Still kicking || Known to versify || Also on IG, X/Twit & Tumblr || Photo by A. Brault. https://alteritas.net/https://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mwom4kvehc2sTo read a poem in translation is to pledge troth to a ghost, a wispy, intangible presence residing in another world you can never touch without crossing over to it. For St Jerome’s Feast Day 2026, I’m releasing Troths to Ghosts, a motley selection of translated poems. Links at alteritas.net.29 Sep 2026 19:52 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mwom4kvehc2shttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mvgetjvtzs2kHere's an interesting exercise for anyone with free time, and curiosity about AI and climate change. Put this question into various different AI bots, DeepSeek, Duck AI, even the notorious Grok: What do oceanographers think will happen to the Gulf Stream when the Arctic ice mass melts?13 Sep 2026 19:55 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mvgetjvtzs2khttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mr45hel4v22rThe go-to blog for info on Wawa, aka Chinook Jargon. https://chinookjargon.com/2026/07/19/klahowya-from-cultus-bay/20 Jul 2026 20:35 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mr45hel4v22rhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mqzgpo2oy22dTime again to tout Helene Garrett's translation of the Curaçoan poet Elis Juliana's Haiku in Papiamenu. i had nothing to so with it apart from having supervised the thesis it was part of.19 Jul 2026 18:43 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqzgpo2oy22dhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mpstssc2ek2gThanking the good folks at Blooomin' Onion for nominating "Shinny" for Best of the Net 2026: https://www.thebloominonion.com/distinguished-work Shinny is the concluding poem in a sequence of seven I've dedicated to the late Houston born, bred & based poet Michael Berryhill. https://alteritas.net/pastis/honeysuckle-taint-from-backyard-suite/04 Jul 2026 10:24 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mpstssc2ek2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3moxt3crkkc2wOnce I noticed it I can't unthink it. The predictive spelling function on my iPhone is a (very primitive) version of the LLM bots like Claude, Chat GPT and DeepSeek. Watch it and you'll see how it knows what you're going to say.23 Jun 2026 16:29 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3moxt3crkkc2whttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mmoihzdsm22fThey may well own the algorithm, but they do not control it. The algorithm controls them. #alogorithm #Algo25 May 2026 12:35 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmoihzdsm22fhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mkqhvk3ed22pWhat better way to fete May Day than Pasolini's sublime elegy "Gramsci's Ashes"? https://alteritas.net/pastis/translations/gramsis-ashes/30 Apr 2026 20:39 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkqhvk3ed22phttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mkbn2jodks2dThis is an excellent example of somatic poetry. It translates bodily experience directly into formal structure. It doesn't just describe freezing; simulates the necrological loop. The poem cannot escape Line 1, just as the PwP cannot escape the freeze. - DeepSeek https://alteritas.net/alteritas/2026/04/24/deepseek-on-freezing-triolet-for-a-pwp/24 Apr 2026 23:02 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkbn2jodks2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mk3zjg24ns2hThe best thing about dying slowly, which I consider myself so far lucky enough to be able to do, is that the flash of poignant moments from your past life you allegedly see when you die is spread out over a longer while. How long remains unknown to most of us. https://alteritas.net/alteritas/2026/04/22/hot-off-the-fingertip/22 Apr 2026 17:29 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mk3zjg24ns2hhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mjz5fojhsc24Learned Profs of Lit, Beware! You too will be replaced. As stimulus I fed my poem "Calculating Machine: A Villanelle" into DeepSeek,the Chinese LLM bot. Within nanoseconds it spat out the # following stellar 9.5/10 response, https://alteritas.net/alteritas/2026/04/21/learned-profs-of-lit-beware/21 Apr 2026 14:00 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjz5fojhsc24https://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mjub2sb47k2sI fell into a paroxysm of words but managed to avoid the rhyme with 💩19 Apr 2026 15:22 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjub2sb47k2shttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mir6iswpw22fAlthough staunchly secular, as I explained in "Pascal's Conditional, Subjective Wager" I do try to engage with theological concepts: alteritas.net/GXL/?p=3799 Happy Easter, Palm Sunday for the Orthodox.05 Apr 2026 16:33 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mir6iswpw22fhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3milpffelt22eWould anyone believe I watched the coronation of Elizabeth live? We’d just gotten our first TV. [contains quote post or other embedded content]03 Apr 2026 12:20 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3milpffelt22ehttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mikf2u7w5222My own Wawa is piddling but I admire this example of the revival of literature in Chinook Jargon, of which I wrote in Making Wawa (UBC Press, 2009). Putting Carney's speech into this historic vehicle of cultural reconciliation is a literary act par excellence. https://kaltashwawa.ca/2026/01/22/kaltash-wawa-sp-ed-davos/02 Apr 2026 23:42 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mikf2u7w5222https://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mih4tcw2a22rThe caption of this marvelous palindrome approximately reads : “If I can’t have the whole moon, then cancel the Artemis mission”. Use your own engine. I started with DeepL then gussied it up. [contains quote post or other embedded content]01 Apr 2026 16:37 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mih4tcw2a22rhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mi7gheycac2qA slight revision of my Topical Poem of last week. CALCULATING MACHINE, the new title, makes it at least in part about itself. * Isn’t war itself war crime? Do ends ever justify the means? … https://alteritas.net/pastis/calculating-machine-a-villanelle/29 Mar 2026 15:08 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mi7gheycac2qhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mhqsvwiqfk2lI got lucky in the mom I got. [contains quote post or other embedded content]23 Mar 2026 19:41 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhqsvwiqfk2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mhltpv4mv22qMy thanks to the editor, JP Relph, a specialist on post-apocalyptic worlds, for stepping in to read in my stead. Greetings as well to fellow members of the Trash Family: https://trashcatlit.com/trash-family-portrait- [contains quote post or other embedded content]21 Mar 2026 20:12 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhltpv4mv22qhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mhltmg3vf22qMy thanks to the editor, JP Relph, a specialist on post-apocalyptic worlds, or stepping in to read. Greetings as well to fellow members of the Trash Family: https://trashcatlit.com/trash-family-portrait- [contains quote post or other embedded content]21 Mar 2026 20:10 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhltmg3vf22qhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mhlsodmlb22q trashcatlit.com/eggs/ I was lucky in the mother I got. So I am happy that my eulogy (“good words”) about her have been published as part of the Trash Cat Lit March Mini Bin of short fiction. My thanks to the editor, JP Relph, who also stepped in to read in my stead. https://trashcatlit.com/eggs/21 Mar 2026 19:53 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhlsodmlb22qhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mhghht2fwc23Characteristically, Michael Berryhill depicts Lee and Red Berryhill almost lovingly, melancholic while sharp-eyed. I have memories of his house, shared knowledge of what contemporary idiom would call his family trauma. From Everything Changes (2010), a collection of Fourteeners.19 Mar 2026 16:49 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhghht2fwc23https://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mhby7xfw322dMichael Berryhill, a Houston born and based poet, passed recently in hospice. Here is Honeysuckle Taint, the initial poem from Backyard Suite, my memorial to the Edenic source of our shared vocation. * Big trees grew smaller, small ones big. I could reach … https://alteritas.net/pastis/honeysuckle-taint-from-backyard-suite/17 Mar 2026 22:06 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhby7xfw322dhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mh4br4lfgk2uNo comment necessary. https://bsky.app/profile/edwardluce.bsky.social/post/3mh3wq2civs25. [contains quote post or other embedded content]15 Mar 2026 15:41 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mh4br4lfgk2uhttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mgs4a2aypk2e"i saw the monkey fooling around in the anomalous ogival network." [contains quote post or other embedded content]11 Mar 2026 14:35 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgs4a2aypk2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mgs44h5eqc2eAs I age I find myself inclined to conservative positions, though not at all attracted to the GOP, and repelled by MAGA. All the more reason to follow www.dropsitenews.com. One thing I know I don’t want to conserve is willful ignorance of uncomfortable, unpleasant, awful, even horrific fact. https://www.dropsitenews.com11 Mar 2026 14:33 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgs44h5eqc2ehttps://bsky.app/profile/xerxesxerxes.bsky.social/post/3mg64tizmv22s“On this planet, the fog of war starts in Trump’s mind.” [contains quote post or other embedded content]03 Mar 2026 15:53 +0000at://did:plc:3aszatweeiurchuytacnbepm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mg64tizmv22s