"But I finished [Near and Mello] together as a set, and although they aren’t particularly laid out as such, I still feel a bit like they’re twins." —Obata Takeshi
whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same:
i. low sky, mahmoud darwish. ii. the world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire, ritika jyala. iii. kadan, 2008. iv. the dreamers, gilbert adair. v. @nathanielorion vi. nagiko, 2016. vii. elektra, sophokles (tr. anne carson). viii. wishbone, richard siken. ix. inbred, ethel cain. x. the boy who, tirol. xi. monster portraits, del samatar and sofia samatar. xii. in the field, @nathanielorion xiii. death note, "use" ch77. xiv. gut symmetries, jeanette winterson. xv. mystic union; fire and wine: poems, john gould fletcher. xvi. @inukai_0055, twitter. xvii. the carnivorous lamb, agustín gómez-arcos. xviii. my sister, the serial killer, oyinkan braithwaite. xix. the beatrice letters, lemony snicket (text); a quiet visitor, holly warburton (art); @unpardonablesins (edit). xx. ada, vladimir nabokov. xxi. this is how you lose the time war, amal el-mohtar. xxii. the borgias, s3e10, showtime. xxiii. @antaarf xxiv. @vilicity xxv. @boymiffy
wrapping up this year w another poetry rec list! this year i’ve leaned a lot more into actively reading and writing much more poetry and hope to be publishing a compilation of my work (hopefully!) this time next year as well :) once again, i’ve tried to link what i could back to original sources + authors but a few of these link to tumblr posts / screenshots. this one is MUCH longer so i’ve organized it into my fav 15 + the rest below the cut!
top fifteen:
desert hymns no.2 (@/prophetfromthecrypt)
despite my efforts even my prayers have turned into threats (kaveh akbar)
erishkigal specializes in butchery (joan tierney)
for the dogs who barked at me on the sidewalks in connecticut (hanif abdurraqib)
fricatives (eric yip)
hammond b3 organ cistern (gabrielle calvocoressi)
let your father die energy drink (daniel lavery)
morning prayer with rat king (kaveh akbar)
not even this (ocean vuong)
on coming back as a buzzard (lia purpura)
the swan (@/tinyghosthands)
sometimes i wish i felt the side effects (danez smith)
song of the insensible (andrew kozma)
space boy wearing skirt (lee jenny)
the stars are warm (chung ho-seung)
everyone else:
14 lines from love letters or suicide notes (doc luben)
blood makes the blade holy (evan knoll)
border patrol agent (eduardo c corral)
carpet bomb (kenyatta rogers)
death comes to me again, a girl (dorianne laux)
desert (john gould fletcher)
do you consider writing to be therapeutic? (andrew grace)
dust (dorianne laux)
first will and testament + missing persons (sam sax)
fish (richelle buccilli)
for the feral splendor that remains (caconrad)
glitter (keaton st james)
gravedigger (andrew thomas huang)
heart condition (jericho brown)
it is maybe time to admit that michael jordan definitely pushed off (hanif abdurraqib)
leaves (lloyd schwartz)
letter to s, hospital (emily skaja)
metaphors for my body on the examination table (torrin a greathouse)
miss you. would like to grab that chilled tofu we love (gabrielle calvocoressi)
my brother, asleep (steven espada dawson)
my brother out of rehab, points, (ron riekki)
my cat is sad (spencer madsen)
notes from jonah's lecture series (tanya olsen)
publick universal friend contends with orthgraphy & meditates in an emergency (day heisinger-nixon)
red stains (allen tate)
red shift (david baker)
salvage (hedgie choi)
shoulders (naomi shihab nye)
social skills training (solmaz sharif)
the 17-year-old & the gay bar (danez smith)
the desert dispels this hallowed ground of coarse insinuations (julia wong kcomt)
the twelfth day (rosanna warren)
two-mom energy drink (daniel lavery)
two poems (rachel nelson)
two times i loved you the most in a car (dorothea grossman)
un [naming] / trans (after golden) (angelic proof)
valentine for ernest mann (naomi shihab nye)
vi. wisdom: the voice of god (mary karr)
WAITING (keaton st james)
what mary magdalene said to the young transsexual (elle emerson)
Deleted insta, and sitting on the big delay of work.. while I'm at it, I should talk about my characters since all I've been doing here is sitting here and being the biggest pile of moss.
So I'm going to do a poll thing for what to reveal
Talk about my characters in Mafia (Mr. mockingbird, Tony Rissanta, Mr. F, John Doe, etc.)
