Author: gabrielsmy

Direcciones

It depends on where you give it from
you can give it from the Church of Escazú
from the tied-up donkey, 200 metres
from the María Auxiliadora school

The poem of my childhood would begin with Super Aguimar
or the one a Nicaraguan gave to Ștefan Baciu
from Las Delicias del Volga
the old fig tree of San Pedro
there’s also a dog lying outside

There is a Welsh word hiraeth
a deep nostalgia for the landscape we were raised in
in Portuguese they say saudade, in Galician morriña
in German sehnsucht, in Romanian dor

In the Colón promenade there used to be an obelisk
people still stay, from the obelisk’s scar…
the butterflies that embark on that expedition die along the way
and it’s their great-granddaughters who finish the journey

Subtitles from Navigating a City Without Street Addresses.

Septuye

Taking something, that is burning, from the fire

Etu, sun rising from the hills
Etumu, bear warming itself in the sun
Elsu, falcon circling high in air
Putsume, bear sitting on top of big rock with soles of feet turned forward, legs spread

Yottoko, black mud at edge of water
Tulmisuye, bear walking slowly and gently
Tupi, throwing salmon on to bank
Tunna, salmon’s intestines pulling out like string

He’eluye, bow, arrows, and quiver placed against tree while warrior rests
Yelutci, bear traveling among rocks and brush without making noise
Yanapaiyak, little clouds passing by sun and making small shadows
Lilepu, bear going over a man hiding between rocks

Musonota, magpie jumping on the ground
Haiyepugu, bear becoming angry suddenly
Hotutu, round rocks hurting the feet, when one is walking
Teukululaye, bear making so much noise when walking that it frightens other creatures

Teiwu, valley quail defecating as it flies
Toketi, bear, making dust when running
Noteu, missing things when shooting with arrows
Heltu, bear barely touching people as it reaches for them

Müle, hawk seizing quail on ground
Patiwe, to break by twisting
Tokolasik, black-oak acorns getting rotten in water, having been forgotten
Molimo, bear going into shade of trees

Personal names and their meanings from Miwok Moieties, 1916, and Wild Life.

Supporting England

England is by many 
objective measures 
a terrible country 
ruled by terrible people 
with a terrible past 
and a terrifying future, 

and I support England. 
None of my forebears 
were born in England, 

and I support England. 
When I watch the news 
or follow England games abroad 
or read about politics 
I often feel utterly 
disconnected from this country, 

and I support England. 
It was an Englishman 
who snarled at me 
on the street last month 
while I was taking 
my daughter to nursery: 
Fuck off Chinaman, 
take your Covid patient with you. 

Nevertheless, I support England.

The supermarket is selling 
something called “meatless burgers”. 
There are women on Match of the Day. 
You hear vague noises about “defunding the police”. 
You suspect, on some sinister level, 
that something you love is being taken away 
And so amid this landscape 
of shifting plates and cultural norms, 
you have a choice: you can get with the programme 
or you can stand your ground and fight.

I am not one of you 
and you are not one of us. 
But for this month, 
for these 90 minutes, 
for these sunlit days in June and July, 
let’s pretend we are. 

Let’s build a house together 
and watch it fall. 
Let’s pick apart Southgate’s 3-4-3 
and debate the merits of Jack Grealish. 
Let’s elate and commiserate together. 
The past is the past 
and the future is the future. 

From My cross to bear, June 2021.

Things that don’t work

Making sense of crazy people interactions,
thinking about your life like a movie,
expecting people to follow written instructions.

Picking stocks, tree-based knowledge organization,
communism, acupuncture, counting calories.
Making sense of crazy people interactions. 

AI methods that don’t leverage computation.
Jokes, pulling out, quality over quantity,
expecting people to follow written instructions.

Explaining board games, books (non-fiction),
fixing relationship problems by having a baby.
Making sense of crazy people interactions. 

Waiting. Arguing. Without the G word – religion.
Solving supply shortages with consumption subsidies.
Expecting people to follow written instructions.

Tearing your hair out because people don’t follow written instructions.
Wanting to be liked; as pets – chimpanzees.
Making sense of crazy people interactions;
expecting people to follow written instructions.

(From Things that don’t work)

A single word

Consume the show.
Gobble it up.
Glean whatever little meaning you can
and move on.

Clear the backlog.
The new season of Stranger Things.
Binge it in a day.
Forget it a week later.
The new Taylor Swift just dropped.
Listen to it until the new Beyoncé.
Listen to that until the new Kendrick.
Listen to that until the new…
Listen to this audiobook at 2x.
Watch this LinkedIn Learning video.
Queue up that thing on YouTube.
What’s happening on Twitter?

Scroll
scroll
scroll
scroll
scroll
scroll
scroll.

