A Triumphant Yawp!!

I did it. It’s done. Save for a few minor edits and revisions, my second manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: A Story of the American Civil War, is done and should be on book shelves later this year.

It was tough nut to crack, much darker than my first book, but it’s done and I’m happy.

Here’s the book’s first poem, the first entry in Kendal Everly’s journal. Everly is a teacher and a pacifist. He writes this not long before the Civil War begins.

English: Gen. Charles Griffin (1825 – 1867) (as Captain), career officer in the United States Army and a Union general in the American Civil War. He rose to command a corps in the Army of the Potomac and fought in many of the key campaigns in the Eastern Theater. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is the Place

April 1, 1861

Here, beneath these trees –
oak and ash – shadows lay
like blankets spread
for a community of picnics.
I feast on a moment’s song:

breezes, still laced
with March’s chill, weave
as ribbons about these limbs,
Giggling children dart
behind stalwart trunks

hiding from each other and me –
children teasing me, their teacher,
as I walked to school.

But this spring rumbles.
Men who drape themselves
in the dark robes of politics

brandish words as warriors
brandish swords –
and I am afraid.

Related articles

• A Civil War Apocalypse (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• A Poem from my Forthcoming Book (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Confederate Ghosts (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)

A Civil War Apocalypse

New Jersey poet Adele Kenny has challenged me again. Via her blog, Kenny recently tasked her readers to write an “Apocalypse” poem. You can read Kenny’s challenge here. My effort is posted below. It’s a poem from my new manuscript,
The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: A Story of the American Civil War. My protagonist, Lt. Kendal Everly, a school teacher, a pacifist, is about to be brutally enveloped by war. To a degree, he is about to face a personal
Apocalypse. Everly, wrapped in rage, has already stabbed his adversary, a young Confederate soldier (detailed in a earlier poem); now, Everly straddles his foe, bends over him, and wraps hisfingers around the boy’s neck.

Lost

August 4, 1861 – Entry IV

His neck was thin. My fingers
slid around it as they might caress
your neck, Elizabeth. Yet, it was slicked

with blood so it felt as if I tightened
my grip around a fish. Hunched over
like Notre Dame’s bell ringer, I pulled his head

closer to mine. He might have thought
I meant to kiss him. My heart, my mind,
both bubbled with some foul Satanic froth,

both marvelled at the deepening color
of his face, a deep purple, a fine wine.
I gulped the dying gasps of this boy

as if his death would envelop me
with the silken filaments of salvation.
My fingers tightened. His neck grew thinner,

a wet string. His mouth, like a gate, opened,
dark and wide, attempting to conjure breath.
His limbs flailed attempting to embrace the air.

His eyes, opened wide like globes.
Damn you, I screamed. DAMN YOU. And then, there was
death. He was still and I was lost. Dear God, I am lost.

Related articles

• A Poem from my Forthcoming Book
  (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• On my Horizon…
  (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Women of the Civil War
  (cbsnews.com)

Confederate Ghosts

The poem posted below is taken from my developing
manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: a
Story of the American Civil War. I thought it well
met a writing challenge presented on New Jersey poet Adele Kenny’s
blog, The Music In It. The
challenge is to write a “mysterious” poem. Would you like to read
the challenge? Just visit Adele’s blog.
In this journal entry/poem, Everly imagines his enemy,
Confederates. What will they be like? He wonders for he is soon to
meet them. Let me know what you think. Confederates July 17,
1861 – Entry Two Night comes and my heart finds its
rest. But daylight: a cursed time, when the enemy unfurls long
shadows, long fingers that stretch from behind the wrinkled hide of
trees and stones, scratch promises on the wind: blood and death.
Damned, foul ghosts: gray, so gray.

