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.

Saturday, July 30

SONG OF THE DAY: Chippy, Chippy


Spent another hour today fighting the push mower, as I made it do things the modern American push mower is not designed to do without falling apart, because they're mostly for looks, not function. Got me to thinking about progress, as Frank Sobotka's voice echoes in my mind, talking his shit about how we used to make things. Progress in America with regards to the fucking lawn is you used to be able to pay a neighbor kid $20 to cut your grass. Now you gotta pay some Polo shirt landscape company dude $120, so that he can maintain payments on his zero-interest if paid off in six months credit on latest piece of power equipment, and he pays some Honduran dude $20 to cut it for you. It also subsidizes two or three weeklong vacations in Rodanthe, as seen by the prominent Salt Life sticker in his work truck's back window. Both political parties support this alleged progress - only difference is one party's landscape company owner/manager is more likely to use an electric weed eater.
I hate the fetishization of riding mowers, as seen by those stupid fucking "middle class fancy" shirts, which is way too bougie for my tastes. Riding mowers are too goddamned expensive, which is why I keep pushing this push mower. And even buying them used, you have to get a good brand you know will last, and you can't tell if the good brands are actually good any more, because all of them have a cut-rate version they sell at the big box hardware stores, so your John Deere may not be a legit John Deere because it came from Lowe's and is about to fall to shit anyways, so you'd be wasting $300 on a used one. Just get another fucking push mower.
I've done a lot of class transition in my adult life... I mean, not really a lot, but I'm not as fucked as I was growing up. You know what middle class fancy is to me? My cats eat wet food. And not pate, because they hate it, but that shredded shit, in the can. Their favorite is turkey and cheese, but you can never find it because the logistics of having cat food at the grocery store has gotten complicated as fuck. There's always nine rows with like two in stock if you're lucky. Whenever the turkey and cheese shreds are there though, I load the fuck up, thinking I'll go ahead and do the 10 for $8 (which used to be 10 for $6.50 like last year, what the fuck), but then go ahead and get two more, because stupid math rules everything about my life, and the wire shelf I stack the cat food on is underneath a cabinet, and I can stack cans of wet food three high, but the stacks have to be same flavor. That's the rules (in my mind). Been noticing the upward trend of prices too, through the advanced sale mode. Wet cat food was 10 for $6.50, then they bumped it to 10 for $7, but kept it "on sale" at $6.50, to cushion you for the actual price raise. Then it was on sale for 10 for $7, but actual price got bumped to $8. Now it's just that price, not on sale, which I guess means in a couple weeks, it'll be on sale for this same price, but the "regular" price will be 10 for $9. Squeezing us blind, little by little, in the tiniest of increments, like the walls closing in an eighth of an inch a day, until one day we realize we're fucking crushed.
Anyways, fuck the United States of America. Even though it's gonna be a horribly painful shit show when it finally falls apart, I sometimes we think we need to go ahead and rip the scab off, and get it over with. We won't though, because we're all afraid of how much it's gonna bleed.

Friday, July 29

TRYN4 B3 M0R3 N4TVR4L...


tryna be more natural 
means I struggle with language… 
it feels awkward on my tongue 

Thursday, July 28

SONG OF THE DAY: Deeper


My levels lately have been superficial, been blowing around too easily, no roots really taking hold, so I can't get any deeper than what it's been. Just hoping that I get blown in good directions and not anywhere fucked up and unescapable.
This song has one of my favorite beats ever - so thick and grimy. Never understood why Boss didn't blow up more.

0RD3R F4LLS 4P4RT W1TH0VT...


order falls apart, without 
fail; the natural remains 
in place, also without fail 

Wednesday, July 27

Tuesday, July 26

Monday, July 25

Sunday, July 24

Saturday, July 23

Friday, July 22

SONG OF THE DAY: Freight Train Blues


Not gonna lie, I listen to some really stupid shit sometimes. We all do though. Or at least you should. This notion that our existence is supposed to be the curation of the highest culture possible is all kinda ridiculous. Like Humpty Hump said, "do whatcha like!"

4B4ND0N3D T0NGV3S BVR13D 1N...


abandoned tongues buried in 
the sediments of what we 
built over top of, dormant 

Thursday, July 21

SONG OF THE DAY: I'm On The Outside Looking In


Been doing big things over here. Like I finally got all the laundry folded and put away before there was even half a load of dirty clothes to do. Plus I washed that chicken pan finally. And I got about 2/3 of the yard cut, which is the most it’s been all year so far. Tomorrow is payday, so I’ll pay all my bills, have a tiny bit left, just enough to sit on the porch not doing nothing special, one day closer to death, but still alive.