Look at this Reddit post.
Read what’s on Apple News.
Check your RSS feeds.
Watch that new show on Netflix.
Watch that new show on Hulu.
Watch that new show on Peacock.
Watch that new show on Max.
Watch that new show on Paramount+.
Watch that new show on Disney+.
Watch that new show on Apple TV+.
Wait what’s that actor’s name?
Yeah, they were in that thing.
No, no, the other thing.
We just watched it.
Yeah, we did.
Yes, I swear you and I watched that.
Yes, you have, you said you liked it, I remember.
Anyway, can you believe what they said
about Israel and Palestine?

You need this promotion.
You need more money.
You need to upskill.
You need a better manager.
You need to network.
You need to market yourself.
You need to monetize your hobbies.
You need to sell your art.
You need to hustle.
You need to count calories.
You need to check out this story on Insta.
You need to hook them in the first five seconds
before they scroll past.
No one wants to put in the time to listen
to someone who can’t capture their attention.
Trick them.
Make them mad.
Get them hooked.
Make them crave more.
Here’s another fucking Star Wars movie.
Here’s why it’s fucking terrible.
Here’s why it’s the best fucking thing
Disney has ever done since it invented Star Wars.
Here’s the first in an anthology series
you’ll watch over 20 fucking years.
Don’t miss it.
Oh, you didn’t watch Ms. Marvel?
You’ll never understand why Reed Richards
fucked this ox in the post-mid-credits sequence
of Quantumania.
Get ready for the multiverse.
Get ready for the metaverse.
Get ready for Spatial Computing!
Get ready for the new iPhone.
Write a review.
Make a video.
Smash that bell.
Like that subscribe button.
Kiss your dad square on the lips.
I wish my dad saw me as a person.
Get 5% off your first purchase
by using code COCKSWADDLE.
Thanks to our sponsors.
Support us on Patreon.
Visit the shop.
Rate us on iTunes.
Follow us on Threads.
Enable notifications
so you never miss a thing.

Help, please, I am drowning
and there’s only so much time left
before I am completely forgotten,
and I haven’t been able to do anything
I thought I was supposed to do,
and all I want is for people to see me
and appreciate me,
and I just want to make things that say
something meaningful to someone, anyone.

Are you reading this?
I want to be done with this blog post,
but I am so worried that if I stop,
it won’t mean a single goddamned thing,
I won’t mean anything.
I am no one.
I am nothing.
I am so excited for the new Call of Duty.
I played 2,000 hours of Diablo IV,
and here’s why it’s total garbage.
The new Zelda is literally the best game ever created.
There is nothing more bae than swag, no cap.
You will never believe how many licks it takes
to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

Breathe.

There is no point in time where we have had more access to information than we do now. You could cut out every single possible nanosecond of silence and never make it through. You will never be efficient enough to see it all before you’re gone.

Breathe.

And that’s okay. Maybe it’s better if you just sit and listen and enjoy the art. Someone worked hard to create it. It deserves your full attention.

Breathe.

When was the last time you truly, deeply, unabashedly connected with something and you didn’t say a single word about it?

Breathe.

What is the most important thing to you?

Breathe.

Why?

Breathe.

Why?

Breathe.

Why?

Breathe.

Breathe.

(From Hot take: it’s okay if we don’t consume all of the world’s information before we die)

the unborn

the perfect people to love
if you claim you love Jesus
but dislike people who breathe

They never make demands of you

unlike the poor

they don’t resent your condescension

unlike widows

they don’t ask you to question patriarchy

unlike orphans

they don’t need money, education, or childcare

unlike aliens

they don’t bring all that racial, cultural
and religious baggage that you dislike

they allow you to feel good about yourself
without any work

and when they are born
you can forget about them.

It’s almost as if by being born
they have died

to you.

(From Dave Barnhart on Facebook, June 2018)

War and Peace

A huge vista of life and suffering humankind 
which makes the present troubles easier to endure, 
and the loneliness of death a little thing.

Siegfried Sassoon

Clouds came down and blotted the landscape 
and we squatted in a vineyard and smoked 
our pipes by the blaze of dry olive-branches. 

In the cloudy weather after rain
the clearness of the hills and glens 
shifted from shadow to gleams of watery light 

and the skylines were clean-cut 
and delicate-edged. The hills looked green—
there was a look of Ireland about it.

And when we got home to camp 
I found a letter from Dorothea, 
the good soul, full of Limerick hunting, 

and hounds flying over the big green banks.
Our padré rather drunk to-night 
after all the communion wine he’d blessed

and been obliged to ‘finish up’. 
And the news from remote France 
grows more ominous every day.

(From Siegfried Sassoon’s diary, 1918)