Author Archives: sdtp33

A Very American Problem

A Very American Problem

In the wake of the recent mass shooting…
in the wake..as if the mass shooting is an ocean liner
and we are sailboats helplessly bobbing.

In the wake of the recent mass shooting
the President will talk about mental health (not his own)
and find someone to blame.

In the wake of the recent mass shooting
Anderson Cooper and his panel discussed how in future
the notification of victims’ families could be speeded up,

the acceptance of the inevitability of mass shootings
inherent in this discussion
saddened me more than anything.

In the wake of the recent mass shooting
thoughts, hearts, prayers will go out,
in a mass exodus of platitudes.

In the wake of the recent mass shooting
no one will ask how someone who can’t legally purchase alcohol
can purchase an assault rifle.

This observation, this juxtaposition
has become so obvious, so commonplace,
it no longer qualifies as an insight.

Lecture (The Cartoon President)

via Daily Prompt: Lecture  

Lecture (Why Fifty Shades of Grey is a boring title)

a reason
to protest
glass

the
intimate
taste
of
butter

the
intimate
taste
of
glass

a reason
to protest
butter.

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The Cartoon President

I watched the new Showtime series “The Cartoon President” on the weekend. It was funny…..sort of, more Simpson’s than South Park. The main problem is the central character, Donald. He comes across as a benign mix of Homer Simpson and Archie Bunker or even Dennis the Menace – a rambunctious, mischievous boy child constantly frustrating the adults tasked with his supervision. He’s almost, and I hate to say this, likeable. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that Donald himself and seven year old boys all over the world will probably enjoy the show.
On the plus side there are very accurate caricatures of General Kelly, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and Donald Trump Jr.

 

All Aboard / Poetic Ailments / Onion Soup For The Soul

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Poetic Ailments

irritable vowel syndrome
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.

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Onion Soup For The Soul

I was reading Trish Hopkinson’s excellent blog  last weekend and I came across a post titled “20 Paying Lit Mags”. This intrigued me, there are so many Lit Mags to submit to and it’s difficult to know where to start, so I thought: why not try submitting to the ones that pay. I started to examine the list.
I will use the phrase “don’t get me wrong” twice in this post. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there is no money in poetry and that most people that run Lit Mags are doing it for the love of it.
What did I find? Well, on the whole, Paying Lit Mags don’t pay much. The lowest payment was $10, a lot of payments were in the $15 to $25 range for a poem or a short story. My favourite was this one:
PAYMENT: For original commentary, fiction, and poetry, Contrary Magazine pays $20 per author per issue, regardless of the number of works or nature of the submission. Reviews and Contrary Blog posts are usually unpaid. Author must email us an invoice within six months of acceptance for the payment to be processed. If no invoice is received within six months of acceptance, author forfeits payment, but all rights remain in force. Upon receipt of invoice, payments will be made through Paypal.
You have to chase down $20 and no matter what “all rights remain in force”. There should at least be a “no thank you but I insist” stage to the process. Then again, it is called “Contrary Magazine”.
One magazine, “Chicken Soup for the Soul”, stood out. They pay $200 for a short story or poem. Could this be the magazine for me? I clicked on their website where I found a list of categories for which they needed submissions. For example:
Stories about My Mom
We are collecting stories and poems written by sons and daughters of all ages about their moms, step-moms, grandmoms or someone that is “like a mom” to you. Tell us what this special person has done for you. Is she always right? Do you still turn to her for advice? Does she annoy you with her advice? Have you become your mom even though you swore you never would? How has your relationship changed as you’ve gotten older? Share your best stories – ones that will make us laugh, cry, or nod our heads in recognition. We are not looking for general tributes (we know your mom is terrific) nor are we looking for biographies. We are looking for specific anecdotes about you and your mom or stepmom or grandmom. The deadline date for story and poem submissions is SEPTEMBER 30, 2018 for release in March 2019 in time for Mother’s Day.
I began to get the feeling that I might have trouble mustering the requisite wholesomeness for “Chicken Soup for the Soul”. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure they are good people who are providing a valuable and popular service…hell, they are paying $200….but…you know. Also, I don’t think my mom would fit the “Chicken Soup” model, she had a somewhat colourful turn of phrase and an unerring ear for bullshit or pretentiousness.

