( me / via )

Text Generation and Other Uneasy Human-Machine Collaborations.

"It comes in low, the October light. It’s citric, forensic, revelatory." (via @minxmarple.bsky.social)

Solstice for murder hornets.

( me / via )

On translating Lorca into Shaetlan.

terse apricity
tilts at ganching branches
monster frolics moil
mincemeat of the tent-serfs
brisk drinking of blood
abrupt carol faring

Justice Tonight / kick it over.

"WINTER SOLSTICE (Anagrammed Lines)

Winter Solstice:
Written close is
woe. Strict lines
wrestle in stoic
selections, writ
low in its secret."

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

In the centre of the town of Wigan.

( via / via )

Shelter 54.

"We live in a time stream based upon astonishment and disaster, created by a series of accidents, based upon pain and brutality which sends us lurching inch by inch in pain toward a future we cannot divine..." --Barry N Malzberg, Scop (1976)

Blot.

"the first day of the year
of the hummingbird
drips from the roof"

--@poemexe.com

Yule-hole.

( me / via )

"...fearing arrest by Poland."

"Ozymandias Replies

So, friend, you think my face and legs in stone
Are signs that I have failed? Friend, think again.
When I ascended to my marble throne
The land was forest, meadow, lakeside glen.
I took it and I wasted it. This desert tract
Stands as my most expansive monument:
Dead-life, as blank as hope, as bald as fact.
I made a world of sand. And it's this spent
Stage-set, bleached clean, that I am proudest of—
More than my palaces and bling and war—
Because it's the perfection of my love
When my rule's push came to my people's shove.
We tyrants know what power's really for.
I made my desolation to endure."

--Adam Roberts via

WIERSZALIN IV.

   solstice port
flerd tsimtsum staunch
   lilt scary

Namahage (人間椅子/なまはげ).

( lanny quarles / me )

Bela Lugosi's Dead.

"Once you have convinced yourself you can stay silent on a genocide unfolding live on your phone, you can stay silent/make peace with pretty much anything." --@naomiaklein.bsky.social

Seagulls in the Boat.

"fake orb kayfabe"

sparkle spraint · words spew
   to no necessary end
yet they fly · in the flower hail
   here where cobblestones
might trip you · with your troubles
   hurrying home to hide

When your domestic miniature pig causes a smelly mess 🐷, but She's still gracious and blesses you.

( via / me )

Ancient Rocks in The Amazon Reveal a Glimpse of The Spirit Realm.

"not sick at the winter solstice"

overplus Stilbhenge
answer in the tranceflow
here it is dark door
delved briefly & grief blink

those years yammer grim
yellow filter guilt trip
sleepwalk into slake
aslant spliff the cliff face

tweed alert allayed
ludicrous clown-Buddha
who knows rags arise
in the rust-free keyhole

Winter Twilight.

"a rainbow
strained
under the street light"

--@poemexe.com

The Brain Abstracted.

( via / me )

Begotten (via Mefi). A couple of years back i wrote: "Viscerally uncanny; ultimately, a grueling & unpleasant experience i admire without reservation."

"cloud-shaped the unfathomable forms of forgiveness"

--Stefanie Bucifal, Germany via

Dallashenge.

"PROVERB (Anagrammed Lines)

Once, it was said that
death is in two acts: A
cessation, with data,
and a white so static
it can eat its shadow...."

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

Deep Elm (You Tell 'Em I'm Blue). (via)

( lanny quarles on fb / charles willyard in asemic )

HeatDeath.

"The shrine is desecrated, and the owl
Whoops wildly where the stately Chapel sat."

--J Stanyan Bigg

No one needs an eleven-minute version of "Black Metallic".

"pestilential venture"

veilthunder night veined
diverts hearing's meerkat
out there sparkles spent
inspire-words of dire weight

they gather wheeled gold
ghastlier this pastime
curtains where i court
cast off sundry thunder

submerged fizzy forge
confess to glad shadows
urnbeings reborn
in batches of latchbreak

Kashmir.

( me / via )

Catch as catch as coal up.

dirgewrixle · road through the desert
these tall towers · that topple perpetually

no good as a gadfly · where glass repels
whisper godspeed · to the ketamine demons

promised riot · proceeds in high places
all our faith · is in fury's corrosion

nod to the neighbor · never known years now
what do we have to trade · whose hacks are all words

Tarkus. (starts at 2m)

"Don't forget: it's almost time to stop writing 2024 on forms and instead drawing a picture of a skull with blood pouring from its eye sockets" --@charliejane.bsky.social

I Think We're Alone Now + Lucky Number.

( via / via )

The Grief Performer.

"Thank you for sending along that internet stuff...I do appreciate it--especially having no computer. I'm delighted that they are talking about the novel, but Lordy, I do wish they were more intelligent."

