oblong boxing day

"If our robots fail like Y2K
would we still be able to communicate?"

--The Wild Reeds

Mlatu ckule.

thin word of a grebe
drawn through sepia fez
whist would be enough

we are in the shadow
drink the shadow's wine
& all our dreams turn gray

perfect Maremma
or Caledonia
place which was Dallas

the fire & the coral
tissue pyramid
out-deface Godzilla

bivouac on Hekla

Long march 5.

bug commands

Tomonari Nozaki.

& we let that into our lives
snowblind & randy swarf

ball trundled by a scarab
across intermittent space

Concerto for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra (1955).

dumfungled season

"Such mild weather. Hohenzollern weather, the officers at Wildflecken would have called it."

--Telex from Cuba

Ghosts.

Last night i dreamed i set a turtle free
crawling away into the mellifluous dark.
Feeble sun, unsure if this is hope
amid mild winter morn, or cringe of karma;
haunted, refused, i stare away deep cold.

Lojban & unreliable magic. (thread)

a candle called Into the Night

Mysterious polyp.

that one passed. this one's passing.
brave thoughts in the library.
a music in murder city
by the light of the moon

to have names for the things we die from,
obsequies of pearl
that one passed this one's passing:
swivel, return to the joust

High digger.

(doctor-autobot)

camo santa

(via @CrookedCosmos)

This ratbag of stories we lug into the future--is not a network of causality. It serves, as a bird will take any shredded paper (whatever is printed on it), for our nest. But it does not explain how we got here. It takes the place of an explanation for how we got here.

Big eye art by Gallarda.

nude LUNCH
crotchet UTILE
desert so thrang NIVAL
for the sacking of this walled CLADE:
HELEN

Khazaria.

(via ron sailer in retro rockets on fb)

marching toward closure

Viral apathy.

never yet JESTED
the heraldries which ENCASE

i'll have some of that Functional DENIAL
with SCAMPI

sandcastles of lies, the lying tide
wilderness cannot rid itself of TAMERS

Bauentrieb persists
as does, within limits, our ESPRIT

blame our revolution on
the DEISTS

Arcane flower.

nothing dies in my dreams

Crossing the threshold of hemp.

surd · working on the ASTRAL
nothing up my SLEEVE

a record of a harrowing time
in this story i tend to mix my TENSES

the eerie
& the weird · diff'rent RESINS

incense haze · drifts · down on Jefferson
AVENUE

by his actions Graywyvern must put his faith
in plagues that LESSEN

Luxury tank.

the wolverton indo

"In solitude it is possible to love mankind; in the world, for one who knows the world, there can be nothing but secret or open war." --Santayana

Mouth and Foot Painting Artists.

it's a knack with CLAWS
peeling off the old LABEL
petrichor ABODE

why this should be such a WEDGE
'twixt Deponent & sound SLEEP

Paintings by Jason Anderson.

blur at the end of the tailpipe

(via)

"(souls have an anus they are never allowed to forget it)" --Patrick White, The Eye of the Storm

A walk among the thrown stones.

neon SURGE
feed USURA
catch the latest RUMOR
hear, beyond, · the world of signs GROAN
pitch EARN

Oversize temporary speed bump back to manageable.

coupons for a place that is closed

The weight of a smile.

OSCAR
for this near SHORE
Napoleon CORGI

noctilucent cloud of ARGON
nil REINS

How Psycho explains the world.

second-guess the weatherman

Kalifornienträumen. (thred)

word made in JAPAN
not desuetude's ALIBI

song of lost PITON

destruction below, ABOVE;
see despair dressed to the NINES

A hurried note in Indian summer.

incrustacean

Shortest elk karma.

i have walked the darkest paths to come back here
& ev'ry step i took has come back with me.
carillon silence has, & turquoise orb,
whose daedaly wreaks Dunkirk on the smithy.

through antelucan gray i grue absorb
of that brave defunctive decade we call Sixties
thinking how this to none will ever be dear
a time of leaden smirk & blindfold expiries.

Lenticular Johnny Cash.

dark chocolate peppermint bark

"Heidegger, who admired Celan's work, tried to make him feel welcome in Freiburg. He even asked a book-dealer friend to go around all the bookshops in the city making sure they put Celan titles in their windows so the poet would see them as he walked through town. This is a touching story, especially as it is the single documented example I have come across of Heidegger actually doing something nice." --Sarah Bakewell, The Existentialist Cafe (2016)

Meme.

back into the VATS
pterodactyls ATOP
the lost microTONE

like this our months are SPED
wrecks by snits are VIED
records for desert ISLE

suicide ELAN
in midden make a DENT
sure to eat your BRAN

it never was a RACE
wrinkles from ACNE
not once veshch you NEED

your mome raths ABET
hist'ry of larger BORE
no survivor ERRS

the practice was the TEST

I know why the cranched bird sings.

