An Amazing Illustration By Tré From Our New Book Moonscape Phase I

For a whole year my partner Tré and I wrote a book in haiku form about the phases of the moon and where we were individually and together on our journey during those moon phases. Then Tré took the haiku pairings we had created and drew an illustration for each one. Seventy separate illustrations. 

It only took Tré three months to do the illustrations, which is an incredible pace when you see how intricate and full of nuance they are. I remember how much fun it was as Tré unveiled each new illustration. 

Now after almost a whole year of editing our book is finished! Moonscape Haiku Phase I is the first of a trilogy of haiku books we will be doing together. Treescape and Dreamscape will be the second and third.

After the Solstice/The Longest Night is page 69 from that book.

The entire book is this incredibly lush and intricate, and the printer did an impeccable job of capturing the subtle gradients of Tré's shading. I've never been more fulfilled and excited to show others what we've been working on for over two years now. You can see the video about how Moonscape came to be and how it all turned out here at our Kickstarter. 

Order Moonscape

 

  

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Rockford Poetry Publisher Zombie Logic Press Celebrates Twenty Year Anniversary

Rockford, Illinois, was recently named the most dangerous city in America with a population under 200,000 by F.B.I. statistics, overtaking Little Rock Arkansas. In the geographic center of this city's most dangerous neighborhood sits what NPR has called "America's most dangerous small press," Zombie Logic Press. 

That press is celebrating it's 20th year in continuous operation on October 31st.

Founded in 1996 by publisher Thomas L. Vaultonburg. Zombie Logic Press was created initially to self-publish the poetry of Thomas L. Vaultonburg, but eventually branched out to include the periodical Zombie Logic Review, which publishes Outsider, Outlaw, Surrealist and Dad poetry, and lately the works of Rockford writers in its Rock River Literary Series. So far books have been published by Jesus Correa, C.J. Campbell, and Dennis Gulling. 

When Vaultonburg decided to locate in Downtown Rockford, very few businesses were willing to open up space on the area, and most of the citizens were terrified to go there. Many historic building were left to rot as property speculators were content to just watch them collapse until the government gave them money to gentrify them. 

But not Vaultonburg. The poet responsible for books such as Flesh Wounds, Concave Buddha, Submerged Structure, and Detached Retinas, felt right at home in the Downtown area. After years of publishing internationally noted poets at Zombie Logic Review, Vaultonburg joined forces with Olivia Suchs to create a seconds online literary journal, Outsider Poetry, which gives voice to the self-trained, mentally ill, and marganilized creators odf the world.

Concave Buddha by Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Being in the vanguard of resurgances is nothing new for the maverick publisher, who enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 17, received his B.S. in Psychology from Rockford College. 

Even though most of the businesses he sees around him are coming and going faster than the time it takes to learn their name, Vaultonburg says Zombie Logic Press is here to stay, and plans to publish 2 books by Rockford writers every year.  Pin It

What I'd Rather Be Doing Than Outlaw Poetry

Basically anything right now. All hell has broken loose in the Universe, in America, and in my corner of the Universe.

We spent part of the weekend at the Renaissance Fair in Kenosha. Seemed like a reasonable distraction from all the insanity. I had a real bummer of a headache all weekend.Now that it's a new week it's back to war with the bureaucracy and decay in general.

The Rockford poetry train is leaving the station without me. But I really feel like I need to guard my free time ferociously. What I have of it.

Yesterday was sweltering, and we went on a Pokemon hunt in the afternoon, then again after it got dark. The bike path was crawling with people. Jack fell asleep in the wagon, but woke up as soon as we got home. Then everyone was up late again.

Just finished a nice torrent of work while waiting for a poet to show up for a pre-production meeting, then I did a workout with my Gold's Gym exercise band. Now I'm waiting for chicken soup with liver to be ready. Then maybe a walk with my guys if the poet is a no show. No one has wanted to go to bed lately, but if they do I might watch something crappy online.

Posted a long piece by Brett Petersen at Outsider Poetry  and some fine pieces by Alan Britt at Zombie Logic Review. No word from the poet, so I might try and sneak in my cardio workout. I hope I didn't give him a bad phone number. I'm not sure what my phone number is without looking it up.

After this a lot of blogs still to work on tonight, then tomorrow me and Jenny have dinner with the head of the local Arts Council. I might consider applying for a grant. I'd hate to have to explain what my mission statement is. To publish poetry. I've been doing it Twenty years, so I guess I take it semi-seriously. But it would be nice not to do it anymore tonight.


