thee istsfor manity reader

Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

I gotta tell
the truth—sometimes,
people are not born, some of us

fall into this world

— Hílda Davis / “Pilate ponders where she belongs”

The thing that makes life interesting is that it ends. The thing that makes love worthwhile is that it’s all we’ve got.

— Rumaan Alam / Entitlement

I can’t wait to take you home and rob you
Break your chaste and taste it with masa
To get a piece of your galore
Show up out of the woods at like 1000 AM…

— Zan de Parry / “Barn Door”

People, it turned out, were mostly fine with being victimized in small doses. In fact, they seemed to expect a certain amount of deception, allowed for a tolerable margin of manipulation in their relationships.

— Emma Cline / The Guest

You send a video: lizards rushing into limestone
which remind you of being a kid in Florida.  

In Florida we memorized sonnets
while leaping around green anoles. 

— Kaveh Akbar / “Love Poem with Tumor and Petrified Dog”

… your mother, your uncle, none of you get that you’re living on credit accrued at other people’s expense, at the expense of the kind of people who still aren’t allowed past your front hall…

— Anton Chekhov / The Cherry Orchard

I’m not sure
of much, except it’s hard to say
what’s true. We suspect the higher-ups

have hidden motives for telling us
so. The feds, my parents, their Catholic
god, AI, this sense, despite all I know
of marrow, of wind in my bones.

— Jen DeGregorio / “No Isms Except Neologism”

What I’m Listening To:

There is no west, the sun doesn’t rise
No, the sun never rests
As the Earth leans into its forever pirouette

— U.S. Girls / “Pay Streak”

Stalagmite Letters

We ran riot through the archives—

Harpies with sharpies and scissors
Obliterating collections into piles

Of pages triangular—
Shards and screeds.

(Pursuit of knowledge agnostic)

Accretions of stalagmite letters
Monticules in dead air

We are the whips cometh—
goo goo goojoob!

What I’m Reading:

What was more annoying than want of something? A reminder that the world was unreliable, that even valuable things went missing.

— Emma Cline / The Guest

Ocean Sounds (redux)

She spoke to her AI speaker, “Play ocean sounds.” The speaker responded and complied.

She dreamt of a thin pixellated mist outside her window as the opening shot to her next film.

She placed her hand on her clavicle—fingertips finding soft purchase in the hollow just above the bone. The contact sent a hot fist-sized ball coursing through her nerves to the center of her brain where she felt a concussive shock which sent barbs out through to every nerve ending in her body.

“I don’t feel normal. I feel as if something is off,” she said to a formless shadow in the mist. “Without any raw footage I have nothing to edit. Where’s my Bolex?” She rolled her glasses up on her head, keeping the hair off of her face.

The shadow spoke: “I think you should reconsider what you consider an appropriate gift. The only riveting thing about you are the rivets in your underhanded glances.”

Squalls of psychobilly guitar cut the air. She did a pogo-twist as if she were on the stage at Max’s Kansas City.

The sound transfigured into a spray of arterial blood on her bedroom ceiling. The walls, the floor the mirror behind the bedroom door were covered in spatters. A small pool of congealed blood in the corner next to her hamper. Drag marks on the floor. 

She woke gasping for air. The ocean sounded like cyclonic roil. She woke up twisted in her sheets, on her side, with her head perched off the edge of the bed.

She called in sick. She had to sleep again to recover from the way she slept. She swore off indica edible gummies. Never again.

What I’m Reading:

The music of smishing
hides its meaning, a type
of online fraud. Nurdle makes me
smile, until I read it’s plastic
choking the ocean. 

— Jen DeGregorio / “No Isms Except Neologism”

The Pomp

Today I broke my vow of silence when I broke the glass in case of emergency. I croaked in a muttering fashion most embarrassing, “Ra… rah… run. Run! There’s a moth infestation.” We had moths. We were underground in our hermetically sealed glass boxes, and here we were with an infestation of moths. How was this possible? Had we not paid our alms, and made our ablutions in the appropriate manner? Had we not made cretinous burnt offerings—I was always against this affectation—pungent and breath-taking like good little pawns. For our troubles, for our conceits to our deity … we get moths! Was it worth breaking 137 days of silence over? Documents were signed, codicils initialed, an ascetic’s vow taken. The pomp. The sacrifice. Moths! What does this mean?

