Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

There Are No Epstein Files

August 29, 2025 at 7:31 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

“The real Epstein files are chock full of blackmail receipts, & serve the true purpose of such a ledger. His people, the gangsters behind him, are using the files as they are meant to be used: leveraged, by threat of exposure, to empower its owners.”
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/there-are-...

~ trigger warning: systemic failure ~

~ a Warm in Winter tale ~

August 25, 2025 at 5:40 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

I rolled into the nearest aisle, racked a few bolts into my crossbow, and unloaded into the gaping maw that used to be a wall. Already on my feet running through smoke and the hot vectors of murderdogs sniffing me out. #fiction #magicalrealism #ICE
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/true-lies?...

True Lies

August 25, 2025 at 5:36 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

“What ur witnessing wreak havoc throughout American society is anti-Blackness. It is a part of the rooted foundation of this country, it has flourished throughout this country's entire existence, & it is experiencing a public renaissance right now.”
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/its-the-ra...

It’s the Racism, Stupid

~ same as it ever was ~

~ under the eyes of the God complex ~

August 21, 2025 at 3:24 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

Peter Thiel is JD Vance’s gimp daddy, so The Wig is kinda obligated to offer a lil gluck gluck in return for all that Thiel and Palantir have done for American fascism.
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/somebodys-...

Somebody’s Watching You

~ a Warm in Winter tale ~

August 13, 2025 at 12:20 AM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

"Grief comes in at night and stays well past breakfast, as you would say. Something been rocking back and forth in me lately, catatonic but raring to unleash. He got to peek out, snap a few necks."

#Fiction #Steampunk
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/true-lies?...

True Lies

~ a Warm in Winter tale ~

August 11, 2025 at 3:34 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

New story dropped today: "Grief comes in at night and stays well past breakfast, as you would say. Something been rocking back and forth in me lately, catatonic but raring to unleash. He got to peek out, snap a few necks." #fiction #fantasy
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/true-lies?...

True Lies

A God Complex Runs the Gauntlet

August 10, 2025 at 11:45 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

There are others, in The Management, who find this level of cruelty unnecessary & revolting. While they may get off on the money & power one can reap from exploitation & oppression, this new kink for inflicting suffering is too much. #trumpontheroof
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/a-god-comp...

~ in the shadows of a bloodline battle royale ~

A God Complex Runs the Gauntlet

August 5, 2025 at 6:20 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

“The Management is really going through it right now. There are some batshit crazy & scary characters throwing elbows around the clubhouse, and for the older gangsters, they’re beginning to weigh the profits VS the collateral damage.” #trumpontheroof

lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/a-god-comp...

~ in the shadows of a bloodline battle royale ~

A God Complex Runs the Gauntlet

August 5, 2025 at 6:19 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

“This is your reminder that the corridors of power run deep and run the gauntlet. Your reminder that for all we are seeing on the surface, there is turmoil beneath and a lotta backstabbing and skullduggery in the undertow.” #trumpontheroof
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/a-god-comp...

~ in the shadows of a bloodline battle royale ~

WRITER'S RUME: The Sculptor

August 5, 2025 at 6:18 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

So, let’s think about negative space. What it means, this connective tissue that connects our words, our worlds, our images, our stories, our songs. The space and distance traveled—
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/writers-ru...

finding yourself in the spaces between

WRITER'S RUME: The Sculptor

July 21, 2025 at 2:39 AM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

I have been obsessed with the idea of negative space, in art. The quiet between the notes in a song. lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/writers-ru...

finding yourself in the spaces between

LAKE BIWA BLUES: LIVE FROM JAPAN

July 21, 2025 at 2:38 AM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

If you want my lungs full of water then the secret better be that I’m beautiful. Or that my eyes are that green slate, as if the Gods pulled glass from the ocean when they gave me sight.
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/demon-city...

Demon City Crybaby ~ONE~

LAKE BIWA BLUES: LIVE FROM JAPAN

July 21, 2025 at 2:36 AM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

No love worth bleeding out over, no high worth chasing if it’s in the Marianna Trench, no siren’s hook worth opening wide for, not any more. My cheeks have been torn enough and I am sadly good at thrashing against hook and sinker.
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/demon-city...

Demon City Crybaby ~ONE~

LAKE BIWA BLUES: LIVE FROM JAPAN

July 20, 2025 at 2:22 AM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

Poets are in need of Patron Saints and Andrea Gibson has just become canon. Hell, they always were, in my book, but holy shit will shaking off your mortal coil do a number on the living you leave behind.
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/demon-city...

Demon City Crybaby ~ONE~

July 20, 2025 at 2:22 AM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

Gibson’s poems jammed a few blades under the armor I have been trying to pry off for years. Aware that the paradigms of manhood I was raised on were a zero sum game, Gibson’s was a voice that spoke about JUST BEING #andreagibson

lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/iconoclast...

July 17, 2025 at 7:15 AM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

*Considering how rich social media is, today, with the people mourning their passing, can we petition for the standard of more-powerful-after-death be Andrea Gibson and retire Obi Wan altogether? #andreagibson
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/iconoclast...

July 17, 2025 at 7:13 AM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

But Andrea Gibson, boy…they have been long acquainted with pain, and their battle with cancer found them reaching for an atavistic-like zen and fucking catching it. #andreagibson

lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/iconoclast...

WRITER’S RUME: The Promise

July 17, 2025 at 7:12 AM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

"Undress the promise, place its organs in a bowl. Weigh the heart of it. Splay out the musculature and the tendons with pins on an autopsy table. Create an exploded diagram of your promise."
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/writers-ru...

signing the contract to the creator in you

10 reasons, in no particular order, why you should write a list poem

July 17, 2025 at 7:11 AM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

“It turns out “apple of my eye” means you are reflected and
you are seen in somebody else’s eye
but the few times I have felt seen
the sob catches in my Adam's apple
and my throat is not a pipe.
It never was & I know that now—"
#poetry

lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/writers-ru...

WRITER'S RUME: To Do

July 15, 2025 at 11:47 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

"Tincture" is a poem I have dog-eared in the hopes of the millions of opportunities to share it. It’s the poem I point to when would-be poets ask me what is possible if they take a stab at vulnerability and the Truth.
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/iconoclast...

July 15, 2025 at 11:27 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

Gibson was adept at rolling with a suckerpunch from the fates and turning it into a pirouette. Any given poem of theirs is flush with bangers, & takes the cosmic joke of dying well past being a bit for standup, an encore worthy of a sold out stadium.
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/iconoclast...

July 15, 2025 at 11:26 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

Gibson did not deserve to die as they did, but they were quite possibly the only person to take that doom and spin so much irrefutable pure gold from it, the only person who could take a bad gig and make it rock.
lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/iconoclast...

your experience, on your refrigerator

July 15, 2025 at 11:23 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

Write a list as a poem. Could be, 10 Reasons I Hate Entropy, or Why I Won’t Let You Love Me. Find the extraordinary out of the mundane—or—take the unexplainable and make it into a list we might understand.

lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/writers-ru...

WRITER'S RUME: To Do

WRITER’S RUME: The Promise

July 13, 2025 at 9:44 PM

Loki Excelsior Smith

@excelsiorsmith.bsky.social

"It begins with a promise. The original consecration between you and your full potential, you and your child, you and your mortal enemy, you and your worst desires. Write about it."

lokiexcelsiorsmith.substack.com/p/writers-ru...

signing the contract to the creator in you