The person who wrote the last article is a bit high strung. Yes, it appears that wikipedia was manipulated, but I know that there have been factual errors in every publication and encyclopedia. Truth is often stranger than a lie, as has been pointed out enough to make a cliche about, so sometimes you go by the form rather than the substance, in the case of the Vampire Watermelon. However, that doesn't invalidate wikipedia. It just means that you can't turn off your brain when using that source of information, any more than you can with any other source.
Awesome. Just awesome.
I <3 Vampire Watermelons. My next band will be called "Succelent Dracula".
wikipedia makes me very, very nervous. there's no way to tell what's being made up whole-cloth. and i think there are folks out there who use it as a "factual" resource. scary.
Fact!
wikipedia makes me very, very nervous. i think there are folks out there who use it as a "factual" resource
There are also people who swear by the protocols of the elders of zion, or by today's astrology column, or by comments in curious george posts, or by FOX news.
Ah, my childers, we have our tagline for today:
Monkeyfilter: you can't turn off your brain
Wise advice, indeed, Sandspider.
Hmm, so do they need a new Wiki catagory besides stub? Perhaps flub? blub?
Hooray! I've made a Monkeyfilter: comment! I feel my cool points just skyrocketing.
The thing I always point out as the advantage of Wikipedia, despite the fact that I don't actually use the thing, is that you can check the references. Most other news or information outlets don't give you that option. Newspaper articles, encyclopedias, etc, rarely have complete bibliographies, so if you get it an argument, you really only have the say-so of the authors and editors to go by. With Wikipedia, you could at least look it up if you had the energy and desire.
In my experience, Wikipedia is generally about as accurate as your average newspaper, if not more so--which is to say, I wouldn't use it as my sole source in a controversial, obscure, or complex topic, but by its very nature, it's a great source of information on common-knowledge type questions.
There was a recent experiment where somebody introduced 13 errors into Wikipedia to see how quickly they'd be caught; it took 2 1/2 hours. (He acknowledges it might have taken longer if he hadn't posted all the errors from the same IP address.)
Hmmm... Well, there are stranger folk-tales out there. And yet none of the commentators have managed to track down a copy of the book in question. I don't think they're taking this vampire watermelon controversy seriously.
Wiki is a starting point, nothing more.
The person who wrote the last article is a bit high strung.
No shit. I think he realizes that the entire entry exists to mock him and his Vampyr ilk.
Facts:
1. Vampire watermelons are melons.
2. Vampire watermelons roll around on the ground ALL of the time.
3. The purpose of the vampire watermelon is to pester the living.
Hey, I got two outta three!
Does this mean that somewhere there's a Vampyrbashi who celebrates them with national holidays?
Oh, don't be so down on yourself. Your melons are just as nice as hers, seriously. I mean it.
I use wikipedia for facts that won't be disputed (too much) like names, dates. When I need to find out who the Earl of Whatsit did, who was relatively famous, I can find out; I use it for regnal dates when I'm not at home (and thus don't have my handy Handbook of dates). Wikipedia is generally good at whats, wheres, whens, whos - the large number of people tend to work to make it more accurate, though, of course, you pay attention to dispute notices. But *everything* on the internet should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to the details or intepretation; for anything serious, I look for peer reviewed scholarly articles.
I worry most about school age children (and their teachers) who think the internet can replace libraries.
You think this is funny? You think its a JOKE? My great grandmother was driven mad by a relentless vampire watermelon. Long after it had rotted she could feel it on her ankles. It was just...rolling at her!
This horrifying apparition sapped my great grandmother's very essence until she was tired of living, and scared of dyin'.
And now, my great grandmother is dead.
I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
...it just keeeps rolling along...
PatB, that was beautiful. Layered, like an onion.
*a vampire onion!
0[ (supposed to be a vampire melon emoticon, but really just looks like an unhappy cyclops with a cataract. Oh well)
Thank you, TenaciousPettle. (-_-)
Think the vampire melon is fact. But then again I get all my information from the weekly world news.
jacobw, some argued the reason his changes didn't last long was because the wiki has a 'recently updated page' so people who use the wiki can look over any new changes. I use wikipedia (think it is a great resource) but not as the definitive source for information. Just like with everything else.
I know for a fact that vampire watermelons do in fact exist.
Well, hey. There you have it. Our resident expert, Nostrildamus, says there are vampire watermelons, and I certainly would trust that a man with a name like that would know his undead melons.
A woman for duty, a little boy for pleasure, & an undead vampyre watermelon for ecstacy.
Anyway I'm not your resident expert, I'm your resident ignorant asshole.
Same thing
a man with a name like that would know his undead melons.
I'm still in shock that "undead melons" is such as miserable failure as a googlewhack phrase.
vampire carrots, a fearsome sight,
grow in unholy soil where a vampire
dumps earth from his coffin when
remaking his bed and before retiring
at daybreak rather than at night
What do these vampire vegetables really, really want?
If the melons have no teeth they can only roll and perhaps haunt,
and, poor things, being mouthless, cannot taunt the living --
do they prey on other vegetables? Do they fear the bright day?
And what exactly do they do? What is it they keep craving?
