EpigraMarch is a (yearly?) poetry challenge à la Inktober, started by me to replace what poet Savannah Brown used to call Escapril. It consists of a list of prompts, one for each day in March, for which a poem will have to be written. Prompts are revealed one at a time on the day on which they are due. Post your submissions anywhere under the epigramarch tag to encourage participation and message me at telomagnetics@protonmail.com if you want a link to your submissions on this site.
Some last dew on the grass by the mailbox A last chill in the bricks as they chip, in the face of a man on the bench near my house who won't greet as he chews on his lip. Hear the sound of a tram reaching Ostplatz pitching down as it's passing away and a lady in blue on the platform across puffs a smoke signal — reach whom it may. There are kids in a fight over nothing and a student who furrows his brow at a meaningless headline of utmost importance not sensing the here in this now. I don't know if just one of them saw it: There's a bird lying dead at my feet. Had it chosen this city just like me? Had it known every shop on the street? Has it glanced even once through my window? Is it last but not first that we meet? I pronounce this coordinate holy on a curb in a town in a state in a country a world and a cosmos in a here holding space as I wait
Come hell or high water As children not knowing the burn of the salt in our lungs nowadays And so easy to say on the hill in the shallows: Come hell or high water we'll weather the blaze What a fool! Oh the hubris to threaten from weakness Come hell or high water Some words in a soul in a gem in a seed that has foolishly grown us as naught but the maxim Limbs nailed to the goal So come hell or high water No peace, no surrender We drew all our lines and you glibly walked past So beware of our hubris We'll trudge through the embers Committed to goodness We'll cling to the mast
Not made for thought, much less for cunning Flashing signal, frantic noise So not much fanfare unbecoming Enter: Creature, stripped of poise Outside: A darkness, slowly waning Breaking bottlenecks at dawn Inside: A dim familiar quiet Eyelids bracing. Stifled yawn. Then finding switch and almost footing "Fucking Lucifer you prick" groan they, who named their glass-cased lighting robbing Zeus his only trick And flick'ring glow in untold windows Mankind rise at time's behest Though this one fading just as quickly finding gentle, ill-timed rest
Take a risk! Take a leap! Turn a chip into ten! Here's a precipice, jump when you're told! Dare it once, dare it twice, for whoever needs legs? and for fortune still favours the bold! "Survivor selection", "anthropics has victims", but I've never seen them, have you? So go on! You are winning the race and the raffle! With all of those boons, you'll pull through! One more throw! One more jump! One more unsteady landing! You sure you can't buffer the cost? And if not: someone else can take all and leave nothing. Just jump or you're already lost! Never mind. One more corpse. Kick it under the awning of losers not heard and not seen. Oh but you! Over there! Want to win what you can? Screw the median, look at the mean!
Off-axis, rolling, spinning top up-downish, coming left for air explosion looking like a flare but never heeded. Eardurms pop Do mind that sickness on the floor and read what used to be the walls: some sage advice where madness calls that Hopper did forget the door Now Sgr A*'s in retrograde Below: The earth in vertigo I hope you did enjoy the show since this is how the string gets made ...or just the noise, that constant drone Accreted matter losing grip for who —at this point— steers the ship in circles down the time-like cone What would it even mean to stop? For orbit's upside after all is missing pavement as you fall a rolling, flailing, spinning top
To whom it still might not concern: Dear sir, we're sinking fast In coffin, landfill, sea or urn you won't be going last Dear sir, the market's bullish now and charging for the red A whirling fabric hiding how the fish is laced with lead Your brain is full of plastic dust, the web is full of slop and though you weathered boom and bust you're not quite near the top AI will take that job you hate A plague will lock you in The strongmen take another state Your toaster needs a PIN Dear sir, you are not winning here you just aren't losing yet You sensed your neighbour's mounting fear the last time that you met Your kids will never see the snow they have no space but home and everyone you used to know got swallowed by their phone Your father now fears "jewish plots" Dear sir, you're not insane You simply missed the warning shots of Goebbels' ad-campaign One day Sam Altman kills us all I'll count you down from five While daytime news shows glossy gore and barbarism live Dear sir, you've got a choice to make I hope you choose the light The ground's been fake for quite a while and rome is burning bright
Since yesterday's un-fateful rainy morning there comes a smell of rose from down below Here perch upon a fallen, rusted lamppost a murder of eight pigeons and a crow They watch over the long-forgotten buried I smell it from each hill and every cave I could not pay attention in my vigil to any of those sermons that you gave You think that this here quest of ours is holy but dust these days is holier than thou and anything that rises from these ashes would still have to contend with what is now I thought I'd seen a temple in the distance Some weeks ago, and no, it wasn't real I've drawn it in the sand and on my retinas to lick upon a wound that will not heal Come stop to smell these ever-present roses For every spot is sacred in this way Some trillion lives were lost upon the planet So smell the myroblysia where they lay It's better in some ways and worse in others I've smelled the acrid dust and burning hair On molten sand ring few remaining footsteps and all of what is left rests in our care
