Jean, dansant
  
 It was a temp-
 oral regression 
 from which 
 he returned 
 
 
 singing La 
 Marseillaise 
 between mouth-
 fuls of an egg &
  
 lettuce sand-
 wich. Arch-
 ival footage 
 shows there
 
 
 were times
 when he had
 all four feet
 off the ground. 
  
 
  
 Later 
  
 the Holy Roman 
 Empire would 
 come to be regarded
 as the first 
 successful franchise. 
 Initially, however, it 
 didn't seem to have 
 a hope of making it 
  
 until Emperor Constantine
 finally paid attention
 to the local cuisine 
 & replaced the 
 basic communion wafer
 with bite-sized pide.
  
  
 
  
 Working on a capsicum farm
  
 Way before television, up & down 
 the main street on a Saturday night. 
 Olive oil heated in a large sauce-
 pan, a high energy production. 
 Unanimously well received. Great 
 feedback for a never say die team. 
  
 "The intention is to allow people 
 to stay living in their own homes," 
 Carol explained. "We're hoping 
 those people who want to become 
 train drivers will wear white on 
 the night − lots of lace, no denim. 
  
 "It's so rewarding to see them once
 they step out of their comfort zone."
 
  
 Out & About
  
 When last heard of she was
 said to be running a clinic &
 outreach program for theo-
  
 dolites made redundant by
 an uptake of GPS devices. No-
 one can pinpoint its location.
  
  
  
 Now 
  
 that the voices 
 in my head have
 deserted me, 
 
 who is there 
 left to talk to?
  
  
  
  
  
   

 A line from Samuel Shuckford
  
 Recruited & looted from WoW's Faceless 
 Corruptor, tectonic action is dragging a
 full-grown mouse straight up the side
 of a refrigerator. Enormous fragments 
  
 fall into the abyss, supporting certain 
 recent scientific arguments that claim
 to have irrefutable proof giant volcanoes 
 are driving Big Data technology today.

  
 Sous-chef
  
 Skeptics say there is
 no easy way to test
  
 claims that any loosely
 defined subset of furry
  
 ponchos, fur-lined flip-
 flops, or sweater sets
  
 adorned with brooches
 will continue to float
  
 when cream is added
 to the pumpkin broth.
 
  
 Three geographies: 
  
 Puerto Montt
    
 Earthquakes have eaten the eye
 out of the cathedral. A fish was
  
 caught on camera attacking &
 eating a baby bird. There are 
  
 two sides to every story. These 
 are the first five to be displayed.
  
  
 Bratislava
  
 The oligarchs of the
 Little Carpathians offer
 redemption in the form
  
 of chocolate-topped do-
 nuts covered in rainbow
 sprinkles. They ask only
  
 for a sum of money to be do-
 nated to ensure the efficacy
 of their ministrations.
  
  
 Gdańsk
  
 The Teutonic Knights came &
 went, usually accompanied
 by bloodshed, until the minting
 of Polish coins was regally
 approved. Much later Freie 
 Stadt Danzig. Then Lech Wałęsa
 sometime after the city had re-
 claimed its name. The diacritic 
 over the "n" is often omitted.

 
 
 
 
 Room 281
  
 A divination of entropy, in
 which people pass but
 collide with one another
 in corridors that then be-
 come impassable. When he
  
 found her, she was reading
 an Icelandic detective story,
 somewhat convoluted as well 
 as full of multi-syllable patro-
 nymic or matronymic names. 
  
 The building that housed the 
 radio telescope was caught by 
 sunlight, then let down gently.
 Its message bank was empty.
 Later he walked home alone. 
 
   
 From the Pound Cantos: CENTO XXV
  
 Propped between chairs & 
 table, torches melt in the glare. 
 Flame leaps from the hand, 
 the rain is listless, the leaves are
 full of voices. Our bodies also
 heavy with weeping. Time
 spent knocking at empty rooms,
 stubborn against the fact. 
  
