A Poem About Beekeeping

A poem from the book Submerged Structure.

The Beekeeper

"What freakout

Routine is this,

Buzzed the call girl

Flipping the lights

To discover me in

Full beekeper's gear.

"It's a number 7,

I droned, lifting

The veil of my helmut,

"With a Bavarian twist.

"Kinky," she squealed,

Cinching her abdomen

To the impossible 16 inch

Hourglass needed

For a Bavarian.

I cautiously laid

Out my tools

And set to work.

Beekeeper

Rockford CSI

I find the current mania for shows where brilliant mentalists use their powers of observation to solve crimes and use all kinds of groovy gadgets to dissect crime scenes and eviscerate criminals until they confess. I find it interesting because the amount of murders that are solved and someone convicted has fallen steadily since the 1960's. Maybe the rash of shows is just wish fulfillment. People wish someone was smart enough to know what was going on and cared enough about their job to actually investigate when things went wrong.

Rockford CSI

An ant crawled 

Into the bottle of Grolsch 

I left on the counter last night 

And drowned like an American 

Tourist in a Dutch brothel. 

I notified the Coroner’s Office 

And they have deemed it 

Death by misadventure 

Though no one is sure 

Who to notify. 

Demented Children's Story Hour

In the early 90's I wrote several books. As soon as I wrote enough poems for a book someone wanted to publish it. It was nearing the end of the Small Press era in American publishing and approaching the digital age where anyone could publish a book with very little effort. But in the early 90's it was still somewhat of an effort and a minor accomplishment if someone wanted to go to the effort to publish something you had written. I had forgotten about many of these books until the whole business about the Mayan Doomsday prophesy reminded me I had written a book of poems titled Poems At the End of the World. I don't think any of the poems had anything to do with the end of the world. Maybe they did, I don't have a copy and I can't remember. 

Then I started finding other books I had written in the databases of University libraries. Another book I had written was titled Demented Children's Story Hour. Published in the New Sins chapbook series with other poets like Glenn Sheldon I wonder what poems are in that book. 

Here I am at the beer can house in Houston.

Footprints

Something about this reminds me of the story from Creepshow where Leslie Nielsen says "I can hold my breath for a long, long time."

Footprints 

When I saw 
One set of footprints 
In the sand 

I knew you had 
Made your getaway 
Sometime between Late 
Night and high tide. 

Assessing the depth 
And gate of 
Your footfalls 
I also deduced 
You were carrying 
The Sony Trinitron 
And the plaster-cast 
Impression of the ass 
That caused such a 
Sensation at the 
Renaissance Fair. 

I knew then 
I had been carrying 
Your ass for 
Way too long. 

Shipwrecked

I'm always amused when people ask questions like what one book, person, or album you'd choose if you were shipwrecked on a deserted island. Who wants to be shipwrecked in the first place?

   Shipwrecked 

   For 1,000 days 

   The bonfire I started 

   With the idiot’s maps 

   Who landed me here 

   Has burned on the hillside 

   To advertise my 

   Lonely planet. 

   Tuesday after the government 

   Broadcast of Gilligan’s Island

   Your spaceship crash landed 

   In my spice garden, 

   And watching the 

   Hatch open I thought 

   “Fuck rescue,” 

   There are fruit 

   Trees here.

How To Leave

Sometimes you just leave a place. No better or worse than you found it. One night you just turn off the light for the last time and you leave.  

   How to Leave 

   Place 10,000 

   In Monopoly money 

   On the counter and 

   Explain this should 

   Cover the broken 

   Windows and back 

   Rent. Take a good 

   Hard shit in the 

   Toilet and leave 

   Bacon grease on 

   The stove. Make 

   Sure to toss a sixer 

   Of something classy 

   Like Blatz in the cooler 

   For the next broken 

   Down sucker to come 

   Through here.

Lenny Bruce Pardoned For Obscenity Poem

I woke up one morning and saw a news story that 37 years after his conviction for obscenity, Lenny Bruce had been pardoned by the governor of New York. It led me wonder what other pardons were forthcoming. So I wrote a poem. 

   Good News 

   In the morning New York 

   Overturned a 1964  

   Obscenity conviction 

   That hounded Lenny 

   Bruce to the grave. 

   By afternoon the whores 

   Of Holland had voted 

   Van Gogh the sexiest 

   Man in history 

   And just this evening 

   The Catholic Church 

   Announced Galileo is 

   No longer under house arrest. 

