"Gunman in a Santa Suit"
Here are these
pathetic winds, beyond
the abductee sleep
of a robodoberman shore
parded by the zephyr
a cacafuego rose
no black aloha theocracy
or grum triphibian moon
Johnny Guitar in the National Film Registry.
A Call for Heresy.
Galatea on Robot X.
Messiaen--poet. (via Silliman)
"XXVIII
When you come back from Memnon, when you come
Into the shadow, the green land of evening,
And hear the leaves above you, and the water
Falling, falling, in fountains;
When you remember Memnon, and the sand,
The stone lips crying to the desert, the stone eyes
Red with the daybreak not yet seen by you;
When you shake out the desert from your shoes
And laugh amongst you, and are refreshed,
And go about your business, now secure
Against the mockery of the all-changing moon;
And most of all, oh sly ones, when you sell
So dearly to the poor your grains of wisdom,
Or barter to the ignorant your belief;
Oh think of his belief and think it evil,
Evil for you because you heard it only
From a stone god whose prophecies you mocked;
Evil for them because their hunger buys it;
Evil for both of you, poor pitiful slaves,
Who had no heart, when chaos came again,
Who had no love, to make the chaos bright.
Go back again and find the divine dark;
Seal up your eyes once more, and be as tombs;
See that yourselves shall be as Memnon was.
Then, if you have the strength to curse the darkness,
And praise a world of light, remember Memnon--
Stone feet in sand, stone eyes, stone heart, stone lips,
Who sang the day before the daybreak came."
--Conrad Aiken, "Preludes for Memnon"
Winning with the Krazy Kat and Old Hippo. Directly.
Intriguing Discoveries.
"The Violent Season"
We have had one extremity, you
have had nothing.
Long swatches of ebony
on the beryl catafalque.
Shining wet streets, glides the frith
of a complicated sonnet.
Ferry to Altair,
from the smokestacks pours olibanum.
The heresy of Unorthodox Openings (in chess) is not so much that "control of the center" doesn't matter, so much as it is that there is no such thing as a losing first move. (A metaphor.)
Hot Thrills and Warm Chills.
i'm in my car. I turn up the radio to hear it over the thundering of rain on my thin steel shell. The few colors seem brighter in this gray semi-gloom. The wipers grunt. I will not be home soon. Watching low waves crawl through the intersection, i think of my love.
"Model 271"
Living
The death of music
A blue calm
Scorning bliss
To pound levying on
The creation of air
Your mad admiration
More disappointed than a breath
"A Finnish professor of literature, Jukka Ammondt, from the University of Jyväskylä ...once recorded two albums of Elvis Presley songs in Latin. His later release, you will be relieved to know, consists of songs of the 'King' in Sumerian. The first cut is "Blue Suede Shoes," which translates into Sumerian as "E-sir Kush-za-gin-ga" ('Sandals of Leather of the Color of a Blue Gem')." --Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia
Mercy.
"Virus Notice"
A world of brigs
my dark, my snow, my air
in the bitter cloud
where normalcy is
No lost anagram
will this cyclone bleed
edge of bright basalt
and spin sworn to fail
I Want to be Evil.
The Body Beneath.
Ubaidian.
"In China they were considered the leading authors in their respective genres. So they had taken for granted their popularity in the States, but they found it far from so. The Americans had hardly heard of their works, except a few university professors specializing in modern Chinese literature." --Qiu Xiaolong, A Case of Two Cities (2006)
"Tilma"
A dumb rumor of
Silverado drywall
a bad heart abide
in equitant grotto
pillbug cabana
through Arab Gegenschein
in thesterness go
coruscating return
"In 1890 inventor Thomas Edison invited the three most famous people in England to record their voices for posterity on his recent invention, the phonograph. The three people were Queen Victoria, Prime Minister Gladstone, and the poet Tennyson. The queen declined, the prime minister sent some one else to read his message, and Tennyson--who had always been fascinated with science--agreed --and proceeded to make a whole series of recordings on the primitive wax cylinders of Edison's 'talking machine.' Regrettably, Tennyson stored his records in a box near the heating pipes of his home, and so the waxen hills and dales made by the running needle long ago melted into inaudible plains. But on some tracks still, beyond the hiss of hardened wax, the poet's voice can still be heard, boldly declaiming his spirited verse." --Stephen Bertman, Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (2003)
Confessions of a Psycho Cat.
Geof on my "222".
"Space Water was born on the star 91 Aquarii..."
"It's not every day you meet someone who sings you an elegy for Attila the Hun..."
"Yardangs are common on Mars..."
"Ghost Skins"
Terrible lamps in
delicate fires, where
carving finds an end
and the snow dragon
suzerain of night
twining baobab
in the inner ear
no permanent thing
Trailer for Satan in High Heels.
Timelord.
"A Quantum of Role Model"
caul of parclosed dread
i walk the next debacle
obeisance from a grackle
cairn of vugg upon vugg
forget to water the opal
lands with a rare bird cargo
on the road boyg Pachelbel
offers to the dark crowd
more sudden than a gem
nothing so utter far
encased in thunder snow
bearing a new grammar
Behistun Rock.
Issue 2. (via languagehat)
Taqwacores follow-up.
Behind Muslimgauze.
"Fury of the Wolf Man"
Late pall, appall a petal
easy on the downward slide
golden on a day of fog
at Armageddon lidless
these hours still as sky reflections
carry turmoil carry smash
and while i wait in cold pacing
am cluer by that long the shamus
Voyager.
Walt does China.
"Ahauob Caduceus"
After I represent us, like a serious thing
Our arms dart by
These things proclaim
Like other conquests
the one tragedy
among so many
yet like the 'H' in 'ghost'
irrefutably here
Seattle weather
my fist full of change
in green wool
and resolve chong
Blackleg Miner. Plus.
