Ghost Loops [bio-generated poem]

 Ghost Loops

Drag your chin up off the ground

These collected shadows

Eat remorse

Pick the bones clean

Take liberties with angels

Who sacrifice their immortality

For a moment of earthly pleasure

Here, they wander

Back and forth

Between one state and another

Listless in their meandering

Plucking roses from their wrists

Searching for a place to slumber

The Queen of Shovels

Shows them cruel mercy

Their desire brings them

To a place saturated in nostalgia

A place ruined by knowledge

A place where sacred names

Dance battle against

Profane objects

Even people fall here

In among the specters

Chasing their shadows

As the Goddess of Ropes

Lays her claim on their throats

Confessions of a Darwinist

 Logic generated confessions, the distractions of a narcissist. Naturally prone to play their war against the cause that causes logic generated confessions. The instructions of a Darwinist who naturally selects the play of war against the cause of causes. Logic generates instructions. The case of play that causes logic to generate this confession. The Darwinist refuses to believe the sad monkey eats his young. Yellow death plays games with signs. Binding morning to the Darwinist who refuses to believe in games that play themselves. 

Our shadows cancel moonlight

We believe to protect ourselves 

From the allegories of caves

We shelter where we please

We eat cake

And whistle

Hymns

To a paper moon

(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)(@)

I used "the tolkacz bias" to generate ngrams and fiddled with the text to create this poem. The tolkacz bias is the saved ngram data of my own work. I've been doing more dada-esque work recently and this poem reflects a complete indifference to meaning.

Singapore Bots

rephrase your death 

to quibble the olive

has still allowed

the actual fact 

only his life 

without fluctuation is adequate 

thinkers trip more interestingly when they self divide 

ourselves if nothing is left 

the tinman patents patients 

Language as a lost odyssey 

It operates by Zaid 

some deity constructing books 

formd of consciousness 

to unite in segmentation 

desire the makeshift bloodshaft for boundless imagination 

 spherical , i pray in producing : i play indefinitely divided

psychologically mature order than rain upon Moab 

 essential philosopher on top end 

has given the original pleasure ideology 

The American pleasure ideology

The ideology of pleasurable beliefs

For mutual punishment

[-/0\-][-/0\-][-/0\-][-/0\-][-/0\-][-/0\-]

Ngram poem using tolkacz bias. This is a nonsense poem based on the reality that my largest source of traffic is bots from Singapore. "Nothing says hot like these bots out of Singapore."

Bind the stiff cap

 bind the stiff cap, jeeringly replied the axes. in amazement. that led away, divided, it moved to whelp the innermost door open. ever injured eyes. yet prospering from rapid steps of peril. 

the wind says: take up with leaves. they look for shelter. get ahold of water within a slender thread. to bring you here. amid the ruins of a window blinking under. the quiet contemplation of the name of him that bore from hoping losses. contriving to check the snare. praying to the bait of one who lost their love in shrinking fires. dusting ash along the horizon. and the supreme innocence of an inner sense of indemnity.

(0o0)(0o0)(0o0)(0o0)(0o0)(0o0)

Corpuses = Aesop's Fables + Uncanny Stories (Yodabund bias)

Stillwater [just a regular bio-generated poem]

[Stillwater]

Too many times

Have I offered a passing lie

To the one who hears my breath

To the one who hears my sigh

Too many times

Have I offered my breath in vain

To disturb the inner workings

Of a placid stillwater shame

Stillwater is poison, then

Stillwater is poison, now

Stillwater shame

Drinking the poison

To cure the stillwater

Of its shame

Tricks of Shadow [Spoken Word]

 

I am here sometimes

Where Light plays games

In tricks and shadows

Darkness bleeds 

And the wind carries whispers

And the signs point at me

And these eyes know who I am

And they say:

