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AIN’T DONE YET! is a collection of 40 brand new poems, all written after the release of his last book, CAPTAIN BEEFHEART NEVER LICKED MY DECALS OFF, BABY. It’s got an incredible introduction by the legendary musician Jeff Cotton, who played guitar on Trout Mask Replica, the album John wrote about in that last book.

The new poems are still short and right to the point, as he doesn’t have the need to try and show off in the writing, mostly because poems (by definition) are really supposed to be about saying as much as you can in as few words as possible. The poems are sometimes dark and almost noir in attitude and direction, but always, always, always try to have a gallows humor about them. While John can’t say he’s whistling past the graveyard, he’s at the very least maybe kinda sorta humming.

Sample poems

by the way,

he never
cheated on her,

but the words
Barker vs Barker

made
it clear
that whatever
he thought it was
that passed for love

didn’t.

~~

he smelled

of age
and the river
where he grew up
and fished as a kid…

he
smelled of hurt
and regret and the kind
of failure no amount of whiskey

could
ever remove.

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