What's going on at the Victory Palace?

Hi folks,

First off, thank you so much for being a subscriber to my Substack. There’s so much out there to read, and I’m truly grateful for your kind interest in my work.

It’s been a helluva past few months, and since my new day job, I’ve been experiencing a new creative burst due to my train commute. Here’s a little peek into my notebook to give you a sense of my process…

I wanted to give you a quick update as to what I’ve been cooking up, in various stages of development of course:

• The Body of Pasolini – This one’s to honor the recent 101^st birthday of one of (imo) Italy’s most controversial, accomplished artists/intellectuals of the 20^th century. It’s directly inspired by a poem he wrote called “The Ashes of Gramsci”, that poem being an expression of the conflicting feelings Pasolini had upon visiting the grave of Antonio Gramsci, founder of the Italian Communist Party. Whereas my poem explores the influences of Pasolini’s poetry on me when I was in my early 20s, a potential theory of why he was really assassinated, and the challenges of living in today’s world knowing what I’ve come to know about it.

• RCAA (Reality Check for Aspiring Artists) – This one’s about how I used to believe in what I thought was reality (as portrayed by the MSM, religion, politics, etc.) and how I’ve come to learn that not anyone can just “make it” in popular CULTure and what one has to really do in order to be part of it. It’s a cautionary poem which encourages them to blaze their own trails and not give in to CULTure.

• And several others that are percolating in the pages of the aforesaid notebook!

Here’s one of my favorite quotes about writing poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky…

You’ll get an email as I release the above works, and again a 1000 thanks!

Best to you!