It is with sadness that Kathy and I inform you that Ralph Jr. passed away on
February 2, 2006 at age 40. preliminary indications are cardiac arrest.
As you may know, as a quadriplegic he was always subjected to respiratory and circulatory problems, as well as a compromised immune system, pneumonia and other issues.
He held on for four years and remained productive, editing his newsletter, and preparing a cartoon book for publication. He enjoyed music, reading and keeping in touch with his poetry friends. We were very proud of him for persevering in the face of great odds. At last he is at peace.
Our family thanks all of you for your friendship to Ralph and to us over the years.
Ralph Sr.
Lucid Moon
By Ralph Haselmann Jr.
Hampton, NJ
Out here in the wilderness, there is no sun, there are no city lights, only the lucid moon and the pulsating stars above, shining their ancient light from long ago galaxies far, far away...
We become one with the night, moving through the refrigerator air like a bird that knows no boundaries, soaring ever higher on the silent wings of freedom
As we step out into the blackness, into the tomorrowall of night, our hearts beat faster with every breath, taking us higher, leaving us high on life
As I reach out to touch you, a spark jumps from the fingertips of your soft, warm, delicate hands, igniting my world like the Creation, like God touching Adam
We hear the faint zen songs of the nightbird, the typewriter chirring of the crickets, the lusty bark of the lonely horny dog, the rustle of the deer playing hide and seek in the woods and stopping only to check us out
And you beside me, playing tag with my heart, filling me with joy, pushing and pulling me into this grand adventure called life, moving me forward through the night
Walking through daydreams, sleeping through nightmares, chasing the rivers of the wind, running with the hunted like a pair of wild wolves, a voracious appetite for adventure, a feral feeling of wanderlust that only you can truly satisfy
Travelling across America in all its terrible beauty, hitchhiking through history, the miles of highways and open roads a typewriter ribbon of future stories we could tell, the grand orange canyons a mountain range in reverse, the black sand along the shore tiny chips off the old block of the volcano lava lamp flow
The Pali Gap winds whistle and tickle the hair on our bodies, and I want to run naked with you through the waterfalls misting up the mountains, baptizing our souls in this great outdoor amphitheater, this giant outdoor shower steamroom
I feel alive out here, I feel myself flowing fancy free, away from the noise and cancer of the city, at peace with my soul, at one with the earth, in symbiosis with you and nature
I feel what it must have been like to walk among the flowers of evil in the Garden of Eden, and I want to gently nibble your apple and taste your forbidden fruit!
And I want to let the ultraviolet light of the lucid moon shine down all over our naked bodies, I want to let it light our way like a nightlight illuminating the wandering spirit in our souls...
For Arthur Rimbaud and River Phoenix, my cosmic soulmates!
Ralph Haselmann Jr edits the critically lauded Lucid Moon Review Poetry Website, www.lucidmoonpoetry.com, which has been called the best poetry website on the internet, a valuable resource for poets, and is highly rated by Google. After a near fatal car accident which has left him paralyzed, he is rededicating his life to promoting and publishing the works of others and himself. For more info, read Ralphy’s bio page on his website. He can be reached at ralphylucidmoon@yahoo.com , www.lucidmoonpoetry.com
WELCOME TO THE LUCID MOON REVIEW POETRY
WEBSITE! Winter 2006
Lucid Moon Review Poetry Website , Ralph Haselmann Jr., editor Morris Hills Center, Room 427 W, 77 Madison Ave., Morristown, NJ 07960
(973) 993-9744, ralphylucidmoon@yahoo.com , www.lucidmoonpoetry.com
This site is so great!! It helped me a lot on my poetry project, Good job!!
Howard Chan, casshyr@home.com Burnaby, BC Canada–
Ralph, I'm glad to read that you're making progress. The world of poetry is the worse for your absence. I know I speak for many poets and writers and we miss you. Keep fighting the good fight. You rem in an inspiration.
Matthew Sheahan, Fitzcarraldo72@aol.com , New York, NY USA
May the Moon only smile for you - May all Moonbeams softly heal you - May You soon be among us full of energy and poetry! May our world again shine with your poetic moonbeams! Ingeborg
WHAT’S
NEW PUSSYCAT?
NEW LUCID MOON REVEW POETRY WEBSITE POSTINGS Winter 2006
I’ve added new measures to each column to prevent spamming and unwanted messages. All seven of my public poetry columns are active guest books, and exist in cyberspace. Some inconsiderate assholes were spamming them and adding hundreds of messages without visiting the website. They were adding blank messages, plugging porn sites, and plugging their sites selling Viagra and other drugs. These unwanted messages were clogging up the site and scaring away my poet readers. Thanks to my web designer for implementing this measure in the guest books and solving this headache of a problem.