You are death inside

Pure ice

Your words 

turn the flame of a candle

Into stone

You stun and shock and harry

You ruin with your eyes

Your every move

Is a settled debt

And here I am

The specter of a man

Born posthumously

In this space

I am

Self and other

Other to myself

And to look up

I must stare into puddles

I must rise by sinking

Deeper into the mud

I was here once

I remember it well

The confusion of 

That negative place

Where stations leave trains

And veins flow through blood

I am perilously close to playing

Coin logick against knot magick

Panic hacking the retina of your mind’s eye

The way you rise

The way you lie sideways

And smile with all teeth

Showing sparkly clean 

And clearly I am now

One with yesterday’s rain

A mud puddle of laughing gas

Smiling back at me

Theatrically

It whispers

“You are nowhere”

It whispers

“You are now here”.

The Forgery of the Wishing Well [Spoken Word]

The eyes are more powerful than the brain

And drive knives into the heart of him

Who had been turned into a moribund toy

By the alienating rapture of a ghost

He loved but never knew

How many men died in her eyes?

Where beauty itself drowned

Nibbling in tortured positions

At mechanical dolls

Sewn hair into stitched skin

Like his own fantasies

Were like a pile of cocaine

Bathing her face in mysterious shadows

As his own went numb

And his pupils dilated

And the Kingdom of Shades

Framed emotionless figurines

Staring at the stars 

For the promised land

Of storybooks

Whispers split the bloodstream

Of passions too subtle to be touched

Signs organize around a watched clock

And hopes make lace from 

A forgery of the wishing well

The way death haunts ghosts

And ghosts haunt life

She haunted his sleep

Made him reap his stitches

Sew his speech

With manipulation

To draw her back into his web

Of shame and pain

Where no one could live but him

This was his new dream

A dream peeled from a nightmare

A nightmare peeled from a hollow fear

That all alone he would endure this place

Without her and his image of her

She was his forgery now

An image he’d projected

From spit and dirt

And a feeling he needed to keep

And be rid of at the same time

<#><#><#><#><#><#><#>

This poem was adapted from a poem I wrote on BaseInfinity for the purpose of being performed at spoken word events.

[Knowledge/Belief] NGram Poem

 1.

criterion of civilization. beatitudes disclaim all other formulae. Epicurus had planted the canonization of weakness. What concerns _me_ is above the necessary -- whether to carrot sticks on the verge of temptation for a new feudalism or upright judge draws this mask across eternity. 

Since sickness values the law, we charge a falsehood as unbearable _anguish_. I add punishment to reduce being to sickly gods. 

_What_ is called 

 occasionally _faith_ 

is among the antecedents of belief 

is taste.

2. 

a criterion for beatitudes is suffering. civilization disclaims all other formulae. the Stoics demanded this of us, making pain subjective. what concerns me is beyond mandatory -- compulsion drives 97% of what makes us human. the rest demands a plan. and as we tie ourselves to the land, a mask crosses our face, and we are pressed into place nested deep within. it feels eternal.

_What_ is called

occasionally _knowledge_

is among the precursors of delusion

is [hope/fear]

[----------------------------------------------]

Bias = The Antichrist by Friedrich Nieztche

The Properties of God [Spoken Word]

 property alone is a cruel formula 

It makes a goat-shaped demon hump your wife

Property in conflict 

God in eyes in pyramids in circles in rectangles

In hands

Only one way out and that’s down

The food chain

Beneath the insects

After all, our cycles are connected

Shit, that wasn’t God

That was just surveillance

I keep forgetting God is a metonym

A name capable of being replaced

With anything

But when I say God, please be advised

I mean time.

