( via / via )

Another Reluctance.

"99 dróttkvaett"

1.
fuligin farce · foist halcyon
impossible perch · & permanent blindfold
the way wanting · for a world's gain
not new missive
fall of the year
& the bard pensive

2.
Parnassus nard · not found here
what the sea keeps · is soon told
our rites falter · our robot
made credentials · shrivel up

3.
   wipe dew off the glass
on all the car windows · glare
   peeps between the trees

down the street a squirrel frolics
weaving around a straight line

Pascal's Triangle poems.

One time i was in an antique mall, & i found the most perfect WW2 bomber jacket--worn, creased, frayed, patched, & not entirely cleaned of the dust of decades. It was even in my price range (barely). But at last i decided not to get it. I hadn't experienced enough: i didn't deserve to wear a jacket like that.

"A visionary adolescent from Sinus Iridum by the name of Narcissus, guided by the giant tortoise Alfa Omega, invisible to everybody but him, from time to time is transported to the said parallel world where he populates a grand hall with statues and sculpture ensembles fashioned from his own excrement."

( via / via )

Comment te dire adieu.

“To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.” –The Left Hand of Darkness

"Rather, they published their alliterative genre poetry in little-known fanzines and the occasional genre-friendly prozine."

"The Runes of Weland's Sword

A smith makes me
To betray my Man
In my first fight.

To gather Gold
At the world's end
I am sent.

The Gold I gather
Comes into England
Out of deep Water.

Like a shining Fish
Then it descends
Into deep Water.

It is not given
For goods or gear,
But for The Thing.

The Gold I gather
A King covets
For an ill use

The Gold I gather
Is drawn up
Out of deep Water.

Like a shining Fish
Then it descends
Into deep Water.

It is not given
For goods or gear,
But for The Thing."

--Rudyard Kipling

Alternatives to the 12-foot ladder.

( via / via )

"In the early gloam..."

"Age

Peace, all but quite,
Jeanne talking to her cat
whose eyes are shut,
tail tip stopped, all but.

Pretend sleep
on an uncertain lap
with the familiar voice
quoting cat sense.

Age, that in its clutch
bears the spinal itch,
makes hind-quarters weak
and stomach sick,

also rounds the purr
rounder than ever before,
and brings pretend peace,
peaceful almost as peace."

--George Johnston

Colors Passing.

“Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us.”

–Lawrence Durrell via @svenbirkerts

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( via / via )

Exeloume.

“A poet almost has to invent his own land and then has to defend it.” --Jack Spicer

In Death's Dark Halls, a Dog Howls.

"LIFE

We name open if,
tinker, loop, sew.

We, serene, resew.

We spool, reknit
fine poem anew."

--@poitevin

"...modern scholars have generally recognized it as an obscene joke for nearly 170 years."

( via / via )

The Body Prepares.

"horizontal rain
would-be flyers view
deserted runway"

--Gerald England

SPACE\TIME #68.

"On glides the speaking oak, instinct with thought,
Whose vocal beams upon the waters fly
Self-moved, self-wing'd, and prescient of the port."

--Royston's Lycophron

Nemesis.

( both by lanny quarles )

Deffo Breachmaker.

"Kero makes 'interactive mixed-digital net-core experiences,' which as far as Sebastian can tell means highly stylized internet art and video games that feature her own seapunk and vaporwave revival mixes, plus a loosely related online shop ('all my stuff takes place in the same universe') for retrophile stickers, enamel pins, iron-on patches, and other adornments she designs based on mediocre graphic design of the recent past." --Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel

Purple, pink & green.

"Imbolc

We sweep the stoop, shake the sheets
into frozen February, their flannel fabric
like waves of warmth to wash away winter.
We light the candlewicks, the white wavering
in the Chinook's call. Our house clean
we paint the ceremonial plough pastel,
plant it, and water it well with whiskey.
We watch for the marks of the Maiden
sifting through seeds, sowing spring,
unrippling the roots of radish and rose.
Our yard soon unfolds yawns of yellow:
dim young daffodils to dwarf the darkness."

--Mary Alexandra Agner at Forgotten Ground Regained

Flickering entity.

( me / via )

Casual Collapse.

NEW TRANSLATION – from the Franco-Cuban poet José-Maria Herédia, from the 1874 Parnasse Contemporain anthology:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Life of Corpses
by José Maria de Heredia

to Armand S.*

When the sombre cross upon us shall be sown,
The soil having swallowed the both of us down,
Your corpse into the snow of lilies will reflower
And from my flesh be born a sanguinated rose.

And the beatific Death that your poetry sang,
In your dark flight charged with forgetting and quietude,
Shall create through the sky, rocked by a steady sway,
Toward the stars resurrected an enchanted route;

And climbing to the sun, in its living furnace,
Our two twinned spirits will be drowned and will be merged
Deep within the fraternal inferno’s bliss;

Though nonetheless, the friend and poet sanctifying,
Glory shall make us exist evermore amidst
The shadows that are made eternal by the lyre.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* presumably Armand Silvestre." --Olchar Lindsann on Fb

Stillness.

