NUMBER 3
By Alex Ness
January 15, 2024
Special Offer
Autumn Painted Red is a book about Jack the
Ripper, where I write poetry in journal form as the ripper, while other
talented people and I write non fiction about the phenomenon of popular
or fascinating killers, and their impact upon the world. A favorite band
The Swallows did an entire CD of music featuring one of the suspects
killing and moving to the US to continue his reign of terror. It is a
daunting task, writing music about one theme that people might feel is
icky. But to me, it is a masterpiece.
Get my book and the Swallows album for a $17 postage paid in the US.
Hit me up at alexanderness63@gmail.com to get the one set available.
ON WRITING
I lost so many readers over the years it isn't even funny. It isn't from a mass die off of people. Though my two biggest "fans" were women in their 60s who passed away, and therefore no longer buy my works and then some. It doesn't happen that America changed the English language into binary code and now we must all be code able to read. We don't live in a world where reading is outlawed.
At least Fahrenheit 451 threatens but doesn't exist yet.
“I still love books. Nothing a computer can do can compare to a book.
You can't really put a book on the Internet. Three companies have
offered to put books by me on the Net, and I said, 'If you can make
something that has a nice jacket, nice paper with that nice smell, then
we'll talk.' All the computer can give you is a manuscript. People don't
want to read manuscripts. They want to read books. Books smell good.
They look good. You can press it to your bosom. You can carry it in your
pocket.”
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
But whatever the cause, I think I have two smaller books left, one in poetry, one mostly prose, (another Viking collection and my final King Arthur book), and a huge book of Cthulhu works, prose, poems and illustrations. I just can't afford to write for pennies an hour in reward.
Although I've read a number of depressing studies on reading habits, my books were never the sort people read for pleasure. And I know, poetry is less popular than other works. I write my poetry differently than most however. I spent a long time learning forms and trying new ways, and decided when some of my best poems were crapped on for being like someone else's, and they weren't, that I had to do something. You see, I rarely if ever, purposely read any other living poets's work. I don't want to be accused of plagarism. If you choose to think I stole something, you'll be hard pressed to find it. Now, that also limits how I intake fiction and non fiction, since I don't want to use poetry to plagiarise that content, in the way that the scholar has worded his or her work. It is inspirational at the source of the information, so I use it as a guide for accuracy and topic, not to evoke anyone else's writing. If you say I write like Lord Dunsany, or the anonymous Beowulf poet I'll be your friend forever. But I do have found certain rhythms in music, and listening to that will cause a phrase to pop into my head.
The one phrase that popped into my head came during a period where I worked with and met a best friend, etching glass at a small crew business. Working with glass can be dangerous, and it is often dangerous to clumsy people like me. I got cut, and it was big, and deep. We bound it and everything was fine. I was a Christian who attended an evangelical church, and everything had deeper meaning to me at the time. So many signs from God, or so I thought. Well there was a commercial on the radio, with more music than words, and the rhyme "the blood of the lamb is upon my hands"came to mind. My sins are many, but here was proof, just moments before my hand looked like it was dipped in a paint can of blood. I tried using it in poems, and it never was nearly as powerful as when I was thinking that phrase to the beat of the music.
A POEM ABOUT MY MOTHERS
