living rough

Posted by Rich Magahiz Fri, 28 May 2010 03:01:00 GMT

see a falling star strike camp and haul ass all night


sharpen your resolve memorize all their soft points


where caimans come swarming there dropships have not been


answer no chiming phone their sense of smell is weak


mess at midday your cook fire concealed from orbit


ripe mangoes for energy meat when you find it


plead for no mercy their breasts colder than Neptune




Originally uploaded by beta karel

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Cathedral of aspiration

Posted by Rich Magahiz Sun, 09 May 2010 15:42:00 GMT

rock-grey
pressed Armani
at parapet level
a thin stew of rainwater through
the lips

ceiling
frescoes of stars
their copacetic cribs
their chrome and neon couplings and
their sins

heaving
musculature
straining the bas-relief
and off to the side a tiny
syringe

in glass
those famous lips
not autotuned but poised
at the rim of a porcelain
sewer

and we
huddled masses
gaze at the images
the raw slack-jawed wide-eyed envy
thrills us



Nathan Coley : There Will Be No Miracles Here
Originally uploaded by stunned

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Mashup published in Dreams and Nightmares 85

Posted by Rich Magahiz Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:40:00 GMT

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
By milkfish, shot with KODAK EASYSHARE C643 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA at 2010-01-22
I just received my contributors’ copies of David Kopaska-Merkel’s Dreams and Nightmares, issue 85, which contain my Wallace Stevens – J. R. R. Tokien mashup Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Balrog. I read it again, and I have to admit that sometimes I crack me up.

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Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Balrog

Posted by Rich Magahiz Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:59:00 GMT

    I
Among the mountain roots,
The only sound at all
Was the alarm summoning the Balrog.

    II
I was triply lost
Like a chamber
In which there were three Balrogs.

    III
The Balrog boiled up dwarf-hewn tunnels
It was minutes to showtime.

    IV
A flame and burning
Are one.
A flame and burning and a Balrog
Are one.

    V
I do not know what works better
Rocks split by hate,
Or rocks split by fear,
The flame-sword of the Balrog
Or his damn whip.

    VI
Stones bridge broad chasms
Thanks to the trolls.
The man-shaped Balrog
Leapt over, facing East.
The grey one
Names in the darkness
A secret fire.


    VII
Goblins of
Khazad-dûm,
Why do you imagine dragon hoards?
Do you not see how the Balrog
Turns his black-gold eyes
Toward the surface?

    VIII
I know the Black Speech
And the drums that go Doom;
But I know, obviously,
That the Balrog is crucial
To what I know.

    IX
When the Balrog reached First Deep
A trail of smoke
Arched gently.


    X
At the sight of a Balrog
With a whip of thongs
Even Durin’s wife
Would squeal with excitement.

    XI
They made for the Great Gate
Stumbling and shoving.
Once, a fear shook them
In that they mistook
The shadow of an ogre
For a Balrog.

    XII
The bridge is smitten.
The Balrog must be plummeting.

    XIII
It was getting dark early
And down there
It was always dark.
The Balrog on shift
Did not clock out.

Obligatory attribution
Accepted for publication at Dreams and Nightmares

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Stellarenga published online

Posted by Rich Magahiz Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:36:00 GMT

My solo stellarenga On extended leave from 2007 has been published in the latest issue of the online quarterly LYNX.

