Poem for Monday

Here, above,
cracks in the buildings are filled with battered moonlight.
The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.
It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on,
and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon.
He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties,
feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold,
of a temperature impossible to record in thermometers.

But when the Man-Moth
pays his rare, although occasional, visits to the surface,
the moon looks rather different to him. He emerges
from an opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks
and nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings.
He thinks the moon is a small hole at the top of the sky,
proving the sky quite useless for protection.
He trembles, but must investigate as high as he can climb

Excerpted from Man-Moth by Elizabeth Bishop

Dang

I just vaporized comments again. I need to figure out how to uninstall disqus.

Book: Monsters of Texas

You don't actually have to be a cryptozoologist to find monsters in Texas. It's chock full of them. Nevertheless, this looks like good fun.

Another Flashback: The Passions

Seems like there was also a soap opera by the same name.

On Vampires

The Vampire

You, who like a dagger ploughed
Into my heart with deadly thrill:
You who, stronger than a crowd
Of demons, mad, and dressed to kill,

Of my dejected soul have made
Your bed, your lodging, and domain:
To whom I'm linked (Unseemly jade!)
As is a convict to his chain,

Or as the gamester to his dice,
Or as the drunkard to his dram,
Or as the carrion to its lice —
I curse you. Would my curse could damn!

I have besought the sudden blade
To win for me my freedom back.
Perfidious poison I have prayed
To help my cowardice. Alack!

Both poison and the sword disdained
My cowardice, and seemed to say
"You are not fit to be unchained
From your damned servitude. Away,

You imbecile! since if from her empire
We were to liberate the slave,
You'd raise the carrion of your vampire,
By your own kisses, from the grave."

— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

We'll be celebrating National Vampire Awareness day in the Black Mansion today. Oh, look. Here comes one of the revelers in his finery. It should be a fine night for becoming aware of the vampires in our midst.

Hmmm.

"[B]odies are never event bound and event defined, but event defining -- and always at the point of becoming. This is a continual shudder across our work -- the body as an ever-receding event horizon. A hole in the fabric of the world, a non-alibi, a white hole."
-- Einstein's Brain Project

The method: used the same search terms on google and on YouTube. It hardly ever yields anything interesting.

Poem: Keeping Things Whole

BY MARK STRAND

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Kinky-- Mexican Radio

We encourage people in these parts to let your chickens do the driving. Kinky should be arriving soon for our twisted bash. As you can see they're on their way, la migra be damned. We can't start the jackalope round-up without them. After that we'll be basking in the Marfa lights, working on our phosphorescing tan. Glowing in the dark is all the rage this season, we've heard. We heard it from voices located in our heads, so it has to be true.

a tree falls

a tree fell in the woods.
y
ou
h
e
a
r
d it.

Silent Film: Le Diable Noir by Georges Melies (1905)

Demons, imps, or the Lord of Darkness Himself were recurring characters & even stars in the films of Georges Melies. Though approaching dark subjects, he had a light-hearted view of diabolism.

His earliest films were two or three minute jests with magical incidents, though occasionally he would achieve something "epic" exceeding ten minutes length. Given the brevity of the films it's surprising how complete & rich many of them are.

More here.

A Stinky Sock Spider Eating a Wingless Fly

Some of you may remember the wingless fly post, or not. Now, we have word that a certain African spider likes smelly socks, but here's the thing: Doesn't it kinda seem like the smelly sock spider is eating the wingless fly? That can't be good.

For Jay and Felix, Felix and Jay: Do Mind the Velvet Rope

Over here, in one of many alternate realities, we brave the harsh winds of the West Texas plains. The tumbleweeds are skittish right now and there's a strange constellation above. The heavens seem to have remade themselves, and yet, the litter remains. We're tending our rhizome and invite you in, though the path isn't exactly clear. It isn't from here, either. We've woven a tangled web and the practice is deception, but come on in. It's all fine. It's only imaginative, after all. We're experimenting in the wild coloring of prose and the surgical splicing of metaphors. Some might call it a nightmare, but be brave.

There's Only One Natural Lake in Texas

Night Swimming isn't like it was in the PNW. We don't think about that any more. You can't hold it in your mind if you wish to continue a West Texas existence. You'd evaporate.

If You Had No Memories, How Would You Understand What You've Become?

A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight by James Joyce
They mouth love's language. Gnash
The thirteen teeth
Your lean jaws grin with. Lash
Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh.
Love's breath in you is stale, worded or sung,
As sour as cat's breath,
Harsh of tongue.

This grey that stares
Lies not, stark skin and bone.
Leave greasy lips their kissing. None
Will choose her what you see to mouth upon.
Dire hunger holds his hour.
Pluck forth your heart, saltblood, a fruit of tears.
Pluck and devour!
.

Your heart, a fruit of tears. The question remains. My memories have legs tonight. They'll ramble in the chaparral, chasing tornadoes. When they wander afield like this we call them ghosts. Those apparitions are dangerous if confronted.

National Existential Ennui Awareness Day- Is it Possible to Know When it Really is?

There is a National Existential Ennui Awareness Day, but if one searches it one finds as many different dates for it as there are posts about it. It's a very ambiguous holiday, so in the spirit of the holiday, we'd like to propose today, February 14th, as our own National Existential Ennui Awareness Day, and partake in all of the games and revelry that are associated with it. We'll compose some horrid poetry, have a sighing contest, and host a staring out the window invitational, then we'll list a host of vague complaints.

Poe Poem With an Acrostic-- Can You Find it?

A Valentine

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,

    Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,

  Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies

    Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.