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Several A List Celebrities Reportedly Interested In Joining Poetry Slam League

Several celebrities have expressed interest in joining the Outsider Poetry Slam League of America for the 2017 season after the rousingly successful 2016 season, which culminated in the Rancho Cucamonga Kookamungas winning the OPSLA Championship Saturday night in Paducah, Kentucky. 

One such rumor involves Game of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage joining the Rockford Pages OPSLA team for the 2017 season. 

Celebrity interest in joining the league spiked when Jeff Bridges appeared in several bouts for the league champion Rancho Cucamonga team both as himself and as The Dude. League commissioner Dr. Millard Rausch confirms that he has received calls from several A list celebrities inquiring about joining one of the original eight OPSLA teams, or one of the new 8 teams that will join the league for the 2017 season. "We have even received interest in joining the Yakima franchise," Rausch said in a conference call Tuesday from somewhere. 

Also, I'm about to go get some pretzels and finish watching Point of Terror, then maybe something like Zombiethon or Shockwaves, haven't decided. 

Caution: Spoilers

Relax, I am no sadist.

I am not here to dispel

Your illusions,

Or spoil the big reveal

They have written for you,

But your heroes are villains,

Your gods are demons,

And your children will

Toil in vain to change this,

Then die in despair and

Disillusion, blaming you

For your cowardice and knowing

Their lives meant nothing.

As for the show: haven't seen it.

-Thomas L. Vaultonburg

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Why I Couldn't Care Any Less About The Best American Poetry 2015 "Controversy"

I haven't gotten my copy on The Best American Poetry 2015, so I don't much to say about the current controversy where a white man pretended to be an Asian man in order to be published in an American poetry journal. What I do remember is that the editorial process and contributor make-up of the Best American Poetry anthology series has changed quite a bit over the past decade or so. When the series began in 1988 all the editors were older white men and women noted for being part of the academic orthodoxy and selecting poetry for the anthology by similar poets. In fact, they went so far as to continue publishing their dead friends years, or even decades after they were gone instead of really delving into the America poetry scene and finding younger and more diverse voices.

Best American Poetry 1988-2014

,

None of this makes any real difference to me because being a career small press poet I have about as much chance of ever appearing in an anthology like this as I do of playing quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. These are the games people we make fun of play. assholes who have their snout far into the public trough their asses have no idea their crack is showing. The poetry isn't all that great, but the politics ensure whoever edits the series will just publish a certain standard of poetry. In this case Sherman Alexie was the yearly editor and he admits he was just enamored by the title and Chinese sounding name of this entry. 

With this poet exists or not seems irrelevant. I haven't even read the poem yet, and probably won't until I order my copy on Ebay as I do every year now. I actually don't even really have an opinion about this, I'm just trying to get to 500 words and get on with my day of preparing for fantasy football season. I don't like poets. I don't think anyone does, really. And they're right. Because this is the type of petty garbage Plato predicted poets would argue over if they were ever in charge of anything

Unfortunately for readers, there are still a few things a few poets are in charge of. Namely public grants, funding, a few literary journals of note, and some academic writing programs. That's not a lot, and we should all be grateful they don't have any more power than that, but it's just enough power to ruin the perception of poetry the typical non-reader of poetry has about all poetry being written in America at any one time.

Sherman Alexie is a poet who has come closest to being a small press editor in the history of the series. I don't like him, but only because I saw once on his website he told his fans to leave him alone because he was too busy to respond to their questions. Kind of a jerkoff thing to do, but maybe he was just having a bad day. I was running a restaurant at that time, working seventy hours a week, and I never would have dreamed of treating a customer or a fan (if I had one) that way. To each his own. But that's a good example of why most people have a negative opinion of poets, and why they're mostly right in my opinion and experience.

I wanted to say something about race, gender, politics, age, and how all of these things enter into the politics of publishing an anthology like The Best American Poetry, but I don't really give much of a shit. Fight it out over the slop they pour in the trough all you want, I'm happy knowing I'll never be part of that grotesque spectacle of relying on the leavings of others.

