Fiddlesticks!

You will always be having to get up from your chairs

To move on to other heartbreaks, be caught in other snares.

—John Ashbery, "Some Words" (from the French of Arthur Cravan)

Saperlipopette ! Hergé exclaims inTintin

(Rimbaud's word, when he was ten).*

Fiddlesticks! Just smoke and mirrors!

(Why violin bows mean bullshit, guess!)

Garbage infests the tainted rills

(On Staten Island called Fresh Kills),

Land-filled by Social Media shills,

Spilling into laps that quiver;

Spawning there, the longings shiver.

No doubt, we need strong terms for mess!

These Mother Language may address,

If we for starters want confess.

 *Arthur Rimbaud, Proses et vers de collège (1884).

Friday, August 29, 2025