RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.

Wednesday, March 30

freestyle sonnet #036: HOW MANY WACK POETS MUST GET DISSED?

How many emcees (poets) must get dissed, before
somebody says don't fuck with dirtgod? Behind fine
brick paywall ivy MFA play-writers score
all the grants, all the fellowships; by grand design

system self-justifies by rewarding itself.
Dirtgods never get gold just pyrite, yet remain
guided by skylight not glint from atrophied shelf,
and got no time for wine-and-cheese readings - dirt brain

consumed with continuing the real work. Never
is the real work honored because that shit still seems
impossible. Traditionally wayed clever
emcees (poets) remain filled with insider dreams,

but fuck that, I sit amidst my junkyard lifestyle,
and keep scribbling impossible shit the whole while.
we was praying to them gods
they'd been telling us about
on the tvs - the white ones

Tuesday, March 29

mystery oblivion
grasping at my naked throat,
choking hope out of my heart
nothing about my life looks
picture perfect - still, I've peaced
shit together well enough

Monday, March 28

you know that warbled chatter
of police radios? that's
how voices in my head sound

Sunday, March 27

smoking buddha with buddha -
exhale smoke cumulus clouds
bedazzle blue sky canvas
front yard tesla coil of lounge
activated for cookouts
(dumbasses say “barbecue”)

Saturday, March 26

keep a computer pointed
at my brain-based consciousness
constantly, for salary

Friday, March 25

used to be a trailer park
boy - we'd throw horseshoes at Pop's
on Saturday afternoons
Sheriff Buford P. Coltrane
trying to shave/steal my beard
for its magical powers

Thursday, March 24

half-dead pointless existence
kept on pop culture support
constant refreshing nothing

Wednesday, March 23

TOP TEN WOW WHAT A WARM DAY THAT TRAIN WHISTLE SOUNDS NICE DOESN'T IT?


#1: g00d qV1t-y0Vr-j0b d4y/spr1ng bl0ss0m 4r30l4s/pr0m1s3 w1d3 0p3nz
#2: cr0wz c0ngr3g4t1ng/0v3rh34d 1n p1n3z w1th th4t/3p1c p03tr13s
#3: g00d s1t-sp0tt1ng d4y/bY r1v3r stVdY1ng blV3/h3r0n 41k1d0
#4: pVrpl3 r3dbVdz pr0v3/g0d 3x1stz & 4ll h3 j4mz/1s th4t dj scr3w
#5: g00d d4y f0r p1cn1c/t4bl1ng s3r10Vs m4tt3rz/'t1l m4yb3 n3v3r
#6: l1f3 1s f00l 0f r34l/l1f3 1s t00 sh0rt (b4ssl1n3 thVmpz)/l1f3 1s bVt 4 dr34m
#7: p3rf3ct d4y t0 jVst/d1s4pp34r f0r3v3r (m34n/g0n3 fr0m th3 m4nm4d3)
#8: h0n3ysVckl3 v1n3z/f4ll3n tr33z 0bl1t3r4t3/w34k b4rb3d w1r3 f3nc3s
#9: g00d d4y t0 d13 - n0t/fr0m d3pr3ss3d st4t3 bVt s1tt1ng/0n t0p 0f th3 w0rld
#10: t0 t4k3 th4t l4st fr3sh/br34th w1th h0p3-f00l1sh sVnsh1n3/m4k1ng 4ll s33m r1ght

TOP TEN PERSONAL BRANDS MARKED WITH CLOTHES-HANGER ON GAS STOVE


#1: 0rg4n1c r0b0tz/bV1ld p3rs0n4l br4ndz w1th0Vt/trV3 tr14l bY f1r3
#2: s0l1d 34rth-sc0rch1ng/f1r3 cl34rz 4ll 4bstr4ct10nz Vp/1n l1t3r4l sm0k3
#3: m3ch4n1c4l m1ndz/th1nk t3chn1c4l 4dv4nc3 1s/d0m1n10n 0n 34rth
#4: tr33z kn0w m0r3 th4n Vs/th3y 4r3 t4pp3d 1nt0 sh1t w3/b4r3lY 3v3n scr4p3
#5: Vt0p14 thrV/sc13nt1f1c d0m1n10n/st1ll 4ssVm3z t00 mVch
#6: d1rt kn0wz m0r3 th4n Vs/c0ngr3ss10n4l m1cr0b3z b33n/m4k1ng l4wz f0r 3vs
#7: p0pVl4r cVltVr3/n0t trV3 c0l0n1z4t10n/1n f4ct, 0pp0s1t3
#8: sVp3rf1c14l s3lv3z/(0r *s3lf1sh*) w1ll p3r1sh 1n/f1r3 m0st 34s1lY
#9: Vnd3rgr0Vnd n3tw0rkz/sp4wn n3w 3p0chz fr0m p4st 4sh/- 4dv4nc3d mVshr00m t3ch
#10: s3lf-m1cr0-d0s1ng/b10r3m3d14t10n/r3b1rth pr0t0c0lz
pretend controversies built
to manufacture drama
superstars like raised highways
farm-to-table promises
made from comfort positions
where promise is afforded

