hemimastigotes in love

Ten translations.

calling to us through the flames
shadows charred
still to tell apart though all things turn to smoke

a month that should be mild went scorching
carousel of ash
ice of the moment scorching

cell of ash
beach fire with its coruscating flames
bare trees with blight charred
these walls proof against light but not against smoke

promises written in smoke
& one brief glint of compassion flames
out where desire will never cease its scorching

table built of ash
by time charred
where i write & leave entropic ash

turbulence, winds of smash, the thrown clouds scorching
first we are bent, numbed, then charred
alarms smoke

glaciers ringed with flames
we will leave this planet charred
with our yearning, our blind will to smoke

& commuting mobs crawl through a rain of ash,
watch electric flames
bless Scorching

li ciso fe'a li sore

(pic by geof huth on fb)

Valenberg wallpapers.

Clouds taut with entasis
Make steps tend toward nasties,
As if upon seitans—
Or a dank sestina.
Still, good for the tansies
And plenty brisk tisanes…

Stronger brews than tisanes
Risk hwyl or entasis,
Orchid-gauds not tansies’,
Jibes by critic-nasties.
Plebeian sestina
Rather beef than seitans.

Before there were seitans
I remember tisanes
Of sage, some sestina
That purged my entasis
Bad case of the nasties
Let a thousand tansies

The entrée, then tansies
Gluten-free or seitans
Alike seem now nasties
& all those sad tisanes:
Temple sans entasis,
Doggerel sestina.

Obsession’s sestina
Riots in the tansies;
I’ve done that entasis,
On to other seitans.
Era of dark tisanes,
Populous with nasties…

Who are the real nasties
If not strict sestina?
Zany our new tisanes
With GMO tansies
And scifi-great seitans,
Cycle-turn entasis.

To make a Newman Sestina.

With the grotesque, there is no abjection, or rather, it is valorized by the act of elaborating.

"In an interview with Bandcamp, she 'half-jokes' that Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto invented the genre 30 years prior ..."

the queen's remembrancer

(susan sontag via luc fierens on fb)

The Truelist.

"All these years I’ve languished here in Salem
haven’t meant anything; I couldn’t find the words
for all the pain I’ve been feeling, there’s been no secret code
for all these hidden vices, addictions, multiple
diagnoses; I’ve juggled all of them at once, their tentacles
strangling me slowly, their hellish heat radiating.

And when I sleep now you tell me I radiate
heat like a furnace, hot dreams like Jerusalem’s
desert stretched out, sun beams like golden tentacles
burning the skin of my back. In the morning I have no words,
I can’t keep track of things, I check multiple
calendars, alarms, mark reminders on my arms like code.

If you examined my skin you could read, in code,
a map of my life, this sort of sequence that radiates
across my bruised body, a main line, a train line with multiple
stops along the way: Boston, LA, ending in Salem,
and all these markings (since, what good are words?),
these razor wire scars around my thighs like tentacles

and lyrics to songs, and numbers. No octopus tentacles
or phoenixes or koi fish, each scale a color code,
their dead eyes unseeing and mouths gaping silent words,
all these marks in permanent ink radiating
my life story onto my body. Like the stone markers in Salem,
each a name, a hanging body, a chest caved in by boulders (multiple).

And how many times have I told you—multiple?—
that your love is creeping up my spine like tentacles
of some horrible thing, that the chill of Salem
has frozen all that was good in me? I tried to arrange the snow in code
but you couldn’t hold onto it, the heat radiated
from your palms, and you melted all my words.

So listen: All I have left are these words.
Burn me in a fire and you’ll see, you can arrange the multiple
letters that will fall from my skin, my mouth, burnt radiation
black—my soul. Reaching out, long tentacles
of smoke that stain your skin and spell out code.
Hang me from the highest branch in Salem

and I will join the multiple ghosts of Salem
and all my ever- words will be your code;
at night, my soul will radiate, my hair will choke your throat like tentacles."

--Kolleen Carney (in answer to a challenge word-set)

My largesse went to Starbucks, not a homeless person. Yet i somehow feel i have contributed.

The Spiritual Gift of Madness.