“snowstorm
who lived here?
thorns”
–@poem_exe
Subotnick. (via feuilleton)
"For athwart our thinking the threat looms,
Huge and awful as the hump of Saturn
Over modest Mimas, of more deaths
And worse wars, a winter of distaste
To last a lifetime."
--Auden, The Age of Anxiety (1946)
War.
"I knew a lot of people watched reality television, but I didn't know they thought it was reality." --Fran Leibowitz
"Sonnet XXV
Into the void behold my shuddering flight,
Plunging straight forward through unhuman space,
My wild hair backward blown and my white face
Set like a wedge of ice. My chattering teeth
Cut like sharp knives my swiftly freezing breath.
Perched upon straightness I seek a wilder zone.
My Flying Self— on this black steed alone —
Drives out to God or else to utter death.
Beware straight lines which do subdue man’s pride!
’Tis on a broomstick that great witches ride.
Wild, dangerous and holy are the runes
Which shift the whirling atoms with their tunes.
Oh like a witch accursed shall she be burned
Who having flown on straightness has returned."
--Anna Hempstead Branch
"Sonnet XXVI
Around this rod my writhing self might twist —
And fold the splendor of its poisoned mesh,
Its spangled scales of gold and amethyst.
The brilliant convolutions of the flesh.
Not yet my sinuous coil from the ground
Can lift its lust — save by this one escape.
This fearful straightness I may wreathe around
As close as binds the skin upon the grape.
Now upward springs the fierce determined power.
And its sharp brightness shoots my sensuous nerves.
With godlike speed in this unearthly hour
I break in splendor all my glittering curves.
Now by this straightness, I lay hold on God
Who in His Town set up His Holy Rod."
--Anna Hempstead Branch (via Olchar Lindsann on Fb)
"Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant." --Baron d'Holbach
reëducation · never ends
lorn cadenza · stab hornbook
Valhalla verge cry · shambolic
savage ashram · dimmed cavern
we are here as on · some darkling
zebra carcass · clown Jeebus
presides hideous · the onslaught
walk plank rotten · with self-talk
nobody left to · educate
“Poetry is always the cat concert under the window of the room in which the official version of reality is being written.”
- Charles Simic via @aliner
I only write on vellum.
Now I am investing in a pillow of fog.
"back home at last
it's another sleepless night
but a bit more time
to revise the death poem
saved in my drafts folder"
--an'ya
1.
Briargrove urn
fine rainfall from
Ogpu frore
won't avoid pest
furnished tranche
2.
swastikacreep find · adjunct begs
Yggsdrasill root · chew mooted
special typeface for · genocide
funest nidor · more testing
the road disrupted · glum tarry
ripe carrion · tailpipe smoke
liquescent canon · swastika
3.
from my own veins fill · Blood Quran
mordant divan · onboarding
"writing is actually really easy for me. i produce it as a silkworm produces silk, as the expression of my nature. then i am boiled alive and my cocoon is carefully extracted from around my corpse" --@kukukadoo
On some people's lists: The Book of Monelle.
"The ocean always sang the same notes, it always passed over the same streets and came back with the same sad laughter." --Even Greater Mistakes
"AIR ARIA
Ere we were here
we were air
aware
rare
raw aria
Ere we were here
we were
air aria"
--@SpoonerRhythms
"a silent wind
in the water stirs
reflected leaves"
--Anna Holley at Ahapoetry
Voice is a superstition for creative writing teachers to avoid having to understand what craft actually amounts to. They can just tell students to "brand" their incompetence & avoid learning anything new; above all, reading writers different from them.
"Sometimes I’m so angry I just want to scream fck you at everyone and destroy everything in my path - this is why I make glitch art because I need to break something.
I don’t say statements like this often if ever, but I don’t think it’s a glitch unless it’s channeling this energy even a little. Without a bit of the rage, it’s just sparkling strobe effects." --@empresstrash
"Bezos Academy"
1.
bitter this gun fetish
& tribal life-siphon
god Moloch affordance
2.
the crises · crowd inbox
accrue on thatch doorstep
3.
damp steps in gray light · then shadow
of the stone-clad · persona
"Mona Lisa socks"
dove cairn in the goaf · Zubenelg
wept · oat milk lube · dyspeptic
cicala joust fries · the sapphire
of a scaffold · jar doldrums
in Chartres halcyon · hajj to moon
fadge luncheon no · munchkin can
in gypsy black traik · fossick cairn
We thought/ There would be an end.
Without the herd instinct, every story looks different.
"Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in God, but never without belief in the devil." --Eric Hoffer
"bathtub Ozempic"
yardang by the road · cake crumble
assail something · strong tailwind
Shoah, Nakba vie · yellowcake
murder relish · undeterred
yardang in my eyes · the boxcar
scant oxygen · gun's land grant
terra nullius · our ghosts grin
sky cinnamon · the woods dry
"Wildly the winging
War birds, flying
wake the winter-dead
wish for the sea-road.
Sweetheart, they summon me,
singing of flowers:
fair for the faring.
Farewell, I love you."
--Poul Anderson
"Is Someone Selling Your Dissertation Without Your Permission?"
