( via / via )

"...it's wild that an armed group assaulting an ICE camp near Ft. Worth, getting into a firefight, and shooting a cop hasn't resulted in more from the administration beyond a bland Tweet."

"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

The Road Goes On Forever.

"And things like poverty and old age and death are shameful. We cannot help them; but that is the humiliation. To accept conditions that would not be your choice must be a disgrace." --@ivycomptonburnett.bsky.social

Call to Arms.

( via / via )

Adventures of Prince Achmed. (1926)

If they put the ten commandments on a big enough board, maybe it can serve as a life raft.

The House that Jack Built..

weeping wound · of a system scourge
too bright · for the breaking's witness

Keeper.

( via / me )

Zentangle.

"precious
and delicate,
these fragile lives of ours
cling to what they can for one more
moment"

--@xxyxxy.com

Burgundy evening eclipse.

"The art of divination by lightning distinguished eleven kinds of lightning..."

--von Cles-Reden

Heavy Summer Rain.

( via / via )

"I really do feel that in all the years I’ve been doing this … the Republican Party in the age of Trump has now become so disconnected from reality and so uninterested in reality and so uninterested in telling the truth or being grounded in anything that’s remotely true that it’s been shocking even for me."

Bad faith is like a stench you can never escape from anymore.

"I have to admit, sir, I didn't expect it to be this easy."

"Gaza has become a funeral home

but there are no seats, no mourners,

no bodies. In the caskets are nothing

but what remained of the

dead’s clothes,

and on the wall is a clock

that has not moved for twenty-one months."

--@mosababutoha.bsky.social

The Last Valkyrie.

( via / via )

FEMA is no longer going door-to-door to assist disaster victims .

"Prologue of the Earthly Paradise

Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing,
I cannot ease the burden of your fears,
Or make quick-coming death a little thing,
Or bring again the pleasure of past years,
Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears,
Or hope again for aught that I can say,
The idle singer of an empty day.

But rather, when aweary of your mirth,
From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh,
And, feeling kindly unto all the earth,
Grudge every minute as it passes by,
Made the more mindful that the sweet days die—
—Remember me a little then I pray,
The idle singer of an empty day.

The heavy trouble, the bewildering care
That weighs us down who live and earn our bread,
These idle verses have no power to bear;
So let me sing of names remembered,
Because they, living not, can ne’er be dead,
Or long time take their memory quite away
From us poor singers of an empty day.

Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme
Beats with light wing against the ivory gate,
Telling a tale not too importunate
To those who in the sleepy region stay,
Lulled by the singer of an empty day.

Folk say, a wizard to a northern king
At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show,
That through one window men beheld the spring,
And through another saw the summer glow,
And through a third the fruited vines a-row,
While still, unheard, but in its wonted way,
Piped the drear wind of that December day.

So with this Earthly Paradise it is,
If ye will read aright, and pardon me,
Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss
Midmost the beating of the steely sea,
Where tossed about all hearts of men must be;
Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay,
Not the poor singer of an empty day."

—William Morris

They began to replace traditional motifs of flowers and birds in their rug weaving...with images of war planes, drones, tanks and guns.

"He banged his head against the wall, but he still could not think of a story." --@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social

The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux and the Flowers. (via @maryanncorbett.bsky.social)

( via / via )

Tanka.

"Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the time, / City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime?"
- Tennyson (quoted by Jack London, 1903) via @celticstoic.bsky.social

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.

is the Constitution only
a parable for lonely
dissenters to arraign?
our officials put initials
to a promise that's delicious
as a rainbow in the rain

humans are evolving
to a pinnacle involving
keeping promises not vague
which is why when this shit ravels
i expect to see the travels
of DeSantis to the Hague

DeSantis in the docket
who will claim he's just one sprocket
of a wider tragic chain
building Alligator Auschwitz
—already some can vouch its
hungry teeth on their domain—

but the Constitution matters
not a king whose fandom flatters
his insatiable demands
i want this den of gangsters
paying dearly for our anxious
daily scroll with shaking hands

& i'll see that grinning bigot
drinking payback from the spigot
in his own mosquito lands

Tanka.

( via / me )

Morning Twilight at a Rail Yard, 1939.

"Year Zero"

wire-mesh cages rise
in a putrefying swamp
with merch & tweeted hype
amateurs bearing arms

even given their record
of fakes & pocketed funds,
where the fascist temper treads
too much room is conquered

bystander as i am
i am chastened to describe
from blithe clips of a grab
this quota-meeting crime

flying monkeys darken
our skies for a clown-in-chief
for a cause like a bucket of barf
& eclipse of Liberty's beacon

this mischief may not last—
i hope to see its fall—
but it's nest-torn ants to corral
the aftermath of Pentecost

Colorful driving.

“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”

—James Baldwin via @ruthz.bsky.social

"It is very difficult to sit here..."

