February VOGON '19

FRIENDS,

How’s it going? Spring’s approaching, so I’m trying to surface from my mystical hibernation. But I tell ya—after approzimately 5 decades of insomnia, to finally get permission from the kosmos to sleep as much as…. everyone else…

to sleep soundly instead of constantly moving the spheres w/ my sweaty brain waves….  the pressure is OFF.

Forever? Or just this year? Or just till April? Who knows. But I love it.

As Spring approacheth, I’m also approaching the end of the Exegesis of PKD. I can’t wait to say a few words about it here in the Octopus Diary. I’m sure you all remember my Existential Crisis of 2017 — I saw you all making fun of me. Anyway, I’ve been on an exhaustive spiritual quest since that summer & the Exegesis was a thrilling & cathartic parallel to my own efforts. And my efforts have been rewarded more exhaustively than I could have ever imagined. 

So who’s laughing now?

And with the arrival of Spring will also come the 7th Octopus Review. You will love it more than your own Instagram buffet— send Octopus art!

                NOW     !!!     ENJOY these VOGON poems!!!!!!!!!!!! 

————————————————————————————————

BULLET TRAIN AROUND THE WORLD

It’s Sunday, ie no longer a day off for anyone

                                Where do we start?

Breakfast burritos on the border? Naw, construction.

      Let’s go to Sumatra for coffee. There’s just been a murder

of tigers, following a 100 acre rape

               [Attempting to mate w/ a plate of eggs?]

Pick coffee beans from paws & proceed to the mainland

China is old. It is dying &

Some other centipede is bumbling out of its hole &

Redrawing boundaries. A moving target

                           w/ infinite digits

                        reloading, redrawing

Till China looks more like a penguin than a pig

Finally a warship cruise to Venezuela

     where they’re hungry for the recipe

                                       for caliphate cake

                Cartoon leaders stand like unlit candles

      Awaiting a match,

Tigger™ pinyatas swell w/ gasoline

0210:0550a

**********

It’s A Re-re-re-re-World!

I dreamt of our finite globe, 

                the whole thing in one night

Tour guide Owl led me to this & that corner

           of our edgeless touchstone —

     It was a flash in the pan w/

                      no souvenir

The quickest, kitschiest tour of a planet ever…

        It was over & there was nowhere left…

It was time to right fiction. 

Retract tentacles. Present claws.

0210:0575a

***********

My SCRABBLE Game:  white

                                        pigs

                                     praying

                                       trimly

                          jag     axite      edit

                                   ouzo pint

                                  wound fried

Then it was back to 7th grade. The year you realized

             the social contract stated

That as soon as anyone leaves any room, whosoever left behind is free 

             to judge the aforementioned person in his/her/their absence & 

               slander & libel him/her/them within the walls of said room

 Never holding up any mirrors to self examine, but only to cast aspersions

                       on someone/anyone else to deflect any

Mirror/platter/reflective surface that may reveal a clear cut version

                             Of the self to the self—

And you decided then & there in your 12th year of life that that was the very worst

                               Thing ever

                                About people

& you would do your best to avoid being in rooms, then not being in rooms,

                  with any of them

0210:0575a

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

Dream — April 2017 — A Writer’s Conference or Mystic Faire — Hotel Lobby

       I recognized writers

But card tables draped in velvet & linen

          said psychic faire

I tried to say hi to a few faces

     & they smirked or turned away

Soon I saw the familiar gathering of hackles, the bonding of atoms

                that didn’t include mine

[Based on being ignored during poetry week / month/ lifetime

        Why did we stop posting & critiquing, 

                 building a big centipede of conformity

                       A poetry that does not segue 

                           from the brainstem of The Master 

to the old hermetic blackbox labeled Me?]

           I was shoved to the nubbly curtain,  my phone jostled

                       Uproarious laughter  having fun at my expense

Because I am cheap & easy. The centipede can’t make

              100 simple decisions per second, so it laughs 

                   at its own hacked segments

I came back for my phone & found it cracked &

          Mystics smiled all around 

0210:0575a

**********

I’LL CONTINUE to BORE YOU with MY INNER JOURNEY…

—> Loss of libido

—> Psychic safari

—> Psychotic break

—> REINTEGRATE

—> Prodigal ejaculation

—> Clairvoyant assault

—> Redact claws

—> Wrap tentacles around the cake

Remembering PornWeek: surviving hourly wage boredom

W/ the devil in my pocket

(now that I have pockets

            full of frogs & snails & cat tails…)

0210:0600a

*********

THE BODY PARTISAN

Do children go outside anymore?