"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together." --Ray Bradbury
"Both Faith and Terror are instruments for the elimination of individual self-respect." --Eric Hoffer
"El Jefe"
bivouac with the orcs · two planets
strum banjo · & red rum
trickles down the side · red rum falls
onward stalls me · marathon
(paradox dachshund) · in third place
potsherd dictum · cold crockpot
mackerel dawn sky · school zone on
runic onus · crescent moon
bivouac meadowsweet · ghost water
rotten mirage · year zero
"Ulalume
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crispèd and sere—
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir—
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
Here once, through an alley Titanic.
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll—
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole—
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.
Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—
Our memories were treacherous and sere—
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year—
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber—
(Though once we had journeyed down here)—
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
And now as the night was senescent
And star-dials pointed to morn—
As the sun-dials hinted of morn—
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn—
Astarte’s bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.
And I said—'She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs—
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies—
To the Lethean peace of the skies—
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes—
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes.'
But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said—'Sadly this star I mistrust—
Her pallor I strangely mistrust:—
Oh, hasten!—oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly!—let us fly!—for we must.'
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings till they trailed in the dust—
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust—
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.
I replied—'This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night:—
See!—it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright—
We safely may trust to a gleaming
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night.'
Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom—
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of a vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb—
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said—'What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?'
She replied—'Ulalume—Ulalume—
‘Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!'
Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere—
As the leaves that were withering and sere;
And I cried—'It was surely October
On this very night of last year
That I journeyed—I journeyed down here—
That I brought a dread burden down here!
On this night of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber—
This misty mid region of Weir—
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber,—
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.' "
--Edgar Allan Poe
"with a lyre in his hand
he used to go each morning to watch Russia go up in flames" --Khlebnikov, Vol. V. iii.
"(The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas. That is what makes him a philosopher.)"
--Wittgenstein, Zettel, 455.
in ghost water · at the cube
light stained ruby · right at dusk
curtain moves itself · what i hold
at the polder · the comsat
winks as it glides on · drywall dust
cakes this justice · pre-earthquake
ghost in water flows
"It's the question mark rotting the encyclopedia."
"Fallen Grape-leaf
From the fallen leaf
And from my deciduous heart
Fades the scarlet."
--Clark Ashton Smith
"Noir detective story except there's no bad weather or corrupt city, nobody lies to the detective ever, in fact there's not even a detective or any crime at all. It's the Tractatus." --@lastpositivist
"i love when the flute kicks in on the hold music" --@katefolk
"There’s a wonderful character in it named Grushenka..."
"Legacies (palindrome)
Trace no bliss
of a cradle
we kill.
Left, it fell
like weld arc,
a fossil bone cart."
--@spoonerrhythms
batting at the bars · of my cage
crippled agent · & sweet drip
while my guitar · vigil keeps
the pit steepens · shadows flit
bright November morns · patterns ply
brittle highway · & stained harg
"It’s more interesting to think of autofiction/autotheory as tactics rather than genres..."
"This morning is now sublime.
I was annoyed by the guy who won't stop talking to me at the coffee shop, but he just uttered this sentence:
'There is a cemetery at the intersection of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey where you can have sex in three states at the same time.' " --@poochigian
"GLACIER (Consonant Palindrome)
Our loose, cut ice retains its longing.
Lit in a parade, it drowns unaware —
a dot, a drop, until gone again...
lost as Antarctica’s lore."
--@Anthony_Etherin
Dad Looked Up at the Stars, Mom had a Fortuitous Event.
glowy nowness · nenuphar
such a remove · black coffin
for a zompire · gather coins
feed the machine · caked clownwhite
are the plain roads
making not even a place
but a place for a place
sumptuous erosion falls
making not even a place
yet somehow i ever wend
among these painted veils
making not even a place
but a place for a place
"...verse may be divided into three broad classes: that which pleases the author's enemies, that which pleases the author's contemporaries, and that which passes unobserved to pleasure the idlesse of posterity." --The Anatomy of Negation
"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
"words do not come
for you
on your passing
till the first warm day
the blossoming plum"
--Michael Dylan Welch
"Everything around me is either a haiku or a tanka moment."
"mute swans
under a moon bridge
the things
I should have confessed
make no difference now"
"...dossiers written
in lost lingos..."
--The Age of Anxiety
Welcome to a new era of Phosphor madness.
I did read the Voynich Manuscript, & the plot drags in the last third.
lax armature · Ixion
an enclave's lapse savor
my votes go on voting
convincing brig figment
but bridge to jewel judgment
Ashbery and poet Farida Majid winning the 1970s with this amazing snap.
🧙♂️.
my fav'rite poems on the subject of war
clink in my pocket
for ev'ry cleverness
one less bullet
we go on hoping because we are clowns
it's our job to die hoping
"THE BEST WAYS (Three Anagrammed Haiku)
The best way to know
yourself is to benefit
art, update the age.
The best way to break
yourself is to often weep
a duet, at night.
The best way to eat
yourself is to begin at
the feet and work up…."
--@Anthony_Etherin
A couple of games in the Celadon Variation (which i invented as a joke)...!