( via / via )

A child is pulled from the rubble.

"AI isn’t the disease — it’s a symptom of a colonizer’s model of schooling that is extractive and dehumanizing, rather than liberating." --Jesse Hagopian via

"There are nine planetary boundaries and we’ve only dealt with one of them — the ozone layer — and we think we’ve saved ourselves from that threat. But we passed the seventh boundary this year, and we’re in the extreme danger zone."

“The Great Game”

Salad days of vampire,
Warp for which a people longs,
In the black scripture told.
Halcyon dawns of autumn
Fracture my sense of ingrown wrongs
In the black scripture told.

These are the taken tokens
Fires by night & deals awry
Wandering fires i answer to
Like a drudge with random songs
In the black scripture told.

Tithe or crimson fathom
Stars that the legionary names
Dying far from comfort
While the laughter rings of throngs
In the black scripture told.

How to Write a Poem in a Time of War.

( via / via )

"The plan is the lightning rewires us together and we all smell like mud and grass and ozone but can intuitively, and collectively, always keep the beat."

   williwaw
stubborn craw where words are krill
the sun not yet sizzled out
bugs' cry risen above fret

"Each card is labeled with a tactic she’s learned to spot: Deny, Attack, Play the Victim, Perform the Hero, Create Crisis."

Rather than stand under a sign of the Zodiac, one can stand under the sign of a Chess Opening. Even without playing it, it casts shadows of another world.
   Vaporwave is an allegory of this.
There is not just one dream, there is not just one artist's-world. There is not just one chess opening.

D.O.A.

( via / me )

"A dilapidated stone piggery with a partially collapsed slate roof sits next to a large barn converted into a modern Airbnb rental. Beside these is a small cottage that dates back to the 17th century."

"My translator tells me 'thoughts & prayers' is an American political expression that means 'we'd rather have a secret police force than a weather service'." --@darthputinkgb.bsky.social

"...in every age, there have been those rooted in conscience and often in faith who refused to let empire have the final word."

tragic rainlight Rudyard
Rutabaga mooted
where explore still waters
westering sane rainlight

RFG Inventions for Cello and Computer.

( via / me )

Ethiopia, 18th c. (?).

"don't cry, insects
in summer shirts…
the waterfall roaring"

--@poemexe.com

Geraldine Chaplin in Peppermint Frappé (1967).

The Youtube psych/prog algorithm is the only one we should keep.

"Had not realized that was what they had to teach those of us marked out as fair game."

( me / via )

The Child Dreams.

“And all the ruins of distressful times” - Richard III (Act 4, Scene 4) via

"We had to put up razor barb wire."

"The Question and Its Mark

May I cast a spell on the many swans of Leda,
making at last one spastic blizzard in spring
with only enough divine mania to take one
blinding day from her?

The godbirds and their scopophilia
keep her open for view and review, with ever
new speculum and never the elegant jewelry
of stigmata or a heart of quartz.

May I give her only one death? Can we live if she
lies closed in a single final pose, no syphilitic
autopsy or cygnet interrogation?
May I mark her prophecy,

her presence in the very air, with a single
gargoyle on the streetside wall on a place
of worship, finally allowed inside if only by
disappearing into the stones?

Leda possessed a pair of knees that also bent
in prayer. I ask of you only what she asked for there."

—Brenda Shaughnessy

Raymond's Road.

( via / via )

You Must Live.

"Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie
   Dust unto dust
The calm sweet earth that mothers all who die
   As all men must;
Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell
   Too strong to strive
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,
   Buried alive;
But rather mourn the apathetic throng
   The cowed and the meek
Who see the world's great anguish and its wrong
   And dare not speak."

--Ralph Chaplin, in The Match (Summer, 2004)

Games We Play.

"Child of Omelas? That’s thinking too small. What if like eight billion people suffered so a few dozen guys could live lives so insane they convinced themselves it’s more likely they’re inside a computer simulation" --@ceej.online

New favorite picture.

( via / via )

Les Antiquités de Rome, III.

"Toad wrote on the ground with a stick: Go to Sleep.

Then he crossed out: Go to Sleep.

'There,' said Toad. 'Now my day is all crossed out!'

'I am glad,' said Frog. Then Frog and Toad went right to sleep."

--@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social

Concrete and Barbed Wire.

besieged water sadness
soft glow on the rooftops
hyperbola lawyer
less than perfect wharfstead

pain subdued & padlocked
periscope bent firelight

Folsom Prison Blues. Awhile back i wrote: "Folsom Prison Blues" should be our national anthem--it says more about America, with its guns, its prisons, & its loneliness of highways, than any other single song. But to be the country of 'This Land is Your Land' (including the often-omitted verses)--that is something to aspire to."

