Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

Blue poured into summer blue,
A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,
The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew
That part of my life was over.

— Stanley Kunitz / “End of Summer”

As floodwaters coursed through Texas and Taiwan, as mosquito-borne viruses spread across the Americas, as lethal heat struck down children on hikes and grandparents on pilgrimage, the world’s average temperature this summer soared to the highest level in record history, according to new data from Europe’s top climate agency.

— Sarah Kaplan / “Here’s what the hottest summer on Earth looked like” / The Washington Post

Inside the head there lives a lonely dog
It is drooling spit
digging through a mountain pile of garbage
opening and closing an empty house’s windows
overturning footprints in the sand
and going into the fog

— Kim Hyesoon / “Person Walking Backward”

The desert city of Phoenix, Arizona, suffered a record 113 straight days with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) this year, leading to hundreds of heat-related deaths and more acres burned by wildfire across the state, officials said.

— Liliana Salgado / “Hottest US city Phoenix smashes heat streak record” / Reuters

It’s funny if  you think slavery is funny and I don’t.
But I do like to pass along the embarrassment

of  the jokester to the famous white person who may or may
not have descended from the people who branded my last name.

— Bettina Judd / “New Black”

Industrial civilisation is close to breaching a seventh planetary boundary, and may already have crossed it, according to scientists who have compiled the latest report on the state of the world’s life-support systems … “Ocean acidification is approaching a critical threshold”, particularly in higher-latitude regions, says the latest report on planetary boundaries. “The growing acidification poses an increasing threat to marine ecosystems.

— Damien Gayle / “Earth may have breached seven of nine planetary boundaries, health check shows” / The Guardian

I lived with a man who liked it when men 
called him boss. They did it when he pumped his gas.

He said it made him feel adequate: 
right size, right shape. Even the hair on his hands was right.

— Kay Gabriel / “Effete Poem”

What I’m Listening To:

I find it useful
To be useless
When we’re talking about the future
Who’s future
My future

— KEG / “Sate the Worm”