Shield Your Eyes

Lisa thought it was time I update my author photo to something that wasn't over a decade out of date. (For those of you who don't know, Lisa is my better half. All the important, smart, brave, and beautiful bits of the Listopher tandem.) So... my author pic is only several years old now, predating my LASIK surgery and several dozen haircuts.

Also I demand that you never look at it.

Any questions?

Not much has happened since last we didn't talk. Oh... except WHO HAS TWO THUMBS AND A BOOK ON THE SHELF AT HIS LOCAL LIBRARY? THIS GUY.

D2D Rant (Not to be confused with the dragon RPG game.)

Well... they decided to tax the little guy (Draft2Digital, that is.) $10/year, which is nothing. Which is .5% of what my buddy paid for an editor. And only if you make less than $100 in royalties.

Guess what? I'm out.

It's the principle of the matter. It's the $0 budget I refuse to compromise. Am I stingy? Yes. Will this keep me in the black? Also yes.

Also... going wide with no visibility was not helping me. Now my Threads bestie will be able to get the 2 books I was distributing through D2D on Kindle Unlimited (KU) for free. (And knowing her... she will.) So this is not the end of my author journey... it is just my unfortunate endorsement of a platform I don't admire because I've failed to find another good choice. Free is free, and penniless is penniless. The show must go on.

There is one more perk.

In the process of closing my D2D account I realized that my favorite part - the universal book links (UBLs) are still available for free through Books2Read, which is sort of like affiliated to D2D but doesn't require a D2D account? I don't know. You're asking a geriatric Millennial.

Anyway... so I did a thing, which was that I made UBLs for ALL my books*, and then made a custom B2R author Page - which is sleek, and which I like. Check it out in all its sleekness and likability:

http://www.books2read.com/Christopher-Beyers

I undouble dog dare you not to click on the link.

That's all for now. Cheers,

Chris

*6 of 8. The others you won't find unless you hunt for them. Heh.

Well, We're Still Here...

My newest book, 101 Ways to Love Yourself (badly): poems about narcissism, may not be my newest book for long.

But for a little while at least. (Alternate titles include Raise Your Hand if You're Me: poems about narcissism, and Laugh at the Narcissist: poems and essays. Like them? Hit the comments.)

Movement has been slow on the editing. Meanwhile: I've started a YA project in the A Mr. Doberman universe. Meanwhile: POTUS wants to blow up the human being universe, where we actually live and breathe.

That's been a little hard for me re: the writing process. I'm not going to lie.

If you want to know more about POTUS wanting to blow up the human being universe, where we actually live and breather, the 15 sonnets I posted last month read consecutively make up a heroic crown. "The Jewel-less Crown" is the master sonnet.

Thanks for living. Thanks for breathing.

Cheers,

Chris

EYES ON THE PRIZE?

Once Donny thought that he would like a Prize

But his record had one too many crease,

He didn’t cross the t’s, nor dot the i’s,

And basically did not embody Peace.

Still he said things some folks wanted to hear

Sowing the seeds of unrest in our nation,

And made his red-hatted supporters cheer

Speaking of bigotry and isolation.

The shove had not yet come, neither the push

The unruly forest was still a tree

Few spoke of voices from a burning bush

Or killed because of Christianity.

Let’s skip right past the part of grooming sheep:

This story starts when you were sound asleep.

THE BIGLY SLEEP

This story starts when you were sound asleep

I’d forgive you, my friend, if you forget

No one in our government made a peep:

Almost like their alarms were never set.

With curtains drawn, holed up at his resort

Donny left some strategic cameras on:

To capture his midnight kangaroo court

After which he would graduate to, “Don.”

I mean, honestly, how could we predict

He’d move the toy soldiers across the table?

Find the targets, and dogs that could be sicced

When he himself said he was never able?

He’s heard the bark, but doesn’t know the bite.

He claimed bone spurs to skip his turn to fight.

THE DRAFT-DODGER

He claimed bone spurs to skip his turn to fight

He fell a step or two behind the curve,

So never had to know a soldier’s plight

And never spared a second thought to serve.

He called the military “losers” once.

(And keep in mind, he has never been “pissed.”)

Implying that you’d have to be a dunce

To make the grand sacrifice to enlist.

He said these things, but then he said as well:

That we would not intercede overseas.

I should have known better. He has a tell:

He’ll choose to do, “Whatever he fancies.”

What promises he’s made, he doesn’t keep.

He talks a lot, but all his talk is cheap.

NO SOUP FOR YOU

He talks a lot, but all his talk is cheap.

And politics is just a game to play.

He isn’t known for being very deep…

But now we spend a billion a day.

Monies we could have spent on the homeless,

Monies taken from coffers that are dry,

Monies that we entrusted to congress

Have emptied our ammunition supply.

He stole them as he filmed his photo shoot

He did it after he drew closed the blinds…

‘Feed the homeless?’ He thought, ‘Isn’t that cute?’

‘Can they not feast on watermelon rinds?’

When it was out of mind, and out of sight

He acted in the middle of the night.

OPENING SALVO

He acted in the middle of the night

After the Dow had shuttered its accounts…

He took a blank check no one deigned to write

And spent the lot before the thing could bounce.

When you lay there, relaxing in your bed,

Don found himself a button, which he pressed;

Not caring for the red cap on your head,

Or whether he would have to charge interest.

Uncaring as the largest missile fell,

Uncaring that it happened in the dark,

Or if some extra angels heard a bell,

So long as it had sort of found its mark.

