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I've been feeling pretty low, so I think today's #ArtBreak should be Elihu Vedder. This USian's classic style took a huge turn into esoteric myth during the Civil War. He left the US after it ended. Making art while myths of civilization shatter all around us is a distinctly human enterprise, no?

"The Questioner of the Sphinx" by Elihu Vedder (1863)

"The Throne of Saturn" by Elihu Vedder (1884)

"The Sphinx of the Seashore" by Elihu Vedder (1879)

"The Dead Alchemist" by Elihu Vedder (1868)

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

There is something deeply painful about working a long day in a highly privileged field like mine, only to find out that the teen ward you're trying to support while she's stuck solo in a remote pueblo can't even start school again because Venezuela's rolling blackouts are keeping the school closed.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Quick #ArtBreak before a meeting and more night work. Do you know Martin Lewis? He taught Hopper for a spell, and his own fine etchings give a sense of the perspective he imparted. Who are we to one another as artists? Where does our own quiet light offer a way for other lights to shine after us?

"Spring Night, Greenwich Village" by Martin Lewis (1930)

"Fifth Avenue Bridge" by Martin Lewis (1928)

"Relics (Speakeasy Corner)" by Martin Lewis (1930)

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

#PoetryBreak I think today is a good day for one of my favourite poems. I tend to get caught up in a sense of failure, constant failure, but... Nothing is constant. Not even failure. Even failure has its ebbs and flows, its highs and lows. So--try to remember we all fly a little, too, eh?

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Copyright © 2005 Jack Gilbert. From Refusing Heaven, 2005, Alfred A. Knopf.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Stress nausea! So we're on to an #ArtBreak. John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-93) was self-taught, and used camera obscura projections to help with staging and perspective. This caused many to feel that he wasn't a "real" artist, but just look at the lighting he achieved. The ache to create finds a way.

"Landscape with a winding river," by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1868)

"Whitby from Scotch Head" by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1879)

"Evening Glow", John Atkinson Grimshaw (1884)

"The Lovers" by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1873?)

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Anyhoodle - #ArtBreak! Photography today. This is Félix Thiollier, who came from a family of means and was able to spend his years in restful study of the world around him. If more of us were able to create without commercial pressure, where would our eyes turn? What would we notice, and set down?

Félix Thiollier, "The Horse Trainer" (1899)

Félix Thiollier, "Figure contemplant les monts du Menzenc (Emma Thiollier, fille du photographe)
Figure contemplating the mountains of Menzenc (Emma Thiollier, daughter of the photographer)"
(1895-1905)

Félix Thiollier, "Decor for a fete or fair, Saint-Etienne (Décor de fête ou de foire, Saint-Etienne)" (1890-1910)

Félix Thiollier, "Mining Landscape, The Chatelus Pit at Saint-Etienne" (1907-1912)

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Today's #ArtBreak comes from Frances Broomfield, UK painter of the "idiosyncratic": more recently, bright portraiture where the subject is surrounded by the dreamscapes they inspired, but also, historically, a wealth of simpler paintings that also feel larger than (and just as surreal as) real life.

"The Dodo" by Frances Broomfield (1995
3).

"Humphrey, the Downing Street Cat" by Frances Broomfield (1995).

"Snowdrop Day, Hatfield House" by Frances Broomfield (1999).

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I wanted an #ArtBreak that reflected my mood, so Walter Molino, famous mid-20th-century illustrator and caricaturist of disaster, seemed a good choice. I didn't want to share anything that might disturb your scroll, though, so here are some of his "lighter" scenes of lurid catastrophe. What a tone!

Walter Molino, 1957 - "Exploding Elephant"

Walter Molino, father and sons attacked by swans on a boating trip.

Walter Molino, boy saved in the nick of time from a car.

Walter Molino, 1959 - "Dangerous Aventure"

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Well, I *told* myself I wasn't going to buy anything, but then I found a beautiful indie collective from Bogotá that was all about connecting and uplifting Latin American writers with a humanist bent in hard times for the world, and of course I had to support their work. #IRegretNothing #Books

Five books here, one thrown in free after a beautiful conversation about politics and human dignity. I am looking forward to them all. They even had a scifi anthology!

Wherever they go, this indie collective from Bogotá seeks to remind people that the spirit of the people cannot be contained by oppressive states. Good for them.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

But easily one of the sweetest places is the secondhand section. You find more conversation, more deep quiet love, more historians of lit. I even had a great chat about Svetlana Alexievich with some teens here. *They* were excited to read her! 😮 #TheKidsAreAllRight #Colombia #FiestaDelLibro #Books

Quirky displays like this back of a van full of books are the norm in secondhand sections.

