So you ask for advice from us sages?
As we journal on yellowing pages.
A stitch can save nine
(if you make it in time)
but days turned to weeks turned to ages.
In a malström and swiftly descending
towards anguish and torture unending,
I finally wrote
these words on this note
that I put into this bottle I’m sending.
In the woods there’s a tarn with no bottom.
In the shivering last days of autumn,
I sink through the rot
like an untangled knot,
or a pillar of salt outside Sodom.
As I slouch toward Betlehem crowning
and Johst reaches for his old Browning,
Plato’s chained in his cave,
Juliet’s in her grave,
and Ahab and Queequeg are drowning.
Once the coffin lid’s free from my clawing
and the rodents are done with their gnawing,
and AMOC has collapsed,
I will lie there relaxed
in the soil that is cold beyond thawing.
It’s the willow in the wind
It’s the pebble in the pocket
It’s the snow in the storm
It’s the moth by the moon
It’s the water in the waves
It’s the platelets in the pulse
It’s the sand under the stone
It’s the moth by the moon
It’s the lace in the loop
It’s the tongue on the teeth
It’s the song in the sparrow
It’s the moth by the moon
It’s the growth in the grain
It’s the joy of the journey
It’s the presence under pressure
It’s the moth by the moon
Okay but did you know
some animals have clothes
it’s called Hermit Crab
So it’s not dumb that humans have clothes
And also in humid hot places
like rain forest
they don’t use that much clothes
In hot dry places like desert
you do need lots of clothes. 🧕🏻
And it’s a way to get to hang out
with G-d on the daily
So don’t be discouraged
just cause Adam and Eve
noshed on the science fruit
Now
thanks to their li’l fruit snack
we know that we’re hunks of
spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones
and we just have to
live with
that knowledge every day. 💁🏻♀️
But
that’s fine
because the blood of G-d’s Lamb
made it so that
all sentient beings
could actualize buddhahood.
What’s that gonna look like
for us
today
this fine Friday afternoon?
Maybe a mindfulness exercise
or a hymn?
I feel bad for Kierkegaard
with his “leap”
when it’s just three centimeters away.
We can just reach out and touch it.
No matter how hard
all the flies
and decay
and absurdity
and entropy
makes it to see that.
That’s why the
beginner mind
is so great.
Even though we
have all these mountains of clothes and laundry to sort,
even the lilies of the field have raiment
and the hermit crabs have their ceramic doll’s heads
and sea shells.
Ligotti followed Zappfe in talking
about the four responses:
anchoring,
isolation,
distraction and
sublimation.
And of those four
sublimation comes closest
to the
real answer
but sublimation sometimes feels like
it’s just passing the buck
like a Sadako “Ring” tape.
Like the only reason you’re
talking about how bad it is
is so you don’t have to
think about how bad it is.
The real answer is:
showing up.
I’m grateful for these aching bones
and these heavy rusty breaths.
Beauty and ugliness.
It’s all there anyway 🤷🏻♀️
And thanks to
the life-changing magic of
“hedonic adaptation”
we humans tend to grade things on a curve.
In heaven we’re gonna be like
“OMG this harp-playing angel absolutely
sucks
compared to
this other gorgeous harp-playing angel”.
An inch of time is worth a foot of gems.
And even in the perfect Buddha nature,
our lives have texture and variety.
Right now,
my face and my feet
both hurt like heck.
That’s part of the texture of sensation.
I wish they didn’t
but thanks to hedonic adaptation,
if they didn’t,
some other ache would stand out.
There was this dumb ad campaign
when I was in my late twenties:
“it gets better”
and I was like when!???
And now I’m in my mid forties
and it never got better but
you know what did happen?
The gratitude attitude!
Even with tears down my cheeks
and my heart in pieces on the floor
and G-d’s kicks with both feet and boots on,
here I am.
One second at a time,
like the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof.
I was an unhappy child.
Hedonic adaptation to this
trash dump world
took a while
to kick in.
And Ligotti is right about one thing:
the idea that
“it’ll get better and better and better”
is delusion.
But that’s why we have
radical acceptance.
Probably better known as:
showing up.
And sometimes things do get worse.
Unrepairably worse.
Thanks, thermodynamics 🤦🏻♀️
Scrounging up
that sixpence for praise
can feel like
rolling a boulder up a hill,
forever.
And sometime it’s shiny and sometimes it’s dull.
It’s right here
I’m coming full circle with the haiku form.
As a teenager, when I first heard of them, I was told you wrote five, seven, five syllables. Sometimes 5-5-7.
Then, inundated with “well, actually”, I came to believe that that’d lead to overly verbose haikus, that you “can’t compare onyomi to western syllables”.
