Tumblevision #37

Le Jouet is a 1976 French film directed by Francis Veber, and I thoroughly recommend you check it out. It’s about a boy who buys a man to be his new toy. I found it an engaging exploration of how basic respect for people should always be more important than money. That’s a message we surely need right now.

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2026

dignity

my life has value
more than your godish rainbows
& your dogma trees

we love who we are
if it’s all the same to you
this ain’t your babel
the stormfront at your table
don’t you know, is all on you

know the breath in me
blow a kinder rainbow on my cheek
show my life respect

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Full of Life, Now by Walt Whitman

Full of life, now, compact, visible,
I, forty years old the Eighty-third Year of The States,
To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence,
To you, yet unborn, these, seeking you.

When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me;
Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you, and become your comrade;
Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)

by WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892)
Public Domain Poetry

vernal whistlestop

hey there, whistle pig
jumpin’ at your own shadow
i heard loose chatter
’bout the oracle of spring
surmisals of what you are

are you really tho’
in a world that is burning
the end at our door

hey there, whistle pig
time & season frock to you
like sacred vestments
as dictum starved rootle minds
shuttle past the hot black tar

what will you augur
in a world full of burning
the end at our door

hey there, whistle pig
when have you ever been right
flowers wilt in march
forsooth a burning april
‘neath the californian stars

have you e’er been real
in a world black with burning
the end at our door

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

from silence we rose

they say there will be a golden age
when the lion lays down with the lamb
& i say there will be a golden age
when the lamb goes for the lion’s jugular

we cannot sup safely with the fascists
without them exacting their pound of flesh
there’s no more time for demure silence
when they’re raising goblets full of our own blood

when free thinkers are chained to dogma
& women are made the property of man
they’ll poke their noses into every bedroom
declare that our love violates god’s will

we cannot lay down & be fucked like this
we lambs must sharpen our teeth for the fight
stub their gaping throats with righteous ire
with the shepherd’s crook we took back from fools

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024