The raft of the Medusa

Hwæt!

According to research by Dr. George Walkden, a University of Manchester lecturer,  the Old English word hwæt, which begins the English language’s oldest epic poem (“Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in gear-dagum, þeod-cyninga,  þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas  ellen fremedon!”), should not be read as an interjection separate from the rest of the first line  (“Listen! we have heard of the might of the kings”),  but rather as part of a complete exclamatory sentence—something like “How we have heard of the might of the kings.”

Citing research that “there’s no record of the Anglo-Saxons using exclamation marks, or any other form of punctuation, besides the full stop (or ‘point’) and the occasional semicolon” Walkden declares all previous interpretations—”‘What ho!’ (Earle 1892), ‘Hear me!’ (Raffel 1963), ‘Attend!’ (Alexander 1973), ‘Indeed!’ (Jack 1994), and ‘So!’ (Heaney 2000)”—to be wrong.

Read the full article HERE.

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menses and scarp

Hwæt!

Wyatt back
from the farflung
hauling home
home the sonnet
eek the heart that 'pon it
as if by dogs
from anchorage to nome
curseth the cadence and all what don it

(barrage-creeping firewall and their equi/v/alents

in the cerebellum but what of such War?):
—more of this later—the red barn
its proxies that tinge
through the psychotropes where one ought only
to hear of smoking idylls? for what a word's worth etc?
there are creatures, one cries, creatures

cries

smoking kills— so many smoking kills
—so many, but the e-mote seems at once

spurious spouting when with such windows or other
outfalls already
like this or...
this

[ore] the broadcast seams
worked out (work doubt!)
by forcèd men with baskets where the Sun:
Ceres/Bellona:
your many smoking kills where the Sun
at low angles in the woods; the Sun at Low

—Angles in the Woods Cry Havoc low
an gills
in the cerebella
only you could ever, only you

monster, your many smoking skill

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in the dark way of aberration and sledges. oh

so this guy that jumps
well just before
it goes into that
he thinks oh
my wife has abandoned me
this train
my children have figured me for the disaster
even though I can make good trifle
what the idiotic Italians
call English Custard
Jesus
all that it is
all it will ever be
some kind of custard suicide
with rabbits
jumping
after the train blows by
in an awful blast of night
fuck
it's always more than that
three rabbits at least
and then a crow
crarks and everyone
says shut up hey nothing
not now
shh

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all things here at once

this phone surrounded by flies
this phone that never rings
listen, your bed is filled with biscuit crumbs
and you are a frog anyway belly-up
the solar flares gleaming on your white skein

that somehow like a miracle

and its ruts are filled with your motorcycle-
roaring

and it really is Spring somewhere

and the night never did

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there are no experts about you and me we are on our own

so drive me to Hell
you'll never find anything, Copper
I learned how to sit and wait forever
before you were born—Madeleine Shine

there are no experts about me and you
we are on our own
how tall you seem when you
are sitting down
quite the angry little animal

a numberplate says 333 and I can't
help thinking and then a broken window
at knee height
and the Sun bright and low
across the fire station roof
where once oh forget it
I am at a place called Eastwood Court
as though for epiphany or samosas
or some dead drop-off like someone
faraway died in a hole and a choir
gathered

and the way is filled with light
like the Hiera Hodos if, you know, if...

omens you just won't believe

what happens next
with that screeching car and the woman
full of ball bearings no one could ever solve

"the moment when energy flows YES"

in another window: "facials at half price,"
which I cannot help relating to pornography
and then: "the colour is called"
it was of course transitive, but the intransitive
is so farther so better so wider and its victims
it doth swallow and swift and so all against
the Law

and the white-angled Sun pulses
out the GPS

man, it's all over

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