I’ve added new guidelines to the seven public poetry columns. Please proofread your poems and type in or copy and paste only your best poems directly into the seven public poetry columns. When you submit your poem, you will automatically be sent an email confirmation where you will be asked to click on a link to confirm your submission, and your poem will be added to the website. At the end of very month, I will remove objectionable poems. Please proofread and edit your poems before you finalize your submission.
Within the next few months I’d like to totally overhaul the archives and add interviews, poetry book reviews, movie and music reviews, articles, poems, and two cartoon booklets offering a sampling from my cartoon book, which will be professionally published next July (hopefully) I will also add revised guidelines in the FYI areas on the homepage. Good things are on the horizon.
A
MESSAGE FROM RALPHY FOR ALL MY FRIENDS Winter 2006
Well, we are entering the sixth year of my website, and it has received over 93,000 visitor hits and has reached tens of thousands of people, way more than my short - lived photocopied LucidMoon magazine did (1997 - 2000). Thanks to all my readers for their support, you make it all worthwhile. Special thanks to my crackerjack web designer, Scott Eisenberg, who’s turned out to be the most reliable, knowledgeable, and professional of the three web designers I’ve had (I go through web designers like rock bands go through drummers!). This is what Michael Basinski of The Hold poetry review website had to say of my Lucid Moon website:
This website is Ralph Hasselmann's new publishing realm. After 40 print issues of Lucid Moon, a billion sheets of paper, exhausting several photocopy machines, etc. and breaking the backs of many a mail carrier (lugging around the great Moon issues), it the LIT IT OF LUCID MOON: - the Zine - metamorphosed into this site - which is growing, expanding, hanging and mostly - well - yeah - it is growing - that is what Ralph does the best - that is combine it all and get it all out there - and not worry about this and that and well what about this poem - I mean - his gut is a trusted thing - like ice cream moon and howling dog tongues want it. So, MainMan! Ralph, has it together - plenty poems, him got reviews, interviews, broadside series, link to the Alpha BEATS! Tapes and joy, yes, such are the joys cause we are all girls and boys. No invisible worms allowed, no police on yaks, no pool closing the second week in September, no none of that, Stuff, what makes you mad. Here !!! Everything is Holy. Baseball is Holy. The Organ of Man is Holy. Click on it - willya! Jeez Loueez. Click. Fool Click. Cluck-cluck-cluck. Click click click. – Michael Basinski, The Hold
Wow! I’m speechless! Thanks, Michael!! I am more than proud to bring you this website!
THE HOMEPAGE UPDATE IS NOW EVERY QUARTER INSTEAD OF EVERY TWO MONTHS
I am now updating the homepage every three months instead of every two months due to a limited budget and time constraints. We cut our web design budget from $200 a month to $100 a month, just 2 ½ hours a month, not much time to work with, but I’ll try to add a lot to the Archives this year. I’ll save $40 a year by going quarterly. I hope that this isn’t too long of a wait between homepage updates.
THE NEWSLETTERS HAVE BEEN DISCONTINUED!
The Summer 2005 newsletter issue was the last of the newsletters. They were just too big, at 40+ pages, too expensive, and too time consuming. It ran for three years. I don’t like reading computer screens, I like holding and reading magazines. The idea for the newsletter was that you could print out the newsletter every three months, staple it, pass it around, and collect em all! You could print the cover with colored cartoon on thick stock paper and slap a blank thick stock paper on the back so your newsletter is more durable. Now that I am in the process of archiving all 12 issues, you can print out them all at your leisure. It’s another way of viewing the site. The material appears elsewhere on the site. I wanted a do - it - yourself publication, but it was too much work. I’ll just update the homepage every two months with a new color cartoon and message, and a new article, book review or interview in the archives. Everyone will just have to think of the entire website as an interactive newsletter
MY CARTOON BOOK
My cartoon book, Monster Cartoon Book should be hot off the presses next summer 2006. My volunteer, Diane, is graciously scanning it in this month. I’ll keep you posted on the progress. I sent my favorite cartoonist John Callahan my manuscript and he called me up and spoke to me for 10 minutes! Due to the sensitive nature of our conversation, I cannot reveal what we spoke about! He wrote a cool blurb for my cover: “”Ralph Haselmann Jr.’s cartoons are quirky and infectiously amusing!” John is a quad from a drunk driving accident, so we are learning to share our pain!!! John is the only famous person to answer my mail. Thanks John, for being human. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to Diane Mauro and Robbie Petras for volunteering to type up and scan in my manuscripts. I have a part time staff!
