J. L. Yocum
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jlyocum.com
J. L. Yocum
@jlyocum.com
1.1K followers 2K following 560 posts
NYC Poet.

BA in English Comp/Poetry, University of North Texas.

Poems in &/or forthcoming in 𝘼𝙡𝙗𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙨, 𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙤𝙨𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘽𝙞𝙜 𝙒𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙨 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬, $ 𝙋𝙤𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙮 𝙞𝙨 𝘾𝙪𝙧𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙮, 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙘𝙠 𝙍𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬, 𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘭.

More at jlyocum.com / mastodon.social/@jlyocum
#blueskypoets
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The Pierre Joris- and Jerome Rothenberg-edited 𝑃𝑜𝑒𝑚𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑛𝑖𝑢𝑚 is hands down my favorite collection of poetry. It’s massive, in two volumes — a total of a 1,684 pages.

Reading all the way through it was one of the formative events in my poetry-writing life.
A photo of two books on a wooden surface. They are titled “Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry / Volume One: From the Fin-de-Siècle to Negritude” and “Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry / Volume Two: From Postwar to Millennium”. Both have printed across the bottom: “Edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris.”
November 5, 2025 at 4:03 PM
jlyocum.com
Obligatory quote repost so I can tag @havehashad.com and @tanyazilinskas.com

This is going to be about the most fun anyone might legally have on any given Tuesday!
The HAD website logo (https://www.havehashad.com/); a pile of skulls
October 5, 2025 at 8:47 PM
jlyocum.com
The cat thinks he’s coming on vacation with us.
Cat sitting in an open suitcase on a bed
July 12, 2025 at 2:51 PM
jlyocum.com
Someone in my neighborhood knows what’s up.
On the sidewalk, a hand-drawn sign that says: “How can we protect our community from I C.E.?”; various people have written suggestions on the margins, such as “Don’t open doors,” “Don’t identify yourselves,” “Call out fascists,” “Don’t trust cops,” “No Justice NO PEACE” and more.
July 4, 2025 at 12:56 AM
jlyocum.com
In the first K&R "C Programming Language" manual, from 1988, if you look up "recursion" in the index, among the instances of its occurrence in the text, the index also lists the index page for the index listing of "recursion."

...

(image is not mine; photo credit is in the alt text.)
Image of the index listing showing "Recursion," on page 269 of the book, with the index listing showing Recursion appears on page 269. Image credit to Redditor u/root42 (https://www.reddit.com/user/root42/) in an archived Reddit post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/b9db36/the_original_edition_of_kr_the_c_programming/
June 28, 2025 at 7:08 PM
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Poem of the day: "HOST," by Bruce Bond
BRUCE BOND, “HOST” My father's body is the narrow grave where they buried another man's heart alive. Sometimes when he walks, he shakes a little, unsure of the vital debt he carries. When he pauses on the stairs, panting, it is another man's flush he feels, another man's sudden breath and shiver. When he reaches for the words, they come down just so far and wait. The room he's in is another man's silence. Some nights it burns at the center, this quiet passing through him like a torch. I worry naturally though for him death is less than solitary, less the dire property it was. Every common kindness now, each warm meal and paper cup of pills, is the unbroken emblem of itself. At the root of his pale throat is a gift, a dark-red fruit too deep to harvest. When he closes his eyes, he sees the opening jaw of his ribs, ravenous and steaming, taking in the live bread. When the flesh goes vivid, startled with blood, it becomes the mourning tongue in his chest. He could listen for hours lulled by the faint sound on his pillow, so distant there in the wet dark, his ear pressed to the sternum of the world.
May 28, 2025 at 10:26 PM
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The cat I live with just reminded me that every day is a work holiday in his world.
Orange tabby cat curled up on a bed
May 26, 2025 at 4:00 PM
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Just yesterday I took this photo, which fits the poem perfectly.
A grave stone being swallowed by the roots of a tree in a cemetery.
May 18, 2025 at 3:44 PM
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Quick reminder that this is by far the most aesthetically pleasing way to make the rainbow happen in an autism acceptance / neurodiversity symbol:
Infinity symbol made with looping parallel bands of color in the order of the rainbow
April 4, 2025 at 2:52 AM
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All Dressed Chips, figure it out.
Daryl from the Canadian television show “Letterkenny” holding a bag of Ruffled All Dressed Chips
March 6, 2025 at 3:53 AM
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Someday I hope to have a batting average comparable to Buckfast.
A Screenshot of Wikipedia reads: "Although Buckfast accounts for only 0.5% of alcohol sales in Scotland, it is responsible for 80% of public intoxication incidents. 221[23]"
February 12, 2025 at 10:39 PM
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Opened a book in an antique store just now and was immediately attacked.
D'RI AND I A POET may be a good compan-ion, but, so far as I know, he is ever the worst of fathers. Even as grandfather he is too near, for one poet can lay a streak of poverty over three generations. Doubt not I know whereof I speak, dear reader, for my mother's father was a poet—a French poet, too, whose lines had crossed the Atlantic long before that summer of 1770 when he came to Montreal. He died there, leaving only debts and those who had great need of a better legacy — my mother and grandmother. As to my father, he had none of that fatal folly in him. He was a mountaineer of Vermont — a man of steely sinews that took well to the grip of a sword. He cut his way to fame in
February 1, 2025 at 9:00 PM
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What about solitude that is not loneliness?

