Oh So Vogon

FRIENDS,

I promised lots of Vogon poems this Fall, so here are some (along with some art):

SINGLE VERSE SALVAGED FROM  A POEM I WROTE ABOUT MY FEAR THAT AN ACT OF TERROR WOULD BEFALL THE '08 OLYMPICS 

Fear was not a factor

Neither was fun nor fahrenheit

It was robotic, steroidal

It was a touch-down,

A perfect ten,

A two-minute mile,

It was a strike, a strike, a strike

And it was over before you could blink your

Gelatinous polymer double-refracted orbital sensors

[from Aug 2008]

Vintage Fetus Art

******

DIARY ENTRY #9**

Dear Diary,

I'm journaling through the dark again

On your vanilla pages

I'm on hiatus

From the world

And its high frequency

Of needs

From its demands

For laser precision eye contact 

(And deeply disturbing hand contact)

From phones 

That are rectangles full of rings

From dates that are 

Shaped like

Obligation

Tiny little tasks that

Become 12-hour guitar solos

In the hands of the

Faces that smile

(Sickening sweetness

Or sociopathy?)

Extracting quiet

From the paper

Quiet's all I need

I could fill

A padded white cell 

And never bore of

Its silent ring

Its creamy tone

On my hyper-vigilant ear

A combed hair

Amplified to sound

Like a lawn mowed down

Breaks me like an

Engine searching

Downstream for peace

Anxiety 

Refusing to compute

On its own stroked keys

Fat cables crawling  

Between receptive

Orifices

And electronic

Angels 

Devices so strong and

Silent

They make my diary sound

Like a chainsaw

[from May 2007]

** I wrote this one morning when my "lawn maniac" neighbor was doing his thing at 7 a.m. He eventually drove me to insane lengths with his early a.m. loudness. I still do hate the sound of yard maintenance of any kind, but I've learned to tolerate it with a grain of salt. In this neighborhood, which we'll be leaving soon, there is 10x the lawn maintenance, but it never happens before the sun is fully up & it's not right outside my bedroom window.  What will the new neighborhood sound like???

Ancient sketch of Charle DeGaulle making an omelet. He looks like Bruce (the lawn maniac)

*******

GRIEFCASE

This grief isn't my own

If it were my grief, I'd know it

I'd recognize its chilly detachment

This is someone else's grief I'm carrying

In my salt-worn sockets

In my partly cloudy plexus

In the very membranes that wrap

Around my neurons,

Protecting my system

From your stones, your sticks,

Your photo-shopped dicks

And denied vaginas

This is your case of blue suede

Dumped on my cardiac desk

And left

For me to finish before its deadline

This is your skeleton's closet

Bursting

Beyond the help of any clear plastic

Organization

There are no secrets left

No gov't secrets

No personal secrets

No secret ingredients

In any recipe for conspiracy

And while i couldn't care less that all secrets have died

I cry your tears for you

And conduct your anguish through my days

While you look for new

Places to hide

7-12-15

Butterfly oopsie!