"I want to be as self-possessed as the whales I have come across. I want to trust myself as implicitly as they seem to trust themselves. I want to build something different than the system that has left all of us, whales and women alike, struggling with every aspect of our reproductive lives. And for those who have ever been demeaned by a questionnaire, a sampling procedure, or a numerical metric, I wish to return their dignity." —Mary Beth Rew Hicks via
"The series moves with the grace of art cinema but has the bite of investigative journalism, taking in the exodus from Gaza, organ trafficking in Iraq, migrant prosecutions in the Mediterranean, Britain’s Bibby Stockholm prison ship, the French aftershocks of the Gaza war and, finally, homelessness in the United States." —Joseph S Furey via
"His unceremonious death in 1916 after being crushed by a moving train as he tried to board it at Rouen station in northern France was as cruelly fitting as an end could be." ( via feuilleton)
Nine Key Jacques Tourneur Movies.
" The language needed to discuss the novel and what it was doing hadn’t been invented yet."
“We’re developing a new citizenry. One that will be very selective about cereals and automobiles, but won’t be able to think.” —Rod Serling via @itsagoodlifereview
"All of these inspired, or were adapted into, movies.."
“Being a writer and a Texan is an amusing fate, one that gets funnier as one’s sense of humor darkens.” Larry McMurtry via @catfishcaviar
The most whimsical wallpaper ever.
"73.
The fire tongues
My dry life away;
No more stone songs,
I sing wood today.
It is light and rough,
From one piece, no more;
Both the heart of the oak
And the fisherman’s oar.
Drive piles more firmly in,
Hammers, pound tight,
O wooden heaven
Where all things are light."
—Tracy's Mandelstam via
”DIVIDENDS
This advantage to be seized; and here, an escape prepared against an evil day;
So it is arranged, consummately, to meet the issues. Convenience and order. Necessary murder and divorce. A decent repute.
Such are the plans, in clear detail.
She thought it was too soon but they said no, it was too late. They didn’t trust the other people.
Sell now.
He was a fool to ignore the market. It could be explained, he said. With the woman, and after the theater she made a scene. None of them felt the crash for a long time.
(But what is swifter than time?)
So it is resolved, upon awakening. This way it is devised, preparing for sleep. So it is revealed, uneasily, in strange dreams.
A defense against gray, hungry, envious millions. Aveiled watch to be kept upon this friend.
Dread that handclasp. Seek this one. Smile.
They didn’t trust the others. They were wary. It looked suspicious. They preferred to wait, they said.
Gentlemen, here is a statement for the third month,
And here, Mildred, is the easiest way.
Such is the evidence, convertible to profit. These are the dividends, waiting to be used.
Here are the demands again, considered again, and again the endless issues are all secure.
Such are the facts. Such are the details. Such are the proofs.
Almighty God, these are the plans,
These are the plans until the last moment of the last hour of the last day,
And then the end. By error or accident.
Burke of cancer, Jackson out at the secret meeting of the board. Hendricks through the window of the nineteenth floor.
Maggots and darkness will attend the alibi.
Peace on earth. And the finer things.
So it is all devised.
Thomas, the car.”
—Kenneth Fearing
"Who thought it was a good idea to have the Attorney General (who’s supposed to hold himself above partisan politics), take the stage and promise death and destruction to drug dealers and criminals of all stripes, only to be followed by guest speaker and convicted drug dealer Ross Ulbricht, who earned himself the showy and somewhat redundant sentence of two life terms plus forty years for torture, contract killing, and trafficking $200 million in narcotics before being pardoned by our Pedophile-in-Chief." —@Mark Slouka via
"...I don't write anymore
I just sit looking at the wastebasket
with this alert intelligent look on my face."
—Bill Knott
"...he was convicted of blasphemy for his poem, 'Lázadó Krisztus' (“Rebelling Christ”)."
invoke stares
oil should not burn
thousand moon night
false needs swell
desolate palazzo
shadows long
invoke stares
oil should not burn
area we find
alibi
rufous sweater
thousand moon night
15 lesser-known African literary masterpieces.
The air did shimmer for awhile with sound
& now it doesn't. Heat like fear instills
solemn grugprab*, as mad the world's end howls.
I muse on those cicadas & their trills
changeless as the itch to understand.
Drivers haste to pretend
to & fro. Unquestioned haggard vows
dragging the trees like vast unruly wind
propel me too, t'ward no acceptable outcome.
The car yearns to rest. I go with one foot
on terrible wrongs, the other utter bunkum
proposing what i'd save through verbal output.
Singing-time is almost past, for sure;
seventeen years gone up in literature.
-------------------------------------------------------------
* lethargy (Dalgarno's word)
"Scholars have identified the books, newspapers, and magazines Joyce was reading, and found the places in Finnegans Wake where he used the words." —James Elkins via
"But, day by day, joy waned and withered off" —The Ring and the Book
"Midsummer
This starbreak is celestial air,
Just silver; earthlight, dying amber.
Underneath an arch of pallor
Summer keeps her brightened chamber.
Bright beauty of the risen dust
And deep flood-mark of beauty pressed
Up from earth in lovely flower,
High against my lonely breast;
Thou rhythm like the changing moon's,
The catch to which the waters play,
That as they kiss moon-silver sink,—
As soon to spurn the baffled clay;
Only before the waters fall
Is Paradise shore for gaining now.
The grasses drink the berry-bright dew;
The small fruits jewel all the bough.
Heart-breaking summer beyond taste,
Ripeness and frost are soon to know;
But might such color hold the west,
And time, and time, be honey-slow!"
—Léonie Adams
"...we have constructed an arts system which too often rewards compliance."
lacustrine crutchyard
wields swoosh
highway southpaw
t'ward hatchvoice
"I'm finding out way too much for someone who fucks around so little" —@sofarrsogud.bsky.social
"they, in the heathenish sharked waters, and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with virgin wonders and terrors" —@mobydickatsea.bsky.social
⊐ ∧ ⋂ ⊕ ⊂ *ol1a
"Tongue-Dust
Behind the library’s frosted glass,
dust has its own eloquence.
Settling on the spine of forgotten Latin,
coating verbs in velvet silt
until the past is translated
into a single,
drift-grey grammar
that says everything
by staying completely still."
—@thedevilstuna.bsky.social
"I’m so glad I don’t have to live in a rammed earth cottage eating foxtail millet." —James Marriott via
"On the same day that Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that those in power did not understand the danger in time to prevent what happened, the Trump CIA released 71 newly declassified intelligence reports showing just how many warnings about al-Qaeda had reached the highest levels of our government before 9/11." —Heather Delaney Reese
"...poetry is essentially the discovery, the love, the passion for the name of anything."
"loaded checks"
dark gray welkin · stone wilderness
awhile traiking · the posh snakepit
awhile traiking · trystward blindfold
retreat blocked · in the owl octave
in the owl octave · dark gray welkin
setting suns
& lonely radar looms
watch skyhook
gouge Troy
hoodwinked sound
conjyration mode
beauty's mesh
that sought coign
sleep's file clerk
"I myself, during 60 years of writing for publication, have never needed anything but grammatically sound sentences for the countless things that I’ve wanted to put into words."
—Gerald Murnane via
“Leave only three wasps alive in the whole of Europe and the air of Europe will still be more crowded with wasps than space is with stars.” —Sir James Jeans
erosive tanks tussle
toylike through fraught woods
locked out threat game threnody
within Fimbulthwart
frexious thrip
is snake trove
"Whole chapters are dedicated to the evil portents which foretell the fall of various Emperors."
cloven hoof rock
foggy setback
crust strife
sage dowse moon
voy dire
--What makes something poetry?
Aside from the inescapable timebound (faddish) criteria, these two seem to be permanent:
1. "yugen", or mysterious beauty; i.e. resonance with the subconscious. (in the 18c.--often called the least poetical time for english-- this was not expected nor sought.)
2. "calliditas", or concise aptness. Some--a very few--good poets lack this (Whitman, Jeffers) but there will always be those who refuse them the first rank for this reason.
I would also add: "melopoeia" or phonetic coherence (for some time now, in eclipse); "phanopoeia" or visual imagery; & "logopoeia" or conceptual originality (these are Pound's coinages).
"Poignancy" belongs in here somewhere, but since every age draws the line between pathos & bathos differently, i can only suggest that poetry must be about the human feelings & situations which are thought to be worth exploring at that time. Nowadays bad childhoods & famous artists appear frequently, while epics on the founding of political dynasties would be a very hard sell.
Having one of these excellences is sufficient; but having many of them is still better.
(2003)
Nine movies that capture the aftermath of 9-11. (via Joshua Rothkopf)
"Not only did the Edsel outsell the cybertruck, it sold almost twice as well.
The Edsel sold about 116,000 units over two years.
