Catawampus

Catawampus

Hello stranger; hope you enjoyed the opening act

Though there simply was no way to come through intact.

Disdain is the name of our game

Which many deign to disclaim.

Oh you don't understand? Then for God's sakes feign!

If this pisses you off, well that's just fine.

Sorry if such statements sound altogether terse

But here we're totally incapable

Of composing any _____ verse

{ & U could always do worse }

Ten year warm-up jumped the gun upon head start

Too late now to retreat or go back on story's arc

Magus mouse in a maze may someday outsmart

Lordly cats won't retract their meow—wild dogs mean it when they bark...

Over-Rhyme:

Beware lest dark forces below drag thee in their undertow.

The Mælstrom comes and might find thine art shallow.

Reconsider these terms and fly swift as a swallow!

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In Absentia

In Absentia

What else is an Anti-Poem

Apart from a conspicuously absent

P O E T ?

Any other definition pales by comparison

And rapidly devolves into teleological complexity.

For it's the absence of agency that gives such automatic writing

Its characteristic conjunction of internal monologue wed to external function.

Doesn't rhyming just grind your gears? Yet we must continue despite dysfunction...

Consider it a vocational hazard or simply a byproduct

Of leaning into measured meter.

Half the time not even trying

Then suddenly it's a three act play at local _______.

Jeer if you will but the show must go on still as gnashing teeth

Bare to grin their chagrin.

Keep your hands behind the railings

It's a gamble when you're all in.

These baskets aren't about to weave themselves—

By the way, what's the point again?

AWOL balls to the wall; fine featherless friend!

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Anathematic

Anathematic

The Academy could never cage

Such a singular bird as THIS ONE.

Wait a minute and hear us out before running away, will ya?

Give the thinker-soldier-tailor half a chance to spin his yarn...

Espy with thine own little eye:

The know-it-all experts each have a blindside

To them we represent a broad Generalist rebirth;

Our Flagship sails forth from an unsanctioned port of berth.

Autodidactic tactic oft redacted

But since at any rate, too few pence are ever earned

Let's then leverage what we've learned

And turn it against those whom would sell said knowledge back to us

A credit at a time whilst worldly wisdom is bought up by another wealthy white Trust.

Here hollers that voice midst the hinterlands

Where ideals still dwell amongst stellar stretches

And sleepers dream deep along with both Piscean fishes ♓️

Secured at their center via subtle ~ astral ~ tether ~

So dispense thy nickel and dime in this well—to fulfill ambitious wishes!

Author's Note: If you enjoyed this piece then you may want to read its poetic predecessor: Paradigmatic.

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Anomalous

Anomalous

No nation can claim the Self-named

For none have proven worthy

Of the glory that they

Profess to possess.

Always been ahead of the pack

But nobody notices anymore

Because we aren't in

A classical setting.

This conduit has been cleared

Though its purpose mightn't 

Be fulfilled in one lifetime;

Age of ignoramus runs fright'd.

Abominable Great Northern Yeti

Ought to recognize when his

Backyard thaws to become

Not unlike the Serengeti.

Three underscores trace progress:

1. Atavists struggling to uphold.
2. Iconoclasts tear down ye old.
3. Hybrid strain of Power untold...

Further Readings:

Asomatous

Rhizomatous

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Minefield of Meanings

Minefield of Meanings

Watch your step:

There's no real right way

To speak about Poesy

Yet somehow it also happens

There are plenty of wrong ways!

Both lector and pupil

Say one thing, meanwhile

Mental and sentimental

Versifiers become divergent;

Their writs misunderstood by gen. public.

These subspecies chant lyric

Only amongst themselves

As do birds of a feather flocking

Together—before excluding any Other.

Think 'synchronized swarm of swallows'.

In this life we all want to be first

In line. Not left behind

Hence each of us breaks off a piece

Hoping that during days to come

Inspired implosions may eventually remind...

A foot soldier trudged fearlessly

Through hostile nobody lands

To tactfully detonate charges

Whose explosive echoes vibrate

Across Akasha's supernal field!

