alex guenther

@guentheralex

teacher and writer living in bangkok. poetry at

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alex guenther@guentheralex· 10d

more baptists like this guy from the early 1800s please

John Leland, the Baptist abolitionist, who came to town with a twelve-hundred-pound “Mammoth Cheese” inscribed “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God”

alex guenther@guentheralex· 17d

new #sonnet. real picture, fictional drama. thanks for reading! #poetry 🌧️⛈️🌧️⛈️

the glimpse.

as we skirted the reservoir, i thought
i saw a structure in the distance, white
on water’s edge, a cube of marble, bright
through swelling fog. i lost it in a clot
of narrow, moss-choked overhangs; we fought
about directions. halfway through the fight
as thunder cracked - and feeling in the right -
i said something i shouldn't have (it's not

the first time), pressuring you to turn back,
and you relented. regretting the spleen
i’d introduced, knowing you’d have pressed on,

i craned my neck as we retraced the track -
but rain hid whatever i’d thought i’d seen;
i knew if we returned it’d be gone.

reservoir with mysterious cubical pumphouse or something in the distance

alex guenther@guentheralex· 21d

late-noon breezes rouse strings of plastic marigolds, dusty ficus stirs. forty-two years later, i know i can't claim this as mine. #tanka #poetry

a cafe containing most of the nouns in the poem

alex guenther@guentheralex· 23d

tiny new poem. also, sorry for retweeting a sonnet so many times yesterday. i was excited about it, but i know that's not the way. #poetry

at in-laws’.

sunbeam through scudding cotton-batting clouds,
then through the condo’s plastic balustrade,
then through thin thong-slits in your sunchair’s back
onto the deck’s untreated cedarwood;

below the deck, weakly, a single ray
(a centimeter square, perhaps) might bathe
the eyespot of a questing flatworm.

the items referred to in the poem, aside from the worm, who was inferred.

alex guenther@guentheralex· 23d

this old collection of buddhist sayings has some relevant guidance

The following chapter is concerned with living in a good Country, where the virtuous and learned are respected, and where fools and villains are not in charge. If this is not the case, one should abandon the country for a better one.

alex guenther@guentheralex· 24d

new #sonnet. thanks for reading! please let me know what you think! #poetry 🏔️👹⛓️‍💥🏔️🌨️🫏🪷🛕

xuanzang in the pamirs.

past snowed-in passes where cold demons howl
unsatisfied, this roaring chasm, where
the legend’s iron bridge needs much repair
as mist descends each midday like a towel
to shroud the upper cliff-face, where the owl
and goshawk wait (for dampness on the stair
to spur an unsure packhorse-hoof, to snare
a yakhide boot-thong); beetled granite scowl

pockmarked with sketchy switchbacks, chain-link bridge
worn thin, split planks below an icy crust
that molts in crystal shards the moment we

first test weight; beyond, past the howling ridge -
the steaming tiger altitudes we must
survive, the monastery, and the sea.

alex guenther@guentheralex· 25d

thanks ai overview

ai overview confidently, almost condescendingly, claims a local grocery is not closing down. guess what?

alex guenther@guentheralex· 25d

for what it's worth here's a similar thing from a couple years ago, double blank verse sonnet by marion ravenwood from raiders of the lost ark

the dreamt exotic edge of compassed globe,
the exile’s refuge, harsh but hardening
to scars from lowland interactions, hearth
of last resort that flickers in the blue
attenuated ice-light. abner’s junk
bequeathed to lower altitudes, enshrined
in warehoused absence. nothing but this night,
its flush of yak-fat flicker and the roar
of evanescent insults; all beyond’s
abominated, glacial, leopard-spoor
swept blank by avalanche. the lower climes,
their djellabas and parasols, recede
as on a palimpsest; the dotted lines
of cartographic crampons are effaced.

