In honor of our new magazine, Balance, here's some sweet, frozen wisdom (or madness, not sure which). 

One who keeps a cool head
-risks brain freeze.
One who does not
-may melt prematurely.

If you already know
the waffle's crunch
-your hands grew sticky
long ago.

One with glass shoes
-should avoid rocky road.

Sharing is best
-when we all have different flavors.

This time by James. My words are: Silver, Bonanza, Wall, Capture, Illusion, and Ticklish

History is ticklish.
You simply need
to poke and prod it
a little to make
it writhe and squirm,
twist and contort,
showing anogther
side of itself.

No one suspects
the severe face
trapped in silver halide
on grandma's wall
to be the same face that grinned
with childish glee
as Bonanza's own Lorne Greene
battled evil rovots. That same mouth
spoke of time-travelling call boxes 
and sword-fights in space while those
eyes sparked with wonder.

In a momentary lapse,
a flash of light capures
the illusion which, for generations
will be handed down as
reality.

I was nominated for my own challenge! 

A little while ago, my friend Dave nominated me for the Word Bucket Challenge. My words were: Vacillate, Thousand, Broken, Wall, Ingredient, and Silver

He stood, leaning against
the wall, beer and pretzels
and all as I got back and it's all,
"did you get it?" and "Great man,
how much?"
It wasn't much.

Between 80oz of malt 
liquor, two bags of sourdough,
gas station cigars and rolling paper,
we were half out of coin
and missing an vital ingredient for
a night of hedonism.

We strolled down by the docks-
the loading docks- all mysterious and out for
trouble, orjust a quiet place, vacillating
between standing menacingly on tired feet
and sitting, un-menacingly on cooling concrete
among a thousand fragments of broken glass.

He struggled to roll it, the sticky night air
forcing sweat to rain from his face, nearly breaking
concentration. He rolled it like a freshman, unsure
but determined, lit up, and took one long drag.
He held it. I chewed, pretzel masking the horrid
taste of the now warming 40.

He was all choking and writhing, 
doubled-over in suprirse. "Man,"
he managed, thumping chest. "Those 
lying assholes." He expected a high,
not a burning lung. "Said I should try
oregano!"

I handed him a cigar, lit my own
tossing the bottle and silver wrapper
to the dumpster, and said, "Come on." He stood, recovering,

Four plus months of writer's block finally broken. Here's the first full poem I've written since before the end of 2013. It may need a tiny bit of revision, but it feels good to get going again.

Here's another one fresh off the presses! I had so much fun writing it,  I had to  share.

Life lessons come
in the silliest disguises.
Their mundane events contrast
sweetly to their profound importance.

We live through these real-life
allegories, sometimes without realizing
until years later. Like the composition
teacher blindly drilling her students,
"Do not thing, write," 
we sprint like lemmings with tunnel
vision, to our own ignorant bliss, not
stopping to pick the flowers, buy a
pastry and breathe the air of knowledge.

"Don't think, write." 
"Keep the pen moving!"
The mantras of the racehorse writer,
perhaps a racehorse liver too,
cruising through life in plaid,
speeding enough to be the first
one to the next red light.
"Keep the pen moving," 
no time for planning.
Hesitation is laziness at best,
incompetence at worse,
and we can't have that.

So, I click my pen, unclick, click
again and move my hand, tip
hovering too far from paper
while I keep my mind
moving.

Here's a brand new one inspired by literature and a Change.org petition.  It may want some revising, but I felt like sharing it as it is.

As soon as you pull the idea
from your head, give it a firm,
hard smack on the bottom. This will
make it cry, opening up the lungs and
allowing for the flow of words.

The heathen scientists have proven this to be true.

Several minutes after, if the crying
continues, give it a few more sharp 
whacks with the palm of your hand.
Continue until the crying subsides.

Some people recommend muffling
the cries with a pillow and waiting them out,
but this is wrong and could seriously disfigure
or even all together ruin your poem.

As early as three minutes, feel free to 
use a hard or softwood stick to keep it 
in line. If you must erase, use a light-colored
eraser to avoid leaving marks. Otherwise, those
godless hippies at your local library, grocery store,
or even church may call social services to come
take your poem away from you. They will try to clam that it's 
"abuse," but they're wrong. In fact, disregard any advice
that's not ours. This is the One True and Holy way to write up a poem.