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The Beekeeper, An Outsider Poem

I have been making these for You Tube videos, but there's no reason I can't post a few of them here, too. It has amused me to use a font color that is virtually unreadable. Also, I found a spelling error in this poem that went into the book Submerged Structure. It happens with every book that some five years later I'll find a rather obvious spelling error and wonder why I never saw it before. I swear there really is a printer's devil that changes the text in books, even after publication. 

"The Beekeper," an Outsider Poem by Thomas L. Vaultonburg

I posted some more of these impossible to read poems at Outsider Poetry 

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Rockford Poetry

I never knew being associated with the search term Rockford Poetry was important to me. Until yesterday when Jenny told me it was important to me to be associated with the search term Rockford Poetry. Because I am the most widely published poet in Rockford (even though I quit publishing in 1996) and because I have the only serious literary press in Rockford I assumed if I looked for Rockford Poetry I'd be right there.

Wrong.

Not only wasn't I right there, I wasn't anywhere 

Having  been born in Swedish American hospital, which I can all but see from the window of the building that serves as Zombie Logic Press headquarters, and having published poetry here since 1997, I feel awful that I haven't been able to make Google consider my efforts more noteworthy. I think that will change in the coming years, as I have plans to publish the first books of several up-and-coming poets from America's 3rd most dangerous city. Already I have published the first book of Jesus Correa and C.J. Campbell, and later this year we will be releasing an as-yet untitled poetry book by noir poet Dennis Gulling, a protege of Todd Moore, perhaps the most published and widely read poet the Rockford area has ever had.

After my heart surgery two years ago it became crystal clear to me I wanted to do my part to make Rockford more than just a punchline to people from other cities who only hear we have been named to another most fat, least educated, most violent or miserable list. I'm very proud of the book we did with Jesus Correa, Iced Cream. I'm super excited about this book by Dennis Gulling. 

I have written a piece about the history of Rockford poetry that will be published later this year. In my research for that story I found many times when poetry almost took a hold in Rockford, but eventually fizzled because of egos, in fighting, or lack of support from the community.

I'm not sure what time I have left to accomplish this, or make my contribution, but I hope to do all I can in these coming years to support the poetry scene in Rockford, which I know for a fact has numerous brave, unique, and powerful voices. 

I regret that because of Schizoid Personality Disorder and tremendous social anxiety I won't be able to do readings because it would be an honor to take the stage with some of these writers, but maybe I can use Zombie Logic Press and Zombie Logic Review to give a forum for their voices. 

Rockford Poetry

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Why This Is Outsider Poetry

Insiders have been trying to appear to be Outsiders for a long time now. It's because there's no real nobility or romance to the notion that you kissed ass, followed all the rules, filled out all the proper forms, and any sort of reputation you have is based on public funding and the fact that you don't rock the boat. Politicians do this, too, decrying that they are for small government then accepting huge sums of money as soon as anything goes wrong. Academic poets disguised as small press, Outlaw, or Outsider Poets are the same pathetic animal. Just be what you are. Your snout is in the trough, your work would never stand a chance of being good enough to survive outside the publically funded realm, and you're willing to steal a title you never earned. If you go to college long enough they'll eventually give you a degree if you know a damn thing or not, but you can wait a million years on planet Earth and no one is going to accept that you're a real poet if you haven't done the work. Hell, even if you have done the work no one is going to give you the title if your work isn't good enough.

I pause for a poem or two, because I write them...

How Having a Kooky Uncle

Can Scar Children For Life

Watch the colors

The director's choice

Of colors

I yell

As a zombie

Buries canines

And incisors

Into a soccer mom's

Shoulder.

Let's go to

The park now

They say

Ignoring my madness

The way the masses

Ignore a bum

On a park bench.

They'll be ok.

Natural Lighting

the generous

sun

casts an enormous

shadow of my penis

on the

cold steel

of the

laundry basin.

-Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Now that's poetry. To be more specific, it's a couple notches above mediocre Outsider Poetry, for two reasons. The poet has no formal training or associations, and has a disability that has altered the path of his creative journey. Feeling alienated or left out is certainly a terrible feeling, but that type of self-identifying oneself as an Outsider does not make it so. When we refer to an Outsider Poet or Artist we're not speaking prepositionally, or giving them that label in reference to where they stand in the community as much as trying to identify what limitations and obstacles they face in first the creative process, and later in finding an audience for their creativity. I have a real distaste for those who double dip and want to identify with some sort of Outsider or small press movement, but then go inside the walls of the college and public supported arts system to feed at the trough, Feed, but relinquish your false claims of being an outsider.

