( via / via )

"Almost all the other participants in the project, realizing the limited time and resources of the camera, made very simple films...but Lynch packs his film, 'Premontions Following An Evil Deed,' full of action (there’s even an alien abduction or something)."

"It turned out to be far more sinister than just boring, as corporate entertainment sells bad values about humans being expendable and worth destroying when compared to the risk of losing social status or influence with funders." --Sarah Schulman via

Haiku.

"Upper Sandusky"

crackhead raccoon running
around fluted concrete
capybara bippie
in the iceberg gurgling
coffee sits symphony
unseen by bling fingers
the city's haint hooting
hollowly drab ballroom
caught in the artweb
a cold smiting smoulders
whatever it was easing
our illness went stillborn
crackhead raccoon running
around concrete border

Liberty Leading the People.

( me / via )

Pancho and Lefty.

"muggles"

golfed tsantsa a gift horse
gaseous underpasses
in the mild air all-dark
orpiment · iced dicethrow
these clouds cluster nestlings
clatter of rant cantrips
medicine dorp marplot
might not spare the scarecrow

ICE abducted a father in California and left his kids in the truck.

"Even the SS showed their faces." --@digby56.bsky.social

The wisteria walk at RHS Wisley.

( me / via )

Romance Sonámbulo.

Welcome to the robots-judging-humans future.

Entire neighborhoods gather to protect little babies & their moms from being separated & kidnapped.

"birdchatter in the WalMart parking lot"

parable cerulean
serene rustling empire
terrible iron cage yen
the rage of fools impairs

Northern lights off the far north coast of the Scottish Highlands.

( via / via )

ragged lady & devil in the bush ~ love in a mist.

"sound of tearing paper"

ice barrage in azure
orpiment · soap floorplan
dropped sleep into--
enough but i need it more
the bluegray dawn grilse
nexus of growththwart
in azure ice

"Habeas corpus" may have to be suspended, detailed oil painting, edward hopper.

"Toad put his head close to the ground and said loudly, 'Now seeds, start growing!'

Toad looked at the ground again. The seeds did not start to grow."

--@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social

Collaborative artwork, 2019 by the senior Indigenous women artists of Amata.

( via / via )

A Midsummer Night's Dream.

"winter solstice
abandoned
but you won't be lonely"

--@poemexe.com

On the Border.

all the pills are white
in the white cup · bitterly
we find our one way

toast with honey & peanuts
& a sought book read at last

Don't invite me to the function unless this is the vibe.

( matthias rauchmiller "vienna plague column" [1694] / me )

Oates on Plath Unabridged.

"Language
Slang is demanded.
Dare: phoneme solicits a
monotony not
onomastic. I lose men,
oh, per added, named signals."

--Anthony Etherin

Lo Straniero (1967). ☆☆☆☆

"Not long after, I discovered that hair, horn, pine-cones, fungi and hay were also sacred." --The Other Side

Sun shower.

( via / via )

Mythic Tales and Sacred Truths.

"...the means of locomotion is unimportant, the wandering remains. ...but to stand still, no, that's impossible." --Alfred Kubin, The Other Side (1908; tr Mike Mitchell. 2000)

Contempt. ☆☆☆

"Pool turning into a Pond"

Hit my mark · in the not yet morning
Not a glance glides · to the handwritten list
Food as a sequence · of small gestures
Take note of things · we’re soon needing
Keeps chaos at bay · & mortal illness
The pledge implicit · in placid helping
For awhile erases · ruin on wheels
Each of us Odysseus · each of us Penelope
A journey joined · a weave wrestled

Purgation. (via @allisonpoet.bsky.social)

( via / via )

Kahn/Radner.

"hairtrigger gumption"

to keep the wheel curling
accrue views
long-haired tiger tonguetied
turn a tune
mix coffees to muffle
merging splurge
in the cold dawn deadly
diamond mime
clear wall worrisome
weary fleer

Point.

"Belabor no saga. Set Allah's ram. Ah, coffee beans fresh." --Dr Awkward & Olson in Oslo

Chosen name.

( via / me )

Bugs.

"Unlike his earlier classical forebears, who did of course make occasional metaliterary reference, Optatian turns the poem itself into the main subject of poetry (sometimes, indeed, its only one)." --Jesús Hernández Lobato

A poem from Angel Island.

"theory of the killer app"

bone-garb of Xibalba
burying wind kindled
green on blue oblation
the blarney made carnal
early we wage wireless
wander into pawndrop
nothing ends like ether
instantly-fade crater
bone-garb of Xibalba

Advantages of Being a Woman Artist.

