Ice-Burdened Moonlight

Ice-Burdened Moonlight

For half-inch cubes of cheddar cheese,
the Wolfhound lumbers, nearly three-legged
by my side... no wind... twenty-three degrees:
we have no need for first light in this moonlight
on thin snow over ice.

                                    We are talking best times:
puppy-ripped Tony Lama boots, pissing rugs,
chewing mail, dragging ragged blankets
through the house, barking at UPS drivers,
hard-'n-fast sweaty three-miles runs
through sagebrush, the blood-song folk music
of coyotes, bribe-biscuits at the veterinarian's....

I am explaining how Marc Chagall's blue
is different from Pollock's car-paint blue.
The Wolfhound lurches, huffs, steps wooden
around the trunks of non-native pines
that did not make it on this shrub steppe.

The Wolfhound pauses to listen
to an hour-late train bound for Seattle.
I speak of dining cars: butter-fried eggs,
marmalade on whole wheat golden toast,
orange juice in crystal goblets,
motion-dazzled passengers just awake
from dreams of a'horseback ancestors.

The Wolfhound listens to me,
because that's part of his provisional job,
something to pass crumpled time with...
before he flies into a moonless, eternal night.
 

A Few Days...

A Few Days...

The  hours braid and snap... dawn after night.
You watch the middle-aged Wolfhound's eyes
medication-glaze, his thoughts thick and unsaid.
The biscuits appear stacked against him now.
You gently massage his cancerous left wrist,
that front leg and its new knob, ask him,
What do you make of au currant girls
who add blonde streaks to brown hair?
The Wolfhound has always enjoyed
your lame questions.  The winter-hard
ground out back has a four-foot deep hole.
You open the refrigerator, slowly unwrap
aluminum-foiled slices of roast beef,
watch as he struggles upright...
a study of will over pain and dopey-brain.
He stumbles at you, dislocated,
a bit of wild happiness yet in his heart...
some appetite left to gulp sliced cow,
a touch of Irish canine bravado
to mock your fear for him.

GHOSTS & BIRTHDAYS: A Collection of Poems by Red Shuttleworth

Ghosts & Birthdays

poems by

Red Shuttleworth

A new collection of poems by Red Shuttleworth, Ghosts & Birthdays, is available from the publisher, Humanitas Media Publishing... and from other online sources (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other book sellers).

Many of the poems in this book first saw publication in distinguished literary journals, including Aethlon, Blue Mesa Review, Chattahoochee Review, Concho River Review, Interim,

Los Angeles Review, and Suisun Valley Review.

The poems in Ghosts & Birthdays offer penetrating, sometimes visceral, sometimes poignant elegies to a variety of heroes and villains, including Mikhail Lermontov, Gustav Klimt, Wyatt Earp, Georgia O'Keefe, Sergei Yesenin, Hank Williams, Albert Camus, Marilyn Monroe, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Sonny Liston, Ted Williams, Elvis Presley, Kay Boyle, and Hunter S. Thompson.

A prolific poet and playwright, Red Shuttleworth is a three-time recipient of the Spur Award for Poetry from Western Writers of America, for Johnny Ringo in 2013, Roadside Attractions in 2011, and for Western Settings in 2001.

The cover of Ghosts & Birthdays features a painting of Marilyn Monroe by Red Shuttleworth's poet-painter daughter, Ciara Shuttleworth.

Vladivostok Novel

Vladivostok Novel

Paper money     not worth burning,     she is dumb
with cold     her feet meat slabs.    Three days ago
the Red Army in Perm.     Fires.     This Tatar
taking gold     from her father     to save her.

He saves her     for a field     of ripped clothes.
They are     north of Vladivostok.   The Tatar
dances drunk     on his horse,     digs gold
from the teeth     of the dead.     Some he sliced open.

No bath.     The Tatar says,     You cabbage-stink
pussy.     She walks     behind his horse
to the docks:     Vladivostok.  The Red Army
weeks     or days     behind     holding executions.

The ship's captain     gives the Tatar     passage
for two.     You must only     kill by permission.
The Tatar     grins-maniacal.     In the Sea of Japan
men are stabbed,     hefted overboard:     no-moon sea.

The Tatar     owns a fine     lady's leather  purse
for ears,     fingers,     tongues,     parts private.
He slaps her     each dawn     so that she might
appreciate     each day.     And she prays.