Each person bred into the conflict 

Becomes exhausted by the weight

Of their ascent

It’s like you’re being torn in half

Sectioned like dissection

Compartmentalized and martyrmade

Into sockets of shame

Like some leeching lord

Sucking prayers from primed necks

Sectioned at your beck and call

I am so sick of every moment 

Of fear I’ve surrendered to this place

That eats good people a little at a time

Until they’re so brutalized and bitter

They can only think of themselves

One step ahead

Of their next move

Feels like they’re a piece

On a board

Not even a player

Not even a game

When your life is on the line

It makes you bitter

When the house’s money

Is a mortgage and the major payoff

Is avoiding a landlord

You’re still renting

That house will outlive you

Everything you own will outlive you

Even after it’s thrown away

[(o)][(o)][(o)][(o)][(o)][(o)][(o)][(o)][(o)]

I need more stuff to read in spoken word events and find a lot of my writing doesn't translate well. So, I tried some spoken word writing and thought I'd post it here. Then, I can click on my blog to access the writing and read it at an event from my phone. American Pragmatics!

Fascist Nostalgia and the Grief of the Future

 

Fascist Nostalgia

There is a way of looking backward that has its roots in some of the ugliest and worst-intentioned impulses borne of human psychology. Umberto Eco, in his essay, Ur Fascism outlines 14 salient indicators of fascism and at least two of these are built on a sort of fascist nostalgia that attempts to undermine a potential future. So, we’re looking back as a means of derailing a future. The question then becomes, how do we do that? One of the most effective ways of accomplishing this is through the use of moral panic.

Moral panic has been used throughout history as a way of creating a separation between one group of people and another. Its history dates back millennia and the first known victims of moral panic were Christians under Nero’s Rome who were blamed for a great fire. Nero was successfully able to dehumanize the Christian population as grounds for aggression and oppression. Once Christianity rose to power (it is unlikely that the individuals changed places, only the religion) the tactic was used against the Gnostics first, then the Jews, and most recently, the transgender population. In one lone instance, moral panic has been used against a non-human. That would be the moral panic created by AI.

When I say that the anti-AI crowd employed the rhetoric of fascism to derail recent advances in generative AI, I mean that literally. The rhetoric went far enough that it began invoking fears over pedophilia and the potential for AI to be used by pedophiles as a sort of cybersex. As if pedophiles could not use writing already to accomplish this. Ultimately, the entire case against AI appealed to a past that never existed, relationships that were already strained under capitalism, and a sense of algia for a time when things were better. 

In other words, we’re looking at a social panic borne of a grieving process. 

One standard to rule them all and in the darkness bind them

There is an impulse to control within the broader spectrum of society by establishing a single standard against which all people are judged. Any deviation from this standard results in social control mechanisms being activated. For example, the Church had us living under a paradigm of sexual self-disgust and mistrust for millennia. We now realize that we do not need religion to feel this way, and this has largely liberated us from the One-Standard of sex for procreation only. This is just one example because we did the same with religion, politics, standards of masculinity, and standards of femininity.

And so, any non-conforming individual would be compared against this standard, and from there, two possibilities emerge. Their non-conformity will either be negatively reinforced (as in, provided no or less benefit) or punished (society will actively work against their non-conformity). In an extremely limited number of instances, their non-conforming status will work to their benefit. 

Before we make this purely about identity, let us move elsewhere to an even more abstract concept, the status quo. The reactionary impulse to preserve the status quo is also rooted in fascist nostalgia. In fact, the concept I have built is reducible to the reactionary impulse to preserve the status quo. The playbook that unfolds from this impulse is predictable. I find it less true to say that fascism itself is an ideology (though Nazism may be). I find it more likely that fascism is the result of a reactionary grieving process that occurs during periods of overwhelming uncertainty and fear.

A personal aside

Oh, I know this feeling well. Maybe not in a political arena. I compartmentalize well. But in my personal life, longing for a dead past has deadened my soul. No one is immune from fascist nostalgia. It’s the pull of grief into a Nieztchean abyss that not only stares back into you, but knows your next ten moves.

How to Make a Martyr

Translations of May 8th

filter into place

When satisfactions become silence

When patterns emerge from sludge

I am when the image became an impulse

a rising age from a laughing stream

mirroring the satellites of the pointer


This lamentation is a lie.

All lamentations are lies.

All lamentations have eyes.

Seeking out their g0d.