Here is where great old reads find new life with new loves/readers.

It is a BIG event, as this map of the terrain illustrates.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Fiesta del Libro y la Cultura de Medellín is always held in the Botanical Gardens, open to the public for those weeks. It's a beautiful thing to see nature & literature/art blended together so well. Definitely needed this return to pure creative joy. #FiestaDelLibro #Colombia #Books #Literature

Scenes from the blended Botanical Gardens and Book Festival.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

🧐 Who let the majors in? It's funny. SF rarely shows up here. When it does, it's classics. There is also a wonderful display from the centre for memory, museums, libraries... Of course, my happy place was always among books about the heaviest themes. #Colombia #Books #Literature #FiestaDelLibro

Penguin Random House and a couple other big presses showed up, but there is a wealth of small and indie press around them.

The museums and libraries also play a key role in making this a living festival, full of events.

Science fiction usually shows up in the international majors' tents, like this one. Even then, it's almost always primarily classics like Bradbury and Le Guin.

I spent so much of my young life devouring literature about the hardest parts of the human condition. Mostly Russian. Ah, good times.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

There are a wealth of specialty and university presses here, and they all do such a phenomenal job of curating "book as art" and building excitement around the ideas each volume may contain. #FiestaDelLibro #Colombia #Books #Literature #Art

Celebrating the best and brightest in literature here in Medellín.

Industry halls go BIG for this celebration of literature. University presses always have stunning displays.

This year there's a strong South Korean lit theme, in honour of youth interest in Korean pop culture.

And a whole pavillion for comics presses and related merch markets!

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I'm in a very wobbly state, so today I'm spending a few hours at the massive Medellín book festival, which always rekindles in me the raw wonder of narrative, and how thrilling it is to create *anything* in this painful world of ours. Photos may arise as I wander. #Colombia #Books #Literature #Art

Bookstores here really don't do genre divides, except by medium and a few rare mystery or angelology / witchcraft subsections. A story is a story is a story.

A wide wealth of indie presses attest to a thriving canon and discourse in South America and castellano.

The fanzine and art magazine are alive and well in South America!

Literary creativity is a joy at any size.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

It's been a really rough week. I think I'm at a breaking point I can't afford, so I'm taking tomorrow off, but after working through a chunk of the night and still finding myself behind on key tasks for a ton of teams... I just needed to vent to the park horses first. Now home and back to it.

Like giant raccoons, these two are always garbage diving for fermented fruit peels until called on by their guardian to head home.

Yeah, yeah, the little fella gets other nutrition, too.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

#PoetryBreak before the next round of coding and data entry. I'm out of words. Just tired. 🫂 Fill in the blanks here with something pithy, and be good to your weary noggins this weekend. (Andrea Gibson: August 13, 1975 - July 14, 2025)

every time i ever said i want to die
By Andrea Gibson

A difficult life is not less
worth living than a gentle one.
Joy is simply easier to carry
than sorrow. And your heart
could lift a city from how long
you've spent holding what's been
nearly impossible to hold.

This world needs those
who know how to do that.
Those who could find a tunnel
that has no light at the end of it,
and hold it up like a telescope
to know the darkness
also contains truths that could
bring the light to its knees.

Grief astronomer, adjust the lens,
look close, tell us what you see

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

It's been a beat since my last #PoetryBreak, so let's return to one of the greats this morning. Thank you, Mary Oliver, for always reminding us that a life of wonder can and does exist even in a world that brings us so much stress and sorrow. May we find the hidden nests we need today.

With Thanks to the Field Sparrow, Whose Voice Is So Delicate and Humble

I do not live happily or comfortably
with the cleverness of our times.
The talk is all about computers,
the news is all about bombs and blood.
This morning, in the fresh field,
I came upon a hidden nest.
It held four warm, speckled eggs.
I touched them.
Then went away softly,
having felt something more wonderful
than all the electricity of New York City.

-Mary Oliver

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I both did a lot and didn't do enough this weekend, so while I work on forgiving myself for not being a robot, here's an #ArtBreak for perspective. Nataliya Bagatskaya (Ukraine) leverages the mundane to heighten the surrealism of simply existing in today's cruel world. We are all doing what we can.

