Raegan Butcher's Blog, page 2

A poem by Leonard Cohen that has helped me get through the tough times

I have had crushing writer's block for nearly two years now. I can't make my words scream for me the way I want them to scream. Add to that some serious depression and you have a very sour symphony indeed. But here is a poem by Leonard Cohen that has always resonated with me:

This is the only poem
I can read
I am the only one
can write it
I didn’t kill myself
when things went wrong
I didn’t turn
to drugs or teaching
I tried to sleep
but when I couldn’t sleep
I learned to write
I learned to write
what might be read
on nights like this
by one like me

From The Energy of Slaves, 1972

Poem from 1986

fortune cookie

i was in a Chinese restaurant
i don’t remember the name
i ate my dinner in peace
then the fortune cookies came

"You lover will never wish to leave you”, it said

i sighed and shook my head
the cookie lied
when it said
that

Irving Layton

Irving Layton was a Canadian poet, a contemporary of Leonard Cohen, and he was considered by many to be a mentor to Cohen. I first heard of him back in the 80s but it was impossible to find his books. Before the internet and ordering books on-line, tracking down even the works of Leonard Cohen was no easy task.
However, now that we are in the 21st Century, I was able to track down and buy a copy of the brilliantly titled “Balls for a One-Armed Juggler’ by Irving Layton, and I must say I am impressed. Not all of the poems in this book are to my taste, but I can certainly see the influence Layton had upon Cohen’s work.
Here is an example of a poem of Layton’s that I really like, but it also is very reminiscent of Cohen’s style from roughly the same time period, which is the early 1960s.

Who’s Crazy?
When I was warm-hearted
impulsive;
and would’ve given the skin
off my back
and gone to hell
for any one of them,
people ran from me
as from a leper,
my cries of love
the leper’s warning bell.

Now I’ve become stone
and don’t bat an eyelash
if someone is lashed
or ripped apart
before my eyes,
everyone says I’m serene
–Olympian!—
and cannot praise me enough
for my maturity.

And what I want to know is:
who’s crazy?
They? or I?

Common Criminals series

Even though I have crippling writer's bock I still have 5 finished novels in my Common Criminals series that have yet to be released. I am just trying to overcome my depression and start getting them out there. In the meantime, the first book in the series, A Fistful Of Pesos, is available on Kindle for a mere 99 cents.

long, loud silence

I have been battling writer's block & depression. Trying to stay busy, helping older people with yard work and house hold chores. The fun has drained out of writing for me at the moment. Perhaps it will return. In the meantime, I live a life of service to others, which is its own reward.

Get ready for Invasion of the Chupacabras

Coming in November...the next thrilling installment in the Chupacabra Chronicles:

Recently disavowed British secret agent H.G. Statham is on the run with no one but a stoned American bush pilot and a nervous Mexican disc jockey to rely upon for help. Dodging international assassins from every spy agency known to man, the trio of unlikely heroes must solve the mystery of why genetically created monsters are attacking top secret scientific research facilities across three different countries. The fate of the entire world hangs in the balance. Can this rag-tag group of desperate misfits stop the Invasion of the Chupacabras?
https://necropublications.com/collect...

Free Giveaway has ended

Congrats to the lucky winners. The copies of A Fistful of Pesos are in the mail. Enjoy!

Free Giveaway of A Fistful Of Pesos

Enter to win a free copy of the first book in my "Common Criminals" series.

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A Fistful of Pesos is now in paperback!

For those of you who still prefer to read the old fashioned way...
https://www.amazon.com/Fistful-Pesos-...

July 2nd, it begins...free giveaway of Stone Hotel

Enter now to win a FREE copy of Stone Hotel: Poems from Prison

"Stone Hotel is not for the faint of heart. Raegan Butcher's writing is brilliant, raw, and powerful. He never looks away. He confronts his subject with hard, cold objectivity and conveys it to us in the simplest way imaginable. The first poem details the crime. Nowhere in the book did I find any attempt to excuse, minimize, or deny the crime. The poems simply tell us what happened, how he was apprehended, and what followed as he served his time.This isn't poetry to make you smile or warm your soul. It isn't meant to entertain you -- but then, neither is a plane crash or Edvard Munch's picture of a scream." --Arlene Sanders, Author of Tiger Burning Bright

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