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Interstate Studs

Interstate Studs

Three of us there, in our early twenties, during the late nineties. Standing outside the roadhouse restaurant, shooting the shit by the doorway. Tanned and tired from our long weekend in the woods.

Then that good looking girl came; a stranger in our midst. And she says: "Hi!"

We three respond as one: "Well hello."

She smiles radiantly before going inside.

"Do you know her?" Michael asks.

"No," Rami replies.

"Oh. Guess we're just a bunch of interstate studs then," Michael muses.

We break out in loud laughter!

This is all the heaven anyone ought to need...

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Bounce Back Rate

Bounce Back Rate

Leaving so soon?

But you only just got here!

C'mon now, give us a chance

To show off our fancy frills...

If you don't stick around

You may never discover

Mind-boggling paradoxes

And tongue-twisting thrills with

Turns of pedantic phraseology

Here comes a prime example:

70% of those who came before

Backed out daunted by doubts

But you're not like them are you?

Stick around until the deed is done

Good things wait for those who come.

That may seem like a fine place to stop

Though isn't it great when a song dies down

Then suddenly resurges for a final STOMP?!

You might not know it but Poetry knows you

You'll probably miss us as we bid thee adieu

"Bounce back boo — nothing else left to do!"

Come on back soon, ya heard?

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Pandemic Dream Theater

Pandemic Dream Theater

The one where you're walking through the park with some random C-list celebrity that you normally don't even think about. Yet here they are, explaining life's great mysteries to you (more or less in your own words), while pushing around a cart full crap like a homeless person.

Or perhaps you find yourself in what appears to be North Korea, where jets drop deafening bombs on the mountainside, which shoot up tall geysers of dust that hang in the air for almost a minute. Then the Grand Matriarch arrives with her retinue of ladies and proceeds to publicly humiliate you in front of your friends and fellow tourists. You can't understand a word they're saying — but their meaning is made quite clear by the lash of bamboo against your bare back!

Elsewhere at another time, you're hanging a painting in an atelier when lo and behold, a pesky ex with whom you haven't had sex in many years walks in. They just stand there with a smug expression, which you do your best to ignore as you finish what you're doing. However, when they're about to leave, you can't help asking: 

"Excuse me, but have you gotten taller?"

"No, but I have gotten a lot richer!"

Your family (who've been sitting off to the side on some sofas the whole time) finds this very amusing and laughs loudly at your predicament. So you follow your old flame out the door and soon discover that they're in the middle of filming a movie somewhere nearby. You get offered a bit-part, which you accept. But since you outshine the other starlets in the studio — the director kicks you off set! Next thing you know, you're in an alleyway smoking joints with another out of work actor and reminiscing about your short-lived cinematic career.

Finally, there's that dream you dare not speak of for fear it may come true... A chartered bus comes to your neighborhood at the crack of dawn. Everyone's confused regarding what's going on, but both you and your neighbors are effectively herded onto the Greyhound by military men in black tactical attire.

A little later, you're all led single-file into what looks to be a factory facility. During the shuffle, you end up budding in front of your closest neighbor. Once inside, it soon becomes evident that this is no ordinary warehouse. You can hear the industrial whir of metal in the distance, although it's coupled with bloodcurdling death cries. These unnerving sounds only get louder while everybody winds down the corridors of a concrete labyrinth. Your palms begin to sweat and your heart pounds because sure enough, as you round the penultimate corner, blood splatters against the wall!

There's no escape; the guards make sure of it. The poor sucker in front of you tries to run but gets thrown into the abattoir against his will. The noise is sickening. Knowing that your fate is sealed, you turn to your neighbor with a shit-eating grin on your face and ask:

"So, do you want your spot back?"

You shrug off the guards and voluntarily step forward (legs trembling) into the buzzing blades — white light engulfs your senses —

* WIDE AWAKE *

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Slalom!

Slalom!

The style guide of tomorrow
Isn't the same as today's.

Try to keep up slo-mo

Or we shall have to part ways.

Being at the center

Listen for gaps in between ———

The artsy and the ritzy can be hard to tell apart.

Let's meet somewhere in the middle.

Go ahead, get a head start...

Oh hi again, how you been?

Air's quite keen from here on out.

