As The Moonlight Shines
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About this ebook
As the Moonlight Shines is a book of 94 poems by Nick Ulanowski.
On the inside of the book, Jorge Santiago Jr., the cover artist, illustrated the poem "Raindrops" with a black-and-white drawing. Kristin Palmer illustrated the poem "Garlic Soup for the Soul" with a breathtaking watercolor painting.
Nick Ulanowski
Nick Ulanowski is a journalist, a poet, a novelist and the owner of Starving Author Press. "Massacre at the Comic Shop" is his fourth book, but it won't be his last. His previous works include "As the Moonlight Shines," "American Bug" and "Diesel Doctrine and the Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires." Nick strongly believes in the power of words and hopes that his will continue to speak truth to power.
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Book preview
As The Moonlight Shines - Nick Ulanowski
As The Moonlight Shines, 2nd Edition
ISBN: 978-1-68454-247-5
ISBN: 978-1-64669-386-3 (e-book)
Copyright © 2007, 2009, 2018 by Nick Ulanowski
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system except as may be permitted in writing from the author. Request for permission at [email protected].
Printed in the United States of America.
Cover artwork by Jorge Santiago, Jr.
Book design by Jorge Santiago, Jr. and Nick Ulanowski
Watercolor illustration on page 29 by Kristin Palmer
Photographs on pages 61 and 67 by Nick Ulanowski
Illustration on page 79 by Jorge Santiago, Jr
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Forward
"I’ve seen broken hearts like broken dreams,
like broken bodies under the pale street lights tonight"
--Blood for Blood, 2004, Victory Records
After my lifelong friend was stabbed to death while selling drugs, I didn't know to handle it. I was 19 years old and so was my deceased friend. I didn't understand the world's response to the tragedy. I had survivors guilt. I felt great loss and pain. The world was a dark and seemingly hopeless place. Listening to music and writing poetry were my only escapes from these cruel realities. Writing poetry was my way to cope and maintain any semblance of hope. Poetry was how I organized my thoughts. I wrote to discover what I thought and how I felt. Writing poetry helped me figure out the world.
In 2009, I collected many of the poems I had written over the years and I self-published them in a book titled As the Moonlight Shines. This is a second edition of that book. In many ways, As the Moonlight Shines represents and reflects a different chapter of my life. The book’s title poem asks the question, Will I live to see myself at age 25?
Spoiler alert: I did. Today, I’m in my early thirties. And I’m still alive and kicking. My heart’s still beating, and my lung are still pumping. I fucking made it! How about that?
The truth of the matter is that I no longer struggle with many of the feelings I was writing about in this book. I have a different lifestyle. And I no longer feel the same lack of direction in life. My daily feelings of loss are no more. My brother Johnathan Fields isn’t forgotten but my grief didn’t forever remain. I’ve moved on. I’ve grown. I’m not the same man I was ten years ago. Nevertheless, this book is a piece of my soul. It represents and reflects a past creative endeavor that I can’t escape from. I wouldn’t be the same person today without As the Moonlight Shines. For this reason, this is a book that means a lot to me and it’s worth revisiting. However, when printing a second edition, it did need some revisions and additions.
Two of the poems from the first edition have been omitted. I omitted Quite A Bit
because I was too uncomfortable with the fact that it could be interpreted as glorifying gang violence. With a little bit of hesitation, I omitted Four Letter Words
because today I have a fundamental disagreement with some of its philosophical message. Considering some of the other content I gleefully chose not to remove, this reasoning might not make sense to readers who are familiar with the book’s first edition. But oh well. I’m the author and it was my decision.
Despite the omission of these two poems, there is considerably more content here. The first edition of As the Moonlight Shines contained 82 poems. This second edition contains 94 poems. With the two omissions, this means there are 14 new poems in this edition: Fuck It All,
A Man Named Dan.
Under the Night Sky Alone,
Nighttime Coffee,
Someday, Some Way,
Blackness,
The Next Destination,
Skull Crack,
Just Do It, Sex Sells,
Like Hounds in a Pack,
Better Than Suicide,
Sex, Drugs, Power and Murder,
Hazy Fire, and
Poets Are Assholes". In addition to these new poems, there’s brand-new cover art from the brilliant comic book artist Jorge Santiago and two interior illustrations from Jorge Santiago and my friend Kristin Palmer. I couldn’t be more pleased with how this second edition turned out.
So, come with me, folks. I hope you enjoy the journey into the deep, dark depths of my mind. The poems in this book tell tales of loss, regret, sorrow, anger, pain, death, destruction and darkness. However, this is also a book about how to cope and find hope. In spite of it all, I hope you can see that, dear reader. Because even under a starless sky on an empty road, there is always the light of the moon to guide your way.
Nicholas Ulanowski
Chicago, Illinois
November 28th, 2018
Table of Contents
Forward
I Fear Nothing
As the Moonlight Shines
Lunar Eclipse
Moonlight Daze
In the Eyes of The Damned
Funeral for My Sanity
A Hermit Woodsman’s Ingenious Plan
Alive with Dark Eyes
Uptown Urchin
Just a Poem I Wrote
Lost and Stranded
Searching for What to Decide
Mental Chaos
A Hopeless Daydreamer
Heathen Bitchboy
Fuck It All
Self-Inflicted Asphyxiation
Last Words
Wondering to Myself
Trapped
A Man Named Dan
Broken Light
Under the Night Sky Alone
Nighttime Coffee
Someday, Some Way
Blackness
Cold Winter Night Life
Garlic Soup for The Soul
(Includes a watercolor illustration by Kristin Palmer)
Dark and Twisted
Cross my Heart and Hope to Die
Officer
The Next Destination
My Answers Await
Nowhere
Skull Crack
Soylent White Society
The ‘Line’ Joke
Just Do It, Sex Sells
Like Hounds in a Pack
Put it Down for The Discarded
Solitary Confinement
I Should Be Dead (Or: Uptown Urchin, pt2
)
A Time for Rejoicing (Or: Uptown Urchin, pt3
)
Lycanthropic Endeavor
Mental Rhyme / Mental Song
A Dead Schizophrenic Jew
Better Than Suicide
Inferiority Complex
Carriage of Death
Life on The Run
Deep Inside
Shakespearean Joker
Here, Down Out
At A Party in Hell
Roadside Story
All Saints Day
Officer Santa
You Better Watch Out
Nomad
Dr. Seuss Was Gangsta
Sex, Drugs, Power and Murder
On the Down Low
Habits
Know Smoking
Cataclysmic
Snitches
Schwag