If it's blood (which I doubt) they must live in great vexation
Because vegatables lack, not only mouths, but any sort of digestion.
I see dead watermelons
Fools flung or spat their black seeds everywhere,
on the table, the chairs, the leaf-strewn lawn,
and some are caught in the children's hair;
half-gnawed rinds lie amid the other ruined viands.
What is it about these blood-suckers
that compels our attention again and again?
A vampire is a thing unreal, a lie,
the marvel is such tales still mystify.
I have to wonder why folks are so willing
to be sucked -- or suckered -- and find 'em thrilling?
O won't someone tell me why
we're all such silly fuckers?
Evil dead, they roll like socks,
Up your arse in lieu of cocks,
Suck you dry of all your blood
Back to the lino to chew the cud.
Watermelon in Easter Hay,
If its skin is bloody don't look away
It'll jump right up and bite your ankle
Moving like the rotary engine of Wankel.
Speak the name not once but thrice
Out of the kitchen on a host of mice
Born atop the crowd of squeak
The evil melon with a widow's peak.
It'll bite your arse, your leg, your thigh
Then you'll drop, but will not die
You'll return to the counter top
As the mixed-up undead melons rot.
)))!!!
Writ by a man who knows his melons!
Poe, schmoe.
Nevermore, croaked the melon.
" 'Tis the song of the melon,"
We heard her declare,
"With his shiny green rind
Devoid of all hair!"
"He's come, he's come, my melon dear,
Nor left me forlorn and thirsting here"
She whips out her blade and gives him a slice
She then eats each half and declares, "Both were nice."
Thanks, all. It's been a bad week, and this gave me the giggles.
...watch out! It's the *shudder* vampire melon!
... vampire melon rolls around on the floor, hitting ankles with an eerie *ponk* ... *ponk* ... *ponk*
in candid truth
although we tries and tries
to bite them on their ankles
or their juicy-looking thighs
alas! we bounces with great caution
lest we end up split and squashin'
and what always rankles
and over which we cries and cries --
we gots no tooth
If artfully carved, even pumpkins
can have teeth, although death
from pumpkin bites these days seems rare
among the mortalities of rural bumpkins.
Nor is it in the same class of fears
as being pawed by grizzly bears.
They have no teeth, they have no lungs and yet...they still suck!
pops another grizzly beer
Hi, PatB! Grizzly beer sounds good.
come my dear
with rush and tumble
of goat-hooves
over granite
water purling
below an icy rim
flung leaves
racing whirlaway
along a row
of vintage clusters
come quick
embrace these
harvest hours
weave like the wind
past pumpkins lined
atop the rubble wall
dart through teepees
made of cornstalks
where racoons rummage
shucks
and paw
for leftover ears
come on I say
past cottontails
scuffling crisp leaves
searching for green blades
past all the shattered walnut hulls
the chipmunks leave along the walk
come home
and linger long
Filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy,
Filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy,
Filthy, filthy, filthy, VILE
Filthy, filthy, filthy, filthy
Fucky shitty MELON of SATAN
Ooh - er.
Vampires are nature's way of paying us back for seedless watermelons.
Soo..would werewolves be nature's way of paying us back for chihuahuas?
Life is full of marvels -- I have acquired a copy of The Vampire Encyclopedia by Matthew Bunson [Gramercy Press/Random House 1993] ISBN 0-517-16205-7.
NOTE THE SEASONAL WARNING! In this book is the following:
Watermelon Like pumpkins, these fruit can become vampires; they are not considered very dangerous, particularly because they have no teeth. Watermelon vampires are found among the Muslim Gypsies of Yugoslavia. Virtualy any kind of melon is susceptible; tranforming if kept for ten days or too long a period after Christmas. They make growling sounds, are stained with traces of blood, and roll around to pester the living. (page 278)
That is the Watermelon reference in toto.
Now, no man of mettle can read this and not delve further into this book, so I also gleaned this from page 218:
Pumpkin Along with watermelon, a fruit ... deemed capable of becoming a vampire, albeit not a very dangerous one. The belief is found among the Gypsies of the Balkans, particularly those of the Muslim faith. According to their traditions, any pumpkin kept more than ten days or after Christmas will come alive, rolling around on the ground and growling. People naturally have little fear of the creatures. One of the main indications that a pumpkin is about to undergo a vampiric transformation (or has just completed it) is the appearance of a drop of blood on it.
So, melon hoarding monkeys, 'tis the season to beware.
Oh dear. Will eating melons and pumpkins replace (in the US South) eating cornbread and black-eyed peas as the food you eat for luck on New Year's Eve?
...Then again, this is not prime season for melons or pumpkins, so we're posed with a conundrum: eating squishy, over-ripe potential vampires (ew), or allowing squishy, over-ripe growly vampires to roll all over our kitchens getting everything kinda sticky (double ew). Both options are scary.
It is now possible in North America to find out-of-season fruits and vegetables from South America and elesewhere, so that the possibility of encountering vampire cantelope etc is much increased.
oooh, I hadn't thought of that. I keep forgetting that not everyone has to deal with the lame produce sections offered by my local (small town) groceries.