Now like a washed up itsy-bitsy, we're winding wildly down spring's *spout*

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Renegade Rollick

Renegade Rollick

- I -

The Poet is naught but a void

Wherein verbosity flourishes.

Or haven't you heard?

Empty pots make the loudest sound!

The Poem becomes a playground

Of deviant figures of speech; unusual suspects.

Like teens beating around suburban bushes

We were once ragamuffin rejects.

- II -

You shouldn't need anyone else to tell you

When your outer Being shines brilliant

Cause incendiary flare draws moths to its flame.

Such a soul blisters as does the scorching core of Earth's native Sol.

These misuses were self-taught by this tributary thrall of The Muses

Why not flaunt them for others who would benefit from what their art disabuses?

Divorce thy narrowed mind of all those erroneous views

Only then canst thou benefit from nouveau linguistic news...

- III -

As for the average reader

Yous nothin' but a basic BISCH

Whose tracks are always shallow.

Instead: Donne nous de la Différance

Pourquoi? Because for far too long

The proverbial playing field has lain fallow

So get cooking with this kitschy kitchenette set

Or never darken our doorstep again with your shadow!

- IV -

Oh you know what they say:

"He's just a hack!

Thinking he can reinvent the wheel —

The sheer nerve of some people!"


Well then, drink deep of these Ent-draughts little Hobbits

That you may one day grow up to scale

Them Promethean heights yonder way

Where lowbrow repartee, no longer holds sway...

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Re-fix

Re-fix


React against inertial forces

Realign energy vortexes

Rearticulate ageless phrases


Rebuff untoward advances

Reconstruct deconstructed nuances

Redress any inherent imbalances


Reengage reader's mental faculties

Reform grammatical casualties

Regenerate like crab apple trees


Reintegrate the least of these

Rejuvenate tamed inner beast

Release pheasants for hunt and feast


Remorse isn't worth dwelling on

Renovate; evaluate pro & con

Reorient the Western canon


Repetitio Est Mater Studiorum

Requisite knowledge stumps all but some

Resolution makes such depths easier to plumb


Retrain senses thence cleanse lenses

Reuse outdated references

Revise whatever the tense is


Rewired synapses sing grand symphonies

Reword what was first heard from aborigines

Rewrite old scripts to grant grand epiphanies...

Image: A pheasant in flight may symbolize abundance and creativity.

Hear It Read Aloud by the Author:

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Rambling About Rabelais

``Here is a dimension in which thrashing and abuse are not a personal chastisement but are symbolic actions directed at something on a higher level, at the king. This is the popular-festive system of images, which is most clearly expressed in carnival (but, of course, not in carnival alone). In this dimension, as previously pointed out, the kitchen and the battle meet and cross each other in the image of the rent body. At the time of Rabelais these images were still alive and full of meaning in various forms of folk entertainments as well as in literature.`` | Mikhail Bakhtin

---

Rambling About Rabelais


He was breaking down the fourth wall well before they were even finished putting it up...

Arguably nobody else has ever equaled his grandiloquence; past plus present company included.

Polyglot and polymath — what isn't measured by your staff? Aye there is no doubt — we can all ways count on him for a good laugh!

Même si nous te entendu
Le monde n'a t'a jamais compris
(Excusez-moi mais Français c'est ma troisième langue)
Lingua Ovid autem quartus

These carnivalesque tall tales weren`t so much stories about their larger than life characters like Gargantua & Pantagruel—as the pages of these texts themselves were the ever sprawling unfurling and unraveling bodies of said gigantesque literary figures.

Equally the oft bucolic provincialism evinced by the changing accents in which his characters speak among one another offer us a stained glass window`s peek into Enlightenment Era France.

Furthermore, Francois was a pioneer in the field of potty humor. The body itself speaks in burps, farts, squealing innards, and other bodily functions such as excretion of feces or urination. Sexual congress was no less off the reservation in his contextual consideration.

So say a hooray for Rabelais, that prodigious eater of creamy cakes topped with fresh grapes! First Thelemite, he makes no mistakes. Thy abbey remains thirsty until True Will finally wakes and slakes the likes of us sullen under lunar lakes or when the Earth herself suddenly quakes...

