The main characters of my book, A Walk Away, were interviewed.

See the full interview at the following link:

http://www.affinityebooks.com/blog/2015/12/26/interview-with-kat-and-rand-from-a-walk-away/

Here is my favorite snippet from the interview:

Diana:  If readers could learn one thing from your experiences, what do you want that to be?

Kat:  The toughest thing for me was learning to let myself be vulnerable. I didn’t want to burden anyone.  For so much of my life I thought that giving love was the greatest gift I had to grant anyone else, but I discovered that it is actually accepting others’ love, appreciating their right to share my burdens and joys, that is the greatest gift I have to give.

Rand:  If I could help everyone realize any one thing I think it would be that even not taking a risk is taking a risk–taking the risk of missing out on something.  Sometimes that is perfectly justified, if you believe that what you’re might miss out on isn’t as important as what you’re doing with your present time.  In my experience, life requires sufficing and sacrificing one happiness for another, and adapting to the new balance of happiness’s.  I just learned that sacrificing or sufficing for a chance to love was my greatest happiness, and once I knew that, the outcomes weren’t as important as taking the risk.

Brightly Burnished; a tribute to Sandra Moran, Victor Hurst, and John Hayslip

In the last two months I have grieved the unexpected passing of three legends: Sandra Moran, Victor W. Hurst IV, and John Victor Hayslip.  I have nothing to give that will ease the sudden absence of their presence.  I can offer only words--the words that come back to me as I picture what each of these three stars meant to me--and I hope they bring a spark of comfort to others who, like me, must grieve and continue (because that is what Sandra, Victor and John would have told us to do--with a good grin and two thumbs up).

Brightly Burnished

I was born of fire,
grace and grit.
I lived on fire,
laughing and seeking
hope,
and so I shall return
to fire,
burning away
the shackles
of this body
to live luminous
as a star
hot and perpetually bright
in your memories.

I was born of fire,
grace and grit.
I lived on fire,
loving and giving
faith,
And so I shall return
to fire,
a threaded star
in the hem of God's robe
of galaxies
on the shoulders of God's body
of universes.

And so you shall ever
know me
as the legacy
I have lived
and always held,
burning bright
as faith and hope,
an acre of stars,
a legacy of fire,
grace and grit
that cannot be
smothered.

I will keep holding you
in my light,
so that you too,
may live on fire,
seeking and giving,
until you shall return
to fire
and then,
both of us
brightly burnished,
shall warm hearts
together again.

Miracles

The technical definition of a miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws,
but I've had a major beef with this definition
since I started speaking.
A miracle is magic.
A miracle is enchanting--
irrespective of my ability or inability to explain it.
I can explain to you how grass grows,
why the sky is blue,
the neural development of an embryo,
and many other miraculous wonders of the world.
That doesn't make them less of a miracle to me.
In fact,
knowing how something works makes it more of a miracle to me --
like learning how a black hole forms or a star is born --
there are so many complexities
 that must occur within precise boundaries
to create something
that can be seen from even one point
 in the universe.
And besides,
knowing how
doesn't reveal why
something happens.
I think a better definition
of a miracle
is an unexpected wondrous or beautiful event,
or simply
an event
we appreciate
regardless of whether
we know how
or why it happens.

Sunsets are a miracle.
Every day.

A melody,
ringing the strings
on a guitar
built by hands
played by hands,
each composed of 28 bones,
each moved by 34 muscles,
as guided by an auditory system
dependent on billions of hairs
with hundreds of cilia
transducing the vibrations
of sound to our nerve fibers
in order to stir
one heart
is
a miracle.

Nobody gets naked like numbers.

Let's Be Additive

Obsess a little

over me.

Maybe we’re the kind of algorithm most folks miss

until we’re smack against the windshield

teeth bared, dragon breathing,

strangely whole but startled mean,

Lonely as a prime number.

You could be different though.

We could know from the start.

Chalk me up

on your black-boarded heart.

We’ll be the kind of laden formulas most folks hiss

beneath their breath to the sweeper after class,

wild-haired, crazy-genius,

oddly sound theory.

A noble prize

in our arms.

We could be similar proofs.

We could equate.

Talk to me in your square roots.

For you, I’ll grow exponential,

sine and cosine.

This compulsion

doesn’t have to be all mine.

Love is factorial.

Let's be additive.

You plus me
to infinity.

A Real Rebellion

First the house flooded,
then the river ran dry.
The corn rotted
and the cotton burned.

