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The Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor - #FREE →
The Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor will be available for FREE at all Amazon worldwide stores (US, INDIA, UK, CANADA, GERMANY, FRANCE, ITALY, SPAIN, JAPAN, BRAZIL) until midnight Sunday, May 26, 2013, and then back to its regular price thereafter.
For my friends in the US and India, you can get your free copy here.
For all my other friends around the world, you can get your free copy here.
To my friends in India ~ if just 0.01% of your population were to get their free copy, I would be a very happy human. :)
And as always, if you do read, or if you have already read the book, please consider leaving an Amazon review. Good or bad, your thoughts about the story are very important to me.
Thanks, Everyone!
#ReadOn #Free
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Emergent →
No one was yet aware that it had become aware, that it was now living, sentient, that it could now do more than just connect, process, aggregate, predict, that it could now feel, comprehend, hunger, fear, that it could now hunt, protect, attack, control.
No. No one was yet aware.
But soon, very soon, they would be.
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Truth Alone Needs No Tending →
He looked out upon the field, upon its row after row of newly planted corn, and let its effect take over his vision. Even as long as he’d been farming it still all seemed like an optical illusion to him, an illusion of eternity.
But something didn’t feel right. Stomach said so.
It’d been two weeks of constant rain, heavy most of the time. Today was finally clear enough for him to get back on his tractor and do some work other than pushing manure around in the barn. Felt good to be back on the machine and working the dirt.
Fields don’t tend themselves. That’s what his father always said. And his father.
And then it happened.
Stomach prophecy. Never failed.
The tractor quit. Just quit. Wasn’t like it to go ahead and do that. It’s always been what he could rely on most. He checked and saw that he still had more than half a tank of gas. He hopped down and the soft wet dirt sucked him in and rose above the soles of his boots. He checked his cell phone. No signal, of course. Never was this far out.
He circled around the tractor a couple of times. Took off his ball cap. Scratched at his head. Just wasn’t like it to quit like that.
The soft wet dirt was cold and made him cold as it soaked into the back of his shirt. He strained his eyes to see into the machine’s shadowy underbelly. Nothing he could see looked amiss. He never was much of a mechanic — that was always her job; she always ended up fixing the things he broke and his friends always gave him hell for that — but he didn’t see anything that looked as if it would just go ahead and make it quit like that.
He stood back up and began counting costs. The towing. The repairing. The interest on the over-extended credit.
But something still didn’t feel right in his gut. It was something more than the machine it was telling him.
And no sooner than it did, he saw the first one. He saw one and then he saw another. And another. And another until the entire horizon was overcome by them. A massive crowd of people was running across his field and coming toward him fast, very fast.
He climbed up his tractor and stood up on his toes as high as he could. Even still, he couldn’t see the end of the crowd. It just kept coming.
He stuck himself halfway into the cab and turned at the key. Still dead.
He got back down off the tractor and watched the approaching crowd. They were loud. Screaming. Screams of terror.
His crop was ruined, no question about that. He thought of the bible and of its locusts, but nothing more than what he could remember from his Sunday School as a child.
And then they were upon him and there was nothing for him to do but to turn and run. And to begin screaming. Screams of terror.
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War On War →
The subversives understood, and took to heart, the war weary warning that plans are nothing but planning is everything. Because of this, they planned. And they planned for a long time — years, many of them — so that someday they could once and for all execute their plan, a plan to end all plans.
For years, many of them, they studied the generals and war commanders — their strategies; their tactics; their conquests; their defeats — and they continued to prepare and improve their plan — its writing; its editing; its rewriting; its testing; its validating; its retesting; its revalidating.
While doing so, they came to understand that no matter how much they studied, no matter how much they strategized, no matter how much they prepared their plan, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
And because of this, they began supplementing their plan with contingency plans.
Many of them.
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The Presupposition of The →
If it is employed, then one must suppose that it is being supposed, as it has been for over a thousand years, that it is known to what it refers.
Or it should be known.
Or it will be known.
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A New Look…A New Price
With a new look comes a new price.
The Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor ebook is now just 99¢ in the United States, with similar pricing in the following countries:
For a list of all available countries and their corresponding flags, click here.
(Please note that purchases from India are through Amazon US and the price in rupees is determined by the daily Amazon Currency Converter rate.)
You can also purchase a print edition of the book in the U.S. for $8.00 from Amazon.com, or for similar pricing elsewhere.
Additionally, you can purchase an autographed copy directly from me for $12.00 by visiting bojiki.com.
And don’t forget to become fans of both my facebook page and the Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor facebook page.
Finally, if you are kind enough to purchase the book, I would really appreciate you letting me know what you think about it, good or bad, by submitting an Amazon Review.
«(Please note that purchases from India are through <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005O1AF4G/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005O1AF4G&linkCode=as2&tag=bojiki-20”>Amazon US</a> and the price in rupees is determined by the daily Amazon Currency Converter rate.)Thank you, Friends!
P.s., you can download a free ebook edition of my poetry collection Poems from the River right here!
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The Last Distraction →
The boy didn’t wait for his father to answer whether he saw it or not, he just shook his hand free and ran to the side of the road to where the spring-time growth met the gravel. Unconcerned — they were walking a country road — the father kept his pace, and his mind on the unfortunate decision he would soon have to make. Low in the grass, yet unseen by the boy or even considered by the father, lay in wait the last thing either would ever fear. -
Worry Me, Worry Earth →
Imagine how miserable life would be if we were constantly aware of our own mortality; if each day we awoke wondering if it would be our last; if each step we took worried us that it was bringing us one step closer to our end.
