"Fulking Escarpment"
shark Khurbn
collect shizzle
overlay
of the loon's cry
in rubble
library rooms
force driven
the fierce judgment
flatcar tanks
deployed floatpig
bearable
all these bad words
"Polish is a difficult language; if it is your first tongue, you lament in all others; all sentences, said Polishly, sound sad." --A Case of Knives
How to Write a Poem in a Time of War.
We would welcome our deliverance from cars with joy, if only we could see the whole future.
margent checkpoint mirkshade
emergency fee hike
burning Waymo war-nerve
awaits cancer's blessing
Vundesh margent mandate
mercuryrise sizequeen
burning Waymo war-nerve
window shops for slop frames
enemy margent
Vundesh checkpoint
“Somnambulist
He could not fall so far,
Nor ever be so lost in a murmuration
Of dreams as not to lie
Still on the startled path of evocation.
Whose voice was it that scattered
The deep defence of sleep, that flattered
The dubious brain into escapade?
It was the frigid hour of resurrection
When he arose, and night drew back
From the body that slid from all correction,
Whose implacable face
Knew the blotted road and the empty appointed place.”
–J. R. Hervey
“One needn’t be nearly as holy to pray for fog as to pray for rain.” –R A Lafferty, Apocalypses
Operation Spiderweb drone POV.
"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."
—Ivy Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King of June 22, 1969 via @levistahl.bsky.social via @ivycomptonburnett
"Philip II wrapped his repression in the rhetoric of order."
1. INTRODUCTION: MEET THE BOSKOPS
we tried smart once
but we did better with savage
meet the Boskops
our neighbors for a while
on the evolution tree
tiny faces big brains
now they haunt our dreams
we call them aliens
we don’t really understand
what all those brains were for
& we kill
what we don’t understand
we found a single skull
the year before
the Battle of the Marne
meet the Boskops
2.
they lived
in a land of flowers
they went ev'rywhere
they found the most beautiful place
why they said why
would anyone
choose to live anywhere else
3.
they had no laws
they had no books
if it’s good to remember
they said we’ll remember
the rest is too high for you
the Boskops
did not have laws
4.
but they did have paper
they loved to fold it
5.
but they weren’t perfect
they argued bitterly
over what was true
truth was that important
6.
they came to the wisest one
when they saw that they must fight
& he said we will take a vote
to remain who we are
or to become like them
the vote was unanimous
7. CODA
& if they never lived
would anything be diff'rent
staring down the barrel at
two & a half degrees of warming
one with the other lost chances maybe
& mine to get out
Celluloid synthesiser - sonification from analogue video.
"But Antifa as an organized national whatever was as mythical as unicorns and dragons..."
LD50
Owing to the daedal skill of the spider
ev'ry fresh annex
of prey receives sarcophagus like onyx;
sterling provider
if best watchdog’s the mute basenji.
What can you say about futility so dogged?
Other bards who write from dreams as jagged
jabber as cringey
yet assemble covens for their black cider;
only this phoenix
gathers spices far from the cynics
as if alone were roast, cook, guest & wfted nidor.
Pity the proud, colorblind pink flamingo
whose hues are rugged
less than the time till coat itself turns ragged:
a perfect gringo
in the land of traditional arts,
nor charts another.
“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.”
– George Orwell via @aprilsparkles.bsky.social
"aid workers forced to watch oct 7 videos by their captors"
cold equations called on
no occult plea guilty
view warped by a vorpal
vintage to wield brunt-turn
excuse raze i cannot
or cauldron's long ruinslog
the future sees settlers
soaked in blood, not victims
Old books for decoration.
"...federal police began shooting pepper balls..."
Yes, by all means let's let AI decide who to send to a concentration camp.
ev'rything is very still
after the siren
falls
air of no color
knowledge of no means
pebble i carried home
into the final corridors
narrow cell · of the nautilus
The Docks of New York (1928). ☆☆☆
"...there are not enough air crafts to rescue remote Native Canadians."