Monkeyfilter: I don't think they're taking this vampire watermelon controversy seriously.
Oh, you'll RUE the day.
Indeed.
My first tagline. And by G'ma herself.
/basks
Two thousand and five has now engulfed us,
znd today's the nineth day after Christmas --
so eat those watermelons quickly lest they begin to roll
bruising ankles, while they seek blood -- and possibly your soul.
These kids clearly don't understand the danger they are in!! Taht watermleon is ready to strike!!1!!11!
Nostril, how hideous! Lumpy and mishapen, with scary green patterns on its rind.
*shudders
Who will save us? We need a hero.
This is a job for Captain Asparagus.
Good grief! Wot is that fruity smell?
That hollow rumble from the hob of hell?
Out of the darkness and down the length of the hall
A melon moves fast as a slung bowling ball;
Our ankles are sore, quite hideouly bruised
because the wretched melon seems doomed to be confused --
It whizzes along at a tremendous speed
Because it is driven by fell vampiric need.
So along the hall it comes speeding through
Intent on knocking the feet out from under you.
But we have become cunning, yes, we have turned sly,
We now put on our heavy boots before it comes by.
Heavy boots! Pisshaw. We need silver bullets, man.
remember, friends,
the sleek cucumber
is also a curcubit --
and is therefore unfit
to keep in your midst
ten days after Christmas
eat! ere a cuke comes thrusting
out of the vegetable drawer
and starts chasing your dachshund
across the kitchen floor
Just had to google on "curcubit" and up popped this, regarding bees in tubes among the curcubit crops, down under.
Interesting article, islander
Though I did not much care for the term 'disposable bees'.
Oh, dear.
Arrgh! Don't ye come moanin' and skulkin' 'round here!
Begone! Amscray! -- vile pumpkin, get lost,
for all I care, ye can dangle your tangled vines
in the winter frost till ye turn to useful compost.
I'm out of patience with ye altogether,
so roll back down the steps into the cellar!
If the children didn't treat ye like a pet
ye'd've been turned to pie weeks ago -- and et!
Watermelons
Green Buddhas
on the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
and spit out the teeth.-- Charles Simic
Laugh if you must
till one still night
thumps hollow
on your chest
a vegetable moan
and a dripping moon
Hi, Nickdanger! Glad you're back!
now strikes the hour
when the banana's pealed
a welcome
to the Green Hen
who, insigne of fresh beginning,
rekindles hope in mortal men
In the crisper draw-or
there will be found such horr-or
A leperous, pepperous mush of green
Putrid, nasty, turning mean
A hairy cantaloupe-garou
Looking for human flesh to chew
The vicious, delicious arti-choke
a thistle as vindictive as poison oak
But worst of all the watermelon
A vile vampire vegetable hellion
O the horror! The horror!
*makes mental note not to open GramMa's fridge*
Before he'd time to bolt
his salad raw
he was attacked by radishes,
then slaughtered by the slaw.
O the horror! The horror!
Geez, Bees! I didn't think my poetry was THAT bad.
Now I'm so upset I'll just have to create another tagline to sooth myself.
MonkeyFilter: O the horror! The horror!
vile growths of whitish blue
and dirty green -- not on the cheese --
but on the aged contents of the soup tureen,
forming a heaving warty skin
to frighten anxious men
determined to clean the fridge out once again
and what, dear gods, is that speckled gunk
atop the crock of baked beans
and the Unknown Substance rearmost on the shelf
that's reekling like a skunk?
=reeking
*sigh*
Would a reekling be a baby bad smell?
runs away giggling...
Ah! karma.
Ah! chameleon ... bird thou never wert.
I'm thinking reekling is more like the aftermath of being tickled = squirming, meredithea, but I am not wanting to tickle a skunk to test this hypothesis. Live and let live. And honour the skunk...from a safe distance.
Honor the skunk from a distance, or the skunk will honor you from up close, eh? Good rule.
Thanks Bee! Glad to be back! never really meant to be gone, but time does get eaten up.
the root vegetables started the war
last spring
laying seige to us in our beds
every morning
they would form a circle about each
inhabited bed
and bounce so excitedly up and down
some split themselves before wilting and finally falling dead
our mornings became a protracted confusion
of startled cries
and peciliar thumpings and bruises that ran from ankles
up to the smaller children's thighs
So, do we take turns welcoming each other back now? :)
Seriously, there were dangerously low levels of both bees and wack during your absence. Glad to see your metered mania once again gracing our pages.
Don't know what you may have experienced while gone, Nickdanger, but I found being away was not a good idea. Both my antennae wilted and if ye look closely ye will see even now they are upright only because the pipecleaners keep them from flopping back into my face.
a crash of thunder follows hard
upon an eerie white that strobes and flickers
in the dead of a storm-plagued night
and five fullgrown folk frozen in midstride
as we came down the back stairs
so overwrought by then were we
we almost heard long quavering howls
of thirsting watermelons on the prowl
"I thought ye'd locked
the cellar door!" one cried
while another squawked about no keys
and all of us were hearing sounds
like bowling balls down some wooden alley hurled
and then a slam and bang as Something heavy hit the kitchen door
and shook it in the frame
"Wot if they've let the radishes loose again?"
demanded, in a failing voice, one of the men
and that is when we almost cried
for vampire radishes can always contrive to roll slyly under foot
so down ye go, and then the heavy melons pass over ye, to and fro
NOT THE MELONS!