Image: Panurge Emerges ^^British Museum

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Urbane Combat

"For personal reasons, the Anti-Poet is a sniper. He fights for the same cause, but with a totally different technique. He does not declaim the soldier Poet, but supports him from afar, although his method may seem ambiguous." ~ Nicanor Parra (1914-2018)

* Author's Note: The proceeding is a poetic sequel to this previous piece > Trench Trap.

---

Urbane Combat

Pinned down

Between

Readerly Lane

And

Writerly Way.

Our assault

On The Base

Is stymied

By its Superstructure.

Rejection slips

Surefire as grenades

Render silent

Valiant voices.


The advance guard

Betrayed us

Mission Imperative updated

Æsthetic regrouping.


Got bookish agent

In the crosshairs

But rival choppers

From Major Publishers

Drop manuscripts overhead!

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Ariose Argot

Ariose Argot


{ Sacred Errata }

META on META

Download digitized data

distilled from The Fountain ≋


Blessed be by such masters

as Roque Dalton and Parra.

Navigate brave new era

a la Columbus—arrive in error!


Hey, you ever listen to Tool?

It's a trippy tangle of terror...

Take a look at the mirror,

reach inside if you dare.


Qualis, non Quantus

Ever since Atlantis

Mankind preys like a mantis

reascend The Holy Mountain ^

Images: [Top] Scene from The Fountain (2006), [Bottom] Scene from The Holy Mountain (1973).

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Philip K. Dick Kick

Philip K. Dick Kick


Earth to VALIS, do you copy? Come in VALIS!

Your violet fire sometimes seeps in through 
The bars of our black iron prison
But we lack the sacramental Anokhi
With which to effect any liberation.

Shhh... keep it down will you?
Lest Big Noodle be listening
For it may report us to the authorities
Who are in league with Belial.

That little black billy goat
Sure ain't kidding about.
He'll eat the love out of your heart
And leave nothing there but hate.

Our whole universe is as mad
As this writer kicking a dead Horselover
Just to chew on pseudo-religious Fat
Always hoping the Divine Will invade us.

Meanwhile our Messiah is M.I.A.
Like Bishop Archer dying by the Dead Sea
After treading past miles of arid dunes
(two coke bottles weren't enough to stave off thirst).

Earth to VALIS, do you copy? Come in VALIS!

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The Fallacy of Freedom

The Fallacy of Freedom

Sure you're free...

To OBEY the rules while coloring within suggested guidelines

But heaven help those who step out of sync and deviate from

Prescribed formats or formulas.


Even though there is always

A gulf between how things are

And the way that

They ought to be


Nine out of ten times

Eccentrics will get panned

Then tossed to the wayside

For odd æsthetic choices.


Yeah that's right,

We've got just enough wiggle-room

To make minor decisions

Before being pigeonholed —


By faceless conglomerates

Plus time-honored institutions.

Thus do "regular folks" become

Complicit in their own imprisonment.


Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

With all this implies.

So go on painting by number

Until you're trapped in a corner!

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Semantic Satiation

Semantic Satiation

Let not our poetry become

sybaritic adulation.

Instead we ought to make a new

semiotic adumbration.

Nobody entertain any

sophomoric arrogation.

Forgo feeling sorry cause that's

 symptomatic abnegation.

Don't you shirk benefiting from

synthetic alteration.

Follow now the bouncing ball of

syllogistic deviation...

Why ever worry about such

semaphoric saturation?

Hopefully someone catches this

syntactic intonation:

There's a hidden treasure trove in

synergistic copulation.

So join us when lauding love as

synchronistic appellation!

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Hapax Legomenon

Hapax Legomenon

(n): a word or phrase that appears only once in a manuscript, document, or particular area of literature. Sometimes called a 'nonce word' [a word coined and used only for a particular occasion].

---

Fret not

Hollowed word —


This pseud

Shalt soothe

ALL falderal

From carte

To tierce.


As Hellas

First fell

So will

Persiflage

Reinstill

That endonym

And expel

Any exonym.


Voracious

Vocalization

Counteracts

Churlish

Stagnation.


Ne'er fear

Hallowed word!

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