Lap-time with Chanchito

Hello, you! This is Chanchito's Writing Blog, a central landing place for all things pertaining to Chanchito Massoni: poetry exercises, pretty pictures of plants, links to Chanchito's book, and progress on the next project, should all be accessible here!

Below are links to Chanchito's email, Instagram, and Book (Jane is the End) available on Bookshop.org. At some point this might expand, but Chancho is a one-thing-at-a-time sort of a cat.

Anyways, starting September 1st the paperback version of Jane is the End will be out! Also starting September 1st, Chanchito will be working on a new project, currently titled "Project Awesome Whales". There should be a weekly update here, along with whatever other weird stuff comes to Chanchito's mind.Thanks for being here!

2.22.26
raindrops fall on my face
flowered with ice
as the sun breaks through
elongated
on the tempered glass
a world
turned upside down
through an aqueous lens
and the street gutter laughs
keeping beat to the leaves
that serenade across the pavement
a eulogy
to a long
forgotten
spring

2.18.26
how much
did you stretch yourself
to get that youthful glow?
my tounge
heavy
thick with sealed fire
for the salamander words say:
"all beauty
must die
but for that
which is holy
and divine"

2.10.26
the trees are bare
but for a few bits
of lichen and moss
the sun bright
clear and cold
sky blue
with a snap
buds are beginning to form
blossoms are starting to swell
soft and pink
tender-green and yellow-red
and i see them
and want to cry out,
"stop! the danger of frost hasn't passed!"
as if they would listen
and perhaps
there is a wisdom in their brashness
a knowing that
if they yielded to the cold
they could never turn winter
into spring

2.8.26
false spring
false quickening
false mother-of-hope
brittle oak leaves
colored into cracks of concrete
gilded
under a keen winter sun
and my body aches from the sharpness of it
yearning
to turn into itself

2.5.26 the star maiden
There is a star-mirror room
floor of aqueous silver
reflecting cathedrals of light
nebulous shades
or orchid and pomegranate
in indigo bloom
and at the door
named mirror-glass-ink
stands the star-maiden
though whether reflection
or on the other side
one cannot say
and she is beautiful
as she is cold
argentine whispers fall from her lips:
"I am the divine devoid
void of the vine
whose fruit
is bittersweet ego-death
and I am not obligated to care
about you
just as you
are not obligated to care about anything"
her chiasm
shadow and bright

1.31.26
you can't catch that man with a bottle of teeth
sand in the joints
fire on the tongue
last night i had a dream my uterus was a fish
each white-milk eye an ovary
gaze reflected in the stars
as if in answer to the divine
for god is power
and power is potentiality
petroleum
the fluid of life condensed to voidless whole
blooming forth in our lungs
as histrionic magnolias
for to comprehend is to contain
and every attempt to contain
comes
from the desire to control

1.27.26
sylvan pussy-willow buds--
a cat's ear whisper,
a slipped kiss--
as clouds rise,
snow-capped mountains
the evergreen maidens,
in their tatted sleeves,
bowing towards
a paucid winter sun
soft clover at their feet,
folded leaves stamped within
the aubergine heart of belevolence

1.21.26
sweet hymnal stars
how long has it been
since I have ascertained
the euphony of your ascent?
drowned out by the yellowed humming of street lamps
and ultraviolet drone of the asphalt
your song lost
in the dimming of the cynosure

1.20.26
a raindrop elongates
on tempered glass
world distorted
through its aquiferous lens

1.14.26
the calls
She walks on cat's paw feet
neither touching the ground nor being apart from it
with quasar-crabbed skin
and chalcedonic eyes
lips pale and sweet
as oleander cordial
she dreams yet always wakes
she moves yet forever stills
in the deepest part of the year
when even the song of the bluebirds cease
she reminds that rather than be, we are always being
mere waves in an ocean
to crash upon her shore

1.12.26 the burden of time
my feet move slower than my head
being that much closer
to the earth
does that mean they carry more wisdom in them?
or is it simply that
they will always
struggle
to keep up with the rest of me?

