material horizons

shining like desert mirage;

seeking out sustenance hole

wandering America's

hindquarters, hoping to find

salvation from the facades

SHOUT OUT TO ECHINACEA'S

BEAUTIFUL DROOPY PURPLE

ASS FOR BEING ‘BOUT PERFECT

confederacy of black crows

congregating overhead

again this morning, with words

world claims to be efficient

but we spinning round circles

dead ending at cul-de-sacs

when the gridlock becomes too

much, I sit there, staring at

the sky - open, outer space

sugar-coated Chevelle lime

green like heavenly aura,

burns out towards starting line

riding through America,

analyzing the landscape

for natural hints of hope

shadow dwellers like magic

scatter rainbow flourishes

on all unmonitored walls

smattering of blood blossoms

outside living room window,

where television sows fear

disappear before sunrise,

manifest fresh destiny

ten states away, “as crow flies”

morning twilight promising

fresh sun for power gridlock

to be navigated by

bleak American landscape

through road-weary filter; sun

will shine long after we’re gone

dial-ins determined after

thousands upon thousands spent;

paint job and decals come last

all these places I barely

remember passed through while greyed

out - piecing it together

solitary traveling

man examines expansive

landscape of America

gathering storm clouds swallow

all rational thought; I

slip into survival mode

binary gender theories

no longer seem to apply;

never did, in some places

goats don't disappear bodies

like pigs do (speaking in small

farm terms, not meaning police)

underground natural gas

pipelines and cultivation

of slave plants, yet still “rural”

cedar tipi poles which have

long lacked canvas wrap still stab

at sky for ultimate truths

sign my name with mountain M

and often exclamations

of blown out geo-metrics

old head beardfaces counting

by fives at picnic table

in public park “art space” spot

the carnival games become

blurred fogged acid memories

after decades of zone out

ROJONEKKU WORD FIGHTING ARTS RAILROAD HAIKU SPIKES

THE SHORT

I AM NOW OFFERING RAILROAD HAIKU SPIKES AS A UNIQUE MAGICAL ONE-OF-A-KIND ITEM. THEY ARE $120 (which includes shipping, but only available to Americans, sorry – it’s a logistical thing not a nationalist pride thing). EMAIL ME AT RAVENMACK AT GMAIL.COM TO GET MORE INFO (or read the longer story below) AND TO GET ON THE LIST TO HAVE ONE DONE.

HERE ARE A FEW…

The Longer Story

At some point during my “construction” years, my love of Asian poetry cross-pollinated with my desire to experience tiny moments of escapism from the drunken laboring doom that occupied my horizon at the time, and I started keeping notecards in my pocket at all times to jot down haiku. This started to be a beerbox haiku plate project, where I wrote the haiku and applied them along with collage pictures and polyurethane coat to old empty 12-pack boxes. I never finished that entirely (it’s still in my writing camper though) but the project did lead to the Beerbox Haiku book.

Then, almost by accident, we started having the hand-to-hand haiku events which I hosted from some point in 2013 I think (?) through a single one recently for calendar year 2016. These grew crowds once people were aware of the format and knew it wasn’t uptight serious poetry reading open mic bullshit, but something you could get as wild with as you wanted to. I also took on challengers in Best-of-25 Haiku Death Matches. But I shut the whole thing down at some point I can’t even remember now because I got tired of holding the necessary space.

Since I wasn’t having the excuse to write haiku for events all the time, I started the shard haiku twitter account, jerking them out my heart in 10-packs at work. This eventually led to scribbling them with my shitty hand graph styles onto old pages torn from magazines or books, and scanning that into the eternal suckhole of the interwebs.

All this time I’ve also tinkered extensively with tanka and sonnets and writing raps and prose zines and longer book projects and on and on and on… but haiku always occupied the background somewhere or filled the gaps in the mundane day.

My absolute favorite output of haiku, though, has always been the railroad haiku spikes I’ve done, where I carve a haiku into a wild harvested railroad spike. Railroad spikes have always been used in folk hoodoo magic, and understandably so, because they are forged with actual energy, and generally put into place by actual physical manpower, and thus are heavily infused with a lot of psychic energies.

The carving of haiku into the spike is a heavily physical activity as well, and likely stemmed partially from my previous construction experience, but also my time in a research lab giving rats brain damage with small handheld brain damaging devices very similar to what I use for carving railroad spikes. (In fact, if I could afford a handheld medical drill for cutting through human skulls, I’d be using one of those for haiku spikes.) These originally were just untouched railroad spikes, though I did treat them to minimize the rust, but eventually morphed into ones that have been spray painted in hodgepodge ways, because I was using them to make chaos stencils on t-shirts.

For the most part I’ve only given these away as part of zine subscriber packages or occasionally sold them off in batches to support shit like my daughter going to India all of a sudden a few years back. But mostly, I hate capitalism with all my heart, and am always reluctant to take part in that system, even though I have to daily in a “regular” mundane ass job.

Which brings me to my now… I need to start making some supplemental income. Conventionally this would mean a second job, but being I already have one job I don’t enjoy, I’d like to avoid getting a second job I don’t enjoy. So I’m gonna try to art.

Thus, I’m selling railroad haiku spikes, on an as-wanted basis, through a waiting list. They are each one of a kind (obviously) which means not only the spike itself but also the haiku on it. Should you request one (at ravenmack @ gmail.com), we will talk on the phone, in a consultation of sorts, so I can get an idea of what you’re looking for or needing on your spike. And then, during my “studio” time (which actually means setting up my industrial rigs of hand drills and milk crates and vise grips and tie-down straps in the back yard over by the chicken coop), I’ll start producing them. The cost? $120, which includes shipping. That might seem like a lot to the struggle-is-real enlightened degenerates who tend to make up those who follow my creative endeavors, but for a one-of-a-kind piece of art, and for the effort it takes me to produce them, it’s a more than fair price. Plus, I’m probably going to some sort of famous dumbass cult poet freak fucker one day, so consider it an investment.

If you have any questions, the email is above. Please spread the word to supporters of the arts who might be interested in such a uniquely magical item.

Peace,

Raven Mack

PS: Here are more.