Link to the song

kittenboo, Kittenboo ( Read more... )

The Last Piece

“Put it on the ground.”

Her small frame belied a tacit might, the folds of her skirt and eyelids unmoving in the seconds beyond the demand until, after the space of the sounding and dying of an unseen dog’s shrill, doleful moan, her left foot evenly slid backwards, allowing her knee to meet the crackled asphalt with a stoic silence ( Read more... )

Just reposting this for ease, in case anyone lands on my page looking for all 5 Portfolio entries together.

My favorite entry from this season was for Sawubona.

I chose to write on the two topics that I avoided with my byes: "Failure" and "Solvitur Ambulando".

Cafe Bolan

One humid March day of 2019, I was standing on a 15-inch ledge some 65 feet above ground level.

I was not contemplating the view from said ledge, though I'm sure the sweeping crest of the treetops blanketing the contours of Nam Pha Pa ( Read more... )

I am honored and elated to have the incredible Andrew Zhou contribute his work to my portfolio. His piano performances have left me brimming with unnameable emotions, and his acute insights always lead me to new discoveries ( Read more... )

“Do you know this trick?

You can recontextualize

any note of the scale

pretty quickly.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.

Just take any scale degree,

imagine it’s the new tonic,

and then go to its V chord.

You’ll find yourself

somewhere new.”

And I do.

Isn’t that

a small mercy

we can afford ourselves?

So often

this sequence of life

whether ascending or descending

feels so given,

so ( Read more... )

link to the song.

I'm not

the captain;

I'm a captive

actively practicing

my octaves.

I'm not

the captain;

I'm a hapless

victim of his

and all his actions.

I’m not

the first class;

I serve

the crass fat cats

mostly a list

of Mozart and Lizst.

I'm not

the first class-

cursed to worst class,

first to drown

and last to be found,

lifeless.

O,

sainted patron

of the arts,

( Read more... )

“Milkshake Duck” is a milkshake duck.

Forgive the tautology, but it seems noteworthy that the term "Milkshake Duck" did not age well. In fact, it hardly aged at all.

Despite small waves of meme-ery and quippy internet journalism since it hatched from a 2016 tweet, and despite being considered by several word-of-the-year lists (and ultimately ( Read more... )

link to the song

The Two Men of Pompeii

Salve, amāns mei.

Be well on this day.

I saw you see

the black pumice tree

defile the chariot of Sol.

I felt you feel

the crash of its wheel

upon our hallowed Terra's knoll.

As Pluto erupts in anger,

don't flee, my heart; let's linger.

Prized of Venus,

say, has she seen us

crawl beyond this garden gate

through the ( Read more... )

Progress

The gales were clamorous throes of derision

threshing across our split and deceitful knuckles,

splaying the remnants of a rook’s contumely

upon our eardrums.

Our vision blotted,

dense and ruddy with the ire of a renounced ancestor.