"Never forget that we had all the scientific evidence we needed to act on global warming over 50 years ago, but the fossil fuel industry spent millions to spread disinformation and block climate action. " --@jamieclimate
Grove City & Manasota Key today.
the aurora borealis
for the hurricane
& what
for all this death
"Cul-de-Sac
The lights shine out. The shadows cross the lawn.
Behind her blinds, the woman in the house
Moves through the rooms. The lights she’s turning on,
Lamp here, lamp there, illuminate her progress
Behind those blinds. This woman, in her house,
Has brought her children up. Her husband’s gone.
The lamps are all that’s left to mark her progress,
This cold blue evening when she’s there alone.
Her children all brought up, her husband gone—
Her life’s a thing unseen inside a house
Composed of cold blue evenings. There, alone,
What does she do? Why does it come to this?
Is life a thing unseen? Inside a house,
With no one there to talk to, night’s a prison.
What does she do? Why does it come to this:
The sudden ice-blue flicker of a television,
No one there to talk to? Night’s a prison.
Pale chilly lamplight spills onto the grass,
The sudden ice-blue flicker of the television.
She’s in there. Sand runs through the hourglass.
Pale chilly lamplight spills onto the grass.
Though lights shine out, the shadows cross the lawn.
She’s in there. Sand runs through the hourglass—
The rooms, the lights, the night, the hours till dawn. "
--Sally Thomas via
"We slept this night in complete darkness. We couldn’t even turn on our phones, not even for a faint light, because the small drones were roaming the alleys between houses, firing in all directions. We lowered the sound of our breathing so as not to draw attention." --@Mahmoud_Bassam8
"Are you a graveyard/ Or a rose?"
"Anyway, I'm delighted that they gave the Nobel to a writer whose major work is about 'How do you live in a world where the state can just murder an unaccountable number of people, just massacre them, and then nothing changes, how can you live, how can you live' " --@zunguzungu
Cool footage even if it's the wrong hurricane. [oops! now deleted]
sharkforward
neon-lit stop sign
so crowded on the other side
more black coffee
on the way though i tarry
& risk being late
Update on Lieutenant Dan. Remember, it's not a problem it's an opportunity!
Random # 241 = 463 in base-7; 4 + 6 + 3 = 13 lines
October decorations
crushed bones of children
slowing for the school zone
uncertain where it ends
October decorations
that start on Labor Day
ev'rything on this car sticks
& in my life
crushed bones of children
we say in November
something's got to change
October decoration
crushed bones of children
"Clairvoyant solitude on the obsidian edge of day."
— Jay Wright via @isidro_li
"The Place of the Solitaires
Let the place of the solitaires
Be a place of perpetual undulation.
Whether it be in mid-sea
On the dark, green water-wheel,
Or on the beaches,
There must be no cessation
Of motion, or of the noise of motion,
The renewal of noise
And manifold continuation;
And, most, of the motion of thought
And its restless iteration,
In the place of the solitaires,
Which is to be a place of perpetual undulation."
--Wallace Stevens
Random # 98 = 200 in base-7; 2 + 0 + 0 = 2 lines
all the things i asked for in their time have come
deliv'ry in the golden rays
From inside a car. [whoopsie, not Milton!]
Against the rise of gender critical non-fiction.
carve dread from the dread-bank
pills that pester to leave off
tags to toggle · tails waggle
nothing in the name · to give pause
the days are bright · & filled with pain
or dungeon-dim · Lalande Twenty-One
the sun sets · behind stone towers
the way back · a last beer
black as your heart
"But coupling mischiefs, with their ruffling gales,
They take away my prayers, and drive our sails."
--1672 Ovid Tristia
"To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question."
--Edward Abbey via @poeticoutlaws
"HEX CXXXVII"
BY THE WIDE DITCH,
WE COVETED HOME.
THE HOT-HATCHED CICADA
MADE AUDIO WOE.
BADE VOICE A COUTH THEME
BY THE CATHODETUBE MOB,
WE DEBAUCHED BEAUTY
WITH VICTIM TACT.
𝘝𝘪𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘭'𝘴 𝘛𝘰𝘮𝘣 𝘣𝘺 𝘔𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘚𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘐𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘋𝘦𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯g.
Random # 31 = 43 in base-7; 4 + 3 = 7 lines
just naming
all the plagues jades
the named dead
& looming doom
where the sky
scans for now clear
write & mourn
Hurricane Milton: eliminator churn.
Marx & Engels on the American Civil War. (via @_ryanruby_)
"Malt does more than Milton can / To justify God's ways to man." --@ae_stallings quoting housman
Drone view as of 9 AM. (Actually: Cancun a day ago.)
"Sluagh
Shut the west-facing windows.
Bolt the door with a wormwood sprig.
Those aren’t bats. Those aren’t starlings
Skittering up the sky tonight.
Snuffed-wick lashes fringe
Lunar sea eye sockets.