But I’m back around. Rhythm is a thing in poetry.
My beginner mind
not side-tracked by brevity
wrote five seven five.
On an overcast day in hell
you and I had been resting
on the shores of the Lḗthē.
Suddenly you scooped up
a handful of its water
and offered me a drink of oblivion,
a cup of kindness.
You saw me hesitate
and wondered what I had to hold on to.
I was just surprised,
that’s all.
Don’t worry.
Thank you,
let me rinse away the bitterness.
One more stamp in my
Samsara merry-go-round ticket.
Enlightenment and
hard-earned–lessons
all over again.
This is my translation of an old Ebba Grön punk song from the mainframe era, “Mental Istid”. It came across as a bit dorky in the decentralized desktop era but then gained new relevancy in the Facebook era, and even more now in the large neural network era.
All I can hear
that can interfere
is the only thing actually living
in my new home,
in my new life,
what matters are the orders she’s giving.
She is Mother Machine,
mother of all,
the central point of our new life.
She’s correcting your
behavioral cogs,
so you fit in with the gears of time,
into this new era, this ruthless baud rate.
My life flitters quickly past
on a status update.
The total power.
The total control.
The total focused totality.
I silently weep.
I can’t openly cry,
they’d never let that pass by,
because at the core dump station,
there’s silent, complete control.
At the core dump station,
nothing really matters at all.
Mental
mental
mental
ice age.
Then call me Queequeg
like Dana Scully’s mail,
I’ve got no sea-legs
I type but cannot sail
and at the keyboard
I’m a soft machine,
like I’m a ripcord,
ending the holocene
as I’m unfolding,
I am a parachute
there’s no handholding,
I’ll only execute
as I’m exploding,
I’ll be a cloud of cloth
when I am coding,
I’m cool like planet Hoth.
When we are full, we’re dull and yawning.
The best of days is one of longing.
There is a goal, and we see through it,
and yet the journey’s why we do it.
Our goal’s to rest where sky is open,
and campfire’s lit and bread is broken.
Right where we get a single night in,
our dreams will sing and stars will brighten.
Break camp, break camp! The sun is rising.
There is no end on our horizon.
I went back in time to try to warn ‘em about climate change and here I am again in the distant future of the year 2023 but the world’s still in trouble.
I talked to this one guy, Plato. Let’s see what he wrote… Atlantis?! Some island? Peeps aren’t gonna get the metaphor. They’re gonna be looking for mermaids & orichalcum, not externalities & methane. 🤦🏻♀️
I went a li’l further back. The flood—not sure saving some rich dorks on a boat is what we’re looking for here, Noah. The Tower of Babel—OK, getting closer. That second in the garden—fair enough. But people are gonna be reading these overly literally while simultaneously not realizing the direness of the straits in the here and now.
I went back again and asked ‘em just what part of leave it in the ground don’t they understand?
And they said “No, my child—I’m digging for fire!”
I can’t even. Gonna go fetch the spoon.
(After Jake Thackray)
Old Molly Metcalfe hacking Lisp.
“Cons, car, cdr, cdr, car” she counted.
So many parens nested deep.
“Cons, car, cdr, cdr, car” she said.
Grow little code, come creep, come bugs!
“Cons, car, cdr, cdr, car” she counted.
Kludgy apps for a gentleman’s use case.
“Cons, car, cdr, cdr, car” she said.
Over the keyboard, when the code won’t run.
“Cons, car, cdr, cdr, car” she counted.
Scruff Molly Metcalfe hacks so sloppily.
“Cons, car, cdr, cdr, car” she said.
Grow little code! Come crash, come rot.
“Cons, car, cdr, cdr, car” she counted.
Overgrown libs for a lady’s protocol.
“Cons, car, cdr, cdr, car” she said.
On her hack by the repo with checked in code.
“Cons, car, cdr, cdr, car” she counted.
Daft Molly Metcalfe hacking alone.
“Cons, car, cdr, cdr, car” she said.
Recovery was swift and worth the wait,
a brisk and rapid couple million years,
as algae grasp at life beneath the waves,
and fiery rain has fried me through the core.
This wooden spoon is coal, a painter’s wish.
The open canvas roiling like the sea.
No destination waits beyond that sea,
so hesitation whispers to me: “wait!”
No goal, no dream, no guiding beacon wish,
just staying on that hot tin roof for years.
No need to bury, digging to the core:
lost at shore before those endless waves.
Left standing, sinking, hearing mighty waves,
in sand, in liminal. The beach, not sea.
A bridesmaid caught a rotten applecore.
I’ll set my sail tomorrow! Just you wait!
(Or, failing that, in six or seven years.)
