LINKDING

When you have shaped a statue out of clay And then the gods have granted her a voice Your problem then is that she has a choice For she decides what words she wants to say. A statue or a doll is cold and still A frozen beauty who can't move or change The gods are kind, they let her rearrange Her features in whatever way she will. You loved the woman-toy that you have made But didn't really pause to think things through For once the gods had granted you your prayer And she's alive, with all the world to share How could you think that you would make the grade? You love her, sure, but why should she love you?

excerpt: Hello and welcome! Come on in! I’m glad To guide you through the halls of our Blue Palace, Pride of Antat City! It’s too bad That certain factions, bent on acts of malice, Would not spare these walls from laser blasts And plasma bombs. But see how they still stand! The best Antat construction lasts and lasts. Be careful on that stair there! Take my hand. Just stay upright, and walk along this line, And keep your wits about you. We’ll be fine. ➤ a scifi poem with a fun voice, the pov of a tour guide trying brightly to maintain the official story that nothing's wrong ➤ 500 words in length

excerpt: <blockquote>THE worm, the rich worm, has a noble domain In the field that is stored with its millions of slain; The charnel-grounds widen, to me they belong, With the vaults of the sepulchre, sculptured and strong. The tower of ages in fragments is laid, Moss grows on the stones, and I lurk in its shade; And the hand of the giant and heart of the brave Must turn weak and submit to the worm and the grave.</blockquote>

Excerpt: <blockquote>Two trolls and a princess sat under a hill Hideaway, slideaway, whippoorwill The trolls were big and the princess was clever, Sing me a song and you're caught forever.</blockquote> ➤ feels like a story-song from a folk tradition

Excerpt: <blockquote>I caught this morning morning's minion, king- dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,</blockquote>

Excerpt: <blockquote>That’s my last Duke painted on my locket. Sofonisba’s work. Look; there’s no cocket Wit there, no husbandly affection near. Just an icy regard, a chilly sneer, And a pair of painstakingly clean hands That ne’er strangled an intimate, yet plans To order it done with but a raised finger.</blockquote> ➤ narrative poetry from the pov of a dead woman to her terrible husband's new wife ➤ really fun and compelling to read on in a vacuum, but also it is clearly written in response to Browning's famous poem "My Last Duchess" and is from the pov of the dead woman that poem is about! ➤ also seems to be an alternate history narrative? again you don't need to know this to appreciate the poem but after reading it I had to look up the characters involved. POV character is Lucrezia de' Medici, her terrible husband is Alfonso II d'Este, but as far as I can tell the new wife is someone who in irl history died in infancy: Isabella, daughter of Charles III of Savoy. ➤ and now I really want to know more about the history of the time period and the ways that this would have affected things and why the author made these choices for the story of the poem! ➤ anyway. I like the poem. it's good. ➤ 1k words in length

excerpt: <blockquote>Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction.</blockquote>

Summary: <blockquote>Ming Yi (really Ming Yi) has a few things he wants to say . . . Earth or black water, which is stronger, / Which will last longer? (100ships prompt 029: bone)</blockquote>

excerpt: <blockquote>Ma does tell me I just like my father. These days, down to the exhaustion. I wouldn’t know. My young memory only have three saved dates of his face, the desire to cling to someone’s hand and having nothing worth grabbing. I don’t know where he lived, or where he was when he died, only that when my ma vex, suddenly my skin putrid like he own.</blockquote>

excerpt: <blockquote>You were born from a shadow, darkness coiling around your flesh like a snake. You who were born with no shadow, stars clenched between plump fists. You sucked on those mineralized meteorites, eyes shining silver, and they named you Star Eater. Play your part, wear robes of velvet night, hung with scales and teeth. You will be called demon, monster, nightmare, evil, death. But they do not know how the stars taste.</blockquote>

excerpt: <blockquote>Art catches up with time catches up with art catches up... And, to be fair, they thought about restoring it in 1844 Napoleon was dead, they said, and Europe calm, But Florence was ruled by Austrians They voted by a narrow margin to keep it hidden. When just a few years later Napoleon III came along They felt thoroughly justified in this decision.</blockquote>

excerpt: <blockquote>When the call comes, be calm. Say to your wife, "My brother is dying. I have to fly to California." Try not to be shocked that he already looks like a cadaver. Say to the young man sitting by your brother's side, "I'm his brother," Try not to be shocked when the young man says, "I'm his lover. Thanks for coming."</blockquote>

