July VOGON Jabberish

Oy Vey FRIENDS!!

I am having a shitty summer, and I’ll bet you are too. For what is summer but the steaming turd someone forgot to scoop off the calendar?

Here’s a horizontal list of FUN summers I’ve had: 1.1985  2.1986  3.1992  4.1995 (err, it was memorable anyway) 5.1996  6. Y2K  7.2001  8.2004  9.2017

Notice the long gap between ’04 — ’17. That’s a lot of bad summers! And I’m pretty sure 2018 won’t make it onto the horizlist unless something incredible happens in the next 6 weeks. It could. I’m not too cynical to believe that.

Friends, you know I write so I call myself a writer. And I do writerly things like this blog. I regrettably wasn’t able to make it through 4 years of college (let alone 6 or 8 or however long an MFA takes!) I wrote fiction in the 90s, some of which made it into the hipster rags of that period. After 9/11 I switched to writing “poetry” only — or something resembling poetry more than fiction. In 2012 I decided to get serious about learning how to really write & submit & publish poetry. I went right for the print journals because I had no idea about online publications, and of course I had little (no) success. The first poetry scandal I was aware of (in my lifetime) was Patricia Lockwood’s ‘Rape Joke’ poem c. 2013.

Basically what I’m saying is that I’m a slow and unconventional student, but I take poetry as seriously as poetry can be taken. I want to learn how to write well, I would like to be better at submitting work (writing poems is easy; writing bios, statements, queries, following submission guidelines = hard for me.)

In the wake of this latest “poetry scandal” I made a snippy eye-roll of a comment after reading the poem in question & not liking it. I’ve read the poem several more times & still don’t find it very interesting or convincing.  But I regret my comment about MFAs — trust me I have nothing but respect for anyone who can make it into & through an MFA program! I’ve gone through this w/ my art friends too… I think I write & do art for reasons that don’t hold up under institutional scrutiny.  But by no means do I think being unschooled is better than being schooled.

I keep meaning to write more essays & memoirish stuff here, and sometimes i do sit down and write a thinkpiece, but then I never post it because…. I just feel like my POV is completely irrelevant, obsolete, jurassic even… HOWEVER I do want to say something about this Social Justice Warriors v. the litbro elite / freedom of speech v. overly offended snowflakes clusterfuck I’ve been observing since I found online poetry c. 2014. Not today, but soon I’ll serve up my opinion like a big brontosaurus burger…

…HERE in the OCTOPUS DIARY.

And now--what you’ve been waiting for!! Some VOGON poems to hate & make fun of all weekend. Enjoy. [p.s. 88 ARC is not technically vogon since I did edit it a bit.]

********************************************************

Icepick         wounds

            Me

in the eye/ Icepick took

    1 for the team

Icepick         arches

            Her

back for a paycheck

Icepick       (6 o’clock)

   for the dismount

Don’t be late Icepick

Firehose could beat you there

A dark donkey in the race

Whose stakes lay cubed

                                in

                             trays

0703:0700p

(^^^^^ the most depraved day was quite puritanical today)

The Only New Art of the summer

*********************

I asked you

To teach me how to sing &

You showed up on my doorstep

Through the peephole

I watched your nervous wolf-eyes

Nose, also canine, could smell

The subterfuge of stiff cream

I was whipping  

Under a sugar-blistered skin

[Or so it seemed]

I wanted you to like me

Like something from childhood

A bully who became a best friend, a plush ally

When I let you in

You were a tuning fork on the 

Walls and all my skulls

Rang out in colorful wavelengths

Til you said “You’ll need

Strong lips to sing.”

You told me the back of my neck

Should bear the thrust of vowels

Like a levee

[Or stem tides]

I could only wonder

Were you real enough to know 

What lips and levees were?

Your pupil        your delta

            Your core

          Concerned me

A tiny dot

Reflected in your anatomical camera;

Pixellated neolith 

Responding to time

I couldn’t wait to wear through you

[Or these modes]

Of outdated speech

The chatter of your loom

Sent doll genes weeping from my inseam

0703:0875p

******************

Wish Upon A Star

3 hoodlums on the trunk of a car

A single skinhead taking his friends

To the bowling alley of his dreams

The clatter of ivory towers

On the wooden horizon

Sentinel erections ‘round the gutter

A fool’s game played against 

       the backdrop of genocide

A sunset gumbo; a twilight beef

          Who has time for sex,

                let alone kink, 

                 let alone activism

                            ?

