MAY (Your Day Be) VOGON

FRIENDS—

I hope you’re all doing well. Please forgive me if these Vogons are even vogoner than usual. They only reflect how unbelievable & discordant the world itself has become. 

You’ll be happy to know that I’m not in the throes of an existential crisis this year, so I don’t have any Summer Series planned. I do want to return to more serious essay-like pieces here— I keep wanting to do that but time & energy are not as abundant as they once were. I will try harder this summer to address some more concrete topics. Ie, i keep feeling like I should be writing more about the “trans experience” but I’m not sure what to say about it, or who even wants to hear about it. I know the “Successful Trans Narrative” is old news & people are hungry for the more shadowy & unsuccessful tidbits that go w/ all human narratives, even the ones about magical self transformative butterfly journeys!! 

So yeah, I’ll try to say some important adult-like things in the near future.

ALSO—Submissions are open for Octo Review #5. So far I’m ahead in art submissions & need more poetry, which is the exact opposite of how it usually is. I hope you all understand why I am expressly inviting more work from women, POC, LGBT… please don’t label me a “Lit Bro” or a “SJW”. I’m a Gen Xer & too old to be either one of those things. Thank you. (I’m just a person who loves poetry, art & equality for all)

****************VOGON************************************

How many scientists perish in plane crashes?

(I refuse anymore insect dialect on this topic!)

Start the elevator, Faustian underling

My rival must be equal or he’s no rival at all

This word has thorns

It’s resonating—a snake’s tongue

Soft sibilant & sexual

Alliterative afterburn—

   he’ll get his facts straight

    Or he’ll get knee-capped in

        Concourse A

0504:0875p

******

Copy Cat

Ditto Dog

Ersatz Emu

Forged Ferret

Ghostwritten Goldfish

Hijacked Hippo

Imitation Ibex

Jingoistic Jellyfish

Knock-off Kangaroo

Raise your hand if you remember Richard Scarry

If you wet your pants on the playground

If you dyed your hair “A Thousand Deaths” [Clairol #122]

All the people in Scarry’s stories were animals

I always wondered why I didn’t see warthogs

Shopping at the grocery store

Or orange tabbies driving cars

I probably wet my pants on the playground 100x

But I know I didn’t poop on the slide

Like Kevin (one of the Kindergarten twins)

That playground had monkey bars 

In the shape of a rocket ship

What bright equipment bores through your trauma!

(I only used Clairol #121 “Black”)

0504:0900p

*******

You were a bankrupt millionaire hotel mogul on 9/11

Maybe you’re not so far off the 34th Street masonry

I glimpsed as time lifted its veil that summer

Dynamite, I said

Looking at my cat’s legs

So faraway from their first 7 lives

I didn’t know she was sprinting for the Rainbow Bridge

& you hadn’t yet mounted the escalator

At the b0tt0m of the puffy Cheet0 bag

0504:0900p

********

Yo, gabapentin & porn don’t invite

The bright characters

Folded in Aramaic yoga poses

The arabesque origami

You sent to the moon

Sits folded on Salome’s desk

She gave you a headless grandchild

You didn’t know you wanted

Conveniently skipping that generation

You watched on the playground

                            from afar…

W/ binoculars

   & unclean thoughts

A world you can’t pause

   On its reel to reel meditation

Innocence & how to break it like wind wave bone code

I’m in an analog trance

Over (y)our clone, all (y)our motherless

Sequels,

Or what is rebooted for the sake of boo’s?

What ruins are we rebuilding

W/ no specs for a fireplace?

0507:1000p

**********

    I

a) raised

b) sat at

c) lowered

   the bar

Remember a couple years ago

When being an introvert was cool —

just for a moment— but long enough

For a bunch of extroverts I knew

To jump on the bandwagon

It doesn’t work the other way though

I can’t just claim to be an extrovert & not 

Drink myself silly trying to prove it

Mmmm… silliness…

***

Not the usual

Lo-fi park pigeon warble

But a soft, high coo

***

Rhapsodizing

Your mating rituals

In such heteroprogressive detail

At the expense

of the gay orgy option

I would’ve chosen

Above all of thee

Signed,

the Media©

Symbolically

0512:1200n

***********

ROSEANNE IN SPACE!!!