I will win both despite and to spite you I will win at significant cost I've been used and degraded and lied to I won't rest 'till my ts are all crossed I have gladly forgiven offences and have rarely regretted the day I have lowered 'round those my defenses who were safe to return to the fray Though I will not extend you that kindness It's exploited where you are around I do strive to be good but not mindless There'll be kindness on salted fresh ground This will hurt me in every direction though I pray it will hurt you far more Or more truly I hope on reflection you'd have thought of the fallout before and that no one like you should be tempted at the cost of a winner-less war
"Make it rain..." said the man to a rock in his palm "...from the waters above as below Make a tiny, immaculate crack in the sky as I throw you I won't take a no as an answer or plea let alone explanation I promised for weeks it was near I have long lost my pride or what little I had For an off-ramp: take all I hold dear Do not make me, through failure, a liar or fraud Just this once —God oh please— make it rain Bring reprieve to this sand as you open the gates now that all of our off'rings are slain As you fly, little stone, break the heavens apart Drain through fissures the water up high So that all of the words that I spoke in these days end up more than an optimist's lie"
First a line then another First a word then its twin First a shape then a movement Those who sink might yet swim Here's to failure! Trust the process Getting closer move by move and getting stronger Glacial progress Soon this too you'll disapprove A line, a sketch at last a painting Words to page and then a book For now a wretch but always gaining Work, not age is all it took
Spinning spinning spinning Worlds, some moons, a star Some rocks, then almost nothing Not here, not then, not far So deep beyond the quiet a wayward signal drifts and promises to nothing some billion gleaming gifts Now roused from endless slumber no terminus or birth unfolds the void its reaches to spinning, screaming earth and pins it to the heavens like moths upon the cork Pulls clockwork into stasis The wheels now robbed of torque In outer darkness turning not here not then not far at last is almost nothing some rocks, a frozen star
The limbs are standing in front of the sink again not blinking and the clock makes a sound of time passing in the distance and the wall still being somewhere Water spirals. The faucet produces white-noise and the mind does not remember why-ever it put limbs there in the first place Coffee? Too late Dishes? No dishes Round and round and gone It's a good sink It's good water They're even fairly well-made limbs on the best of days While the mind is good for barely more than cooling blood Is the sink to cool our blood? Dumb thought. Blood's fine. Though other folks keep praising the mind how it gets where and why at what speed circuitously from something-or-other which is useful and weird and makes us feel like their standards are low underground asking for nothing and getting yet less But at least we'll get to keep having sinks for a while if we keep impressing the jury
Always the weight of a knife in my pocket Always the steel of a blade Always in case of unfortunate outcomes Always a threat not yet made No need to outrun the bear says von Neumann Merely the guy to your right No-one will fight you at risk of some fingers When easier prey is in sight "Kind of intense" claims a friend after silence "You sure you will die on this hill?" But bounded and squishy un-safeguarded agents are so very easy to kill Always some teeth to be flashed under pressure Walk softly and carry a knife Plan for the worst of all worlds and their fallout And never be chill in your life
In ignorance heaving In atoms yet bound Not thrilled at the prospect Not lost yet Nor found Yet missing in action No light in the dark So far 'till the morning In warning: A spark Alight to the fuel Trapped so deep near the core Unmoored and un-chosen Not frozen No more A will in this moment tries not to forget Not safe and not sacred Not sated Not yet
From Bibi comes another strike —still falling is the dow— on healthcare staff in Lebanon twelve dead, at least, for now Maybe France could aid the war or China in a pinch says Trump, pushing the envelope of process inch by inch From Strasbourg now: the EVP conspiring once again with fascists, trading dignity and sense for short-term gain Schulze asks for cheaper fuel to not annoy the base What excellent priorities in dim and dying days On Wednesday at Augustusplatz —one might as well take part— a march against the BKM's attack on books and art Then weather and some sporting news From tragic to mundane No F1 race on Saudi soil Tomorrow likely rain
Some cats and a pigeon two foxes, a crow a meaningless street-sign erected for show The humans don't rule here they govern, they plan and trouble their minds where the trouble began The city's made of them not by them, not with so led like the rock-doves away from the cliff The trash is for rodents, the streetlamps for birds the cafes for mankind to practice their words The beasts and the bobs on their myriad feet make messy the polis and lively the street
Rods that hold me, rods that catch me, bones we keep outside Clocks and shocks, rewards on sticks: A dam against the tide Disc-drives store our thoughts in numbers, losslessly intact A web to access centuries of niche and hard-won fact Polished glass to see the world in more than blurry shapes And fabric not for warmth but for how elegant it drapes For warmth: A whole mycelium of pipes that stretch through brick And pills in easy reach for when you're stressed or bored or sick I fear I wouldn't make it long out on the dusty plain I'd starve, get killed or fall apart but firstly go insane So bless the scaffold stretching me so far beyond my flesh A soul diffused through systems that escaped into the mesh
Friends, a cheer! Then a cry. But a cheer nonetheless To the fallen and falling, un-made in the mess And a cheer, though you'll hate it beyond the champagne To the fact you'll get up and you'll do it again Oh yes yes, you are broken —were broken before— and much more broken now than the first time you swore That you'd save us, be gentle, be kind and be good and if we could release you, we certainly would but we can't, for however past over it feels You will get up again once a single bone heals Or before, as we all, as the moment will pass To the never quite fallen! Get up, raise a glass!