LUCID MOON FUNDRAISER AND SALE ON RALPHY'S BOOK
I'm pledging to give my parents half of my future profits and royalties from my books. All of the money from this fundraiser will help pay for the computer and my web designer. My two poetry books, Wounded Heart, NakedSoul (heartfelt romantic love poems) and Scattershot Haze (a tribute to the Beat poets, hippies and musicians of the 1950s and 1960s) are available for $16 and $4.95 postage from 1-888-7Xlibris, www.Xlibris.com, www.Amazon.com, www.BarnesandNoble.com, and www.Borders.com. I’m offering the books for $15 flat each if you buy it from me and I will eat the postage. You save $6. I will try to sign them, but I have to warn you that my handwriting is chicken scratch since my writing hand is paralyzed from my car accident! Each signature is different, a unique design, so collect them all!
I'm having a fundraiser to help pay for the computer my family was kind enough to buy me, and to pay for the exhorbitant cost of web design. I am now currently paying $40 an hour for web design. The pros charge $90 an hour. We have had to cut our monthly budget in half, to $100 a month, and you can’t get much done with just 2 ½ hours. I am asking you to please make a donation if you are at all happy with what you see. I feel uncomfortable asking for donations, bur now that I am unable to work due to a paralyzing car accident, I need donations to keep this poetry website going. Editing this website has been a labor of love for the past 5 years. So please, reach deep down within your heart to help make this a community effort. I want to add so much to this website, there is so much more work needed to fully realize its potential. You can help make this site better.
If you would like to make a donation to me, I would be greatly appreciated. Make checks out to: Ralph Haselmann, at the address below. I have l also added Paypal so you can pay by charge card. So far, the fundraiser and book sale are off to a modest start. Two kind, generous donors who wish to remain anonymous sent me a generous donation, my generous grandmother gave me a check for $100, and I sold $90 worth of books. Great!
Please make a donation through PayPal. Help keep this circus and traveling road show going!!!
Please make check out to Ralph Haselmann and send tp:
Lucid Moon Review Poetry Website Ralph Haselmann Jr., editor Morris Hills Center , Room 427 W
77 Madison Ave. , Morristown, NJ 07960
Warmest Wishes,
Ralph
Poetry Corner Ralph Haselmann Jr.
Starting From Clinton, Starting From New Hope
(You Can Still Go Home Again)
Let me love you tonight, we've got some time to kill
Put your arms around me, calm my racing heart, be still
Stroll w/ me through your garden where "lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed"
Play for me on your secret stereo where Song of Myself last boomed
Follow me down into the valley where Leaves of Grassare strewn
Walk w/ me at midnight beneath a glowing Lucid Moon
Let's ride a river raft out from the "poetry waterfall of the heart"
and Starting From Clinton, Starting From New Hope we can vow to make a new stat Let’s have some fun and take a hallucinogenic trip From Absinthe To Abyssinia And we can lose these Traveling Riverside Blues
How I wish to share my life with you any which way you choose Let’s Wade In The Water and go Dreaming Of Mercy Street Let’s be Dharma Bums and Moody Street Irregulars “In your eyes I am complete” Help me make it through A Sea son In Helllet our soul Illuminations be our guiding light Hold my hand as we say An American Prayer and make our way through the Wildernesstonight
share your emotions and desires w/ me
and know that It Catches Its Heart In My Hands Be my brother, my lover, my soulmate
let our hearts Howl out w/ joy so everyone understands
Come sit beside the campfire light w/ me
in the darkness of My Own Private Idaho
Let's flip the pages of our notebooks
so the poems come alive w/ an animated glow
Take me along w/ you into your deepest dreams
where The American Night night is full of open possibilities
And life is not all that it seems
Know that I'll always be here for you
Know that however far you choose to roam,
heading out On The Roadalways means
one day you can still go home again…
For Ross
Photo Scrapbook Ralph Haselmann Jr.
Oh ma! Mom (Kathleen) and me (Ralphy) at Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey shore, 1967, age two. Daddyo (Ralph Sr). and me at a park, 1966, age one . I just found these old pictures and I thought I’d share them with you!
Last Words Out Ralph Haselmann Jr.
Twenty five years without John Lennon. We miss you. Strawberry Fields Forevor…
The stupidity of the American people continues to amaze me. This past holiday season Christmas shoppers were ravenous and greedy. On Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the busiest Christmas shopping day of the year, people started lining up in the wee hours of the morning outside Walmart. In Orlando, Fla. a brawl broke out at the Walmarts there over a guy cutting in line. People were dialing 911 to report that other people were cutting into line. The doors opened at 4 a.m., and there was a mad dash for ipods, mp3 players, cell phones, laptops, and flat topped hdtv sets.. As I watched the footage of this brawl, I was incredulous. I’m so glad that I don’t have to put up with this Christmas shopping shit. This Christmas season an expected $435 billion will be spent on merchandise, food, postage and fuel. It’s mind boggling. Maybe Americans should spend their time and money feeding and housing the poor and homeless.
