Meanwhile, in Chichén Itzá...

RazzmaSnazz: Tail of Two Kittehs

“Oh! Well, I never! Was there ever a cat so clever as magical Mr. Mistoffelees?” —Rum Tum Tugger

Games in Verse: ‘Dynamite Duke’ (1990), Sega Genesis / Mega Drive

The World's First-ever Game Review Poetry Column:
Classic Games, Classically Reviewed—as Only a Fop Could
The Fop’s Rating: ★★★½ (Out of Four Stars)

Pixelated Uzis, Y’all

Square yellow high top fade,
Shooting green drums,
Tick, tick, tick—
Granadan charlies, dead or alive,
Burn through your glass belly,
Passing powder as the ever-chambered round,
Blazing black, up and disappearing.
For mega crush, charge “B” and release.

Manhole covers sit forbearing,
Lightpoles, props forgotten
In a town occupied
As a hostage to be shot,
Gnarled, banged and granting
To you, red Duke,
No bullet better used
Than the one now fired.

It’s high time to punch a man with a mohawk.
Boss battles pare to the fist,
Maybe from a barrel overheated
Or conscience later nagged
From the floor-full stacks
Of lead-templed goons
Still men yet.
Ah, the hell with ’em.

You got an iron fuckin’ hand,
Whose grip, feel, flight and fire
Cock as a gun to gleaming shoulder,
Stem-wound, haymaker-stout and recalling
A “D” bomb and time none better
Than jabbing some gas grill man or clear-domed freak
With an aching-yellow dynamite dose.
Some dukes are kings. ❂

Games in Verse: ‘Altered Beast’ (1988), Sega Genesis / Mega Drive

The World's First-ever Game Review Poetry Column:
Classic Games, Classically Reviewed—as Only a Fop Could
The Fop’s Rating: ★★★★ (Out of Four Stars)

Golden in an Iron Age

Up and out the craggy dirt,
Phalanx eons passed, Titan standing,
‘Rise from your grave’
Like a heather-ton sandaled foot.
Dust, granite, souls as satyrs:
Blood-purple higher skies
Snap as Zeus’ hurling hand,
Twitching, never glitching,
As god-makers wile and compass you.
‘Bigging balls’ make you strong.

They glow blue-white, waft and weave,
And out the mouth of a she-wolf
If you hit her right.
A power no lesser gained at Remus’ sup
Than three in hand, muscles bulging.
Take ’em on,
And be a man no more.
Be a god, a beast—
A ’tweener hybrid, Golden Age chimera.
And all for a girl.

No marble, stone, or mortal prone to fail
Could bear so high and hot a power.
Knossos and Rhodes dare only watch
And the Gemini writhe and dream
At your roaring, Vesuvian grace.
O god,
O beast—
Fired as a knave, cuirass bursting—
Athena calls your name
As a hieron sybil: ‘Press start and continue!’

Still Hades’ halls teem, have at you.
They break and twist, fluted Grecian,
With a Phobos stare, harangued and deadly.
‘Welcome to your doom!’
This is it.
No gorgons great, cyclops tall or hydra,
Neither Apollo and Phaëton, trident or Triton,
Nor Artemis’ crescent, or the great Zeus above
Could ever so challenge
So altered a beast. ❂

mxdwn Moment: The Darkness - Hot Cakes

“The album’s giddy cover art does wonders in exposing the farcical content within. A trinity of buttered-up babes sunbathing on a heaving stack of breakfast cakes—covered, of course, in a thick, glistening maple drizzle—seems to pose a one-upping question in visual form: Why ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ when you can dump the whole Denny’s on her? And dump The Darkness does—with dippy, decadent abandon.”

mxdwn Moment: Anywhere - Anywhere

“Whether its North African, Meso-American or Old English, Anywhere wriggles like a Sahara mirage—and satisfies like a heavily curried feast for the weary world traveler.”

mxdwn Moment: The Cult - Choice of Weapon

“After the mustached ones have claimed all the red man’s land and women, the Cult’s singer is left only to wail like a coyote, ‘Save what you learned/Suspicious soul to return!’ Wise words, He Who Rocks My Socks.”