( me )

( via / via )

A classical Latin codex curated for poets, writers, scholars & language lovers.

"Because none of our current ruling class have ever read a book, none of them know what happens to them when a critical mass of the population cannot afford food."
—@dlbowman.bsky.social

McLuhan replied.

( via / me )

Cromulent and Esquivalient.

"siempre a tu lado"

pale bridge · in the brittle glow
not my turning · eye on the dashboard
storied intersections · still
though each thorn's facade · wields optics
inimical · to the dry wheel
Three Suns in Japan · murals
so much · not yet destroyed

"With the flickering of/ Cantillation..."

In my last year at the University of Texas in Arlington (1979), i found out that their library had just been linked electronically with other libraries, & i had been trying to find out the age of Alpha Centauri, so i got them to print me out all the references to Alpha Centauri they had. It was a thick stack of pages. Many of them i couldn’t find locally, but after a while i did get one with a number: 6 billion years.

i still have somewhere that sheaf.

A Stream in a Glade.

( via / via )

Another great myth bites the dust.

" 'So it is true that comedy and tragedy are mingled,' said Adrian.
'Really it is all tragedy,' said his sister. 'Comedy is a wicked way of looking at it, when it is not our own.
'Is that why people cannot laugh at themselves?' said Julius."

—@ivycomptonburnett.bsky.social

Kenneth Anger mentions HP Lovecraft in this KPFA interview transcript from 1974.

      "cardamummery"

golden washburn wildwood
werifesteria liftoff
      the rice cake
   with the best crunch
mist drifting · in the dreich hollow

bearing wall or bile dict
builder amidst Edsels
      road narrows
   my enemy
in the gyring · pustulent light

2021 podcast on the history of palindromes.

( via / via )

"The film does not show underage girls. It does not need to."

   "My Birds that Fly No Longer

Have ye forgot, sweet birds,
   How near the heavens lie?
Drooping, sick-pinion'd, oh
   Have ye forgot the sky?

The air that once I knew
   Whispered celestial things;
I weep who hear no more
   Upward and rushing wings."

—Adelaide Crapsey

"Telangana rarely features in our imagination of Partition, yet its displacement rivalled that of Punjab and Bengal.."

"In past lore: more lost pain.

#palindromebypairs" —@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

"...what happens to dystopia when the date has already passed?"

( via / via )

"On the first day of class, he introduced himself by saying, 'I’ve written six novels, and they’re all out of print'."

"And iron clouds shall canopy the globe" —Royston's Lycophron

Boudoir Boogie.

no hazard pay this deft
hoosgow full stodged voidfire,
beat cop

Neolith.

Air tanker scores a direct hit on a fire line in the Hollywood Hills, dumping thousands of liters of retardant as Santa Ana winds threaten to turn dry chaparral into an explosive blaze.

[image or embed]

— Digital Brain (@yourdigitalbrain.bsky.social) August 12, 2026 at 12:42 PM

( via / via )

Deep End neocities homepage with lots of blinkies.

"CURRENCIES

A current’s ease,
form into mist.
Occurrence sees
a current’s ease.
A currency’s
for men too missed—
a current’s ease,
form into mist. "

—Lori Wike in The Journal of Wordplay 12

Jeffers writes about sparrowhawks.

"West Coast noir insists that the sun-drenched beauty and free-spirit mythology of California hide a world of corruption and greed. Nordic noir suggests the presence of violence and hatred beneath the tranquillity and order of the Scandinavian welfare state, just as Southern noir peels back hospitality and charm to reveal repressed family secrets and moral decay." —Peter C Baker via

Cat gouache in “gothic” style.

( via / via )

Lullabyes.

“Wolf, I am a llama, I flow.” —Liz Was

You had to be there.

"LEMMING

a hardy, wayward dwarf
who charts a path across a hazardous coast,
past vast, hazy bays,
toward faraway harbors
by harsh outcrops of rock"

—@lukebradford.bsky.social

City skyline.

( via / via )

Boot-Cut Slacks. (thread)

      "halal U-Haul"

the grimdark · nativity story
      hurls apace
   shatters lapis
stray hair in my stringy
instructive swerve of buckshot

dead leaves huddle · where the wind harries
      pearls of haste
   false positive
trestle patina trudge past
partake of snake burlesque

"I think one stumbling block for a lot of people is the idea that if we cannot save everything, we cannot save anything, which is profoundly untrue and seems to arise from the habit of framing everything in all-or-nothing absolutes." (via Mefi)

"Russian has a word for what happens if they miscalculate: pizdets. It derives from the most obscene noun in the language, and it does not mean disaster. Russian has a full taxonomy for disaster. A zhopa is trouble you can still climb out of. Pizdets is the terminal diagnosis, the point past which nothing gets un-fucked and no one can be blamed hard enough to matter."
—Benjamin Stuart Reed via

"...with a John Crowley novel—well, the further in you go, the bigger it gets."