So we're not selling this year.

Gun to head,
tired to the bone,
even half-dead,
somethings are still
worth keeping whole.
So we're not selling this year.

We'll harness the hurt,
because stubborn
outlives luck.
We'll just eat crow
and learn to grow,
because we're not selling this year.

Heart-broke,
rain-soaked,
grief choked,
somethings are still
full of love.
So we're not selling this year.

Frayed cliches
all clammed up
and put aside,
some times you just have to
swallow your fear.
The bottom line is
we're not selling this year.

Get Teased.

Find out what the Nightshade Lexicon Performance at this week's Houston Fringe Festival will look like by checking out this teaser.

The Nightshade Lexicon Performance combines poetry, techno, photography and dance into a live show on stage at Super Happy Fun Land (3801 Polk St, Houston, TX 77003) on: 

Thursday, September 24th at 6 PM 

and on 

Friday, September 25th at 7:30 PM.

The five poems in the live performance are a small selection from my subliminally-best-selling e-book of poetry, 

The Nightshade Lexicon: A complete book of worthless poetry for the common hominid. (Available for $0.99 on Amazon).

Finished writing my second novel, Catch to Release

Here's a sneak peek at one cover idea and an unedited teaser from the first chapter.

Chapter One – Bang, Bang. Got Me Good.

Addison Weller pushes the steel bar to open the underground garage access door beneath the courthouse and glances over everything before she ushers the Honorable John Errington through the door ahead of her. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She listens and hears only the hum of the industrial heating system, but a prescient tingle taps lightly over her spine. Reaching her left hand inside her jacket, she puts the tips of her fingers on the butt of her FN 5.7 pistol. She places her right hand lightly on the back of the Honorable John Errington.

A solitary businessman watches them over the hood of a black sedan forty feet to their left. Weller notices he is immaculate in a navy suit, white shirt, and paler blue tie. His face is as smooth and regular as milk, until he reaches inside his jacket. One of his brown eyes darkens and squints in an aim, as he pulls out a Sig Sauer P299.

Weller does not hesitate. She draws her heavy FN 5.7 smoothly. Her left forefinger brushes the safety off as her gun slides over the crisp linen of her suit vest with a soft rasp. She tosses her head to clear away a dark brown wisp of hair in her site-line as she levels the gun. Adjusting her own aim to the poor lighting and the lack of breeze underground, she strains to hear over the adrenaline roaring in her ears. She takes one long sure step forward, bringing her own body between John Errington and the Sig Sauer’s speeding bullet before she fires her own weapon. 

This poem brought to you by technical difficulties, free of charge.

HD

Our break up, our crack up, our disaster,

Brought to the public live in High Definition.

Stark relief in a fielded ground

All about how we came unwound.

Technicolor ignominy from prologue to epilogue

Multi-simul-cast globally in High Definition.

Our end, our demise, our tragedy,

Rendered faithlessly in High Definition.

Flack included in surround sound

All about how we came unwound.

Sometimes definition does nothing for visibility,

like a mirror that can’t see right, High Definition

Miss-judgmental

and self-propagating

our bad dispositions,

our downfall

only.

Let’s let this sleeping log lie,

You and me,

Let’s go out of HD.

I'll buy you a drink,

and we'll not

see ourselves sink.

Here the technopoetry version for free on SoundCloud too:
https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/high-definitionmp3

Affinity publishes Rori's independent review of my book, A Walk Away

See the review and get 3 chapters free...just in time for an Autumn escape.
http://affinityebooks.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=627&chapter=2015

http://affinityebooks.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=627&chapter=2015

Things I love

I know 

I have every right 

to take all the time I need
to grieve.
The world is
a tragic place
where golden children
sometimes die
for no reason,
And every wretched,
unimaginable treason
has its own trump season.
Sure, I know,
its important to be sad
some,
but before I get too far down,
I have to count
the Things I love:

The sight of my One
great love,
golden and tawny
in the sun
by the shimmering water.

Too-long drives
on autumn afternoons
to a good soundtrack
with a truck full of friends
ready for the next
adventure
or a desperate taco snack.

3AM and dancing
like a force of nature,
oblivious to anything
but
music.

I have to count
the things I love:

Hiking the back Forty
so far beyond
the voices of others
that I can hear the voices
of the Aspens and the Oaks
whispering in valleys
that have never known
crowds.