1.10.26
it grows in cold concrete
pressed between the fast food wrappers
and discarded confetti of other people's lives
a shock of yellow-gold against the shadow
neck akimbo as it reaches for the sun
where did you get the courage, little one, to be so bold?

1.6.25i am not your sun
you are not the moon

1.5.26
anvil-struck
and heather gray
swells forth
the great Leviathan
smothering her children
with constricted care
drowning her chattel
in soured milk

1.3.26"please drive carefully
special people inside"
as if you could perceive the value of a life
by the car they drive
the sports they play
the supposed future they hold
as if you could perceive the difference
between the hummingbird and the bee

12.31.25my heart is honied wine
anointed with noetic bees
pomegranate petrichor
cloyed with slothful sweetness
profaned with bitter nettles
that nonetheless,
gives bloom,
to the fragrant lillies of spring

12.29.25 the basalisk
threw up last
night's words
and in them
i saw
snakeroot
foxglove
red-eyed and double-glazed
speak!
the ossified evensong
as my skin curdles
spotted with clay

12.27.25
dew drops
kissing fair the fragile tips of cloven green
refracting sunlight
on this muted winter's day
as a multitude of stars

12.22.25parched leaves
tremble upon
disjointed concrete
specters of
a forgotten spring

12.17.25My job?
I run an illegal cat betting ring for the
Feline
Fanciers'
Society
in my basement
in the washroom
'tween some old halloween decorations
and a box spring mattress
So what'll it be?
The Abyssinan?
The Persian?
gotta know your high rollers
personally, my money's on the Burmese
gotta love
those flame-gold eyes

12.16.25 root and bone
she is the divine alembic
filled by the kissing-mad muse
that truth spitting pythoness curled in my innards
crawling up my back
breaking bones of their marrow to spill forth in sanguine iconography
and her pen is of tooth
the ink bile
and her page is of clay
the words root
honey-sweet restorative

12.10.25 cardinalred baubles on
barren branches
kiss
the frost bit air
as it mocks them with its cold indifferentiality
sneering at their riotous shades of vermillion
a winking defiance
against the bone-scraped sleet
and tooth-sucking mud

12.9.25
a snowflake falls
in the light of a street lamp
its singularity lost
in the aggregate
of purple-hued taciturnity

12.6.25
just another day255 honey cunt
with bottle-cap noses
pressed to the ground
someone is screaming for their life
as Van Gogh tries to sell me an overpriced grilled cheese
and fake plastic daises push up from the bitter cold ground
Oh, the arrogance of roses!

12.3.25Haze sinks
into my skin
laden with the stench
of overflowing carcass rot
bad eggs and curdled milk
blocking out the sun
penetrating my pores
turning my blood to the last dredges of sour wine
asphyxiating
like the concrete at my feet
smothering the earth

12.2.25
Arrogant Delphinium
with such lofty heads
the weight of which
bow your blossoms
to the ground

11.29.25
voices from anon
the whispered hymn
of an unsung prayer
the waxen light
from moon-mirrored dream
the sweetest scent
of the unbloomed rose
the languid warmth
of where you used to be

11.26.25wormwooded tree trunk
knobby and burled
centuries folded in on itself
as a stream of dry oak leaves titter on by
laughing over rock and wind
lighting past serpent-green moss hiding in the dark places
in the wet crevices where the earth dreams

11.24.25flecked bits of ember
that faded flame from waxen tree
staining warmth onto the cold concrete
of smoke and ash
a relic of once verdant youth

11.21.25digital false aleph
divinator of illusion and lie
in sunset colors that don't exist
on grinning faces that never smile
the reflection of the infinite
pseudo-me

11.18.25there's an old man on a bike with pizza--not in a box
not covered in foil
just a slice of pesto and margherita for all the world to receive,
as a train passes by
etched out with the prayers of low-down saints
and i wonder if it will ever end, or just linger into infinity
neither head nor tail consumed, but connected all the same
joined by a rosary of fiberglass-contained-inedible-tallow and black-greased-petroleum
the near unison of the trumpeting signal clanging in my ears as the hail marys recited on the cars become too large for me to see
or perhaps i have become too small
and it is really my mind that is only nearly mismatched