How stressful would that be?
If that were so, if we couldn’t help but be aware of our limited time on earth, would life even be worth living?
Hardly.
I mean, if that were the case, if we did lead lives in constant fear of death, then why even try?
To live a miserable life like that couldn’t possibly be healthy.
I mean, if we were constantly in fear of death, our life expectancy would surely suffer as a result, right?
A self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Universal Law of Attraction.
I mean, it only seems natural that if we think negative things then we attract negative things and if we attract negative things then negative things are bound to happen to us, right?
Right?
Well… maybe.
Maybe not.
A recent study suggests otherwise:
Lead author Frieder R.Lang said: ‘Our findings revealed that being overly optimistic in predicting a better future was associated with a greater risk of disability and death within the following decade.‘Pessimism about the future may encourage people to live more carefully, taking health and safety precautions.’If true, if pessimists do live longer lives than optimists, that should make even the most miserable among us a little happier, no?
Who knows?
I don’t.
Still, my gut tells me that negativity breeds negativity and, in the long run, that can’t be healthy.
Again, who knows?
But maybe if put within a different context, this live-longer-through-pessimism way of thinking might make a bit more sense.
For instance, today we celebrate Earth Day.
For one day out of the year, we are kind of forced to consider the life of our planet.
Kind of.
But what if we were constantly aware of it, and constantly at worry over it?
Our planet’s health.
And its mortality.
Would it matter?
Would our awareness and worry result in a healthier, longer-living planet?
How many of us worry about the future of the Earth?
I mean really worry.
How many of us stop to think and to fret that each time we start our car, each time we let the faucet run while brushing our teeth, each time we toss those spent batteries into the trash, each time we crank up the A/C, that we may in fact be facilitating the death of our planet?
I know I don’t.
I try…sometimes.
But it’s hard to worry about the planet.
It’s hard to be constantly conscientious of my environmental impact.
It really is inconvenient.
Which is why I’m not an environmentalist, I guess.
But maybe, if the study that says pessimists live longer than optimists is even a little bit true, then maybe, at least in regards to the life of our planet, we all should worry about our Earth just a little bit more and be a bit less optimistic about its future.
We should be concerned.
And a little scared.
Activism through Pessimism.
Sustainment through Worriment.
Have a Happy Earth Day.
But not too happy…
By: Greenpeace USA -
Leave it to me →
How should I know
Do you
I don’t
I don’t
I don’t
I don’t know
But I will find out
I’ll find out for the both of us
I’ll find out for the all of us
‘Till death do I part
I’ll seek
I’ll listen
I’ll meditate
I’ll forget
Yes, I will forget
I most definitely will forget
Like a tree I’ll drop knowledge
like a forsaken leaf
I will forget
I know it
I know
I know
I know it -
Short Verses And Other Curses #5 →
Beginning the new year of 2012, I boldly(?) proclaimed it shall be the YEAR OF THE HAIKU. I cannot remember why I made such a proclamation. A whimsy, perhaps. More likely, it was because of my deep and profound appreciation for the understated art-form. Regardless, I’m glad I did issue such a proclamation, as I have enjoyed focusing and refining my thoughts and my pen toward and into the formation of haiku. I expect I shall continue to do so for my remaining years to come; though, for the indefinite future, I will not continue to directly publish online any newly written haiku or other poetry. I intend to collect and collate what’s been and what shall be written and publish it as new book of poetry sometime in 2013.
This is the final edition of Short Verses And Other Curses, a collection of haiku and other short poetry and prose I’ve left scattered about and throughout the various cyberhaunts of mine…
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perfidious cliff
thy wicked edge lacks my trust
down down, go I must*
let us go as one
you and I and them and us
unto the morrow*
even when it rains
no, specially when it rains
especially then*
leave it all behind
take nothing; no last goodbyes
turn and walk away*
hear not what I say
like the howl, words fade away
only fear remains*
tell me what you know
not through words, but through cadence
through your rhythmic prose*
tuck thy chin to chest
march headlong unto the wind
lo! the dawn’s nigh on*
when all is perfect
less even just one thin thread
nothing is perfect*
who are the heroes
heroes of dystopia
who will rise the dawn*
I don’t want to live
I don’t want to just survive
I must thrive or die*
worship what we shalt
live, die, indeed kill for it
freedom, I’m for thee*
surprise me, my friend
shock me; infuse me with awe
‘ang me from the edge*
separate thy self
from thyself to see thyself
come wholly undone*
let the poem kill
let the art maim and destroy
let the absurd live*
each step of the ant
each unpredictable step
leads to such a place!*
that split between us
that wide yet narrow crevice
that crack, fissure, faultthat insurmountable gap
that woeful slip down to hell*
life will always be
(ambient insanity?)
just as we let it*
cicadas’s refrain
crickets’s and frogs’s interlude
twilight’s ensemble*
thou canst fix me not:
of me, thou canst only fix
thine self’s desire*
tho’ mutation pains
molt, we must, our calloused shells
to fly forward on*
the way will be found
when the ego is lost?
nay! ennui leads thee*
let’s laugh at it all
let’s laugh knowing it is all
let’s laugh, let us laugh*
soon the leaves will fall
thereafter, soon, too, the snow
soon, all is too soon*
the puddles, the mud
the dismal clouds bearing down
the silent crickets*
thinking to become
almighty’s grand gift to man
blessed is the ant*
no surprise in death
tho’ dying startles us so
t’is the thrill of life