Save us from the melons!
Take, m'dear, those melons away
for now they're split and look war-torn.
Bury the rinds but not the seeds
lest more vampiric fruit be born.
Oh, will the melons thread never die!
The thread is as undead
As our melon felons.
In the midst of hemotropic vegatables
we dwell; such edibles
are spawned in hell
and do not wish a fellow well.
Into the tomato vines last year
they bore the catapult
to make it easier to pelt
one anotther witn ripe fruit.
Worse than ever, the infection spreada!
Everything from our garden's beds
keeps trying to touch us as we work outdoors
and, once picked, keeps chasing us across the floors.
Vampire vegetables, vampire fruit,
rolling and thumping, and getting underfoot!
We daren't sell any of our produce this year
not even to the tourists who drive by here.
I've got so
I feel sorry for them --
if they had teeth
I'd let them bite me
for a melon's life
must be a dull one
sipping water and dirt
and lying in the sun
no wonder they yearn to beome
vampire vegetables --
romance and questing enter their small orbits
and they live thereafter as purposeful curcubits
Though cucurbits they may be
SacroSanctioned by The Bee
These bloodthirsty melon of yore -
When out walking the roads
Keep an eye on your toes
Rolling melons can make your foot sore
We try not to talk about our melons to strangers
since they're inclined to think we're mad
and we don't mention the pumpkins to the neighbours,
though the neighbours guess there's something odd
going on over here, they're not really sure
we're any weirder than our grandparents were
"I went to a doctor - all he did was suck blood from my neck. Don't go see Doctor Acula!"
--Mitch Hedberg
.
Marge Piercy
Attack of the squash people
And thus the people every year
in the valley of humid July
did sacrifice themselves
to the long green phallic god
and eat and eat and eat.
They're coming, they're on us,
the long striped gourds, the silky
babies, the hairy adolescents,
the lumpy vast adults
like the trunks of green elephants.
Recite fifty zucchini recipes!
Zucchini tempura; creamed soup;
sauté with olive oil and cumin,
tomatoes, onion; frittata;
casserole of lamb; baked
topped with cheese; marinated;
stuffed; stewed; driven
through the heart like a stake.
Get rid of old friends: they too
have gardens and full trunks.
Look for newcomers: befriend
them in the post office, unload
on them and run. Stop tourists
in the street. Take truckloads
to Boston. Give to your Red Cross.
Beg on the highway: please
take my zucchini, I have a crippled
mother at home with heartburn.
Sneak out before dawn to drop
them in other people's gardens,
in baby buggies at churchdoors.
Shot, smuggling zucchini into
mailboxes, a federal offense.
With a suave reptilian glitter
you bask among your raspy
fronds sudden and huge as
alligators. You give and give
too much, like summer days
limp with heat, thunderstorms
bursting their bags on our heads,
as we salt and freeze and pickle
for the too little to come.
Delightful, BlueHorse!
This is the only thread that matters.
< / passesoutonbar>
Somebody hustle that bum out the door before he gives this thread a bad name.
Watermelons
Charles Simic
Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.
*blushes
imitation is the sincerest form of monkey-love
Dear Bees:
Forgive me.
I slept since then.
but it's so good, it bears repeating twice, and after all, this is a thread about vegibles THAT RISE AGAIN!
*hands plate
care for some spuds?
Potato Speculates on Popularity
Michelle Boisseau
I don't want trouble, but the rutabagas
and the turnips—especially the turnips—
are muttering Ingrate, Upstart, and throwing
me looks. Sheez, Louise. I'm hardly escarole.
So I got lots of friends? I'm adaptable,
a hard worker, and I don't ask favors.
Put them in a basket and they're bitter.
Put them in a pan, better be copper.
The butter's too pale, the pepper's too coarse.
On and on. With me if I'm forgotten,
I turn extra-spective and gregarious.
I'm not called the Dirt Apple for nothing.
I stick my necks out at any bright chink
and light out for the garden on leafy legs.
<\i>
Fine poem!
Thankee for the 'taters, BlueHirse -- would ye care for some slightly bruised melon? A loaf of imported breadfruit? A jug of whine (made by the deep-lunged and disconsulate dachshund)?
Well, dang!
= BlueHorse
I jush wanna shample a lil' more o' tha whine. Com'on over'ear you schweet, schweet honey-chile.
*BlueHirse hangs arm around Bees neck and gives him a drunken smooch
*uncomfortable.*
"Tis OK, Nick -- she's just teasin' me back. Monkeys flirt from time to time -- without much reason or -- usually -- rhyme.
we have no choice
but fool around
on this so-shaky
electronic ground
Which reminds me, Nick -- have ye got your browser problem worked out? I would help if I knew anything to the point, but all I really know is critters and poetry and a scattering of useless facts which most folks have had the sense to mothball long ago.
