New Release

Nightscape in Empire & The Talent Poems by Terry Simons.

The founder of Round Bend Press Books brings forth another volume of poetry exploring the political and social plight of the common man. In the first set of poems, "Nightscape in Empire," Mr. Simons explores universal themes of resistance and personal choice, themes of political and personal upheaval that play out in the ordinary acts of of every day living and survival. These are protest songs rooted in rebellion and an ultimately hopeful vision of what Mr. Simons imagines a more just world would look like. "The Talent Poems" is a fictional narrative centered on the lives of a small group of small-town citizens in Talent, Oregon. In creating the characters that inhabit the town and his poems, the writer experiments with archetypes and a genre storytelling form that is in equal parts imaginative biography and social satire.--Buddy Dooley

Order it here. $12.99 + shipping.  Cover photo by RP Thomas.


Tex’s Guitar

Tex played
his old Yamaha
now and again.
For ten years he’d
been a country
musician working
out of Midland;
roadhouses mainly,
playing Waylon and
Willie covers, with
some early Merle and
Earle thrown in.
That old guitar had
saved his life, he
told Lizzie Delay
the night he met
her in a juke joint
outside San Antone.

He was alone on the
bandstand when Lizzie
touched his hand; as
he picked the notes
of a George Jones song
Lizzie began to sing along,
and damn if she didn’t
sound a whole lot like
Loretta Lynn.
The next day Lizzie
joined the tour—this
was back in ’04, when
Lizzie was 25,
and Tex felt lucky
just to be alive.


Ted’s Bad Dream

The wag Ted drank his fill
at Talent's Tex’s Tavern
before heading up the hill
to his house on Deemer Lane,
where he lived alone with
his demons and bad dreams.

In his old life he’d had a wife,
but that was a long time ago.
She’d ran off with a man named
Sam with whom Ted served in
Vietnam; his bad nights had
since gotten worse and he’d

Laid a few mines down near
the wire, loaded his revolver
and stayed under cover until
dawn, when he peered outside
and saw his neighbor Glenn
Nguyen mowing his lawn.  Oh,

Ted thought it odd—a sign from
God?—and went to his kitchen to
make coffee, before thinking again
and finally taking to bed with his
gun at his head; he spun the chamber,
pulled the trigger, and lived.

from "The Talent Poems"