Army surplus shop dressing going in surprisingly hard.
lost in the luscious · larceny of rose
a ruler riddled · weary & wise
burning to bother · bystander rocks
incapable of carving · curve for a butterfly
So many poets, generations of poets now, who don't seem to be able to hear the sounds of poetry. They write to fill a shape in the page. Why do they do it then? To fulfill some idea of "being a poet".
"Sometimes the mystery has a poetry of its own."
"Hey man my AI dating concierge read your book and loved it" --@john_attridge
"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic."
"We Came Out of the Night
made the left at Rocksprings
and hit the South Texas heat
wave in a '49 Mercury, lowered with skirts
&leadedin front hood, roll'd & pleat'd & built
for fast trips to the border. It was black.
Outside Del Rio the air shimmers white
shattered into pastel & red afterimages.
The heat decides everything. Suspends
thought. Cactus dominate."
--Robert Trammell, from No Evidence (2001)
"I hope to try an experiment with Enochian."
"IO (Only two vowels, alternating)
Long I trod, dislodging rocks,
blind on Io’s wilds….
Now I hold
this cosmic god,
this fossil of iron;
this lost lion
with torn wings:
Now,
I hold
Io’s sphinx."
--@Anthony_Etherin
The joys of Ligeti and Hannigan.
"As a poet, I hold the most archaic values on Earth. They go back to the upper Paleolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times." ~ Gary Snyder via Amy Martin on Fb
Von DUNE und Game of Thrones lernen – wie man Sprachen erfindet.
"This morning I re-read the 12th (unnumbered) section of the first poem I ever read by Ron Silliman, *Ketjak.* It's the one that uses the words 'aardwolf' and 'adz' and, toward the middle, the sentence 'A sequence of objects, silhouettes, which to him appears to be a caravan of fellaheen, a circus, dromedaries pulling wagons bearing tiger cages, fringed surreys, tamed ostriches in toy hats, begins a slow migration to the right vanishing point on the horizon line,' which first appears as the poem's second sentence, in § 2.
I discovered Ron somewhere between Marilyn Hacker, Rae Armantrout (to whom *Ketjak* is dedicated), and Anne Carson.
Silliman was born on August 5, 1946, and I have met him a few times here in Philadelphia at Kelly Writers' House (where he mentioned to me, in passing, that the "revolving door" that opens the poem, belonged to the Bank of America, somewhere in San Francisco), and also at the Naropa Summer Writing Project.
I've also read most of his poem *The Alphabet*—which compares favorably to Wordsworth's "The Prelude"—my favorite section of which is "Skys" (p. [cetera desunt]
I think it fair to say we belong to a mutual admiration society . . . and it has given me hours and, indeed, weeks of pleasure since Larry McCaffrey first suggested I read him, sometime between 1970 and 75. Without him, I certainly wouldn't be the reader I have managed to become." --Samuel R Delany on Fb
departed-sparkle · pillage team
lowering clouds · cluster like worries
a nacreous needed · nap shrivels
if i ever erred · & then doubled down
on my wretched wrong · ravens have sailed
since & unsaying · is eke no option
rain batters · the barrier of glass
i have to use headlights · Kharkiv falls
two pledge drives · the drake tittering
(for a contest)
nightmarish distortions seemed satire
in Steadman’s cool 70s hauteur
now the beasts in the courtroom,
high court & boardroom
defy all depiction & contour
1984? commercial for Pepsi directed by Ridley Scott.
"So far gone am I in the dark side of earth, that its other side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain twilight to me."
― Herman Melville, ππ°π£πΊ-ππͺπ€π¬ π°π³, π΅π©π¦ ππ©π’ππ¦ (via @Isidro_Li)
"Come around the campfire and let me tell you the tragic tale of what befell #OwnVoices."
The Love Poems of Johannes Secundus.
"Walked into the UPS to find an employee standing over a large open box, peering into its depths, muttering [']my god, we will ship anything.' Then he closed the box and taped it up in a fury like it contained horrors not imagined since Pandora. I must know what is in this box." --@tyler_a_harper
"A row of sherries
Like a thick row
Like a windy row
Like a monotonous row
His nature is still his
nature
Frail is he who
recognizes the rowing of the hair,
the snow of the rib, the fright
of his quarrels
In rowing he rows a
row, waiting across his appreciation, frail
from deference
This dun colored police has no velvet
for anyone
He can hear the door
of the spark
He does not see
my dark, my snow, my air
These things flirt, soft, run, like
frightened sherries
There are these indefinite days,
beyond which a sailor glances itself
At midsummer he swims me
Even though dark is plashless, he
has dark in
his clover
Often running, surrendering, drawing bitterly
at a frightened
door"
--Robot X, 3181
"I did not do it/ for God reasons..."
epigram
Time transforms itself and so do we in time.
For what? To reach the utmost imperfection.
--John Owen (my tr.)
(The original Latin is:
tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in ille;
quomodo? fit semper tempore peior homo.
There is a wikipedia article on "Tempora Mutantur.")
