"All in all, accuracy of prediction may well be the least important characteristic of science fiction." --Thomas D Clareson
Thursday, October 31, 2024
"Each video of hers is a reinvention of cinema and a reminder of the magic inherent in the medium."
“I prefer the absurdity of writing poems / to the absurdity of not writing poems”
- Wislawa Szymborska via @everysongiveeve
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
All of Leonard Cohen’s Books Ranked.
"In 1982, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protested against the massacre of the Palestinian population in the refugee camps Sabra and Shatila in western Beirut by Maronite Christian militias, facilitated by the IDF. Today, this kind of response is inconceivable." --Omer Bartov via via @jeannemarieM3 via @dreamsofbeing_
A Glass of Water, a Burning Boy.
lavender Corolla in the broken driveway
rented for a day, to ferry
blind eyes for a doctor visit with AC
the only thing my gray car lacks
i might as well be blind for all the sense of future
turning to the sky can bring
soft in the steep dark outside on the patio rain
a rusty tide to drag cars
elsewhere & more welcome here as parch cure
i sense a great wheel turning
that i won't live to see the iteration next
but what it won't have swept away
prefigured in the tribes that sort themselves by caps
will fan out over the broken land
& she who led me here is still beside me now
my main task this Halloween
is try not to be frightened by the noise of wolves
that she must flee as much as i
Poem in the Shape of the Poet.
The god under the tarp prattles
Is not a guide · on the tarn shore
Fiestaware back · each to its place
The frail microclime’s surge · clasp for an answer
At solstice alignment · the ray falls
The word goes out · as the meme spreads
Blue mold appears · on the whole wheat loaf
Shiny traceries left · on the pink brick
People burned alive · in their stalled cars
With the ornate moon · its own mock
Wastebasket lined · with our reused bags
I filled with extruded slime · and stacked tissues
I go back to sit · in the same place
As if fixed in time · a small pyramid
Do I think of myself · as trailing books
Every so often I drop · the abandoned cairn
And rain chances · locally heavy
I forecast drive · through those brick streets
It all burned down · a hundred years ago
Yet the ghost remains on maps · my own real tears
Fast moving pale clouds · with Venus peeking through
Color not a color · from which bombs fall
Elsewhere and otherwise · my taxes paid for
The subfusc veil occults · star and darker gray
"Conservatives are convinced Kamala would melt down doing a full Rogan interview, but if there's anyone who knows how to make charming small talk with people who aren't nearly as smart as they think they are for long periods of time, it's the wife of an LA entertainment lawyer." --@MuseZack
“It's not what a poem says with its mouth, it's what a poem does with its eyes.”
-- Mary Ruefle via @stonecirclerev
"The Long Walk
Under begrimed skies, walks an old woman, haggard,
Down a misty spookwegen, past gravestones she staggers.
Not knowing the wirricows watch and they wait,
Her thanatopsis already ghost written by fate."
--@thedevilstuna
Picking fruit during the Golden Hour.
Kishōtenketsu. (via Mefi)
spookwegen
keg we snoop
woke sponge
geek's own op
go keep snow
so Kong weep
op gone skew
"It will be a sad day when we lose contact with the Voyagers..."
"The smuggler weeps." --@girlfleeshouse
"the weight
of this moment
alone
a red leaf zigzags
to the muddy ground"
--@ericcoliu
Nearby house blown up by Israel. (via @mosababutoha)
acorn-strewn alleyway · under my tires crunch
resting rollercoaster · high where ravens wheel
plain in Plutolight · only what's plundered
& spars against the sky
my jalopy joust · jewel-like pickle
or kettle of fish · keeps finding
further twists · to twig all aghast
& spars against the sky
Meanwhile in Valencia. (via @jorie_graham)
"...the first people Hitler sent to his concentration camps weren’t everyday Jewish citizens, but his political opponents." Rick Steeves at the Reichstag.
obsessive sampo · ceremony frail
the dark scrolling · ascribes night to the dark
not lately deluded · loud in the being sure
games played with our freedom · the fraud sings
the golem's first steps forward
meanwhile a mournful lullaby
rises amidst craters · & crashing planets
"Spookwegen: Dutch; 'ghost roads' that converge on old cemeteries, and which were usually used for ritualistic purposes." --@arealmofwonder
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
The Priest Jakuren:
‘Loneliness—
The essential color of a beauty
Not to be defined:
Over the dark evergreens, the dusk
That gathers on far autumn hills.’
(Miner)
KANSYCAU SARCU
SELSKA LE MELBI BEFO
ZI’O .I DARNO
CRITU CMAMA’A VANCI
GA’U LE CKUNU MANKU
(My English version:)
Indefinable
this shade, in my solitude:
over the dark press
of conifers, on distant
autumn hills a darkness grows.
Terri Garr freaks out in Tootsie.
which apocalypse
horse's hooves are these · drumming
on my tin ripple
This is the story of Der Orchideengarten.