( via / via )

Haunting Gustave Doré engravings.

"on the plus side, i'm getting really fucking good at selecting images with bicycles"
—@gunsnrobbins

It's Not the Falling It's the Landing.

"arsenic spritzer"

stylus in the stern quiet
has to have succeeded
mainspring of Spetsnaz
& catsprawl folderol
eerie flashes flowering

Jack Hills Zircon.

( via / via )

Summer Sky, 1955.

"Empyrean"

if i should lose my place
in the book of life
'twixt pulse & pulse
if i should lose my place
of ullage, match, & surplus
but riffle it & laugh
if i should lose my place
in the book of life

"As at thy portals also death..."

"Any sufficiently advanced credential is indistinguishable from bloodsport" —@rafathebuilder

A proper tribute.

( via / via )

"The government had decided to punish my husband for being the son of a woman who was a translator for the Iranian hostage takers in 1979, before Eissa was even born."

I have experienced several [writing] workshops & flat decided that the parts of writing that are teachable are not the parts that make writing worth keeping.

One of Memling's devils.

dusklost wasp, cicada
still howling
bald-headed man behind the throne

red skelterfugue

I remember the sound they made sliding out & going back in, the smell of the cards, & the feel on my finger tips of skimming through them.

( via / via)

"Nietzsche famously said that 'Homer would not have created an Achilles if Homer had been an Achilles.' There is no doubt some truth to this, but a singular work like Jünger’s Storm of Steel leaves some room for doubt."

"True Face"

Poet & clown, coterminous, like the way
sea & sky at certain hours blend;
people laugh at stumble-escapade,
the mocker of our frailties is thin.

"We remember Capone, culturally, cuz he’s the only one who liked getting photographed, something avoided by leading figures of an east coast crime syndicate; but Al Capone was a twentysomething coke-addled narcissist with a brain disease who never said anything interesting."

"Asbury has arranged everything carefully: the illness, the letter, the misunderstood artist, the devastated mother. Then the structure gives way. He is left without the ending he had prepared for himself.

Grace begins there." —Dimitry Berkut via

Rat summoning.

( rue morgue / via )

Fairport Harbor, Ohio.

" 'Don't stay on twitter so long you stop believing in sunscreen' sounds like an idiom people 200 years in the future will be using but won't remember what it means"
—@michaelhobbes.bsky.social

The other Marvel Universe.

"world without eyes to see the world"

parse the small bones left
smatterings made natal
storm & blazing blemish
obliterate lit scroll
focus on keeping fauxpas
& phantoms out doubtful
the long game is lambent
with luck's inward aspect
becalmed with my toucan crew
parse the small bones left

Tunnel into Hammer.

( via / via )

New piece, all hand drawn paper animation.

"more of the same at lunchtime"

in the quizchase unrequited
the prize given prolethwart
earthquake & loothprog
nevermore for niding

the prize given prolethwart
nudibranch promise
& drive among drizzles
dark wood & worn apothegms

earthquake & loothprog
drastic wipe
if escape were a reason
& scazons could run rampant

nevermore for niding
skullface rune
winner at the wrong game
in the quizchase unrequited

"Spotify partnered with a handful of production companies to churn out cheap instrumental filler, released it under fake artist names, and had employees seed it across the platform’s own editorial playlists so the company could pay real musicians less."

"The locust armies warping, on the bark" --Royston's Lycophron

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932).

( me / via )

"You need to smash every screen in your house curtis. you need to destroy them all and live in a homeless encampment under a bridge. those are your people now."

"Cicada songs abrade the air
All afternoon."

—Sally Thomas via

"The bottle was black and octagonal, alternating between matte and glossy surfaces. The name was meaningless and slightly strange. 'Black Number' sounded like a code, an error in a calculation, or the title of a film.."

