last stone
until i work on it again
limit so stern
last stone
carrying its primal stain
& terror paragon
last stone
until i work on it again
"FALL OF MAN (Anagram-Snowball)
A.,
as
sad,
said
ideas
raised
despair.
Paradise,
appraised,
disappears."
--@Anthony_Etherin
Classics translated into Alliterative verse.
417 versions of Ode I.5. (via @amjuster)
"As take
dilute essence of the best Ionic anaximanders and shake in
some well merlin'd extract of vergil."
--The Anathemata
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
"Aubade
The snow still falls in dry and powdery grains,
Fills the green footprints on the whitened grass;
A gusty wind still turns the weather-vanes
And whirls a frosted leaf about a court
Where boys are sliding, while a pane of glass
Cracks in the cold with a subdued report.
Last night that snow more grossly, densely fell;
Each antlered tree tossed flakes upon its tines,
And whiteness filled the gaping of each cell
In an old wasps' nest hanging from a bough
That held it to the storm; those tell-tale lines
Upon the blank sward were not made till now.
For it was I, who, wakened by a light
That made the close-drawn bedroom curtains glow
Too soon for the dead season, and too bright,
Felt then a chill through blankets to the bone
Which told that while I slept there had been snow,
Went down to tread it, early and alone."
--Edward Lucie-Smith in: Penguin Modern Poets 6 (1964)
"Caught there, then, on the Rock, at Corregidor..."
"In Memory of Jane Fraser
When snow like sheep lay in the fold
And winds went begging at each door,
And the far hills were blue with cold,
And a cold shroud lay on the moor,
She kept the siege. And every day
We watched her brooding over death
Like a strong bird above its prey.
The room filled with the kettle’s breath.
Damp curtains glued against the pane
Sealed time away. Her body froze
As if to freeze us all, and chain
Creation to a stunned repose.
She died before the world could stir.
In March the ice unloosed the brook
And water ruffled the sun’s hair.
Dead cones upon the alder shook."
"those inhabitants of your older memories, not really parasites but almost-sentient dust bunnies, animated by the wind of your passing" --@allgebrah
"Attend.
There is a banquet in the inner room:
Shall we remove the plate?
Varin.
Leave it alone:
Wine in the cups, the spicy meats uncovered,
And the round lamps each with a star of flame
Upon their brink; let winds begot on roses,
And grey with incense, rustle through the silk
And velvet curtains: then set all the windows,
The doors and gates, wide open; let the wolves,
Foxes, and owls, and snakes, come in and feast;
Let the bats nestle in the golden bowls,
The shaggy brutes stretch on the velvet couches,
The serpent twine him o'er and o'er the harp's
Delicate chords:--to Night, and all its devils,
We do abandon this accursed house."
--Beddoes
dreamlore tarrying
riffle-ruffle
at the bottom of the sea
aspect this hour
the sky wears
that allows only missiles
AgosrmbaysfmwhaglatsPDEZYK.0398.
Potatohead pored · over a train
timetable hunting · his own way home
Potatohead washed · up on a shore
bereft of the plastic · attachments due him
Potatohead long · lay among debris
under a sky · the color of his lost dreams
a camera for Potatohead · found this tale
not only about · toys discarded
only a few · feet in any direction
more you will find · just like Potatohead
Rain is a chance to get closer 💙.
"But now some lamp awakes,
And with the venom of a basilisk's wink
Burns the dark winds."
--Beddoes
Leonard Cohen’s house in Hydra, Greece.
"Let the unshaven Nazarite of stars
--Beddoes
clowns playing soldier in the flame-lit night
Unbind his wondrous locks, and grandame's earthquake
Drop its wide jaw; and let the churchyard's sleep
Whisper our goblins."
fierce chatter of birds drowns out speech
there is no guide
more than the ways i know
from doing it before
a hundred thousand times
"autumn moonlight
a possum walks the fence
in solitude"
--an'ya
"Perhaps the old mirror was never yet made by human hands, which, if all the images it had in its time reflected could pass across its surface again, would fail to reveal some scene of horror or distress. But the great serene mirror of the river seemed as if it might have reproduced all it had ever reflected between those placid banks and brought nothing to the light save what was peaceful, pastoral, and blooming." --Our Mutual Friend
Single take. (thx Melanie!)
"There are times when the figures carved in the chalk caves and tunnels under Coreham refuse interrogation. Refuse to give up their ambiguity. All one can do gaze and listen to odd word they choose to speak into our minds. They have the knowing. We have the mystery." – #CLNolan (via @hooklandguide)
Christopher Lee knew the score.
"Awaiting snow,
poets in their cups
see lightning flash."
