I was conceived in the cold heat
Of the late stage Anthropocene.
My mother’s milk was curanga pie.
I am a born again pleonasm—
Aphasic—ecstatic in static,
Mendicant in white noise.
I am obscenely petulant,
Vaguely touched,
Piqued & hot
With fleas.
Endless
Not.
What I’m Reading:
“Hers is the kind of presence that registers as an absence.”
— Tess Gunty / The Rabbit Hutch
What I’m Reading:
“I was a flurry of atoms.
I was a disassembled spark.
I desired impression.”
— Landan Osman / “Sun to Void”
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:
“Mercy is not frozen in time, but flits
about frantically, unsure where to land.”
— Ada Limón / “Runaway Child”
Stumble down clowns
On an anfractuous journey
Wandering up & down,
Up & down, up & down,
Mountainsides never willing
To stop—
Pause—
On a ridge atop a vision
Of violent beauty: crags
jagged, shadows knifing
A light incessant,
While the sun divests
Itself of solitary
Responsibility for
Devouring our
Planet.
What I’m Reading:
“The world is burning; how, then, shall we live?”
—Lisa Wells / Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World
I once cracked a book
Open to dayglo nightmares—
A wormy apple.
What I’m Reading:
“Stories don’t care how we tell them. Stories take any shape they want. Not all stories happen with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I’ve come to understand maybe they never do. End, that is.”
— Lidia Yuknavitch / Thrust
“Love ends. But what if it doesn’t?”
— Ada Limón / “The Hurting Kind”
“… economic injustice will stop the moment we want it to stop, and no sooner, and if we genuinely want it to stop the method adopted hardly matters.”
— George Orwell / The Road to Wigan Pier
“Eventually, out of deference to that stubborn reality, Columbus did two things. First, he modified his original assumption. Cuba was not Cipangu, but Cathay, or mainland China. (Columbus died more than a decade later, still never having come to terms with the fact that Cuba was simply Cuba.) Second, when the island disappointed him, he did what many continue to do to this day: he left.”
— Ada Ferrer / Cuba: An American History
“Connecting and healing has never been more important. I truly believe in the power of reading to bring people together, to help us see things from different points of view.”
— Ottessa Moshfegh / goodreads.com email
“We could destroy the machines that destroy this planet. If someone has planted a time bomb in your home, you are entitled to dismantle it … This is the moral case which, I would argue, justifies destroying fossil fuel property. That is completely separate from harming human bodies, for which there is no moral case … We are deep into the catastrophe; the hour is late, but the escalation has only just begun. We don’t know what exactly will work. The one thing we can be certain of is this: we are in a death spiral, we have to break out of it, and we must try something more. The days of gentle protest may be long over.”
— Andreas Malm / “The Moral Case for Destroying Fossil Fuel Infrastructure”
“In time, I began to doubt my individual capacity for effecting even the most minor change. I drifted into adulthood and into this strange modern-day condition: that of an average, well-meaning person who daily participates—however grudgingly—in a system that is bringing the planet she loves to the brink of destruction.”
— Lisa Wells / Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World
“Home is everywhere on this planet.”
— Liam Cox, as reported by Naomi Klein / On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal
What I’m Listening To:
“Scarecrows are all dressed in rags
Out at the edge of the field I lay
And all I’ve gots a pocketful
Of flowers on my grave”
— Tom Waits / “Back in the Good Old World (Gypsy)”
Shoehorned between them—
the conduit for heat and hate—
this portrait’s a lie.
What I’m Reading:
“Today the cloud shapes are terrifying,
and I keep expecting some enormous
black-and-white B-movie Cyclops
to appear at the edge of the horizon…”
— Kim Addonizio / “Scary Movies”
life in the key of thee
(the god clears his throat)
a fine fissure appeared overnight
you left a paper trail
(please do not touch the glass)
you smudged the fossil record
you mar everything
you consider
What I’m Reading:
“It’s cold today so the sun’s a lie.”
— Ada Limón / “Stranger Things in the Thicket”
lost in the notion
of the circular motion
of your last rectagular
words
What I’m Reading:
“People piss me off
specifically and species-wise.”
— Maureen N. McLean / “Come Again / Woods”
1
A hot wattle thing of the new wave—a heel trestle tactician of new sex.
2
A treble tabernacle template … condolences!
3
Heathen tree table temple—tinplated condom.
4
The hot new textile and treetop heating tableau concluded. (normal tempos at operettas not included)
5
The necessary texture of watermarks and towropes. A trek of heaved temptation. (opiate condor forward)
6
The advised necessary heaven tenancy. (refill the tablespoon of conclusion)
7
The hot heavyweight tremolo of the opossum conductor.
8
Thatcher and heckler tremor of the tablet concluded. (tendencies normalized going forward)
9 (a. – e.)
Your waterspout trachea. Your tender tabloid resignation. Your conclusive and necessary thaw. Your hectare trench. Thee conduit opportunist.
10
A tendon that should be taboo.
11
Hedge proctor trend-setter, tendril tabulator, theatregoer waterspout in the guise of a chancellor of the exchequer.
12
Hedgehog trespasser—tenement confessor at default opposition.
13
As hot tether and heater treaty—a tempest as scheduled maintenance.
This transmission has concluded.
What I’m Reading:
“Going to visit my mother is like starting in on a piece by
Beckett.”
— Anne Carson / “Her Beckett”
thee istsfor manity reader 