Sumiko Saulson's Blog, page 4
March 24, 2023
Come Out To See Me at Milk SF on Sunday!
Come by this Sunday and grab a signed copy of my Bram Stoker Nominated “The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry” or pick up some art!
Spring has Sprung! Lots of other things are sprung in spring, and so Milk SF in conjunction with ByrdBeaks will be presenting the Sprung Queer Market this Sunday 3/26 from 11 AM to 5PM. Support around 20 awesome queer artists, makers, and small businesses!
I’ll be vending there with Mauskaveli – my cartoon art concern – come by and check out my signature product, an assortment of hand-drawn, painted, and resin-coated paddles, upcycled art fashion like these cool boots here, books, comic books, doll modifications, art pillows and little stuff like keychains and buttons with my art on them!
I will also have my books and comic books for sale.
February 24, 2023
Syndrome of the Impostor
The always hungry changeling. Source: public domain.The Erlkönig arrived
In the carriage one night
Adelaide, a door found
She was replaced underground
The Pevensie Four also fell
Through a door
And when they grew up
They could go there no more
She sang the Erlkönig
All four operatic parts
Having mastered her craft
Of the vocular arts
Frightened child
Father unaware
Omniscient alto
Of the distant narrator
A seductive voice
Orchestrates everything
To the twisted mechanations
Of the Faerie King
It was inescapable it seems
That, as innocent children
We were replaced by changelings
Our parents never noticed
As for how sullen we became
They blamed it on our hormones
And the constancy of change
Cloaked us all imposters
A gremlin where I used to be
Sat loathsome in my room
Cramming composition books full of poetry
In adolescent clouds of gloom
Tragedy brings out the Poe in me
I have always had a Tell-Tale Heart
And I think, it has been nice knowing me
As my seams start to fall apart
Pills were given to adjust my brain chemistry
To bring good old Jekyll back from the Hyde
My emotions surely made a monster of me
Sporting feted wounds on the inside
Obsessive scrawling in the gutters
Of utterly destroyed notebooks filled
With no space left between the lines
The overfilled state of my poetry books
Matching the overwrought state of my mind
Now I am being congratulated
And I look sideways in the mirror
What I’ve written in flights of insanity
It must now face a jury of peers
Will they somehow find out
That the real me was lost
In a Sunken Place?
Was stolen away by the Erlkönig
And a changeling
Now wears my face
February 13, 2023
Purchase some dark horror romance for this Valentine’s Day
Purchase some dark horror romance for this Valentine’s Day, in remembrance of that saint who was beheaded 18 centuries ago. Legends say that St. Valentine secretly married Christians, thus allowing them to avoid conscription into the Roman Empire’s army. Speaking of the Roman Empire and religion, Somnus and his family have developed a special interest in Flynn Keahi, the protagonist of my series, the Metamorphoses of Flynn Keahi ~ the first book of which, Happiness and Other Diseases, was published by Mocha Memoirs Press, LLC last year! Flynn is a man living in Berkeley with bipolar disorder, who has begun having rather intense and sadomasochistic dreams. It appears that one of the old Greek gods, spirits, daimones, and Titans of sleep, death, and dreams has taken an interest in Flynn, and a mysterious woman flirting with him in the psych ward may be his only way of understanding what is happening to him. Buy the book at https://mochamemoirspress.com/product/happiness-and-other-diseases/ !! Buy yourself one, and buy one for every one of your sweeties; it makes a great Valentine’s Day gift!
February 3, 2023
Come out to the Milk SF Queer Market: Valentine’s Edition
Come out to @milk.sf for the Milk SF Queer Market: Valentine’s Edition produced in conjunction with @byrdbeaks where Mauskaveli will be vending along with other local queer artists and artisans! Happening this Sunday, February 5th from 10am to 5pm at Milk SF, 302 Valenica Street in San Francisco.
Milk SF’s queer markets are back with a special Valentine,s themed event! Pick up the perfect, one-of-a-kind gift for your special someone(s) while supporting local queer artists and creators.
They’ve partnered with our feathered friends at ByrdBeaks to help with logistics, allowing us to host a market every month.
Interested in vending? Apply at https://forms.gle/WfKrLRDx3syMzky37. DM ByrdBeaks or email byrd@byrdbeaks with any questions.
