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riptiderot.bsky.social
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@riptiderot.bsky.social
15 followers 24 following 64 posts
in fact, most poets write the same poem over and over (please don't follow!)
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riptiderot.bsky.social
the waves / richard siken
The sky flashes and the great sea. The wind rises and the great ses and there is no way to undo it. It swells and lashes. I clutched the rail at the side of the bed and stared at the wall. Drift is a sea word. Adjust for drift. Start turning your boat now. I sat in the boat and the sky cracked open. It might as well have. I sat in the boat and velled at che waves. I might as well have. I strung the words and everything under the shattered clouds in sentences. Bv which I mean, which is to say, the wine-dark sea. It bruises where the oars strike. Hitched step, stitched thought. What it is and where it wants to go. Someone needs to knot the rope. Someone needs to finish it, a single thought completely. That it could follow. That there could be a rosy- fingered, wine-dark sea consequently breaking. I am the mermaids singing, twisted in the sheets. I am, I have, I know and say. I know, I have, I will and do. Whitecaps and froth. I yelled at the waves. The ghost of myself slept deep. Try to finish, finish the thought. Do not drop anchor here. That it could follow, that there could be a word and then another. I recalibrated and the light streaming completely down in shifts. Pull yourself out. I clutched the rail at the side of the bed all night, the light stuttering against the waves. What trips over terms in the names dragged up and knocking things over with the names of other things between the swells. The fingered dawn. The terrible shore. The complicated mooring.
October 5, 2025 at 1:36 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
old story / robert long
Climbing into bed, you hear a car start: It sounds like a machine gun in a garbage can. A light blinks off, and the ceiling's faint blue glow like the way your teeth looked in blacklight, in your friend's cellar. at sixteen ceases. Say a woman walked up to you in a deli and said "You look like someone who pays taxes." Could you figure it? Maybe you look responsible staring at smoked salmon, chicken salad, tins of snuff. Maybe not. Maybe you're innocently waiting for the mailman And you get arrested for sneezing. Maybe you go home with someone and they beat you to death with a box of Cheerios. How about the Old Chance Meeting with Unrequited Love: In Person: One Night Only. The snappy chatter, the stuttering, like a TV commercial for anxiety and ecstasy, all smashed up in one. Vodka doesn't help. It gets late. You both go home. Why can't this get any simpler? I mean "this" in a vague fashion, you know the gesture: Hands fanning out in the general direction of lamps, telephones, Scrabble, dying flamingos The late Beethoven quartets, rock and roll, Chocolate ice cream and sex. You know the rest. Sometimes all you want is a little sleep, especially the ream about a mysterious place where elevators go sideways, and you're always flying seven feet above the ground, heading somewhere else.
September 9, 2025 at 3:45 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
excerpt from the triggering town / richard hugo
If you are a private poet, then your vocabulary is limited by your obsessions. It doesn’t bother me that the word ‘stone’ appears more than thirty times in my third book, or that 'wind’ and 'gray’ appear over and over in my poems to the disdain of some reviewers. If I didn’t use them that often I’d be lying about my feelings, and I consider that unforgivable. In fact, most poets write the same poem over and over. Wallace Stevens was honest enough not to try to hide it. Frost's statement that he tried to make every poem as different as possible from the last one is a way of saying that he knew it couldn't be.
August 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
excerpt from night lament in hergla / leila chatti
In the dark I try every language you might recognize, but nothing calls you back; the words hang in the air, their own brief phantoms. The ocean offers no solace; I stand at its black edge as it retreats, draws close, backs away again. Like this, your memory wavers on the threshold. How many nights your name appeared on my lips like an incantation, how many times you’ve arrived in a dream pale as prayer at dawn—your absence burns its hole through my waking. I stalk the shores of your sleep, which allow no entry. The moon reveals nothing of heaven, a brined window. You are gone, in this country and all others.
August 12, 2025 at 2:04 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
annunciation / leila chatti
Annunciation I have come to accept the story of my own obedience—how I waited not knowing I was waiting, ear obliging, body poised. You sent a man I could not look at fully, or touch, he was a flame which spoke, and I could not be afraid—as it's told, I rose as instinctive as a dove startled into flight, blue veil fluttering floorward and tongue unglued—May it be done to me, I said, and it was done so quickly, I thought to say it meant I had some say, but it was preordained—the breath barely out of my body before my mind had changed.