 An ex-convict out of Italy, 
 water running off from his twis-
 ted arms, swung for a moment 
 & knocked me into the black 
 snout of a porpoise gripping the
 blue-gray glass of the wave. 
  
 
  
 A line from Jimi Hendrix
  
 Despite it being a culturally
 inclusive environment, delive-
 ring messages intended for
 airborne bacteria presents a
  
 unique challenge. Because of
 constant barriers — such as a 
 vacuum cleaner able to rescue 
 a dog from a mini iceberg — there
  
 is only ever one way in. Test the 
 water, & in time find that the most 
 efficient method is to hide them in
 a radio program full of mirrors.
  
 
   
 languor longer
  
 He thought indo-
 lence might be a 
 group of languages 
 along the lines of 
  
 Indo-European, 
 but found he didn't
 have sufficient 
 drive to look it up. 
   

 
 
 
 
 Triaging "triage"
  
 I find the way words drift & shift in meaning delightful.
  
 Yesterday I checked on the spelling of "triage" in my, admittedly 30 years old, Concise Oxford Dictionary, & found the definition given there was "the refuse of coffee beans."
  
 Since this was nothing like what I was expecting (& started to wonder if I had, in fact, the right word) I moved on to the ten years younger Shorter Oxford & found two definitions; "The action of sorting according to quality" which is much closer to current usage although apparently an older meaning since the second definition was "coffee beans of the third or lowest quality."
  
 & putting them together I came up with a new job, a "triage specialist," who wanders the waiting areas of ER words, oops, wards, inspecting empty coffee cups to see if they can divine in the leftovers what the patient's ailment might be…
  
 
  
 mean time
  
 The red eyes of rabbits
 Denise Levertov: The Springtime
  
 The rabbit's eyes aren't blue.
 Or are they?
  
 The red-eye flight gets you in 
 early in the morning.
  
 That means that unless you're
 some sort of piston
  
 pumping ramrod-straight
 along a longitude
  
 you'll need to wind your watch forward
 to make up for the time you've lost.
  
 Who knows what might have happened 
 in those over-looked hours?
 
  
 geographies: the Mackenzie River valley
  
 Peat forests are especially
 carbon-dense, but their
 curated selection depends
 upon those attributes which
 abound in the current season.
 
 Data is king. Social plat-
 forms abound. Yet there is
 no one size fits all solution
 when it comes to new in-
 formation technologies.
  
 
   
 For Veterans’ Day,
  
 Donald J. Trump had
 a sweatshop in Myanmar
 run him up a Buddha
 the size of the ones that 
 used to be at Bamiyan.
  
 Had a hand at the end 
 of an elevator arm in 
 which he was carried 
 up from the stage to a
 height approximately
  
 equal to 2000 bodies
 stacked one on top of
 another. From where 
 he delivered a speech
 that was amplified / 
  
 televised / digitalized / 
 YouTubized so that the
 whole world could
 know what the sound of 
 one hand crapping was. 

still stands time

Is it a cheat to refer

to the second single

from the album Evaluate

the condition condition

if it gives you time to

take action to ensure

that your cows calve

in adequate body con-

dition &/or provides

early warning of

wellbore instability?

largely / a gathering / of central bankers

Imagine running a
business where allies
of the Shadows seek
revenge against
humanity. I have
a quirk about multi-
location Cloud
Attendance, especially

when the call to
arms is augmented
with global load
balancing. The
native name of
Armenia is Hayastan.

Bird photography

In many ways it seems 
like the national park that
time forgot. So, if you’re 

looking at being more 
mobile for a bash on the
unpredictable ground

there, then forgo sky-
high stilettos & put 
sandbags over the legs.

Why segregate?

Only 11% of the total a-

mount of waste in Metro

Manila is recycled. Shuai

chiao throws aren’t that

different to judo but

have come a long way

since the early alpha/beta

builds. She has never bought

a six-pack of beer in a grocery

store or developed a new

technique for measuring a

baby’s lung function after

birth. In a polycrystalline solid,

watch for fragbots coming off.