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Three Outsider Poems By Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Come For Me

Come for me

In darkness

Like all cowards

Come for me

When I am starved

And deprived of

Comfort

Come for me when

I am crazed

For want

Of a woman's lips

Come for me

When my days

Have outlasted

The portion in my

Beggar's bowl

Come for me

When I have

Watched the mongrel

Suffer in the ditch

Come for me on

Lorcas's birthday

And Akhmatova's

Wedding night

Or Bastille Day

Come for me

In my darkness

And I will show

You how

I write poetry.

I Am the Bus

I am the bus

In this poem.

It is down to that,

A conveyance.

Are you already

Guessing the metaphor?

Are you already teasing

The punchline?

No, you are wrong.

For in this poem

I am the bus,

Making all my stops.

Social Security Office

The only attractive

Feature in this

Argument for

Germ warfare

Is the exit.

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A Man Telling His Son He Is Going To Die

a man telling his son he is going to die

“Your daddy is going to die Joey. Your daddy is going to die and your are not going to have a daddy anymore Joey.” I said to my son whose name was Joey.

“Good,” he said, “I am very excited. That sounds great to me.”

He began marching around our living room, mimicking the act of playing a trombone.

“After your mother killed herself, I began slowly poisoning myself by putting a tiny amount of arsenic in my tea each morning. From what I understand about arsenic, I am in the beginning throes of death my boy. Yes, dear Joey, your daddy is not long for this world.” I said to my four year old son who stood there in his pajamas, clapping his hands enthusiastically, chanting:

“No more daddy.”

CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

“No more daddy.”

CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

“That’s right Joey, no more daddy, you’re going to be an orphan buddy, you’re going to have to learn to fend for yourself, and that is going to be very hard for you, because you are dimwitted and repulsive to look at. You are probably going to end up with a terrible, crippling drug habit if you don’t starve to death first. Your daddy is going to die, and I am afraid, my son, that there is no hope for you.” I said to my son as he jumped up and down on the couch, joyously soaring and cackling saying things like…

“I cannot wait to not have a daddy.”

“I cannot wait until you die.”

“No more daddies forever.”

He was pissing his pants, and he was pleased as punch, and frankly so was I. Today was the greatest day that I have ever known. Thank you jesus.

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Chico Is the Man

Chico is the man. This is Chico...

Chico by Jesus Correa

horse glue

How was I going to do this. How was I going to bring myself to murder her horse. She loved that horse, her and her horse had grown up together, they were like inter-species siblings, and I couldn’t imagine them not being together. They longed for one another, her and her horse, and when she wasn’t near the horse she was thinking about that horse, thinking about riding her horse, and grooming her horse, talking to and feeding her horse; and I liked to think that that horse thought about her too, when she was gone away to school, when she got her first job at the Dairy Queen, when she was out on her first date; I liked to think that that horse was sitting there in that stable, missing her as much as I know she missed him.

How was I going to do this? Slit it’s throat, maybe a shotgun, poison? How do you kill a loved one, how do you bring yourself to do what must be done, to do the right thing, knowing it will hurt someone you love? I needed a drink, I needed to just be out of my head a little.

I went in the house, my wife sitting there at the table, knitting a scarf for the young whore who had just moved in the house up the road a bit, humming a Slayer song under her breath, smelling like an old whore herself.

“Ma, are you sure we have to kill the poor horse, are you really sure that’s necessary?” I asked before raising the cup of bourbon I had just poured to my face, the part of my face with the hole in it, where words and spit came out, where bourbon and vagina juice went in.

“We got to do it Pa, sorry, it’s our only choice, unless you really feel like going to the store and buying some glue. You know we need the glue Pa, you know we do.”

She was right, we did need the glue, for the Popsicle house we were building, and I just didn’t have it in me to drive all the way to the store to buy a whole bottle of glue; no, we had to kill that horse, and quick, before we didn’t feel like making a Popsicle house no more. I got out my shotgun and took another drink of that fire water, and headed out to the barn to kill that horse, to make the glue that we needed to make that Popsicle house that we had been talking about making since yesterday.

-Jesus Correa

Chico 2. I have to find the perfect place for Chico now at my apartment, among things that make me happy. 