11.17.25a leaf sits
burnt by autumn's dying heat
tips brown and crisp
furled inwards
as if to grasp its own fading color
as if afraid its flame bold-bright
will step off
the wayward precipice of its tatted edge
and into the cold
indomitable
dark

11.15.25november roses
in bloom
like the last morning frost
in may

11.11.25
a walk in novemberwind rumbles in my belly
dry against my skin
as the thin gray sky contemplates rain
trees are bare
but for a few indeterminate leaves
the grass muddied and low
and as a drop falls
on my flush-chilled cheeks
i ponder which way to go

11.8.25speck of dust
revenant of a thing
once made whole
sparked momentarily
by the day-break sun
of divine recreation
only to fall back into
the complacent dark
of moonless shadow
and wandering dreams

11.3.25purple bible under my belt
as I cross through the river of hoardom
where fig trees prognosticate
and sacrificial lillies lay hands
in the garden of the apostale of arcane dreams
snake forgotten
more than I could ever remember
the antediluvian genetic wisdom of causal violation
divine mirror outside the luminent hourglass of the human mind
--that entropically bound arrow--
to hang drunkenly
on the limb
of one-eyed creation

10.27.25
a gilded viewthe pollen on my windshield
is pale yellow-green;
left over from the summer,
never washed,
despite recent rains;
afternoon sunlight falls
on these failed remnants of genetic consolation,
so that they gleam, like dusted gold
and the world outside
my aged,
little car,
seems to shimmer

10.24.25My muse
goes where he pleases;
he brooks no tardiness,
nor is amenable to being hurried;
at times, he lays resting at my feet, with a soft, drowsy purr,
while at others he sharpens his claws,
ready to strike;
most often he is happiest, however,
with a window
and a sunbeam,
where he can gaze out at the world, and all the colorful birds.

10.20.25
Moonchild
Oh faire maid,
of the star-bright hair
and fish-belly eyes,
sing to me, in your oleander voice of silver cunning;
wrap me up, in the sweet-bile scent of your flesh-rot rain;
dance for me, on your worm-bone feet with lillitine grace unbecoming;
Adorned in tattered moon-dreams and a crown of delirium,
bewreathed with sunflowers, curled at the cusp of frost's bitter edge,
the winds and the hollows, how they bend to your storm-whim ways;
Come, walk with me a while,
dear child of the light,
as we traverse this world,
of beauteous delight

10.13.25

Swallowing silk-billowed smiles,
the snake under the skin;
to writhe in the bile-sick cauldron sea,
to blossom out in pomegranate tears and dramamine kisses.

10.11.25 Poem

Diamond starfall on the wind
of honey infused petrichor,
as decadent rot and rainbow hues
reflect the rain-laden heavens;
the water to cleanse--or merely leave behind--the residue of our sin
to be hardened by the sun;
like ink,
on a washed out page,
the words bled
to sweet nothings

10.07.25 Poem

The golden carp that glimmers
on the humming moon-lit sea --
reach too quickly for it,
it will simply flicker free;
bother not to notice,
it will vanish in the air
for it lives on the edge,
of the star-drunk gaze;
the space between here and there

10.06.25 Poem

To sway in the breeze
like a loose leaf --
some find it affable,
easy-going,
to drift with the wind
no branch as a tether;
but no branch means no roots,
and what is warm under the earth,
on the surface
can be brittle and chill

10.04.25 Poem

A palinode to my father:
When I laughed and said
you could now fit into a sugar bowl,
what I meant to say, was,
how shocking it is,
for something once so large
to have become so small

10.01.25 Poem

Pomegranate dew drops
midst listing auric rays
of rubicund lips, that
kiss twilight sorrows away

9.30.25 Poem

If magic could be:
categorized
alphabetized
systemitized,
then it would just be science, simply by another name;
for a probability observed is a certainty realized,
just as a pinned butterfly,
in a stale box,
doesn't teach us what it feels to soar

9.27.25 Poem

green mountains
in the distance,
made sallow by a haze
from fire yet unseen;
as the small birds huddle
under a washed-out blue,
waiting for the coming storm

9.27.25 Poem

clear blue sky
washed from recent rains,
billowing clouds drifting by;it's warm in the sun,
slightly cool in the shade,
the smell of damp earth --
mixed with sweet apples and moldering leaves --
reminding me, that,
this too shall end.

