The Tao Of Brother T

via http://aletheakontis.com

 

 

 

Fun fact: I fall in love with faces. I’ll often be watching a TV show or movie, surfing social media, or just living life and see an interesting face. I take a mental snapshot and who knows? Someday that person populates one of the anonymous little towns of my books.
Classic example- The gap-toothed orchid thief John LaRoche (Chris Cooper) in Adaptation in 2002 became the grizzled bass-player turned assassin Abel Jackson in ‪#‎JacksonFalls‬

Two of my characters in ‪#‎Unrequited‬ even share the names of the long lost friends for whom they are named.

More recent example- The three Duclair sisters of ‪#‎FionasRules‬ are an amalgam of five real life friends, celebrities and fictional characters.

The moral of the story: As long as there are interesting faces in the world, I’ll have more books to write.

FIONA’S RULES- A NOVEL – Paperback and Kindle Unlimited

 

darkness falls

extinguishes the sun

like a dimmer switch

until light is nothing

but a faint memory

 

the total absence of light

gives rise to

newfound confidence

of insect and animal

 

silence giving way

to a cacophony

of symphonic orchestration

under cover of darkness

 

you and i sit

captivated
 by deluge of nature

encroaching into our world

wondering if it is we

who are the interlopers

knowing this to be the case

 

always

 

though you sit

scant inches away

i sense only your gravity

planetary

magnetic

profound

 

epic

 

through the dark loud stillness

i feel your lips move

barely audible in whisper

“freedom”

 

“freedom”

i retort

because freedom is life

and life is nature

and in the end

no one

can turn back nature

 

in an instant

less than a moment

nature quiets

into deafening silence

 

the wind freshens

rising just enough

to raise goose bumps on my arms

and make hair stand tall

on the back of my neck

 

faint sound 
in the distance

rhythmic thumping

growing louder

searchlights scanning

break the darkness

and we stand

 

you grab my hand

give it a squeeze

purse your lips

mouth the word

 

“freedom”

 

and we walk

into the swirling chaos

of a black helicopter night

 

maybe someone

can destroy freedom

can turn back nature

but not on this night

it’s our time to make a stand

 

will you stand with me?

 

Freedom!

 

In the beginning

Jah created the heavens
And the Vibe

With one snap of her fingers
Allah set in motion
One big fucking bang

New entities sprouted forth
From the Tree of Life
And with a wave of the hand
Jehovah sprinkled the earth
With beings large and small

In tune with Mother Nature

I’m not getting into the argument
Of creationism versus evolution

It’s all one God to me
Creative evolutionary fandango

First sentient beings
Lucy’s Ethiopian earth tribe
Climb down from trees
Walk on two legs
And evolve

Creatively

Paint original Sistine chapels
On the domes of their caves
Symphonized orchestration
With sticks and stones
And skins and bones
and most of all

Musical laughter

Epiphanies of imagination
Creating one great human vibe

Fast forward
Three and a half million years
To the new earth tribe
The Eternal Vibe
Continuing the tradition
Of rhythms and rhymes
Percussive discussion
Creative evolution
Swirling a magical elixir

Two parts love
Two parts imagination
And two parts love
A hearty vibological stew

And I’m still not arguing creationism versus evolution
It’s still one God to me
Creative evolutionary fandango
We create
We love
It’s a win-win situation

In the beginning Jah created the heavens

And the Vibe

Looking for your summer beach read? How about a book for the plane? I’m happy to announce that FIONA’S RULES is officially released in Trade Paperback and Kindle formats. Buy one today. You won’t be sorry.

Sincerely, Your Brother Terry

 

Now that FIONA’S RULES is just a few scant days away from publication the decompression has started. My first inkling of the book was conceived back in December of 2014 at my favorite concert of the year, THE BEATLES MARATHON in Columbus Ohio. It’s an annual event. All 217 Beatles songs LIVE and in chronological order in the span twelve hours. I remember turning to my friend Theresa, pointing to Joe onstage and saying, “I’m going to write a book about that guy.” I started writing, got called away to work a couple of different elections and then got back to it almost a year later. I made a fresh start and the book that you’ll soon be reading is the result of a five-month creative orgy. Side note- My Joe didn’t end up looking like that Joe at all.
So without further ado, here’s the unofficial soundtrack of FIONA’S RULES:
1. The Beatles – Across The Universe
The book’s main character, Joe Calloway, gets called back to his hometown of Cormack NC after a long self-imposed absence. He encounters many old friends along the way. Foremost of those are the Duclair sisters, the youngest of whom, Vivienne, was a child when he left home. Joe was Viv’s hero, the older brother that she never had, and she reminds him of the musician that he once was before he was led astray by a misconception. He thought his girlfriend Qi didn’t like his music.
2. The Doors – Roadhouse Blues
Joe gets called to the stage, for karaoke of all things. He queues up the one song that he knows he can nail every time. Coincidentally, this is also my go-to karaoke song.
3. Black Sabbath – Fairies Wear Boots
Joe and Qi get invited to a local show. They encounter some familiar faces from my last book, JACKSON FALLS. Dani Darger and Dave Standifer have the audacity to do a Black Sabbath cover on a banjo and guitar. You might remember their connection to my fictional rock star, Johnny Turner.
4. Right Said Fred – Too Sexy
5. Ministry – Just One Fix
Qi Wang is the woman in Joe’s life. She’s an “internet celebrity” who dabbles as an EDM DJ. She dubs her style as electro-metal, inspired by my own favorite, DJ HEAVYGRINDER. Qi mashes up Too Sexy and and Just One Fix in to her theme song, Party With My Short Off. She also found this little ditty on her iPod Everyfuckinday Gotta say, I laughed my way through this entire chapter.
6. Alice in Chains – Brother
7. Led Zeppelin – Going To California
8. Gomez – How We Operate
Joe gets the itch and dusts off his old guitar. Inspired by Qi he gets together with Dani and Dave for an impromptu roof-top jam session.
9. Thin Lizzy – Cowboy Song
10. Johnny Cash – Hurt
Starting to get his mojo back, Joe takes the stage at an open mic. He later gets together with Viv onstage to play the Battle Of Evermore.
7. Tool – Stinkfist
Qi takes over the DJ booth at the Grotto in Cormack and gives them a taste of her jet-set metal EDM sound.