"A Summer Night" by Nataliya Bagatskaya (2025)

"The Five" by Nataliya Bagatskaya (2023)

"The Cat Who Chose My Home" by Nataliya Bagatskaya (2022)

"Everything Is Fine. Almost." by Nataliya Bagatskaya (2026).

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Happy 7 of 9 Day to everyone working on Labour Day, but with a sense of humour about it all. We'll return to our regeneration alcoves soon. 👍🏻

It is 7 of 9 Day. Fun will now commence. So says Seven from Voyager!

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

The pristine quiet of the predawn dark. :) Just me and the birbs.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Thank you, Wendell Berry (August 5, 1934-August 31, 2026), for the work of your life. One day I will learn a thing or two from your philosophy. #PoetryBreak

The Peace of Wild Things
Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Well I'll be darned. Halloween arrived before Xmas this year - at least in DollarCity, which doesn't bother changing most inventory for local demographics. That's why, for Día del Amor y la Amistad in Sept, DollarCity sends Valentine's stock. 🙃 International trade is a strange beastie. #Colombia

The local malls will have the first Navidad displays up in a couple of days, once August's flower festival is over. In a culture without Thanksgiving or Remembrance Day, there's really not much else to disrupt the road to Xmas!

Yes, the Valentine's Day junk is in English at DollarCity, which doesn't really curate its sections to local needs. I also don't trust the chocolate to be fresh; a lot of this inventory might have been sitting around from North American Valentine's Day.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Today I'm doing a TON of data entry, which is making me sentimental about my genre's history. So for today's #SFFSunday #ArtBreak, I bring you Bruce Pennington, whose work has uplifted a wealth of authors over his illustrious career. It takes a village to bring our dreams to life. Thank you, Bruce!

Bruce Pennington's cover art for MYSTERIOUS RAILWAY STORIES, edited by William Pattrick

Bruce Pennington's cover art for THE WORLDS OF ROBERT HEINLEIN

Bruce Pennington's cover art for OUT OF THEIR MINDS by Clifford D Simak

Bruce Pennington's cover art for SATAN'S WORLD by Poul Anderson

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Did I get everything finished this weekend? Reader, I did not. And I overlooked an important personal task, too. So today's #PoetryBreak is about that messy ache to be better than we are. Good morning and good Monday! We'll get there. We will.

I Remember the Carrots

by Ada Limón

I haven’t given up on trying to live a good life,
a really good one even, sitting in the kitchen
in Kentucky, imagining how agreeable I’ll be –
the advance of fulfillment, and of desire –
all these needs met, then unmet again.
When I was a kid, I was excited about carrots,
their spidery neon tops in the garden’s plot.
And so I ripped them all out. I broke the new roots
and carried them, like a prize, to my father
who scolded me, rightly, for killing his whole crop.
I loved them: my own bright dead things.
I’m thirty-five and remember all that I’ve done wrong.
Yesterday I was nice, but in truth I resented
the contentment of the field. Why must we practice
this surrender? What I mean is: there are days
I still want to kill the carrots because I can.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

You know what? It's a Moebius kind of day. Jean Giraud's art featured and guided marvellous 20th-century comic movements - & I bet you could easily write a whole new story just by sitting with some of his panel work today. Anyone need a #StorySeed for their #ArtBreak? Have at it, if so! #SFFSunday

"City of Fire", by Jean Giraud ("Gir", Moebius), in collaboration with Geof Darrow, 1984

Concept art for "Big Gun", by Jean Giraud ("Gir", Moebius), 1990

"Jimi Hendrix, émociones électriques", by Jean Giraud ("Gir", Moebius), 1998

"Arzach", by Jean Giraud ("Gir", Moebius), 1975

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Camera phones aren't the best with stars, but they do a great job capturing the noise of human life that often gets in the way of remembering one simple truth: We are the only witnesses to the cosmos we know of, and our time here is ever so brief. What will we do with our one and precious lives?

Night sky with flare from lamp posts in the park.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Today's #ArtBreak comes from the Ottoman Empire. Osman Hamdi Bey's famous "The Tortoise Trainer" is a satire on the slowness of state reform, but also, look at "Two Musician Girls". We often pretend variance is recent, but a true artist in any era knows how to highlight range in the human condition.

"The Tortoise Trainer" by Osman Hamdi Bey. He's been trying to change them since 1906! He'll get there eventually!

You'd be forgiven for assuming this was a painting of two boys, but yes! Femininity outside Orientalist Western interpretations of eastern cultures was wide-ranging and often celebrated as such. "Two Musician Girls" by Osman Hamdi Bey (late 19th century).