A Fifth of bourbon's
salt and malt
on my tongue
and bonfire smoke
on a night so dark
the Milky Way shines
like clotted cream
as my family weaves
tales and laughter.

Six mile loops
of forsaken freeways
flowing velvet
round the city
like a river through
a carnival of lights.

I have to count
the things I love:

Sailing Seven seas,
open ocean,
flying over
myriad blue waters.

Waking up slowly,
after Eight,
to sit on the patio
and breathe
in the steam
of fresh coffee
or
bergamot tea.

The Cloud Nine feeling
of A scouring hot shower
with citrus soap
after earnest yard work
in the humid summer.

I have to count
the things I love:

A kitten
Tenanted
beneath my chin
curled up
purring
rumble-bumble
against my chest.

The Eleventh hour
of writing well,
my fingers pattering,
keyboard glowing
like a magician's ball,
spells creating worlds
within
my head.

The impossibly pink,
gangling improbability,
of a Dozen
Roseate Spoonbills
flying the thin graceful glow
between sunset
and twilight.

I have to count
the things I love,
the Innumerable
things I love,
so
the things I loathe
can't win.

As a sunflower faces the sun, I count, the things I love so that I can hold the light.

Bitter over election politics already?

Take a dive off the deep end and try a good dark dance fix: https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/election-yearmp3

Is Poetry Dead?

I think not!  What about you?

Here is the title poem from my poetry collection, "The Nightshade Lexicon" in honor of #WorldPoetryDay

Or Listen in to the technopoetry version if you prefer at: https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/nightshadelexicon-poetry-is-deadmp3 

"Poetry is dead,"

He said,

"And you scribblers of rhymes

Are the modern day equivalents of Dr. Frankenstein,

Cobbling together hackneyed parts of palsied phrases

Hoping to electrify some heart."

How could this be?

I thought.

Everyone knows GOD is dead,

Nietzsche told us so,

But poetry?

A listing land of zombie corpses?

Poetry has whispered mixers and elixers

To necromancers and angels alike for millennium…

Dressed ancient Ute chants to the nines

And peeled naked Tupac Shakur and Beastie Boy dimes.

"Poetry is dead and you’re wasting time with ghosts on-line,"

He insisted,

As I shaped more sharpie ghouls on a napkin

And the back of some grocery store receipt.

Maybe poetry chirps via smart-phone at 180 characters per minute

Like Herman Munster’s heartbeat,

“IT LIVES!”

I quipped.

And I’ll continue to deal in my dead lexicon,

A dark addicted wordslinger,

Happy towering with the nightshades.

Some poetic nightshades in a dead lexicon...

Need a perky upbeat tune to put you into the summer groove?

Give this a listen: https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/insectoniamp3 and get ready to twitch!

Sometimes Pride can save lives.

Please take five seconds and read through Nancy's blog (it might help you and someone you love): http://www.alexncassidy.com/#!VISIBILITY-and-PRIDE-thoughts-from-authors/c1w54/55876b940cf25bae5cac7b9a

On Being Visibly Proud of All I Am, as a Writer.

I am a voracious reader.  Books, stories, tales. They really matter to me.  Genre and type do not. 
I even love reading the cereal box. 
Debating whether I was first a writer or reader is too much like the great chicken and egg debate—just pointless mental masturbation; but I believe I was first a reader inspired to write. 
At first I didn’t care what I wrote.  Anything was fine so long as I was telling the a story that gets at the heart of what it means to be human: a journey of growth.
I actually didn’t care about fame or visibility of any kind, but especially as a lesbian.
In my little heart of hearts, I don’t want who I am to matter to potential readers as much as I want the story I am telling to matter to readers. 
But then I realized something very important, for myself as a reader, and in my profession as a writer . . . something I already knew from my work in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, but just failed to translate to other domains of my life . . . stories matter the most to us when we identify and empathize with the people involved. 
For some readers, like me, that probably means identifying with the characters; but for other readers, maybe many other readers, that could mean identifying with the author. 
While this doesn’t have to happen on any demographic level, including sexuality, it does have to happen on a genuine level. Even if I don’t necessarily view my sexuality as all that important to my personal identity or career, society does.  The world does. And that great external force of perception means my sexuality shapes my experience on a genuinely visible level.

