Sligo, Slidell, argyle
slant-told homecoming
midnight doors
could not stay me
a thouand deaths
(moist gulag)
Sligo, Slidell, argyle
(gulag moist)
We argue diction in the shadow of the gibbet.
Saturday, October 03, 2026
"Over the course of the summer, ICE detained more than one person per minute."
"Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to prosecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing." —Vaclav Havel, in The Power of the Powerless (1978) via @markchristian135924
In 1925 fashion designer Sonia Delaunay customised her Citroen B12 to match her clothing.
tiltdecantative hent
heinous drudgery adjunct
shadows i
mistake for bugs
coolth lethargy · though eyes mended
margin short mammals
emerge with cruel alertness
these grays sing
gruesome of storm
broken tower · testament in the cards
"I have come to appreciate execution’s place in our national life. It’s an heirloom of doubtful value."
“George Crabbe
Give him the darkest inch your shelf allows,
Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will,—
But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still
With the sure strength that fearless truth endows.
In spite of all fine science disavows,
Of his plain excellence and stubborn skill
There yet remains what fashion cannot kill,
Though years have thinned the laurel from his brows.
Whether or not we read him, we can feel
From time to time the vigor of his name
Against us like a finger for the shame
And emptiness of what our souls reveal
In books that are as altars where we kneel
To consecrate the flicker, not the flame."
—Edwin Arlington Robinson
"At the time it was written, there was still a firewall between the rock and classical worlds."
"In what may turn out to be one of the most prescient pieces of sci-fi ever made, the movie posits a superintelligent AI called the Entity, which monkeys with PLC systems making it impossible for humans to trust any information that comes to them digitally." —Jonathan V Last via
"He painted his bedroom walls red vermillion to test if it would make him go mad."
"The segments of a jester's cap are its "true arms" (distinguished from its false, humanoid arms). They are used for tasting the air, manipulating prey, and intra-clown communication"
—@ctrlcreep.bsky.social
"If the dream is a writing system...."
shamefastness blurred
prowlwood chore
loom spawn
oily idyll garb
No Land to Stand On. (Mefi thread)
"Moths
They speak of having been condemned
for crimes committed in some other
world—for torturing a lover
perhaps, for cuckolding a friend
Their penance is to fling themselves
against the lesser lights of Earth,
then freeze against the wall in fear
like haunted Midases of silver
Of silver—yes, the moths have touched
your eye for lustre, the fly-by-night;
as though they bribed you to admit
the wrongs that saw your own wings crushed"
—@huckastley
"If through excessive weakness we can neither call forth pity nor do harm to others, we attack what the universe itself represents for us. Then every good or beautiful thing is like an insult." —Simone Weil via
The Occulted Paintings of Robert Lenkiewicz.
Friday, October 02, 2026
“ ‘How do you explain the thousands of books that come out every year?’
'I do not explain them. There seems to me to be no explanation.’ ”
—@IComptonBurnett
"how to lose the oil war"
pale horsemen's hooves
shut eyes barrage
how soon these
joys shall fall
Taking the Keys Away from Grandpa.
ransom,
Resonulo,
out of all the unseen
Borgesian roses one that
bites back
"The fact of the matter is that America is the most powerful and wealthy civilization in the history of the world, yet a great many of its citizens spend an inordinate amount of time surrounded on all sides by cheap drywall and drop ceilings, along with the ever-present headache inducing buzz of fluorescent lights... and in these spaces largely useless tasks are performed, often under surveillance, hour after hour, day after day. " —Aaron Lange via
THE MOST HEAT EXTREME EVENT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN.
A guy filmed a Soyuz launch from a distance so close it should be impossible, since safety zones usually clear the pad for kilometers around.
— Digital Brain (@yourdigitalbrain.bsky.social) October 2, 2026 at 7:12 AM
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Some of us golf, some of us putt-putt.
I hate to say this, but that's kind of awesome.
gibbous
our derangement
ask clanker clarify
what will become of these wights so
carbon
We used to make so much cool stuff with our hands
— Solomon (@solomonrmissouri.com) October 1, 2026 at 8:00 AM
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( me / via)
moon split
in the black sky
like the sura foretold
a thing that never happened to
earthlings
"Lionesses keep the male lions in check out in the wild. I’d love to see women doing similar things here in society." —@mouthyrenegade.bsky.social via
The School that Became a Grave.
Thursday, October 01, 2026
"The author/artist who is the subject of dethroning is a stand-in for some larger transgression."
"John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett were all on GWBush 2000 'Florida Recount' team." —@jfallows.bsky.social
"The Calvinists' biggest mistake was that they were insufficiently fatalistic."
form, the
pentagram that
can capture a spirit
or with its vacancy evoke
Maya
"In 1946, Germany ran out of Nazis."
cold, limp
the honey toast
the hospital served me
yet it was a first glimmer
of home
"Another day spent fruitlessly searching for the Black Library in Weychester Cathedral."
"It really says something when both of my therapists are saying that the sense of dread is fully justified and the best I can do is tune out what isn't an immediate threat to my well being."