and then the knock. somehow, you’d always known
that he’d come walking through that door. the pain
was never frozen, lessened, or unclasped;
it flares below your clavicle, right where
it’s always been. this refuge a mirage,
this border-realm a fairy-tale. these men
you tolerate, kind-hearted as they are,
were born here, and they know the demon-howls
high in the passes, but are of the earth,
and their intoxications are not those
you needed. you knew that this could not last,
and that you would descend - but now you know
yourself. you’ll mutilate with flashing eyes
and jagged glass whoever fires first.

alex guenther@guentheralex· 26d

new #sonnet. thanks for reading and please let me know what you think! #poetry

george lucas.

deeper - red earth grows muddy as we track
the creature, creepers cloak the deccan sun,
her tracks grow mixed with others. then a clear
pawprint in streamside mud, leading deeper
to damp ravine, rock overhang, a cave…
i’ve lost the light. a sudden slip, a crack,
i scramble blind in a stinking bone-pile,
fingering what seem human femurs. freeze

and grip your useless rifle tighter, wait
for hot breath at your shoulder. something then
(my eyes having slightly adjusted) gleams
much deeper in the cave - gold foil, the smooth
downturned curve of glance, a gentle smile
that whispers things i’ll never comprehend.

alex guenther@guentheralex· 28d

new #sonnet. based on true events. however, the name of the car involved has been changed due to not remembering. #poetry thanks for reading! 🍦🍦🍦🚙🚙🚙

man in line for ice cream behind me yesterday, to his wife.

let's swing up through new jersey when we go
back home two weeks from now, from myrtle beach;
that equinox i saw, it’s got a peach
interior with velvet trim, i know
they’ll give me a great deal. my buddy joe,
he knows the guy. don't start with me, that speech
you won’t drive automatics - here i reach
to get just what you want, and even though

finances are tied up just now… know what?
no, fine, i tried. go on, be stupid, lose
this sweetheart deal. that’s more money for me,

you always - wait, i’m talking now, just shut
up, hang on. if you honestly refuse
this car, i’m done. search for yourself. you'll see.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 17

today's #sonnet. thanks for reading! #poetry🤬🤬🤬🎯🎯🎯🪞🪞🪞

second adolescence.

my foes are wholly fungible; i change
my target, not my ammunition, blast
away until one confrontation’s passed,
then afterward, although there is no dang-
er, i swivel my batteries towards strange
new enemies, aware that i’ve amassed
enough antipathy for all; i cast
my rage and indiscriminately range

the stubblefield for fresher bullseyes, shoot
at everything that moves, both big and small;
and every time i stop, amoebic fear

probes tendrils through my organflesh, takes root;
the prey my crosshairs haven't touched at all
(i push the thought away) sulks in the mirror.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 15

i made up a little relationship drama in my head and couldn't figure out whose point of view it's from. both i guess. i usually just write about the pharaohs or the moon or whatever, this was very confusing #sonnet #poetry

miscalculation.

he made a hurtful quip and took it back,
assuming she’d allow it and respond
banteringly, not guessing that beyond
brief shock after his tongue-in-cheek attack
she’d feel icy indifference, total lack
of drive to deal with him. it seems he’s fond
of probing tolerances, but she yawned
and turned away, declined to cross the crack

he’d opened. disinclined to waste her time,
she vanished wholly (not the shift he’d sought
to spur); he’s left dumbfounded, while her head

is empty of him, utterly. to climb
back in’s impossible; she won't be caught
again. he chose to shoot first, and he’s dead.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 14

i guess i had never seen an image of francis ford coppola's brother August, father of Nic, before today. he looks nothing like his brother but like his son's older clone. thought i'd share the excitement. eccolo qui

nic cage and his dad, nic cage in old man makeup

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 13

new #sonnet. thanks for reading. #poetry

unpacking.

had something, or things, vanished? it was not
an obvious discrepancy, it took
some time (a figure missing from its nook
among displayed collectibles, its slot
less dusty than its neighbor’s? ring of rot
where sponges sat? a page torn from that book
that neither of us read?) the more we look,
the more the clues recede from sight; we’ve sought

to catalog them all, but still can’t tell
what hasn’t shown - gift card with unspent points,
old sweaters, roomba? those all had a cost,

of course, but this uncertain inner swell
hurts more; uncoupled, splintered finger-joints
the jagged indices of what we’ve lost.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 10

planet?

