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The Extemporaneous – Draft 2

/ Just Barry / 5 Comments

A newsletter of sorts

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate it here in the U.S., ignore this part if you don’t, and Fight the Power if you actively protest its heinous colonizer roots, or are boycotting shopping this year to send a message that the folks in charge will undoubtedly ignore, or otherwise take from it the wrong message.

I’m mostly option two nowadays, so it’s Chinese takeout for the win.

Aside from all the football on television, I’ve never been a huge fan of Turkey Day, so I’m content to skipping it for a change. And especially this year, as I’ve been caretaking Wifey after her ticker got zapped by heart surgeons. (I casually worked in the lyrics to Bon Jovi’s You Give Love a Bad Name in conversation during Erin’s postop recovery, which compelled her to roll her eyes at me, but she still laughed despite her best efforts not to.)

So yeah, I’ve been pretty busy, tending to Wifey’s post-surgery needs. Last week, she got a cardio ablation to tame a few wonky heartbeats. I’m being glib, but the procedure is quite invasive, excessively medical, and not for the squeamish, so I’ll spare you the details. (Hi, it’s me. I’m the squeamish.)

It’s been challenging and scary for both of us, but I’m relieved to report that Erin is in full recovery, and with the doctor’s blessing – and against my worrying nature – she is planning a road trip with her bestie this holiday-extended weekend.

Huh. Go figure. Just last week, it felt like I was fighting uphill just to support her recovery. This week feels like I’m fighting uphill just to keep her inside the house and sane, so I guess I’d call that an improvement!

Obviously, as she’s my heart & soul (see what I did there?) I will continue to worry about Erin’s health. But she’s got most of her swag and vigor back, and her life is her own, so I will let go, and let her do her thang as I try to figure out my own path. Which means once again I’ll be wrestling with how to get this confounded chapbook accepted for global distribution so I can advertise it and get it the hell out of my life so I can focus on the next thing, whatever the hell that may be.

Why did I want to become a writer again?

The home-selling has been placed on hold until Erin’s in full recovery, which has encouraged the short-sell vultures who can smell the free money hemorrhaging from a “weak selling position” to spam my phone with a bunch of, “I see you’ve taken your home off the market! How can we help ourselves into your pockets?” type of rhetoric. Filtering those calls from the actual headhunters and job interview calls that I’m looking for has been frustrating as hell.

This world is a toilet.

Sorry about that. I got sidetracked with… you know… *gestures wildly* …all of this.

Where was I again? Oh yeah… the book thing again…

The State of  jagged remnants of you

I approved my latest proof early this week. As of now, the status of my paperback is still pending, but the eBook is already approved, so… progress? The only certainty thus far is that I’m reevaluating my publishing options for my next project. I’ve not been impressed by Lulu’s customer service and communication.

Sadly, if you’re still waiting on my book to be made available outside of Lulu’s storefront, the wait continues. I’m sorry. I’ll keep you in the loop as soon as I learn more.

For My Substack Homies

That was quite the falloff, wasn’t it? I went from posting and reposting multiple notes daily to… *crickets*.

You guys still get my newest poems, but I haven’t had much time these days to really think about how I feel long enough to scribble even rudimental drafts. And so, I write less.  

What can I say, except I’ve been pretty stressed? I’ll try to find my way back to the fun interaction that kept me engaged, and I hope to find you there as well. Thanks for your patience and understanding.

For my Medium Homies

I learned how to use the publisher’s scheduling feature for more regular posting to create the illusion of presence, but yeah, I’ve been mostly away cleaning house, making meals, and keeping Erin properly medicated and stimulated (Imagine being an extrovert and being stuck in the house for twenty-four hours a day with only me as your companion. We’re both doing our best, but it’s been dicey at times.)

So if you’re wondering why my posts have increased while my comment correspondence has taken a nosedive, now you know why. But I hope to visit your timelines very soon.

For my WordPress Homies

Whelp… here we are again. I still don’t know what the future holds for this site, but judging by your kind comments, some of you welcome these newsletters, so I will do my best to keep at it. Thanks again for putting up with me.

Final Thoughts

I dunno man. Just do your best. A recurring theme, I know, but it’s all I have to offer.

Be kind to yourself at all times and be kind to others as much as they’ll allow it. With all that’s going on in the world, we’re collectively in a dark place, so do what you can to be the light you need to see in others.

And I’ll also leave the light on for us.

Take Care,

Barry

© BJ Dawson — 2025

Barry’s new chapbook, jagged remnants of you, is available on Lulu in paperback and eBook, and will be available for global distribution someday soon, we can only hope.