"old story of dread & harsh injustice"

penurious trail, trawling
tralatitious alter
in cardboard make bone time
in barricades cradle
busier buzzdozer

tralatitious alter
patrolling flesh ashfields
no shade for the sharing
the sure fix of quicksand
& decay carved starvelings

in cardboard make bone time
in boneyards find playmates
pale turquoise, dark circus
resumes the clown clatter
cluster bomb found tempo

in barricades cradle
crystalline loss phosphors
spread maps of the madness
among whitecoat monkeys
perfect with bale bulwark

busier bulldozer
my muse & merch searchlight
one more golden goblet
ganch or stiff definition—
penurious trail, trawling

"As doctors use A.I. to get faster at writing prior-authorization letters, Dr. Wachter said he had 'tremendous confidence' that the insurance companies would use A.I. to get better at denying them."

( via / via )

Not to be confused with "quesadilla".

"cough that has a seat at ev'ry table"

1.
scenes of things we knew
in palindromes explain
the play of light
that holds nothing
for awhile set aside
i can't watch the thrashing
what is it all but thrashing
& patterns
that crutch of crutches
time's up

2.
vulturous feasting · as is done
      no hard times
   for henchmen

3.
overlaid fictions · old satisfactions
      wasp hovers
   by the back door
hour on its own tries
to tryst howling mallets

burgeoning kiln · cast off
      points of view
   vaporous rise
i find fizzled reasons
rose-overlaid fictions

At the Tomb of Agamemnon.

"Onstage, members of a full symphony orchestra supporting Mi’kmaw soprano Emma Pennell prepare to perform the piece You Can Die Properly Now – a komqwejwi’kasikl poem written by Mi’kmaw poet, artist and educator Dr. Michelle Sylliboy to honour the children who did not make it home from residential school." —Mackenzie Pardy via

I caught a butterfly.

( via/ me )

Monumental.

"...oil turns Time toward apocalyptic blasphemies." —Negarestani

Roberts on Crowley.

   failson shootout
at Not Okay Correl
   wasphaven
city on fire
   Nero violin
or recording biro

   failson watch
wearier inning
   wasphaven
having foundered
   windows down
before you go

   failson menu

⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ - ʅ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡(̸̢̛̼̞̭͋ͅ)̸͚̰͛̔̾̀̿͒͂:̴͓̞̑̌̂̆̊͋̀:̸͎̟̯̂̓̌ ҉ ͡ ͞ ͞ ͞ ҉● ࿀ ● ࿀ ●.

( me / via )

"I mean, I thought I was gonna be as famous as Bertolt and little German schoolchildren were going to be reciting my poetry before school starts."

but i cannot · stop his mouth with clay
   the microphones from humming
treasure · i cannot turn redhats back
   into the broken children they were
come sit with me · in this becrimsoning
   chantpleure of crawlspace
sunset · where a million bucks
   is not too much for a bomb

Steering Wheel.

"How it was that they so aboundingly responded to the old man’s ire—by what evil magic their souls were possessed, that at times his hate seemed almost theirs"
—@mobydickatsea.bsky.social

Bucket list.

( via / oil painting by me )

"If the underlying assumption behind the oppositional aesthetics is 'the world is broken and that’s not good,' then the underlying assumption of the floating world is 'the question of the world’s rottenness is not an interesting one; it may very well be rotten but we don’t see why we should care'."

"Joyce used to read me Finnegan's Wake [sic]. I'm in it but I don't know exactly where, and I'll be damned if I'll go and look for it." —Djuna Barnes

Dusk Triolet.

iced inkhorn roisterer
into further earthstede
      your shew-stone
   fin'lly shatters
myst'ries left · luminous clear
for the feckless seeker

(for John Crowley)

Burrowing years' yardstick.

( via / via )

14 vowel-sound poetry.

Haiku looth as though,
Whispered, the argent
Book boiled down all day.

(2016)

"The Fall of Baghdad"

Dark candle, you could call me
Now or let this knife make
Noise
Across my moon snow
Each slavish landscape void
Puts less out.

(4/2003)

The Dalliance of the Eagles.

"Remembered that year I wrote entirely in copperplate (I was 13, you can imagine, doing three languages at school 🙄 and humanities subjects, all that essay writing)"
—@minxmarple.bsky.social

"...it was a trip her 12-years old son had organized for the two of them - from flights to visas and hotels, from Tianjin to Abu Dhabi, London, Oxbridge and York - all were done by the 12-years old boy with the assistance of Doubao, the Chinese AI chatbot."