Nah, bees, you must have me confused with some no-good-nick. My problems were poetic in nature. Remedied, I suppose, in as much as I've decided to bite the bullet and send some stuff out.< /terror>
O excellent hearing, Nick!!!
Editors are only people (and fools) like the rest of us -- fear not. Even if they have teeth, those are very likely dull.
Either way, whether they like or are indifferent to some to some piece ye submeit, just send it out again somewherre else.
However, if you do get any feedback -- such as a line or two scrawled somewhere on a manuscript page -- take it seriously and try to see where the person's coming from and if possible intuiot why s/he said that.
(Other than an attack of dyspepsia, that is. :])
That an editor takes the time to respond at all these days is a very good sign, since poems are falling like snowflakes in a blissard into most poetry editors' ken.
I can't even spell blizzard today, dammit...
Monkeyfilter: like snowflakes in a blissard.
Bees, this intuiot? Is that like an Eskimo making an educated guess?
*sighs*
bees doesn't
type well
neither can
he spell
his fingers
so wide
two keys
will bestride
which makes
things worse
than this
sorry verse
Well, we'll see Bee's. Frankly, it's something of a victory that I'm even willing to send this out at all. Must have short-circuited my self criticism board somehow.
Er... please remove all extraneous apostraphes.
'E puts 'em in the celestial punctuation jar.
Roy Blount, Jr.
Song to Onions
They improve everything, pork chops to soup,
And not only that but each onion's a group.
Peel back the skin, delve into tissue
And see how an onion has been blessed with issue.
Every layer produces an ovum:
You think you've got three then you find you've got fovum.
Onion on on—
Ion on onion they run,
Each but the smallest one some onion's mother:
An onion comprises a half-dozen other.
In sum then an onion you could say is less
Than the sum of its parts.
But then I like things that more are than profess—
In food and the arts.
Things pungent, not tony.
I'll take Damon Runyon
Over Antonioni—
Who if an i wanders becomes Anti-onion.
I'm anti-baloney.
Although a baloney sandwich would
Right now, with onions, be right good.
And so would sliced onions,
Chewed with cheese,
Or onions chopped and sprinkled
Over black-eyed peas:
Black-eyed,
grey-gravied,
absorbent of essences,
eaten on New Year's Eve
peas.
How easily happiness begins by
dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter
slithers and swirls across the floor
of the saute pan, especially if its
errant path crossses a tiny slick
of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions.
This could mean soup or risotto,
or chutney (from the Sanskrit
chatri, to lick) Slowly the onions
go limp and then nacreous
and then what cookbooks call clear,
though if they were eyes you could see
clearly the cataracts in them.
It's true it can make you weep
to peel them, to unfurl and to tease
from the taut ball first the brittle,
caramel-colored and decrepit,
papery outside layer, the least
recent the reticent onion
weapped around its growing body,
for there's nothing to an onion
but skin, and it's true you can go on
weeping as you go on in, through
the most middle skins, the sweetest
and thickest, and you can go on
into the core, to the bud-like,
acrid, fibrous skins densely
clustered there, stalky and in-
complete, and there are the most
pungent, like the nuggets of nightmare
and rage and murmury animal
comfort that infant humans secrete.
This is the best domestic perfume.
You sit down to eat with a rumor
of onions still on your twice-washed
hands and lift to your mouth a hint
of a story of loam and usual
endurance. It's there when you clean up
and rinse the wine glasses and make
a joke, and you leave the minutest
whiff of it on the light switch,
later, when you climb the stairs.
-- William Matthews, "Onuon"
I'm almost doubled over
and running for all I'm worth
after ye, tiny orange pumpkin
trying to escape your fate
by zigzagging across the earth
or dodging under leafy growth
Ha! I laugh with ghoulish glee
to see you flee
at last from me
into a paper bag
I'll pop you
and once you're baked
with chocolate sprinkles
we shall top you
Knives, or the Way to a Man's Heart
Jay C. Davis
It's been a great couple of weeks for staying
home and sharpening my knives,
and each one has a perfect edge now.
All this honing has really whetted my appetite.
I feel a keen hunger, for freshly
chopped and diced and
julienned and sliced and
shoestringed and French cut and
coarsely chopped and minced
meat and vegetables,
filets of fish and beef and chicken,
carrots, celery, blanched broccoli and
fresh onions, garlic, peppers—sweet and hot—
strawberries, peaches, all the tropical fruits,
parsley, thyme, rosemary and
every variety of fresh herbs.
Strop, strop, chop chop.
If you open a box and drop in
100 mice with one piece of cheese
and one small hole to escape,
and wait for the scratching to stop,
one mouse only will exit the hole,
cleaning his claws against his glossy coat,
grinning in the spotlight, mugging
for the paparazzi and nibbling his cheese.
Sociologists will call him alpha,
and Psychologists will call him self-actualized,
and Calvinists will call him resolute and pious.
Dieticians say he's non-lactose-intolerant,
and I suppose Political Scientists will call him the Voters' Mandate.
Gamblers will call him Lucky,
and what I'll call him is the Capitalist.
