Three New Letters From Atrocious Poems A To Z

Just mowed the back lawn with our old-fashioned push mower. Now I'm going to post a few new poems from my new book Atrocious Poems A To Z.

Gravity

Gravity is a force
That remains my enemy.
When it broke my grandma's
Antique vase I tried
To explain it was the true villain,
Not me.
However witnesses swore
It was my hand that bore
The vase to the floor,
And no one even saw Gravity.


In poetry, an apostrophe is a figure of speech in which the poet addresses an absent person, an abstract idea, or a thing. Apostrophes are found throughout poetry, but they're less common since the early 20th century.

Haircut

Haircuts are always
A gamble.
You amble in
And a stranger begins
Chopping your hair
Without pre-amble.

If you manage
To survive this, 
And don't end up
Hairless, your
Friends will probably
Still laugh and dis.


Jinx

You jinxed me, Jack,
When you stomped that crack.
Now my luck's turned kablooey,
And I'm harumphy and achooey.
A zipper has snagged my hair,
And a chihuahua's chased
Me from the comfy chair.
It's quite clear, methinks,
My Jack, you're a jinx.


Onomatopoeia is the formation of a word, such as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent.

The book is here. And it looks great. But we still have a few days left in our pre-order campaign and no one has seen it. It will be debuted at the Rockford Art Museum June 9th. 

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Atrocious Poems A To Z By Thomas L. Vaultonburg, Illustrated By Jenny Mathews

After a scant forty years of work, my seventh book is now at the printers. It is a book I am sure my 5th grade teacher never would have envisioned me finishing. Perhaps I should send her a copy. 

It's title Atrocious Poems From A To Z

Atrocious Poems A To Z is a book that takes the problems and challenges of childhood seriously. VERY seriously. Some might say too seriously. By taking a comic approach to everyday issues children face in lighthearted poems and whimsical drawings we hope to present a jumping off point where children and parents can discuss topics like bullying, sharing, dealing with siblings, anxiety etc. It was our goal to ease into these topics employing comedy, sensitivity, and an understanding that although children may see these "atrocities" as the end of the world, they are really things we have all gone through and just a natural part of growing up. 

Me and my life and creative partner Jenny Mathews raise two children: Ella (13) and Jack (6), and although many of the poems and illustrations in the book are about the struggle of their daily lives and the so-called atrocities they encounter, we hope it will be applicable to all parents doing their best to explain a sometimes unfair and scary world to children.

My favorite poem in the book is of course the haiku. It's also the poem I probably spent the most time on. The haiku is a deceptively simple form. This one took a great deal of work to say this little. 

But saying little is something I've always done exceedingly well. 

Not sure this was about

Anyway, I finished the book at the end of March, and we sent it to the printer last week. Now comes the least fun part of the process: selling it.

If you're interested in owning a copy you can order it now at Kickstarter 

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Powering Out of the Funk

Powering out of the funk for the first time in weeks for some reason this is happening at three a.m. but it's been so oppressive I'm not going to question it. I wanted to say getting a chance to study absurd plays like The Balcony by Jean Genet with Michael Quinn eventually gives one some balance and grounding to find one's feet when absurd things like what we've all just witnessed happen. In one semester I read Ionescu and Beckett and Genet and got a chance to spend hours discussing them with a man who knew his stuff. All these years later it helps me find my bearings at three a.m. and soon it will help me sleep the coma sleep of an existentialist who knows these things come, these things go.

Knowing that people have been dealing with the absurdity of the human condition and writing about it from the beginning helps one put crazy times and events in perspective. Waves of insanity come, they go. When they come it always feels at first as if this is the first time this has ever happened, but except for the first time it ever happened it never is. Take some comfort in reading how the Greeks, the French, the Romans, and every culture that ever existed dealt with it. Sometimes a sense of humor is essential. Sure, it's not funny that a lot of people are probably going to get hurt because of the miscalculation many have made in either voting for Donald Trump, or not encouraging others not to, but we'll get through it. We always have. Pin It

Trumpunzel, Trumpunzel, Climb Down Your Hair

The New York Times reports that President elect Donald Trump has been holed up in his Tower for days while outside protesters have to be held at bay by police and the Secret Service. 

