( via / via )

Menagerie.

There's a faculty parking space i have an eye on.

"The first 800 trees he planted died." (via Mefi)

"THERE WILL BE STARS

There will be stars over the place forever;
   After the house and the street we loved are lost,
Every time the earth circles her orbit
   On the night the autumn equinox is crossed
Two stars we knew, poised on the peak of midnight
   Will reach their zenith; stillness will be deep--
There will be stars over the place forever,
   There will be stars forever, while we sleep."

—Sara Teasdale

"He [Sartre] had a bad trip and for weeks afterward was convinced he was being followed by crabs."

( via / via )

Rapture.

stormy Monday—stilbwrench—
stoop filigree lug nuts
inlets to dawn dossier
dark energy urgent
flails the weary wiper
walg ultimate hymnbook
in the soft gray selcouth
fly vertigo figments
enact nettle whispers
nard blazoned on pundits

Patti Smith reads Pessoa.

" 'Why are you banging your head against the wall?' asked Frog.

'I hope that if I bang my head against the wall, it will help me to think of a story,' said Toad."

—@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social

The *paperback* edition of SPECULATIVE POETRY AND THE MODERN ALLITERATIVE REVIVAL.

( via / via )

Alleged bot farm.

“Whatever existential wildernesses I wander, I count on Dickinson to have been there and done that, to have written poems that provide pungent, precise language for what seems to me unspeakably confusing and mysterious.” –Joy Ladin, “Supposed Persons” (2013)

"Imagine someone suggesting back in the 1970s that, in the future, the phones would rise up and take over."

“Memnon at Midnight

Methought upon the tomb-encumbered shore
I stood of Egypt’s lone monarchal stream,
And saw immortal Memnon, throned supreme
In gloom as of that Memphian night of yore:
Fold upon fold purpureal he wore,
Beneath the star-borne canopy extreme—
Carven of silence and colossal dream,
Where waters flowed like sleep forevermore.

Lo, in the darkness, thick with dust of years,
How many a ghostly god around his throne,
With thronging wings that were forgotten Fames,
Stood, ere the dawn restore to ancient ears
The long-withholden thunder of their names,
And music stilled to monumental stone.”

—Clark Ashton Smith

Dramatic Mothra moment.

( via / me )

The Song Before.

"rondeau: our dean"

thundering anvil
defies our approval
in the wry era
of despair's aurora—
Hakenkreuz larval

runaway caravel
date with the devil
pixel Altamira
thundering

extinction novel
by-own-self removal
frothing agora
in the drapes of Tara
fixate navel
...thundering

Why? --For Gaza.

“Ku-Poh did not think that justice has anything to do with dreadful things or with courage. He thought that justice resembles a short scream. He was sorry that he thought of justice in that way. But justice should work like an air-conditioner, which adjusts the temperature automatically. It is wonderful that the air conditioner utters a scream whenever it is broken. It is more wondrous than it is for a tiger to smoke a cigarette.” —The Daily Life of Ku-Poh the Novelist

"Just what I need!"

( via / via )

"...part screwball comedy, with alternately bickering and sweet-talking soon-to-be ex-spouses (that’s a lot of hyphens), and part noir, that is, Texas noir, with twangy colloquialisms, crooked businessmen, good ole boy bad guys, double and triple crosses, a dead body or two, guns, of course, and rattlesnakes."

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” –Henry Beston

Astronomical comic page.

“Borges: A Rose and Milton

From all the generation of past roses,
Disintegrated in the depths of time,
I want one to be spared oblivion—
One unexceptional rose from all the things
That once existed. Destiny allows me
The privilege of choosing, this first time,
That silent flower, the very final rose
That Milton held before his face, but could
Not see. O rose, vermilion or yellow
Or white, from some obliterated garden,
Your past existence magically lasts
And glows forever in this poetry,
Gold or blood-colored, ivory or shadowed,
As once in Milton’s hands, invisible rose.”

—tr Alastair Reid

Spider web season.

( me / via )

"Mallarmé! Mallarmé! Everywhere We Turn!"

“We desire care.
Volatile,
we lit a lover,
a cerise dew.”

—@MerlinaAcevedo

"Chantek calls himself an Orangutan Person. ...Untaught orangutans, like his cagemate Sibu, he’s given the rather snide name of Orange Dog."

"Asked ChatGPT about dróttkvætt variants and it hallucinated the two:

Tvísætt (double-set metre) – doubles the internal rhyme scheme, requiring both aðalhending and skothending in each half-line.

Glæstisnið – combines hrynhent with strict end-rhymes, alliteration, and internal rhymes."

—@dgplacenames.bsky.social

The Body Beneath.

( via / via )

"I'm Woden-rewarded, but weep at the Fates..."

