( via / via )

"Once the work is written, the pattern becomes irrelevant and of no use in reading the work…it is in no sense the point of the work."

“The opposite of ‘serious’ isn’t ’funny.’ The opposite of both ‘serious’ and ‘funny’ is ‘sordid.’ ”

—R. A. Lafferty via @pnh.nielsenhayden.bsky.social

Fever.

“Timepiece

To see in the punctured dust the sow bugs clocking.
These constellations of buds or beetles time us
More than the cocks do,
More than the winding tides.

And the ants sharpen their spheres,
And the stars, their spiders;
The sky’s spider turns:

Never you left your acorn place
For nightly signs and wanders,
For ants like meters,
For the repeating stars.”

–The Grasshopper’s Man

A Narrow Hope Has Fallen.

( via / via )

Something about Fuchs.

“GHOSTS

The wind is full of ghosts tonight.
  Let them carry your body far.
Let them bury you out of sight
  Under a brooding star.

I can not weep for blood or bone.
  Flesh grown cold or eyes that stare.
Let them tuck you under a stone.
  Little, little I care.

For the wind is full of ghosts that talk,
  And I a rendezvous must keep
With something more than dust and chalk
  Before I sleep.”

–Marion Francis Brown, in: Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1925

Golden Earrings.

"I do not have any great desire to encourage the presence of contemporary writing in the University because I believe that contemporary poetry already receives far more encouragement than is good for it." --Geoffrey Hill via

Why Kill Time.

( via / via )

"Et tu" reminder.

"...where light
Lay fitful in a tenebrific time"

--The Ring and the Book

DARK WEB 003.

When I will wear a garment all of blood
and find my clouds · drawn with a scrawl of blood

i want no high & low, exquisite things,
if twilight launch the delicate call of blood

not useless, next to useless; gray skies curdle
as here below cavorts a doll of blood

two abjads, same root-language; inbetween,
mountainous, ascends this wall of blood

Graywyvern sets his course at summer's end,
crossing his fingers 'gainst a fall of blood.

(2009)

Burn.

( me / via )

"It’s possible any word is a myth. A small myth. A large myth. A word is never what it is, but a desire for the thing to be, either for understanding or for want or for remembering. ..."

infirm Fillmore · goblin flourish
exhausted zither · gazelle cornered
Beigehome bamboozle · batternoggin
   in the pale dust
   another sadist
   declares vict'ry
   over reality

the dust churned up · fills with chatter
pale yellow sky · we yeckate grimly
Beigehome bamboozle · batternoggin
   car-door shadow
   swings what bardo
   or named torpedo
   shivers the dodo
   shivers the dodo

Le salut du démiurge.

"I don’t know how to respond, anymore, to the new horrors that slip like birthed serpents from the mouths of malignant men, unimpeded by opposition, lightning quick and impossible to catch. I am choking on my own anger, sick on disgust, and I am so tired, and you are so tired, and we are so afraid." --@ohrobin.bsky.social

Too much on his mind.

( via / via )

Waters of Babylon.

"a freezing wind
betrayed
our temporal way"

--@poemexe.com

Pluto Return.

"dearest mother
I still listen for you
autumn leaves
the wind whistling
winter comes early"

--@evecastle.bsky.social

"The emotional satisfaction afforded by these sadistic spectacles and by an ideology which gave them a feeling of superiority over the rest of mankind was able to compensate them--for a time at least--for the fact that their lives had been impoverished, economically and culturally."

( via / me )

Oh Death.

"HEX CXXXVII"

BY THE WIDE DITCH,
WE COVETED HOME.

THE HOT-HATCHED CICADA
MADE AUDIO WOE.

BADE VOICE A COUTH THEME
BY THE CATHODETUBE MOB,

WE DEBAUCHED BEAUTY
WITH VICTIM TACT.

You Are My Sunshine.

"the silence
an empty snail shell
the night cry of a heron"

--@poemexe.com

Cfern.