Tips are always welcome.

The Extemporaneous – Draft 1

The Extemporaneous – Draft 1

/ Just Barry / 9 Comments

A newsletter of sorts

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

It’s been a while since I sat down and thought about how I feel about – well, everything, I suppose. Now seems like as good a time as any to check in with myself, my writing peers, and any fans I might have picked up or disenfranchised along the way. I figured a newsletter would be the best way to go.

I don’t know if I’ll limit the scope of this thing to my writing projects in the works, or if I’ll meander off the beaten path the way my mind does naturally tend to wander. If I do end up meandering – and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m already in the field and a quarter-turn around the blackberry bush – I trust that most of you will give me grace. Hell, some of you are here precisely for the offroad ruminating, and to this I say, thank you, and you’re welcome.

Where the heck have I been for so long?

If you’re reading me on Substack, then you should know that I’ve spent most of my summer repairing, cleaning, and prepping my home for sale. It’s been an all-consuming labor that left little bandwidth for anything other than eating, sleeping, and being present for myself and loved ones. I tried sneaking off to Substack as often as I could, but eventually I just had to let it go for a while.

If you’re reading me on Medium, then you probably have a good idea of what lead to my knee-jerk jump over to Substack. Like many of us upstart small-fry accounts with 1K followers or less, my revenue dried up after Medium leadership tweaked the rules to the money stream for premium members. I went from being cautiously optimistic at possibly earning a living from writing to having to DoorDash while looking for another day-job. This was cemented by the fact that my Substack posting has yet to earn me one red cent, even as I enjoy contributing to that community far more than any of my online presences.

TL:DR: Writing on Substack for free often feels slightly better than writing on Medium for peanuts, and both must be sidelined whenever reality’s foibles (and bills) come a-knocking. Weird, I know, but these are the facts as I know them.

If you’re reading me on WordPress, I am so very sorry for abandoning you for so long. Is anyone even still reading this thing? I must have about three subscribers left by now. I honestly don’t know what came over me. Medium waved a couple lousy, funky-ass dollars at me and off I went. I don’t know what a soul is worth, but Medium offered me bus fare, and I’ve been chasing those wooden nickels ever since. I guess the seduction of wave-riding to become a “real” professional writer is real as hell. I will do my best to do better.

When will you get back to posting normally?

The short answer is I don’t know. The long answer is – bruh, have you seen what’s going on in the world? What even is normal anymore? Every day my newsfeeds read like Mad Libs: Catastrophe Edition. Everyone and everything seems to be drag-racing to become catalyst for our Extinction Level Event. I don’t know where I’ll be living next month or if our great society will even make it that far. It seems weird as hell talking about any sense of normalcy with democracy crumbling all around me.

Plus I gotta figure out how to better market my chapbook. You see? See how weird that sounds in context with <gestures wildly> all of this? Did you know that Smoke is now the Pacific Northwest’s unofficial fifth season? And everyone just shrugs it off like, “Oh yeah, I remember fresh air. Wasn’t that rad?” The fuck?!?

I must sound like a sociopath trying to promote a poetry book during the End Times. But yeah, like I said; I will do my best to do better.

So what’s the deal with that chapbook anyway? I thought you were publishing it way back in June! What gives, man?

Okay, here’s the thing; I am an idiot. Just an absolute bumbling, stumbling buffoon. Hear me out; I’ve worked hard to become a pretty good writer. I’ve studied, practiced, and perfected my craft to become the kind of poet who makes my readers gasp at the depth of feeling pouring from my words, and I know that as amazing as I’ve become, I still have much to say and plenty to do to get even better… but when it comes to self-publishing, I’m just another spider monkey with an assault rifle.

My chapbook is available for purchase on Lulu in paperback and eBook, and I’ve been fighting the good fight of trying to make it eligible for global distribution – meaning, you could buy it on Amazon, Barnes n Noble, Apple Books, etc – you know, anywhere globally.

But here’s the thing; it keeps getting rejected. The ISBN on the back cover is missing, or it’s too small to register, or it’s not in the right place, or the spine title is too big, or it’s a fraction of a centimeter too far or too near, or fuck you man, I just don’t like your tone, or whatever.

I’m taking my sixth bite at this apple, and I feel pretty good about this one, so maybe October I say – not as a statement, but as a question with both fingers crossed and my tongue tucked in the right corner of my mouth for luck?

It might happen. But hey, I’ve been wrong before, so have your grain of salt handy.

What will you be working on next?