Their nostrils dangle maggots
Plump with cerebrospinal brine.
Not all the dead are well-wishers
Loving us like distant grandkids.
Wronged, unavenged, they stalk the young,
Weasel-eager for wren eggs.
They will kiss you with leech mouths
And suck your skin of sunlight,
Brown skin turned to white slough,
Scrap paper scrawled with slogans.
They want you to fight their lost cause,
Brain infected, neck sprouting
The flagpole of a fungal stalk,
War cry born in a burial mound.
Beware the army of the dead
Desperate to recruit the living.
They cannot rest in coffins full
Of bedbugs and barbed wire.
Samhain moonrise their reveille,
Their nails scratch at corneal glass.
Harvest your books and holy basil.
Crack the chalk and draw a circle."
--@amitmajmudar in New Verse Review
"What is simply happening is that 400,000 people in North Gaza have no way of leaving school shelters or what remained of their houses to get whatever food or water for their families.
What is happening is that hospitals have been ordered to evacuate.
What is happening is that anyone who go out in the street will be shot at by armed Quadcopters.
What is happening is that hundreds of people are killed and wounded with no ambulances being able to rescue, not only because it’s dangerous to drive now but because there is no fuel for ambulances.
What is happening is that you reading this and do nothing.
Do something! My own family is in danger!!!
Share this!
Take to the street.
This is about humanity. Palestinians have been oppressed and killed for years. We are living under occupation. There is no place that’s safe when you live under occupation. When this occupation is supported by the US and other European countries.
Wake up!!"
--@MosabAbuToha
I'm in favor of wolves. Keeps the fairy tales real.
Excellent Simon & Garfunkel filk.
The end of the world as a niche interest.
Random # 131 = 245 in base-7; 2 + 4 + 5 = 11 lines
this pale cerulean · sky will return
nor is it creased · by ice crossings
& taillights twitch · & their trawls resume
the fans will forget · the paths they've gone
my poem ponders · a world winnowing
its resident ranks · with furious fire
& this pale cerulean · veil-thin pearl
will remember as much · as a man can toss
some cenotaph tarries · if you know the war
some words in a book · beckoning empathy
& its readers claim · it declares them winners
Random # 153 = 306 in base-7; 3 + 0 + 6 = 9 lines
a darkening · circus
packed up · got no traction
in regret marketplace
nalioyexacyou ('annals')
of ghosts frosts the windows
watch the red swirl thread its
promising-wrath frithchase:
the poor collect mortal
peril their sole birthright
"The witch's way through the woods can only ever be one of wonder. " --Emily C Banting via @hooklandguide
NURBS_Z(180_deg); // animateChaos().
"Writing a book is just like reading a book except the book hates you" --@NC_Renic
Random # 304 = 613 in base-7; 6 + 1 + 3 = 10 lines
watch this fire awhile
then one that burns bordering
a weary bus'ness
landscape i lollygag through
crescent in the dark gray creel
lank crystal
nothing harrying here
the permanent ice irked
by human aims
drools in silver rivulets
Troubles in SF Poetry--Part I.
"WHARVES AT SUNSET
The snorting dredges bulge with smoky stacks;
The snub-nosed barges wallow with their loads;
A crusty freighter's idle rigging clacks;
And squabby tugs are puffy, coal-black toads.
Against the dismal sky, warehouses bulk.
Bedraggled, broken factories sag and spoil;
While eyeless and deserted buildings sulk
Near stagnant quarries, filmed with greenish oil.
But clouds soon part. Sunset pours down its gold
That harbor vessels are transfigured under
To argosies that swim through tales of old--
To galleons that ache with Orient wonder.
As ship-bells ferry legends over foam,
Warehouses shed--as in a fabled story--
Disguises, showing minaret and dome
On fabulous Bagdad palaces of glory."
--Louis Ginsberg via
Autism Screening Questionnaire — Speech and Language Delay. via
"Verses require much leisure and sweet ease,
But I am tost by windes and angry Seas."
--Ovid's Tristia ex Pontis (tr W S 1672), I. via
"Lost media is as old as media." (via aldaily)
Dutch Art Nouveau book covers.
The only reason to paint is to paint what you can't paint.
Random # 332 = 653 in base-7; 6 + 5 + 3 = 14 lines
equivocates · not this concrete
unwrap-ribbon · of the wrought gift
daze that lingers · lovelorn dither
miles past in the · math of swevens
& now knowing · the node broken
game underway · worse than figured
it's a fine kit · cut to the chase
so we're lured loans · on a pay plan
act out artworks · drawn by the draft
of swart swinkings · swirling to hold
& i'd still stint · nowise to nudge
the half-hues of · that hellish dawn
all these ranged wrecks · to come, carry
word from my Wyrd · that pours away
"honey melon moon
in the black bowl
of the sky
I remember the taste
of our summer kiss"
--@ericcoliu
"I more & more am coming to believe that the wellsprings of many of our biggest decisions have nothing to do with those storylike contrivances we insist are our reasons; more like avalanches than stimulus-response... After i had been here awhile i realized i didn't know why i left Dallas; that everything i'd believed were causes had vanished like a summer rain which leaves the sidewalks dry an hour later." --letter (1991?)
