. . . my grief was a kind of deranged hope. I wanted a different country, an old language to burst forth like a hidden river. “Love is the cause of what ails you,” wrote Lauren Berlant. Oof. Most likely, no man is a refuge. But we can try all the same fr—Bildungssonnet Billy-Ray Belcourt t.ly/bJuvT

@jesusurbanist.bsky.social w/a well-worth-the-read post! I keep thinking: While the importance of greenways as places of recreation can't be understated (ribbons of La Grande Jatte-like refuge), their placement in the Parks budget signals an institutional understanding of them as *only* that...(1/2)

—So when ill-fated Orpheus tuned to woe His potent lyre, & sought the realms below; Charm’d into life unreal forms respir’d, and list’ning shades the dulcet notes admir’d.— fr—The Temple of Nature Canto I: The Production of Life III. Now rose in purple pomp the breezy dawn Erasmus Darwin t.ly/BGxjA

The road there Was long & winding, & stormy waves Barred my path. What made me Go this way? Hunger drove me Into the World. I tried hard To fill my belly: And even a little Seemed a lot. But this was clearly A bad bargain, So I went home fr—[A long time ago] Tao Yuanming tr—A. Waley bit.ly/4xbUpu7

Today's #Pride meditation

...hours we disappeared into, touch i shouldn’t savor, not this day, not while missing you, not this deep in love, but a year ago, or was it days, we said 𝘪 𝘥𝘰 which under it laid dozens more commitments, one being our commitment to pleasure fr—Do You Know What Today Is? Danez Smith bit.ly/4g2dvgf

@tennesseelookout.com on the new TEP/HRC report on new TN law censoring questions about gender identity in some youth health care settings. tennesseelookout.com/2026/06/04/l...

Asked how he has seen Tennessee’s LGBTQ community respond to its passage, Sanders said, “with defiance.” “People are still going to continue to celebrate Pride and maybe celebrate it with more gusto than in years before.” more at tennesseelookout.com/2026/06/04/a... via @tennesseelookout.com

#GiveOUTDay , a national day of LGBTQ giving is here. You can support the TEP Foundation with a contribution at the link: www.giveoutday.org/organization... . Thank you for your support!

. . . theories of everything—I trained to be an English teacher for years before I suffered under a principal who warned me: 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, and I agreed, though we meant different things, he was telling me to avoid teaching a part of speech fr—Fidelity William Ward Butler bit.ly/49IMlqW

. . . Alexa my neural architecture is rlly cute, despite what you recited from the news, hot in my t-gel coded augmented data body ungovernable by algorithms, would you date my filtered avatar? would you eat my uncanny image? fr—Alexa for Seniors in Easy Steps Alexis N. Garcia bit.ly/3S1kvjs

Seems like it might be worth the read, 🦞 Nashville:

Define 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦. Against the frame. Who will love me when I am at last ungovernable? Answers the underground. When I say I love you, I mean before the conflagration of gods, their cruelty, there is a door ablaze fr—At the end of the world, you tell me about the bees Muriel Leung bit.ly/3RLgEqG

Prayer Vigil for the Disappeared 6/11 at 6 pm Christ City Church 530 S.McLean, Memphis, TN

...who synergize to ruin quality time just rude needy and greedy depending on who you ask i’m going to hell and all my girls are too i’m afterlife agnostic but if some kind of something comes next what else to call it besides the afters... fr—Statement of Purpose Kyle Carrero Lopez bit.ly/4u0SDcx

And he who dribbled couplets like a snake Coiled to a lithe precision in the sun, Is missing. The jar is empty; you may break It only to find that Mr. Pope is gone. What requisitions of a verity Prompted the wit and rage between his teeth One cannot say fr—Mr. Pope Allen Tate bit.ly/3Qa5bAA

Ankles, those delicate gyroscopes, tilted in communion, bones rolling over sinew like tides over sand— but always, the mind mishears the surf. Heel, arch, ball, toe— a sacred sequence of contact and release, now catalogued nightly fr—Bone by Bone: A Hypochondriac Inventory Kashiana Singh t.ly/GX-pu

