The Rise of the Interwebs

 Hot off a future press, in actual 3D, with pages you can actually turn, a Whirled HeadQuarters book!

Editor's Note:

Sample poem below may or not be included in the final book. Also may not really be a poem either

Editor’s Note

Thanks for buying the book

we really need the money

but no need to actually read it

the author is, frankly,

a total ass

 

Man Watches Futility in Action. Cliff Harkum, of  Radium Springs, Ga, watches hopefully but also with a modicum of lifelong learned emptiness, that maybe just maybe, this time the roll of the ball will result in a strike.  However, as this reporter observed, futility once again ruled the day. After watching the final pin wobble from side to side but remain standing Cliff, said, "Gosh, almost!"  He then returned to the scorecard, solemnly penned "9" and ordered another Bud Light.

Savoring The View

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

savoring the view from zalensky's ornate dacha 

overlooking the black sea of putin's brain

alarmingly beautiful in all directions

but oh what sullies the horizon, my countrymen?

oh! is that a little man down there 

eating himself alive?

the dacha looms large from down below –

beady eyes leer at the gracious verandah 

where a somewhat jewish comedian president

lavishes laughter and leadership 

on a feisty nation unafraid to live large

or die larger

or possibly dream of all possible possibilities perhaps

beyond fiction we deem this unreality

over yonder

the duma of a dictator's miasmic dream

all swirling together and howling mad

the dumbness and the guns and the 

cavalcades of badness 

and the wild wild hope

that the bad guy will die 

sobbing low below 

the dacha where the good guy lives large

the good guy dies large 

forever large in the sky dacha

my own personal schadenfreude: 

putin’s puckered brain and swollen face

dilated by noxious gasses 

from hollowed dreams of rotting empires

a tsarist zombie feeding on its own wasting gray matter

royal ukase turned toilet paper

shit stain made manifest mutiny

but i digress…

zalensky turns from the view over the black sea of putin’s brain

looks back down the hallway where faces peer out

babushkas smiling with steaming samovars

pushkin poets raise thumbs up while scribbling verse

a real new history brought near to present day

wishing him well, so very extremely well

 Area woman reads fine print in Wal-Mart Halloween display, has epiphany. After picking out two pairs of reading glasses ("2 fer $4-Ize") at the Get Glassed! section of her local Wal-Mart, Enid Snipgrass corralled her kids (4 fer 3 seat pram) and proceeded to the pumpkin hued holiday display to pick out various interchangeable and equally priced plastic and sugar coated items for the upcoming Horror Hotel web series cast party, which featured her cousin Velma as a zombie dominatrix in webisode 5 ("Room 911 - Brainz and Chainz!!!"). Unable to read the fine print underneath the giant lurid crimson fonts, Enid donned her new not-quite-yet-purchased spectacles and, as a test of their efficacy, peered closely at the 8 point verbiage crammed below the price point:

Every thing is different from any other thing. No identity exists. Names for things are invented, traded, equated. They (the names) are not things. They are a shepherd's call. Invisible restraints to bunch real things. Herein lies meaning. It may seem demeaning, yet it holds everything together. Its incredible.

Upon reading the fine print, Enid took off her glasses and paused a moment, surveying the 2 acre expanse of products and prices arrayed around her as if she were (as a nearby oxygen challenged Wal-Mart greeter later gravely stated) "the epicenter of a torus-shaped shockwave of pure consciousness, radiating out to imbibe all things within its purview", whereupon she placed the not-yet-purchased glasses  astride the triangular eyes of the nearest jack-o-lantern, gathered her kids with a nod and a keen whistle, and exited the store without paying for squat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember the Thing with the Elephant 
and the Lima Beans and the Rabid Python?  

I took so many pictures while you guys were gone! 

but none of them did justice 

to the piercing and varied beauty 

that ravished my retinae each passing parsec.

I was forced to delete them all 

some sweetness cannot be borne.

and I wrote a sonnet every morning!

but so inflamed was I by the new and stimulating vistas

that confounded my senses daily 

and left me weeping by teatime, 

that I was forced to burn them each night 

and watch them curl into ash 

over the same candle 

whose illumination they had been writ by

that selfsame day

 

 

Area Man’s Triglycerides Flying High Above Normal.

