The videos are crystal clear for any adult who is unwilling to lie through their teeth: ICE murdered that woman when she presented no credible threat to them. She did not drive at them. She did not compromise their safety. That was a summary execution of a U.S. citizen.

Why make one handmade blank notebook when you can make two at the same time? Covers and inside covers are also my original artwork. Because why not design your own cover papers too? These are from acrylic and digital paintings I made awhile ago. #bookart #bookartist #design #artwork #painting

The world is drowned in fog today. So is my brain. But that won’t stop me. It might slow me down. But I’m on fire with poetry & loving rage. And that is fuel to change the world. Let’s get to it, people. It’s a new year, with battles new and old. What are you waiting for? I have matches.

If you need someone to tell you: you are safe tonight. It’s OK to put down your phone and sleep. The world will still be consuming itself tomorrow. Right now you need rest. Close your eyes and imagine you’re a bird, that you can see the electromagnetic current of the earth.

in line and shadow: curve of spine, wing of shoulder all we know of night

“No room at the Inn” is a biblical reference about immigrants (Jesus’ parents) being turned away. Not the government. Way to go, Hilton! The 3rd Amendment protects private entities from having to house the government.

It’s hard to not see this manufactured crisis as another MN GOP targeted takedown of MN DFL leadership. Al Franken, etc. It’s a bltanat pattern that you’re stupid if you can’t see it.

Trump’s real base of support — billionaires, Big Oil, Big Tech, crypto, defense contractors, & Wall Street — know that the midterms may limit what they and Trump can get away with moving forward. 2026 could be the last year they can cash in and loot the country. Be warned.

This is the truth. 🤣🖖😏🙄

Also note that fossil fuels are a scarcity resource, whereas renewables are a sustainable abundance resource. The bottom-line thinking process about them is different. Scarcity vs. abundance. Once renewables are fully dominant, geopolitical oil invasions become pointless.

Newly remastered for release: Dangerous Odds: Dry Wind 26 June 1996, recorded live at McGraw Aud., Whitewater, WI Dangerous Odds was about being the in present moment, and making music to support the mood of the poetry. Always spontaneous, always surprising.

The fishermen of the Colombian coast must be learned doctors of ethics and morality, for they invented the word sentipensante, or "feeling-thinking," to define language that speaks the truth. —Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano

Not to mention Eurorack. I know for a fact that “Stranger Things” contributed to the revival of interest in making music on analog synths among several musicians I know.

sunset, full moonrise— lights along this rural road in opposition #haiku #poetry #photography #sunset #fullmoon

It’s true I don’t draw consistently, but that’s partly because I need to have a reason to make one form over another. A project deadline or commission motivates me. I drew daily while learning to draw, then when I illustrated a book. Right now I’m working more in music. Crop rotation.

Cynicism in advance is Capitulation.

I’m just gonna say this. Anyone who voted and/or supports that man is complicit to all the atrocity he’s committed and committing. “I didn’t know he was going to do that!” You absolutely did. You chose racism and greed over a real positive change that you all called “the woke agenda” Fuck outta here

Can't help but feel like this is one of the reasons why the Constitution says If a dude in office does an insurrection, don't let that motherfucker hold office again Bc clearly they cannot be trusted with power & control over the levers of government, & they do not care about democratic constraints

Favorite fine artists: Mondrian, John Singer Sargent, Matisse, Jerry Uelsmann, O’Keeffe, Rodin, Klee, Ansel Adams, Andy Goldsworthy, da Vinci Favorite illustrators: Dave McKean, Bill Sienkewicz, Colleen Doran, the Japanese masters, Alison Bechdel, Maxfield Parrish, Modernist book artists

This is the way.

I don’t set reading goals. I read whatever interests me to catch my attention. My normal interests for reading are poetry, books on the arts, science nonfiction, science fiction, fantasy, cultural studies, and related. Plus whatever else chaotically zings my attention.

