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By 1988 i had released my second and third volumes, A Month with Marie and Growing still. Another 100 copies of Just Scribbled words was released as well. It was time to open Works with Words. Of course, i had failed to search out a career, so money was always too tight. This was in a small, basement room in Belfast, Maine. If i remember correctly, one person came to see me...or was it two?

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Those volumes were released while i tended tables at a flea market in Searsport, Maine. The folk there taught me about auctions, and i was off to build an empire....

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I did find that i was not up to building an empire with auction equipment i did not know how to operate and a pocket full of change...

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Just about this time i got my first word processor. Wow, was i stylin'!!! Of course, an old royal in the office/other side of the kitchen was just...quaint. I thought the feedback from my first three books of poetry meant that i was "supposed" to be a writer. (The Endless Trip To Pluto was a story i started and Jimmy Olsen took over, once he had found it in my fifth grade schoolroom desk. (No, never even saw him near a phone booth!) Other stories were outright all action or pornish, but there i went!) I don't know what happened to the Smith-Corona script, electric typewriter i had gotten for running a yardsale, but that was a favorite for quite a while!

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After that, the most important part of my living accomidations was the "office". Where i started and started and started new books...

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Had to have all kinds of space for piles of paper, "I was a writer."

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Man, the books i had going; The Warrior, The Prince And The Priest, Nightmares, The Blood Cult, Future Nightmare, Vienna; loaf #158 (that was tough writing, you know what crumbs do?) and more and short stories...

One day i finally quit being a writer and threw out a half full trash bag of novel attempts...

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One of the greatest things craftwork ever gave me was this piece here, of my daughter, at nineteen days old and the poem i had written then. Oh, how i have loved being in my office and seeing this plaque over the years! It wasn't like the whole poet thing was all failures, just when i tried to mix money making into it. But that did not stop me! LOL

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Another plaque i love having on my office wall. My brother and i once lived in Manchester, New Hampshire and only saw each other a few times a year. But that was way back... Now we are karaoke fanatics. Plus he trained me power lifting, which got those "bean pole" echoes out of my head completely; gained about seventy-five pounds in twenty-two months training under hos toutelage; my first work-out had a set of five squats with one-hundred-five pounds, twenty-two months later i did twenty-six with three-hundred pounds (not all at once, i think it was eight, six..., but i refused to drop to singles; i was afraid i would be at it all afternoon if i did, and i am basically lazy...).

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The first Poetry Palace Gift Shop was in a second floor space in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire. I had learned a LOT, but was still a pauper poet with big dreams...

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With the little money i had to invest, i thought i did a pretty good job of getting some Special Order samples up on the freshly painted over panel walls...

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There were dozens of mini plaques on the walls. My daughter had her own wall of mini plaques of the poems her father sorta forced her into writing. I hope she has forgotten that by now!

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I tried to keep myself busy, or not completely bored out of my skull, failingly, by beginning to build an actual stone palace, with stained glass windows and all! The "palace" was never completed, as i closed up shop near the end of November, terrified that the Christmas season might make me enough money to keep going, and i had had enough. Thinking back, it might have lasted longer had i been online, with posting sites and such available...

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So, the Palace died, again... And i went out to see if i could find a way to make enough to give my stuff away... LOL Sometimes my brilliance just amazes me!!!

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So i sat home depressed until April and went for a job driving a dump truck in a gravel pit. I almost did not apply, as there were some forty drivers trying out, and all i had ever driven was a five speed, with a split rearend. But i said, I'm gonna try! One of my co-drivers, years before, had taught me to double clutch, when they wouldn't replace my throw-out bearing... So, i climbed into this big old dump truck with an eighteen speed and double clutched my way around the pit, emptying a couple of bins, and they said i shifted better than all the other guys, though they had never seen someone double clutch. At ninety loads, plus, a day, i learned how to shift without the clutch fairly soon, so my leg wouldn't fall off! Can you believe they hired a guy who looked like that?

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luckypress.com released Veracious Verse in 2001, my sister being highly involved helped, dramatically, i am sure, and did not want me to be a dead (non-writing, which i had been for ten years, give or take a poem or three) poet, so i got online and found poetry chatrooms. I bought the present ppgs site, thinking it was like my drop and drag AOL Hometown, but it was just space i could not use. So i bought ppgs.biz, a drop and drag site. The chat room experiences led me to thoughtcafe. Thoughtcafe led me to Heidi and offering to publish her on my site, with real-time chapbooks. Which led to the Palace Poets series.

