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

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! 

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

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

***********

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)

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

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

***********

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

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

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

***********

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

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

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)

**********

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