FRIENDS:
Here are your April Vogons. I know April’s not over but I’ll be too busy the next few days to write, so unless there’s some kind of divine disturbance, this will have to be my sublime contribution to poetry month.
Speaking of sublime contributions, I must give a heartfelt thanks to all the contributors to the 4th edition of The Octopus Review. It really was a great one!
My Kindergarten teacher told my mom that I would grow up to be an author & illustrator. Unfortunately, my mom did not impart this information to me until after I’d dropped out of college (because I didn’t know what I wanted to do), after I’d been in an almost-successful rock band, and while I was considering going to mortuary school. I didn’t really know you could “learn” to be an author. I thought you just “were” one. And I still operate on that premise. I’ve been writing & writing, and drawing & drawing all these years, no matter what career-label I was wearing. I’m so thrilled to get to meet & talk to people who are “authoring” & “illustrating” through their dayjobs or whatever life-shit is bombarding them. Until there was an internet, I had no idea what was happening in art/poetry, and now I feel like I’m participating in a scene that spans the globe, pretty much.
So thank you!
*******
Hermetic Tarot |
We all want to punch God in His bearded head
But only poets brave enough to say it [& certain rappers
Who will (not) be pres(id)ent
On(e) (day)time (television)]
I understand you want to hurt me too?
Have I hurt you
In a way you’ve been hurt before?
And now’s your chance
To do what you should’ve
The first time around?
I’ll try to empathize.
I’ll try not to be a fencepost.
I’ll try to love the rooster’s
Puffed up strut &
Accept the computerized warble
That passes for a lark
It’s a world I never saw coming even though I did
It’s a slow metamorphic horrorshow
Not a red wedding jizzfest
It gives me time to learn the steps
It gives me a moment to sweat
0402:0100p
****
Bathroom minutes:
None. My sympathetic tunnel vision
Has hardened into a blindfold
If my nose could talk
It would compare thee to
The one metropolitan curb
Puked on by whiskey dicks all night
If my stomach could prosecute
It would
Tiny little cuffs for your guilty cock
Two dusty footprints in the mirage
All day collecting samples
From the vast minority—men
Always the rusty flow valve
In my heart slaps its walls
Before the plumbing is revealed
A rorschach of gluten intolerance
On the porcelain?
Or an aggressive mirror that barks
“Get out”
Basking in the dungeon glow
When I find out I’m alone
Done answering booty calls
From the suite next door
0402:0825p
*****
The Aces |
I’m too busy being mystical to be funny anymore…
Not only that
But the yardful of chickens
Is now a rooster in the driveway
Shouting “Look @ Edward!!”
Every time I ride by on my bike
6 p.m.
8 a.m. …Really,
who’s ever heard it say “Cockle doo-da-doo?”
That ‘k’ won’t work its way
Through the beak
The Bill of Flames
The plumage from the sky/box/window
Clinking glass
Champagne sprinkler
Counter cultured
Not just broken on
Taxpayers’ watch
But never crafted w/ precision instruments
Tiny krab pincers
Deftly calibrating Gregorian gears
Hot mic!
You’re liable.
Your big fat effigy
Hung by Banksy on the gold bevel
Of your hi-rise dog kennel
Where masters are kept on
Secret Service leashes & run through
Lie detectors after a day’s work in
The sky’s trenches
90th Floor gallery
yeah that high up, not just
Suffering for art
But dying for it, losing sleep over it,
Bursting an eardrum
If we’re not very wary of ISIS
Wearing the sky on their tightly aligned
Insect backs…
…the untuned world orchestra
Could flesh out atonal flash mobs
Ear wars
That make us cry for water
Drops, boric acids, Steely Dan
While a big garish phantasm
That pisses solar flares
Might look like The Devil™
It’s a blessed angel
Coaxed from the womb by a cannula
Kept in formaldehyde,
Some scientist’s cunt-print
Marking the jar
My red blood cells are cinnamon imperials
Left in the sun
Stuck in a perpetual network of throats
I have far too many of them
Scorching my tender membranes
So I’ve scheduled a phlebotomy
For Thursday
I’ve scheduled a phlebotomy for Thursday
& now this is a villanelle
A blood vessel made from a straw
A straw pumping blood
Through an orange
(cringe)
0409:0900p
****
Soylent germination
Subliminal dropkicks
Sanguine circle jerk
The head of your
Bird is overthinking
Flight
Swift swallow.
