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.

Thursday, November 30

3V3RY 3MPTY W4R3H0VS3...

every empty warehouse
an external canvas and
concealed internal sandbox

JJ Krupert Nov 2017 number thirteen "el cholo"


No puedo hablar espanol bien, pero hago mi major esfuerzo. Yo uso el traductor de google y libros Eduardo Galeano (en espanol e ingles, lado a lado). Comprendo lentamente, y escribo en espanol aun mas lento. A la chingada, el dio de la suciedad sobrevivira. Escucho demasiada musica nortena a veces, porque prefiero estar caminando por America Central o Colombia o Uruguay o cualquier otro lugar que no sea aqui. Aqui tiene demasiados problemas. A la chingada. Manana es otro dia. (Necesito un teclado espanol.)

CH3MTR41LS 4ND CH4NG1NG C0L0RS...

chemtrails and changing colors,
human man with preconceived
notions of stability

Wednesday, November 29

Jimbo Jayrock Krupert November 2017 number twelve "racing in the street"


don't care much for the boss (or any bosses tbh)
but this song sneaks the gauntlet thru my dislike & bias because it reminds me of tagging along with my uncles and their chevelles or novas (always supersport)
and also causes me to reflect on the fact my birth name is raven (born this way)
named after a guy who I thought's name was raven speed by the way he was described
bc he drove a car really fast on regular roads and was well-known for this, not only in virginia but apparently the entire mid-atlantic
& also died under mysterious circumstances (perhaps related)
& as a teen I was a longhaired stoner & found myself in a shitty party in a shitty county I wasn't from & some shitty redneck was gonna kick my shitty ass bc he didn't like my shitty look
he asked my name (I said raven) & he asked where I got that name (I said raven speed)
& he was a young kid who had been dazzled that man's aura & no longer wanted to kick my ass & instead we became great drunken friends for the night
& ran the pool table as partners for a good 45 mins or so (mb longer, I was fucked up)
& ultimately even though I could care less for the boss (or any bosses)
this song makes me think of all those things that are real in my life
& I can smell the racing fuel & hear the roar
& godfuckingdamn do I love those things bc they are me
at a deep & unexplainable level

S3V3N Y34RS S0B3R FR0M DRVNK...

seven years sober from drink
but stay drunk off digital
delusions, daily basis

Jambar Jenkins Krupert November 2017 number eleven "battery"


you can tell my overall metaphysics by level of old metallica playing going on
by "old" metallica I mean "good" metallica
which also means cliff burton bc cliff burton was great & also lucky enough to die before being dragged into today w/lars ulrich
often when it comes to the arts I have a theory of how disruptive time machines would be bc different versions of ppl would be having jihad battles and their internal jihad between god and devil would play out in real time
metallica's a great example bc cliff burton would be doing battle with today lars but also likely an army of lars and probably plenty of jameses in there too
(I imagine for the most part all the kirks would just be hanging out not really doing anything to take sides)
the thing about this is likely now lars or worse yet a future lars poisoned by technowizardry would probably use time travel to have at least a few versions of cliff who didn't die and ended up sucking just like lars does, and mb even worse
whenever I get to that part of the time machine metallica wars I get shook bc cliff burton as an entity is so pure & unfuckwithable
[sadly I did a twitter search for "ghost of cliff burton" bc well just bc and there's a band actually called The Ghost of Cliff Burton, which goes against all my previous line's theories of unfuckwithableness bc obviously that fucks with cliff burton]
[and where is lars in the battle against this Ghost of Cliff Burton band? nowhere, too busy fighting off the actual ghost of cliff burton]
so yeah, overall metaphysics level is not super strong right now thus leaning back on the old good metallica
which in this digital age even that is polluted when I try to write a dumb stream of conscious blurb about time machines
& realize "the ghost of cliff burton" actually exists but in all the wrong ways

Tuesday, November 28

D3NY1NG MYS3LF TH3 TRVTH...

denying myself the truth
because it's far easier
to pretend than come correct

Jillstein Judyrock Krupert November 2017 number ten "boyz-n-tha-hood (remix)"