Inside me, bones inflating, kites crowding a florid dome. In answer to a question, the poet said 𝘐 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘰𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥. Line after line slackened. My benedictions darkened like lack into night’s eventual black fr—Künstlerroman Sarah Ghazal Ali bit.ly/4nYqCRC

Listening to month-old @citycastnash.bsky.social episodes at 6:45 this AM—& the "Your City Could Be Better" episode came on w/ @marielovesdolly.bsky.social talking about the fab @jesusurbanist.bsky.social & crew. No benches in Church St Park, sadly, but saying it all from the opposite corner, this:

🦞Nashville hosts multiple events lifting up faith & queerness this June. Next Wednesday—03.Jun—West End UMC invites us in! RJ Robles will bring a good word; folks from both Nashville In Harmony and Singing Resistance will raise voices in joy; & the offering will be directed to Trans Aid Nashville!

. . . I choose every day to get up and perform my antics. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸, a dancing shade said to me at a bar in Brooklyn. I loved someone once who took me outside language. Have you ever had that? fr—Every Person Is an Address, Every Person Is a Calendar Megan Fernandes bit.ly/3PG7480

...what it means |to possess|. For outside He says |my outside|. For down, he says My down. Not inside, but outside. No. No. |No|. The baby has learned the language of mirrors. Self-reflected, re-embodied, & un-hinged. What does |a baby| look like to a baby? fr—War Poem Sara Deniz Akant t.ly/GcJx3

She couldn’t wait to leave home, couldn’t bear to. Once I stood at her door, long metal spoon in my hand from cooking. We both thought I would hurl it.Mercy descended. O why so angry?Like my mother’s jagged bolt of love, blazed by fear fr—Incantation for an Operatic Child Beverly Burch t.ly/DlvMh

Be as Southern and slack as he saw fit. And you kept spreading. Your smiles. Your rumor. Your circles of darlings, looped & braided your hair. Late skin atmosphere. Wet from the heat. New timbres and eves. You loved the hilly tongues of Carolinas fr—Nayika at the crawfish boil Kiran Bath t.ly/MprVT

...quiet while my mind remembers The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers. Beauty, have pity! for the strong have power, The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace, Summer of man its sunlight & its flower, Spring-time of man all April in a face fr—On Growing Old John Masefield t.ly/V_X4j

FYI: Had an appearance in The @criterion.bsky.social Closet earlier this week: youtu.be/E_66gXXfrbA?...

...on the city outskirts, families gathered on hillsides to watch black smoke plume, hitched horses and abandoned stagecoaches to whisper about “Pullman Palace Cars” with velvet seats, brass rails, gas lights, knuckle couplers, air brakes: five stars for a fee fr—Final Stop Ravi Shankar t.ly/yMeD7

Maybe the beaded black eyes of birds is nothing to no one. Maybe that’s a double negative for a reason. Maybe subject & verb disagree for a reason. Where was I when no one offered due process? Brooding, probably. About money or the broken left-front burner.. Peril, Ignored Jeanann Verlee t.ly/PyMbC

What if I told you he wasn’t that bad? That you couldn’t smell it on his breath after all, & that he wasn’t one of the loud ones the way he is in all my poems? Not at all like the viral headlines made him seem? What if I told you he smiled fr—Correct the Record, Can We? Adam Falkner bit.ly/4e0rwIX

The Nashville Scene @nashvillescene.com on who's performing at Nashville Pride. www.nashvillescene.com/music/nashvi...

When I find parts of my poems exposed, I amputate them. I keep them tucked in light or night, away from those hunting for lines that don’t fit their blankets not realizing poetry lies in a poet’s satisfaction with their blanket fr—Keep My Poems Yahya Ashour youtu.be/Q75d6XAYwbA?...

For those keeping an eye on the "safety is surveillance" narrative," I just started reading this. Seems worth the click-through: nymag.com/intelligence...

