YouTube Video Poem: Vinyl on Sunset by Mark Tulin

Mark Tulin8 Comments

For the print version of this poem and commentary, check out my LetterPile article called Poetic Flashback: Vinyl on Sunset.

For more of Mark’s YouTube video poems that include The Rainbow Queens, I Am Van Gogh, Matinee at the Castor, and others go to YouTube and search Mark Tulin’s Poems.

Flash Fiction Link: The Lone Ranger Rides Again by Mark Tulin

Mark Tulin2 Comments

Sometimes when I rode Silver, my dad used to sing “I’m an Old Cowhand” and make believe he was John Wayne just to get my goat. He would call me a “pilgrim” and act like he was a tougher cowboy than me. Once I got mad at him for mocking Tonto and me, and I shot him a couple times with a six-shooter.

Excerpt from The Lone Ranger Rides Again at Friday Flash Fiction.

Poem: Chalupa Love

Mark Tulin13 Comments

Different version of poem on Pencliff.

The taco carnitas beckons me

with mouth wide open.

It says, come do the salsa

with some jalapeño.

Cover me with chopped tomatoes,

diced onions and cilantro.

Cradle me in your

hungry jaws, and feel my

cheesy corn tortilla, soft or

crispy.

Take me off the hot griddle,

a cast iron comal,

strum those mariachi guitars,

take me to places

I’ve never imagined,

and make passionate

chalupa love

now and mañana.

©️mft

Poem: The Freak by Mark Tulin

Mark Tulin8 Comments

Previously posted on Pencliff.

My father

bought me

an accordion

when I was a kid.

He said

it would help

my asthma,

pushing

the bellows

in and out

over again.

But I knew better,

it was only a ruse.

My old man wanted me

to play polka music

to impress his corny friends.

The Beer Barrel Polka.

The Pennsylvania Polka.

To play in a Mummers’s Day parade.

I’m really a freak,

a grungy beatnik,

I told my dad flat out.

Just get me an electric guitar

and a great big amp

so I can crank up the music

and play in a heavy metal band.

©️mft