Adobe photoshop. Peyote.
Be ready to put
Your entire guitar collection
Through the paper shredder
& don’t forget
To call Desiree
The crematory operatee
0409:0925p
[Desiree was a “bright” word that night. A woman named Desiree won the Boston marathon on 4/16/18]
********
I like to make some of the more discouraging cards really pretty so it's no so discouraging to find them in your read. 7 & 8 of Cups; 3 & 9 of Swords |
To the east:
All the evidence in shreds
All the dignity coating the lint roller
A distraction in the lobby
Blood leaking through walls
Where fatherly hearts are interred
We could have a haunted House
To the west:
Still waiting for the first plastic state
To come floating into the Union
That island of trash is trying to pass as a mermaid
Liar, liar fishtail’s on fire
& your sirens sing bioluminescent
Prison chanteys on top o’ cop cars
To the south:
One more summer of black blood
(Which is red) in the news &
We’ll finally board up the matter
Like the future is one
Continuous hurricane season &
The rain is made of lead
To the north:
O’ hammerhead neighbor
Red riding hood through a wood
That pulses with jaguar sex
Our own ceiling covered in spiders,
Not rosettes
0416:0725p
*****
SHUT UP!!!
The dragonfly’s wing
Beats
Testify
The airplane objects
Overruled
The gavelsmash
Rezones the whole runway
There’ll be no take-off,
No landing behind bars
Take off the fire hazard neck tie
Pardon the shoelaces
Take off the tanning goggles
Remove Ken doll hands & replace w/ lobster claws
Grab the pussy
By the scruff of the burning
Labia majora
House party! Demonocracy!
I’ll bring the angel eggs
If you bring the turkey baster
0416:0850p
***
Sun & Moon |
I should be more honest about how bad I feel
God & His divine facial hair love to watch
My graceful dance across the sandspurs
After I pray for an aloe oasis
Maybe I should quit pretending I can handle it all
Admit my feet won’t be moved by prayer alone
I feel like a lobster
Smashed by a hammer
Shat into the septic catacombs
Of Atlantis
0416:0875p
****************
It was revealed
The man next door
Was [censored]
It was announced
The suicide bomber
Was a mentally [censored] girl
In Rome
name drop: Pope Francis
broke bacon w/
me.
Investigative cavorting.
That’s what we’re doing here.
Tonight’s bright word is
[censored]
0420:0350a
*****
NEON!! Wheel of Fortune, 10 of Wands, 9 of Disks, The Aeon |
They put a monkey in space
& it lived/died?
They found gold in space
From a cremated star
They performed a head transplant
In Italy
Or was it a body transplant?
I love needles more & more
To lop my head from this unwanted body?
Well, I’m not that labrat yet.
I was a cauldron, now I’m a beaker
Scientific witch crap—
Our cozy egg consoles
Have been cracked by hackers
Alternative fact: God is scowling at the thought you just had
It’s become a headline in abortionland
Pull my finger, He says &
Rome falls,
Explodes,
Exposing the pasty [censoreds]
Under their robes, rising
From the unholy triangle
Death rolls the boulder up the hill
Where it’ll never sit still
Picking clover
The ghost felt my cheek [facial]
But the priest fondled my ass
[cheek]
The world
Is a giant wheel of [censure]
Or more like a bicycle tire—opportunists
In a centrifuge,
Spoken spooky
The most secret thing on Earth was once
Our hatred of each other
But we’ve smoked that
Out of its enclave
& we’re handling it w/ ultra-violet
Kid gloves
0420:0400a
*****
Two of my favorites—3 of Cups and 6 of Swords |
Too slow!
This is supposed to be automatic
Your elbows need bumpstocks
A cat’s head nudging the pen
Making chemtrails of ink on your page
The efforts of the great weather machine—
aka snowflake oven—
We really will be
One shimmering puddle of consciousness!
