Fleshy Blue Boat is a collection of light poems, written in the early 70s.
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November 30, 2008
November 26, 2008
Pick Up the Baby – Catastrophic Healing
Pick Up the Baby – Catastrophic Healing was written in 1989, after four years of sobriety, as the underlying reality came to the surface. Pick Up the Baby is not ‘about’ the healing process but written from within the moment of healing itself.
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November 23, 2008
Energy in an Innocent Mind
Energy in an Innocent Mind, is poetry written in 2000, defines the only reality that informs us all and all we see and do.
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November 13, 2008
Regina
Regina is an attempt to answer the question, “What does it mean to call someone the love of one’s life?” Decades after a much-desired relationship has faded from the scene, questions remain and questions arise. What is the positive side to remorse and regret? What else goes on in the depth of desire and the contemplation of loss, in matters of the heart?
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November 11, 2008
Exquisite Parody
Exquisite Parody was written in 2008, a sense of what it means to be a poet.
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November 2, 2008
101 Ways to Avoid Reading Self-Help Books
Walking in the Barnes and Noble in the Kahala Mall, in Honolulu, I passed the self-help row. It seemed to go on for miles. I thought, “Somebody ought to write 101 Ways to Avoid Reading Self-Help Books.” Then I thought, “You’re a writer. Why don’t you do it?” So I did. This book, if what I’m saying is true, should work, even if you read it and do absolutely nothing it suggests.
The drawings included here have been sold as a coloring book called Have a Seat!
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101 Ways to Avoid Reading Self-Help Books
101 Ways with illustrations:
Philip Blanc in San Francisco
Philip Blanc in San Francisco was published by Panjandrum Press in 1972. These light surrealist excursions, as someone once described them elicited this response from my mother, “Stephen, were you on drugs when you wrote this?” I said I was not, that I wrote them in the library at San Francisco State on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. The drawings came later.
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November 1, 2008
Walking in Ellensburg
Walking in Ellensburg is a continuation of the sort of poem begun in Walking in San Francisco, thirty years before, and continued in Walking in Asheville, ’11, and in Walking in the Village, in New York City, ’13. The quiet of a small town in summer opens the spirit to the kind of frameless being that children enjoy, different from the life of the city, then or now. As I walked the streets of Ellensburg, Washington, in the summer of 2008, I saw things I had not seen from my car, my bicycle, or even walking with a purpose. Download here: Walking in Ellensburg
The Zen of Housepainting
I started painting, many years ago, when I needed money to finance my fledgling life as an artist. A friend, Dirk Kortz, who had been painting for fifteen years, took me on out of friendship, kindness, and desperation. Since I was a poet, and Dirk was a writer, painter and filmmaker, we got along great. We both enjoyed the work, we liked to do a good job, and we shared the dream that someday we would lay the brush down and never touch a roller again. Painting has become a wonderful meditation and metaphor for life. It wasn’t enough to be a poet. I had to go out and learn a useful skill. When I die, I don’t want to be buried or cremated. I want to be smashed against the wall like a bug and painted over. Two coats, please. Top of the line.
After painting houses for several years, it was time to put together some wit and wisdom from the profession. The Zen of Housepainting was published by City Miner Magazine, in Berkeley, California, in 1980.
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Steve Brooks (Abhaya) - Poetry, Prose & Art 