Feste's Lute

Scribbles & Sketches of the Unspeakable

On Random Voices

People think I’m joking when I say I find strange anon questions interesting. I completely understand why some of these messages would be disconcerting, but I still like the idea of those random contacts.

As an example, I often save the text of spam emails. Here are three of my favorite subject lines ever:

  1. spaghetti foreknowledge
  2. shuntingyard ricewater
  3. capillary doctoral bumblebee

Sadly, the message bodies were far less interesting. Why would I care about drugs when I could be reading how to psychically predict pasta?

Others are better, like this:

“He or go skid go plural. I a misunderstanding. Are a wherever yearly alter. Be or aura spokesman bathroom. sentiment on fragment. scenario on pleasing syringe. He trivial.
In cracker? by As. in fledgling so disappearance. Is readable Is zoning. As of bigotry. He is midi. you as misery custodial prostitute. federation of arose. An outspoken a warrant. On facility?”

On facility indeed. I’m all over facility. If these spammers posted on tumblr, I’d so be crushing.

One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.

from Philip Massinger by T.S. Eliot Original Essay

Found via Daring Fireball and Brian Ericford and Nancy Prager.

Shadows Strewn Stigmata

I wanna use this. But it’s like putting together a puzzle, and someone stole the corner piece.

Spire

Minotaur hours,
hard loss and flowers,
on graven hearts
escaping towers.

Tanned hands clasp strands
that drape us lower.
Our wings wax lax,
our faces colder.

Relevé

Her heart en pointe,
they spun into
the shade.
He missed the throw,
she’d rather smash
her legs
than ask again if
anyone could
care.
She’ll find her own
reprise in
rarer air.

Stagnant

In these strange seeds,
all centers flee
unwinding pegs,
infusing dregs
with loss and
bloated costs
‘til debt is
fortune’s Hampton
summer home.
With banded wrists
and inching feet,
we stitch our seams
dressed for defeat
and lessons plus
or minus every hope.

Stopped Short

If I babble
it’s the rabble
drove me to it,
drive me through it.
Take my order,
stand tall soldier
boy, that’s all
I really am.