9.24.25 Poem

Low, heavy, vapor --
an oppressive anvil door.Illusory lights flash violet,
deep within this ethereal belly --
the holding of a breath --
while the ground is struck with the rage
of branching potentialities.Golden grass bows,
past the flowering of spring,
on endless eternal plains;and a road stretches ahead,
a road stretches behind,
the asphalt cracked and remended under my shifting feet.

9.23.25 Poem

a clear blue sky
washed from recent rain,
billowing clouds
drifting by;
it's warm in the sun,
slightly cool in the shade;
the smell of damp earth
mixed with rotten apples and moldering leaves
Reminding me, that,
the end draws near

9.20.25

A garden of ferns
kissed by dream-drunk dew,
contemplating the shadow-light
of lunar delirium.Of torn leaves and shattered stems -
buds still yet unforming on sour wormwood.Oh noble rose!
With your limbs so supple yet strong,
sweet scent fearless;
you scoff at the tender-footed anemones,
scattered by bitter winds;
while the proud iris, in vestments of perals, looks down on the humble columbine:For what is a weed,
and what is simply a wildflower
wanting to be free?

9.13.25
one

Cloudless rain on a hot summer day,
stings the skin,
peels it back like furled bark;
sharp words on the edge of my tongue,
that I bite off and swallow,
let slide under my veins -
so that I have a belly full of snakes,
sending hymnal cicadas up the spine and to my ears;
but neither the stilled cries,
nor the oleander blooming from my lips can hide,
that we are melting

9.10.25 Poem

Sweet lily-lipped Muse
shine down upon me,
with your divine madness
and moon-dream delirium;
in shades of violet contradictions,
in hues of light-shadow;
a wine-drunk hynmal -
the flowering chaos from which
inspiration blooms

9.9.25 Poemsometimes i miss you

I see you at night -
in the jumble of puzzle pieces
that will never be made whole;
in the part of me that dreams,
in the glimmer of the corner of my eye;
in that between hour,
that witching hour,
the hour of you.

9.8.25 Poem

We are prisoners of mind
until we break free,
from the concept of 'should'
to the knowing of 'be'

9.6.25

Am I ashen
in the middle of the crossroads,
or am I rosen
with an ear loose for fortune?
Wherein does the synchronicity lie
in the shifting ocean tide
upon which we arrogate ourselves
the ability to prophesize?
Luminant bits of dust, the Universal Divine,
rising but briefly upon the swell,
before falling back into the abyss.

9.3.25 Poem
a question of evil

Sweet angel Uriel,
answer me this:
how can a God of corruption,
create such flowered things?

9.1.25 Poem
what to say to you?

The arbitrary weighing of our hearts,
under a panacea of stars -
the vast space between
the divination of each others' words.
The constellation of your skin,
the map at the corner of your lips -
tell the story of the infinite banality
of both our sorrows and joys.

10.19.25

Well, last time the Opposable Thumbs updated this we were at 68,551 words, and now we are at 81,419!

The Thumbs got hit with the flu, so things have been slow, but some progress is better than no progress, and everything has its time.There have been some sticky spots, because this story has three different parts, so some of those parts had to be written out before they could be added to the main narrative, and that lead to a lot of Chancho staring into space trying to figure things out; but Chancho feels those side parts are pretty well fleshed out now, so it will just be adding them to the main narrative, and then adjusting as he goes along.So Chancho will keep plugging away, barring the Thumbs loosing any fingers.Also, Chancho sold a couple copies of his finished book! Granted, it's just something like 5 copies, but Chancho has dreamed of being a writer since he was a young kitten, and it feels good to at least partly be there! Hopefully more people will find Chancho's book, and enjoy it, because that is really all Chancho wants!Chancho is also thinking of entering some of his poetry in for publication after the first of the year. He's still mulling this over in his head, but he might try to pick and refine about 10 different poems and see what response he gets. It would be a fun and interesting challenge.Anyway, that is all Chancho has it in him for today. Hopefully, by the time next week rolls around, everyone will be feeling a little better!