And if you didn’t think that that was cruel:

Another smart bomb fell upon a school.

IS IT A CARPET YET?

Another smart bomb fell upon a school

Where unarmed girls and women learned and grew,

And I felt the lesser half of a mule,

Despite the faces that I never knew.

It could be the coordinates were wrong,

It could be that the maps were never right.

I hope that when those girls sang their swan song

They spoke highly of American might.

As we turned over and began to snore

We made their skyline fifty shades of grey.

It wasn’t night upon that distant shore,

But by God, it did not look much like day.

And the next bomber was already there

Before the dust had settled from the air.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Before the dust had settled from the air

And we saw the price tag of chosen war

I wondered if the red-hatted will care,

Or if they will simply clamor for more.

I don’t think I will ever understand

The unilateral hypocrisy

Of burying a diamond in the sand

To self-fullfill a sordid prophecy.

What happened to the balance in our checks?

Have we all been struck deaf and blind and dumb?

Why did we let Donald stack all the decks?

When did we abandon our rules of thumb?

That night, using our nation as a tool,

He twisted up the very thumb of rule.

THROWING STONES?

He twisted up the very thumb of rule:

Which might explain the unsightly bruising…

His mind is gone, his pants are full of stool…

At least America is not losing?

But who cares, if it’s all a false crusade?

Our morals may be so severely shook

From slaughtering the enemies we made

We aren’t worthy to throw the Holy Book.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree

Re: these aggressive patterns we repeat

It’s true that we have left a vacancy

But time will tell if anger fills the seat.

And should the kettle warm the new pot’s chair:

By any name, God would find this unfair.

THE GRACE OF GOD?

By any name, God would find this unfair

That we dictate the end of a regime.

And I won’t offer up an idle prayer

Just to assuage POTUS’s self-esteem.

We don’t get to have power over death.

Can we admit when enough is enough?

I could dig until I was out of breath…

The only thing I’ll ever find is rough.

When will we choose to turn the other cheek?

Bloodshed, religious or no, has been tried

I’m pretty sure this is the truth we seek:

In battle, Jesus doesn’t choose a side.

I thought (as quoth the raven) “Nevermore.”

Whatever did we join this battle for?

THE FILES CAN WAIT

Whatever did we join this battle for?

Unfortunately I might have a guess.

The rational itself is rather poor

But nonetheless something we must address.

Iran was probably not, “Two weeks away.”

(The girls and teachers were not hiding it.)

Don was given a choice… how do I say?

Between a hard place and a viper’s pit.

The rumor: Netanyahu would expose

Some evidence that could not be ignored.

And so our pedophilic leader chose

To enter an undignified accord.

Had he a PDF on CD-ROM?

I never thought he had any aplomb.

BIBI HAS ENTERED THE CHAT.

I never thought he had any aplomb...

And yet his language and Dom’s are the same:

All the nuance of a daytime sitcom…

Shoulder the praise and disregard the blame.

They put their heads together, we are told:

Two narcissists were sitting in a boat;

And so it’s unsurprising that they sold

Their countries into chaos without vote.

Acting the Supreme Leader that they killed

To cover up the doings of the past,

The cup of MAGA isolation spilled

To put their fellow country members last.

I wouldn’t do it for a cookie, nor

If the cost is a Middle Eastern war.

WHERE IS GROUND CONTROL?

If the cost is a Middle Eastern war

You’d think someone would think to holler, “Stop!”

And put an end to the violence and gore.

And make sure that no further bomb could drop.

SCOTUS has ruled this war against the law

This thing, “Unlike the world has ever seen.”

But wishing I’d not seen the thing I saw

Does not remove the cog from the machine.

Did you know Jared Kushner traded stocks

Before he told daddy about the “threat?”

This whole discourse is stupider than rocks.

And I’m not sure we’ve dragged the bottom, yet.

Is it too late to dial Major Tom?

I never want to drop another bomb.

NO MAS

I never want to drop another bomb.

I never want to watch potential die.

A little girl who could have been a mom,

A Peace Deal that we didn’t get to try.

We’ve spoken of our court of kangaroos,

And innocents who didn’t get to live;

With naught to gain, and so much left to lose,

And still no hint of a sure objective.

I’m not convinced we ever got to think

Much less assess a whole decision tree;

I thought we’d need a second kitchen sink

To reach this level of hyperbole.

Was there a Popsicle joint in this town?

I can’t surrender when my hands are down.

NO MASS

I can't surrender when my hands are down

So I guess I won’t live to see the day

The world was handed over to a clown

Who pressed a button as we bent to pray.

What Deity prescribed this wicked path?

How many bodies will Dom leave behind?

What math comes after the next aftermath?

What Cave of Wonders does he hope to find?

This situation is a murky mess.

There isn’t any guidance from above.

I’ve given up on the U.S. Congress.

I can’t defend the country that I love.

The grass on both sides of the fence is brown.

So go ahead and take the bloody crown.

THE JEWEL-LESS CROWN

This story starts when you were sound asleep.

He claimed bone spurs to skip his turn to fight.

He talks a lot, but all his talk is cheap.

He acted in the middle of the night.

Another smart bomb fell upon a school

Before the dust had settled from the air;

He twisted up the very thumb of rule.

By any name, God would find this unfair.

Whatever did we join this battle for?

I never thought he had any aplomb…

If the cost is a Middle Eastern war

I never want to drop another bomb.

I can’t surrender when my hands are down,

So go ahead and take the bloody crown.