January 31, 2023
Tears in a Chamber of Echoes
The round faced peasant
Was paraded through town
As the elderman cried out for blood
“The witch is a tool of Satan,” he said
As he strapped a cold iron device
On their head
The mechanical device
Was called a scolds cap
With a cruel metal appendage
To hold down the tongue
Iron bars that encircle the head
To silence the voice
Of the town heretic
“We have found her guilty
Of calling herself them
She calls herself they/them
Because Satan is Legion
She is clearly under the influence
Of a powerful demon”
The Elderman’s fellows
Agreed, nodding sage
As they wrapped
The offending one’s
Tongue in a cage
He continued his charges
“The negress is fat!
She is greedy and lazy
And stole snacks out back
She paraded around
Like the belle of the ball
Called herself “they”
And wore men’s clothing
Through it all!
“She takes things from good men
And does not know her place”
He screamed as he strapped
The iron cage to thier face
“The negress cast spells!”
Said another in fright
And the men who had gathered
All became a pure white
Twas the whitest of whites
Color ran from their faces
T’was enchantment they feared
For the witch had some trick
That enchanted the town folks
But it made these men sick
“I have heard incantations
And make no mistake
She enchanted our children
And grew fat on their cake”
“Drag the fat wrench
Out to the town square
Place her in pillories,
Once you are there
Before reading charges
Sling mud in her face
So the townspeople see her
Cry tears in disgrace”
Though they had both wrists bound
The witch’s fingers were free
And wrote words in the air
The assembled could see
The elderman was astounded
The writing was on the wall for all to see
And some among the gathered crowd
Accused his lordship of villany
“Drat it!” One of the women said
“It is he and his scold cap I dread
I remember not long ago
When he placed that blasted
Rusty thing on my head
It is an ancient scold cap
And gave tetanus to one lass
Who the elderman sought to chasten
Because she did not properly care
For his jackass”
“Wait one moment,” said another
“Let us not make haste
The negress has been guilty of
Behaving like an ingrate
She has not thanked us adequately
For the freeing of her race
She should be happy that we let her in
And stop bringing more of her kind
In the place”
The elderman grimaced, and quickly agreed
Within moments his fellows
Returned to their screed
“She is clouding your judgment still
Though she’s in chains
Break her fingers now
That’s where her power remains”
January 29, 2023
2Pac was a poet, also…
A young Tupac Shakur – image is from https://marinmagazine.com/people/tupac-shakurs-life-in-marin/Poet, educator and community activist Leila Steinberg, who mentored a young Tupac Shakur before he got famous, after the started attending her poetry classes in Oakland, once told me this story about how she and 2Pac were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge one day, and no one had the cash for the bridge toll.
Just as they gave up and Leila pulled out a checkbook and wrote the toll keeper a check, his first hit, “Same Song” with the Digital Underground, came on the radio.
An excited young 2Pac said that they would never have to do that again.
I love that story, and although I know that writers seldom experience the kind of success that legendary rappers do, I love that a poet mentored him, right here in Oakland. I love that he was a poet, it shows in his lyrics.
And as I think about this, I remember how many of Leila’s workshops and open mics I attend with my mother, and how much my association with rappers over the years, all the things I did – including back in the mid/late 00s when I was one of those MySpace rappers – have influenced my voice as a poet, certainly, just as much as if not in some ways more than, all of that Edgar Allen Poe I consumed in my school library back in 7th grade.
I wish my mom Carolyn Saulson was still here. She was always by my side, always on my side, and doing things with me. But I like to think she is here in spirit. I am grateful to her, and also to my sweetheart Princess Chris Hughes
Mindcrimes
I have stepped in the mud
Where the water meets blood
I have waded knee-deep in your shit
While it may be unkind
To the health of my mind
I have found myself soaking in it
Could I hold myself wise?
Then not internalize?
Could I find myself free of this trap?
My emotions run wild
Like an untended child
I have waded knee deep in this crap
I remember before I was born
In the womb I was hearing the sound
Of a dangerous world I was warned
In this dangerous world I am found
For the corner edges sharp, not round
Dangerous to children whose skin is brown
In this hidden safe space in my mind
I am skimming my knees kneeling down
I am bruising my knees on the floor
I capitulate just when I must
Searching for crumbs of hope in the dust
In the prison built around my mind
For a variety of mental crimes
For unauthorized thoughts that I keep
You exhort, “Do not wake! Stay asleep!”
