The Empty Calories

I remember when I was one of the Empty Calories.

Empty Calories Press of the 3rd Mind 1995

My Day As a Worm

     I find my life no more or less grotesque than the day before. I eat a small breakfast of toads and do my coughing exercises. The atmosphere no longer sustains me, and the sun neither warms or cools me. I imagine that I am an eyeless worm of the genus luco luco luci crawling silently beneath the floorboards of your home. Because you have refused to feed me I have gathered my brethren and we have resigned ourselves to digest every molecule of edible protein underneath the foundation of your home, plunging you into the true Silent Kingdom. As the earth begins to rumble I re-assume my bipedal form, salute my brothers, and silently slither home to regurgitate the earth I stole from beneath your feet.

     I can see why that one didn't make it into Detached Retinas.

Mumbling Rock Exhibit

function is destiny

a rock becomes a tree for the convenience

of the impaired audience,

and is rendered useless

as a rock and as a tree.

we are contortions of perception,

allowing an object to assume

its natural form only when our vision

fits neatly around its borders.

light is a magician, a tireless trickster

entertaining an audience of passive

executioners, dodging each other's gaze,

a long stare being eternal concrete

in the other's stony mind gallery.

Benediction

You'll be just one of proposed

Trillions,

Eyelids painted green

Speaking to your cornflakes,

Issued a soul

And taught allergies,

Standing morbidly erect before

Flagpoles

And lying prostrate before museums.

You'll be caught completely by surprise

When Earth leaps up

To meet bone.

The Secret Pudding

In London a man was discovered eating the Queen's secret pudding. The Royal Guard promptly escorted the man from the palace, but were dismayed to discover the very same gentleman in an unusual position with the prince's polo donkey later in the day. The donkey, it is reported, has lodged a formal complaint with the Queen herself. The Queen, taking her tea with the Dutch Ambassador of Cabbage, is said to have taken a personal interest in the case, going so far as to demand photographs in the case that the donkey wants to bring charges. The nameless man, appearing later on the BBC, claims he only staged the event to draw attention to the Queen's secret pudding, which he alleges is made from the aborted fetuses of Princess Grace of Monaco. 

The Empty Calories

I guess at one time some of that must have seemed funny to me. 

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Singing Lessons

I remember writing most of the poems for Detached Retinas on the porch at Quincy Avenue. When i decided I had enough poems to do a book it was 1997 and there still was no such thing as on demand or even digital printing yet. I picked out a printer at random from a reference book and followed their directions. Having no experience, I am surprised to this day that it worked. I drew the illustration on the cover myself. I bought a block of ISBN numbers from Bowker and named my press Zombie Logic Press. I had been thinking about using that turn of phrase for several years, and in previous books and chapbooks always included a poem that was titled "Zombie Logic." The poem never found its way into a book. 

I don't remember the details of writing this particular poem. 

Singing Lessons

The King's critic was sent out to execute
all singing birds and by a creek spotted
a deformed bird-like creature and immediately
seized it by the throat at which time
the pathetic creature croaked, "There's no
point crushing my larynx, I'm of the species
vocus restrictus, a rare breed of songless
bird indigenous only to this creek." The 
executioner, convinced by the ugly but
persuasive creature's explanation, removed
his hands from its throat at which time
it began singing the most beautiful song
anyone had ever heard which led directly
to the villagers overthrowing the evil king
and delicious, syrupy beverages flowing
from the public fountains. When asked in
a later interview how such an ugly beast
could sing such a glorious song, the bird
replied, "Singing lessons."


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Three Short Poems From Detached Retinas By Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Pissed off a bunch of stuffy people on NPR, did cardio, took my heart meds, now all I have to do is wait for drowsiness to overtake me. Later today is Jack's first teeball game. Going to post a couple more of my poems from my second book, Detached Retinas, and wait to get tired. 

Detached Retinas by Thomas L. Vaultonburg from Zombie Logic Press

The Dictator

It's been too short a stay
Over you,
But if you don't mind I'll keep
My wrack and thumbscrew,
And also the map,
I made with a laugh,
Of your so-called borders.


