"I cannot imagine anything happening to me anywhere else, or anything happening to me at all. Not that I mean anything; I do not much like things to happen, or I should not much like it. I am content to live in other people’s lives, content not to live at all. Whatever it is, I am content." --@ivycomptonburnett.bsky.social
"Like many in my generation, I'd long ago ditched the pursuit of happiness in favor of the pursuit of survival, and it was not a choice." --Sarah Kendzior via
Yes, of course there’s an unauthorized Turkish remake of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.
"The Old Masters
About suffering, they knew no more or less
than we do, being
housed in luminescence;
a local cumulus
of feverfew and jade
reduced to void, the tower overthrown,
the bells upturned.
I see one now, impoverished
and old before his time, a lesser man’s
subordinate, or master to a trade
he never asked for.
Burdened by the weight
of office, or the whim of some mad king,
he stands alone, above the dark lagoon,
and watches, while the city fades from quartz
to plum, from plum
to cochineal, a restless drift
through subtleties and shades
he cannot
capture, though he magnifies the whole
and loves it all the more, for being
useless, fleeting, governed by no rule,
a headlong and unmasterable now
that slips away, one pier light at a time."
--John Burnside
"If pressed to compare
this brief life, I might declare:
It's like the boat
that crossed this morning's harbor,
leaving no mark on the world."
--The Priest Mansei
translated by: Sam Hamill via @evecastle.bsky.social
"It's a regular brute of a Bee!"
"And still more labyrinthine buds the rose" --Sordello
"Border surveillance has not detected any abnormal activity."
" 'A GARDEN INLOSED IS MY SISTER, MY SPOUSE'
Matthew 22:14
Give me the medieval
lull of the sexless, praying behind a smile,
the eyes forever
slicked in candlelight
and all the world
in waiting: fields
of ammonite and bronze beneath the sway
of pasture, chalk
and charnel in the far room of a mind
that never sleeps, and will not let itself
be gathered to itsgod, no warm and noir,
no slow extinction
filtered through the clouds,
but one thing, then another: green, then black;
hair in the lark's tongue, marrow in the pine."
--John Burnside
"a chilling moon
on the beach, dusk pours out
on the ledge"
--@poemexe.com
"Place is layers of story. When walk those pale chalk lines, we scuff up not only temporary dust phantoms, but a thousand tales of those who went before us. Whether wraith way or not, all our hodology is haunted. – #DAKilroy 1982 #LandscapePunk" --@hookland.bsky.social
"Poppies in July
Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?
You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.
And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.
A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!
There are fumes that I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?
If I could bleed, or sleep!
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!
Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling.
But colorless. Colorless."
--Sylvia Plath via @rabihalameddine.bsky.social
"The body matters. But it doesn't matter the way reactionary camp says it does."
"Gray Fog
A FOG drifts in, the heavy laden
Cold white ghost of the sea—
One by one the hills go out,
The road and the pepper-tree.
I watch the fog float in at the window
With the whole world gone blind,
Everything, even my longing, drowses,
Even the thoughts in my mind.
I put my head on my hands before me,
There is nothing left to be done or said,
There is nothing to hope for, I am tired,
And heavy as the dead."
--Sara Teasdale via @evecastle.bsky.social
" 'I cannot remember any of the things that were on my list of things to do. I will just have to sit here and do nothing,' said Toad." --@!frogandtoadbot.bsky.social
Woolwich, London, early morning.
The world is falling apart so let's dance!
"You can totally see how this mf bankrupted a casino." --@professajay.bsky.social via @kkoja.bsky.social
"moral injury a cohort"
cyborg garbage sags
assembled large scrimshaw
the mind's bitter bonesaw
in the bashcloud crashdown
sixty shillings Shakespeare
shatters your leaves grieving
see where ruins sow bright
symptoms in our dimpse-rage
"The illusion of freedom will continue..."
"Sultan of Mars"
glairy gleet · glistens in the near dark
stars that guide us
runoff from the roof · dark roaring
in its wake shudders
tiptap droplets · drain randomly
consult radar
how much measured · whether this amount
is some kind of record
Dibs on the driest corner under the viaduct.
The Court of the Crimson King.
