No new poems will appear on the Mule until October 15. But when they start up, look out. We have some great poems coming. And coming and coming and coming.
The call is still out for holiday (December, winter, Christmas) poems.
And please remember, all poems published by the Dead Mule are left-justified. [...]

Southern Legitimacy Statement
I spent the better part of 1978 working on a Spruance class destroyer at the Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi. While venting at a local hole-in-the-wall, the name of which I can in no way recall, I met a slide pepper by the name of Linda Lutts. We had sex on the kitchen floor in her mamma’s trailer, with her coonhound, Roxy, three inches from my face, and her step-brother, KB, lying in the dirt outside beneath a 1968 Plymouth Valiant, assisted by a hundred watt drop lamp. I am eighty-seven percent sure I didn’t leave kin down there, given the distractive tendencies of bloodshot eyes, puddles of drool, and sleeveless step-brothers, but I’ve always wondered, given my luck and the thirteen percent chance I did.

In case you need it, I also spent a week in the town of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, researching lineage from the Hurricane Plantation on Davis Bend. Mr. Milburn Crowe, God rest his soul, was a gracious host and his photo archive, all contained in boxes and random albums at the time, was a tribute to the heritage and tradition of the community. At present, I live in Cincinnati, a city on a river where the north meets the south, and while the northern banks of the Ohio River may have been a first stop on the Underground Railroad, Cincinnati has always considered itself a southern city. Just ask ‘em.