Manic Frustration “If I do not write to empty my mind, I go mad.” ~Lord Byron

There's been an absence of words here, but they're spilling out all over my desk. The floor. Pages and scraps of paper. I've begun work on a poetry manuscript. I've been revising old work and starting new. The season is new. The weather is new. My energy and mind are refreshed.

Busy days. Incredible nights. Weekends are always full of something. This weekend, Prose in Pubs swings back around to Jack's Draft House in Scranton on Sunday. Open mic. The first time it has gone non-invitation. It should be an interesting lineup. I'll be reading some new work. Stop on by.


The manuscript is coming along slowly but surely. It will be some time before I have a rough draft completed and probably some time after that until it is finalized and ready to send out. Then I'll find out that it is not yet finalized. Edit, submit, edit, submit. These are the hurdles of writing.

I've picked up my guitar again. Bought a glass slide to try and mimic Bukka White. It's coming along even slower than the manuscript, but it's a release of energy and creativity. It's needed when I cannot form the words. What better way to clear the mind by making music. Or noise. Sometimes I just like to strum and croon along with the old blues masters.

I've been tumbling some ideas for blog entries around my mind, so bare with me. Be patient. Not that you've been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting in anticipation for me. Maybe you have. I'd like to think you have.

Time to fill the apartment with music and the scent of whatever I feel like cooking. Until next time...

The jack-hammering tones of an air gun rattle through the shop just outside my office. Buddy Guy's licks flow from my computer speakers like a fine scotch. I've got a truckload of thoughts rolling down endless expanses of highway carved through my mind. Outside, it's a chilly, wet April day. Smoke-colored skies.

This morning, I woke up and sat down in front of the typer for the first time in what seems like years. The early hours, following what little sleep I seem to find these days, have become a window of inspiration. Words drip onto the page mimicking the coffee pot steaming in the kitchen. Eventually, the page and my cup are full.

I spend a brief time on our second-floor balcony most mornings. Every time I open the door to step out, I'm reminded of the need of a good chair to lounge in and soak up the morning sun while I let my thoughts pour out.

The itch. The need to write has embedded itself within me again. It's not that I was worried about losing it. It seems as though any writer finds themselves less than inspired from time to time. Or maybe we let our thoughts brew like moonshine through a still until they're pure. Whatever the case, the cask is full again.

Soon, I'll spend time wandering through the park in the fading light of dusk. These late-night work hours are coming to an end. I've got more important things to have running through my mind than the constant rattles and blasts of air tools and belching engine brakes.

One thought in particular has been filling me with warmth and peace. Every morning on the balcony, I can still picture her standing beneath the light leaning against the door. Smoke curling from between her lips. The soft look in her eyes and the elegant curve of her smile.

It's a photograph etched in my memory. One that I'm hoping is a glimpse of what lies ahead.

Tonight, I'll turn the key to my tiny pickup and drive forty-five minutes down the line. Step through the door of my apartment, wash the work day away, and find a few moments of relaxation before falling into a dream world.

In the morning, I'll write again.

There are some nights where the only thing you can do is sip on bourbon and listen to voices like Junior Kimbrough and T-Model Ford stomp and pluck, wail and moan about much harder times than you've ever experienced. Lots of musicians play the Blues, but there's something about the Blues that enables a listener to decipher the truth from the bullshit.

The guys who've actually lived through seeing family or friends lynched. Who have been to jail. Who have lost everything (if they ever had anything to lose). Or, in the case of T-Model, who have killed a man. These true Bluesmen reach out and slap you in the face. They say, "Look, son. You ain't seen nor been through shit. But, even if you seen a bit a trouble in your life, I know what you're feelin'."

And they play it. They take every bit of heartache and string it across their guitars like sinew. Grab death by the throat and stretch him across a snare drum to beat him down before he beats them. They stomp with heavy heels into pine floorboards in a smokey juke joint on a soggy Mississippi Summer night. Keeping time with every beat of their heart closer to the last.

It's more than music. The Blues feeds off of human sorrow. Devours it. It will suck every bit of heartache and pain out of the listener, chew it up and spit it back out in the form of hypnotizing rhythm. There's been more than one occasion where I've caught myself moving to its sound. Letting it roll down over me like river water, brushing every bit of grime and grit from my day.

Tonight is just one of those nights. A bottle of Maker's Mark, a few Blues albums and myself. I only wish I could be somewhere deep in Mississippi or Georgia. Down some forgotten back road that the tourists don't know about. Sitting at a bar sipping Southern whiskey. Watching bodies dance like hypnotized snakes in the low light of a juke joint on a hot Summer night. Sit and sip the burn while a true Bluesman sweats blood, pouring his life out onto the stage.