Talk about my H&H characters (Chet Langley, Devon Gould ,Monty Spivak, Leeroy Haymes)
My little critters characters (Chris Green, Jeremy Green, Hudson Fletcher, Gus Fletcher)
Seven of Cups. Art by Isa Carlin, from The Careful Tarot.
As if the sun had trodden down the sky,
Until it no more holds air for us, but only humid vapor
— John Gould Fletcher, "Heat"
Funnily enough, the Seven of Cups was the first card I made for this deck. The Seven of Cups was the start of things because it was a complete fantasy. At that point, this deck was nothing real; it was a dream.
The Seven of Cups is about dreams that are nothing real. It is about fantasies that take us away from the material world. The Seven of Cups can urge us towards exciting new realities — just as the Seven of Cups urged me towards this deck. In most cases, though, the Seven of Cups serves to pull us away from reality.
This card could speak to a feeling of disconnection from the outside world or a recurring fantasy.
Like a gaunt, scraggly pine
Which lifts its head above the mournful sandhills;
And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence,
Untended and uncared for, starts to grow.
Ungainly, labouring, huge,
The wind of the north has twisted and gnarled its branches;
Yet in the heat of midsummer days, when thunderclouds ring the horizon,
A nation of men shall rest beneath its shade.
And it shall protect them all,
Hold everyone safe there, watching aloof in silence;
Until at last one mad stray bolt from the zenith
Shall strike it in an instant down to earth.
II
There was a darkness in this man; an immense and hollow darkness,
Of which we may not speak, nor share with him, nor enter;
A darkness through which strong roots stretched downwards into the earth
Towards old things:
Towards the herdman-kings who walked the earth and spoke with God,
Towards the wanderers who sought for they knew not what, and found their goal at last;
Towards the men who waited, only waited patiently when all seemed lost,
Many bitter winters of defeat;
Down to the granite of patience
These roots swept, knotted fibrous roots, prying, piercing, seeking,
And drew from the living rock and the living waters about it
The red sap to carry upwards to the sun.
Not proud, but humble,
Only to serve and pass on, to endure to the end through service;
For the ax is laid at the roots of the trees, and all that bring not forth good fruit
Shall be cut down on the day to come and cast into the fire.
III
There is a silence abroad in the land to-day,
And in the hearts of men, a deep and anxious silence;
And, because we are still at last, those bronze lips slowly open,
Those hollow and weary eyes take on a gleam of light.
Slowly a patient, firm-syllabled voice cuts through the endless silence
Like labouring oxen that drag a plow through the chaos of rude clay-fields:
“I went forward as the light goes forward in early spring,
But there were also many things which I left behind.
“Tombs that were quiet;
One, of a mother, whose brief light went out in the darkness,
One, of a loved one, the snow on whose grave is long falling,
One, only of a child, but it was mine.
“Have you forgot your graves? Go, question them in anguish,
Listen long to their unstirred lips. From your hostages to silence,
Learn there is no life without death, no dawn without sun-setting,
No victory but to him who has given all.”
IV
The clamour of cannon dies down, the furnace-mouth of the battle is silent.
The midwinter sun dips and descends, the earth takes on afresh its bright colours.
But he whom we mocked and obeyed not, he whom we scorned and mistrusted,
He has descended, like a god, to his rest.
Over the uproar of cities,
Over the million intricate threads of life wavering and crossing,
In the midst of problems we know not, tangling, perplexing, ensnaring,
Rises one white tomb alone.
Beam over it, stars,
Wrap it round, stripes—stripes red for the pain that he bore for you—
Enfold it forever, O flag, rent, soiled, but repaired through your anguish;
Long as you keep him there safe, the nations shall bow to your law.
Strew over him flowers:
Blue forget-me-nots from the north, and the bright pink arbutus
From the east, and from the west rich orange blossom,
And from the heart of the land take the passion-flower;
Rayed, violet, dim,
With the nails that pierced, the cross that he bore and the circlet,
And beside it there lay also one lonely snow-white magnolia,
Bitter for remembrance of the healing which has passed.
faithless, hopeless, loveless, we yet cry out to you though you deafen your ears for eternity, and will never make us an answer,
though we have nothing left but to cry out and to pass on into darkness,
because we are madmen mouthing before the eternal silence!
1. herakles, euripides
2. the triumph of time, charles algernon swinburne
3. amores iv, ee cummings
4. we should be well prepared, mary oliver
5. a tale of two cities, charles dickens
6. like the new moon, my mother drifts throught the night sky, charles wright
7. mystic union, john gould fletcher
8. the night circus, erin morgenstern
9. for island fires and family, dermot kennedy
10. detail of the woods, richard siken