"The word ‘unflinching’ made me pause for a moment, because I think of myself as someone who is almost permanently flinching." (via @jorie_graham)
"fiction should only be precariously there, it should always be toppling away into something else" --@mjohnharrison (at mastodon)
"... I got to Denver to see my work projected onto the Daniels Fisher tower."
"You can take sides in religion, you can take sides in history, and there are others with you, you are not alone. But when you take the side of love, the opium of love, you are alone." --Anaïs Nin
hour’s sharpener · & shade-filler
i manage to measure · a miss it says stand down
there is nothing for you here
save the groove followers · of grisly set-to
a gaggle of them clogs the doorway
i’ve little brief · with the low-informationed
except as they harsh my vibe
fuel for the Pyro Piper
& the terrible talons · that tear my liver
to fetch back · the fierce mechas
cerulean under
poems posted · appease them nil
is there any light but mercy?
ears ring ragged · with restive unsong
bay clear to the bottom
in the blurred spume · a spider dozes
misses the web quiver
darkness dilates · with instant dowse
signature of so much force
the mechas fierce · as they batter down
each painstaking construct
“Always now the thought of the perfume in its cheap fluted glass bottle with gold paper label brings me back to that shitty room, its darkness, the blue typewriter on the folding table, the bad linoleum, these traits a carapace camouflaging a small freedom that gently expanded inside me like a subtle new organ, an actual muscular organ born of my own desire for what I took to be an impossible and necessary language. Its sillage was an architecture.” –The Baudelaire Fractal
Illustration from Parsifal. (anagram-rhyme)
“A gritty Frog and Toad reboot where the twist is there has only ever been FROG” –@hottestsingles (via @chuckwendig)
burnished steel door
moth on the doorframe
have hustled through
without noticing
the new ringtone
this toast, another
the next room's hum
& gathering reasons
not even handful
seen in a book once
full-page plates
drawings of fossils
Random # 61 = 115 in base-7; 1 + 1 + 5 = 7 lines
the mechas move · marching stiffly
dark shapes · in the crashing shadows
who can handle this · horrid crime
no one watching · works at mechas
it's like they loomed · out of nothing
caused that carnage · for no reason
far off planet · placed here to kill
"pebbles and purple petals streaked with rain" --Reginald Shepherd
Vamos a la Playa. (via @brianroemmele)
“first there was brightness,
then it suffered;
suffering invented shape.”
—Brenda Hillman, “Sorrow of Matter” via @dentzshira
"a cacophony
of sirens, shouting and screams...
a girl curls up
next to the wheels of a stretcher
that holds her bloodied siblings"
--@ericcoliu
("help me make it through the night")
we won't see the end of this
many endings on the way
though the news & people's talk
fill with lies & shadowplay
hold to what you know will work
look to those you live among
maybe some of this can last
till the Cthulhucene is done
i don't care what names you use
or the causes you invoke
things are coming that will make
all our power dreams a joke
as the gleaming towers fall
there is nowhere left to run
lost together with our toys
till the Cthulhucene is done
"At the moment my timeline is half people sharing images of the devastation caused by another climate change exacerbated storm, and half people arguing about AI (which has an unending thirst for energy)." --@libshipwreck
"Sobrevoló verbos. " --@victorcarbajo ('He flew over verbs.')
"Drunk with poppy you travel..."
sharkforward · the sheer weight
of shared stories · porous
prophet in the prune-shears
promenade of bodies
narrowing nodes · frigid
nagsome algorithms
nails breaking on braille-page
abrupt cup of whoop-ass
yellowed leaves & flailing
loot-tongs in the bronze dusk
we huddle more harried
than herd by nigh lions
unsleeve a slick record
slot with bruising music
nails breaking on braille-page
abrupt cup of whoop-ass
Early Morning, West Hartlepool.
"...the pull into discomfort..."
Random # 195 = 366 in base-7; 3 + 6 + 6 = 15 lines
world fast shedding the crowds & kinds of creatures
humans though are too wrapped up catching flickers
when they're not persecuting other humans
diff'ring but slightly
stepping out i see cars & naught else moving
stepping out from perusal long of myst'ries
here in order to please the restless viewers
versions of murders
play out over the filled & frothing channels
never how we might solve our pressing problems
never how we might make peace with our neighbors
only distractions
lies that feed our delusions of dominion
dreams that we could be cut off from our planet
world fast shedding the crowds & kinds of creatures
"...The earth
Blush'd crimson in her flowers:--the lambkin winds..."