( via / me )

The first non-human primate to paint a cover for Mad Magazine.

"PI (Aelindrome in 314159)

Spiral tears are
cut....
A sector’s area alters —
pi."

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

The Phillippines showing us how it's done.

"burying the dead"

from sofa-daring · pale cerulean
riotous ranch · in the merch matrix
water tower twines · about visions
& teen quotidian · riddles the targe
sofa-daring · dirty rice
pale cerulean · pack of jackals

We Can't Hide in the Moonlight.

( via / via )

A Simple Desultory Philippic.

the moon
shining on my
key an eclipse ago
what door will it now unlock not
before

"Trying to stare down carbs with the mistress’s tools."

" 'Jesus,' caustically countered his Chief, 'but you do count your chickens before the rooster has even winked at the hen who’s to lay the eggs from w’ich them chicks is to hatch.' " --@harryskeeler.bsky.social

Ballad Of Casy Deiss.

( via / via )

2 poems in an ongoing investigation.

"wolf moon
silent
a stone face"

--@poemexe.com

Dorothy Sayers in her Dante version has Arnaut Daniel speaking Scots.

"Krasnov blending"

shadowy passage · shapes gliding
   morning routines stir
the red counters · cascade up
   guessing the future
golden sodium · on the concrete surface
   low empty highrise
pale arrays · impenetrable trees
   adding a nexus
though harsh hesitance

Seven Nation Delta Army.

( me/ me )

"In American publishing since the 1920s, throughout periods of prosperity and depression, average profit for all of the houses was around 4 percent after taxes’; but the new owners were requiring the same profit from books that they did from their other interests and ‘new targets have therefore been set in the range of 12–15 percent, three to four times what publishing houses have made in the past. To meet these expectations, publishers drastically change the nature of what they publish."

the train takes me back
rumble & watch the schedule
nowhere now i need

Psalm Ending with a Howl.

"...the bust of your tremulous snore
is seen, at last,
your sufferings on horseback are seen..."

--Eeshleman & Rubia Barcia's Vallejo

Cantelowes.

( via / me )

"When a participant in the meeting asked him why he wouldn’t more forcefully call out President Donald Trump’s continued false claims about widespread Social Security fraud as 'BS,' Dudek answered, 'So we published, for the record, what was actually the numbers there on our website. This is dealing with — have you ever worked with someone who’s manic-depressive?' " (via Mefi)

"People convince themselves that animals can’t feel or think but desperately believe that a computer program that spews out summaries is something magical and intelligent" --@saiorsemc.bsky.social

Mimesis.

    "all the passwords start with visa"

  mirror-world
a weary merle
  builds an ark
skaldsongs embark
  right turnlane
skyspurn routeclick
  cerulean
& tan runecurse
  mirror-world
black marl of blurs
  matrix hexed

Golden light and daffodils here in Glastonbury.

( via / me )

Flames of fire.

"Wadi Daw"

all the ways well stymied
worn nest in the torn trees
water tower tetany
water tower tetany
water tower tetany
brutalist loot

turn at State Street storming
bedrock, storming bootleg
water tower tetany
ascribe to stars' cowardice
pale cerulean loser
brutalist yearn

in the before furnace
we flourished good hoodwink
we watched bitter benchmarks
balework & Braille tetany
water tower bridgework
brutalist loot

turn at State Street torment
nexus that is trek's end
water tower tetany
water tower tetany
glass labyrinth glissade
& glue-tarred brutalist

A Fish King Has Caught a Hoopoe and Is Full of Joy.

"The ‘can machines do creative writing’ thing is mostly a distraction from the use of the machines to go through text and images to cancel grants and put people on deportation lists" --@harikunzru.bsky.social

Trouble Me.

( via / via )

On the Path to Winter.