 

Through the entire writing process I had a steady stream of music going in the background. A few albums got extensive play, including Mogwai – THE HAWK IS HOWLING (thanks Ian Rankin), Lana Del Ray – ULTRAVIOLENCE, Ike Reilly – JUNKIE FAITHFUL, Eef Barzalay – LOSE BIG and of course, the entire Beatles catalog!!!

TB
#ArtIsLife #LifeIsArt

i. schizophrenic canto

in the quest of discovering
who I am
it is important to note
that I’m slightly less
than the sum of my two halves
the two hemispheres of my brain
exist in rapporto simbiotico

they share residence
in my oblong cranium
fraternal twins
with little in common
and seldom in agreement

my romantic mind
resides in eastern hemisphere
painting dazzling oils
in vibrant colours
of idyllic dreamscapes
where I am hero
to all who seek my heroism

my rational mind
lying parallel
taking potshots
blowing vast holes
unrelenting
unrepentant
common sense
into even the tawdriest
of my unfulfilled dreams

key to equalizing
my mania
with my depression
is the tolerance
which allows romance to dream
while reality sits idly by
waiting to clean up
telltale signs of
my destructive irrationality
in my fantastical fantasies of you…

ii tropical forest canto

I have dreams
of lush forests
meandering streams of rainwater
and bananas fresh off the tree
for breakfast at sunrise

you and I run naked
through our unspoiled eden
our fat little babies
playing symphonies
with the vocal instruments
of their musical laughter

midmorning
I teach our youngest
to swim in the pond
that lies at the base
of our waterfall

she giggles
at the slick touch
of the shimmering iridescent fish
as they swim
between her chubby little legs

happily exhausted
we recline
in the bright clean sunshine
of an ozone protected atmosphere
beads of water drying on our skin
in the light breeze

you are using a sliver of bamboo
that was downed
in the torrents of rain last night
to cut slices of pulpy mango
creamy avocado and crunchy chilis
for our lunch
on a bed of dew soaked spinach

sated
we lie down with our babies
naked to the world
and sleep

rain comes as always in the tropics
mid afternoon
first heavy droplets
steady torrents
horizontal sheets
invading every pore of skin
of foliage
air saturated with moisture

thunder awakens me
eden is gone
perfection is gone
children are gone
you are gone

and I cry myself back to sleep…

iii desert island canto

only to awaken
with crashing surf
on a flat of scorching sand
my pale flesh perforated
by the tiny granules

I sit up against the base
of a solitary palm
survey my surroundings

I am clothed
in dilapidated levis
fine blond body hair
faded tattoos
and fiery angelic mane

my only possessions
moleskine journal
fat, primary school pencil
and a sliver of bamboo
from another dream
to sharpen its point

this island is ten feet in diameter

on the horizon all about me
I see mighty metropolises
civilization scant cubits away
yet I cannot swim

dreams that I struggle to remember
contain fantasies of her
my muse
flickers of rainforest
to be written in fat graphite forms

my rational mind foretells
of exorcism
by means of spontaneous prosody
inoculation for heartbreak and loneliness

so I write of all the things
that my cowardice will not bring
and in doing so
I lessen the yearning

my mind’s eye struggles
to picture her face…

iv canto poetico

she walks into the café
ear buds in place
book in hand
goes to the counter
orders a marshmallow mocha

I look up from reading
“bum on the loose”
a particularly brutal
bukowski piece
that sums up my thoughts
on giants of literature

as I peer across
the ten feet that separate us
I see that she is engrossed
in william carlos williams

methinks, poet’s poet
as I look over the precipice
into her dark eyes
and the stray tuft of hair
that darkens her forehead

she looks up at me
with a quizzical smile
arches an eyebrow
opens door into her world

I grasp for the right words
as visions of rainforests
and waterfalls
cloud my romantic mind

oh no, here I go again…