GainerBoyd

Bill Gainer is a storyteller, humorist, poet, and a maker of mysterious things. He earned his BA from St. Mary’s College, and his MPA from the University of San Francisco. He is the publisher of the PEN Award winning R. L. Crow Publications, and is the ongoing host of Red Alice’s Poetry Emporium (Sacramento, CA). Gainer is internationally published, and known across the country for giving legendary fun filled performances. His work is not for sissies. Visit him in his books, at his personal appearances, or at his website: billgainer.com.

"You can't say enough about Bill Gainer's poetry. He is a keen observer armed for gentle combat with words and how they shine the light on our sense of being. A True Story is a powerful gathering destined for many readers."


Neeli Cherkovski, author of Elegy for My Beat Generation

Counting Kills

I’ve never thought
of a balloon
as a toy ...
entertainment maybe.
The best part of which
is the popping
and sometimes
waiting for one 
to disappear
into the clouds.
Wondering
if an airplane
ever hit one
and if the pilot
remembering the war
still paints insignias
across his fuselage
counting
kills. 

Ramingo's Porch, 2020

Thinking about Stuff

It’s quiet tonight.
Everyone you love
gone to sleep
left you to it.

So you just think about
the stuff
that you think about
now and then
when you’re alone.

You know
it all means nothing.

Less than nothing

but it’s yours –
to worry about
so you do.

Dispatches from Quarantine, 10/1/2020

Todd Boyd currently lives and writes in his hometown, Sacramento, California. He has called Spokane (Wa), Altus (Ok), Stinson Beach (Ca), Florence (Ore), Corvallis (Ore), Portland (Ore), Juneau (Ak), Oakland (Ca), and an "off the grid" left-bank Arizona home, home at one time or another, all of which have provided food for thought, love, lore. He has been writing for fifty years.

He survived as a carpenter, railroad worker, and a social studies teacher before he retired for good.
He also defines himself as an agnostically oriented spiritual believer in Hope as well as in second, third, and fourth chances because there’s no future in believing only in one's own infallibility, no matter how much attention/notoriety he gets.

His writing has been published in alternative presses and small publications in the towns he lived in, most no longer alive. Poet News, Rattlesnake Press, News and Review, Pinchpenny, Voices

He has been taken on some long rides down life’s road and he has driven some too.

Self-published author of one novel (Marat, Untrue Loves), four chapbooks-(Shark Poems, Carol’s Adeline Street Café and Other Poems, Panacea, and Don’t Let the Rust Eat Away Your Lust), one book of short stories, (Allred’s Short Stories), one journal of personal history (The Election of 2012- A Year of Living Inside the Definition of Insanity). Currently working on a Journal-Messages From the Center of the Universe, Railroad Stories, an anthology of writings from a critique group, and a five-part second novel called Dinosar City (that is the correct spelling in order to protect the innocent at the real Dinosaur City) and an anthology of the Sacramento Thursday Writers Group ( Confluence).

He was a radio producer (KUBU-96.5LP-FM) for ten years, host of a venue at Son of a Bean Coffee and Sacramento Poetry Center for six years, blogger, website manager, and visual artist working with recycled materials.

Some of his work can be found at www.writersontheair.com and at my blog- www.saylavproductions.com.

The Cowboy and the Hippie Girl

She was so apathetic, ethereal, spiritually wide/ like the great plains/ he loved so much/ he was more cowboy/ mad and edgy/ like staying too long under the open sky/ you’d wonder how they ever got along/
she said/staying alive /in an imaginary world/ is pure luck/ like 

every time she came to a spiritualization realization/about life/ on her own/ she discovered/ it was already part of a two thousand year old philosophy/tradition/religion/ somehow that made a difference to her/somebody beating her to it/ 

I know what you mean, he sympathized/ that was one thing she loved about him/ he understood/ he went on/ it’s about sudden stampedes and high noons/ she couldn't agree more/ that's what he loved about her/ she thought about how things work/

she played ravi shankar/ paul horn in taj mahal/ the fireplace crackled/ glowed/ cast their shimmering shadows against the wall/ life swayed and flickered like sufi dancers/ only they could hear the coyotes voices out there/ where/ Siah bazi and the joy makers played/ beyond her ethereal dreams/ his cowboy ways/ more reasons why she adored him/ and him her.