Foreword

These poems are a recollection of trying times and calmer seas. It is a journey with which people of all kinds may draw parallels, as I doubt the pattern is unique. In any case I hope this side road brushes past you occasionally, as it cuts on and off the track, at times cheerlessly reconnecting on square one.

On its own, much of what will follow is not poetry. Big Joe, for example, belonged to a friend and, as far as I’m concerned, existed only as the protagonist of a truly absurd story. In the case of Leviathan Defeated, it is profoundly vulgar and borders on (if not fully submerged in) misogyny. Its publication is meant to provide honest insight to a mind self-perceived as damned. I wrote it during darker times and, withstanding adjustments to the illegible, left the text unchanged. As for Ode to Jerome, it is a conversation with myself. Much of this work is helping me. Perhaps to some extent there is something here for you.

r.

17 March 2008

(beginning of more coordinated draft)