Layers of Half-Sung Hymns by Aleathia Drehmer is officially available! Click the link to grab a copy of this unfathomably deep collection. Sister Drehmer did some healing while writing this one. You can feel it in her words.
After the Fall by William Teets is coming soon from Cajun Mutt Press! Recently finished painting the cover and putting the interior file together. Waiting on a proof copy. I’ll post some photos when it gets here.
After the Fall is a poetry collection that offers resurrection for a damaged Americana-spirituality: Blues music and barrooms, whiskey and smoke, rivers and haunted highways, leather jackets, hoodies, and Sunday’s best. . . and worst. William Teets’ poetry navigates corrupted streets, turns dangerous corners, and worships in darkened alleys. All in an unending quest for absolution, salvation, and answers.
“I often toss The Paris Review across the room after reading their poetry selections, because I all too often long for poetry to mean something. Nothing is more frustrating than reading poetry that is merely meter, failing to explore anything except that which the poet sees. Subtext is a rarity in today’s modern poems, and I think it may have to do with the lack of life our poets live. William Teets lacks neither life nor subtext. The poems in After the Fall are honest and hard-hitting. They may not be pretty, but you can’t look away. I will revisit these works often.”
G.W. Allison—author of The Final Round and The Sinful.
“William Teets writes poetry like a fallen jazz-blues-folk pagan priest. His narrative style is free and open and easy to read, but the subject matter deep and spiritual. I am reminded of the old Beat poets—can even see some Dylanesque qualities. His poems have that lyrical tone (Check out “Chillin’ with Chelsea” to see what I mean). After the Fall is for anyone, not just lovers of poetry.”
Gabriel Sebastian—Confetti magazine chief editor and founder and CEO of Word Werks, Inc.
Here’s a quick update about Shooting Myself in the Dark by Carrie Magness Radna and some details about other upcoming books . . .
Click the link below to see a list of all available titles.
https://cajunmuttpress.wordpress.com/2021/06/08/cajun-mutt-press-bibliography/
Thanksgiving Morning Thoughts About Death
I often wonder
When I will die.
I think
It has to do with objects
And my kinship with them.
One time my wife lost her blanket.
She was swaddled in it
As an infant.
When we left the hotel room,
I told her we had it with us.
I thought we did.
But I was in a hurry.
I can’t think about that blanket
Lost in the wilderness
And my wife’s incandescent, round tears
Without it being
A watershed moment of remorse.
I think about the time I yelled at her
When she wore an efflorescent blouse
Pink, with roses and butterflies.
She never wore it again.
No balm in Gilead, no sinner’s cure
Including her reassurance that a baby puked on it
Has made me remember it without contrition.
There are so many places I will not go
And people I will not see.
Charles Bronson once said
Responsibility is a big rock that weighs a ton
And it bends you until it finally buries you.
I have no idea if he is right.
He yelled that at some children on a Hollywood set.
But I don’t think
He wanted to go back
To that set
After all his caterwauling.
I’m not crazy.
(I know that every crazy person says that).
But just maybe
You die
When there is nothing left to swaddle you
And no place to go for asylum
Whether your heart stirs or not.
Charles Bronson died at 81.
Years after he had stopped
Visiting familiar places.
His hip replaced by a rock
Of scrap metal.
©2023 Alexander Poster All rights reserved.
Alexander Poster is a good, grey bureaucrat who works as a historian for a labyrinthine federal agency. He lives less than one mile from the U.S. Capitol and survived a nasty case of COVID-19, none of which inspired his writing one bit. He is a fan of Cormac McCarthy, depressing music from the 80s and 90s, and, surprisingly, marine mammals. He loves his wife, even though she has expressed concern for him being a “cynical bastard.”
Affection for You
It was gleaming
with the gaze
Affection is dumb
Affection is deaf
Like a speaker it did not speak about
the matter
like a listener it did not listen to
Till the moment of parting
it kept waiting in the eyes
In the thick green
of the desolate woods
A tune is ringing faintly
Gazing at the eyes
I want to see
Is it still alive
Oh dear
No way, no way
Cleaving the heart
comes out
a curious sigh
In the teary gaze
is it still alive
©2023 Guna Moran All rights reserved.
Guna Moran is an internationally acclaimed poet and book reviewer. He has five published poetry books to his credit. His poems have been translated into 30 languages and featured in more than 200 hundred international magazines, journals, webzines, blogs, anthologies, and newspapers around the world. He lives in Assam, India.
Cajun Mutt Press 