Your high society mistress has long since left your bed and that Scandinavian seamstress has you hanging by a thread
those so-called glitterati won’t return your calls and your two-toned Maserati is running on nothing….nothing at all
but when you walk out in the morning you’ve still got that strut Cuban heels nerves of steel when you walk out in the morning you’ve still got that strut.
Peter over at dverse asks us to think about opening lines, check out his entertaining and informative post here.
Over at earthweal, the challenge is to write a poem about Deep Time. This is a poem about a place where time is deep and the air is thin.
The Sun God
Myron volunteered once
as a caretaker on an island
in the middle of a lake
in the High Andes
North of Puno,
the Altiplano.
The top of the island
was as flat as an anvil
and every day
he would climb up there
from his lake side cottage
to study the funerary towers
of Silustani
over on the mainland,
using his large binoculars.
It was never quite clear to Myron
what exactly he was taking care of.
He had a house,
a dread-locked alpaca
and three guinea pigs.
The guinea pigs were housed in a wired compound,
inside the compound was a miniature mud hut
with a thatched roof
and three open doorways
which the guinea pigs retreated through
every time he approached.
He thought,
perhaps he was supposed to eat the guinea pigs
it was clear that they thought this also.
Located close to the funerary towers
were the remains of an Inca temple
worshipping the Sun God,
at that time in his life
Myron was losing faith in atheism
and the Inca worship of the sun god
had a certain logic to it.
Without the sun where are we?
Where are we, indeed!
He wasn’t overly keen on human sacrifice
but he had to admit that the Incas
dealt with the blood well,
channels and drainage being an Inca thing,
knowledge they acquired along the way.
Subjugate, assimilate,
and so it goes forever.
Myron thought he would use this time to write
but mostly he sat looking at a blank page
listening to the tinnitus in his left ear roar
and in the absence of his fellow human beings
he began to think that the alpaca was judging him,
the way it stared at him from under its matted fringe
and down its long nose.
One night he found himself shouting abuse at the alpaca.
The next day he left for Puno
and got drunk on gassy lager
in a pizzeria on the ragged, dusty town square
make America serious again, Joe it’s time it’s time
all those rabble forming Capitol storming sons and daughters of Fox News and The National Enquirer with their MAGA hats and their saturated fats and their uniforms from Costco
kick them to the curb, Joe kick them to the curb
those blond surrogates with their perfect teeth and their android eyes those slick grifters those cocaine sniffers those arse lickers with their Bannon leers and their licorice souls
kick them to the curb, Joe kick them to the curb
It’s time , Joe the world needs a man on a white horse at least for a while, it’s high noon, Joe the orange buffoon, Joe
kick him to the curb kick him to the curb
it’s time, Joe it’s time.
Taking part in the Open Link Weekend over at earthweal, check them out …one of the most interesting poetry websites and Brendan’s editorials and challenges are always fascinating.
For this challenge, explore the art and acts of entanglement in a poem. How does one life entangle another? How do the dead remain entangled with the living? Become the thing you see. Reflect on how that seeing changes the world (at least, your view of it). Then (or separately) ask yourself what existence would mean without that entanglement: how much less light and air and beauty. Flip the switch both ways to see how it works. Entangle yourself in the world. Let your witness be our testament.
A lot of questions, I think I may have addressed one!
Way back when, in the time before Covid, the Poet’s Circle would meet once a month at The Post-Coital Beetle for an evening of mixing metaphors. Last week after much discussion we had our first session on Zoom and I don’t mind telling you it was a white horse of a different kettle a whole other crap shoot. There were problems of course, some of our members had difficulties with the technology and that was just the tip of the molehill, as one of the poets observed you can lead a leopard to water but you can’t make him change his tricks; but when The Academic Poet suggested that metaphor has no place in modern poetry that was when the spittle really hit the screen it all went to hell in a hand basket and that’s an idiom not a metaphor. I tried to cool things down with a joke but as they say don’t bring a pun to a bun fight and there’s no point trying to count the pigeons when the barn door is open and the cat has bolted from the bag.
Taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal
5 a.m. the toddler king checks his twitter feed access denied
it’s quiet now but all last night all he could hear was the squeak and rustle of rats leaving the ship
he stares out into the murky depths Mitch McConnell swims by an oxygen tank strapped to his back, his lugubrious visage fills the porthole he removes his oxygen mask a bubble escapes from his mouth and floats upwards his wattles sway like kelp in the shifting currents he has the detached look of a man examining a museum exhibit another bubble escapes upwards he turns and kicks for the surface his sagging buttocks pale but somehow luminous
Am I dead? The toddler king wonders I can’t be dead I’m absolutely not dead If I say I’m not dead I’m not dead. Hey, what’s Ted Cruz doing out there I thought this was a Cruz ship! See, I made a joke I can’t be dead!
Taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal
God is now on Zoom but his microphone is muted some would say and I don’t dispute it that his microphone has been muted for quite some time now okay, don’t have a holy cow that was a joke but honestly it’s been a while since he spoke those proxy sermons from earnest priests hardly count they can’t hold a holy candle to they don’t have the heft, the clout of his greatest hit the Sermon on the Mount yep, that’s the big one voted top sermon of all time by the folks at Rolling Stone a hard one to follow one that stands alone.
In his new television series Foraging with Farage
coming soon to The Bollocks Network
Nigel laments
the influx of foreign fungi
to the hallowed fields and forests
of the Kingdom By The Sea
and the subsequent decline
of the Great English Mushroom.
