When Evil-Doing Comes Like Falling Rain.
"No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons."
– Ishmael Reed, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down via @everysongiveeve
Neuordnung
on nude rung
dungeon urn
gerund noun
under no gun
undo gunner
or nudge nun
neuron dung
"I don’t trust any book that wasn’t published before 2022."
we melt into black
smoke on a rectangle screen
we say we're against
in his room Netanyahu
grins like a well-fed dog tick
"And the night bird whirrs/ too close to your eyes." --Hölderlin (my tr)
'On the Suicide of the Refugee W. B.' by Bertolt Brecht.
"Is not impermanence the very fragrance of our days?"
~ Rainer Maria Rilke via @arealmofwonder
"The Rat
A young man wrote a poem about a rat.
It was the best poem ever written about a rat.
To read it was to ask the rat to perch
on the arm of your chair until you turned the page.
So we wrote to him, but heard nothing; we called,
and called again; then finally we sailed
to the island where he kept the only shop
and rapped his door until he opened up.
We took away his poems. Our hands shook
with excitement. We read them on lightboxes,
under great lamps. They were not much good.
So then we offered what advice we could
on his tropes and turns, his metrical comportment,
on the wedding of the word to the event,
and suggested that he might read this or that.
We said Now: write us more poems like The Rat.
All we got was cheek from him. Then silence.
We gave up on him. Him with his green arrogance
and ingratitude and his one lucky strike.
But today I read The Rat again. Its reek
announced it; then I saw its pisshole stare;
line by line it strained into the air.
Then it hissed. For all the craft and clever-clever
you did not write me, fool. Nor will you ever."
--Don Paterson
"Istanbul to me is a hot, relentless chaos that smells of salt and sour bread and fumes."
Random # 215 = 425 in base-7; 4 + 2 + 5 = 11 lines
the Gestapo called · at Picasso's lair
who was clearly a shifty character
"Who did this?" demanded · a dude with a Lüger
"You did," was Pablo's odd answer
Nelson Rockefeller · when refused the sale
had some French cats weave him one
& loaned it to the lobby · at the UN HQ
where it hung for eighteen years
when Colin Powell came · to peddle Dubya's lies
they went & covered it over
ditto for Bibi · who says he has no shame?
"There was a moment in the 1960s where we had a choice between glass and plastics as a container of choice." --@brianroemmele
"The Necropolis loves its roses." --We the Parasites
"That time
after the night’s frost the tree
weeping, the miser in me
complaining: Why all this washing
the earth’s feet in gold? And I,
my finger at my lips: Because
it is what we are made of."
— R. S. Thomas via @isidro_li
"2,000 Pound Bomb"
dawn-darkener · dumps an egg
on top of a fluttering · of fleeting homes
the hole its roar leaves · rings in those left
names not now · anywhere answerable
this song of silence · sent from distant
foreign fact'ries · came cheap as a charity
whose workman's wages · themselves served
bubble of brokenness · brawny hands made you
also tender · touching otherwise
not unlike those lost · in the lee of a land-splitting
diff'rent hands · at a dapper desk
put marks on paper · the perished never saw
"Sitting here, safe with my infant sleeping on my lap. Thinking about all the people and their children in grave danger in Lebanon and Gaza, and the $8.7 billlion that the U.S. just sent to Israel to propel these horrors." --@davidpstein
"We wrote for the magazines with the shelf life of milk."
Flooding in Poland. (via @jorie_graham)
"the 'thinking too much as a kid about the fact of other consciousnesses and that you’re you and not them' to 'being horribly depressed and financially unstable in a humanities phd program' pipeline" --@accursed_cher
AIs podcasting. (via @twitchelmore)
Random # 65 = 122 in base-7; 1 + 2 + 2 = 5 lines
soaked city · in gray centuries
i came calling · with my gossamer cairn
eye to eye · snarling angel
in stone stood · through a fog of stars
told me trouble · has its lifespan too
"Touching never does away with the distance between us, but it changes the interval into an approach."
Random # 223 = 436 in base-7; 4 + 3 + 6 = 13 lines
in the hurting
of the thwarting
there are always
crooked spillways
that determine
what is common
like-things framing
migrants homing
still the sorrow
drills the marrow
teaches darkness
in its likeness
to be treasure
"Academia is a noble calling where you dedicate your life to mastering the intricacies of an online learning management system" --@john_attridge
Review of Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival.
"I don't converse with the moon, but we do regard each other warily." --AV Marraccini
Random # 65 = 122 in base-7; 1 + 2 + 2 = 5 lines
hair of the Baskerville hound
i rise to the blank riddle
white rose
we sleep in the side yard of
an untalkie brought back
"For samurai in the era of constant war, linked verse was like the tea ceremony; it allowed one to escape, if only for a brief time, from the world at large, from all the bloodshed." (via)
"Kruger 60 is a good candidate for a home system of 2I/Borisov, a comet of interstellar origin discovered on August 30, 2019." (Yeah, like a million years ago.)
Random # 24 = 34 in base-7; 3 + 4 = 7 lines
bushwhacked · in the buckwheat pancake nevermore
turquoise that must be refilled
Poliesp tryst · appointment in tourniquet
up the skywatch hill
read as such · whole starfields spawned
by a mass vanishing
we began to garnish · with guillotine glyphs
"Kipling's lapel button a microphone hearing leopard's name for leopard
his eyes behind thick lenses like monkeys against temple sculpture"
--Gerald Burns
Siegfried the clown catches a ride on comet borisov, detailed oil painting, salvador dali.
The inner square area appears to move.
"History is always written from the sedentary point of view . . . even when the topic is nomads. What is lacking is a Nomadology, the opposite of a history."
—Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus via @aliner
"CONSTRAINED POETRY (Anagram-Haiku)
Constrained poetry:
Scan entropy or edit
to read encryptions."
--@Anthony_Etherin
Random # 25 = 34 in base-7; 3 + 4 = 7 lines
burn my bumpers early
the beachhead gone surly
sunset 60 Kruger
ascend vended Eiger
each merge a miracle
stark crawl crisp spiracle
early burning mirrors
"I suppressed word after word from my vocabulary. When the massacre was over, only one had escaped: 𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦. I awakened euphoric."
— E. M. Cioran (translated by Richard Howard) via @isidro_li
Shopping for records in 1930s Tokyo.
closure-driven anguish clowns in autumn's spill
a Vegasy attempt at oomph
Random # 329 = 650 in base-7; 6 + 5 + 0 = 11 lines
i never play my 45s
though i have half a hundred
forgetfulness's thousand knives
& i are kindred
their being scratched is but a plus
& having to adjust the speed
while bombs are being signed in blood
& scams in grease
these songs are most of all themselves
falling like so many leaves
& redolent of nothing else
"I often wondered what happened to him."
"BUTTERFLY
ruby-blue flutterer
fey elf
fretful
but utterly free
--@lukebradford01
Random # 94 = 163 in base-7; 1 + 6 + 3 = 10 lines
perfect desolation peers
through the glum rolling glass
hell's pergola
a scribble in time scrambles
like a wall carried with you
through the dank houseboat days
wander darg
the scribe's own scrimmage
a change in the light lilts
you scrape lusters
"The Wreck
But what lovers we were, what lovers,
even when it was all over—
the bull-black, deadweight wines that we swung
towards each other rang and rang
like bells of blood, our own great hearts.
We slung the drunk boat out of port
and watched our sober unreal life
unmoor, a continent of grief;
the candlelight strange on our faces
like the tiny silent blazes
and coruscations of its wars.
We blew them out and took the stairs
into the night for the night's work,
stripped off in the timbered dark,
gently hooked each other on
like aqualungs, and thundered down
to mine our lovely secret wreck.
We surfaced later, breathless, back
to back, and made our way alone
up the mined beach of the dawn."
--Don Paterson
"A lifetime is not so long. You cannot wait for a tool without blood on it."
- Joseph Beuys via @everysongiveeve
"Charitable frisson is also index-linked to how bad the work is, a trend that has effectively become a paraphilia now." (via @amitmajmudar)
Thunderstorm on Narragansett Bay.
Trump's image & sound affect me like a very bad stench. I want it to go away. I don't even want to take the time to call him names. I just want to breathe clean air.
"THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF MR K
It is cold. Ravens talk around the lake. Deer
and blackbird drink tea. Raven, seer of
disaster at dusk - first stars - talk, K!
The first toad most miserably died from
Hik. Nearby the donkey-dream jawed. The
nose of poor Mr K is bleeding. Lake,
dark lake of the raven. To breathe means
to live, means climbing dreams of
rare adventures. Those, Mr. K’s?"
--Unica Zürn via
"i didnt even know that people could write giant mecha poetry."
"...it is not always clear what we talk about when we talk about mindfulness..." (via aldaily)
Random # 289 = 562 in base-7; 5 + 6 + 2 = 13 lines
dwale dwindling · wary of cure
mild sussuration · in the soft dark
a houseshoe lost · legend-laden
we learn nourishing neumes · anent squalor
fortune is a specter · rain takes sides
in the sempiternal balework
graithe for a grueling · grind of queuethwart
a cleaver that never fails
while the spot on your chest grows
rain in the dark whispers · where you'd rather not go
magically the moment · pivots on a pause
ah, yeckate in the down hwyl
that smothersome lava
"...getting even a reply from media gatekeepers is an almost impossible task these days.."