--J Stanyan Bigg
US Weapons supplied to Israel from Oct 7., 2023 - June, 2024.
" 'Writer' is my religion, philosophy, nationality, gender, sexuality, culture, politics... It's all I know. So I won't be having anything other than an emotional reaction to its automation for a while."
--@mckenziewark
"the sunset
in a blaze of orange and red
across the sky ...
Gazan children's faces raw
with fear of the unknown"
--@ericcoliu
Devil Put the Coal in the Ground.
random # 150 = 303 in base-7; 3 + 0 + 3 = 6 lines
the swart clouds recede
for an echo-shorn hour
no certain airt
for an anxious skyscan
what you find you foined there
a skill not feigned
Cellutron & the Invisible. (I have this on vinyl: a find!)
New growth industry: building bots to fabricate a fake internet history for pseudo-people.
I'm Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is.
"Authenticity" is a tricky word. The self that you strive to be true to, is ultimately a mystery. I think there may be a place for this idea--but not necessarily in criticism.
those that died
on the day before
the ceasefire
what special
corner of the monument
will we spare for them
"the part of the nightmare that ends"
trees lashed in the tranquil
trellis of mad weather
by remote moons march past
moulting their svelte bloodtide
parables of bingewatch
abet ev'ry thumbscrew
one can heart no window
wilder than earth football
"Art Nouveau is when it looks made by elves." (Actually the whole thread is fun: "And postmodernism is made by goblins?")
"In the Arbat, Moscow’s bohemian district, poets and rappers stand before curious crowds and declaim poems about everything else but the war." --Forrest Gander via
"Feeding every occupation into the fire, one by one, to keep generating rage clicks."
"Never forget that we had all the scientific evidence we needed to act on global warming over 50 years ago, but the fossil fuel industry spent millions to spread disinformation and block climate action. " --@jamieclimate
Grove City & Manasota Key today.
the aurora borealis
for the hurricane
& what
for all this death
"Cul-de-Sac
The lights shine out. The shadows cross the lawn.
Behind her blinds, the woman in the house
Moves through the rooms. The lights she’s turning on,
Lamp here, lamp there, illuminate her progress
Behind those blinds. This woman, in her house,
Has brought her children up. Her husband’s gone.
The lamps are all that’s left to mark her progress,
This cold blue evening when she’s there alone.
Her children all brought up, her husband gone—
Her life’s a thing unseen inside a house
Composed of cold blue evenings. There, alone,
What does she do? Why does it come to this?
Is life a thing unseen? Inside a house,
With no one there to talk to, night’s a prison.
What does she do? Why does it come to this:
The sudden ice-blue flicker of a television,
No one there to talk to? Night’s a prison.
Pale chilly lamplight spills onto the grass,
The sudden ice-blue flicker of the television.
She’s in there. Sand runs through the hourglass.
Pale chilly lamplight spills onto the grass.
Though lights shine out, the shadows cross the lawn.
She’s in there. Sand runs through the hourglass—
The rooms, the lights, the night, the hours till dawn. "
--Sally Thomas via
"We slept this night in complete darkness. We couldn’t even turn on our phones, not even for a faint light, because the small drones were roaming the alleys between houses, firing in all directions. We lowered the sound of our breathing so as not to draw attention." --@Mahmoud_Bassam8
"Are you a graveyard/ Or a rose?"
"Anyway, I'm delighted that they gave the Nobel to a writer whose major work is about 'How do you live in a world where the state can just murder an unaccountable number of people, just massacre them, and then nothing changes, how can you live, how can you live' " --@zunguzungu
Cool footage even if it's the wrong hurricane. [oops! now deleted]
sharkforward
neon-lit stop sign
so crowded on the other side
more black coffee
on the way though i tarry
& risk being late
Update on Lieutenant Dan. Remember, it's not a problem it's an opportunity!
Random # 241 = 463 in base-7; 4 + 6 + 3 = 13 lines
October decorations
crushed bones of children
slowing for the school zone
uncertain where it ends
October decorations
that start on Labor Day
ev'rything on this car sticks
& in my life
crushed bones of children
we say in November
something's got to change
October decoration
crushed bones of children
"Clairvoyant solitude on the obsidian edge of day."
— Jay Wright via @isidro_li
"The Place of the Solitaires
Let the place of the solitaires
Be a place of perpetual undulation.
Whether it be in mid-sea
On the dark, green water-wheel,
Or on the beaches,
There must be no cessation
Of motion, or of the noise of motion,
The renewal of noise
And manifold continuation;
And, most, of the motion of thought
And its restless iteration,
In the place of the solitaires,
Which is to be a place of perpetual undulation."