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Huan Lingyun was at out table on a cruise. I have been giving out the remainer of my Veracious Verse copies to dinner companions and captains for a couple of years. Well, a while after arriving home i received a package from China. It was the above poem (20 x 72 inches), hand written by Huan Lingyun! Wow! I still need to find a wall for it and get it framed, but what an unbelievable "thank you"!

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That same trip the Captain invited the wife and i to dinner. I told him it was the highlight of my career (i had not yet received the package from China). The next day he gave us a tour of the bridge.

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The Palace Poets series was growing and growing. Above i am holding volume XIII in my fairly cluttered office/shop/karaoke studio/storage facility.

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So, i was back at it with the plaques. I wanted to look good for the first craft fair (well, in almost twenty years, anyway...), so i got me some violet and purple cloth and a needle, thread and thinble...

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I loved putting the black roses with readers' favorite romantic poem; "a dozen roses"; #36

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The sign was purchase with my tax return that followed the closing of Poetry Palace Gift Shop. a little late, but i still love it, and it hangs in the office/...

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I had been grabbing all the free furniture i could find for the office for almost several years; it is my one room on this planet and covers a LOT of ground, so to say... This picture was before i got one of those great big office desks, this double piece of furniture with glass from draws (18 of them) and a could more bookcases. At this point, i am very limited as to what else i can put in this room.

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I was ready, after interest but no sales at a couple of craft fairs, to go retail. The only store i could find to put the rack in was an hour from home, and i work/commute well over seventy hours a week during the long peak of my season, so this never got off the ground, either...

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The comb binding machine i got was such a treasure!!! Now i could make calendars!!! I had Valentine's Calendars, Birthday Calendars, Assorted Calendars and others!!! Wow! Off and running!!

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I also made note cards with my poetry and that of the Palace Poets. Each cards was bi-folded, displaying poetry on the front and inside flap, all the copyright information on the back (making it a one sided print) and a full sheet of writing space once opened.

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I thought the stationary was a good idea; one page just like a note card along with four pages that had the rose/quill logo faded onto them... Of course, online folk don't do much letter writing, and the five page thing seemed small to me, a poet who had written fifty page letters, frequently...

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The Sopranos of Song

Now one of my favorite ways of celebrating poetry is by singing classic rock! Yes, i am a total karaoke-head! There is a 400 watt Peavey in the other room and over 4500 songs to sing. My brother, to my left, Bob, to his left, and i spend quite a few Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons celebrating in this way! I also do karaoke shows on the side, but just a few becuase they can be so a hassle... But, with a brother and two sister who sing, family reunions are a blast!

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My brother, who was shorter than me, gave me this jacket. Being the resorceful guy i am, i cut the legs off a pair of jeans and extended the Arms. since then, after power lifting, i took the whole thing apart and added a lot more pieces of those jeans. Then just this past week, after no power lifting and sitting in my dump truck a lot, i added a zipper, to gain a couple more inches.

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One laid off winter, a few years ago, to keep busy without over spending, i built Kamp Karaoke, in the living room ( one inch equals ten feet +/-). It consisted of the "castle" (which could be changed to "palace" at any time ;)), four main buildings, forming a crossroads and fifteen different camps. Finally the wife told me i had to give her the livingroom rug back, so i stored it in the office/.... Until spring, when i threw it out.

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Oh, i did get to a point where i give away copies of my Collected Works, Seriously Edited (148 pages, comb bound) on vacations. I could probably afford to give away more if my wife didn't drag me into the casino so much when we cruise...



So, i've been going back and forth between here and the livingroom, where i am putting straps on a case i made for holding my two window planters of karaoke discs, that i made out of the case for a dog pillow to ease the travel of the discs to Maine for my Mom's seventyith celebration and Screamin' Tom Karaoke shows, while this slow dial-up loads stuff... But, that is for another page altogether!

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"My mind is like a city of one way streets

all leading to its center.

Poems and parts of poems

and parts of possible poems

stampede frantically

in Twilight Zone redundancy

down each street

and i live

in the dust above the collision

unable

or willing

to control the bits of their shrapnel

as they tear through me

writing all that i can hold on to

long enough to slate.

I am not sure if i messed up the blueprints

or the construction

or if the city was already there waiting for me.

My best days are when i scribble frantically

or share those scribblings.

I guess that makes this one of my best days!!!





Thanx"





thomas beal

Thank You, Again, For Your Visit!