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 10

we almost got killed by someone just straight-up running a red light about an hour ago. it's happened probably four times this summer already. things have gotten really, really bad here. 🛻🛻🛻☠️☠️☠️ thanks for reading! #sonnet #poetry

t-boned.

the instant of the impact and the sense
that this is it, that nothing will remain
to mourn - this truck will hit us like a train
(they’ll live, of course); this isn’t little dents
in parking lots. things have been like this since
the plagues appeared, when people guessed they’d gain
by choosing which rules mattered for their strain
of fungus-brained cave salamanders - hence

the juggernaut approaching you and me
after running a light - it's not the first
time this has happened, this sick season. now

the rotten of us steer what we should be,
encouraged by the incoherent worst;
our salted earth, our human-killing plow.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 9

"oat cuisine" god dammit thomas pynchon i love you

“See, at the time you had a number of corrals in Tombstone, there was the Mighty Fantastic Corral, deluxe indoor stalls, gourmet nosebags, what they call ‘oat cuisine,’ and right around the corner in the same price range the Just as Stupendous Corral, but then if you didn’t want to spend that much money, why there was always…”

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 8

every single time i start a poem the words "there's nothing..." pop into my head and i have to force myself to think of another beginning. today i gave in & pasted "there's nothing" for 14 lines and went from there. thanks for reading! #sonnet #poetry

the gap.

there’s nothing and there's nothing and there's no
chance of any unveiling here. there's not
an echoed whisper of a vanished thought,
no glimmering scintilla of a glow
or spark; no moisture, not the slightest flow
or drip or trickle - not even a spot
of perspiration or a withered knot
of appetitious mold, nothing to show

that something happened here, somebody tried
to get somewhere, somehow, attempted waves -
now-untraceable flailings others must

shrug at through lack of evidence. we died
and left no plinths or sculpted architraves,
no sutras, no sarira, and no teeth.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 6

it's raining. here's today's petrarchan #sonnet draft. thanks for reading! #poetry 🌧️⛈️🌧️⛈️🌧️⛈️

downpour.

the rain hits, cold and unexpected, cold
as culture shock - i don't belong, i’m not
prepared, unbalanced and confused, i’ve got
no anchorage, no references, no old
acquaintances to scrounge from, have been told
no lore; i obviously haven’t brought
the proper gear. i sneeze and sniffle snot,
my skull thrums with fat droplets which have rolled

to saturate my shorts - and clearly there's
no shelter, only distant buildings that
recede in shadow as i shuffle-run

ahead, confusedly. forked lightning flares;
i chose this - no umbrella, coat, or hat;
i’ve been spoiled by eleven years of sun.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 6

from 1927, a pencil with a special end for dialing rotary telephones.

venus dia-tip pencil. has a big metal ball on one end.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 5

i've been staying up late the last few nights reading old pencil catalogs, in awe of how many hundreds of shapes and sizes and weird names they used to have. a glorious tropical ecosystem of pencils now sadly pruned to a few dwarf species

dixon catalog from 1912 with pencils for all occasions, for example the "car inspector" pencil

more dixon pencils, with very oddly shaped erasers including gear-shaped and flat circle-shaped

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 5

pencils are a good example of the grand american tradition of insane marketing... all pencils are basically the same, but the industry kept straining to come up w/ weird half-truths like their pencils could write 16,230 words (then everyone moved production overseas & stopped caring about pencils)

mad men-era mongol pencil ad with the dubious claims that it stays sharper longer and can write more words than the competition (implied)

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 3

today's #sonnet seems pretty good to me, but then again i usually think that. #poetry thanks for reading! 🚇🚂🚰🛤️

approaching the terminal.

