Open-Source Poetry Five #4 (The Last Gasp)

Dear Readers,

It seems that our belief in Santa is fading away…

We put our all into the poem we dedicated to him. We did our absolute best. We also behaved. Tony hasn’t picked his nose for a whole year, and Tati hasn’t… well, let’s not get into that here.

The point is, we went all out for this overweight ho-ho deer torturer! What a sack of crap!

Seriously, what did we get in return?

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An auto-reply from someone that even our mailbox can’t bring itself to believe in. An ‘unverified sender’ no less! Hm… Perhaps we need to take the hint?

But no. Hell, no! This shall not mean that our belief in miracles is fading away. We are soppy romantics, god damn it! And no corpulent, bearded no-show is going to take that from us.

That’s why Tati—in her icy cold homeland of Ukraine—finds a bottle opener made from kangaroo balls in her Christmas sock. And Tony—in his blisteringly hot homeland of Australia—finds in his sock a tiny bottle of horilka and a half eaten salo burger. Because someone has to do this job, even if Santa fails.

Someone has to protect our belief in miracles.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA, TONY SINGLE & SONOFDEWANGAN
© All rights reserved 2020

Open-Source Poetry Five #3 (Final)

Hey-ho!

This went a lot quicker than we expected… like a sleigh out of hell that careened across the sky in flames. Even baby Jesus himself is reeling!

Our Dearest Readers, because we didn’t receive any contributions for our last installment of Open Source Poetry, we feel it’s time to finish it. Yes, you have spoken and we have listened.

We have fashioned an ending of sorts and—as promised—we’ve mailed it to Santa. We’re dying to see his response…

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by TETIANA ALEKSINA, TONY SINGLE & SONOFDEWANGAN
© All rights reserved 2020

Open-Source Poetry Five #2

Dear Readers, have you ever visited SantaCon? It’s a magical combination of binge drinking, public urination and trauma to small children that everyone should experience at least once in their life. Why? Because it’s a reminder that no matter how bad things can get, there’s always something worse around the corner. We went once and were scared into leading fulfilled and happy lives from that point on!

We seriously have to wonder if SantaCon was invented by people who didn’t get any Christmas gifts right throughout their childhoods. It’s clear that they want adults to indulge the child within, rather than their actual children. And this would be a laudable goal if they weren’t puking all over one another in naked glitter-filled orgies. Is this their revenge on poor old Santa? It could be. Just read their rules:

Can I bring my kids?
Probably not. Kids get the rest of Christmas and all the other holidays. SantaCon is normally adults only.

Can I get smashed?
Sure. But if this is what you want to do, we ask that you stay home and don’t dress like Santa. Definitely don’t show up at a SantaCon.

Well, Dear Readers, let’s make it clear that we have no desire to cosplay Jung and Freud here. We’re merely trying to understand what exactly it is that motivates certain people to dream of being Santa whilst simultaneously wanting to kick the shit out of him. And although we might not understand this, we must concede that everyone has the right to go crazy in whatever fashion they choose. Crazy, after all, can be a lot of fun!

By the way, about the fun… It was great fun to read your submissions! There were a lot of terrific new lines that might have suited our communal letter poem thingy to Santa really well, and as such we felt our minds gradually slipping to the brink of cray cray in a way that was only mildly alarming. However, we eventually settled on SonOfDewangan’s submission because we felt it straddled that uncomfortable line of fun and crazy quite well. Congratulations, sir, you’re a psychotic fun wizard! Here’s how it looks:

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Dear Mr Santypoos, how do you do?
Hope you don’t have COVID and the deer are healthy too.
Hope Rudolph’s nose still is bright red.
Time to wake them elves up from their bed,
but please do it so it’s real gentle like
or they’ll sue you without so much as a first strike.

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(Oh, by the way! SonOfDewangan, we edited your lines a wee bit for the sake of the poem’s overall flow, so please don’t sue us! Everything is for the sake of poetry and getting nice gifts!)

