A deep dive into Young Frankenstein.
"the yew hedge of the Grosse Fuge" —Sylvia Plath
bardic grimoary & notions
Lament in the Reign of Skordis.
"Dr Stephanie & the Rabbit"
1.
peeling blue dumpster
fun'ral march of the marionettes
a hundred dollars for a stuck key
ascian thinks it's Groundhog day
2.
Götterdämmerungfish
one skeleton registers
another to vote
going as Joan Vollmer
with a cutout of William
drive down Waterview
one meeting one tea
3.
chryelephantine misgivings
"The causal power of the past inexorably rises." —Andreas Malm via
" Frog put the cookies in a box. 'There,' he said. 'Now we will not eat any more cookies.'
'But we can open the box,' said Scorpion.
'That is true,' said Frog."
—@ctrlcreep.bsky.social
Under Mars's moons instead of Earth's.
"Miasma"
besoke flint brainfuse
brillig's spent tinchel
could've gone
to the gray fields
it's all recorded · all caraway
green-star stonebotherer
to stalk among stark angers
vocal fry
on the last trump
it's all recorded · all caraway
"planet of a green star"
Valley of Death we crossed, or most of us;
now this.
Madmen-run asylum, dirty trick
good luck.
Public was a resource to extract
bucks from.
Now it is a hollow thing & sham
bare plucked.
Waking from a dream of other days
long gone,
breakage & the suffered wrong remain—
fed jaws.
Will we rise to save the wreck they made
or—nod?
"To latibulate is to find a cosy corner somewhere and hide in it." —Susie Dent via
As i grow older, i have less & less patience for bad faith, bad choices, bad communication & bad design. Especially, bad design.
as if backcountry
little thuds mark the season
the dashboard glimmer
that warns me of nothing real
concurs with these blunt acorns
tiltdecantative newsreels
buttress the wry vertigo
of a ghost watching quick hijinks
of a lone sane asylum'd
tribe of frogs boiling
happy as a clam
stupidity on tap, given
all the avid moguljaws
moguljaws at my arval feast
like sands in the hourglass
That, in turn, I have translated back into English.
”My self-confidence comes from the fact that I have discovered my own dimensions. It does not behoove me to make myself smaller than I am.” —Edith Södergran via
"I still keep company with magicians and giants, fairies and fauns."
"In fact, historical records show that as many as half of the million fatalities didn’t result from direct starvation. They died from illness and disease trying to prepare food that was unfit for consumption." —Jessica via
On this day in 1962 he persuaded his submarine captain not to launch a nuclear torpedo...
Emperor Waltz, outsourced
orpiment verve, vorpal
client loud
in the cold noon
no peace here · nothing but clink
waltz at the end winding
past worn piles of turnips
your nerve tweaked
twiddle at dodge
car ailing · unaccountably stymied
for all this dread drilling
adroit flinch the tinchel
reward placed
a plight cave-set
who knows the rest · a wrong enthroned
no less peasant lasered
along the thronged causeway
crushed windpipe
dawn of ruins
supposed to dance · to this dark music
things fail us thralls of
thunder asthma's jazz hands
obsessed probe
into void proof
gracious amber · the illness paused
looking afar fictive
fighting kites above us
rooting for
the right one win
causality
saudade swoon
go fight in
good boy gray
"The great days of jesterdom are over and are not coming back." —Franz Kafka via
I am No Longer That Jabalia Child.
"Origami club has welcomed me into the fold." —@misshavishambles.bsky.social
"African Moonrise
The wind with fœtid muzzle sniffed its feast,
The carrion town, that lulled its crowds to rest
Like the sprawled carcase of some giant beast
That hives the rustling larvæ in its breast.
When the cold moon rose glinting from the fen
And snailed her slime of fire along the hill,
Insomnia, the Muse of angry men,
To other themes had chid my faithless quill.
But wide I flung the shutters on their hinges
And watched the moon as from the gilded mire
Where the black river trails its reedy fringes,
She fished her shadow with a line of fire.
Against her light the dusty palms were charred;
The frogs, her faithless troubadours, were still,
Alone, it seemed, I kept my trusty guard
Over the stone-grey silence of the hill,
Till a starved mongrel tugging at his chain
With fearful jerks, hairless and wide of eye,
From where he crouched, a thrilling spear of pain,
Hurled forth his Alleluia to the sky.
Fierce tremors volted through his bony notches
And shook the skirling bag-pipe of his hide—
Beauty has still one faithful heart who watches,
One last Endymion left to hymn her pride!
Sing on, lone voice! make all the desert ring,
My listening spirit kindles and adores...
Such were my voice, had I the heart to sing,
But mine should be a fiercer howl than yours!"
—Roy Campbell
abyss dirge
wipes
threatsong—
proud rook plays
these cold wretched rooms
coign
" 'I went back home. When I got there,' said Frog, 'I found another corner. It was the corner of my house.'
'Did you go around it? asked Toad.
