Eternal Summer

Eternal Summer by Fred Slusher

they only know what they have been given, which is a land maligned, a land deprived of its beasts of change.

sometimes i can just feel it:
warmth & all the other things 
i’ve never asked for seeping
into me, a violation to the x 
degree. what is wrong in a
world where one can’t shed 
the shackles of summer & 
sink into the blissful autumn 
like a child into a mountain of 
leaves? these children don’t
know the seasons. they only 
know what they have been 
given, which is a land maligned,
a land deprived of its beasts of 
change. if i had been told i’d 
be forced to live in an eternal 
summer, i would have remained 
in embryo, in ectoplasm, in
a dream had right before waking. 
when i see someone wearing a 
coat it pisses me off. i want to 
ask them what it is that chills 
them in a world on fire? i want to 
slap their smug self-satisfied grins 
until their ears ring. is speaking 
the truth now an act of unspeakable 
violence?

Haiku season is (temporarily) over, so I’m back to posting original non-haiku poetry on here. I wrote Eternal Summer in a fit of rage. I was sitting in my living room reading reports of the devastation caused by Hurricane Ida alongside reports about record-breaking temperatures on the West Coast and the increasing likelihood of more wildfires. We are seeing the first waves of the effects of climate change on our ecosystems, and some days I can’t help but feel a sense of utter despair over it.

We are seeing the first waves of the effects of climate change on our ecosystems, and some days I can’t help but feel a sense of utter despair over it.

Rather than acting expeditiously to help the world reach net zero carbon emissions, most governments, municipalities, and MNCs seem content to pay lip service to sustainability and clean energy initiatives while acting as if they have decades to figure this out—they don’t. Others seem to be banking on nascent carbon capture technologies to act as their get out of jail free card when what we really need is aggressive action now. Not tomorrow. Not in the next decade. Now. Our lives quite literally depend on it.

Wow, so this post is a prime example of how my ADHD brain works. I started off sharing a poem and ended on an urgent call-to-action on curbing the effects of climate change. All in a day’s work, my reader-friends.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Haiku I-XVI Available on Wattpad

For those of you who enjoyed reading my haiku on here, all sixteen of them are now available in one place on Wattpad. Enjoy!

Haiku XVI

Haiku XVI by Fred Slusher

Quick: run for your life 
You’re almost out of time now 
Hold tight for dear life

Reader-friends, we have now reached the end of our haiku journey together. I had this wild notion to put sixteen haiku I wrote on a rainy afternoon onto this blog one at a time, and I really appreciate the response I’ve gotten from you all. So appreciative, in fact, that I have a little bonus for you.

Right now, I am putting together a collection of all the haiku I’ve published here on The Voracious Bibliophile and soon you’ll be able to have them all together. More to come on that later.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Original Poem: Last Night I Dreamed of Snakes

Last Night I Dreamed of Snakes by Fred Slusher

Some people believe the only way you can
know God is to prove to him that you’re not
afraid to die.

They were writhing, 

wriggling their way through 

darkened halls & hidden 

crevices. I am a small world 

made large every night.

And the guns, they don’t work. 

My great-grandfather held snakes 

in church, offered them up to God. 

My, how they danced together. 

Strange language, dancing to the beat 

of impending eternity, to a sound only 

they could hear. Holding death that close 

just has to be holy—a desecrated lullaby. 

Some people believe the only way you can 

know God is to prove to him that you’re not 

afraid to die. In the dream, I’m going under

once again. Silence is an art of the most 

hallowed & hollow solemnity. Oh faithless

love, oh desert, oh fracture, oh quake, please  

caress the fear from my windows where 

layers of shadows ensconce me in 

false protections, mirages & mists & secret 

songs taught only in the dark. There is this fear, 

this shroud covering me. There is this sway, 

this truth. There is this serpent slivering its

way out of reach. There is this enormity. 

