Friday, February 1, 2019

January VOGON '19

Hey Y’all

Happy Groundhog’s Eve. Here are the very first Vogons of 2019. I’ve been super busy w/ gross earthly responsibilities, and also I’ve managed to spend a lot of time hibernating. Which I plan to do all year long. Which means there will be fewer Vogon poems & hardly any new art. But I’ll give you what I can.

Just a reminder that submissions for the next Octopus Review are open! Send me STUFF! 

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VOICES BEHIND CLOSED DOORS:
       A TRUMP & PUTIN DIALOGUE IN THE STYLE OF MAMET

T: Bail me out
P: Hey
T: Why not
P: Why not pay?
T: Later
P: Now
T: Why? Let’s wheel. Let’s peel & eat. Let’s seal a state.
P: Rue it. Rent it. Ivankit.
T: Rentvanka?  
P: Ivankment
T: Nosvedonya
P:
T:
P:
T:
P:
T: Let’s fluff. Let’s tuft. Let’s Tiffanize.
P: Hmmm……
T: Hah?? Huh??
P: Hmmm….mmmmm….mmmmm….Tiffanope…
T: Wha??
P: Ivankage
T: But Jared…
P: Nyuk nyuk…back channel
T: But…
P: Nyaa..nyaa…
T: Scapericorn. Goat germs?
P: Sharksteps
T: Chirp chirp 140 chirp chirp chirps…Tiffanyet?
P: < 3.7 tongue clicks > Perks?
T: The works. pp cummings. Any sexton pussy mob or dick&sons
P: We make poetry together?
T: And rent
P: Da-da-deal comrade < poison sandwich? >

0114:0625p

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2014: Spider   2015: Frog     2016: Owl    2017: Rabbit    2018: Worm

           2019: whatever hibernates 51 weeks/year

(The Sunshine State Zodiac. Which sign are you? It doesn’t matter, they’re all incompatible)

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THE PLEASURE OF BEING A BURNOUT

Drone. Yawn. Snore. Whaat?!

You’re
cutting edge
cutting hedge
cuddling ledge
budding Reg

   (or is it Rog?)

0114:0625p


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HOW TO DEFEAT ISIL

Let them have their caliphate &
also bake a 
        many-tiered cake

Build a wall around their caliphate &
      toss the bread-laced tablets
  Manna Manna Overboard
       overbred  overbite
Sanctions, blah-blah-blockades
          A caliphate from
      Walls of bread & one day
                                 needles
One day only flour instead of bread &
         one day bliss
         becomes a kite
        becomes a comet
     blessing this caliphate
A cup of small white disks, crushed
          into powder

Pull a pretty hippy to the town square 
     A hub of sunshine in her love-vest &
                                    detonate…

Dust the cake generously w/ fine powder
Be sure to wear full hazmat gear

0114:0625p

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Spirit Animals: From Karmic Kidnapping to Deluxe Escape

Spider: Not the coveted Soviet features of an ubermodel
            But one 8-eyed spy
Tripping, hopping on too many stages

    Burying currents in well insulated legs

Frog: Suddenly you’re an apprentice
                     electrician. It’s your house & body
              That need rewiring
Beginning w/ the doorbell & ending w/ the
                              hyoid bone

                     Ribbit  roar  purr (remember
                                  when the doorbell almost
                                    burned the house down?
             That was my last day w/ guardian angels
                                For
                                   how
                                      long…? About a year….
                     The morning I was frog-bombed on the toilet
                            I knew I had new angels & 
                should never ask what happened to the old ones)

Owl: You pulled your wings from my overdrawn 
                   Bank of orgasms, 
            And fluttered like money across my eyelashes
                              Glory bee! That did not sting,
                      But too many peeks behind the curtain
                               Leave you weak

Rabbit: Your scars itched & your brain prepared 
                                            to give birth
                                  (to a whole new reality. And
                               I don’t use that word lightlessly)
              Nibble on the clover you’d overlooked
                    for falsity (& I use that word selflessly)
        
                       Dismantle the gingerbread mall
                                 w/ your teeth

Worm: turning & resisting
           cliche, always softening your angle
                        With those segments
           How could anyone mistake you for a visual thinker?
                          And yet they do…

0114:0650p

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Blurry shotgun penguin wedding