"Passive-Aggression is the Hero with a Thousand Faces." --sayings of Asmodeus
"every one deals in paper money; few have ever handled gold. we live on symbols, and even on the symbols of symbols; we have never grasped or verified things for ourselves; we judge everything, and we know nothing."
--henri frΓ©dΓ©ric amiel
tr. mrs. humphry ward (via @infinita_fiori)
exuviae zither · pizzazz shed
room rustling with · wrong attempts
mists multiplied · in the mood of this returning
album excavated · artificial light
a sphinx ferreted · forceful query
once for the wayfarer's · web clearing
& duly decorated · daub therefrom
a story strained · through stereo stulms
all far now furious · as the floods tumble
nor raft to hand · helpful rune
i gather the gormless · guts of a teddybear
the landscape lathered · with loose visions
mower this morning · not muted by blinds
Pluto placated · to replace noise
"Lightning flicks its riding whip..."
"I also have one piece of news that will be sadder for some of you, which is that after about twelve years running, I'm shutting down Autistic Book Party... When I started this project, back in 2011, it was genuinely hard to find openly autistic authors of speculative fiction for adults. I knew there was interest in that topic, as a part of the big, post-RaceFail wave of interest in representation; but my list was pretty tiny and janky. The only one I knew of who worked with traditional publishers was Caiseal MΓ³r. In 2011, it seemed to me that, if I worked hard and focused, I could get through the entire list... In the baker's dozen of years since 2011, I've watched as authors I already knew and admired obtained diagnoses, self-diagnosed, or came out publicly. I've watched #ownvoices autistic authors like Essa Hansen, Alex White, and Caitlin Starling burst into Big 5 debuts. I've watched an even bigger explosion of autistic and neurodivergent voices in self-publishing... More recently I've watched some very big names quietly, casually come out as autistic. Seanan McGuire tweeted about being autistic in 2023. Neil Gaiman casually came out as autistic on Tumblr this spring. ...and I'm sure others have already said something that, for whatever reason, I just haven't seen. I love that Neil Gaiman is one of us, but in a weird way, Neil Gaiman was the last straw. What does it actually mean to boost autistic voices in a world where there are autistic authors who've won staggering numbers of Hugos already?" --Ada Hoffmann
CS Lewis: “When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it, what will it be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then - that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it. You say you have poets in your world. Do they not teach you this?" --@MiaFarrow
Four Short Films by Vince Collins.
"Give a man a fish and he'll probably cook it in the break room microwave." --@the_etrain@beige.party
"Running the Planet Trail
2.8 billion miles still to go. Something
is slipping. Something pulls.
Under the dual carriageway I witness parallels:
my concrete hamstrings, its tattooed struts.
O east-west artery, shade me; I can’t take the heat.
I should’ve stopped at Mars with its anklet of beer cans and vapes.
I should’ve backtracked to Venus.
Yesterday in the cathedral I saw tourists with headphones
crawling all over St Frideswide’s shrine
while on the north wall a map of Ukraine
beaconed its colours to anyone capable of feeling.
The prayer cards on the wrought-iron tree said ‘My niece’ and ‘My godson’
and ‘exam stress’ and ‘a hole in his heart’. The sun sloped in.
Light a candle while the soldiers bank and dive.
Light a hundred candles while they cover their ears.
Names, names, names. Knees, knees, knees.
How big and alive we are! And then.
Reprogram the audio-guides. Pray to your god for a well,
a cooling rain. Should I go on?
In the lee of a fisherman, two young rabbits shiny with dew.
A collared dove some way past Jupiter."
--Rebecca Watts in Bad Lilies 18
The Piecemeal Bard is Deconstructed.
"vineyards of
the buddha on the moor
still sweet"
--@poem_exe 2014
"Here's Estonian sentence without consonants for you.
„AoΓ€ia Γ΅e uue oaΓ΅ieaia Γ΅ueaua ΓΆΓΆau“
stands for, according to its creator Andres Ehin, 'Night-honour of a watching dog in the garden of fresh beanflowers belonging to the sister of my sunrisy father-in-law.' " --@BogataTimar
"I need to buy a sympathy card for the family of a 13-year-old who died by suicide, and it feels like an insurmountable task. How can there be a card for such a thing?" --@shaindelr
Hvergelmir Voorwerp
avouch · shadows slouching
in dark · slalom lurksome
ladle of blame framing
midnight path to Mothra
Recent Jorie Graham interview.
There’s nothing like the joy of reading a book so strange you wonder how it could ever be filmed.
remote mirror of the · motor's whirling
hollow hands · far ahead zeroing
glitch screen · scrying gleeful
peering out parted · periwinkle cagebars
years lost · to the yeggman labyrinth
"We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost-effective." --Kurt Vonnegut (via @beatgrrrl)
"The waters are parted, but the path branches. This is not a road between cleanly cut seas; it is a maze, and you may wander it for decades before reaching the opposite shore" --@ctrlcreep
Going to tell my friend's kid this was ABBA.
"Girasole
rotating to face
its namesake"
--an'ya
MoirΓ© is a tool when properly applied.
