The past few months have been some of my least favorite in recent memory, as mentioned in my previous post. When life gives you lemons, you can’t really eat them because of your acid reflux, so they sit around and dry out and get sort of gross but at least not as bad as other food that sits around.* Anyway, my point is that I am trying to find the good amidst the bad, and thus in that spirit I bring you this collection of short poems:

All poems written during (but not about) the pandemic!

This is a collection of short poems I’ve written over the course of the past two years, and while only a few of them are about the pandemic per se, I do think of this as my book of pandemic poetry. Because of that, I am pleased to note that I am publishing this book through India’s Cyberwit.net, who have agreed to donate half of the profits towards COVID relief in India. (Although of course you are welcome to just purchase through Amazon if you prefer.) So I guess you could say this is my first book that I hope does good, instead of doing well.

But while proceeds from the book may go to pandemic relief instead of me, let me hasten to assure you that the book itself is not all pandemic and is very much a distillation of me, which is to say that it is alternately pessimistic and hopeful, ridiculous and thoughtful, covers all topics from spiders to food to love, tries to be engaging and thought-provoking, and wants you to like it (but will continue existing as itself regardless).

That’s about all I can say about this collection of poems. It’s easier for me to write about my other books because the nonfiction is about other things. But all the important things I have to say related to the poems are in the poems, which are not really meant to be summarized, but to be read.

* What, just me?

That is, I suspect, when things will get better. The past month has not been great for me, between the water damage to our home, the resultant heaters in our house during the hottest month of summer, and my injuring my back yesterday to the point where I didn’t get much sleep last night because it still hurts too much. All in all, not the best.

Which is not to say there have been no bright points in the past month. I did start writing satire for a new site called Brain Caffeine, so if you’d like to read some articles with titles like “All State-Mandated COVID Restrictions To End, Announces Governor Leeroy Jenkins” and “World’s Climate Scientists Fucking Told You So“, please do so. Just be aware that compared to my more thoughtful Pun Also Rises columns, these tend to be more of a Hobbesian description of human life.*

But soon — hopefully before the month is up, but definitely by early September — I will have a few more cool things to share with you.

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* They are nasty, brutish, and short.