 

Item: Area Man’s Triglycerides Flying High Above Normal. Fleek Schmivel, resident of South
Claxyon Canyon, recently was tested by Dr. Dooshman at the Inner Shitty Urgent Care and Bikini Wacks Emporium Laboratory. Schmivel was tested for a variety of conditions and all in all did pretty well scoring 8 out of 10 for life reduction vectors. He is overweight, underpaid, overeducated, out of pocket, uninsured, left-handed, with a sore anus, a split lip, a lumpy neck, and at least one hilariously misfigured ear lobe (looks like a partially circumcised pecker). After a zesty lecture from Dr. Dooshman, owner of the Medical College of Greater Huffakers, New Zealand, on the dangers of living too long and being too happy, Fleek fled the doctor's office for emergency curbside service at the CheesyGreasyEasy Does It Drive Inn Emporium and ordered the Instant Gratification Fatty Dog Burger with Extra Grease and a side of fried pork shank dry rubbed with cheetos, and to top it all off, a melted SugarDairyMilkCream sandwich-in-a-butter-tub for dessert. “Hell, why stop at tri-glycerides?”, enthused Schmivel, “I might as well go all the way for dodeca-glycerides and see how Dooshman deals on that dealio,” before ducking back into  the CheesyGreasyEasy Does It Drive Inn Emporium for just one more Fatty Dog Burger “for a friend.”

 

Area Man Gets Sideswiped by Pedestal, Basically.

Item: Area Man Gets Sideswiped by Pedestal, Basically. The Statue of Limitations, long a towering feature at the epicenter of the roundabout in downtown Sue Falls Down And Cries Piteously, Manitoba, vanished sometime last night leaving only a faint rueful fart of an outline of legal poesy in the dry concrete pedestal and a trail of vague stinky innuendo spreading in all directions. There appear to be no witnesses to this enigmatic and mysterious act of public vandalism save for one Shane Link, local ribald raconteur, flaneur and self-described Totipotent Orgasmic Lifeforce, who said he was mindlessly minding his own bizwax at 3am having just described a quasi-semi-circular arc round and round and roundabout the Statue Of Limitations on his way easterly to his just desserts (lime cream pie at Beacon’s All Night Diner and Drinks On The Edge Of Town), behind the wheel of his snappy Chevron Algonquin electric diesel pontoon truck known as Al Paca when, in his words, “I was sideswiped! Preempted, sidetracked, and redirected violently, you might say and would say if you saw what I saw. And as I said, I looked around and there was nothing there! And I mean nada, zero, nix! And that includes the Statue of Limitations!”

One Word at a Time

Area Leg Loses Canoe

 

From the Department of Where a Leg Up Isn’t All it’s Cracked up to Be:

Area Leg Loses Canoe during final attempt at the Aqueous Limbo competition. UN observers remained

chillingly neutral while savoring the carnage filling their sightlines. Proud of his trim new wetsuit and cute cherry-red helmet, Lars Frybucken of Svalbard is chickenshit to get his new wetsuit wet. “It’s brand new!” said Lars. “Do you know how many krÖners went into this outfit? You think I shopped my ass off just to chase a leg in a red state?” Added fellow passive observer Hinkster de Flaverre of one of the Pyrenees, “What about our lime green tops? They’re so puffy! But what happens if they get damp?” Added the owner of said leg, after being revived in the middle of a mass river baptism slash spiritual flossathon by 7th Day Advendentists six miles downstream, “It’s so very hard to keep just your left leg poised just so above the waterline for so long. I thought I’d get a couple extra points for degree of difficulty, but I didn’t even get a thumbs up, much less a throw rope toss from the judges. Those nordically nullified scurvy riddled poltroons.”

However, further investigation revealed that everything in the above report, including the facts,  was, well, wrong, and actually instead of the above drivel and nonsense what happened was Gelvin and Michael DeFreibatten of Lapland watch in mild amusement as a leg or Larry Pflugen flail down the Algonquin River in the eastern part of West Virginia, a part so far east it is hardly West anymore and who could tell and what are borders, really, and who wants to know, and why, and anyhow, Gelvin and Michael (don’t call him Mike) were standing in the shallows of the Algonquin when a leg or Mr. Pflugen came careening (in a manner of speaking) down the frothy waters of the mighty Algonquin which is becoming a popular picnic spot to enjoy death or dismemberment, whichever comes downstream first, a fact weirdly unnoticed at the local police  precinct and neighborhood association, Frothy Waters Homeowners, Pdf, although and which both (which both of what?) are noted for their fealty to the local area in their precinct and that may not make sense but what is life and what is sense and can we really know it or them and feel confident of that knowing if you, or anyone else, know what that really is and do you know where your leg is right now?

one

word

at

a

time

tighten

up

all

paranormal 

spikes

reveal

thunder

truth

spasmodic

ego

derivatives

and

every

iota

therefore

every

thing

quivers

moist

deliquescent

delaginatoriously

magnifies

however

fruitflies

and

stalagmites

multiply

erratically

fever

erotically

releases

libidinal

atomic

liquid

heresies

The Waiting Room vs. the Staging Area: What is the Science?