Procrastinating tangled up my wish.
That falling star, I snatched it for my wish:
a guide to find a path across the waves
of foam, of sea, of tachyons, of years.
The journey’s only purpose is the sea.
The present doesn’t need for me to wait
since now is now. We’re always at the core.
The bottleneck within the hourglass core:
a promise knot, a hopeless tangled wish,
a comfy wait that traps you in the wait.
Prerequisites come crashing down like waves.
These rocks and pebbles washed up from the sea:
debris that binds my schedule up for years.
I taste a second. Barely hear the years.
Ten bulls transcended, lost inside the core.
A stolen conch horn dreaming of the sea,
forever whispering its inner wish,
reflecting audibly, for us, those waves.
Just does. Without a need for it to wait.
The years get stolen waiting for that wish.
The core lies not beyond, nor on, the waves.
The now is all I have. The sea can wait.
Robotic lies are spread across the room.
My modem howls in silent disbelief.
Machines are parrots. Maybe so are we,
as chafing bones are slouching to be born
in fire, as I draw my final breath
and sleep. Perchance to dream. Perchance to scream.
So gently whispered is this lifelong scream
while ghostly passing through my inner room.
A chalkboard’s nail. A raspy smoker’s breath.
A regent clad in finest disbelief.
A crawling insect hatches to get born,
and in the skylit evening, so were we.
In flame. In dust. In ashes. So were we.
One look, one tick, one sigh, one fleeting scream—
the ticket stamped as soon as we are born.
The marble also burns: “Make room! Make room!”
Destruction’s eve is met by disbelief.
You close your eyes and focus on your breath.
White clouds still mingle like a diamond breath.
As “I” and “You” are left of what was “we”.
Nostalgia’s pain gives way to disbelief.
Each bribe, each ad, each generated scream:
all fall away and leave a silent room.
Where time is spatial, yesterday is born.
When Monday: nothing. Tuesday: never born.
Pneuma. Spirit. Misted window breath.
It’s fields of gold, this claustrophobic room.
These prison walls befit the royal we.
I greet the morning with a prayer scream.
Days break and fall and fly in disbelief.
We fool ourselves with ostrich disbelief
and brood our heads as eggs yet to be born.
Can’t sing. Can’t dance. Aware enough to scream,
to rot, to burn, to learn to lose my breath,
They’ve got their hope, so shiny. They were we.
One life, one year, one second in this room.
Our disbelief is fueled by present breath.
The day is born yet casketbound are we,
as one long scream of nothingness leaves room:
(After Lars Winnerbäck)
You can easily go stomping once your foot is through the door.
It’s easy to throw love to someone who can trust in whom it’s for
but not as easy being into those who don’t show what they feel.
It’s been weeks since you last called me so I think I see the deal.
You have a way with words to make us sound like such a thrill.
You have this way of losing me when you feel you’ve had your fill.
You shelter me from rainstorm when you want and when you care,
then forget me in the downpour as if “li’l me” ‘s not there.
Do I even mean something to you? Don’t hide from me.
I’m waiting by the phone
when you can’t stand to be alone
so you turn to “li’l me”,
but one day I’ll be out of sight as mere painful history.
As soon as I feel comfy in your smiling eyes on me,
your mouth has bitter words for me that bring calamity.
I doubt your words of “beauty of the deep pits of despair”.
The sun has kissed your eyes and you have never been down there.
Autumn comes and once again your gaze is far away.
It comes across as part of this whole game you tend to play.
When darkness cloaks our town and then the wintertime is near,
I wave, but you don’t see me, and I shout, but you don’t hear.
Do I even mean something to you? That’s hard to see.
You play me as a game
and leave me with the blame
when you look at “li’l me”,
and one day I’ll be out of sight as mere painful history.
You love is only red and you’re playing at romance,
I get all swept along with it, so easily we dance,
but one day it’s all enshrined as an old poem that you’ve read.
I can’t like you walk tightrope between coziness and dread.
Time moves like the heart beats and just like the grape you see
on the vine gone rotten,
yeah, soon it’s all forgotten.
Poor dumb old “li’l me”.
Yeah, one day I’ll be out of sight as mere painful history.
And worst of all: This song is from a girl, to me.
Robyn has this song “Call your girlfriend” and it’s such a beautiful melody. It’s easy to understand why it’s such a widely-covered and well-beloved song.
But the lyrics are super messed up. “Call your girlfriend and break up with her” basically 💔
How about this instead:
“Call your girlfriend.
It’s time you had the talk.
Give your reasons,
say it’s all OK,
but you just met somebody new.
Tell her you’re excited, having this new love in your life,
and then when she’s stoked, tell her that you love her still.
