New piece: "⭢clean_slide" 'He’d seen her around, on the ship. She liked to sing as she worked, soldering the panels. It was an old song, low and sad, from before the war. ' stygian-muse.com/%e2%ad%a2cle...

The sun is low but its heat remains, radiating from the flagstones into the humid air— a visitor from the tropics— sweat pooling in the small of my back while many false suns shimmer on the dark stone, cast from the mirrored blue surface of an office building. stygian-muse.com/the-west/

New poem: "Final Instructions" 'I wake. The traffic noise bleeds through the walls and the sun, low in the sky, sinks behind buildings. Bangkok.' stygian-muse.com/final-instru...

New poem: "Side Effects" 'The screen shows a box of medication above lines of small script. The voice says “Azartane. Side effects may include dizziness, nausea, confusion, and semantics.”' stygian-muse.com/side-effects/

New poem: "Ritual" 'The bowl is filled with ash. The ash holds the incense. The incense turns to ash. Your ashen hair.' stygian-muse.com/ritual/

New poem: "Terminal Reflection" 'I move along the quiet concourse toward the darkened food court, the terrazzo floor catching a faint sheen under the after-hours lighting.' stygian-muse.com/terminal-ref...

The clinical register holds as long as it can, until the unfiltered voice breaks through.

New poem: "Sine Qua Non" 'It is the reason the lungs heave, why the heart squeezes a turbulence into the arteries, what the brain bends itself toward, and craves above all else, the sine qua non of life and thought.' stygian-muse.com/sine-qua-non/

The aim for this piece was to let observation taper into unease without announcing the transition. stygian-muse.com/basement-lev...

New Poem: "Basement Level Two" 'My footsteps echo before the drone absorbs them, and they are gone.' stygian-muse.com/basement-lev... Links in bio

I wrote this one by stacking menace onto stillness until it moved. stygian-muse.com/the-last-bus/

New Poem: "The Last Bus" 'Something in me contracts and the dark along the edges of light seems wider.' stygian-muse.com/the-last-bus/ #poetry #stillness #night counter/field: poems, prose, and observations.

One unexpected thing about running a poetry blog is seeing where readers appear from. Yesterday it was Ukraine. Today it was Costa Rica. Poems travel in odd ways.

New reflection: On Attention — Vale Ellen Bryant Voigt. A short essay on precision, discipline, and what syntax can teach about seeing. stygian-muse.com/on-attention... #poetry #craft #EllenBryantVoigt #writing

New post: "Field Notes Between Storms" It contains a new poem: 'Goanna' (no, it's not about goannas, but there's one in it). Also, there are a couple of links, and a subscriber update. #poetry #update #collage stygian-muse.com/field-notes-...

A new poem: "After the Storm" 'The sky is released and changed. An orange haze rises from the horizon to blend with the delicate violet-blue of now-quiescent clouds and a single crow flies south to north.' #poetry #stillness #ritual Read the full poem here: stygian-muse.com/after-the-st...

Here's a quiet poem from the archive: "The Oars, Forgotten". '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 #stillness #observation stygian-muse.com/the-oars-for...

I revisited a local spot of great sadness recently and took notes. Twice. I now have one good line and a resonant metaphor that I don't know what to do with. I'm unsure whether that place haunts me or if it's actually the other way around. #poetry #writing

After stillness comes strangeness. 'I heard her in the next room but when I walked in, she wasn’t there there were only echoes.' Poem: "The Beforetimes" #poetry #poetrycommunity #stillness #surreal stygian-muse.com/the-beforeti...

Thanks, Shevek!! It's always nice to see my poems and images resonating with people, so I am chuffed to no end. #poetry #poetrycommunity #collage

The river is the colour of tea, made with the slightest dash of milk: silt-clouded. Poem: 'A Tiny Deity' #poetry #stillness #poetrycommunity #river stygian-muse.com/a-tiny-deity/

In the mind, splinters— remembered glances, words; small, piercing betrayals; have lodged, are lodgers— little hooks; they refuse to leave. Poem: 'Little Hooks'. Link in bio. #poetry

I write #poetry

Poems have minds of their own. Last night, voices from a celebration by the river slipped into a poetry craft exercise, and the poem that emerged travelled farther than I expected — a bit like counter/field itself, I suppose.

Collage: 'Bitch; A Reflection'. Link in bio.

After the art gallery and the museum, past the light’s edge and into a hush, the rough concrete path carries me. #poetry stygian-muse.com/sodium-zone/

where water stifles the light, and presses an excess of nitrogen into the blood— and waits. #poetry stygian-muse.com/whalesong/

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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/

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/

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/

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...

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/

Once, when I walked, the earth would list, and storms make way for my coming. #poetry link to full poem in comments

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

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

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

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

Her eyes lift to the window, mapped with raindrops— one drop among many is sliding a jagged route down the glass. #poetry

1. Lay the body’s length on a bed of ash. Do not look at the face for too long. — poetry

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

I write poems & field notes → stygian-muse.com/start-here/ Begin here for context, samplers, & my posting rhythm. New poems every Tue & Thu. #poetry