"MADNESS (Palindrome-Haiku)

Peel song, no sadness.
Send a made bed a madness.
Send a song no sleep…."

—@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

Air Force jets are doing ICE flights to Africa with transponders turned off...

“The Inner Archangels”

The barking of the little dogs
Resounds within this plywood hogan
All my years blown down the road
Have made of me no mundane hajji

All my years blown down the road

Come creeping back like ilka pillbug
Bearing frankincense and words
And fractal moods from far R'lyeh
Sharpened in a bent kazoo

And dreams i never can remember

Farewell.

( via / via )

UK recognises Palestinian statehood.

up-periscope autumn
break-temp'rature sputnik
it rains gruesome respite
rank pyramid-dummkopf

   anagram
the last imgrat
   of the tide
tall ravaging

the whole harsh autumn
hulks pillaging midge-swarms

   effigy
the spilled urn speaks

Jarmuschian meditations.

"midnight canyon--
my howl splits into
seven wolves"

—@wolftwinthomas.bsky.social

Tanka.

( via / me )

The levin-irked aether.

"Be merry, ye rich fiends! Piety's dead,
And left the world a legacy to you.
Under the green-sod are your coffins packed,
So thick they break each other. The day's come
When scarce a lover, for his maiden's hair,
Can pluck a stalk whose rose draws not its hue
Out of a hate-filled heart. Nature's polluted,
There's man in every secret corner of her,
Doing damned wicked deeds. Thou art old, world,
A hoary atheistic murderous star..."

—Beddoes

"It’s like paddy chayefsky was granted a vision of america in 2025 and he furiously tried to turn what he saw into something intelligible to viewers in the 1970s."

"a statue of Lenin at Goff's on Lovers Lane"

the one we all must mourn
shrivels on the vine
the things for which we pine
yelp in the dark, forlorn

the flag we used to hail
asks us instead to Heil
as bright-eyed goons defile
& cynical bets prevail

the jockeying begins
for who will be top dog
the candidates have fins
& hurtle with ceaseless flog

Secret Third Thing.

( via / via )

Hawksbane.

   my digital home
wafts stink of Nazi cigars
   glumly i ponder
these boxes of homecoming

haven't even opened yet

"Not cat clowns!"

The Gospel of Inequality, preached by means of images.

[F].

( via / via )

The 1910 lynching of Allen Brooks in Downtown Dallas was printed on postcards sent nationwide.

“…sure as men have died, strong necromancy
Hath set the clock of time and nature back;
And made Earth’s rooty, ruinous grave-piled caverns
Throb with the pangs of birth.”

—Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Dietrichsvisur.

“flood plain
inch by inch shorter
the bulrushes
like this long bridge we
once built between us”

—an'ya

"Anybody can understand that there is no point in being realistic about here and now, no use at all not any, and so it is not the 19th but the 20th century, there is no realism now, life is not real." (via aldaily)

( via / via )

Won't Back Down.

"Exeter Riddle 47

A moth munched words: a marvelous fate,
that seemed to me, hearing speech of this strangeness,
that a worm should swallow a warrior's song,
despoiler in the gloom, the glory-fast speech,
and the hardy one's seat. Nor was the housebreaker
one whit the sager for the words swallowed."

—Bruce Byfield at Alliteration.net

"She has always been evangelical about the banjo."

Woke mind virus is to name the stink of shit.

Midas and/or Ozymandias.

( via / via )

Crazy.

"Modern-day Romeo and Juliet where he deletes his social media because he thought she deleted hers but really she just got temporarily suspended for pissing off the mods so when she gets back online she sees that he deleted his account so she gets super sad and deletes hers" —@thehyyyype.bsky.social

Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.

"Deor (Translation)

Knowing wretchedness, Welund moved near snakes.
Lone-minded man · muted to pain,
He cleaved to his sorrow · coldest vengeance
Through winter's longing, having watched in anguish
As Nithhad bound him · with knotted sinews,
Annulled all mastery · of the better man

That passed over ... and so this may!

Not brothers' deaths, but her belly swollen
And plump from plowing · appalled this Beadohild,
Whom Welund had weighted · a pitiable way:
Never bold, now bred, with bearing close,
Distress drugged · and reason deserted her.

That passed over ... and so this may!

We heard rape's outrage · as ruin fell to song,
Hate-words; yet heartless · by the hurt of Nithhad
Who, slitting the flesh, slept sorrowfully.

That passed over ... and so this may!

The Maerings' stronghold · shook steadily
Full thirty winters · in Theodoric's trust.

That passed over ... and so this may!

Asking of Eormanric · we heard but evil
Of his wolfish ways, how widely his sway
Grieved Goths in the kingdom -- that grimmest of kings!
Many a man sat, sorrow-bound,
Watchful for misery; wished many a time
That his country's nightmare · might be overcome.