As below: sole
So above: bullet hole
Speaking of conspiracy theories,
Don’t forget “9/11
was an inside job” is not on
the Ridiculist
The blue gloves controlling the media
Are retyping history
Faster than I can backtrack
Out loud
0420:0400a
*****
Blood disease
Has the Pope ever jacked off?
How does one do it, decide
To marry God?
Barbara Bush had 6 or 8 children
One of them died
Before she could…whistle
Or witness
The blow of aviation’s air kiss
Car kiss
Honked horn
Still we sit
At the roller coaster’s divine apex
A centipede riding a boulder
0420:0425a
*****
Bad access>>>
Kern Invalid Address
eeeeeeeee!!!
Corpse notify
Kernel deliberation
The poetry of malware, Captain!
It pops up every once,
Every twice,
Every 3x in awhile
So when *did* an officer
Become just a gun?
Summer ’14?
Summer ’15?
Summer six, seventeen?
Naw…I’ll guess it depends
On whose son you are
On whose daughter is a
Whistleblower
Because cops have been guns and/or sons,
Or triggered daughters
Pulling
Dragging (indigo)
Hanging (the ghost cherry)
A really long time
& sometimes rope was a
Weapon before the gun
Could be hired or fired
0424:0650p
*****
Can I write a scathing review of my mind?
It can’t function w/out oxygen
But I’m a carbon dioxide hoarder
Refusing to exhale
It can’t function in silence,
Or w/ too much noise
When did it become such a princess?
Is there a pea-sized tumor? An aneurysm?
Is it the medication
Severing those angelic bonds
Between hemispheres—hellish & heavenly
You bet I believe
Earth is a big skull full of
Feathers & ash
0424:0675p
*****
Today was sucky.
I need to remember to sing more
I used to sing everywhere—
car, shower, garage, porch—
It was my religion
To breathe & vocalize my
Monsters away
Till they (the monsters) looked
Like the man next door
Then I went silent
And finally learned to cry
I promise to pull that box out &
Dump its contents on your bed,
The bed inside your head
The ear mattress all notes bounce upon
0424:0675p
*****
Why do we love sound? Be my close personal triangle. My circle of friends includes a drum. Early. Yearly. Nosely. Mouthly. English is stupid. Hooked on crypto. But no way to know where to go—to zuy or zell? Bzzzz. Always include the bees in your national poetry. There are plenty of bees in my sunflower’s bonnet. Exactly one. Exactly moon. You don’t know the full story. You’re not seeing the whole picture. Let it lie & it’ll eventually decide it’s truth. Just be chill about it. Truth always knows when it’s being handled. Go handle the tigers in the garden, go weed your lingerie drawer. Silky Dan steely hangover periwinkle boozeflower—under where? Finger your ear w/ a rabbit’s foot—charm the pants onto language. May I take your coat, though? You’re awfully red. You’re astoundingly loyal. You’re airportishly sphenoid. The wings, the neck, the leaf, the strap. This noise is an articulate bitemark.
0427:1050a
**************
64/78 cards complete |
ART NOTE: I decided I had to color my Hermetic Tarot deck. The deck is in black & white, and since color is so important to tarot, and because my eyesight is seriously on the wane, I hardly ever use these cards. Which seems like a shame. Cards shouldn’t be neglected. So…after experimenting with a few mediums (color pencil, gel pens, paints) and realizing that the cards were so shellacked, they were like a dry erase board. Any wet medium just slid right off.
I found Bic Precision pens , WriteDude gel pens and metallic markers were the only things that would stick. Leaving the cards out for several days, or a week if possible, allows these inks to dry out & set on the cards.
Then I brushed a light coat of Sally Hansen 101 “Clear For Take-off” polish. The polish does not leave the cards stiff or sticky. (go ahead & make a dick joke I’ll wait). Anyway… it’s like you didn’t even put nail polish on your tarot cards at all.
I really love the Hermetic Tarot because it’s based off the Thoth, and the illustrations are really intricate & lovely. They were just a little bland in their colorless state.