—@gnome-artificer.bsky.social
HOLDMESE / MOON FLIGHT (1975).
Henry Ossawa Tanner's The Angel of Death Following Two Lovers.
"In scenes that are far too reminiscent of a Patricia Highsmith short story for my liking, it turns out that our dishwasher was broken by a slug - yes, a slug - climbing in through the external waste pipe and then sitting on the motherboard." —@rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social
New definition of surrealism just dropped.
trill ghosts
haunt our halfway
unregarding tree-lined
repositories of parked cars
today
Five Vintage Fountain Pens for Beginners.
the day
shrouded & wet
asudden · elsewhere floods
are tugging parked cars awry, here
green throbs
Authored first full-length Manx language novel.
"Because of the difficulty of obtaining whale song and the absolute proliferation of birds, scientists are shifting their attention toward the actual language of the birds." —Damon Rolnick via
It’s hard to square re-enchantment with generational trauma.
"that's so agentic"
maddest October
without any help from me
dashboard lights embellish
labyrinth of Ixtab
chess grognard grass-fed
& graying rogue mogul
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Texas. Not what you think!
blood bus'ness
zarf
rotkohl spiel
moon-mad aisle
loud woods
stage voice
If i had to do it over again i'd be a puppeteer in Prague.
"Automated moderating has decided that Artemisia Gentileschi's Susanna and the Elders is adult content." —@evacide.bsky.social
"That sentence is so peak 2026." —@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social (thread)
That time i wanted to write Old English in runes.
"One thing not living in America has made really hit home is how much truly global cultural dominance is a thing of the past. I have not heard 'Choosing Texas' once in the urban Western European wild, I could not hum a single bar of it if you put a gun to my head. 40 years ago we had uncontacted island tribes full of Michael Jackson fans. It is more over than we can possibly imagine." —@ellecarroll
Ausonius' Nuptial Cento translated.
“Song
I make my shroud but no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair,
With stitches set in even rows.
I make my shroud but no one knows.
In door-way where the lilac blows,
Humming a little wandering air,
I make my shroud and no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair.”
—Adelaide Crapsey
I've always had a soft spot for yogh.
"CAESAR
My shoes are almost dead
And as I wait at the doors of ice
I hear the cry go up for him Caesar Caesar
But when I look out the window I see only the flatlands
And the slow vanishing of the windmills
The centuries draining the deep fields
Yet this is still my country
The thug on duty says What would you change
He looks at his watch he lifts
Emptiness out of the vases
And holds it up to examine
So it is evening
With the rain starting to fall forever
One by one he calls night out of the teeth
And at last I take up
My duty
Wheeling the president past banks of flowers
Past the feet of empty stairs
Hoping he's dead"
—WS Merwin
Some of the bigger fountain pen makers and their flagship pens.
It used to be accepted wisdom that the best poets were the earliest, & perhaps one day we will say this about film.
I don’t mind computer-made work that advertizes itself as such. I like elephant art & monkey art, too.
"The Heian court, which could have had anything, named one of its colours kuchiba 朽葉. Rotting leaves. A dull brown-yellow, the colour of a path in November. Murasaki Shikibu dresses people in it. So does Sei Shōnagon. And because one word for decay was not enough, it came in three. Aka-kuchiba, the leaf gone red. Ki-kuchiba, gone yellow. Ao-kuchiba, the leaf that has begun to turn and still has green in it." —Renares via
“The courage that my mother had
Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried:
Now granite in a granite hill.
The golden brooch my mother wore
She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.
Oh, if instead she’d left to me
The thing she took into the grave—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.”
—Millay
"At Denicija’s grave
На гробот од Дениција
”Longing for her, I often sit in her shadow…” - Old Testament
Above me a grey cloud and a grey eagle
are discussing something,
and I think they're tipping you off
about me, Denicija.
Because whenever I saw a tower and a noonday poplar,
they were like your figure, Denicija.
Whenever I encountered the swelter of day and the swaying of wheat,
they were like your hair, Denicija.
Whenever I discovered a sunflower and a backlit embrasure,
they were like your eyes, Denicija.
Whenever I came across a sunset, whenever I cut a watermelon,
they were like your mouth, Denicija.
And all the measured multures, all the Kantarka pears
were like your breasts, Denicija.
Whenever a sweet and unfurled wing passed me by,
they were like your eyelashes, Denicija.
Whenever I plucked a piece of straw and an olive branch,
they were like your fingers, Denicija.
Whenever I opened a window and an unread book,
they were like your blouse, Denicija.
And all the abandoned spurs and stirrups
were like your earrings, Denicija.
Whenever I heard of raging hills and seas,
they were like your hips, Denicija.
Whenever I saw dandelions and ploughshares,
they were like your feet, Denicija.
And I saw what I saw, and I saw nothing
because all day long I ascend upon the souls of the dead,
all day long I descend through the rain and mist
and everywhere I arrive I'm always too late to reach you.
Afterwards I stand frozen, waiting where I think you'll pass by
and I leave every city gate standing open
at all times so that you can come back.
