Mutt Press, Fixator Press, Horror Sleaze Trash, Outcast Press, The Piker Press, The Beatnik Cowboy, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 05/15/24

May 15, 2024 James D. Casey IV

The Pale Horse with the Marble Eye

All things considered
I would take the Gambit of
the pale horse with the marble eye

He slipped silently from the fog
on the periphery of my field

Marking the little time that we have

Thanks for the update you say
As I go about our day
and I’m lost on the on- ramp
Waiting for the excuse to cut in to the line
Of human succession

A blinker should do
But
Is that right?
Or is it left?

Not knowing the weight of the day I put on the hazards
Just to play it safe
And yet
I have managed to go no further than my
Driveway

I am stuck
along with the oil stains
wishing to be

Gone
without a trace

no spark

No idea
As to what makes us human
Makes us move forward

We are the generation of promises
The generation of easy
The first family of peace

And
We suffer for it

We are not defined for defending
We are not defined for freedom
We can not see the absence of war
Entirely connected

And yet
Lacking the ability to say “Hello”

NO,
We are the ones that know how often death can be

And yet,
fail to grasp the consciousness of the day
We are your parents lost generation

There is no denying it

The truth is
We can have no authority to what America is

We have landed in a reality that betrays the word

And we can not unite
And we can not understand the truth
Only the differences that we are

We have lost the Great Dream
The Great Experience

And we are too scared to do anything about it.
Forever the in between

So give me the Gambit of the Pale Horse
with the marble eye

And we will slip silently back

into the fog.

**Brother Holland reading “Johnny Depp is Not Coming” at Gonzofest 2023**

The new face of the seeker in the crowd, Ben Holland has traversed the globe in search of many things – mostly himself. To now reside in Kentucky after having been chased out of Camelot (some may call it Connecticut), surviving tours of duty in as far away and exotic places as Iraq and Kuwait, is what could be called a small miracle. Belonging now to tribe of transplants that is Louisville, he finds himself square amid a life that is once again evolving into something more fit for his creative spirit. At the urging of his lovely wife, he is finally pursuing an active writing career, and it starts now!

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 02/07/24

February 7, 2024 James D. Casey IV

In my dream I let go

for Larry, for Driftwood

boxed in/crushed
ground powder
all that’s left
in the bottom of the bag for
sleeping/remembering
a dream/dread & drowning
in the black
coal dust/empty
grain husk, siloed/alone
having fallen
asleep, letting go
the running board
running out
of food
or water—
something to drink (how many hops
in a straight line
under the influence
until you fall?) slipping
or mistaking the speed
plunging break-neck
into snow deep six feet
(in, in it begins to seep)
stunned÷the blinding white light
stomped
beneath
the shoed hooves of the bull
unable to crawl
or getting out
& having to watch you fall
& not wake up.

You’re never too young
to face your dreams

to live your fears.

Roy Duffield’s debut collection, Bacchus Against the Wall, was published by Anxiety Press in 2023. Roy helps edit Anti-Heroin Chic – “a journal that puts those on the outside inside” – and you’ll find more words of his in the likes of the Nashville Review, Into the Void, Seppuku, Unlikely Stories, Fevers of the Mind, Cephalopress’s Ink Sac, and Back Room Poetry’s Flights. He was chosen to perform at the 2019 Beat Poetry Festival in Barcelona, and has been shortlisted for the Book Edit Prize (2022), nominated for the Best of the Net (2023), a runner-up in the Still We Rise competition for revolutionary poems (2023), and won the Robert Allen Micropoem Contest (2021). Contact him on Twitter (@drinktraveller) or Instagram (@drinking_traveller).

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 01/05/24

January 5, 2024 James D. Casey IV

No One Leaves The Party

I have fallen asleep.
Perhaps I have gone home already.
I may imagine the pollens
of her voice, but the hostess says,
“All desire a home. No one wants
to go to one.”

I hear ‘One’ echoing around,
murmur in my sleep,
“One ceases to be one if we
hanker for it too often.”
The dreamy rag under our feet
spreads softness, engulfs the drink I spill.
Hush hides the glass fell for miles
from my hands.

The hostess says, “The place
you want to leave for the home matters.”

The author of Postmarked Quarantine has eight books to his credit. He is a journalist, father, and the editor of ‘Words Surfacing’. His works have been translated into twelve languages, published across the globe.