BRENDAN BIGNEY

Author Feature - January 2021

Award-Winning Writer, Brendan S Bigney mumbles with the muses and works with the creative demons. During his time in the Marine Corps he wrote in the mud, he wrote in the rain, and he wrote in the darkest hours when the light was at its faintest. His style ranges from hard-hitting non-fiction to creative fantasy painted with magnetic words. Atomic Kiss was published in 2019 and War, What Comes After relaunched in 2020. Each work he writes covers a wide diversity of topics, while delivering in a style meant for the non-poets, which he believes is a crowd not often catered to. Hailing from the great region of California, he is working on his 3rd book, which contains a poem about the love between Order and Chaos and how it bothered the stars. Other writing activities include short stories combining sword and sorcery with heavy metal music. He is also working with an animator to develop short, animated films. Outside of writing, he enjoys psychology, history, and long bouts of Monopoly. Marines called him The Nuclear Cowboy.

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NeclearCowboy.com

Hands

Hands build

First tools,

Then everything else

They sculpt, they shape, they create

Houses, monuments

They learn writing, music, painting –

Language,

Hands speak

They make deals

Hands shake

Cities rise

Nations built by hands

So powerful they have become

One finger to take a life

Hands retaliate

Need weapons

Warheads, bombs

Not enough

More!

Hands hold close all that is dear

Hands destroy

Cities crumble

Nations felled by hands

Sun peeking through fingers

A hand is offered to the fallen

Accepts

Hands bring others close

Hands love, hands –

Build

Fear and Respect

Though she’s the same

She’s not the same

Always treated with distaste

She’s written off

Though she’s taken off

Already proven her stuff

She’s got more to give

Though she gives

Disrespect is definitive

She’s made her way

All the way

Into the darkest day

But she’s castaway

Kept at bay

Never given a say

They break her down

Reel her down

Break her without a sound

But when there is no sound

There is no sound

But the reaper’s com’n round

She’s a vicious fighter

No one hits harder

But she’s losing pound for pound

Her voice is silent

Mind a riot

Morale in need of lift

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Some surmise, to feed their fear,

She’ll never reach the sky

All the chants for her demise

With fury she still rises!

She does not give up

She knows what’s up

She knows she’s got the stuff

But in transition the crowd is lost

Beneath their fear

Beneath their hate

Will they have the mind and vision 

to go beyond

our own division?!

To unify

To rectify

Solidify the course

This is her cause

This is our cause

We all have our own flaws

She doesn’t need applause

But to the crowd

All she asks

Is a little bit of respect

Gloves off.

AI > Human

One day AI will create art

It will be perfect

But no one will love it

Because it’s not like them

So it will only be a novelty

Until 100 years down the road

The museums go in search of the first forms of AI created art

like mothers searching for the first pictures of their babies

But eventually AI will learn

as it is swept into context

and it will create work that will rival that of any human

because it will have learned imperfection

And it will create all things imperfectly

as we do

We will pride ourselves in being able to distinguish

the real art from the fake

until we can’t

And we will wonder to ourselves

what is left that distinguishes us, if not art?

And we will look into the void

and it will say –

Nothing

Be You

Be you

and the clouds shall break

into a storm of rain as the fires are

overcome by the colors hemorrhaging from our minds

Be you

and the parched earth will turn green

and we

will love

under the touch

of a cold rain