You peer out at me from both heaven and earth,
and in no way can I manage to tell you
that my death too began after yours
and that it is blessed to live, but even more blessed to die,
thinking only of you, Denicija."
—Petre M. Andreevski via
Never shall I forget that smoke.
"So, for example, when Bell lifts the veil off the mystery of the puddles through the device of Seathorpe’s own mad scientist’s journal, we are moving along through the preliminaries of the man’s life up to the point he began attempting to create life (using some form of electrolysis, it turns out) when we take a left and wander down a five page detour about the evils of flogging..." —Neglected Books via
Alas.
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
I fall into easy habits of browsing Substack, blogging, curating images; hours go by this way. It's just like an interminable session in the doctor's waiting room, in which all the magazines have been read over twice. We all are waiting for the Midterms, or Krasnov's cheeseburgers to clog his heart, or some other deus ex machina we don't really believe in. Stories would lead us to dream that six months from now all the Blue Meanies will be overthrown. By what, i ask. By more severe consequences.
"dinkum Hakenkreuz"
strands of realer things
but why give them the say-so
flavors flowing earthward
reflections of glass towers
the story sternly spurned
strands of realer things
far from the tall tumult
skeletons of gaunt grief
but why give them the say-so
why among fluorescents
& intangible ballast
flavors flowing earthward
( via / via )Here it comes... the large coronal hole is almost directly facing Earth now, which means fast solar wind is 3-4 days away. In fact, NOAA SWPC has just issued a G1/minor storm watch for Oct 2. This means there are chances for mid-latitude auroral displays Thu and Fri nights. #heliophysics
— Vincent Ledvina (@vincentledvina.bsky.social) September 29, 2026 at 12:44 PM
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Gender neutrality in languages with gendered third-person pronouns.
werewolf antheap
watch slow loom
poising ark
whiteout deadweight
"I have separated the art from the artist..." (thread)
"I wound up looking at over one hundred ceiling fans for this small blog post, and I’m sure you’re all wondering which one is my favorite. I have to say it’s the 'Hanke 36.22' 6- Speed Dimmable Reversible Ceiling Fan With Led Lights And Remote Control" ($167)" —Kate Wagner via
I only know that summer sang in me.
"I will not tell you my poems thru this mechanical contraption. They come from me to you, direct."
"For much of the nineteenth century, many Americans refused to believe Native people or their ancestors had built the great earthworks spreading across the country. The builders were recast as Phoenicians, Israelites, Egyptians, Vikings or whatever lost Old World people happened to fit the theory." —Moundlore via
"B-road Stop
The storm
holds
its breath
at the crossroads.
wipers halt mid-swipe,
parked in a stale bracket of air.
A short reprieve
before the sky
drops
its
weight
onto the potholed junction."
—@thedevilstuna.bsky.social
"crow in a handmedown blazer"
Michaelmas alchemy
extras, stowed away, forgotten
eat breaks & what do you have to show?
splintery as all get-out
gate in the threatening morn
"Here the coelacanth awaited us in a large trellis-work cage that was hauled up from the depths. I observed its slow and measured movements, its primitive appearance, its sharp hooked teeth. Most of all I was conscious of its eyes. Definitely not your usual opaque fish eyes. These were alert, watching, waiting. The eyes of a predator, the eyes of man's ancestor." —Edwin Morrisby, Unpackaged Tours (1988)
"All I've ever wanted to be was a foot soldier of cinema."
Monday, September 28, 2026
"Whales categorize vocal music by species; whale-song, human-song, mouse-song, parrot-song. But all instrumental music is called tool-song" —@ctrlcreep.bsky.social
"nerves of steel"
fascination switchback
this is the final battle
riddled with gray grottos
no cool change
bushels ashchoice
too hard fetched · flaw proud
holy snakebite bilked
Barmecidal spider
Makes more & more sense all the time.
"HOW POETRY COMES TO ME
It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light
—-Gary Snyder via @alinastefanescu
"these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence" —@mobydickatsea.bsky.social
This is probably the first book devoted to the Ottoman night before gas lighting.
One more marathon road trip and the book would write itself.
"One way of looking at the rise of the Male resentment politics is that we're still producing secondary males -- and, in fact, our system is producing more than ever -- but it's become increasingly difficult to find a way to get rid of them." —@braak.bsky.social via (thread)
One Ring-Tailed Roarer to Another.
"THE ART (Aelindrome in the Decimal Expansion of √2)
14142135623730950488
The art,
a losing sun,
as she emerges,
only a swan
to her suffering,
may be dark
as turns of sky.
Do seas turn
so dark, maybe,
suffering her
as wantonly?
So, emerge as she —
sung in a lost heart."
—Anthony Etherin, 2012
"consolatio"
no justice
just us
steel mistress
no justice
all questions
be lost arts
no justice
just us
"It brings me masses of joy, and I don’t want to sound saintly, but if it can do that for me, then surely it can do it for other people who are not in the lucky position I am in to be able to read these things." —Richard Village via