The ship     leaks.     It is made from rust.
Water rationed by teaspoons.     The Tatar
advises,     Suck the bones clean...  
chew long,     and longer     the rat's bones.

She prays.     All there is:     heart-punch-loss.
Dreams of Perm...  her mother...  her dead brother
hanging     butcher-shop skinned.... the Reds.
It is 1922     like Siberian wind     upon Vladivostok.

Of two-hundred,     three-dozen     step onto land.
The Philippines.     The Tatar     buys her a brush,
laughs     at her louse-filled    waist-length
strawberry-blonde hair...     saws it off with a knife.

Dear Reader,     no more     louse-crawl pages...
maggot-filled bodies.     No.     Only sweet silence...
fog... San Francisco... a hospital bed... a baby
daughter      the Tatar     names     Anna.

Anna is reading     her unpublished     Vladivostok novel
to Andy Warhol.     New York: sooty     1960 summer.
I don't think,     Andy squirms     over a silkscreen,
bodice rippers     are happy     soul songs.     
 

LOOSE CHANGE: A New Red Shuttleworth Chapbook

Loose Change

a one-poem chapbook

Red Shuttleworth

Loose Change started out as a Nevada short story and transformed itself into a poem.

HOMAGE: A New Red Shuttleworth Chapbook

Homage

poems

Red Shuttleworth

The six-pack of poems in Homage acknowledges the  four and a half decades of influence certain writers have had on my poetry.

To some measure, these homage poems (to Samuel Beckett, John Berryman, Johannes Bobrowski, Dag Hammarskjold, Randall Jarrell, Yasunari Kawabata, and Ivan Turgenev) are exercises, though I hope they rise above that.

A great number of other writers have influenced me as much, or more, than those I try to honor with my poems in this small collection.  My first influence, in the summer of 1967, as I wrote my first poem, was William Butler Yeats.  The trigger for that first poem was a beautiful woman who ran nude, when the fog was thick, on San Francisco's Ocean Beach.  I thought, way back then, that I could write a poem worthy of her....  She was my first Muse.

I heard many a glad Samuel Beckett anecdote from his friend Kay Boyle and plenty of disconcerting, bittersweet, sometimes hilarious stories about John Berryman from William Dickey (Berryman's student at the Iowa Writers Workshop). I am grateful.

                 ~ Red Shuttleworth  

TO THE CONTRARY: A Red Shuttleworth Poetry Chapbook

To the Contrary

New Poems

from

Red Shuttleworth

To the Contrary is a limited edition chapbook of Red Shuttleworth poems.

GOING-SIXTY-MEZCAL-EIGHT: A New Red Shuttleworth Chapbook

Going-Sixty-Mezcal-Eight

a new

poetry chapbook

from

Red Shuttleworth

MIRAGE: A Chapbook Anthology of Poetry

Mirage

a limited edition

chapbook anthology of new poems

from

Barbara Brinson Curiel

Adrian C. Louis

Red Shuttleworth

Barbara Brinson Curiel teaches in the departments of Critical Race, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English at Humboldt State University.  She is the author of Speak to Me From Dreams, a collection of poems.  Curiel is a Fellow of CantoMundo, a national organization for Latino poets.

Adrian C. Louis has published eleven books of poetry, including the recently released collection, Savage Sunsets.  His novel Skins was made into a feature film.  Louis teaches English at Minnesota State University in Marshall.

Red Shuttleworth's latest play, High Plains Fandango, was produced this past February by State University of New York at Fredonia.  He is the author of two poetry books, Western Settings and Johnny Ringo, and over two dozen poetry chapbooks.

SHAKING A HOLLOW TREE: A Red Shuttleworth Poetry Chapbook

Shaking a Hollow Tree

a poetry chapbook

(limited edition)

by

Red Shuttleworth

RIGHT-THIS-FUCKING-MINUTE: Brummels, Zarzyski, Shuttleworth & Shuttleworth

Right-This-Fucking-Minute

poems

A Limited Edition Bunchgrass Press Chapbook Anthology

J.V. Brummels, Luke Shuttleworth,

Red Shuttleworth, and Paul Zarzyski

J.V. Brummels

Luke Shuttleworth

Red Shuttleworth

Paul Zarzyski

(photo by Kenton Rowe Photography)

RAMBLING APPARITION: A Red Shuttleworth Poetry Chapbook

In addition to the title poem, Red Shuttleworth's Rambling Apparition contains four other poems.


