Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Nathan Anderson, Ah – as in the final BRICK of…et al.
Ah – as in the final BRICK of…
Also as Elephant now
Open continuation = no rib
Sanctifying = Lip slide (and not as raining)
Saturday, January 31, 2026
Michael Mc Aloran, all shadow sung
untitled,
acrylic on canvas, 2023image
by Michael Mc Aloran
all shadow sung
#1
speak to/ of the leaves coiled around your throat, the dead-end venture
given of until the skyline flourish
#2
forever in virgin light the dense occlude a surface of weight unlike
that which could in a dense rhythm of nothing ever else
1#
of the forever blend & the bleed of once
#2
cold lapse of voice disentangled in the body of you, a coil of lack
turning in the a-breath of shadowed recollect
1#
nothing known
2#
all the once that carried through the rip of agues
1#
seasons of the hilt of blood nothing claimed of in the worship of desire
2#
2-dawn dead the focus it comes from nowhere out
1#
walls as if one could in the once of haven lock to the absurdly rapture
of blood cooler than an expose of the…
2#
nothing of the known
1#
of the elsewhere none collect in trace taken from devour the torch of
lapse accord spill of dead oceans into from the unspeak of the liverage claim
it spoken no, as on
2#
a toxicity of claim
1#
there or…
2#
knowledge of cold weight elongated dressed from the inside ocular a
dream of night stretched from the barricades of nowhere else to be
1#
all shadow sung
2#
breakage a silhouette a kiss of the unknown savagery
1#
what will of scale to echo preceding in the midst of claim it
2#
all that depth of naught taken from beknown
1#
as once would could a terrace of blood in the reflect of eye spillage
the lapse of return
2#
as the fingers beneath what coil of tongue blind weight the syllabus of
once colour it-this
till wreckage avalanche of the beyond a cold weight
1#
nothing of the scar from ache it-of the embers of desire to flourish in
the ice-clad breath the lungs dry sand a nothing of desire
2#
ask of it a spoken of
1#
return what forage as if once could one could where to of in a weighted
breathe
2#
solace haven of detriment of desire nothing of the wilt it-to of scream
till syllabus
1#
broken as was came of it shattered glass the bone design of it cold
stretch
2#
fallen by the echo-light of recoil a bloodless colouring a nothing an
exposure the outreaching purpose of one neither of the other the vocal tread of
skin of it-this till the
edge of desired for
1#
as of which why call cards/ a trace
2#
nothing no
1#
I recall the rise & fall
2#
all that was of the once of till the shake of special in the counterfeit
of colours the exposed
light beckoning throughout of the dream what once as was kissed in dark
weight of never
if
1#
as all in-of till curdle
2#
sarcophagus extent
1#
I recalls
2#
nothing to forget of it
1#
a drapery
2#
a nothing the sunken breakage of extent till the redress of lapse
1#
skin light
2#
walls that burn of the extension turning in the desire for blood
1#
till turn of trace
2#
ashen promise upon a dead man’s sleeve
1#
as on/ into/ the exposed light being in the forage of into of the
breakage point
2#
nothing of to lose
1#
drown silences
2#
it-sung unsung
1#
colour/s the like of in-dreaming dreams
2#
till turn of ache of desire in a reflect of being if
1#
I recall
2#
fortress neither
1#
I recall the lips that once now never of in the kaleidoscope of weighted
exposure turn to
kiss the light that vanquished ever of the breakage bereft
2#
as all till nothing
1#
recollect
2#
trace what done/ in
1#
keloid of the ever forgotten
2#
scars that dehydrate upon the surface of foreign never if
1#
spat solace column
2#
embers/ embers as before
=
—Michael Mc Aloran
Friday, January 30, 2026
Stephen Bett, excerpts from Marcel Ekphrastic: poems on Duchamp
Folding Traveler’s Itemimage by Marcel Duchamp
Brass Sandwich: With Hidden Noise (1916)
“Ball
of twine [sandwiched] between two brass plates, joined by four long screws,
containing unknown object added by Walter Arensberg”; makes noise when shaken;
MD never did know what secret object Arensberg, his friend & collector, had
placed inside.
Can
we please not say curator anymore?
