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AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

180 followers 200 following 450 posts

“a fearless finder of the names of things”

author of ENTANGLED TRACES (haiku collection) www.bit.ly/EntangledTraces

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AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

Muriel Rukeyser, from her Elegies
#poetry

the twin that must be met again, changeling need,
blazing in color somewhere, flying yellow
into the forest with its lucid edict:
take to the world,

this is the honor of your flesh, the offering
of strangers, the faces of cities, honor of all your wish.
I say in my own voice. These prophecies
may all come true,

out of the beaten season. I look in Rotten Lake
wait for the flame reflection, seeing only
the free beast flickering black along my side
animal of my need,

and cry I want! I want! rising among the world
to gain my converted wish, the amazing desire
that keeps me alive, though the face be still, be still,
the slow dilated heart know nothing but lack,
now I begin again the private rising,
the ride to survival of that consuming bird
beating, up from dead lakes, ascents of fire.

— Muriel Rukeyser
“First Elegy: Rotten Lake”
(1939)

March 9, 2025 at 4:14 PM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

I feel that these words by Gary Snyder, from an essay in Earth House Hold (1969) is relevant:

"sex … become[s] the only personal epiphany of most people & the culture’s interest in romantic love take[s] on staggering size."

Discipline of following desires, 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 doing what you want to do, is hardest. It presupposes self-knowledge of motives, a careful balance of free action and sense of where cultural taboos lay — knowing whether a particular “desire” is instinctive, cultural, personal, a product of thought, contemplation, or the unconscious. Blake: if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, ’til all he sees is through narrow chinks of his caverns. Ah.

the frustrate bumblebee turns over
clambers the flower’s center upside down
furious hidden buzzing
near the cold sweet stem.

In a culture where the aesthetic experience is denied and atrophied, genuine religious ecstasy rare, intellectual pleasure scorned — it is only natural that sex should become the only personal epiphany of most people & the culture’s interest in romantic love take on staggering size.

March 3, 2025 at 7:55 PM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

Martha’s son James married Lavinia, who “parted ways from her husband’s blunders” after having nine children. They lived in separate towns when he passed away, though they never divorced and are buried beside each other.

“He was at one time quite well off, but died a poor man.”

December 31, 2024 at 3:28 PM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

Excerpts from The Fifth Sacred Thing (1994) by Starhawk:

I can't carry my own pain, let alone the weight of all of yours. Diosa, I have too many ancestors, one history of oppression would be enough to inherit. Leave me alone!

"Then listen, listen to us, we are your ancestors too. I sold my daughter to the slavers, I loaded the cattle cars, I smashed the temples of the heathens, I applied the lash, I raped. We are your ancestors, we are the unquiet dead. Feed us, heal us, listen to our stories. Or we will feed on you."

… hell worlds after hell worlds to be lost in, too many of them, the underside of the last five thousand years of history, and he could find no way out…

"No, we want you to sing for us, speak for us, redeem our lives," the ghosts clamored, victims and victimizers, their voices intertwined.

December 1, 2024 at 6:58 PM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

Was there any alternate reality or safe, nurturing environment where that little boy could have grown into this person?

a photo of myself taken September 28, 2024 gender-transformed with FaceApp software

October 27, 2024 at 4:34 PM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

In this photo, its mother plant first bloomed near my front porch (at the opposite end of my property) five years ago.

This year, I didn’t deliberately replant any of the seeds I had gathered — but some traveled on their own.

October 5, 2024 at 2:52 AM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

A small stray amaranth (“love lies bleeding”) popped up in my alley and gave its first bloom late in the season.

October 5, 2024 at 2:44 AM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

Autumn’s first leaf - after a rainstorm September 15, 2024

September 16, 2024 at 3:43 AM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

I’m liking these vibes on Spotify during my commute. 😁

“Sisterhood is Powerful” in #music

September 6, 2024 at 6:39 PM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

I have this one at my bedside:

On Lies, Secrets and Silence
– Adrienne Rich

I’ll order the very edition you shared so that I have the pair.

August 28, 2024 at 1:23 AM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

Reskeet with a favorite book from your childhood

The Boy Who Reversed Himself
by William Sleator

August 25, 2024 at 4:28 AM

AC Quinlan

@acquinlan.bsky.social

Some are like water, some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later, they all will be gone
Why don't they stay young?

— from “Forever Young” by Alphaville
released Sep. 20, 1984
#music