Covert Rook

A Poet trapped in an IT Brain. With a poetic trilogy and four novels awaiting writing completion.

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In my own work, it’s the ghosts that I’m speaking to. They are my motivation, so I let it ride and I let them do their thing. The ghosts can take me to the heartstrings. - Claude Lawrence

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Plague

Plague of people asking you to show them your ankles.

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To refuse to play the part that is expected of you is to resist transferring power to whoever is invested in your taking up that part. - Nuar Alsadir

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Laughter is dangerous to the guardians of the state as to all good men, because of its tendency to get out of hand. - Samuel Weber

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Laughter and levity bring about illicit sexual conduct. - Maimonides

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The only part of our skeleton we reveal to others is our teeth, so when we laugh, we flash our interior at others. - Nuar Alsadir

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The British call convulsive laughter corpsing, a term that derives from the frequency with which a fit of laughter overtakes an actor playing a corpse onstage. Before breaking into laughter during my talk, I was, in a sense, playing dead, if you think of dead as assuming a socialized self, pushing your emotions and spontaneous feelings underground. - Nuar Alsadir

[covertrook]

As for poetry: I never thought that I would write about a Russian soldier who died with stolen vibrators in his hands. Now you can write about anything. Gone are taboos. There is more detail and forthrightness in the poems, the lines are bolder, wider—sometimes too bold, too wide. I want to speak louder, even louder, so that they hear me. - Lesyk Panasiuk

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In occupied cities, time doesn’t exist, it is gone. War is not about time; time was completely destroyed in Gostomel, where the morning begins by chopping wood and lighting a fire to cook food. - Olena Stepanenko

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All the words now wear a military uniform. I set aside metaphors to speak about the war in clear words. - Daryna Gladun

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Women working on trams talk about their work tomorrow. “Don’t worry, they promised not to bomb,” one says. - Katrina Haddad

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Alone in quarantine I’m a bad witness. - Marilyn Hacker

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In terms of sexuality, I wonder if my poems are polyamorous? Or just slutty? My poems tend to be cheaters and homewreckers.

- Sandra Simonds

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Taxi

Catching the taxi that's the light at the end of the tunnel.

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Demon

The demon who possessed you is a very boring one. But someone pissed them off.

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Emerged

They hid art within his name, hoping it would emerge naturally, but, being hidden within meant it emerged in the dark.

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Everyone brings their one thing when evacuating. Not the most necessary thing, but their thing. - Andrei Krasniashikh