Long Cartridge Poems

The Virginia Hermaphrodite
(Bennet’s Farm, Jamestowne, 1629)

Your Honors, Gentlemen of the Council,
Ask me– how it is that I am brought here?
Stepping out of church, bothering no one,
I was of a serene and peaceful mind–
When of a...

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(Approaching Ingalls Peak, 2012, original oil)

Rites of Passage

Forty-six years ago,
my first winter in the Pacific NW
my first winter break at college,
I headed out to climb Mt Stuart in the North Cascades 
in the company of...

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One Step from the Fire

Martha lounges in her rocking chair book in knotted hand in her studio

On the wall a poster of Chipperfield Circus whom she had wanted to join

Just above a small marble statue...

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While vehicle underwent routine oil change today...

At Norm's Save Station
551 Gravel Pike, Collegeville, Pennsylvania,
yours truly suddenly realized
fifty eight years earlier
(a preschooler living at Lantern Lane)
John Fitzgerald Kennedy assassinated
November 22, 1963,
12:30 post meridiem
Central Standard Time
as he...

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He was old and haggard, in the year nineteen twenty something
A tall lanky old man, with a worn out hat and a rusty ring
His squint blues eyes pulled together the wrinkles upon his face
With an...

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It felt heavier than he anticipated.
It was cold and clumsy in the sweaty palm of his hand.
He stared at the hard black object 
Somewhat amazed at how easily he was able to acquire it.

Unsure how...

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Incredible Product Warnings

By Elton Camp

Far from folly this hair dry warning is keeping
In telling snoozers, “Do not use while sleeping”

Thinking of putting a curl in your colon or tongue? 
“For external use only,” on curling...

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 Bang! Bang! Who shot and killed
   Jeanette and Harvey Crewe?
 By whose hand was their blood spilled?
   The cops they surely knew.
 Two fatal shots rang out that day
 ...

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The trouble with idiot lights,
You see, it’s a problem
That goes, perhaps,
Farther than me.

There's abundant ignorance
That floats in the bog
In a kingdom where machines
Can measure breath’s grog.

More than vast numbers
Aggregating in crime,
There's a feeling that
What is...

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Their numbers drawn, the backwards lottery
Almost none were aware they were playing

Assaulted by the poisons that save them 
Hairless children with steroid-swollen cheeks
Feared stigmata of chemotherapy
Daily valiance, heroism unsought

Magic bullets are a relative thing
Modern wonder...

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4% mnm
Mountainous syllables can never really tread lightly across a rope bridge. But living in a cabbage house is fantastic fun for many leaves make many rooms and many rooms make much rubbish. Don't trip...

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4% mnm
Mountainous syllables can never really tread lightly across a rope bridge. But living in a cabbage house is fantastic fun for many leaves make many rooms and many rooms make much rubbish. Don't trip...

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In 1996 I was living in DC
while serving as a diplomat
At the State Department
My wife was in the military
Serving as a major in San Antonio
 
That fateful morning, I went jogging
Early in the morning
Fell down...

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Who wounded you enough that picking targets to retaliate against is a game to you and their destruction is your level up? It’s like your only way to survive is to tear life out of...

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A cartridge filled with a horde of shackled emotions, am I,
Trifle feelings loiter within me, until she elicits them out,
Wizened by time, she knows that otherwise I might turn mordacious... 
God guides my pen and...

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It's hard to believe in redemption when all you see os hate and corruption on TV. 
Humanity has become numb. Humanity has become an orange spray tanned jack ass waxy discharge with baby hands and...

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You're about to witness mayhem caused by the poetical beast incarnate
Stand back so you don't get sprayed by my pens cartridge
Stay if you're willing to witness beautiful murder by your favourite ugly artist
I stay up...

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Let’s engage the minds gauge
Torque the imagination and take it hostage
Gouge the intellect with an over dosage
A ravenous binge
To my brain damage from under usage
Free the soul from bondage
Unburden emotional baggage
Forge a merge of love...

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Black ink cartridge dead and empty
Once fed blank paper onion white
It was a canon while it lasted
All good copies come to an end

When it ran dry as printers do
All things die in desert lands
Of thirst...

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One size does not fit all and the shoe horn stuck out

Tim shooed away foot prints ghosts and memories

When the clock struck midnight at the end of the year

Not much had differed when the fire...

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Not once upon a time,
but in this very century.
There lived three friends,
who ate, drank and made merry.

Fast friends they were,
since their kindergarten days.
And after graduating,
they went different ways.

Scott went for finance,
and Roger marketing.
Though Paul was...

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When apocryphal bedlam spreads its crazy pinions

	Fake news holds court in the newspaper's dominion

		Incessant lies convert to self-righteous 'truth' in print

			I light a fire with a fact check stone cold sparky flint

Surely I respect pluralism...

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(More Pun-ishment)

The difference between a Fine and a Tax
is really easy to tell!
A Fine is a tax, for doing wrong!
A Tax is a fine, for doing well!

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade,
I once heard...

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tap of nails, slide wood, pull drapes 
stains loiter in round mug shapes

water sipped, books stack, words leap
hush wizened pages, neighbors sleep 

journals, confessionals, down or up
old cartridge spills, pens horde in cup

shackled hands, lungs...

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Revenge of the Office Copier

By Elton Camp

I started to make copies of an important report.
Just as I commenced, it sent a printed retort.
“Though I don’t contain a single strand of DNA,
I deserve respect and have...

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