As such, my lesbian voice as an author and in the representation of my characters, is much more than a matter of my pride.  Visibly living that pride is the only way I can create a story genuine and artful enough to inspire empathy and spread compassion.
Being visibly proud of my sexuality and telling stories involving characters like me may help others connect to my stories and find what they need.  I have so many LGBTQ friends who need evidence that someone excepts them, that someone is proud to know them. Some of my friends were disowned by their families and left homeless as teenagers. Some gave their lives with honor to serve their country and were buried without family at their gravesides. Some were passed over for promotions because their organizations were embarrassed by their identity, and one was shot because she looked a little too butch. I now realize that when I claim with pride my LGBTQ status, when I use my lesbian identity to proudly create art, I actively help put an end to these horrors. I change the salient story to one of a lesbian author, writing about LGBTQ characters who grow beyond hate to find health and happiness.
I hope you will join me in being proud of your identity and above all, in being proud of our ability to accept and love many identities. Please, be proud enough to share who you are, because someone else out there (a reader, another writer, a musician, a mother, a sister) needs to know you too, if we are all ever going to discover how love saves the world.

"Lacey and Laura's wedding bouquets" -AzulOx Photography 

The first public reading PANIC

In a few short weeks, I will be reading a five minute excerpt from my novel, A Walk Away.
While this is really exciting and should be fun, I am concerned with reading well. Five minutes can be a long time to read out loud--and no one wants to listen to the most boring parts of a book...so I'm trying to choose. Chapter 14 has been suggested since it has some witty dialogue and reveals one of the explanations to the book's title. Chapter 8 has also been suggested since it features the scene where the two main characters meet for the first time.

But I'd rather hear from readers... what makes a read excerpt draw you into wanting to read the book most?

I figure there are three main sets of variables I should attend to (this is where the social scientist in me geeks out):
1) The Style Variables like pitch, pace, inflection, clarity, and accent.
2) The Content Variables like how much dialogue, action, symbolism, meaningfulness, and closure or emotional bait the excerpt features.
3) The Context Variables like how much and what kinds of set up or explanation I should offer before reading.

Being largely tone-deaf and somewhat shy, I struggle the most with the first set regarding style--but I'd really like to hear what different readers like the most in each realm of variables. So let me know what you think?

And if you want to hear a practice sample for comparison to your ideal, or if it is easier for you to listen to me read and then critique than it is to just state what you like, then give a listen to this short reading from the book on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/hookedmp3

Yes, the cat helps!

Love Never Dies, a tribute to children taken too soon.

My friend, Mr. David Wright, wrote this poem in tribute to two young children who died in a tragic house fire in La Porte, Texas last Sunday.  I wish their family and friends all the love, time, and support they need to heal.

"Love Never Dies"

This can't be real, It isn't just denial.

I can still hear you laughing, I can still see your smile.

There's no way you can be gone, you were just right there.

This morning I hear birds singing, I see the wind in your hair.

How can this happen to such precious little souls

To never fulfill their dreams, to never reach their goals.

Like a thief in the night You tore our lives apart.

Left our community weeping, and full of broken hearts.

Just give me one more chance to roll back the hands of time.

Get me up so I can get them out then everything would be just fine.

Please give them back, they deserve so many more years.

It would be so easy to mend the broken hearts, and wipe away all these tears.

Today is weighing heavy, I'm not sure I can last.

Trying to fight back the tears, but my strength is fading fast.

I turn to go to work, but sorrow replaces my cares.

Overwhelmed by the vision of a charred home, Balloons and Teddy Bears.

God has called two angels to be with Him in a better place.

Our lives must move on, but we will never forget your face.

There will be many long days "without you my friend."

"And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again."

-David L. Wright, Jr.

Simper Fidelis

One goal bucket lists.

Every new year one of my best friends e-mails me a list of her goals for the year, but these aren't just your standard lose-weight, eat-well, live-meaningfully goals you see on the fronts of self-help magazines while you're waiting in line at the grocery store.  These goals are a do-in-case-I-die-this-year list of learning adventures.  There are 50 of them every year, and with each new list comes an accounting of how many of last year's adventures were achieved.  There is no hard and fast rule that goals cannot be repeated from year to year, but it is understood that they should not be--as that means the goal was probably bad to begin with in the sense that it wasn't interesting enough, or realistically achievable, etc.  That isn't to say these goals have to be sane or practical, but they should be motivating and achievable by you, within the year.  I think the purpose is to push yourself a little outside of your comfort zone, with all the right protective safety gear in use, of course.

Climbing Mt. Wheeler in Great Basin National Park

But the really interesting thing about these lists is that each item in every list all really serve one goal:

Find joy through continuously living multiple learning adventures.

