Latest Posts by bustlingblankverse - Page 7
there's laundry to do and a genocide to stop by vinay krishnan
Scattered poertry from my scattered brain (is this anything? idk)
Cut Through The Noise
Even as the strike ends, the Palestinian genocide has not.
Now more than ever, there are so many conflicting voices. People with their own self-serving, hateful motivations speak over us, and sometimes our own voices can turn against us. We may feel like our voice isn't enough or we aren't doing enough.
This is why it's so important to learn to shut down that noise. No matter how much people scream that what we're doing is useless or a waste of time, keep talking. Keep talking about Palestine. Keep talking about Palestine for as long as this goes on, both online and in real life. If Israel won't end their genocide, we won't end our protest.
Below is a list of what you can do and the poem transcript.
Check and spread this post which contains a comprehensive list on how to help Palestine.
Learn about the history of Palestine and how the displacement and eventual genocide of Palestinians started in 1948.
Learn more about Palestine, the myths surrounding it and the arguments debunking it.
Boycott companies who are either directly or indirectly supporting and finding Palestine's genocide.
Click a button to raise funds for UNRWA – an organisation aiding Palestinian refugees.
Attend a protest.
Help Gazans stay connected by purchasing eSims for them.
Donate to the following organizations – any amount, no matter how small, goes a long way:
UNWRA
Care for Gaza
Medical Aid for Palestinians
Palestine Children's Relief Fund
Islamic Relief
Here's another post detailing more charities you can donate to
And most importantly of all: Don't Stop Talking About Palestine! However you interpret it as – creating art, talking to the people in your life, emailing and calling your representatives, even reblogging and making posts – make your voice loud and clear!
— Poem Transcript —
There's a lot of noise right now
Screams dehumanizing poor souls
Groans from those in willful ignorance
People digging deeper and deeper holes
And it's overwhelming, it really is
I do not blame you
Sometimes you feel that your voice is too small
I feel that way too
But despite that, I urge you to keep going
And demand for what's right
Even it sounds like a whimper
You're still joining in the fight
And soon the rest of us will join
We can stand together here
We can cut through the white noise
And make our message clear
When I was in middle school, I tried to learn how to crochet. I knew how to knit already, so I figured ‘how hard could it be’ and used my Christmas money on a brand new set of aluminum hooks and a how-to book.
To say it was difficult was an understatement. I spent hours pouring over my book, begging to gain some inkling of understanding from what felt like incomprehensible runes. My reward? One lopsided trapezoid of lumpy fabric and a resolve to never pick up a crochet hook again.
And so life went on, I finished middle school and high school without giving crochet so much as a second glance. In college, I read about how crochet couldn’t be replicated by a machine, it was unique in a way that knitting and many other fiber arts weren’t.
For Christmas last year, my girlfriend gave me what I now consider to be my most prized possession: a crocheted plush of my favorite pokemon. I raved over her skills and, since she never learned how to knit, we decided to have a yarn date at some point and teach each other our respective skills.
We never did get around to that yarn date. She passed a few months after our declaration, leaving me to inherit what was left of her yarn.
Nearly a decade after my initial attempt, I got ready for the toughest battle of my life. My weapons? One skein of yarn, a YouTube video, and a crochet hook that I had somehow never gotten rid of.
I slowly made my way through the video, redoing my work a couple times until I was satisfied with my product: a small, slightly misshapen rectangle.
I looked at my pristinely-made pokemon plush with hope for the first time in months and thought to myself, ‘maybe crocheting isn’t the hardest thing in the world, maybe you were just 12.’
Maybe this isn’t the hardest thing in the world. Maybe I’m just 21.
From amelia nason's chapbook, poems i shouldn't have written, available from Bottlecap Press!
Here’s a 5 page comic about a weird project I spent the last month working on 🪲
happy birthday to my best friend grey 🐇🩵🫂🛌
Please don’t take your pets for granted. Even if you’re frustrated that your dog has been barking all day or your bird has been screaming for attention, remember you are all they have in this world. Give your fish that extra water change. Give your dog or cat that tummy rub they’ve been begging for. Chop up some fresh fruit as a treat for your rodents or reptiles. Just spend some time with them. Be compassionate to your animals. They are living creatures that are alive simply because you wish them to be. They may only be a small part in your life, but to them, you are their everything.
i hate it when i cant even write a poem about something because its too obvious. like in the airbnb i was at i guess it used to be a kids room cause you could see the imprint of one little glow in the dark star that had been missed and painted over in landlord white. like that's a poem already what's the point
eventually you realize you don’t want to die. you just don’t want to live the life you’re living. and slowly you try to create a life you want to live. just gotta start there.