She had this expression “plus fours and no breakfast” which always made me  think of  landed Irish gentry from  a JP Donleavy novel; their fortunes dwindling, living in a damp, draughty, decaying castle in rural Ireland tended to by a skeleton staff of loyal eccentric servants supervised by an ancient butler – a bead of rheumy moisture permanently suspended from the end of his nose. She had many other expressions a bit more profane than this one but I don’t think she would appreciate having them repeated here. So maybe I’ll try Contrary Magazine and if I get accepted I’ll invoice them for half the amount just to be contrary.

 

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Brexit at Tiffany’s

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Brexit at Tiffany’s

I ask Slim for his response to a recent report that Nigel Farage thinks it would be a good idea to re-do the Brexit referendum. We arrange to meet for a few pints in ‘The Post-Coital Beetle” to discuss his response and catch up. Slim is late, so I get a booth, and order a pitcher of Blue Buck. On the television screen suspended from the ceiling, two ex-soccer players – Matt Holland and Phil Neville – are discussing possession stats for the English premier league; apparently, the team that keeps possession of the ball usually wins. Not rocket science, but then Matt and Phil are not rocket scientists. They both look trim and fit in their English sportscaster casual wear. Phil is wearing a beige V-necked sweater, a white button down shirt, tight black pants and fashion sneakers. Matt is wearing a black crew neck, tight black pants and, yes, fashion sneakers. They look like their mothers dressed them.

I have never met Slim’s mother, but I doubt if she would have dressed him in the outfit he is wearing as he bursts through the pub door like an overweight, balding Kramer – faded baggy jeans, a MEC Gore-Tex anorak whose wicking days are long over and a white T shirt, one size too small, with the message “Fragile” on the front. He slaps a sheet of white paper on the table and says:
“Here you go!”

On the paper lies the following poem:

Disparaging Nigel

Nigel Farage
will be remembered forever
as the man who made
the word, ‘wanker’,
seem inadequate.

Very good, I say, “disparage”, “Farage”. What do you want to call the post?

‘Brexit at Tiffany’s’.

Ha! Or how about : ‘Guess who’s coming to Brexit’!

Slim looks like he has just swallowed a cup of Drano.

I think you’re missing the fucking point. It has to be a movie or book with ‘Breakfast’ in the title, like, say, ‘Brexit of Champions’ or ‘The Brexit Club’.

Well, anyway…… so it’s not a homonym, it’s not a synonym, it’s not really a pun, what is it?

It’s a malapropism.

Who took Sidney Poitier to dinner?

Katherine Houghton

How did you know, no one ever gets that right.

I know because every time you have a few drinks, you ask the same fucking question.

Poutine?

Why not? Life’s short.

It’ll be even fucking shorter if we keep eating Poutine.

We both lean back and laugh. On the screen above our heads, Manchester United score a goal and the colour commentator says:

“See, what just happened is that United have put the ball in the net and it’s been proven time and time again that if you want to score goals you have to put the ball in the net”

**********

looking at me (2)

A Brexit poem from Slim’s locker:

Come what? May?

Hard Breggsit?
Soft Breggsit?
Breggsit  over easy?
Not on the menu.

Stilt Walker Redux / Willie Nelson Once Said/ Mnemonic

 

 

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Willie Nelson Once Said..

Willie Nelson once said:
if you fail at something long enough
you become a legend
by that metric
I’ve got some failing to do.

**

Bobcaygeon!
What an explosion
that word is.

**

don’t tell Gord Downie
what the poets are doin’.

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Mnemonic

I wish I could recall
what that word means.

Very droll!
Not a dry seat in the house.

Laugh? I nearly cried.

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain.
Oh, Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me.
Aunt Mary Hangs Out The Washing.

One of the above
is not a mnemonic

And If The Eagle Flies At Midnight
we’ll still be on the ground
our feet stuck to the pavement
of that going nowhere town.

Now where?
Did that?
Come from?