I plan on making my chapbooks a series, with each one as its own theme. I plan to publish the second of this series a year after my first one actually gets its global distribution. So if my spider monkeys pull all the right triggers this October, you can expect a new collection the following October of 2026 (Assuming all the AI’s don’t do a Terminator 3 Skynet thing by then.)

I’m also cross-posting from Medium to Substack and vice versa. My Substack posts are free for the first sixty days. After that, they go behind a paywall for the enjoyment of absolutely no one, as I have no paid subscribers right now, but I’m not trippin’ or whatever. I decided to cross-post these poems over at Medium after the sixty-day mark. So far that’s been going well.

I also decided to cross-post select Medium posts over at Substack after ninety days. I haven’t encountered any issues so far, so I’ll continue to monitor and adjust as needed.

I’ve not yet come up with a strategy for my WordPress vertical yet, but this newsletter is a step in the right direction. I don’t know how frequently I’ll write the newsletter, but if I write one, all three verticals will have access to it immediately. This is me doing my best to do better. 🙂

(Addendum: I’m not too keen on writing on WordPress anymore, as the new interface sucks ass. Or maybe I’m just old now. Either way, I don’t expect to be dealing with this nonsense too often, so if you dig me, maybe try out the other two channels?)

Care to share any final thoughts? Anything more on the state of the world? On our pending World War 3? On any of the ongoing genocides? On any of the other horrors that make us shrug helplessly or cry in the shower? On any random smug bigots meeting ironic ends?

Nah. I’m good. After all, I’m just some guy on the internet trying to sell you poetry at the end of Smoke season. What the hell do I know about such things?

© BJ Dawson — 2025

Barry’s new chapbook, jagged remnants of you, is available on Lulu in paperback and eBook, and will be available for global distribution someday soon, we can only hope.

Tips are always welcome.

NaPoWriMo Day 29 – Instinct Strolls Along

/ Just Barry / 6 Comments
Adolescent fawn strolling just outside my window (I wasn’t quick enough to catch his mom.) Image by Author.

Instinct Strolls Along

grazing through meadows
displaced from hazy dogma
gazing through windows

wish I knew how to let go
yearning to yield to the flow

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 29 Prompt:

“Imagine a window looking into a place or onto a particular scene. It could be your childhood neighbor’s workshop, or a window looking into an alien spaceship. Maybe a window looking into a witch’s gingerbread cottage, or Lord Nelson’s cabin aboard the H.M.S. Victory. What do you see? What’s going on?”

NaPoWriMo Day 29 Prompt

NaPoWriMo Day 28 – Side Effects Include Dizziness, Paranoia

/ Just Barry / 3 Comments
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Side Effects Include Dizziness, Paranoia

I can’t touch it to scratch it,
but today’s different, isn’t it?

It’s like, I know the sun rose
higher like it’s supposed to,

but today felt slightly brighter
than even that, didn’t it?

You felt it too, didn’t you?

Or am I so accustomed to
running from abject darkness
straight towards light-imprisoning void

that when I encounter a
single day without tragedy,

the daily struggle feels
more like a comedy?

Don’t that make your mind nervous?

On rare days like this,
do you find yourself checking on
loved ones; counting, recounting
family and dear friends in hopes
that no one is missing,
or are you normal?

I dunno, man; instead of
notice of another one of
my heroes passing on, I
am getting teasers of new
music from a favorite artist,
and don’t that seem strange to you?

Instead of another black guy
sketched in chalk and demonized,
a powerful, privileged white man
is on the cusp of being held
accountable for treasonous,
inhumane acts, and if you are
like me, aren’t you just waiting
on the other shoe to drop?

Is my heart skipping beats a sign
of hope displacing despair
for the first time in forever,
or should I see a doctor?

Perhaps, for once, this time,
the answer is yes?

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 28 Prompt:

“Our prompt today (optional, as always), is to write a poem that poses a series of questions. The questions could be a mix of the serious (“What is the meaning of life?”) and humorous (“What’s the deal with cats knocking things off tables?”), the interruptive (“Could you repeat that?”) and the conversational (“Are those peanuts? Can I have some?”). You can choose to answer them – or just let the questions keep building up, creating a poem that asks the reader to come up with their own answer(s).”

NaPoWriMo Day 28 Prompt

NaPoWriMo Day 27 – Flutterby

/ Just Barry / Leave a comment
Photo by Karina Vorozheeva on Unsplash

Flutterby

Have you ever been
through the looking glass, yourself?
Can it be worth it?

Dull ache of crossing over,
relearning of left from right,
all bold things being equal,

and still, you’ll never
actually catch the dragon?
The unicorn? The flutterby?

