The Toddler King Part 4

5 Replies

 

The Toddler King Part 4

5 am. in America

the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed

and wonders how to spin this one
how to make this one a win

in the empty parking lot of a big box store
a plastic glove pirouettes on the viral breeze

the toddler king thumbs through
The Totalitarian Dictators Hand Book
a present from that rascal, Stephen Miller

“hmmmmm….cull the herd
leave the old and weak to die
already got that one going!

banish the teachers, scientists and intellectuals
send them to the countryside to work on a farm
hey, that might work!”

but then he becomes a little wan, a little wistful
he wonders why he’s always the guy
standing on someone’s front lawn, shouting
“Look over here, look over here!”
while Miller and his gang ransack the house
and leave by the backdoor with the television
and the jewelry

he stares out at the White House lawn
and the suffering, beleaguered nation beyond
and thinks:

“Hey, I just realized the ‘Caps’ in Caps Lock stands for CAPITALS!!
I wonder how many people know that!!”

 

Taking part in OPen Link over at dverse.

 

 

Haiku and Poem written in a pub somewhere in Kitsilano

15 Replies

IMG_1254 (4)

 

Poster

poster on the wall
Lennon at a piano
deconstructing Paul.

 

IMG_1034 (2)

 

Perspective

imagine,
you, a frog
down a well,
above you
only sky.

 

Taking part in open link over at earthweal.  This is obviously a re-post, I have not been inside a pub in Kitsilano or anywhere else for a few weeks. I was working on a few pandemic-related poems but it’s hard to keep pace with events.

Bathos (A Whiter Shade Of Pale)

2 Replies

pumper 2

 

Bathos

The moon hung
like a searchlight
in the spangled sky
and we hung
out on
the deck.

 

IMG_0401 (2)

A Whiter Shade of Pale

By the time ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ was recorded in 1967, Bob Dylan had already raised the bar very high in terms of what the public expected from a song lyric; song writers were now expected  to be poets. This was a heavy load to carry as few songwriters had Bob’s poetic gift; as a result, bathos was everywhere.

Bathos: “an effect of anticlimax created by an unintentional lapse in mood from the sublime to the trivial or ridiculous”.

There are, as I said, many examples from that era, but the one that always stands out in my mind is from the last four lines of the first verse of ” A Whiter Shade of Pale”:

The room was humming harder

as the ceiling flew away

when we called out for another drink

the waiter brought a tray.

I have to admit that when I first heard this song I had no idea what it was about. Why are sixteen vestal virgins leaving for the coast? What is a vestal virgin anyway? Who is the miller? I still don’t know,  but I don’t think it really matters.  It’s best  to sit back, listen to the song and let your brain feed on the images and in no time at all the room will hum harder, the ceiling will fly away, you’ll think about maybe following the vestal virgins, you’ll skip a light fandango, turn cartwheels across the floor, all the time trying to avoid that waiter and his tray.

Notes:

The recorded version of the song has only two verses, but if you google the lyrics you will find four verses. Procol Harum sometimes included the extra verses in live performances but wisely left them out of the recording; they are not very good and diminish the song’s impact. As Bob Seger once sang:

Well those drifters days are past me now
I’ve got so much more to think about
Deadlines and commitments
What to leave in, what to leave out

Bob Seger, ‘Against the Wind’

“What to leave in, what to leave out” – whether you are writing a song, poem, novel, short story, if you can solve that one you might be on the way  to something good!

Check out this version by Annie Lennox

 

 

Home (from Oscar Wilde to Bono, because of the day that’s in it )

10 Replies

Oscar (3)

Because it’s St. Patrick’s Day (week)….some excerpts from my last trip home.


Conversation (hibernoku)

a low Dublin sky
a sentence hangs suspended
cut off in its prime

interrupt or die.

‘Hibernia’ is the classical Latin name for Ireland. A hibernoku is a haiku (seventeen syllables, 5-7-5) with an additional 5 or 7 syllable line, because for the Irish, seventeen syllables is a cruel limitation. The poem must contain an Irish reference and must allude to the weather in some way. In most parts of Ireland, ‘hibernoku’ is pronounced ‘hi-bern-o-koo’, except in West Cork where it is pronounced ‘hiber-nok-oo’.