"I have tariffed
the penguins
that are on
Heard Island
and which
you were probably
assuming
did not export goods
forgive me
they were taking advantage of us
so cunning
and so cold"
--@verybadllama.bsky.social
"mad king's vengeance"
through the Tesla's red glare
glean hyena noontide
geese squawking a klaxon
the spooled Occam duller
ascian groundhog groceries
grins the mad king's vengeance
in the chop ward snirtles
jester Alabaster
two-bit Batman villains
a clenched fist of henchmen
gyrate hourly newsreels
grins the mad king's vengeance
Highlands on 16mm Beaulieu R16.
all this gray
& i am still too bright
i know that ache
many fathom’d dreamcatcher
"When we’re ancient people will ask us how we just sat there frozen like dumbass deer and let this happen AND WE STILL WON’T BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN IT." --@catvalente.bsky.social
"We put tariffs on an uninhabited island full of penguins but not Russia.
Very normal administration we have here." --@angrystaffer.bsky.social
"Afternoon
The fear of afternoon
Is called afternoon
Old sleep uptorn,
Not yet time for night-time,
No other name, for no names
In the afternoon but afternoon.
Love tries to speak but sounds
So close in its own ear.
The clock-ticks hear
The clock-ticks ticking back.
The fever fills where throats show,
But nothing in these horrors moves to swallow
While thirst trails afternoon
To husky sunset.
Evening appears with mouths
When afternoon can talk.
Supper and bed open and close
And love makes thinking dark.
More afternoons divide the night,
New sleep uptorn,
Wakeful suspension between dream and dream--
We never knew how long.
The sun is late by hours of soon and soon--
Then comes the quick fever, called day.
But the slow fever is called afternoon."
--Laura (Riding) Jackson
"Robe & Sandal Days"
oil leak ill · of wheeled maladies
ring finger shrunken · memory-shred
into pale strings tangling · strange glow
in the gray commute · mute witness
to continuing things · taskshatter
but shadowed still
"Psalmanazar represented himself as a Japanese from Formosa. He published a book which contained an alphabet of his own manufacture, portraits of false gods, pictures of fictitious people, and with them engravings of imaginary shrines. It was accepted as gospel." --Edgar Saltus, The Pomps of Satan
"A metre can ‘mean’ quite different things at different times."
Roma Riot Ska Brigade. (Looks like this may be AI of some sort. I still think it's interesting.)
“Sometimes I feel that it is the room that writes. But it needs the hot nib of my pronoun.”
(Lisa Robertson, The Baudelaire Fractal) via @yoonkim.bsky.social
"Wasa Wasa"
mustyplum sunbrittle plastic
faded · sad fact'ry
platforming sift
of irked airplane parts
study dark promises
study how not to disappear
long table under lights
where we ate languidly
newly minted money
drinking dreams in the night
study dark promises
study how not to disappear
mocking drakes
appear in the turquoise pool
all things xeric dissolve
in the xiphoid process
study dark promises
study how not to disappear
"People live in growing isolation and with the feeling of low-level dread, and these are the defining conditions of living in a secret-police state." (via @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social)
hazmat spider sign
carved into a hunger stone
night sky full of such stars
when will this battery cease
of stones that are the muse’s flowers
Reichenbach's Soliloquy. (via @lastpositivist.bsky.social)
"It would be nice / to interfere with the accuracy of the world."
- Lisa Robertson, Palinode via @jaconwren.bsky.social
Czerwono - Czarni - Sandwicz ( 1967 ).
"But the moral injury feels less acute."
" 'You’re like our Katniss!' No the fuck I am not, the book is about class struggles and set in Appalachia. I was literally born into the aristocracy😭" --@thevivllainous.bsky.social
Treatise of the Three Impostors.
"AND THE CITY STOOD IN ITS BRIGHTNESS
And the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned.
And life was running out, Ruteboeuf's or Villon's.
Descendants, already born, were dancing their dances.
Women looked in their mirrors made from a new metal.
What was it all for if I cannot speak.
She stood above me, heavy, like the earth on its axis.
My ashes were laid in a can under the bistro counter.
And the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned
To my home in the display-case of a granite museum,
Beside eyelash mascara, alabaster vials,
And menstruation girdles of an Egyptian princess.
There was only a sun forged out of gold plate,
On darkening parquetry the creak of unhurried steps.