To The Substitute Art Teacher - Jordan Bolton
you spent hours in libraries and in art supply stores trying to absorb the artist tips from books your parents didn't want to buy you. on each page of every "how to draw" is a version of the same four things: this is how you shade a sphere. this is how you shade a cone.
this is what a man looks like. he is hard and angular and jutting. his chest narrows a triangle down to his sharp hip and long legs. his jawbone is a square. he is powerful, imposing, his hands are big and meaty. he is a leader.
this is what a woman looks like. she is soft and her hands tuck her long hair back behind a delicate ear. she is big-eyed and round (but not too round, she is skinny, here is the faint sketch of her abs showing), she is smaller and lighter and pretty. she has thick black lashes and her tits do not come with a massive ribcage to offset the weight we put on her - she has curves, but they are impossibly slim without giving her backache trouble. there is a large red hourglass outlined on top of her figure, the way there is a triangle outlined on top of the man. her face is a heart-shape, and her lips are pouting.
here is how you draw the woman and the man together. the man should be in action shots. the woman's ass should be in action shots. she should fit against the man to compliment his negative space - she should slot into his shadow so when they hug, they become one uniform space. here is how all the other artists have done it, see how good it looks when the man (angles, fire, passion, action) and the woman (roundness, water, emotion, supplication) complement each other? he begins the sentence, she is his ending.
do you want to kiss another girl? that is round-to-round. that is fitting the wire into the wrong socket! how would the faces look together? a single silhouette you sketch and then hide, scribbling over it.
do you want to look like a girl? by sheer genetic happenstance, you absolutely don't look like that, and you never have. you don't look like a man, either, though, do you. you don't feel like you truly belong to either gender, but there is not a "neutral/fluid" drawing in the book. there is male (triangle) or female (hourglass).
but you have a square jaw and square hands and "masculine" proportions. but you have curves and roundness and full lips and "feminine" features. someone online says, definitively, that any form of gender noncompliance is "a mental illness." this comment has over one thousand likes from people who agree.
here is how you shade a square. none of the clothes at the store look good on you, you always somehow feel like you're wearing a weird kind of costume. here is how you shade a sphere. your friend's mother calls the school because she's horrified you're in the same changing room. here is the neutral body figure: it is a wooden man. technically the wooden man is genderless, but that is because masculinity is the default, and everyone calls the figure "a wooden man." you must be small and posable and skinny and featureless, then you can be masculine enough to not have gender.
here is how to draw a person. begin with some shapes. choose the right shapes to get that person's gender correct. do not kiss her. shade in short, sharp lines.
when she laughs, look away.
🇵🇸🍉 Free Palestine 🍉🇵🇸
#1,200 hermit
when i leave this tight fit of an exoskeleton
i wonder what will be found from those times
when something was lost to the tide
rather than gathered and disposed of
there are some things
you just cannot rid the world of
corn cob husks
used-up push-pop tabs
empty of disinfection tablets
all the library books i could never return
paperbacks so worn down
with indentations and water damage
you can barely decipher the original text
neon orange, made to eat
inside-out wrappers, forgotten sweets
saved for never, piano sheets
shucking
prying
always denying
hoarding away contrabands
collecting what’s left for the next finding in the sand-
but even hermit crabs
in their ever adapting, tenacious habits
leave behind something worth remembering
#1,501
blistered fingertips scratch against constricting linen
i lay in a bed of moss
underneath my grandmothers afghan
and woke surrounded in mold
the clay beneath
tugs, tearing open old gashes
revealing layers of decay
interlocking rigid muscle tissue
every motion scattering spores
i find myself coughing, clenching
crawling through the colonies
for
i am not
your
host
i am only
flesh
and
blood
and yet
that flesh is powdered in mildew
that blood is blooming
i will not yield
i swear
i will taste fresh air
alongside a mushroom omelette
without an inkling of a sour memory
but i fear
i am
rotting
in internet posts it is easy to cut them out of your life. they are hurting you! they aren't listening to you!
