βOn this planet, the fog of war starts in Trumpβs mind.β
03.03.2026 15:53 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0βOn this planet, the fog of war starts in Trumpβs mind.β
03.03.2026 15:53 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Photo of two gringos with a Nahua informant, DoΓ±a Lupe.
With Richard Haly and DoΓ±a Lupe, his informant on curandera invocations. First stop on our trip to Oaxaca. Ash Wedneday, 1984.
*
It took a friend, a poet,
to invent this motley trek,
two gringos and a Nahua
setting out the first of Lent.
[from Isla Mujeres, a poem in progress]
Happy to report that I just had two poems published in Bloominβ Onion, a journal of many layers.
www.thebloominonion.com/featured-poe...
Yes, there has been a rupture of the world we have known. Let us hope this does not bode the end of the world tout court, at least of humanity. With a madman in the White House with the nuclear football in his hands, there is reason to fear.
02.02.2026 15:08 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
βBrigid, Brigid!β
What we are supposed to exclaim if we spot a flower on #StBrigidsDay
(one day before Groundhog Day)
A reasonably objective piece on Kermit Lynch. Full disclosure: I worked for Kermit 1980-1985.
www.themanual.com/food-and-dri...
ALBA
From sleep the foiled lover
fought like a salmon upstreamβ¨against a torrent of dream.
Started awake, he held
beside him, diffuse in the dawn,
a bare wisp of her
flesh, ache
of a phantom limb
in the form of a whisper
he knew to be fake
β¦
alteritas.net/pastis/inven...
PivΓ΄ brilhante em torno de BH.
25.01.2026 16:32 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0
We canβt imagine heat when cold
nor feel the anxiety of youth when old.
#aphorism #juvenoia (cf wiki)
How do poems get us, like this one did me, to the point I put it over into English?
Here it was the lines translated as: β¦ the overgrown / ditches where boys fish stray eels / β¦..
They recalled a poem of my own from my bayou-centric boyhood in Houston.
Read on:
alteritas.net/pastis/monta...
Not surprising but nonetheless revealing results.
www.lingoblog.dk/en/linguisti...
Machado gives her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump.
Lameculos ΒΏacaso luce mal?
= βKiss-ass, does it look bad?β
#Palindrome
Alberta organizes banned book buyback to keep streets safe
10.01.2026 20:56 β π 345 π 84 π¬ 6 π 6
I wonβt gush on about how satisfying I find palindromes to beβ¦.
bsky.app/profile/anth...
β1939 is goneβ
and good riddanceβ¦ Moving onβ¦
Oh, it left a bitter sting.
What will 1940 bring?
War, a raging hurricaneβ¦
The whole world has gone insaneβ¦β
In an era much like ours, Alexander Voloshin remembers a happier New Yearβs Eve:
bdralyuk.wordpress.com/2025/12/30/b...
F among the Consonants
To the pewter tines of you as cap
I prefer your curves in small case longhand,
gathered and cinched at the crux of your lap
then unknotted at your command.
***
Another in my series #MerciRimbaud pour ces quelques consonnes.
Para alguΓ©m como eu, que Γ© apenas ligeiramente dislΓ©xico, isto Γ© um verdadeiro desafio. ParabΓ©ns ! ππΌ
20.12.2025 06:02 β π 3 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0
Today's Latin lesson:
Rege expulso spes fidesque virorum liberorum rem publicam continebunt.
(With the king expelled, the hope and faith of free men will hold the republic together.)
Dedicated to my Uncle Davo, a specialist in tethering, kites, Cajun music, and to boot an all around great mensch.
A disturbing reality.
authoritarian-stack.info
A concrete poem, per the theory I concocted on them, lo so many years ago (1979): alteritas.net/GXL/wp-conte...
This one has contemporary implications
An Ode to the Cessna 172.
βAnother bush pilot I had flown with in Liberia told you had to be an idiot to die in one. He explained how you could even crash land by keeping your cool up to the very end so that you could steer into a copse between tree trunksβ¦.β
alteritas.net/GXL/?p=4228
Present tense: Seahorse Past tense: Sawhorse
19.11.2025 15:18 β π 238 π 51 π¬ 3 π 6
20 LETTERS
In these twenty letters,
we try ten lines. The test
set, we tether sly intent.
We net the stint tersely.
We intently test ethers.
We try the silent tenetsβ
try the new, tense titles.
Written, the steely nest
settles twenty therein.
We enter its tenth style.
Swift on Struldbruggs:
When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more, which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struldb...
A thoughtful readerβs contribution to a debate which deserves attention: the academic publishing βracketβ
digitaleditionapp.ft.com/i9DX/nlhpe1xh