In the wake of events in San Diego: Yet again, we lift our hearts with those who loved on & cared for the dead; Yet again, we offer solace for those injured & traumatized by an act of mass violence; Yet again, we work to reassemble lives-а world-pulled asunder; Yet again, we grieve. (1/2)

or nod ask how everyone I know is doing don’t you see that far away country my mother bursts into tears the front door resilient smoke dust the rubble has become blanket and bed warm like mine the fire is blazing the flag fr—Not Brave Maha Hashwi www.youtube.com/live/ifHJ4YJ...

This:

Revere Beach & feeding seagulls soggy french fries, watching them plunge into the sand, then emerge, the red spot of their beaks mistaken for ketchup. II. Beauty intercepts the drive home. The sky beckons with its clouds the shape of a ribcage opening upward fr—Assault Diannely Antigua t.ly/jX6Ey

TYSM @ket.bsky.social for highlighting this; it all feels of a piece. The cover story for TNs data grab bill was, in esse, a "detransitioner's rights" argument (for 3 years, I testified it's all gender-affirming care; care to feel well—at home—in one's body). Let us pray VUMC doesn't similarly fold:

He doesn’t know it (or does he?) but that is how pain wheels itself out seasonal It is real It is recurrent It is a reminder of the flaw built into the machine to preserve perfection fr—Of Hog Summers Ralph Nazareth bit.ly/4decAYr

Perfect. Worth the pinch-and-zoom (especially if you're a KotH fan). No notes:

persists—unchanged.” The ancestral whip. The crop marks the logic of idiom. Pruning performs wisdom. Go. Stand before the West End of the cloister & bang On stagnant water. Hammer triplets at each of the four corners then Once more in the center. The water remains fr—Naqus Hamed Sinno t.ly/MoKxX

ROLE MODELS ALL: these leaders live out daily what it is to be motivated by faith & called to action. Humbled by their work & care, I am urged on into the breach again and again by their models of living into one's call: Ingrid McIntyre Austin Becton Travis Meier @southernchristians.bsky.social

documents that rename me / refuse me / spectacle our birth & our death The Document as map as fiction as shame as eviction Please Rate Your Experience Please / stand in this Assembly / Line of Loss / Please: We’ve all wanted to be loved / by an impossible thing fr—The Document Noor Hindi t.ly/TpKab

Drake is the loveliest! He & his wife Lucy were our neighbors for a number of years. From COVID-era bike rides to backyard take-out Mexican fiestas, they set the bar high for our neighborly expectations. We don't see them as often now (boo!) but they're not far away—& I'm always glad for a sighting!

Deep-fried, a clucking shame. Poor Randall Butterbean: a bird between lucks. But isn’t this fine? Isn’t it swell? Wouldn’t you rather be kettle-cooked than smeared under a rain boot? Sidewalk paté, some years later, with no pension to speak of? fr—Antelope Valley Times Elizabeth Crawford t.ly/EsqVg

Checking in from Spain Ave where for the 3rd time in just over a week, something terrible has happened out on Gallatin. Today it appears a driver has crashed into the 56 between Spain/Burchwood, almost all of Gallatin is shut down, I hope everyone is okay, @freddieoconnell.bsky.social DO SOMETHING

—deep in the earth of my country, Only to sprout forth again as a bright bloom, Waved gently by a child who calls this land home. It would be enough for me to remain home, Alive, existing as a trace in her fabric fr—The Land Gave Birth Ahmad Ibsais bit.ly/4uCX8uz

A lovely response to the current moment from the good folks of @transequality.bsky.social :

How do we encourage others in Tennessee and maybe ourselves during these tough times? Two and a half minutes of questions/options. youtube.com/shorts/xDXqs...

🎯

There are so many intersections at the Trinity/Gallatin intersection, that calling it "an" intersection creates an issue in & of itself. From Zophi to Dozier, we're dealing with one of the most dangerous mazes in town. Tackling any part of that cluster's inflow/outflow would start reducing risk!