( via / via )

"Then as now, Harar was a market town threaded with steep cobblestone alleys that wind between high limestone and tuff walls."

Random # 154 = 310 in base-7; 3 + 1 + 0 = 4 lines

antelucan lintel
limbec for star quarrels
a buzzing bears jasmine
back in supplant-antlers

"For the rest of his life Poussin ‘retained from that meeting a memory of dread'."

"You might be tempted to account for my naïveté as a common condition of undergraduates, who, in my later experience, no matter what the economic regime or political imperatives shaping higher education, seem almost without exception to be unaware of the forces determining why they are being made to study what they study." --Justin Smith-Ruiu

"Dear Sir, I am interested in developing the market for precision instruments in the East."

( via / via )

Twins.

"still my poems are, as Woody Guthrie'd say, my dirty overalls, that
I fight in, find them comfortable, solutions Valéry would say to problems
no one else would otherwise think up."

--Gerald Burns

Hushing.

Random # 38 = 53 in base-7; 5 + 3 = 8 lines

  drake return
nor dove ruin
  still turquoise
in the surf quest
  peace like days
gone in a spool
  knives whetted
on unsaid words

Subway ride.

( me / via )

Saturday Night Adventure.

Random # 139 = 256 in base-7; 2 + 5 = 6 = 13 lines

staring, trees are so still
another widget's wonky
the story wanting...
who decided the only salvage

would be bulldozers?
simply blue
over a concrete plain
eave-wasps that act

according to urge
elsewhere figures finagled
recount another newsreel
& function nixing

phantomnation sued

On the subway.

"a candy wrapper
joins the leaf pile
autumn dusk"

--@ericcoliu

"Some masks are too powerful to be worn..." (via feuilleton)

( via / me )

The Kingfishers.

The place resists story, except that of bodies moving along designated pathways. True, there is a token history: not that its names aren't real, just none of the artifacts they show are the originals. They're comfortable with this arrangement, because it gives them more control. The Before-Time of our own direct experience looms as a paradox that cannot be reconciled with the story so far. The plan is to replace it with a different story once these troublesome memories have faded away. But is there really a plan, or is it just my wish to place this blankness on a common map?

» Infinite Breath « 🌀⚡️.

Random # 149 = 302 in base-7; 3 + 0 + 2 = 5 lines

solstice
Toltec closet
elicit lost slices
i select Celtic listicles
i stole

Dream City.

( me / via )

A busy window.

Random # 327 = 643 in base-7; 6 + 4 + 3 = 13 lines

fathoms-below lemma
belied by dawn lawnmower

decathexis
nalioyexacyou

contrails at dawn fading
squalor fumble's earthquake
drive into the siltbank
elated by erasure

a swerve will teach cursive
as if paisley window
you rage at belated
conservative vermin

greenlit by glare hidden

Blackmail.

"MOUNTAIN GORILLA: a murmuring giant ruminating in moonlit rain" --@lukebradford01

The sole survivor of one air strike today.

( me / me )

Finally you woke up, it was just a dream🌀.

“Departed am I who loathe the snow/ of my summers” --Robot X, 1627

Wings. (via @Jen3nfer)

Random # 50 = 101 in base-7; 1 + 0 + 1 = 2 lines

fathoms-below lemma
belied by dawn lawnmowers

"On Monday, software developer Michael Sayman launched a new AI-populated social network app called SocialAI that feels like it's bringing that conspiracy theory to life, allowing users to interact solely with AI chatbots instead of other humans." (via @badaude)

( via / via )

Durenstein!

Random # 231 = 450 in base-7; 4 + 5 + 0 = 9 lines

a clavichord's sorbet
rendered into black marks
my grille the trace reader
where dusk's tasks intermix

friction-lent surrender
door kicked in by caring
clavichord lurk-circles

& this to find thunder
& there is time barely

"As structures collapse, dust particles attempt to relentlessly reorganize themselves, gravitating through the void of deconstruction." (via karl kempton on fb)

"Those who say the masses won't look to AI for 'truth' are like those who said no one would buy cheap, China-made knockoffs from WalMart." --@JOEBOTxyz

"Alcove of words out of cicada shade..." (via )

( laura ostteen at dallas filth / via )

All the Way from Memphis.

"a crow's cry
flies into darkness ...
alone with myself"

--@ericcoliu

📻.