--Letter from David Markson to Dalkey Archive, 3/26/98 via @dalkeyarchive.bsky.social

Human vs Machine.

through the dense darkness
asteroid-comet hybrid
hot on its own tracks

"I was nine years old when my family left Gwangju in January 1980, roughly four months before the mass killings began."

( via / me )

This no-frills Mexican restaurant used to be a no-frills Chinese restaurant.

"PLANETARY GEARSET

Well it must be angels, maybe racks and pinions
pitching instructions along gear to gear

to gear to gear, et voilà, complex revolution.
I cruise the suburbs looking for a cutaway view.

Suns rings bodies cogs. Prosaic perhaps,
but down here looks like a whole lot of spinning

with more or less torque, a mechanism that’s not the latest
paradigm. Somebody’s work keeps getting done.

Held parts make a hub, other parts revolve.
Come on, hang in. Hand to hand.

Give it some heart."

--Karen Donovan via

The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity.

The murder hornets were a kind of solution.

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" sung in Latin.

( me / via )

"You could have voted to keep your freedom, America."

"if we’re going to abandon reason, embrace superstition, and regress as a society, we should at least bring back tunics, houppelandes, and elaborate hats. we do not need to look this boring while we’re at it" --@jrbrammer.bsky.social

Last night in London 🙂.

"Speech for the Repeal of the McCarran Act

As Wulfstan said on another occasion,
The strong net bellies in the wind and the spider rides it out;
But history, that sure blunderer.
Ruins the unkempt web, however silver.
I am not speaking of rose windows
Shattered by bomb-shock; the leads touselled; the glass-grains broadcast;
If the rose be living at all
A gay gravel shall be pollen of churches.
Nor do I mean railway networks.
Torn-up tracks are no great trouble. As Wulfstan said.
It is oathbreach, faithbreach, lovebreach
Bring the invaders into the estuaries.
Shall one man drive before him ten
Unstrung from sea to sea? Let thought be free. I speak
Of the spirit's weaving, the neural
Web, the self-true mind, the trusty reflex."

--Richard Wilbur

Grateful acceptance speech.

( via / me )

The Last Love Poem.

the otters return
as humans start exiting
Sednaya Prison

O otters, keep a place for
one who wanted none of this

Everybody Wants to Be My Friend.

"first butterfly
the gift
snow on withered grass"

--@poemexe.com

"Never have so many people had access to so much knowledge, and yet been so resistant to learning anything."

( via / me )

Ode to K-Tel.

" 'How soon?' asked Toad.

'Quite soon,' said Frog."

--@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social

Grandma Splitting Wood on the Stairs.

"concert for no one"

stabbing sun commute
bleeding day by day
cinched deadlock
leads to the lychgate

steer around rubble
left redhanded
the crew as they fled cried
glory to the dawnglow

creatures glibber
the palace now pillaged
with its torture chambers
& pill chapels

commute sun stabbing

The Desert.

( via/ me )

May That Nuclear War Be Cursed!

"the making of a good king"

1.
walls closing in but the same walls
can't speak spate · of the spurious flow
end of L'Heure Bleue · lesson cast aside
   in the fullness of unfinishing
a taken token · time is as

2.
word by word · into the undertow
anxious dream · drawing on elves
   is it not our right to flow
t'ward death unthinking · without all this hogwash

3.
sound of breaking
sound of breaking

dystopia creep

Words Whispered to a Child Under Siege.

"my cat
my summer kimono
the milky way"

--@poemexe.com

Rionnard.

( me / also me )

A bit of "The Map of the Armillary Sphere". (via)

"But why focus on echoes instead of reality itself? Because the human mind is itself an echo of reality." --Lauri Wuolio via

My Cat Breaks into Vowels.

sound as of snowmelt
a rustling in the marrow
the light flees the sky

now we forget what happened
& believe the way we're told

Gediz Vallis Channel.

( via / via )

"One gets a real sense that the father of battles himself does not know how his own crumbling world works, which is part of the crux of the drama."

"Quincunx

If this is all, quit your hold.
Bury your imprint far
from me. No more writhing,
my slivered sun.

All that touching was witchcraft. Still,

at the crux I remember sharply
god's hand at every turn
and the saltiness of donning you
in a room without law.

Two fires that cannot yoke.
How damn starry it is

every time you strobe near--"

--Hanae Jonas in CutBank

"For the most part Esther did as Max did, holding on to the various boxes, stashing them in vaults, but in 1988 she sold the manuscript of The Trial for $2 million, at which point it became clear that one could turn quite a profit from Kafka."

"bloodshot eyes
this ancient pine tree
an ice cream truck"

--@poemexe.com

Recovering a Long Drive.

( via/ me )

20,000 Leagues.