Hello

"Hello, I'm Montgomery Clift,
Back from the grave to recommend
A most amazing product:
The New Phonebook.
yes, everything you've heard is true,
And many things you haven't heard
Are also true.
I have personally been receiving
And returning phone calls
Since March, which is amazing
Because I'm dead."


New Year's Eve 1995

It gets small again
So we order a pizza.
In March we were in love
With the classifieds
And in October picked apples.
But last week I found her in bed
Eating pizza with the delivery boy.
Tonight Dick Clark orders a huge
Ball to drop on New York City.
Shit, that was a year of my life.
-Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Nope, not tired at all. And the humidity is stifling. I still haven't bought a small air conditioner for the apartment. 

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The Most Dangerous Poet In America

Zombie Logic Press is located exactly in the geographical center of  Rockford, Illinois: America's 3rd Most Dangerous City. Furthermore, within that dystopian wasteland, Zombie Logic Press anchors the 5th most dangerous neighborhood in America, which I believe entitles me to make the claim that I am the most dangerous poet in America.

Every one of my grade school teachers seemed to agree. 

Each one of my grade school teachers in succession made very great efforts to convince me poetry was the type of thing that gets a small boy into trouble and leads to a life of depraved indifference to societal standards. They sure were right about that. I should have listened. But I had the poetry bug bad. To their credit, they warned me. 

I was a pretty shady character back in those days, and if they hadn't made such an effort to deter me from the path of goodness, truth, and creativity, there's no telling what type of destruction I might have unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Glad they stopped me. But if they hadn't I soon learned countless others were willing to take their place. Drill instructors, professors, bosses, editors, whoever felt they might have a penile insufficiency or a vaginal surplus. They wanted me to know poetry simply wasn't going to fly, not on their watch. 

My first book was published when I was still a teenager. Many people were furious, mostly because they hadn't published a book and they didn't think I should have, either. The only place you can buy this is at Google, because it sold out over twenty years ago. Every subsequent book I have published at Zombie Logic Press was modeled after this one, largely because it's the only way I knew how to do it.

For some reason, I decided to come back from San Diego, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, to Rockford, one of the ugliest. I spent a few years letting other people pay for me to go to college, where I maintained a 4.0 and won a bunch of scholarships I didn't need because everything was already being paid for. Once again it was re-affirmed to me that being good, working harder, and outperforming other people was irrelevant on this planet. Then, mysteriously, at age 30, my life began. I remember the moment clearly. I had just re-read Richard III, and like a lazer beam boring into my amygdala it became clear to me being a good guy was for chumps. I published my second book that year.

Detached Retinas. Go ahead and be a dear and buy that here. This is a compilation of poems I wrote while in college. They tend towards the surreal and innocuous. Some are even slightly romantic and nice. Mostly people didn't like it. I can really relate to their feelings. It's the last gasp of any true romance or naivete that I might have had in this life, or ever will have again. In that sense it's the only book I have written I can pick up and enjoy reading. I wouldn't but if I did. Then I started my fifteen year career working in bars and restaurants. Which led to my third book.

Flesh Wounds. I'm making the picture bigger because I have a lot more to say about this. Be a voyeuristic lech and buy this here. These are the sordid tales of the time I spent working in dive bars, strip clubs, dance clubs, sports bars, fine dining, and the most scumbag ridden location of them all... the country club. Fast money, fast chicks, drugs, violence. I got paid to do the things most people dream about. And I was good at it. At first. Actually, I was still good at it later, too, especially when me and my brother owned our own bar, Castaways, but that long, drawn out perversion of the senses might open the doors to wisdom, but once wisdom is acquired it's time to move on.

I started writing Submerged Structure on the porch of my brother's house on a yellow legal pad one summer when I was between gigs. The one at the fireman bar and the dance club, if I remember correctly. I wanted to just strip down the whole writing experience and write for the same of the image. I've never been a big believer in adjectives or jamming a line full of figures of speech. It's a fun book with a lot of silliness to it. You can buy that here. The title refers to my lifelong battle with Schizoid Personality Disorder. How the hell do you bartend with a disorder like that, it has been asked. Drugs and booze were always my answer. 