Is it better to wait; to
admit that you truly miss
them, gaging the distance from

your side of the glass
where there is still suffering,
rules, just as unjust,

but at least you know
the horizon and beyond
are never meant to be caught?

Anyway, I truly miss you.

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 27 Prompt:

“In today’s (optional) prompt, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by an entry from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. The entries are very vivid – maybe too vivid! But perhaps one of the sorrows will strike a chord with you, or even get you thinking about defining an in-between, minor, haunting feeling that you have, and that does not yet have a name.”

NaPoWriMo Day 27 Prompt

I didn’t pick a single entry, as reading through most of them put me in a melancholic zone, and I was already pretty bummed-out from my day job to begin with. Let’s just say that the Obscure Sorrows’ body of work inspired me to write this.

NaPoWriMo Day 26 – Banned from the Barbecue for Mansplaining While Grown Women are Talking

/ Just Barry / 1 Comment
Photo by Mizzu Cho from Pexels

Banned from the Barbecue for Mansplaining While Grown Women are Talking

With all disrespect
just shut the fuck up
don’t need your connects
get touched-up, you suck up

you cluck-up on my time?
cock-of-the-walk? oh,
“so witty”, you primetime?

I’ll click-up that block button
like the cock-up on my burner
go head, talk that slick-mutton
and get clapped-back, sack-churner

now you caught in the payback
platoon halt, Mr. Wayback!
turn to salt when you backtrack
ain’t my fault that you lack tact

forget my name and lament
your time, lost, out of turn
reset the game and repent
your crime, never return

in all truth, we don’t fuck with you
and that’s your one and only clue
so don’t press your luck with grown folk
or prepare to duck, tuck or choke

when I cast-out every demon
masquerading as silly jokes
starting with you.

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 26, but off-prompt, as writing a parody didn’t move the needle with me. Instead, I wrote from the perspective of a woman reclaiming her time.

NaPoWriMo Day 25 – Ordinary Sunday Morning

/ Just Barry / 3 Comments
Photo by Matthias Groeneveld from Pexels

Ordinary Sunday Morning

a spring storm sputters from the blue,
dancing on bathroom tiles, and I know
as foggy dream yields to hazy reality
you have already answered daybreak
for your Sunday morning shower.

you sigh and coo in blissful oblivion
and doves take flight up my spine.

your hairdryer yawns into action
as you hum a backing tune
while I sing the lead in my head,
lying in our bed, one knee crocked,
staring out the window to horizon as
cotton candy slowly trades
back and forth with blue.

I act as if asleep as you reenter
our bedroom, shadow falling upon me
like the world’s warmest blanket,
failing in your efforts to move silently.

“Stop faking,” you admonish gently,
and despite myself, I lose a snicker.

on occasion of an ordinary
spring Sunday, well before noon,
sneaking a peak, there you were, uncovered,
and upon widening my eyes to drink you in,
every depth, contour, and Venus dimple
of treasures previously beyond conception
came into focus from eastern daybreak.

“What?” you ask through wry grin,
as if you could not possibly know.

but you do know.

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 25 Prompt:

“Our prompt for today (optional, as always) is to write an “occasional” poem. What’s that? Well, it’s a poem suited to, or written for, a particular occasion. This past January, lots of people who usually don’t encounter poetry got a dose when Amanda Gorman read a poem at President Biden’s inauguration. And then she followed it up with a poem at the Superbowl (not traditionally an event associated with verse!) The poem you write can be for an occasion in the past or the future, one important to you and your family (a wedding, a birth) or for an occasion in the public eye (the Olympics, perhaps?).”

NaPoWriMo Day 25 Prompt

NaPoWriMo Day 24 – Profile of Nihirizumu-no-Kage

/ Just Barry / 3 Comments
Photo by joey Zhou on Unsplash

Profile of Nihirizumu-no-Kage

My creative spirit is
a large cat-like creature native to
Africa and central Iran.

In her natural spirit form, her soul is
the fastest land, air, and multi-
dimensional animal, and as such,
she has several adaptations for speed,
including a light build, long thin legs,
a long tail, and occasionally,

when at resonance with her partner
and confidant, she sprouts the most
beautiful wings the color of every
sunset ever seen by man.

Her head is small, rounded, with an
occasional mane of soul energy which
resembles evaporating obsidian.

She has a short snout and black tear-like
facial streaks, which change colors in
relation to her emotional state
and level of artistic fulfilment.

