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tashmahal.bsky.social
Tash 🍉
@tashmahal.bsky.social
3.4K followers 1.3K following 2.1K posts
My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal which bothers some men :: Te Whakatōhea, Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi :: Mai i te awa ki te moana 🇵🇸 :: Ka ora tonu mātou ake ake ake
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tashmahal.bsky.social
happy 32nd birthday to this masterful, majestic album, the GOAT imho; moving & soothing & soaring & sonic, melancholic & melodious, opulent & furious; non-stop wall-to-wall bangers; absolute grandeur in its textural alchemy & oh the nostalgia. a 62:08min art work that makes mine heart work. love.
The cover of Smashing Pumpkins' album, Siamese Dream.
July 19, 2025 at 1:23 AM
tashmahal.bsky.social
If Hamas & before them the PLO are “terrorists” what do we call those they’re resisting who for decades w/ impunity steal their land, maim assault snipe rape slaughter; carpet bomb homes hospitals schools churches mosques & tents; deny food water & medicine; shoot the starving as they wait for aid?
People holding a sign that reads, Israel has the right to go fuck itself
July 16, 2025 at 11:31 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Tired Langston Hughes I am so tired of waiting, Aren't you, For the world to become good And beautiful and kind? Let us take a knife And cut the world in two— And see what worms are eating At the rind.
July 13, 2025 at 11:19 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.

-Langston Hughes
The Dream Keeper Bring me all of your dreams, You dreamers, Bring me all of your Heart melodies That I may wrap them In a blue cloud-cloth Away from the too-rough fingers Of the world. -Langston Hughes
July 12, 2025 at 8:23 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
Why Are Your Poems so Dark? LINDA PASTAN Isn't the moon dark too, most of the time? And doesn't the white page seem unfinished without the dark stain of alphabets? When God demanded light, he didn't banish darkness. Instead he invented ebony and crows and that small mole on your left cheekbone. Or did you mean to ask "Why are you sad so often?" Ask the moon. Ask what it has witnessed
July 11, 2025 at 9:58 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
“After a min of reflection upon
hearing the news of US imposed sanctions against her, the response of Francesca Albanese needed no translation - there is no stepping back in working for justice & freedom” ✊🏽

My love, respect, awe for her knows no bounds. She is honour, integrity, courage exemplified
Francesca Albanese, standing (back to the camera) with her fist raised. A crowd looks on, cheering, in solidarity and admiration.
July 10, 2025 at 10:19 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
“it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only
all the time”
Part of Eves Discussion Marie Howe It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand, and flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop, very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say, it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only all the time.
July 10, 2025 at 10:00 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Here we got a museum for invertebrates showing more spine than most Western politicians.
Blessings to these crustaceans against settler colonialism!
❤️🖤🤍💚🦀✊🏽
From the Instagram of @crabmuseum “IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE US AT 'FREE PALESTINE THEN YOU SURE AS HELL DON'T DESERVE US AT 'CRABS ARE COOL AS HECK' Our struggles are connected. If we can't show compassion for our fellow humans, how on Earth are we meant to believe in the beauty of crabs, weevils, badgers or bats?”
July 9, 2025 at 9:08 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Yesterday, 8 Jul, marked 53 years since Ghassan Kanafani - poet, painter, writer, liberation fighter “who never fired a gun, whose weapon was a ballpoint pen” - was assassinated by Israel. His 17 yr old niece, Lamees Najim, was killed alongside him.
All your armies All your fighters All your tanks And all your soldiers Against the boy Holding a stone Standing there All alone In his eyes I see no sun In his smile I see no moon And I wonder I only wonder Who is weak and Who is strong Who is right and Who is wrong And I wish I only wish That the truth Has a tongue. -Ghassan Kanafani A photo of Ghassan Kanafani working at a desk.
July 8, 2025 at 10:27 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Quality time with a dear friend
Cover the book (containing the two novellas): FAMILY and BORGHESIA by NATALIA GINZBURG 'Her distilled directness is disarming and even tender to encounter.' ALEXANDER CHEE
July 8, 2025 at 8:30 AM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Not really sure she’s best placed to be lecturing others on such matters? When her partner’s son was told “no” at a Thorndon watering hole, he punched & stomped on a 72 year old’s head, leaving him with permanent injuries.
Heather du Plessis-Allan: Kids shouldn't be exempt from citizen's arrests “If you listen to parenting experts, you'll hear the same thing time and time again about raising kids properly. They need love, but just as importantly, they need boundaries. They need to be told no, they need to be disciplined, and they need to learn what they can and can't do. And if you don't do that, you basically ruin their chances at success.”
July 8, 2025 at 5:40 AM
tashmahal.bsky.social
How will you live now?
What are the consequences of silence?
Describe a morning you woke without fear.
What would you say if you could?
Twelve Questions BHANU KAPIL 1. Who are you and whom do you love? 2. Where did you come from / how did you arrive? 3. How will you begin? 4. How will you live now? 5. What is the shape of your body? 6. Who was responsible for the suffering of your mother? 7. What do you remember about the earth? 8. What are the consequences of silence? 9. Tell me what you know about dismemberment. 10. Describe a morning you woke without fear. 11. How will you / have you prepare(d) for your death? 12. And what would you say if you could?
July 7, 2025 at 10:39 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Frankly, I don't have the least ambition to be anybody. I don't care for people's pretentiousness, and I am in no way interested in becoming a “big shit." Frida Kahlo Letter to Dr. Leo Eloesser 15th March 1941 —- From Letters of Note
July 6, 2025 at 8:11 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
“respect for all beings is a duty, the struggle for justice is a light for us all, and happiness is possible and is the right of all beings.