 

News and Weather

Check out this beautiful piece by Laura Morgan….she sets a pretty high standard!!

Laura Morgan's avatarA Remote View

1

The dunes harden. That’s what she notices first. There’s no plunging down them to the beach; their surface sparkles, almost slippy. On the track the sheep have made up the headland, the hoof prints in the mud freeze. Britain plans to sail a warship through the South China Sea.

2

Even at noon it’s still white. The only enclaves: under bracken, behind walls. The dog kicks up a cloud as he runs, and where long grass has toppled, it freezes in waves that scrunch under her boots. The body of seven-year-old girl is found in waste bin in Kasur.

3Ice on beach

The puddles in the yard freeze. They trap marbled skies beneath their surface. They are last week’s skies, when it rained and rained. Above her now is clear blue. Risk of nuclear war is at its highest since the Cuban missile crisis.

4

The rabbits stay in their burrows…

View original post 283 more words

Loophole (Time, Space and “Interstellar”)

via Daily Prompt: Loophole

Interstellar

Once on a bus
across the Altiplano
from Puno to Cusco
I watched the movie
Interstellar, starring
Matt McConaughey.
Matt’s a clever feller,
I just said that
to rhyme with Interstellar
no one
says feller anymore
anyway, it appears that
time is a line
our lives are
moving along
and we can only
move forward along
that line, never back,
but there is a loophole
or a wormhole,
to be exact,
way out there
in outer space
and if one travels
to outer space
and passes through
that wormhole
one can visit
the multiplex cinema
where one’s life
is playing
and view
any previous point
on the line one’s life
is travelling on
problem is
when one returns
to earth, it’s fifty
years later and
everyone one knows
is either dead or dying,
thus the line one’s life
is travelling on
is irreversibly altered
that’s the catch
which by the way
is different than
a loophole.

 

Found Poetry – Theft or Tribute?(Sgt. Pepper Mashup )

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Sgt. Pepper Mashup 

Made passively tolerant by LSD, he was happy to sit back
endlessly recombining like some insoluble chemical compound
all he really wanted was the cyclic cloud drift of his verse.

The song never relinquishes this staccato dominant
played by Harrison on his Stratocaster with treble-heavy settings
making the most of McCartney’s rich ninth’s and elevenths –
a brilliantly whimsical expression of period burlesque.

It is impossible to conduct a revolution without picking a side
like a comic brass fob watch suspended from a floral waistcoat
objectivity is illusory and all creativity inescapably self –referential.

The track is whipped to a climax by a coruscating pseudo-Indian guitar solo.
Lennon grinned sardonically, as he walked past Aspinall,
requesting from Martin a sound like the end of the world.

 

I have always felt that found poetry is a form of theft. Yet, here I am with my first found poem. It all started with listening to the remastered copy of Sgt.Pepper, (issued last year, and a vast improvement on the snap, crackle and pop of my old vinyl version) and in particular, the guitar solo in “Fixing a Hole”. Paul McCartney played lead guitar on a number of tracks on the album, but the style of playing on the solo sounded more like George Harrison. So, I consulted the bible – “Revolution in the Head”, by Ian MacDonald, a track by track analysis of 241 Beatle tracks and essential to any Beatles nerd. The solo was Harrison’s.
I read a couple of other track analyses and found myself enjoying MacDonald’s writing style, a number of phrases jumped out from the page and the idea of a found poem formed. The result is the above poem. It has, believe it or not, a structure: each line is a direct quote from an analysis of an individual Sgt. Pepper track, and the lines are sequenced in the same order as the tracks appear on the album.
Buy Ian MacDonald’s book, you won’t be disappointed and I will feel better about stealing his stuff.

 

Birds,Wires etc/ Why Ireland Failed to Qualify for World Cup 2018

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Why Ireland Failed to Qualify for World Cup 2018

On the day my brother and I
organized a soccer game
on the playing fields
of Oatlands College,
Mount Merrion, Dublin,
an assault of Christian Brothers
descended from the big house
like a murder of crows
their black soutanes flapping
in the wet winter breeze
descended with one aim
and one aim only –
to remove the scourge
of this foreign game
from the green Catholic fields
of Ireland.

