April VOGON Arsenal

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.