  Search narrowly the lines!- they hold a treasure

    Divine- a talisman- an amulet

  That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-

    The words- the syllables! Do not forget

  The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor

    And yet there is in this no Gordian knot

  Which one might not undo without a sabre,

    If one could merely comprehend the plot.

  Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering

    Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus

  Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing

    Of poets, by poets- as the name is a poet's, too,

  Its letters, although naturally lying

    Like the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-

  Still form a synonym for Truth- Cease trying!

    You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

New Dance for Lulu

Lulu's been working on her dance skills of late, and we're here to offer inspiration.

The Residents- One Minute Movies

We're Outta Here- Road Trip Anyone?

With West Texas experiencing a hexified bit of weather and more on the way we're thinking of taking a little road trip to warmer climes. Oregon has been quite nice lately, we hear. The Wicked Witch of West Texas has yet to claim credit for the scourgification of the weather, but we're pretty sure there are no coincidences and she left these parts last week. Look out you denizens of Walla Walla and Western Washington. She may be turning up in the most unusual places.

DaDaDa

My eighties are showing again.

Catatumbo Lightning

According to Wikipedia:

The Catatumbo lightning usually develops between the coordinates 8 ° 30 'and 9 º 45' north latitude and 71 º and 73 º W.
The storms (and associated lightning) are likely the result of the winds blowing across the Maracaibo Lake and surrounding swampy plains. These air masses inevitably meet the high mountain ridges of the Andes, the Perijá Mountains (3,750m), and Mérida's Cordillera, enclosing the plain from three sides. The heat and moisture collected across the plains creates electrical charges and, as the air masses are destabilized at the mountain ridges, resulting in almost continual thunderstorm activity[5].
The phenomenon is characterized by almost continuous lightning, mostly within the clouds, which is produced in a large vertical development of clouds that form large electric arcs between 2 and 10 km in height (or more). The lightning tends to start approximately one hour after dusk.
Among the major modern studies there is the one done by Melchor Centeno, who attributes the origin of the thunderstorms to closed wind circulation in the region.
Between 1966 and 1970 the scientist Andrew Zavrostky with assistance from the University of Los Andes made three expeditions which concluded that the area would have several epicentres in the marshes of the Swamp National Park Juan Manuel de Aguas, Claras Aguas Negras and west Lake Maracaibo, and in 1991 he suggested that the phenomenon occurred due to cold and warm air currents meeting around the area. The study also speculated that an isolated cause for the lightning might be the presence of uranium in the bedrock.

America is Number 20 on Fatness Scale? When Did This Happen?

We've lost it, folks. The fatness race, that is. We aren't the skinniest either. No exceptionalism in sight. Just a dull and unimpressive number 20. We're bested by the likes of Nauru. I know Y'all are chanting "we're number one," and all, but check this out:

For those who like to be number 1, remember that the United States still has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and homicide among industrialized nations. No one should be touching that record anytime soon. Go USA!

Leonard Nimoy SINGS the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins???

Yes, folks, just when you think you've seen it all, this comes along, and the great thing is that once you've seen it you can't unsee it. You're toast. Yet the central question remains: why?

The Exploding Whale Incident: Oregon History Lesson

In 1970 a 40 foot dead whale washed up on the beach near Florence. The Oregon Highway Division was tasked with getting rid of the enormous stinking thing. What ensued was deliciously, horridly absurd. They decided 20 cases of dynamite was the way to go. Rotting whale blubber rained down as far as 1/4 of a mile away. The best part: it's on YouTube.

for Maria

Bearing the Light - Poem for Sunday

Rain-diamonds, this winter morning, embellish the tangle of unpruned pear-tree twigs; each solitaire, placed, it appearrs, with considered judgement, bears the light beneath the rifted clouds -- the indivisible shared out in endless abundance.

Denise Levertov

Behold the Mighty Tree Octopus

It seems there has been some confusion as to the existence of the magnificent critter living in the forests of the Pacific Northwest-- that's right, we're talking about the ever elusive tree octopus. From the website devoted to them:

he Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopuses are amphibious, spending only their early life and the period of their mating season in their ancestral aquatic environment. Because of the moistness of the rainforests and specialized skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming desiccated for prolonged periods of time, but given the chance they would prefer resting in pooled water.

An intelligent and inquisitive being (it has the largest brain-to-body ratio for any mollusk), the tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. Adaptations its ancestors originally evolved in the three dimensional environment of the sea have been put to good use in the spatially complex maze of the coniferous Olympic rainforests. The challenges and richness of this environment (and the intimate way in which it interacts with it,) may account for the tree octopus's advanced behavioral development. (Some evolutionary theorists suppose that "arboreal adaptation" is what laid the groundwork in primates for the evolution of the human mind.)

Now some people are going so far as to say that the regal tree octopus doesn't exist. Well, we can tell you categorically that it does. The species actually had its genesis when a certain annoying classmate of the Wicked Witch of West Texas, formerly known as the Wicked Witch of Western Washington, and before that as the Wicked Witch of Walla Walla, did one too many underarm farts in Spanish class.

The other thing this study highlights is the importance of lying to kids constantly. We've actually studied the effects of constant tall tales on the child brain and found that the more kids are fibbed to the more they learn to question EVERYTHING. True, they eventually won't believe you when you tell them real, and even extremely mundane, facts until they check several sources, but then, isn't that sort of a good thing?

Ring the Bells

David Bowie-- Let's Dance, Exotica

Tomorrow at midnight: a serious moonlight fandango in the Black Mansion. West Texas will be alight with mystery luminescence. Bring your chupa repellant and wear your weirdest finery and whatever you do, don't be late. If you say run, I'll run with you.

Flying at Night - a Poem for Teusday

Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like
his.

Ted Kooser