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Train Station Fighting

train station fighting

I have gotten into a few fights at the train station, it just puts me in the mood for a fight. Fist fights, with blood, and broken teeth, eyebrow gashes. I got feisty at the train station, and it lit a fire in my soul, and I would get rowdy, I would get in peoples faces, shouting at them,

“Why are you leaving me? Why can’t we all just stay here forever? This is to perfect right now, being here with you in this moment. Why are you leaving this moment? Where are you going?”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I jumped in front of the doors of the trains, I groped at women’s scarves as the door closed on the train, I punched men in their faces, and I pleaded for them to stay.

“What’s another fifteen minutes going to hurt you? Come one. This would mean the world to me, just fifteen more minutes, there is another fucking train coming in fifteen minutes. Fuck, come on man, be human, be a fucking human. Just sit here with me for fifteen more minutes, then you could jump on the next fucking train, and get the hell out of town, and never have to see my fucking face again. Fuck”

I took a small child from the arms of an elderly woman.

“Come on sister, I will give you the baby back, just sit here and finish our conversation, we were having a nice conversation, weren’t we? I mean, you said I was a nice boy, and I am, and I will give you the baby back after we are done talking about the bird. You said you loved that bird. You said you loved that bird…”

I fought people, because I cared enough, to sit and listen, sit and listen to their sob stories, and I listened to them whine, and bitch, and moan about their mundane lives. I fought them, because I wanted them to listen, I wanted someone to listen to me, and sometimes the only thing they were willing to listen to was my fist as I punched them in their ears.

They all had places to be, they were all just passing through town, or on their way somewhere, and I would sit and listen to them, and they talked and talked and talked, and they laughed because I made them laugh, because I was a funny and charming man, and I enjoyed making them laugh. I enjoyed their company, very much, and they enjoyed mine, and then that fucking train would come, and it would choo-choo, and they would go about their merry way.

“See you buddy, it was really nice chatting with you. It’s not often you meet someone so charming, and easy to talk to. I hope you have a fantastic day. Bye-bye”

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Nope.

I will fight you.

I will punch you in your heart, and you will sit here, and you will listen to me, because I am a good and decent man, and I deserve to be heard, and I deserve to be loved, and there will always be another fucking train, but there will never be another me.

-Jesus Correa

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Go

go.

go away fly…i don’t want to kill you…i just want it to stop…the buzzing above my head…and it irritates certain nerves…i can feel them…beneath my skull…on top of my brain…right where the fly is buzzing…some primal tingle…and the fly sensing my agitation…buzzes louder…circles harder.

and so i eat peanuts. i shove them there in my mouth, the mouth that does not move to make words, because there is no one here to hear them. gutteral grunts, i make those, i go urgh, and ugh, i make those sorts of noises. i cough, and i sneeze, and i clear my throat, gutteral noises, nothing akin to logic, or syntax. no nouns or verbs, just the oh, and the uhm, and the wheezes, and the chewing of peanuts, and the buzzing of flies.

i eat peanuts, and i listen to the flies, and i miss no one. i miss my radio, and i miss music, occasionally i hum, very faintly, barely audible, but a low hum of some song i still remember, even after all of these years, here alone, with one fly or another, one bag of peanuts or another, and i sit, and i grunt, and i occasionally hiss at the fly, whatever fly it happens to be.

it is not the same fly, not the same fly on the wall, or buzzing about my head, no, but some sort of ancestor of this fly, something carrying down it’s genes, it’s manner of buzzing about my head: it has kept the same basic shape as it’s forefathers, and it buzzes about, and it annoys me the same-the same as it’s father did, or it’s mother or uncle, great-great-great-grandfather to the fly-they have all looked very similar, so much so that i cannot tel them apart, and i don’t bother too, because they all blend in, or move to fast to catch a good glimpse, here and then gone, just like their father and their father before them.

i eat peanuts and i grunt, and i eat, eat things, whatever is handy, or easy to shove in my face, and i eat mostly peanuts, and i sit there, and grunt, and i don’t think, and i just wait and i listen to the fly.

i chew slowly, and i watch. i watch things, keep my eye on the world around me, and i try to wonder about it all as little as possible, because i do not see the reason to question the reasons for why the things are the way they are, i just eat the peanuts, and grunt at nothing, and i stare at nothing, nothing in particular.

there are days, long long days, that just squeeze you madly, tightly with the beautiful simpleness of it all, sitting there, idly watching it all just go right by, as you chew the peanuts, and grunt and smile, something akin to a smile, something like that.