( via / via )

Presence of Mind.

   debacle—
the raucous trill of trouble
subject to flock flutterings
clock strikes thirteen mulligrubs
   spiralling
apart spigot
   bilge brigade
sans glibber blurt
   cicadas
in agony
fallout spire parch
debacle parch bring

Peppermint Frappé (1967). ☆☆

You don't think like a survivor, i said. You pile up all the things you can possibly think of to feel bad about, & then drop this treasure on your head, but that is not how a survivor thinks. A survivor only looks at the immediate problem to be solved, looks at it without reacting emotionally, & may have a vague notion of a wider view & goal, but never gets fixated on feelings of urgency & ultimate attainment. I know this sounds like a truism but it is still essential. It may not yet be so bad that only those who think like survivors will survive, but i'm certain that we will not be given warning or training should the moment itself arrive. You must start thinking like a survivor today.

"You know what's NOT normal US behavior? This is the first time there's been a mass movement to STOP a purge in real time."

( via / me )

"When I was at the beginning of my career, a job at the Times was the ultimate prize. For a lot of people, working there was their whole identity. Now, they are ashamed to have to work there."

"But to say what you want to say, you must create another language and nourish it for years and years with what you have loved, with what you have lost, with what you will never find again." --George Seferis

Oh say can you see.

Just watched The Night of the Iguana. This is the poem the old poet finally finishes after 20 years:

"How calmly does the olive branch
observe the sky begin to blanch,
without a cry, without a prayer,
with no betrayal of despair!

Sometime while night obscures the tree
the zenith of its life will be
gone, past, forever. And from thence
a second history will commence

a chronicle no longer gold
a bargaining with mist and mold
and finally the broken stem,
the plummeting to earth, and then

an intercourse not well designed
for beings of a golden kind,
whose native green must arch above
the earth's obscene corrupting love,

and still the ripe fruit and the branch
observe the sky begin to blanch
without a cry, without a prayer,
with no betrayal of despair.

Oh courage! could you not as well
select a second place to dwell,
not only in that golden tree
but in the frightened heart of me?"

An intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation.

( via / via )

That small dot moving left to right is 3I/ATLAS.

apricot dawn where ride gray legions
go in dread of the bitter rain

somewhere beyond this melee
love shall fall & pity rain

mangrove, mosquitos & the broken
skyscraper windows in the rain

yet poets shall learn to praise
the varieties of rain

i follow her through cloud labyrinths
by a trail like the smell of rain

though all its garments alter
this is still the same terrain

(2004)

The War in the Air.

"on the last day of the United States, when this country has finally descended into civil war, i will do a thread on how to dress for summer" --@dieworkwear.bsky.social via @karriehiggins.bsky.social

The Sweet Ride.

( via / via )

God is a Bullet.

"When in 1983 I moved to Syracuse, New York, the snowiest major city in the state, all my poems became about snow." --Geof Huth

Ruby Tuesday.

"Pinkville

   and atrocities
don't happen all that often
and only a few took part
and are nothing compared to what the other side does
and after all have always been part of war,
and we deplore war
and always have
and always will"

--Eve Merriam, The Nixon Poems (1970)

Although the wind.

( via / via )

To the Mother of a Dead Marine.

   brick cupcake
corruption of rank fiction
whip stripes & bludgeon-born stars
Tarzan trudge on a dragstrip

Mothra flying.

"...Grizzling/ In the wart-kinked,/ Gyring, pustulent light." --Kenneth Patchen

Assassin's Life is Worth.

( via/ me )

ICE is asking people to stop...

"We had no way to talk about any of this. We were at the same time terribly intimate and terribly aloof. We could work shoulder to shoulder for days on end, on what we knew for sure were battle lines; we knew the smell and taste of each other's breath and sweat, but we never stopped, we never paused long enough to look each other in the eye.    And we had no vocabulary for these things. No concepts, really, for what was happening. Another world was breaking through to ours, and we were awash in it. We had in fact invited it and here it was, and mostly we saw it as good. We set blind boundaries, changed them, made impromptu rules, forgot them, quarreled, worked together. While some of us drifted out of reach on hard drugs, or the pure chemistry of denial and need.
   But we had no words, not even the thought to look for words to speak what was happening. OR
before we identified the weather pattern, the storm had already broken.
   You could put it like that." --Diane DiPrima, Recollections of My Life as a Woman (2001)

Meanwhile in France.

"Mortality

This is the surest death
Of all the deaths I know.
The one that halts the breath,
The one that falls with snow
And nothing but a peace
Before the second zone,
For Aprils never cease
To resurrect their own,
And in my very veins
Flows blood as old as Eve.
The smallest cell contains
Its privileged reprieve,
But vultures recognize
This single mortal thing
And watch with hungry eyes
When hope starts staggering."

--Naomi Long Madgett, in The Poetry of Black America ed Arnold Adoff (1973)

Lament for the Chapbook Makers.