Blah Blah Blah

I'm not here right now, leave your name and number after the beep.......

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Tuesday Guest Spot #1 She writes






After being interviewed by Nadja I was told by Christopher that it would be good practice to do the same for others…and I liked that Idea. Those of you I would like to interview will be hearing from me…I have been so fricking busy that I spaced to send out the requests. I’m thinking about having a weekly post called Tuesday Guest Spot (Sorry Brian that is my only fairly open spot…ONL will have to get day old bread from me ;-)
Please bear with me, this is my first time doing this and I hope to improve.

Wander


My first guest is Amy from SheWrites:





What was the first book you remember reading, and why do you remember that particular one?

The first book I recall reading was Raggedy Ann Stories, by Johnny Gruelle. There was a whole series I collected in my childhood of these books. The stories were about Raggedy Ann sneaking out of the playroom of the little girl who owned her. She would sneak out at night and visit these magical woods filled with fairies and witches and silly creatures—all components that fueled my little girl imagination to want to run away and discover something magical outside my own window.  Raggedy Ann was both smart and sweet.


I read profusely as a child and couldn’t begin to recall all the books that moved me, but Raggedy Ann remains on my shelves to this day.


Why writing?

There is a freedom in writing that is probably similar to what one experiences with too much alcohol J. It is easy to say almost anything, invent words and stories where inhibition need not be practiced. Of course, there is the inevitable rewrite after rewrite where words get removed, tamed, and added, but still, freedom is a huge draw in writing. Often what I can never express in life, or don’t even think can find its way onto a page and be perfectly acceptable. It’s fun.


If you had your way, what writer would you have a shoot the shit session with, past or present?

Hmmm, this is a really tough one. I am not sure, but Frank McCourt of Angela’s Ashes comes to mind. Maybe because he was a teacher which means he liked imparting knowledge, or maybe because he was incredibly vulnerable in that memoir and I am always moved by vulnerable people. I want to know how writers come up with their ideas and so anyone currently published would be a welcomed shoot the shit session.


Tell us about the first time you had an idea while writing a piece that made you react out loud...

I wrote about a dog I once loved in a memoir piece that left me in tears. http://shewritesherenow.blogspot.com/2010/01/trees.html


If you could take the place of a fictional iconic villain, who would it be, why, and what would you do differently?

I would never take the place of a villain, I hate meanness. But if I could steal someone’s villain to write as my very own, I’d have to take Annie from Stephen King’s Misery.
Cathy Bates as Annie



Tell us one of your pet peeves

This is easy; I detest writing advice generously doused out by people who cannot write! Drives me crazy


Were you a natural writer, or have you crafted yourself into a writer?

Hah! Though I have been told my work is very publishable, because I have not yet been published (nor submitted work for publishing), I am reluctant to call myself a “natural writer.” Writing comes naturally some days and not so much at others. I work very hard at rewriting everything I write. My style has changed over time. I hope I am honing my craft or crafting myself into a writer. But a publisher will be the final one to answer that question!


Without necessarily saying where you live tell us what attracted you to that place…

I am not drawn to where I live. I am living in a way that is practical for my current lifestyle. Sun draws me. Creative, open people draw me. Accessibility to organic food and great little restaurants draw me. The 1940s bones of my little place draws me.


Thanks, Wander! It’s always an honor to be interviewed. I appreciate the invitation very much.

Amy



Monday, June 25, 2012


     
       Into/one

             Your you
           And
       My me
Joined together would make
         A fine we
     Your me My you
    Those four syllables
     Into/one someday
       Sounds good
      I’d have to say

Chris McQueeney    6/22/12    9:27 P.M.

image courtesy of bing image

just another Day he says





We have to destroy


Blowing the lid off
The hole
In your soul
We have to destroy
Your cover
To make you whole
Cringing and crying
And flinching
Bemoaning it all
Blown is the lid
Off the
Hole in my soul
We had to destroy
My cover
To make me whole


Chris McQueeney    6/23/12   10:56 P.M.




