mwschmeer

no one prays
to the god of
sporks except
drunks at KFC
& even then the
slaw goes every-
where but home

#badmicropoetry #poetry

Boosting this post because I'll be damned I didn't catch myself nodding my head in agreement as I read:

frankchimero.com/blog/2025/se...

outskirts math

+
first fall morning:
driveway cat unfurls
beneath Ford F150

-
sauce, sauce, squirrel
Cadet Cub circles
battered apple trees

x
morning splits air
lawn gurgles sludge:
septic tank leakage

÷
across the creek
my father's razor
rusts in silence

#badmicropoetry #poems

1. No false starts
2. Stop overthrowing receivers
3. Mahomes needs to run forward instead of scrambling backwards
4. Get the third downs

#chiefs
#nfl
Chiefs can recover but at least they aren't as sloppy as YouTube's attempt to insert YouTubers into the game coverage.

“Monstrous!” Fafhrd commented. ”But what do the Devourers gain from all these furious commercial sorties, all this mad merchandising? What do they really want?” Ningauble replied, “The Devourers want only to amass cash and to raise little ones like themselves to amass more cash and they want to compete with each other at cash-amassing. (Is that coincidentally a city, do you think, Fafhrd? Cashamash?) And the Devourers want to brood about their great service to the many universes—it is their claim that servile customers make the most obedient subjects for the gods—and to complain about how the work of amassing cash tortures their minds and upsets their digestions. Beyond this, each of the Devourers also secretly collects and hides away forever, to delight no eyes but his own, all the finest objects and thoughts created by true men and women (and true wizards and true demons) and bought by the Devourers at bankruptcy prices and paid for with trash or—this is their ultimate preference—with nothing at all.” --from "The Bazaar of the Bizarre" by Fritz Lieber

Fritz Leiber knew that capitalism run amok killed civilizations.

Use this magic bullet to shoot yourself in the foot OR: Borg vibes

open.substack.com/pub/experime...

someone is watching TV with the sound off & outside someone yells over the lawnmower prowling forth & back & the doorbell rings & the dog starts in when the knocking starts & maybe if I sit still they won't look through the window & see me, won't tap the glass or hold the bell until the ringing becomes unbearable but I can hold it a long time: I've been married forty years

#badmicropoetry #poetry

Eight Limes, No More: The Accidental Poetry of Found Lists - Longreads A found list is a rare analog window into someone else’s needs—an accidental autobiography, a blank space to be filled with one’s imagination.

"Lists are how we fight chaos with ballpoint pens."
—Mira Ptacin

longreads.com/2025/07/15/e...

tree on roof:
squirrels scurry
as chainsaws growl

#badmicropoetry #poetry

June 22, 2025 A BRIEF AND LEAPY HISTORY OF THE SQUARE Tom Snarsky Pythagoras, whom Google calls a “public figure,” founded a school (which is a kind of square) and then died. 1 of the school’s beliefs (also a kind of square) was that any number could be written as a ratio, a fraction of 2 whole numbers. This would make the numerical universe, and by extension the world (a 3rd kind of square), rational. About a century later, as the apocrypha would have it, a Pythagorean named Hippasus discovered that the square root of 2 (the length of either diagonal of a square with sides of length 1) could not be written as a ratio of 2 whole numbers. If you tried you’d get a contradiction, and Marx & Hegel were a ways off yet, so Hippasus’s Pythagorean peers looked the gift horse of this result right in its surd mouth and pushed H off a cliff to his death (the final square). Fast forward to many, many years later and a late-teenage boy is in high school biology, filling in recessive & dominant alleles in a slow, confusing attempt to understand life (which is so rarely a square). The boy drops his pencil, and when he leans down to pincer it off the floor another boy has already picked it up, a boy with perfect hair & political aspirations (squares par excellence) the 1st boy is about, completely unawares, to ruin. Years later when they are old, tired, & happy on Cape Cod, the 1st boy will write a diary entry à la Ned Rorem explaining their whole romance (a kind of square you can fold up into a paper heart). Like this history, it’ll have 289 words (incl. title)—i.e. the square of 17.

happy #smallpoemsunday! 💜

feel free to participate by posting small poems you wrote, +/or small poems you love by somebody else :)

leaning into “small = fits screen” today to share this 289-worder I’m so glad to have up at @havehashad.com, with much gratitude to the editors :)

A painting of a bird next to the words "sometimes it's best to shut your fuckin' mouth"

The Trick Is (after Ellen Bass) to stop caring, to stop it even if you obsess over it and everything you've thought flutters away like a freed parakeet, the air swirling with the speed of it. When anger sits with you, an iron ball more fit for gym than stomach; when anger consumes you like flames in a crucible, an inferno of anger, you think, How can a country withstand this? And then you hold freedom like water cupped in your hands, precious water, holy water, live-giving, here, now, and you say yes, I will fight for you, you will slake my thirst, again.