At all costs, avoid using ink of any kind as 
it will leave permanent marks with very little effort.
It's much better to write in pencil.
There's less of a chance you will be charged
with anything, and you can press so much 
harder, especially if the end is blunt.

Keep a pencil case in your pocket, just in case
your poem acts out when you are not at home.
Make sure you find a quiet corner where you can write
in private if there are any commie hippie heathens around.

Revision isn't only for bad poems. Beat, I mean
revise your poem regularly to ensure total obedience. 
Maintenance revisions are essential. 

If you follow all our directions to the letter, not only will you avoid legal affairs, you will
also be left with a loving, holy poem that is ready for adulthood, I mean publication.

Someone requested a copy of this poem during the Broken Reflections launch. It was first published in Rhyme and PUN-ishment. 

Sometime between
feeling like I was slipped
sleeping pills and I drank
Miracle-Gro for tonsils,
I read Kant.


Not that I’d know from experience,
but reading Kant with Mono
is like reading Kant high
and, in some cases, 
reading him while lucid.

Black splotches on
the pages dizzied my
half-closed eyes and brain
and I wished profusely
my tonsils would stop
touching, my head would stop 
throbbing and my legs would 
feel like they still
had bones in them.

Heidegger and Descartes
haunted my dreams
when I could sleep.
It seems like I spent
most of my time only
wishing I could sleep.

Or, maybe I was
dreaming I was wishing to
sleep because…

Maybe the whole thing
was a dream.  The whole damn
disease could be
the product of my subconscious.
But does it exist?
What is truth?

Vision blurred, I would phase
back into my corporeal
shell from across the room.
Confused phantasms
formed in my head as I
tried to read and
mix labor with Locke
or understand the book
as the most cryptic
extension of myself.

My equal and opposite
self is greater than or equal
to the part that postulates
this syllogism:
If Q implies Pain and
P implies fatigue
Then,  .:  (therefore) any answer but
the truth is a
fallacy.

Not fallacy like the castle
in The Little Mermaid either.  
The real kind.

But, What is truth?  Is it 
the photo of a bust
of Aristotle (An image of
an image) which saved me
half a page’s reading?
  Is the beating of
my temples more true
than that of my heart because
I feel it more?  
I remember reading an essay on
this once:
“Rain is a pain, and 
that’s the truth.”
Something like that.

My mononucleotic Doctrine?
MY EVERYTHING HURTS
and that’s the truth.

Here's a preview of my new book, Broken Reflections, which will be debuting this Saturday, November second.  This poem happens to be the title of my forthcoming second book. 

Public Education

“So, she has a
legitimate disease.
Not Autism, but,
arctistic or autistic or artism
or somethin’, I don’t know
but it’s not like she’s retarded
I mean, she kinda is, but
not really. She’s not autistic but
she has a legitimate state disease,
like, it’s recognized by the state
an’ everything.  She has, you know
seizures and stuff, well not really seizures,
but, you know,
seizures.  And, her disease, I
 can’t remember the name of it,
but it’s recognized by the state, like
I said, so she gets state funding and stuff.”

I couldn’t help overhearing.

Yo
bro
mofo and showgo
hobo and toe.
Mo nizzle
izzle pizzle
and toilet swizzle.
Ing ta da bling
gots ma thing
caching fo ringading ging
no ring
po-ding mah french
ya wench and bench
clenc ma buttcheeks
you freek peeks at
eain 2 meny steeks
boo you foo Mista Magoo
who ah you?

What is dead may never die!

*Written by Nick Hale and James P. Wagner

Every now and then, I stumble upon some poetry that blows my mind, that's too good to not share. There's a video that has been bombarding my Facebook wall for a few days now. I've lost count of how many times I've seen this video shared by my friends. In fact, you have probably already seen the video I'm talking about. The video in question was of slam poet Neil Hilborn performing his poem "OCD" in the finals of the 2013 Rustbelt Regional Poetry Slam.

My first reaction to this video was "wow, I wish I was there." I could almost feel the energy through the screen. Much of the poem's power comes from Hilborn's performance. My second reaction was "I need to find out more about this guy." 

A quick google search led me to the publisher of his second chapbook, his Tumblr, and more great videos. I had a hard time deciding which other videos to share. Here are a few for your enjoyment.