( @violetbondart / me )

Command Nothing.

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”
--Frank Herbert via @mariejo1965.bsky.social

Allowables. Have taught this. Best poem about racism ever. Imagine that simple compassion toward racists would be so quiet & so unanswerable. I can't.

“Medicine Buddha”

Jesus wept because he came too late
To save, his promise made but badly kept.
Chagrin the more when murder is our freight:
Jesus wept.

You’d think with all the churches small & great
No effort would be spared for the margin-swept.
Under Jesus’s gaze they rant & hate.

His birthday gloats with ev’ry dazzling prate
Money can buy, morality’s inept
Substitute; & still they mouthe his fate.
Jesus wept.

Ghost Riders in the Sky.

( me / via )

Gorbals Tenements, Glasgow.

"THIS STATUS IS JOY

I have confused
the letters
that were in
the poem

and which
you were busily
scribbling
for a book

Forgive me
they were a pale view
so sad
and so exact"

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

Winter Prophecy.

luigi mangione

moiling guinea
omega linguini
a noggin milieu
no ageing Ilium

imagine gun oil
gauge mini lion
aiming guile on
a limo gig ennui

Cover Your Forehead!

( me / also me )

Every Atom. (via brain clements on fb)

"Syllabub"

Rapist Cheetoh
Killed his million
Gets another
Whack at it

Some did crave it
Others didn't
More could hardly
Give a shit

Nations vary
In their downfall
Peter out or
Just implode

Sad to witness
Worse to be there
Worst of all to
Have to bode

A conversation with James Baldwin.

"CROW (Palindrome)

Deft,
I saw a crow,
over us,
a sure vow or caw
as it fed."

--@anthonyetherin.bsky.social

Gods of Norse.

( me / me )

The road to Damascus. (via @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social)

Night road's thronged with thousands returning home
a lit stream wending where the dictator fell,
as we are set to raise another up:
our eyes incapable of Damascus sight.

The Upside-Down.

Limerick writer and activist
Sat by as a figment enacted its
   Unspeakable crime,
   Waxed chipper for a time…
While another small country got whacked to bits.

Grendel Cometh into Hart.

( via / via )

МУЗЫКА АНСАУ.

"The twenty-first poem must

*
oh
but
you know
how they died —
thousands of children
underneath bombs and bulldozers
today, a girl still under a mountain of rubble
and buried in a line, thirteen children from one family – a precision air strike:
they tell us to ignore the growling dark in the sky
but a poem must write of drones
that swallow the doves
a poet
must scream
must
cry
*"

~ Rajani Radhakrishnan at Thot Purge

Yes Goblin is still around. Mood much?

"Here's my new favorite joke:
knock knock
who's there?
hike
hike who?

Unsuspecting friend.
I await with bated breath.
Sets the perfect trap."

--@jhammersley.bsky.social via @guentheralex.bsky.social

Sports 'n after.

( me / via )

Pushin' Too Hard.

"when we rest, our eyes stay open"

--Ferron

Including the Triangular Grimoire of St Germain. More.

auburn, gold ullage
where the solid subfusc
airt suffocates;
driver denies my druthers

can't tolerate the talkers
who would drape torment
& announce fake normalcy
these crazed shadows crawl

to nuke the secret

The full text.

( via / via )

Bashar al-assad and an open window, detailed oil painting, edward hopper.

freshly harfang tholes
the taant frigorific news
sometimes gigglemug

assassin lookalike prize
is to speak with a person

I Give My Little Stars to Children.

“Toad ran home and slammed the door. There, on the floor, he saw his white, four-holed, big, round, thick button. 'Oh,' said Toad. 'It was here all the time. What a lot of trouble I have made for Frog.' " --@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social

Dinosaur mosaic.

( via / via )

Georges Méliès was born 163 years ago today.

"Godot is my co-pilot." --@memexikon.bsky.social

What a strange moment in poetryland that was.

"cash reins.
smooth tail
hideaway.
fluv,
dairy sound.

the tell remain.

jiggle lap.
the prairie.

mannered acreings,

cellbinds flicker,
deeper rigor
wraw an undermined.

the log that quays
rejoinder.

wha phail.

ploog tid humiliflier.

grain tinkles.
water lingers.

dry. huge. foaming. air.

tomorrow eyes capulet.
expectator jewels
aforementioned alight"

--Lyx Ish via

"The arc of fucking around is long..."

( via / via probably AI )

Tourist day in Ottawa.

"To a Mosquito"

I mashed you against the glass.
Now you hang there, effortlessly,
like a spacewalker or Lucifer falling
and the cars fly behind you
in this raw blue dawn.
Of all the mosquitos here
you must be the largest and most fearsome.
Your delicate rigging is almost intact;
your scales poised, your antennae tuned to skin-seeking.

