Shooglenifty and the Canadian Snowbirds at the Vancouver Folk Festival (2025)
Shooglenifty are skipping the light Celtastic
On the main stage Saturday night
Jigs and reels
Jigs and reels
The Canadian Snowbirds roar overhead
And the band plays on
Peace, love and jet planes
Contrails in the sky.
Tie-dyed shirts and hackey-sack
Hippy dances and wizard hats
That guy on stilts is back
Dressed to the hilt in red
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse
South of Bijou (redux)
Somewhere south of Bijou
they left themselves behind
the car smelt of stale coffee
they didn’t read the signs.
A mile north of Chamomile
they went their separate ways
peas split from a pod
buzzards circling the desert sky.
Sunshine On Goodge Street (Donovan mash-up)
in the chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty
a violent hash smoker shook a chocolate machine
sunshine came softly through my window,
thrown like a star in my vast sleep
I opened my eyes to take a peek.
Yes, I could have tripped out easy
forever to fly, wind velocity nil
but I decided to stay.
(Donovan Phillips Leitch
Superman and Green Lantern
ain’t got nothing on you)
This is a found poem using lines from 5 Donovan songs: Catch the Wind, Sunny Goodge Street, Sunshine Superman, Hurdy Gurdy Man and Mellow Yellow. I’m sure you can figure out which line came from where, but just a note on the second line:
“a violent hash smoker shook a chocolate machine”.
This line is from Sunny Goodge Street and is my favorite Donovan line because of its inherent music –violent, smoker, shook, chocolate, all those o’s, that recurring ‘k’ and the internal rhyme between hash and mash. Say it out loud a couple of times and it will stick in your head!
Sunny Goodge Street appears on Donovan’s second album “Fairytale” and , according to Wikipedia, it “foreshadows the jazzy feel and descriptions of life in urban London that Donovan would continue to explore over the next two years”. There are a few covers out there (Judy Collins and Tom Northcroft), but they are little too earnest and none match the sludgy stoned feel of the original. The recording of the song is almost perfect, except for Harold McNair’s flute solo in the middle which nearly derails the whole thing. Take a listen:
Bunker Buster Bomb
Assonance and ordnance
alliteration and obliteration
assault by the letter ‘B’
Even the CNN anchors
can’t help but marvel
at the stealth, the wealth, the power
the Tom Cruisean glamour of it all.
Will there be a sequel?
There’s always a sequel
The Evening News
a cheery fanfare
death, mayhem and disaster
dog befriends squirrel.
Thanks
Thanks for Jeff Tweedy
Thanks for Annette Bening
Thanks for Michael Stipe
Thanks for John Lennon.
Thanks for Lucinda Williams
Thanks for Jurgen Klopp
Thanks for Paul Durcan
Thanks for Roger McGough
Thank for Sally Rooney
Thanks for Saul Bellow
Thanks for T.S. Eliot
Thanks for Elvis Costello
Thanks for Billy Collins
Thanks for Bob Dylan
Thanks for Linda Ronstadt
Little Feat and ‘Willin’.
This is an edit of a previous post. The Irish poet, Paul Durcan died on May17 and he gets a mention in this poem along with Roger McGough and TS Eliot.
Paul was a quintessentially Irish poet and yet he was very different from contemporaries like Seamus Heaney in that his poetry was urban rather than rural, and he was witty, fiercely satirical and at times painfully honest about his personal life. He was not afraid to show vulnerability. I’m just now re-reading his collections “Daddy, Daddy” about his fraught relationship with his father and “The Berlin Wall Cafe” about the breakup of his marriage. Both collections are funny, sad and complex and the twin ogres of church and state are there on every page. It does not get more Irish than that! Rest in Peace, Paul!
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
And your gravity fails and negativity don’t pull you through….Bob Dylan
Know your gym……Slim Volume
two geezers
pink and steaming
towelling down
after a shower
discussing gravity
how it is not fixed
how it decreases
with distance from the earth’s core
how, if one was to climb to the top of Everest,
since weight is the product of mass and gravity
one would weigh less at the top of Everest
and Slim’s thinking
this is one fucking erudite conversation
and he wants a piece of it
so he points out that
one would regain that weight
on returning to sea level
and one of the geezers replies
yeah but you’d probably burn 10,000 calories
climbing up and down the fucking mountain
and a nearby jock encased in breathable fabric
says shit, I’d burn that in 40 minutes on the rowing machine
and Slim fires back wryly
keep telling yourself that
and the locker room erupts in laughter
and in that moment
basking in the unbearable lightness of banter
Slim defies gravity and levitates
above the bacterial swamp
that is the locker room floor.
