This is a weird end of year tradition, but there are many (see video).
Top 10 most read posts from my blog: Four are essays, two are about published pieces, two are about Dire Literary schedule, and one each on Wilderness House Literary Review, and Joe the Salamander
which is not at all like 2013's numbers, for example. I mean....
The output was very 2022 (and 2022 was a GIF), which about covers it. I spent a lot of time doing promotional work for Joe, and that paid off.
BOOKS
Joe The Salamander,, July, 2022, Golden Antelope PressThe first thing you may think of based on the title, probably involves all of your senses, but this poem, written in September 2021, used the sense of sight. IT is about the largest spider I'd ever seen, in a huge web over an industrial style bathroom sink. The Hotel itself, a marvel, with limited amenities (shared bathrooms, limits on showers) opened in 1873, often documented as haunted, just seems to capture people in its large web, and hold them there. The poem itself indicates change, and growth.
Many also believe spiders are reincarnated from people you love. Others, think birds. People that I love get reincarnated in my dreams---I'd rather not think about every spider, or bird that I see.
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| photo credit, Charles Timothy Gager, Sep. 2021 |
BONUSES AT REPLAY CENTRAL:
First watch all the readings and interviews from September 2022-December 2022 starting with Jon Papernick and ending with Nina Shope. Then links every recording, and every feature from Vitual Fridays Dire Literary Series, 2020-2022
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And as always, the best way to get information or zoom link is to
12. Kim Addonizio
19. Thomas McNeely
26. Jenna Le
February
16. Lise Haines
March
2. Michael Mark
16. Hannah Sward
23. Caitlin Avery
30. Monica Brashears
April
13. Stacy TenHouton
27. Morgan Baker
Here is the series full count to date, after Nina Shope's reading this Friday. We will have a great Thursday Night Schedule in 2023, 7 PM ESD
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LIVE TOTAL
February-March 2001 - First Tuesday reading at Cantab Underground 2
June 2001-Aug 2002- First Friday, Out of the Blue Art Gallery 15
168 Brookline St., Cambridge
Sept 2002-Oct 2011-First Friday, Out of the Blue Art Gallery 110
106 Prospect St., Cambridge
Nov 4, 2011- -First Friday, Yarrow 1
106 Prospect St., Cambridge
Dec 2011-Sept 2014-First Friday, Out of the Blue Art Gallery 34
106 Prospect St., Cambridge
Oct 2014-Nov 2017-First Friday, Out of the Blue Too 38
541 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge
Dec 2017-June 2018 First Saturday Afternoon, The Middle East Cafe
480 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge 7
July 2018 First Saturday Afternoon, Zuzu
480 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge 1
During heat waves, cold snaps or
such emergencies your local News station will advise you to check in with
your elderly neighbors. It’s
important because they may be struggling (or dying) and unable to reach out for
help. It’s a reminder that probably probably doesn't need to exist, but it does.
In my 12-Step Program, these
check-ins are almost automatic. You are told to call someone else in the
program every day. If you have a sponsor, you may receive a suggestion to do so
with them. It helps because even if you have nothing to say. you get into the
habit of doing so when there is something important that needs to come out.
I sponsored a man in 2019 I’ll
call Waylon, and during that year he became an important person, and friend in
my life. We would meet and have dinners, shoot b-ball, or throw around a
baseball. He was full of energy, humor and just a one-of-a-kind type of guy. He
showed a lot of support to me as well. We would talk every day, until the calls
stopped and I would learn that it usually meant a relapse. Then. I would
receive a call 6-months later and he was ready to meet up, hit a few meetings
and work on his recovery.
Things got weird in 2020 for all
of us, but somehow, after some time passed, we would meet up and sit outside, safely,
a good 15 feet from one another. During this time, he was in-and-out of
recovery, and as they say, once you go out, it’s hard to get back in. We still stayed
in touch until May of this year, and then, once again the contact stopped. Often
Waylon was on my mind, but I didn’t reach out, until about a month ago, but the
texts weren’t returned and the calls went straight to voicemail.
This past weekend was a pretty
difficult one for many personal reasons, but I’ve been told to reach out to
others who may need help. Once more, I texted Waylon, and tried to call---right
to voicemail again. Then I decided to just get in my car and drive to his house,
thinking worst case scenario might be that he was having a hell of a relapse. I kept having the strange feeling that it was
worse, that Waylon was dead.