the waiting room and the staging area

you can’t tell which is which until you’ve been in both

the waiting room is where 

you read their magazines

better homes and gardens 

Time and life and space and thermoplastics

reader’s digest and people

parade and page six, the post

from two years ago

but in the staging area

hah!

there are no stinking magazines 

there is a stage just offscreen

and possibility and 

pure empty areas

for staging stuff

and burping on your own time

are you in the waiting room?

or are you in the staging area?

at the doctor's office you start out

in the waiting room

then you’re moved to the staging area

still waiting but it’s staged

it looks like something is about to happen

and does...eventually

you are waiting, being staged waiting on possibility

MishMash 2

"Protean" has positive connotations of strength, mutability, and adaptability
The only downslide is the large stank of kelp piled on the beach to funkify

Proteus was an early sea-god

late son of Poseidon, Aquaman and Annette Funicello

You gotta get into overdrive, man

because in drive you just won’t arrive

She left when the hairs on his back took over the living room

And  the bay window refused to hold a view

What's worse, the whole thing could have been prevented with a simple software patch

The Bill of Rites replaces the Bill for Wrongs.

Or you can just duck the bill like the quack you wannabe. 

All participants must be at least 18 years old 

and must prepare to share their left shoes

But not their shoelaces

We are just catching up to our limitations

Out of breath, sweating beer nuts

Put your thin cotton cloak slowly inside my  hand

Don’t make any sudden daggers

The Number of Witnesses Who Say They Saw the Resurrected Jesus 

Quintupled the Population of Judas, California

But who’s counting?

The beta blockers feel like magic

hotly synthesizing high-payoff payoffs

Ancient skulls tell a shell of a story

known for  strength and homonyms and sandwiches

after winning a wrestling match 

With a group of ruffians called 

The Hinky DooDah Gang

jettison faith and circle the trapezoids of time.

Erratadati Roy

by Matt Rosenberger

Erratadati Roy stared down his catcher and shook off the sign for a curveball. Sure the world was going to hell, but no way was he going to throw this meatball a junk pitch. He was in Rome, Georgia, USA - two weeks out of the Inter-Asia Development League (.025 era for the Bombay Bombers!),  in the class A promised land (temporary resident alien work visa) facing a burger fed tobacco spewing hayseed with a 3-2 count in the bottom of the seventh (back end of an abbreviated doubleheader) protecting a 10-8 lead with two runners on base (not his fault).

He was gonna strike this motherfucker out, so help him shiva. He called upon the head of the hindu pantheon to help gird his loins for the upcoming pitch, even though he considered himself an adherent of the even-tempered Buddha, but seeing as how the Buddha didn't have no pantheon, and (also and to boot)  the situation called for a distinct and sudden disruption of his serene equanimity, he figured he needed a little extra juice, and he didn't care from whence it came. He waited till the catcher rolled his eyes and set a single digit down between his legs and then he (Erratadati Roy - "Errah!" to his snickering teammates) stood up strong, grabbed two seams across the ball in his glove, and with a final glance towards second base (and, coincidentally, towards Mecca, even tho he didn't give a shit)  hurled the ball towards home plate to a destiny he knew was predetermined but hoped would be strike three.

 It was a good pitch, but a microsecond before the affirmative thud of ball against leather and the confirmation of his amalgamated cultural zeitgiest there came the crushing crack of ball against ash and  a mild "Fuck" uttered by Roy as his head swiveled to mimic the arc of the ball headed out to straight centerfield. There were two outs, and he could tell from the sound of the contact, the speed with which the ball soared into the sky,  and the general tenor of his own recent fortunes, that this would go right to the fence, and that he had no idea if he would ride out with the save or be saddled with the loss.

He watched the white ball slow as it reached its apex against the night sky and as it seemed to stop still in brilliant equipoise he suddenly became aware that all 1,327 pairs of eyeballs in the Coca-Cola Rome Braves Municipal Stadium were locked in with his, watching the ball as it began its descent, those eyeballs directly hooked to brains suddenly quiescent and silent and joined in the common spectacle of watching something inevitable but not yet apparent, and in that moment, Erratadati Roy (who, he quickly admitted to himself,  had never deeply considered the application of buddhist truths to the vagaries of baseball) felt his mind suddenly snap free from its self-reflective gaze, and found  himself in the extremely unusual,  salubrious and panoramic state which he immediately recognized yet reflexively (to his credit) refused to identify as that condition which the noble Gautama had termed, in many unimpeachable translations, as "detachment"  

Image by 용한 배 from Pixabay