“A man who is tired of the gym, is a man who has been to the gym”. Slim Volume
Two Bros
Two bros on a mat
one on his back
hands clasped behind his head
legs bicycling like a capsized fly;
the other,
the one with the green hair
and the tattoos of a religious nature
is grunting weights .
Fly bro, it appears,
is having girlfriend problems
and is experiencing
some kind of vague existential crisis,
green hair bro listens carefully to his tale of woe
and after some reflection says:
It’s life, man,
stop trying to understand it,
no one can
and then, as if startled by his own profundity,
he repeats: no one can.
Out of the mouths of bros….
in the background a bearded jock
in a tight black T shirt
his muscles packed with powdered whey
his eyes a steroid yellow
is down on his hunkers
knees akimbo
moving sideways
across the floor
like a slow motion crab
across packed sand at evening.
Go Fly a Kite
blatant weather
so unashamedly spring
cherry blossoms striking iPhone poses
the sun making promises
it cannot possibly keep
on Easter Sunday
while the churchgoing are going to church
we vote in the federal election
on Easter Monday
after giving Jesus his day
Pope Francis shuffles quietly off the mortal
and leaves us to talk of tariffs, annexation
I look north to the snow-capped peaks
and the wilderness beyond
and I think
we could mount a resistance from there
if it comes to it
if it comes to it
lately, the phrase
that could never happen
seems impossibly naïve
I submit a version of this poem
to Poets Respond at Rattle Magazine
and get a form rejection
but I understand
they receive so many submissions
and they are so polite
meanwhile to the south
the behemoth awakens
a faint, melancholy stirring in his loins
he remembers that he was once the Loin King
and now he’s just the king of all that he destroys
and it doesn’t seem like enough.
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
In his dream,
the ocean is always on the right
which means he’s heading south to San Francisco
or Santa Barbara or Los Angeles
or San Diego,
saints and angels;
and his hair is blond even though it isn’t
and his companion’s hair is blond
and his friends in the back seat
their hair is blond too
and all that blond hair is blowing in the breeze
and there are surfers bobbing on the ocean
waiting for a wave
and a group is singing three-part harmony
on the radio, it could be the Mamas and the Papas
it could be Crosby Stills and Nash
it could be The Eagles
it could be The Beach Boys
and the band members
in the bands he’s dreaming of
have names like Dewey, Don, Randy, Jackson
names that arrived by railroad, by wagon train
and there is the feeling in his head
of youth and endless possibilities
something waiting down the road
and in the dream
he knows that he won’t arrive
he will always be on the way
and not arriving is the trick
and not arriving is the best part
the best part by far.
This is in part inspired by a prompt over on dverse;
“Krisis: Poetry at the Crossroads. Rooted in the Greek word krisis, meaning a pivotal decision point, we seek poems that explore moments of transformation, choice, and change.
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
Vapid Magazine Submission Guidelines
Format:
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, 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.
The Sheriff Of Tariffdom
Down by Locarno Beach
two guys in camouflage pants
are repeatedly checking
underneath their parked Tesla
they check, they get back in the car
they don’t start the car
they get back out
they check underneath the car again
what could they be looking for?
Snow-capped mountains
an empty eagle’s nest
in the bare branches of a tree
is this a symbol?
Is everything a symbol?
Nope,
the eagle is down on the beach
searching for snacks in tide pools
is this a metaphor?
Is everything a metaphor?
April’s Fools Day, and to the south of us
The Sherriff of Tariffdom
The Prince of Petulance
The Toddler King
is looking for his Sharpie.
The prompt over at dverse is :
“So for this prompt our writing will be in the Open Poetry Form, otherwise known as Free Verse or Vers Libre. This is not to be regarded as an anarchic free-for -all but rather poetry set free from the uniform straight jacket.”
For more on Laura’s excellent prompt, read here.
Cyphers magazine has published my poem – “Crow Magnus”– in their Issue 98. I am really pleased as always to be published in Cyphers . Thanks to Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, for accepting my poem.
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. Sadly, Cyphers will be discontinuing publication at issue 100. I don’t think I would still be writing poetry if it wasn’t for the encouragement I got early on from Cyphers.
Seamus Heaney and Paul Durcan were also early contributors to the magazine. Not that I am in that league by any stretch of the imagination but it’s nice, metaphorically speaking, to have shared a bus with them!
Cyphers can be found at http://www.cyphers.ie . Pick up a copy!
…Jim Feeney
The Man with Orange Hair (A Lament)
Wiffle, waffle, wombat ways
These are the very worst of days.
Beware, beware, beware, beware
Beware the man with orange hair.
Grickle, grackle, grunt and grumble
Sit and watch the markets tumble
The threat of war is everywhere
Beware the man with orange hair
Trump, Rubio, Vance and Musk
It’s enough to make an angel cuss
Protest, protest if you dare
Beware the man with orange hair.
