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A line from Nelson Mandela This is an America that is not necessarily retreating from the world stage but consolidating its power through bullying & dealmaking, where the influ- ences of Christian nationalism & the presidential vices are the most apparent. Ushering in a new golden age, says the new National Security Strategy; but to others it is the onset of a new age of fear, of repression, of…
I carry this noose I carry this noose around in case anyone needs it, they only have to ask. After each use, I untie it, wash it thoroughly, and reconstruct it carefully. Those are sad days, after it’s been used, when I’m waiting for the fibres to dry and don’t feel I can go out. One matronly lady has tried it several times, just can’t seem to get on with it but credit to her for trying I say, it…
TRESPASS To the North, a thickening, smog or haze, fog or smoke, nature made or someone to blame? My mom FaceTimes me. She spotted another rando perspiring in her tomatoes. On one level I’m nearly certain these creepers don’t exist. But who knows? They keep us on our toes. On screen we vibrate—one box in Oregon, one in Indiana. She tells me that the last time my lips were purple like this I had…
I get onto the subway train at Liljeholmen. It’s seven on a Friday evening. I’ve finished my shift at the store and I’m heading home. The train is filled but there are still a lot of free seats. I sit down at a four-seater, diagonally across from a young man. We’re the only two sitting there. I glance over to the young man. It is mid-June, summer in Stockholm, and he’s dressed in a pair of loose…
prehensile dog washers Poke out your tongue, wrap it around a lollipop, & now try to whistle for the dog to come inside for its weekly wash. Nothing happens; or, at least, nothing that was meant to happen. Locusts fly down from their perches on the pyramids of Giza & eat the Sphinx away. The Red Sea opens & closes, o- pens & closes, unsure if it too is meant to be at war. A dyslexic President…
Ultramarine She was throwing grapes to the birds when I noticed her rosy-tipped fingers and long dark hair bound above her head like a fathomless black deed as she noticed she turned her face smiling eyes crackling Much later I found the way to her body and there was not a soul but a churchyard beautifully decorated by ivy and veronica colored heliotrope I felt crisp fear at how she moved in a…
Alfoxden, now Wm. unable to go all the way. The sea very black. Triton, late, mute at the conch. Proteus, soon, stuck in perhaps,— the eustatic rising. Enyalion, to the last Not enough / Too much in the business of your cabinet: past-noon sleepings & late nights in soil more than sea.
Campsite The campsite sloped down to the beach, and every morning I ran between the tents, then jumped into the freezing sea. I hadn’t been told it was only a holiday, that we’d be back in a week. I sat on a scorching grey rock, looked out to sea, forgot the fear of being beaten at school, then smelled smoke and turned to a line of fire ripping through the gorse. Weasels, lizards, snakes and mice…
Doodle #7569 Happenstance happens too fast to ever stand up to investigation; but still we welcome it, smile when we fall upon it, smile even when it falls upon us. Some remember & go with their mother's advice — never look a gift horse in the mouth. I tend to prefer the pedantic Louis Pasteur — chance favors the prepared mind. telescopic nightmares I am learning about how fish disrupt sleep.…
i do not like anything anymore and everyone here not dead is dying, and so what are we still waiting for? stick around as long as you want, but the future was never going to be anyone’s friend portrait w/ still life, c. 1984 you and i like some frightened child’s dream of blue skies no words, only images the sleepy deaths of summer afternoons on burnt hill road the inevitability of powerlines you…