NEW! More New Poems Have Now Been Added to the latest Thirteen Myna Birds flock!

 UPDATE: As of April 9, 2026, Six New Poems have now been added to the thirteen that were already up at Thirteen Myna Birds, HERE! - https://13myna.blogspot.com/

In honor of Poetry Month, I am hoping to add additional poems throughout this month and this is the latest addition of six new ones.

Poems by CL Bledsoe, Jeremy Jusek and Gary Beck are now accompanying the thirteen that were already up.

Check out the new additions and stay tuned for more.

Happy Poetry Month! It's Not Quite Done Yet! My latest poetry chapbook "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings" is newly available from Pure Sleeze Press until it sells out! Get It Before It's Gone!

Happy Poetry Month!

As of Friday April 25, 2025, the new Spring chapbooks from Pure Sleeze Press were made officially available until they sell out!

This includes my new "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings" for $8 (plus $5 shipping)!

Several other new chapbooks are also available for $8 each (or a Five Book Bundle for $30)!

Acquire mine and/or 1, 2, 3 or all 4 of the remaining others before they sell out!

Here's the link to buy them from Pure Sleeze Press! - https://puresleezepress.bigcartel.com/

Thank you very much to Pure Sleeze Press, Jonathan S Baker, and K Ann Sea for publishing these chapbooks!

Also, thank you very much to Chad M. Horn, whose art appears on the cover of mine.

A few photos of my new chapbook and a sampling from one of the poems inside it appears below.

(P.S. I also have some copies of  my "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings" so if you'd like to acquire my chapbook directly from me for the same price, that is a possibility too. Please do feel free to reach out...)...

***

I wasn't sure if I was human anymore.
Maybe I was a goose in labor,
giving birth to a subhuman or else
I was in the middle of aborting my own brain
inside another terrible dream, trapped
underneath a seeping blue machine
shaped like a giant pill container
with cracked slots that don't keep anything inside.

A loudly honking lullaby of horrific
conjoined twin geese, a grody gaggle
of gag reflexes swarming out of my mouth,

blue stingers instead of wings.

in my poem "Both Similar and Dissimilar", in my chapbook, "Blue Stingers Instead of Wings", Pure Sleeze Press, late April 2025

A New Spring Flock of Thirteen Myna Birds is HERE!

Happy end of March, launching into April's Poetry Month with a new flock of Thirteen Myna Birds!

Poetry and art by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, Wayne F Burke, MISH, Kathryn Burkett, Merritt Waldon, Alex S. Johnson, and E. Martin Pedersen!

All HERE: https://13myna.blogspot.com/

the sun breaks through chunks of obsidian - to look at her drawings of flying penises - poisoned river raging in her quivering heart - metal smile awash in her spurting blood - torn apart and in darkness - In darkness my body feels less exposed - I’m tangled up with my invisible-but-evil twin - Her motionless body on the bed - not lifeless—not yet - We’ve all been poisoned - The culturally relevant now like pink Elephants & clowns - He’s got a secret fishing hole, which he currently can’t get to - She sees stars behind shaded eyes - gatekeeping foam while bodies sleep on beach blankets, tented blue dimensions - In a multidimensional multireality Multiconsciousness dream of the future - steel teeth chewing through - all strange parades of weightless flesh packed in black vinyl - In a language no one speaks - as the long shadows crawl and the tide comes in - Vibrating with muses On the edge of midnight...

L'Inferno by MISH

Me holding a copy of the new poetry anthology "Writing the Self-Elegy - The Past Is Not Disappearing Ink"!

Me holding a copy of "Writing the Self-Elegy - The Past Is Not Disappearing Ink", edited by Kara Dorris (published by Southern Illinois University Press).

This is a poetry anthology, featuring more than 25 different poets, offering poems, short essays, and writing prompts.

I am delighted to be included, with three poems ("Deadly Doll Head Dissection" - "Self Portrait as a Slab on a Slab" - "Un-sided Self Portrait"), my essay ("Broken Doll Hands that had to Grow New Fingers") and my writing prompt ("Try It Yourself(ie): Word Control").

I am delighted to be in the company of many other wonderful and amazing and unique poets (and their poems, essays, writing prompts).

You can find out more and/or purchase a copy for yourself (or possibly for your classroom if you're a writing or English teacher) here - http://siupress.siu.edu/books/978-0-8093-3906-8

Here is a snippet from a back cover blurb by Petra Kuppers - "They also invite you into their fold: each poet offers prompts to the reader, as well as essayistic thoughts, de-mystifying and re-mystifying these acts of (inter)corporeal magic."

My NEW poetry chapbook, "red flames burning out" is now one week old and still needs new homes!

Happy Poetry Month 2023!

This is another cover photo of my NEW poetry chapbook, "red flames burning out", published by Grey Book Press in April 2023.

I am also sharing a photo scan of the poem in the middle of the chapbook, one of 20 poems within the collection.

The collection incudes...

“Broken doll fingers bulging their way out of blubbering chicken wire. Losing parts of one’s self and growing new parts in the form of self-created nightmares, body and brain malfunctions, seizures and other divorces from parts of past reality. Pitching standard traditions in the trash, wrapped in drying blood. Creepy bird’s nests and fear of impending death, yet still continuing to create one’s own sizzling and burning red fire.”

This new chapbook is now one week old and still needs new homes. 

You can find out more about the new chapbook HERE! -
http://www.greybookpress.com/2023/04/07/internal-suffocation/

You can purchase a copy HERE! -
http://www.greybookpress.com/titles/

And if you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

My NEW poetry chapbook, "red flames burning out" is now newly available from Grey Book Press!