( via / via )

Triple and quadruple entendres, and the search for the elusive quintuple. (I've always loved the title of Elvis Costello's song "My Aim is True": I shoot accurately, my intention is clear, my direction is straight. That's three, & they're all in the song.

"Hanc brevem fabulam generis horrorifici Hugardus Philippus Lovecraft (1890-1937) anno 1927 exaravit. Ipsa, tamen, anno 1938, Lovecraft iam ante emortuo, typis est data.

Primam huius versionem Latinam exaravit auctor Latinus hodiernus Johannes Maria Tosi, cuius de vità pauca modo narraturi sumus." —Officina Latinitatis via

On the insane Alfred Hitchcock episode "Maria," Nita Talbot's husband falls for a chimp.

motor from this kit
grille from that
radiant Hannibal
malfunctioning shoppingcart wheel

"Grief is a (closed) system."

( via / me )

Don't Smoke in Bed.

"Try Tropic for Your Balm
(On the Properties of Nature for Healing an Illness)

Try tropic for your balm.
Try storm.
And after storm, calm
Try snow of heaven, heavy, soft, and slow,
Brilliant and warm.
Nothing will help, and nothing do much harm.

Drink iron from rare springs; follow the sun;
Go far
To get the beam of some medicinal star;
Or in your anguish run
The gauntlet of all zones to an ultimate one.
Fever and chill
Punish you still,
Earth has no zone to work against your will.

Burn in the jewelled desert with the toad.
Catch lace
In evening mist across your haunted face;
Or walk in upper air the slanted road.
It will not lift that load;
Nor will large seas undo your subtle ill.

Nothing can cure and nothing kill
What ails your eyes, what cuts your pulse in two.
And not kill you."

—Genevieve Taggard via

How to Latinize Your Name.

"I need not dwell upon the pallid, contaminated mash, which they call strawberries; soiled and tossed by greasy paws through twenty baskets crusted with dirt; and then presented with the worst milk, thickened with the worst flour, into a bad likeness of cream: but the milk itself should not pass unanalysed, the produce of of faded cabbage-leaves and sour draff, lowered with hot water, frothed with bruised snails, carried through the streets in open pails, exposed to foul rinsings, discharged from doors and windows, spittle, snot, and tobacco-quids from foot-passengers, overflowings from mud carts, spatterings from coach wheels, dirt and trash chucked into it by roguish boys for the joke's sake, the spewings of infants, who have slabbered in the tin-measure, which is thrown back in that condition among the milk, for the benefit of the next customer; and finally, the vermin that drops from the rags of the nasty drab that vends this precious mixture, under the respectable denomination of milk-maid." —Humphrey Clinker

"The inhabitants of Tenochtitlan and surrounding regions that recognized their dominance were technically Mexica, but as far as is known the Mexica, along with other peoples of central Mexico, never identified themselves as 'Aztecs'."

( me & night cafe / via )

Cat, pigeon, vase.

"You want to destroy all the smartphones in the world, Alexander? You cannot even destroy one." —Alexander Fayne

That is the question.

"between two fires"

hulk wants to smash
but spidey says wait
between them gray mush
hulk wants to smash
it's the mutagen mosh
& plenilune waltz
hulk wants to smash

but spidey says wait

Old Phone Box, Barra, Outer Hebrides.

( via/ me )

Leonard Cohen, Clytemnestra.

"cyborg jailbreak"

black glass silhouette is mine
a rabbit with the coloring
of a tuxedo cat

disembodied sneeze

"Hey, Citizen Kane is great, but have you seen Touch of Evil?"

"...swift sheets of flitting vapor-gauze, follow'd by dense clouds throwing an inky pall on everything. Then a spell of that transparent steel-gray black sky I have noticed under similar circumstances, on which the moon would beam for a few moments with calm lustre, throwing down a broad dazzle of highway on the waters; then the mists careering again." —Walt Whitman via

This one, as in many of her drawings, features her patient number which was a symbol of dehumanisation to her.

( via / via )

Don't fear the Reaper.

"The air is thick with invisible ciphers, while we, so trusting in our citizen lives, carry on with our retro- sense of how the world works." —Sven Birkerts

Afterimage.

"mysterious alien egg"

barely notice the wasp-swerve
on the way out the back door
Backrooms Overlook bivouac
Goldenseal en queue
Geist infustigation
turn over a new loaf

add a link
without even listening to the song

overhang menace
overnight has grown

looth maintenance
in a cranny of the sheer face

"Systems can persist in dysfunction indefinitely, and absurdity is not self-correcting."