July 19th of this year will be exactly two years since the release of my last chapbook “BUSTED FUTURES/GENTLE DREAMS.” Every time I’ve put out a chapbook, within a few months I’ve hated everything about it…this one was different. Two years later, I’m still stoked on the poems. Still proud of the work, both in content and in presentation. Still really excited to share these poems with people. That’s never happened for me before. I kinda like it!

I never bothered to keep track of how many copies of any of my books I’ve sold. I guess I was supposed to, so that publishers would look at my numbers and think I was important. Or so that I could put a blurb in my press kit about how many people in the world have seen my poems. Something like that. I know I did about five different print runs just of the screen printed version - different color variants, fancy inks, blah blah blah - as well as a couple of “oh shit, I ran out of merch on tour” printings. That means that a WHOLE BUNCH of y’all decided that you were interested in reading what silly things I had to say. I’m humbled and flattered to realize that my words are floating that far out there in the ether.

So, I’m down to my last several copies. I think I have about five or six more sitting in my trunk. Once they’re gone, I am not going to reprint this book again. It’s had a two-year life cycle, which is about as long as I can go without feeling lazy. I had planned on having a full length collection of poems by now, but…well, time makes fools of us all. I’m still working on it, promise! But I’ve also been sitting on a whole bunch of poems that have never seen print. I have a bunch of new poems that I haven’t posted or released anywhere. And I’m gonna be going to the National Poetry Slam this summer, which all comes together to mean this: I’m gonna put out a new chapbook.

I’m putting a total of ten poems here that I’ve never released in print before. The lead-off poem is an old one, but I’ve never put it in a book. The rest are a combination of brand new work, and performance-based poems that never got a print release. I’m not doing anything super-fancy with this (though there will be some special edition screenprinted copies), just a quick’n’dirty chapbook so I don’t feel like the laziest poet on earth, still slingin’ two year old work.

Here’s the poems:

• FIXED WING PRAYERS FOR CRASHING JETS
• COLONY
• MAN TEACHES ORPHANED WOLF CUB TO HOWL
• FOR MY MOTHER ON HER DEATHBED
• THE FIRST TIME YOUR FATHER CURSES GOD
• NIGHT SHIFT AT THE GROUP HOME
• WAYS TO LOVE A BOY WITH BROKEN BONES
• STILL LIFE WITH SPRAYPAINT
• DEATHDANCE b/w EPHEDRINE
• MONUMENT

I’ll let y’all know how you can get one of these in a day or several, once I’ve finished putting it together. I’m excited. I hope y’all are too.

w.james
1982-XXXX

If you’re on the internet today whining about the fact that Angelina Jolie underwent a double masectomy because you will no longer be able to ogle her boobs, there’s a part of me that hopes you never get laid again, you entitled misogynistic douchenozzle. Just because someone is a celebrity doesn’t mean that your need of masturbatorial fodder takes priority over their right to significantly improve their chances of not dying of cancer.  do whatever the hell they want to regarding their bodies.

Because the tracks to the south are
under repair, we take the train north
from Exeter at a discount, a $5 Sunday ride
to a postcard scene come to life. In Saco,

we eat breakfast in the cafe car, paper
cups of coffee, bagels smeared with cheese.
The landscape moves past us like a movie reel,
flashes of brown, green, a blur of trees

as we slow to allow a freight train to pass by.
Brunswick, we walk hand in hand down Maine St.,
stop at a record store to peruse through
crates of vinyl – some new, still wrapped in plastic,

others dusty, long forgotten, withered relics
with their stories scratched careless in the wax.
We eat sandwiches & crackers in a park
framing a metal bridge, river spilling like a photograph.

In an antique mall you buy a pink dress.
It is paper-thin, heavy as feathers. You wonder aloud
if someone wore this dress to their first dance,
or lost their virginity, or broke a heart.

When we get home, you will put on the dress
and my breath will catch hard in my throat,
but for now it is wrapped in brown paper for
safe keeping. The aisles bow under

the weight of so much history. We walk
back up Maine St. to the station, our hands
folded together like prayer. Or flowing water.
Consider buying ice cream, but the line is long

so we sit on a bench until the conductor
calls us all aboard, climb up into the traincar,
still giddy as school children but exhausted
just the same. We play cards in the parlor car,

you sipping whiskey while I drink coffee thick as tar.
We exit the train back in Exeter, home still ½ hour away.
Your sleepy head presses against my shoulder,
your breath more soothing than steel wheels on rail.

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I appreciate all the support y’all give me, but if you want to share this I would appreciate if you just link back to this page rather than reblogging, as the poem is still an early draft in progress. Thanks for reading!