Random # 326 = 644 in base-7; 6 + 4 + 4 = 14 lines

this drab survival batters me
as death in spades collects spiders
what witness asks of idiots
the fraught scurrying bog of thorns

word skunked by angry plummetings
eye-bang & mission hamlet-proof
on Sedna i found rest, curved like
perished colonnades, withering

buckshot in the mile-long yardangs
we were through with by sundown's crisp
puffclap · these dark days that slip off

arresting thought & never pause
consist mainly of riddle-shards
& rotten planks across chasms

A Peace on Earth.

( via / via )

Nicely costumed video from Trobar de Morte.

Random # 113 = 221 in base-7; 2 + 2 + 1 = 5 lines

the lit labyrinth
of made-up room after room
& an actual map

we watched it getting torn down
ourselves chased by a giant

Exalify.

"To strip ourselves of the imaginary royalty of the world. Absolute solitude. Then we possess the truth of the world."

— Simone Weil via @isidro_li

"His songs were love songs in the deepest sense: gestures of reconciliation with the mystery of Creation, and the painful anomaly of human consciousness within it." via aldaily (i used http://12ft.io/< URL >)

( via / via )

Circus of Shadows.

"RHINOCEROS: oneiric iron horse" --@lucasbradford01

Mythos Of Nyarlathotep.

Random # 87 = 140 in base-7; 1 + 4 + 0 = 5 lines

lamentation

intone Malta
inmate talon
metal nation
into a mantle

a limo tenant

Grógaldr.

( me / via )

Tears in rain.

Random # 62 = 116 in base-7; 1 + 1 + 6 = 8 lines

decathexis

chased exit
axed ethics

has excited
a sexed itch

is acted hex
ex cash diet

this ad exec
exacts hide

geometries melt.

"Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

Cello bows roll longingly on a groggy crwth — whip wryly, gladly falling...."

--anagram by @Anthony_Etherin

"We are in the midst of some great and terrifying decathexis."

( via / via )

The Lavender Scandal.

"MANDRILL: a mad admiral in an animal drama" --@lukebradford01

"I used to go out into the world and feel my aura dented all over like a golf ball."

"The Fall of Leaves

The green has suddenly
Divided to pure flame,
Leaf-tongued from tree to tree.
Yea, where we stood it came.

This change may have no name.
Yet it was like a word;
Spoken and none to blame,
Alive where shadow stirred.

So was the instant blurred.
But as we waited there,
The slow cry of a bird
Built up a scheme of air.

The vision of despair
Starts at the moment’s bound,
Seethes from the vibrant air
With slow autumnal sound

Into the burning ground."

--Yvor Winters

Rescue.

( via / via )

Vortical chessboard.

"A shutter of strokes

The echo has remained in the spring–the
   one echo, turning
      lustre without blood
I have closed us once
I have paused by
   the gashes of the future
I have had countenances

With most undetermined cold I have
   confounded a sleet
I have traipsed in gloom, in
   shedeing the open throw, in
      the amber darkness of cerulean motley
This throw has been
   mine, like loose
      strokes
Like a throw
There has been
   time to undergo
      the stroke that I have
         opened"

--Robot X, 308.

"He was a hydraulic engineer and Remedios was infatuated with his technical drawings." (via @tribe_xx)

"today I'll be
raptor or river rock
either will do
to soar on an updraft

or tumble underwater"

--an'ya

King Night.

( me / via )

Over the Bones of the Dead. (via @_ryanruby_)

"I thought of myself as a painter in the line of Dürer with his drawing machines, Vermeer with his camera obscura, then Robert Rauschenberg who used print processes, and of course, David Hockney, and pop artists like James Lichtenstein, who was my favorite. They translated paintings, all filtered through the technologies of their time." --Claudia Hart via

The Laurel Axe. (via @timesflow)

“Fragmentary Stars

So wide the wells of darkness sink,
These having their own light, that are lost with the light,
Appear immersed in mournfulness over the night,
Like things that in sleep will come to the mind’s brink:
The bright Aldebaran, and seven that hover,
Seven wild and pale, clouding their brightness over,
And the flame that fell with summer, and the rose of stars returning,
Like tears piercing the sky;
Glittering without cause, for the piece of a legend,
Wept, I know not why.
O lovely and forgotten,
Gathered only of sleep,
All night upon the lids set burning,
Shaken from the lids at morning.”

–Léonie Adams

"The enemy is noise."

( via / me )

Decade.

Random # 109 = 214 in base-7; 2 + 1 + 4 = 7 lines

rarer chains to cherish
achieve frog satori
sun hot on my side cheek
suddenly time pokes me
content if my anguish
ends in enough slumber
& my caf chains selcouth

The Future.

