i nest in myself—
this atomization an
obsessive pursuit—
then i step out of myself
my many husks slough yellow
What I’m Reading:
“I didn’t know what I was waiting for, but something told me to wait. Another army of sluggish minutes dragged by.”
— Raymond Chandler / The Big Sleep
i am fanatical + cartoonish
i plot hack attacks + duende kidnaps
gazing at my navel / sinking in quicksand
i am a monstrous clown
appropriating a farcical othering of myself
ive outgrown my clown shoes
a couplet spewer of ill repute
ive become my own a.i.
ay ya ya
yai
i sing + cry
simultaneously
i am a biohazard
to myself
i am a dislocation
What I’m Reading:
“Fathers often use too much force”
— Jenny Holzer / “Truisms, 1977-79”
$500 buys you a night’s worth of love:
the tiles off-center + off-color
the music fuzzy + attenuated
crackles from dented chrome speakers
an unspeakable effluence of ammonia + god knows what
plate 1. reproduces edvard munch’s the dance
of life
illustration vii. graphs countries number 1-8 gdp per capita
figure 9. charts the death of love
the tv scrambles from color to b+w
the clang of munitions
the pungency of burning tires stills the air
fuck with love
What I’m Reading:
“… I’ve got to sprint and go hard. That’s one brilliant thing: When you’ve been seriously ill and you come out the other side, you really don’t fuck around anymore, ever.”
— Tracy Emin, to Jerry Saltz / “Tracey Emin Is Serious” / Vulture
not the nuggets
not the steel shards
no no
not the embeds
not the journalists in tunnels
not the steel shards
no no
not the shards of steel
not the shrapnel intercepts
not in this firmament
not the nuggets
not the steel shards
not the husks of buildings
not the concrete chunks
not the rebar rampikes
no no
not the sleep lost
not rem
not core
not deep
no no
not us
not them
not thee other
not the carnage
not the death
not the censorship
no no
not the news
not the steel shards
not the nuggets
What I’m Reading:
“There’s a rat / scrambling / From light with fleshy trash in its mouth. A / baby strapped / to its mother’s back, cut loose.”
— Joy Harjo / “How to Write a Poem in a Time of War”
“What you make doesn’t have to be witnessed, recorded, sold, or encased in glass for it to be a work of art.”
— Rick Rubin / The Creative Act: A Way of Being
“… many nights of death from the clouds, mornings surprised
to be waking from the sleep of death, still unburied and alive
but with no safe place. Leave, yes, we obey the leaflets, but go where?
To the sea to be eaten, to the shores of Europe to be caged?
To camp misery and camp remain here. I ask you then, where?”
— Carolyn Forché / “The Boatman”
“Without actions that address the root problem of humanity taking more from Earth than it can safely give, we’re on our way to the potential collapse of natural and socioeconomic systems and a world with unbearable heat and shortages of food and freshwater … “By 2100, as many as 3 billion to 6 billion people may find themselves outside Earth’s livable regions, meaning they will be encountering severe heat, limited food availability and elevated mortality rates.”
— Dr Christopher Wolf / “The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory” / BioScience
“In some languages the word for dream
is the same as for music
is the kind of thing poets like to say
to prove they’re on your side
but no one is always on your side
not even a poet”
— Dobby Gibson / “Small Craft Talk”
“And that actually would be my advice: don’t be too neat about finishing something before starting something new. Keep many pieces going at once and you’ll never face a blank page (or screen).”
— Lydia Davis / “If Lydia Davis Wasn’t a Writer, She’d Devote Herself to Climate Activism” / Lithub
“You can’t begin just anywhere. It’s a wreck.”
— Joy Harjo / “How to Write a Poem in a Time of War”
“To live as an artist is a way of being in the world. A way of perceiving. A practice of paying attention.”
— Rick Rubin / The Creative Act: A Way of Being
What I’m Listening To:
“Stop conversation
And experience joy
And walk outside…
…Out here the air is new”
— Ty Segall / “Void”
The sum of laboring on and on (and on)
In beginner’s mind.
Your perception arcs and a red offense
Descends—you’re taken aback.
After further reflection my flexion locks,
Fades, and norms dissolve.
Each sense serrated, your soul ragged,
Your eyes have seen the dark limit.
I know less than I think I know (I know
This factually) and my rocks are punks.
My exuberance is childlike / your need
For creation comes first.
I wait.
What I’m Reading:
“Spinning wind into something vatic:
seven synchronized giantesses.
A thought only rarely coalesces
from the brain’s static.”
— Agne Mlinko / “Wind Farm, Texas”
Purely accessing the subconscious
When
Seagulls dive bomb white squirts
The details and setting un-dreamlike
Unsettling
Randomness determined by precise
Algorithms
It’s always here but overcast / hidden
By a thicker layer of clouds +
Eels
What I’m Reading:
“Art is supposed to be about the constant process of change, of pushing the envelope with perception so that you get closer to understanding what existing is. It’s ultimately a philosophical quest for a meaning of life and a comprehension of mortality and all of those big questions. It’s not supposed to be about careers. It’s supposed to be about someone who’s just desperately trying to express something.”
— Genesis P-Orridge / Binary: A Memoir
leads to a whirlwind o’ cooking
3 pizzas (only 2 pictured because I ate the rubberiest one) / Thai coconut chicken with brown rice / a pound of ground turkey / chicken korma with brown rice / chicken enchilada dinner (a soggy mess) / chicken tenders / mac and cheese with turkey burger / 2 veggie naanwiches and potato & pea samosas / AND a super cheesy omelet
guess how i spent the morning
come on over & eat while i sop cold water out of the moribund freezer
(so thankful to have food and the ability to replace or fix the appliance, billions do not)
What I’m Reading:
“The problem is that nobody has real answers. The problem is that the problem is us … The enemy isn’t out there somewhere the enemy is ourselves. Not as individuals, but as a collective. A system. A hive.”
— Roy Scranton / Learning to Die In the Anthropocene
I dreamt of zombies last night.
I asked you where you put them: In the garage?
You said in the closet.
I told you to move my mom’s stuff over and put your stuff in there—not the zombies!
You said it was your day of the dead prerogative and quoted dialogue from Hiroshima, Mon Amour.
This is how we doomscroll our days of the dead in the Anthropocene.
What I’m Reading:
“We do not want to know what it took.
We’d rather not speak the dead ill.
We do not want to know what it took
to make him wish he were dead still.”
— Heid E. Erdrich / “Ghost Prisoner”
What I’m Reading:
“little twitchy
witches and tingling
goblins
hob-a-nob hob-a-nob”
— E. E. Cummings / “Chansons Innocentes II”
thee istsfor manity reader 