“Germ of a New Insanity” — Excerpt
By: Josh Mitchell
Tags: Publishing, Authors, News, Books, Novel

It was by fated default that our bastard from Boston got the idea for shit-house poetry. He was working the afternoon shift at The Paint Shed in the midst of documenting a new tirade in his black composition notebook when his pen died. Desperate to find another vehicle of ink to jot down his premium idea, he grabbed a can of red spray paint off the shelf, ripped off the bottom of a cardboard box, and headed outside to perform the application. Hidden off to the side of the building, he popped off the top of the metallic aerosol, leaned the piece of cardboard up against the wall, and began to spray:

Twice upon a time there was a recockulous renegade from Rockland: the stargazer, the brawler, the fan. The scribbler of crazy lexicon whose allegiance was with the singers, the swingers, the writers, the fighters, who despite their limited coin, fought to express in an attempt to beautify America.

The paint shot out of the can like a dart, sticking to the board like poorly chewed caramel. He loved the initial smell and how the dripping streaks trickled down the surface like hot lava, melting over his wicked words.

His late father once told him that when you find what you are passionate about you will feel an earth-shattering tug towards something bigger than yourself. As he looked down at the once barren piece, he thought, that was it: he wanted to turn “nothings” into “somethings.”

He began to write everywhere, hammering away at any virgin space that crossed his path: utility poles, billboards, walls, roofs, deserted buildings, trains. No artifacts were safe from his animated aphorisms. The third stall from the left at Papa Gino’s in The Harborlight Mall sure in the hell wasn’t:

THE MACROBIAN KING, CONTROLLER OF THE REIGNS. EMBALM YOU IN COLOR, SHACKLE YOU IN GOLD CHAINS.

He despised the dead space that the industrial world had created: squandered corridors too narrow for anything but trash, dissipated passageways in the park, the dark dungeons of underground garages, the worthless walls surrounding air conditioning units and ventilator shafts.

His main goal was to breathe life into these imprisoned pockets of existence where no one was meant to dwell, filling the emptiness with creative nuggets to contemplate, admire, marvel at, get angry about.

He did not really care for “gibberish graffiti” — the ugly, bubbly letters he saw spray-painted on every bare wall across the city — but he found the unique tags astonishing, both aesthetically and logistically.

He also respected the stunning murals and whimsical paste-ups he stumbled upon, as they reminded him of Keith Haring’s radiant babies. But, mainly, he gravitated towards the arcane work of anonymous artists: the dirty poems you read when your pants were around your ankles and your feet were submerged in a puddle of piss.

IN THE MEADOW OF THE WHITE GHETTO

We didn’t have iPods — let’s note that from the start.

We stacked carriages on cement behind the old Kmart.

That was our basketball court — and back then I could barely dunk cause I was kinda short.

Our ball was small and warped and needed some air.

But we didn’t care, dribbling with no fear, attacking steel cages like we were Ric Flair.

Just a bunch of crafty Rockland kids in the dump.

Remember our football games, the end zone was a speed bump?

You’d catch a pass and have to jump it like a camel’s hump.

What about our baseball ump? Always some chump calling strikes from a tree stump.

Yeah, we made the most of what we had.

And I only played on weekends when visiting my dad.

You see my parents broke up when I was eight.

A toxic marriage ended by jealously and hate. Or maybe it was fate.

“Germ of a New Insanity” is now available from Wickid Pissa Books.

You can buy a $10 digital copy or a signed, 1st edition paperback by sending $20 via PayPal (Friends & Family) here — mitchmitchell24@hotmail.com

Watch the book trailer to learn more about this radical content- https://vimeo.com/118969799

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