And the city stood in its brighntess when years later I returned,
My face covered with a coat though now no one was left
Of those who could have remembered my debts never paid,
My shames not forever, base deeds to be forgiven.
And the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned."
--Czeslaw Milosz, Selected Poems (tr by CM & Peter Dale Scott, 1980)
meshes of the thwart
dull gelatinous path
a pus coming-forth
a kicked-through piney slat
the mist stings my face
that has no questions left
by dire minutes strafed
nonexistent address
& gas running lean
years with their brutal toll
say it's no big deal
to perish here alone
"But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark..."
" 'Frog,' asked Toad, 'did this really happen?'
'Maybe it did, and maybe it didn’t,' said Frog."
--@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social
"mournful wind
over quick sand
open skylight
lockdown"
--@poemexe.com
quebrith quisling · in food & air
the builder & dreamer drive
incongruous is in session · the dark cave
of the rain-threatened morning
running on fumes · furlglisten
a blurry machination
Team Quebrith · taunted by the thought of peace
rips up just-laid floor
looking for a lost · glimmer of hopelessness
Norman Rockwell on April Fools.
liberation day
no readability
libation ready
a diatribe only
a blarney idiot
bad airline toy
"bright moon
it looks very important
among the blossoming flowers"
--@poemexe.com
"...the worst music ever invented." yuk yuk
"If life gives you lemons, make giant brass church bells.
Oranges: ditto." --@adamroberts.bsky.social
"LILITH AND HADES (Palindrome-by-Word Shakespearean Sonnet)
'Rise, Lilith, see above the burning light!'
Skies hollow into empty, bleeding clouds.
Death purest, the revenge of weary night,
draws Hades where, below, the answer shrouds.
Breath steady, her resolve to follow snakes
roars measures she demands to ever hold:
Cold visions in opaque and fiery lakes;
lakes, fiery and opaque in visions cold.
'Hold ever to demands!' She measures roars.
Snakes follow, to resolve her steady breath.
Shrouds answer the Below, where Hades draws.
Night weary of revenge, the purest death;
clouds bleeding empty, into hollow skies;
light burning the Above — see Lilith rise!"
--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social
"That sorrow ended. So might this."
"a world of dew
the melting snowman
teeth and bones"
--@poemexe.com
"Goldberg afternoon"
card there's cash on · bright morning
pants in my size · sold at the thrift
a walk wending · up from the haircut
months overdue · bypass the books
this redbrick · relict district
oddly apt · away fom outrage-
blazing news · none of us wanted
the belly battered · abaft splinters
of a frail future · we ferried long
did not foresee · savage downfalls
citizens shanghaied · off shivering streets
& one wearies · of wanting otherwise
of plenty planning · riven to splinters
can't process plight · unless dark lager'd
hours only · & dollars lost
a walk in sunlight · safe wand'ring
thrift & no threat · though black threnody
tells me toom · of the far boil
& stupor saves · not one wanderer
"So, the DOGE kids intend to rewrite the social-security administration's COBOL code-base!" (thread)
"meat contraption breaking down"
scolding riddle skydark
a scant quartet banters
when it's gone, gat-lightning
a gas kettle lassos
entails black metallic
totalized fret patrol
i want to see winters
The book with Alastair Reid's famous palindrome.
"As far as my inquiries have extended, there is not a building in Venice, raised prior to the sixteenth century, which has not sustained essential change in one or more of its most important features." --Ruskin
Hindemith String Quartet Op. 22. (via @violanorth.bsky.social)
“Season Finale”
When i return, it will not be to smile
At these bizarre shenanigans, or judge
By darker portals’ wisdom, how the play goes.
But let me return as one whom fresh delight
Or terrible fear can move, having partaken
Of that forgetful potion once more proffered;
I want to return as a child, with empty hands.
From Apostrophe (2002)
Pi (1998) online. Haven't seen it in forever, but i found myself thinking, "I'd rather watch Pi again, than Requiem for a Dream." ☆☆☆
"And out we flung and on we ran or reeled
Romeward. I have no memory of our way,
Only that, when at intervals the cloud
Of horror about me opened to let in life,
I listened to some song..."
--The Ring and the Book
Feuilleton on Meyrink's Prague.