The experiment will come to an end
and the glorious multi-nominal mouse
will have his head snipped off
and disposed of by a blonde lab technician
with sterile rubber coated fingers,
who's interning for the summer
and hates this part of her job the most
and just looks forward to going home,
where her boyfriend will be precisely now
starting to prepare a special dinner
for the two of them—
vegetables and meat,
knives flashing, water steaming,
and oil searing in the pots and pans,
in the kitchen that's every bit as hot as Hell.
Quash that Squash!
Bob Wombacher, Jr.
Now comes that dreaded time of year:
Sadistic neighbors reappear
With squashes laden; how they flaunt them.
I protest loudly, do not want them!
They fathom not. (How can this meanie
Fail to savor our zucchini?
What motivates this ingrate neighbor
To spurn the products of our labor?)
Squash aren't eaten, sad to say;
They're only grown to give away.
Some have taken to jerking the whole plant loose
in the fields and the garden, stems, roots, and fruits --
most heed towards our house, but some simply vamoose
squashed flat on the highways, or head for a neighbour's house.
Which worries us, since word of their vampire ways
could occupy the neighbourhood in talk for many days,
till flocks of media appear on the local scene
and rurasl peace comwe to an end with Attack of the Vampire Bean!
The silly vegetables have killed no one, and are actually unable
to avoid ending up in pies and on our dinner table.
The children here find them rather charming,
but some adults, we fear, will find them more alarming.
They have no eyes nor ears, yet somehow sense us,
but veggies are nearly all but defenseless
to protect themselves if humans should attack --
and they're too greatly handicapped to fight effectively back.
The worst they can do is roll and rebound
from your shins with a hollow, thumping sound.
None of them can bite, and so far, none scratch,
they're simply attive residents of our vegetable patch.
Mark Yakich
Old Celery
At the corner greengrocer
I'd passed you many times before,
always under the bright lights,
water beading up on your tough skin.
I picked up a tomato,
a pair of kohlrabi,
a handful of coriander;
I had money this time.
As I counted my change,
a penny dropped down under your stand.
On the way up, you,
old celery, caught my eye.
You'd been moved to a darker corner
of the produce. I now felt
guilt; I had missed
you in your prime.
I set down the other vegetables,
took you, limp and barely
green, and left a hollow yellow
in the bed of shaved ice.
When I held you up
to get a fair look, there was
not a silence in the world
like the silence between us.
Like so many things I've not wanted
to see until they persisted
in seeing me, I took you
as if now I had a choice.
Old scraggly carrot, withered and rubbery,
lurking in the bottom of the carrot sack
with great long roots grown fish-belly pale
and thick as a wig or a beard that's fake.
as a vampire it's not so great --
no teeth
no mouth
no digestivce tract
only limited powers of mute animation --
only human imagination
curiosity and desire
can authenticate
a vegatable vampire's
extreme frustration
The melon had me cornered
I stammered, and I gulped
It moved ever closer still
and shouted,
"I vant to zuck your pulp!"
Good one, pete!
These pulp-zickers, ye gotta watch 'em!
Carving Pumpkins
by Matthew Gleckman
One evening late in October
we covered your kitchen floor
with old newspapers and sat
drinking wine with friends.
Carving pumpkins like cadavers
we loped off tops with steak knives
removing pulp, seeds and spleen.
When the guts had been pulled
and spread across the paper
you paused—slime covered—
long enough to laugh at
week-old funnies.
Sitting on the sagging
green couch across the room
I drank faster than usual,
out of nervousness,
until you shot me a smile
that slowed me down some
and made me wonder
which of my organs
you are after.
hehe nice!
My heart leaps up when I behold
pumpkins orange in a field, or gold.
The children now resolve
to carve the jack-o'-lanterns toothless
for vampire pumpkins try to bite us
and they're ruthless.
our valley's growing far more strange
under its cloaks of morning fog
with pumpkins tugging at their vines
like tethered dogs of rotund orange
each year our pumpklin patch gets bigger
and our pumpkins display more than hybrid vigour
all eager to roll after any passing soul --
there's something odd about our soil, we figure
this year the green bean vines were wild
to whip around your ankles when you passed --
we had to tear them up before they set their fruit
lest they capture some stray child or errant old galoot
I'm getting nervous. As I look over the fence at my neighbor's garden, I can see that his pumpkins are ripening.
*shudders
Luckily, I was away when the pumpkins got frisky,
and massed in our valley regardless of risks.
They jerked themselves suddenly free of their vines
and started rolling from the garden plots behind
the tranquil farmhouses and the painted barms;.
Soon came the tooting of frantic car horns
as orange globes whizzed across the gravelled roads
and farmers, stunned and gaping, saw harvest loads
swarm to the lake -- no one yet knows why.
There, ducks and geese, alarmed, began to fly
as down to the water chill and dank
the pumpkins rolled like an armoured tank
flattening the reeds along one shore
as more pumpkins came, and more, and still more.
And there they floated and bobbed all night
until they were fished out at dawn's first light.
Quickly, quietly, the valley folk hauled 'em,
and drove to the city where they soon sold 'em.
Pumpkins, gleaming and clean -- aye, the grocers were thrilled,
but when I heard this, I felt a cold chill
for I think it's part of a vampiric pumpkin plot
to spread through the world, and do what they should not --
they plan to grow teeth, and they'll spread west and east
all so their pumpkin descendents can have a blood feast.