What I’m Reading:

We are living through imperfect times
and clearly deserve all the shit we’ll give ourselves.

— Nathan Spoon / “The Three Trees at Hudimesnil”

What are Fish Gills to Fishers of Men?

At a remove, in a gesture, a part of a thing
Representing the whole.

What are ambivalences of texts?
Polyvalencies in readings?

What flows from this desire
To macerate the pulp of life
Into a sodden discourse—
An echolalia?

The fishers of men as hirsute
Suitors unhinging Penelope’s loom—

What is that? An arrow?

I am arrow proof,
Soothsayer approved,
Trodden by legions of anonymous
Men with angular intent.

Note this now—

I pique in wolf-like rages
Deep into the night.
I aim at precision / incision—

Beware.

What I’m Listening To:

— Throwing Muses / “Fish”

Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

A word for fear
of chatbots? Scriptechxia. For
the breed of ennui that tempts
poets to query them

for language?

— Jen DeGregorio / “No Isms Except Neologism”

The planet Earth can’t afford it.

— John Brunner / The Sheep Look Up

my spirit is
a defeated
suicide
disproportion
in this arranged
and animal world

— Katie Ebbitt / “XV” / Fecund

There was violence in the air. It was on the subways, or so everyone kept claiming, but it was also inside Brooke, inside everyone, like microplastics. This was how the world was now and Brooke didnt even fear the dog’s intercession — a nip, a bark, a bite — her mind a hot void.

— Rumaan Alam / Entitlement

Yesterday the
air was squeaky clean today
it’s dull and lifeless as an
addict’s armpit.

— James Schuyler / “The Dog Wants His Dinner”

A fresh analysis of ocean acidification suggests that it has already crossed over a ‘planetary boundary’ — an influential concept that defines the limits of what Earth can support before human activities make it uninhabitable. In fact, pH levels might have already started crossing safe limits in much of the ocean five years ago, say researchers. Increasing acidity reduces the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere, weakens coral reefs and harms sea life. The situation is “a ticking timebomb for marine ecosystems and coastal economies,” says marine ecologist Steve Widdicombe, who is the director of science at the lab that did the research.

— Flora Graham / “Sea acidity is a ‘ticking timebomb’” / Nature

I text my yoga teacher: I think I need
to start medication. I meant

meditation, but the subconscious
knows best. I once wrote a whole poem

about the angel of penetration
rather than admit in my haste

I meant angle of penetration.
Either way, a virgin ascends.

—Deborah Hauser / “Never Admit Your Mistakes”

What I’m Listening To:

No hope for joy
No hope or faith
She wanted to go blind
Wanted hope to stay
I’ve been believing in nothing since I was born it never was a question
No!

— PJ Harvey / “Joy”

Fou! (redux)

His ambition drained in a scruff
of the neck twist
a meager remembrance
of his days spent in a robe

His teeth chattering
he’s on apprenticeship
as ornithologist 
and taxidermist

Fou!
says the Past
inserting its finger
in god knows what

He slogs knee deep
in hummingbird angles
tenuous and blur-fast

Before him shine the bones
of the pitiable Condor of Shiva

He is comforted in the knowledge
that the afflatus was hard won
speaking in tongues
wearing the cloaks of invisibility

His body taut
with a dab
of holy pedantry

Wombat love!
he cries

He walks out of the room
millions of people watching
on their television screens
without the slightest knowledge
of antipodal politics or wombat love

At that at that very instant
you arose
and turned off
your television

Wondering

What I’m Reading:

Brainrot
sounds like what it is, as does

enshittification and global
boiling.

— Jen DeGregorio / “No Isms Except Neologism”

Burning Landscapes

The shallow coast has migrated to higher elevations
We live in the time of burning landscapes
Rainforests to savannas in two easy days
The grand ice shelves in five easy pieces
We’re on finite time and nothing unspools
Like priorities heavily influenced by neglect
You speak in deeper tones when you’re shallow
It’s a conscious choice to avoid detection
Like providing soft beds for corpses

What I’m Reading:

On a green summer night,
a horse of glass
neighs in the distance

— Sayumi Kamakura / “[On a green summer night,]”