Tonight, the moon is divided—half loss, half hope An hourglass or a clear luminosity diving through light-flecked clouds Low and golden, the way long-ago fish broke into the air the sky is restless tonight, like a sea mourning waves tossed carelessly on an abandoned shore of tumbled shells and scuttled ships Behind me, the hills are somber milestones my car is a ghost rushing past gas pumps, cantinas and fast-food grottos past gluttonous palaces and stoic churches, past neon signs that barter lust the world is intoxicated, mad with its own reflection, As slot machines echo divinity and release a cascade of tiny moons pressed with the faces of forgotten heroes The world is senile, filled to the gullet with sentiment and butchered flesh and the promise of more trinkets—Love has become anonymous an apocalyptic lullaby, a keepsake from a mythical land the radio sings and hisses and cajoles and like an interpreter of Pythian verse I’m listening for my redemption, listening hard, the way a leper clings to … [Read more...] about Millennium: Song of a New Year
Endings
In the horror of the hour the clock tower chimes a note of dread as stars and moon and sweet desire are swept away into the fire of the living and the dead for those of us who watch and see ghost flowers piled high, in palest snow with frozen breath, we tend the pyre for endings come and go The fragile pane of memory the dangling button at your sleeve soon to be lost forever the careless echoes the sad goodbye the moment missed the day you cried Shadows flee and clouds conspire to break us from the life we knew your hand was curled around a leaf with sorrow waiting underneath the blackest of taboos drift silently in opium haze Is that really all that’s left of you? There was a moment when I knew The sirens cleaved the world in two time dissolved —a public wake questions that will have to wait answers you can never make no second chance, or tethered hour nowhere to run or place to cower This is the end the goodbye we fear the black tide rising the broken year the winter seed on hardened ground the moment when we’re lost, not found the … [Read more...] about Endings
Brave New World of e-books
1. Write book on typewriter 2. Send to typesetter 3. Receive galley proof 4. Mark up galley proof 5. Create layout 6. Corrected proof arrives 7. Paste type to boards (including page numbers) 8. Send boards to printer 9. Correct blueline proof 10. Print 11. Distribute Sound crazy? Back in the day, publishing had a slow, relentless tempo, like a sacred choral work. Individual voices rose in gestalt to make a whole. Books were planned a year in advance. The minute there was a cover, the sales force courted bookstores and distributors. Editors and proofreaders checked every dangling participle and questionable fact. Copywriters wrote sales pitches and back covers. The art department assembled the physical object. Finally, the book was printed, boxed and sent out into the world. Licenses were handed out to foreign publishers and the process repeated. The Heirarchy of publishing grew around this process; writers, publishers, editors, copy writers, art directors, proof-readers, traffic controllers, marketers, publicists, salespeople, etc. … [Read more...] about Brave New World of e-books