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Today's #PoetryBreak comes from the collection Staying Still by Hieu Minh Nguyen. This hit me right in the secular humanism. I grew up richly surrounded by different faith traditions, and the lesson they taught me as an atheist is just how many ways we humans ache for community, love, & connection.

SAINT PAUL
by Hieu Minh Nguyen

All my friends have their gods & their heavens
& their plans on how to get there. They forfeit sex
for Lent, pork for life, they light incense, they light
candles, they offer fruit to the dead.
Is this the right time to confess that once I bit a boy
for calling me a Buddhist? Never mind I was six
& did not know what Buddhist meant,
never mind we were inside a Buddhist temple.
For so long, I thought god was played by a rotating cast
of my dead. For so long, god was a boy with a ring of keys
on his belt loop. I never had as much faith as I did then,
but I never talked to god as much as I do now—now
that my want is just the want of birds. At some point,
someone invited me to Easter, then to Seder, then to Eid
& for a night I talked to Andrew’s god, & for a night I
talked to Sam’s god. I talked to Saf’s god. I was a wick lit
by any god that wandered by—an appetite primed
for the miracles of others. & then Paul got sick
& then got better, & I said thank you thank you.
Paul & I are from a city first named after a bootlegger
& then renamed after a saint & when he died,
I caught a flight to a city only he knew, where the humidity
flattened the pleats I’d ironed into my pants.
All my life, I’ve bibled my humiliations, made saints of boys
in bad lighting, never considered heaven, only good weather.
But since all my dead have been called home by different gods,
I know they’re not, like I imagined, all waiting in the same place
for me. For so long, I thought I could get through by throwing
my faith in the general direction of any pulpit.
Thank you friends for showing me your gods,
& thank you gods for showing me my friends,
but the heaven I choose is a heaven I can leave.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I've been up way before my alarm every day this week. Not running well yet, but getting out there and pushing more every day. I have tremendous lower back pain from these last few months of work stress, but we'll get there with weights, runs, and eventually zumba classes again. 💪🏻 Paso a paso.

Two paths through my park, which is great for running early in the dark.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The best part of early morning runs is that I get to hang out with my goofball Giant Raccoons again in the park. #Nature #Colombia #HorseFriends #NatureBreak

These horses have a human, but they like to break out and eat fruit peels in the park.

This girl was a bit nippy but friendly. Maybe she was drunk off fruit peels?

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Today's #ArtBreak is truly for creators. Writers and artists share a risk of being reduced to a single work or niche. Edvard Munch is much more than "The Scream"; he explored holistic "moods" in nature, even as his world embraced scientific detail. May we always celebrate the multitudes we contain.

"Summer Night at the Beach", by Edvard Munch

"Despair" by Edvard Munch, one of a lesser known series of paintinga from that bridge and vantage point.

"Love and Pain (The Vampire)", by Edvard Munch.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Still a long way from feeling healthy in my body again, but back to my pre-dawn walks in the park. (Fuller runs eventually, when my body stops hurting as much as it currently does.) Here is my pre-dawn "star" today. May the day star keep up with its most excellent competition. #Colombia #Nature

Brownea ariza, a variant named in part after an indigenous term for this plant with bright, explosion-like blooms.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Do you remember Memoria (2021), by Apichatpong Weerasethakul? The film where Tilda Swinton tries to source a strange sound in Colombia while listening to & experiencing many spaces in the country? Can confirm. Just like the movie hints at, we have aliens here. :) Or stunning kites. 50/50, really.

A beautiful squid kite glints rainbow-ly over the treeline.

Two rainbow squid kites flying together at night, over a core city block.

What's that?! Even more bright kites at night? Four in a row!

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

You know why I love a good #ArtBreak? Because when I'm caught up in my hardships, worries, stressors... a single painting, a single artistic *perspective* on the world, can still break through all that noise & compel me to slow down. That's what the work of Markus Matthias Krüger did for me today.

"Poplar Avenue in the Storm" by Markus Matthias Kruger, 2010

"Winterdrama #8" by Markus Matthias Kruger, 2019

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Today my teen ward has her first emancipation court date, after her "mother" appeared last week to extort money from her. I've been worried for her all week. Today's #ArtBreak is Czech artist Jakub Schikaneder (1855-1924). His work reminds me that humanity is no stranger to loneliness in the fray.