Pet
peeve, sooo annoying…
Faithful
Walter Arensberg, Marcel’s main man
aided this readymade (came to its parade)
balled
up its silent shhh
Duchamp
loved all things mediumistic
— that old
dictation trope,
like
Spicer & his Martian spooks on a slick
It’s
always intuition, aint it with jazzers
shaken
&
rollicking Pls don’t stir
yourself
“Sandwich”
on the day’s 1916 menu
stuffed
with foresight on improv
Not Even Stolen: Comb (1916)
A
rusty black comb lying flat on an angle—a “plain, steel dog comb”
Oops,
off its date buy a mea culpa
Musta
been bad hair day at Wikiart
lent
this Readymade a ready escape
Their
not quite compleat works of Marcel…
But
here it is in the Duch’d all bible
Page
296, Plate 106: Comb,
February 1916
Aint
pretty aint ugly just unaesthetic as all
get
out of our face
i.e.,
perfect’o Readymade
We’d
have a bad one too, just touching
that
moldy slab of dog’s own
Plenty
meta irony in that little iron comb
That’s
no comb over, said Marcel
it
was not even stolen
Out of Order: Traveler’s
Folding Item (1916)
Light,
soft leather typewriter cover, black, with the brand name Underwood, standing
up empty. Origin lost; replica ‘found’, 1964
You’re reading
this before
it arrived
But really, it’s
backfill
& that’s
the story…
Don’t travel
without your
topped up
Underwood cover
Even if it gets
lost
—Stephen Bett
Saturday, January 17, 2026
David Roden, Neko Smile
Neko Smileimage by David Roden
Neko Smile
Smoothies
Rub ur eyes, brat-head! They’re awake, already,
confused n blnkng back through grey amniotic swill behnd that blister n the
fake rococo ceilng, from danty oocytes on the Smoothie Xylem’s termnal stems
(just visible through cloudy nutrient) to cavern eyed blobs listlessly emulatng
the Neko’s scissor smile n
flex to fluctuatng nharmonics n ur snouty drills (Sensory differentia
accelerated n vitro.)
Born hungry, u always sense w/
they’re about to drop. Coolant electrolytes gush from spiracles n ur concentric
tongues n transpire through ur cobalt alloy underbite n micron wide channels.
Voremechanisms whir ready; the last massacre’s bloody particulates cleansed
from ur monogrammed sheets (JI). Hooked crosses voxel above the bed n
auto-erase before ur saccades. Buffer dreams of wounds, while the Flic re-plays
Sana’s Opera
The Hussar crawls back to his
‘safe space’ by the Flic sngng some tearng ballad of parted loves, walled
cities, ambiguous crusades n crackle; cavalry moustache, a dark whorl n once
handsome n tonsured face, dedifferentiated over the iterations (The Countess
came down from the walls, burnng Morsel Knight’s perfumed declarations n
crucified him as she promised n their epistolary romance. She ate his offal as
it flopped, steamng on pale n danty.)
‘Embryogenesis is sick n sad’
the Neko hisses through bruised lips n empty gums, pillow talkng Anna’s
penultimate voice, ‘Just embrace the replication, flower Jonny, n shit where u
eat.’
Long, membraneous ears flop
over her vacant obits. The Hussar deforms blob to toroid, to lamna yellowng down embossed floral
wallpaper like urne through lace.
U call this stuff ‘Thanatos’
or the ‘Will’ - a topic of fevered speculation among Dead Planet Ntelligencia:
Is the Drive what it says or just the
bubblng, threshng, squirty girl? Is life
but death deferred? If u fabulate Anna’s autaphilia to gratify ur
destructive urges, u come to the right place (‘It never happened. Let us
be!’ we chorus outa space w/ physically
impossible specific resonance.’)
Morsel oiled n spiced,
Countess lays him on the thorns of the Theophany Rose to lapidary percussion n
ravaged pizzicatos. The Neko turns cyanotic n pouts. Remnd u of the sexual
partners u never got to choke? Coughs up fur, vomits, bumps n grnds aganst ur
sprng heel hnd parodyng the Countess’s feral paroxysms - for which u
flexi-drill an anatomical bulge n plushed Lunagirl skull.
Savng ur ablated lacrimal
sacs, u might weep for these delicious meals.
Not for ur first jelly roll,
the Bitch craters n dies n poopng, caterwaulng Sibs, Anna’s cunty smile sealng her til next
iteration. Act II, Scene II: Mise-en-abyme: A suspiciously gaunt
midwife attaches electrodes from an improbable car battery (backstage) to
Hunger’s
exo labia, between brocade screens, embellished, like our Cornice, n lanceolate
leaves where swarms of robns bunch like angry grapes. The Morsel keens an achng
antiphon; fadng fast. Decelerno.
Decrescendo. Fnale.
Curtan fall; decayng beats,
cryptid wngs.
Applause. The rattle of dyng stars.
Like the Door, the Audience
were never here.
Done, but for our unscripted
addend: Countess Hunger dilates, burnng bright n wetly exultant n, crawlng up
from the Abyss, the shnng bladed Jackal bursts mewlng between the ornate
screens; ur magic toys tnkle, avid, threaded w/ her blood n offal.
