Watch her

This is a quick poem:

Watch her, as she fades
from second to third in the perspective
walking, quickly, silently away

she used to live in every object
her mere touch giving life to the tedium
coloring the world around us both

Her breath rang out like a bell
a soft exclamation, a joyous sound
that echos still in the silent walls

Watch her, as she fades
the pictures of us or her removed and hidden
like some unwanted deformity

our lives were fully intertwined
but now there is only the memories
the stench of her on all my things

and yet, despite the absense
all I can see in the darkness is her form
gentle and sleeping in our bed

Watch her, as she fades
out of my journals, my notebooks,
out of my fucked-up poetic life

I romanced her with words, words, words
a thousand lines to her beauty and strength
written for her enjoyment, and her alone

once, I wrote these poems to her
now, silent and brooding, I still write
but only about her...

The one who walked away

Hey Everyone!

Ok, yeah, my original "drive to write" sorta fell apart in midstream. Mostly, despite my best attempts otherwise, losing my job majorly got me down.

I've still been writing, but I haven't been posting anything, and for the most part, now I'm unsure I want to... at least, not like this...

See, this is too much me. I'm not in the mood for "all about joe"...

what I want is Q&E back.

For those many millions who never saw Q&E, it was a compilation magazine I put together, with contributions from my friends. It had writing, art, essays, poetry, and one drunken-chess match.

It was silly and fun.

I want to do Q&E. Q&E-2, the Online Edition.

I still need to bounce this off my writer friends, get in contact with some whom I've lost touch, and start hussling up submissions, but I'm going to do this.

I'm also going to feature a section called "Salt Lake Perspective", which is a ressurrection of an idea I had a long time ago about writing pieces about SLC, where I live. Being a religion dominated state means there's an interesting break between the mormons and non-mormons. That leads to a lot of oddities in our society, which is interesting to write about.

Also, there are friends of mine who have left, and I'd like to get them to write about the difference between Here and Gone.

anyways, I'll have and post more information when I have it.

Until then, Keep Writing, and be sexxy

Oh Yeah, Something Else

Already on the Yahoo Group is the Following:

Posts:
Untitled Random Snippit #1 - A fairy tale of dialogue

Files - Short Stories - Unpolished:
R.My Girl (working title)- My first robot story in rough draft.

I'm going to put in the sidebar a list of what the group has. Eventaully.

Anyways, I'm going apartment hunting...tata

--Joe

An Introduction

Hey everyone,

My name is Joseph F. Russo, and I'm a writer. Well, actually, at the moment, I'm working at a bookstore. I've worked there for 3 years, and it hasn't done anything but made my drive to write stronger. That's partially cause it's a crappy crappy job, but mostly it's because of the books. I love books, and I love to read. I absorb books like some people drink coffee. I will lose sleep if it means I can read 50-100 pages in a day.

And I write. A lot. When I was in school, I wrote for creative writing classes, and when I graduated I wrote a lot for me. I went to college and discovered that every degree I was interested in (literature, mythology, etc), led invariably to teaching. I don't like to teach. I like to write.

I used to put out an anthology of my poetry and writing every six months. I'd spend 75$ to publish 8 copies and I'd give them away as christmas gifts. For a while I even ran a humble 20-copy/issue magazine called Q&E. People loved it and wanted to pay for it, but I was adament about giving it away for free. Partially, this was because I wasn't paying the people who gave me stuff, and partially it was because I just wanted to share. Every issue cost 25$ to produce and I loved it. Unfortuantely all good things come invariably to an end, and Q&E was no different.

I finally ended the magazine when I realized that people in general are much more hesitant to share their writing than I am. When it comes to my writing, It seems I'm a bit of a slut. I just love to share.

Partially, it's because I got an ego that needs nursing. I need lots of people going "oh" and "ah" and "how do you do it you handsome devilish man?". Mostly it's because I enjoy it. A singer sings, and gets joy from singing. I'm a writer, and I get my joy from writing it. Sharing it, either by reading it aloud or passing around the pages, just allows me to enjoy it all over again. It's my life's blood.

The purpose of this blog is to work in conjunction with my Yahoo Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Joseph_F_Russo/.

The goal of both the blog and the Yahoo Group is to allow me a forum where I can share my work online without fear of random theft.

I'll be posting random snippits here, and more complete works in my yahoo group. I'll also use this as my forum of bitching, allowing me to talk about what I'm doing and how. When I start work on a more complicated projects (for example: my novel idea that has the working title "a boy and his dragon") I'll post the completed summery here, and the outline on my group. I'll upload the chapters as I write them to my group, and I'll let you know what's going on here.

The idea is that what's posted here is open to everyone on the entire internet, Even crappy McStealYourWork and the evil MrFlamer. The yahoo group will only be open to those who ask and then agree with my "please don't steal from me" warning message.

Please don't be intimidated about joining the Yahoo Group. I want visitors, and I'll give you...um...cyber cookies...yeah (mental note: make up cyber-cookie).

anyways, for now, this is just a temporary set-up... My wife is an amazing web designer so I'm going to try to get her to whip-up some neat style for the blog. The web-address won't change, just the layout.

So Yeah, stay tuned and check it out.

--Joe.