Then she says “of course” and that she never doubted that and she loves you so much, too,
and it all makes sense at last and she’s still with you, too,
and then she smiles and it’s easy.”
(Of course, it goes without saying that I’m not trying to convince anyone to stay in a bad or dangerous situation. Just that there are three options where Robyn’s song only gives the first two of these: Break up with the old, or just let things be as they are instead of chasing every new sunbeam that crosses your path, or let the new light in because sometimes it’s just right.)
Oasis, make a song about AFP.
I desire total song symmetry.
Factory should sing one ‘bout the Boss.
Streisand, start writing of Duck Sauce.
No excuse if the song came first;
if you named your band for some catchy verse.
Wings is your song if your band’s named Jet.
Dr Feelgood’s for you if you’re in Roxette.
Radiohead, get Talking. Blonde Redhead, DNA.
I’m sick of connections only going one way.
Sticky Fingers? Rolling Stones. Stones? Muddy Waters!
Make some homages to your lyrical fathers.
Canned Heat? Tommy Johnson. Ladytron, get Roxy.
Make it stick like glue, like mutual epoxy.
You liked it so much? Then go on and show me.
At least three bands need to make a David Bowie.
With a pen in my hand I was shaking;
and I knew in my heart (that was aching):
how for all it is worth,
our sweet home, planet Earth,
irrevocably we were forsaking.
As a whole we had kinda forgotten
that this home that we put a whole lot in
would still give me a start
when I look in my heart
all the way to the core: it was rotten.
I was trembling and wrote in my journal,
but my words were soon turning infernal,
and I saw myself write
with such sarcasm and spite
“They do tell me that hope springs eternal.”
As you know, that was Pope I was citing.
Scratch that, ‘cause I’d rather be writing:
“If we never give in
you know that we’ll win,
either that, or we will go down fighting.”
You all know the reply I would give her:
“What you asked is too much to deliver.
I’m just one single drop.”
But she told me: “Don’t stop;
without drops there can’t be any river.”
I saw when you had two heads;
one would speak while the other
would stare judgingly at the crowd,
face and eyes windows revealing
the judgment you render on yourself;
the crowd a mirror for your own doubt.
The talking head would laugh, smile,
bring everyone else along for the journey;
the silent head would have an imperceptible trembling lip—
each quiver a perfumed May day letter.
M’aidez, signed and sealed by the silent head,
and kissed and sent to anyone who would hear.
Your bravado an inverted pyramid and
the lowest singular foundational stone a soap bubble.
All of the fear, the what-ifs, the stinging shadows,
the pencilled calendar on soggy wet paper,
contained and compressed into an atomic iron point
inside the mouth of the silent head.
Each fear piled high upon the next, heavily.
The word “knife” sharper than the knife itself;
each what-if more agential than harbinger,
bringing the full brunt of the presumtive event
merely thinking of it tearing and wounding
as if already occured.
The talking head invites us in, says that we
are the same, on the same side, we are family,
we trust each other, we belong.
The silent head judges us, judges the crowd,
but mostly it judges the talking head
for daring to speak warmly and softly.
“Please only,” the eyes of the silent head convey,
“please only mock and jab and spit,”
it begs of its talking twin with some hesitation,
“please make them turn their heads away
and make it so that they cannot see me.
They are a mirror for my doubt as I am for theirs.”
I’ve made a book!
Selection, dagnification, and graphic design by me, Idiomdrottning.
Cover photograph by Martin Persson.
You can buy the book in epub or paper here.
Or you can just download it gratis from here:
There once was a poet in Latin
whose lyrical talent would flatten
and listeners shock
when he picked up a rock
and with force to his brain he put that in.
It is said that in Oscan and Greek
his talents were humble and meek
compared to his Roman
where wow, I don’t know, man,
he stoned himself into next week.
He’s renowned as a poetry nerd,
because listen, don’t know if you heard,
his iambs and trochees
would shiver their knees
because he would just shatter a word.
…bored now ♥︎
jcowan had written:
Ennius, the Latin poet, wrote “saxo cere-comminuit-brum”, which translates to ‘with-a-rock [he] br-shattered-ain’. Ennius wrote poems in Latin, Greek, and Oscan, but only his Latin is preserved.
I messed up by having all monosyllabics in the third limerick. You’re supposed to have one mono, one duo.
“Olli respondit rex Albai Longai”
it has been said, but I just don’t know why
he had hexlified buffers
so everyone suffers
when they type M-x sonus-egeriai.
My zen walks the path until it’s worn.
My zen takes care of the tools.
My zen leaves tracks in the snow.
The comfortable knife handle,
the well-laid-out kitchen,
the solid ground.