"night of falling leaves
a thousand names at once
become the wind"
-—@dabennettpoet.bsky.social
"No more sand art, no sand book, no masters." —Hamburger's Celan
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
“I fight against the gluttony of time with so many very amusing weapons,–with gestures and with attitudes and with wholly charming phrases; with tears, and with tinsel, and with sugar-coated pills, and with platitudes slightly regilded. Yes, and I fight him also with little mirrors wherein gleam confusedly the corruptions of all lust, and ruddy loyalty, and a bit of moonshine, and the pure diamond of the heart’s desire, and the opal cloudings of human compromise: but, above all, I fight that ravening dotard with the might of my own folly.” –The Way of Ecben
Columbia Heights drives out ICE.
awning scrape—on scrannel
scrimmage malign Plimsoll
one-storey this waniand—
weave of Babel leavings
umber in shrift shambles
shalloping gray ballad
all the pilcrow places
pillaged in broad bodkin
erased my path writhing
a rumble sky summoned
melody dear marbled
with motes bloodhued votive
stone that intact turned out
the time curled at world's end
it rains lightly lonesome
along Midas sidewalks
a dark chamber checks with
uncharted dull mullwork
to write epic's rap sheet
where rotten days blazon
treason & mob trouble
a tranche of hell mansions
spectacle field spoiled with
spoonerist carved runesticks
the poet learns parsnip
apparel—drone airspace
unwinding—weird fardels:
this war which seems dreamsick
& quiet streets straying
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
"It will not be punishment this time; it will be total erasure."
"Heaven"
Unaccountably thoughtful, Cheetoh muses
on getting into Heaven. Gilded plastic
& underage girls. Yet it must be Heaven
where Cheetoh is; nowhere else is better;
Cheetoh must be straightway primed to get there—
except for that dying part. His thought veers off.
He cannot hold that train for very long.
Sincere for half a breath, it does him credit
—like a gleam of wit in the eye of a rabid dog.
"Ah, Elizabeth had her ways. A leopard does not change its spots, or change his feeling that spots are rather a credit. Well, women of her kind have a right to put their gifts to their natural use. We must not find fault with what is natural." —@ivycomptonburnett.bsky.social
“Poetry confines itself more and more to what only poetry can do: but this turns out to be something which not many people want done.” –C S Lewis
“I honour you in dread
Since your voice like a soft vapour laps me
and my eyes, offered to the eternal scythe,
dare for you to contemplate the coffin;
since to me your red sanctuary affords
a joy half chill, half cardinalate, before
the posthumous avalanche weeps upon the vane;
since the bold cervix of the ardent skeleton,
predestined to the brand of the funeral
walnut, has hurled for you defiance to Death;
I honour you in dread of a lost alcove,
necromantic, with your rigid face
ecstatic, on a shin, as on a pillow;
and since you are my blood’s harmonious chosen,
Amada, and life’s convulsions seem a bridge
above an abyss, on which we tread together,
my kisses scour you devoutly serried
over a sacrilegious cloak of skulls
as over an erotic domino.”
–Ramon Lopez Velarde (1888-1921), in: Octavio Paz’s anthology Mexican Poetry
My Grandfather's Church Goes Up.
"Oral Wars” (fridge magnet poem)
slather the use
hence
through and rest
with ersatz vicissitude faction
like
profligate
languaged give
is curious word
ebb every time
expunge
trenchant to know scholarly amalgam
of languish observation
following upon
and though which festoons
tantamount opaque
you do let lapse from
would make a find abscond
the delve zeal
alleviate
did it rue so
herculean
then i gild
in taut fusillade
than soon after
will spurn as din
they could feel
or why gall roils
on arid beauty
domicile
of never lair
“It is lucky for the world that fox didn’t exist during WW2” —@lawrenceodonnell.msnbc.com via @newsjennifer.bsky.social
Olé.
"Forgive me: when bad fates leave good men stricken,
I doubt the gods are real, and I am shaken.
Live just, die just. Be holy; keep your vows;
still Death will drag you to the charnel house.
Trust in good poems. This tiny urn constrains—
so little’s left!—Tibullus’ scant remains."