Tuesday, March 22

survival is difficult
when genetic odds and ends
add up to nothing muches

Monday, March 21

nation-state eyeballs hover
from angelic angles; claims
of common good are applied
triple seven syllable
god divine lines, mind designed
to trust heart intuition

Sunday, March 20

depleted uranium
wasteland mosque: we still pray east,
contemplating toxic peace

Saturday, March 19

rainbow coalitions
hard to build in digital
age - cointelpro inside
beneath white people's pretend
god's blue sky reflecting vast
oceans, parking lot camping

Friday, March 18

western civilization
classifies itself "classic" -
deny, deface, and destroy

Thursday, March 17

FBI informant stands
in back yard, wearing longhair
as camouflage costume
winter came but winter's gone,
poison eyes see break of dawn,
there is no right nor no wrong

Wednesday, March 16

freestyle sonnet #035: STOKED TO DO IMPOSSIBLE WORK

I am stoked to do impossible work - those things
which seem daunting, too overgrown with emotion
(not to mention difficulties such action brings).
I'm stoked to gather together with devotion

to collectively attend to matters far more
important than dollars or acknowledgements made
to intellectual ownership. I am for
"I" becoming absorbed by "we", forgetting paid

instead of getting paid, until we're all covered -
meaning shelter both psychic and physical, 'til
safety nets catch all. All new "free" worlds discovered
are really just same shared native space, so when will

"I" become "we", and when will "we" all become stoked
to accomplish impossible work unprovoked?

- with much love to & for Dr. Liz Canfield
dead as fvkk, probably born
dead in this deeply-fvkked world,
trying to exploit me-self

freestyle sonnet #034: ODE TO TOMEWOLF LIFE

Tomewolf Life - never no source too ancient, too out
there, too far flung from societal norms, too lost
in translation, too cryptic, too twisted, to sprout
fresh chaos blossoms of language like life exhaust.

Tomewolf Life - exploring externally unknown
libraries of internal psychic pondering,
piecing together meaning despite culture's groan
demeaning an In Real Life purpose wandering.

Tomewolf Life - scribbled scriptures stapled across all
available surfaces, whether real or not,
as unreal imagined realms often times will scrawl
prophesy better than what accepted thought's got.

Tomewolf life - roaming through printed intelligence
questioning each at-peace for further evidence.

freestyle sonnet #033: DERAILMENT ON-PURPOSE

Raven Mack dirtgod is real metaphor, mostly known
not to civilized power structure, existing
purely as junkyard outsider, overgrown
concrete plastic webbed world seems to be resisting

feral freestyle poesy, but I keep with these
tomewolf digital ripples within collective
blip-bloop mechanisms, only aiming to please
own impulses (perhaps genetic defective)

related to wild language mangling - not so much
"manhandling" as "crow rambling" - cawwing whatever
the fuck comes to mind (or heart?) without letting touch
cognizant awareness; fuck thinking forever,

unless thinking deeper than educated brain
(which mostly just follows installed tracks as in "train").

Tuesday, March 15

Monday, March 14

famous abandoned hotel
downtown charlottesville - landmark
to pissing off white people

Sunday, March 13

domesticated chicken
penned for owned protection since
big dummy red foxes lurk

TOP TEN STRANGER IN STRANGE LAND NOTATIONS


#1: stranger in strange land/wandering same path daily/daydreams need refresh
#2: decades cobra clutched/hope-dreams into submission/off-white flag waving
#3: deplete energy/energetic depletion/complete entropy
#4: only exist to/follow uncertain path through/no real fucking clue
#5: "the sky's the limit!"/from environment given/psychic cinderblocks
#6: full of anger hate/but surrounded by fences/each barb demands "more!"
#7: not enough me left/to even recharge myself/running off of fumes
#8: empty is okay/but empty with demands for/more's hard to handle
#9: life is uneasy/stifling frustrations to seem/going with the flow
#10: stranger in strange land/of internal wanders while/external demands