 

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Reservation (is The Daily Prompt destroying my life?)

via Daily Prompt: Reservation 

Ok, maybe that’s a bit melodramatic but I do have a reservation about The Daily Prompt, because as I write this I should be writing something else. What happened to the posts I was going to write about Courtney Barnett, about Death Cab for Cutie? What about the poems I should finish and submit to a magazine? What about getting a collection of poems together? What about facing the fact that I may not have enough good poems to warrant a collection? What about those song lyrics sitting around waiting for a collaborator? What about “The Lad Poetry Project Revival” ? Instead I am thinking about a daily prompt from a week or two back –“meager”- which didn’t inspire me at the time but then this emerged:

Edgar

Meaghan loved her job,
the compensation was meager
but that didn’t bother her
what bothered her
was her relationship with Edgar;
she felt beleaguered.
“What the hell is wrong with you”,
Edgar raged, on a regular basis,
and all she could think of was:
Isn’t “raged”
an anagram of Edgar?

Then there are the endless revisions. I usually like to let a poem sit for a while, sometimes years, but The Daily Prompt requires an immediate response which invariably means I am rarely satisfied with the poems generated. Take “Confess” for example, I was moderately pleased with one image in the poem but the rest seemed a bit ad hoc, so here is the revised poem, so I can forget about it and move on.

Confess

a sliding hatch
a priest’s profile
through a wire mesh screen
forgiveness, absolution;
will I do it again?
absolutely.

 

Trumplings (The Best of 2017)

This time last year, at every social event I went to, the subject of Donald Trump could not be avoided. This year? Nothing. The Trump presidency has become a bit like one of those television series that people get tired of watching – no discernible plot, no character development, poorly written dialogue and we still have to suffer through seasons 2, 3 and 4.

These are the Trump posts  I had most fun writing in 2017, they rely a bit more (I think) on language rather than straight polemic.

“Agent Orange has a dark Moment” was published in Rat’s Ass Review” and “Donald Trump – On Reflection” was published in “Oddball Magazine“.

Inauguration

it
does
not
augur
well.

 

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Donald’s Early Days

A farrago of fiascos,
banishments and bans;
weekends at Mar-a-Lago
the world in his hands.

 

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Agent Orange has a Dark Moment
Do you know who I miss? Jeb Bush. I miss Jeb Bush. He was my first. When I hit him with that low energy jibe and he fell apart and all the Bush family could not put Humpty together again, I knew I was on to something. Then Little Marco and Lyin’ Ted, I miss them too. But most of all, I miss Hillary, Crooked Hillary. Man, she was tough, had me on the ropes. It took Comey and Vlad, that pointy headed villain, to get me back on my feet. I was nearly out for the count, which might not have been a bad thing. Who needs this shit! I should give Vlad a call, I’m a bit worried -there’s no such thing as a free hack.
Reince Priebus – what kind of fucking name is that? It sounds like bad news from the doctor. “I’m sorry, Donald, you have a Reince Priebus on your rectum and it doesn’t look good”. Ha, I just made myself laugh. And Bannon, I’ve seen sofas on the side of the road in better shape than that rumpled fucker. Spice Box? Hardest job in the world – explaining the unexplainable. That Melissa Mc.Carthy just slays me. How come all the cool people are on the other side? Who have I got? Ryan and Pence? Bland and Blander? Where did Pence come from anyway with his brush cut and his antediluvian politics? The best surgeons in the world couldn’t remove the poker from that guy’s ass. Antediluvian, you didn’t expect that did you?
Talking of cool, I should give Barack a call, ask him down to Florida for a game of golf; check his birth certificate again (Joking! How I miss those days). Man, I hate this fucking White House furniture, is it Friday yet?

 

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Haiku for Donald

petulant pillock

postcranial curmudgeon

bombastic buffoon.

 

Orange is the New Bleak 1 (3)
On Reflection…. Donald Trump

America has given birth
to a giant orange child
a zaftig infant Gulliver
striding the ravaged earth
of his own imagination
trampling whole villages
swallowing villagers whole.