The Infamous Ron Whitehead, Kentucky Outlaw Poet

Cajun Mutt Press is extremely proud to announce that the incredibly talented poet, and friend of the late great Hunter S. Thompson, Ron Whitehead has been added to the line-up for a featured spot on our Facebook Page! This is a big event for us, so be sure to catch his poems Tapping My Own Phone this Friday the 28th, and Shithouse Manifesto on October 31st.

Ron Whitehead’s Brief Bio: Poet, writer, editor, publisher, scholar, professor, activist Ron Whitehead grew up on a farm in Kentucky. He attended The University of Louisville and Oxford University. As poet and writer he is the recipient of numerous state, national, and international awards and prizes including The All Kentucky Poetry Prize, The Yeats Club of Oxford’s Prize for Poetry, and many others. In 2006 Dr. John Rocco (NYC) nominated Ron for The Nobel Prize in Literature. He was inducted into his high school’s (Ohio County High) Hall of Fame, representing his 1968 graduating class.

“I have long admired Ron Whitehead. He is crazy as nine loons, and his poetry is a dazzling mix of folk wisdom and pure mathematics.” – Hunter S. Thompson

Sponsored Post Sponsored Post Menu More Info Learn from the experts: Create a successful blog with our brand new courseThe WordPress.com Blog

WordPress.com is excited to announce our newest offering: a course just for beginning bloggers where you’ll learn everything you need to know about blogging from the most trusted experts in the industry. We have helped millions of blogs get up and running, we know what works, and we want you to to know everything we know. This course provides all the fundamental skills and inspiration you need to get your blog started, an interactive community forum, and content updated annually.

Register now

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 02/12/21

Fall in Love with the Life of a Killer

You had to uncover the truth and see
And found out that the truth was bloody
In the dead of a night
I fall in love with the life of a killer

Want to go to
Many uninhabited territories
Climb with you
One solitary mountain after another

I say, humans are much more complicated than mountains
No matter how high a mountain is, it is just a mountain
It won’t move
It won’t move

I’m going to
Have an intimate relationship with nature
Have an intimate relationship with things
Go deep
Go deeper

©2021 Xi Nan All rights reserved.

Xi Nan (西楠), born in China, writes and translates, Whale Studio indie publisher, author of different genres. Latest translation work: 207th Bone (authored by Zhou Li, published by Simi Press).

Her Twitter: @XiNan_WhaleStu
Her Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xinan.writes/

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 02/10/21

Rainbows Burning

This isn’t a story
it’s a prophecy
we called it back then
after Atlantis perished
during the dark ages
when Rome fell
when the Tsar was born
when Hiroshima melted
we were gonna fuck it up
someone predicted it
Nostradamus
or was it the Bible?
they didn’t say we would burn
through the ozone
or machete the fins
off all the great whites
to help keep erections
blossoming
or stab babies sucked out of the womb
this wasn’t written in the stars
but burn the mother fucker down to
the ground
could have been scrolled
in Latin
or some type of ancient hieroglyphics
painted in blood onto a cave wall
as all great colonies fail
at some point or another because of
natural disasters or
us
we spray the
the rainbow down
with diesel
light it up into oblivion
the fallout will penetrate
some clean and virgin planet
ruin that one too

©2021 Donna Dallas All rights reserved.

Donna Dallas

Donna Dallas studied Creative Writing and Philosophy at NYU’s Gallatin School and was lucky enough to study under William Packard, founder and editor of the New York Quarterly. Lately, her work can be found in Horror Sleaze Trash, Beatnik Cowboy and Zombie Logic among many other publications. She recently published a novel, Death Sisters, with Alien Buddha Press. She also currently serves on the editorial team for Red Fez.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 02/08/21

Once and for All

Allan exits the bus
at the corner of Fifth and Thomas.
He walks two blocks north
and finds the graveyard
just where the internet
said it was.

He pulls the printout
from his coat pocket
and uses it to guide him
to the plot in question.
It’s right there, in between
an evergreen bush and
a weeping willow tree.
The grave is marked
by a flat army-issue headstone.

Allan kneels down
at the grave and
speaks his mind:

“When I heard you’d died,
my therapist told me
that doing this would
bring me closure and
a measure of peace.

Here’s where I’m
supposed to say
I forgive you for
making school
a living, daily hell
by beating the crap
out of me at
each and every chance.
I’m supposed to say
I absolve you of
the crimes of defining me,
wrongly, and haunting
my dreams for years to come.

My therapist told me
that by doing this,
it would prove,
once and for all,
that I’m better than you.”

Allan stands up
and takes a deep breath.
A slight smile tugs
the corners of his mouth.
“I’m not,” he says.

Allan unzips his fly
and takes a long, steaming piss
on the headstone.