Photo: Statue of the eternally quotable Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square, Dublin.

 

Sandy Cove

 

Weather 

an easterly wind
clouds move in convoy ‘cross the blue dome of the sky.

Photo: A sunny mid September day in Sandy Cove, Dublin.

 

Vico

Family (haiku)

yep, had a few drinks
with my brother, my sisters
sibling ribaldry.

Photo: View looking south along the coast, from Vico Road. Dalkey, Co. Dublin. Bono owns a house nearby ……where all the streets have names….I checked.

Participating in Open Link Night over at dverse

 

Between (Everyone’s got something to bring..)…..Edit

4 Replies

IMG_0168

Between

Between the caucus and the carcass
between the chaos and the calm
between the fracas and the ruckus
between the righteous and the damned

Between the priest and the sermon
between the singer and the song
no one can determine
why we all can’t get along

Between the question and the answer
there is a life time of space
between the dance and the dancer
there is beauty and there is grace

Everyone’s
got something to bring
affect one thing
affect one thing

Everyone’s
got something to bring
affect one thing
affect one thing.

 

It’s Open Link Weekend over at earthweal, so I thought I would re-post this one. Be sure to check out earthweal, always something interesting going on there!

 

Poetic Ailments

12 Replies

 

pumper 2 (4)

 

Poetic Ailments

irritable vowel syndrome
verbose intolerance
arrhythmia
pain in the assonance
acute enjambment
inflammation of the lower case
latinnittus
typographical dysfunction
fear of sonnets
halibunions
grammaroids
the irrational fear
that someone in the room
is going to recite a Robert Service poem.

The prompt from Bjorn over at dverse is “lists”, I thought I would add this one.

 

 

 

 

 

Storms

3 Replies

IMG_0404 slate (2)

 

Storms

If it’s getting stormier
and it surely is
then we have to put a bit more work
into naming those storms
I mean to say, c’mon now,
Storm Dennis?
Dennis is a guy who wears cardigans
and washes his car every Sunday.
Margaret Thatcher’s husband
was called Dennis –
Storm Margaret
now there’s a storm,
a storm full of righteous certainty
levelling working class towns
circumnavigating domiciles of the rich.
How about Storm Boris
a tropical storm perhaps
full of hot air and bluster
a flatulent tail wind
or to switch professions and countries
Storm Janis
now there’s a storm to rip the roofs of houses
flatten whole trailer parks
transport cows to far off fields
or Storm Aretha
a storm that demands respect
sock it to me
anything but Dennis
side-parted, brilliantined, undershot Dennis.

The subject over at earthweal is “storms”.

The Toddler King (parts 1,2 and 3…re-post)

4 Replies

IMG_0247 (3)

It’s Open Link Weekend over at earthweal and editor in chief , Brendan, is feeling a little down in an eloquent, acerbic and humorous way, so head on over there, check out his post and link one of your poems.

Here’s one from 2018, which is surprisingly current and is either cheerful or depressing depending on your politics.

 

The Toddler King

1

5 am. in America

the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed

a five hundred pound ball
of carbohydrate and grease
rolls across the parking lot
of a big box store

assault rifles take stock

the second amendment
thinks about making amends

the founding fathers
find themselves wanting.

2

5 am. in America

the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed

in the empty parking lot
of a big box store
a plastic bag pirouettes
on the halitotic breeze

national monuments
fear for their lives

the adjectives – good, bad, great-
drop in value again

the toddler king
picks a fight with himself.

3

5 am. in America

the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed

an empty shopping cart
rolls across the parking lot
of a big box store
and wishes it was
a metaphor for something

rivers say goodbye
to their banks

the ocean
eyes the shore

the toddler king pardons
those great American dioxides
sulphur, nitric, carbon
they are quickly released.