G04T-H34D3D 1N TH3 G00D W4YS...


goat-headed in the good ways - 
can’t promise I’ll listen if 
you’re talking basic ass shit 

Wednesday, July 20

Tuesday, July 19

Sunday, July 17

Saturday, July 16

Friday, July 15

Thursday, July 14

SONG OF THE DAY: You Need Help


So I had one of those lucid dreams the other night where it feels too real to just be a dream, but I guess it was a dream? Although perhaps it’s the not-so-distant future, I’m not sure. I was living in some sort of collective resistance group near Grafton, West Virginia, though the word “resistance” makes it seem dumb. Language is very limiting at times, to be honest. But we were working to further undermine an outside government’s influence over us, as a large chunk of Appalachia had apparently become an autonomous zone, occupied by antifascists, but not really run by anybody so much as sharing resources. But apparently, whoever was still in charge of the actual American government had developed cyborg technology, and were sending women cyborgs in to intercept plans and locations and all that type shit. The cyborgs had flesh-like features though, but were still built with patriarchal philosophical foundations, so they were quieter – expected to be seen not heard, so that they could hear more. I didn’t know all this at the beginning of the dream, but was informed of all this, because the people I was living amongst had way more detailed information than me. I was just a guy living there, trying to pitch in and not be useless. But apparently these cyborg women drone spies, for the most part, felt entirely real in all ways, and it was nearly impossible to figure out they were drone cyborg robots sent in by the authoritative United States of America, looking to squash our regional autonomy. And I’m not really sure how somebody figured this out (maybe I’ll find out in later dreams if I’m so lucky to return), but the one way you could tell they were drones was through giving them oral sex, concentrating on the clit, because they were programmed to simulate excitement, but the clitoris, when stimulated in these cyborgs, became dangerously hot – like burning hot put blisters on your tongue warmed up. So a defensive trick developed by the resistance was to get into a sexual situation with these potential cyborgs, start giving them oral sex, and find out if they were real or not. The cyborgs, again due to patriarchal philosophies of those who constructed them, was that they were willing participants in sexual situations if certain criteria were met. There was a relatively new woman in the camp that I was supposed to perform oral sex on, and find out if she was real or not.
My dream actually began with me eating her out, and all the rest came to me as memories of things that had been explained to me, mostly involving this little dude named BB (or Beebee, or B.B. but just two “b” sounds… I never saw his name written out, just spoken) who had two little splotchy and poorly done bumblebees tattooed on his left cheek, like teardrops kinda dripping from his hazelnut eye. But I was performing oral sex on this woman, who was very attractive to be honest, and her clit was warming up, nothing abnormal yet, but it felt like it was warming up to where it was going to be abnormal and I’d be certain she was a cyborg. But what fucked me up in the moment was remembering the conversations with BB where if that happened, I was to kill her. This seemed really fucked up to me, to go from oral sex with this sexy woman, to choking her to death, as I was told to do. I didn’t like it, even if she wasn’t an actual woman but a cyborg, even if the oral sex clitoris stimulation test proved this. To me, as a human, it was going to feel like I was having sex with a woman – who for all intents and purposes appeared and felt human to me – and then shifting into killing her. I couldn’t do it. But her clit was definitely heating up like a stove element, so I quit, and moved into regular sexual intercourse. It was nice.
Afterwards, BB was asking me, and I explained that it felt like she was warming up like he said a cyborg was, but I wasn’t comfortable with killing her, so I didn’t go through with it. “What? Fuck man. They’re programmed for sexual loyalty so there’s like a three month bleed out time before we can try it again with someone else with her. That’s really bad op sec.” He was really pissed at me, which also felt weird as fuck, and I was just standing there (actually sleeping here, seeing myself standing there), feeling horribly conflicted, because I didn’t want to choke somebody I was just having sex with, even if they were a fascist cyborg drone spy creation of some sort. And I didn’t really like being in this alleged autonomous zone getting yelled at by this weird little dude mad that I didn’t choke a cyborg I was fucking to death. But I also got his point, because it was bad op sec. I remember standing there in the dream, with BB kinda going off on me in a subtle but aggressive way – not really passive but not overtly aggro either – and I was thinking to myself about all the abandoned coal cars outside of Grafton still, and how I just wanted to go draw on the coal cars maybe if I could. But BB was chastising me in long form about not killing a likely cyborg, who I had just had sex with. So I was feeling fucked up that I really enjoyed sex with a cyborg too, but also didn’t wanna fuck her again because she had to have been a cyborg, and if I fucked her again (which is what BB was trying to convince me to do, to avoid the sexual loyalty programming bleed out time), I’d have to kill her. It was all really fucked up, and I woke up thinking that the future is going to be really fucked up, just not in the ways we automatically assume.

