Blog Tour: THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS (I JUST WROTE THEM) by Donovan Hufnagle

 

THESE ARE NOT MY WORDS (I JUST WROTE THEM)

Donovan Hufnagle

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GENRE:  Poetry

 

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BLURB:

 

Echoing Chuck Palahniuk’s statement. “Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known,” this collection explores identity. These poems drift down rivers of old, using histories private and public and visit people that I love and loathe. Through heroes and villains, music and cartoons, literature and comics, science and wonder, and shadow and light, each poem canals the various channels of self and invention. As in the poem, “Credentials,” “I am a collage of memories and unicorn stickers…[by] those that have witnessed and been witnessed.”

 

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Excerpt Three:

 

Zombies

 

If they could...

 

if we would

press a voltage meter to their temple, on

through to their rotten-goo-

brain and if it registered,

if it charged,

if those neurons

ramblin in still sparked,

still signaled amongst the village

of others, I think

zombies would

wish for love,

to love, flesh and bone

again, to feel and pulse

again, to imagine

a voice kissing the back of their neck,

hairs stand at attention, polka dots

spring out, up and down their arms

and legs.

 

After all, they were human

once.

 

If they could

mold pottery and poetry,

harvest apples and stomp out grapes.

 

If they could

graft theory from rose stems—

born yellow and purple petals from one bud.

 

if they could

carve a rib from Adam,

melt steel into sword and create new.

 

 

If they could

wield Eve from Adam

and create new on the verge of war

between objects of both sexes

between objects of all sexes,

divided like branches, each branch

new, each bearing fruit dissimilar to

the other—new

If they could,

would we?

 

After all, we were human

once.

 

[When I Ain’t Got That I Do Anything] or Frenchman

 

Drawing noisily at a curved, worn pipe,

he sat in the backyard under an apple tree—

I ain't educated but I can write.

 

I was a carpenter in Iberville, the east side.

I'm on WPA now. On the brush team.

He says, drawing noisily at a curved, worn pipe,

 

I learned polishing from an old type,

Italian, I believe. I watched him run the machine.

I ain’t educated but I can write.

 

The first time I tried it, the wheel cried,

running all over the dam stone, free. You see,

drawing noisily at a curved, worn pipe,

 

I spoiled it. I was fooled. I thought I’d try

and there was nothing to it. But the key

is being educated. At least I can write.

 

You can't sell granite with a wrinkled tide

in it. But for $2.80 a day, I’ll probably flee

And though I ain’t educated, I can write,

He repeats, drawing noisily at a curved, worn pipe.

 

Grandma, If Only These Walls…

 

Do you sleep naked beneath

a popcorn sky riddled with residue

of the past and clues to asbestos?

I remember

 

when I clawed the ceiling,

the putty knife scraped away

the yellowing kernels and it snowed

for the rest of the day. For the rest

of my life.

 

They popped. And from the ceiling,

down, eventually,

yellow falls asleep on the bed.

I am a child in a snow globe,

making snow angels the same

yellowish tint as her nubs, her alley-cat

eyes, these walls.

 

I know little of her:

her modeling days—her costume

jewelry displays throughout

the house, but where did she wear this

ruby ring? When did this

emerald rest around her neck?

An albatross?

 

I imagine her strut

on the runway, such

power. They stare at her, wait

for her everything. A look. A twist.

A wink. Was she always on

display?

 

Did the flash of cameras blind her

marriage—rumors of others,

into another?

 

How the hell could she let

the next in? He stole her

money, molested her

children and grands. He smoldered her

like the tip of her cigarette,

And from the tip, down,

eventually, the ash snow fell

gray to yellow.

 

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Donovan Hufnagle is a husband, a father of three, and a professor of English and Humanities. He moved from Southern California to Prescott, Arizona to Fort Worth, Texas. He has five poetry collections: These Are Not My Words (I Just Wrote Them), Raw Flesh Flash: The Incomplete, Unfinished Documenting Of, The Sunshine Special, Shoebox, and 30 Days of 19. Other recent writings have appeared in Tempered Runes Press, Solum Literary Press, Poetry Box, Beyond Words, Wingless Dreamer, Subprimal Poetry Art, Americana Popular Culture Magazine, Shufpoetry, Kitty Litter Press, Carbon Culture, Amarillo Bay, Borderlands, Tattoo Highway, The New York Quarterly, Rougarou, and others.

 

Website: http://www.donovanhufnagle.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donovanhufnagle

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dhufnaglepoetry

 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/These-Are-Not-My-Words/dp/B0DBMN46M4/ref=sr_1_1

 

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