"Some people might not like being called
unmistakably unstable, but I don't mind.
Because that's the way I roll

cracked eyeballs out of broken doll head holes and hell,

the broken pieces still have brains to fill
with fury and onward activity no matter how
many times they're knocked down.

Because that's the way I roll,
unable to be trapped into further oblivion.
I use gum wrappers to cover ripped out teeth
and a threesome of crooked fingers."

in the poem "My Dolls Aren't For Hunting"

My NEW poetry chapbook, "red flames burning out", as of April 2023, is now HERE, thank you to Grey Book Press! It is $8.00.

Find out more HERE - http://www.greybookpress.com/2023/04/07/internal-suffocation/

And then buy one HERE! - http://www.greybookpress.com/titles/

(Ten years ago, Grey Book Press published my "Poisonous Beautyskull Lollipop" chapbook and now ten years later, "red flames burning out" has become part of the Grey Book Press family! I am very excited and Happy Poetry Month and I truly hope that some of you will buy one!)

TODAY! APRIL 6! Self-Publishing Roundtable (Special All-Poetry Edition for National Poetry Month)!

TODAY, April 06, from 7:00pm - 8:30pm, Blood Pudding Press's Juliet Cook will be participating in this Self-Publishing Roundtable (Special All-Poetry Edition for National Poetry Month) at the Cuyahoga Public Library's South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch.

The event is free to attend, but you need to register via the link below.

Juliet Cook will also have a few Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbooks with her, available for purchase, including the most recently published, "Short Poems of Violence and Chickens" by Juliet Cook and Darryl Shupe.

https://attend.cuyahogalibrary.org/event/7616134?fbclid=IwAR2ZHYuy-2We6UiO_F6mhmMDOVT8KrB1Z55nzJdAWlBHZn4Ie7k4pgUB6zs#branch

Happy Poetry Month from Thirteen Myna Birds! The NEW April flock has arrived with 20 NEW poems for your reading pleasure!

Happy Poetry Month from Thirteen Myna Birds! The new April flock is HERE, including TWENTY NEW POEMS!

Poetry by Martin Willitts Jr., Rachel J. Fenton, J. MacBain-Stephens, Paul Brookes, Scott Ferry, J.C. Mari, Kristin Garth, and John Compton!

https://13myna.blogspot.com/ 💜🖤💓

***

"The world is beginning slowness, about to slide into the muddy banks - Our bones lock our refreshed hearts in a new cage - a twisted birthday where one woke at their funeral - we jump and pounce on each other - nowhere to run - the squirrel with brains knocked out by someone's car - Complete items are wrong, ugly, incorrect - you want me to notice the words, what remains of them. What did they mean before and what do they mean now? - How many times a day do I place false closures on the ends of words? - just grey and white and swollen with brine - driving on her own ghost train - I pretend to fit the correct ends into sockets - blood drawn, buttoned lips - and out it comes, surprising you with its ferocity - pleasure gardens for hyenas - The occupation of colors avalanches - Annihilate me and my fairy tale"

The April Myna Birds flock includes 16 Runner-Up Poems from the recent chapbook submissions to Blood Pudding Press!

Happy Weekend and Happy Poetry Month! 

This April Myna Birds flock includes 16 Runner-Up Poems from the recent chapbook submissions to Blood Pudding Press!

Poems by Eileen Murphy, Alyssa Yankwitt, Craig Firsdon, Paul David Adkins, Victor Clevenger, Erin Renee Wahl, Jennifer MacBain-Stephens, Zoë Sîobhan Howarth-Lowe, A.S. Coomer, E Kristin Anderson, Ava C. Cipri, Reuben Woolley, Valerie Loveland, Julie Jacob, Alexis Bates, and Tom Montag!

***

Every day she tells me a hundred times to kill myself - like a smooth monster skull cracking a jawline - a skulking dribble of blood - a skeleton's body sideways - closer to the wrong side of grief - there's an earth in here somewhere - with no ability to see the stars falling - dead as a washed-up squid - I drown my fingers like they are 10 little snakes - and there are things I don’t understand - myths filled with fear - clarity and imperfections frozen before melting - perpetually stuck with this painful disability - I couldn’t burn the fever images out of my head - follow the gaze to the remains of a seagull, withered in death & rot - Something flutters in the dying light.

***

HERE - http://13myna.blogspot.com/

***

In case anyone missed the announcement of the Blood Pudding Press chapbooks selected for publication this year, here's a link to that news:

http://bloodyooze.blogspot.com/2017/04/new-announcement-of-three-new-blood.html

Also, I will be adding a few poems from some of the Finalists on the Blood Pudding Press blog next month.

And also, the May flock of Myna Birds is already full (forthcoming in about a month), but I am still considering Myna Birds submissions for June...

Poetry Month/New Myna Birds Flock

Poems by AM Ringwalt, Suzanne Savickas, Robert Cole, Ben Rasnic, Rachel Mallino, Hugo Esteban Rodriguez Castañeda, Bonnie MacAllister, and Paul David Adkins are now up and writhing around in the latest Myna Birds flock, in the midst of poetry month! 

toe tips before the floor boards – don’t believe in circles – zigzag from comfort to discomfort – cave in or release - the insects feast – cryptic markings – mascara flakes detach – dead amid the shards – into the scissors holes - a pink house with palm growing

Here is the link - http://13myna.blogspot.com/

***

Also my small indie print press, Blood Pudding Press, is offering 25% off everything in the shop for poetry month - so there's one more week to take advantage of that, here - https://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress