"The dawn is not off the sea, and Odysseus’ ships
have not yet passed the islands. I must watch them still."
—D H Lawrence via
unskull grin · the scarcest window
days of vast
disaster sprawl
focus on tiny · tenable sprig
the tires soft · for a road full of edges
flowing tongs
to string tinsel
thousand year old clock · clicks out throngs
i await word · scribbled over
tailfins swarm
in bright guesswork
Rock n Roll was born 111 years ago today in Arkansas.
"query letter"
putting the plant out
that knows neither hand nor war
only this sunshine
nor i the new equinox
earth in its tilting squanders
"In 1913-14 Noguchi was invited to lecture at Oxford on Hokku (haiku) at the invitation of Robert Bridges, the poet laureate..." —Dr Jonathan E Wilson via
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.
When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." - Hélder Câmara via @thecolfax.bsky.social
Revisiting Tennyson as he looks out at the sea.
Mallarmé: Ses purs ongles très haut dédiant leur onyx
Her chaste nails so highly dedicating their onyx,
Anguish, this midnight torchbearer, saves
many an evening's reverie burned with the phoenix
otherwise bound for no crematory vase.
On the sideboards, in the empty parlor: ptyxless,
gewgaw-banned resounding banality
for the Boss is gone to dip tears from the Styx,
only that--and Nothing will thus be honored...
Near the northerly vacant casement, gilt
convulses as per perhaps the setting
from unicorns bucking fire against an elf;
she, late nude of the mirror, however,
into the vacuum by those edges held
abides among twinklings presently the Seven.
crows once in a movie · now live crow lives
orange bowl · bouquet of gravel
threats entering
the mild airspace
meagry footpath · on the philosophers' walk
beware of scents ebbing · savor felth
argle
antelucan
with shades shaking · by a short taper
"Some centuries after Yunus lived..."
"In Cameroon, gender is organized on the lines of the concepts of wet and dry." --Jay Griffiths, A Sideways Look at Time (1999)
“To like Chesterton despite his paradoxes is a little like liking Venice despite its canals.”
—Seamus Perry in the London Review of Books
bark like mad · above destruction
crannog's fierce
precarity
bright sun's roar · rampaging ruin
cybertruck sabaoth · pale cerulean
Detailed, rollicking Academy followup.
"I was given Leviathan
A gold ring through
his nose and a rope
to lead him by.
A fitting gift for a daughter
born after ten buried
in a collapsed house.
I weave lilies in the scales,
polish teeth to pearl,
sleep in the reptile curl
of his tail.
I teach Leviathan
to speak softly, as I do.
I am always afraid.
Now no one will come
close to me
walking along the sea
in the early morning
or descending dark."
—Renee Emerson in Persons of Interest
My Herrera y Reissig Translations.
To our tribunal the forests, we have as yet prepared no defense. We wanted to hold on to our words?
The robot dance revolution has begun.
A deep dive into Gorton font. (via Mefi)
"North Oaks, Minnesota is the only city in the US that is not on Google Maps Street View." —@404media.co via
"Ramón López Velarde: Wet Earth
Wet earth of liquid evenings when the rain
whispers and girls soften
under the redoubled pelting of the drops
of the roof terrace.
Wet earth of odoriferous evenings when
misanthropy toils up to the lascivious
solitudes of air and on them lights
with the last dove of Noah;
while the thunder crackles tirelessly
along the miry clouds.
We[t] evenings of steaming earth when I
acknowledge I am made
of clay, for the summer tears, beneath
the auspice of the light that is half gone,
the soul turns to water on the nails
of its cross.
Evenings when the telephone invites
naiads known for their knowingness,
who leave their bath for l[o]ve,
to strew their fatuous tresses on the bed
and to lisp, with perfidy and profit,
damp and panting monosyllables
as the fine rain harries the window-panes....
Evenings like an alcove under the sea,
its bed its bath;
evenings when a maiden
grows old in front of her extinguished hearth,
waiting for a swain to bring her a live coal;
evenings when on earth
angels descend to plough unerring furrows
on edifying fallows;
evenings of supplication and Pascal candles;
evenings when the squall
incites me to inflame
each frigid maiden with the opportune coal;
evenings when, my soul
oxidized, I feel
an acolyte of camphor,
slightly swordfish, slightly
Saint Isidore Labrador...."
—Translated from the Spanish by Samuel Beckett via
"Moonless night—wild geese soar high;
the steppe ruler flees into the dark.
Poised to send light riders in pursuit—
heavy snow fills bow and blade.
月黑雁飞高，单于夜遁逃。
欲将轻骑逐，大雪满弓刀。"
—Lu Lun via
"The naked ear only listens..."
"Indeed, I seem to have been cursed to be born into an era where every major world-historical decision on the part of the global ruling class has been comprehensively wrong." —Adam Kotsko via
"We carry a kind of generational trauma in this season." (pics above)
"the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it"
—@mobydickatsea.bsky.social
huts in haunted cities
hurl into pitchdark flurries
socket to hold seldom
cyst breaking with mist-edge
huts in haunted cities
help me to find some shelter
"Breavman was and still is against the use of foreign materials in the decoration of snowmen."
Heavenly Zen Sickness Supersessions.
"PERSISTENCE (Anagrammed Lines)
How can I persist
in a script whose
actions whisper?
How can I persist
now spirits ache?"
—@anthonyetherin
"When I was young, I aspired to literary eccentricity, and also had most of Soap and Benson logged. My literary heroes were Djuna Barnes and Carol Kane. I don’t see the point in denying half my self when I write, and in the spirit of Flann O’Brien’s policeman who was mostly bicycle, I am probably about half tv." —@jordandavis3
"Been reading articles about "transgressive art" this week, and all I keep thinking is... you sheltered motherfuckers, thinking 'taboo-breaking' art from the 1980s is anything but kitsch in 2026. Open your window. Take a good long look at the world you live in, and then tell me what moral codes still exist to be transgressed." —@burningambulance
"After her death, her stepson Thutmose III spent years systematically erasing her legacy."
"Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!
—As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily,
The fringes of a southward-facing brow
Among the Ægean isles;
And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,
Green bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine,
And knew the intruders on his ancient home,—
The young light-hearted masters of the waves,—
And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail,
And day and night held on indignantly
O’er the blue Midland waters with the gale,
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,
To where the Atlantic raves
Outside the western straits, and unbent sails
There where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;
And on the beach undid his corded bales."
—Matthew Arnold, ‘Scholar-Gipsy’, 231-250 via
"This was left as a comment on my Note.
"You Too, Not Just Me
Never just me.
However you need,
however, I'll be.
Like smoke slid
in like previous whiskey,
fire wisps,
fire drowns.
And follows itself
into new form,
first
afraid it's too alike.
A fraud must
believe, too.
Then, forgetting
how unlikely.
A centaur's first street
fair, alone.
Then so lucky,
only a dream is so lucky.
Sometimes laughing
with others
who must sense
us, condensed,
frontbodied, pushing
soft walking
circles onto a ledge.
Imperceptible
where your face
turns into breath
and vanishes
in the home.
Can't matter
in the home.
Some fire
makes form
only folly,
however all three
follow us to take
your shape
down with mine."
—Brenda Shaughnessy, Human Dark with Sugar (2008)
"People are always looking for historical parallels, so here’s one. When WWI is taught is schools, the cause is typically described as the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip. I think this obscures the main instigator, Conrad Von Hotzendorf, an Austrian field marshal. He had wanted war with Serbia for years and had proposed war with Serbia 25 times in 1913 alone. He was delighted that the assassination provided him with an excuse.
It was his arrogant plan to march in and teach the Serbs a lesson which had more to do with getting the Great War going than anything else. He was also trash as a commander The Austro-Hungarians marched in with more than 400,000 men and suffered three humiliating defeats, one of the greatest upsets of the entire war. They incorrectly assumed they could crush Serbia before Russia joined, hoping to have it over in around six weeks.
What they got instead was one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history. What’s that old line about 'history doesn’t repeat, but sometimes it rhymes'?” —@twerbjebbins
"There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something, we’d all love one another." —Frank Zappa via @thecolfax.bsky.social
We could win their hearts and minds.
chlorinated noir
Nile-silvery pylon
lawndead window warn
rewards gliding border
in the green shrill grail
gruesome derrick sluice-ash
"Winter Wakened in My Heart
On being diagnosed with heart failure.
After the 14th century lyric, 'Wynter Wakeneth Al My Care.'
Winter wakened in my heart,
and its rhythm fell apart.
How much longer can I chart
the years I've left to live and breathe
as leaves turn green, then brown?
All seasons end in grief,
and yet they still must branch and flow,
Whether I'm here or gone below,
the sun will burn, the wind will blow
another hundred years or more,
though winter grows much colder,
and spring contains no cure.
All my dreams at once seem thwarted,
and my faith is long departed;
I see the end of all I’ve started—
my too-small measure on this earth.
I pray the seasons’ passage
my life may yet preserve."
—Lisa Barnett in March 2026 Persons of Interest
Did you know that George Santayana has a verse drama about Lucifer being gay for Hermes in space?