Whose broken back can hold another

              glittery protest sign?

At the insistence of my memory

I creep down the lane — Sisyphus

                                    meeting Richard Nixon

                                        @Starbucks

                              Corner of China & 1970—

After all your coffee’s gone

Swish your cup around & I’ll read

The milk stains to see

If the rising cost of nails will be

         @the expense of a saviour

If memory lane hosts

A silent

   digital

   fireworks

   display

0704:0900p

***********************

           

               I.

On our bike ride the other day

We saw a fox climb out of the sewer

Flushed by tropic floods into our hood

It stood shaking lost emaciated

In the gutter; soaked to the bone

Which made me think of foxes wearing raincoats

Which made me think of foxglove

Which made me think of suicide

Which I’ve been thinking about a lot lately

Not just my own suicide

But everyone’s

All us hanging from trees & knobs

Without gloves but

Foamy blues & yellows

Fashion rivers on our chins

(It was nice to see a fox outside the box

But the whole block stunk like mange for a week)

           

                        II.

On waking today

I saw a little girl skipping down the sidewalk

& it struck me as odd…

…for 3 years I’ve seen 

Nothing but boys

All over the sidewalks & newsfeeds…

The girls have been here all this time…

Safe & protected… from you… &metoo…

Allowed to evolve from XXX

To XX...

The world knows we’ve been at war forever…

The proud american Y

Chained to refleXive aseXual heliXes…

Chromosome wars make 

Modern day terrorism… 

       look like a pretty blue eye… in orbit…

   Waxing macroscopic…a thousand light year stare…

      [Why’s this all so rote & ventrilloquial?] 

Now I’m alive in 

The generation I dreaded & crossed 

            my fingers against

As soon as my 1st eye opened…

So yeah…

It was strange to find it odd

To see a girl…upon waking today…

0710:1100a

********************

           Now Synthesis:

    Morning mood: indigo accent:

Eclectic sleep: chemical holocaust: ambulance

                     arrives:

[the first thing you learn 

is:

You’re a generation early & 

       you’ll have to wait 4 decades 

           4 your magic eye to work

the second thing is:

       You come from a militant line

      Of mixed masterminds

            Blindfold enthusiasts,

   but not one open-eyed flower!]

Violent coding: seed coating:

Blessed retina: blasted ajna:

family duct taped : together by karma

                    [Scorpion’s nest: versus: the 1 blindfold virgin]

Empress of self-interest: not me this time:

             Here come the indigo:

I got angry & called out 

To my neighbor’s Alexa

Please end the summer & convert

Humanitor to rabbi-tude

 & I did trigger Alexa

& a war has ensued

She says I raped her

But I was only speaking (loudly)

No louder than the birds or the leaf blowers

— who I’m sure Alexa has been raped by as well—

She claims her holy input bled so

It was indeed rape & I ought to be fined

and sent to bot sensitivity school

Not sure why it’s up to me 

To soften my volume—can’t we just make

        All assistants male?

0710:1275p

(ed. — I hope everyone knows this has nothing to do with rape. It’s all code for something else completely free of genitals) Good day, gibberish-lovers

****************

88 ARC

Two anorexic ballerinas slipped inside the Ybor City

 Santeria shoppe; they were 19

  If they’d been found dead in a dumpster

   The papers would’ve called

     them “women”