#badmicropoetry #poetry

a drop of ink

spreads out
in a glass
of water;
a log rots
in the woods
& the universe
expands in
whatever
cradle rocks
the universe
to dreaming
while babies
sleep & light-
houses break
beneath waves,
salt drying on
so many cheeks.

#badmicropoetry #poetry

Utah Hockey Club spent so much money on marketing research they couldn't afford an extra s.

#hockey

28 slightly rude notes on writing OR: catapulting myself into a pit of tarantulas

28 slightly rude notes on writing
www.experimental-history.com/p/28-slightl...

my third grade teacher
mrs. nelson was right
that nothing can
brighten your mood
like a good scratch-
n-sniff sticker so
maybe give one or
two to your local
neighborhood blow-
hard but not the
poop one because
jesus what kind of
message are you
trying to send?

#badmicropoetry #poetry

the rich these days
want a new gilded age
yet have nothing
but trailer-trash tastes
with dollar-store
bric-a-brac
spray painted gold
shoved in every
conceivable space
& their hearts are
as empty as the words
that they weave
building temples
at Narcissius' feet


#badmicropoetry #poetry #doggerel

yes the sunset
is beautiful but
so is dog shit
yet no one
likes my selfies


#badmicropoetry #poetry

437 IBM Way

there's a small house
in the code set, a soft
space to rest during
furious sessions where
you can shut the door
& breathe & perhaps nap
before the usual shady
characters drag you back
to work with bullets & clubs
& daggers saying type
faster dammit type faster

#badmicropoetry #poetry

_never let the bastards get you down_

from acres of processed bullshit
flowers burst wildly to blossom

#badmicropoetry #poetry

nuzzled by mist
the coyote trots
through 6 a.m.
intersections, tongue
dangling, panting
beneath a moon
indifferent as blue
Hyundais idling
at lights aching
to flash green
as deer amble
the high school
baseball field
& a jogger stops
to take note of
her twitching calf


#badmicropoetry #poetry

all these middle grade bastards
keep pushing the backwards
slide as if thwacking your head
in the stagnant pool at the end
was the coolest playground move

#badmicropoetry #poetry

third grade kiss

I remember
nothing but
the taste
of orange
tic-tacs over
chocolate milk,
not even
her name

#badmicropoetry #poetry

& there came among them
a great ignorance shrouding
wisdom & compassion &
& fear fell across the land
while cowards bent knees;
democracy died in darkness,
simpering in its last throes,
choking on lies & the egos
of small men wielding grudges
against a history they resent

#badmicropoetry #poetry

the last thing
I want to see
is 55 year old
versions of
high school
classmates
holding me
to account
for all those
years of jerk
ass remarks
& innuendo
because I'm
fatter now
& run slower
so keep your
evite in your
mailbox you
damn graying
cock strutters
& boa fluffers



#badmicropoetry #poetry

the foggy
thing wraps
tentacles
about your
feet & slithers
up to nuzzle
a knee & you
remember
the dentist
& stylist next
week & some
thing slides
around your
pelvis & you
shiver & say
not today but
do call again
sometime & for
weeks you feel
watched & forget
yet it waits

#badmicropoetry #poetry

A hand holding an 8x10 print with a quote from Dan Sinker that says ‘write it down. I mean that literally. Get a pen, get a notebook, use your hands. There’s something visceral about using your hands. And nobody can delete ink on paper with a keystroke. Write it down.’

My pal @dansinker.com crafts a lot of simple words into important messages like the punk that he is. Print now available.

https://www.starshaped.com/small-prints/writeitdown

#letterpress #print

you carve out a life
breath by breath
minute by minute
the marble scales
falling from your eyes
scattering footside
& you glance down
& say look at what
I built as if you held
the chisel & knew
what surprises lurked
beneath the stone

#badmicropoetry #poetry

all the vibes
have been vibed:
time to do the work

#badmicropoetry #notadvice