Seeking, in desperation, some sign

this lamentation will end,

searching for a new savior

to make a martyr of.

:(0)::(0)::(0)::(0)::(0)::(0)::(0):

This poem was biogenerated on May 8th, 2023.

The Soul-Destroying Poetry of Cassidy Stumler

On May 8th 1996, Cassidy Stumler performed her poetry for the last time. It was on a pre-fabulated stage that she give her last reading of her final book, The Effigy, which directly addressed her feelings after a terrible car accident with a drunk driver left her deformed and disabled. She was no longer able to walk and it took considerable effort for her to speak. But after several years of rehab she managed to eek out a passingly articulate voice.


She had arranged the stage so that all of the onlookers could look down on her while she occupied the center of the room. She would situate herself on a rotating platform so the entire audience could see her face which had been badly burned when her Tesla exploded in flame during the accident. Unable to walk and in a wheelchair, Stumler looked crumpled like a dying ant. Her lips did not move as she recited her poems and neither did she. From the audience's perspective, the poem could have been delivered by a corpse.


Members audience said that the effect of her disfigured face with the Artaud-like arrangement of the stage, and the profoundly disturbing text of The Effigy itself was so unnerving that some people started shaking and had to leave, others fainted, and within a month of the performance, three of the onlookers had taken their own life.


One of those onlookers was a 16-year-old girl who was attending the event for school extra credit and she was interested in poetry. Herself an aspiring writer, her parents reported her personality had changed significantly after listening to Stumler’s performance. "She never looked or sounded happy again," they told the press.


Her parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Stumler who recovered millions from her own lawsuit against Tesla. Stumler would never respond publicly to any accusation. But she pulled the publication of The Effigy after she learned of the girl’s death. Her parents would see the lawsuit against Stumler dismissed for failure to state an actionable theory of liability against the poet. Most of those who do discuss Stumler's work are interested in whether or not its possible for a reading of poetry to provoke that kind of response, but Stumler poured all of her rage and sorrow over the car accident into those poems. It was deeply moving for the audience, but in a profoundly destructive way. Some had accused Stumler of "distilling her language to the point of lethality." And creating a "perfect storm" that triggered at-risk people to make the ultimate choice. 


Today, a mere 200 copies of The Effigy remain in circulation. However, copies of the book remain available on some sites that celebrate the work of Cassidy Stumler or are drawn the macabre event surrounding the performance of her work. Stumler herself retired from public life and now runs a cat rescue in Buffalo, NY. The following is the titular poem from The Effigy.

“The Effigy” by Cassidy Stumler


miscalculation_ -- Jesus himself yielded to expand

destined to Power


grateful for his opponents

three days of pain is bliss

happiness is evil

robbing God of his left hand


The world is a cage

able to write its own ending

used to purging itself

of vermin


the Lord was a fantasy of men

scarcely understandable to anyone

But needful in a child's way

The way adults knead children into shapes

That mimic their dreams


This is a cold place

but it leads to flames

enveloping like an old witch

with perfect tits

sewing discord with a smile

<{+}><{+}><{+}><{+}><{+}><{+}><{+}><{+}>

I used single-choice word generation from the latest version of N=G=R=A=M=S. The bias was Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzche.

[Living Out of a Motel Room Fucking Blows]

This motel room

Is really a waystation

A place between places

Where nothing happens

Where everyone else is just passing through.

And it’s easier to smile at them, even with full eyes.

Because you know that they’re like you.

In between places.

Waiting.

In stasis.

It’s easy to get lost in a place so small.

Because deep within you there exists a need.

To pop out of this box.

Or be trapped in a cubist hell.

Monochrome. Flattened.

An arrhythmia spiking in a panic against a flatline.

The anxiety of not being quite alive.

You see, the space only has two places to sit.

You’ve got the bed and the desk. 

You have to vacillate to maintain the sane.

But going back and forth is always hypnotic.

And now you’re caught in a pinging

That feeds back in a loop.

Yeah, I now understand what it means

To be driven up a wall.