Stalagmite Letters (redux)

We ran riot through the archives—

Harpies, sharpies and scissors
Obliterating collections into piles

Of pages triangular—
Shards and screeds.

(Pursuit of knowledge agnostic)

Accretions of stalagmite letters
Monticule in dead air

We are the whips cometh—
goo goo goojoob!

What I’m Reading:

… if you run a lawnmower, look out — female cicadas are attracted to the noise and will flock to you. And no, the incessant din of the insects — which can be as loud as a jet engine — probably won’t cause temporary psychosis. It could actually help some people by temporarily masking tinnitus.

— Sumeet Kulkarni / “Why cicadas shriek so loudly and more: your questions answered” / Nature

Languor (redux)

His word, his breath,
Are merely synecdoche —
Ephemeral.

Nothing is true in the true
Sense of the word.

He drifts on the Lethe,
Intoxicated by water that transforms —
A trip into languor —
And never sets foot on the other shore.

What I’m Reading:

Once a dying woman said goodbye on Twitter right before she died. Sometimes I go onto the accounts of dead people and read their final posts. I listen to music while scrolling. The people singing in my ears are also dead. It is getting harder to be born and to vanish at once. Isn’t this what we all wanted anyway?

— Victoria Chang / “Buds, 1959”

13 Ways of Looking at a Jabberwockbird (travel day redux)

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 fashion 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 conjectured and textured. (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:

When I put the moon in a poem, it quivers like a strobe light nearly out of batteries.

— Victoria Chang / “Buds, 1959”

monday / wednesday

plastic shovel in hand
shots whizz by my head
it’s hard to breathe and bike 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 monday
i’ll be out by wednesday

What I’m Reading:

Depression is a group of parallel lines that want to
touch, but never can.

— Victoria Chang / “Untitled, 1961”

i saw

i saw peahens doing peahen type things … foraging, say

i saw the best mimes of my generation destroyed by words, speaking hysterical phonemes

i saw trios of palms hovering over hobie beach looking for an angry fix,

strange days, friends, strange days indeed

What I’m Reading:

… there is no / first draft of / a life. It is only / and always / a final draft.

— Victoria Chang / “On a Clear Day”

I Am Writing This (redux)

I am writing this because it is what I do. I write this. Often, when I’m not writing this I think about writing this. Often, I start thinking about writing this before I have finished writing that other thing. I usually think about writing this when I finish writing the other thing. I know this will happen daily—the thinking about writing this. Even when I’m not thinking about writing this—or actually writing this (as I’m doing now)—I know, eventually, I will think about writing this, and that I’ll eventually get around to writing this. Later, after writing that other thing—sometimes, that afternoon or evening after writing that thing—it often occurs that I’ll write this the next morning, sometimes the next afternoon, and rarely the next evening—but I almost always get around to writing this the next day. In this way my life of writing this proceeds—one day onto the next. Always aware that I’ll be writing this. As I am writing this now—for you to read this thing I have written at this exact moment.

What I’m Reading:

The first big heat dome of the season has settled over the southland, with Key West and Miami setting almost unbelievable records for muggy weather—the heat index down there topped 115 degrees last week. (That political savant Ron DeSantis chose the occasion to outlaw talking about climate within the state’s government).

— Bill McKibben / “Memo to Joe: Fight a Climate Election / Substack