Scott Holstad

no safety in madness – don’t pretend you're a writer   

they say that we’re just writing
for each other really, we small
press poets, and i guess maybe
we may be but that’s okay i think
because we tend to support
each other and at least
someone is reading our shit.

i was talking with one of them
on the phone a few weeks ago
and they remarked that half
the time we might not even
like a lot of this stuff, our stuff,
that perhaps we just might like
the poets who wrote it though,
and maybe that’s true too.

but as far as i know, our
collective stuff may not be
much more than crap to some
in certain forgettable circles,
but first and foremost, i'll take
it any day over the majority
of that mainstream “safe”
nature shit so many such lit
journals publish, but also
as for us, maybe it’s just
totally real (as well as
potentially therapeutic)
and contains an art that
actually engages in ways
that only art that breathes,
throbs with life and flirts
with danger can, and if
these be true, i guess we’ll
just keep regurgitating
for each other for there
are worse things, often
hiding behind the epidemic
of the far too many cattle
calls of “open submissions”
in a soulless litpub heaven.

 

real firs don’t leave tracks -- [haiCU Series – (haiku-CutUp)]

counting the needles                          
hiding the marks is useless -
real firs don’t leave tracks

 

Scott C. Holstad is a disabled Pulitzer & BOTN-nominated poet/author with 75+ books to his credit & work in hundreds of magazines including the Minnesota Review, Exquisite Corpse, Long Shot, Pacific Review, Santa Clara Review, Palo Alto Review, Wormwood Review, Chiron Review, Pearl, Libre, The Piker Press, Flash Phantoms, Bristol Noir, Mad Swirl, Beatnik Cowboy, Misfit Magazine, dadakuku, Five Fleas, The Argyle, miniMAG & Blood+Honey. His newest book, Surviving Immortality Again, was released in 2025 by Alien Buddha Press. He’s moved 40 times & currently lives in Pennsylvania.