I’m good at being outside; reading the conference room

Everyone’s a dullard, a dotard

Let’s go

Do children have locks on their bedroom doors

I did.

My lock broke one day & I thought

I’d never get out

& that didn’t scare me until I got hungry

For peanut butter & jelly & how would it fit

Under the door?

Saints & angels for every season —

You’re the patron saint* of those who DO TOO MUCH & HAVE IT ALL!!!

I’m the patron saint of those who’ve been robbed of their will to live.

I dial up terrorists & school shooters, & ask wtf dude?

And they always say the same thing — 

      Constant displacement by new people when the old ones haven’t

                   found a place (aka OVERPOPULATION)

Xenopause. Beekept information.

0210:0600a

*Patron saint = unpaid psychiatrist

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

my attempt at an insta-poem!!! (ie, not Vogon)

“Tarot Bell”

I’m a very affordable mystic

But I won’t go easy on you

You’ll feel me the next day…

2-17-19

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

THE CODA PENDANT

I haven’t gone through anything diagrammable

At least that’s what I thought

Till I got the bright idea

To connect the dots

Just decide what the dots are — 

          Dates? Songs? Dicks sucked? —

And connect the bejeezus out of those

        Little ordinates that could

               **********

Taking an    unpaved

                unlit      uncool

                     Road

to get to this junkture

     Blindfold + balance beam

Between temporal lobes I walked

                                (‘I’ meaning ‘me’ this time)

                          I walked & fell

                        I palpated walls

                 I massaged my heart

I called you out on all the things I heard you say

                                     inside my ear drum ( your

                                           unconscious biases)

I knew from 12 that no one really likes anyone;

                your evaluation is always going on

                       But it’s never glowing…

I walked the planet as if it were 4 inches wide

And the judges were eager to deduct

                             not only points

But actual wood molecules from my unvarnished feet

I somnambulated

I echolocated

Till one recent a.m., without my asking,

            a great wink of the eyeball sun

      lit up my inner/outer

                    (core/reactor)

& I was evaluated by the sky

           (or God, if you want to call It that)

Here is the snapshot of how the world —

                      or Satan if you want to call it that—

                                       views you

I expected to see a fetal spiral, head bowed to chest

    A piece of human excrement curled around an overflowing loo…

Instead

The impossibly high-def mental picture

Was of me on the ledge

                        (parapet, railing) of the Philippi Creek bridge

Walking               way above the water

Doing my mental & physical gymnastics

While cars honked & classmates shouted

“You’re the girl on the bridge” people would say at school

          & I would make some animal noise

I forgot I did that. Forged those skinny paths

Unwalked by anyone else

You’re the girl on the bridge, God said,

                Even though you’re a sad-but-too-happy-to-be-a-poet man

                                                these days…

You were born to be the girl on the bridge 

And that’s who you’ll be when you end

No matter what she’s gone through, no matter where she’s been

*12th grade witchcraft*

Now you’re back on wet cement

0222:0333a

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

BRIDGET BARDO

words are back

to play  to pledge allegiance & plead

                                    insanity

Rudeboy Giuliani

      please have a seat in the oxygen lounge

We’ll call you neighbor when

                    we’re good & ready

When the fortress is built of moonparts

             & shoots gamma rays

Early wood, morning hammers,

         Construction galore & pussy

                nowhere to be found

Even his truck is a ghost

         At 4 a.m., has he had breakfast

   behind the dateline? Somewhere in the Dominican?

I know he’s a pilot, but we won’t discuss it.

Flora/fauna codependent 

       Audio break up — rain, Forest!

All that (those) bacteria! Lit up. Glowing. 

     Not just Fairuza Balk(crafting)

       but Mayim Bialik(blossoming)

An invading viral consciousness that turned us

        inside out like a tube sock

   on Dec 23, 2012

We felt it. We split,

      bifurcated, lost sight of each other,

           became a mismatched tribe

Of tubesocks in an overcrowded drawer

Till the lint trap opened and out Bakula

                   (quantum leapt)

0222:0375a

**********

DOE-EYED BUCK-EYE

You grow fat & lazy

       When I make you supper

         & the world covers me w gold stars!

You grow closer to God

      When I make you suffer

    & the world peels the stars from

               my ceiling

(“specific spirituality” = please God help,

                  but only until midnight on Tues.)

0222:0375a

********

p.s.  Just a note about these DIAGRAMS OF TIME.

        They are Diagrams of Time, not cartoons of our solar system. Please don’t get that mixed up, as I do every time I look at them.

I’ll keep working on them as they are not quite right yet… I’ll spend all year drawing TIME if I have to