“Can’t believe NYC elected a Muslim as mayor.” In truth—a Black American Christian woman swearing in a Ugandan American Muslim of South Asian ethnicity as his Syrian American wife holds the Qurans he swears in on, all while standing on the steps of a subway station—is the most NYC thing imaginable.

YEAR ONE MAHA

This is me. Reading isn’t a competitive sport. My interests take me all over time and space, this from “Gawain and the Green Knight” to SF to “The Long Earth” to poets I’d never read before and loved. Not even counting what I re-read for pleasure and reliving a story.

It’s weird. The more I scan thru peoples’ books of the year and reading lists, the more alienated I feel. I read a lot, too much to write down, not even counting re-reads. Lists come down to interest and taste. It’s clear again that I’m an atypical weirdo. Oh well.

Djam Karet (Indonesian: “rubber time”) from album “Shifting Times” arthurdurkee.bandcamp.com/track/djam-k...

The US is at war with Venezuela. No Congressional authorization, no public debate, no clearly stated goal, no casus belli, and a gradual ramp up rather than big opening, so many haven’t noticed (or deny it). But this attack removes the ambiguity. US is at war with Venezuela. With no end in sight.

Loser Mike Johnson hopes we forgot about extending ACA tax credits while he was on Christmas vacation. Let’s make it very clear how wrong he is:

Well, then . . .

💯

Books, poems, film, etc. may require retraining a brain to slow down. And it's important bc while scrolling social media pushes the happy button, it rarely provides actual happiness. It's like food with no nutrients; your brain ate a lot but it's still starving for things that scrolling can't give.

From my poetry chapbook “Destinationless,” published this year by Squares & Rebels. The poems are laced through with deep time, geology, shamanic/Taoist viewpoints, and travel.

Hay bales this week. Small-town southernmost Wisconsin.

Yes! People are encouraged to believe that the holidays will cure their burnout, which (a) is unrealistic and (b) lets employers off the hook for allowing workers to burn out in the first place. mindonthejob.com/blog/2025/12...

Just wrote a post on my Patreon how being alone for Xmas this year was great, actually. Solitude is creatively fertile. I’m being artistically productive. Also finally processing feelings from the shitfest that was this past year.

In case you need a positive reminder: How effective is protesting? According to historians and political scientists: very www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Flashback post and yep, still our favorite.

Merry Christmas

I finished all revisions and updates to the music engraving of my 3-movement TTBB choral composition “A Walt Whitman Sampler.” I also gathered it into a single publication with cover pages and notes. This is now available for performance, meanwhile some people have already expressed interest.

Fantasie-Impromptu on "Stille Nacht" arthurdurkee.bandcamp.com/track/fantas...

Winter Starlight arthurdurkee.bandcamp.com/track/winter...

Silent Night Waltz arthurdurkee.bandcamp.com/track/silent...

Fine, whatever, this random cat is your new god of the winter solstice

The Mothman Prophecies is a Christmas movie. That is all.

That day when you’re pumping gas into your car on Christmas Eve day, and you start thinking about the Mystery, and you start writing a new “O magnum mysterium” in your head, and have to memorize the opening phrases till you can get home to write them down. Like you do. Unless that’s just me?

What a surprise. I’m shocked.

Alone in the house for the rest of the week. I want to paint, draw nudes, do music. Three poems already written since last night. I’ll probably only get some art done as I must also clean and cook and herd cats. And guzzle wine naked to celebrate the end of this shitfest of a year. Who’s with me?

cycles of sun and moon and sky a celestial show surges both spring tides of hope and the ebb whirligig of despair still the sky-show unending stirs the pulse and one more night seems worth getting through, one more day to live #poetry #photography #sunset

cycles of sun and moon and sky a celestial show surges both spring tides of hope and the ebb whirligig of despair still the sky-show unending stirs the pulse and one more night seems worth getting through, one more day to live #poetry #photography #sunset