The prompt over at dverse is:
“Writing challenge: Write a complaint using the poetry form made popular by William Dunbar, Lament for the Makers. Your theme is your own, be it unrequited love or a satirical poem on the injustice of the world.“
Dispatch from La Costa Gringa
A baby’s soother in the sand
plastic nipple blackening
in the Mexican sun.
Tequila on the rocks
Iguanas on the rocks
A girl with a falcon
by the breakfast buffet.
Down here on La Costa Gringa
it’s still Margaritaville
but no one I see is wasting away
and no one, absolutely no one
wants to talk politics.
In the markets though
they’re selling t shirts
saying Canada and Mexico
are not for sale.
A gay couple from San Francisco
get married on the beach.
Why does this seem threatened?
Why does everything seem threatened?
And to the north of us
a president out of an abandoned Vonnegut novel
is making friends with enemies
making enemies out of friends.
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
Me and the Lads are working the night shift
in a frozen food factory
somewhere in the south of England
in the time before the time.
It’s an historic night
the English public is about to be introduced
to frozen broccoli for the first time
and we are there, knives ready
waiting for those dark green clusters
to tumble from the hopper onto the conveyor belt.
Our mission, which we have accepted for a minimum wage,
is to chop those clusters into bite-sized florets
and send them on their way
to be blanched, frozen and packaged.
And the dark green river flows
and the dark green river flows.
Truth is, few of us have seen broccoli before,
it not been one of the meat and two veg
that we were brought up on
but we do know that Albert R Broccoli
is the producer of James Bond movies
so we while away the time
making up names for Bond girls
mostly variations on Pussy Galore –
Puss Ann Boots
Holly Goodsnatch –
puerile nonsense, I know,
(from the Latin ‘ puer’ meaning ‘boy’)
and that’s what we were really, boys.
And the dark green river flows
and the dark green river flows.
Two hours in, we’re getting bored
and uncut broccoli is starting to pile up
at the dam at the end of the conveyor.
Reg, our supervisor, tries some positive reinforcement.
He calls us “a bunch of useless wankers”,
picks up his knife
and starts chopping like a man possessed.
Inspired by Reg, we pick up the pace
and as the pile up at the dam clears
Reg, who is tall, skinny and prematurely balding,
starts to tell us about his sex life:
quickies with his next-door neighbor
foursomes on the weekend
with the neighbors on the other side
knee tremblers in the alley behind the pub
at closing time .
And we’re lucky, he says,
because we can go home at shift end and sleep
but his wife is mad for it and he has to, you know, perform.
We spend some time reflecting on Reg’s definition of ‘lucky’.
He then alludes to the dimensions
of his dingus, his dong, his John Thomas,
dimensions an elephant would be proud of,
which prompts us to shake our knives in his direction
and Dec from Dublin says:
“keep it in your pants, Reg,
safety is job one”.
Reg blushes shyly and for a brief moment
he is one of the lads.
It can be lonely at the top.
And the dark green river flows
and the dark green river flows.
After what seems like an eternity
shift end approaches
and the sun peeks over the red-tiled roof tops
of this musn’t grumble town
and we’re thinking of heading back to our digs
maybe stealing a few milk bottles
from doorsteps on the way, when
Rob, from Liverpool, looks up from the broccoli
And says “Dawn Horne”
We say “what?”
He says, “the Bond girl name, Dawn Horne”.
We say “yes, that’s it, that’s it”.
And for a moment we bask in the joy
of the collective creative process.
And the dark green river flows
and the dark green river flows.
Note: The rules of The Lad’s Poetry Project are simple:
The poem must start with the phrase (or some variation of it): “Me and the lads…” and the tone must be somewhat less than elevated.
Taking Part in OpenLink over at dverse
Muskerberg and The Toddler King
The rough beast is leaving Bethlehem
Musk Ox and Meta Morf
joined at the hip
their android stares
fixed on the horizon
slouching into twenty twenty five.
And all across the world
lonely men light up their lap tops
and search for unverified facts
formerly known as “lies”.
Meanwhile the Toddler King sleeps soundly
dreaming that he’s on an ice floe
off the coast of Greenland.
In the dream he owns that ice floe
and seals honk
in what he interprets to be approval.
Taking part in OpenLink over at dverse
walk past the writing on the wall
look neither left nor right
*************
always whistle past a graveyard
*************
today is the first day
of the rest of your life
tomorrow is the next
*************
walk towards the noise
walk towards the noise
*************
neither a floater
nor a settler be
*************
to find the person of your dreams
you must first fall asleep
**************
if you’re feeling abysmal
pepto bismol will do nothing
**************
talk softly
don’t carry sticks of any size
**************
be all you can be
then try harder
***************
like a frog down a well
we only know the walls.