August 11, 2025 at 5:38 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
fauna / richard siken
richard siken fauna There is something wrong with the deer. It is not all right. It has caught its leg in a length of something. They cut it free and let it go but you can tell it is not all right. It might never be all right. Call it a myth and the truth grows abstract. Call it a lie and the truth is a doubled fact. My stepmother’s father was an Elk. We would go to the lodge to eat roast beef and watch him butt heads with the other Elks. Sometimes he would raise a glass in praise and we would clap. Sometimes he would remember and we would bow our heads. The Elks fought in the war to end tyranny. They left, they fought, and they came back. They are not all right. Once, I drove to the end of the world. It was in Los Angeles. Someone had posted a sign. It read No U-turn. Parking $5. The beach was nice. I wrote you a letter in case I died but I threw it away. It was good practice. We have to practice losing everything. We are deer, we are headlights. We are the road where they collide.
June 23, 2025 at 9:35 PM
riptiderot.bsky.social
devonian forest / richard siken
richard siken devonian forest The beginning of a story is a dangerous place. Anything can happen. The first noun makes a pledge, a mark on the ledger, and things begin their forward motion. The land is covered in moss. The fish are still in the water, though they dream of legs. This is the past: spores, gills, fins. No roots or leaves. Then birds cloud the skies, giant animals conquer the land, the sea peoples go to war on an ocean so vast it’s useless to talk about and soon enough someone’s drinking whiskey sours on the patio alone. I was drinking whiskey sours on the patio alone. I was drinking whiskey sours on the patio alone, I wrote. It wasn’t true. I didn’t even drink back then. The beginning of a story—it isn’t the beginning, there’s always something that comes before. The first word in the Book of Genesis, in Hebrew, starts with B. It’s cautionary. It’s primordial. You have to be careful, things want to happen. Everything is leading up to something all the time. I painted the kitchen red. I did it because he told me not to. I roasted yellow peppers on the blue flame of the stove in the red kitchen. I planted sunflowers under the windows for my birthday. By summer they were tall as ghosts. I am leaving out parts. I am changing the details. I thought that I could write it down and then erase it if I had to but it left a hole. It didn’t track. The incongruities betrayed me. The trail fades, the clearing evaporates. Forest for miles. I said ghosts. They point, these nouns. They promise something. Poppyseed—his favorite dressing. Sunday mornings—I’m the one who ruined them. They pulled whole chapters from the Bible. Someone did. I’m not against it, they were contradictory, they made it confusing: a third glass on the table, an extra hand, too many shadows on the wall.
June 20, 2025 at 3:56 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
postcard before i forgive you / jasmine khaliq
jasmine khaliq postcard before i forgive you i was in real need. i was eating raspberries and nothing else. i wrote love poems for everyone but you. you weren't yourself, or you were; i hated the careless way you drove. shouldn't real penance take forever? i stayed all day alone in one line, for hours walking past hydrangeas, walking past hydrangeas.
June 20, 2025 at 3:56 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
how thick are the windows? / how close are the neighbors?
[Image description: a poem titled Maybe If I Rip A Few Things Apart With My Teeth, I’ll Feel Better. It’s by Schuyler Peck. The title is in all caps, and the poem is in all lowercase. The poem reads: to snarl and gnaw, bite and bark from the back of my throat; claw with the grip of all ten fingers. I dress the altar with offerings, a pomegranate, the crusted rind of sourdough, a lover’s bloodied shoulder; take every book in the house by either side of its jaw, and crack the knuckle of its binding, but oh, I am nothing if not insatiable. won’t you trust me? my canted smile in the dark, my promise to protect what’s precious. yes, what sparkling porcelain; what clean white walls. how thick are the windows? how close are the neighbors? hand me your tender. I’m craving to ruin. End description.]