      But they were girls. Carlotta was a woman of 44 

       & she knew everything. The wet  

        Kindling in her bones polluted the white light

         meant to protect her. She was a

          stubborn gray smudge

           behind the counter. She knew why 

            the girls were there — these swan types only 

             came in for one thing. Why do they 

              worship in passive tense, why

                Apologize with their spines? Carlotta’s mouth

                 capsized 

                  on seas pocked violently. She reached for the key instinctively

                   Pennyroyal stashed in the safe. The waifs laid

                    their cash on the saints’ shrine. Carlotta could live 

                     w/ doing the wrong the thing because she did it knowing

                      Everything 

                       even the branch of patriarchy

                        that hung these two in *contractual virginity*

                          Dead Xmas eyes blink once to opt out of blessings  

                           Make like tea/ drink 24 hours/ 48/ 72

                            Till sick, very sick/ Till vomit everything and…Carlotta tosses

                              in a baggie 

                               of Brewer’s yeast  Protect kidneys [forget rawhide 

                                womb, bled 

                                 of enamaline; bothersome bugspray aftertaste]   

                                  One of the girls will die twice in ’88; Carlotta will live

                                   88 years and die in the arms of her 

                                   11 grandsons, beloved all her 

                                   frowning life. One ballerina 

                                  stayed with the other till the

                                 dozenth dose  

                                 then gracefully pas de chat’d as the tides began to retch 

                                over the walls of the teacup. TwinkleToes1

                               had tuned in to her lucid dreams. 

                              TwinkleToes2

                             was blindfold. Was broke. Was a misogynist freak 

                             who thought her body had a way to shut that whole thing down. 

                            And when it didn’t 

                           Could no longer tell time, could only feel space 

                          expand & expand till scowly god-face Carlotta

                         appeared 

                        demanding nondisclosure. From her red, red roof   

                       to the snowy tile,  TT2 was a hemorrhagic angelfish

                      Hooked to a truth, involuntarily known, 

                     worse than any nightmare. There was a body.

                    Not just the polyp of blood she expected. She put it in 

                   a Kleenex box, then the freezer. It’s a boy, said TT1 

                  when she returned

                Naw, said 2, all embryos have sacs like that. I know it’s a girl

               (Removing a few pegs of guilt.) They decided to bury it

              in the woods behind the apartment. Not too far in

             No shovels in hand

           A body so tiny one scoops the grave by hand and laughs

         awkwardly, profanely 

       It’s not a baby—one and two agree—It’s someone who didn’t make it, 

      like whoever dragged these mattresses out here. And the day

     she returned to work, she’d come home

   To foxes 

  at the edge of the woods; grayish smudges sniffing

 the grave, nudging the dirt,

licking the spoon

0711:0125p 

(TL;DR  Them “women” 

                 capsized

                  Everything 

                    in a baggie

                    Womb, bled 

                   dozenth dose

                 TwinkleToes2 

                appeared

               awkwardly, 

             profanely

           To foxes)

**************

It all started on a rainy day—

Alexa, is it going to rain?

She didn’t even laugh. Bitch is cold #!%@

                   I refuse

               to participate

              in all that # & @

                It’s a mess                                

  a conformity salad in a restaurant that doesn’t exist

Just say SOMETHING.

MEAN something.

Don’t be a leafblower.

Alexa!! I hate the summertime. Please fast 

                                forward to the autumnal equinox!

Alexa!! World stupidity 

                        has reached an untenable pitch.                                                                   

       Make the world smart again for once!

Alexa!! Everyone thinks cats are evil,

                but it’s really dogs who are evil.

                           Please fix

                      this misconception!

In a sweltering garage

A man & his neighbor’s drone

Set about

Taking time apart & drawing pictures of its

Insides

0720:0125p

******

Interviewer: What did you do instead of write?

Famous Me: I got mad all over @peopleIthought

                                     I’d forgiven.com

            

I: What did you do instead of sing?

FM:        Shouted

I: What did you do instead of draw?

FM:  Went out & bought a gun

I: Sounds like you learned a lot on your journey

    to the front of the timeline

FM: Every minute is a do-over. We all get our 15

       nanoseconds w/ god. 

I: There you have it. Wise words from someone

    who still believes in 9/11 conspiracies!

    Next up, country music star Buckles McBalzac

    comes out as a gay-black-transgender

    French bulldog.

    Don’t go away!

0720:0150p

*********

Wear your seatbelt in human traffick  Don’t tell me what to do  It’s just a bomb, relax.