"But to destroy cities, either materially or morally, or to exclude human beings from a city, thrusting them down to the state of social outcasts, this is to sever every bond of poetry and love between human beings and the universe. It is to plunge them forcibly into the horrors of ugliness. There can scarcely be a greater crime." --Waiting for God

/ gg̵̈́ġ̵͚ m̴̳̫̓̆ / .. .̶̛̎̋̓̀̿͐̓ ..

( via / facebook memories 3 yrs ago )

Terra Nullius.

"For the moment, it remains for us to corrupt every genre, to drive them to the extremes which deny them, to undo what was marvelously done. If, in this enterprise, we show some concern for perfection, perhaps we shall manage to create a new type of vandalism..." --E M Cioran, The Temptation to Exist (tr Richard Howard, 1968)

Thirteen Maqams for an Afterlife.

"asleep in dune grass
hollows of sunshine
carved by wind
lulling with sea songs
a cold north storm"

--Jane Reichhold at Ahapoetry

"Meanwhile, taking a break from the nightmare of breaking news."

( via / via )

It feels great.

halcyon November
with zombie Beatles
guns of ev'ry caliber
halcyon November

this judge is all too sober
for such battles
halcyon November
with zombie Beatles

On the Desire for Precision.

"What if it were the other way around? What if the faculty of storytelling were not specifically human but rather the last remnant of our animal selves?"

- Amitav Ghosh, Gun Island (via @EverySongIveEve)

Said the proconsul.

( via / via )

Shoe.

"Strike down the capital--the thresholds quake;
The pillar falls--its moulded cusps must burst.
A murky smudge leaves Heaven's lights opaque,
And Earth's remaining span is henceforth cursed."

--Raphael Loewe (tr): Ibn Gabirol (1989)

Chicago in My Dreams.

"You have a DNA match!

Overnight in my inbox they arrive
stacked like layers of history,
from Rochester, Cairo, Ottawa,
and other places I never imagined,
to ask me what I want to remember.

I remember we were like the fig trees
someone planted, that no one wanted.
Under stone fields, the clay earth
burned our feet. Where each stone ended
the Mediterranean sand burnt our feet.

We congregated like family,
smoking and slapping tawla tiles,
because there was always time
for that. After rice-milk ladled
for breakfast, we rolled grape leaves,
as if there was time,
as if we belonged.

Here where it will soon be light
again, I sit surrounded by cold fields.
Outside, a clear eye of water,
surrounded by stones. And behind
the brick row-houses along the Melford Road,
sheets hang to dry like in the old country,
though after rain.

When under different stars
we divided into what we each intended,
on separate maps we found
what we thought we were after:
the memory of sand that burned our feet
while tiles slapped nearby,

or meadows cool to the touch
that smell like rain
and the pleasure of arriving home
through woods, alone at a cold eye of water.

And the world between us
wider than any map we could have ever imagined,
filled with something burning that split us
in two, then four, then hundreds."

--Victor Basta via

A tide through buildings sweeps.

( via / via )

"The tension is always strong, but in the end, Housman the Roman philosopher wrestles Housman the village atheist into a tortured submission."

"Sun, omegas send a star,
even a sad nadir as a mist.
First light: a path gilts, rifts.
I'm as arid, and as a never;
at sadness, a gem on us."

--@MerlinaAcevedo

"we stayed out all night" b side.

"Don't vonder. It makes that great cerebrum of yours audibly creak." --@harryskeeler

Shepherd’s Beam 🔥👁️🔥.

( via / via )

Will and Testament.

"A mar on a poem,
a contrast....
It’s art —
no cameo panorama."

--@Anthony_Etherin

"Under the deepening brume..."

"even the stars
are caught in the glow
of tonight's moon
how long will it last, I wonder -
my standing here alone?"

--Thelma Mariano in Tanka Splendor 2001

Unstable Drawing.

( via / via )

Odd flowering.

"Epistle to the Pumpkin Field

This is the truth:
They knife your face,
drag out your entrails
to feed to the crows,
and set the flame
in what remains.
Ecstatic vision.
One night: you shine."

--@maryanncorbett

Extrasolar Poem.

"The odds of poetry even making nothing happen are frankly not good" --@evankindley

Continuum #168.

( via / via )

O_D_pulse.

"Yikes! Just read this in the whitepaper: 'Penguin Random House uses AI to analyze book manuscripts for market potential and reader engagement. AI tools assist in making data-driven decisions regarding book acquisitions.' https://bit.ly/46SHqjL" --@pwheeler_agent (via @mckenziewark)

🌈.

In Retinae.

1.
bridge that ends in mid-air
only ticket we're given
the questions i ask
fall on metallic eardrums
i try to be cheerful

since the weather's so beautiful
in this heyday of the billionaires

2.
pass out on hot concrete
get burned badly
'cause your flesh starts cooking without you

Arbor Alba.

( via / via )

𝘝𝘪𝘷𝘢 𝘭𝘢 𝘝𝘪𝘥𝘢🌺.

a flow
in which all things meld

like darkness
only not darkness

agony's road

Main Character.

