Category Archives: TATI&TONY

Big Fish

Once upon a time, there was a girl and a boy, and they got up to all sorts of mischief. No, they weren’t bad children. They would just get bored on a lazy Sunday afternoon, that’s all. Actually, they’d get bored any old day of the week – it really didn’t matter when. They were in constant need of stimulation to keep their creative juices flowing, much like overripe cows in want of round-the-clock milking. That’s why the boy and girl were always poking their curious, little noses into different things.

So, the girl and the boy were feeling quite nebby. They sat there, swinging restless legs over the edge of a bridge high above a river flowing with ideas. And the adults! They had such serious faces! Why were they beached there on the riverbanks below just doing nothing? Well, that wasn’t entirely true. They were writing books and editing magazines… which looked like important stuff.

The boy and the girl exchanged glances. While she had his attention, the girl gave the boy a cheeky wink. The boy gave a goofy grin in return. He was a bit shy. The girl’s heart warmed at this, but she didn’t let on. Instead, she said, ‘I bet we can make a magazine too.’ The boy piped up, ‘Can we?’ He studied her resolute face with a mixture of interest and bewilderment, and that’s when he knew she was for certain going to do something about this.

She grabbed his hand and said, ‘Let’s go!’ And so they sprang from the bridge and plummeted into the river of ideas. They didn’t even come up for air. Ideas were where they lived, so they definitely had the gills for it. Actually, that’s not entirely true. They had the gills, certainly, but they did come up eventually… and they had a big, wet magazine cover with them. It flapped and it dripped, but the girl and boy held onto it tightly, and they were proud.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017

Oops!… We Did It Again (Aelita’s Lullaby)

Erm… hullo there. (This is rather awkward…)

Dear Reader, the stuff that was originally posted here has been removed.

We have done this because said stuff has since been included in one of our published books. We hope you’ll believe us when we say we’re not trying to be stingy. No, this has been done to honour the people who have already spent their hard-earned money on our eBook creations.*

If, however, for some reason you’re unable to buy one of our books, and feel you’ll die without seeing this piece of writing, then please contact us via admin@unbolt.me. We won’t allow our Dear Readers to fade away in the dark. We’ll send you the piece in question, and it will be absolutely free. All you need do is ask.

* Of course, we would be like two happy puppies if you too decided to buy one of our books.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017-2018

Holes and Constellations

Every so often, we like to brag. You know, just a little bit, but not too much. We don’t want our readers thinking we’ve gone and gotten too big for our britches now, do we? (Actually, what exactly are britches?)

Anyway, we’re capable of blowing more than bubbles from our noses. That’s what we’re trying to say. We’re serious chaps, we are! Well, a chap and a chapette. Ugh, you get the point.

Some of you may remember. Some of you may have forgotten. Some of you may have no idea whatsoever. But, yes, we kinda wrote two books last year, and even contrived to shove them into different, funny places called Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and iBook. And maybe somewhere else. We aren’t sure that we remember all of them.

Since then, the literary world has been set abuzz with a tizzy of excitement. Well, a bunch of readers decided to pay some attention to us. Okay, now guess a riddle, Dear Readers. J.K. Rowling has 20,665 what? E.L. James has 68,027 what? Tati and Tony have… TWENTY-FIVE! What is this? That’s right. REVIEWS.

Okay, that isn’t the total number of reviews we’ve gotten. This is just for one book so far. Both have gotten a fair bit of attention which means that James and Rowling need to beware! We’re nipping at your heels, guys! Do you see our gnashers glinting in the moonlight? But don’t worry. We’ll be gentle.

By the way, all the reviews we’ve received so far are 100% certified honest! We’re as proud of our one star ratings as we are of those reviews with five. No bullshit! We earned every single star, so we’re going to show them off for the world to see! Behold our brazen peacockery!

In the meantime, Dear Readers, please do check out our new dedicated Reviews page, and if you like what you see then why not check out Hole-in-the-Wall, our online shop? Our books are available there, and they’re waiting for literate new owners to claim them. Would you be so good as to give them a home? Now, if you don’t mind, we’d like to continue strutting our stuff and blowing funky bubbles from our noses… Pop! Pop! Pop!

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017

BUT IS IT POETRY? // Inuk Dream Caused by the Sound of an Icicle Dripping on Her Igloo a Second Before Awakening

I’ve been longing for this vacation.
I work like a slave on plantation.
But I am not an office plebeian,
I am a wastrel, epicurean!

The buzz of a bureau’s honeycomb
easily makes everybody foam,
but I hold on to quietude and calm—
a plane ticket works just like a heart-balm.

Yells of a chancellor, squeaks of clerks…
they’re not real people, but hoarse clockworks.
Vegetation and soporific esse?
No, thank you. I will never acquiesce!

Meditating the existential,
I packed my valise and credential.
Full steam ahead! Time to sip coconuts
and pinch sappy indigenes for ripe butts.

I came down from the passenger bridge…
What the hell? Where is the nearest fridge?!
Oh, my Nemesis! Forgive your lost nun!
I implore you, get me back to square one!

I am sitting in the hotel rooms
washing down with dark rum my doldrums,
bedamning all photojournalist-jerks
who seduce us, naif untutored clerks.