— Matsuo Bashō (translated by Lucien Stryk) via @isidro_li
Waitin' for the Bus/ Jesus Just Left Chicago.
"the ice prayer"
1.
silence as of
bombhush
when the last particles fall
library friday
2.
firewood meadowknoll
misty tour of lakeside
archaic smile
the hours prowling
concrete broken or poured anew
the words keep coming
past reason
past anywhere to put them
genocide hereafter
to be called something else
"The poets, again, made my life a misery by their greed to celebrate in verse the 'shades and nuances' of my thought; yet, for all that I could gather, they had more to say about the shape of my arms and feet than about anything that went on within me." --Into Plutonian Depths
This morning's full wolf moon.
"You can never love the Moon enough." --@minxmarple
What are the most iconic Free Jazz albums?
"Scooping seaweed-salt,
The moonlight on my sleeves
Naturally
Does not brighten the distant
Folk on Suma beach."
we learn why venus died
& call it feedback
far along indeed
we learn why venus died
nor cure provided
boiling in the limbec
we learn why venus died
& call it feedback
"You will ask for my website.
I am no spider, and my site is wherever
a rose grows,
wherever clouds cast their shadows
on roofless houses,
wherever a bomb does not fall,
wherever a child does not confuse a cloud
for bomb smoke."
--@MosabAbuToha
Dust.
Late enough that you could catch the Underground.
"But Lovecraft seems not to have passed the final pylons of Initiation, as evidenced by his stories, and particularly his poems, in which, at the last dreadful encounter, he invariably recoiled, resolved not to know what horror lay concealed behind the mask of his most critical incarnation. He was haunted by his 'dweller on the threshold', failed to resolve the enigma of his own particular sphinx, and, because of this, no doubt, feared to use drugs in case his nightmare-vision swept him beyond the point of no recall. Understandably terrified of crossing the Abyss, he forever recoiled on the brink, and spent his life in a vain attempt to deny the potent Entities that moved him." --Kenneth Grant, The Magical Revival (1972)
"A Newly Discovered Poem by Sappho"
Girls, exquisite the gifts of the fragrant Muses:
snag them, and the clear melodious lyre;
weariness has settled in my marrow,
whiteness in my hair.
Burdensome’s my will, and my trusty limbs
once so fain of the dance, have lost their candor.
Although I might complain like there’s any use--
you know there isn’t.
They say Tithonus eloped with rose-armed Eos
out of crazy love, to the world’s far corner.
Fierce and toothsome then, but at last the sweeping
frost came after him.
(2005)
"babelfish dinner in memison"
1..
tares the bold wind tills
therapy
tares the bold wind tills
tares the bold wind tills
therapy
tares the bold wind tills
sage bewilderness
contours unseen cancer
the funest carp-sharpen
this generation tholes the lakeside
execution of its future
tares the bold wind tills
therapy broken off
2.
bronze domes not yet verdigris'd
pulumchva annals lost
shadowless cold noon
spires carrying lines
a story
about what the giants built
these things we can't
3.
duck
cold canal
still reflection
"(Ossific, trussed with ferric rods, the failing numina
of column and entablature, the genii of spire and triforium,
like great rivals met when all is done, nod recognition across
the cramped repeats of their dead selves.)"
--The Anathemata
"the talented mr skelly"
realm where the wind · runs in all directions
fever's fastness · ferrying neumes
stag stillicide · the stern warning
of the floaters flutters · a flaw i sift
in passing · page with a peso for me
realm where the wind · runs in all directions
"i feel like y2k could still happen" --@katefolk
Orangutan t[ry]ing to protect his home. (I'm with you, fella.)
" 'You allow the children to believe, Grandma,' said Lavinia.
'They need to accept an All-seeing Eye. Or rather we need them to. No ordinary eye could embrace their purposes. We may as well depute what we can.'
'Even to an imaginary overseer,' said Ninian."
--@icomptonburnett
killing frenzy witnessed from a distance
vestigial conscience callused by persistence
i turn my mind to milder caterwauling
such as the senseless shuddering of pistons
"dense fog
the moon's tide of
silence"
--@poem_exe 5-18-15
Floodplain, ghost lochan risen.
"And if so vain the glittering Fish we get,
How doubly vain to dote upon the Net,
Call'd Life, that draws them, patching up this thin
Tissue of Breathing out and Breathing in,
And so by husbanding each wretched Thread
Spin out Death's very terror that we dread—
For as the Raindrop from the sphere of God
Dropt for a while into the Mortal Clod
So little makes of its allotted Time
Back to its Heav'n itself to re-sublime,
That it but serves to saturate its Clay
With Bitterness that will not pass away."
--FitzGerald's Attar
Microscope descending a staircase.
