( via / via )

Nottingham by night.

"BLIZZARD

the soft economy of ghosts;

on the couch,
we note the sensuousness of the phenomenon,
whose cosmos of cotton ensconces
coffeehouses, townhouses, towns:
the gusty monotony of the tempest,
then the monotone hush of footsteps on snow"

—@lukebradford.bsky.social

Armagideon Time.

"Every novel in the past five years has the same ending: all the characters turn out to be aspects of the same person, who is in turn a sliver of the subconsciousness of a cosmic mollusk.

ENOUGH.

Not every novel needs the gestalt cosmic mollusk ending. I'm sick of the obligatory dreamslimetrail."

—@charliejane.bsky.social

Red dress, Death Valley.

( via / me )

Animation of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) quad.

"tired of the news being snuff films" —@ieatkillerbe.es

Dead Men Don't Rape.

"realm of slenderman"

the pavement's turned to solid white
the mercury's at twenty
i cease domscrolling as it's late
& still feel somewhat guilty

which call to arms appeals, this cusp
when surely something's needed?
dyspeptic leisure claws the hasp—
an old protester's jaded

but nothing like this night now storms
the hearts of many changing
& we shall see more suasive psalms
than mine on ice impinging

Sofaphilia.

( via / me )

Some interesting collaborative pieces.

"Spring terror

Snowdrops revert to merely green
when snow subverts their herald’s role,
but thaw restores their callous poise
and sets in train an ebbing tide

which gathers speed like pressured steam
as each successive flower unfolds
and every longer day destroys
more of the darkness where we hide.

It quietly starts, and then it swells,
this growing distance from the shore –
and as my toes lose contact with

dissolving sand and broken shells,
I want to ask, beneath the roar,
has winter no more cold to give?"

—@philvernon.bsky.social

Eye-popping mid-80s Hindi horror, a film that bounces from romance to sexy dancing to slapstick to jump scares with absolute abandon for 2.5 hours.

"...Expiring in the frore and foggy air." --Shelley,
The Revolt of Islam, Canto IX. xxv.

Do anagrams count in the meme wars?

( via / me )

"We have a madman in the White House."

"While waxing parquet decks, Suez sailors vomit jauntily abaft." —anonymous pangram (here & elsewhere)

Jesse Welles on Colbert.

"Baudelaire: Meditation

Be good, my Sorrow: hush now: settle down.
You sighed for dusk, and now it comes: look there!
A denser atmosphere obscures the town,
To some restoring peace, to others care.
While the lewd multitude, like hungry beasts,
By pleasure scourged (no thug so fierce as he!)
Go forth to seek remorse among their feasts—
Come, take my hand; escape from them with me.
From balconies of sky, around us yet,
Lean the dead years in fashions that have ceased.
Out of the depth of waters smiles Regret.
The sun sinks moribund beneath an arch,
And like a long shroud rustling from the East,
Hark, Love, the gentle Night is on the march."

—tr Roy Campbell via

Blue Night.

( mary engelbreit on ig via / via )

First known female street artist from Afghanistan.

"ESCAPE

When foxes eat the last gold grape,
And the last white antelope is killed,
I shall stop fighting and escape
Into a little house I'll build.

But first I'll shrink to fairy size,
With a whisper no one understands,
Making blind moons of all your eyes,
And muddy roads of all your hands.

And you may grope for me in vain
In hollows under the mangrove root,
Or where, in apple-scented rain,
The silver wasp-nests hang like fruit."

—Elinor Wylie

"Genre is a filtering technology." (via Mefi)

"Seeing a bunch of normal ass midwestern moms and dads marching in -20 degrees knowing they might be tear gassed or worse really drives home what a cowardly lot of people the pundit class is" —@brendelbored.bsky.social

Angel at the End of the World.

( via / via )

We are all finding out just what we have to offer.

"The turtle laughed. The lizards laughed. The snake laughed. The field mouse laughed, and Frog laughed." —@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social

Street scene in Alaska.

      "white gathers"

   when our fares give out
the tower gets finished
   the levee buckles
our dreams receive sanction

   the question held fast
to the goal it's bound
   this variety
of despair makes us trip
   on tears so sanguine
hist'ry a shelter left

   the only one left
out of tumults sanguine
   this long crazy trip
—utmost variety
   or torture crag bound—
the waters shuffle fast

   till we dare sanction
new straitjacket buckles
   the reign is finished
no more treats to give out
   hotel overlook,
& its games overlook

Flobots' ICE song.

