And Rockford Poetry Will Never Be the Same

I finally organized all the poems I have written since the last book, Submerged Structure, into a file on my computer. I had to round them up from the cosmic reaches of the galaxy, or at least from ten different blogs and two old computers. I think I found most of them, and few of them still impress me. Nonetheless it feels good to have them cataloged.

Rockford was named the most dangerous city in America under 200,000 people by one source today. Earlier in the week someone carjacked a taxi and led police on a high speed chase through Downtown after firing shots at the police. I heard it after midnight Tuesday but it's not at all unusual to hear sirens all night.

The next afternoon someone had to be talked off the State Street bridge.

Pretty much a normal week in Rockford.

Let me see if I can find one of those poems I haven't published anywhere else because I am tired of writing today.

Using Your Medical Card

Please keep your card in a safe
Place and never allow anyone
Else to receive the benefit of
Disinterested medical care

Fear not the apathy of
Underpayed practitioners
Concerned more about their 
Student loans than 
Your pancreas

Ye shall surely not die

But there's no harm in taking
These dress rehearsals more seriously.
-Thomas L. Vaultonburg

Not very good. Probably won't make it into the next book, but it's alright for tonight. I never seem to get to the end of my own medical appointments, but hopefully I'll be done with dental work soon. What a mess I had made for myself not going to the dentist in twenty years. 

Rockford Pages poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg rides a bicycle

The Cubs played to their first tie in over ten years tonight. I sat there waiting for the game to start again, but it never did, so they went into the radio broadcast of the Thursday Night Football game. 

That's all. Going to eat my organic black eyed peas and quinoa meal now. 

Rockford Pages Poet Gets Shiny New Teeth

Outsider poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg recently got some shiny new teeth. At least on line he did. As was pointed out by his father thirty-five years ago, there's no point fixing your teeth because someone is just going to knock them out, anyway. Which as a prediction didn't turn out to be as bad as others, but thirty five years later an amazing advance in human technology called dentistry allows me to actually get thirty years of neglect repaired. At least semi-repaired.

After two years of dental work I expect to look like this 

And when that happens I intend to run for public office.

But before that the 2017 Outsider Poetry Slam League of America season. I was originally traded to Chemung, as my mother always told me I would be, but have become a free agent and will be competing for the Rockford Pages.

It gets dark and rains again as I write, and in a half hour I will do my final fantasy football draft of the season. Something on the right side of my body hurts a little more than I think it should, but I'm so sick of medical procedures I'm putting off having it checked out in hopes that it's something I have two of. 

My teeth never looked like that. They started getting knocked out early and often, and at this late date I'm just happy to have what I have left. This is the first opportunity after decades of service jobs to get them fixed. 

Poetry. Fantasy football. We may be getting a dog this Fall. I have no idea what kind I'd even like. But it will be nice to have a dog around again. 

Outsider Poet and the Demon Belphegor Team Up For Spoken Word Album

The Outsider Poet and the demon prince Belphegor have announced they will team up for a spoken word album which will drop early in 2017. Belphegor, a demon notorious for tempting humans to be lazy and inspiring them to devise devious means and ingenious methods to do so, convinced Vaultonburg, founder and CEO of Zombie Logic Press, called by NPR "America's most dangerous literary press," that the album would save him a great deal of time trying to upload his videos to YouTube. 

The Moabites were familiar with the temptations of this old scourge, who they referred to as Baal-Peor, but apparently his emergence in the West is a new phenomenon. 

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As August turns into September there's really not much to do, and no good reason to do much at all, I find. The Fall harvest should be bountiful, and things will go on largely without obstacles. We'll all outlast our late summer colds, perhaps buy that Polo Autumn jacket we've been fancying for a few years now, and prepare for winter, but not too hard.

Don't force it, just let it come naturally.

Rockford Page Appears at Local Folk Festival

Outsider poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg, formerly of the Rockford Pages outsider poetry slam team, appeared at the Willow Creek Folk Festival earlier in August, performing the classic "Wagon Wheel" all three nights on the open stage, as long as a spoken word recitation he composed extemperaneously for the approving crowd. 

Many in the audience commented that he looked a little bit like a lobster. But they were just being shellfish.

