Saturday, May 20, 2006

Cardinal sign of a bard is not calm talking, i think. How did this turn out? As rationalism took up unchurchical authority, bards sought to stay on (if only for a bit) as knowing kahunas. But what a bard has is wings of song and misty grasp: calm talking grows dull with no far story.


"Wandering poets traveled from village to village, as they did in Persia, passing out verses in exchange for gifts, treats, and affection. They composed verses on the spot and could recite something appropriate for any mood or occasion, whether pious or obscene." --Th* Ori*ntalist


transhumant crutch · fang onus
isopropyl · chanting fungus

smirk panoply · indigo star
across crisp ruin · stumps scrambling



"I am not afraid of anybody because I do not want anything from anyone." (via Sharp Sand)


Fr*ak Folk. (via iMomus)


On my victrola- Y*llow Magic Orch*stra


Friday, May 19, 2006

Should a bard talk calmly? Should a bard talk calmly about killing and dying? Should a bard talk calmly about words torn up, our world in ruin, its animals run off and its humans in chains? A bard talks calmly with his sight dim, his nook soft...his spirit numb.

quotidian Cthulhu
too soon our old bards slip
and i among
what did i think
last night during

glass playground ghoul

a blackboard
words vanish from

my cup is still warm in my hands



A frogsight fad.


An invocation.


Nott* di Luc*.


Thursday, May 18, 2006

"Diaspora is a word I heard many times during the second weekend of the festival." (via Cursor)


"I find the problem of how to get heard rather a fascinating one. I haven't found it especially depressing, but then I wouldn't have gone in for writing if I hadn't liked talking to myself." --Larry McMurtry


3nd of Book 2.


   "The Spectral Torch

Doom one crankshaft
Glassgrasp what
Constitute torture
And that a quick retreat

Marginalia coo conch
Greasy dark pungent do it chrome
Hooks into, the book took *thousands*
Onwardagain · martyrbard

Doom one crankshaft
Sparkall doors shut
Marginalia
Coo conch"

--Yus*f Bar*foot



In my cup.


Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Apsara is Living Art.


"...the Greeks maintained that five Vlachs made a market--and sneered at them too, for being so landlubberly that the very word 'Vlach' came to signify, in Greek, a man who had never seen the sea. Across the higher ranges of the Balkans lay a tangle of Vlachs, Black Vlachs, Albano-Vlachs, Arumanians, the Sarakatsans who roamed deep into Anatolia, some who protested that they were not Vlachs at all, and others who pretended to be Vlachs; and some who gave wickedness a country, Klephtouria..." --Lords of th* Horizons


Micha*l Park*s.


shoggoth phishing · polyps against
ogham toward stir · whirling spiral
char with usurp · shadowy bill
unknown ogham · spiralling pool


   "The Thing That Eats the Heart

The thing that eats the heart comes wild with years.
It died last night, or was it wounds before,
But somehow crawls around, inflamed with need,
Jingling its medals at the fang-scratched door.

We were not unprepared: with lamp and book
We sought the wisdom of another age
Until we heard the action of the bolt.
A little wind investigates the page.

No use pretending to the pitch of sleep;
By turnings we are known, our times and dates
Examined in the courts of either/or
While armless griefs mount lewd and headless doubts.

It pounces in the dark, all pity-ripe,
An enemy as soft as tears or cancer,
In whose embrace we fall, as to a sickness
Whose toxins in our cells cry sin and danger.

Hero of crossroads, how shall we defend
This creature-lump whose charity is art
When its own self turns Christian-cannibal?
The thing that eats the heart is mostly heart."

--Stanl*y Kunitz (via Languag* Hat)


Tuesday, May 16, 2006

On my victrola- Tarkus


fathoms lost in lost
abolish
spy dust twinkling natty irony

on this comic bright mild morning a vacuum
rips away all qabbalah
curtains & to talk

so lightly of browning magnolia
days long bulb
on again off again stuff
contains only our anguish as cosmic goo



T*mpo Giusto.


"...'Chekists' in their trademark black leather jackets..." --Th* Ori*ntalist


Citta Slow.


Monday, May 15, 2006

alas
Apsaras (via atribut*tohinduism dot com)


"But now hip hop is so retro, you can use any word, that was ever used." --Ic*-T, quot*d in: Th* Vocabulary of World 3nglish ed S Graml*y (2001)


"The word is that once you get sent to Bright Light, you never come back."


"There are those who refuse all chemical love,
And then surrender to the call of mirrors
."


Lunar pull and warp crawling
spillway bullion · slowly align
calculating snag · idol
twinkling · sabbath crisp spool scissors
crow's parlous swirl · slag silicon
   { antonym · igloo }
   { ontic · agony }
   { ink · ignominy }
   { unborn · agnostics }
   { uniform · ogham }
   { undying · Ogpu }


Sunday, May 14, 2006

Scanning Godzilla Vs M*galon: with Dhadkan--D**wan* on my victrola.


   "Pitchfork

The straight ash
handle graceful
as a Viking ship.

Tan and darkened
by hand
oil. Handled.

Ygdrasill, Odin's tree,
baseball bats
and ancient Irish oars

are ash. Tree
of sea holds
water's power.

This morning Adrienne
used it to turn
the compost. Sawdust

not breaking down
as fast as horse manure.
A slower heat coming.

5 times hardened in fire,
forged, the tip of each shaped
different. Hammered.

The long handle
precisely fits.
As perfect as the motion

made, the arc you define
at 5 in the morning
turning the compost."

--Rob*rt Tramm*ll, Sunflow*rs (2001)



"To prevent thefts, the [Angkor Thom] archaeological site is now sown with antipersonnel mines in the evening and de-mined in the morning." --Th* 3nds of th* 3arth


Wayward Triton.