[had been all set to talk about how Eazy-E was problematic, and even more so how Kilo G was very problematic in this song, but instead life did its thing where it throws something else at you because I had this old truck in my yard for a long time and even before I get to that I guess I should explain we spent too much money on Thanksgiving gluttony HOW DO PEOPLE EVEN BLACK FRIDAY MUCH LESS SMALL BIZNESS SATURDAY AND ALSO CYBER MONDAY MUCH LESS GIVING TUESDAY WTF EARTH AMERICANS? so we were short for a credit card bill due this yesterday but there was the aforementioned truck sitting in the yard for a long time because the clutch went out in it and I started driving our second minivan when it went from first to second after I tore out all the seats to make room for hay and wood and stuffs like that but a guy down the road named Frosty THAT’S WHAT HE SAID OKAY THIS IS ALSO THE COUNTRY SO NOBODY’S NAME IS THEIR REAL NAME EVER REAL NAMES ARE FOR ASSHOLES stopped by to ask about the truck for himself or his grandson or somebody or another and I told him I’d take $500 or best offer and once he saw the windshield was cracked he came back on black Friday lol this was his black Friday shopping and he offered me $300 cash and best believe I took it because that meant yesterday I could go by the Lowes to pay the credit card bill that I wasn’t gonna be able to pay and yes it was Lowes because nobody any longer actually builds and fixes stuff we just use shoddy materials from box hardware stores to do shoddy DIY projects all of which will crumble back into the Earth before our children are grown since this is America where we have cheap wooden houses that cost exorbitant prices because this is the end of our dying empire but anyways I rode to the Lowes after work and paid the credit card bill even paid an extra $60 on it because lol I had Frosty’s hundred dollar bills in my pocket and fuck it let’s pay this credit down as quick as possible so I can finally move to Istanbul as was written in the ancient prophecies of the wild bird that returned to conference with his eastern brethren and realize the dreams of the ancestors THAT IS FUTURE MYTHOLOGY SORRY FOR THE TANGENT and after paying the bill I realized there was money leftover still to finally go get some new floodlights to replace the burned out ones on the back of the house that have been burned out for months maybe even a year who knows and of course I got green despite all the stupid SUPPORT OUR VETERANS attempts to co-opt chill green floodlights on the back yard and I bought the floodlight bulbs and as I walked there was a dude standing a chill looking dude dressed in the khakis and mid-level dress shirt of a man who is attempting to be professional from a perhaps toxic masculine background, and when I say chill I hope you understand what I mean because I don’t want to explicitly say he was african-american and force you to think through that filter mostly because I don’t want to say it myself as that shouldn’t have to be clarified as outside the norm but then again if I don’t say it you will think through normal filters and once I tell you the last part you will assume he was a white dude and you won’t think he was chill you will think he was a stupid fratbro gone into hipster construction which he may still be even though not white but anyways the hat he was wearing with this construction professional outfit and his chill smile and trustable eyes THE TRUSTABLE EYES WERE WHAT MADE ME THINK HE WAS CHILL YOU CANNOT LIE WITH YOUR EYEBALLS REGARDLESS OF ETHNICITY THERE IS NO SCIENCE THAT PROVES THIS BUT I BELIEVE IT was an Olde English 800 baseball hat not weird and hipster-y looking but like he was a fucking distributor or some shit but who would be a distributor of alcohol and wear an OE hat it doesn’t make sense but it happened as I walked out from paying the Lowes bill after selling the junk truck in the yard and the whole reason it happened was because I was gonna write a dumb blurb about how Eazy-E was problematic and Kilo G from this song was even more problematic but I was gonna then say that people who do rapgenius notations are more problematic than that which is a pretty big jump because Kilo G and Eazy-E were both sociopaths and perhaps rapgenius clarifiers are sociopaths of a different variety in fact that’s likely true but ultimately none of it matter because life is chill and one can sell old trucks and go pay bills and see chill dudes in for some bizarre reason an OE hat and that is In Real Life and it always makes all the problematic shit seem small in comparison because In Real Life shall always impress]

Monday, November 27

S1TT1NG 0N TH3 ST3PS 0VTS1D3...

sitting on the steps outside
the door, contemplating my
position, and permanence

Ja Ja Krupert November 2017 number nine "auditorium"


