movements & measures - One Year Later.

movements & measures
ISBN: (ePub) 978-14524-6192-2
Publisher: Zero Edition Press
Distributor: Smashwords.com
Release Date: November 08, 2011

One year ago, Zero Edition Press, an experimental self-publishing co-operative I started with Ben Bowlin, released my first collection of poetry as a digital chapbook distributed by Smashwords.com.

To celebrate the one year anniversary of that release, Zero Edition Press, is once again offering a Smashwords coupon code that'll allow you to download your own copy of movements & measures for only $0.99 USD.

Go to the movements & measures page at Smashwords by clicking here and enter the coupon code:  AZ36Z  at check out. If you don't already have a Smashwords account, you will need to create one. It's ease and free and will give you access to books by thousands of independent writers and publishers. Even if you don't buy my book please, please, please show your support for the literary endeavors of great artists who you'd otherwise never hear about because the big publishers see them or their books as unmarketable, i.e., it's not Twilight or 50 Shades.

I want to take this time to, once again, thank all my fans and followers, my family and friends for all the love and support. You guys are wonderful and I wouldn't be able to do this with you. An especially heart-felt thank you goes out to my wonderful wife for putting up with me and my addiction to writing.

Thank you. Thank You. Thank You.

Zenaida

I remember

rain
playing tin-roof songs
and me wearing nothing but tightie-whities,
running circles around our house.
I was three—or four—
and the house, by American standards, was
a concrete shack on some jungle hilltop.
But it was the mansion
my mother bought us with money
sweated and saved,
scrimped and slaved for
in countries other than Home.

You watched me from the front steps,
Kept (mostly) dry by the overhang,
smiling each time I passed.

I laughed: a child at bath time.

Taken in 1995. With my mother, Ana. The Cowbird Tribute [Here]

Brooke

I heard God
in the halo formed
by the sunrise
behind your head
in that twilit parking lot
in your car
after a night without sleep:
7:02 AM.
Lost in your eyes, I was breathless.
This is the perfect ending to a book,
God said and somehow I knew 
that fifty miles away
the first leaf of Autumn
erupted into being,
a kaleidoscope
of yellows and oranges and reds.

Pin It Photo by and courtesy of Janet Howard @ Janet Howard Studio

Depression

The sun warms my cheek and I

smile like a tree in spring. My shoes

are the concrete foundations of cities

abandoned for years and my toes,

like roots, burst through them

just as easily. Into the earth, they dig

like excavators digging new foundations.

I close my eyes against the sun’s

phosphorous light. I am concrete drying:

pointless and transient, waiting

for trees to grow in a hundred years time.

Copyright 2011 by T.J. Blackburn

Tuesday. 08:46:40 AM

andinablinkofaneye
E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G




changed.

Morning. November 5th,

Hey, Johnny:
Welcome to your Party. 

Did you bring the Tea,

China 

or the sea?

The Hare and the Hatter
Spar over whose truth is truer
while the Dormouse 

demand both houses 

and the head that wears the crown.

The Cat 

now, frowns.
And Alice keeps waiting...

And waiting...

And waiting...

Copyright 2010, 2011 by T.J. Blackburn

White Christmas

Some years passed
since that first
February flurry;

yet, I still find
novelty in every
fall of snowflake.

They float into place
onto roof tops
and naked branches

and into our hair:
little and white
and nonchalant.

Like children praying
in God's mathematics,
I stick my tongue out.

Eyes closed, I trust
in the intangible
niceness of every taste



rediscovered.



Copyright 2010 by T.J. Blackburn

Snellville

1.

You said you need
half an hour.

So, I wait for you.

2.

Outside your house,
I watch stars—countless stars—
appear in August sky.
They shine like candles
left on windowsills to guide
the homeward bound.

3.

I assign seconds to distant suns, play connect-the-dots with time
till stars over Snellville: I am here, writing poetry in my head.

I am here.

4.

[Question:]
Are those stars the possibilities never actuated
into reality, pitied by the gods, rescued only to be
cast amongst the light year vastness?

5.

[Answer:]
We are Orion chasing the daughters of Atlas!
To pursue those stars
is to explore the subtle meanings
of happiness.





Copyright 2004, 2010 by T. J. Blackburn

Preface

If I pour
my heart
my soul
myself
into these words,
will the accumulation
of my work
become the embodiment
of how I feel
and thus
keep you here?

Will these
little
pieces
of me
speak sincere
from the heart
of the heart,
and of the matters
it holds dear?

Or will these parts
when taken whole
within
your hands
your eyes
yourself
betray my intentions
and abandon these
emotions I have for you
to die misunderstood,
a volume
of inaudible
I-love-you's
lost to
the noise
of words
left unused?






Copyright 2004, 2010 by T.J. Blackburn