"Something abstract, something which moves with controlled and conscious art, something which calls for the very slightest help from words or music to make itself intelligible, yet justly uses them subserviently – of such movements and abstractions the films may in time to come be composed." --Virginia Woolf, 1926 via via @leeartr

" The pop surrealist’s fascination with animism reflects a desire to get back under the soil and discover a more fantastic spiritual vision that also values the natural world." (via @minxmarple)

( via / via )

"Although their more frightening applications were the focus of this particular conference, robots, he pointed out, will not uniformly be used for lethal activity." (via @ussbriefs via @albernaj)

"The Tears of God

On each grave, where women shed
Their rough-shaven hair,
Their grief and love
Of fellow countrymen,
A single flower bloomed,
A three-leaved shape,
The tears of God.

They crouched and wept
And dug the history of their sex,
Their bodies used
as instruments in war.

Split the stone now girl,
Bury your brother, your father,
Your lover and child.
Touch the rising of a new world.

Too much was asked.

From each of them,
A new hate was born.
Betrayals and divisions
Clinging damp
As blood-soaked shrouds.

Now we take your images,
The violent outcry of a broken politic,
Your labour, your disease and burdens.

I pluck the three green tears from our fields,
Paint the edge of laments,
Commit your violence to a cold sort of peace."

--Roisin Ní Neachtain

Moths.

Random # 310 = 622 in base-7; 6 + 2 + 2 = 10 lines

thirty man-moths
went into this art
a moment aired
then the dark drape closes

wasp-appease, dry wary
though it enfold a fortune
we forfeit
& the controls tremble

that make it fiercer or milder
once you learn the liripoop

Keats goes for a walk.

( via / my painting "blasphemies of the dwarf jester" [1985] )

Ali Baba.

"The golden wind of autumn
has scattered me everywhere."

— Velimir Khlebnikov via @GertieWentworth

Jboku'ile. (One day!)

faithless love

festival holes
a hovel stifles

if sloth leaves
its leaf shovel

lost false hive

Unk’àtân.

( via / me )

☿ Azoth.

Random # 329 = 670 in base-7; 6 + 7 + 0 = 13 lines

legend-ridden pageant
my labor swims crimson
torn up roads eternal
words for the prod-bodkin

tie my mask to frisk in
creep like blown-glass tone arm
the parking lot orchid
my sunglasses dun-shroud

sharpened shade · my sherpas are warning
   blinkless dash cams fink
of all the gin joints · in the jaunty world
   on the crimson tide of snidecraft
i make legends of the lodged dreams · but only these

"Of course I feel bad for the hostages and the couple of people in Israel killed by bombs, but y'know what? I feel about 1,200/40,005 = 3% as bad about that as I do for the Palestinians killed so far."

"In a time of bad communications, when any self-transcendence is hard to come by, to perceive the existence of a reality beyond all constructions of the consciousness is to experience a kind of call to prophecy." --Richard Wilbur

Additional footage. (via @joshtpm)

( via / via )

Senofu Mask.

"please bury me
with no casket, no prayers
face down, away
from this shrapnel-filled world:
the note in an aid worker's hand"

--@ericcoliu

"I’m not sure trade publishers even use that term anymore. They’re not really interested in middling sellers." (via @pauldeane3)

Random # 84 = 150 in base-7; 1 + 5 + 0 = 6 lines

equinox ills faring
on contested bearing
sew without a thimble
thesterness crews tremble
nearer car connecting
renowned thirls collecting

The harshness of my work.

( lanny quarles on fb / via )

Crucifixion.

random # 146 = 266 in base-7; 2 + 6 + 6 = 14 lines

languishing in the lit dark
caravan of gold coins
meets my late carcass
iv'ry or high-impact
plastic of the plorant gate
it's a plan
preternatural narghilay
caterpiller offers kit
nenuphar cosplay
in the lit dark derogate
all that isn't Helen
derne henchmen
following my Ford convertible
into the Alpine tunnel

Touching foreheads, maybe?

"eye of the hurricane
alone in the dark I look
into my life"

--@ericcoliu

New car blues.

( me / via )

New edition of The Angel of Death--my palindrome poem.

“Now the Sirens have a weapon even more terrible than their song, namely, their silence.”
—Kafka

“Listen to a lonely anesthesia wave. Nepenthe mirrors nothing whenever I embrace her.”
—@lori_wike

Banquet of a Hundred Demons.