--Wallace Stevens
Random # 98 = 200 in base-7; 2 + 0 + 0 = 2 lines
all the things i asked for in their time have come
deliv'ry in the golden rays
From inside a car. [whoopsie, not Milton!]
Against the rise of gender critical non-fiction.
carve dread from the dread-bank
pills that pester to leave off
tags to toggle · tails waggle
nothing in the name · to give pause
the days are bright · & filled with pain
or dungeon-dim · Lalande Twenty-One
the sun sets · behind stone towers
the way back · a last beer
black as your heart
"But coupling mischiefs, with their ruffling gales,
They take away my prayers, and drive our sails."
--1672 Ovid Tristia
"To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question."
--Edward Abbey via @poeticoutlaws
"HEX CXXXVII"
BY THE WIDE DITCH,
WE COVETED HOME.
THE HOT-HATCHED CICADA
MADE AUDIO WOE.
BADE VOICE A COUTH THEME
BY THE CATHODETUBE MOB,
WE DEBAUCHED BEAUTY
WITH VICTIM TACT.
𝘝𝘪𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘭'𝘴 𝘛𝘰𝘮𝘣 𝘣𝘺 𝘔𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘚𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘐𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯g.
Random # 31 = 43 in base-7; 4 + 3 = 7 lines
just naming
all the plagues jades
the named dead
& looming doom
where the sky
scans for now clear
write & mourn
Hurricane Milton: eliminator churn.
Marx & Engels on the American Civil War. (via @_ryanruby_)
"Malt does more than Milton can / To justify God's ways to man." --@ae_stallings quoting housman
Drone view as of 9 AM. (Actually: Cancun a day ago.)
"Sluagh
Shut the west-facing windows.
Bolt the door with a wormwood sprig.
Those aren’t bats. Those aren’t starlings
Skittering up the sky tonight.
Snuffed-wick lashes fringe
Lunar sea eye sockets.
Their nostrils dangle maggots
Plump with cerebrospinal brine.
Not all the dead are well-wishers
Loving us like distant grandkids.
Wronged, unavenged, they stalk the young,
Weasel-eager for wren eggs.
They will kiss you with leech mouths
And suck your skin of sunlight,
Brown skin turned to white slough,
Scrap paper scrawled with slogans.
They want you to fight their lost cause,
Brain infected, neck sprouting
The flagpole of a fungal stalk,
War cry born in a burial mound.
Beware the army of the dead
Desperate to recruit the living.
They cannot rest in coffins full
Of bedbugs and barbed wire.
Samhain moonrise their reveille,
Their nails scratch at corneal glass.
Harvest your books and holy basil.
Crack the chalk and draw a circle."
--@amitmajmudar in New Verse Review
"What is simply happening is that 400,000 people in North Gaza have no way of leaving school shelters or what remained of their houses to get whatever food or water for their families.
What is happening is that hospitals have been ordered to evacuate.
What is happening is that anyone who go out in the street will be shot at by armed Quadcopters.
What is happening is that hundreds of people are killed and wounded with no ambulances being able to rescue, not only because it’s dangerous to drive now but because there is no fuel for ambulances.
What is happening is that you reading this and do nothing.
Do something! My own family is in danger!!!
Share this!
Take to the street.
This is about humanity. Palestinians have been oppressed and killed for years. We are living under occupation. There is no place that’s safe when you live under occupation. When this occupation is supported by the US and other European countries.
Wake up!!"
--@MosabAbuToha
I'm in favor of wolves. Keeps the fairy tales real.
Excellent Simon & Garfunkel filk.
The end of the world as a niche interest.
Random # 131 = 245 in base-7; 2 + 4 + 5 = 11 lines
this pale cerulean · sky will return
nor is it creased · by ice crossings
& taillights twitch · & their trawls resume
the fans will forget · the paths they've gone
my poem ponders · a world winnowing
its resident ranks · with furious fire
& this pale cerulean · veil-thin pearl
will remember as much · as a man can toss
some cenotaph tarries · if you know the war
some words in a book · beckoning empathy
& its readers claim · it declares them winners
Random # 153 = 306 in base-7; 3 + 0 + 6 = 9 lines
a darkening · circus
packed up · got no traction
in regret marketplace
nalioyexacyou ('annals')
of ghosts frosts the windows
watch the red swirl thread its
promising-wrath frithchase:
the poor collect mortal
peril their sole birthright
"The witch's way through the woods can only ever be one of wonder. " --Emily C Banting via @hooklandguide