( via Nadja [1994] ☆☆☆ / via )

Good morning!

"Ripple

What gravity takes away pulls
And what it can't see puts
In camarillas—they lie still

There objurgations compress
To combine and create,
Uncontained, the warm effluviums

In certain types the calyx has fallen
Prior to edge they dropped
Making fulgurate the air around

Ripples (brushlike) they become
Pure in tone, extended
To point (seeing ends)

Where the paraclete sleeps
In rooms outside there is
The thick peace of songed sleep

But we, the cataleptics,
Must venture out alone with our clean
Into what seems a source: the without"

—Ovid Neal III

A star named Hedorah. More about "Mothra". Wikipedia is on it.

"We seem to us (the real Us!) to be reading our Amenti in the sixth sealed chapter of the going forth by black." —Finnegans Wake

Inaugural meeting.

( via / via )

It was a good ride.

"Lispector:

'Everything could be fiercely summed up in never emitting a first scream—a first scream unleashes all the others, the first scream at birth unleashes a life, if I screamed I would awaken thousands of screaming beings who would loose upon the rooftops a chorus of screams and horror.

   If I screamed I would unleash the existence—the existence of what? the existence of the world. With reverence I feared the existence of the world for me.'

(The Passion According to G.H., trans. Idra Novey)"

—@yoonkim.bsky.social

"At least a dozen cultures, from Mongolia to the Philippines, are trying to save themselves—that is, to reconnect with their heritage and identity in the face of opposition and oppression—by reviving the ancient art of calligraphy, sometimes on paper with a brush, sometimes on palm leaves with a stylus, sometimes on bamboo with an engraving tool."

pouring down vacuum · periscope up
   nothing to see in the streets
slats of dark · the clock's slated
   route & we all go
on this foul ferry · through the four walls
   & call it arrival

"I hope he's kept away from young women..."

( via / via )

I think it’s time

erodes roster · ruthless the sweep
shower sprinkle · shape tremulous
   brown paper towels catch
weathers the thorn · theory of imbeciles
a done deal · not to dwell on
why must all these things · ever transpire
the full trash can · in the houses of the holy

Jungle (live).

"Nothing says 'board of peace' like having two founding members not show up to the signing ceremony because they would be arrested at the airport for war crimes." —@maryh58.bsky.social

Their own words back to them.

(via / via )

Trump administration orders slavery exhibit removed from Independence National Historic Park.

"I truly don’t be seeing discourse but I keep seeing memes and best I can tell from memes white people countries all tryin to prove who is the least bad and post colonial countries are confused why they think any of them would win that contest" —@sailorctaustin.bsky.social

Waiting.

floating lanterns loosed
lest thesterness furnish
all papers in order
ebbs solitude's clutter
pirouettes the oil well
wheels' syzygy trudges
i come writing rain checks
robed jealously dustpan

From "Letters to Yesenin".

( via / via )

Electronic music by a neuroscientist who was influenced by Debussy, Messiaen, and Bill Evans.

"THE EAGLE AND THE MOLE

Avoid the reeking herd,
Shun the polluted flock,
Live like that stoic bird,
The eagle of the rock.

The huddled warmth of crowds
Begets and fosters hate;
He keeps, above the clouds,
His cliff inviolate.

When flocks are folded warm,
And herds to shelter run,
He sails above the storm,
He stares into the sun.

If in the eagle's track
Your sinews cannot leap,
Avoid the lathered pack,
Turn from the steaming sheep.

If you would keep your soul
From spotted sight or sound,
Live like the velvet mole;
Go burrow underground.

And there hold intercourse
With roots of trees and stones,
With rivers at their source,
And disembodied bones."

—Elinor Wylie

Robert E Howard, Grettir the Outlaw, and the origins of two-fisted Weird Fiction.

"Democratic leaders need to fear being branded as collaborators more than they fear being called soft on crime" —@brandonfriedman.bsky.social

James Baldwin on Shakespeare.

( via / via )

Pumpkinification.

