Scrumdiddlyumptious

A magician lays his tools on a table & waves over a group of school children who eagerly watch as he works / He passes around a purple crushed velvet hat for their eager inspection & the kids all come to agree that while it looks nice enough the hat seems rather unremarkable / From a pewter chalice a vicar might use for communion the magician pours milk & honey into the hat & waves his manicured hand around the velvet brim / His nails are painted black like his eyelids & on his pinky he wears a gold ring engraved with an ouroboros with eyes of delicately cut rubies endlessly eating its tail / With a short wooden wand he picked up off the table he taps the top of the hat no less than seven times to the tune of Shave & A Haircut & says the magic word Scrumdiddlyumptious like a prayer & turns it right side up without spilling a drop / Alchemy / He offers to the children in a quiet whisper almost like a lullaby while pulling a gold coin from his waistcoat / Is the ancient study of fanatic metallurgists & other incredulous men with wandering beards who waste their time locked inside of their stuffy laboratories / Magic / He says as he drops the coin into his top hat / Is an art form like music or dance that I learned from my grandmother in her grandmother’s kitchen / And from his hat he pulled out three large bars of chocolate delicately wrapped like Christmas presents in lavender paper tied with twine / And with enough patience & practice you can learn some magic too / As long as you promise to share what you know with those around you.

Megazord

She is my empress & I am her Green Ranger / You call her evil but she used her dark sorcery to give me ancient space powers just like the rest of you / Trapped for ten thousand years of course Rita Repulsa was gonna obsess from afar over the drama of teenagers / I was locked in a studio apartment for twenty-four months binge watching magical high school soap operas & monster of the week style television shows & no not the good ones you’re thinking so trust me I get it / She even calls the rangers out by name & uses Trini’s preferred nickname / You know she doesn’t have to do that / I understand you think my empress is evil but let me tell you that from her side the whole exile on the moon thing worked out in her favor / She’s picking up new hobbies & from personal experience Rita Repulsa’s focaccia experiments are kinda to die for although sometimes quite literally / The Guinness & rosemary knots tried eating Finster when he pulled them out of the oven so we teleported them to Zordon but ya’ll already figured that out / She is a thinker & always messing around in the kitchen she thinks bigger & biggest / Which is why my empress sent me out before the first commercial break / So I know I’m jumping the gun here but if you don’t mind I’m gonna go full denouement twenty minutes before the credits / I’ll play my flute now so we can summon our fighting robots / Ya’ll can put yours together first thing & when can get the whole Megazord battle scene over with.

An Incomplete List of Things Said by Men with Two Faces

Men are such cocksuckers aren’t they? / You don’t have to answer that / Beneath this mask there is more than flesh / Beneath this mask there is an idea / Trust me my pungent friend / You’ll get what’s coming to you / Your paranoia will be our undoing / Ha! My paranoia will be your undoing / Holy men are martyred & junkies grow legion / You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain / Life is wasted on the living / I’m so great I get tongue tied talking to myself / I knew you were a danger right from the off / I’m never alone / No imagination can conceive the dreadful temptations it sets before me / For some unforgiven wickedness I am knit to this fiend—for a fiend it surely is / Take the boat & swear to me never to tell / The secrets you know of the angel in hell / Azrael that’s your cue to pounce on the miserable beasts in some kind of rage-induced feline frenzy / I simply can’t stop thinking about the miserable beasts every single minute of every single day / Ok I’m shouting / I’m shouting I’m shouting I’m shouting / I’m Batman / No, I am your father / Search your feelings / I’ll be back. 





RJ Ingram lives next to a cemetery in Portland, Oregon & works as a necromancer for Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette. RJ's debut collection of poetry The Autobiography of Nancy Drew was published by White Stag in 2024 & RJ’s second collection of poetry Peacock Lane was published by White Stag on Summer Solstice 2026. Recent work can be found in Pool Party, Be About It, Crab Apple Literary, Quarter Press’s (ly), Lula Luna, among other publications.

Instagram