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ons and migrating shadows when the trains are sleeping when the kebab shops are closed when the only way home is through the backend of a sex toy shop and a blighted bulgarian graveyard wandering among crumbled tombstones under fetal thickening clouds my shoes eaten by goat shaped shadows and muffling the laughter of the dead the dead are laughing because they are dead and they know a whole village of knowing witching hour bulgarians laughing quietly and dead as the roots of the grass argue with the worms and the worms berate the church and the church castigates a crow and the crow shouting at the sun that sticks its purple fingers through the trees and touches me between the shoulderblades reminding me why the dead are laughing dispatch from a friend s sofa nothing not the sangria or four roses not the mass of peruvian cotton not the funeral air nor sea of crickets devouring me nothing could bring me under that night until the moon which could just as easily have been a cross or picasso s face rolled down a roof and hung on a branch outside the window filling my skull with dreams share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook print opens in new window print email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading m p powers on books and writing december 10 2024 m p powers 1 comment here is a recent interview i did with taylor dibbert m p powers joins me for my latest author exchange he divides his time between berlin germany and boynton beach florida this interview has been edited lightly you published the initiate in 2023 would you tell me a little bit about it the initiate is about richard doran a tool rental shop owner and philosopher and poet yes all those things who quits his life in florida and tries to start over in berlin there feeling partly reborn and partly like an institutionalized convict setting his foot back in the world he seeks to regain his balance by dating but his dates are all total disasters culminating in an unplanned pregnancy that s the story on the surface plus some barroom scenes and travels around europe but i see it more as a below the surface story it s the story about richard doran s inner life his anxieties his euphorias his insanities and how he turns it into poetry it s also full of leitmotifs that the reader probably wouldn t even notice on the first read on the second read if anyone ever gives it one they might notice it s a where s waldo of fertility symbols lots of foreshadowing moons and cows and fruits and numbers etc plato s theory of forms also plays a part but only as a kind of lowbrow minor character how long did it take to write do you have a writing routine the first version fortuna berlin took about two years but that version didn t sit well with me after self publishing it so i put it up on cinder blocks in the carport and replaced the exhaust manifold the shocks and struts the bucket seats the cv axle the power steering fluid and even the wiper blades not an easy feat for a piece of autofiction took about a year then i sent it in to cody sexton at anxiety press my writing routine varies depending on where i am in florida i write before work between 4 30 and 6am in berlin i write whenever i have solitude which is quite often i can write pretty much anywhere if i just begin but ideally it s at home with booze or coffee and some wordless music in the background i like to write sober and edit drunk or vice versa that way i have more than one personality looking at it i think bukowski said something similar but the idea isn t a new one the ancient egyptians did it too according to herodotus and i struggle to think of any poet i find great or interesting as a human whose muses didn t reek of booze and vomit in the morning why do you write fiction when you re living a lie as i was before i had any idea who the hell i was it s important that you hide the fact with a great surplus of verbiage bullshit in other words storytelling is often just a way for the storyteller to hide you throw it in the air like gold dust to impair the other person s vision of you that s how it began with me obfuscation and it kind of came naturally i d drink haul off on the most outrageous tangents and people seemed to love that side of me unfortunately it was about the only thing i was good at back then and there weren t always people to practice on so eventually i took up writing and started practicing on myself who are a few writers you admire the writers i admire are ones whose works i can read more than once most books are like shells without the mollusc in them devoid of a living spirit but the ancient greeks and romans the german philosophers and the 19th century ruskies they just keep living also d h lawrence e e cummings hemingway céline and buk they re the ones i keep returning to and i don t need much more than them i m not a book glutton i don t want my head to always be stuffed with other people s thoughts i probably reread more than i read any big projects in the works i ve got a poetry collection called strange instruments coming out with outcast press in 2025 i ve also got a full length collection of other poems and dozens of stories waiting to be sent out i am loaded with inventory but right now i am mostly occupied with the novel i m working on it s a modernization of an old myth very happy with it so far share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook print opens in new window print email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading passport august 19 2024 july 29 2026 m p powers 1 comment life on the pass line i was 38 when i got my first passport and 39 when i quit everything and moved out of the us since then i have traveled to italy poland denmark hungary sweden spain france netherlands england ireland czech republic austria and portugal some countries i have visited multiple times i have also worked as a film extra a forklift driver a shipper of japanese booze had a few books published taught myself how to draw and paint speak german and had a child with a british woman and married another now it goes without saying that i have struggled much and in many ways along the way but however bad it s gotten or will get i am certain that rather than staying in my old hometown doing the safe and practical thing with the same old stale people i did the better thing by putting my life on the pass line with the bet that one day i would fly backwards into the clouds on a wine cask navigated by komodo dragons more to living there is not share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook print opens in new window print email a link to a friend opens in new window email like loading the debt collectors july 30 2024 m p powers 2 comments i posted this here recently but with the beginning of the story hacked off this is the version that was just published at a thin slice of anxiety the debt collectors just when i thought the ground had swallowed him in came glen johnet navigating his motorized wheelchair around the pressure washers in the showroom hey bossman got sumpn for you got it right here in my pocket he dug in you re gonna like this he pulled out a little plastic baggie peered up at me with his candid blue eyes told you you d like it consider it interest on that money i owe you got a knife what am i talking about of course you got a knife you got a whole qvc collection here who d you sell that sultan s sword