This chapbook from Bunchgrass Press is printed on 32-pound ivory antique laid paper in a limited edition.


John Berryman, in Dream Song 45, wrote, "He stared at ruin.  Ruin stared right back."

ONE OF THESE DAYS: A Chapbook Anthology

One of These Days

A Chapbook Mini-Anthology of New Writing

John Dofflemyer

Morgan Harlow

Nuno Santos

Red Shuttleworth

John Dofflemyer is author of Proclaiming Space and the editor of Dry Crik Review.  He is regularly featured at the annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada.

Morgan Harlow's first collection of poetry, Midwest Ritual Burning, was recently released.

Nuno Santos (memoirist, fictioneer, dramatist, translator) lives in Portugal.  He studied at New York University and has been associated with Naked Angels, a New York theatre company.

Red Shuttleworth is a three-time Spur Award-winner for Poetry (Western Settings, Roadside Attractions, and Johnny Ringo).  Red's most recent full collection of poems, Ghosts & Birthdays,
published by Humanitas Media Publishing, is available on Amazon. 

Facebook & Mark Zuckerberg + Greed = SPAM

Black Hole of Greed
or
The Limited Imagination of Mark Zuckerberg
(A Red Shuttleworth oil painting)

Facebook & Mark Zuckerberg + Greed = SPAM

Desperate to maintain corporate viability with investors and shareholders, vacant of any idea or tactic beyond selling ads, Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg) has resorted to a dizzying barrage of pop-up ads, particularly for games (the turf of morons) on users' profile and news feed pages.

Zuckerberg, a master of pedophile tactics, believes that users will not leave Facebook over advertising irritations and privacy invasion.  Zuckerberg puts users in mind of the sort of guy who shows up uninvited to social events, who paws (greasy, sweaty palms) through family albums... who wipes his boogers across the family pictures of others... who then scoots to a nearby bathroom to masturbate.  This is the sort of guy Mark Zuckerberg is.

What to do?  Let Facebook advertisers know that you think Mark Zuckerberg is a creepy, stinky, voyeur-pig who is stealing their money.

Get in touch with the Federal Communications Commission and complain.  Facebook is a communications company. Would you tolerate ads during your telephone conversations?  

DOUBLE-BARRELLED I & II: A Two-Chapbook Set of Ghazals

Double-Barrelled

A Two-Chapbook Set

of Ghazals

by

Red Shuttleworth

IN THE BLOOD: A Chapbook Poetry Anthology

In the Blood, a mini-anthology of poems by Paul Zarzyski, Ciara Shuttleworth, and Red Shuttleworth, was published by Bunchgrass Press in a limited edition.  The cover features a Ciara Shuttleworth oil painting.

NO RAIN: A Red Shuttleworth Chapbook

No Rain

a poetry chapbook by

Red Shuttleworth

No Rain, a new poetry chapbook by Red Shuttleworth, contains poems previously published in Suisun Valley Review and Roundup! (an anthology edited by Paul Andrew Hutton for La Frontera Publications in 2010).

No Rain is a limited (24 copies) edition chapbook for friends and collectors.

THE SILVER STATE: A Red Shuttleworth Poetry Chapbook

The Silver State

poems

Red Shuttleworth

Red Shuttleworth's newest poetry chapbook, The Silver State, is available in a limited (26 copies) edition.  The six-poem collection contains "In Deep Bourbon Cover" (first published in chum), "Casino Oatmeal," "This Was Wild Horse Country," "The Heart Gnaws on Itself," "Old Silver... Aged Stars over Nevada... the Usual Bluff," and "Ghost Town Hotel."

THANATOS: The Limited Edition Chapbook

Thanatos

an eight poem suite

by

Red Shuttleworth

Red Shuttleworth's Thanatos, an eight poem suite, is temporarily available in a limited edition of 33.  The cover features a Ciara Shuttleworth painting.  Along with the poems are photographs and crayon sketches by Red Shuttleworth. 

THE BEEF STATE; A Red Shuttleworth Poetry Chapbook

The Beef State

Nebraska Poems

by

Red Shuttleworth

Red Shuttleworth's The Beef State,
a limited edition chapbook
from Bunchgrass Press,
presents nine Nebraska poems.