The cover of Mos Def’s The Ecstatic is a still from Killer of Sheep, a black-and-white movie made in the ‘70s by a dude named Charles Burnett. It is one of my all-time favorite movies – just an amazing fucking flick, but considered an artsy flick (although real as fuck) so lost to artsy flick world. I’ve thought about it a lot though with the media hype after Jordan Peele’s Get Out last year, as well as the awards laid upon Moonlight, all of which is deserving in my opinion (which it should be noted my opinion doesn’t matter ultimately), and especially after I saw Cornel West talk, and thinking in my life about voices from the marginalized (which, though a white male, to some extent what I come from is a marginalized place, although I certainly am able to put on the right type of costume and appear to be one of them who makes all the voices heard, if I could ever overcome my own feelings of fraud and discomfort). I tend to visualize the margins in my mind as the tall grasses at the edge of manicured society, right at along the edges of truly feral (the woods), and to be honest, I feel far more comfortable in the tall grasses (and even lost in the woods, but not really lost, just out there, like that old Leon Russell song) than assimilated. That does not seem to change, no matter how much work I do to make myself a more whole person.
Movies like Killer of Sheep hit me. Last night I actually watched Alambrista! (which also was pretty great), and one of the benefits of working at a TRADITIONAL PUBLIC IVY UNIVERSITY is having access to their libraries, which includes a pretty great DVD collection. (Yes, I still be watching DVDs. Young Dirtgod didn’t have access to a VCR until the ‘90s, so I was born to a behind the technological curve people due to finance, and am fine checking out what’s left of the fancy library DVD collection while y’all straight stream cyberbeams direct to  your pineal gland.) The weird thing is I feel stupid for wanting to watch good movies from other times, being trained to CAN’T MISS the latest yawner of epic media hype. That’s why voices from the margins tend to speak to me. Moonlight did not feel like a complete waste of time to me, like most movies do. Same with Get Out (though – as all horror/sci-fi movies tend to be – it had a gotcha finish where you’re not exactly gonna go back and rewatch it once a year like I do with Killer of Sheep).
A tag I use on this page is “gentrification of the internet” which on one hand is a ridiculous concept but on the other hand is perfectly true. The marginalized voices which used to be able to be found easily have been sort of graffiti muraled over by this common false-quirkiness (best personified by *weird twitter* or *dank memes*) which sort of makes light joke of all non-normal voices. But a true understanding of marginal voices is not attained. It just seems like shit’s a big fucking former bad neighborhood turned into coffee shops serving kombucha and microbrews, but as websites. However this political era reshapes the internet (current net neutrality talk) isn’t really reshaping so much as codifying what’s already been reshaped. Outsider voices are already impossible to hear through the din of social media and paid promotion and people with degrees well beyond baccalaureate branding their personal existences.

What does all this have to do with a Mos Def song? Nothing. But my man has found solace in Islam, as well as Africa, and I’d like to hear voices like that. And nothing is really stopping me, other than having to go down internet back roads instead of the traditional information super-highway with its stupid fucking billboards. And I guess Killer of Sheep speaks to me because I feel a lot like Stan (the main character), and I’ve had engine block after engine block get fucked up on me, often beyond my control. When I come out from the tall grasses into the manicured larger culture, I feel naked, and often can’t think straight, and tend to fuck up, or at least look out of place enough others more comfortable from lifelong existence in that realm are able to be super-predators of the legal kind on my ass, and after fucking up (yet again), I flee back to the comfort of tall grasses, and sometimes even back into the woods. And to be honest, rather than continuing to do the inner-work and feeling comfortable in that manicured (gentrified internet) civilized space, I’d rather all that fall apart, and go feral. Fuck your comfortable world; I don’t want it. I don’t want your values nor your non-soul-satisfying rewards. I hope all this forced order through digital control that’s been applied to everybody’s metaphysical existence fractures the psyches of the young into beautiful feral jihadists who destroy this poison culture (finally).