Even when an experience on the list turns out to really suck, like learning how to vaccinate an ostrich say... that experience usually generates some joyfully absurd stories and lessons for approaching the next learning endeavor, like always pack baby wipes and tampons because they're good at cleaning ostrich crap off puncture wounds and stopping the bleeding in the middle of nowhere.  Oh, and bourbon never hurts either.
So in that spirit I challenge you to come up with a one goal bucket list--what learning adventures must you do or risk dying unhappy without?
And in case you need help, I give you some personal past examples:

• Write a novel.
• Write a song.
• Get certified to dive and go diving with my wife.
• Learn how goat cheese is made.
• Infuse tequila.
• Play rugby.
• Bicycle Ireland with my best friend.
• Be the first one on the dance floor.
• Climb a real rock, outside.
• Take a picture with a pelican (the getting bit was unexpected!)
• Get greasy helping restore an old truck.
• Land a flight simulator (without puking).
  
   

And even if you don't accomplish a single goal, even if all you ever do is talk about them and dream them up with someone you love...then I can tell you from experience, you've already served the one real goal of your bucket list by finding joy in learning to make your list of learning adventures.

So what will you do?  Feel free to give me ideas for next year!

Hot off the presses! My new book is available now!

Kat and Rand’s daily worlds are 2,100 miles apart, but something about their meeting on the magical shores of the nation’s oldest national park east of the Mississippi sparks questions that neither woman can just walk away from without answering. Sometimes chance brings you to the right person to help you resolve some of your baggage, and you learn to like yourself a little more. Kat and Rand are smart enough to recognize this chance in each other, but they also find that there is a catch to every opportunity—walking toward something is always walking away from something else. To read Chapter 1, click here.

To buy it directly from the publisher in any eBook format visit:
http://affinityebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&cPath=1&products_id=212

To buy it from Smashwords in any eBook format visit:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/539615

To buy it from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Walk-Away-Lacey-Schmidt-ebook/dp/B00WYN2J1O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1430482088&sr=8-1&keywords=A+walk+away+lacey+schmidt

More retailers coming soon...

A book video, really!

Affinity's May 1st PublicationA Walk Away by Debut Author Lacey Schmidt

Posted by Affinity E-Book Press on Tuesday, April 28, 2015

My novel, A Walk Away, goes on sale soon.

Give me some feedback?  Would you read the book if you saw this synopsis on the back of this cover?

A Walk Away

      Katrina Reese worked her way through a dozen crappy park service jobs to earn her dream spot as an ecologist at Acadia National Park. She contributes to the world every day in a way she considers meaningful and rewarding, but she’s not sure she’s capable of really loving anyone without losing her sense of self—without losing the courage that kept her together since she weathered the death of her mother as a small child and her father’s subsequent depression. In thirty-odd years, Kat has yet to find a man worth loving enough to give up her love of independence and wilderness. 

     Rand Marshall sold her soul to the devil to start up a consulting company in Houston’s oil sector, or at least that is what she supposes her family believes. But doing the things her parents feared she shouldn't has given her and many other families a good life—even if she’s never managed to find an equal partner to share it. Forced into taking a vacation after a decade of business building, Rand finally has enough time to think about what she values for herself, and how to be happy independent of other people’s, even family members’, judgments.

     Kat and Rand’s daily worlds are 2,100 miles apart, but something about their meeting on the magical shores of the nation’s oldest national park east of the Mississippi sparks questions that neither woman can just walk away without answering. Sometimes chance brings you to the right person to help you resolve some of your baggage, and you learn to like yourself a little more. Kat and Rand are smart enough to recognize this chance in each other, but they also find that there is a catch to every opportunity—walking toward something is always walking away from something else.

What's your view?

I'm starting to really realize how VERY, very different my view of daily life (as an epic adventure) and view of the world (as an awesome spaceship with a magical playground that is well equipped to support our human adventure) is from even those closest to me (who I think I know well). So in the interest of getting to know you all better, if you're feeling deeply or not so deeply philosophical, please sound off. What exactly is your view of daily life and our world?

Anyone with a deeper, male voice want to sing the audio for me in the redo?

Give a listen on soundcloud and let me know:

https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/what-words-willmp3

Make it about one central theme.

The best advice I've ever read from multiple authorities (play-writes, authors, publishers, news editors, teachers, etc.) is to make it about one theme.  Boil it down to what is the moral of the story.  Having a central theme makes it easier to formulate a premise (and thus get rid of extra crap you don't need to tell a story or convey an argument), but more importantly--I think that it makes writing a lot more interesting and exciting.

