Author Archives: istsfor manity

(silence) (silence) 33 frames longmagnifiedacts as a valve national anthem plays (fade to back) What I’m Reading: Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that, after two and a half centuries — about the length of the Roman republic in its glory … Continue reading →

Memorable Stuff I Read This Week . . . your world totters upon an unspoken labyrinth of questions. And we will devour you, my friend. You and all your pale empire. — Cormac McCarthy / Cities of the Plain I … Continue reading →

conflate •pond-seeking sir what sadness do you heap upon my eyes / the weariness sinks into my bones / oblate & undone / repeated ingestions of your misery elide / have driven me to stress / suicide your stockbroker gig … Continue reading →

Slightly Dirty (redux) His fragrance remained in the room when he left, and she picked up notes of Ambien and gin. He turned into a dragon and blew smoke up his own ass: in this manner he floated away on … Continue reading →

What I’m Reading: Expect society to be defective.Then weep when you find that it is farmore defective than you imagined. — Ron Padgett / “How to be Perfect”

Old Residence Roe (redux) Venn diagrammer, Put-down fleshpot-bitten particulars, play me the warped Uriah bluffs. Shadow and hiss. Triumph pad, Draw me a Cossack and hatchway bursary embryos in and out on sternum ridges. Bring me the bluffs. White taboo … Continue reading →

A Lap Dissolve She’s frozen in the web of a nascent season. The season of decay at the doorstep. Summer is dead, she says, from the elevated ramp. I’m blue about the blues, she says. I’m sorry, it all sounds … Continue reading →

What I’m Reading: I sharpened knivesAll night.To welcome youIn the brilliance of their blades . . . — Ladmila Lazić / “Love”

Memorable Stuff I Read This Week We were nostalgic for foolishness, because it meant wisdom might matter. We were nostalgic for fakery, because it meant realness might matter. We were nostalgic for trompe l’oeil, for fool’s gold, for crocodile tears, … Continue reading →

What I’m Reading: Our bodies carry everything that has ever happened to us, the way the land carries everything of humanity. — Lidia Yuknavitch / “Unearthed”