Trumpunzel, Trumpunzel, Climb Down Your Hair

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Child Actor Meeno Peluce Wakes Up To Discover He has Been Elected Governor of Maine... Again

In what must seem like a Twilight Zone nightmare, child actor Meeno Peluce woke up Monday morning to discover he had been elected the governor of Maine. Again. Peluce, famous for his roles in shows such as Love Boat, Kojack, Starsky and Hutch, The Incredible Hulk, and his own science fiction series, Voyagers, where he played precocious history wizard Jeffrey Jones, has now been elected the governor of Maine in four consecutive elections, despite never having set foot in the state in his entire lifetime. 

Trying to get to the bottom of this highly dubious quirk in the American electoral process, public officials conducted an exit poll in which over 97% of those who had just voted for Peluce said they had done so multiple times and exclusively because of the awesome nature of his white boy fro.

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Magic Mouth In the Sun Sayeth The Slack

I don't know any more about slack, or what it is, or where it comes from, than you do. I'm similarly mystified by the magic mouth. I picture this classic rendition of a magic mouth spouting off the lyrics from the Car's song "Gimme Some Slack." 

Gimme Some Slack

I want to shake like Liguardia

Magic mouth in the sun

Train ride to the courtyard

Before you can run

Down at the end of Lonely Street

Where no one takes a walk

Someone lyin' at your feet

And someone's gettin' off

Just gimme some slack, yeah

Just gimme some slack

Just gimme, slack

That's all I want is slack

The seven floors of walkup

The odor musted cracks

And the peeping keyhole introverts

With the monkeys on their backs

And the rooftops strung with frauleins

The pastel pinned up sails

The eighteen color roses

Against your face so pale

A just gimme some slack, that's right

Uh gimme some slack

Gimme, slack, oo yeah

All I want is slack

I want to float like Euripides

All visions intact

I'm alright with Fellini fiends

A trippin' over the track

Down at the end of L-onely Street

Where no one takes a chance

Someone's in the cheap light

Someone wants to dance

Just gimme some slack, that's right

All I want is slack 

Oh, gimme, slack

All I want is slack

Gimme, slack

Slack

Slack

Sssslack

Slack

Slack

Songwriters: OCASEK, RIC

All I want is slacks.

Like I said, I don't know as much about slack as I used to, but like Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart, I know it when I don't see it. 

The Cars and their quirky sound kind of blew me away as an adolescent. I have adult friends now who want to start a Dungeons and Dragons group, including a maestro Dungeon Master. Isn't it amazing how things come around and around? Maybe sometimes you were always right the first time. 

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You're a Scapegoat, Charlie Brown MGM Musical LP

Original MGM cast album of You're a Scapegoat, Charlie Brown

Song List

1) Thanks For Fucking Up Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown

2) I'm Confused About the Fact That I'm Probably a Lesbian, So I'm Taking It Out On You, Blockhead

3) Little White Boy Blues

4) You're The Only One Who Can Understand Me, Franklin, Because You're Black

5) You're My Best Friend (Queen cover) P.S. Can You help Me Bury a Body?

6) I Hope That Head Gets Smaller As You Get Closer, Because, Damn

7) Wandering the Desert (Instrumental)

8) A Boy and His Dog

9) Azazel Built My Hot Rod

10) You're To Blame For All Our Shortcomings (cast)

August 10, 2026 update: I should probably explain that I've had an ongoing grievance with Charles Schulz for most of my life over the way he treated Charlie Brown. As a boy, Charlie Brown was the character I identified with. He was awkward, uncertain, usually on the outside looking in, and he kept getting kicked around by people who were supposedly his friends. Lucy pulled the football away. The other kids insulted him. His baseball team lost. The little red-haired girl barely knew he existed. Even when he tried to do the right thing, humiliation usually seemed to be waiting for him.

I don't think I experienced that as particularly funny when I was a kid. I experienced it as depressing. Charlie Brown was the kid I was being asked to identify with, and week after week Charles Schulz seemed determined to demonstrate that nothing was ever going to work out for the poor bastard. I suppose the persistence is supposed to be the inspirational part—Charlie Brown always gets up and tries to kick the football again—but as a boy I mostly wanted someone to let the kid kick the fucking football once. So if I seem unusually hostile toward Charles Schulz in these old posts, that's why. I took what he did to Charlie Brown personally.

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Oprah Winfrey's Pussy

I am now a painter as well as a poet, actor, and America's First and Only Zombie(Z) Party candidate. I painted Oprah Winfrey's Pussy. It took a lot of paint. Want to see Oprah's Pussy? I didn't, but I am the only person on Earth who has. And it looked like this...