So, Dear Readers, let’s keep this Santa friendly and socially responsible letter poem thingy going. We promise that neither you nor your kids will get smashed, even should you choose to dress like a drunken Santa, his red nosed, allergy-ridden reindeer, or even his outrageously big bosomed wife with the tinkly bell nipple piercings. All you need do is follow these simple festive steps:

1) Close your eyes and recall your deepest wish. 
2) Open your eyes, read the above lines of our poem in progress then submit one or two more lines of your own. 
3) We pick the lines we like most, add them to the poem and then write more. 
4) When the letter is done, we seal it, put all your names in the envelope, and send it to Santa with the next sled dog team that’s willing to chance harsh border lockdowns and Covid security measures.

By the way, as of this posting there are only 68 shopping days left until Christmas, so let’s crack that whip over those reindeer tushies!

by TETIANA ALEKSINA, TONY SINGLE & SONOFDEWANGAN
© All rights reserved 2020

Open-Source Poetry Five #1

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas everyone!

Oh… Too soon?

Well, usually we’re two bums looking at the tail lights of Santa’s sleigh while we desperately turn out our pockets to find a pen and a sheet of paper for the letter we forgot to write him.

That’s why this year we have decided to be prepared. Like they say: “If you want to be happy, be so.” (Who actually said this by the way?)

So…

Dear Mr Santypoos!

We have been a very good girl and boy during this unfestive pandemic and would subsequently like a nice gift* from you (but not a lump of coal like you gave us last Christmas, please).

Tati & Tony

*(Please make it a tiny, uninhabited island and a rad new PS5!)’

Hmmm… no. This sounds rather egoistical. And we’re pretty sure that you, Dear Reader, have also been a very good girl (or boy) this year and thus deserve a nice gift. Tell you what… how about we write a letter to Santa together? And we promise we’ll send it to the addressee when it’s done!

Oh, and what if we write the letter in the form of a lovely, rousing poem? That ought to soften Santa’s glacial heart, don’t you think? Here, we’ll begin…

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Dear Mr Santypoos, how do you do?
Hope you don’t have COVID and the deer are healthy too.

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So, if you want Santa to put something especially cool in your stocking this year then it’s easy! Just follow these simple, festive steps:

1) Close your eyes and recall your deepest wish.
2) Open your eyes, read the above lines of our poem in progress then submit one or two more lines of your own (even if you have a list of 1,918,223 items or somesuch try to pack this into only two lines).
3) We pick the lines we like most (especially if you’ve left us some milk and cookies with them) and we write some more lines to follow those.
4) When the letter is done, we seal it, put all your names in the envelope, and send it to Santa with the next express snowy owl.

By the way, as of this posting there are only 82 shopping days left until Christmas, so we need to hurry the eff up! Get crackin’, hoes! Ho ho ho!

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

Open-Source Poetry Four #5 (Final)

Our Dearest Readers,

We should warn you, the creative process can be dangerous, especially when other people are involved. You may think you know where the narrative’s going, but everything veers out of control before you can sneeze or finish another pack of chips.

Fortunately, we have cats. Cats make everything cooler. A rainy day. A dull TV show. A boring book. Even poetry—something that is already cool by default!

So, who do we have to thank for helping us stick the landing? (On four legs like cats do?) Well, the aforementioned cat, of course, but also two cool poetry making machines of the human variety: Obbverse and Michelle Beltano Curtis. (And now we’re seriously contemplating a new comic series about Mr. Mort, a super cat that saves the world from strands of especially excitable string.)

By the way, if you think this whole process was an easy flight, just check our previous editions. There were moments when we thought this would turn into a complete poetic disaster. This was the first time we considered running away in tears of defeat, praying to the ghosts of Shakespeare and Mayakovsky.

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hm, what should I draw?
maybe a hairy monster with a furry claw
or a demon crow that sticks in the craw
or a huge bloodstained saw

hm, what should I write?
maybe a slow growl will stir up a fright
or a girl will be twirled by a meat-eating kite
or grandma pole-dances in a bikini too tight

hm, what is that?
the words have disappeared, the pictures aren’t flat
they’ve come to life like a cockroach cravat
crawling helter-skelter ’til i scream like a prat

hm, what the hell have i wrought?
my words have sprung to life, a ghastly thought
i need a superhero, musclebound and taut
or just leave my new comic to my cat, mr. mort

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by TETIANA ALEKSINA, TONY SINGLE, TOMAS MANKUS, MUNIRA EZZI, OBBVERSE & MICHELLE BELTANO CURTIS
© All rights reserved 2020