"A Street in Winter," by Jakub Schikaneder, 1910

"By the Girl's Bed", by Jakub Schikaneder (1909)

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Bertie didn't make it through the night, but she was perfect while she was here. (Automeris io, or maybe belti, from the family Saturniidae. The deer-eyed or ox-eyed moth.) #Nature

This little critter found a safe place to wind down for good. Only after death did I see her beautiful inner spots.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Say hello to my little #BugFriend, Bertie the Deer-Eyed Moth (Automeris io, from the family Saturniidae). Last night in the dark I thought she was a black witch moth, but the distinctive grumpy downturned face showed up at dawn. This girl needs coffee to greet the day! 😂 #Nature

My sleepy little nocturnal companion is a dull rusty brown with faint eye spots over what has the appearance of a frown line while her wings are closed. About the size of my palm, and very fuzzy!

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

It's been forever since my last #ArtBreak. These surrealist works by oil painter Tokuhiro Kawai are a beautiful reminder that the world is full of opportunities to rethink what it means to build monumental stories out of the everyday. There are new beginnings everywhere - even in worn-out tales.

"Galileo Satellites" (2025) by Tokuhiro Kawai

"Ignorant Person" (2004) by Tokuhiro Kawai

"Melancholia of Regeneration" (2016) by Tokuhiro Kawai

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

This has been a heavy weekend for me. What I try to remember, when hit with hard news, is how much fear, grief, and anger doesn't just estrange us; it also makes us deeper kin. Today's #PoetryBreak reminds me we're all bargaining with such strange and messy worlds within. Go gently out there, eh?

I Put On My Socks in the Wrong Order and Now I'm Gonna Get Hit By A Car

Neil Hilborn

I think as I put on my boots anyway. I’m supposed to
resist compulsions when I feel capable

because it makes the misfiring neurons weaker, and today

I’m feeling capable of lots of stuff, so I guess that means
today I’m fighting my brain. When the brain says,
“You’re gonna bleed out on the sidewalk,”

I’ll say, “Then the grass will have something

to drink.” When the brain says, “This is the day

you go to the bridge,” I’ll say, “But there are

so many bridges.” Nothing gets to want me
dead and avoid the consequences. You’ll get
the socks you get, brain, we’re going to the airport.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I haven't left my apartment for more than a store run in over a week. Just utterly swamped at work, and the wallop of fever hasn't helped. But when you let work consume you, it's easy to feel like a failure no matter how much you do. So I'm going for a wee walk and... enjoying this #PoetryBreak. 🕊️

FLOWERS
L. E. Bowman

I like it when people brake for squirrels.
When they scoop bugs onto napkins
and gently set them outside. I like it when
people put their shopping carts back and
smile at strangers and hold open doors.
I like the awkward run, the breathless
thank you. I like it when people share
appetizers and good news and book
recommendations. When they get do
excited that their hands become actors
and their story comes out as a spark.
I like it when people offer these bright,
little flowers. these tender, yellow bursts.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

O Merlin my Merlin. I don't harbour parasocial behaviours toward any celebrity - and quite honestly, I've never wanted to meet any of them. Their work is enough. Much of Sam Neill's acting favoured a representation of kindness that was very special to me growing up. I am so grateful for his art.

Sam Neill in the 1998 miniseries Merlin.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

WHEW. Finally! Just got word that she has arrived safe and sound in Venezuela. I received a frantic message from her yesterday at 5am because there was a difficult situation on the jungle highway, but they got through safely. #PoetryBreak via Stephen Dunn while I breathe out, then back to work. 💪🏻

The Past
Stephen Dunn

Herrings begin to glow just after they die,
never while alive. When I read this
I wanted to sit for a long time in the dark.
Nothing in nature is a metaphor.
Everything is. I thought both thoughts.
And knew inexactly why I felt sad.
Herrings dead and aglow--
I should have been properly amazed,
the way anyone looking at a star
would be, realizing it was years away,
untouchable. Yet there it is, shining.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Well, I received a crisis text from her at 5am near the border, so we're not out of the woods yet. But I got to the park to watch the dawn, & I've had my #PoetryBreak before the day begins in earnest. It will be okay. Bird by bird. Crisis by crisis. #Poem by poem. (@joysullivanpoet on Instagram)

My mother says kissing a man without a mustache is like eating eggs without salt

Which is a better way of saying--take the scenic route.
Say I love you when it's true. Drive 12 hours just to touch.
Buy kumquats because they're called kumquats. Call
someone you love a little kumquat. Write letters. Recite
poems. Be verklempt. Rise early to hunt the moon. Eat
pastries whose names you can't pronounce. Astonish
everyone. Haunt everything. Sing, even if poorly. Press
the peek for zest. We're nothing but brief bodies. Hearts,
fragile as parakeets. Spit, lios, and longing. All we've got is
this skin. This necessary salt.

