Mussel

by Christian Ward

Every shell is dipped in night. 

Place an ear against the ceramic

to eavesdrop on fox squabbles, 

crows watching rubbish bags

left split open like unfinished 

operations, brambles unfurling 

their fruit. Humans, extras 

with no dialogue. Open every 

shell to reveal day – the glazed 

pottery, a perfect sky. Of course, 

there’s the meat: An orange muscle 

on a ready-made plate. Quiet, 

contemplative. I threw up the sea 

the first time I tried it. Didn’t know I was chewing its prayer. 

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Quote of the Week, #7

… this happy white woman who is constantly shoved under our noses, this woman we are all supposed to work hard to resemble – never mind that she seems to be running herself ragged for not much reward – I for one have never met her, not anywhere. My hunch is that she doesn’t exist.

Virginie Despentes, King Kong Theory

Song of the Week, #6

U.S. Girls – Bless This Mess

Thank the sky for the deluge Forget your nightmares And the dreams that didn't come true You don't need no map When every road ends I heard from God and she said, "I bless this mess. Goddamn, yr doing yr best."

Ok, true, the song and the video were released months ago, but the album went live on 4AD a week ago, check it out here!

What’s your song of the week?

When we say perfect day, do we really mean perfect?

Isn’t it like in that old cliché which supposedly says beauty (and perfection) is in the imperfections?

When we asked you on Instagram what is your one-word description of a good day, the words that came up were: serene, reading, adventure, creative, contentment, relaxing, nature, productive… So many different definitions that (we are sure) change daily for each of us.

So, we started thinking about another question that can help your inspiration: what is the one tiny or grand perfection you can find on a normal day, that one joyous kick or spur of motivation, a moment after a hard day that makes you accept the bitter-sweetness and makes you feel like life is alright after all, that might fill you up with sense and meaning or just peace?

Maybe, a perfect day is compiled of moments of being that ground us, reconnect us to ourselves and our humanity. Maybe, just one such moment is enough.

We would love to hear what it all means to you! Send us your submissions for our monthly challenge till next Friday 😉

(Yes, you only have a week left.)

P. S.: We might also accept ironic interpretations of the phrase perfect day. Try us. Those can be the greatest lessons.

Quote of the Week, #6

The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek – it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language – all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.

[…]

Be it grand or slender, burrowing, blasting, or refusing to sanctify; whether it laughs out loud or is a cry without an alphabet, the choice word, the chosen silence, unmolested language surges toward knowledge, not its destruction. But who does not know of literature banned because it is interrogative; discredited because it is critical; erased because alternate? And how many are outraged by the thought of a self-ravaged tongue?

Word-work is sublime, she thinks, because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference – the way in which we are like no other life.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture 1993