they held your hair back. they lent you lipstick. they held your hand at the train station and got you home safe. they rounded on your bully, got loud, said get fucked, spitting-mad in your defense.
they also cut the hair off again. told you that you should really think twice before wearing something like that. took you for granted. took your insecurities and threw them in your face again.
you know logically it should be easy. all the internet advice comments always read it will feel better. like an equation - if a person is rotten, you just remove them. you pull the tooth that's hurting.
but it was never a big flare-up moment. you don't live in a sitcom. they never tried to take your boyfriend or steal from your apartment. they showed up to birthdays and they wrote songs about you and bring you water without you asking. once you found out they carry an emergency inhaler for you, even though you haven't had an asthma attack in years - just in case.
where is the line? people fuck up. sometimes they fuck up badly. sometimes people have raw personalities, like a powerline, and being around them is dangerous. addicting. sometimes they can't help themselves, but you know they're trying. sometimes they are just rough-around-the-edges. sometimes they don't even realize how they sounded when they said that. sometimes it's just - you've both loved each other for so long now, the way this thing hurts goes back to the root.
and that's the fucked up part. you have pushed your fingers against the sweetheart of memory. things these days are electric, tense, harrowing. they didn't used to be. there were a lot of good days in there. sometimes you want to just close your eyes and say can this be over yet? do we still need to be fighting?
doing that would give up any chance you get of getting an apology, but you don't always know that you need an apology, you love them. once they flaked on your birthday party. once they told you to get over it, people are always dying. they also let you crash on their couch for a week after the breakup, handfeeding you when you were so sad you couldn't eat. they are judgmental about everything, occasionally react to banal statements with an attitude that is weird and fiery. they also love you like a lighthouse sometimes, so strong they cut the storm like lightning.
but the problem is that you might be storm. you might be the thing that needs breaking. what if you are two forces who are desperately, horribly drawn to each other, shaped by the other person's passions, and good for each other and bad in equal measure.
what if you're both just people, and you're no saint neither.
just cut them off! swallowing the saltwater, you catch yourself in the mirror. you've been shaking more than usual. there's an ache in you that is oblique, loud, impossible to soothe. is this what it looks like? when life is "easier"?
your mouth will always have a hole, is the thing, if you remove the tooth.
A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.
it is my birthday today. as a gift to me, tell someone you know about palestine, but don’t just tell them about our death. tell them about our life, the way we crowd around to flip the maqlooba, the insistence that someone else eats first, the tatreez we’ve woven into the fabric of our history, tell them about the soap from nablus, the oranges from yafa, the olive oil. tell them about our poetry, our art, our folksongs. tell them that we were, and still are, human beings who bore witness to the worst parts of humanity but searched for compassion anyway.
did you guys see the poem from a couple of days ago in poetry dot org’s daily poem it was so good and a treat to read
made a poem i wrote into a comic. anyone else angry that you have to yearn
Once a little boy went to school. One morning The teacher said: “Today we are going to make a picture.” “Good!” thought the little boy. He liked to make all kinds; Lions and tigers, Chickens and cows, Trains and boats; And he took out his box of crayons And began to draw.
But the teacher said, “Wait!” “It is not time to begin!” And she waited until everyone looked ready. “Now,” said the teacher, “We are going to make flowers.” “Good!” thought the little boy, He liked to make beautiful ones With his pink and orange and blue crayons. But the teacher said “Wait!” “And I will show you how.” And it was red, with a green stem. “There,” said the teacher, “Now you may begin.”
The little boy looked at his teacher’s flower Then he looked at his own flower. He liked his flower better than the teacher’s But he did not say this. He just turned his paper over, And made a flower like the teacher’s. It was red, with a green stem.
On another day The teacher said: “Today we are going to make something with clay.” “Good!” thought the little boy; He liked clay. He could make all kinds of things with clay: Snakes and snowmen, Elephants and mice, Cars and trucks And he began to pull and pinch His ball of clay.
But the teacher said, “Wait!” “It is not time to begin!” And she waited until everyone looked ready. “Now,” said the teacher, “We are going to make a dish.” “Good!” thought the little boy, He liked to make dishes. And he began to make some That were all shapes and sizes.
But the teacher said “Wait!” “And I will show you how.” And she showed everyone how to make One deep dish. “There,” said the teacher, “Now you may begin.”
