Nailed It, This Time - A poem about last month

Amid the chaos
of the holiday season
the old boy took up pen
and once more tried
writing a novel.

Did much better
this time around, folks,
succeeded at the set goal.
Doubled the word count
that they wanted.

So, be merry,
celebrate the season's change
and the coming big holiday season,
as I pull out
that dreaded chainsaw.

Editing, re-writing, polishing,
fixing tons of grammar,
doing more research, at coffee shops,
as I seek something
to offer up.

Not for here,
this one was raunchy,
due to a friend's jesting dare.
So it will need
a new pseudonym.

Or, maybe not.
Still up in air
about how to deal it out,
whether to share it,
or hide it.

But, I lived,
despite many challenges,
and scored a very impressive win
during NaNoWriMo, this year,
to toast to,
come the New Year.

7Dec2015 - A merry Dyfedd Rex.

The lawn is mowed,
the yard sort of cleared,
but the apples fall out fast
making this job a bear,
as I work along.

Day heats up fast
rising back above ninety again
but slight bit cooler forecast tomorrow,
just a smidge less humidity
so no rain threat.

Spent the weekend camping
up between distant mountain ranges,
along the shores of a lake
that dazzled eyes with blues
so rich and deep.

Back in town again,
it's the old grind still.
Clicking out story parts with hopes
that they sell for cash
or a job arrives.

I have hopes, still.
Dreams abound all around me,
as my tales and poems speak
from this lonesome, lost soul
to any reading this.

Words are my life-jacket,
here in Life's rough seas.
Holding my head above the waves
of bad feelings swirling around,
a maelstrom consuming me.

I share the words
not to ask for pity,
but to offer hope to others
also down on their luck,
that sometimes patience rewards.

Take heart, fellow travelers,
there is a port ahead,
where we can take short leaves
to refresh our weary souls,
it's called a book.

I actually in one,
in case you missed it.
Over there on the sidebar panel
there lies a new link
of to Amazon land.

Do me a solid.
Buy a copy sometime soon.
Not just for me, you see,
but the other writers contributing
with tales of fantasies.

And when it arrives,
dive between real paper pages,
into realms diverse, to escape burdens
that wear you down slowly,
and emerge with hope
that if others
can weave
tales,
perhaps
so can you.

2September2014

Status of Soul, Faith, Heart, and Head - A poem of hope and warning.

If my soul were a drum set,
then folks keep playing 'Wipeout' on it,
whacking away with sticks, heads, and clubs
until my spirit crumples under those blows
and the man around it falls apart.

If my faith is a tall mountain,
then others heap their trash around it,
hiding the lower slopes, only seeing heights
they cannot understand, blinded by their wastes
that hide the bedrock it rises from.

If my heart truly were a pump
the gaskets would be facing factory recall
from the start and stop stress tests
the Fates toss my way of late,
that reveal the defects in my chest.

If stone truly comprises space between ears....
Wait a minute. I do have that.
A head made of solid stone, for battering
on tables, desks, walls, and Life's challenges.
Time to thump out my own rhythm.
Ya'll might want to grab earplugs and helmets.

:P Dyfedd Rex - 26 August 2014

(Life better remember, She gave me this noggin of toughness +5, Unholy Stunner... and enough hair to headbutt my way through it all.)

An Update I Never Thought I'd Post

So, this is just an update on life for this guy, and the strange ways and twists Life likes laying out for me. Nothing earth-shaking, no real changes to my status as an "unproductive" member of your foolish Society out there, just a step taken that gives me hope to end this Homeless crap on my terms, not the terms of those fools who think they know the ways to do everything.

What step was it? A strange one to have taken, quite honestly. I collected on a bet. A bet made with myself and society about my writings and job search. One I am not really happy to have lost, but that makes me proud. You see, it proved that I knew what I was saying last year in interviews. I kept telling folks, over and over in them that "Personally, as my writing is at last taking off, I'm betting I see money from it before I get a paycheck from any jobs I'm interviewing for. Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if you prove me wrong."

And, in the end, I was right.

Saturday, I collected the bet from myself, in the form of a milk shake, as where I was at did not offer root beer floats.

Yes, something sold. Nice, cashy money is headed my way.  I will make a formal announcement later this month, directing folks where to look for it. Once all the details are locked in.

But, I won. I was right, everyone else once more was wrong. Not taking pride in that. Just saying that you all might want to listen more to me, hear me out. I am not insane, folks. I just have a brain that runs about twice as fast as most folks, and can see things many ignore. I see the obstacles, prejudices, and red-tape issues that hold down the homeless and unemployed far better than you can, in your cars and job sites. My eyes note things you overlook, or dismiss as trivial, until they break your nose slamming into your own faces.

I'm finding it sad, really, winning this bet. It means you out there actually don't give the south end of a north-bound rat about actually ending these issues. So, I'll keep writing, and still toss out job apps. My voice will be raised even more over the next few weeks and months about the ways you use to keep those on the bottom of your Society held down. Words will be written now more carefully, not from fear of reprisals, as before, but to maximize their impact on your over-inflated egos as you sneer at me, eyes firing dirty looks along the slopes of your noses. And I will keep trying to get more stories out there for cash, assemble that collection of poetry and try selling it as an e-book, and carry my packs with pride, not shame. For that load I bear, much like those metal links born by the dwarves in mys stories, are my Chain of Sorrows. Ones I will lift to back knowing this. They mark the price YOU make others pay in part.

Yes, YOU make me, and the other homeless, bear this kind of burden. Too stuck up to hire a homeless person? Then accept the fact that to survive, we will be there, on those corners holding cardboard signs, rummaging through ash trays and gutters for "snipes", as we call those cigarette butts you toss aside with only  a puff or two left, and lingering about waiting for that opportunity to rise up once more.

Sure, not all of us want out. But why hold down those who do? Scared that one with hunger and cold nights so close to their present moment will make you look bad? Fear that we will do as some who you lift up act, and rob and assault those holding out the hand? Yeah, there are bad apples. Even in the barrel you live in now. Folks who preach the "Rule of Law" but fight at following it with lead feet when behind a steering wheel, lazy buttocks that refuse to leave their couches to shovel the snow off their sidewalks as required by those Laws, and those who walk the blurry regions between Legal and Criminal in their business practices and personal ethics. I think you have more to fear from the person in the next cubicle than the homeless person that might need a job mopping your floors.

 And the next bet I'm making is forming even now. I dare you to make me forfeit on it. Double-dog-dare-ya even.

This fellow is now wondering and considering laying a steak dinner on whether writing is his way out, as he has mentioned in the past, over seeking normal employment. A fancy one, say at a real steak house, not some Village Inn or Denny's. The kind that comes with a cocktail to enhance the pleasure, not a milk shake.

So, Society, you willing to take me up on this one? Or, are you all still freaking out that I was right, and you were wrong before?

Be nicer if the bet was not with myself, but some one else.