Cover to “The Mighty Thor” #26, Mike Mignola, 1998

Marvel Comics.

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Skies over Salem, VA, December 2023

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“At Close of Day,” Maxfield Parrish, 1941

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Source: Mike Tomy on Facebook

“Young Lady in a Boat,” James Jacques Tissot, 1870

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right I probably shouldn’t even be allowed near a stove

because consequences



Update — since concerned people are querying me, please let me assure you that everything is okay.   Some steam was mean to me, but I am fine.

Stupid stove. Stupid pasta. Stupid laws of thermophysics.



 

“That valley is fatal where furnaces burn.”

“O where are you going?” said reader to rider,
“That valley is fatal where furnaces burn,
Yonder’s the midden whose odours will madden,
That gap is the grave where the tall return.”

“O do you imagine,” said fearer to farer,
“That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,
Your diligent looking discover the lacking,
Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?”

— excerpt from W. H. Auden’s “O Where Are You Going?”



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A walk up Market Street in Roanoke, VA, Christmastime, 2023.

I almost said “Sorry for the funky music,” but they keep saying “Play that” and I am indeed a white boy.

I actually wanted to remove audio entirely from this video, but I can’t figure out how to do that with Youtube. (Damn it, Jim. I’m a poet, not a video editor.)



USPS 13-Cent Christmas Stamp, 1977

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Christmas tree at the corner of Market Street and Salem Avenue.

Roanoke, Virginia.

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Nurse Your Favorite Heresies in Whispers