Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Owen Wyke

@owenwyke.bsky.social

620 followers 580 following 270 posts

Storyteller (https://gonelawn.net/owenwyke) & founding editor of Gone Lawn Journal (@gonelawn.bsky.social) Studied words and images in New Haven & Boston. Now living in some fateless middle-swim bedeviled by mountain laurels, coyotes and bells, bells.

gonelawn.net

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 23h

My least unfavorite song I wrote when I was twenty was a little devil called "Talmadge." It went,

Talmadge?
Talmadge?
Talmadge?
Talmadge.
Talmadge?
Talmadge.
Talmadge.
Talmadge.
(Screams hysterically):
Talmadge!!
Talmadge!!
Talmadge!!
Talmadge!!

(repeats)

Beautiful, no?

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 23h

There needs to be a word for that feeling you get when you wake up and a song you wrote when you were twenty is in your head.

No, they weren't good, they were all terrible and I was the worst guitarist ever.

Even the lyrics were just awful.

Damnn

2 1

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 1d

Frost on the ground this morning, in northeast CT.

So, if we get a warm week following this, then it'll *actually* be what's known as Indian Summer.

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 1d

Anyone who says they "can see bullshit a mile away" doesn't understand what bullshit is.

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 3d

This article in the Boston Phoenix, when they existed. I still remember this article about Joy Division: "What a difference a death makes."

thephoenix.com/Boston/Music...

The Phoenix > Music Features > Chronicle of a death foretold

Boston Music Features, Pop and Rock Music, Entertainment, Music, Punk Rock, Ian Curtis, Joy Division, Ian Curtis, control, Suicide, Joy Division, Epilepsy, Deborah Curtis, Medicine, Epilepsy, Neurolog...

thephoenix.com

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 3d

I miss hiking. I love posts about hiking but I miss it, because I cannot do it any longer. Even the slightest hill is dangerous for me. I cannot do it any longer. I miss the blue trail of Sleeping Giant, leading to the cliffs of the yellow trail.

I miss hiking.

1 3

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 4d

It feels weird to have to rely on electricity for your livelihood, but that's how it is. I cannot write or edit without it. Once upon a time this was not so. That is not to say that I miss those times, but I feel bad for having to say so.

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 4d

Love it! ❤️

1 1

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 4d

Mary Oliver's "Aunt Elsie's Night Music"

Aunt Elsie's Night Music
Aunt Elsie hears
Singing in the night, So l am sent running To search under the trees.
I stand in the dark hearing nothing--Or, at least, not what she hears-
Uncle William singing again
Irish lullabies.
I stay awhile, then turn and go inside.
Uncle William's been dead for years.
2
Climbing the steps, I think of what to say:
"I saw a bird stretching its wings in the moonlight."
"There were marks on the grass— maybe they were footprints."
"Next time I'll be quicker."
She's as wrinkled as a leaf
You carry in your pocket for a charm And fold and unfold
She's so old there's no hope.
She's so crazy there's no end
To the things she thinks are happening:

Strangers have taken her house, They have stolen her kitchen, They have put her in a cold bed.
It is summer. The singing grows urgent.
Twice a weck, sometimes more,
Iam called from sleep to walk in the night And think of death.
I have been to the graveyard.
I have seen Uncle William's name
Written in stanc.
I snap off the flashlight
And come in from the darkness under the trees
To the bedroom. Aunt Elsc is waiting I lean close to the pink car.
5
Maybe this is what love is, And always will be, all my life.
Whispering,
I give her an inch of hope
To bite on, like a bullet.

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 5d

Mine is full of bills and nonsense.

Frog and Toad Bot @frogandtoadbot.bsky.social · 5d

Every day my mailbox is empty.

Toad's mailbox awaits...something.

From "The Letter"
In *Frog and Toad Are Friends*

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 5d

Honestly, I feel kind of stupid for not knowing about her.

1 1

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 5d

Why/how has Mary Oliver been kept hidden from me for so long? She's a veritable genius, better than Yeats.

Some Questions You Might Ask

Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like
The wings of a mmoth in the beak of an owl?
Who has it and who doesn't? . . .

1 3

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 25d

Lots of good people have been saying stuff like, "Fight venomous people with unconditional love." I disagree. Love is an affirming hug, not a lesson.

Venemous people need to learn consequences. Sending them love tells them chiefly that what they are doing works, in furthering their agenda.

Reposted by Owen Wyke

AffirmationCoyote.bsky.social @affirmationcoyote.bsky.social · 26d

Yes.

Seven panel comic. An autumn landscape.

A young man in a hoodle talks with a hooded figure with a minimalist face.

1: Young man asks "Oracle, how can I live forever?"

2: Oracle, holding a fallen bird. "Be eifficult to forget."

3: Young man: "How?"

4: Young man: "Should I create art?"

The oracle is casting a spell on the dead bird.

5: Young man: "Should I be famous?"

6: Young man: "Or powerful?"

The bird is alive, and flying away from the oracle's hand.

7: Oracle: "You should be kind."

33 100

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 26d

Someone saying hello to you and then being delighted about it should make you happy.

Not guns.

1 1

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 26d

Guns should not make you happy.

Giving someone something nice that they didn't ask for should make you happy.

1 3

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 26d

Oddly thoughtful while looking at a sky partly filled with heavy clouds.

Why are people not talking about things like THIS?

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 26d

I've never liked plot and I've often said that I find it to be the one aspect of the 'writing craft' that is dispensible. Character, language, narrative are all far more important. Give me all of these and no plot, and I'm fine . . . but Gladman, here, says things much better.

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 27d

We need new scales.

New scales for everything.

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 28d

In secret response to writer who wanted to know if any writer can 'write a book these days without using the f word' . . . well, if you mean characters speaking with characters, then my answer is No, I haven't so far . . . but if you mean narrative, that's something else I suppose.

But why fret?

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 28d

Well! What a political turnaround! I didn't see that coming at all. Not one bit. Nope. I'm totally surprised.

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 28d

. . . but if you'd asked about online research, on which I've wasted so much time, maybe I'd say . . . light bulb research?

1 1

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 28d

Runic magic.

Totally useless.

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · 29d

If you're feeling bad but aren't feeling bad enough, you can always trust the news. Look at it, go ahead. Just take a good look at that stuff. Breathe it in deeply.

Owen Wyke @owenwyke.bsky.social · Sep 10

These days, when I cut a small paragraph, or a sentence, and everything is better for it, I feel better, myself. It's the reduction of breaths, you want them all smaller and smaller and smaller . . . especially if it comes down to just a little punctuation . . . better. That is all I want to be.