“All of us changelings arrive at the understanding late.” –𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐷𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑙 𝑖𝑠 𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑

"Is that one of Red Skelton’s clown paintings on the wall of Joe Pesci’s bedroom in CASINO?" (thread)

mask at half-mast · mocked by dim
penumbral names · too near roads
too close cluttered · cataclysm tranche
wooden floors · flourish timescars
costly decor · not mine carry
as i needs depart · a period erased
from the register

Silent movie trains sequence.

( via / via )

Necropolitics.

"krasnov refuted"

tryst among the small trees
shade but no shelter
try shrapnel
where quietness is quits

gives golden reverie
an hour & Illig passage
quantum gully
but culdesac setup

echoes sift
clear maladies cluster
if there is a way through
clasped in thought

tryst among the small trees

Clouds passing over moon.

" 'Car dealership that disappears political dissidents' really does feel like the form America has been building to this whole time." --@gonebabygone.bsky.social

"From suggestions that it might be a 'torment nexus' or related to 'Roko's Basilisk,' to folks pointing out how closely it resembles the 'Damnation' card from 'Magic: The Gathering,' theories ran rampant."

( me / via )

Barnard's news.

"...it is time/ then, to groan with the whole ax" --Eshleman & Rubia Barcia's Vallejo

ALL 128 MOONS OF SATURN.

      "Full Moon (Santa Barbara)

I listened, there was not a sound to hear
   In the great rain of moonlight pouring down,
The eucalyptus trees were carved in silver,
   And a light mist of silver lulled the town.

I saw far off the grey Pacific bearing
   A broad white disk of flame,
And on the garden-walk a snail beside me
   Tracing in crystal the slow way he came.“

–Sara Teasdale

Apolitical intellectuals.

( via / via )

Global Potemkin Village.

"pronouns"

  evade blocks
hot day in March
  underpass
massive window
  crisscross shades
agile fossils

  evade blocks
hot day in March
  urgent choir
fire agency
  power lines
fine apparel

  evade blocks
hot day in March
  concrete curve
nervous decree
  rule of law
pale cerulean

"Keeping science fiction and fantasy separate and distinct..."

"...Calm I'll keep as monk that croons
Transcribing battle, earthquake, famine, plague,
From parchment to his cloister's chronicle."

--The Ring and the Book

From word to word.

( via / via )

"...we should think of acts of protest as moves intended to advance a narrative."

"Brisk Bishops with the world's musk still unbrushed" --The Ring and the Book

In Sienna.

"low gibbous moon"

uhtencark more irksome
allergies mink sprinkled
   no witness · i
   dissent · i won
cascade of echidna
currents smites deep furrows
   no witness · i
   dissent · i won
the next missive maxed-out
mentions only tensions
   no witness · i
   dissent · i won
begone O gimp lampad
i go among dung heaps
   no witness · i
   dissent · i won
i fare with blurred fardels
furous dance rancid
   no witness · i
   dissent · i won
pyramids still styling
astute judge of grudge-heaps
   no witness · i
   dissent · i won
smashtannies' glish garner
glaucous tribes imbibing
   no witness · i
   dissent · i won

Haiku.

( via / via )

HeatDeath.

all in
avid
a wadi

vanilla

The Mexican Queen's Gambit.

Always some unidentifiable background noise on this deserted immaculate street.

"We think we are broken, made of pieces, but we are the glue. We are what we do to join together parts that were never ours."

( via / me )

Venus.

Despair as a purposeful deadening of the imagination, so as not to torment the heart with impossible desires.

Kubrick memo. (Um--not!)

This is not the moon,
nor is this the spring,
of other springs,
and I alone
am still the same.

--Ariwara no Narihira (tr Rexroth)

This is not that moon
And it cannot be this is the spring
Such as the spring I knew;
I am myself the single thing
Remaining as it ever was.

(tr Earl Miner)

This is not that spring,
nor even the selfsame song
so broken-hearted.
I myself am the one thing
staying as it ever was.

(my tr.)

The only positive male character in the film.

( me / via )

Dance from Peeping Tom.

