Here is chapter Nine of the Fake Novel, performed by yours, truly and talented musician Robert English (50% of the band Nominal State) with some neat visuals. The novel was published on May 1st, 2020, International Worker's Day, just before all hell broke loose. It's a savage literary punk rock anarchist satire of all things Trump as well as politics and capitalism in general. The narrative pretty successfully combines the humor and horror genres. It uses the F-word a lot (4 times in the book trailer alone!) And yet it yearns for a peaceful revolution and a saner future for this world of bullies and pretend victims on TV.

Wake up, sheeple.  Fake is the new real.  The false must be told.

You can order the novel from your local bookshop or directly from the author (paypal $15 or 15 Euro to leefoust@gmail.com for US, Canada, Europe and UK including postage), or online bookstores--but please avoid Amazon and other predatory capitalists.

Play this as loud as your computer goes.

Once a month we host an Open Mic here in Florence at the Hostel Tasso. Last night I got Nadia Koski and Marcello from Sushi Rain to help me with out with an old love poem of a sort.

God Is a Bullet

The bubble of your fear buys you a gun. Your new automatic fingers embody fear, load up, and get itchy. The bubble swells inside the barrel to bursting. The automatic metallic mind in your hand makes your prissy wet and your colic hard.

The neighbor’s dogs bark. They growl and cower. “Kill! Kill!” they bark, for they hate the people on the other side of the fence. The fence is their bubble, their defenestrating defense, the wall between their cowardice and false courage. “Kill! Kill!” they bark on the internet. “We love Jesus!”

Jesus loads his gun. He is afraid too. afraid of Christmas. of not being believed in. of the bad thief—he might be black. of the other side of town. of Muslims who hate his “way of life” crowned by death on every corner. There’s no other way out.

Mostly Jesus shoots his wife. or his wife shoots him (they are not always sober). Occasionally Jesus shoots up a school—but that is his own personal responsibility. Jesus, after all, will live forever. unless he decides to shoot himself—which is the most common use of a handgun in the United States of Jesus.

There is no greater hatred than the hatred of he who would take his own life for the fear of his fellow man.

All hail the gun, lord of lords and king of kings. To call for mercy is to know that the gun knows no such thing.

12/27/2014

Florence

Survived By

Heart strap

thread of renewal

blood through a mucus membrane

stop. it don’t stop

thread through a needle’s eye

wet throng of need

don’t ever stop

need, the relative

            pronoun implying possession

            Demons

in the boom box

strung over shoulders

resent rhythms

life’s train

            don’t derail

            dare not stop

            taking ways

            away.

                                    9/14/94

                                      NYC

Coming up on St. Patrick's Day at St. Mark's English church in Florence: I will be reading, accompanied by drumming, sounds, and music!

"Now that I have seen Boniface"

Now that I have seen Boniface

In his niche at Orvieto

Along the solitary thread of Italy’s

Appennino, of Pasolini’s imagined

Homeland and its search for the meaning

Of material history, of Dante’s “serva

Italia,” anyone’s date for a buck…

Now that Edward Snowden’s

Contribution to free speech

Has been eclipsed by dirty

Cartoons (of the prophet’s anus)

And Nietzsche has eaten

His own feces in the absence

Of a living God, and the best of us

—in this first world bubble in which I travel—

are only marking time

‘til things get better, putting

our faith in struggles so personal

they are all but invisible

on the outside—even in Orvieto

on its tufa-stone island

high above the floodplain of the Paglia

like a rudderless rock lost

in a sea of millennia, all

its secrets sunk in caves

hidden beneath the day-

to-day business of business…

now that I know nothing

shows on the outside, nothing

is real—between the intention

and the act—I’m more or less happy

to lay down my belief

in the concept of “a future.”

                        1/8/2015

                        Orvieto

Keep Calm

 

When there was nothing left to lose

Losers rioted for out of vogue

Scarcity stood in short supply

The news remained reoccurring

In its hourly dailies and weeklies’

Circulatory newness

Once in a while there were some

Dissenting conformists correct

In their protest against carrying on

And yet we walk with our hand baskets

Full of the world through the Supermarket

Past Eleusis and right down to Hades

Where sulfur stinks the most

And the fields of forever

Make mortal boredom merely

Incontinent

6/1/2014

In the air over England

Syndic Literary Journal

The Syndic Literary Journal edited by LeRoy Chatfield  has devoted a whole page to my work in issue #11 in both textual and audio versions. You get: "Seventh Street," a short story fragment from Poison and Antidote, "What if Words?" a poem from Sojourner, and "Liberation," an as yet unpublished prose poem from my Paradoxa series. Enjoy! Comment! Share! Make me (in)famous!

At the Stork Club

Me performing at Paul Corman-Roberts series "Crows in the Stork's Nest" at the Stork Club in Oakland, CA on August 14th, 2013.

For a full Write-up and film of the entire event see this page of the LITSEEN Blog.

An Update

It's been a long, hectic and wondrous summer focused upon publicizing, launching, and performing from my first published book of fiction and poetry, Sojourner. So much emphasis on travel and performance--and now the preparation for a second book I hope to publish this coming spring--meant not much new creative work posted here. Now that I'm back in Florence ("Tanned, rested, and ready" as Dan Aykroyd's Nixon) I should be back to my work-in-progress with new tales soon. In the meantime, I'm now writing a literary column and reflections on books for Florence News and Events, and English-language newspaper here in Italy. You can read three (count 'em, THREE!) articles by me here on page 27. As always feedback and/or suggestions welcome--what have you read about Italy lately that might interest my readers?

Also, coming up, I'll be Inaugurating The Florence Writers and St Mark's Cultural Association's first literary season with the inimitable M. Elizabeth Evans at 6:30 PM on Monday, September 16th, upstairs at St. Mark's English Church at Via Maggio, #16 in Florence, Italy. Drinks and nibbles will be served and a festive atmosphere guaranteed. Hope to see you there! (I'll be reading from Sojourner and I'll be happy to sign one for you!)

Reading / Book Signing

My West-Coast book promotion tour begin this coming Thursday evening at Green Apple Books in San Francisco. I will perform texts from Sojourner in the spirit of artistic anarchy with my trusty Dada drum. Come have a glass of wine, say hello, listen, shout back, sing along, and get a book signed.

Full Book Tour info here.

Performance of "Lubbock Elegy"

Captured reading "Lubbock Elegy (For Billy Boy)" from Sojourner, at the Meykadeh LibreriaCafé in Florence, Italy on April 18th 2013. 

San Salvi event poster