TOP TEN BLURBS ON BACK OF REALITY'S DUST JACKET

#1: RAVEN MACK'S WRiTiNG/SOFTSCRABBLE COVERED KNUCKLED/KOOL-AiD
SOAKED THRiLLER
#2: RAVEN MACK'S WRiTiNG/CONFUSiNG EXPLORATiON/OF UNSHARED SPACES
#3: RAVEN MACK'S WRiTiNG/FRACTURED FRAGMENTED FOOLiSHNESS/NONSENSE GiBBERiSH
#4: RAVEN MACK'S RAMBLiNG/MUCH LiKE HALF-WiTTED FREiGHT TRAiN/LACKiNG PROPER TRACKS
#5: RAVEN MACK'S RAMBLiNG/RUMBLiNG NOTHiNG TO NOWHERE/STUMBLiNG THROUGH TiMELiNE
#6: RAVEN MACK'S 'SPLAiNiNG/PSEUDO-ANARCHiST PABLUM/PATRiARCHAL "POMES"
#7: RAVEN MACK'S 'SPLAiNiNG/"WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS..." DRUNKEN/BACKWARDS DEDUCTiONS
#8: RAVEN MACK'S SCRiBBLiNG/DRiBBLES OF FRUSTRATED DREAMS/DYiNG ON HEART ViNE
#9: RAVEN MACK'S SCRiBBLiNG/"FUCK iT" EXHiBiTiONS OF/SiMPLiSTiC HALF-WiT
#10: RAVEN MACK'S SCRiBBLiNG/RiDiCULOUS EXCURSiONS/iNTO SELF-BLAH-BLAHS

TOP TEN EMAILS IN MAXED OUT DOT GOV INBOX

#1: a smirking woman/holding a banana peel -/metaphor as fuck
#2: goatee'd bureaucrat's/greeting: "y'all stayin' busy?"/as we waste our lives
#3: fake tit old lady/with sad eyes like pound puppy/just opposite end
#4: these hallways have been/hospital, classroom, coffin,/administrative
#5: sanitized of hope/resignation stains the walls/like tobacco smoke
#6: smiling at 'em all/thru wild beard heavily greyed/by what-could've-beens
#7: we work for the state/suspended animation/unchallenged, undead
#8: 4:30 exit/"have a good one" to random/face passed thousand times
#9: we go home, eat, sleep,/repeat these sad processes/tomorrow again
#10: "this is not life" I/think, logging into desktop/little after 8
studying lucha libre
VHS tapes for hidden
meanings/secret messages

Saturday, March 12

the elvenfolk's most revered
prophet wrote her literal
metaphysics into pulp

Friday, March 11

Thursday, March 10

full tank of gas won't get you
far enough away from your
self-destructive behavior

freestyle sonnet #032: ANOTHER MORNING SPENT RESPONSIBLY

Some mornings be like: how did I even get here,
walking in these amazon rockports (half-worn out),
stuck on the strong side of forty and full of fear
the years left are less than average, without doubt

about personal path - shit man, most of the time stumbling
with direction current energies pointed me,
but always felt like something bigger was rumbling
underneath; yet here I am, unable to see

how the mundane through fried daze equals something more
than wasted efforts, limited moments squandered
following civilized corrals while metaphor
of freedom only applied to wide world wandered

through digital distractions - inside beyond shine
of sun promising something more than this dark "mine".

Wednesday, March 9

artistic infrastructure
minimal at best, leaving
ART to affluent children
sold and did mad LSD;
don't really talk about it
though because now I’ve got kids

Tuesday, March 8

"focus through the fog" scream scribbles
I don't remember doing;
but there they are, speaking truth

Monday, March 7

hear the electricity
buzzing inside well-scarred walls,
smoke-staining the paint’s psyche
Dollar General parking
lot, where shit gets real as fuck
(and also people are broke)

Sunday, March 6

Christmas lights outta control
sneaking through open borders
working in slaughterhouses

Saturday, March 5

viking raven banner flag
flown because raven birth name
viking flag shoulder tattoos

TOP TEN LESSONS OF THE CROW'S FEET IN THE MARBLE FACE

#1: stVd13d th3 scr1ptVr3/0f cr0w'z f00t 4cr0ss 4nc13nt/st4tV3'z m4rbl3d f4c3
#2: 1t sp0k3 0f 3nd t1m3z/wh3r3 t1m3l1n3z d34d 3nd3d 4t/!(3xcl4m4t10n p01nt)
#3: f0r3v3r scr0ll 1s/4lw4yz VnsVst41n4bl3 -/th1s w1ll n3v3r ch4ng3
#4: 3v'rY 3p1c f41l/cr34t3z cVltVr4l c0mp0st/f0r r3g3n3s1s
#5: 4ll l1f3 b0rn fr0m 4sh -/f1r3 dVst sVbm3rg3d 1n w4t3r -/pr1m0rd14l mVck
#6: m4d m0nk3Y hVm4nz/fVck th3 w0rld bY 4tt3mpt1ng/t0 VnmVck th3 w0rld
#7: mVck 1s n4tVr4l/4s m01st w0mbz, 4s w4rm1ng f1r3,/4s blV3 skY d33p br34ths
#8: d1rtg0dz (n0n-g3nd3r3d)/st4Y mVck3d Vp, r3m41n 34rthY,/r3m41n d1rtg0dd3st
#9: r3d3v3l0pm3nt/f4ls3lY cl34ns3z th3 sVrf4c3 -/Vnd3rn34th st1ll mVck
#10: cr0w'z f00t scr1ptVr3z sp0k3/0f sk1p-st3pp1ng thr0Vgh fr3sh mVck/0v3r & Ov3r