That awkward moment when you try to look punk but you inadvertently turn yourself into the god damned Ocean Spray logo.
I’m just waiting for Keanu Reeves to infiltrate a gang of surfers-turned-bank-robbers on my damned head.

That awkward moment when you try to look punk but you inadvertently turn yourself into the god damned Ocean Spray logo.
I’m just waiting for Keanu Reeves to infiltrate a gang of surfers-turned-bank-robbers on my damned head.

WHEN GOTHAM IS *ASHES,* THEN YOU WILL HAVE MY PERMISSION TO DIE.
Pandemic mask + Misguided pandemic DIY haircut + Pandemic-induced abiding antipathy = comic book villain.
C’mon, we all knew 2020 would create a new one somehow.

You’ve witnessed the global pandemic. NOW PREPARE FOR THE GLOBAL PUNKDEMIC.
Because punk never dies.
*Astute readers will deduce that I tried to give myself a haircut, but fared so poorly that I had to adapt it to a mohawk. And even that turned out a little uneven.

I hope your holiday season is proceeding safely and happily.
Full disclosure — I swiped this picture from a pal of mine who is far better at decorating than I am.

I’m so pleased to note here that Down in the Dirt has once again included a poem of mine in a poetry collection. This time out, the magazine published “An Ode to the Paintings of a Newly Discovered Artist” in an anthology it released today, Late Frost. ) The magazine first published this piece in its regular issue last month.
If you’d like to order a copy of the anthology, you can order it from Amazon at this link.
Thanks, as always, to Editor Janet Kuypers for allowing me to share my voice via Down in the Dirt!

Great news — I am going to be published in Germany again! The nice folks over at Newington Blue Press have selected one poem and one photograph of mine to appear in the limited edition Issue No. 2 of Buk 100: My Old Man, A Birthday Greeting. The poem is my recent piece “Ode to a New Black Ballpoint Pen.” The photo is of the Shaffer’s Crossing Norfolk Southern Railway Bridge right here in Roanoke.
I am truly honored to learn that my work will appear in Issue No. 2 — especially after several of my poems appeared in Issue No. 1 of Buk 100 back in June. (These were “Guerrilla Poet” and “First Smoke.”) I am also quite happy to see that a photo of my adopted Bible Belt city will appear in a literary publication in Europe.
Buk 100: My Old Man, A Birthday Greeting is a set of chapbooks commemorating what would have been the 100th birthday of Charles Bukowski. Their featured writing and art were selected to showcase “a conversance and artistic involvement with the phenomenon of Bukowski.”
Thanks once again to Matthias Krueger at Newington Blue Press for allowing me to be a part of this unique international tribute to a legendary poet!

By Commonurbock23 – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4030361


We all know that 2020 has been a difficult year, to say the least — and that this Thanksgiving, for many of us, will be unlike those in the past. Let’s each be thankful for what we do have — whether it is our health, our homes, our hopes, or one another.
Pictured — lead-glazed glass painting depicting the potato harvest and Thanksgiving in the Hippolit Church in Amelinghausen, Germany.

Photo credit: Oxfordian Kissuth, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Maybe it’s a lifetime of zombie movies that’s done it to me (along with the books, short stories and comic books), but somehow I always knew that there would be hordes of imbeciles getting themselves and other people killed during a horrifying viral pandemic. (There’s always the crazy guy who leaves the gate open.)
It’s like these @$$+)*%$s exist to hasten the plot along to its high-casualty conclusion.
DAMMIT, MIGUEL.