Don’t be swayed by pictorialism,
don’t believe in exceptionalism,
sit in your office, don’t move a muscle,
leave parallel hot circles for mussels!

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TONY: Well, here we are again. We’re going to be discussing poetry this time, not art. And it’s your latest poem that’s in the line of fire!

TATI: My poem? Really? Don’t you have something more interesting to discuss, Tony? Laundry! Cooking! Look around. So many cool things! Why do you cling to my poetry?

TONY: Because you deserve to suffer as much as I did when my Mascara Baby got pulled apart. Okay, let’s get down to it. Firstly, the title… Why the hell is it so long?

TATI: It’s pure peacockery. But, OK… I hoped to hook people’s attention, and to hint at what the main topic of the poem would be.

TONY: In the interest of full disclosure, I guess I should mention that this poem is the result of a challenge I set you. I threw down the gauntlet, so to speak.

TATI: Yeah. Why don’t I feel relief after this confession? You haven’t tried to make things easy, have you?

TONY: That’s true. I gave you a bunch of words to put into a poem… as well as the topic. Do you remember what these were?

TATI: Of course! They will chase me in my nightmares until my last gasp.

TONY: Like a defenseless kitten being hunted down by a pack of underfed bloodhounds. I’m so evil!

TATI: No sane person uses the words ‘photojournalist’ and ‘plebeian’ in the same poem, especially one about an ice cube melting on a tin roof.

TONY: You’re right. It was a pretty ridiculous challenge, no?

TATI: Photojournalist, plebeian, quietude, chancellor, exceptionalism, doldrums, soporific, honeycomb, nemesis, existential.

TONY: Those are some mighty big words, aren’t they? So, how did you manage to find a way to use them all? What was your process?

TATI: Hm… it’s hard to describe my creative process, actually. The general idea came into my mind pretty quickly. But it was a kernel, not flesh.

TONY: It didn’t come fully formed?

TATI: LOL! Of course, no. When you think of a picture, do you see the final result immediately? I can bet not.

TONY: Actually, sometimes I do, and the act of drawing it is an attempt to get as close to that vision on the page as I possibly can. But you’re right, it’s not something that would happen all the time.

TATI: Well, it’s like bead stringing. You add word to word, line to line. Sometimes the pattern is neat and nice. Sometimes it’s better to cut the string and start again. This poem wasn’t my soul’s impulse. It was nearly work. I don’t know if that is good or bad. But, hell, it was a challenge!

TONY: So, it was as deliberate and methodical as that, huh? You were taking a more… hm… workmanlike approach to this?

TATI: Yep.

TONY: So, why did you decide to change what the poem was about? Do you have a set against anthropomorphised ice cubes dying beneath a sweltering sun?

TATI: Did I change the topic? Do you feel I cheated? I don’t think so. Firstly, why can’t the hero be an ice cube? Do you remember the snowman who loved warm hugs?

TONY: Love killed him. Are you saying love kills? It’s better not to love or be loved?

TATI: Don’t change the topic! And, as I remember, it was a happy end.

TONY: He was the recipient of… ahem… a ‘friendly massage’? Is that why there was another carrot down there?

TATI: TONY! It was a Disney story! For children! No second carrots! No frogs in diapers!

TONY: That was one weird ass video you showed me. Why the hell would a little girl go around stuffing live frogs into her diapers? Children are mentally ill. Seriously, people should stop having them.

TATI: They educated dolts like you, Tony. Who shoved ‘honeycomb’ and ‘nemesis’ into one poem?

TONY: Anyhow, this is off the point… which I still don’t get. What is it you’re trying to say? That the poem really IS about an ice cube and I’ve got it all wrong? I thought it was about a nun going on holidays and pinching the natives’… butts?

TATI: Yes. But why can’t an ice cube be like a nun? Why can’t a nun be like an ice cube? Are you a chauvinist, Tony? Do YOU have a set against anthropomorphised ice cubes? Or nuns? They have equal rights too, man!

TONY: Wha—? How did this get turned back on me? I’m not the criminal here! Yeesh.

TATI: Okay, let’s go back to the poor poem. Don’t you want to praise how ingeniously and artfully I weaved this?

TONY: Oh, of course! That goes without saying, baby. It totally knocked my socks off! And it was so good it kindly put them back on again, all without me lifting a finger. That’s the total brilliance of a poem written by Tati. About naughty nuns.

TATI: Can poetry be written from the mind, and not from the heart? Can it be a challenge, not soul’s impulse?

TONY: Fancy a cup of tea?

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017

sunday evening sillymony (jumping the lingo shark)

tony:
my name is easy to say
a toe and knee mashed together
in unholy letterimony

tati:
your name is a greasy splay
ass rubbed over ground and heather
an abstruse errormony

tony:
fine, i’ll sound out yours instead
a tat and eye fronting anna
let this be my proud zestimony

crowd:
tati clears her aural drumhead
making sure there’s no banana
her sight bodes ill for testytony

tati (thinking):
gosh, why’s it often this way
when i teach tony ukrainian?
so sick of paying fallimony!

tony (thinking):
damn it all, my dwindling cred!
perhaps i’ll gift this geranium
as fond proof of our palimony?

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017