The cybertruck? 63k." —@stephenblackmore.com
The Hadronic Seeress and Other Wyrd Tales (2025).
"PRESIDENTS
The president of shame has his own flag
the president of lies quotes the voice
of God
as last counted
the president of loyalty recommends
blindness to the blind
oh oh
applause like the heels of the hanged
he walks on eyes
until they break
then he rides
there is no president of grief
it is a kingdom
ancient absolute with no colors
its ruler is never seen
prayers look for him
also empty flags like skins
silence the messenger runs through the vast lands
with a black mouth
open
silence the climber falls from the cliffs
with a black mouth like
a call
there is only one subject
but he is repeated
tirelessly"
—W S Merwin, The Carrier of Ladders (1970)
Answer to Fermi Paradox just dropped. (via Jorie Graham)
"unclean thing"
unclean thing begone
gnarly lure of flycraft
diligent
skull burrower
give us this day · our daily Krasnov
Hollerith Shanghai
Boabdil addendum
Hugging Face
hootenanny
fast times · in the Führerbunker
Building monuments to alien gods.
"Was ever an insect flying between two flowers
Told less than we are told of what we are?"
—Cavender's House
Dread Pirate Roberts in Dallas. (thread)
"There may be places in us all where things
Live that would make us run if we should see them."
—Cavender's House
"It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.
It makes an even face
Of mountains and of plain,—
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.
It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil
On stump and stack and stem,—
The summer's empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.
It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen,—
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been."
—Dickinson
Sonnet to Sleep (lipogram & lipogram translation).
encased in 'splainin' narpools
school zone world, gnostic
bullion
& faded shame
erse to inks · my iracund word
tricorne tarn patrolling
tryst azure & crash pad
carillon
smoke rises
watched by all · on their small screens
"I picked that year — call it 2014 — because I’d say that was the last little gasp of the blogosphere’s cultural relevance. Blogs still exist, sure, but they are institutional, professional, and (to employ a term that will read as very mid-twenties ten years from now), niche."
—Biblioklept via
"Out of nearly sixty presentations, more than two-thirds were some variation of 'here is how AI is impacting my practice.' " —Wrath Mania via
"color banished"
pratfall flurry
loom output noisefire
pillow stepped on
chase
brim pentacle poemclasp
appoint joint ratchet
face turned away fandom
filigree
smoke of sapphire
chase figments · in a frail landscape
eclipse dust din branded
determine next turmoil
law of things
their own landfall
landfill take my map minefields
little enough vanquish · the vague velleities
abrogate all bruntlapse
Brutalist foyer coin toss
as the wind
of madness wones
too many glints · that once were gladness
A familiar place that becomes increasingly strange.
"helicopterese" (The Matrix, 1999)
1.
greenish golden light
in some encumbered alley
your chimp shades resting
in some encumbered alley
redbrick & bruised passage
& no certain turning
your chimp shades resting
where a moment back you tarried
crushed now beneath fathoms
2.
it is red pill or blue pill
it is Bhopal Chernobyl
nimble but to squander
it is Bhopal Chernobyl
shiver under Saturn
sleek black van
nimble but to squander
squidwise inkier delve
it is red pill or blue pill
"She was ready to skip town much earlier than I was, probably around the time my car was stolen from in front of our apartment. That same week we stayed up all night waiting for the evacuation warning, as the flames crept down from the mountain and wiped the town above us off the map." —Henry Begler via
"john fetterman is the first rat in history to climb onto a sinking ship." —@covie93.bsky.social
THE END OF SUMMER (Palindrome).
4.
silence remains
through cruel zones
fought standstill
called cowboy reef
"...she saw the vast desert as a feminist space that should not be plundered for its resources." (thread)
Joy.
2.
trek evasions swarm
no right school
fishhook out
that long boil
3.
dead thousands
sot knaveries
i should laugh
all those void rules
Boon.
"For [VALIE] EXPORT, this was precisely the emancipatory effect. The rejection of unambiguity, intelligibility and communicative constraints shows a resistance to those symbolic and political orders that determine who is allowed to speak, how one should speak and which bodies are considered capable of speaking at all. " —Thomas D Trummer via
"People are writing by hand again (especially in college classrooms!), they’re printing little booklets and zines, they’re generating new forms of piety and reverence towards printed text and swearing off the digital like it’s the drink." —Beatrice Marovich via
Last and First Men (2020) [on flash drive].
"Navier-Stokes"
1.
sin overtakes
wood font;
doubtboyg spiels
& bright pools
what art.