   Press conferences were 

   Scheduled but all three 

   Insisted on remaining 

   Dead. 

Enemy of the State Poem

   Enemy 

   You don’t bend that way 

   And they know it. 

   The raps and blows are meant 

   To empty your head 

   Of the thoughts that 

   Terrify them. 

   It’s all done in the open 

   With hot dogs and lemonade 

   For the kids. 

   Now when you protest 

   It will be in defiance 

   Of rigged wrestling matches 

   And when you rail 

   It will be for I Love 

   Lucy re-runs. 

I suppose one can simultaneously be a weapon of the State and an enemy of the State. 

A Poem Titled "Buck Owens" For No particular Reason

This poem is titled "Buck Owens," but not for any particular reason. 

Buck Owens 

I'm on to this 

Poem 

I mean I'm wrapped 

Intently 

Around its words 

Like an earnest 

Intention to pay 

The rent or learn 

Another language. 

I'm losing this 

Poem like a 

Drunken cowboy 

Being tossed from 

A reluctant bull-

Shit 

Afternoon. 

Dingham Road And What They Do There

Dingham Road

Dingham Road

There’s a road named 

Dingham. 

Now that’s funny. 

Probably there are 

Some fuckers who 

Don’t think Dingham 

Is funny. 

Who are these fuckers? 

I want to know.

The Yellow River a Poem By Thomas L. Vaultonburg

I appreciate the poetry of Richard Brautigan quite a bit and was probably reading it when I wrote this poem.

Poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg working the counter at Maze Books in Rockford

The Yellow River

Disoriented by Vietnamese beer,

I enter the hot zone

Approximately four inches

South of my intended

Insertion point

And am repelled

By an aggressive

Guerilla resistance.

War is hell.

Thomas L. Vaultonburg is a poet, haikuist, editor, and publisher from Rockford, Illinois. He is the founder and editor of Zombie Logic Press and Zombie Logic Review and co-founder, with artist Tré, of Wolf Twin Books. His work ranges from haiku and short-form nature poetry to absurdist, comic, and surreal poems rooted in the strange details of everyday life.

Vaultonburg is the author of numerous collections, including Vanished Roads, Small Songs for Weary Travelers, Moonscape: Haiku Phase I, Flesh Wounds, Submerged Structure, and Atrocious Poems A to Z. His recent work increasingly explores the landscapes, wildlife, streets, abandoned places, and overlooked corners of northern Illinois.

A longtime admirer of Richard Brautigan, Vaultonburg has often been drawn to poetry that can be funny without surrendering its strangeness: brief poems, unlikely metaphors, conversational language, and jokes that open onto something slightly larger than the joke. “The Yellow River” comes from that side of his work—a small comic poem in which the inflated language of warfare collides with the considerably less heroic realities of the human body.

Vaultonburg lives and works in Rockford, where his poetry has also become part of collaborative books, public art projects, exhibitions, and other experiments in taking poems off the page and putting them back into everyday life.

My Poetry Pension

My Poetry Pension

For years I tried to explain
That poetry was my business
But to no other refrain
Than what do you really do
For it is plain
No man Woman or beast 
can survive on poetry's wages
You must have at least
A trust fund a patent
A talent for pandering, 
Begging or bootlegging.
No, I insisted, 
a straight job
is my bane, until
One day i told this to a judge
And she ruled me insane
And forced me to be treated 
For my poetry malady
With scream, shock
And poetry therapy
Additionally she enforced 
Upon me, her voice full of tension
A monthly punishment of capital
She called
My poetry pension.

Submitted To the Academy For Your Approval

For the entire month of December I'll be featuring my own poetry here at Zombie Logic Review. This poem appears in my book Flesh Wounds. Submitted to the Academy for your approval...

   Acceptance Speech

   I'd like to thank the Academy

   For not giving me this award

   Or the cash prize that goes

   With it. I'm convinced

   Another year of anonymity

   And privation will do

   Wonders for my work.

   I'd like to thank God

   And my father

   For being the same guy:

   Perfect at work,

   Useless everywhere else.

   I'd like to thank my country

   For teaching me to kill

   Those who needed it

   And defend those who

   Deserved it and the ignorance

   Not to know the difference.

   I'd like to thank the women

   Of America for choosing

   More obvious choices for their

   Recreational and breeding needs.

   Your daughters are coming

   Along fine. 

   Most of all I'd like to thank

   You for taking 98 seconds

   Out of your busy schedule

   To not enjoy this poem.