thee istsfor manity reader

Self-Inflicted Dodo Dada

A dusty path toward deliverance after a club on the head, a dark hour, a black age—

Quashed then regained. Diverted, re-charted, and reoriented

The crags and canyons—vertiginous—skirted. The roiling water. Up ahead the fog-smoke.

We live beneath the heat dome once a year—but the duration metastasizes—

At the terminal hour we’ll live beneath the heat dome year-round as feedback loops unspool their violence

In ineluctable gyres—followed by the exhalation of a bated agonal breath.

What I’m Reading:

“my disapproving mother tells me
nobody wants to read poems…
…no one has ever heard of such a thing as a wealthy poet…
…I decide to write the poem
to be poor and obscure

it will be a poem of defiance…”

—Laura Thiels / “Armeisenverteilungsmaschine”

Catafalque Tunes in 5/8 Time

Catafalque tunes in mahogany time. Nothing sounds as it should. Dripping in the recessive notes of a palanquin juddering in a surreal signature. Come to think off it, father’s signature flew off the back of my report card before I handed it back to the teacher. So I quickly scrawled something in his flourish—and like the former president who liked to show off his signature as if he was showcasing his first turd (ha, look mommy a turd! ain’t I special!) I turned it in with some flair. This is when the bier construction started in the teacher’s workroom—to the whir of the circular saw. I knew I was in for it. I called for some Sun Ra in 5/8 time and was quickly given pointers on how to snap my fingers in the coolest, most detached, cool cat aplomb. Someone scatted a 12 bar blues about lying in state in a failed state. Some “banana republic” rejoinders were heard from the detention hall inmates, and we went out with a Te Deum in the key of Dada. Followed by a full minute of mushroom cloud hiss.

What I’m Reading:

“What if the guns
turn into pencils
in the hands of the soldiers
and they underline
the places on the map
as sites they must see
before they die?”

— Dunya Mikhail / “Tablets VI”

seize

a wave of misfiring synapses
why am i hearing bells
seeing sparkles

i no longer compute

What I’m Listening To:

“Far way out, you’re going to see
I’m a loss of faith, you’re a changed belief”

— Poliça / “Lime Habit”