("Nightfall" by Radu Beicin via aqua-regia009 on tumblr)

harsh drowning

Porch pirate's parrot.

sighting of black SAILS
the torture is AURAL
weather erst IRATE

dreamsorder crooked LATHE
fiery body SLEEK
can nothing daunt the BASE

visions of AMEN
car rocked truck shake blasts SEND
throw that shapes our ENDS

gossamer · do the MATH
tale torture's AURA
the wick old scissors TRIM

send back this year's HAMS
in igloo waste the GIFT
distraught IDEA

have to say what i FEEL
unpardoner's TALE

Carting away the trees.

sleeves that confer no distinction

(via)

Perhaps the world ends here.

ZIMME
chill ILIAD
monsters plus & MINUS
hero in a whinnying MAUVE
EDSEL

The Great Martian War.

(via dualvoidanima on tumblr)

too many coats

(pic by bill knott)

The art and craft of quilting poems.

proof STASH
evoke TULPA
there or here ALIEN
as if i could choose not to SPEND
these HANDS

Undelivered message to the sky.

(via velvetmysoul on tumblr)

recension refusenik

(via)

Translating Propertius.

RACES
not run APART
thousand years of CAIRO
to erase the hoary ERROR
of STORM

A lunar eclipse that flat-earthers have never seen.

(via)

dark chocolate peppermint bark

(via)

Joe & Allen.

back into the VATS
pterodactyls ATOP
the lost microTONE

like this our months are SPED
wrecks by snits are VIED
records for desert ISLE

suicide ELAN
in midden make a DENT
sure to eat your BRAN

it never was a RACE
wrinkles from ACNE
not once a veshch you NEED

your mome raths ABET
hist'ry of larger BORE
no survivor ERRS

the practice was the TEST

"'But the fact of the matter is,' he told us grimly, 'the environment described in these books doesn't exist anymore.' "

(via neon-wonderlands on tumblr)

the last gold rush

"qua fornace graves, qua non incude catenae?
maximus in vinclis ferri modus, ut timeas ne
vomer deficiat, ne marra et sarcula desint."

--Juv. Satire 3 (tr. Braund, 2004)

('Is there a furnace or anvil anywhere that isn't weighed down with the making of chains? Most of our iron is turned into fetters. You should be worried about a shortage of ploughshares and a dearth of mattocks and hoes.')

Alexander Ross over.

fourth PHASE
smug HYENA
under whose brisk AEGIS
this recension leaps from the SNIDE
EASEL

Cento thread.

(via @CrookedCosmos)

bat'leth

Rural purge of 1971.

brief FRACK
winner RODAN
song worthy of ADELE
as new icebergs hasten to CALVE
men KNEEL

The fall of Barrett Watten.

witch bottle

(via doctor-autobot)

"nec mihi mille iugis Campania pinguis aratur,
    nec bibit e gemma divite nostra sitis,
nec tamen inviso pectus mihi carpitur auro,
    nec mixta aera paro clade, Corinthe, tua."

--Goold's Propertius III.5 (1990)

('I own no rich soil of Campania ploughed by a thousand yoke of oxen, nor do I refresh my thirst from jewelled goblets: yet my heart is not seized by greed for hateful gold, nor collect I fused bronzes from your destruction, Corinth.')

The weirdness is coming.

ZAHIR
scent of ANISE
melting mists · vagrant HILLS
story made by kiteslipt ISLET
cloud RESTS

Third faction of the circus.

(pic by karl kempton on fb)

jocose lament

"Was its impact soporific? or hallucinatory? or hypnotic? To this day nobody knows." --Adair's Perec

Pisistratian recension.

perilious INFO
siren the unheard NEED
koolaid Boba FETE

pale these elapsed poor ODES
will thole no AGES
as period as GOTH

yet ascend ETNA
the resurrection SHAM
descent into VALE

by all trivia AWED
the skull grimace LEWD
in the sterve-tide, EDDY

Word of the Day.

the three hamlet problem

(via)

"The very fist of night hidden sun..." --miekal and

Snowden in the Labyrinth.

ACHAD,
angels of CRUME:
in this subfusc HUZUN
i thole sordor that would AMUSE
DENEB

Digital feudalism.

turkey pardon

(via)

Impeachment news roundup.

words SCALD
tippy CANOE
doubleplus seeks ANION
skull & mask exchange puzzled LOOKS
hood DENSE

"The only surviving word in our shared lexicon is ‘spidubat’."

(pic by michael puttonen on fb)

descartes and the decanate

(via)

Go news.

word CAIRN
woke APNEA
crosswords among INCAS
to get the saucer gods REACT
NASTY

Enfolded Hamlet.

(via)

once in barsoom

"Remember, friends: It’s not the poverty of your imagination. It’s the profundity of your indifference." --@NeinQuarterly

"It is not even really an argument at all. It is a hypnotic litany, a creed of faith—a faith all the more compelling for defying sense and experience."

dour JILTS
onion LAYERS
my own zilch IDAHO
churn dream after dream, no there THERE
just SORES

Who runs the Internet?