Flarf of spam messages
Hi. I see that you don’t update your website too often. Recently one of my clients, a retired member of the Angola’s state oil firm (SONANGOL) mandated me to move and re-invest his liquid assets to a country with high economic possibility for investment and profit purpose as well as safe keeping to be managed …
The Beginning of Winter
A cold evening, the first snow of the season has fallen.
I get a coffee and look at the powdered streets.
With the coffee comes a glass of ice cold water.
The market is a dark row of tarps and stacked crates.
Lyrics: Andrew Bird
We often overlook how important poetry is in our society. Our identities are nearly unthinkable without the poetic, artful language that we share. We just don’t call it poetry. We call it slogans. We call it sayings. And above all, we call it lyrics. Take the pop violinist and singer Andrew Bird. Here is a …
Shopping alone when you are five
The world must be so exciting for her. I try to imagine how she experiences the shops, the distance to the riverside park or the large playground, the roads full of traffic, the market. Buying a snack in the corner store is something trivial for us, a relatively meaningless act we won’t remember. It’s no …
Reading: Light by Charles Simic
Fellow Dutch poet Willem Thies shared this short poem from the book “The lunatic” by Charles Simic on social media. I forward it here. The light Our thoughts like it quiet In this no-bird dawn, Like the way the early light Takes the world as it finds it And makes no comment About the apples …
Lyrics: Take me to church by Hozier
It took me a while before I realized the words of Hozier’s famous song Take me to church. Take me to church I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife Offer me that deathless death Good God, let me give you …
From the NY Times obituary for Tony Hoagland
An earlier version of this obituary misstated the name of Mr. Hoagland’s first poetry collection. It is “Sweet Ruin,” not “Sweet Rain.”
Lyrics: Adiós by Benjamin Clementine
Lest the trees cease breathing Lest the bees cease breeding And all the salts in the dead sea ferments to honey Until then, I will be forever Chasing, chasing, chasing it all till the very end The decision is mine Let the lesson be mine ‘Cause the vision is mine The decision is mine Let …
The Impossible Art of Instagram Poetry
Poetry adapts. It can permeate every medium, play with every medium, turn every medium into its proper form. There is no need for a theoretical underpinning. Poetry can. But poetry can not just “be”. It has to happen, too. All the efforts to put poetry on the street, among the ‘normal people’ hinge on what …
Trompsky #4
Welcome back professor Trompsky, how was your month, I think it has been a month since we have seen each other? – How was yours? [chuckles and murmurs] To be honest with you, sir, it has been terrible. I was terrified by all the suspicious packages addressed to the president’s opponents, the horrendous rhetoric of …
The Slackted Poetry of Martijn Benders
if all hope is abandoned and you lay awake watching the Contenders play tapes of some obscure rock band you’re welcome to enter and check out this slender, delicate verse with metaphors galore like a Roman brothel frothing incantations through the door Benders puts his fledgling words in a titanium blender and renders magic, genre-bending …
emotional song
“You are colonizing a place in my mind that i didn’t know existed before, so, can i call it home?”
Reading: River by Sharon Black
In the depths of the Internet I found a poetry competition called “Poetry on the lake” that published last year’s winning poems. I am impressed enough to read one here. River To enter naked is to feel no shock, no swift laceration – more a swallowing of the self, a softening of edges by metallic tang …
Nostalvember
Today I found this: Growl Now that I am lowered into my trench language I become an invocation. I am muscles and tendons, a pressurized blood machine, slowly releasing what was stored between the apostrophes, like a captured animal. I am a cormorant of the apocalypse, a confessing nihilist. Opinions grow on me like frozen …
Professor Trompsky #3
Professor Trompsky, welcome. I guess you are a regular on our show now. – Yes you could say that [chuckles] Just before this interview, you said you had a mediocre ephiphany. Care to elaborate? – Yes. Consider thissimple question. Would you increase your happiness at the cost of another’s happiness? I guess not. – But isn’t …
Reading: Paradoxes and Oxymorons by John Ashbery
John Ashbery (1927-2017) was, to many, one of the greatest modern American poets. Famous New York School poet. Pulitzer Prize. Look him up! I read a gentle poem called Paradoxes and Oxymorons: This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level. Look at it talking to you. You look out a window Or …
Reading: Beauty by Tony Hoagland
Saddened by the death of Tony Hoagland (1953 – 2018), the sharp and witty American poet, I read one of his poems today. Beauty When the medication she was taking caused tiny vessels in her face to break, leaving faint but permanent blue stitches in her cheeks, my sister said she knew she would never …
Beauty Flarf
Is Double Cleansing Really Necessary? Norwegian-born supermodel Frida Aasen has a special glow to her skin. I think we can all agree that the first jet lag mask from Summer Friday’s was not disappointing. We’re exposed to hundreds of thousands of bacteria every single day. Most of these 24 makeup mavens are bilingual. Facial hair …