And How to End It.
"The madman shouted in the market place. No one stopped to answer. Thus it was confirmed that his thesis was incontrovertible." --Dag Hammarskjöld
Flarf's Khurbn. (via Silliman)
The Annotated Raw Shark Texts.
Nihilist Spasm Band.
Looks like Issue 1 has a new home.
Laibach covers my favorite Rolling Stones song.
"The Up Side of Collapse"
oppugn star destiny
the red badge of shizzle
we clasp flagon's dearth
at Oswald ricocheting
Ninevites
does this count as one interruption
or two
good in the sack
of Rome
heat water at popcorn setting
Nyarlathotep alley
to downscale
sow broken grasshoppers
Hippopotamomus.
"It's a mistake to expect hallucinations to obey the laws of gravity." --John Michael Greer, The Long Descent (2008)
"The Masters, Going Dark"
waves of leaves slither in the bright winter sun
you would not think this place to be a border
peril and sanctity · the full goo jar
on the broken sidewalk · stumble a little harder
rollic octothorp but not to turn
as the season goes from memory to murder
The Year of Living Biblically.
Guzzanelle.
A Book for All Seasons.
"Hotel Carcosa"
bespoke hairshirt · the fearsome seals
indigo pallor · the birthplace
of coffee · this spiralling wynd
jingada · serf's prerogative
the fearsome seals bark · dry waves of leaves
parded seals frolic · the fade out
bruff weariness · the stained footpath
cutbacks · feathery cardboard debris
orange and green · run of eighth notes
die by christmas music · the walls are holding
Godzilla thread on Metafilter.
Don't Stop the Night.
Meanwhile, in the real world... More. Plus.
Of love
They would rather be solid,
Like a plashless bone
Like a soft tomb
Like an early spar
Like a stupendous obligation
They meandered against
humilation
A kind of nest
What does the
merchant touch without hand
to presume?
They had love
That was the
obligation’s love
There was time for
the still love
Marrowless soft oceans of the shameful:
cerise love, cobalt blue
purchaser, hot residences, sweet cracks
They welcomed the joy beyond red
Cautious, heedless, plashless as this home"
--Robot X, 863.
"There is no community in England; there is aggregation, but aggregation under circumstances which make it rather a dissociating than a uniting principle. ...It is community of purpose that constitutes society. Without that, men may be drawn into continguity, but they still continue virtually isolated. ...in cities that condition is aggravated. A density of population implies a severer struggle for existence, and a consequent repulsion of elements brought into too close contact." --Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil (1845)
The Archdruid Report. Last Wednesday's goes from Frank Lloyd Wright's roofs leaking to the interesting neologism "dissensus".
"Top Cause of Death Changing"
vapor trails
spreading in the far cerulean
flying octopi
on an ammonia world
Dieselpunk. (via Metafilter) --I guess the recent Iron Man movie signals Hollywood's embrace of this aesthetic.
Harry Potter et Philosophi Lapis.
"Concept Car"
When dragons die, they take their leave of Earth
without fuss, to partner the invisible
starving in the midst of christmas music
like vapor trails, that fester in the sky
when dragons die
we've made our peace with merciless the process
and seek oblivious naps not deeper physic;
dizzying in the dazzle
dragons glimpsed from subway cars
are on their way, while we clasp flagon's dearth
what was that greeny glitter
do you believe we bypass refuge doors
or dragons can die
Marla Olmstead.
Uranium Savages.
My cupidity increases in the face of ruin, apotropaic.
"Year of the Dragon"
1. Exculpatory grace
an atlas of storm damage
a humbug, donning gold
fixity of cutlass
folds into the name
full as a flank
high joy of it scrimmage
or exculpatory yeggfolk
a sort of braille
curviangular fanged
2.
A troth of lengths · spiralling loose
gold · in the moonlight herd gawking
no sum of mirrors · not this mall
i am spun in · cantrips despite
how slow · and entirely slough boiled
loops then · call them the price of have
such knowledge · benign equitant
Darjeeling · stars of the storm bourne
or occult jangada · dew-jewelled
this is what · it is to be theirs
3.
crack tharfcake inly
my dusk of ailerons soared
pools · mounted
veil Darjeeling · olive Antioch
with dark tharfcake · approaching the cusp of sloom
i waver
crack spitball inly
full as a flank a humbug azury thegn
high joy of it · tardy i enter
"Next to the collection of the Cultural Revolution, Chen saw a poster of Dietrich in Shanghai Express. This city seemed to be suddenly lost in a collective nostalgia for the twenties and thirties, an allegedly golden period of exotic and exuberant fantasies. Things from those days were being discovered and rediscovered with a passion." --Qiu Xiaolong, A Case of Two Cities (2006)
Gilligan's Hamlet. (The original glimflash.)
It's the it bathed played
diorama
socket :: socketpair
in the cold dark a pact
A window of days
Donning gold
Tender Pervert.
Building a ship inside a Klein bottle: leave me alone, i'm trying to not finish.
Derevaun seraun.
A Residents-cover band. (via Xvarenah)
"Imaginary Weapons"
Thantifaxath sharpen want
and stricture
rink of arp ixodid falling stall
sharpen astatine
and gold · sky of pewter and stone
the twisted path · brings
no looking back · no spigot
memristor · amber flow and flurry
gradually, then suddenly
It occurs to me that base-30 would have worked just as well as base-60--so this is not really adequate as an explanation.
Marika. "The most difficult song in history of Slovak pop music..."
Ashbery-Beddoes. (via Silliman) "Pound evokes 'the odour of eucalyptus or sea wrack' in Beddoes; one could add those of rose, sulphur and sandalwood..."
The Cult of Bespoke.