I try to be well-mannered, Richard,
as a salad or a pewter tankard
but I'll be jiggered if I staggered
through the wildwood like a leopard
after tasty sheep and shepherd
Edward, you smile and are well-dentured
which is cultured! Richard sniggered
as he centred yet another collared
lizard, looking sunward as he ventured
past fifty cups of pumpkin custard
and ham sandwiches with mustard
yes, but could a vampire watermelon face Bunnicula?????
Barking, barking, my shinbones from afar
Darken, darken, all bruised where pumpkins are
Bunnicula, bunniculee, bunnicula, bunniculee!
Rabbits everywhere, too damn many for me!
You think bunnicula is terrifying? TenaciousPettle and I will be screening this archetypal terror tomorrow night!
well at least I don't have to be jealous. I was bunnicula for halloween a few years back...fun!
Immigration Search May Affect Asparagus Crop
Ace Boggess
Charleston Daily Mail, April 5, 1999
Shoots on sight, that's what I always say.
Well, I don't always say it, but then,
I didn't know we had such a problem with illegal asparagi.
I can picture them now: their slick, lizard-skin leaves,
their stems stretching out like groping fingers
to touch virgin soil. Chills the blood, to think of it.
Sure, they provide cheap resources.
Doesn't mean we should let them overrun America.
Certainly don't want them in my back yard,
squatting next to squash like sixties liberals, ranting
about free love, & living off the land. They're criminals
anyway, stealing all that moisture from the air.
While we're at it, why not do something about zucchini?
Or pumpkins? They're everywhere, seedy eyes staring,
tongues licking softly upon thick lips. I'm carving
that dire image even as I speak. I've heard it said they frighten
children. Shameless. How can we allow it?
We must uproot them all & send them packing.
*cheers*
I've missed me the vampire melon posts!
from the bins in the dark cellar
blood-thirsting pumpkins moan
we hear them though we wear out earplugs
when we try to sleep at home
aye, I might come back
as a vampire bee
if only some hungry vampire
had the good taste
to bite me
in the fields the vines are rustling
jade tendrils curl about our feet
as still-tethered pumpkins thump
against the ground; we can't de-feet them
till they ripen - pumpkin pies are such a treat!
)))!
This is my favorite thread ever.
Bees, how could you resurrect this thread!
Now I'll have trouble sleeping tonight.
This is the only way I'll be able to sleep.
*knocks back a few, rolls eyes back in head, holds arms straight out
MEEELLLOOOOOONSSSSS
I was trying to write a parody of "Southern Trees Bear Strange Fruit," but I just didn't have the heart. I guess there's a shred of decency left in me after all.
Up to now, this hasn't been a black/white centred thread, TUM. It's been more about what-ifs, about envisioning magical melons, and how do you co-exist with animate vegetables, and such similar absurdities. The sorry issues of the real world are shunted aside or ignored here, in the luminous land of human fancy/imagination.
But if ye care to develop a racist/anti-racist theme, I'd be interested in watching what ye can do with it.
Nope, sorry. It was all about melons attacking people.
field work
we find snow fence
works well
for caging them before
stems dry and
they snap themselves
off the vine
the green beans
did this on us
this summer
but they aren't
so noticable
when glimpsed
from the highway
as to bring
traffic to a complete
halt
once
an orange pumpkin
cuts loose
and starts careening about
on its own
it's hard not to notice
and of course we were
scrambling
desperately after it
trying to grab it
before it rolled
onto the asphalt
where an express deliveryman
revved up his engine
without warning and
left the line of honking cars
to roll very deliberately
over the poor thing
the children were upset
even the adults were stunned
none of us had suffered
a vegetable loss
of this magnitude
before
*bows to the Bees
*shudders*
yes, we dash from the squash patch and we
flee, knowing these pumpkins will not yield
the field, but always roll to catch
us round the ankles with their vines
and entwine each still-resistant mind
with I must be dreaming! and this
can't be real! even as green tendrils
writhe and we feel 'em wrap about our calves
we cannot help ourselves - we laugh
To destroy the vampire pumpkins and watermelons,
you plunge them into a pot of boiling water.
After pouring away the water, scrub the vegetables with a broom and throw them away.
Burn the broom.
Boil! Boil!
Vegetable toil!
Bubbling water and bubbling soil!
A pumpkin is wrathful
Begone to the trashful
You demon gourd
Hence shall ye spoil!
*lightning, vague odours*
Pete, your poetry is fine--please control the vague odours
How do we compost thee? Lettuce count the ways.
*belatedly lets out a shriek at the VM photo*
"turned brownish red when wet on my hands from cutting the melon shortly after photographing it."
Holy hellacious honeydews, he cut the #@&! thing open?! We're all doomed!
*builds shelter, gets hoe and rake to guard the entrance, stocks up on vodka*
*squeezes in, notes he "won't get caught out there," gulps vodka*
*hands pete a trowel and a rusty can of peaches*
Yes, the veritable Pandora's melon!!
All fear the unleashing of the Poxyklips.