9.29.25

Last week we were at a word count of 65,232 and this week we are at 68,551!

This portion of the project has been a bit of a slog for Chancho to work through. It involves a lot of stuff that Chancho isn't familiar with, and so there has been a lot of going back and forth, reading up on some stuff and then typing, and then reading up on some more stuff all over again. Chancho is going to have to do some more research it looks like, and rework this part in the second go around. But narratively things are falling into place, and as long as that general frame work is there, we can go back and fix any awkwardness. It was Terry Prachett who said it best, "the first draft is just you telling yourself the story".

Not that details aren't important (Chancho hates that 'perfection is the enemy of good' saying - what does that even mean? Not being sloppy is bad? Don't even bother to try? What sort of Ted Talk nonsense is that?), but sometimes you just gotta get the thing out there, even if it is a little janky. Can't fix something if there isn't anything there to begin with.

And speaking of rough ideas and research, before Chancho begins a project, he likes to read up on a lot of weird shit. Usually the weirder the better. And he has the Thumbs write down his esoteric findings in his trusty note book (pictured below):

(Chancho also has an affinity for fine felt-tip pens, don't ask the Thumbs why, that's just the way it is).

Some of the weird crap Chancho finds means nothing, other than to make the Thumbs even worse at conversation. But sometimes, there is a gem in there, and that gets highlighted! And sometimes, when enough of those weird gems coalesce, a story starts to emerge.

Next time, we'll talk about how Chancho and the Thumbs organize these gems, to help them see a bigger story! And hopefully, maybe by then, we will be through this Gordian Knot section of our current story, and making a little more progress!

But if not, that is okay too. Sometimes writing is a little bit of writing, and a whole lot of staring into space.

9.21.25

So, Chancho missed last week's blog entry due to the Opposable Thumbs going on vacation--a complete disregard of Chancho's schedule which threw everything into a tizzy. sigh

As Chancho has been working to forgive said holder of the Opposable Thumbs, he noticed something: he got his first reviews! Some are good, some are in the middle, but Chancho is just glad to see a little momentum, as halting as it is. He is a humble feline-prince-dictator, after all.

So hey, that's something! As confident as Chancho is, a little validations is always appreciated.

Word Count on the next project took a little bit of hit this week as well (no thanks to the Thumbs traipsing across the country side without my permission). Some stuff got deleted, forward progress was backwards progress, and despite all the work we are pretty much even-steven to two weeks ago.

But that is okay, the Thumbs is back! And with gardening season coming to an end (and no vacations on the horizon), Chancho will have the Thumbs' undivided attention to type, or, erm, uhm, channel, the glory that is his vision.

Next week let's hope for some progress! Lest the Thumbs' squirrel-brained attention span finds something else to distract us with...

9.7.25 Blog

So, Chancho started this blog with the intent to track progress on his next novel, currently titled PAW (Project Awesome Whales), and as a way to keep motivated, get some folks maybe interested in the project, and also keep all the writing stuffs in one central online location (rather than in a notebook shoved in a dusty drawer).The plan was to focus on getting Jane is the End published (self-publishing is certainly a whole thing, and this was my first time doing it) until September, and in the meantime just slowly gather information and ideas for PAW.But Calliope and Chancho are fickle things, and really the writing started in August. So I will share that Chancho is currently at (drumroll please)...

67,961 words!
So, this might be a two part project.
I think, that will be enough for now -- I would say Chancho likes to keep things short and sweet, but I think with that word count it would be an obvious lie.
Next week I will share another word count and some of the things Chancho does to get and organize his ideas.Thanks for being here!

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