—tr of Amores 3.9 by Christopher Childers via @maryanncorbett.bsky.social
Withdrawe, this sable Disclosure ere devot’d
Of the black cone amid the polar waste,
That the black presence of its violence is.
I do not know if ever it existed–
Yet whence, except from guessed sight, does touch teach
A row of sphinxes where the way lies clear
Athwart the moment of our ceasing pain.
Bedraggled birds into the yawning sky
By no exterior voidness being exempt
Had left a certain monstrous aftermath.
To a new flesh my travelled soul shall come,
Parting the cobwebs with a curious lack.
"I think a lot these days about these lines from the end of Lykophron’s Alexandra..."
The Goad I Seek
Rose, is your light
so very bleak
that if i came upon a way
of aliquot surmise,
your close would only ember
prism & all it thought to make distinct?
(1985?)
Elizabeth Catlett's 1946 print honours Phyllis Wheatley.
"The vibe of the Tomorrow Belongs to Me scene, but for global politics. Just watching more and more people stand up and sing a long to the murderous insanity of romantic ethnonationalism. And feeling utterly powerless to stop it." —@lastpositivist.bsky.social
"We've been Christians for nearly 1500 years..."
Monday, August 18, 2025
"...when you’re watching a film for the wallpaper you know you’re in trouble."
"When Woody Allen was asked whether he would make changes in his life if he had the opportunity to do it all over again, he jokingly replied he’d do 'everything exactly the same, with the exception of watching The Magus.' " (via)
“The Journal of Inadequate Braking Distance”
fatigue of the emotion
desuetude
of the pre-Apocalypse
esperantizing
my deaccession
can it matter so much to them
that i don’t get through
the mild light
the phantomnation towers
Two eruptions of filament plasma.
Approximately Eleven Apothems.
stainless bingo · in the battle cell
excellent ashheap · for angel poison
my mark tentative · spiralling mistward
this word or that word · irretrievable
in the desert sunsets · of another doom
but i want something · wiser than simply
pass through the portents · survive the culling
of this century · of hunchback mechas
in a darkened room · finding a reason
or a vision of · vast peaceful acres
Blackacres on the · obliviated map
a verse kept humming · in the late August
gathering of sounds
"Philip Larkin said 'What will survive of us is love,' but research based on previous collapsing civilizations suggests it's more likely to be inorganic items that can be buried, burned, or struck without significant degradation. Likely what will survive of us is ceramic toilets." —@premeemohamed.bsky.social
Sunday, August 17, 2025
"And all the next day Toad read poems to his seeds." —@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social
Michelin tire mandrake
masked against justice
passing crowds decry you
your cruel deeds & dealings
in broad daylight
"Sotades"
bloodcar, dim flame—daedal
addiction—finds mineshaft
angstrommeal this illness
echo of worse verseforms
& the Heil hog struggles
(half-runes carved on starvebreath)
the gods' rival gives us
garrulous steps, septic
"My ideal style is greaser, but it's a tarot deck rolled up in the sleeve" —@lecagle.bsky.social
Devastating and beautiful curse.
"Maybe King Oedipus had an eye too many." --Hölderlin
Modesty Blaise (1966). ☆☆
"...PLASHES THE FOUNTAIN
You prayer-, you blasphemy-, you
prayer-sharp knives
of my
silence.
You my words being crippled
together with me, you
my hale ones.
And you:
you, you, you
my later of roses
daily worn true and
more true—;
How much, O how much
world. How many
paths.
You crutch, you wing. We——
We shall sing the nursery rhyme, that one,
do you hear, that one
with the hu, with the man, with the human being, the one
with the scrub and with
the pair of eyes that lay ready there as
tear-upon-
tear."
—Hamburger's Celan
"I learned that breaking language was not only an option, but an urgency."
"MARINA (Anagrammed Lines)
Hear that solemn rain
on the marina: her salt
aroma; the snarl in the
lather…. This near moan
alarms another, in the
harsher lamentation…."
—@anthonyetherin.bsky.social
Ruth Gordon: “Shall we compare poverty stories, Lieutenant?”
Columbo: “Not in a Rolls Royce, ma'am.”