"I broadcast white noise

I broadcast white noise;
alas, white is not a thing. Regret
whitewashes hindsight.
Smoke stings silk. Sweetness is like
whiteness. Screams: Don’t do it!
It is I! Be sweet dark dear!"

--Unica Zürn via

Short animation involving dolls.

( via / via via @grimartgroup )

Absinthe.

Random # 251 = 506 in base-7; 5 + 0 + 6 = 11 lines

Woe rides. Water sidles.
Waves ferry. Thought narrows.
Crystal moon. Crowdcounts wane.
The crutch scrapes. Draw tapeworm.
Learn signs. Love tinsel.
Last chance. Suspect cancer.
Books pile up. Bale hollows.
Bus'ness rules. Chase fool's-fire.
We are fine. War bonus.
Weary slog. Shoes soggy.
Shapes haunt. Hear the winter.

Sloping off t’pub a-bloody-gain. (via @grimartgroup)

"I have arrived somewhere, via poetry, that is realer than real, and it is a reality that defies time and space. I think of a line in a poem by Linda Pastan, 'You Are Odysseus,' spoken by Penelope: 'Only my weaving is real.' " --Diane Seuss

"You're trying to divide by zero."

( me / via )

"Snorri, in reproducing both the traditional and innovatory forms of Háttalykill as well as giving examples of other metres that had never in the ordinary way been used by Norse poets before, must also to a certain extent be said to be exemplifying what was theoretically possible in Norse verse, not what had actually been practised." (Translated 190ff.)

"By the way, Melville reads Old Books. He has borrowed Sir Thomas Browne of me and says finely of the speculations of the Religio Medici that Browne is a kind of 'crack'd Archangel.' Was ever anything of this sort said before by a sailor?
- Evert Duyckinck to his brother George.

Upon his return from adventures at sea, Evert Duyckinck had given Melville the freedom of his 16,000 volume library."

--@gregorykindall

Time Enough at Last.

Random # 133 = 270 in base-7; 2 + 7 + 0 = 9 lines

substance stinted · subsidence
of the Great Salt Lake · liripoop
serves me less & less · i linger in tidepools
old films i understood once · ev'rything
wobbles, like a Wikipedia · page that hands
will not let alone · lately
the sky cracks · over a stern cradle
of monsters who march · like regular guys
with guns trained · on my unarmed truth

Dragonfly pendant.

( via / via )

L'Avventura (1960). ☆☆☆☆☆

Random # 75 = 135 in base-7; 1 + 3 + 5 = 9 lines

embroiled browsers · light falling on ivy
between pale pillars · the postulated day
black coat or crow · casting the runes

so much stuff in storage · shelves untouched
years at a time · the yak-butter lamp
   of my time in Zubenelg

yet winging anyway · a new book i made
   capture of a cobweb scheme
   for awhile for sale

Animated appliance.

"In the Middle Ages, elves were thought to use 𝘦𝘭𝘧𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯 or ‘elf-magic’ to cause irrational thoughts. Imagine never really knowing if you were thinking straight or an elf just made it seem that way. Germans would even say 'Have the elves gotten to you?' during arguments." --@wylfcen

Translators.

( via / via )

"The real reason he was placed under house arrest was that he’d verbally attacked Italo Balbo, a transatlantic pilot who was a hero in Italy, even more popular than Mussolini himself."

eadd: ecofatalism

a felt mosaic
Califoma set

malefic stoa
I am sole fact

facial motes
fatal is come

if a calm toe's
moat is fecal

(2009)

"Cohn even bugged his director's office at Columbia (when Welles became aware of what was happening he signed off each day with a greeting to Cohn)."

"Stet

Last meme down: to off our inner faith in
lit ions, amen (fin), fume of tore and throw,
stone hid unfelt, from 'we' (from an 'I' to an 'I').
Nil with rot, a minute off deforms an eon
of meat run low, no foment, a tired finish,
mere sunlit affair. Oh, to find moon, went
wet at dim. Afternoon sinner, hum if fool
is true of mow, of annihilated front-men,
stunt-man, of him, an indoor Eiffel Tower,
non-sonata writ mute. For me, no HD life. If
radio, some worn tune. Then, main lift-off:
off-line, not no raft, I swim out here. Damn
if’n I wasted no moment of hurt on a rifle.
Old 'No room at the inn,' i.e., FU. Warn: stiff me
One time, shame on, off, until worn adrift.
Must we fail in one form to find another?"

--Dora Malech via

"Ronald Wilson Reagan: An Ode" & others.