Good news, poetry lovers. I am beginning work on my first poetry chapbook this weekend. It’s called Night Journeys. I will commission the cover today: if it comes soon, it’ll be out in the next month. I wrote this collection from 2017-2018 in Slovakia. The next two weeks will be a matter of revising and bringing out the sunlight (or should I say moonlight) embedded in their souls.
I am thinking about whether to offer my collection as a bonus for paid subscribers. As a chapbook, I can do that. But am 50/50 about it: am I cheapening the art of poetry by doing so? Or will it interest more people in poetry? Please tell me what you think in the comments.
This poem isn’t from that collection. But it’s a sign that changes to my style that have mutated since the covid lockdowns nearly murdered my muse are going in a more positive and profound direction. With that in mind, I want to thank all of you who have said my poems are the highlight of my Substack. It means a lot to me that I still “have it.”
You will laugh, Pampelka:
But I was once normal
Bourgeois normal
High school movie normal
Ketchup on a hot dog normal
Crumbs on a frgal normal
I am mad, Pampelka
You chose wrong if you desired normal
But you make a good point:
An unfit muse would you be in my office
They will sterilize everything that has ever existed
You refuse to pollute me now, but you'll have to one day.
They arrested me, Pampelka
"Ty vole!" you shout in anger
I know, kočka, I know;
Keep caring for me, never stop
Remember I had to be initiated
In the land of the Indians and their hostile habitats
As is tradition; that's all it is
Everyone gets arrested where I come from
The handcuffs dangling from uniforms bulging with
Administrative cholesterol
Sadistic steel primed for pain and
Humiliation
They decided no one can be normal
They abnormalized me to cure their foaming, rabid offense
At everything that lived
I did not despair, not yet
But I will
"Death's not sad when one has lived
So said tubercular Lawrence
I do not know if I have lived
But now I can
An abnormal life is more of a life than no life
Help me, Pampelka
I cannot fail to live this life this time around.
For D.H. Lawrence
Yay! Congrats, Felix! I think you should sell your poetry collection. Here's to the muse always being by your side!