P30PL3 WH0 WR1T3 PO3TRY...

people who write poetry
on cinderblock buildings make
self-publishing seem sexy

Saturday, November 25

Friday, November 24

Thursday, November 23

Tuesday, November 21

Jah Joe Krupert November 2017 number eight "vivian at the art basel"


westside gunn is a great guilty pleasure
too bad he got signed to slim shady records or whatever because now the peak is gone
fat bellies don't make hungry music (see yelawolf)
the westside gunn/mf doom song is not that great if we being honest
like if you never heard a westside gunn (like rap dork) you'd be like "oh shit this is nice dude with mf doom on this shit!"
but yawn
the corporate bleaching process has begun
rip hey yo era westside gunn

[Ya know I was firmly against in principle the hipster white version of famous rappers where Droog played Nas & Action Bronson played Ghostface, but I love this fuckin' track, & Droog's hook is in my head all the fuckin' time. In fact I'm getting it tattooed in cursive letters on my shoulder later this week. The guy with the new tattoo gun in town is doing a black friday deal at his apartment.]

PL4NT S1LH0V3TT3 S3T 4G41NST...

plant silhouette set against
grey sky canvas background; rain
holding off, man moving on

Monday, November 20

W1SH1NG T0 B3 L3FT 4L0N3...

wishing to be left alone
like old truck, rusting my way
back into Earth, peacefully

Jenna Jay Krupert November 2017 number seven "auntie maria's crib (neapolitan remix)"


lots of identifying of patriarchal roots of bullshit going on, both at societal level as well as personal for ya boy dirtgod. sad to report that my only knowledge of yvng Nitty Scott is this jam bc it had a remix with Action Bronson's big goofy ass. & Nitty's verse outshines him on this (as it should be... don't be askin' ppl to be on your remix that make you look irrelevant) but further googlebox poking shows me yvng Nitty got a fat discography of seemingly anti-colonial fempowerment tracks. so why is the only one I know the one with Action Bronson? gotta think even further outside the box I guess, until the box ain't even there to be a relative term for how you thinking.
my central child is almost 14, & likes some hip hop that I consider straight trash, which is normal & how it should be at that age (her & me). the local independent jamz station which only picks up in town proper was on in the swaggerless minivan (Town & Country my ass), and MC Lyte came on & I was like "oh shit" & all I got from the passenger seat was eye rolls, hardcore teen drama calisthenics eye rolls. I could put her onto Nitty Scott, but ya know what? poison culture all about that poison to the point non-poison don't get enough corn syrup in it, so all you get is more eye rolls.
"for the culture" been appropriated by poison culture for a lifelong minute though, & ain't nothing my single solitary opinion having ass can do.

Juju Jihadi Krupert November 2017 number six "it ain't easy"


Feeling out of control on every front right now. And my lovely sub-conscious was kind enough to deliver the dreamy goods during toss & turn stressed out half-sleep.
The camper in the field (which I should clarify in dream world my property has had a pipeline or some shit run through it & there's been tons of construction so the immediate environs are altered slightly so the white camper that is at the top of the field IRL is down in the field in dreamscape) had a face peeking out the window, so I had to go down there & see what was up. Turns out a family of old couple and their five kids were trying to stay there bc they had to go to hospital two days from now but couldn't afford hotel.
All the kids were grown and 4 of them were professional looking white types but the oldest son was literally named Stone Cold & def trouble. I told them I'd have to think about it & come back.
When I went back to tell them I guess it'd be ok so long as they didn't fuck anything up bc I could empathize with their need to go to hospital while being broke as fuck, they were already halfway through a case of beer.
The 4 professional type kids were outside, being chill like I'd expect, but Stone Cold and his parents were getting blitzed inside the camper, but also trying to pretend they were chill & thankful for me being so understanding.
I woke up thinking "lol fuck you sub-conscious".

I have never considered myself a religious person (that corny statement of "spiritual but not religious" definitely applies) but recent years have had me exposed to old school sufi texts, & the sort of fluctuating and all-encompassing nature of that Creator seems to heart venn diagram well with what I already believed innately. I'm not convert in any official sense, but I do find solace & peace in shit I never would've expected a few years back.
My life is very much out of control (as is everybody's) & that's some scary shit. So doing a lot of little shit like chanting dhikr or reading old ass Ibn al-Arabi has helped accept the fact that control is a delusion anyways.
With that in mind, Brother Ali has become constant in my eardrums. Been listening to his latest album heavily, & wish there was an entire genre of Islam-infused hip hop like this in English. Or mb I just need to learn Arabic. I can at least control that.
But no doubt, shit ain't easy.