His girlfriend Jane answered the
door, and when I asked if Waylon was there, her face dropped. “He’s not here,
and oh…you haven’t heard…,” and were then, suddenly in that space. I
think we all know that space where you don’t want to talk, but it’s
important, painful, and awkward that you do. So, Jane and I spoke on the front
steps of a house I’d been to many, many times for about twenty minutes. She
told me that he didn’t die from drugs, or alcohol but from a head injury,
causing a brain bleed from a fall at around 6 AM on October 23, nearly six weeks
ago. The details are few, but apparently after the fall, he called the police
in a very disoriented state, not knowing where he was at all. He needed their
help to tell him, as he couldn’t tell them where he was, and they could not
figure it out either. By the time they found him, he was unconscious and needed
a MedEvac to get him into Boston. Where he was found was an area that was known
to be a very rough place. He never came to. He was 42.
Would a check-in have helped?
Perhaps, but only if the assumption was that the rough location was an intended
place to score drugs. Even then, a check-in may not have stopped him. Still,
given those low parameters, 10% of a defense, is better than zero, but I
believed Jane when she said he had been doing well and was clean. I want to
believe that life hadn’t taken him back to that dark place, that we all in the
program know all about.
Something though didn’t feel
right. The Walpole Police still have his phone and other belongings as part of
an ongoing investigation. Why would that be. Perhaps Waylon was mugged and the
blow to the head was not from a fall? I don’t know---and I don’t really want to
know. It doesn’t matter.
When I got back home, I searched
the internet to see if there had been a service or not. I found the obituary
and also watched the 15-minute video of his life that was on the site. After holding it together with Jane earlier, I completely lost it and sobbed for a long time. These are the times when I usually say, "I'm broken." After, I drove to my 12-Step meeting, because that helps me not drink or use, still
crying while driving. Some people at the meeting knew Waylon, but most of them
asked me if it was drugs or alcohol that killed him. I found myself responding,
“What the fuck does it matter?” the bluntness catching me by surprise. Honestly,
it shouldn’t matter, but those in recovery want to somehow reinforce their
ability to live by associating the worst of those who don’t make it. I didn’t
want to talk about that specifically as I said earlier, what the fuck does it
matter?
So, back to check-ins, and their
importance, even if this example may not support the need for them directly.
They are important! Very often we have no idea that people are struggling. Whether
it be family issues, or depression—or just about anything, nothing is as
important as someone reaching to see how you are doing. I know about this first
hand, when I’m walking through difficult terrain, the difference in people
reaching out vs. not. Nothing is worse than sitting with things by yourself,
alone with them those destructive thoughts and feelings. Life is short, so mend
bridges, and reach out to those you care about.
Here's the Podcast on Apple
or
Spotify so you all can listen!
I speak about Addiction, Writing, Joe the Salamander and the book due in 2023, The Best Of Timothy Gager.
The host, Chris Joseph is a very inspirational dude, who has dodged death, with his "illogical" non-wester medicine cancer treatment. I've had the pleasure to have been published by Chris in the Epiphanies Project and interviewed him myself for the Dire Literary Series.
As defined by the Oxford Dictionay:
Essential-absolutely necessary, extremely important.
Here is a draft of the Table of Contents - which should be close to the end product.
GROUNDED, New poems, 2022
Runway
Purple Robe
Although
I Never Called You Beautiful
Beach Rose
Defining Unnatural,
Non-Scientific Thunder Bolts
Reversing the Rain
Window
at the Oceanic Hotel
Shared
Bathroom at the Oceanic Hotel
The
Holy Orchestrated
365,000 Poems Written About You
A Sonnet First Seen at Walnut
Street Café February 2019
The
People of Star Island
Walk
Until The Legs Go Numb
Denouement
Addictions
At
the Farm in Elkton, Maryland In Memory of Jones Purcell
Dog
On Zoom
COVID
Fears
Deductions
and Ends
The Suicidiversary: Years and A
Day Late
Opposite
Magnetic Poles
Dinner
Party
Streaming
While Napping
Global
Conditions
Seasonal
Fire Effect thoughts on The Bootleg Fire
Thoughts
over the Deluge
Science
Political
Climate
Occupy Forever for Blaine
Hebbel
What
Dante Learned
Introduction
to a Séance at Turning Tables: Delphine
de Girardin for Victor Hugo
The Great Appearing Act
Not
Perfect Does Not Make Practice
Mutualism
In The Obituary of Paul Felopulos
The
Haunted Mile
Vaccination
Extravaganza
It
Happens in Spring
The
Attenuation of Wide Ranges of Thoughts
Somnambulism
Nighthawks
There
Once Was a Harvest
Ode to a Tree Cut Down
Can
I Fly You a Drink? a found poem from an
internet article with internet comments
How
to Be a Werewolf
Family
Silence for Sixty-Two Years
Frosting
On a Barren Field
Inlet
Sunset
We
Are the Ones Left on the Beach For
Natalie
God and You
Tuumaq
Christmas 2019
Never Heard at Home
patents held by charles h. gager and charles
fowler
Father’s
Day/Funeral
Sleep,
My Dear Poets
Jones’
Song
Living
with Rabbits
I
am Alone (Watching Bad Movies during the Pandemic)
after the movie Fathers and Daughters
(Warning Spoiler Alert)
Things I May Say
SECRETS AND COMPARTMENTS, New flash fictions, 2019-2023
Nor’easter
The
Kicker Loses the Game
Late
Night TV Ad, Summer 2020
Rabbit Care
She
Does (Doesn’t) Exist.
