I began writing the poems and songs in this book around March 18th, 2020. Too recently I had made a trip to the Emergency Room at Saint Francis in Tulsa Oklahoma, because my blood pressure went to 190 / 135. After an examination I was offered a grim prognosis. I had asymptomatic high blood pressure with no single obvious cause. I was informed I could have a fatal heart attack, or stroke at any moment, then I was sent on my way. I was pretty certain I was going to die, or be debilitated in the immediate future.

Then suddenly the entire world seemed to be dying as well. A strange virus was spreading across the world, and all businesses, schools, and government services were shutting down.

Apparently the world had also received its own grim prognosis, and had been sent on its way.

What led to my personal sad state of affairs was a lifetime of small bad decisions, and recklessness. I had acquired lots of little debts to my well being, and at 53 the bill had come due, and I had bankrupted my health. For the last five years I had worked as a professional musician, and booking agent for bands in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area. A career in music is a lifestyle, and there is no way around drinking every night with venue owners, going out to watch for new talent, and working 16 hour days. Living on junk food, 40 ounce beers, coffee, caffeine pills, energy drinks, stress, physically moving musical gear, promoting bands, producing music, selling... Then one day you notice you have a hard time getting up the stairs, breathing is difficult you feel emotionally numb all the time, your relationships are vacant, but you know that the next gig, or show is going to deliver your redemption for a lifetime of struggle. You hope that finally someone will realize your talent, then BOOM! You die. Or find yourself closer to it, than you would want to be.

Hunter S. Thompson famously said, "The Edge...There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." But I can tell you Thompson got it wrong. One does not have to die to know all about the edge. Being dead is the easiest part. When you survive day to day, and moment to moment knowing you are going to die you know the edge and what is on the other side better than anyone who careened over the edge into oblivion. When you live on the edge you have plenty of time to contemplate death in its relation to life and of the nuanced meanings of death.

That is the perspective that these poems were written from. They cover a wide variety of topics from love, to the war on drugs, to cancel culture, gluttony, suicide, relationships with the living, and the dead, in the age of online social media, and the freedom created by the loss of all things of value.

I offer you, gentle reader, these 23 poems in the hope that you experience some emotions and think some thoughts you might not otherwise have. I offer these poems, so you might find some useful wisdom in my words from the edge.