R3STL3SS B3D L3FT D1STR3SS3D 1N...

restless bed left distressed in
middle of night for dropper
of motherwort in kitchen

Sunday, November 19

G00G0LW4TTS 0F R4W D4T4...

googolwatts of raw data
transported discreetly to
map human dispositions

Junebug Junior Krupert November 2017 number five "master of sparks"


yesteday saw cop (like a copperhead) sitting at end of our road
rural road nothing but farms & trump signs mostly
so odd to see cop ever
much less the state troop that was the one I saw
so I actually stopped for first time ever (sitting right there)
dirty eyed their presence, and went on
BUT OF COURSE
one of the kids forgot something & had to come back 5 mins later
no cop (copperhead) any more
slithered off to entrap someone else
just like a snake my thinking went
wondering where they went off too
perhaps down this road now
perhaps at my house
sorting thru stuff while knowing I’m out
bc social media is serious bizness to somebody on the other end of the data mines

why the fuck sitting on my road, or any road really?
the former family farm they sat at is now agri-farm
put biosolids (human shit) on the land couple times over
transco pipeline which essentially is the 1950s atlantic coast pipeline
runs thru same field they was sitting at too
they did all types of discreet building/repair shit this past year
why? and what? I couldn’t find out shit from nobody

but that cop, that shitty ass state troop was sitting there
making sure I didn’t have a cracked windshield
or stopped enough not a rolling stop like what makes sense
if no one is coming
which mostly no one is
BC IT’S THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE

but they gotta write tickets
generate revenue
even though tax bills trying to get made which make revenue worse
so more cracked windshields gonna get written up
more “didn’t come to a complete stop” conversations gonna happen
more interactions between struggling ass ppl barely holding their financial world together
& shitty fucking piece of shit cops
who look down on us from first word
who got guns & not afraid to use them (obv)

a disparity is obvious
a metaphysical boot has been pushing down for 30-plus years, likely since the beginning
but definitely been in downward stompjectory since Reagan Era
& just bc some only noticed the boot since last Nov
that fuckin boot been stomping the whole time y’all
trying to squash spirits (the irony of using “squash” an important plant in pre-gridlock culture)
they just not trying to hide it now
or not as good at pretending (definitely not as good at pretending)
(if you think of souls as a spectrum, T Kaine not too far from D Trump on that spectrum, though the American political system is designed to highlight and expand this one dark edge of the spectrum & declare the differences between a T Kaine and D Trump to be enormously obvious)
(from other end of spectrum where life is real & ppl actually exist, not so obv)

they trying to stamp out all potential fires before they happen
but guess what?
such errant stamping is the master of sparks
and y’all can’t stomp everywhere
and sparks bounce
and you’ve made a lot of cultural detritus with your always new psychology
and sparks land
and sparks spark
and you can’t stomp it all out
you’re barely holding it together now
the seams will strain as you try to choke us all at once
& wait until we’re sitting at the end of your road
& you’re trying to creep past without us noticing

just wait

Friday, November 17

H4VNT3D BY TH4T M3RR1LY...

haunted by that "merrily,
merrily, merrily" song,
"life is but a dream" refrain

Jesse James Krupert November 2017 number four "blue ridge mountains"

[actually been bumpin the Sunshine Sessions more stripped down demo version of this song but the internet failed in having youtube copy of that, so in its guise is the studio version, more engineered to feel less authentic]

I come from the foothills
not the mountains themselves
(at least not this lifetime)
(but multiple generations back up the line got mountain goat tendencies)
(multiple continents)

the foothills are perfect launching pad
bc we know how to disappear into the mountains
like mystic guerrillas (I Self Lord And Master)
but also got knowledge of oceanic (re)baptism
(re)charging those depleted metaphysical ions

last summer we was at the ocean
& I sandbarred my ass out
& all these herons started swooping all around me
& ppl on shore were looking & pointing
but I was ducking down to allow herons to swoop in close
energy was crazy (ocean+large bird knowledge+primordial connections)
but then a jetski-bro mechanically progressed into the scene
& caused nature to flee from man's idiocy as much as possible

when I got back on shore
fam asked "did you see the dolphins?"
& I hadn't (no glasses makes aging dirtgod a more-blind seer)
but there was dolphins all up behind my ducked down ass
staring at the herons

my dead father used to say
piedmont Va (southside VA) was the best
bc you wasn't far from the ocean
wasn't far from the mountains
blue waters to nature-baptize ya self
blue ridge to camouflage away from man's idiocy as much as possible