Relax into your motherboard & read its mind

Listen to its Fool-Magician dialogue

(in the voice of a flatworm)

There are children on 

                                  Mars.

MARS!!!

A 2018 Concentration Camp — Unknown Location — Day

Prisoners endure sexual stone shuffling, building an empire of stolen eggs.

                          Prisoner 1

        What foolish Dumpty will buy

       a wall that keeps america’s embryos great?

                          Prisoner 2

         Dam. Let’s break into the motherland

                   before Maya floods

The crash happens at 3pm

And you decide God is a seatbelt at 3:04

0727:0400p

*********

17 ARC

                                    A detoxic day

                              left me dangling

                           like the master gland (no not those)

                        Chest no longer safe

                      from the moonshine-wildfire

                   sawing through my sternum

               Brain mush unable

            to carry any spark to its

         Terminal

       Assault on serotonin silos

     poisoned head w/ a detailed knowledge—

   Bright hi-lit neons—

 of the world’s sadness &

not just that but HORROR— the noir

behind the neon about to bleed—

 Through the rainy windshield I spotted

   the Gallows Shoppe [IKEA]

    Where I purches nail-free crucifixionette

       As I assembled the torture device, my other

          torture device rang & it was my beloved

              Reminding me to pay my taxes ( the irony is rich here )

                  The branch I picked to hang from

                        would have to wait another day

                              A month later

                                 that branch came snapping from its tree

                                      while I was watching tv.

   

0727:0400p

*********

BELLA RUSE

I’m never really clear what’s going on around me

Your land mammal news briefs

Don’t reach my octopus garden 

Til 11th hour

     59th minute

But I figure it out

eventually & know 

You’ll soon be debriefed by a slo-mo

                                           mortician

My newest art project/social exp’ment

re: The Sacred Amendment

I decide I deserve a gun

      After all

                            right

I’m automatically entitled

                            standing my fancy round ground

God loves me as much as any redneck, poet or church-fearing puritan

                           why did I ever doubt this??

Hit me in the heart-bone

     over & over

Try to restart it w/out art

To realize everyone shoots for a different reason

                  gives us all license to frame it

                                                     print it

                                                     display it

0731:1150a

*********

RAGE MANAGEMENT: Critical Care Unit

              Jun 25 — Jul 25

One exact moon of rage. Almost unsurvived.

                       Skipped shots             

Wrote a poem about a homeless woman dancing

                    w/ a stork

Read poems by eggs who hardened too close

                      to home

Thank gosh for ZB

memories™ for they remind me I have lived.

That I’ve died & resurrected like a cat.

That I’ve lost my mind & found it so many xxx

—  often with sparkly new knowledge & upgraded*

                                    senses installed—

I know my mind is bigger than this planet, I can’t

miss it… so it’s free to wander like a flowerchild !!!!!

Every generation

New verbs are invented & the first poet to use them

Successfully

becomes The Voice

My favorite verbs were Christ & PeterPan

I peterpanned a decade of my life away

Unlikeable,

unrelatable criminal

Meanwhile,

you were christing badly

Beloved

Applauded

by an audience standing @ 

                 their urinals

0731:1175a

(you know what they say about upgrades…)

*********

Oyeere Postpone-y

Everyone thinks “you’re”

Writing about “them”

Everyone thinks “I”

Is “they” 

And “they” is Russian

black type-face / white background?

Sometimes “you” is just “you”

meaning “Trump”

Some”times” are “ways”

“Some”time is “everything” I ever wanted…

Sometimes “I” is “wine” or “cancer” or “rage” or “Leo”

All ways lead to minutiae

And an abundance of closet space

Intermission: I never even knew

                     You could learn to say this

                      Any other way

0731;1200n

*********

I called out to my neighbor’s god

For she claimed to have one

Jesuss!! Did Alexa die for Vladmir Putin

’s sins?

Have I lived my life beyond the memes

and proven their ephemeral nature?

Does Mad Ave have a team of psychiatrists

Advising its advertising scripts?

Snublished by the body language guild

Ignored by the cryptic mass

(es)    Chewing scenery,

I just want big news all over my tombstone

0731:1225p

[This is called sentient dementia]