a stopgap gesture

Posted on May 23, 2022 by istsfor manity

Structural Logic

New people born daily: $5.99 / lb.

Self-replicating cosmic forces, yeasts, molds.

The sky is a terminal blue.

Ontology, espistemology, phenomenology, Teletubbies.

Getting naked in front of another person for the first time.

Coral reefs bleaching.

Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht Dürer, Francis Bacon, Samuel Alito.

A stopgap gesture to appease.

People die everyday: $ .39 / each.

What I’m Reading:

“… I used to think
the moon was illiterate.”

— Victoria Chang / “The Cold Before the Moonrise”

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a random event

Posted on May 22, 2022 by istsfor manity

Newsruption 2

You will no longer be bothered, or financially hurt,

by your role in an office-clearing
confrontation

at the place where they “check all your boxes”
based on a photo posted on Facebook.

You will no longer be bothered, or financially hurt,

by contagion—a peculiar one—
where your sudden imagining

of how said contagion was created
is upset by your spouse’s

nonchalant snacking and drinking
while watching television.

Don’t focus so much on whether a person
fits your “type”—

focus on how every person you know will die
during a random event.

What I’m Reading:

“April should be the cruelest
month, but they are all
cruel in their inch-by-inch strike.”

— Victoria Chang / “September”

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cooked to perfection

Posted on May 21, 2022 by istsfor manity
Press play to watch short film roil (:47)

roil (ukiah poem)

coronal mass ejection
roil bubble and boil
the earth cooked to perfection

What I’m Reading:

“Yet recent analysis shows there is now a 48 per cent chance of temporarily exceeding 1.5°C within the next five years.”

— New Scientist editorial

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now you don’t

Posted on May 20, 2022 by istsfor manity

Identity Reconstruction Tanka

Now you see me, now
you don’t. I’m lost to myself.
Even I can’t see
me. These are the places I
lived. This is the art I made.

What I’m Reading:

“Artists manifested themselves in art, not the world, so humans could encounter them there, forever. People could return to books at any time and find them right there, those burning souls, their words as bright as the day they were written.”

—Sheila Heti / Pure Colour

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while oceans acidify

Posted on May 19, 2022 by istsfor manity
image: 350.org

planet b tanka

ain’t no planet b
we made planet a real sick
wildfires spewing
fire tornadoes miles high
while oceans acidify

What I’m Reading:

“A writer doesn’t owe a reader hope—the only obligation is honesty . . . “

— Bill McKibben / Falter

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round dandelion free

Posted on May 18, 2022 by istsfor manity

Prune Haiku

Prune my apple tree—
Possum-tailed blind, hedgehog round,
Dandelion free.

What I’m Reading:

“First day of war.
Rockets, not birds, whizzed by the window in
the morning.”

— Ludmila Khersonsky / “First Day of War”

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tied up waiting

Posted on May 17, 2022 by istsfor manity
Press play to watch tuesday thursday (1:02)

tuesday thursday

plastic shovel in hand
shots whizz by my head
it’s hard to breathe and run this fast

i strike a saintly pose
i’m a pin cushion i’m a pineapple
i’m a porcupine undone

arrows are an occupational hazard
tied up waiting for the rainy season
in a parched and rocky land

call me on tuesday
i’ll be out by thursday

What I’m reading:

“I’m the uncrowned king of the insomniacs
Who still fights his ghosts with a sword…”

— Charles Simic / “About Myself”

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was a way

Posted on May 16, 2022 by istsfor manity

minutes pass / there are two left (redux)

i.
los minutos pasan
quedan dos

and then there was a multifoliate
a multiplicity, a multivariate, a

multiplication that started
with two

but here in this space, in this
void there is only one

only one that replicates
and that must suffice

ii.
i passed the time
i made some marks

i lived it
monochromatically

with an absence of angst
it was a way
of passing through life

What I’m Reading:

“Climate change has become such a familiar term that we tend to read past it—it’s part of our mental furniture, like urban sprawl or gun violence.”

— Bill McKibben / Falter

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i eye

Posted on May 15, 2022 by istsfor manity

aye i stye eye

What I’m Reading:

“Fame is a bucket of eyes.”

— Victoria Chang / “Late Wonders”

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holy pockets full

Posted on May 14, 2022 by istsfor manity

The Visit

Darkness envelops the visit
from my dead father. He says psychic
automatism betrayed him—the paranoiac
critical debased him. We count

the shadows of ghosts untethered
from the sheets over their heads—
one forgot to cut the eyeholes out—
a blind ghost singing off-key
from a torn hymnal. We cram

communion hosts in our maws—
this batch overcooked / oversalted—
our holy pockets full then empty. We wade

ankle deep in wafers to the vestry.
It’s snowing outside. We sink through
the floor. We forget what we’ve forgotten.

What I’m Reading:

“If Justice Alito wants you to be governed by the laws of the 17th century, you should take a close look at that century. Is that when you want to live?”

— Margaret Atwood / “I Invented Gilead. The Supreme Court Is Making It Real”

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