Ray Sweatman

Books

Fiction

Get ready for a wild ride as country-rock pioneer, Gram Parsons, struggles to survive, both physically and spiritually at the Lost Highway Motel.As his life flashes before him, several colorful characters try to help him find the meaning of life, including the ghosts of his parents, a strange policeman, a couple of transcendentalists, and the animated animals from “Hee Haw.”With rich allusions to both popular and classical culture, this music biographical fiction is at turns hilarious, poetic, tragic, and thought-provoking.Available on Amazon and Kindle now. For a limited time only, Kindle ebook is free and paperback at publishing cost only.InterviewHow did you decide to write about Gram Parsons? Were you drawn to his music or his story?I loved Gram’s music long before I knew of his crazy story. I was intrigued when I read about it. So I looked to see what was out there, and I found a movie that was so bad that it made me think I could do better. He certainly deserves better. I hope I’ve done justice to Gram’s spirit and his music. He should be remembered from his musical legacy and not the sensationalistic aspects of his ending. If you're interested in more, check out these fine biographies of Gram, “Twenty Thousand Roads” and “Hickory Wind” by David Meyer and Ben-Fong Torres, respectively.You’ve assembled an interesting cast of characters – Henry David Thoreau, Buster Keaton, the cast of “Hee Haw” – as well as ghosts, angels and musical legends. It’s an intricate mix of fact and fiction. Talk about how you made those choices.Some were actually in his life, so they were natural. Others are hard to explain. I guess it’s a free association process, and a way to tell the story of the spirit in lieu of long inner monologues. Hopefully, in the end, they all fit as little pieces of the whole. And if not, I urge you to heed the advice of the wise “Animal House” frat boys: ‘Was it over when Germany bombed Pearl Harbor?’ ‘Germany?’ ‘Forget it, he’s rollin’.’It’s a tragic story, yet you manage to infuse it with humor. Was that tough to do?No, dark humor often comes natural to me, a bit of a transcendental coping method, if you will. At times, I had to tone it down to get the right balance. If it were a double album, these ‘songs’ would be the rockers and the sad ones, the lyrical ballads.How did your background as a poet help you tell Gram’s story?Well, I think I’d originally envisioned it as short chapters (or poems) that would be complete on their own and yet still part of the whole. However, we’ll settle with ‘songs’ on a double album. I thought I was going to tell a straight narrative but my free associative ways and the love of the surreal (techniques I often employ in my poetry) seemed to say otherwise. I probably owe that love more to Bob Dylan than any literary figure.The Rolling Stones are still going strong in their 80s. Had he survived that overdose, do you think Gram would have had such musical longevity?The solo album “GP” he did with Emmylou just before he died sounds as fresh as it did 50 years ago. I have to agree with Keef Richards, ‘he could’ve been as big as anyone.’It’s quite a playlist, so many genres. Your writing style, or styles, is also a mix of tempo and texture. Was that to help illustrate Gram’s passionate belief in the melding of traditions as Cosmic American music?I hadn’t consciously thought of that, but I like the sound of it. His vision of cosmic american music would indeed be all inclusive and greater than just him.Speaking of cosmic, you reference the “Oversoul.” Can you talk a bit about how that figures in the book and Gram’s story?The “Oversoul” is the concept of one the founders of Transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson. HDT, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller were some of the others. It’s a very cosmic, very American concept. They all loved music. Quite a few words attributed to Gram are reminiscent of Thoreau.As I see it, the Oversoul is that which is greater than ourselves which connects us to the Oneness in all living things, when attuned to it. Gram transcended through music, argued for that cosmic melding in music, pioneered it. I’ve always been a member of the Transcendental Church of Rock ‘n Roll. Perhaps there is some cosmic American connection there.What’s the main thing you’d like readers to take away from “Cosmic American Rhapsody”?They immediately buy out Starbucks and replace them with Transcendental clubs. Or at the very least be at One with that delicious but overpriced cup of coffee.

Poetry Books

Posin' in the Nude in the Woods for Dali

The joy and pain of love and life captured in short bursts, by turns funny, poignant, musical, surreal, magical and full of longing and imagination.Order here.

From the anthemic What Poetry Means to Me to the reflective title poem, these pieces roar and float and come to life. With their keen sense of rhythm and unique imagery, they are concerned as much with sound as they are with language. Entertaining and poignant, their overall theme is trying to transcend the plight of the transitory.Order here.Satirical Fiction

Written in the style of Ambrose Bierce's 'The Devil's Dictionary', it is a political satire mainly in Donald Trump's own word. Volume One covers his bid for presidency and through early 2017.Order from Amazon here.

Praise
and Sample Poems

"This month's winners, oddly enough, all have something to do with sound and song and the process of seeing. The subjects travel synaesthetically. The first place winner, "Mondegreen" is a raucous wonderful rant that reads a little like a Philip Levine poem with a Barbara Hamby and Andre Breton flourish: it is a seeming narrative which picks up momentum and makes sudden surrealist lyrical turns as it moves forward "like all things that won't be held captive." It's a wild, dark-humor ride in a rowboat on the ocean with no oars!" --Elena Karina ByrneRead Mondegreen from Posin' in the Nude in the Woods for Dali
here.

IBPC Poetry Awards
October 2005
Judge Frank WilsonFirst Place
little love tattoos
by Ray Sweatman from Nothing Lit Can Leave
Salty Dreams Poetry Boardwhen we dreamed the same dream at the exact same time
the face of Big Ben cracked and smiled stuffed cuckoos
came unstuck exploded & flew the plank all over Harold Lloyd's latest prank,
broken only by the fall of all the walls from China to Jerusalem, feathers everywhere, made real
by our authentic preconscious sounds as real as red apples coming down,
made to flee because of their redness, dropping from the perfect sky where you & I
nibble at the common dream of skin shared, peeling away the illusions
that we are somehow separate, building little love tattoos to mark the light
and air and all things above the laws of gravity, (for when the world returns
& oh how it always does, heavy & absurd but never quite absurd enough
to remind us that we are) yours a dancing marionette, mine a string of violet,
yours a Popeyed sailor man, mine a church key of oceanic proportions, opening
waves & waves gathering 'round the mouth, spitting out the seeds don't doubt
but the dream it is as fluid as the bed wherein we lie as changeling as
the changeling sky growing growing grow! spinning whoa whoa whoa
I thought I heard Tom Jones what's new pussycat whoa whoa whoa
and you say Land Ho!heal me cure me heal me of this feverish love spinning up and off the curb
and I say as head turns and flies your now crotchless panties in my eyes:
but darling...we've both had the cure and it's marriage.Oh love, can't we be content with this transitory madness come here & stand
on these pheromoneal airs with the wind & clouds & all these angel feathers
swirling 'round: let Harold hang from the weight of ceremonial responsibility
let the staircase burn don't try to save me take what's left of this skyscraper
let the stars prance & melt in your microwave as a bum to a harlot turns
your cheeks the sweetest scarlet I love it when you wear my curtains!kiss me, bite me, make your silly marks, make that chimney sweep
work in the morning.