"I have been actively involved in protest movements for 24 years. I have never seen anything approaching this scale. " —@margaret.bsky.social (thread )

One day I wrote her name.

Hague rehearsals · hardly on tap
   brittle in the strong places
music on antique · instruments

Bubbles swimming.

( via / via )

My Country for a Medal.

"Voidward scriptures paused,
a bookmark in emptiness
life slips in again"

—@underablacksky.bsky.social

Six or seven wheels.

"Tonight, one of my partners asked me: 'How do I write an essay while government goons are torturing people in the streets?'

It's a hard question. But the answer I eventually arrived at was: 'Because it'll be over someday, and investing in a better future is an affirmation of that fact.' "

—@shotbuns.bsky.social

Meditation in Uproar.

( via / via )

What happened to publishing.

"Just read a joke that Ursula K. Le Guin told to Michael Bishop in one of their letters.

'Dear Mike,
It takes two Taoists to screw in lightbulb.
One to do it; and one not to do it.'
-U"

—@denniswise.bsky.social

Prince's solo.

"the maze"

alone
seeing the moon
with its last crescent lean
alone
that uncanny bright carillon
when but echoes remain
alone

seeing the moon

An Islington View.

( via / me )

"What if you were blind, and aquatic, and highly intelligent in there, and increasingly concerned about how many edible Jupiter-chemicals you could harvest from your ice-sky."

"Waters of Europa"

into the dark, kelp-webbed · waters of Europa
where there is neither up nor down · in nor out
doddering monster · at the milquetoast podium
in bubbles dissolves · my silver dream
from a hospital bed · being turned
   alive into a pangolin
in whose scales i learned · my silver dream
the latticework wrought · all my rules carved
then dark waters · dug me a form
under the ice · of far Europa

said i must have more · on that endless staircase
the crowd silent · seeing me wander

radial i swam · with no head or feet
& the rabbits came out · to dance when i died

Richelieu on the Sea Wall of La Rochelle.

"SNOWFALL (Anagrammed Lines)

Winter wails lavish frost:
Snowfall arrives, with its
faint silver. Slow wraiths
flow in salt rivers. What is
final swirls over its thaw."

—@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

Earliest known group of chess pieces.

( via/ via )

Shoggoths and AI.

Feeling the limitations of mockery.

Story-written-like-crosswords poem.

lost in the best lie · lost in the safe posture
confidence score scuffed · lost in the safe posture

proton aurora writ · rendered inane brainwash
liripoop lard-veined · lost in the safe posture

still to witness while · the war topples hoplites
one by one lips lapse · lost in the safe posture

Cocijo, the Zapotec deity of thunder.

( via / via )

Public Domain Remix Contest Winners.

"Baudelaire: Sorrow of the Moon

More drowsy dreams the moon tonight. She rests
Like a proud beauty on heaped cushions pressing,
With light and absent-minded touch caressing,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breasts.
On satin-shimmering, downy avalanches
She dies from swoon to swoon in languid change,
And lets her eyes on snowy visions range
That in the azure rise like flowering branches.
When sometimes to this earth her languor calm
Lets streak a stealthy tear, a pious poet,
The enemy of sleep, in his cupped palm,
Takes this pale tear, of liquid opal spun
With rainbow lights, deep in his heart to stow it
Far from the staring eyeballs of the Sun."

—tr Roy Campbell

This warms my heart, whatever the drawbacks.

"The organelle-organism cycle is the periodic slumber of agency and selfhood as an entity shifts in and out of a hivemind" —@ctrlcreep.bsky.social

"My absences like a wind chill..."

( via / via )

Winter Fugue.

"Wildfire smoke spreading
Chaos across forest glade
Moth takes flight saves self"

—@thorgunnells.bsky.social

Ethanopium.

"Baudelaire: Le Chat (tr Roy Campbell)

Come, my fine cat, against my loving heart;
Sheathe your sharp claws, and settle.
And let my eyes into your pupils dart
Where agate sparks with metal.
Now while my fingertips caress at leisure
Your head and wiry curves,
And that my hand's elated with the pleasure
Of your electric nerves,
I think about my woman —how her glances
Like yours, dear beast, deep-down
And cold, can cut and wound one as with lances;
Then, too, she has that vagrant
And subtle air of danger that makes fragrant
Her body, lithe and brown."