beneath the city’s sewer-gratings, where
the temperature is cavern-cool, where drips
from pipes encrust stalactite-like and chips
of rust sift down like pollen, where the air
is still unless trains roar by. surface glare
attenuates to slanted smears; light slips
through slits to limn eroded brick - a ship’s
long-sunken engine room, imagined lair

for morays of the mind, and we who pass
half-dream penumbral sightings. as we clack
and rattle on our way, loose ducts and wires
vibrate below the rushing engines’ mass.

a silent shadow-maze surrounds the track;
glimpsed cinnabar of charcoal cooking-fires.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jul 1

ok, today's #sonnet will hopefully be more of general interest than yesterday's one about rancid protein shakes. i think. #poetry thanks for reading! 🐇🦅👻🎋

the pale.

there’s something in the dying grass, a stain
or trampled patch, the trace of where a hare
or groundhog bedded down - and if i stare
unfocused, i can scent the strike and strain
as hawkshape arrowed down like sudden rain
and claws rent pelt. whatever happened there
left only bent grasshalms and moteful air
and pheromones. a paling in my brain

prevents me from perceiving this; i want
to uproot this partition that impedes
my glimpsing these ancestral deeds, the mass

of history’s eraser-crumbs which haunt
this place - a windless rattle in the reeds,
the whispers of our footfalls in the grass.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jun 30

today's #sonnet draft is a true story from 30m ago. even more than usual (let's be honest), in this case the imbecilic and slightly ill speaker is emphatically the poet #poetry

trial and error.

congealed chunks in my protein shake - a flaw
in manufacturing? expired? i spit
it out; no untoward aromas hit
my nostrils, nothing rancid in my craw -
but why so bulbous? curious, I paw
and shake another package, and I get
a swig of clotted carrageenan, bit
by slithered bit. i hesitate to draw

conclusions early - venturing to sip
the third box from the four-pack, it's the same
repulsive stew. this wouldn't have gone south

so badly if i’d looked before my lip
hit blob. but… maybe… one box left. still game,
i shake it up and raise it to my mouth.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jun 30

john le carre, an early understander of the "instagram amnesia" effect

Cameras don’t work for me. When I write a note my memory stores the thought. When I take a photograph, the camera steals my job.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jun 29

eco cheetos!

some kind of earth friendly frito lay display at target

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jun 29

quick new #sonnet. i am starting to worry the foreknowledge i might post them on bluesky is starting to contaminate these with pathetic political platitudes, but it might just be the situation in general. #poetry

guardrails.

atoning for things yet undone, assigned
a series of requirements to meet
before my inner virtue’s deemed complete
by periwigs and gavels in my mind.

“parking only for customers” - inclined
to truckle, i’m afraid to leave my seat
and stay inside the car, circling the street,”
although the meter’s smashed; i’ll never find

a spot. there's something wrong. i need to fight
against my acquiescence to the rules
they told us to respect which clearly don't

apply to them. they don't bother with right
or wrong, or us, at all - we’ve been such fools
to swallow their prescriptions while they won’t.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jun 26

today's petrarchan #sonnet. bit of an angry one. thanks for reading! #poetry 🦠🦠🦠🥒🥒🥒🧫🧫🧫🧑‍🔬👩‍🔬👨‍🔬🧪🧪🧪☠️☠️☠️🫎🫎🫎🗯️🗯️🗯️

the breach.

a fermentation, fertile curdling clots
that throbbed behind my temples when you said
that, yesterday - a clouding in my head,
congested veil between my stagnant thoughts
and every it and if. now all i've got’s
a petri view, as through a pane of dead
aquarium-glass, blunt and bleary, red
and seething pickle-froth, fast-blooming spots,

dark colonies emerging - soon they're all
there is and choke the agar-agar, dull
to cataract and chalk; they start to crack

containment, worming tendrils that will crawl
to blight and brittle, antlering through skull;
you should have never said it. take it back.

alex guenther@guentheralex· Jun 24

today's petrarchan #sonnet draft. thanks for reading! #poetry 🐀⛰️