to anyway you know i wanted that thing i sold it to a pastor i told him handing over a little swiss army knife a pastor that s what it says on his business card pastor ron stroker what s a pastor need a sultan s sword for pastors are often very bloodthirsty people i told him he s a hunter he s gonna hunt with the sword probably see that s what i like about you patrick you ll do anything for a buck you sell paint hand tools sultan s swords who would ve ever thought you could get a sultan s sword at a tool rental shop probably the same people that call to rent breast pumps they do that it s happened a couple times does pastor ron stroker use a breast pump if he doesn t he should i said he shook the baggie anyway this is the last of my stash there s just a little bit here just a bump to get us through the afternoon believe me i know how they can drag on sometimes especially mondays so i thought you d appreciate he stuck the point of the knife into the little baggie and scooped up a little white mound i snorted it he scooped up another little mound for himself and whoofed it away just interest he said what do i owe you now 24 think so i m gonna take care of that very soon he said trying to clear all my debts all of em i m sick of owing people how s business the hurricane was a big boost i bet hurricane flood pestilence meteor shower any kind of natural disaster would be good for this fuckin business i pray for them i joked i don t pray he said unless you call thanking prayer prayer is about gratitude something most people don t know nuthin about it s not about asking for a brand new cadillac i bet if you were to do a survey 90 of the world s prayers would be asking for money in one way or another as if the gods give a dog s moonlit ass what you got in your wallet hey looks like you got a customer pulling into the lot you want me to go in the back you don t have to this should be good entertainment the customer was joe defilippi fortysomething ex high school football star addicted to pot and cocaine and pain killers and always had a running balance with me we watched as he stepped down from his crusty chevy pickup truck and strode through the parking lot the hard sun blazing off his sparrow s nest hair and capacious skeletal features he tore open the front door and had barely entered the shop when he hollered hey patrick what s with the obnoxious message you left on my machine you know i m good for the money i never said you weren t it was a subtle reminder subtle if that s your idea of subtle what s your idea of unsubtle a jackhammer to the head my knob in the vice i grinned alright what do i owe you you actually came to pay kind of he said i got my girlfriend s card but you can t put it through till friday and i need a drill what s my balance 200 what do you need the drill for what do you mean what do i need it for he asked as if flabbergasted you know what i need it for happy days pawn shop we laughed listen i said i ll give you the drill i never rent it you just need to do this one thing oh no ever done collections collections i have some people that owe me some money deadbeats even worse than you if you can believe it scum of the earth and close by too i need you to pay them a visit the arnie cadmus ferrari and maserati car dealership had rented a boom lift from me for three months but only paid for the first two months they owned 1750 and had been promising to send me a check since the lift was picked up almost 6 months ago i called them about it almost every week and every week there was a new excuse or the person i needed to talk to wasn t around or my call would go straight to voice mail and they wouldn t return the message i was done with it i gave joe the clipboard with the contract on it do you want to go with him i asked glen he might need reinforcement i ll wipe that 24 clean if you two pick up a check sure i ll go but what about my wheelchair how am i going to get that over there it s too heavy to get in the back of the truck i ve got a push wheelchair you can use i told him he laughed i should ve known is there anything you don t rent i don t rent you i told him not yet he said and laughed driving his wheelchair into the corner of the showroom he parked it i brought him the other one the rental he sat down in it with a loud groan and adjusted his thighs and feet i wheeled him to joe s truck helping him in i threw the wheelchair on top of all the rakes and palm fronds in the bed of the truck wish us luck said joe you won t need luck just be yourselves be exactly who you are it ll be perfect what happened while joe and glen were over at the car dealership i only know from what glen told me later he said the first thing they did was park joe s truck on the opposite side of the building from the office joe didn t want anyone to see the condition of his truck which was covered in dings and dents full of lawn debris joe then rolled glen through the football field length parking lot and into the main office a brunette in a pantsuit came out of a little room and told them someone would be right with them they sat down in the waiting room glen coming down from his cocaine high joe strung out and fidgety from whatever he was coming down from they sat there waiting joe s thinning gray hair standing in angry spikes his face unshaven his beautiful ghostly blue eyes blazing like gorgonian fire he looked like a cobbled together version of every hitman you ve ever seen in any hollywood movie hey he shouted from his seat did you forget about us no answer this ain t right he went on in his voice that was like achilles dragging hector over a mile of broken stones every car dealership i ve ever been to they swarm you like locusts the moment you get there what kinda place is this he got up paced a bit looking in the rooms poured a cup of coffee and sat back down hey he shouted can i smoke in here again no answer i like a smoke with my coffee he mused don t tell me i gotta go outside to light up glen rolled his wheelchair up to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup five minutes passed finally a tall dapper looking man in an elegant gray suit stepped out of one of the little rooms sorry about that guys we re a little shorthanded today my name s matthew how can i help you how can you help us asked joe i ll tell you how you can help us matthew got a light i don t have a light said matthew smiling okay listen matthew here s the deal you see that yellow ferrari in the lot yeah that one right there i d like to give it a test ride you what matthew was still smiling a test ride well just to let you know before we let anyone drive anything we have to make sure they re qualified qualified said joe springing up from his seat i m paying cash what do you want from me a bag of money he grinned his shark like grin matthew rolled his eyes okay forget the test ride said joe what we re really here for is much more important than that i need to speak to your boss s boss my boss s boss i am my boss s boss i m the owner joe lifted the clipboard with the rental contract that had been tottering on his lap and gave it to matthew matthew was no longer smiling we re with ares rentals said joe we re here to collect matthew stood there looking the contract over presumably reading every line and detail he took it into his office without saying anything he came out several passive aggressive minutes later with a check he gave it to glen but still didn t say anything a...