#21stc

[1966loveminuszeronolimit]

what era are we in besides holocene .. i think i heard digital dark age once, not terrifically fond of it but it does fit in some ways … are there other descriptors that u have heard of or used to describe this period of time we are living in ?

[alarmalade]

How to Tell My Dad that I Kissed a Man

Blame your drag queen roommate—Lamar by day, Mahogany by night—and then blame his sequined dresses—all slit high, up to his balls Explain that dusk smells so different in Spain—musky cherry- tight tangerine burst—sage mixed with lavender Tell him you were under the influence of bees or bats— the spin and swirl of doves Tell him you were half asleep—about to leave to the dunes just west of Madrid—better yet say fores—he knows that crazy shit happens in a forest Tell him no tongue but his mouth—wax-like and wet Tell him timing Tell him ease Tell him sweat and sweat Tell him lips Tell him the juice—yeah saffron juice Tell him flat-chested Tell him, "crook"—I mean, "creek" Tell him tales—lies—tears—water—weakness—churros— chocolate—hot—heat—heave— Hush Hush Hush Tell him anything you want—then tell him You did it again

"How to Tell My Dad that I Kissed a Man" by F. Douglas Brown, from Zero to Three (2014)

[caorthainn]

Sean Cubitt, ‘Energy’, Finite Media: Environmental Implications of Digital Technologies.

[alarmalade]

sting¹

Taught wet towel snapped the cute ass pink caught by surprise red blooms, beachside spit and hot water coaxed the barbed stem to the head of the welt thicker than forget but thinner than recall the insecure sun came fast after that nasty spell the tide looped on and on it was plot- less, incidental

¹Stingray venom is composed of the enzyme 5-nucleotidase and the neurotransmitter serotonin. When injected into smooth muscle, serotonin causes severe contractions, activating pain receptors in the brain.

"sting¹" - Hannah Nussbaum - Iterant issue #12

[caorthainn]

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

[alarmalade]

Departure

I leave my love on the doorstep. I drive miles of memory. The softest parts of yesterday are your hands, dusk unmade from light, mouths releasing a name into an ending. November will forgive us for the promised pleasures of smaller days, the way they fell to unlivable tomorrows. I could have washed the sheets & watched time dry. I could have cleaned the shelves & learned to collect dust myself. I could have slipped on the ring & reached for another man. How we became old & unkind for familiar bodies: Watching the hours settle aimless & gray between the spaces of where we lay on unforgiving nights. I travel the country. I knock on my father’s door. I mother a girl. I dream of the monarch butterfly flickering on your shoulder, return to kinder recollections. Our footsteps upon the old boardwalk. Your voice & the book of poems. The movies we screened at midnight. Mornings left uncooked on white plates. How this & all else fades from cruelty, draws to the unseen, the way the moon punctures its light into the dark & I forget your small angles, forget how to carve your face into knowing.

"Departure" by Jessica Xu, featured in Alexandria Quarterly, Winter 2020.

[alarmalade]

Projection in Retrograde

Scorpio, it’s time for contemplation. Hear this: my life has been a hologram. History has no mirror but stars misaligned, a thousand tessellated lichens and I have been trying to read them. I admit, a peculiar astrology: girl, boy, body as brown moth come to rest in the lee of an I. Magnetism is forecast. You may force a silk rose through one eye of the 3D moving image. And when Justin Timberlake brings sexy back at summer’s bravura performance, some rosé-all-day DIY backyard wedding you may—no, you will—go get down. Say of the synth pink thread coming through the I it’s made of stone. Stone from which hangs stones, grave markers wearing tessellated lichens. The pattern gets so misaligned. Please, Scorpio, read this horoscope sober as a moth. My whole life has been a hologram. A history of body as bangled, begging hand. But you, you’re down to reflect on what you’re transmitting, aren’t you? Or what did you mean when, leaving advice in the guestbook that evening, drunk on your own stars, notion of goodbye you wrote, wear each other’s clothes?

"Projection in Retrograde" by Natalie Mesnard, from We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics (2020).

[alarmalade]

A Story About the Nature of Time

A long time in the past, a door opens. Four young men carry a gurney with a living body on it out of a building. The body is wrapped in a sheet, and bleeds onto a disposable mat. The body’s fingers hold the mat in place. Its face looks toward the sky, where there is no rain, only an empty eye. The men step down the stairs like large show horses, in unison. The oil they emit from their bodies dissipates into the air in a metallic spritz. They put the body into a vehicle, then take it to an emergency room, where it is scraped. Its liquids are low like a receding tide. Before it goes under, it feels its death drive beat inside it like a live fetus. The body wakes up, receives a bag of blood, eats iron. The iron travels through the body like a benevolent knight. The body doesn’t even have to acknowledge it’s being repaired. Leaning on the power of the iron, the body can rise like a shitty tower. The body climbs a StairMaster at the gym, rising above everyone else. The body has dreams, even now.

"A Story About the Nature of Time" by Niina Pollari, featured in Iterant issue 7 (2022)