A Cartoon Essay by Gabriel Bates
Gabriel Bates is a cartoonist living in Tiffin, Ohio. His work has appeared in several publications, online and in print. Keep up with him at facebook.com/gabrieljbates.
Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 04/29/22
At the Beach
The walls
Bursting with flowers
The rocks
Dancing like dots
Along the dunes
The pale sky
Suffused
With understatement
And the sea
Still as sand
As long forgotten dreams
Appear anew
Heaving and anguished
On the smooth shore
©2022 John Drudge All rights reserved.
John is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology. He is the author of four books of poetry: March (2019), The Seasons of Us (2019), New Days (2020), and Fragments (2021). His work has appeared widely in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children.
Release Party/Interview/Live Reading for A Home to Crouch In by Hugh Blanton
James D. Casey IV, founder/editor-in-chief of CMP, will be talking with Hugh Blanton about his debut collection of poetry, A Home to Crouch In. Published on April 26th by Cajun Mutt Press. Join them to hear about the creative process behind Hugh’s writing, and to hear him read some poems from the book. Tune in to ask questions, listen to spoken word, and have a great time! Drink a few drinks and smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em. Also, one lucky viewer will get the chance to win a free copy of A Home to Crouch In! James will announce the contest details during the live broadcast. The broadcast will begin at 8 pm CDT on Saturday, May 14th.
Link to Book :
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09YTZ6TYH
Link to Event :
https://www.facebook.com/events/357609856332012?ref=newsfeed
Cajun Mutt Press Featured Writer 04/27/22
The Country Uncle
I.
My uncle had a swivel diner stool
set in ground before creek’s decline.
Daily, he used to sit there
with his shotgun.
I would watch
as tiny fireworks of crimson
erupted from jays, cardinals, and wrens.
My aunt ran from the house one day:
“You need more dead birds like you
need a hole in the head,” she said.
At this, he halted
his barrage and took
lower aim at a turtle below.
After his shot, the turtle shell sat
open to blue sky, a vessel of innards.
“Turtle soup,” he laughed, “Turtle soup!”
II.
I was about to poke
with a tire iron, a hornets’ nest
I found along the creek at uncle’s.
Amid barking and a great leap
the retriever, Big Ben
hurtled toward me.
My uncle yelled from
a distance I could not see.
The jaws of the dog clamped round
my hand, forced me with momentum
into the dirt, away from the nest
that grew
in volume.
My aunt screamed
like a bigger woman than she was,
at a run from her berry patch with hoe in hand.
Big Ben loosed the grip of his jaws and my hands
freed I flexed scraped fingers and knuckles.
My Aunt’s screams
joined the dog’s barks that chided me.
My aunt stopped beside us asudden
that the hoe came down faster through
the air than she could have forced it herself.
My uncle leapt up the incline to intercept
the hoe’s downward arc
with big, bar-room brawl,
weld-solder scarred fist.
That day, my uncle and his dog
seemed immortal, and my aunt,
just a little confused.
III.
My aunt’s berry patch
was blocked from road-view
by my uncle’s garage.
Muskrat, rabbit, and raccoon pelts
by dozens hung from the rafters.
She would go on about how
he needed more pelts
like a hole in the head.
My uncle’s garage
had a mechanic’s pit
like the gas-bar at the road’s fork.
All along one wall, there were lined up
cola bottles from as far back as the ’50s.
On the other, clothed
pin-ups promoted tools
and the passage of time.
I was forbidden to enter
the backroom, so I snuck
into that sanctum one day.
The pin-ups there were nude
and Miss August appealed.
IV.
When I was twenty-six
my uncle’s dog left this earth.
Big Ben, had grown morbidly decrepit
so my uncle took him to the field
he had played in since a pup.
My uncle said he didn’t cry
when he shot him,
but I knew he did —
I knew
to look in his life weary eyes…
Now, my uncle’s
weld-solder, scarred hands
have no more fine motor grasp.
My uncle spends the better part
of his days with in-home care.
Doctors needed to make a hole
in his forehead quarter size
to remove a growth
the size of a dime.
He will still sit in that swivel chair
by the creek, but with his hands
empty.
©2022 David Alec Knight All rights reserved.
David Alec Knight is from Ontario, Canada. Recent poems have appeared in Verse Afire, The Rye Whiskey Review, Cajun Mutt Press, and in By The Wishing Tree – A Canadian Poetry Anthology. In 2021, David was recipient of The Ted Plantos Memorial Award for Poetry, 2021. The Heart Is A Hollow Organ (Cranberry Tree Press, 2021) is his first book of poetry. David works in healthcare.
New Book Release: A Home to Crouch In by Hugh Blanton
Now available from Cajun Mutt Press, A Home to Crouch In by Hugh Blanton!!
A Home to Crouch In by Hugh Blanton is a collection of raw observations about city life by an urban recluse. This is a documentation of the poet’s personal experiences and innermost thoughts. Simultaneously beautiful and brooding poetry that was written over years of solitude, now out on a rampage.
This book is Hugh Blanton’s debut collection of poems as an author! Grab your copy through the link below, and feel free to leave your thoughts in a review. This is a killer book! Trust me, you will not be disappointed.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09YTZ6TYH
Cover art by JDCIV
Cajun Mutt Press 