"Sometimes, the candle barely out, my eyes closed so quickly that I did not have the time to tell myself: 'I'm falling asleep.' And half an hour later the thought that it was time to look for sleep would awaken me" --@Daily_Proust
a blatant beast · & they fell for it
too many years without hope
too long being lured · in the rigged game
when cheating seemed the one way
one of us · one of us
the cry goes up
"The experience of everyday life is the real material of any avant-garde worthy of the name."
Random # 16 = 22 in base-7; 2 + 2 = 4 lines
surgical sword justice
generous spree of juice
lost in wider sunsets
dance dyed with the tidesurge
the old songs
haunt our airwaves
a season
sad lingering
fewer &
fewer defend
the old faith
that it all meant
travesties
& much betrayed
augur still
from the old songs
"Spending my night in the graveyard of abandoned texts, with the ghosts of the Time poems I wrote as a child running free through my mind. I forget more than I remember, and yet somehow, every now and then, they are all here, all the burned manuscripts, all the unwritten words." --@dreamsofbeing_
Random # 301 = 610 in base-7; 6 + 1 + 0 = 7 lines
this date too
should we take the time
to honor
many dead
as if the others were not
anniversaries
of slaughter
Error is Infinite and Chaotic.
"a sliver of moon
in the bedroom window
this, this silence"
--@ericcoliu
"She did not think of wickedness as wickedness, but rather as the stuff people were made of, like flesh.” –Laura (Riding) Jackson
"As far as I can tell we are doing the equivalent of checking particular numbers individually for whether they are prime; but in a space far less ordered, with no search procedure and methods of reasoning far less secure, and with no reason to think we know something about our sphere of inquiry that makes all this ok." --Liam Bright via
What Does a Fish Dream Before Dinner?
"Weekend antics wane as
wee ones drift t'ward dreaming,
flick'ring flames reflect while
flurries softly worsen."
--@drottkvaettzine
"To the Roaring Wind
What syllable are you seeking,
Vocalissimus,
In the distances of sleep?
Speak it."
--Wallace Stevens (via @forthetape)
242.242 Palíndromos Españoles. (His Megapalíndromo Español is longer than Dr Awkward.)
"...people become aware of the dynamics of some new system, in which they are themselves seized, only later on and gradually." --Fredric Jameson
"La era a tu margen anúlase. Ya la edad no asoma, no se ve un sol. Anida la brutal sajadora atroces y animales sones (sus sones). Senos (sus senos) se lamina y se corta a rodajas la turba ladina. Los nueve sonamos a onda de ala; y esa luna negra muta a real." --@sispanapsis
Google translated: 'The era at your margin is annulled. Age no longer appears, no sun is seen. Nests the brutal sajadora atrocious and animal sounds (its sounds). Senos (their breasts) are laminated and cut into slices from the Ladino peat. The nine of us sound like a wave; and that black moon mutates into a real one.'
Random # 167 = 326 in base-7; 3 + 2 + 7 = 11 lines
flaying winds & flooding · car floats on the little screen
in dawn's long shadows
i acquire curated · sounds & send
my dark thoughts roaming
do i need another · nugatory tome
from the perfect press stillborn
the textures of concrete · elude the telling
& i have no other muse
as i ease through an underpass · sheer glare beyond
fam'lies who huddled in tents
to sleep get slaughtered · swift-scatter their remains
Random # 288 = 561 in base-7; 5 + 6 + 1 = 12 lines
of fires to come · Fimbul
confusion squawks tocsin
righteous crutch-haft cruelty
crawling about hallways
mug ignorant murmurs
the march into winter
as storms pile up stillborn
stalking the dank blankness
in small doses dealing
in dust casts each pastime
i attend where the tarmac
tears apart in heart-shapes
Remembering Hunter S Thompson's eulogy on Nixon.
"Can’t I sometimes invent nonsense, instead of always being supposed to borrow it?" --TS Eliot, letter to Charles Williams 22 May 1930
"A big factor driving doomer takes on AI chatbots is that hype encourages this belief; it primes ppl to see glimmers of consciousness in LLMs the same way believing in ghosts will have you jumping at noises at night. " --@jjvincent
Postcard from a parallel life.
Random # 138 = 255 in base-7; 2 = 5 + 5 = 12 lines
conscience awakens clumsily
bug shell on a branch
caress brimstone
make it your Morth star
somewhere back there you sold
a measure of sanity
long time not looking
just punching your paycard
were they lured by the promise
the war's end once & for all
children & other enemies
to be wiped out
"This university has created two AI 'students' who will 'take classes'."
