So it's that time again. I love it. I hate it. I am challenged by it. But here it goes anyway. It's national poetry month family, and I'm going to TRY...and I mean TRY, (did I mention TRY) to complete this :) If I can't do a poem a day, I will do my best to post some spoken word weekly. But here goes ya'll, Day 1 poem 1.
Day 1,
afternoon grey skies
can’t drown or damper mood
too solid with these words…
Anger used to be brutal;
like, head pounding;
heavy particles piercing
backs of eye;
just want to
scream & strike
kind of anger
mama said,
use your words
Huffing & puffing
throttled down to
deep breaths
&
violent shakes
settled, as
my mind & imagination
sought out words
Mama said,
now use them
& I did, and have,
for over 30 years
I soaked all five senses
in ink and sound,
keyboards, message boards,
being bored, and black and
bleeding…
Them words
showed up–
Not always the best or brightest,
but they showed
Sometimes slow,
sometimes slipping, and dripping
in mistakes
But,
they
showed, up!
In afternoons,
under grey skies
skies that threaten rain
but that’s all good,
because now,
I know how to use my words.
(C)2026 Clarence Barbee
So I had to come back and do a video with music and all that...
As Iran & surrounding countries burn, the world watches, and protest; ears of leaders go deaf. It’s what was expected, for some of us in the U.S. We saw lies on top of falsehoods, wrapped in dishonest smiles & crossed fingers behind the back. We argue online, ‘this is what you voted for right,’ we poke sarcastically at opponents (opps as the kids would say) from across the bar, the back yard fence, the Sunday dinner table.
The indie author in me slightly sighs ‘fuck’ as I respond to review posts of my latest book, Lesson & Libations. Fuck, great timing for a war, great timing for a book tour that has Absolutely Nothing to do with politics, war, or this mess the “world” finds itself in. I’m sure there’s a farmer worried about their dry ass crops, or a teacher with doubts about a class period reaching the finish line with a passing grade. And I know there’s a writer like me saying what the fuck, not my launch week, not my book release week, not my cover reveal week. There’s the selfish us, immersed in our own world, watching as the bigger world freakin blazes. Fuck you world leaders, just fuck you.
And there’s the conscious us, protesting with signs in the street since Saturday when the strikes began. There’s the concerned us that places posts about the school that was struck, the soldiers that died, and the carnage that sits on the chest of every human citizen in every country involved or neighboring.
“We’re fucked, world war 3 is on the way”, many young and/or uninformed yell out in social media post, in middle school classrooms & university lecture halls. I’m sure there’s a therapist dosing themselves with Advil & vodka to get through their 5th anxiety session of the day. And in some corner there’s an inspired author writing furiously, a talented painter, painting with their entire chest, or a videographer editing a video with so much passion…but not to go viral, not to make any statement, but because it’s what they do. Life always continues.
Human me asks that you continue to enjoy life; protest the poppycock & cocksuckers who started this mess, but enjoy life. Continue to write, to paint, to participate & create the beauty that makes life beautiful. Make babies, make love with protection, (be safe if you choose) invite your neighbors over for meatloaf and enjoy the game. Yes the world burns, but you ain’t on fire yet.—However, if your family is currently burning from this unauthorized & unacceptable action, may your God or Gods be with you.
It’s Monday baby, you have every human right, to say
The Doodle is back!! Yes indeed, I’m back to doodle poetry writing. These doodles will be in no particular order, however I wanted to discuss the process a bit if I could.
So about 8 months ago I got a part time job in the mental health field; no I’m not a therapist, but I’ve worked with people with different behaviors for a while now. In any case after finding a groove for the job, and figuring out the timing, I started writing #vss poems. For people unfamiliar with the hastag, it stands for Very Short Story, and usually is no more characters than a tweet. I like to write them daily to keep my poetic skills sharp.
So as I found myself with some “free time” at this part time job, I started to doodle around the poems. And I thought I haven’t done stuff like this since I was a para-professional years ago. And I kept going; heck ya’ll, I even bought some brown glitter markers lol!
As I kept writing and doodling, my brain went into creative overdrive, I thought, what if I did a book of poetry with some concrete poems in them. I thought of Shel Silverstein and the books he’s written. Yes, they’re children's books but they’re also really good reads. Then I thought about a former co-worker who talked about a book (which name I can’t remember) he read that had concrete poems for adults.
Why not?
Why not?
Why, not?
Therefore, my doodles may just end up in the next book I work on, and that book will definitely have a different feel to it. I need to figure out some digital formatting issued, but at the end of the day I’m like ‘why not?’
Granted, I’m at the start of an online book tour, and writing some short stories, but hey, this idea is in the head.
I hope you enjoy the doodles and the poetry, yes, you may have to flip your phone, tablet, or laptop to really read them all, but hey, it’s life…let’s live it with fun!
It’s currently 10pm in Denver, and I’m nervously excited about my first book tour in a very long time. This time last year I was writing Lessons & Libations. This year I’m doing my first audio book tour. Boy, how times have changed.
Back in 2015 I wrote and self published my first book and did an online book tour with Goddess of Fish. Now audio books are a big rave and I’m doing my book tour with Love Books Tour. Back in the day, it was all book bloggers, today, it’s all social media, IG mostly.
With this being my first audio book, I am very curious to see what the response will be. Being the spoken word poet I am, I decided to be the narrator, with a bit of help in the voice department. This is a very curious time for the way people are consuming art. So many things are digital, and the art of reading actual words on the page is changing. Audio books are very popular. Producing an audio book is different, it’s kind of like recording an album, but there’s no music, at least with this effort there won’t be.
Tomorrow morning I’ll receive the first of many opinions of what readers/listeners think. The line up has been posted on my IG but I’ll list them here as well.
2/26 @MelisBookReviews
2/27 @bookishandcaffeinatedintx
2/27 @readingwithbeagles
2/28 @piggindani_reads
3/1 Tea Leaves & Book Leaves
3/1 @bookwormwhitloc86
3/2 @pause_theframe
3/3 @caits_reading_nook
3/3 @book_a_holic_17
3/4 @rachaelreads2025
I’m not familiar with the readers, which is also what makes this very exciting. I just know that I put a lot into writing these short stories, and a lot into recording them. Like them, love them, or hate them, some truth will be revealed in a few short hours.
I believe Love Book Tours has done an admirable job promoting the tour and they’re a very easy company to work with. They’re based out of the UK so it’ll be interesting to see what readers they get and what reactions will be.
Thanks for reading, and if you’re on IG follow me @authorclarencebarbee and check out reactions along with me. Heck, I might even do some video reactions to the reviews