The little boy looked at the teacher’s dish; Then he looked at his own. He liked his better than the teacher’s But he did not say this. He just rolled his clay into a big ball again And made a dish like the teacher’s. It was a deep dish.
And pretty soon The little boy learned to wait, And to watch And to make things just like the teacher. And pretty soon He didn’t make things of his own anymore.
Then it happened That the little boy and his family Moved to another house, In another city, And the little boy Had to go to another school.
The teacher said: “Today we are going to make a picture.” “Good!” thought the little boy. And he waited for the teacher To tell what to do. But the teacher didn’t say anything. She just walked around the room.
When she came to the little boy She asked, “Don’t you want to make a picture?” “Yes,” said the little boy. “What are we going to make?” “I don’t know until you make it,” said the teacher. “How shall I make it?” asked the little boy. “Why, anyway you like,” said the teacher. “And any color?” asked the little boy. “Any color,” said the teacher. And he began to make a red flower with a green stem.
~Helen Buckley, The Little Boy
#1,336
I’m not creating as much as I’d like.
Because I’m trying to predict my future mistakes.
My inner critic believes themself to be prophetic
“You’ve written about this person too many times,
Who in the world would want to keep a sculpture of a dumb cat?
If I were to attempt some editing,
Not a line would be worth keeping.”
If I’m not going to make anything,
I might as well smack myself upside the head.
Death of the author is meant to be metaphorical.
Just because it’s put out into the world doesn’t mean it’s meant to be published.
I could be completely wrong.
But it shuts my inner critic up when I think this,
So maybe it’s worth something.
Maybe when Van Gogh painted “Starry Night” he wasn’t thinking about anything.
Just taking in the view from his asylum and his paintbrush.
#1,484
I picked up
one of those perfect published
poetry anthologies
flipping through its pages
fumbling for this authors sense of style
tripping headfirst into the phrase
“if writing would kill you, would you still write?”
my joints crack on impact
god there are weeks
when i can’t even dream
of pen and paper’s sordid affairs
but there are moments upon moments
where it’s the only impulse
I have left
i may never achieve
that coveted haven
on a barnes and nobles
new releases shelf
but god damn
i
will
write
until
i
die
or
i
cease
to
be
complete
For me to write poetry that isn't political
I must listen to the birds
and in order to listen to the birds
the war planes must be silent
- Marwan Makhoul, Palestinian Lebanese poet.
There was a young man from Peru
Whose limericks stopped at line two
#203
It just kept haunting.
Vying for a steely, totalitarian grasp on my thoughts,
Snatching with it’s thick greedy fingers at fragments of tranquility,
Lurking in every shadowed alleyway of my subconscious.
I eventually concluded that I needed to settle this with a confrontation.
The next time it tried to influence my thinking, I asked,
“Why are you here? What do you want?”
It rung it's hands for a moment, silent.
The first time, it replied “To change you.”
I tried to talk into it every attack.
It grew more anxious every time I asked, as if no one took the time to confer with it.
Its answers became more telling
“So you will suffer for what you've done.”
“You need to remember what a miserable creature you are.”
“I will not leave your side. I am what you deserve.”
It is extremely insistent.
But I know it will not retain this power forever.
I will continue to note its arrival.
Someday, I hope that it will be a fleeting, inconsequential specter.
But today isn’t someday I suppose.
We all live with demons.
Sadly, this isn’t the first or last.
#192
It's just one of those days
All things look the same
But nothing feels quite safe.
I'm scrounging for a sense of security.
So I'll wear a friends old t-shirt
And strum until my fingers hurt
And wash until my brain just works.
Little things are the start to stability.
The Secret to Happiness
You will get just what you give,
and take what you recieve.
A lesson you will come to learn,
you never must deceive.
To be yourself, a humble gift,
a freedom for your mind.
But this is not true just for you,
this gift of being kind.
You must be kind to everyone,
as they are kind to you.
Treat others with only respect,
you'll be respected too.
If you're content to be yourself
and let others do the same,
it allows them to be happy too
and live without the shame.
It starts with just a simple thing,
to treat yourself with care.
And then it spreads to everyone,
a kindness we all share.
If you give what you expect,
you will get very far.
The secret to your happiness,
be kind to who you are.
- SMP 💜 (be kind, be you)