Stefan Flanigan

"Bitch; A Reflection"
Poem + collage. Link in bio.
#analogart #handmade #collage #outsiderart #collageart #paperart #mixedmedia #blueskycollage #cutandpaste

"Under the Bridge"
Poem + collage. Link in bio.
#analogart #handmade #collage #outsiderart #collageart #paperart #mixedmedia #blueskycollage #cutandpaste

"Sodium Zone"
#poetry

In the past month counter/field has blown up: 4x traffic, and 5x subscribers. Thank you to everyone who has popped in for a visit, and I'm genuinely chuffed that the poems have connected with people. Cheers!

Under the Bridge - counter/field The damp comes off the river, seeping into clothing, and the sodium light struggles under the bridge’s arc. When the curlew’s wail rises with the storm, the night strikes its bargain with the river, a...

The damp rises from the river,

turns the air brackish,

seeps through clothing,

touches skin -

This is no place to be after dark.
#poetry
stygian-muse.com/under-the-br...

Sodium Zone - counter/field City bridge after hours: mattress, tent, algae-slick rocks. The light cuts, metal scrapes, light returns—and the scene holds.

After the art gallery and the museum,

past the light’s edge and into a hush,

the rough concrete path carries me.
#poetry
stygian-muse.com/sodium-zone/

#poetry

Whalesong - counter/field In the concrete tunnel between the library and the theatre, fibreglass whales hang from steel cables, their recorded song groaning through the space. At night it becomes a gauntlet. But today, another...

where water stifles the light,

and presses an excess of nitrogen

into the blood—

and waits.

#poetry
stygian-muse.com/whalesong/

Bitch; a reflection.
www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
#poetry

Full poem: 'Little Hooks'
stygian-muse.com/little-hooks/

In the mind, a few splinters—

memories of glances, of words:

small, piercing betrayals—

have lodged, are lodgers.

Little hooks: they refuse to leave.

#poetry

Blogs are weird. Nobody reads your stuff, then all of a sudden, some dude in India is saying "Hey, I like your poem about a possum eating a mango." It's a nice feeling.
#poetry

A poem about a possum (well, some of it):
But now, in the pulp-sweet air,

the cats are gone, the birds, the tree,

even the sky and the hot sun—

all gone; now there is only

a sweet greenness,

a mango—

only mango.
#poetry

People often complain about The System, but The System knows best...
The system is Optimal.

Inputs, limited as they are,

do not register the documented necessity

of upward reallocation

and the requirement to off-board

non-performing units.
#poetry
stygian-muse.com/compliance-i...

in the half-light
the ferry's fog-horn sounds—
a dog howls

cool morning breeze
along the river—
the scent of jasmine

a rustling flash—
on the railing:
a noisy mynah

from the topmost branch
of the tallest gum tree—
a magpie's call

#poetry #haiku

A single-sentence drill:

Because the shells are close,
I stride toward the bus stop,
shivering in the dim light,
the houses boarded up or bombed—
although I don’t look hard enough
to tell:
on the sidewalk,
I see enough—
a mangled bike, a shattered helmet.

#poetry

A new piece today:

"Grass slopes down to a sand flat: its surface ribbed

with frozen waves, crisp-edged in the sun."

Full poem: 'A Tiny Deity'
stygian-muse.com/a-tiny-deity/
#poetry

The internet is a free-for-all in some respects. You can't prevent someone from copying your writing but you can report them for copyright violation. Publishers aren't interested in anything that's been on a blog. Being civil and writing reasonably well is enough to attract blog readers imho.

Well the fact is, my blog is about as low-stakes as you can get but plagiarism is just intellectual dishonesty. As it happens, this chap is a provocateur and probably a bit naive. He attributed my material in the end.

Actually he's not bad (uses a lot of swear words though). Perhaps he puts the ass in Picasso lol

They ended up attributing it, so it's all good. WordPress has a complaints process that you can use if you have to, but it wasn't necessary.

Well, you know what they say...plagiarism is the highest form of flattery 😆

Yeah, that makes sense. I hadn't realised it was so common.

I recently started a poetry blog. Today I noticed that someone copied one of my pieces and pasted it into a post of their own, without attribution. Has this happened to anyone else? I made a comment asking for an attribution but did not report it. It's pretty weird. #blog #blogging

A flash fiction piece on small childhood betrayals and how they ripple.

“Tom kept an eye on the other kids, grouped in tribes, wary of trouble.”
#flashfiction #fiction #writingcommunity #writing #shortprose
stygian-muse.com/deep-blue-sky/

You said: why do you treat me like this
I said: treatment is not an option
You said: a treaty is a meeting of minds
The waiter said: who are you talking to

#poetry
stygian-muse.com/in-denpasar/

Yes, he had a pretty hard time of it.

The Hill - counter/field A mythic poem of endurance: stone, shoulder, and sun in relentless dialogue with gravity and persistence.

I push. The stone shifts. I push again.
There is a reason for everything, I suppose, even
Unreason.
I push. The stone shifts. I push again.

#poetry
stygian-muse.com/the-hill/

A system-voice poem: Orwellian, a bit Sci-Fi and, imho, fun:

The enemy is ever-present, its design is to kill,

And its means is through the sowing of chaos, for

It is through chaos that Order is annihilated,

And only through Order is survival maintained.

#poetry
stygian-muse.com/nonexistence...

The loom stands empty. I wrap

a sinewy thread around the loom and pull

it tight. My vows are like this; there is no slack.

#poetry
stygian-muse.com/gordian-knot/