"But now quick lightning breaketh through the Cloud,
And following Thunder roareth out aloud."
--1672 Ovid (tr W.S.), II.
wolfquartz & maze quaffing
quisle fandous wisdom
tense autumn
contested item
indrawn scrotum
qualia jewel-jackpot
Jestocaust's chirg foster
foliage autumn
lock stubborn
elongate Webern
wolfquartz & maze quaffing
"That passed away, may this too."
"Deor's Lament
To Weland came woes and wearisome trial,
And cares oppressed the constant earl;
His lifelong companions were pain and sorrow,
And winter-cold weeping: his ways were oft hard,
After Nithhad had struck the strong man low,
Cut the supple sinew-bands of the sorrowful earl.
That has passed over: so this may depart!
Beadohild bore her brothers’ death
Less sorely in soul than herself and her plight
When she clearly discovered her cursed condition,
That unwed she should bear a babe to the world.
She never could think of the thing that must happen.
That has passed over: so this may depart!
Much have we learned of Mæthhild’s life:
How the courtship of Geat was crowned with grief,
How love and its sorrows allowed him no sleep.
That has passed over: so this may depart!
Theodoric held for thirty winters
The town of the Mærings: that was told unto many.
That has passed over: so this may depart!
We all have heard of Eormanric
Of the wolfish heart: a wide realm he had
Of the Gothic kingdom. Grim was the king.
Many men sat and bemoaned their sorrows,
Woefully watching and wishing always
That the cruel king might be conquered at last.
That has passed over: so this may depart!
Sad in his soul he sitteth joyless,
Mournful in mood. He many times thinks
That no end will e’er come to the cares he endures.
Then must he think how throughout the world
The gracious God often gives his help
And manifold honors to many an earl
And sends wide his fame; but to some he gives woes.
Of myself and my sorrows I may say in truth
That I was happy once as the Heodenings’ scop,
Dear to my lord. Deor was my name.
Many winters I found a worthy following,
Held my lord’s heart, till Heorrenda came,
The skillful singer, and received the land-right
That the proud helm of earls had once promised to me!
That has passed over: so this may depart!"
--Cossette Faust, 1918 via
"Who shall hear of us
in the time to come?
Let him say there was
a burst of fragrance
from black branches."
--W.C.Williams via
"Rain Forests were called Jungles. And Wetlands were called Swamps. #wheniwasyourage" --@neiltyson
"...thinking about Xuanji Tu, a Chinese poem written & embroidered in the 4th century by Su Hui ..."
with the key in my pocket
i walk where no house is found
all hands are raised against me
in this graveyard i was born
i walk where no house is found
though houses once stood many
in this graveyard i was born
i will die in this graveyard
though houses once stood many
with the key in my pocket
i will die in this graveyard
all hands are raised against me
"Had we started taking action in the 1970s - when the threat became clear - we could have easily stopped the crisis by now." (via @paisleyrekdal)
"Halloween
For Halloween this year I’ll be a man.
I’ll work my hands to bloody rags and use
my fists to prove which truths I understand.
I’ll paint my face into a mask of bruise,
like coming home after a barroom fight.
A man should fight, my father said, and lose
sometimes—his beaten brow will mock the night.
I’ll swallow up the pint of Cutty Sark.
I’ll stumble home and fumble with the light.
He said the bottle barely leaves a mark
burning away the places where you’ve bled.
On Halloween, I’ll drink the autumn dark.
I’ll be a man the way my father said.
On Halloween, we’re closer to the dead.
His teeth were crooked and his hands were red."
--Chad Abushanab via @maryanncorbett
"Badiou one of the few guys whose criticism of thinkers actually makes them sound cooler" --@14jun1995
When emptiness fills the house.
"porch-lit night
the screen door thrums
of June bugs"
--Jan Benson via @ericcoliu
the purulent lantern
languishes half-snaffled
rain · blessèd rain rinses
array of bleak wreakers
believe as if ever
this airt yielded mealdown
rain · blessèd rain rinses
array of bleak wreakers
oobleck over-ruby
old dog in the doldrums
rain · blessèd rain rinses
array of bleak wreakers
sentinel
nestle in
line sent
steel inn
tense nil
No ambulances, no fire trucks, no paramedics, no rescue teams, nothing.
"Indisputably, belladonna (as the deadly nightshade is called) has become our muse, our prima donna and madonna, and we live in a poetical nightshade sabbath." --Jean-Paul
"Poetry not only boldly opens up our earthly tombs, but shows how art lies between realms and how we oscillate between entombed and exhumed. –And if we only sun ourselves as merrymaking mayflies, actual midday mayflies, in the rays of the setting sun and then sink: not only do the flies sink but the sun sinks also; but in the wide-open spaces of creation, where no earthly power intervenes, sun and spirit have no setting and no grave." --Jean-Paul (tr Matthew Spencer on his Substack)
bailing the dinghy · a dark crossing
crest increasingly · deranged forecasts
the day melting · in the wolf's mouth
Monday, October 28, 2024
Plan.