There is this heresy. There is this 

sorrow. There is this cataclysm 

raining on the living. There is this 

violence that lives in the soul & chokes it 

just so. There is this madness flickering 

like a lit match in a dry barn. There is this 

burning. There is this roof that’s corpsing 

itself into a glorious & effervescent ruin. 

There is this scream that imbibes blood like 

water.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please follow, like, comment, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at thevoraciousbibliophile@yahoo.com or catch me on Twitter @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Original Poem: Arms of the Deep

Love is not a cat chasing shadows on the floor.
Fred Slusher, “Arms of the Deep”

Lull me into oblivion. My attention span 
is limited. Infinity, space, time—
your voice in my ear, bottom lip on my lobe—
turning love into cherries into wine. 
Creamsicle daylight is wasting away 
while we wait for the song to finish playing. 
When you were mine life was always 
a game sweetly played, vollied to & fro like 
the king’s severed head; no throne. 
Fade to black. Next reel, please.
Pleas to be real with me remain ignored. 
Love is not a cat chasing shadows on the floor. 
I feel you watching me caressing my own crooks 
in the dark. Elbows, not thieves, though 
everything of value has been stolen at one time or 
another. Dear lover, take this rambling lullaby 
& pitch it into the sea where memory goes to 
sleep in the steadfast arms of the 
deep.

Original Poem: Flesh Theater

Flesh Theater by Fred Slusher

The cliff’s edge,
a salty drink;
cerulean & white foam; 
home, love, & road all have four letters. 
Home, love, and road all have four letters &
I tore me apart: 
limbs, cells, sinew; all held together by so little, 
a little blood, oil, & water. 
Every scrap of paper shredded,
every thread unraveled.
Living in the empty 
in-between is easy when 
you’re unsure of your own tepid 
existence. How can you tell someone 
the truth which is that you feel nothing & 
everything at once?; a whole cosmos 
made corporeal, flesh theater. Applause, 
applause! Exeunt all. There was a summer 
I became obsessed with fragmentation, 
fading into the woods of autumn where 
I discovered restoration & took a job 
selling bundles of violets by the 
old movie house on the corner of 9th & Vine.
All the customers were wine-drunk & in love;
not necessarily with each other but with the idea 
of love itself, the feeling of a mouth & a neck &
decades-old spit on celluloid.

Original Poem: bluster & melodrama

bluster & melodrama by Fred Slusher

You’re all bluster & melodrama 
Empire State of Eden’s 
Rejects, Mama 
You can still be a racist even though 
You voted for Obama (Twice)

And I take meds to be a little 
Less me in melancholia 
Debutante in repose, 
Rhinoplastied nose your dad 
Bought you in Santa Fe but 

I had to keep my ugly 
And my secrets and my sighs tucked
Like a melody on a dusty piano 
While you were in Reno 
Getting turnt & twisted on the boulevard of broken dreams 

You told me in aught three my 
Songs were poorly written but I kept 
Sparring with my demons & writ 
My lonesomeness into dust & made myself free

Original Poem: Holding Onto a Reason by Fred Slusher

This is the first time I’ve posted my own poetry on my blog so naturally I’m terrified. Here you go.

Holding Onto a Reason by Fred Slusher

i write memoirs of crushed rose petals and 

poetry aided by artificially 

-intelligent algorithms predicting 

what it is my thumbs want to say 

next but sometimes a different agenda

takes root. on an island of one, there is 

no need for a king or a dream because 

in the world of the self, there is only 

the now — no need for dreams or sleep or 

dreams or dreams or dreams or the sound of 

rain slapping the truth out of the earth. the 

closest i ever came to nirvana was the first 

time i saw lady gaga perform yoü and i 

bearing down on a baby grand in heels higher 

than heaven studded in leather and the 

glimmer of the stage lights brighter than 

broadway than all the stars in the sky. 

somethin’ ‘bout lonely nights and my lipstick 

on your face. i swam through a river of my own 

blood to wash up on another unforgiving 

shore. i clutched years like shards of glass 

in my clenched fists and decided to keep 

holding onto a reason.