That passed over ... and so this may!

And still he sits · liege to sorrow,
Darkened in heart, doling himself
What surely seems · an endless share of woe.
Yet the world's turning · works into his mind --
The wicked lord · falls before the wise,
Grants by his absence · honor to the abject man,
Power to the weak, pain to his fallen hinds.
So that I of myself · wish to say
That once I sang · as the Heodenings' scop
To my dear prince. Deor was my name.
Many winters I ruled · rightly from my place,
Ruled the high lord -- until Heorrenda now,
He skilled in song, received my whole estate,
That I had never stained · since bestowed on me.

That passed over ... and so this may!"

—Keith Moul at Alliteration.net

Count the Almonds.

( via / me )

The Rain.

knee hydrogen jukebox
grinds jesting divestment

for the darkwave doula
bow down to snide idol

Death Fugue.

"In an alternate universe there’s only one movie about falling in love, but thousands about swapping faces with john travolta" —@andrewcharmings.bsky.social

Pasiphaë on Wanting.

( via / via )

Those Days.

"One morning Toad sat in bed. 'I have many things to do,' he said. 'I will write them all down on a list so that I can remember them.' " —@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social

Majority.

"WHAT'S A HAIKU? (Anagrammed Lines)

Basically, the paced
heptadecasyllabic
blade; a patchy slice."

—@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

A Secret Vice.

( via / me )

XICANXFUTURISM IS HERE.

   a rival team
wants the game to be over

   new game of barbed wire
& of abrupt deciding
which side you will wind up on

Dutch late night TV has its take.

"i feel like you could classify us by vibe pretty effectively just by what the username is

palindrome, aeronautical engineering reference, mathematical foundations, gnostic heresy, logical fallacy, pun/no pun, philosophy (and which one), etc" —@segyges.bsky.social

"I’m not going in there with those vultures."

Mario Klingemann (@quasimondo) presents A.I.C.C.A. , an AI new "critical eye" on the art scene.

An @onkaosgallery project presented at Espacio SOLO. pic.twitter.com/BbGENa8Yly

— SOLO (@coleccion_solo) June 9, 2023

( @d3mo_disuelto / @coleccion_solo )

MAGA grifters are reusing the images and video from Ukrainian funeral processions from the services of fallen Ukrainian soldiers to pretend that they are for Charlie Kirk.

Taylor Swift singing "Masters of War" at Krasnov's graveside.

"In the gray winter I hear these sounds as sinister. When the weather is different maybe I will think of them differently."

the Great Ice · grooved the land
skewed the kind · of creatures after

left in language · not one word
for the later ones · to know its name

our remembering moved · mighty stones
our cave dreams · faded, decayed

so the world wends · to a diff'rent Waterloo
we can barely discern · except in numbers

we creep with flashlight · in the darkest place
stare up at stains · on that pristine canvas

"The Prado, national art gallery of Spain, founded in 1819, only hosted its first solo exhibition of a female artist's work in 2016."

( via / via )

"This is particularly impactful when a narcissist is also the most powerful man in the world."

"Wild gorgon sighting
dark rumors spread over Crete
disappearances
and a lack of reporting
from the home of King Minos "

—@polloscope.bsky.social

Speechs set to music.

Still no songs about global warming. Is it trouble finding rhymes?

Make sure to follow the instructions quoted below.

( via / via )

Garbage Patch.

“So readily thieves; so unwillingly learners. Who says this terrible system wasn’t, in its own way, highly successful?” –Eva Rasolnikov, Marooned Among Losers (2004)

"I am full of silence."

"spirit's release toyed with"

titrate mood from tussle
t'ward feculent future
song recs from the radio
Rolf challenging bingewatch

Epstein magic minstrel
mocks harrowing hoedown
the shaky hand—sheetrock
sharp—institutes Gitmos

parkinglot packed like
peeve tenements tumbles
to what is only imgrat
—ill-justified cufflinks

barbed-wire berries gather
balk critical nitpick
catnip among cargo
cult hem'rrhaging bridgeburns

what i say asunder
silk tentacles fuck with
wither to find warfare
wends latticework misfire

the wrong render whisks off
roost-designate stigma
even in this erstwhile
oak groundstalworth frolic

werewolf moon leers merely
murk centipede-upshot
who cares whether wharfson
hwyl-serenades sundown

afar feral doomscrolls
funk intricate diction
porter dark as pathway-
pierce garlands this khamsin

"Imagine in a few years, you come across an online video of yourself..."

( via / via )

Quasi-Old English haiku.

“XII. Their spades grafted through the variably-resistant soil. They clove to the hoard. They ransacked epiphanies, vertebrae of the chimera, armour of wild bees’ larvae. They struck the fire-dragon’s faceted skin.