“On Thought in Harness

My falcon to my wrist
Returns
From no high air.
I sent her toward the sun that burns
Above the mist;
But she has not been there.
Her talons are not cold; her beak
Is closed upon no wonder;
Her head stinks of its hood, her feathers reek
Of me, that quake at the thunder.

Degraded bird, I give you back your eyes forever, ascend now whither you are tossed;
Forsake this wrist, forsake this rhyme;
Soar, eat ether, see what has never been seen; depart, be lost,
But climb.”

–Edna St Vincent Millay

A hybrid creature inhabits the design surrounding the initial-word of Torah portion Ki Tisa (כִּי תִשָּׂא).

"An apocalypse is the opposite of a dream. A dream is falser than the outer life. But the end of the world is more actual than the world it ends." --GK Chesterton

Greatest Hits.

( via / me )

Never Say Never.

"Terror and plagues are not an answer." --C S Lewis

A Girl In Trouble.

"AT SUNSET

Low sun,
shrouds
of dusk
occult you.
Clouds of rust grow bulbous.
Proud young crows
surround your glow."

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

Ella.

( via / via )

OzcarVision '24-'25.

"spider time"

1.
spended neume at noonday
nomquabs approach crabwise
fluttering hairballs
maps redrawn by drapesmoke

dressed in greige swabs' fester
shroud for a monster
maps without mousecrossing
mourn in the dim whimsy

gray panes of thunder
lift gristle ungrafted
we groom spastic pastures
spended neume at noonday

2.
blueface blistered · vision of dark
   carry a thick shrapnel
forgetfulness faring · too steeply freighted
   carry a thick shrapnel
mazes learned mostly · much left behind
   carry a thick shrapnel

clear charity · clustered around klaxons
   carry a thick shrapnel
want to wipe · weary subfusc
   carry a thick shrapnel
find a fierce stool · foraging redbrick
   carry a thick shrapnel

days that will dent · targe delirious
   carry a thick shrapnel
mount costs & manage · mangesky skittles
   carry a thick shrapnel

Rapid disassembly of a Tor.

"Congress should at least have a vote about whether the United States is going to become the 22nd republic of the Russian Federation." --@lolgop.bsky.social

Morphing cube.

( via / via )

"G.K. Chesterton’s ‘splendidly generous and strongly intelligent study of the poet’ in which ‘he defended Browning as a great master of form, so long as we define the grotesque as a major poetic form'."

"A gentle reminder that it’s not too late now. That was decades ago." --@neinquarterly.bsky.social

How to survive the broligarchy.

incurred cancer garden
not a course less forceful
old fence wisp-hung wooden
away from toys' foison
where words wink & rankle
& waste on naff sapphire

"It is harder in the 2020s to call things by name than it was, perhaps, in the last century."

( via warakami-vaporwave on tumblr / i think of this as krasnov's true face )

"To this day, every time I watch the film I still expect a character, maybe that hard-bitten newspaper editor, to look up from his desk and comment, 'Oh, it seems the clock is melting again'." (via)

"foggy day
the ghosts of winter
over the river"

--@hegelincanada.bsky.social

Solastalgia.

"Cold wind of misfortune, blowing away a civilization. Blowing away the principalities and the powers, the unkept promises, blowing away the riches and the lies. In times like these you do what you can to save what you can,make what new beginnings you can, for a recovery you’ll never see.” –Gwyneth Jones, North Wind

Tanka.

( via / via)

"Jungle" (live).

"Never write a poem about anything that ought to have a poem written about it, a wise man once told me." --Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town (1979)

Democratic Socialism.

some tower-set BASH
lingers the ARIA
though now add a SIGH

calavera's HAHA
hole in ground i BLAB
divest of Trojan LICE

chemical ACNE
the best it's ever BEEN
hyphen for a DASH

throttles the ARIA
someone else's SINS
will come to try this HASP

(2019)

The Consolations.