Non-Player · Character's Plimsoll
line in the liquid · of look-away
flashbangs pop at my feet · witnessing
days i'd designed · to finish something
dissolve in thunder · dissolve in drouth
& as the Mecha tilts · the horizon veers
"Was stilln't." (page removed: screenshot of Grammarly telling a user that instead of "still wasn't" this was the correct phrasing.)
"There is no lawful basis for this deployment."
Night, Cambrian Mountains, Wales.
"In the missive, which was posted shortly after midnight, Moran said both Trump and Miller are 'world-class haters.' For Trump, he said, hatred is 'only a means to an end, and that end is his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.'
For Miller, on the other hand, 'hatreds are his spiritual nourishment,' Moran charged. 'He eats his hate.' "
--@brianstelter.bsky.social via
"smoke drifts
obscuring
the full moon
how many hearts now
know grief"
--Terrie Jacks via @evecastle.bsky.social
"Is Morrissey good at football?"
Mulling over Peter Lorre as a figure of autism in the old flicks.
"landscape dotted with destinations"
the new phase · lifts its furred snout
caught between rain & no-rain
the streets emptier · answers scatter
the ground like storm-shed leaves
give me a place · to pull that lever
i'll move Acheron
the waste & level sands · of sundered attention
Stranger in Paradise/ It's a Sin to Tell a Lie.
"mudspined
stark ultramarine vertebrae,
arcing through
plastic in slip
throat wrenched;
slack
awl-heavy
luster slick
translucent
scratched pane"
--@wingeater.bsky.social
"Trump’s enthusiasm for using history to cement his power has little to do with actual history."
"My Gumby fanfic might be too dark for Bluesky." --@buddhatree.bsky.social
"New torment nexus drops tomorrow. I am in line at the torment nexus shop. Psyched." --@delaneyking.bsky.social
"ophidian gaze"
cold toast · Belmont dawn
warming with · the gray's wane
this saved pattern · pieced together
into the fog · strides forcefully
love, a vessel · devouring care
precise dolls · spork doula
there is ev'rything between us
"polycule"
Reichstag fire infarcted
infuses Moog music
conjured this evening
a scroll screams
the Freddie dance doodled
dwindle all my skillsets
conjured this evening
the shapes show
too much hidden card-spread
take heed for the morrow
conjured this evening
ruin rides
"snowstorm
in straw sandals
the cicadas sing"
--@poemexe.com
The Koto Music of Japan. (Record i have.)
Stranger on the Third Floor. ☆☆☆
"Naiad reconstituted, painfully, inside the camel's hump. Encased in lard like an amber-swallowed insect, engaged in the long labor of forgetting the oasis" --@ctrlcreep.bsky.social
Monsters on the Moon. (via @harryskeeler.bsky.social)
"HERMIT CRAB
a maritime chimaera;
a barterer, beach bather, armchair architect,
each chamber a rebirth"
--@lukebradford.bsky.social
Meet Brendan, the charming new AI-Guide in Dublin.
"big beautiful ballroom"
1.
Seneca Lilacene's
go-kart to CECOT
silk cauldron
tin knit into kickknacks
they don't tell you · taken to CECOT
plane windows · covered with cardboard
how long detained · they don't tell you
what for · & where to
taken to CECOT · caught in the roundup
quisling quota · for a moment met
3.
to CECOT
can't fossick when i'll be back
gabbed a squib for a good cause
hooded now in Hastur's crib
4.
to rise up
like a roused loaf
not watching
the wary dords
rise up like
liquid shimmer
the shroud-fire
shrivels at noon
"When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine." – Pablo Picasso via @derekbeaulieu.bsky.social
"Shame! Shame!"
"Today is my mother Dorothy Heydt’s birthday. She was an author and linguist, she created one of the first Vulcan conlangs (the new name for Vulcan, Ni’Var, was invented by her) and helped with the first Star Trek Concordance. She published two novels and many short stories. She passed 3 years ago." --@ofnadwy.bsky.social via (More.)