The men were paid to caulk water-pipes. They brewed and pissed amid splendour; their latrine seethed its estuary through nettles. They are scattered to your collations, mouldywarp.

It is autumn. Chestnut-boughs clash their inflamed leaves. The garden festers for attention: telluric cultures enriched with shards, corms, nodules, the sunk solids of gravity. I have accrued a golden and stinking blaze.”

–Geoffrey Hill, Mercian Hymns (1971)

When You Lie.

“…mosques…were built with mortar that had been mixed with musk. …It is even said…that the Mosque of Zobiade still smells of musk today.” –John Trueman, The Romantic Story of Scent (1975)
[A great poem is such a mosque.]

Me & Mrs Jones.

( via / via )

Flerd foraging.

“This past, for me, has important decorative, ornamental functions; further, it is a vast repository of outmoded lies, where you can check out what lies used to be a la mode and find the old lies on which new lies have been based.” –Angela Carter, Shaking a Leg (1997)

A film of Vineland.

"lone gunman"

firefly-chasing · in the Never Charted
   a little bit of sweets
drink darkness · as the walls press
   it's nothing personal
some vortex vanished · overnight
   your job to chronicle
the world is all · that is the case
   in case you hadn't noticed
we are alone · like junkyard wrecks
   a path winding between
marks passage · of the imperceptible

Cities in Dust.

( via / me )

Nuttall Codex online.

“The Song Of Shadows

Sweep thy faint strings, Musician,
With thy long lean hand;
Downward the starry tapers burn,
Sinks soft the waning sand;
The old hound whimpers couched in sleep,
The embers smoulder low;
Across the walls the shadows
Come, and go.

Sweep softly thy strings, Musician,
The minutes mount to hours;
Frost on the windless casement weaves
A labyrinth of flowers;
Ghosts linger in the darkening air,
Hearken at the open door;
Music hath called them, dreaming,
Home once more.”

—Walter de la Mare

"Cool was meant to be about outsiders. Cute has no inside or outside: it’s all surface."

“deal, infidel, the night is indeed difficult” –Gwendolyn MacEwen

"After writing a Haiku on the board and asking his students to count the onji, his students responded with confounded silence."

( via / via )

Do It Wrong.

"Trump just likely adopted a code word 'enigma' for the kind of young victim that Epstein and Maxwell supplied. Enigma is an anagram of 'gamine', a French word for young girl." —@hey.rupert.murdochbait.click

All this has happened before.

“Farrago

The housings fall so low they graze the ground
And hide our human legs. False legs hang down
Outside. Dance in a horse’s hide for a punctured god.

We killed and roasted one. And now he haunts the air,
Invisible, creates the world again, lights the bright star
And hurls the thunderbolt. His body and his blood

Hurries the harvest. Through the tall grain,
Toward nightfall, these cold tears of his come down like rain,
Spotting and darkening.— I sit in a bar

On Tenth Street writing down these lies
In the worst winter of my life. A damp snow
Falls against the pane. When everything dies

The days all end alike. The sound
Of breaking goes on faintly all around
Outside and inside. Where I go,

The housings fall so low they graze the ground
And hide our human legs. False legs hang down
Outside. Dance in a horse’s hide. Dance in the snow."

—Weldon Kees

Talisnam.

( me / via )

Plato, or Why.

"tribute to charlie"

falcon chemtrails · cadge fingerprints
ten tall rules · on the wooze wall
this riot's · rented lodge
   varicose snowball
   Frankenstein garbage

imposter partner · chemtrail smoothie
ten ripped rules · on the warped wall
landmarks lurch · into mist dropping
   now we fall
   our hearts stopping

"Having 10 fingers is woke."

"Cobwebs are just goth houseplants" —@doth.bsky.social

Field Impact.

( via / via )

"Also migrating to hcommons."

"Pumpkin spice restraining order" —@kellalena.bsky.social

" We all know that you have the highest chance of getting a publication through if you put a thin veneer of originality on an affirmation of the conventional wisdom." (via @lastpositivist.bsky.social)

"rented lodge
introducing my name
as cold winter rain

—haiku poems of Matsuo Basho, 1690-1691
translator: Jane Reichhold" via @evecastle.bsky.social

Every Hamlet.

( me / via )

We'll Calmly Swallow This.

"crescent"

Nemesis not soon enough
but touches in its own time
the sword's noon
my windshield speckled with warnings

we only pretend to understand
& weary of ice
in the shade lingered long
best coffeehouse closings

looted cloisters
i stop & go staring
at a moon named Nemesis

"Lenders at the library...have been asking him to find books that don’t exist."

" 'Unprecedented' is becoming as meaningless as 'iconic' " —@stephengraham.bsky.social

Fox runner.