Vaultonburg also challenged the rule that dogs and drunks were not allowed on the stage, which happens to be inside the confines of the church yard, by inviting a drunken Norwegian Elkhound to join him on stage for a rollicking version of "Lady of Spain." Vaultonburg has subsequently been banned from appearing at the Willow Creek Folk Festival for a period of five years. On the upside, though, the Elkhound has joined Jimmy Buffet on his national tour. 

In other news involving the Rockford Pages poetry slam team, the 2017 season will soon be upon us, and several venues in Rockford will serve as bout venues the upcoming season. Including the Outsider Poetry Depot and Shep's Supper Club. 

Aside from this, it's fantasy football season, so reports will be sparse from this reporter for a few months. I also bought an 8 Track player so I'll be out on the search for 8 Track tapes and updating my fantasy football lineups. 

I'm the Outsider Poet In My Own Heart

Sometimes song lyrics just rub people the wrong way. Jenny was playing Mungo Jerry "In the Summertime" this week, and when I told her many people hate that song she asked why, and I said take a look at the lyrics. 

Later in the week we went out to Severson Dells to get out of the house, and I usually write a little something when we go there, and this time was no exception. I know response songs were big in the 50's and 60's, and I had a response poem to some lyrics that always got my goat.

I'm The Poet In My Own Heart

When I build my house
You'll come by?

No, when I build my house
I'll install fixtures
That are newer and shinier,
And believed in me from the start,
But you'll still be the rented
Woman in someone else's
Home.

I got a really nice copy of Scream and Scream Again on VHS this week, too, and I just watched it here at the apartment. I'm having my final cup of tea of the night, and I look up and it's August again. The Cubs had an amazing comeback win tonight, and it's the first time I've been here in weeks. Had to pay the bills for August, now I have a couple of hours to just blog and shoot the breeze. 

Dr. Millard Rausch: Scientist, Lover, Outsider Poet

Dr. Millard Rausch: Scientist, Lover, Outsider Poet is a new documentary opening Sep 6th in Rockford about the scientist and poet Dr. Millard Rausch, and his amazing travels after the 2nd Zombie Apocalypse of 1978. 

After warning America that the new species of zombies were dangerous and must be destroyed on sight, Dr. Rausch was completely ignored, leading to the deaths of over 150 million Americans. In the waning months of the epidemic Dr. Rausch simply left the WGON studies, got in his sports car, drove to a private airport, and flew to Vermont to join a group of scirntists, farmers, doctors, and artist including his lifelong friend Dr. Henry Wolfsburg, where they waited out the ZA, and re-emerged a decade later.

During that decade Dr. Rausch and his merry band worked in their particular specialties, ranging from alien psychobiology to endocrinology to minimalism. An alternative to zombieism was discovered. It was called thinking. At first few of the remaining humans were willing to try it, but after seeing the remarkable results the remaining humans began to ask for the cure. 

Dr. Henry Wolfsburg demonstrates one of the innovative cures for zombieism that were developed at the Outsider Poetry Depot in Vermont. 

The documentary covers not only those years at the Outsider Poetry Depot, but his formative years as a fighter pilot in the Israeli Air Corps and his stint as a professor at Copenhagen University. His stormy romantic life is also explored, including affairs with poets Rod McKuen and Karen Finley. 

The documentary will open in twelve American cities September 6th. 

It's Official: Bub the Zombie Joins Rockford Pages Outsider Poetry Team

It is official: Bub the Zombie, star of Day of the Dead, has joined the Rockford Pages Outsider Poetry Slam team. Rockford poetry may never be the same again. It was originally thought Bub the Zombie may have eventually died of natural causes after the end of Day of the Dead, but it was later learned he had actually escaped the Seminole Underground Storage Facility and wandered the Earth organizing the living dead, teaching them, preparing them for an eventual confrontation with Homo Sapiens. 

Bub the Zombie has joined the Rockford Pages Outsider Poetry Slam team. His arrival will help replace the loss of outsider poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg to the Chemung Shamans. It is not known how Bub will react to an eventual showdown with Dr. Millard Rausch in week 7 at Albuquerque, but it is expected to be entertaining. 

Bub brought down the house in a guest appearance for the Kokomo Oralists when he read his epic poem "Hello, Aunt Alicia?" at a bout last May. Asked whether he harbors any ill feelings about the zombies eventual defeat in the war of the Living Dead he said it was a setback, but he feels good that eventually some sort of lasting peace can be achieved.