I am the only person on planet Earth known to have seen Oprah Winfrey's Pussy.  I was surprised when she commissioned me to do the portrait. She wants it to be memorialized for future generations so they can remember it as it was.... untouched.


December 12, 2012 update: At one time this was my most popular blog. I actually spent a few days on the texture of this painting. I removed it from my blog but then decided I worked hard on this painting and it should stay. It doesn't get much traffic anymore. 

Ron Jeremy is a Bad Dude

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A List of My 16 Pet Peeves

My Pet Peeves

1) Fast rolling credits at the end of movies. Any other movie buffs annoyed by this? Part of the movie experience for me is knowing who did what on a movie from the director of photography to the supprting actors. But these days you have to go to IMDB to find out because the moment a movie ends we're zoomed off into an advertisement. Hate this phenomenon.

2) Baby talk. Even when directed at babies. Particularly wawa. It's fucking water mushbrain.

3) Left turns. There are very few situations in life where you absolutely have to make a left turn. So don't. Can you imagine the time that could be saved in the universe if certain dickwads would opt to go around a block instead of sitting in traffic to make their all important left turn. This is an example of why nothing works.

4) Crime scene investigators and profilers. I was curious to see what impact all these brilliant deducers of the human psyche are having on the solving of actual crimes so I looked at the statistics. And did you know if you commit a rape or murder right now you have a better chance of getting away with it than any time statistics have been kept? Profile that mother fucker.

5) The typing sound effect. Don't know why but when I hear that sound effect it drives me nuts.

6) When people say "to die for." Almost always they are referring to foodstuffs and I wish they would.

7) Lists. Listmania. Lists, man. Fucking lists. Here's an example. Every Sunday we get the rundown of the top ten movies as if movies are competing against each other.

8) Sammich. It's a fucking sandwich, idiot. Yes, I know a lot of these involve the butchering of language.

9) Alright, this one really gets me. Eddie Murphy was funny in 1983. He's made like seven movies where he plays like ten different characters aqnd every time black people lose their minds like theycan't believe make up effects have advanced to the point where a black man can portray a Jewish man or even a larger black man. But here's the actual peeve: when they have the commercial saying "Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy and Eddie Murphy..." we fucking get it already check out Lon Chaney and what he physically did to his face in Phantom of the Opera if you want to be impressed by make up effects.

10) I hate that look of anticipation in peoples' eyes just before the appraiser tells them how much something is worth on Antiques Road Show. Does everything in this society have to be reduced to a dollar amount? Some hillrod from West Virgini could bring in the first copy of Shakespeare's Folios and aside from the fact that he was holding a priceless artifact from our shared human experience all he would care about was if it was worth enough to buy a bass boat.

11) Men who use a billiards table as an excuse to grope women. Alright, so I've spent most of my life in barrooms but this one gets to me. Watch sometime. Every time a woman gets near a pool table some Chester the Molester believes it is his sworn duty in the Universe to make sure she knows how to shot properly, which always entails him sneaking up behind her as she's about to shoot. Don't be this guy. End this phenomenon.

12) The word poon-tang. Hates it. It may be the foulest sounding word in any language.

13) Ghost hunters, storm chasers... I despise charlatans. If you want to be recognized do something meaningful.

14) Joe Cocker and specifically that song "You Can Leave Your Hat On."

15)  Tryptophan. Every fucking Thanksgiving does every idiot in the Universe have to rehash the false fact that turkey makes you sleepy because of tryptophan. It's not the falseness of the fact that annoys me it's just the sharing of a brain that six billion people seem to have. Next year just don't say it.

16) Ok, here's where I get kicked in the nuts and I could easily avoid it by just not telling you that I think tattoo and punk and Harley culture is completely unoriginal and bothers the shit out of me. I hate it any time people get together and all dress the same and act the same and parrot the same words and phrases and then tell us how unique and bad ass they are. This extends to Witch culture and Satanists. Just excuses for unoriginal people to dress up and all act alike and talk alike and generally bother the shit out of us actually living unique lives. (I have to amend myself by stating that most of the actual unique people I know do have tattoos and piercings it's not the tattoos or piercings it's the culture that bothers me)

    So, there it is. A non-exhaustive list of my pet peeves. Now I expect you all to list your pet peeves. And not just me. Pin It