May 31, 2025 at 6:08 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
excerpt from pavlov was the son of a priest / paige lewis
i want to find you a peach so ripe that even your breath would bruise it. i want to press its velvet heat against your cheek, make you edge into the bite until your mouth is too wet to ask questions. if something happens let it. -paige lewis, from "pavlov was the son of a priest," space struck
May 31, 2025 at 4:26 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
can i be so for real with you guys, this book kept me up until 2am and i wanted to throw up after reading it

⭐⭐⭐⭐.25
May 28, 2025 at 11:36 PM
riptiderot.bsky.social
lately (my brain is melting out of my ears)
April 8, 2025 at 4:17 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
stupid plating but i made apple cinnamon syrup this weekend and used the apples in a chia seed pudding and the syrup in a shaken espressy ☺️
chia seed pudding in a jar and a glass of foamy espresso sitting on top of a green revolving spice rack bc i don't have an aesthetic bone in my body when it comes to taking food pics
March 24, 2025 at 6:01 PM
riptiderot.bsky.social
feb 16 2025
picture of stove and fatayer ingredients: dough proofing in a pot, a wok of chopped spinach, an onion on a wood cutting board. golden brown fatayer stacked inside a loaf pan a hand holding a small opened fatayer. spinach is visible. a picture of orzo pasta with lentils and a sprig of cilantro
February 18, 2025 at 1:04 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
feb 13 2025 🌧
photo of a rainy bike path spotify screenshot of the home team's album "slow bloom deluxe" watching all your friends get rich is playing spotify screenshot of the home team's album "slow bloom deluxe" FOMO (bored of you) is playing a photo of a neon green cross on a church through trees and shrubbery
February 14, 2025 at 2:28 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
feb 11 2025 🍌📖
picture of a book with elevator buttons in the background. the cover reads: the authoritative translations—now in one volume the divine comedy the inferno the purgatorio and the paradiso dante alighieri translated by john ciardi pic of eggless banana bread in an oven safe round dish on top of a silicon mat and baking tray
February 11, 2025 at 11:25 PM
riptiderot.bsky.social
🌠🌠🌠
close up of two trees together. one has pink-white flowers and the other has green leaves and red berries. picture of pages 6-7 of pachinko by min jin lee
February 9, 2025 at 2:52 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
the day so far 🪱
texts between two people. photo sent feb 7 is a screenshot of pokemon diamond with a textbox saying "Connor: Waaaagh! You KO'd my team again?!" with a tongue-sticking-out emoji underneath and a text reply (from the titular connor himself) "Waaagh!" some kind of medium sized black and white bird with a very long tail standing on grass picture of a hobonichi spread not filled out. blank pages each have sections for checklist, skincare, and daily notes. a little wooper is drawn on the upper left corner of each page.
February 8, 2025 at 7:24 PM
riptiderot.bsky.social
feb 3 2025 🍞🛒
in the foreground is a hobonichi (with entries written in but not very feadable) laying flat and a pen between the pages. in the background is a pink mug and an open pencil case. behind those two is a computer monitor two bowls in front of a purple 3ds that has pokemon diamond running. left bowl divided into two sections: white rice (left) and a soy sauce-black vinegar-garlic stir fry with king oyster mushroom slices, firm tofu, lap cheong, and onion, all topped with green onion. right bowl divided into two sections: pickled korean radish and soy sauce yu choy banchan four slices of golden brown caramelized banana halves on top of yogurt. plated on... an oblong plate. a bowl would have been a better idea.
February 4, 2025 at 5:24 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
feb 2 2025
picture of a rainy sidewalk next to apartments. the wet sidewalk reflects a streetlamp light. a noodle dish with chunks of tofu, slices of oyster mushroom, hidden bits of white onion, and green onion. sauce: 1.5tbsp miso ¾tbsp gochujang ¾tbsp mirin 1tbsp water stir fry all veggies until nice color. add noodles. add miso sauce and stir. add minced garlic and ¼tbsp butter. (might be better with a dash of soy sauce or pepper or ???)
February 3, 2025 at 3:13 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
jan 30 2025
cooked mackerel for the first time :)
a wide bowl with white rice at the bottom, salted mackerel on top (crisped to golden brown), and a cut-in-half baby bok choy next to the fish.
January 31, 2025 at 2:34 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
jan 29 2025 🧧🐍
banana overnight oats in a pink, heart-shaped piece of crockery two okonomiyaki style pancakes. see post from january 28 for recipe 🙂 noodle dish with sliced lap cheong, onions, garlic, and chopped baby bok choy. recipe: cook somen to al dente. in a separate pan, fry two cloves of sliced garlic, an inch or so of roughly chopped onions, and two lap cheong links. once browned, add in noodles and sauce. take off the heat when combined. sauce: 1tbsp soy sauce 1/2 tbsp black vinegar 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
January 30, 2025 at 4:04 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
jan 28 2025 (... messy 😧)
okonomiyaki style "pancake". cabbage and egg on top of a sheet of rice paper, cooked, folded in half, and topped with okonomiyaki sauce, kewpie mayo, and katsuo fumi furikake.
January 28, 2025 at 10:16 PM
riptiderot.bsky.social
jan 26 2025
miso soup with chikuwa, cabbage, carrot, onion. bowl of white rice. iced latte. bowl in front has pork meatballs and bok choy in a soy sauce/rwv/soy sauce broth. bowl on the left has braised lotus roots and yu choy sum in soy sauce/sesame seed sauce. bowl on right has white rice. glass is full of tangerine juice 🧃
January 27, 2025 at 3:59 AM
riptiderot.bsky.social
yuhhhhhhh
December 5, 2024 at 3:14 AM