 

 

Todd and the Time Machine Part 2

12 Replies

IMG_0491

 

Part 1 can be found here.

Todd and the Time Machine Part 2

Todd’s basement materialises
he sees the dark wood veneer panelling,
that tartan colonial sofa his uncle gave him,
the dark patch where his uncle rested his head
still glistening from the oil slick of his uncle’s hair,
in the corner, his wife is playing with an electrical cord.
“Don’t pull the cord, I’m not fully back yet!” Todd screams.

His wife’s voice comes back
a little garbled by the time lag
“I hope you’re going to clean up that damn dust this time”.

Todd returns to the present,
presents himself and sneezes into his sleeve
leaving a black smear on his plaid Mark’s Work Warehouse shirt.
Unknown ramifications
unforeseen outcomes,
that 21st century air
trapped in the time capsule
drops to a lower carbon dioxide concentration
as the capsule travels back in time
the surplus carbon dioxide
reverts to the original carbon
forming a black dust
which coats the inside of the capsule;
thing is, it’s a one way process
no one knows why

“You look like shit”, his wife says
“You look time-wasted, you look timed out,
what happened to your hair?”

Unknown ramifications
unforeseen outcomes
time travel messes with your hair
alters your DNA
deletes your vaccinations
the dangers of rushing a technology to market
too soon.

Todd’s wife grins
“I wasn’t really going to pull the cord”,
she hugs him, grinding slowly
“What did you bring back for me, this time?”

 

Taking part in open link over at earthweal, the poem was inspired by earthweal’s prompt “A Clockwork Green”. 

Check out earthweal, a lot of good poetry and Brendan’s no-holds-barred editorials manage to be informative and entertaining at the same time.

Allergic (there is poetry in chemistry 2)

Leave a reply

 

rainbow-3

Allergic 

there is poetry in chemistry:

dextromethorphan hydrobromide
pseudoephedrine hydrochloride
chloropheniramine

antihistamines
expectorants
decongestants

loratimide
netipot
rose hip

post nasal drip
post nasal depression
catarrh,
but no catharsis.

 

……another re-post, but ’tis the season.

 

 

Short Unsolicited Advice on Writing Poetry (redux)

5 Replies

 

img_0494-4

Short Unsolicited Advice on Writing Poetry

write long poems on short days
short poems on long days
you don’t need a drummer
but you do need rhythm
avoid melodrama
your head cannot explode all the time,
there is uncharted territory
between ecstasy and despair
look after your images
they should splash like cold water
on the reader’s face
observe, always observe.

 

img_0498-2

 

 

 

Caye Caulker (poem, take 4)

17 Replies

caye-caulker-2

 

Caye Caulker

In the café below
the locals talk about the old times
about Eve and the apple
about Paradise lost
about how all the bottles
washed up on the shore
carry the same message.

pelicans plummet into the bluebottle sea
sting rays undulate

out on the coral reef
tiny organisms
fret about climate change
and that damn carbonic acid

I fink the pH is dropping, I really do

meanwhile, over in San Pedro
on the Redneck Riviera
hermetically sealed resorts
march north towards Mexico
and thin, blond soccer moms
mingle with sun-damaged matrons
dedicated to the preservation
of floral print muumuus.

in the café below, Bob Marley’s still jammin’.

 

This poem has had a few lives. Participating in open link over at earthweal. Head over and check out Brendan’s thought provoking and eloquent post .

 

Issue #17 Vapid Magazine

27 Replies

looking at me (2)

 

Issue #17 Vapid Magazine

In Issue #17, coming to a newsstand nowhere near you, we discuss..

The environment, it’s everywhere

Our environment correspondent, Jordan Shallowditch, is away on vacation so our celebrity watcher and gossip columnist, Simon Shallowpond is picking up the slack, he offers this twitter friendly poem:

 

Plastics? What Plastics?

no need to fret
no need to fuss
all is well
‘cos Kristen Bell’s
got a bamboo toothbrush.

Well done, Simon!

The Oscars

Our movie critic, Georgina Shallowglass, discusses the Oscars and asks the question:
Why would anyone divorce Adam Driver?