"On Pluto, no less than on the Earth, it is sometimes easier to make a decision than to put it into execution." --Into Plutonian Depths
"A Bold Chef (abecedarian limerick)
A bold chef devised eel foie gras.
How its juice kills like mouth nirvana!
Odd piquant quality —
Rich sweet taste: umami
veiled with xanaxy yeasty za’atar."
--@Spoonerrhythms
Didn't realize this was a career option.
"friend told me the other day that there are gaps in the fossil record long enough for the entirety of human evolutionary development to have began and ended and began and ended again millions of times over." --@_ryanruby_
"palindromists"
island tropism
pardons limits
plods martinis
plaits Nimrods
loads misprint
trips on dismal
almond spirits
trims no plaids
I don't think I've seen anything so pleasing to the eye in all of England.
"Tower of Song
Well, my friends are gone and my hair is gr[a]y
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day in the Tower of Song
I said to Hank Williams, how lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn't answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
Oh, a hundred floors above me in the Tower of Song
I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond
They tied me to this table right here in the Tower of Song
So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all
I'm standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah, they don't let a woman kill you, not in the Tower of Song
Now, you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there's a mighty judgment coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices in the Tower of Song
I see you standing on the other side
I don't know how the river got so wide
I loved you baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again
Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back
They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone
I'll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song
Yeah, my friends are gone and my hair is gray
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day in the Tower of Song"
--Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man (2006)
"Pablo the Ur-realist
Faced by his 'Guernica'
And the Gestapo officer's hiss
'Did you do this!'
Said gently, you did."
--Zukofsky, A 12.
Violet & chartreuse flickering.
"We found only five minutes of video from Cuban TV."
"An essay called 'Against Plagiarism' that is a cento comprised of others' writing on plagiarism." --@adrianf
"THE LAWYER (Palindrome)
O, dissent!
I wall a citadel.
Urge bites, liable.
Bill, law — all libel.
Bail set, I beg....
Ruled at, I call a witness, I do."
--@Anthony_Etherin
ember whisper coursing
figment perforce crisply
centuries since empire
had bad temper convince
ember whisper aspect
in each flinty beachhead
coursing to down coneys
dead by sparkle whisper
origin of this bottle
would've been good to know
it wasn't any easier then
broken down
slightly bewildered
by the changes that have come
but heart
pure heart
though replaced with another music
the challenge still stands
to be of your time
or against it
autotune the demons
coursing whisper ember
in the pitch black picture
part with your doll knowledge
"we're gonna need a bigger Hague" --@fliglman
"It’s a classic high-contrast Leadership color palette I like to call 'Fascist Contemporary'."
"I love using my sheep bartering tool (language) to express deep truths better communicated by gestures, chemicals, and diagrams. A fun exer[c]ize in constraints, not frustrating at all" --@ctrlcreep
"Witness
Against the enormous rocks of a rough coast
The ocean rams itself in pitched assault
And spastic rage to which there is no halt;
Foam-white brigades collapse; but the huge host
Has infinite reserves; at each attack
The impassive cliffs look down in gray disdain
At scenes of sacrifice, unrelieved pain,
Figured in froth, aquamarine and black.
Something in the blood-chemistry of life,
Unspeakable, impressive, undeterred,
Expresses itself without needing a word
In this sea-crazed Empedoclean Strife.
It is a scene of unmatched melancholy,
Weather of misery, cloud cover of distress,
To which there are not witnesses, unless
One counts the briny, tough and thorned sea holly."
--Anthony Hecht
Baudelaire: Brumes et pluies
in the mire-drenched · dregs of the year
vegetating days · you i am avid for
for so enfolding · this buzzing beehive
with a cloud’s cloak · & blur-mausoleum.
on the vast savannah · Blue Northers gambol
as the hours crawl · vanes are sent creaking
my mood more · than in childbed-tepidness
fans out fully · its wide crow wings
nothing’s more needful · to a flagfallen wretch
& on whom heavily · frosts have been fastening
(O wan weeks · our sky-estate’s starkest!)
than the final form · of your shadowy failing
--unless one might win · paired in the neonpall
surcease of sorrow · on a sordid cot
Consecration of the ancestral mind farms.
" 'Naturally, the poets are the most honored among us. Why should they not be? do they not lead the world in a far deeper sense than any statesmen? And so an ancient custom prescribes that they shall be honored wherever they go.'
'But surely down here--' I gasped, too bewildered to control my words, 'down here poets are not--'
'Yes, even here the old tradition rules, and men pay their respects to poets, as you can see--though it may be that the inner light is so dull that the worshippers act only out of habit and without any actual feeling of reverence.' "
--Into Plutonian Depths