I don't know why I killed you:
it was more instinct than reason.
Mosquitos feasted on me nightlong,
but you were only trying to get out.
Somehow I have a feeling if I were to take
that tiny bulb of an abdomen and squeeze it
no blood of mine would issue forth.
We were waiting for the early bus together
and you must have been hungry as I.

[from PHOENICIANS (1981)]

CANADIAN Version of this series would have been boring.

“Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.”

~Flannery O'Connor, ‘The Habit of Being’ via @willdonnelly.bsky.social

Molecule.

( me / via )

"I feel as though an entire generation, maybe three, would reject all the terrifying freedom of maturity for one long suck on the teat."

"I came here to hunt whales, not my commander’s vengeance." --@mobydickatsea.bsky.social

Demeter's Prayer to Hades.

triangular grimoire
opened, cannot force back shut
reads reversed both ways

The Footsteps. (via @aestalings.bsky.social)

( via / me )

"What I ultimately fear is that, much as the elites of 1914 were sufficiently detached from the direct lived experience of European war, so too are the present oligarchs of the world order too buffered from deprivation to actually be properly afraid."

"That Part in the Music

Once loyal to a cruel master,
the dog moves like a man who
not so long ago weighed a lot less
and is still figuring the difference,
what if anything to make of it.
It doesn’t matter, whatever
tenderness she’s known since;
the dog, I mean. They’re called
hesitation wounds, the marks
left where the hand, having meant
to do harm, started to, then
reconsidered. As if a hand
could reconsider. The dog
wants to trust, you can see it
in her eyes, like that part in the music
where it still sounds like snow
used to. There were orchards, still;
meadows. She’ll never be free."

--Carl Phillips via @yrfrenbren.bsky.social

Solzhenitsyn in the Gulag.

"a bloke came down from Sheriffhales walking two goats across the Iron Bridge the black one called Apollo" --@mjohnharrison.bsky.social

All of Tarkovsky's films are available free and restored on Youtube. (via @tanitatikaram.bsky.social)

( via / via )

Unnatural birth.

I think microhistory is the only real history. Those stupid sweeping vistas are all fairy tales.

People in Syria have been tearing down statues all night.

arsonist on the front row
at Notre Dame's reopening

why is the Pope shaking his hand

Assad's human slaughter house and rape centre is being liberated.

( via / via )

"When young Americans voiced deep moral concerns about Gaza and the humanitarian crisis unfolding there, they received carefully calibrated statements rather than genuine engagement with their pain."

"buyer's remorse"

in me books
go on advocating
years after i finish them

a prison's gates open
no one in the West wanted

A painting about Gaza, maybe AI. Does it matter?

"Caught one of the kids turning off an alarm by saying 'Alexa, shut up,' so I reprogrammed it so that if you say that phrase, it will play 'Hotel California'." --@rynbeckwith.bsky.social

"The meaning of 'safe spaces' evolved, in other words, from an adjunct to mass struggles to a version of the 'smug politics' our book polemicised against."

( me / via )

"Thanks to armies made up of men and women from all races and ethnicities, the Allies won the war against fascism, and it seemed that democracy would dominate the world forever."

"And the old thunder'd 'Never!' from the jaws
Of the black darkness, and the mocking waste."

--J Stanyan Bigg

"...we baled the darkness empty..."

“Heroics

Though here and there a man is left
Whose iron thread eludes the shears,
The martyr with bosom cleft
Is dead these seven heavy years.

Does he survive whose tongue was slit,
To slake some envy of a king’s?
Sportive silver cried from it
Before the savage cut the strings.

The rack has crumpled up the limb
Stretched immediate to fly;
Never ask the end of him
Stubborn to outstare the sky.

Assuming an heroic mask,
He stands a tall derisive tree,
While servile to the speckled task
We move devoted hand and knee.

It is no virtue, but a fault
Thus to breathe ignoble air,
Suffering unclean assault
And insult dubious to bear.”

–Elinor Wylie

Why do i think the revolution has already begun?