“In Your Wild Dream,” Richard Hugo (1977)
In Your Wild Dream You are fishing but have walked away from your rod. Your rod bends and fies into the lake. You swim to the rod and start reeling in. A huge fish in on. A gray fish. Bloated. Dull. You finally land him. On shore he snarls, a vicious mustard dog. He wants to kill you. He rages with hate and glares. A man you don't know is holding him back. The dog strains at the rope. The man says "a Girl fish, that's what he's called." You are riding a camel in Athens. The citizens yell, "We are not Arab. This is not sand." The camel is a yacht. You cruise a weird purple river. Girls doze on the bank. One stands up and waves. You yell, "Where is the town?" You are alone. Fishing again. You catch nothing. You dream you are dreaming all this. Around you beautiful Flowers are blooming. You know now you need nothing to live, food, love or water. You giggle and giggle because you are free. Birds above you keep flying away.
January 7, 2025 at 1:11 PM
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The best part about giving @pwrmnstr.bsky.social gear for Christmas is that it means she will immediately grab her rig and start playing with it — so I get to be the solo audience of an impromptu noise set every Christmas.

#Christmas #noise #hnw #harshnoise #powermonster
December 25, 2024 at 6:06 PM
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@pwrmnstr.bsky.social and I bought this at the @wfmu.bsky.social Record Fair at the Knockdown Center in 2023.

I mean, look at this absolute menace. Of course we paid $6 for this 12” and it’s low-res disaster of an album sleeve.

I finally put it on tonight, and it’s golden.

Listen to Uncle Dave.
Yellow and black vinyl 12” album cover in yellow and black with an old guy kicking his feet out while playing banjo and singing. The photo is very unflattering, and he’s singing in a way that makes his face look silly — but he does look like he’s really getting into whatever he’s doing.
December 14, 2024 at 9:04 AM
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You'll find out in 11 days and 7 hours!
Ralphie from "A Christmas Story" in his pajamas inspecting his BB gun rifle next to a Christmas tree
December 13, 2024 at 10:05 PM
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Hidden CatCat 🎄

(Photo by @pwrmnstr.bsky.social )
Close-up photo of a Christmas tree with a cat face peering back at the camera through the branches from the other side
December 8, 2024 at 10:34 PM
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I want attendees at my funeral who meet my wife to ask her, “And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper?”
Screen capture from the film Fargo, with a police officer driving and talking, a person in the back seat, and the text “AND I GUESS THAT WAS YOUR ACCOMPLICE IN THE WOOD CHIPPER.”
November 30, 2024 at 8:47 PM
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Lots of garlic, cayenne, some Sichuan chili oil, fresh pasta (egg fettuccine).