PL34S3 M0R3 C0NT3MP0R4RY...

please, more contemporary
native art in museums,
plus less ill-got artifacts

Thursday, November 16

Jahida Jihadah Krupert November 2017 number three "saqi sharab de de"

[Munni Begum is famous sanger of ghazals,
so I writ a ghazal fa y'all]

sitting inside these boxes, slowly losing my mind
soaking up nutritionless information, self-abusing my mind
memes trigger lols (but not IRL), amusing my mind
manufacturing more "social" data, further binding my heart
so that disconnected connections begin confusing my mind

furies and broken psychologies, blinding my heart
worries and anxieties, grinding my heart
disappearing into the woods, finding my heart
neighborhoods of civilized living disgusting my gut
focused on surviving, minding my heart

glyphosate mind-state, rusting my gut
refined sugar plantation dose rate busting my gut
fermenting resistance, re-adjusting my gut
intestinal congresses refusing my mind
forgetting what I know, trusting my gut

TH3 B3ST 4DV1C3 D3V1L 0N...

the best advice devil on
shoulder ever gave me is
still "burn all bridges you can"

Wednesday, November 15

4TM W1THDR4W4L F0R...

ATM withdrawal for
four-day disappearance to
recharge depleted heartfire

Jebediah Jenkins Krupert November 2017 number two "piece of wood and steel"


building art from the constant detritus that is life
nothing is stable, all is built upon faultlines we don't see
human existence is a wreck (waiting to happen)
we plow ahead, secure in our entered state, oblivious to the wreckage which always lurks
lost in thought lost in sought lost in ought to bought (lost in naught?)
and then in one loose second we lose our imagined control
BLAMM
wreckage

[insert personal visual of scattered debris, including piece of wood and steel at this part, to tie triggering song to rambling prose]

and after the shock
after making sure still alive
we gather up what is still usable
make art from the more beautiful scraps
and leave the rest of the rubble and wreckage behind

to exist is to survive
to continue to imagine stability
despite no historical evidence in support of that psychology
to attempt to pretend everything is okay
"You tried to tell me what was right, and I told you what was real"
right and wrong have little to do with survival
the myth of stability we tell our children
to give them the confidence to learn survival
before the real world closes in on them

the space to play
"I just thank the lord for hands to play..."
before work closes in

25-Man Metaphysical Roster: Manchester City F.C.


[owner and manager shaking hands in agreement that C.R.E.A.M.]

[25-Man Metaphysical Roster is a football dork methodology meant to establish a listing of players who have been most active for English Premier League teams in their past 100 non-friendly matches. Essentially, it is calculated by minutes played, but weighted towards most recent games. The end result is a listing of the 25 players in a team’s recent history who have had the largest hand on their metaphysical sporting trajectory. The English Premier League was chosen because it is the highest level of football played in an English speaking country, and I speak English. Also, it is what comes on TV here in the USA, where I fucking live. And yet still I should clarify I hate English, and also America. Thus maybe I hate myself. Should I not fail in maintaining my unpaid deadline, a new 25-Man Metaphysical Roster will appear on the 1st and 15th of every month.]

Early on in the ascent of Pep Guardiola and his superstar system, which may have already peaked lolol. No blurbs as this is being filled in later due to a period of absence on my part.

#1: Nicolas Otamendi
#2: Kevin De Bruyne
#3: Fernandinho
#4: David Silva
#5: Sergio Aguero
#6: Raheem Sterling
#7: John Stones (previously #19 for Everton on 15-Aug-2017)
#8: Leroy Sane
#9: Gael Clichy
#10: Yaya Toure
#11: Aleksandar Kolarov
#12: Claudio Bravo
#13: Gabriel Jesus
#14: Willy Caballero
#15: Jesus Navas
#16: Ederson
#17: Bacary Sagna
#18: Pablo Zabaleta
#19: Fabian Delph
#20: Vincent Kompany
#21: Kyle Walker (previously #12 for Tottenham Hotspur on 1-Nov-2017)
#22: Ilkay Gundrogan
#23: Fernando
#24: Bernardo Silva
#25: Nolito