'I went around that corner, too,' said Frog." —@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social
"Because of the economy every trick-or-treater can have one cable from the random cables box." —@prufrockluvsong.bsky.social
limerential tally
on the lost walls
bloodbright costly tinchel
topic hovering
pale cerulean haunch
with cave-traced animal fat
limerential tally
"Theranos Nosferatu"
thunder asthma, Oz
uncurtaining murrain
ever after fovea
& cartel of Telstars
sleep disorder sledding
slant without grout antler'd
fire in the belly Fillmore
defies pale cerulean
"Whether we chase our Joys, or tempt our Woes,
Pursue our Toil, or deviate to Repose,
To Manhood rise, or verge beyond our Prime,
One Tide transports us, and that Tide is Time."
—David Lewis via
"WORD FACT
To 'pandiculate' is to instinctively stretch the torso and upper limbs, typically while yawning.
The word lends itself nicely to this palindrome:
Pandiculate: go get a lucid nap." —@anthonyetherin.bsky.social
"uphill & uphill"
glittery metallic cloth
ev'rything put back right
a project of centuries
rathe cathedral in this book
that breaks & wavers before my eyes
glittery metallic cloth
"the thousand fingers of sepsis"
gauche phosphene, in Gaza
gutdarkness hearkens
stained cup tilts
tattered grognard
no Star Trek future · in this flash desert
daily breadcrumb tumbril
The fact of overcrowding does not justify the belief in jostling.
"And 'Immortality' / mildews… / in the museums of the moon"
— Mina Loy via @mtthwtmknsn
"Actually the leading open problem in philosophy is if there are open problems in philosophy."
"rosary of elves"
built to last wraith
night full of elbows
dark coffee joy
vow
"how can one elegy stitch your/ map of wounds."
"directory of forgotten purposes"
old battlefields haunt my
playground sloom in debts'
crookdark soil
Afternoons and Early Evenings.
"Even if meant in jest, Burgess once gave a revealing answer in response to the question, 'On what occasions do you lie?' to which he replied: 'When I write, when I speak, when I sleep.' "
—@thememoryhole via
"Janet was dismissed by the art world as a self-taught housewife and grandmother, while Pollock was celebrated as a revolutionary genius." —@sarahfuchss via
Sweet are the songs of bitterness and bliss.
“All is laughter, all is dust, all is nothing,
for all that is cometh from unreason.”
—Glycon, The Greek Anthology, x.124 (tr Paten) (In Lojban.)
I Was Taught to Read Using an Alphabet That No Longer Exists.
blaze at Eagle's Nest
wolfish smile
dark swoop home
crowds hoist bosh
Things tribalism is not the answer to: everything that's a real problem.
",,,ultimately I view a poem in translation as a poem written by two people - and nobody objects to a song written by two people." —Huck via
"He misunderstood what people wanted. He thought it was answers..."
"The Flying Fox
At times the vision settles in his eyes
like water clearing in a muddy stream;
half-waked, he seems to hold the whole of day
englobed within the amber of his dream.
All light is at the edge of what he thinks
as, dense with dreams, he tents each arching bone
against the fabric of his wings and sinks
into himself, as if his sleep alone
could still the will that urges him to flight.
His senses strain against the fading light
like a dog claws the chain around his neck.
Night undoes that knot: then, great wings unfurled,
he holds his voice out like a hand to stroke
the solid edges of a dreaming world."
—Tyndall Brandon
"October
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost —
For the grapes’ sake along the wall."
—Robert Frost
"thinking about cosmologist Steven Weinberg's reflections on scientific enterprise again, written in 1977 — 'The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.' "
—@jjvincent
“Trump’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened up a Cheesecake Factory.” - Barack Obama in Ohio. (via @sundaedivine.lol)
"Not miles of sea
nor mountain snow
Could cool this constant fire;
The moth knows not
the lamp's far flame
Yet circles its desire,
And I, a smaller
creature still,
Beat wings against your pyre."
—@greachan.bsky.social
"Perchance the moon caught:
An eerie stench of black wolves,
beleaguering bane."
—@authorsidbasu
But here’s the thing: It’s not just about convenience. It’s about authenticity.
"A superman movie but the whole thing is just Clark Kent fighting story deadlines and newspaper funding cuts" —@thehyyype.bsky.social
Joseph Mugnaini: illustrations from "War of the Worlds".
"The Empire was drawing to a close. It killed at its leisure..."
"The true enemy of literature is passionate about literature; he or she works with and within literature and uses literature as a weapon in some extraliterary quarrel." —Amit Majmudar via
Heat Lightning on Lake Michigasn.
front the unknown fropwards
friend weldbook, held back
teacher in tall dudgeon
tarry harbor
loops of barbed wire warpspeed
go, little book, gawky
togetherness of feathers
crisp whisper
front the unknown fropwards
"And an altarpiece was never a portrait of God. It shows what a church wants you to believe about God."
"the blurry messenger"
still dark
here to vote
south nook
what fate dodge
plans foil
In the 1960s public schools had special classrooms for the “educable mentally handicapped.” Most of those kids had lead poisoning.
Lead paint was banned in U.S. in 1978.
Leaded gasoline was banned in 1996.
Kids’ blood levels dropped by 95%.
Bans work. We should ban shit again." —@ssteoingraber1.bsky.social
"The difference between modern and non-modern societies was once marked by the presence or absence of certain forms of rationality but now that difference might as well be marked by the presence or absence of the category of fiction." —Simon During via
"cry bastion"
the day's posed palette
deponent wisp enters
one shade brings
back, jaws snapping