-jesus abraham correa vii from Iced Cream

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I'd Love To Quit Poetry But I Can't

I have failed after 18 years of effort to make Zombie Logic Press a viable literary press. I suspect my goals may have always been unattainable. The only two examples I could think of to emulate were City Lights Books and Grove Press, and after naming them one has almost exhausted the list of presses that have been successful in bringing avant-garde, modern poetry to a large audience. I would have settled fro even a small but dedicated audience. That hasn't happened, either. In the end I have to concede I'm just not very good at this. 

One aspect of running a small press that specializes in poetry I have always relished is that the goal you're trying to achieve in bringing a large audience to poetry is virtually impossible. Almost no one has ever done it, even major publishers with vast resources they can bring to bear on finding that audience. 

Have I enjoyed the challenge? Not particularly. Having one's aspirations and hard work met with crushing apathy is not an experience I can describe as pleasurable, or satisfying in any remote or even masochistic way. I really wanted to be successful. I wanted to do this thing that almost no one else had done. 

Later this year I'll be publishing an as yet untitled book by a local poet named Dennis Gulling. I haven't begun design on the book yet, but I am envisioning it as a movie-noir type of feel with illustrations by my creative partner Jenny of Tiny Drawings and Rockford Illustrating. It's actually quite a good book in the Outlaw poetry tradition of Todd Moore, of whom Gulling admits to be a protege. I anticipate Jenny and I will have some fun when we get down to the work of designing it. 

The difficult part of the process, as anyone knows, is marketing and sales. Poetry is a product people have been trained from early youth to believe they just don't understand, like, or want. Overcoming those preconceptions and resistance in a prospective audience is virtually impossible. Occasionally a celebrity will sell a few thousand copies of a poetry book, and on very rare occasions a poetry book will become a popular thing to be seen pretending to read in public, but poetry itself has never been particularly liked by the public.

So, you may ask the obvious: why not sell to poets? After I stop laughing long enough to type out a coherent response I'll explain poets don't buy poetry. Few of them even read it. This is readily apparent to anyone who has edited a poetry publication. I'd like to be diplomatic about this, but there is no group of people on this planet more underservedly convinced of their own grandiose and utterly unshared high opinion of themselves than poets. Even the bad ones, which is almost all of them, feel what they are doing is sanctioned by the gods themselves, and by the very virtue of scribbling a few lines in a notebook they have complete and lifelong immunity from showing even the remotest respect for the craft, let alone study it or, god forbid, buy a book. I have never made an attempt to sell poetry to poets because I'm not that particular brand of stupid. Fact is, I don't really care for poets, I have none on my Facebook friend's list, and I only know two in real life. The best poets I have met outgrow it and do something useful with their lives.

Yet knowing that after having undertaken the task of publishing a very complex book like Iced Cream by local artist extraordinaire Jesus Abraham Correa, and having outputted a spectacular product, that I am unable to find the audience I know is there for that work haunts me. That is my failure. These books I'm publishing, and am about to publish, deserve a better effort and result from their publisher. I can't allow learned helplessness to overtake me. I know the audience exists. I also know it is a niche audience, but they are out there. Jenny who does Mermaids of America will often see me hunched over the computer too many hours in a day and chide me that I'm wasting a beautiful day, and I'd really like to quit poetry. I mean that in the worst way. Like the Bukowski poem where he laments he'd rather be a good pool player or anything but a poet, I feel the same lament. Why me? I'm a relatively intelligent person. Had I spent this much time and effort on almost anything else in this Universe it's likely I'd be a much more successful person.

Poet and publisher Thomas L. Vaultonburg punching a shark who didn't buy a poetry book

Quitting Poetry

The Muse doesn’t look 
Up when I turn in 
My final assignment, 
A poem titled 
Mollusks Are Forever.

As I turn to leave 
I can swear I see 
A flash of thigh 
As she purrs icily 
“You’ll be back 
When you see 
The Fall Schedule.” 


It's probably quite a bit of the problem that I haven't asked you to buy anything in this blog. I know you can see there are links in the margins to buy things, but I just can't spend my days begging people to buy a product I knew they didn't want when I made it, then be constantly angry and bitter that they didn't buy it. I suppose I should put a link to something in here just for fun, but I'm not sure why. Oh, and a picture of something. 


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