Have you ever felt like a one trick pony?
Have you ever seethed day in and day out?
We screamed. We protested. We sat-in.
We occupied.
We are in a persistent somnolence—
In a pathological spiral of disconnect.
I can’t know what I’m unable to perceive.
I only know this, what we do, is insane.
What I’m Reading:
“… I no
longer looked like a poet.
I had a crow’s face. Now I
know where all the dead birds go.”
— Victoria Chang / “To the Face in the Mirror”
This I learned from my father . . .
What I’m Reading:
“… all of the want and suffering in the world—all of it—arises not from the earth’s inability to produce but from our inability to share.”
— Hope Jahren / The Story of More
The sky empties its color into the sea—
Green clouds of pollen choke the day.
At night the sky inhales
The darkness of deep space—
The stars unsheathed burn
Their naked need.
While we, deluded,
Play with guns
And greed.
What I’m Reading:
“Is this what America is about? A reign of error countered by a reign of terror? And everything playing out against a plague killing millions around the world. What did it all amount to?”
—Arthur Krystal / “What’s the Deal, Hummingbird?”
the moon will be new tonight
the jet stream will be racing overhead
how many meteors in that shower
how many bright fireballs
until we are fully human
What I’m Reading:
“I watched the torn sky bend with the wind . .. white white white as far as the eye can see ahead a blinding flash of white … (The cabin reeks of exploded star).”
— William S. Burroughs / Nova Express
The wings are shearing
The fuselage vibrates hot
Head down between knees
There are no parachutes here
Grit your teeth close your eyes—NOW.
What I’m Reading:
“All of us moderns … can get away with a lot of waste when the economy is good. We forget that conditions fluctuate, and we may not be able to anticipate when conditions will change. By that time, we may already have become attached to an expensive lifestyle, leaving an enforced diminished lifestyle or bankruptcy as the sole outs.”
— Jared Diamond / Collapse
Blurring the distinction
between us and them—
To be a killer while wearing
a bespoke suit and a smile.
What I’m Reading:
“Our people often name an object in the manner which we destroy it.”
— Ben Lerner / Angle of Yaw
Unsustainability
Looks like us right now
Life is full of bad choices
What I’m Reading:
“Look. We are more than our scars. We hold the memory of trauma in our roots. And still, here is a moment of pure joy.”
— Art 25 Collective / “Imaginary Photo Album or, When We Die, Our Polaroids Speak to Our Living Descendants”
1.
Wild dogs, squirrels, feral hogs, and bear were constant staples of our cook pots. We used them to supplement our two pounds allotment of rice each month.
2.
“I brought everything but that. I deny the existence of that. I would bring anything but that thing,” she said.
3.
So if you’ve got a family of four you’re spending $1000, just on entrance fees.
4.
“Maquis- Resistance groups. Maquis ( World War II), predominantly rural French guerrilla groups… The network of rural bases operated by the Communist Party of Kampuchea prior to the Cambodian Civil War…”
5.
Luna moths were another treat I learned to eat, with its wings removed and roasted over an open fire it made for the perfect bite.
6.
I imagine all this through the mind of a sick, desocialized, and dissociative woman, who lost her family. Her children taken by the state. Her husband accidentally decapitated at work. Her only remaining family burned to death in a wildfire.
7.
When we came upon the carcass of a moose we thought it a godsend. And we all ate the better pieces that had not been scavenged or turned to rot. It was after that day that we eventually all became sick and most of our party perished.
8.
Just as he was dying, I set a mangy dog to disemboweling him, so the last thing he felt and saw were the teeth of a ravenous cur at his intestines.
9.
We staggered along, one wet day after another, we learned to control our hunger. We had to keep moving to make our monthly rice pick-ups. We barely had time for concerted hunting. If we came upon something we quickly killed it and slogged along.
10.
She, in time, became untethered and violent. She fantasized of fixing his larynx in some way so he couldn’t scream any more. Perhaps tie him up and deprive him of food and water until he wasted away, sharp and angular, into a bony effigy.
11.
We made a desperate attempt to make the food cache before it was removed by the enemy. We succumbed slowly, one or two of us a day. At the end of two weeks only Cruz and I were left alive, but we were in a very bad way and then you found us near death at the banks of the river.
12.
The newly moved-in family next door with an over abundance of everything doesn’t sit right with her. The neighbor child was overly loud, had ADHD, and couldn’t control himself.
13.
The tall man, dressed in black, sitting in the first row, removed his mask and said, “So this is how a loving god looks over his children?”
What I’m Reading:
“I have to write what’s difficult, otherwise it is difficult to write.”
— Ghalib / “About My Poetry”
A proximate cause—
A match to light the powder—
The keg will explode.
What I’m Reading:
“Everyone does things they don’t want people doing back . . . Everywhere you look, the strong walk all over the weak.”
— Mieko Kawakami / Heaven
You can see through me—
Hollow, fluid, liminal—
Impaled by sunshine.
What I’m Listening To:
“Here comes life with his leathery whip
Here comes life with his leathery, leathery”
— Aldous Harding / “Leathery Whip”
thee istsfor manity reader 