Having a tough time communicating

The truth is V Putin reads this blog

(only on radio & in this blog do I feel like an actual person)

The spy had to take a leak

If these poems sound like they were

Written by DT

It’s because he’s a dictator

I’m taking dictation w/ shaky wrists

Putting prayer back in the news

The Media has picked the slow lane

So it doesn’t miss its exit

Making changes to appeal to a broader audience

I don’t like a broad audience. Nor do I care

For a narrow one.

I’m looking for a deep audience, a bright

One.

*phosphene eye drops*

Green tea from now on  

Brain saturation leaves

I am an autotonsorialist

& even an autodentite

& surely an autodidact

Just not a girl named Autumn O’Beale

0512:1200n

***********

His Brain Left A Suicide Note Of Its Own

I give zero wild fuckberries

About your pyroclastic side hustle

Just dance w/ me

Put some Xymox on the phonograph’s

Rotary saddle & ride the disco darkness

Gentle pre laser gallop

Speaks to me in the unicursal language

Body to body w/out microbe swap

Minus the skin slip

[open bed sore from our efforts]

Since you became

A paranoid clairvoyant

I no longer hear your telepathic bluestreaks

But I can still see them

Forming in your frontal sky

Sea smoke thick into the nation’s heart

Mystical fog swirls—the ocean raising its hand

To take an implosive leak

Continental shelves—paperless,

Voiceless, lifeless — bend to chevrons

Of a lost war

        Nature’s ruling

Big suicide canvas, shoreline performance

     Emotional exhibitionism

My biggest weakness? Is expecting you to read

My mind.

You’re hired! You’re fired!

You’re pardoned! You’re free!

My greatest asset? 

I was always a female prince

Now I’m finally a male queen

Lovely. You’re hired.

You’re salaried.

You’re valued way above your potential,

And above the potential of the

Page of Pentacles who answers our phones

The job’s so simple

Even a Gen Xer could do it!

I’m sorry, Gen-what?

What? Oh, I must’ve been dreaming

But your skin looks thicker

Like your demeanor, your uncensored pie-hole

I quit.

I wasn’t born to feel good & I’m handling that better than ever

But how I wish it wasn’t so. I’m the kind

Of sponge that sops the tears

Of your overexertion,

       your distilled spirit,

           your inhaled prayers

Leaking onion-size tears, whole organs

Expelled by this sadness

Have your sham-wow handy

            your desiccants

                your trocar

When old people brag re: their grandchildren

What they’re really saying is

“Our children still talk to us. We didn’t fuck

Them up so much they refused our lineage. You?”

As with all things that frighten &

Confuse me

I like to take a direct approach—is that a hearse

In front of the WH??

      What all over my nerves?

           Mustard?

              Ash?

        Tiger scratches?

It stings like grid confetti

     hacked bits of civility

        beheaded honey bee

0512:1200n

***********

The Federal Anthem

Place your right hand

Over your bulging aorta

You’re a vision in pinstripes & stents

Will you whistle if I say France?

The Day After (propaganda)

The Morning After (pills)

Reagan Girls w/ hipbones & hair to the moon

Dead dry sex scrape

I heard everyone has a right brain

Over their heart

The right brain in each & every skull =

Heaven’s secret locale

the strung out Xmas lights of

Impermanence

       Mortal flickers of empathy

           On tunnel walls

Long graffiti speeches: oratory bombs

Lipstick the shade of a shoe print

I apply to be a spy

But who will hire me?

Russia knows how much I know about

America.

But I’m not the neighbor next door.

I’m not that girl anymore.

0518:0900p

*********

You said a beautiful word & I forgot

To hear it

Sabbatical, you called it

But the work was crippling

A happy fracture v. a bee’s wing wrung out like a washcloth

0518:0925p

(obligatory bee shout out!)

***********

Cooties

From Hot Zone 4

Set free on the city bus

Uber lice

Or ebola porter

Carrying the bomb that once

Vandalized the moon from here

0518:0925p

******

QUSS WORDS

All quandaries

  Qualify you to quote

     the Queen of Cups

Who calls from quarts

   Of quinine

& questions everything

W/in a quatrain of her last quokka

0518:0925p

********

A song that sounds like a cheap little trinket

Or a lisping elephant

Creeps on round black feet 

Into the egg-shaped office

Agenda neutral

Disgraced congressman Wiener

Dick-pics his way to the podium

“I want to take your guns, he says

“And also your phones.”