Melon, Melon, burning bright
In the garden, late at night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant twisted mind
Forged the terror of thy rind?
On what wings dare he aspire,
The juicy, sweet, o’erripe vampire?
And what shoulder, and what mind,
Could twist the sinews of thy vine?
And when thy fruit began to flower,
What dread hand, at what dread hour?
Stab the heart and spill the juice
Of vile Citrellus lanatus!
What the anvil? What the root
Of evil January’s fruit?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made thee make kiwis?
Melon, Melon, burning bright
In the garden, late at night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
)))!
heh! but the vampumpkin'll getcha if ye don't watch out, Monster!
ye, jawless,
hungerin' for a meal
ye'll never win
at this kreigspiel
poor pumpkins, cravin',
in your old
orange peels,
a nibble at my ankle or
my well-bruised heel
Bees, watch out for the vampires!!
All of the watermelons, the blueberries, strawberries, pecans and beans could disappear OH NO!
they strain at their vines
and jerk to and fro
quite soon they'll be tugging
themselves loose we know
we've fenced in their field
we've laid out the nets
so not one o' these pumpkins
away from us gets
vampire pumpkin: the harvest
we doped their water
for three days
and sent the ripest
insensible to market
we clapped the few
into our root cellar
and this year notice
how loud they moan
and even bellow
and though we think
they crave our blood
they have no teeth no jaws
and this is very good
*claps with glee and dances around like a little kid*
Halloween+Vampires+Melons+Pumpkins+Poems=Joy
deep in the cellar
sounds of thumping
as of vampire
pumpkins jumping
we keep the cellar
battened down
so the pumpkins will not
roll around
if ye pick one up
it tries to roll
or bumps against ye
like a starving ghoul
I believe! I believe!
*crosses two melon ballers in front of her and backs slowly out of the thread.*
they're so excited
that we're frighted
from the basement
hear the thunder
as of boards being
smashed asunder
will vampire pumpkins
roll us under?
will they break
the cellar door
and roll across
the kitchen floor?
the young ones
shiver in their shoes
while adults gulp
down all the booze
Tonight the cantelope will growl
The honeydew will snarl
the hollowed gourd will baleful howl
And the pumpkin will bite them all!
Tonight the cantelope will growl
The honeydew will snarl
the hollowed gourd will baleful howl
And the pumpkin will bite them all!
)>>)>>)>>)>>)>>)>>
Somehow, those are vampire bananas.
Pat, why didn't anyone think of the ballers sooner?! There might be hope yet.
When the night wind blows o'er the garden rows, and the bat o'er the scarecrow flies,
And inky clouds, like funeral shrouds, sail over the melon's vines
When the weeders quail at the pumpkin's wail, and butternuts bay at the moon,
Then is the Cucurbitaceae's holiday--then is the ghosts' high-noon!
Ha! ha! Then is the melons' high-noon!
Yikes! I've been curcubitten!
scarecrow's song
across the dead and dying vines
a cold wind whines
and far stars glitter
corn stalks rustle
dry leaves blow
shy mice and skulking birds
do twitter
while in the field I'm left alone
and growing curcubitter
Cucumbers, you say? Do they bite, too?
try to remember
the kind of cucumber
the children dropped under
the table one night
with all its might
it tried to nibble
each individual
sitting round the table
but was not due to the aforementioned lack of teeth able
to do more than unwrinkle
the socks about our ankles
Melonious! bees, I have no words for how much your poetry cheers me.
pumpkin pumpkin,
plump and round
don't sneak about
without a sound
don't crack
the cellar door tonight
nor softly gibber
through our night
you roll upstairs
and down the hall
to fangless whine
and lipless call
the children giggle
adults grin
as ye thump and bang
to be let in
come all ye bold pumpkins
and gather round to hear
this winter's tale of pumpkins
without bloody fear
first they found a nail
that jutted out
each pumpkin rolled against it
with a mighty clout
the holes this left
in pumpkin hide
were deep and ragged
the edges jagged
for know, my dears
the vampire blood thirst did abide
within each rotund rascal's
orange hide
now they have mouths
(of a sort)
with which to bite
the tim'rous humans
scuttled out of sight
(who, callous creatures, downed some port ...
tell me, would ye like a snort?)
the pumpkins clustered
long behind the cellar door
were most annoyed
to hear their people roar
with laughter and they swore
(now they have mouths
to utter oaths)
that gaping pumpkins should not be
the butt of future mirth
or snickering jollity
yea, pumpkins rolled into the hall
and wider grinned to see the people trip and fall
and round them gathered
nipping (as best they could, for they were new at this) all
the humans shrieked
the humans roared
they told the pumpkins
you are horrid!
we planted you and let you grow
between the cornstalks
row on row
we watered you we pulled your weeds
we catered to your pumpkin needs!
(to be continued once the Muse lets me know what comes next)
MY WORD!
Bees, that is fantastic.
Can I send you another bottle of booze Muse?
Heh. Hope to get it finished by this weekend. But we'll see. These matters are not easily predictable.
-- Charles Simicmelonsthread never die!-- William Matthews, "Onuon"boozeMuse?