The
Training of Staff
It’s
a New Year
After Getting High
Can
Anybody Do Anything?
Encasements,
Compartments, Boxes
The
Resigned Life of a Condo Trustee
The
Drowning Girl
Beautiful Prayers
The
New Coach
The
Tinkerer
The
Strength of a Single Lion (A Political Jaunt)
Airport 20/20
Annual
Cookout-(sung to a nursery rhythm)
The First Four Steps
Walking up a Cliff
Kill the Baby Makers
The
Pillows of Society
Times Square During Lunch Hour
Predators
and Prey
Perfect
Crimes from an Imperfect Man
Ambien
Beatle
The Cost of Love
How
to Stop Birds from Flying Into Windows
Hey,
Benni
I
Saw Hell
The
Off-Season
How
You Met Your Husband
Up
and Atom
Iconic
Folks Talking by a Fire
Working on a Marriage
Why I am Not a Penguin
Her
Hotel
Beloved
Do Us Part
Poke
Becoming Ice
The Retired Poet Bought a Falafel
Truck
Suggestions
for My Ashes
from THE SAME CORNER OF THE BAR
Sitting
drunk on a cooler in my backyard
Arlington
Catholic
A
Do-Dah-Day
The
same corner of the Bar
What
were you doing when the Towers Fell?
Insect
My Heart
the Car
from THIS IS WHERE YOU GO WHEN
YOU ARE GONE
Rabbit Maranville
I've Drunk The Holidays
My Uncle Coming Back from Vietnam with
a Stump
Disowned by most of The Family
Waking up around noon
reply to someone who said my poems are all sad
your personal ground zero for Franz Wright’s writer’s block
from
THESE
POEMS ARE NOT PINK CLOUDS
Hit the road now Jack
Once Upon an Ocean Town
On the way home from Maine,
1970
Summer Job, Concord, Ma.
Somewhere South
my dear god, we are all so small
Night in New York City
The
Things I’d Say
from TREATING A SICK ANIMAL
Mangiare per vivere e non vivere per
mangiare
Hidden Hoboken
Your
Vasectomy Journal
Punchless
Jimmy Collins
The Top of Grace’s Upper Lip
Just
Dessert
The Short Marriage of a Bride and Groom
ESSAY
Experience, Strength,
and Hope
from
ANTI-SOCIAL
NETWORK
When It is Still Winter
at eleven-fifty-nine
ESSAY
A Bit On The Bombing
from
THE SHUTTING DOOR
Walking Out of the Woods
I have mostly Nightmares
The
Shutting Door
Missteps
You Knew Me Before
The
poems at my House
Meeting with Father Vincent
When you live by Yourself
from
CHIEF JAY STRONGBOW IS REAL
Throw Certainty Out in the Air
like a Lasso Reflections on Alton Sterling
Didn’t
see it Before I Stepped in it
Prayer By a Stream
Sobriety
How We Exist
This is where I Am (when
here)
A
Poem For Forever
Unfit
Father
Cross Country Family Vacation
When I Think of my Childhood
Hot Biscuits, Country Ham at The
Loveless Motel
There’s A Fly in My Soup
NOVEL EXCERT from THE THURSDAY APPOINTMENTS OF BILL
SLOAN
Inside the Mind of
Brad’s Therapist
NOVEL
EXCERPT from GRAND SLAMS: A COMING OF EGGS STORY
Kayak
Kenny
from
EVERYDAY
THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT ELEPHANTS
Jack
How Penguins Break
What Are The Reasons They Hang On?
I Look At You Through Glass and Water
Full Moon
If We Don’t Think, We Will Sleep
Everyday There is so Much About
Elephants
from SPREADING
LIKE WILDFLOWERS
Bromley’s
Funeral Home
The
Miracles of Recovery
Still
There Are Boxes
Faith
At
a Cookout for Poets
How
to Unring a Bell
from 2020 POEMS
21
Lines / 2020 / Covid 19
Guesses From a Stable Genius
Kleptoparasitic
Unformed
Relief
reply
to someone who said you should write a poem about her
When
You Have This Connection
Long
Distance Thinking
Ballet
of Surrender
ESSAY
It Sucks Getting Old
NOVEL
EXCERPT from JOE THE SALAMANDER
Adrian’s
Prologue