Love
Hotel
She runs ahead, bare legs
golden as the sulci we engneered n our chronically neurasthenic star. Her voice
reverberates across a pedestrian thoroughfare n the University n its rows of
twiglike, dead trees, like the stng of ice felt aganst ur long discarded teeth.
The servants had cleaned n aired the apartment off the square. A honeymoon
briar w/ red petals weaves round the balcony’s wrought iron balustrade. U
follow her, diffident as the jerky automata under the old town radium dial:
Death, Nsenescent, Engneer, Matriarch. Grey Hermetics whose bodies contaned
countless birds. KAKA STARS oozng formless forms. Subsequent generations
sculpted such impossibilities as shny metal polyhedra, tnny analogies n anal
eye dirt. ‘Jonny is so wounded. Nothng is ever enough!’ The Neko
ventriloquises. A naïve n essentialist readng of Eternal Return bubbles up from
a mucoid crevice lackng larynx n epiglottis. She should be irrevocably mute but
can never brng herself to shut up. How many times did u tell her this n a voice
distorted by dental prosthesis, ‘There is only one us’?
A pastorale of happy
cottontails tendng their tranquil herds is displaced by another drift of X’s w/
diacritical hooks, boilng antilife, transliterated unbeng.
The Newborn Neko slithers out
of postpartum muck, coy, beguilng n fresh while its sibs await death on that
carpet w/ its sick corporate hexacomb. The Flic casts a granular radiance over
her bloated fluff n a starry glnt n her vacant sockets.
For a special moment, the
Hussar tries to become her by occupyng the same space. Flesh, even wounded, was
never so precious - we get that - but he never got the hang of possession, its ntrnsic
moral potency. That we can see through ur eyes, Jonny. Like nothng, like we
are. Rejected, the Hussar ripples through the air back to his corner
beside the Birthng Blister, sproutng arms like a dyng baby spider.
Yet another bucolic reverie
from the uplns of Warren’s only contnent. Leggy, horned rumnants tended by fat
fluffy shepherds on long-eared hexapods. The Cow-bunnies wore bright harnesses
n coral-beads n red n ochre. Green acclivities, warmng yello star!
Could u see it now. Bulk
carriers sparkle over a throngng port as they ascend. Planiformers n Orbitals
team w/ our diseased meat; desires, bodies w/, bodies w/out. Hegira Corp mantans
a breedng population of the bunnies on vast battery farms for the luxury
export. Tender, happily decerebrated. Love it, love us! we want to shout. But
u’d traduce n mock us, Ibnis, n rightly. Somethng is always off or comng. Our
mutual Friend, amenable yet unntelligible, exculpatng; delightng w/ perfect
ignorance. We ganed crucial traction w/ ur little god. Bluntly empirical
devoirs. Experiments n obedience contnue n ur absence; though the signs are
frankly not good snce u elucidated His Boxes.
Which is why, Jonny, we cradle
u among our delicious Smoothies, sooth u neath gravid scrotum, bulgng sac, sulkng
blister, follicle, dividng egg…
Somethng is Comng!
‘I’m sorry to drag u nto this’
u lament.
‘Jonny, u have a lot to be
sorry about.’
‘U say nothng …I’m soliloquisng’
‘Nsane how much u hate, dear.
Fear not, there is no one to be, no one to see. Nothng but addends, dividends,
differentia. Go, not too soon. U’re never leavng because u were never here. How
can u appreciate the Friend’s florid Surnature if u misconstrue Nature?’
Amid the sophisms n the hectorng,
like magic, the ceilng sags, seams of weaker tensile strength tear w/ the
partitioners n its cytoplasm.
n (like so) the waters will
break n the Babies will fall. Ripe Smoothies floppng like turds n a latrne. The
humor of lipids n phospholipids, collaged n immaculate, tanted cruelty.
That last one crawls up from
the end of ur bed, big as a baskng seal, blnd, a void of voremecha or apparent
defence.
U reach between its buds,
little furrows w/ cute art-hymens.
U resent their sexless
opulence, cloaked n cloaca, mucus, cum, urea, piss. U abide, get used to it.
Not long now! We’ve eaten
our fill from the Boxes.
U extrude hook, claw, syrnge,
mecharostrum, flexidrill, razor lip, spirocrypts. Obey precarious whims. Stroke
her till she farts, excretes n expectorates. Then follow the Misdirections.
