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.
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!
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?
This was a response to a Daily Prompt (back in the day), the prompt was “meager”.
Last night I dreamt that Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller had entered my basement through the dryer vent, maybe “entered” is the wrong word it was more an “insinuation”, a slithering, under the vent flap down the plastic vent hose and into the dryer drum where they paused briefly to cough up some lint before pushing open the dryer door and oozing out onto the basement floor.
In the morning I went down to check the basement feeling more than a little anxious. it was empty, nothing had changed. I sensed movement out of the corner of my right eye I turned, but there was no one there. I sensed movement out of the corner of my left eye I turned, again there was no one there but there was a smell not the usual one, from that sock abandoned at the bottom of my gym bag this was rancid, pungent, acrid, fetid, halitotic with a hint of damp weasel the smell of venal ambition the smell of distilled evil one hundred per cent proof.
Taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal
Late at night in the White House
while Donald’s in bed asleep,
the dead presidents
one and all
leave their places
on the wall
to dance their dance
to sing their song
of presidential grief.
Given the week that it is, I decided to bring this poem back from the dead…..
Thom Yorke takes a walk on Halloween Night
The dead move slowly
through the graveyard,
they are few at first
but as they pass
each row of headstones
grey fists punch
through mounds of earth
in a manic salute
and the throng grows
and the throng grows
and the night howls
and the fog curls
and a thin cloud
bisects the moon
and at the edge
of the graveyard
is an old well
and at the bottom
of that well
is a little boy
and that little boy
is crying for help
and that little boy
is Thom Yorke.
Taking part in earthweal’s weekly challenge, below is Brendan’s multi-faceted prompt, something there for everyone:
Tell your own story of a descent into darkness and return. Write of moonshine and dark brightness. Encounter a ghost and haunt us with its image and voice. Who are these visitants from what Hamlet called “the bourne from which no traveller returns”? Are the elven still to be found in moony places? Re-live a classical remake ofthe myths, like Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” Colerige’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” or Spenser’s Faerie Queen. What is your favorite folktale, and why? Where has it led you? Would anyone like to turn present politics into an All-Hallows fright feast? (Such a telling does might help drive a stake into our worst fears.)
It’s so white up here. What’s that fragrance? Is it Rogaine? Is it piety? Is it Rogaine and piety? You seem a little nervous around the women folk, Mike. Can I recommend a good conditioner?
Taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal.
By the time religion got to me all the joy had been filtered out too many censorious priests, too many soporific sermons too many cavernous churches with names like St. Michael’s, St. Theresa’s, St Ann’s, too many saints. Why, even my white Y front underwear had a saint’s name on the tag, St. Bernard. His name was also on my vests, my shirts, my pajamas; I just couldn’t get St. Bernard off my back. Where I found my true congregation was on Sunday afternoons with my dad, my uncle, my brother, my older sister on the terraces at Milltown watching Shamrock Rovers play. There were binaries there too heaven was a victory and while defeat wasn’t exactly hell it cast a pall over Sunday tea, a pall that was quickly relieved by the sugar high from the flotilla of cakes my mother had been baking since Saturday afternoon. Now St. Bernard has been replaced by someone called Denver Hayes. I doubt if Denver is a saint and I’m fine with that underwear should be secular joy, unconfined.
The prompt from Brendan over at earthweal is to write a Michealmas Festival poem. This poemreally doesn’t do the prompt justice, but it’s the poem that the prompt prompted.
Also taking part in Open Link Night over at dverse