In a cosmos, a state and a town rests a creature A mind in some meat in a box in a building with rooms within flats within floors and displayed behind glass throwing rocks In a kingdom, a phylum, a class and an order though order depends on the day In a box on a box with a box in a box that a greater hand shuffles in play So why open those boxes we brought on the move when the flat is a box of the same? But why roam far all when the cosmos is too but a box by a lovelier name?
For a moment —just a moment— in the quiet no one moved in the brightness —frozen solid— just a moment never more hold it gently, feel it breathing, feel the static fade away feel it floating in the distance feel a tether losing hold drifting further, sinking deeper, no one's moving no one's here no one's looking. no one's shouting no one's chewing all is still little creatures lacking texture in the quiet in the void all means nothing. shifting patterns. "are you listening?" no one's home
Hope's the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all Though mine is not like Emily's It asks for trust and nerve For crumbs and deeds and all I have though less than it deserves Since hope's a thing with feathers no less a thing with claws and we a mass of restless limbs to aid a wordless cause I've heard it over desperate cries I've seen it nearly slain yet never in extremity it failed to rise again For hope's a gleaming phoenix undying on this hill: that past each last-ditch failed attempt there are more ditches still. It's weak compared to action, less nourishing than bread But stalwart hope will sing its song Where all the rest have fled Yes, hope's a thing in exile we shelter if we dare That will not cease to ask of us 'till it may perch out there
Form follows function and function demand so all follow freely the market's command Demand tracks exposure exposure tracks clout Do please get in line to buy in or sell out Make what they want Make them want what you sell And form follows function to function in hell A from follows silent each norm and cliché fulfils a desire why else would they pay?
You say it's all over that no one is trying Well what is all this then, you prick? Making those give up hope who were not quite yet lost is the devil's most dastardly trick Oh the art's past it's peak See the well has run dry Pray tell, what is all this then, you fool? Are you really so dull as to only want more of the stuff that you liked while in school? And it's all going nowhere and nothing is changing But what is all this then, my friend? There are songs in the wires and eyeballs in orbit and progress we'll have to defend You ask why is there something when there could be nothing? Why is there moss on the stone? Wherefore get up and live in these desolate times? Oh but why are there flutes made of bone?
At t minus thirteen point seven nine billion: A cosmic insurgence of time And at t minus four point six billion our light first condensed from the heavenly grime Then point one billion later the earth coalesced to a sphere within gravity's strife And at t minus four or so billion ago: Starts a process that some might call life At t minus three point five billion it learned how to capture the might of the sun And at t minus one point six billion some cells find a shape as the parts of their sum At point five we get flora, point three early mammals Point oh six they rise from the dust that left only the birds of those monsters that ruled for the blink of an eyelid the crust Then point oh one the primates, oh oh two the humans Three ohs and they're mostly like us At oh oh oh oh oh five the first written word just in time, for there's much to discuss So then what will you do, little bundle of limbs? It is late, I don't mean to offend Roughly t minus nothing a person is born and in less than a moment they'll end
We have built this here tower through genius design and with skill as seen never before Oh but still we shall look —being almost divine— more like ants from the uppermost floor
Write me an almanac! Write me a story of things going always as planned Inscribe in the orbits of planets a rule and a fate in the grooves of my hand Write me a world of immaculate clockwork Tell me the days where it rains Tell me where saplings are best to be planted and tell me the cause of my pains Give me a reason —I don't wish to choose— why this breakfast is better than that And what does it mean for my imminent fate to have spotted in twilight a cat? Write me an almanac! Give me a guidebook! Dissect every month and each day I've feared for so long and have almost believed that there's dice which just fall as they may
Too frequently I'll knock the wood but never harder only more to summon someone to the door to not be louder than I should and rarely raise my voice above the level of projected speech to call for someone I must reach and when I do it just sounds off So I don't think I've ever screamed at anyone for any cause been sharp and hurtful, bared my claws but shouting I'd have never dreamed Appealing is the abstract thought of screaming at the nightly sky Yet any time I really try the voice is wrong and faint and caught
Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned have taken names and steps in vain have acted careless, rushed, profane made choices I cannot rescind We are by fractions born again and hope each time not first nor last the worst be of our follies past and we are wiser now than then but "then" becomes a distant land and I once more in search of signs distrust each one and draw my lines divining where I ought to stand and humbled by a dreadful fact: There's no such sign one can't ignore each call is but an open door and one must choose to hear and act So how to hear and how to choose and how to part the sea of noise and not get lost in lesser joys and how to weather what ensues?
"Less broken than yesterday" written in fibrin with highest praise and deepest woe on the bug report of a soul mid-theseus Find Replace Replace again Put shape in head Find flaws find leaks Find shards to fill the driver's seat and kill them when they fall behind Repeat. Report. Rebrand. A broom replaced in whole still sweeps So what's the damage? Whats the cost? With so much gained and so much lost we slump against that self same wall and bang our heads to the tune of let's get this over with So find Replace Touch stove Touch base