Two crows enjoying the snow.

( via / via )

Morpho Towers.

Bridge of Sighs and weaving shark of the moon
beside me glide as i craft bark of the moon.

Days, black flowing river, and having won,
yet all your crumbs lark ‘neath the arc of a moon.

Samovar ethereal this way;
nor rambles by himself at the dark of the moon.

Pyramid chores, staggering chief of shades
barters blood to be monarch on the moon.

Watch Graywyvern dodging thrown coronas:
all his tumors bear the mark of the moon.

Moogums.

I dream that as a bullshit artist i ascend to the highest level, where other bullshit artists welcome me and write glowing blurbs for my books. We are all in on the secret of secrets, which is only that people will believe anything. Knowing this makes us feel invulnerable.

Even debunked, our books still sell.

Anniversary.

( me / via )

Outlyer and Ghazals online.

“With the handwriting of a sunflower. I scrawl azaleas. Clipping gifs and bonsai like a tin ballerina the melody and paladium twirl and trounce the stadium we erupt in conflagration of moon-rock pronouncing one another Intrepid Paragons of Lascivious Shimmer on Pangolin my Parapet”
—@zoebot_zoe

Time for The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, i reckon.

   terrified frozen
staring out the blurred windshield
   as landscape rushes

past: i shut my computer,
get up to go back to work

Take Me to the River.

( via / me )

🎥 "Mothra vs. Godzilla" (1964).

“LII

I was lucky enough to have invented a liquid heart
by drinking a full gallon of DNA stolen from a lab.

To discover eleven more dollars than you thought you
had and the wild freedom in the tavern that follows.

He’s writing mood music for the dead again and ought to have
his ass kicked though it is bruised too much already by his sport.

Both serpent becoming dragon and the twelve moons lost
at sea, worshipped items, rifts no longer needed by us.

Hot mickey mouse jazz and the mice jigging up the path
to the beehive castle, all with the bleached faces of congressmen.”

—Jim Harrison

Bauhaus Poster ⚪️⬜️.

We had safety belts. We got rid of them. We had brake pedals. We got rid of them. Now we just have to hang on for the ride.

Lullaby for a Daughter.

( via / me )

Thingu.

"Palantir is working on a tool for ICE that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a 'confidence score' on the person’s current address." —@404media.co via (Just like they pick targets in Gaza.)

" 'Americans are so accustomed to this basically peaceful, prosperous, and open world that they tend to think it is the normal state of international affairs, likely to continue indefinitely,' Kagan wrote. 'They can’t imagine it unraveling, much less what that unraveling will mean for them'."

"toward Imbolc"

idipo gray Grinchus
grumbles through the new humbug
not the old & irksome
equal for one so freaky
where could sign up wharfside
whelmed & reading screeds crackling
bards in some small ingle
sempiternal watch otchkies
ever have held, hopeful
of hap, blank sheets, dank wisdom

To Every American Who's Sorry.

( via / me )

Northern Lights over Goonhilly HQ.

"TIME (Palindrome by Word)

Time keeps forever.
It grows us in light.

The unfurling days
see shadows turn.

In turn, shadows
see days unfurling.

The light in us grows.
It forever keeps time."

—@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

Computer rook sac.

"It’s really hard to bear the contrast on my TL of regular ass Minnesotans doing some of the bravest shit I’ve ever seen in the face of state sponsored terror followed by a deep blue state senator posting: 'errrm how does taking Greenland help lower the price of groceries?' "
—@leftistwonk.bsky.social

How computers have changed chess. (reddit thread)

( me / via )

After googling "especially ugly confederate statue”.

"To the unchanging gods, everything impermanent is soft. The whole material world is like a blanket fort: and they nestle in the great stone caverns, inside engine cylinders, and in the spaces between eyes and brains" —@ctrlcreep.bsky.social

Aphorismata.

"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 on substack

A busy, busy immigration enforcement operation.

( via / via )

" 'Normal' is the secret weapon of empire."

"my phone only works
on the back porch where I smoke
watching moths visit"

—@robinjp.bsky.social

Artwork that is made of a single line only.

We're going to need a bigger bingo card.

The Street Enters the House.