Related
articles

• Writing Challenge: Christmas and the Civil
  War (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• A Poem from my Forthcoming Book
  (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Where I (Wish I Could) Write
  (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• I Wonder as I Wander – Why?
  (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• One Writer’s Resolutions
  (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Faces of the Civil War
  (cbsnews.com)

One Writer’s Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions – cliches for the most part. Yet, I’ve a few goals, writing goals, that I hope to accomplish in 2013. I’ll share them here. Hopefully, I’ll return over the next 12 months to inform you all that each were indeed accomplished. My fingers are crossed.

1. Finish my new manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War and see it published.

2. Begin manuscript number three. Well, it’s actually already in the works. So, therefore, I hope to get a “hunk” of it done. It’s revolves around the life and times of Jesse James. Details to follow.

Jesse James

3. Become a better marketer of my work. In this area, I’m really at a loss. If you have any advice, let me know.

4. Write more consistently. I think most writers want to be more consistent writers.

5. Blog more consistently.

6. Connect with more writers. Great minds think alike – ha!

There’s my list. It’s simple and achievable.

Happy New Year all. What do you hope to accomplish?

 

Related articles

• I Wonder as I Wander – Why? (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Setting and Accomplishing Goals (writingwranglersandwarriors.wordpress.com)
• When Hurricanes Strike…Write (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Good Ideas for Writers (leartisteboots.wordpress.com)

 

I Wonder as I Wander – Why?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about one of my habits, a habit that, in part, compels me to write: I wonder. I grant my mind liberty and let it travel where it might. But why do I wonder?

As a child, I often visited places I was unable to travel to physically; however, I did travel to these places both mentally and emotionally. Simply stated, I employed my imagination. As all children do, I embarked on incredible adventures. I explored the reaches of space. I grappled with undersea tyrants. I flew. I spoke to animals. I became animals. I piloted starships. I…well, I did it all. But all kids do. Right? But I’m not a kid anymore. A few days ago, I turned 44. Guess what. I’m still piloting starships.

Psychological studies suggest that people wonder, or day dream, because it helps them relax, manage conflicts, boost creativity, and relieve boredom. I’ve no doubt that all of this is true, but I believe that, for me, it’s more. When my mind zooms me to new and other places, it’s asking me to knit reality to the dream. It wants me to blend each into one. When I write, that’s exactly what happens.

For the last few years, I’ve been writing about the American Civil War. My efforts resulted in my first book, Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the Civil War. Currently I’m writing a second volume of Civil War poetry, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly. Respectively, each book tells the story of its title character; however, it also tells my story. As I carved each story, I lived each story. I smelt the cannon smoke. I trod upon earth muddy with blood. For me, my poems are much more than poems; they’re memories.

So, I’m a writer. I write because I wonder and I wonder to weave reality with fantasy – but why do that?

Related articles

• Lt. Kendal Everly Finds His Lungs (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)

Dueling Characters

Scott’s great snake. Cartoon map illustrating Gen. Winfield Scott’s plan to crush the Confederacy, economically. It is sometimes called the “Anaconda plan.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve a friend, a fellow poet, who reads everything I write. Well, at least everything I send him. He, William, read and commented on each poem in my book Private Hercules McGraw: Poems of the American Civil War. He’s also read and commented on every poem in my ever growing, soon to be published second book, The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War.

Recently, William made the following observation. “Here, in The Journals of Lt. Kendal Everly, more than with the rebel series, Private Hercules McGraw, you seem to isolate on the singular enemy ["the man I was to kill"] rather than the mass – as if these soldiers fight soldiers rather than armies.”

William also commented, “It seems that the Union liutennant is more self-absorbed and takes his action as against individuals. The tenor of the Confederate representative has a nobler essence – suggesting the poet has a sympathy for the settled character of the South.”

Hmmmm? Do I like one character (Hercules) more than another (Kendal)?

I need to think this one through. Fascinating.