Johnny Ringo Breaks Loose as a Paperback

The paperback edition of Johnny Ringo, Red Shuttleworth's book-length poem about a savage outlaw life of gigantic proportion, is available... on Amazon.

Get Johnny Ringo.

Every coffee table needs:

    

THE GHOST OF OSSIE VITT: A Red Shuttleworth Poetry Chapbook

The Ghost of Ossie Vitt

a one poem chapbook

by

Red Shuttleworth

In the course of working on a book-length manuscript of poems based on the "Happy Birthday" and "Ghost of..." poems, plus the bio-sketch poems from the Brief Lives chapbook, it seemed that the Ossie Vitt poem was not going to make the cut... for various reasons.  But I like the poem....

So... The Ghost of Ossie Vitt is now available as a limited edition (44 numbered and signed copies) chapbook.

Decades ago, poet / watercolorist Jim Hubert and I went down to Palo Alto to visit Kenneth Patchen's widow, Miriam.  She showed us a few homemade, with beautiful painted covers, chapbooks that Patchen made from sheets of thin cardboard... the kind inserted at the backs of shirts by dry cleaning stores.  I believe that Miriam Patchen sold or donated her collection of Kenneth Patchen's homemade books to Stanford University.

In this ugly epoch of ebooks and ejournals put out by inelegant folks, literary phonies, it makes a kind of sense to rebel and put out, even by self-publication occasionally, a chapbook using good paper... if only for a few friends.

Having a blog is a kind of  cave-in to au currant technology, yes.  So I am not without literary guilt.

Ossie Vitt was a man of a far different age.  He was a tough old man when I met him.  He'd played on the Tigers with Ty Cobb.  Cobb and Vitt were old school baseball men.  By 1940, the boys who would be The Greatest Generation were too soft and spoiled for the likes of Ossie Vitt and Ty Cobb. Vitt's 1940 Cleveland Indians, including future Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, whined to ownership about Vitt being a hard-ass manager, one quick to blame, one who never praised.  When I met Vitt, as a student at the San Francisco Examiner Baseball School around 1959, I taunted him about the Indians firing him.  He growled back... about my deplorable fielding.  Good days.  The poem, the chapbook arrive out of memory.  Rest in Peace, Ossie Vitt.

Jessi Shuttleworth and Scabland Productions: FEBRUARY

Jessi Shuttleworth

 SCABLAND PRODUCTIONS...

February

Scabland Productions is a New York film production company dedicated to telling singular stories about characters with grit, backbone, and depth.  Scabland Productions collaborates with film artists to create cinematic visions that are revealing, raw, and honest.


The web site for Scabland Productions is: www.scablandproductions.com


Jessi Shuttleworth who has performed in film, television, and on stage, is completing the screenwriting program at American Film Institute.  Jessi Shuttleworth is on IMDb.

Jessi Shuttleworth

Jessi Shuttleworth is the youngest daughter of poet/playwright Red Shuttleworth.

The first film from Scabland Productions, FEBRUARY, filmed in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and in sagebrush-and-rock central Washington, premiered at the 2015 Sedona International Film Festival.

February

(check www.scablandproductions.com for updates)

The cast for FEBRUARY includes:

AIDAN GASBARRO

HAYLEY GASBARRO

CHRISTOPHER HALLADAY

KATHERINE HILER

PATRICK HUSTED



CRISTEN HEMINGWAY JAYNES

ETHAN PHILLIPS

BRIAN ROQUE

DAN SHAKED

JESSI SHUTTLEWORTH

PHYLLIS SOMERVILLE

BILL TUCKER

PRODUCTION STAFF (a  partial list) for FEBRUARY:

CATHY HURST
Executive Producer

CIARA SHUTTLEWORTH
Producer

MICHAEL SWAIGEN
Director of Photography

HOLLY BOARDMAN
Set Decoration

TAYLOR BALTIMORE
Key Makeup Artist

ANNE MULHALL
Casting

Photographs from the Production of FEBRUARY:

Jessi Shuttleworth

Katherine Hiler and Phyllis Somerville

Haley Gasbarro, Jessi Shuttleworth, and Aidan Gasbarro

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Latest Update: May 27, 2018