Hopefully this’ll do the trick.
A big green pot on a stove with its lid off, visible reddish brown broth and noodles, blurry kitchen items in the background.
November 30, 2024 at 2:29 AM
jlyocum.com
Remember the Charmed episode when Phoebe turned the misogynist competitor advice columnist into a Turkey right before a demon cast a spell on all three sisters basically making them cave to their worst impulses, & Leo had to restrain Phoebe to keep her from chopping off the turkey/columnist’s head?
Charmed screengrab with Leo restraining Phoebe from behind, with the words “Yeah. Take me to the turkey,” printed on the bottom of the image (captions from the TV episode).
November 27, 2024 at 10:39 PM
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For her turn, @pwrmnstr.bsky.social got *me* the Earth Analog 180-Gram Green Translucent Color Vinyl re-issue of Hum's 1993 album "You'd Prefer An Astronaut."

A seminal record and a profound part of my musical life when I was a young man. What an epic gift from someone who truly knows and loves me.
A photo of a record player sitting on the top of a record shelf with a green translucent record on the platter, next to a green vintage lamp and in front of a large poster with T REX on it and a few bumper stickers on it (the stickers read "..GE BUSH COULDN'T ... A LAUNDROMAT" and "..FOR YOURSELF ..ON AUTHORITY!"). On top of the acrylic vitrine / record player cover, a gatefold album sleve stands. It is two different shades of green, with a zebra standing on it. At the top it says "HUM," then one line lower it says "YOU'D PREFER AN ASTRONAUT."
November 26, 2024 at 3:11 PM
jlyocum.com
Today, @pwrmnstr.bsky.social and I celebrate our third wedding anniversary.

As an anniversary gift, I gave her my heart.

(Well… an anatomically correct and to-scale resin model of it.)
Model of an anatomically correct heart on the top of a bookshelf next to a lamp and a potted plant.
November 26, 2024 at 2:49 PM
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Every time I see photos like this, I think: "Damnit, America, why can't *WE* have nice things?"
Image of demonstrating workers in Germany, with red and black banners, a faux coffin reading "VOLKGSWAGEN," a faux headstone reading "VOLKGSWAGEN WERTE 02.09.2024" Caption under image (inside screenshot) reads: Volkswagen employees demonstrate during a third round of wage negotiations in Wolfsburg, Germany. PHOTO: CARSTEN KOALL/GETTY IMAGES
November 22, 2024 at 5:22 PM
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1999, I think, in Denton Texas. Probably summer, maybe early fall. 35mm photo.
A young man in his 20s sits at a typewriter. He has short, very short hair, dyed red. Wears a green "ringer" t-shirt that says "Panama Canal." He has long sideburns, but they are trimmed close to his face. He sits on the floor, leaning against a loveseat, which is at a right angle to an identical loveseat. Both loveseats are covered with maroon pillows, though on the loveseat to his right is also a dark article of some sort — perhaps a jacket, a blanket, or another pillow. In the corner, in the space where the two loveseats meet, there is a floor lamp (one can only see, however, the lamp's stand-pole, and the evidence of its light on the wall behind it). In the same corner one can see the top of a rubber trashcan, like one might find in an industrial shop (not typical for a home). The typewriter is on a coffee table that is made of a stolen street sign or construction sign, orange, maybe "Yield," maybe "Road Closed." A cigarette burns in an ashtray to his right. Scattered around him are sheets of notebook paper with ink drawings on them. On the table are also two wine bottles with candles protruding, a closed notebook of sketch paper, a slip of plastic, a few empty-looking soft-packs of cigarettes, various pens and pencils and a paintbrush, and a pair of rose-colored sunglasses, lying upside down, hinges fully open, temple tips facing upright. Behind the loveseat is a set of blinds, behind the set of blinds is a window, through which is visible daylight and the front of a car. It is not possible to read the car's license plate. In the typewriter, the paper the young man types onto is a lined sheet from a spiral pad. The words he types are framed, hemmed in at the top by ink drawings, black looping lines inside rounded rectangles, and flanked to the left by the fluttering tattered edges where the paper was torn from the corkscrewing metal that once served as its notebook's spine.
November 21, 2024 at 11:31 PM
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I long to be as happy as a person shittily photoshopped into bad product photos on Amazon or Temu.
This is a badly photoshopped image of a woman holding a bag of groceries standing next to a smiling labrador retriever in the doorway of a house with black mesh curtains impossibly held open (perhaps by invisible hands — or perhaps by the telekinetic power of the dog?) behind her.
November 11, 2024 at 9:56 PM