The head of household carries the one

You duplicitous little troll!

Now I know you’re Kuh-guh-baya

(pronounced “cagey bee”)

No, it isn’t a leap year

But leap we will through hoops

Not covered by mood insurance

At no cost to the

Homo nurse

0522:0950p

***********

But what is the rest?  58. 13. 69. 70

(year?  lottery?)

Mastectomy. Barometer.

Masonry degree.

Mr. Hysterical, radiation burns w/ inhaled glass

Particulate

He went nutso from the pain

A low threshold — to bear boredom

w/ majestic plumage!

0522:0950p

“Isn’t the plumage beautiful?”

“And I’ll smash your face for you, Yarblockos!”

***********

Once Upon A Laminated Continuum

I envisioned the Texas bbq

Where war criminals chained to their grills

Served the tired, wretched, poor & hungry

It hasn’t happened yet

But I still envision it (so it could)

What trope will twist through neo Judgment Day?

I see suicides.

A Trumptown massacree.

With radiant McNuggets, tweeteth the canary

Nevermore

[It’s audacious to hope

   We’ll get funding

     For the picture]

0530:1125a

**********

Knowledge means nothing

It used to be currency

But it’s everywhere now

We’re all fish searching

For that one perfect water molecule

It’s me looking for myself in the camera, taking

A photo of myself looking in the mirror

The new polyangular Narcissus

A pudding skin at evolution’s banquet

Dig in, asexual aphrodites

0530:1125a

[rain, rabbits, Russian spies

  R words are swords tomorrow

         Reversed

           Parked

        What an arc]

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

Do angels have assholes?

I know they don’t have belly buttons

They’ve nowhere to put their gaze

So they live (as electricity) to serve

Don’t throw lunchables at Planned Parenthood &

Call it love

That little embryo

Spooled around an unbent halo

From fontanel to anal cave

Says

“Don’t profane my golden spine

With these stainless pincers

Close your lips

i don’t want to gather lint”

0531:1050a

Please Submit to My Precious Darling Boutique 'zine

HEY THERE,

It’s that time again — time to send your most audacious art & writing for my inspection for The Octopus Review #5!!

Before i give you any sort of guidelines I just wanted to say a few things:

I know that when I submit my work to publications the editors will often specifically state that they need more work from women, people of color, and LGBT folks. I always wondered what this ‘submissions disparity’ looked like—

was it 70% male 30% female?

was it 69% white 31% other?

83% hetero 17% queer?

I ass-umed it would look something like the above when I started receiving work from people. But it’s actually even more disparate than I expected!

It looked more like —

95% male 5% female

98% white 2% other

90% het 10% queer (only because I know a lot of queers, though)

Now I feel like I must extend a plea for more submissions from ladies, people of color & queers. Do not read this as “I don’t want anymore submissions from white guys.”

White guys, I do not want you to stop submitting, I just want AS MANY submissions from ladies, etc…

I’m getting paranoid that I’ve been put on some iit bro list. (someone please tell me if I have so i can contest it). 

Also, what will I do now that The Octopus Review is doing so well? Will I upgrade it somehow? Will I gentrify & beautify it & switch from Blogger to Wordpress, or put up a neon pink background w/ turquoise fonts?

Will I join the cult of Instagram?

The answer is no. (I do want to join instagram, but I can’t right at the moment. You don’t need to know why.)

I will not be changing anything about the OR anytime soon. I base this decision on how much I hate it when the blogs I love get fancy makeovers.

I can’t tell you how many blogs I’ve loved & followed & looked forward to reading w/ my morning coffee & then hated after they got some notice and decided to “switch to a new format.”

I won’t do that to you yet, because I know how much you & your coffee depend on the current structure of the OR.

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

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Send me your most audacious poetry & art either by FB messenger or you can email me at vinwhitman@outlook.com

I’m still waiting for someone to send a poem in the style of e.e. cummings

Deadline is Jun 21, 2018 at 11:56 am

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.