( via / me )

The US government has ordered the Swedish city of Stockholm to end its diversity, inclusivity and equality (DEI) programmes within 10 days.

"pitch changing as the jug fills"

frigid hell a hajji
harrowing sapphire
the last lemur amscrays
liming the twig hedge
pill bottles by size

dun mistress the dose-thief
dizzying candor
gravel pits of GrayTsantsa
grilse to the rescue
pill bottles by size

this world's worn-out turnip
tourniquet slippage
in the needdark orcas
frisking with swimjets
pill bottles by size

horloge-fed hajji
housing mad spambots
can parse this stilbpassel
Tuesday & Thursday
pill bottles by size

AI and the Future of Education. (thread)

" [Browning to Mallarmé:] '...Is there one poem written by any poet that deals with the revivifying power of brandy?' " --Anthony Burgess, The Devil's Mode

These are real, giant worlds, out there in the dark.

( via / via )

Conclave Tok is alive and kicking.

inly bingo flame
four faraway ice giants
rotate on sapphire

how many things we had learned
when we chose to stop learning

Light-microscopy connectomics.

Reducing everything to a discourse may be pedagogical, but that's not the only way to experience the world, & maybe not even the best way to navigate its difficulties.

Excuse me, i've got to go patent a robot arm you can sneak in under your clothes so that it can handwrite your in-class handwritten essays for you.

( via / via )

Adventures in the Etherscape.

"Please read the cares of the world that I have locked in these pages; and after, put this book aside and love. May you of a better future, love without a care and remember we loved too. As the shadows closed in, the stars came out."
--Derek Jarman via @simonguy.bsky.social

While This Beast Drinks Poison, a Snake Sucks His Blood.

out to bring in towels
gibbous moon through the trellis
boiling hot up there

these cruel & stupid apes i
never asked to be born with

"I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me..."

( via / via )

Goblinhood: Goblin as a Mode.

"Upper Sandusky"

unchecked killers · cocktail
in a cool dark tool shed
ev'rything's broken
ev'rything
to find safer sandhill
cinderblock altar

go on making gawk-cairns
against feral instants
ev'rything's broken
ev'rything
what will survive vetted
vetoed by robots

cerulean waves revvs-deep

"So, you say her name was Alice?"

"The difference between one of the happiest societies, Norway and America is that in Norway they spend $300 million helping the homeless dude on the sidewalk, while in America they spend $300 million rebuilding Alcatraz.

Do you get it yet?" --@krassenstein.bsky.social

Trump has found an aesthetic to define his second term.

( via / me )

" Hollywood, imbued with the artifice of set design and a very real glamour, was the dominant distributor of cheap spatial reproduction and ersatz images of the past.."

"After a brief interlude of sanity, its captains announce, the great time machine is everywhere back in the hands of the lunatics & animals & safely back on course for the 15thC or earlier. We give thanks to God." --@mjohnharrison.bsky.social

The university responded by marking up the letter for spelling, punctuation, and other grammatical errors.

"cabana"

mackerel sky · sparks skimming
   a curt exchange of missiles
the red ring widens · in the cold store
   i mull over labels
almost miss my airt-wink · blurt halcyon
   in the latter days of the law

have stocked up · made small plans
   accepted much unknowing
orange cone cartouche · name of the void
   i mull over labels
the fuse fizzles · not much more
   in the latter days of the law

the geese honking · against heinous tools
   boxes of strange puzzles
shadows on you tend · lost millions
   i mull over labels
worn gray carpet · walg of poets
   in the latter days of the law

Treasure Found.

( via / me )

Ten Poets Travel to the Dark Side of the Moon.

"the next gold rush"

quicksand march · nevermore onward
outside rumbling · storm ruminations
why are we whelmed · in this whackfest
why sitting safe · as our sent loads
of explosives pummel · fam'lies & landscapes
of despair & spiralling · harm? no one
answers, my anguish · even to speak it risks
   a ride to offshore prisons
in front of which scampers · some Mar-a-Lago skullfaced
   unqualified appointee

"...AI...used to create a deceased victim’s own impact statement."

"The Ukrainian philosopher Volodymyr Yermolenko, drawing on the Freudian Thanatos, has proposed describing Putinism and Trumpism as 'thanatocracy'.” --Marci Shore via

Roko sifting.

( via / via )

Fake health insurance. (As far as i'm concerned, Oscar is one of those.)

"a night boat
of the buddha on the moor
wets our sandals"

--@poemexe.com

The Weird o' It. (I saw a printed copy of the free internet one on the shelf at Half Price for $25.)

outside our thick walls
i hear thunder · passing glass,
dimples on olive

line in air, line in water:
that stress placed next to this stress

The Long Confederacy.

