Sonnet

It is true that I know not what I do:
I have no money, and no publicist.
I hope to have some ratings, good and true
and likes on instagram if I persist.

However, when it comes to social things
and of all social things, media most
I act as bound by certain unseen strings
I act as though I am, in fact, a ghost.

I go back to it, every now and then
to build my online presence and my brand.
Ignore it and ignore again, again.
At least I cannot say that I have been banned.

Cruel market's unseen hand, harken to me:
Send me sense, without pressing scrutiny.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Poems Mostly of the Sea

by Jenne Kaivo

Giveaway ends October 06, 2019.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

I've started a Kindle giveaway for 100 free copies of PMotS! The hardcopy giveaway ended yesterday, with 10 winners, but I forgot to post it here. 1,209 people signed up anyway, so that went pretty well.

Anglerfish

From its very beginning life has been tenacious
even where the sun that sustains is away.
Death creates life and life is voracious.
We should all take a note from the patience of anglerfish,
with their teeth and their twinkling lights.

There are soggy rock places without any lights
where long pillars grow because the tenacious
water drips down as unstopping as anglerfish.
You can erode but you can't take away.
A cave may be hidden but never forgotten:
it will be revealed, because life is voracious

and the river that eats through the rock is voracious
like the empty-gut cores of the heavenly lights.
Two atoms merge, burst in pain, are forgotten
but not without purpose, because their tenacious
deathsongs light worlds that are deathsongs away.
In the distance, they look just like anglerfish.

When I am asleep I have jaws like an anglerfish
lined with spike fangs, and I'm dull and voracious,
like my slimy-fish past which will not go away.
The cave of my home is lit all up with lights
because humans have conquered the earth, we're tenacious
and build mighty things, we must not be forgotten.

In the muck of the sea lies a ship that's forgotten
by all but the crabs and the anglerfish.
It's a half-buried whale because silt is tenacious
as it drips from the surface and through the voracious
fish in the realm of the lights.
Anchors aweigh,

my boys, let's sail away,
cry the sailors, but they have forgotten
their names and the comfort of cities and lights.
They only remember the names of the anglerfish
and the sight of their bones being stripped by voracious
things that insist, because they're tenacious

they'll live in the vast empty plains of the sea. They're tenacious and won't go away.
(But they will, because death is voracious: they'll be forgotten
replaced by new anglerfish, burnt by new lights).

This poem is included in my collection, Poems Mostly of the Sea.

Eyes Unastounding

This was published in Arsenic Lobster, and is included in Poems Mostly of the Sea:

Eyes Unastounding

Who cried in the hall as I walked
On the rug that looped tight as a noose?
Who was it, and why
Could not I have stopped?

Long over, I’ve bypassed the door.
Long gone, though the brakes on the hill
Caterwaul and deprive me of sleep.

I demand that I sleep.
I demand as I still live, I do as I please.
I demand if you kill me,
You take me outside of the town.
Do it far as can be from the center of town.

Eyes overwhelming
Stare down through the cracks in the
Ceiling I’m under.
I hope most of all I may sleep.

Eyes unastounding
Are fastened on me in the
Street, I am freakish.
That now matters little to me.

Eyes in the mirror,
The worst of them all, remind
Me of eyes in the
Ceiling I’m under.
And these eyes deprive me of sleep.

My book, Poems Mostly of the Sea, is now available for purchase on Amazon! The Kindle edition bundles free with the paperback, if you want it to. There may be some minor changes made as I get the second proof and pick a few nits, but the benefit of this form of publishing is that I will absolutely be able to make them, with only a few days for review.

Upcoming Book!

I've often been asked whether I have an archive of my work online. That's what this blog is supposed to be for, but one thing that's prevented me from posting often is the fact that almost all literary magazines require your submissions never to have been published before, even on a personal blog. Considering that most literary magazines pay nothing but exposure, and "exposure" can sometimes mean "we will spell your name wrong and delete the entire issue from our archives in six months", I have finally decided to start living in the future and use Amazon to publish the manuscript I've been sitting on for a couple of years. It's 2019, we're all supposed to be exposing ourselves!

One major benefit of self-publishing through Amazon is that I will have complete creative control over my work. I've selected the cover from my own photography, laid each poem out in order according to my specific vision, and, if I realize something could be worded better, I can just make that change right away rather than desperately hoping it sells enough for another edition.

Here are the first and last poems, since I no longer have to worry about hiding them away:

Prayer to Darkness

Darkness, bless me in my smallness.
I am on a rock, but I do not fear,
though the sky loom all depthless above me.
My world is a pebble and the sky a wave tossing it:
the sky is above and below and about me.
Darkness, protect and preserve me,
though the Aurora be a river across which lies Death,
though the Aurora will catch me in blessed solitude,
hold onto my eyes while the wolves gather 'round me.
I do not fear the ice beneath cracking,
me plunging to freefall in the cold and the darkness,

for the ocean will bless me
in solitude, take me to pre-birth:

I do not fear to be floating with no-one,

the world itself is floating with no-one,
with the moon as a twin that is dead in the still womb.

Darkness, blanket me tightly, come blanket me,

and call the Aurora to sing me my lullaby,
and both of you say to me

"sleep, little mote in the water.
Sleep, who are smaller than stars,
who are cast in the void.
And you may shine brightly, but shine
for an instant, and Darkness,
the first thing,
the last thing,
will drown you."

Prayer to Daylight

Daylight, expose me.

Show me plain and the snake
will not strike without warning.
The sky is a shield hammered flat,
the world has limits.
Daylight, the red stones
arise from the sand and are menhirs.
They do not shrink me,
for I am shown plain.
The day is my spotlight and I will not thirst,
for cacti have moisture,
for the road can be traveled by cars
which cannot help but see me.
Day, though you redden me, I do not fade
in the great standing stones.
You show plain the beetle-tracks, antelope-corpses,
the world is huge and I cannot traverse it.
The world goes on, I cannot see it all,
though myself, I am thrown in sharp focus.
Daylight, speak to me, say

"Stand in sharp focus.
Stand, though your legs begin aching,
your lips crack with dryness.
Your life will be long and as full
as the desert with sand.
You are casting a statuelike shadow."

Poems Mostly of the Sea will be available on Amazon in a few days, and I'll be able to make the Kindle edition free for promotional periods! If it were up to me, I'd make it permanently free, and only the hard edition would cost anything, but Bezos gotta get that dough.

Look at me, I created a bandcamp!

So far, I've got six poems on there, with full text and free to listen/download. This number will grow if I remember to be competent.