Jim Murdoch – Cajun Mutt Press

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 03/25/24

March 25, 2024 James D. Casey IV

A One-Trick Pony does the Moonwalk

Over the past sixty years I have loved,
in my own way and as best I could,
an assortment of girls followed by
a similar assortment of women.

As a boy I tended to love girls and
as a man I tended to love women.
While a man-boy there may have
been some overlap as woman-girls,
strangely enough, never caught on.

Naturally enough I assumed the love
I felt for girls would be the same love
I would later feel for women and then,
in time, old and even older women.

My problem was I only knew one way
to love and not everyone cares to be
loved that way. I used to imagine I was
bad at loving but the truth is love is
my moonwalk and, as party tricks go,

well, it gets old quick.

Jim Murdoch grew up in the heart of Burns Country in Scotland. In fact, his first poem was in butchered Scots. Poetry, for him, was about irrelevances—daffodils, vagabonds and babbling brooks—until one day in secondary school the teacher read Larkin’s ‘Mr Bleaney’ and he felt as if the proverbial scales had fallen from my eyes. How could something so… so unpoetic as far as he could tell be poetry? He’s been trying to answer that question for the past fifty years.

CMP Featured Writers March 2024

March 1, 2024March 1, 2024 James D. Casey IV

We’ve entered March, it’s starting to warm up outside, and Night Owl Narrative No.3 is officially available!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVF469HX
(Links to 1 & 2 will be in the comments.)

Issue No. 3 Contributors:

Ben Holland, John Burroughs, Blu K. Boss, Scott Laudati, Jay Passer, A.L. Locke, Michael Duckwall, Ron Whitehead, Jim Murdoch, Wayne F. Burke, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Joe Szalinski, Efe Tusder, Randy Barnes, Roy Duffield, Dan Flore III, LB Sedlacek, William Teets, William David Pollard, Robert Ragan, Dan Denton, Heath Brougher, Dee Allen, Lynn White, Wendy Cartwright, Sanjeev Sethi, Daniel S. Irwin, Austin Burrows, Wolfgang Carstens, Merritt Waldon, Jonathan S Baker, Rob Azevedo

Details about issue 4 coming soon! All I need to do is button up a few things, and it’ll be ready for April. Michael Duckwall’s artwork will be on the cover!!

7.2 SkullQuake by Michael Duckwall is also available!! Brother Duck offers up pieces of his soul in artistic and poetic form in this beautiful little chapbook! You can get in touch with him for a signed copy or follow this link to find it on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVG31R8S

I’m also about to start working on the rest of the book manuscript submissions! I wanted to get a few copies of the magazine under my belt first. You’ll be hearing from me soon if you’ve sent one. Hold Fast.

Below is the list of this month’s featured writers. Send 1-3 poems to cajunmuttpress@gmail.com to be considered for a spot. Send work for Night Owl Narrative to the same email. I’m taking art, short stories, flash fiction, poetry, photography, columns, articles, interviews, etc for the magazine. Anything Goes. Please include a bio and author photo with ALL submissions!

Y’all Keep Kicking Ass Out There!

Big Love, Write On,
JDCIV
🤟💀📚
🦉🎟️🦇

CMP Featured Writers, March 2024:

Still Life With Cyclops (an ebook)
by Jay Passer
03/01/24

Last Scramble
by Jay Simpson
03/04/24

Ring in the New
by Wayne Russell
03/06/24

sun up
by Botched Resignation
03/08/24

Vernon Vernon Vernon
by Wendy Cartwright
03/11/24

But isn’t this how
by Katrina Kaye
03/13/24

Rock Poets
by David Alec Knight
03/15/24

Love Is A Butcher
by Rob Azevedo
03/18/24

Leave The Light On
by JDCIV
03/20/24

Some Guy
by Dan Provost
03/22/24

A One-Trick Pony does the Moonwalk
by Jim Murdoch
03/25/24

Heaven’s Gate
by Ryan Quinn Flanagan
03/27/24

Finding New Ways to Eat Shit & Smile
by Danny D. Ford
03/29/24

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 12/04/23

December 4, 2023 James D. Casey IV

Death’s Not So Bad

Death passed me by
and gave me a nod,
a knowing nod;
you know the kind. Or maybe you don’t.

He was with Fate.
Out on the randan
no doubt. Of course
Fate blanked me but then we have history.

I nodded back
as you do and
didn’t look back
not even when I heard the cough behind me.

The tap on the shoulder
was harder to ignore.
“Excuse me,” he intoned,
in a voice best described as rich and chocolaty,

“I believe you dropped your wallet.”

Jim Murdoch is a Scottish writer and has been published sporadically for the last fifty years if you count the school magazine, and why wouldn’t you? He has poems scheduled to appear in forthcoming editions of Literary Cocktail Magazine, Poetry Scotland, Dreich, Dogwood Alchemy and Live Nude Poems. He lives in Cumbernauld with his wife and next door’s cat.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 07/19/23

July 20, 2023 James D. Casey IV

There’s No Bridge Over the Styx

I’ve burned many, many bridges in my life,
perfectly sound constructs that never
did anyone any harm.

I drenched them in four-star,
tossed a lighter over my shoulder, movie-style
and strode off without a backwards glance.

If there is a hell, a fiery one, not just other people,
I think mine will be to relive every last immolation,
ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Likely they’ll provide a bucket: “Here,
for your tears, to douse the flames or
build ash castles afterwards. Your call.”

Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct magazines and a few, like Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Lake and Eclectica, that are still hanging on in there. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives quietly in Scotland with his wife and (increasingly) next-door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection, and four novels.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 03/27/23

March 27, 2023 James D. Casey IV

Anger Within

I used to be an angry man
       (not true but let’s pretend for the sake of the poem)
and someone asked me
       (again, there was no someone)
“Where’d your anger go?”
so I said
       (or would’ve said had any of this happened):

“Anger’s not a thing in itself.
It’s something you go through, like childhood,
and just when you’re starting to get into the swing of it,
poof! it’s gone.
       Where’d my anger go?
       It grew the fuck up,
kicking and screaming but we got there in the end.
       Like my inner child anger is still very much a part me,
subsumed, fuming and consumed by thoughts of revenge;
they both are.”

One can only wonder how that someone who wasn’t there
would’ve loved to respond
       (probably some rot about the freedom to emote)
but even imaginary inquisitors know when to zip it.
       (I mean I made him up so he can be and do what I want.
       Same goes for you so none of your lip.)

Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct magazines and a few, like Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Lake and Eclectica, that are still hanging on in there. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives quietly in Scotland with his wife and (increasingly) next door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels.