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The War Chamber Ministry

Michael C Ford

So much excitement, life and heart in these poems that it

helps to bring into focus the magnitude of what Ford has

been doing through the years; a sustained vision of

existence in this peculiar corner of our world, where the

human spirit flourishes in spite of our madness.

        =Fred Voss  [author of Carnegie Hall With Tin Walls]

Ford’s work combines a poet’s vision with a jazz man’s

rhythmic sophistication.

                          =George Varga  [San Diego Union-Tribune]

Ford’s poems are never directly about him. They are about the world—geography, movies, television, politics, what we laughingly call: the 6 o’clock news—that which constantly impinges upon his consciousness which is, simultaneously, tough, tender and loud. Try to look away from this book. Just try!    

                                                =Jack Foley [Pacifica Radio]

Release date April 10.

From the book:

Few admire those poets who, quite frankly, prefer the

literature of militant alienation, the high-octane intensity writing as one of society’s voluntary outcasts: those who are treated with hostility and neglect for advertising themselves, as being so far away from the fashionable poetry of creepy, intellectual nihilism. How does that relate to me? I’m just a frontline inhabitant of the same literary battlefield and, most of the time I get caught in the crossfire.

                                –the author from a journal

Sometimes, the homefront is more horrifying than

any battlefield

                                       –the Author [from a journal]      

BRINGING THE WAR BACK HOME

Remembering, when the U>S> President: George,

the senior Bush got food poisoned in Japan, then

hurling all over the Nipponese flag: in retrospect,

a perfect metaphor, perhaps, for the perpetration

of Operation Desert Storm.

The 1980s were going away and I was catching

a green light and walking across the terminal

illness of Pico Blvd, then over to my neighborhood

street, hoofing down the driveway, passing the main

house to a used-to-be pool shed dressing-room

attached to the former 1940s bungalow residence,

there, where I’d been living for the past 19 years

The refugee woman from Central America who

escaped being skewered by fascist police in

Nicaragua was cacked-out in a garden chair in

front of the apartment compartment adjacent

to mine.

She’s always been rather decent and friendly

and is, now, holding up this morning’s edition

of the Los Angeles Times, pointing at one of

the sub-headlines reporting what the Bush man

did on a visit to Japan. “Your president is sick,”  

she said. I answered: “They’re the only kinds

who get elected.”

I stepped into my room, took a vintage

water pistol off its easel and thought

about my father’s brother who came

back from World War II, moved to

Utica, New York, where using a similar

toy held-up a liquor store for two bottles

of Jameson Irish, was, then immediately,

apprehended and sentenced to doing a

nickel for armed robbery

 

Yes, that’s the way this country treats

its brave and damaged veterans of

foreign conflict: so, thinking about all

of it, putting the barrel of the water gun

against my right temple, nudging the

trigger and washing out my version of  

Vincent van Gogh’s other ear.   

The War Chamber Ministry

is a 112 page hand-stitched paperbook with spine - $16.00

Release date April 10.

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Michael C Ford lives in California and has written and recorded many books and audio productions.