Related articles

• Private McGraw Receives Stellar Review (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Voices From History (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)

Writing Challenge: Migration

Once again, I’m posting a poem to meet New Jersey poet Adele Kenny’s writing challenge. Adele has tasked me to write a poem that somehow deals with a migration. In this poem, from my developing manuscript The Journals of Lt. Arthur Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War, Everly, the poem’s speaker, laments on his new title. He is now a lieutenant in the United States Army. He’s been given his uniform. He’s been given his gun. He’s made a a noble, terrible migration.

Visit Adele’s blog to read her challenge.

Blue Suit

May 25, 1861

Indeed, burdened
with the robes of war,
I’ve been named lieutenant.

Gold buttons, as bright
as Ares’ eyes…and a sword
hanging from my hip,
a bolt of Zeus’ fury.

I’ve been given a pistol.
It’s cold and heavy – a dead thing,
but something terrible beats
within it, wicked and hungry.

I fear that in some tomorrow,
I’ll be asked to feed it.

Related articles

• Private McGraw Receives Stellar Review (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Empathizing with Your Characters: His Hell, My Hell (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)

Writing Challenge: Shadow

Here’s a poem that I think fits, however not perfectly, the writing challenge offered on poet Adele Kenny’s blog, The Music In It. Adele asks her readers to write a shadow poem. If you’re interested, follow this link to Adele’s challenge.

This is one of the first poems in my developing manuscript, The Journals of Lt. Arthur Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War. In it, Everly, a teacher, fears that war is imminent.

——-

This is the Place

April 1, 1861

Here, beneath these trees –
oak and ash – shadows lay
like blankets spread
for a community of picnics.
I feast on a moment’s song:

breezes, still laced
with March’s chill, weave
as ribbons about these limbs,
Giggling children dart
behind stalwart trunks

hiding from each other and me –
children teasing me, their teacher,
as I walked to school.

But this spring rumbles.
Men who drape themselves
in the dark robes of politics

brandish words as warriors
brandish swords –
and I am afraid.

Empathizing with Your Characters: His Hell, My Hell

Cannon at the First Battle of Bull Run (Photo credit: Jason Pier in DC)

My second manuscript is near completion. It’s titled The Journals of Lt. Arthur Kendal  Everly: Poems of the American Civil War. In it, poem by poem (one poem = one journal entry) Everly tell us a tale; he speaks of his journey through the Civil War.

Everly, a pacifist and a teacher, enlists in the Union army solely because he feels it is his duty to fight if his students are to fight. He feels compelled to protect their innocence. Sadly, he fails, despite valiant efforts. Sadly, he also fails to protect himself. He survives the war; yet he, in many ways, dies.

 

The final part of the book remains unwritten. It will deal with Everly’s experience in the Battle of First Bull Run. Everly will tell a gruesome story. His experience it that battle will, in many ways, destroy him. I find it strange that I’m hesitant to begin the destruction, so to speak. I’m hesitant to see what Everly sees, hesitant to feel what he feels because all he sees and feels will be torn from me. I will construct his hell and, in part, I will therefore construct a hell for me to lie in as well

Related articles

• On the Eve of Bull Run (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)

Extra, Extra Read All About it: Rebels!

A week or so ago, I promised myself to write a few poems that somehow connected to newspaper headlines that appeared in 1861-1864 American newspapers. Here’s my second effort in that regard. It’s a poem from my developing manuscript The Journals of Lt. Arthur Kendal Everly: Poems of the American Civil War. Everly is a literature teacher and pacifist; yet, he finds himself very involved with the blood and mire of the Civil War.

Here’s the headline.

Here’s the poem. It’s written on the eve of Everly’s first battle experience.

Confederates

July 17, 1861 – Entry Two

Night comes and my heart
finds its rest. But daylight:
a cursed time, when the enemy

unfurls long shadows,
long fingers that stretch
from behind the wrinkled

hide of trees and stones,
scratch promises on the wind:
blood and death.

Damned, foul ghosts:
gray, so gray.

Related articles

• On the Eve of Bull Run (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Please Live – Poem 13 (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• General’s Tent – Poem 11 (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)
• Civil War Headlines (thelintinmypocket.wordpress.com)