...develop life options that refuse to put off justice and tenderness until tomorrow”

-Dr Ivone Gebara
“life rushed into this universe and became vibrantly mortal. Similarly, the love of this instant must be intense, respect for all beings is a duty, the struggle for justice is a light for us all, and happiness is possible and is the right of all beings. There is a beauty in this indissoluble unity and in the intercommunion that invites us to develop life options that refuse to put off justice and tenderness until tomorrow, or happiness until some imagined eternity; life options that take a new look at what seems ephemeral and accidental—at the passing moment, a sunset, a flower ... even at death itself.” -Dr Ivone Gebara
July 6, 2025 at 9:24 AM
tashmahal.bsky.social
"they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness."
Of The Empire We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness. - Mary Oliver
July 5, 2025 at 9:11 AM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Answer ERICH FRIED Someone came to the stones and said: Be human The stones replied: We are not hard enough yet
July 4, 2025 at 11:56 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
❤️
Everything is on fire, but everyone I love is doing beautiful things and trying to make life worth living, and I know I don't have to believe in everything, but I believe in that. - Nikita Gill
July 4, 2025 at 10:17 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.
When Giving Is All We Have Alberto Ríos One river gives Its journey to the next. We give because someone gave to us. We give because nobody gave to us. We give because giving has changed us. We give because giving could have changed us. We have been better for it, We have been wounded by it- Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet Big, thought small, diamond in wood-nails. Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too, But we read this book, anyway, over, and again: Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand, Mine to yours, yours to mine. You gave me blue and I gave you yellow. Together we are simple green. You gave me What you did not have, and I gave you What I had to give-together, we made Something greater from the difference.
July 4, 2025 at 9:10 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
You matter to me.
All we can do in times like these is offer things that say to others: You matter to me. The Mason jar of chicken soup given to a neighbor, or the clay mug shaped by the hands of a friend, with a dog and goldfinch painted on the side—how it arrived in the mail unbroken. A phone call out of the blue, or message that says: Thinking of you. Let's wrap each other in gestures so true, no one ever doubts how much they belong, no one ever questions whether or not to stay. -James Crews
July 4, 2025 at 12:19 AM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World

To train myself to find, in the midst of hell
what isn't hell.
Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World To train myself to find, in the midst of hell what isn't hell. The body, bald, cancerous, but still beautiful enough to imagine living the body washing the body replacing a loose front porch step the body chewing what it takes to keep a body going— this scene has a tune a language I can read this scene has a door I cannot close I stand within its wedge I stand within its shield Why write love poetry in a burning world? To train myself, in the midst of a burning world, to offer poems of love to a burning world. - Katie Farris
July 3, 2025 at 7:59 AM
tashmahal.bsky.social
PSNA has referred Luxon, Peters, Collins, Seymour, Sinan Altug & Peter Beck to the ICC for complicity in war crimes.

“[they've] supported Israel commit crimes which have shocked the human conscience...individuals who have helped to make this nightmare possible must be held to account”

www.PSNA.nz
NZ Complicity in Gaza War Crimes Referral to the International Criminal Court Through Israel's ongoing mass bombing, starvation and self confessed ethnic cleansing in Gaza, our govt stays silent. Despite our international legal obligations our leaders delight in their warm relationship with the Israeli govt of Benjamin Netanyahu. Govt ministers have allowed military tech for use in Israeli war crimes. RAKON Rakon exports military grade crystal oscillators to the US to be put in missiles with Israel can deploy in Gaza and elsewhere. ROCKET LAB Rocket Lab launches spy satellites from Māhia, which Israel ueuses to target civilians in Gaza. That's why we are taking Christopher Luxon, Winston Peters, David Seymour, Rocket Lab's Peter Beck and Rakon's Sinan Altug to the ICC with a case for their complicity in Israel's war crimes. We say there's blood on their hands. Support this referral to the ICC. Go to www.psna.nz You can support this advert and the campaign for Palestinian liberation by donating to: Palestine Solidarity Network 38-9015-0849542-00
July 3, 2025 at 6:58 AM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Dogs for a Free Palestine
A sweet Boston Terrier wearing a keffiyeh, wanting Palestine to be free
July 2, 2025 at 10:51 PM
tashmahal.bsky.social
Thrilling news to warm the heart cockles. Found another picture of my man Anton Pavlovich looking fine. Chekhov? Chekhot, more like.

Hello to you sir.
Hellooo Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.
July 2, 2025 at 10:15 AM
tashmahal.bsky.social
"Socrates said 'The misuse of language induces evil in the soul'...A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth & freedom, & so they use them with care...By using words well they strengthen their souls"
-Ursula Le Guin
Socrates said, “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” He wasn't talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth. A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Storytellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper. —Ursula K. Le Guin
July 2, 2025 at 6:25 AM
tashmahal.bsky.social
"So for us to have been together, even
for this moment
profound like a leaf
blown in the wind
to have been together
and known you, and despite our pain
to have grasped much of what joy exists
...
is what it was about, really. Life.
Loving someone, and struggling."

-Amiri Baraka, Ballad: Air & Fire
BALLAD: AIR & FIRE by Amiri Baraka for Sylvia or Amina There is music sometimes in lonely shadows blue music sometimes purple music black music red music but these are left from crowds of people listening and singing from generation to generation All the civilizations humans have built (speed us up we look like ants) Our whole lives lived in an inch or two. And those few seconds that we breathe in that incredible speed blurs of sight and sound the wind’s theories So for us to have been together, even for this moment profound like a leaf blown in the wind to have been together and known you, and despite our pain to have grasped much of what joy exists accompanied by the ring and peal of your romantic laughter is what it was about, really. Life. Loving someone, and struggling.
July 2, 2025 at 12:36 AM