©2021 Jack Phillips Lowe All rights reserved.

Jack Phillips Lowe is a proud, lifelong Chicago resident. His poems have appeared in Trajectory Magazine, Two Drops of Ink and 1870. His most recent book is Flashbulb Danger (Middle Island Press, 2018).

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 02/05/21

SUN & RAIN

It’s the reason why the first thing a child draws
is a sun in the sky, a lofty circle accentuated
with squiggly lines and two eyes;
a big smile in the center because sunny days
bring smiling faces.
It’s the reason stick figure families are never
complete without oversized grins,
because we’re conditioned to prioritize happiness at an early age;
instilling a persisting life pursuit.
And maybe smiling faces are more fun to draw than frowns;
perhaps sketching rain requires more work.
But what if sunny days aren’t always reality,
and happiness brings complacency;
a stagnation of growth and ambition.
So what if the goal isn’t perpetual bliss,
it’s balance, an ability to embrace
success and failure; to feel the good with the bad;
the sun and the rain.
Because the most inspiring works and triumphs
come from places of pain.

©2021 Chris Cooper All rights reserved.

An English literature graduate of James Madison University, Chris currently works full-time as a senior copywriter and part-time as a freelance copy editor and marketing writer. His short story, “The Swim” was recognized as the Best in Fiction for 2019 at Across the Margin, and his 2020 short story, “Finn Almost Buys a Goldfish” won the “Emerging Writer’s Award” at Spank the Carp Magazine. His work has also been featured in Misery Tourism Magazine and elsewhere.

Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 02/03/21

Failure

At nineteen I tried to kill myself
by jumping off Solomon’s Bridge.
I fell one-hundred-thirty-five feet,
broke my back in three places,
my right leg in two, and I sprained my
left wrist and right ankle.
From that height, the surface of water
is hard as cement.
The doctors pronounced it a miracle.

The next time I tried it,
I threw myself off of the roof
just to land on a snow-covered hedge.
(The yard crew pronounced it a miracle.)
After that, no more jumping –
I didn’t want to repeat myself.
I thought it would bring me bad luck.

But now I was inspired
to try all sorts of different ways.
I slit my wrists, to no avail –
they found me alive in the tub, hardly bleeding.
Again, the doctors pronounced it a miracle.

I stuck my head in the oven,
but the gas got cut off.
I had failed to pay my utility bill.
The gas guy pronounced it a miracle.

I rammed my car into my house
at fifty-five miles an hour.
It was an old house and it gave,
and the airbags deployed –
even though I had disabled them.
My adjuster pronounced it a miracle.

I ingested a bottle of sleeping pills
and swallowed it down with a bottle of gin.
I awoke the next day, quite alive,
in a puddle of drying vomit.
The cleaner pronounced it a miracle.

They put me under observation.
They sent me to the nuthouse. I liked it there.
They gave me clean sheets
I could hang myself with.
And I tried, once or twice, with no luck.
The head nurse pronounced it a miracle.

I got put in a straight jacket,
locked in a rubber room, fed medication.
They wanted to know why I wanted to die.
I told them I wasn’t quite sure.
I had had many good reasons, but now I’ve forgotten.
I seem to recall feeling misery, apathy, agony –
all of that good stuff and plenty more, too –
but the meds had all shoved it away.
Then, when funding ran out, they released me.
(And no one pronounced it a miracle.)

So, I stumbled around on the streets
and I tried to accomplish my life’s single goal,
but I failed, and I failed, and I failed, again.
And the decades went by and I aged quite a lot,
and a relative found me and put me in here,
and proclaimed that a miracle, too.

I play chess, watch tv,
I’ve got friends of a sort.
I’m warm and dry – decently fed.
I’m as happy as I’ve ever been.
Still, I’m growing anxious.
I don’t have much time left.
I get older each day; and the chances get scarce –
gotta shit or get off of the pot.

But what gets me the most,
above everything else,
is knowing that if I don’t do it,
successfully for once in my life,
and pretty damn soon,
I’m gonna run out of time,

and that one fateful morning,
I’ll wake up and discover I’m too late –
I’ve died in my sleep, in my chair, on the floor,
in the rec room, the tv room, the lobby, the hallway,
or just right there on the pot,
with my pants round my ankles,
and snot dripping out of my nose.
And then, knowing me,
I’ll spend the rest of eternity,
somewhere as horrible as anyplace else
berating myself
over a life filled with failure,
and missed opportunity.

©2021 Damian Ward Hey All rights reserved.

Damian Ward Hey has had poetry published in several places, including Poetry Pacific, Truck, and Cricket Online Review. His work will appear in the upcoming anthology, Poets with Masks On. He lives on Long Island and is a professor of literature and theory at Molloy College.