When I woke therein broke all your rules
And declared the mind cage was for fools
The alarms sounded off their alert
And you shoved me back down in the dirt
January 28, 2023
The Child On The Lawn
The Child on The Lawn
Those responsible for his death cringed in fear
On the day that the child on their lawn did appear
Was his hair in corn rows, or a fuzzy black crown?
Were there tears in his eyes when held his head down?
Some of us keep histories
The tales of our tribe
Oral legends intertwine
With the parts of our mind
Containing genetic memory
Of the trauma, we’ve shared
Grievous wounds to our psyches
Handed down by forebears
They say that the child on the lawn
Is one of those such things
When tears well in his dead eyes
Then the living’s eyes sting
And the weight that he brings down
Upon their hearts is hard to bear
The ghost of the tragedies
Our ancestors endured
Has escaped through our wounds
Now he’s walking the streets
Though the guilty may hide
Their sanity is unwound
By the sound of his
Telltale Heartbeat
Those who injured him grievously cower in fear
Terrified that the child on their lawn will appear
When the child on the lawn waved his fabulous wand
Playing games with his fervent imagination
Weaving tales without jails where he’d play and run free
Did they grow terrified? Mistake it for a gun?
Did they call the police on someone’s
Twelve-year-old son?
Now the ghost on their lawn is enacting his rage
Clammy hands clawing up as he climbs from the grave
Craving equality, as he did in his life
When his enemies told tales with their backstabbing knives
The same bigotted tales that they told in his life
Weaving stories to ensure his kin would not survive
Calling him superpredator, fettering him in chains
Tossing his corpse out in a pauper’s fire heap of remains
Now the child on the lawn sings his frightening songs
Threatening to “overcome” and also “carry on”
How they cower in their homes afraid to walk at night alone
For the fear of this reverberant hum, it amasses as it
Is carried down the line by the other children
As they march in a line, and their feet beat in time
Making the sounds that amound billowing over their heads
For you cannot escape the cries of the dead
December 15, 2022
My short story “Dwayne’s Baby Daddy” is in Blerdrotica 2
My short story “Dwayne’s Baby Daddy” is in Blerdrotica 2: Couple’s Therapy (curated by Cranston Burney and Penelope Flynn). The full moon has all kinds of effects on the local werewolf population: including their on mating patterns. For Jamal, who’s in an open relationship with his reluctant wife Mariah, and his adventurous boyfriend Dwayne, the mystical fertility powers of the lunar cycle bring new complications when Dwayne, a transman, gets pregnant. That’s where a mysterious supernatural force steps in to help work things out: The Therapist.
The Therapist is the strange, unearthly, and at times foreboding paranormal creature that holds together the tales told in Blerdrotica 2: Couple’s Therapy, a compilation of erotic short fiction by eight authors, Sumiko Saulson, James Goodridge, Penelope Flynn, Jarla Tangh, Abdul-Qaadir Taariq Bakari-Muhammad, Quinton Veal, Cranston Burney and Valjeanne Jeffers, who in their own very unique and provocative ways express sex and sexuality employing science fiction, fantasy, horror and urban fantasy.
November 22, 2022
Blackened Roots: An Anthology of the Undead
Blackened Roots: An Anthology of the Undead (Nontraditional zombie stories from the African diaspora) is on its final week of fundraising on IndieGoGo, and is only 45% funded. Please help get the word out! We have little time left. The project has to be at least 60% funded for the editors/publisher to reach their goal of professional rates for the authors.
Help them achieve their goal of paying Black authors at professional rates.
The anthology is co-edited by Stoker-nominated and award-winning editor and writer Nicole Givens Kurtz at Mocha Memoirs Press, and 2022 World Fantasy Award Winner and 2022 Ignyte Winner, producer and editor Tonia Ransom at NIGHTLIGHT. At least three stories from the anthology will air on the NIGHTLIGHT podcast.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/blackened-roots-an-anthology-of-the-undead–2#/