In the final episode,
under the influence of psilocybin
Nigel takes a walk in the forest
and encounters a naked Boris Johnson
sitting on a giant toad stool
in a sunlit glade. Boris, Nigel exclaims,
full of chagrin
and psilocybin, I thought you were a natural blonde! Has it all been a lie? This is dream sequence, you fool,
Boris replies The writers have run out of ideas.
He then tumbles off the toad stool
and bounds on all fours into the forest.
I tell you folks
if you miss one television series this year
make sure it’s this one!
This is, mercifully, the last poem in the Boris Trilogy. I am also responding to Brendan’s prompt over at earthweal , in which he invites us among other things to Appoint a Lord of Misrule, to conjure up a Feast of Fools. I believe this last four years will be remembered as the era in which the court jesters replaced the king, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are prime examples. Nigel Farage, on the other hand..well, the less said the better.
Chris Cuomo, a man who is so addicted to outrage that I believe he will actually miss Donald Trump when he’s gone, is talking to Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a man who defines the outer limits of ‘decent’. Adam says in relation to Covid and the rescue package that the last thing we need is another band aid, another fig leaf and I’m thinking band aids are for wounds so that kind of fits but fig leaves are for .. well let’s not beat around the bush they are for covering genitals and I’m thinking “steady there, Adam, pump the brakes” but then I think again and realize he’s right the fig leaf metaphor is appropriate because the handling of this crisis has just been one monumental cock up after another from day one from day one!.
In the morning after the garbage truck has gone he roams the pandemic-silenced lanes putting the lids back on garbage bins all the time wondering how much fun can one man have how much fun can one man have?
I’m taking part in Sarah Connor’s Excellent Adventure also known as the Advent Calendar and my poem , Christmas Cheer, appears today on Day 13 depending on where you live in the world, it’s still Day 12 here. So please check it out, and not just Day 13 which I share with Anmol who delivers a poem of such quality that it makes my poem look like…….well…a hangover, but also all the other days for some excellent poems.
7: 30 a.m. at the corner of Main and King Edward a butcher in a white coat stands looking out from behind the empty meat trays in the window of the Windsor Packing Company. Back in the fridge, somnolent sausages, blood red sirloin, and thick pink pork chops (each with a trim icing of fat) wait patiently for their return to the public eye.
a sign urges Order your Christmas turkey now! a December wind blows.
Taking part in Brendan’s advent challenge over at earthweal
Also be sure to check out Sarah Connor”s advent calendar, a poem a day..well worth a visit!
I was going to pass on ‘profuse’
too easy to rhyme
too open to abuse
no room for the obtuse
that was my excuse
then I felt the pressure
the tightening of the noose
my face turning puce
I thought “what’s the use,
yield to the Muse
yield to the Muse”.
This is one from back in the day of the Daily Prompt, the prompt was “profuse”.
In this issue, our resident royal watcher, Georgina Shallowglass talks about the moment when she realized that corgis are real dogs. She also reports on the launch of Vapid’s new clothing line, DowdyThreads. Yes, now you too can relax like the Royals in our comfortable tweed skirts, twin sets and for those cooler evenings, wooly cardigans. All our tweed skirts have been pre-stressed by English ladies of a settled disposition. All garments have been treated with our trademark fabric conditioner, DampFug, which creates an odor which can otherwise only be attained by spending time in a draughty castle. Georgina reports that, all things considered, the launch went well, although the corgis just would not keep their masks on and in retrospect she should have walked them before the event.
The Crown
Jonathan Shallowpit has been re-instated (it’s hard to find people to work for the wages we pay) and is taking over as movie and television critic while Georgina is on royal duties. He has written a poem about the Netflix series, The Crown. Here’s the first verse:
I’m watching The Crown on Netflix man, those royals are emotionally stunted all the men are pompous pricks the women can only relate to horses.
Steady there, Jonathan!
He also poses the question: Is Wolf Blitzer a robot? Jonathan has observed that Wolf’s expression hasn’t changed in four years.
Travel
We are worried about our travel correspondent, Perry Patetic. We hadn’t heard from him in six months but just recently we got this cryptic dispatch:
I’ve been to Elo I’ve been to Elko What a difference a K makes.
In Perry’s absence, Jordan Shallowditch has taken over travel duties and provides a number of useful tips for those who miss airplane food on where to find salted pretzels and chocolate puddings.
All this and more in Issue 19 of Vapid Magazine where shallow runs deep!
All submissions should be single-spaced. Please use Arial font, Arial is one of our favorite Shakespearean characters.
If your submission is of a religious nature, you may use a Baptismal font.
Please do not use semi-colons, they confuse us.
Poetry:
Please submit a maximum of 6 poems at a time.
Simon Shallowpond, our poetry editor, celebrity watcher and gossip columnist has catholic tastes, but will accept non- religious poetry. He is partial to free verse. “Free verse”, he says, “let it roam, far from all rhyme and reason!” All verse published here at Vapid Magazine is of course “free” in that we never pay for it.
Fiction:
Our main requirement is that all fiction should be totally made up. Please keep it short, our attention span is limited. Endings should be happy.
Non- Fiction:
Here at Vapid, we believe that this category no longer exists.
Visual Art:
Yes, we accept visual art. Our Art Editor, Georgina Shallowglass likes to say “if I can see it, it’s visual”.
When to Submit
Unfortunately, we are not accepting submissions at the moment, our staff is working remotely because of the pandemic which means that they are not doing anything that remotely resembles working.
In these trying times, we would like to encourage all our readers to stay safe and keep it Vapid.
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