a busyness of ferrets

"It was not from the camps of the barbarians, but from the schools of the monks, that the heaviest blow was struck against the traditions of the ancient learning." --an anonymous reviewer in the Edinburgh Review, 1877

Lighten up.

"Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant." --Baron d'Holbach

Fear and loathing.

"Every war...is represented not as a war, but as an act of self-defense against a homcidal maniac." -George Orwell (via @SaladinAhmed)

Cult numbers.

      "d'Holbach's conjecture"

turquoise styrofoam
the saracen-shaved chances
of being salvaged

ride my crepuscular
mithridation there

yclept Pan-Penult
my perfect Esperanto
knuckleduster whist

a witchburning countdown t'ward
which either speeds or tarries

mackerel skies of
Bildungsroman palimpsest
i see wires under

astronaut kwashiorkor
still sending his signal back

the patient lingered
abstemiously wordbound
& itching to speak

praise the cryptological
luxury of toad-eating

shape of this coast, due
to Itzcuintli tsimtsum,
shape of the otchkies

Mnizourin warrumbool
the storm & the aftermath

the city made of
labyrinthine mauvaise foi
& a few sharp stones

Mokusatsu Zeitlichkeit
(heart) the time of the mistake

those who would pursue
cryptozoic syzygy
& those who flee it

palindrome apocalypse
is Quetzalcoatl razbliuto

Khidr listens for
mouldwarp verbalization
on the path of wisps

he wages Nyarlathotep
glossolalia on words

Innes's star zzxjoanw
echoes in a Dyson sphere
Star of the Magi

cut by some unknowable
revisionist tomorrow

not two high kites but
pterodactyl conjunction
is what i descry

the superlative wordsmith
takes away the more you read

azure betrayal
sapphirus intercession
indigo my prayer

now it becomes much clearer
the soul's squamous quintessence

on Babel tower
they fleer these pejorative
tenuosities

the long way, petroleum
apokatastasis comes

he has many miles
adventuresome gastropod
trailed by birds of shade

sudden & unseasonal
my mystery redeployment

wrestle with Bardo
Thodol jurisprudence
potholes seem like torts

leave one Septentrioni
coprolite to proclaim

in this wind doors swing
wide of their own volition
& the questions fall
before you can answer their
sunlight interrogation

(pic by Stelios Faitakis)

"At one point, one helicopter pilot, a wonderful man named Thompson, saw what was going on and actually landed his helicopter. He was a small combat — had two gunners. He just landed his small helicopter, and he ordered his gunners to train their weapons on Lieutenant Calley and other Americans. And Calley was in the process of — apparently going to throw hand grenades into a ditch where there were 10 or so Vietnamese civilians. And he put his guns on Calley and took the civilians, made a couple trips and took them out, flew them out to safety. He, of course, was immediately in trouble for doing that." --Seymour Hersh on Tom Clark's blog