"rally"
maze removal · marks flickering
away with · misshapen alphabets
frayed hem hymnal · howitzer glee
dream extermination · it's our story's turn
t'ward the unspeakable
An in-depth look at Shelley Duvall's career, with special attention to 𝑃𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑦𝑒 & 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔.
"How else can these forty-odd letters be arranged?
To be self-ordered and create the ghostly answer. "
--@Anthony_Etherin
"BRING IT UP FROM THE DARK
Bring it up from the dark water.
It will be news from behind the horizon.
Refugees, nameless people. Who are they?
What is happening? I do not know.
Out there. Where we can see nothing.
Where we can do nothing. Men of our own country
send deadly messengers we would not send.
The cold wind of their desolation chills the first hint of morning,
rumors of burnd houses, smoking fields, and now wraiths
of the dead men daily they kill rise
against us. It will go against us,
pass, sweep on and beyond us.
The great house of our humanity
no longer stands. Men from our own country
stamp out, burn back, flush up from their refuge
with gasses, howling or silent, whatever
human or animal remains living there.
Bereft, the mothering sky
searches our faces, searches my heart.
What have I to do with these things
that now I am left destitute.
In the midst of my happiness, the worm
of man's misery coils in my heart.
Dream disclosed to me, I too am Ishmael."
--Robert Duncan, 1984
"Constrained Poetry = Encrypted Orations." --@Anthony_Etherin
"If I knew where songs come from, I would go there more often."
"You goddamned old idiot--with your senile brain softened till it--it splashes like a bowl of cat's vomit!" --@harryskeeler
carving
eyeholes in the
pumpkin of this blind world
how wearisome & dull my tools
this task
the year of the cat vomit
vie a tracheotomy theft
ace a fortieth vote myth
try a cheetah motive oft
ivory tot, a machete heft
a horny catheter veto fit
they face a thrive motto
a hot facet thy overtime
The Hand that Signed the Paper.
"Rode in on a Greyhound
I'll be walking out if I go"
--Creedence Clearwater Revival
"fiftieth birthday
halfway to the summit
in silence"
--@ericcoliu
random # 13 = 76 in base-7; 7 + 6 = 13 lines
stormfast parallax
fathoms bled into weld
permission to wilt
but i walk where drones fall
the dull golden thud
of attack memes keeps flat
this cesspit of yeggs
until i have been filled
O smog that is calm
the woofus knows enough
a shattered few thanks
will attest to my help
torch-lit thrang garrets
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Random # 185 = 353 in base-7; 3 + 5 + 3 = 11 lines
catlight gone · gold into umber
trains that sent · the soft night away
latticework plain
around compline
cobweb battle-plan
catlight chrome · crawling to meet me
in the ill-lit parkinglot · shark-circling
grieving the granite shore · grass yellowing
in October
blackened cinnabar
the corpse-hung arbor
Bertolt Brecht y Walter Benjamin jugando al ajedrez.
"DAWN OF THE DEAD (Anagram-Haiku)
Woodland: The day breaks.
Another dead body walks
and wreaks bloody death."
-@Anthony_Etherin
Eternity also is full of eyes.
"We are so small between the stars,/ So large against the sky" --Leonard Cohen
A memory of Hampton Court Palace.
"Brasilia
Will they occur,
These people with torso of steel
Winged elbows and eyeholes
Awaiting masses
Of cloud to give them expression,
These super-people! -
And my baby a nail
Driven, driven in.
He shrieks in his grease
Bones nosing for distance.
And I, nearly extinct,
His three teeth cutting
Themselves on my thumb -
And the star,
The old story.
In the lane I meet sheep and wagons,
Red earth, motherly blood.
O You who eat
People like light rays, leave
This one
Mirror safe, unredeemed
By the dove’s annihilation,
The glory
The power, the glory."
–Sylvia Plath
"I detected the beginnings of a tendency to fetishise a work’s creator rather than simply appreciate the work itself, as if artists and writers were themselves part of the costumed entertainment." (via @greatdismal)
"A Cento from Pale Fire"
No furtive light came from their involute
Snails leave on flagstones; this good ink, this rhyme
The crowding gulls insufferably loud,
But always present, ran through me. One day,
Part of your shadow near the shagbark tree.
And then there was a kind of travelog:
Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as
Who's climbed the Matterhorn. The other piece
A hint of angels, and a glint of stained
(2004)
Some Favourite Canadian Books. (via @everysongiveeve)
"The first bomb that fell on Brighton actually came through his roof while he was taking a cold bath, and although it did not explode, he never recovered from the shock." --Colin Wilson, intro to The Violet Apple by David Lindsay
"We used to pick our words so we can move you."