Plus, she describes that epiphanic, that life-altering moment when she realised that Jane Austen didn’t write Little Women (it was those American accents).

Politics

It’s been a busy year so far in politics and our political correspondent, Jonathan Shallowpit, asks the controversial question:
Did the founding fathers fuck it up?

..and if not, how come the semi-literate son of a billionaire, with bad hair and a genius for marketing dumb ideas could destroy the whole shebang , the whole house of cards by simply saying :” Nah, I’m not going to do that”.

Footnote

Jonathan, I’m afraid, will be leaving Vapid Magazine. A number of his co-workers have complained that he is making them think too much, resulting in headaches and a toxic working environment.

Vapid Magazine, home of all things vapid!

 

Participating in Open Link Night over at dverse , check them out!

2 Poems in Cyphers Magazine (“Ascension” and “Prairie”)

3 Replies

IMG_1848

 

Cyphers magazine has published two of my poems –  “Ascension” and “Prairie”– in their Winter 2019/2020 issue.  I am really pleased as always to be published in Cyphers and in particular this time as my poems appear on the same pages as a poem by Fred Johnston, a poet I have long admired.

…Jim Feeney

Cyphers is a Dublin based print only magazine which has been in existence since 1975. They publish poets from all over the world, both new and established and this issue features a number of translated poems.

Cyphers can be found at http://www.cyphers.ie

If you want to subscribe to Cyphers magazine, you can do so by writing to the following address:

Cyphers Magazine, 3 Selskar Terrace, Ranelagh, Dublin 6, Ireland.

Subscription rate is €21.00 for three issues including postage

In Britain £20.00 for three issues including postage

US $42.00 for three issues including postage

 

 

Solastalgia (tanka)

4 Replies

IMG_1215 (2)

 

Solastalgia (an alternative etymology)

solas in Gaelic
means light, solastalgia,
a longing for light

hidden under a bushel
at the end of a tunnel.

The challenge over at earthweal is to “Write a new poem on the theme of Solastalgia” which is “a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change.”

 

 

Fracking Song (2)

23 Replies

pumper 2 (2)

 

Fracking Song

You’re standing on the corner
Watching the trucks go rolling past
Pumping out their diesel fumes
Pumping out that carbon gas

It’s the middle of winter
And it’s twenty below
And that gas just sits there
With nowhere to go

Something’s wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Ten in one year
And they  call that the norm

Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town.

That rock’s been down forever
With its hydrocarbon payload
When they  blow it all apart
They  can’t control where it goes

And that water that’s left standing
Evaporating in the sun
The residue will be with us
Long after they are gone

Something’s wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Ten in one year
And they call that the norm

Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town.

You can blame the politicians
The special interests groups
Blame the fracking company
They all don’t give a fuck

There’s only one thing they understand
One thing that they know
Keep riding that fossil fool train
As far as it will go.

There’s something wrong in the valley
Babies stillborn
Placentas like ribbons
And they call that the norm

Something’s wrong in the valley
Something toxic in the ground
Something wrong in the valley
Since the frackers came to town

 

Taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal

Machu Picchu (poem)

16 Replies

 

Machu Picchu

I

Backpacks
bucket lists
smart phones
selfie sticks
altitude pills
attitude pills,
sun hats
sun block
Lonely Planet Guidebook,
don’t drink the water
don’t eat the salad
no ice please
this is our tribe
this is our tribe.

II

The Incas long ago
left for the valley
to grow their quinoa,
wheat and corn
but we keep coming
to look for something
that may have been left behind;
we are a benign invader
a tad earnest maybe
mild-mannered to a fault
but hand us a weak wifi signal
and we go ape-shit.
There are those among us
who have already abandoned
the physical world –
I see them
sitting in restaurants
heads bowed and thumbs
working beneath the table
connecting by radio waves
to a digital stream
of consciousness and banality.
I am he as you are he
and we are a river of electrons.

 

Photos by Marie Feeney

This poem was originally published in The Galway Review.

Taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse