softinvasions

[softinvasions]

Eurydice to Orpheus

eurydice’s silence is resounding. you can put anything in that emptiness. —@finelythreadedsky

[softinvasions]

It could be! If you fill it out, I would very much like to see!

Eurydice to Orpheus

eurydice’s silence is resounding. you can put anything in that emptiness. —@finelythreadedsky

[softinvasions]

Telephone Wire • Jan. 2024

poetry assembled from a national geographic article on touch. support me on patreon here.

[softinvasions]

i have poetry in me but mostly it rolls around in me like a marble at the bottom of a glass

[softinvasions]

i am Writing

[softinvasions]

Hornet at Herrah's Altar • Dec. 2023

[softinvasions]

What is the Language Using Us for?

W. S. Graham

First Poem

What is the language using us for? Said Malcolm Mooney moving away Slowly over the white language. Where am I going said Malcolm Mooney.

Certain experiences seem to not Want to go into language maybe Because of shame or the reader’s shame. Let us observe Malcolm Mooney.

Let us get through the suburbs and drive Out further just for fun to see What he will do. Reader, it does Not matter. He is only going to be

Myself and for you slightly you Wanting to be another. He fell. He falls (Tenses are everywhere.) Deep down into a glass jail.

I am in a telephoneless, blue Green crevasse and I can’t get out. I pay well for my messages Being hoisted up when you are about.

I suppose you open them under the light Of midnight of The Dancing Men. The point is would you ever want To be here down on the freezing line

Reading the words that steam out Against the ice? Anyhow draw This folded message up between The leaning prisms from me below.

Slowly over the white language Comes Malcolm Mooney the saviour. My left leg has no feeling. What is the language using us for?

Second Poem

1 What is the language using us for? It uses us all and in its dark Of dark actions selections differ.

I am not making a fool of myself For you. What I am making is A place for language in my life

Which I want to be a real place Seeing I have to put up with it Anyhow. What are Communication’s

Mistakes in the magic medium doing To us? It matters only in So far as we want to be telling

Each other alive about each other Alive. I want to be able to speak And sing and make my soul occur

In front of the best and be respected For that and even be understood By the ones I like who are dead.

I would like to speak in front Of myself with all my ears alive And find out what it is I want.

2 What is the language using us for? What shape of words shall put its arms Round us for more than pleasure?

I met a man in Cartsburn Street Thrown out of The Cartsburn Vaults. He shouted Willie and I crossed the street

And met him at the mouth of the close. And this was double-breasted Sam, A far relation on my mother’s

West-Irish side. Hello Sam how Was it you knew me and says he I heard your voice on The Sweet Brown Knowe.

O was I now I said and Sam said Maggie would have liked to see you. I’ll see you again I said and said

Sam I’ll not keep you and turned Away over the short cut across The midnight railway sidings.

What is the language using us for? From the prevailing weather or words Each object hides in a metaphor.

This is the morning. I am out On a kind of Vlaminck blue-rutted Road. Willie Wagtail is about.

In from the West a fine smirr Of rain drifts across the hedge. I am only out here to walk or

Make this poem up. The hill is A shining blue macadam top. I lean my back to the telegraph pole

And the messages hum through my spine. The beaded wires with their birds Above me are contacting London.

What is the language using us for? It uses us all and in its dark Of dark actions selections differ.

Third Poem

1 What is the language using us for? The King of Whales dearly wanted To have a word with me about how I had behaved trying to crash The Great Barrier. I could not speak Or answer him easily in the white Crystal of Art he set me in.

Who is the King of Whales? What is He like? Well you may ask. He is A kind of old uncle of mine And yours mushing across the blind Ice-cap between us in his furs Shouting at his delinquent dogs. What is his purpose? I try to find

Whatever it is is wanted by going Out of my habits which is my name To ask him how I can do better. Tipped from a cake of ice I slid Into the walrus-barking water To find. I did not find another At the end of my cold cry.

2 What is the language using us for? The sailing men had sailing terms Which rigged their inner-sailing thoughts In forecastle and at home among The kitchen of their kind. Tarry Old Jack is taken aback at a blow On the lubber of his domestic sea.

Sam, I had thought of going again But it’s no life. I signed on years Ago and it wasn’t the ship for me. O leave her Johnny leave her. Sam, what readers do we have aboard? Only the one, Sir. Who is that? Only myself, Sir, from Cartsburn Street.

3 What is the language using us for? I don’t know. Have the words ever Made anything of you, near a kind Of truth you thought you were? Me Neither. The words like albatrosses Are only a doubtful touch towards My going and you lifting your hand To speak to illustrate an observed Catastrophe. What is the weather Using us for where we are ready With all our language lines aboard? The beginning wind slaps the canvas. Are you ready? Are you ready?

[softinvasions]

You should make art even if it's just solely for you to enjoy, by the way. Whatever art that is.

[softinvasions]

write about this • Dec. 2023

words chosen from predictive text. punctuation and linebreaks added by me.

support me on patreon! even a one-time donation helps a lot!

[softinvasions]

Pando • Dec. 2023

I have a patreon now! If you enjoy my work, please consider supporting me there; even a one month donation goes a long way. For $3 a month you can receive updates as I work, and see drafts as I finish them. I'm on a huge creative kick, so there will be many! All final pieces will be posted both here and on patreon. Thanks so much!

[softinvasions]

Help a disabled interdisciplinary artist stay alive & keep making art

Hello! I'm "D. S. Stylus", also known as fate, and I "write" ""poetry"" about ancient greek myth & literature, discursive necromancy, and translation (among other things). I also collage and draw. You may know me from the punctuation poem "Eurydice to Orpheus," and the Orestia program I cut up into this poem.

If you've enjoyed any of my work, please consider supporting me on patreon! Even a one-time donation on the tip-jar tier means a lot! Every dollar adds up when you are multiply disabled, unemployed, and on a medical diet.

My also disabled girlfriend pays all our bills on a grad school stipend with no other income, and if I could contribute at all, it would be a huge strain off our backs. I may also have to move back in with abusive family to access physical care, and having my own income would grant me some autonomy.

I don't want to gate access to any of my work behind paywalls, so rewards include things like early access, the ability to suggest a poem topic to me every month, handwritten mail, and a unique collage mailed straight to you. My undying thanks come included.

Reviews from friends and fans:

Thank you for reading!

[softinvasions]

I stumbled across your Orestia poem and happened to have seen the exact production the program was for which is very cool (can tell bc font and vocabulary), now I'm curious how you source your material for your found poetry, is it just stuff you come across in life or is it more purposeful?

Oh wow! A large chunk of the cast and crew have also found the poem and have been very excited about it in my notes, haha. I plan to go to the next production that company does (I had to miss the most recent one due to disabilities), and I'll be asking for an extra program to chop up, so if you see me (look for the hyperrealistic cat ears, gold cane, and an outfit that looks like I lost a fight with a clothing store), feel free to say hi! I'll be there with my girlfriend.

It's a bit of a mix—I also collage, so I have a pretty hefty stack of national geographic magazines. Most of the time I use anything that catches my eye, or that I have a particular interest in. I find that shorter texts are easier to work with as opposed to using a whole magazine (my dear mutual @plasmapop has done some incredible stuff with entire magazines; go check out his work!), so I like to cut up individual articles, or work exclusively with captions, etc. I also just use any text that I can find, such as flyers, handouts, programs, even my hospital discharge papers—the joy of found poetry is that you can make poetry from anything, if you're looking to.

The poetry comes from the text; when I chop up a text and rearrange it, I'm really focused on how the new poem relates back to/is in dialogue with what it transforms. In that sense, it's deliberate, but it's less so that I "choose" a text for a poem and more that I read something and go, "aha! I can make something out of this!" Other times I do actively look for something, but this happens almost exclusively with wikipedia articles. Two examples that aren't wiki article poems are these two older poems, where I knew I wanted to write poetry for NieR: Automata, and wanted to use text that appeared within the game.

With the Oresteia program poem, it was a mix of both—I knew walking in that I was probably going to cut up the program, but I wasn't sure what direction to take it in, outside of writing about greek tragedy. As you probably know, there's a bit of irony in taking a director's note that talks about breaking cycles and transforming it into a poem about inescapable narrative. The point where I understood the direction I wanted was when I had written the first draft of the first couplet:

which came to me very quickly; you can probably check this on your own copy of the program, but while I was cutting it into lines, my eyes jumped immediately from "You can't" to "go home," and I knew that that was going to be my opening and the point the poem returned to.

[softinvasions]

Object / Subject / Muse / Artist • Nov. 2023

[softinvasions]

Eurydice to Orpheus

eurydice’s silence is resounding. you can put anything in that emptiness. —@finelythreadedsky

[softinvasions]

@toastrovn said: love this so so so much but i am unable to detach this from that tweet about 'real writing'

I don't usually reply to tags, but that tweet was actually what inspired this!

[softinvasions]

soft invasions like squalloscope??!!!!??!?!!! GOOD TASTE !!!!!!!!

Yes! Thank you, fellow squalloscope enjoyer!! Can I interest you in the first of my collages for that album? I am planning (hoping) to do one per track with varying levels of detail for the 12th anniversary next year!

[softinvasions]

Unwritten • Nov. 2023

for @catilinas