By Joy Sullivan, joysullivanpoet on Instagram.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

I was born on the traditional lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat, "where there are trees standing in the water" (Tkaronto, Toronto). Every July 1 I'm thankful to Kwakwaka’wakw artist Curtis Wilson for this version of the flag.

This is one of a few First Nations, Inuit, and Métis designs developed to centre and celebrate our history as a multinational, multicultural, and pluralist society.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

There are days when I see my many faults just amplifying before my eyes, and a profound sense of defeat/exhaustion kicks in. It ain't easy being human, eh? Next cosmic draw, I'm putting my name in for "Greenland shark" instead.

Look at this handsome critter, hundreds of years old, found near Nunavut in the Arctic Ocean.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

This is a big week. On Wednesday, things change for me and things change for the kid I'm putting on a bus to Venezuela. Am I ready? Well, I haven't finished everything I need to. But as this morning's #PoetryBreak reminds me, sometimes we take long hard roads to where and what we need to be next.

Kindness
By Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

And one more fresh draft for the night, before I wander home for a spot of tech work before bed and zoo day. This is obviously informed by recent events, and still super rough, but it's good to keep the juices flowing! (I have an SFF short story to finish soon. 🤞🏻) #Poetry #WritingCommunity

At the grey of dawn fresh yellow lines
stretch along the highway, incomprehensible.

How can they share this world with all
the latest videos of destruction passed around?

Shattered heart emojis, hymns and anthems,
vigil candles, Venezuelan flags.

The rubble and the recoveries–some “miracles”,
some merely limbs displaced from old homes.

In parts of the world such scenes are made
with intention. Politicians decide, day after day,

to lay ruin to life. But in others this level of disaster
arrives only indirectly: a savaging of the future

one greased palm at a time. Yet for every rift
that feels like the last, the worst; like the heart

cannot bear another case decided against compassion,
another culture making cruelty its native tongue,

still there come these bloody morning-afters–rudely,
impossibly–when fresh lines appear on the asphalt

and the repair work of small foolish apes presses on.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

I am sportsballing before more tech tasks tonight. And between halves in Colombia v. Portugal... a little time to polish a previous draft, if not finish something new. 🤞🏻 #Sportsball #Poetry #WritingCommunity

An intense and dedicated crowd in the mall for this match. One of many scattered and packed groups.

Lulo con leche, a turtle-bedecked poetry writing book, and me!

PAD THAI
M. L. Clark

On a Monday afternoon halfway across town
I order pad thai. I order the pad thai–
not the pad thai I first tried at fifteen, slipping
underage and un-carded into a bar
in the heart of the city, heady with smoke
and greasy to the touch, every surface sticky
from an overused rag, and the bar itself wreathed
by university lads with no compunction
about telling a miserable teen made worse
by the beer they were drinking, “Go kill yourself,
then, if life is really as awful as you believe,
and humanity as full of cruelty as you think”–
not that pad thai, over-salted and a bit dry,
as if to keep the brews flowing, but a pad thai
in conversation with that pad thai, succulent
and balanced, an immaculate and mature take
on the theme, consumed almost two lifetimes
later, opposite a teen taking photos of her first
in a safe restaurant, mango smoothie beside her,
and not a debate bro in sight. I don't know how
the chef knew that was the pad thai I needed,
but it was the pad thai he served me, and I am
still too old and world-weary to protest when,
even for a moment, such wizardry lays me low.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

It's been a wild week. The kid was supposed to go to Venezuela on Thurs, for about a month to emancipate herself from her long-absent mother, but now she leaves Wed. I'm taking her to the zoo tomorrow to build good memories before she enters a country recovering from the earthquakes. What a world.

An El Colombiano write-up about the disaster.

A follow-up article on where Colombians can donate to help.

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M L Clark @mlclark.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Being caregiver to this orphaned teen has been a roller coaster. But when I see her so proud to be doing well in school, after being out for years? That's when I remember how new life still is for her. For her, the best is yet to come. ❤️ I'm just a tiny stabilizing force before she launches in full.

Time to make space on the fridge for her latest report card! Apparently it's a great one!

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