( via / via)

Self-Portrait with Head in Hand.

charmed life · of the wud leader
as rough beasts romp · & rummage in flowerbeds

so much work · went into this downfall
what hustle of hands · to unhelm the republic

was precious prize once · to mug & dismantle
was a hypocrite giant · of just comeuppance

but also island · of eager venture
& a lot believed · in the good life promised

thousands of days · & for much of it i delved
array of riches · not denied to me

while i call fools fools · from the festering sidelines
Rapist Cheetoh chortles · with a cheerful twinkle

with Couchfucker calmly · calculating woe
the Muskrat musing · crackbrained munches

that cast of clowncar · shoving sycophants
behind them hovering · a coldblooded killer

from chessboard to chessboard · i go with no pleasure
the good guys losing · getting their butts kicked

this sport's not unexpected · spoiled as our home plays out
the open air mines · & clear cut swathes

doom gathering · as it does atop mountains
no glitter no runoff · to feed rivers

plastic in our veins · venom in our hearts
we called this king · made our madness his throne

the ape that learned lying · lies best to himself
a sprinkle on my windshield · workshop & mainspring

Vania Has Brided a Serpent by the Beard and Rides Through Town.

"abba is fleetwood mac on antidepressants" --@yeeeerika.bsky.social

The Wayward Wind.

( via / via )

"if they drag me / back some morning."

"Even so my various thoughts do make me fare,
Now calm'd by hope, then troubled with despair."

--1672 Ovid, II.

Seaside panorama.

"inventory of things i find i didn't need"

mustard leaves blaze mazard
myst'ry of things clinging
auburn sphinxgrin fobbed off
on fine crystal mineshaft

Beowulf gray bowing
to boded silt roadblocks
burgundy dealt darg's end
as the dense thugs snuggle

"It’s only art inside this monied carapace."

( via/ via )

Tbh, there’s many reasons why a raven is similar to a writing desk.

stones evaporate
increasingly unreal views
are all the guides left

for awhile i was persuaded
i was someone with a name

The night skies are filled with birds.

One of the things i've always liked about Funny Face (1957) was the funhouse mirror distortion of its roman-à-clef references. I mean, we knew the photographer was "inspired by" Avedon, my wife Melanie points out that the fashion editor would have reminded people of Diana Vreeland, & i cottoned on early to the nutty mathematical jazz band as Dave Brubeck's. But for a long time i thought the philosopher that beatnik Audrey Hepburn is keen on, was Jean-Paul Sartre. But now that i've read about the upcoming Bergson biography, i realize that it's him, whose public lectures were so hotly attended.

Dusty wreck, no apologies AI.

The year 2024 saw contrasting wildfire activity across the globe: Records in parts of South America and intense fires in North America, near-to-average in Europe and Oceana, below average in most parts of Asia. Read our full summary here: atmosphere.copernicus.eu/cams-global-...

[image or embed]

— Copernicus ECMWF (@copernicusecmwf.bsky.social) December 6, 2024 at 6:12 AM

( via/ via )

Chaplinesque.

"That now familiar feeling of missing someone who died while also being relieved they don't have to live through this." --@maudnewton.bsky.social

"Only about 50 million customers of America’s reigning medical monopoly might have a motive to exact revenge upon the UnitedHealthcare CEO." (via @bonniehonig.bsky.social)

         "Bavarian Gentians

   Not every man has gentians in his house
   in soft September, at slow, sad Michaelmas.

   Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the day-time torch-like with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom,
ribbed and torch-like, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto's dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter's pale lamps give off light,
   lead me then, lead me the way.
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness,
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
among the splendour of torches of darkness, shedding darkness on the lost bride and her groom."

--D H Lawrence

This is the only chart you really need.

( via / me )

Appartement d'Yvaral.

Hearing so many American healthcare horror stories now. Makes me want to mention that when i was sick in 2021 (not Covid), i got screwed over by Oscar Health & left with $20K in medical debt. But what i resent most is getting forcibly moved out of one hospital into another for no medical reason, just for their paperwork accounting--hooked up to a machine THAT COULDN'T BE TURNED OFF, so i sat in a gurney with a noisy portable generator between my legs all the way.
When i was able to switch, i told them straight out that being on Oscar was a second affliction separate & equal to the illness i'd had.

Las Meninas, 1987.

"Now all my teachers are dead except silence."

--W.S. Merwin via @evecastle.bsky.social

JG Ballard grades some of his fellow visionaries. (via @johncoulthart.com)

( via / via )

"For this reason, understood by all, he was killed, and for this reason, given the lack of a legal mechanism by which he could have been brought to account for all the lives which he had sucked dry, and made himself fat and happy upon, it can hardly be considered unjustified." (via @katewagner.bsky.social)

" 'CSI: Mississippi' flopped because there’s no dental records and everyone has the same DNA." --@sundaedivine.bsky.social

"I kept wondering what Fassbinder would make of that town."

"cold cemetery
the long sleeves of your old coat
warm my fingertips
even from beyond the grave
you manage to comfort me"

--an'ya

I occupy in alien woods.