Stefan Flanigan
@stefanflanigan.bsky.social
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Poetry & field notes: Counter/Field →stygian-muse.com New poems Tue & Thu • US/AU based
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I write poems & field notes →
stygian-muse.com/start-here/
Begin here for context, samplers, & my posting rhythm. New poems every Tue & Thu.
#poetry
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Start Here - Counter/Field
Welcome. This is where I post poems and prose once or twice a week — some pieces are warm, some sharp, and some strange. I think of the blog as a field: a space where ideas and images accumulate — and...
https://stygian-muse.com/start-here/
about 1 month ago
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I write poetry articulating internal silence, internal violence. Also possums eating mangos; go figure.
about 17 hours ago
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In the mind, a few splinters— memories of glances, of words: small, piercing betrayals— have lodged, are lodgers. Little hooks: they refuse to leave.
#poetry
4 days ago
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Blogs are weird. Nobody reads your stuff, then all of a sudden, some dude in India is saying "Hey, I like your poem about a possum eating a mango." It's a nice feeling.
#poetry
7 days ago
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A poem about a possum (well, some of it): But now, in the pulp-sweet air, the cats are gone, the birds, the tree, even the sky and the hot sun— all gone; now there is only a sweet greenness, a mango— only mango.
#poetry
9 days ago
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People often complain about The System, but The System knows best... The system is Optimal. Inputs, limited as they are, do not register the documented necessity of upward reallocation and the requirement to off-board non-performing units.
#poetry
stygian-muse.com/compliance-i...
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Compliance is Efficiency - counter/field
A doctrine-voice poem where the system audits, cascades, and moves non-performing units below grade—cold recursion to a chilling clinch.
https://stygian-muse.com/compliance-is-efficiency/
9 days ago
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in the half-light the ferry's fog-horn sounds— a dog howls cool morning breeze along the river— the scent of jasmine a rustling flash— on the railing: a noisy mynah from the topmost branch of the tallest gum tree— a magpie's call
#poetry
#haiku
10 days ago
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A single-sentence drill: Because the shells are close, I stride toward the bus stop, shivering in the dim light, the houses boarded up or bombed— although I don’t look hard enough to tell: on the sidewalk, I see enough— a mangled bike, a shattered helmet.
#poetry
11 days ago
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A new piece today: "Grass slopes down to a sand flat: its surface ribbed with frozen waves, crisp-edged in the sun." Full poem: 'A Tiny Deity'
stygian-muse.com/a-tiny-deity/
#poetry
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A Tiny Deity - counter/field
A poem set at the river’s edge in spring, a child lifts fruit into sunlight—an ordinary act that becomes creation, renewal, and wonder.
https://stygian-muse.com/a-tiny-deity/
11 days ago
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I recently started a poetry blog. Today I noticed that someone copied one of my pieces and pasted it into a post of their own, without attribution. Has this happened to anyone else? I made a comment asking for an attribution but did not report it. It's pretty weird.
#blog
#blogging
12 days ago
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A flash fiction piece on small childhood betrayals and how they ripple. “Tom kept an eye on the other kids, grouped in tribes, wary of trouble.”
#flashfiction
#fiction
#writingcommunity
#writing
#shortprose
stygian-muse.com/deep-blue-sky/
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Deep Blue Sky - counter/field
A reflective flash piece: childhood friendship, betrayal, and a blue sky that lingers long after the moment.
https://stygian-muse.com/deep-blue-sky/
12 days ago
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You said: why do you treat me like this I said: treatment is not an option You said: a treaty is a meeting of minds The waiter said: who are you talking to
#poetry
stygian-muse.com/in-denpasar/
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In Denpasar - counter/field
A fractured poem: memory splinters in a hotel dining room, voices overlapping until they can’t be separated.
https://stygian-muse.com/in-denpasar/
12 days ago
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I push. The stone shifts. I push again. There is a reason for everything, I suppose, even Unreason. I push. The stone shifts. I push again.
#poetry
stygian-muse.com/the-hill/
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The Hill - counter/field
A mythic poem of endurance: stone, shoulder, and sun in relentless dialogue with gravity and persistence.
https://stygian-muse.com/the-hill/
13 days ago
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A system-voice poem: Orwellian, a bit Sci-Fi and, imho, fun: The enemy is ever-present, its design is to kill, And its means is through the sowing of chaos, for It is through chaos that Order is annihilated, And only through Order is survival maintained.
#poetry
stygian-muse.com/nonexistence...
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Nonexistence is Mandatory - counter/field
A system-voice poem: the enemy contaminates order, excision demanded, survival rewritten as nonexistence.
https://stygian-muse.com/nonexistence-is-mandatory/
14 days ago
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The loom stands empty. I wrap a sinewy thread around the loom and pull it tight. My vows are like this; there is no slack.
#poetry
stygian-muse.com/gordian-knot/
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Gordian Knot - counter/field
It's mythic, it's recursive, it's weird, it's dark ... I tug on the spooled threads and start to work. The loom stands empty. I wrap a sinewy thread around the loom and pull it tight. My vows are like...
https://stygian-muse.com/gordian-knot/
15 days ago
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Once, when I walked, the earth would list, and storms make way for my coming.
#poetry
link to full poem in comments
16 days ago
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An excerpt from today's piece: A ringtail possum, cat-nervous, scurries along the powerline to the mango tree, in thrall to the scent that, in the full light of day— has drawn it out of hiding, to here, now.
#poetry
16 days ago
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There are no words for this feeling— broken chair empty cardboard box lost in a strange city. I sit, and wait for the words to come they don’t
#poetry
17 days ago
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A syntax experiment in the outsider tradition. Warning: vivid, unsettling imagery: visions confirm when i was sleeping last week ten dog walkers broke into my apartment and put microchip transmitters in my eyes they are trying to see what i see but they do not have the second sight
#poetry
18 days ago
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The words were lithe, slipping out of mind as soon as they entered and in their wake was a bafflement, a blue void that with absence spoke volumes, and its blueness was my mind
#poetry
21 days ago
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Her eyes lift to the window, mapped with raindrops— one drop among many is sliding a jagged route down the glass.
#poetry
23 days ago
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1. Lay the body’s length on a bed of ash. Do not look at the face for too long. — poetry
24 days ago
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The grass is rough underfoot as I sit in an old lawn chair by the river. Birdsong swells: mynahs, harsh crows, and the peep, peep of a river-bird I cannot see.
#poetry
29 days ago
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I write poems & field notes →
stygian-muse.com/start-here/
Begin here for context, samplers, & my posting rhythm. New poems every Tue & Thu.
#poetry
loading . . .
Start Here - Counter/Field
Welcome. This is where I post poems and prose once or twice a week — some pieces are warm, some sharp, and some strange. I think of the blog as a field: a space where ideas and images accumulate — and...
https://stygian-muse.com/start-here/
about 1 month ago
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It is, without exception, forbidden to speak of things as Entropy — this lie must not be countenanced. |dependency status: undetermined| Survival is Order, and Order is Survival. Survival≠is≠order, order is— surviv—
#poetry
about 1 month ago
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