"it ain't nice like purty, but it's nice like nice"

Right now I am listening to The Grapes of Wrath in CD book form, which may or may not be considered “reading” it though I am calling it that because it’s every word that was written and going straight into my head while I ride back and forth to work. I never remember reading the whole thing, probably because back in school I was too cool to do responsible bullshit like actually read. It was better to figure out ways to do well while pretending to do something I hadn’t done. At one point last year though I was reading a bunch of short story writers for some bullshit I was gonna do on my blog but didn’t, and “The Chrysanthemums” by Steinbeck ended up becoming my favorite short story of forever. It’s straight up erotica, but frustrated erotica, and an amazing fucking story that actually made me think I shouldn’t even try to be a writer.
But anyways, in listening to The Grapes of Wrath, I’m struck by how amazing a work it is, how seamlessly Steinbeck weaves shit together between Joads and overview of America, but also how much it applies to American life now. Things are very different, yes, but also very much the same. Also made me decide I’m slaughtering my own pigs next time.
I should be writing more but am just now getting back into even trying after recovering from some external bullshit involving cobra poison in my soul. Listening to the story of the Joad clan has been very relieving, to realize the pains of being done wrong by those who feign constantly how they have your best interests in their mind, and insinuate you should be more appreciative, is nothing new. Shit man, we started the grand dance of pretendery last night with the Iowa Caucuses. Pretty soon, half of you will pretend Obama is not a fuckin’ Illuminaut funded more by Monsanto Popes than Ickey Woodses, and the other half will pretend that whatever cocksucker Businessman for Christ has the R stamp is not a cocksucker Businessman for Christ.
Oh well. Grandpa was having his stroke as I got home tonight, so I anxiously await getting up at six in the morning to shower, warm my truck up, and hear what happens next. I know it will be painful, but I am thankful for John Steinbeck. Dude gets overlooked probably because he is considered a classic, and we of this age are contrarians by nature and have to like the unheralded. But Steinbeck was a motherfuckin’ man when it came to this shit. I put that dude right up there with any of my literary heroes.

Huginn & Muninn

So my absence has been part personal turmoil as I started having anxiety attacks do to the prolonged hostile work environment created by my boss, who also is my bro-in-law, and I didn't have much creative energy. But it's also just as much because whatever create energy I have is being channeled into a short story collection to hopefully be published in the next year or so. I hope that all of you who have regularly and religiously read this blog will also cop the book when it becomes available, because I am supposed to do this shit - I've seen it etched in quartz in future travels.
The work thing has been weird because I've never had anxiety attacks before, and don't much like them. I've willed them away for the most part, being well-schooled in breath meditations and removing myself mentally from physical situations - part of the benefits of a wild-assed upbringing I guess. I can compartmentalize well.
Strange thing is I had this dream last night - first dream I can remember in forever, as usually I dream words so when I dream images it is very vivid to me. This was that. I was looking through a window and this huge ass cobra was coming, like 20 feet long, right outside the window and poking at the pane with his head. Then these two huge twin ravens, like four feet tall when they landed on the ground and almost walking like bow-legged people, came swooping in and just attacked the cobra, trying to kill it and carry it off. One got it in its mouth and started leaving, then the snake, who was resisting with complete jiggly snake resistance, fell back down, like ten feet further away from the window. But the other giant raven was right there and swooped in and snatched him again and started dragging him off further. And they carried him out of eyesight in this manner, him fighting the entire time.
Being well-schooled in the stories of Huginn and Muninn - the twin ravens of Odin - I know what the fuck is going on with all that. I also feel better about my bro-in-law - the cobra - because sure he is resisting and manipulating as much as he can, but his ultimate desire is to destroy me because that is his cobra nature. But I have spirit protectors in place who can clear the perimeter. Which makes me feel better, just a little.

update

What's up peoples of the Cyberian Empire? Just wanted to hit you up with to let you know I ain't dead, didn't fall off a freight train or blast off into space with Mayan Prophets or start wandering the insides of Afton Mountain on spirit quests (though that last one's probably a good idea). Been cutting down on the Cyberian oppression of my life, as I sludge my way through some stories that have percolated in my head the past couple months, hopefully to be published as a collection next year at some point. You can reach me at all them places in the sidebar for the most part (twitter, gmail, whispers on the wind), so I'm still checking my Cyberian passports regularly, getting 'em stamped and shit, but won't be no rojonekku posts beyond the occasional update like this for the foreseeable moments. But I'm still here. And you're still there. So we are still connected. If that ain't strong enough, twit or electronic mail me. Or fuck man, if you put something into PO Box 270 Scottsville, VA 24590, that'd be like four cups of coffee and a line of crank all at once, because that is real. I like real shit. Real shit is the best shit. Always has been and always will be.

t r k b x

battery cables jiggled
one last time, for good measure,
and then we let the grass grow

r r b a f

crooked ladder iron jabbed
my thigh - the stab wound is black,
so we poured vodka in it

g r f b k

run where the forty bottles
break, where freedom's concealed by
overgrowth and rainbow blight

b e t a y

monsters snarling in my head,
cutting scary promos on
what I should know to be truth

p o w a e

smokestack brickwork like not seen
no more ascends from homeless
camp in an abandoned plant

t r e z m

dilapidated roots get
exposed as those with profits
in mind erode their support

r o a d z

vdot done mowed the roadside -
chopped up my wild blackberry
bushes; fuckin' government