Her coat is typically tawny peach to
creamy pink or pale magenta and is
mostly covered with multivariately-
spaced, multicolored spots, which also
change pigment and texture, often
containing galaxies of their own,

each birthing and dying on the whim of
an examined or ignored idea.

Her name is Nihirizumu-no-Kage,
though she has never spoken it,
nor will she respond to it,
but if I fail to invoke her whole name
every time, she vanishes in a huff.

While an informal partner of mine,
she is never subservient or tame.

If anything, she recognizes me as
a subspecies of her and is often
bemused by my efforts to
hunt down new concepts alone.

While she leads a nomadic life searching
for her own prey, occasionally our efforts
achieve a resonance where I impress her
enough to lend me her power.

As she hunts by sight and I by inner-light,
she is diurnal to my nocturnal nature,
therefore we tend to peak together
during dawn and dusk.  

My creative spirit is threatened by
several factors such as time-space
habitat loss, conflict with capitalistic
concepts like conventional wisdom and
day-jobs, poaching and other types of
plagiarism, and high susceptibility
to diseases and eroded confidence.

Nihirizumu-no-Kage is ailing,
considered as Vulnerable on the
Global Creative Sprit List,
but I have faith in her.

She always finds her way back.

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 24 Prompt:

“Today’s (optional) prompt is a fun one. Find a factual article about an animal. A Wikipedia article or something from National Geographic would do nicely – just make sure it repeats the name of the animal a lot. Now, go back through the text and replace the name of the animal with something else – it could be something very abstract, like “sadness” or “my heart,” or something more concrete, like “the streetlight outside my window that won’t stop blinking.” You should wind up with some very funny and even touching combinations, which you can then rearrange and edit into a poem.”

NaPoWriMo Day 24 Prompt

While I struggled a bit with the editing, this one was fun. I’ve written about this topic before here and here, but this is the first time I tried describing her in a zoological nature. Hope I didn’t piss her off with this! (Oh, and I used the Wikipedia entry for Cheetah as my base article.)

NaPoWriMo Day 23 – So You Still Wanna Know About That Dream

/ Just Barry / Leave a comment
Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

So You Still Wanna Know About That Dream

where we never knew how to let go

with all Midnight Plains a playground
we crammed into each other’s airspace
as if we’d implode from any separation
licking our past from our lips
compressing present between thighs
hearing the future grunt from our core

soaked in milky-way sky and malbec  
unlocking French on flannel sheets
Great Divide traversed before dawn
and dew drops kissed our skin

we writhed, undeterred by chill of fog

we wore our own tropical high
melting Olympic glaciers upon release

us furious lovers; us selfish givers

when I awoke, tangled in your absence
wisdom made for poor company.

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 23 Prompt:

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another. This could be as simple as using a line or image from another poem as a jumping-off point, or it could be a more formal poetic response to the argument or ideas raised in another poem. You might use a favorite (or least favorite poem) as the source for your response. And if you’re having trouble finding a poem to respond to, here are a few that might help you generate ideas: “This World is Not Conclusion,” by Peter Gizzi, “In That Other Fantasy Where We Live Forever,” by Wanda Coleman, “La Chalupa, the Boat,” by Jean Valentine, or “Aubade: Some Peaches, After Storm,” by Carl Phillips.”

NaPoWriMo Day 23 Prompt

I responded to “In That Other Fantasy Where We Live Forever,” by Wanda Coleman.

NaPoWriMo Day 22 – On Losing One’s Virginity

/ Just Barry / 2 Comments
Photo by Michael Prewett on Unsplash

On Losing One’s Virginity

Why it’s called deflowering
transcends imagination
groping upon irony.

Days after sweet seventeenth
I gifted her my flower
grinding artlessly in darkness.

A year earlier, she yielded hers
to her soulmate, who promptly
snatched his soul back afterwards.

I cannot say I blame him, as
no magic burst from novice fumbling;
only visceral urgency, dread,

unfathomable yearning, learning
new ways to move, to remain still,
to apologize while still inside

while eyes are still locked, still
one sticky organism with two
muddled minds; an anti-flower.

Deflowering propagandists should
seed new gardens with more accuracy;
first time is slapstick humor at best,

but if both get the joke and laugh
there may be a second time, and yes,
that will be hilariously awful too.

But the third time you may feel petals,
gifting and regifting back and forth
trading an unending source of flowers,

and therefore, the very term we use
 – this so-called “deflowering” – has not
and never will make a lick of sense.

Written for NaPoWriMo Day22 Prompt: We’re examining “the strength of metonymy in poetry” today.

“…I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.”

NaPoWriMo Day22 Prompt