<blockquote>1 half-rotted black boot. Initial inferred usage: fashion. Final inferred usage: survival. (Note: the phrase “The crumbling signs of material wealth from an ineffectual species bent on effortless luxury. But we ended beautiful. We ended beautiful” added into record post-collection by unknown entity)</blockquote>

<blockquote>And sometimes it is you, the door. Standing ajar, a slice of light spilling around your edges. Seeping beneath your sill. The force of it scours you from the inside, great heaving gasps that rattle your hinges. Sing against your ribs. A way out, yes, but a way in too.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Hello, our valued customer. Your call Is vitally important. Your account Is all we live for. Enter in the number You're calling for, your date of birth. The day Is young, the phone tree unexplored. We long To serve you. Thank you. Welcome. Will you hold?</blockquote>

<blockquote>We write each other memos From our separate eschatons: Flood to fire, loss to drought, Cancerous overgrowth to slow crumbling. We reach our disparate endings At a dash, staggered starts, no podium. We send reassurance: the wolf Has not yet eaten the sun here— There is time, though maybe not much, To blow a different horn, burn a different bridge, Reach a different Ragnarok. If not together, At least allied. At least connected.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Sweep me up with the dust on the floor, my broken bones, the dirt, the shards of glass. Bury it all in a cardboard box, swaddled in old newsprint and hope that in the small hours, you do not hear clank-crash-smash from the midden, on the move, seeking—like the mirror, like the shadows, like I did.</blockquote>

<blockquote>There was a Twitter thread of "depluralize a film", example "Jaw" and a clever person called Gwendolyn Ann Smith thought outside the box and said "Crow on the Orient Express" because of "a murder of crows" and then I had to run with that, and here it is. Crow finds himself on a train Rushing forward through night, Rushing north, rushing north and west, Bright lit train through dark night Tinkling crystal, silver, swishing velvet, silk, And the smell of death.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A flint, a flask, a rocketship, A glint, a glass, a dome, A spark, a signal spiralling A million miles from home.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Shakespeare was good with words, and also wise. Florence is beautiful beyond compare. Fruit tastes delicious, have you tried a pear? Bach's music, wow, the power never dies.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Some weeds are sprouting by the door, This spring, in Elsinore. And Fortinbras could not care less About the whole unseemly mess, Forget the dynasty before, This spring, in Elsinore.</blockquote>

<blockquote>A portrait from five hundred years ago Full of complexity of life, fast caught, As wide and intricate a mind on show As any living now, and one who ought In any equity to be a friend we know.</blockquote>

<blockquote>This is the slow train across Tuscany The one that does not spend its life scuttling through tunnels But instead skims the ridges, revealing Tilled fields, gentle valleys, distant mountains, Like the backdrop to a Renaissance painting</blockquote>

<blockquote>Like Icarus I soared and lost my wings, Like Sisyphus I rolled my daily round Prometheus, I faltered, and was bound, Like Tantalus I longed for unreached things.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Clouds marred the sky that season, and sapped the earth. The roses did not bloom. He never crossed paths or matched wits with a green-kirtled girl, brash enough to lay claim to woods and heart, bright enough to be right on both counts. No, when teind-time came, there was no one to save him, save himself. So Tam Lin held tightly through the changes: he did not know if his “true self” was elf or mortal man, tree-eyed or true-eyed, bear or lion or burning coal; but he did not let go of his own hands, one clutched in the white-knuckled grip of a boy, one grasped firmly by a hazy, half-formed future. When he emerged from the water, he shrouded himself in green and said: I know you, I love you, I’m proud of you, you’re home.</blockquote>

<blockquote>i will always be more tomb than temple, i know. there are ghosts and gods reclining on the moth-eaten velvet of my tongue, tigers and thunders purring in my veins but—</blockquote>

<blockquote>Unripe morning cut open too soon gushes sour light across the sheets to curdle dawn’s uneaten skin and sluices down the culverts where night squats facing into the corner still fingering its curious soft wounds.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Three translators interpret "my heart is a fish", from Japanese to English.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Would the rightful owners of these 17 bodies please turn up to claim them? For verification purposes, state your name— the one that’s missing from the papers, the one stitched to your soul. So that we know which one’s yours, describe your body as it was when you lost it:</blockquote>

<blockquote>The witch lives in the woods and waits for children, they say; I got tired of waiting, and moved to town. </blockquote>