End Paper Adam Winnicky
Poetry Submission Guidelines (For Your Information)
Please do not send poetry books or cds for review as I am no longer doing them. All of my previous reviews are in the Lucid Moon Review Poetry Website Archives.
Please do not send poetry submissions, as all poetry columns have been converted to guest books and you can copy or paste one poem per column per week.
A Guide To The Areas On My Lucid Moon Review Poetry Website
"My critically lauded Lucid Moon Review Poetry Website (www.lucidmoonpoetry.com) has been called the best poetry website on the internet, a valuable resource for poets, and was rated highly by Google. There is much to check out, and I am always adding new postings to the home page, nmessage from Ralphy / newsletter archives, and main archives, so check it out often. The main archives has articles, book reviews, columns, essays and interviews by myself and other prominent small press poets.
There are art galleries, cartoon galleries, and galleries of the original 38 Lucid Moon Magazine covers from 1997 - 1999. I have added a color cartoon to each page to give it a children's book Illustration - like feel. There is an extensive Other Cool Website Links Page, with such links as links to poetry and art websites, poetry cyber cafes, on - line poetry magazines, Lesbigay resources, and writing resources.
There are also seven public poetry columns. They have all been converted to guest book-like areas, so you can enter one poem per column per week. There is Your Poetry Page' (any topic poems), Moon Beams (moon-themed poems), A Few Poems A Day Help Keep The Psychiatrist Away (topical poems), Poetry, Essays and Lectures, Dissect A Poem (where you discuss your poem's meaning, line by line), Quotable Poetry Quotes (where you post your favorite literary quotes), and Jokes About Art, Literature. Music and Poetry. There is also an extensive guest book and letters column with more ways to express yourself.
I have had to discontinue the quarterly homepage newsletter which was too big at 40+ pages, too time consuming, and too expensive to post at 5 hours / $200. The newsletters ran from 2002 -2005. Each of the 12 issues that I managed to complete consisted of a new color cartoons by me on the cover, my contact informatioation, different quotes each issue praising my website drawn from my guest books, a Lucid Moon cartoon drawn by NYC illustrator Nina Bogin and scripted by me,a Message from Ralphy, poems, short stories, articles and book reviews. The idea was that you could print out the newsletter every three months, staple it, pass it around, and collect em all! I am in the process of archiving them all, so you can print them out at your leisure. It’s another way of viewing the world. Now everybody will just have to view the entire website as an interactive newsletter. There is much more on display that a 40 page newsletter can encapsulate..
I am just updating the homepage every three months, with new cartoons, quotes, a message from me, a rundown of new postings in the archives, a poem by me, and photos of me and my family. This homepage will serve as an abbreviated newsletter and will be archives in the message from from Ralphy / newsletter archives..
My Lucid Moon Review Poetry Website is a virtual reality amusement park of the mind!" -- Ralph Haselmann Jr. editor of Lucid Moon Review Poetry Website and voted by Cedar Hill Review in 1997 Editor of Year and The Hardest Working Editor in the Small Press.
Ralph Haselmann Jr's Lucid Moon Review Poetry Magazine The Web Site officially opened on November 3rd, 1999, the fifth anniversary of the passing on of my beloved grandfather Theodore R. Mackoul. The site is dedicated to him and to my beloved close friend Mark Waser, who passed away November 20th, 1981. I dedicate this web site and my poetry and art to their memory.
On October 8, 2001 I was in a horrible, serious near-fatal car accident. I am now paralyzed below the waist and in my right writing hand. Remarkably, I can use a mouse pad and an adaptive keyboard to work on this website. I am not wallowing in anger or self pity, but I am carrying on with my poetry projects. Remarkably, I can type with an adaptive keyboard and use a mouse pad to work on my website. I actually enjoy editing more than writing poetry which has become a chore, like homework. I am rededicating my life to publishing and promoting the writings of others and myself. In April 2003, I began completely overhauling this website. I added several new poetry columns and converted all of them to guest book-like areas. You can add one poem per column per week. In December 2003 I added a quarterly homepage newsletter which you can print out for free from the website. For the next stage of this website I will add a poetry cyber café and a chat room. I hope you enjoy this website.
All material on this web site is copyrighted Ralph Haselmann Jr. and the authors. You must have written permission from me to reprint any material herein. If you want to reprint any of this material, my contact information is at the top of this homepage.
visitors since November 1999!
Lucid Moon Poetry Website is designed by Ralph Haselmann, Jr., Michael LaBash & Scott Eisenberg.
Copyright
Ralph
Haselmann
Jr.
1999-2006
