Ode to Rubber

I mentioned recently that I was searching for my copy of FEH!, which contains "my four line epic, 'Ode to Rubber.'"

I found it! As it turns out, "Ode to Rubber" is longer than four lines, and the complete title of the publication is FEH! A Journal of Odious Poetry. It was edited by one Simeon Stylites, which is either his actual name or a nom de plume taken from a fifth century pillar saint. These days, he has a blog over at Salon, where apparent co-blogger "Howard Testicles" shares this reminiscence about FEH!:

Simeon's first magazine was The Sodden Rag: a Bhuttanese Buddhist journal to counter false religious attacks on Bhuttanese Buddhist monks. It was a really strange piece of writing. When I first got a copy in the mail I thought it was junk mail. Mikey soon called me up and asked if I had received some shit in the mail. "It's from the kid. I really got to have a talk with him."

The Sodden Rag became FEH the journal of Odious poetry which would only print poems about flatulence and mucous. It evolved into accepting poems about love, hockey players, and death and, of course, religion. Simeon would write to famous poets send them copies and they would send him new poems. Amazing! He'd photocopy the poems and presto a magazine. He also had a classified section and ran personals and wrote an editorial piece under the name Simeon Stylites. Simeon ended up marrying Morticia who submitted poems with lines like:

   I hate it
   when my titties bounce
   and some stranger, some pig-dog
   dribbles-
   over yonder

FEH! now sells for a small fortune.

I hope so, because I have right here a copy of FEH! numer 10, from August of 1991, that is only slightly if mysteriously stained. It even has the original subscription card in it ("Yes, I do confess my need for FEH! in my life. Yes yes send me lots of FEH! Send buckets and cauldrons and bales and crates of FEH!").

I share page 18 with "Inflatable Penile Prosthesis," a poem by Michelle Perez, an unattributed limerick about a lady of Chichester who made the bishop's britches stir, and "The Reader's Digest Condensed Version of the Carpe Diem Poetry Genre" by Cielle Owens.

But now, without further ado! "Ode to Rubber," by me:

O rubber, O latex!
Heavenly bouncy stuff!
Give me balls,
 give me gloves,
   give me condoms!
Pencils are grand
 with a hard pink nipple,
  galoshes excite me
   so soft and supple.
Tires are splendid
 so filthy and black,
   prophylactics divine
    a man's private elastic
     sack.
Bounce, stretch, pull, and twist,
 ne'er was there such a
  substance as this!

I'm so proud.