B3N34TH TH3 P0L1T1C4L...


beneath the political 
divisions, mycelium 
tendrils prepare for what’s next 

Wednesday, July 13

Tuesday, July 12

SONG OF THE DAY: Tricks of the Trade


The other day me and the 18 year old swang by the Goodwill in the nearby city somewhat ravaged by its best years being a century back (like many places). These are always strange lands of sadness, but I kinda dig that city because it’s not as pretentiously self-important as the college town about the same distance from us, and I love the train yard there. Some dude was buying a giant ass telescope for $20 in front of us, and the dude at the register was talking to him about it. “I’ve blown way more money and less useful things, so even if it doesn’t work, it’s worth it,” the guy buying that thing said. Ol’ dude working the register was talking about the Hubble telescope, and how this Webb telescope was about to drop its first pictures ever in a couple days (that day being today), and how it took ten years for it to happen. I just kinda stood there patiently waiting for them to finish so I could buy a dvd copy of Friday and some Nike track pants, but it was interesting to me in this fucked up little city which once housed a giant Dupont carpet fiber factory but now mostly houses lost dreams could have this scene pop up in a thrift store checkout line. It was all very interesting to the observational chaos theoretician in me. Telescope guy hauled his giant telescope off the counter, register dude checked his phone notifications with the quickest of ease, got briefly distracted looking out the front window, then says, “Imagine the crazy shit that happens in the Wal-Mart parking lot,” before ringing up Friday and the track pants.

HVM4N SP1R1T L13S D0RM4NT...


human spirit lies dormant, 
buried beneath relentless 
algorithmic nothingness 

Monday, July 11

Sunday, July 10

SONG OF THE DAY: Daughter of a Railroad Man


I need me a daughter of a railroad man that can tell me all the nice siding spots they stash all the boxcars I don't know about within a 45 minute drive. Fuck it, make it 90 minutes. Holler at me girl.

0FT3N F1ND MYS3LF L0ST 1N...


often find myself lost in 
thoughtlessness… wasting away 
hours, grasping after nothing 

Saturday, July 9

Friday, July 8

SONG OF THE DAY: Tanokumbia


Cumbia music combined with electronic music combined with abandoning western (aka european settler) time norms is the most perfect music. It should be taught to school children, in the woods.

SP1R1T R3QV1R3S SVST3N4NC3...


spirit requires sustenance 
beyond hustling to survive; 
we live in some hollow times 

Wednesday, July 6

SONG OF THE DAY: Sardines For Dinner


Today in the old dorkball group chat, Davy Hamburgers promised me a cookout in the woods. I hope that shit actually happens. (When I don’t have formulated thoughts to really expound upon – which I don’t lately – I just type gibberish, although often times that gibberish is entirely true…like this.)

D14M0NDS 1N TH3 R0VGH T4LK TH3...


diamonds in the rough talk the 
the most amazing shit… that’s 
my moral constitution 

Tuesday, July 5

1'LL 4LW4YS PR3F3R TH3 B4CK...


I’ll always prefer the back 
way, as mainstream thoroughfares 
remain clogged with know-it-alls 

Monday, July 4

M0TH3R 34RTH'S M0ST W0RTHL3SS S0NS...


mother earth’s most worthless sons 
deciding what’s right or wrong 
according to their own whims 

Sunday, July 3

SONG OF THE DAY: Cajun Moon


I've got an array of Dr. Bronner's flavors in the shower, which I select like pairing a fine wine with dinner as I get power showered up for whatever awaits. Am I gonna be wearing purple in the night time underneath outdoor lights? Probably lavender is best. Do I gotta be hype and hyper-vigilant but still feel fresh to death? Definitely gonna go peppermint zing. Am I gonna be wearing satin boxers in the jacuzzi room at a hotel somewhere before midnight? Rose soap. Sometimes you even gotta mix and match, where you soap the rest of your body with lavender but go peppermint on the nether lands, with tea tree oil on the face. But what I'm saying is I appreciate what Dr. Bronner's mad science has added to our lives.

C0NS1D3R1NG WH3TH3R 1'V3...


considering whether I’ve 
been industrious or not 
betrays my natural state 

N4TVR4L T3NDR1LS WH1CH W1LL...


natural tendrils which will 
always outlive systems of 
economy we practice 

Friday, July 1

0NC3 W3 G3T R3L34S3D FR0M TH1S...


once we get released from this 
Earthly prison, our actions 
decide how we’re remembered