George Lang

“On this planet, the fog of war starts in Trump’s mind.”

Photo of two gringos with a Nahua informant, Doña Lupe.

With Richard Haly and Doña 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]

Featured Poem #1 — The Bloomin' Onion

Happy to report that I just had two poems published in Bloomin’ 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.

“Brigid, Brigid!”

What we are supposed to exclaim if we spot a flower on #StBrigidsDay
(one day before Groundhog Day)

From Jura to Sardinia: What Kermit Lynch taught us about wine Kermit Lynch reshaped the U.S. wine scene by introducing overlooked regions, low-intervention wines, and new wine styles. Here's how his work expanded our palates — and still does.

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 upstream
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
…

alteritas.net/pastis/inven...

Pivô brilhante em torno de BH.

We can’t 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: … the overgrown / ditches where boys fish stray eels / …..

They recalled a poem of my own from my bayou-centric boyhood in Houston.

Read on:

alteritas.net/pastis/monta...

Linguistic identity in times of crisis: The roles of the Ukrainian and Russian languages in the lives of Ukrainian war refugees | Lingoblog In Ukraine, being a bilingual who speaks both Russian and Ukrainian is such a ‘normal’ thing that many people hesitate to even call themselves bilinguals. As

Not surprising but nonetheless revealing results.

www.lingoblog.dk/en/linguisti...

Stand With Minnesota A directory of places to give to as Minnesota defends itself from ICE occupation

www.standwithminnesota.com

Machado gives her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump.

Lameculos ¿acaso luce mal?

= “Kiss-ass, does it look bad?”

#Palindrome

Alberta organizes banned book buyback to keep streets safe Critics have argued that, while the buyback may get some books off the streets, serious readers could simply swap covers, file off ISBN numbers, or even 2D print books at home.

Alberta organizes banned book buyback to keep streets safe

Hannah Levy (@hannahlevy) in honor of Renee Nicole Good, a poet and a mother 🤍

substack.com/@hannahlevy/...

I won’t gush on about how satisfying I find palindromes to be….

bsky.app/profile/anth...

“1939 is gone—
and good riddance… Moving on…
Oh, it left a bitter sting.
What will 1940 bring?

War, a raging hurricane…
The whole world has gone insane…”

In an era much like ours, Alexander Voloshin remembers a happier New Year’s Eve:

bdralyuk.wordpress.com/2025/12/30/b...

Canadian economy rallies as #1 export now Heated Rivalry OTTAWA - Canada's economy, which has spent the year reeling due to American tariffs, is finishing the year strong thanks to the country's new chief export, the gay hockey-romance drama Heated Rivalry.

www.thebeaverton.com/2025/12/cana...

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 alguém como eu, que é apenas ligeiramente disléxico, isto é um verdadeiro desafio. Parabéns ! 🙏🏼

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.

The Authoritarian Stack How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America — And Why Europe Is Next

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

Ode to the Cessna 172 I met this bush pilot in Guyana, the former British colony on the coast of South America. He flew five of us up to the falls at Kaietur, where the plateau extending from the Guiana Highlands breaks…

An Ode to the Cessna 172.

“Another 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 trunks….”

alteritas.net/GXL/?p=4228

Present tense: Seahorse Past tense: Sawhorse

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 tenets—
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 reader’s contribution to a debate which deserves attention: the academic publishing “racket”

digitaleditionapp.ft.com/i9DX/nlhpe1xh