ADVENTURE AT THE MMJ DISPENSARY IN SEATTLE*

The sad thing about the adventure
      was how perfectly it started

Some water drops are naturally unholy
          but each particle of fog on this adventure
                was of baptismal quality

W/ laser precision I calculated the time of your birth &
from there I was able to pinpoint the moments
                       you made your way west

All the zany cardstock characters were written
  in —
       the ranting blond whose tears turned out
            to be holier than rain

She distracted from my reverie
                    but didn’t destroy it.
Continue. 
               Everyone stopped & posed
                  in my windshield
One man halts & takes an everest chug
          off his vapor cannister
            as he limps up the ramp

Not a puff but a breath of creation heavy w/
                                        holy mucus

Perfect weather. Perfect temperature
      for rolled down windows

A hot box of MAGA hats leaves the station @ 10:45

& at 10:47 it’s your turn.

Then,
 my turn to see you in the windshield,
                 familiar not zany

In those 47 minutes I’d written your life story
        and couldn’t wait to get home & end it
            w/ the perfect punctuation mark—

An audio-visual orgasm
               A just-long-enough jest—

when some walk-on character appears,
                                summoning,
                        desperate semaphore
                          & you respond
By leaping from my skull’s embrace & traipse
    through a fog that’s already hardening into glass

2 writers should never share a windshield

0127:0400a

*not the real Seattle

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Please, no more tests!!
Remember the one I took all last year,
Swordplaying through your obstacle course
Of illnesses? 
Please no more.

How much longer do I want to hang out
Watching the fragilest minds of my generation
Do what they’re doing??

Intuition is a thing now
      but there are forces working against it
This is a collective, a food pantry
           of Christ hostages
Needing to be eaten before decomp sets in

All TIME has angelic seals of approval
          from dickless gatekeepers,
      somehow always defeminized
            like astronauts in SPACE

Let this 45th Blotch appear
On the face of a wafer

Screeching for us to halt as the
       Evolutionary bottleneck approaches
Some get stuck there like a
        Butterscotch in the throat…

0127:0425

*********

I was born the moment your train left the station
               We crossed paths
      I couldn’t find a mother & friends
            were a chemical risk
The drano crawled around your palate
    & the styrofoam cup corroded as you watched
                       from the bathroom floor

And other mothers scared you,
       the caring available ones —
            (If you got something to say…)

Most of us unpack this shit through
              divorces/troubled tweens/ whatever mirrors
we encounter on the walls of the world

Rarely do we choose to face
          the mirrors of the skull. Your inner disco ball awaits!
Meet it w/out flinching &
             the velvet ropes will engorge
                     w/ loving platelets

Like, how dare you see me under
                all this business,
           this shroud of bureaucracy?

I must be doing something Pretty
Dumb. But can’t believe all the dumb things 
You keep doing!

I always counted on you to be the smart one.

0127:0450a

(this is so like today, all my thoughts ending on the other side of the page
where they’re easily lost
10 of fucking wands! “broken pumpkin”
I always thought the first family might be a little
                     topsy turvy)

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WILD WEST VERSION of 1980s + 1930s =

An era I never wanted to see
But here I am w/ eyes not made of hamburger
I love to conspire
You were the pious earth mother
You were sawn in half & rebuilt yoreself
W/ good food, meditation
& a photogenic lifestyle

Who else are “American”? The Weiners?
Do Americans congregate?
A parish of them?
A perish? A persistence?
An astroika?

What about ostrich feathers
Blooming from sand pits?
What about popped heart balloons
What about the seabirds &
                     the billionaires—
How do we reconcile their differences?

Octopus Diary is back channel to oligarchy?
Now I will call the interpols
Those we called “mama’s boys” before
“toxic masculinity” was entered
In the lexicon

Gardening under hydroponic duress
A different momma’s boy has arrived
(Alternative spelling
Because his variety is benign)

Expie al Adocious, 
           Sir Gaga
    More purring, less roaring
You are the Master…..
                                    [It’s hard to be a poet when your
                                       family is still alive. There’s so much to show
                                      Not tell. And, it’s not all bad. It’s actually
                                      pretty interesting & profound. 
                        But privacy (yada yada) respect  >: ( ]


0127:1225p