"bring me the head of Abrego Garcia"
1.
umber floor— it's always
about power · isn't it
when rune robots · learn the word NO
—white speckles · Special K
in the cold turkey · of between the stars
2.
murder night · not coupled
with the final film · later legends
eclipse camp · ev'rything grist
for clickbait
3.
the dim street smoother
in curve of the culdesac
a gray cat prowling
my left-crossing unopposed
this hour of the morning
"Our principal tells us it's a drill."
"R I V E R O T T E R
Lontra canadensis
an oiled rascal as elastic as an accordion,
alert, slender,
it darts or reclines at an inland coastline;
an earnest sailor,
at ease in a den in dense cattails"
--Luke Bradford, Zoophilia
I was in a debate with the human mind, and the human mind won.
The life cycle of an 80s pop song.
Great look at Peter Sellers in 1964.
“People lived out their lifetimes, I reflected, taking strange actions, never aware that their actions were motivated by some Operator.” –𝑂𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠
"Has anyone written anything good on the phenomena of the 'cult author'?"
--@mckenziewark.bsky.social
My answer: Minor British Novelists & Frivolity Unbound.
Excavations stands more or less at the beginning of the "cult author" phenomenon. In France this started with the Symboliste poets & the English literary world followed them closely (usually taking sides).
James Branch Cabell's career is also instructive. The scifi author Michael Swanwick wrote a book on him in 2007 (What Can Be Saved From the Wreckage?) but i haven't seen it.
You want a real cult there's Stefan George.
"In middle age I wholly lost my way,
finding myself within an evil wood
far from the right straight road we all should tread.
And what a wood! So densely tangled, dark,
jaggily thorned. So hard to press on through,
even the memory renews my dread. "
--Alasdair Gray via
"...observe here the zone: the Zodiac's
sigils circling. The Solstices,
the asterisked Equinoxes,
Cross-Quarter Days, are chronicled
wrought in roundlets, their rims locking
in clock-worklike caster-bearings,
gear-train meshes of that greatest Mill,
its wheels winding, in whirligigs
turning, grinding: Time's axletree
metes out the months. Each medal helmed
by a star-steerer, in each storied orb
manikins mimic the Months' Labours."
--Rahul Gupta in Long Poem Magazine, 2016
"In all permutations of the family naming, [Marianne] Moore typically referred to herself as male, and is given a male pronoun by both her mother (often) and her brother (consistently)." (thread with a long excursus on Bryher)
"He will not need any political asylum, although if he did, Russia, of course, could provide it."
"Anti-Aubade
You shuffle through your waking house as though
the miracle of dawn does not deserve
acknowledgement, as though the way you go
downstairs, through doorways in the dark, and swerve
around the furniture, is nothing more
than habit, as if comfort doesn’t guide
your feet across the heated hardwood floor.
Your stomach turns at stirs of life outside.
You’re bracing for the dread of this new week,
though really you don’t know a dreadful thing.
You scroll through lifting darkness. What you seek
is anybody’s guess. The song you sing
turns out to be appropriated blues,
and genocides are other people’s news."
--David Rosenthal via @maryanncorbett.bsky.social
"violets, as i walk
clutching their paper fan…
the sun goes out"
--@poemexe.com
"Amor, for a secret
we plod in a morass."
--Satire: Veritas
"Today's erasure poem from the Diary of Samuel Pepys:
all alone in a chest
I found a fine ship
the war has little boys
in fear of death
but hope is old and thin
a light in a well"
--@davebota.bsky.social
"Despair's advantage is achieved..."
"Maori paths I pass alive." --Satire: Veritas
This is like drake and kendrick.
"the man with one nostril"
1.
weather eye
a sky without parallel
drinking from the Holy Grail
Batman
don't use email
all my crimes too big to fail
drinking from the Holy Grail
2.
daylight & a dawn wind
adorned vintage cantrip
rhapsody wrong-fingered
rinkdink assassin
sans-serif seraphim
i sink under sandspill
roar like a grunge basenji
rinkydink assassin
your fate: only footnote
to Festus's crisp nesteggs
spray of rain, run through
rinkydink assassin
3.
Ebola
all the droll Horsemen to dree
lakeside grebe sliding goalpost
roleplay greebled sericon