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Coffee ghazal

Posted by Rich Magahiz Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:04:00 GMT

Just log in with username ‘coffee’,
The password, of course, also ‘coffee.’
Kiss me with your Sunday morning mouth
I want to taste that strong black coffee.
There is something I have to tell you.
I met someone, skin black as coffee….
Officials said the house was empty,
steam rising from two mugs of coffee.
From the exercise yard he looked back ’
The smell of someone brewing coffee.
She moved the floor lamp a foot to the right,
but could not hide the stain of coffee.
The edge of a shaft of sun
bisects the surface of my coffee.
If there is any hope of heaven for us,
let it be a place with good coffee.
Hidden in the forest shadows,
a tiny plot planted with coffee.
The last Space Station resupply craft:
It brought but oxygen and coffee.
When I look into your nut-brown eyes
I need a couple cups of coffee.
She fainted on the waiting room floor
poisoned, they say, by so-called coffee.
We should never have opened her will;
terms burning hotter than fresh coffee.
The Rabbi spoke slowly for all to hear
“Your misdeeds call for tepid coffee.”
When she was only a willful child
she laid schemes to get hold of coffee.
The Chinese invented many things,
but the one they forgot was coffee.
Two hands clasp a cracked mug of coffee.
You take your God. This fool takes coffee.

Marked up at Everything2

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Exostruts

Posted by Rich Magahiz Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:19:00 GMT

gunplay
won’t matter
the tympanum ignores

we always knew
unchecked growth
destroys

camouflaged
tiptoe everywhere
sunlight punishes irresponsibility

hide your children
as instars
emerge

rustling
by coldlight
twice three legs

the manifest mystery
ever remains:
extinction

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There and back again

Posted by Rich Magahiz Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:32:00 GMT

Do
not
bother
to bring a
toothbrush, or a book –
it’ll be over sooner than that –
but you’ll want a camera and a box of postcards.
And when they bring the tray of drinks
and make you sit up,
make a scene!
They made
us
wait.

Virgin employees sit in the cabin of a prototype Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo spacecraft at the Science Museum on February 14, 2007 in London, England. The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo is destined to be the first ever vehicle for space tourism. The SpaceShipTwo will carry six passengers and two pilots, offering a total flight time of 2 hours. Around 200 firm reservations have been placed already with projected flight costs estimated to be $200,000 per passenger.
Propulsion system for hybrid craft blows up

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Specular reflections

Posted by Rich Magahiz Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:30:00 GMT

addressing
that sweet abyss:
“yes, yes”

shot full of holes, the substance of our dreams

Sklar, Gibson, and Yong –
their lungs full of
something grey…

floors turn into ceilings (halfway there)

still,
she had to go back…
the smell of burning hair

the purple ones are the girls, I think

there, boy, look!
that nebula there
that was your father

I count the stars; each one flares and dims

he tells her
“put on your other face,
the other

flecked with hot sauce: angel wings, deep-fried

text, don’t write:
my senses have taken
leave of me

they took a risk. who remembers them?

the loudest prayer
ever said…

and it was answered

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2008, the Year of Our Lords

Posted by Rich Magahiz Tue, 20 May 2008 12:53:00 GMT

her fat melts away
not the way
she’d intended

bank manager’s desk: a sulphrous haze

as we had been told
our guns were useless,
useless

with rockstar teeth, your friend’s head swivels

pretty roomy inside
and she gets good
parsec-age

mall rat gawks: “that’s what cordwood’s like”

reunited
his strong arms…
that’s not my Daddy

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Ninjutsu No Shoppingtown

Posted by Rich Magahiz Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:33:00 GMT

the wall of the Food Court - stars march up


inside the nail salon: Clan Jade Claws

perched dragon style: the loading dock sleeps

like water they part, Big and Tall Men

escalator down; the swish of bamboo

this septum-pierced punk - you too must fall

naked the sun shines… a lithe dark shape

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The Wolf-Rayet beauty

Posted by Rich Magahiz Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:34:00 GMT

Hot?
Sure,
I’d say
that one’s hot -
entering a room
walls buckle, the lights shift to blue,
sensitive meat seismometers trace out pressure waves,
and spacetime folds bend to accommodate the incarnate representation of ‘hot.’


Hats off to my friend Ian whose comment suggested the image.

Suhail al Muhlif: The brightest O-type star and one of only four WR stars bright enoughto have been observed spectroscopically in UV by COPERNICUS.

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