***************
to leave no footprint
we must fly and never land.
***************
never drink anything blue
***************
life is waiting for the other shoe
The Second Coming of Donald
The rumors started just after he won the election
strange happenings at his rallies
the blind seeing
the deaf hearing
the lame walking
the mute talking
he began to take credit for the sun coming up.
Then those stories out of Mar A Lago
how at one banquet
he turned bread rolls into fried chicken
and at another
he turned water into Coca Cola
then there was the time
he walked across a pond
to retrieve his golf ball
and fishing..
don’t talk to me about fishing
the people of Florida
are lining up to go fishing with Donald.
Musk and Ramaswamy
(Department Of Giant Egos)
This just in from the Dow (Department of Wordplay).
Lately I’m seeing anagrams everywhere
DOGE
E god
E dog
Elon
NoEl , NoEl
LEon
Leon Musk and the Musk Rats
Tesla
stale
stale Musk
Musk Oil
Apply daily to improve your efficiency
but not your dance moves
and then there’s Ramaswamy
almost an anagram for
“warm yams”
almost but not quite
Vivek…sur le K vive?
how about
yr mama saw?
Nope it’s not happening
he’s outta here
Besides there’s only room for one giant ego in any department anywhere
yes look out Donald Don Lad
Elon is a LonE Musketeer.
Taking part in Open Link over at dverse.
A song that came out of a trip to Caye Caulker……This is a video of a live performance of a song I wrote with my friend John Mitchell. I wrote the lyrics and John did the rest, the hard part! That’s John and his band down in Olympic Village (Vancouver). I was in charge of taking the video (no self-respecting musician would let me near a stage and with good reason) and as you can see Martin Scorsese has nothing to worry about! Listen on headphones, this was recorded on an iphone! John and the band sound great.
Here’s the lyric:
The Note
Earl sailed up the Belize coast
In his brand new custom built boat
With the mother of all hangovers
No water and a note
And now he’s sitting drinking
In an ocean-side tourist bar
Trying to get a jump on happiness
In the hour before happy hour
Chorus:
And the note read:
Our love has lost its flavor
There’s no point in hanging on
No Doctor Phil, no savior
We’re done,
Yes, we are done.
And the people standing ‘round him
Have been on Caye Caulker far too long
They‘re talking about Paradise spoilt
And how it all went wrong
Well Earl knows that Paradise
Is a very, very temporary thing
And this little piece of heaven
Feels like hell to him
Chorus:
And the note read:
Our love has lost its flavor
There’s no point in hanging on
No Doctor Phil, no savior
We’re done,
Yes, we are done.
And Earl can’t put a finger on it
Why it all went up in smoke
He’s feeling like a punch line
In someone else’s joke
And he don’t believe in karma
Instant, good or bad
He’s drunk and lonely on the beach
With a bucket full of sad
Chorus:
And the note read:
Our love has lost its flavor
There’s no point in hanging on
No Doctor Phil, no savior
We’re done,
Yes, we are done.
Ingrid over at Experiments in Fiction has included one of my poems “High Plains Sushi” in the first issue of The New Lyricist Magazine. Thank you Ingrid!
You can read about how to order the magazine here.
Jim Feeney!
B. Ramble And The Hedgerows
Proud purveyors of country music
to the English public,
English country music, that is:
no wide open prairies
no dogies that git along
no bucking broncs
no honky tonks
no pick-up trucks;
the occasional encounter
with a fox, a badger, a stoat….
perhaps,
but that’s as wild as it gets.
Why, you must all recall,
“Round Here, All the Cows are Called Daisy”,
the Hedgerows’ greatest hit,
written by Mr. Ramble himself
or Bert, as his friends call him.
Bert collects all the royalties
and the Hedgerows seem to be okay with that
except for Eric, the bass player
(why is it always the bass player?).
“What’s up with him?” Bert often asks,
“All he has to do is stand there hitting C”.
Bert’s not a man for rules,
he has one rule and one rule only –
no cheating songs,
just not his style,
he’s a happily married man.
There are rumors though,
sightings of Bert hanging around the backdoor of the rectory
while Vicar Derek is conducting a service;
glances exchanged with Derek’s wife, Cynthia,
while passing in the street.
Just rumors, his friends say,
what could he do in the forty minutes
it takes Derek to complete the service
and shake hands at the door.
Au contraire, Bert’s detractors say
Plenty of time, Bert’s detractors say
for a man who has mastered
the art of the three minute song.
Taking part in Openlink over at dverse.
Stopdraggingthepanda 