"Then twanged a cord. Through space, from Oultremer
That other arrow veered toward your heart."
—Charles Spear
"EARLY MARCH ON FARM-TO-MARKET 302
A windpuff-bonnet of fáawn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
O let them be left, wildness and wet
A sapphire zephyr out of the south sky
Has filled the creek and packed the bright brown shells
Of oakbud, mesquite, cedar. And the high
Sephiroth of the season calls its spells.
Sandro's blue lover bursts into the time,
A rough annunciation: Chloris speaks
Forth April's Flora like a wanton rhyme:
In pains of love the flowery cosmos shrieks.
My priest Saint Gerard, you knew the desire
That made the father father-forth the spring:
However cruel and violent the fire,
It cannot help but sing."
—Frederick Turner via
"Why Is Life So Hard?
Because iron is hard, and steel, and granite and marble.
Because of hard sauce poured over plum pudding.
Because it’s hard to explain
Gibraltar, St. Peter, the anchor,
hard liquor, hard landing, hard pressed,
hard labor, hit hard, hard stop,
this shadowy place,
these difficult, arduous days."
—Dick Allen via
"a reason why i just generally do not like the idea of men as a coherent political class is bc intensifying patriarchy actually does not benefit the majority of men and as fascism is on the rise i think it's dangerous to just agree that fascism will make things better for men" —@androgynyfiend.bsky.social
Saturday, August 16, 2025
"Here are some arab idioms..."
"When the person Myth meets the person Reality the spirit of the impossible strange appears In dark disguise."
(Sun Ra) —@sunrauniverse.bsky.social
"lost in the fun"
lapsewing, edifice hunger
a long time healing
starry witness · waniand plowing
where faded empires go
a trimmed plot view · borrowed vineyard
smoke of burning bodies
neighbors not met · someone else's
gig in the cobalt mines
a frail balloon · ballasted by fire
we thought freed of gravity
rode the riddle · ruinward
learned ev'rything
& forgot it · based our game
on a ghost called winning
finding out · it works otherwise
10-year old beating a grandmaster.
"This is the same United States that, in 1939, turned away the MS St Louis..."
bug auction · as the owllight falls
across years · yammering still
our own shows · shatter glumly
vans out front · invent crimes
"In harmonic analysis, you can actually prove that if you drop your stones in the right place in the pond, you can get any shape that you want>" (via @mjohnharrison.bsky.social)
"CHIEF: I’ll need your badge and your service weapon.
ME: [puts a badge and a Quiznos Turkey Ranch Swiss on the desk]
CHIEF: Both of ‘em.
ME: [hesitates then bends over and unstraps a McRib from my ankle]" —@samthielman.com
"What will be remembered, whether or not V. remains elusive, is Pynchon’s remarkable ability — which includes a vigorous and imaginative style, a robust humor, a tremendous reservoir of information ... and, above all, a sense of how to use and balance these talents." (via @tompynchon.bsky.social)
"...man was scared of spheres, italians and penguins..."
"An honest work generates its own power; a dishonest work tries to rob power from the cataracts of the given." --Annie Dillard, 𝐿𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑏𝑦 𝐹𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 (1982)
"...US becoming the 23rd Republic of Russia..."
“children”
i should have prepared for decay
i should have thought about
things already dying as i made them
released them
innocent into a world
but i was like that world
devouring
devouring of children
"A wedding upsets me..."
"...they expect retaliation and are trying to get ahead of it."
catastrophe news
in a calm voice · the traffic
like it always is
no more than trees grasp the wind
bare trees in winter branches
"Carver of soap and carrots, steel and flesh,
Biped of upright dust and throbbing head..."
--Gene Derwood
Mood.
Akihiro Yamada’s Lovecraftiana.
"The new American dream is wanting to move out of America." —@my2bits4u.bsky.social
Krampus wins the nobel peace prize, detailed black & white oil painting, salvador dali.
the frabjous power of song
finds songs that battle grief
songs to right all wrong
& song that beggars belief
we sing as we're swept along
by Time, the dearest thief,
songs to right all wrong
& song that beggars belief
cast where we didn't belong
we snag on a gossamer reef
songs to right all wrong
& song that beggars belief
(2017)