"Bring thy skull-goblet out and let it reek
Brimm'd over with a deep, Lethean draught..."
--J Stanyan Bigg
"Saying nothing is here concise for the first time: until now it always required volumes."
- Macedonia Fernandez, The Museum of Eterna's Novel via @aliner
Random # 93 = 162 in base-7; 1 + 6 + 2 = 9 lines
time
is a bauble upon
your breast
the road from discernment to
emptiness
Mensa-manqué canzone
kernel of a derne swath
through the deathbright data
dallying straw-pal 'midst
Random # 115 = 223 in base-7; 2 + 2 + 3 = 7 lines
four crows here to physick
fylfot antics mantled
in agroof grue-shuffle
grieving our shade-thievery
not · meanwhile the nail sings
in the noose · burn loosens
its rage-rotten digits
Random # 17 = 23 in base-7; 2 + 3 = 5 lines
go, rabbit goobers
we guests wouldn't have duelled you
in this later light
unless for incessant need
to be wired to the plead-world
"culturally unsupported in the same way as an old version of a browser is unsupported" --@mjohnharrison
The Dream of the Rood. (Just don't look in the left margin...)
Random # 211 = 421 in base-7; 4 + 2 + 1 = 7 lines
wraithharness · happens to hit
walking through the high arcade
my black Dockers coat · & the depths beyond
in ambiguous glitter
more than remembrance · monumental
shade that outwears the sun
& hides amidst harsh · oblivious hoedown
Jonny Quest - 1950's Super Panavision 70. (via David Fritz at the Retro Cocktail Hour on Fb)
"When White Boys Ask to See My Hair
My hair is not taking any visitors right now.
My hair was used as a banner on the moon.
My hair is belly dancing on an auntie’s tabletop.
My hair fell off the long line on Mt. Everest trying to take a selfie.
My hair is flipping off an ICE raider after he barges into her favorite deli, arresting her neighbors.
My hair is Medusa’s second cousin, the strands slithering along your throat. Avert your gaze for your own good.
My hair was captured from the exotic Manu wilderness and caged for a popular circus show.
My hair is ducking beneath a desk, trying to recall the drills, math sheets falling in a white rain.
My hair escaped an arranged marriage to sail the Red Sea with a crew of burly pirates. She is busy battling maritime brigands and trying not to get lost.
My hair is under siege in Yemen, her home recently bombed, her children buried under the rubble. I am not entirely sure if she will make it out alive.
My hair was abducted by aliens. Rumor has it they spun her into a star. That might be her there, winking down at you.
My hair was mauled on a Tanzanian Safari. I found a few leftover curls flossed between a caracal’s fangs.
My hair joined a deep-rooted Bedouin tribe. She enjoys feeding nomadic camels from her palm, became the shaykh’s third wife, and sings ancient poetry into campfires. She is happy. I don’t think she is coming back."
.
--Threa Almontaser via
"a cacophony
of sirens, shouting and screams ...
a girl curls up
next to the wheels of a stretcher
that holds her bloodied siblings"
--@ericcoliu
"...it was the only electronic work its composer ever wrote."
"WILDERNESS: dense, endless needle-ridden riddle: deer dwell inside..." --@lukebradford01
"It lies in your hand
Glide, silken steer, nigh
on the haunch. Brain haint
of hasty lithic hand
chants about three healing ends:
straits, here is your state,
cortical sojourner, mend envy,
it lies in your hand."
--Unica Zürn via
Random # 143 = 263 in base-7; 2 + 6 + 3 = 11 lines
i build my pyramid
from the inside out
i have ridden two monorails
the long shadows
at dawn whisper crisply
do you think my route
should include a redbrick detour
don't want to run out of coffee
before the last of the doughnut
the windows need wiping
on only two sides of the car
the light shifts · on this lane between trees
tales of attacks · old music remembered
Poliespo · from the arras beckons
it will take some tacking · in a gale like this
barred from building · or tarrying long
whistle while · the whirlwind screws
& zap's exuviae · preside over lots
of broken off bricks · granulated gravel
sift then · with the nomad's curse
what you carry · cancels what you pass
"For me there is also something about knowing that this music was felt and responded to as epoch-defining... Charles Wuorinen's electronic Time's Encomium won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1970, while Morton Subotnick's Silver Apples of the Moon topped the classical charts." --Retromania
Curll the vertical
in winds novel of coinage
moment of expiry · smoke acrid
machete swing · hoür of the strummed pitchfork
feel blood warmth
the pumps churning bilge
catastroika · the spiral jetlag
goes thirsty
pings of last drops on the calmed river · weapon
of choice · a martini with olive
fogged up inside the Civic
chrome armature · eclipse approaches fullness
Curll goes there
as his eyes dampen
(2009)
