Last Communion. - Joan Kwon Glass Here I am, kneeling again before a man who tells me I can be holy while insisting that nothing is permanent, not even my precious sins. I am washed in the blood, longing for something sacred, tongue hanging over my bottom lip like a dog. I like to read between the lines of obituaries, try to guess what their family members left out on purpose. You can tell a lot by what isn't there. For example, vague obit of healthy teenager: death by overdose, 50-year-old mom who was a brave warrior: breast cancer, 30-year-old male, donations to NAMI in lieu of flowers: suicide. My sister was an asshole, and now she's dead. Though her life ended at 37, I wrote her eulogy as though she died at age nine, because that was the last time she wasn't an asshole, and I wanted to say something true without pissing everyone off. Here's the thing-if all we have to do to erase our gravest mistakes is take communion or stop breathing one day, what is keeping us from making them all, from relishing each one, knowing in the end, they will not define us? When I die, please tell everyone the truth about me. That I walked around this place believing I was a little better than most. That twice I turned away from true love out of pride, revered books more than men. That I did, in fact, have a favorite child. While you're at it, reveal this truth about us all-that each of us has secrets we take to the grave, things we want to admit, but are certain no one wants to hear. Tell them that the very last time I ever took communion, I closed my lips around the priest's finger, let him feel my hot tongue against his skin. And he let me.

#poetry #writingcommunity
#nationalpoetrymonth #poem

Joan Kwon Glass absolutely stunning me with her bold writing.🫢

Im embarrassed to even know who Clavicular is

We're back to Upton Sinclair's "the Jungle"

The Internet's Most Powerful Archiving Tool Is in Peril As major news outlets cut off the Wayback Machine, journalists and advocacy groups are rallying to protect the Internet Archive’s vast collection of web pages.

Journalists know that losing the Wayback Machine would be a nightmare: www.wired.com/story/the-in...

Not to be a party pooper, but isn't the new Hungary guy still kinda pro-Russia? As far as I understand he still won't commit to any financial aid for Ukraine or van Russian gas

Hungary thing kinda feels good, however the new Hungary guy is just a smidge lefter than Urban, still wants to do talks with Russia, still wants Russian gas, still no financial support for Ukraine. But I guess its a step in the right direction let's hope..?

BOOGIE-WOOGIE You shout from the other room You ask me how to spell boogie-woogie And instantly I think what luck no war has been declared no fire has consumed our city's monuments our bodies our dwellings The river didn't flood no friends have been arrested It's only boogie-woogie I sigh relieved and say it's spelled just like it sounds boogie-woogie --Adam Zagajewski (1945-2021) (Translated, from the Polish, by Clare Cavanagh.)

Can't stop thinking about this Adam Zagajewski poem

Cyril Cox – "Late Afternoon Light" (2022)

A WHOLE CIVILIZATION WILL DIE TONIGHT My son needs lunch, and I have to put his backpack together, but a whole civilization will die tonight, so I'm wondering if they've closed their schools. Like, a snow day, maybe, except instead of snow it's "keep your children home so if you die, you die together" — instead of "well open back up once the plows have cleared" it's "we don't know if we'll be here tomorrow, hold your babies tight." It's just "talk" I'm told, which I've been told before. "It's how the president makes his deals." But I've never heard anyone talk about other human beings this way, and I'm not certain I can look my son in the eyes if we all agree to stomach it one more time. A civilization will die tonight, but as I zip up his backpack and kiss him off to school I think: if this is what we call leadership then I'm not entirely sure ours isn't already dead. @michaelfdubois Mukad A QuBoy @michacifdubois

Brutal.

Also "Network" (1976) basically lays out everything about our modern media hellscape, but reality is even dumber. Our TV prophets don't even speak the truth, they just spread hate, and we didn't get any cool pseudoCommunist shit on TV for trading our souls away for the spectacle.

I've been reading a lot about slavery (eh Beloved by Toni Morrison) and recently read Murderland by Caroline Fraser and tbh I'm starting to see the pattern and the lie of the US ever having been "good".Lincoln, Roosevelt and Carter were a step in the right direction.A step immediately reversed.

Spoiler alert: we’ve always been the bad guys

I don't even think it'll be "two weeks". With Trump everything is always "two weeks" and never actually two weeks

Who cares though, at least the fucker didn't drop a nuke

Well, it's just a matter of time till it's our time to die because 4chan became a thing, and then a cultural phenomenon that warped everyone's mind and grip on reality. Thanks for nothing edgelords, your stupid racist memes really were not worth it

Of The Empire We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness. - Mary Oliver

God this poem is haunting me again.

Aight folk what are we thinking, is this a "he's gonna drop a nuke" situation or just some good old fashioned carpet-bombing civilian infrastructure?

Jarek Puczel (Polish, b.1965)
"Where To Now," 2023
Oil on canvas
50 x 60 cm

#art #painting #artist #BlueSkyArt

This is a poem by Mary Oliver entitle "Don't Hesitate" in which she cautions people against resisting joy for fear of its loss, or for fear that something terrible is happening or is about to happen. If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

I confess that, at times, I resist joy for fear of its loss, or because something bad is happening or is about to happen. "Don't be afraid of its plenty" calls me in the opposite direction. I'm grateful.
#NationalPoetryMonth

How AI Hype Masks the Exploitation of African Workers AI is a consolidation of labor hierarchies, a plunder of African skills, and a commodification of African knowledge, write Marché Arends and Kathryn Cleary.

What is marketed as AI “innovation” is, in practice, a consolidation of global labor hierarchies and a commodification of African knowledge, write Marché Arends and Kathryn Cleary, drawing on their year-long investigation supported by the Pulitzer Center and published by Africa Uncensored.

I think if those meta-glasses and the like become a thing we should all just start wearing niqabs outside

I'm ready for woke 2 folks

Cover for my next monthly zine. Join my patreon zine tier for one shipped to you every month, until i die from exhaustion
www.patreon.com/c/MichaelKup...

Three panel comic. Panel 1: an emo kid is sitting at the table in a casual restaurant with his family, who seem chipper and normal. He is staring intensely at another table. Panel 2: an emo girl is also sitting at a different table with her family, and staring back. Panel 3: their thought bubble connects to a shared dream where they are two badass wolf people madly in love, riding a motorcycle at night.

At chili’s

The Knight of the Flowers, by Georges Rochegrosse (1894)

Sora being shut down is the glimmer of good news I needed to get through the day