Images courtesy of bing images 

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Last time




From that distant shore



One day may I
Walk the shores
Of that distant sea
And gaze in wonder
While seagulls fly
And waves break
Millions of shimmering
Ripples flowing out
One day may the light
From that distant shore
Warm me and offer
Comfort and safety
And peace, yes peace
Full days and nights release
While I wait for that day
I will live and love
Laugh and cry
And you will forever
Hear me say
I am grateful



Chris McQueeney    6/23/12    11:28   P.M







Where the fuck are you?
Those five words changed my life. Those five words showed up on my phone at four in the morning June twenty fourth two thousand nine. Today I have three years clean and sober. I was going to write what lead up to that text, but I changed my mind. Instead I will tell you some of the things that have happened since.
First thing was that I had a friend drag my ass around for a week solid making decisions for me because I was unable to make them on my own. One of the things He wanted me to do was to write out an inventory, an accounting of all the twists of thinking and character that compelled me to get fucked up and destroy my life. At first I told him no problem, and that I would write it that night. My agreeing to that ate at me for over an hour. Finally I took him aside and told him something I had never told another soul.
“I am not going to be able to write the inventory”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t write”
Those four words changed my life. I read very well. And I speak very well. I cultivated those things so that no one would know one of my shames. To put pen to paper is not something I can do. I was so ashamed of that fact, and the result was that I was dying of a disease and a major part of the treatment plan was to write. For fifteen years I had struggled in and out of sobriety and not told a soul that I couldn’t write, not one. I have no idea why I told him. A friend of mine would say that I was cracked just enough that god had room to slip in and speak through me…I can’t take it that deep so I will let you be the judge of that. “Why don’t I write it for you?” And that is exactly what he did, and I have been sober ever since.
After that week he cut me loose, to sink or swim. Every step of the way I have had people to help me swim. At just over a year sober I went to Idaho to make some amends to people that I loved dearly. I disappeared for over ten years. Also to go back to all those places that haunted me, were killing me. I did that and for almost a month after I couldn’t function. I had a break down because I didn’t have alcohol or drugs to survive the torture and abuse I experienced.
One month after my trip I went back to school. The world works at times in ways that open vistas never before available, and this was one of them. While asking at the front desk what I would have to do to get in school the woman behind the desk got on the phone and got one of the school consolers to come talk to me. Out of all the consolers he was the one who I needed the most. He told me the name of the condition that I suffer from, “that sounds like dysgraphia,” and what to do. I have been writing ever since.
I reached a point where I was finally able to write out that inventory, and I did. I chose a man I had known for twenty plus years to walk the path with me, and I told him all of my baggage. I told him how angry I was at my father for dying, how angry I was that he didn’t save me from the damage being done, and how much I missed him. I cried, and he cried because he was a friend of my fathers as well. He heard all of the broken in me that day…and I was broken, there is no doubt about that. How could anyone live through what I did and not be broken. Telling him those things broke me again, but a good break; Like when the doctor has to re-brake the bone to set it properly so it has a chance to heal.
One day a friend mentioned his blog and I decided to take a look. That friend Is Christopher from  View From The Northern Wall. Growing up I was never exposed to poetry, and the impression that I got about it was that it was something to be avoided because if anyone found out that you read poetry they would gang up on you and pummel you half to death. For some reason I wrote a poem in response to one of his poems, I was expecting him to tell me what crap it was, but he didn’t, he told me to keep writing. I have been writing poetry ever since.
The last three years have been terribly hard to survive, but I have been given a gift that I have been searching for the last thirty years…freedom from the demons driving me. I have only written a little about the last three years here. I have been blessed with a family I didn’t deserve, and friends I haven’t earned. I am a different man than I was a thousand and ninety five days ago, and I am grateful.

Chris McQueeney    6/24/12    12:03 A.M



This post has now been linked to Open link night over at dVerse poets pub...give them a look see!


Friday, June 22, 2012






Ghost Pains

Goodbye to you my dear
You have been gone
For most of a year
Ghost pains
From a limb taken away
Remind me how I could say
For you
I would burn the motherfucker
Down
It's true
But that would be
Just for the ghost
Of you and me
On Monday I'm on my way
To sign the papers
That say
The ghosts of me and you
Have gone, their separate,
Away

Chris McQueeney    6/22/12    9:31 P.M.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

My first




Sharpness of it all


Again
I find my world is
A little thin
Not so tough
As it use ta be
Those crisp clean lines
Blurred by use
And time
And finding my world
A bit thin
Feeling the blunted edges
I find pleasure
Not in the sharpness of it all
But rather in the
Softer landing

Chris McQueeney    6/19/12    11:59 P.M.



Below is the piece of mine that was published this week. This is an example of flash fiction, and the Idea of flash fiction is to tell a story in using very few words...this one is only 55 words, not counting the title. below the piece you will find the link to the original post this was pulled from. also all the credits for the image. 


This asshole in Jackson


I’m so fucking tired!
This asshole in Jackson stole my horse; bute named Burt, not the horse, the asshole! Got the drop on me, on account of me being in the jug. Won’t happen again! For one thing, I got my piece skinned, back to the wall. For another, I aint got no fucking horse!


