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  • Guess I’m Stuck in the Dark — Heartworms

    29Oct26 | 13.25 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 261029.1325

    Just uploaded a few days ago.

    If I haven’t said it enough before, I just wanted to point out that I can’t explain quite what it is about Jojo Orme (aka Heartworms), but I really-really like her vibe and music. It very much has the feel of the 80s music scene with a modern twist that I can’t quite put my finger on.

    Of course, her rendition of Dominion (Sisters of Mercy) sealed the deal for me. While far from my favorite Sisters song, I quite enjoyed hearing her new take on it. But Chris turned me onto her sound before that, so I was already halfway there.

    Warning: here be bugs.

    tagged:

    heartworms

    filed under:

    listening
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    6 comments on Guess I’m Stuck in the Dark — Heartworms

  • birdshit — 29oct26

    29Oct26 | 09.52 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 261029.0952
    old skull pillow
    laying in a fallow field —
    two drunks, whiskey road

    tagged:

    birdshit, micropoetry, not-haiku haiku

    filed under:

    poetry
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  • On carrying wooden swords

    29Oct26 | 08.48 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 261029.0848

    1435 FORTY-SECOND YEAR, EIKYŌ SEVEN
    WOOD’S YOUNGER BROTHER, THE HARE

    Ikkyū spent some time down in Izumi [Sakai]. Whenever he went out in the city streets, he took along a wooden sword. As he walked, he rapped his fingers on its hilt.

    The townspeople argued with him saying, ‘The virtue of a sword is killing. What use does a monk have for one?’

    He replied, ‘You don’t know it yet, but these days the world is full of a false wisdom that is just like this wooden sword. As long as it is kept in the scabbard, it looks as good as a real blade, but if it is drawn out from the scabbard, it is seen to be only a sliver of wood. It cannot even kill people—much less make them live.’

    — Sanford, Zen-Man Ikkyū, pp. 91–92.

    Part of the reason I am not a serious practitioner of Zen is the number of props that someone being serious about Zen seems to require. Incense, robes, zafu and zabuton, chimes and gongs, and whatnot, along with a meditation space and a shrine (if you lean that way), blank walls to limit distraction…

    (more…)

    tagged:

    birdshit, Ikkyū, zen not zen

    filed under:

    junk drawer
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    7 comments on On carrying wooden swords

  • reblog: Be careful what you wish for (part VIII)

    29Oct26 | 07.24 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 261029.0724

    Links to the earlier parts of this collaborative tale written with Jolene Rice can be found: Part I, Part II, Parts III & IV, Part V, Part VI, and Part VII

    Someone finds a rat.

    Be careful what you wish for 

    tagged:

    collaboration, fiction, other writers, reblog

    filed under:

    fiction
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  • birdshit — 28oct26

    28Oct26 | 21.57 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 261028.2157
    fly-specked windowpane
    autumn brings no lavish feasts —
    web catches only sun

    tagged:

    birdshit, micropoetry, not-haiku haiku

    filed under:

    poetry
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  • everything falls apart — a serial

    28Oct26 | 07.30 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 261028.0730
    Photo by Sergei Vasilenko on Unsplash, design by michael raven

    AUTHOR’S NOTE and EARLY CONCEPTS

    TOC


    [Mar 10] Drive — March 14, 1997

    [Note: The following email printed to PDF was discovered in a Drive folder on Alice’s phone named “Kyle”.]


    Alice Donovan <Alice.Donovan.73@[withheld].com>
    Fw: Re: Funeral (fwd)
    1 message
    
                 ---
    
    WhiteRabbit.73 <WhiteRabbit.73@[withheld].com>
    Sun, May 21, 2006 at 9:42 PM
    To: Alice.Donovan.73@[withheld].com
    
    ----Original Message Follows----
    
    From: DonovanA01@[withheld].edu
    To: WhiteRabbit.73@[withheld].com
    Subject: Re: Funeral (fwd)
    Date: Sun, 18 May 1997 16:12:07 -0500 (CDT)
    
    ---------- Forwarded message ----------
    
    Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 19:49:31 -0600 (CST)
    From: GrendelTC@[withheld].com
    To: DonovanA01@[withheld].edu
    Subject: Re: Funeral

    Al—

    Sorry about the delay in responding (not about missing out on the funeral, though). Tommy was out of town on business and I didn’t want to bother his fiancee just to hear “You’ve got mail!”

    (more…)

    tagged:

    Minneapolis, salvage fiction, serial fiction, serialized fiction, Twin Cities, urbex

    filed under:

    Everything Falls Apart
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  • birdshit — 27oct26

    27Oct26 | 10.30 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 261027.1030
    we laugh, fool & crow,
    did we forget to forget?
    — frost breath in the morn

    For Ikkyū.

    tagged:

    birdshit, micropoetry, not-haiku haiku

    filed under:

    poetry
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    2 comments on birdshit — 27oct26

  • reblog: Be careful what you wish for (part VII)

    27Oct26 | 07.02 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 261027.0702

    Links to the earlier parts of this collaborative tale written with Jolene Rice can be found: Part I, Part II, Parts III & IV, Part V and Part VI. And now you have Part VII in your grubby little fingers.

    I’d forgotten how far we’d taken this before I flaked out. Good thing Jolene is around to (finally) put it to bed. This is getting into the territory of where I get to be surprised by where she decided to take this.😄

    Be careful what you wish for 

    tagged:

    collaboration, fiction, other writers, reblog

    filed under:

    fiction
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    4 comments on reblog: Be careful what you wish for (part VII)

  • everything falls apart — a serial

    26Oct26 | 08.20 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 261026.0820
    Photo by Sergei Vasilenko on Unsplash, design by michael raven

    AUTHOR’S NOTE and EARLY CONCEPTS

    TOC


    [Aug 10, 01:39] Recorder — fuckity

    Well, I managed to turn that into a shitshow, didn’t I?

    [21 seconds of silence in recording]

    I don’t know what Kelly [kali] was going on about. I don’t understand. No one talked. If you can believe nails [Nils], he didn’t say anything to the kid at the store. I didn’t say anything to anyone. Even played stupid with DK.

    Maybe he did say something like the package was mesh gear or something. Nell [Nils] would slip something like that if he got angry and forgot to keep that detail quiet.

    (more…)

    tagged:

    Minneapolis, salvage fiction, serial fiction, serialized fiction, Twin Cities, urbex

    filed under:

    Everything Falls Apart
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    12 comments on everything falls apart — a serial

  • distance

    25Oct26 | 20.37 CDT
    © 2026

    michael raven

    c: 261025.2037
    grinding teeth granite
    i would let red this river
    run free for her phantom
    naked pale in a morn of sun

    to touch burn the winter
    cruel hand, send a sign
    with the ache of stars
    longing to draw near

    tagged:


    filed under:

    poetry
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