"my autumn is just this
a woman sits alone
armadillo"

--@poem_exe 2020

"In the night the answer always jumps out at me with dazzling clarity."

( via / via )

Approaching.

"Rearranged letters
are gentler traders."

--@Anthony_Etherin

Two anagrammatic sonnets.

“SPEECH OF BARRICADING DRUMS,

song of drums barricading.
The steamroller rumbles
a second
Iliad
into the torn
pavement,
sand-bordered
the old images
startle themselves in the gutter,

the dying warriors shed blood like oil
in silver puddles, on the road-
side, death-rattle,

Troy, the dust-crowned,
understands.”

–Washburn & Guillemin’s Celan

Dreamlike thing.

( via / via )

Games without Frontiers.

zombie Beatles song
as the shells rain down
all this star carbon
fashioned for nothing

when the Great Inland Seaway
covered this place
i swam with the plesiosaur

i knew what i was doing

Is Tornado Alley Moving?

"No lynxes in unisex nylon." --@Anthony_Etherin

I keep thinking about the Western Interior Sea.

( via / via )

In the Galactic Ocean of Cepheus.

“I will not be outfaced by irrational things,
I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me”

–Leaves of Grass

𝓦𝓲𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻𝔂𝓸𝓷𝓮 𝓪 𝓰𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓵𝓮 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓶𝓫𝓮𝓻 🌺.

"constant storms
brewing between us
after so long
what if we succumb
to the will of the wind"

--an'ya

The only thing that makes sense is that nothing makes sense.

( via / via )

Girl & mirror.

“Poem Only

Poem talking silence not dead death
Security not from danger drowning
Only from fear and fearlessness
Lasting weakness stronger than prompt strength

Pale health like tranquil mourning
Mourning nothing or rejoicing
Wholeness without whole
Whole of wholeness

Self-pitiless illumination
A shrunken world no pride no after-shame
Inhospitable welcome deaf the door
To who is not within.

Cruel if kind and kind if cruel
And all if nothing.”

–Laura (Riding) Jackson

Tumbling hollow cubes.

“Not that anybody asked, but the Continental Plates that drift across Earth’s surface do so at about the same speed that your fingernails grow.” –@NeilTyson

Dialogue between a Palestinian and an Israeli.

( me / via )

Thor's Helmet Nebula.

“I too but signify at the utmost a little wash’d-up drift,
A few sands and dead leaves to gather,
Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.”

–Leaves of Grass

Decadence.

"Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the the year goes by;
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This have I known always: Love is no more
Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales:
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn."

--Edna St Vincent Millay

Veil of stems.

( via / via )

" 'Dead' sounds like a nuclear bomb that is also the last puzzle piece."

Altair myrrh spiralling
seagull over the viaduct
sound of voices quarrelling
Altair myrrh spiralling
& wolves caroling
two pirate ships have docked
Altair myrrh spiralling
seagull over the viaduct

༄ #RrGgBb 13.

"The origin of the vampire belief lies in insomniacs. There is something not quite nice about us." --Robert Aickman

Cthulhu mix. (via)

( via / via )

Liminal queue.

"...and grant me my second
starless inscrutable hour."

--Beckett

Another chapter in the book of cataclysm.

deep shadowed grass · grisly
grave unmarker raven

Mothman in Gethsemene
head bouncing down the stairs

pumpkin spice genocide

The Interxection.

( via / via )

You are feeling very sleeeepy.

scarecrow PREEN
at the crowd control RETRO

when bullying becomes an ETHOS
Rushmore nogs ERODE

neighbors almost never seen · online NOSEY
cannibal PUTTI

rough beast Bethlehem UNWED
wind spinners on the perfect lawn TWIRL

reports from the battlefront twitterly TERSE
thumb IDLED

barcode by night switches what it MEANT
computer back: just "ERROR"

tear gas AROMA
from the days when i thought myself a NOMAD

mask-mask TRADE
but it's our life that is CHEAP

cactus that's HARDY
rose that has died · ev'ryone shot in ERROR

& not in error · kappas ADORE
these moth PYRES

Felix and Ana.

"Lost is that city's glory. Every gust
Lifts, with crisp leaves, the unknown Pasha's dust."

--Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Say Less.

( via / via )

⚛️GN.

"Supposing there is no longer any growth possible, what is to be done with the seething energy that remains?" —Bataille via @mckenziewark

Text & overlay.

the earth will sweeten this spot
with the years, with the years
forgetting all our spite
the earth will sweeten this spot
the things we did for sport
& what the faith requires
the earth will sweeten this spot

with the years, with the years

Lightbridge.

( via / via )

November zoom.

"after her funeral

the incessant clang

of windchimes"

--DG Rader at ahapoetry

Phlegraean Fields.

"Word of the Day: FUNIPENDULOUS (adj.) hanging by a length of string or rope" --@haggardhawks

KT1GogRowf3iaB8Mrcw5KFvJxFq4f57gY7Af/31.