" ‘Poronkusema’, in Finnish, once denoted a distance of around 7.5km, which is roughly how long a reindeer can last before needing to urinate. ‘Poronkusema’ means ‘reindeer pee’. " [=4.66 mi] --@susiedent.com

"Humans are deprived of their inner independence.

"Adam's Curse

We sat together at one summer’s end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world.’
&nnbsp;      And thereupon
That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
There’s many a one shall find out all heartache
On finding that her voice is sweet and low
Replied, ‘To be born woman is to know—
Although they do not talk of it at school—
That we must labour to be beautiful.’
I said, ‘It’s certain there is no fine thing
Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring.
There have been lovers who thought love should be
So much compounded of high courtesy
That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
Precedents out of beautiful old books;
Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.’

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one’s but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon."

--William Butler Yeats

Can '74.

( via / me )

Only Connect.

"work that will never be finished"

sienna · in the urn dark
satisfies · most sentences
chatter flows · for those cheating
ratbag quern · & occurrence
no answer · (true) for what ails
proves fatal · in the fallout
one might try · worse trainwrecks views
it's bigger · than the bandage

A large ammo depot in Syria.

"I may make you feel but I can't make you think
your sperm's in the gutter, your love's in the sink"

--Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull)

To the Insurance Executive.

( me / via )

Big things are happening in Texas mega churches.

"She lived in the cities of the interior, she had no permanent abode. She was always arriving and leaving undetected, as through a series of trap doors. The life she led there no one knew anything about. It never reached the ears of reporters. The statisticians of facts could never interview her." --Anaïs Nin, Ladders to Fire (1959)

Some beautiful shots from Mary Pickford's The Love Light (1921).

"the fury"

trajectory joust · in the jest clouds
what will be · baying hounds
beyond yeggstash · yearn hoard
query the quarrel · of foe requitals
& logged law · in the rasping flail
whether our whiff · can vanish whitely
our roof hold · as we huddle fearing

Under the Milky Way.

( me / via )

"I used to grab every atlas that was printed between 1921 & 1945..."

"WATERFALL (Palindrome by Word)

Light blue streams slowly fall.

The moonshine,
into water,
spills night.

The above is below.
The below is above.

The night
spills water
into moonshine.

The fall slowly streams blue light...."

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

"We engage in epicycles all the time."

"ghost gun"

kaiju fever cave
a canzone to wone in
power without pit
plummetings just summits
dream we all get drilled
drug pyramids mug to
fall foliage attests
final beach of creatures
boss kaiju ukase
in the cold wind dwindling

A new whole-word wordsquare.

( me / via )

"Warring endorealities are one of the easiest to spot signs of warring endogroups."

I have always made it a practice to read poets nobody reads anymore (or never has); & am completely prepared to predict that, for the time coming after (if there is a time), the names they will bandy about will not be the big names today. The issues that will concern them will be different issues. I might even dare to say that our present pyramidology, our obsession with "icons", is itself one of the issues that will no longer concern anyone in the days to come.

Mary of Silence.

"TIME GROWS OLD (Palindrome)

Sun up, still....
A sun I saw.

Time grew old.
A sad, lower gem,
it was in us all —

It spun us."

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

赤い夜明け. ('red dawn')

( via / me )

Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age. (via @wmarybeard.bsky.social)

style crowned with ivy
crumbling stone & forgotten
civilizations

yet how youthful the desire
to inhabit this jungle

"In a world that is dark and inscrutable, this flawed man has very little agency in the face of these forces, yet meets the moment with courage and resolve."

"SATURNALIA (Anagrammed Lines)

Saturnalia
is a natural
ritual, as an
aura.... Latin's
aural satin."

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

"One of the symbolic resonances of the idea of novelty is that there is a future world in which the thing produced now has yet to be appreciated."

( via / via )

California Dreaming.

Maurice Blanchot:

“Symbolic reading is probably the worst way to read a literary text. Each time we are bothered by language that is too strong, we say: it is a symbol. … Yet, if prophetic words reach us, what they make us feel is that they possess neither allegory nor symbol.
[…] It is a speech that takes up all of space and that is still essentially not fixed.”

(“Prophetic Speech,” The Book to Come, tr. Charlotte Mandell)" --@yoonkim.bsky.social

The tortoise sinks.

"he brings butterflies -
love or warning, who can tell
if these deep fractures
spreading across wounded heart
are kintsugi or lightning?"

--@aminahhughes.bsky.social

What does poetry save you from?

( me / via )

"At the end, the book should restate its themes and moods then do something absolutely, unforgivably unlike itself, in the same gesture."

Palestine
has vanished from your poetry
stone by stone
Palestine
as nearer fires stain
the darkness of entropy
Palestine
has vanished
from your poetry

Terms of reproach against the winter wind.

"And all our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,
Defective in their natures, grow to wildness."

--"Henry V" via

We can certainly try.