"Xul Azul"

though from afar it
could pass for magic
it is sand and a dry
vast crawl to cross it

though i may impart
ruinous glowworms
for stars as gray pours
down into this room

i know it is no way out


"Keep it in your own dark heart."


What up. Ilka bits: "The fact that there is South Korean hiphop is wack enough, but imagine a vast China enthralled with Korean hiphop! ...BEOWULF is still a compelling work of fantasy, but we no longer have the context in which Beowulf was composed: some bard with a harp comes trudging over a hill and is welcomed by the tribal warriors of the local community in some kind of longhouse. I get a similar frisson when I think of fifty-cent paperback Ace Doubles in a rotating wire rack at the bus station. ...High-tech, low-cost terrorism could be the new extreme sport. ...If it weren't for Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Gandhi, the 20th century would have developed worldwide at a cracking free-market pace, in peace and prosperity, and we ALL WOULD HAVE FRIED HORRIBLY CHOKING ON OUR OWN SPEW sometime in the 1960s... ...If civilization collapses or takes a major hit, it's gonna be like living in New Orleans now, only on a planetary scale."