That's how I ended up becoming the most dangerous poet in America. 

2026 update.... Still crazy after all these years. Thomas L. Vaultonburg

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All the Contents of Detached Retinas, Page 4

The following is all the contents of detached Retinas, page 4. I'm sure of this because I just pulled it off the shelf. Nothing in this poem actually happened. Maybe the apple part. I think that did happen. 

New Years Eve 1995

It gets small again
So we order a pizza.
In March we were in love
With the classifieds
And in October picked apples.
But last week I found her in bed
Eating pizza with the delivery boy.
Tonight Dick Clark orders a huge
Ball to drop on New York City.
Shit, that was a year of my life.

Although I consider myself to be a fairly confessional poet, almost nothing in the book Detached Retinas really happened. I wrote most of these poems on the porch of the house my brother and some friends had rented on Quincy Ave here in Rockford. I slept in a closet for a while there while I was delivering Sears appliances. After I started bartending I got my own place, but we had a lot of good times there. The first poem written that I used in this book was Measurements, and I wrote it in a cubicle at the PLC at Rock Valley College. Maybe I'll post that one tomorrow. 

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Taking Out the Garbage Poem

The digital age presents us with all sorts of new scenarios. I used to not believe a poem that I had written on the computer didn't really exist until I could print it out, or write it down. I've gotten over this, and now i almost feel a poem isn't real until I have archived it digitally. Detached Retinas is my second book of poetry, published in 1997, and it only exists in book form, and on scans I uploaded for Google. But since they are scans, I have no way to copy and paste them. I'm going to post a few here over the next few weeks. 

The Garbage

Hunched over the scandal 
You've called me to clean up,
Because I keep to myself,
Because my degree is in apathy,
Because what's in my eyes
Is a lie.
The blood is the easy part,
An acquired taste,
And the body more easily
Disposed of than conceived.
Because I love you.
Because I hate everyone
You hate.
Because someone must take
Out the garbage.

Detached Retinas, 1997, by Thomas L. Vaultonburg. Publishing was much different then. This book went from my journals, to a laser printer, to Book Masters in Ohio in three days. It came back two weeks later. Offset printing. For  some inconceivable reason, I have insisted on doing the covers of ll my books. This one is by far the worst.

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The Night Is So Still Dolphins Swim Through It

When I was a child in school I never listened. I knew it wasn't the right thing to do, and eventually they just stopped trying to instruct me and gave me a pile of books to read. Even then i sensed there wasn't much reason getting knowledge second or third hand, filtered through the voice of someone who may or may not even understand it. Given math equations, I ignored whatever rules they attempted to teach me and simply proceeded using my own trial and error methods. Which, given time, were eventually successful. Either I ran out of time or I solved the problems. Always my brain has worked that way. Sort of a solipsistic inductive reasoning machine. No point trying to learn the rules of the game at this late date. Why do I tell you this? I don't know. Because there's more afternoon than I need. Well, because I use design programs like Photoshop the same way. I can't ever learn the hard and fast rules, which would no doubt save me a great deal of time. "Dolphins" is a poem I wrote probably in 1996 on a porch on Quincy Ave. It went into my second book, Detached Retinas. Jenny did this Tiny Drawing last month and told me a few nights ago it went with the poem "Dolphins." Then she decided it didn't go with the poem "Dolphins," but I had already decided it had by this point. So, I put together the Tiny Drawing Poem this afternoon using my usual trial and error design method. The font is Flowerchild. 

More Tiny Drawings

More Tiny Drawing Poems

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Buy Detached Retinas By Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Dolphins

The night is so clear

Dolphins swim through it.

All the noises in the world

Become my noises and

Even the stars tiptoe

Across the sky

To shine brighter in Texas.

Some of us deserve more pain

Some more happiness 

I just deserve more

And I get it in small but

Potent doses throughout the night.

10.00

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