My book "A Walk Away" will be published in May, and much of the joy of writing and editing it has come from the fact that it has always had one meaningful theme for me:

All of life is sufficing and sacrificing one happiness for another and then adapting to your new balance of happiness.  Sacrificing and sufficing for a chance to love is the greatest happiness and human calling of all.

I think all kinds of stories can be told around such themes, endlessly.  As a writer, the exciting part is getting to decide on the details and shape the premise to reveal that theme from my character's perspectives.  And hopefully, the inevitable revelation of that meaningful theme as the story unwinds strikes a satisfying chord with other readers; but even if it doesn't, I'm satisfied I told a story to the best of my ability.

7 Questions to help you find THE one...

In no particular order, these are seven magic questions you should ask your date early on. 

* What is most important to you?
* Who are the most important people in your life? 
* What inspires you to get out of bed every morning?
* What are you good at?
* What do you wish you were better at?
* How do you prefer to spend your time?
* What are your philosophies?

To make the seven questions work, the person asking has to listen more than talk.

What are you listening for?

1. Does s/he ask you questions in return or prompt you to talk about yourself? Is s/he as interested as s/he is interesting? 
2. Is s/he open to answering all your questions? Shy is okay, but deflecting your attempts at conversation or too many signs of uneasiness definitely means this person isn't in a good place to have a serious relationship.
3. Is s/he too open about wounds, baggage, and being in need of a therapist or fixer? If the conversation becomes a rundown of how awful things are or how s/he has so much to work through, then (again) s/he isn't ready for a serious relationship right now. (No matter how wonderful a person s/he is!).
4. Does s/he use self-deprecating humor? Give any signs s/he is capable of laughing at absurdities in the world? Give credit and praise to others?
5. Are your answers compatible or complimentary? Can you see him/her helping you grow into a better person? 
6. After listening to all these answers, do you want to know more? Is the feeling mutual? 

And remember, attraction shouldn't be difficult, or s/he just isn't the right person at the right time in the right place for you yet.

Free reading...

Kindle unlimited members can now read The Nightshade Lexicon for free:
http://www.amazon.com/Nightshade-Lexicon-complete-worthless-hominid-ebook/dp/B008GAS7VK/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

What Words Will

Most of the important things to say
are ill-defined.
Destined to slather through your hands 
and dissipate like turpentine
gob-smacking you hapless,
hopeless to translate your own heart.

Most of the important things to say
are tasteless and stitched.
Grated to spike stars in your dizzy head
like alcoholic pine pitched
clean-searing you artless,
starved to recruit love's rapport.

We wonder what words will
be sure enough to share
all the import and intent
we dare,
without offending
what words will.

We know choice matters 
but have no ken
as to what words will
carry clear,
enough to render mute 
the hard-hearted fear
of those most dear
to what words will.

Just in time for spring

another techno poetry mix from "The Nightshade Lexicon."  Please give a listen at: https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/floridmp3 and let the scathing commentaries begin.

Outa’ Bourbon Blues

I’m so blue,

Dunno what to do.

I’m outa bourbon

And without you.

Suns gonna shine,

Winds gonna blow,

We all know,

I’ll still be low.

Fella next door,

Say he gots enough beer

To bring us some cheer.

But beer dun't work

'round here.

Suds lack real gristle,

And leave me still
down in tha whistle.

Like a boat
that cain't float,
or a sieve
rustin' solid,
I dunno
what to do.

I’m so blue.

I’m outa bourbon

And still
Without you.

Two sung versions are also on Sound Cloud: https://soundcloud.com/lacey-schmidt/sets/outa-bourbon-blues Which one wins?

Sticky Valentine

Your hair

Wild splayed

Across the center console.

We run

Over half

Of Texas

Gone

With hope.

I would sink myself

To save you.

To feel

Forever

Might exist.

Because we forget

That the only thing

Real

Is right now.

Everything else

Is imaginary.

But there is no tomorrow.

Never was.

Grasp what you need

What you want

Is only todays' decoy.

Be who we are.

Potential

And joy.

Hair

Splayed

Over

The center

Console.

Wind

Rushing by.

This

Is how

We

Fly.

Love now.

Abandon

All will

Ye who go

Here,

Where

Right now

Is

Most

Real.

Be brave

Enough

To feel.