Chris McQueeney    1/6/12

Chris McQueeney 6/20/12

I posted the poem at top on dVerse Poets for open link night


Friday, June 15, 2012

Ben Ditty from Old Spice is Nice has asked me to guest host his blog The Raving Moonbat...
I was more than happy to and here is a link to my post, Pixie Dust.

Give it a look see, and try to keep as close-minded as you can...wouldn't want to have our views changed, now would we?

Wander

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

In that echo




One day I heard myself let go
And from that hear
I will forever live
And breathe
And walk
In that
Echo

Chris McQueeney
6/12/2012
10:20
P.M.


     


     I sat at the park that day so full of fear. The weather was fine, but the grass was damp. Across the picnic table from me was a man I very much admired, and I was telling him all of my faults and flaws and failings. Lighting up the dark recesses of my thinking and living.
     There is this moment before the first drink that to some is called the jumping off place. It is that moment where the drug is calling to you like a lost child in the woods, “I’m here…over here.” While at the same time a quiet part of the mind is wailing “for the love of god don’t, the child will kill you.” Glass in hand the argument is almost always won by the child; the drink is consumed, along with a part of your soul. That internal battle can seem to take millennia as all life tilts on its axis…then fuck it and leap.
     I sat across from that man. I had told him of my anger. I exposed my hurt. I offered to him my guilt. And I stood on that jumping off place, for in my mind, positioned in its throne that rested firmly on my soul sat my shame. The same struggle ensued in my mind as if I was about to take a drink. Only this time the boy was shouting “Please no, if he hears he will never look you in the eye again, will revile and shun you”. This time the quiet voice stayed silent, for I think it had been offered the only answer, and from my mouth I heard myself utter my shame for the man and god to hear.
     I sat on that picnic table in terror of what would happen. He looked at me as if he couldn’t believe I had just told him that. And I was given a gift I can never repay; his response to me was “that was not something I ever did, but if the right circumstance had presented itself I would have.”

Thank You Man

Chris Mcqueeney    6/12/12


this post has been linked to the open link night over at dVerse Poets

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Two countries east




And a Halliburton dream

The lies they told
The lives they sold
For a baseball team
And a Halliburton dream
They took the least of
Two countries east
And gave them a ream

Chris McQueeney    3/25/12    3:58 P.M.








Images courtesy of bing images   

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Chris McQueeney yeneeuQcM sirhC





I got an email from Nadja a few days ago with forwarded emails asking if it was I that sent them, No, but twas my doppelganger. At first in the conversation between Nadja and my dop she was playing around thinking it was me. But then the realization that she was joking around with a total stranger kicked in.

This has sparked some amusing emails between her and I. Needless to say she now knows her folly, and her family knows, and her blog followers know.

My dop contacted her because of the interview she did with me (my first and to date only interview). That Chris McQueeney Googled his name and ran across the interview. Turns out he also writes and wanted to give her his material to read. At one point he says something like “I want to be the best Chris McQueeney at writing” Ok, the gauntlet has been thrown down; bring it on Chris McQueeney join me in the battle of words!

In all seriousness I am inviting Chris to contact me, comment, or write something that I can post on my site. I may even start a regular segment entitled “just the two of me, pros and mo from the two Chris’s”

Thanks Nadja


On A completely separate subject I opened my dashboard today and there were a whole slew of posts from poets writing in response to a post on the mag. Every Sunday Tess posts an image for poets and pros writers to work with and this week the image was a photog’s (Klaus Enrique Gerdes) remake of  Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s painting Vertumnus, a portrait of today.



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Giuseppe Arcimboldo (Italian pronunciation: [dʒuˈzɛppe artʃimˈbɔldo]; also spelled Arcimboldi) (1527 – July 11, 1593) was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books – that is, he painted representations of these objects on the canvas arranged in such a way that the whole collection of objects formed a recognizable likeness of the portrait subject.

Seeing the image brought me straight back to walking through the Louvre Museum trying to find the Mona Lisa. Just before the Mona room Two or three of Giuseppe’s paintings were hung on the wall. Never before in my life had I seen anything so creative, a Man brought to life from roots and branches, and another from vegetables.
Having seen those amazing works of art I was very disappointed by the Mona Lisa…some other time I will go more in-depth about why, let’s just say total let down!




Of things that could never be


Voices from afar
Singing of peace and love
And harmony
Speaking in eulogy
Of things that never could be
Voices from afar
The screams tearing through me
Of my brothers
Whose voices are stilled

Chris Mcqueeney    6/3/12    1:18 P.M.