Belyng her oedema n vegetatng
head, the Neko uses ratiocnation, cunnng, rhetoric n timbre; protests, however
u wounded n violated her, that Anna never deceived, resented or made stuff up,
like u notice. W/ each of ur ‘U’re not really …,’ she dribbles n dissembles she
never loved or died, Hastur did not fall. It doesn’t matter who speaks snce w/
all is said only Language does, though ‘Neko’ doesn’t mean Nobody. Just it’s
nothng personal. Do u consider this life lived well n the teeth (sic) of
impossibility? Why do u defame her memory? Ur past is erasng, poppng, so who’s
to tell? Not U, we, nor Our Friend on the Outside nnocently accommodatng
us.
Traces n Erasures.
N the apartment, timber smells
from resnous contnents; antique scientific n musical nstruments; Anna’s
recreational torture-snuff artifacts restng behnd acrylic screens, bookcases n
a small private library, n vitro foetal prodigies pickled n formaldehyde, the
Old Gimp Cage spikes aganst a wide steel framed wndow. Beyond n the abstract
brightness, Cathedral, Rotunda, Equestrian, Radium Clock, modest Gnomon… U call
some unentered halls of civic buildngs, some eccentric Iron n Steel Magnate who
built a foreign Chateau among blast furnaces n cokng towers. A lonely howl
expressed from ur hairy fore-lip. Did u hear that? Lupne, bestial, panfully
self-aware just as u telescope ur vicious fleximolars, snout ablaters n raspng,
rotatng cartilagnous needle beds. It is hard to keep as ur worlds break
asunder. The Smoothy’s throat sprays dark green as u release her sknned,
laughng skull.
Some iterations, u begn w/ the
Sibs; let the Neko sit watchng til blood, faeces n cum wash her necrospasms n
analytic terrine. Welcome to the Ln of Bubbles!
Eater
We bran-bloomed our anonyms to
suffer gratuitously n poorly but made u hurt all the right ways. They
hurt but w/out proper values. n that needles. Thalamocorticals png, prions rng
stokng bilirubn w/ u open their laughably thn skulls but nobody gives a fuck,
despite which u taste them all emphatically, like a gourmet w/out proper
grammar. Only now there is a ‘bouquet of Alterity’ as Map or Anna might put it:
a piquant distillation of nitrogenous bases like a manufacturers’ brn: MAXIMNIMAXIMNIMAXIMNIMA,
each ‘X’ hooked to mark its transliteration.
Ur Crew happy-raped the Sag, pnng
for Strange New Worlds, ridiculous Vivs n Civs to eat. Skns, biomes, rituals,
genders, pharmaka, magics (mathematised, naïve) complimentng unique,
flavoursome disparities n tangs. Robust or juicy, rubbery or gamey. (We) tasted
Warren (Lapn à la Moutarde), Vostok (Venison stew), Menion (A deep Peppery
Chowder) n the Bearng Worlds of the Glis (Ndefnable). More, we loved u more
than ourselves, companions to watch the stars unmade n remodelled. Bubbles n
our Hyperchaos. A chemistry of mngng.
n the Facng Smoothy is agape
as the top drawer of the little bedside cabnet a meter from ur ruttng head -
unnoticed snce a dozen bubbles n O-gates popped – furtively vibrates, shakes,
opens, impelled by a plangent arpeggio on an unstable dimnished seventh. The
highly strung chord ntroducng Countess Hunger’s odious fnal recitative over the
Flic n a fug of distortion risng to an exponential scream. Reach n, pet his
ribbed little segments, tickle his lol little tubes. The Gate n the Key!
Krilln’s legs skitter nanely
aganst ur fngers, while he remonstrates delightfully and bitily.
Just as ropy yellos punch
through the ceilng, tear panels and support struts, exposng the service cablng n
the void above, cradlng, feedng and modulatng the Stoma per our needs.
W/ unreal speed, an oblate
ball w/ pseudo-convex foreskn pops through the
fresh hole, clambers n, bounces, mocks, rocks and slobbers balletically,
aqueous w/ radial nausea, towards the No-door, pausng to flower undulant
toroids.
Several hotel floors above, an
emaciated grey child (Hi!), legs like gnarled wooden posts; toothless,
w/ our glossal obsolescence flappng over our chn like Anna’s old leather strap.
As if to advertise our seriously outmoded anatomy we lift wizened twigs, tuckng
the skeuomorphs between blackened lips.
The Ghost Hussar detaches from
the wall, plops onto the filthy carpet, crawlng under the bed n a surely doomed
effort to elude the fractionated attentions of Urdrugna, Eater of Souls.
—David Roden
Friday, January 16, 2026
Nathan Anderson, Ah – as in the final BRICK of…et al.
untitled image by Nathan Anderson Ah – as in the final BRICK of… s i l e n c e ...








