( me / via )

"How terrifying!"

"I have long considered the military-industrial complex the ultimate thought leader, brand ambassador and content evangelist." --@nakedfoul

Steampunk by Canaletto.

"Snail Halfway Across the Road

You haul your burdens tipped high--
that notched, dinged brown shell
a body shop-hopeless car--
lugging, a Brueghel peasant,
a kindling-scrounger's cord:
one stuck pine needle, awry.

There's not a second to stall
as you glide, scrunch, glide;
your scalloped jelly-foot
ripples, ripples, grips. You lean
toward the yellow line,
a swimmer arcing for wall,

heaving your tilting load
past a black-diamond lariat--
snake squashed to a figure-8
(a crow jabs the baked tail),
his slanting saffron swiftness
punished for seeking the road.

Sets of oblivious treads
bear down, bear down, bear down.
Jaunty on a laboring back
you inch your history forward.
Bowsprit-antennae plunge, rise;
safety's ten lifetimes ahead."

--Elise Partridge

Sleepless on Venus.