( via / me )

Education under the Trump regime.

answer-machine mincemeat
mocks a solid knowledge
Delphi hereafter
scorns books · in the bonehead beat

Delphi hereafter
as the lights go out

River Rhyme.

"Mao's Great Leap Forward led to 50 million deaths, but 50 years later the Chinese economy is stronger than ever. Could the same thing work here?" --@nytpitchbot.bsky.social

Vellichor.

( me / via )

The Last Valkyrie.

"Allow me to address the elephant in the room: The decades-long outsourcing of domestic manufacturing to China was not an insidious Chinese conspiracy for dominance but the greedy strategy of the American ruling class to explode its profit margins by exploiting global inequality." --@strandjunker.com

Delia Derbyshire Collection on Archive.org.

"Alcatraz"

cold salt air · constantly swirls
pallid haunt · of the perne gulls
still cages · caught in mid-yawn
no wings fetch · phantom sky-road
the dull twinge · of a doomed game
supplies ebb · plastic wrappers
bound for strands · or strange landfills

"My first go at it—eventually collected into a chapbook of brief poems titled, a little less than creatively, 'Discontent and Its Civilizations'..."

( via / via )

How do you keep going in Gaza when everything tells you to stop?

"crime of opportunity"

scripts scattered · in the gray desert
   wearying to the eye
faraway fantods · erupt in rainbows
   nothing is what it was
   pangs in the holding

the ship scuttled · your ride share
   tarrying where the blend
of gray fields · & abrupt rainbows
   is more & more nothing
   pangs in the holding

a clip sprung · in the spooled depth
   spiralling out of hand
faraway losses · you still lavish
   though nothing returns
   pangs in the holding

More Chastisements.

"You do not deserve to know unusual people, if you find fault with their very unusualness." --@ivycomptonburnett.bsky.social

Meanwhile in Texas...

( via / via )

Tanka.

"Toad woke up. 'Drat!' he said. 'This house is a mess. I have so much work to do.'

Frog looked through the window. 'Toad, you are right,' said Frog. 'It is a mess.'

Toad pulled the covers over his head." --@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social

Huff-Duff.

"SUNDIAL

Laid,
an onus set,
a gnomon gates sun, on a dial....

Sky rhythms fly by, wryly,
by my crypt —
by syzygy.

Sulphur sun succumbs:
Dusk dulls us, murmurs,
blunts us up.

Soft glows of hollow moon
grow gnomon forms on
ponds of rock.

This night is finishing.
Its vigil lifting, nitid shifting
gilts this dish in twilit stirrings.

Restless edges represent:
The steeple’s lengths lessen when
the flexed degrees descend.

A raw and rampant
dawn attracts a waltz.
A vacant patch draws back:

Laid,
an onus set,
a gnomon gates sun, on a dial."

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

Me and Bobby McGee.

( via / via )

Gertrude Stein in Bryant Park.

"Revés,
reveses él obra,
reseco, no caído,
ve un nuevo reparo llorar,
o ve un árbol en ocaso.

Mi mal, arena y arrayán,
era la mimosa, con él obra.

Nuevo, raro llora,
pero ve un nuevo día, conoce.
Ser árbol es ese verse ver."

--@merlinaacevedo.bsky.social

(Google translate:

Setback
he works backwards,
parched, not drooping,
see a new reluctance to cry,
or see a tree in sunset.

My evil, sand and myrtle,
it was the mimosa, with him work.

New, weird cry,
but he sees a new day, he knows.
To be a tree is to see oneself.)

Homage to New York.

"...it was just after the War and there was not to be for years the Esperanto of pimentos and the snobbery of refrigerators.'' --A Case of Knives

Agatha Christie writing course led by her digitally reconstructed AI self.

( via / via )

Haiku.

"winter grove
vanishing over the rooftops
these slept-in sheets"

--@poemexe.com

The time when Donny and Marie had their own Disco Star Wars special.

"Pictographie

I marred a groaning silhouette,
Saw dim abhorrent freedoms cemented forever,
Till blackened paranoia bewitched this shadowed roof,
Smashing my despondent soul.

In meadows I remember my orations,
A forecast of degraded love:
Words cadential, proceeding from Hades
To the heart now shrunk,
Sublimated in helpless, binding hate.

You, a tree, a field overblown in summer,
Words and looks gathered, solicited, chanced,
Reminders now of the pleasing past
Bathed in bright heat and sad memories for me."

--Michael Keith in From Fibs to Fibonacci
(Each stanza is a word-length mnemonic for φ, e, & π; each is an anagram of the others.)

What's next for the Popemobile.