"The whale dissolved the man but not the wound the man was organized around" —@barnes7 via
I greatly appreciate anyone who fights against Illich’s long & deep erasure. He is much needed now, as he was formative to my own thought. Today i cannot agree with his ideas on gender, & only a little with his ideas on medicine (having sojourned myself within the mortality-machine lately), but i know that anyone smart enough to understand his earlier writings would not have gone on to the present-day gender-critical & antivaxxer psychopathy they might superficially seem to lead to.
halcyon samite · insanity bistro
we go forth
on furtive gigs
can tune away · from all bodycounts
sweet music · of the deep past
what we did
in the poll booth
melts like lemon · Zyklon-B
"taillights through Venetian blinds" (bivocalism)
Caesar
rends a leaden
paperback dream sérac
red hand dreaded, far swept fable
naked
"With the joyful grips of my fingertips
I held the oozy gunwale tight."
—Sheridan LeFanu, "Beatrice", in: Poems (1904)
" 'Is there a single word that one may practice throughout one’s life?'
The Master said, 'Perhaps it is shu — empathetic restraint.
What you yourself do not desire, do not impose upon others.'
子贡问曰：'有一言而可以终身行之者乎？'
子曰：'其恕乎！己所不欲，勿施于人。' "
~ Kongzi (孔子, aka “Confucius”, 551–479 BCE), Spring and Autumn period philosopher and teacher, from The Analects · Book XV: Wei Ling Gong (《论语·卫灵公》)" —@jianxu
"THE SHIRE (Bivocalism*)
In the shire,
winter nights,
we drink red wine
in frenzied inns.
We sip the finest bitter gins.
We find the gilded fire.
In the shire,
in the spring,
we sing the hills,
we drink the silver spires.
(*Only two vowels, which alternate throughout)"
—@anthonyetherin.bsky.social
"...with a belly full of hope."
"The thunder could have been anything."
"Let the unshaven Nazarite of stars
Unbind his wondrous locks, and grandame's earthquake
Drop its wide jaw; and let the churchyard's sleep
Whisper our goblins."
—Beddoes
"adaptogen"
gather clues · in the cold gloaming
sixth floor perch
impaired alloy
rig seasonal · decorations
sheer clutter · of wrecked machines
Frutiger
Aero flooring
styrofoam's triumph · styrofoam's revenge
"Magic can live in words, but it is not catchable in words.."
"polymarket"
the bulky equipage · of the quagmire guards
the burned road
rattles our clank
some lit screen is · leering like luck
i found but forgotten · one click further
& people
peeling away
someone no longer · in the drivethrough window
empty space · on the spoiled shelf
soured laughter
belongs elsewhere
a crown crushed · by the gray of the sky
The US is no longer a liberal democracy.
“ 'They chose to stay as an act of resistance,' said Daderko. 'They were surrounded by violence and death on Jersey. They saw people starving in the streets, they saw people tortured, they saw executions.' " —Katie White via
Mamdani on St Patrick & the Irish.
“A good question is very hard to answer. The better the question the harder the answer. There is no answer at all to a very good question.”
- Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds via @jacobwren.bsky.social
"Every true work, like every true individual, is first of all a ‘that which is not'."
"From a Window
Up here, with June, the sycamore throws
Across the window a whispering screen;
I shall miss the sycamore more, I suppose,
Than anything else on this earth that is out in green.
But I mean to go through the door without fear,
Not caring much what happens here
When I’m away: —
How green the screen is across the panes
Or who goes laughing along the lanes
With my old lover all summer day."
—Charlotte Mew via
"MIDNIGHT (Anagrammed Lines)
Lawless midnight forever composes
verse from compelling shadows. I set
scenes from the improvised gallows,
the slow, simple coverings of dreams."
—@anthonyetherin
"George III
George the Third
Ought never to have occurred.
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder."
—E C Bentley
"Elfwisk – a Hookland dialect word for fate. While it can be translated as god-wished, it's more often used to imply that ill or fortunate happenstances in a person’s life are being manipulated by unseen forces of a somewhat lower order, often for no reason other than their fierce merriment." —@hookland.bsky.social
white enamel iron chairs
in the cold early light
pennies, paperbacks
elfwisk
"THE FAILED CARTOGRAPHER (Palindrome)
Demand a hill, at solid nadir….
Damn it!
One morn,
I saw I was in Rome,
not in Madrid,
and I lost all I had named...."
@anthonyetherin
"Henry sats in de bar & was odd.."
"While close overhead clap the quick mocking palms of the Storm-Fiend" —Sheridan LeFanu
"They’re telling me a great empire will be destroyed if I attack Persia. Even the oracles who don’t like me very much, very nasty, they all said to me, “Sir, it’s one of the great empires, and it’ll be destroyed. And all because you attacked Persia.” That’s what they’re telling me."
—kenjennings.bsky.social
"to be smothered in cassia"
stabilimenta · in the scarecrow web
way station
worn desert sign
dreams of a glorious · green headlight
notepaper damp · nimble the bardquill
cuneiform
ruminations
as heavy night falls · across fierce acres
squandermurk · vermilion brillig
one good word
the wound stanching