"Moving
deep into mist,
chrysanthemums."
— Sugiyama SanpΕ« (via @isidro_li)
The very first grammar of Lude, a tiny Finno-Ugric language.
"Weekly Georgian Etymology: ααα αααααα£αα Tergdaleuli 'Europeanizer, having a European education', lit. 'one who has drunk of the river Terek', from ααα αα Tergi and ααααα£αα daleuli, participle of αααααα daleva drink, from Kartvelian *l- reduce, spend. Iconic 19th c social movement." --@thomas_wier
"You cannot walk down Whitechapel..."
Look up and soak in the mind blowing show.
"Alba helada,
luz azul aledaΓ±a.
AΓ±ade la luz azul alada;
la luz azul al aire salΓa,
bajaba y soΓ±Γ³ tonos soΓ±ados:
ese verde, sΓ³lo sed reveses
o daΓ±os: son otoΓ±os.
Ya baja, baila seria la luz azul alada, la luz azul aledaΓ±a.
AΓ±ade la luz azulada, le habla."
--@MerlinaAcevedo
(Google translate:
Frozen dawn,
surrounding blue light.
Add the winged blue light;
the blue light came out into the air,
He went down and dreamed dream tones:
that green, only setbacks
or damage: they are autumns.
Now it's coming down, the winged blue light dances seriously, the surrounding blue light.
Add the bluish light, it speaks to him.)
"Still my favorite thing Danielle Steel ever wrote: 'I have terrible eating habits, and in my early days for some reason lived on a writing diet of liverwurst and Oreo Cookies, which became the subject of many jokes.' " --@dan_sinykin
Why did the palindrome cross the road?
"Bosing is an unsophisticated method for the discovery of buried archaeological features such as pits and ditches dug into a thin substratum of rock, such as limestone or chalk. The technique involves hitting a block of wood laid over the ground surface with a weighty hammer and assessing the sound given out." --Wikipedia
Amusing twitter thread about Queen Christina of Sweden, claims "hyper autistic". (via @nadienadianadie)
"wishing
to live forever
a cicada's song"
--Kusatao (via Abashosociety)
Happy Caregiver Exploitation Day.
"Rooks wandered about on the loam, chakking to each other." (via @ae_stallings)
"THE TWO DRAGONS
A dragon rose: · a soaring red
the age of time. · I aim to fight
a duel tonight. · The giant led
the wing.... Our due, · a dragon white,
emerged untrue — · irate and grim.
Our redder beast — · its braided roar
a mad, hot doom, · amid the dim —
arose to sear, · arose to soar....
A talon tore — · irate, in late —
the wing. Red hit. · The dragon white
ate fiery light. · The guile! Or fate:
the gaunt in gown, · now gone to night.
Red dragon, ward. · Drawn, guard a door.
Roam reveries. · Soar — evermore."
--@Anthony_Etherin
Voight-Kampff just in the nick of time.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."
– Eric Hoffer (via @Jen3nfer)
In Extremis: On Poetry, Subversion & Violence.
"GHOST STORY (Anagram-Haiku)
I find your strange ghost
out in the fog, in dry grass —
Grief haunts dying roots."
--@Anthony_Etherin
thereupon dire darkness
dapples the app
i march through pinched portals
plying rusty trustcards
dull gray duel trysts
dorp thereupon torpid
riverbank reive
i run like sun flowing
over no slow solving
When you log onto Zillow and search for "Ballardian".
makeshift grown to Greek gift
gross fault that is altar
oily sheen on shallop
shill-umbrageous pillbug
return then to torn-up
tarmac pratfall lattice
my hands hang like string beans
halted before doorbell
& the dirgecadge castle
cooks us a heart rook-sad
witness unslaked slaughter
& slightly mad Dad jokes
"My favourite Icelandic term for pins and needles (tingling after your foot goes numb) is stjΓΆrnur Γ skΓ³num, or 'stars in your shoes.' A Yoruba equivalent is pajapaja, or 'kill dog kill dog.' And the best one I’ve heard from German is mein FuΓ glitzert. It means 'my foot twinkles' " --@AdamCSharp
"the heights
whirl themselves away
still more fiercely
than you."
--Washburn & Guillemin's Celan
Death Moon dawdle under
adroitly · house mouser
watching the rain wanhope
awash Sphinx extinction
in turquoise tarn larking
tarrying stare lurking
pale auroras pyrrhic
& pawned mirrors fondly
"cherry blossoms—
these brief moments
of compassion"
--Michael Smeer (MikΕ) via @myhaikupond
"the retroactive application of contemporary views on race to works/cultural periods older than ours is one of the most intellectually corrupt/embarassing things that people went whole hog on in the last 20 years. categorically one of the things this era will be mocked for." --@MrHWM
"We are all, it suggests, reading in darkness."
ghost of a handle
caw · mild spring morning · the back
window needs wiping
brainworm at 7 o'clock
wodwo wearing the wrong tie
"That's too much like work for them..."
"If man so readily forgets he is accursed, it is because he has always been so." --E M Cioran
Police Center and Operative Headquarters.
