R. D. Armstrong (Raindog): How about: Old too soon, smart too late. Or: Raindog lives in Long Beach, CA amidst the ruins of a career as a small press publishing mogul. Visit the remains at Lummox Press  

Fire and Rain vol. 1 will be available through Lummox Press for $19.99 (+ $2 shipping) by May of 2008.  Volume 2 will follow soon after.

On/Off the Beaten Path, contains three long road poems, written in 1999, 2000 and 2001. To give you an idea how long these poems are, the three poems total about 25,500 words. On/Off features an introduction by Todd Moore. Here's a quote from that intro:

"Years ago I recall reading A JOURNEY UP THE COAST, ON/OFF THE BEATEN PATH, and ROADKILL. I read each book as it came out in 1999, then in 2000, and finally in 2002. Taken separately, each of these books is both a wide angled view of the west coast and southwest and an intimate look at the narrator. However, if you see these books as travel accounts, then you are seriously mistaken. They are travel books only if you also believe that SONG OF MYSELF and ON THE ROAD also fall into the same category.

Taken as a trilogy JOURNEY, ON/OFF, and ROADKILL form a kind of late twentieth century early twenty first century attempt to recover, recapture, or reinvent a part of america. Also, taken together these three books become a long poem about the rediscovery of america. And, the rediscovery of the self."


On/Off the beaten path will be available this summer and will cost $17.99
 

Too Soon

So much depends on
the grinning of a lone
child
laughing,
on the run
like Neruda
brown & agile,
at loose ends
with seaweed hair,
floating free,
unadorned.

A simple grace

Too soon
Too soon
the weight of anguish,
a carpet of lilies
on fields of Flanders,
Belfast, Soweto, Compton,
Sarajevo, Beirut.

Too soon
the tolling of the bell
Too soon
the world is
at once,
bigger
and yet (somehow)
smaller.

Too soon
the long night,
like a blanket,
covers us all.

 

 

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