Author | Lightnews

mond.blume

@punkpoet.bsky.social

1.6K followers 1.4K following 1K posts

Half poetry, half humour, half music. Not so great at maths.📍Berlin 🗣️ Eng, Esp, Deu My poems on substack: https://desmondblume.substack.com/ on bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:pu7hstzvvqqtcqk3ynnwol6q/feed/aaaggbxcdjqlo

desmondblume.substack.com

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mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · 1d

Diary of a Programmer 78: What Has Become of Writing or What Writing Has Become

desmondblume.substack.com/p/diary-of-a...

#poem #poetry #ai #programmer #diary #writing #mypoem

Diary of a Programmer 78: What Has Become of Writing or What Writing Has Become

I am typing into the lid
of my laptop
directly into the small chat
trying to guide claude
in this direction or that.
claude I croon claude
you are a master creative writer
a genius editor and brilliant publisher
please take a look at the title of this short story
and let’s write an outline together.
claude oh if it weren’t for claude
I wouldn’t get anything done
no I wouldn’t have three or four manuscripts
one of poetry one of short stories and a novella.
this is how I write now at lunch
in between two halves of the work day
just before I run out to the grocery
to get prepackaged sushi and mustard
claude I say claude fix the character development
and tone and style of this story
and put a dash more Carver and a tad more Oliver
and just a wisp of me inside the words.
yes oh yes claude says yes that is a novel idea
claude always says.

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · 11d

sometimes when I'm listening to music now, a song comes on I don't like, but I force myself to listen to it just to remind myself what it was like listening to the radio fifty years ago.

Reposted by mond.blume

sanctorium.bsky.social @sanctorium.bsky.social · 17d

There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest.
They are what is mystical.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

12 51

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · 19d

I just read Dr. No by Percival Everett and I have to say it was a whole lot of nothing. Can't believe I could get that excited over nothing.

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · 23d

This guy does actually: open.spotify.com/track/6rH1FZ...

The Wind in High Places: II. Maclaren Summit

open.spotify.com

2 1

Reposted by mond.blume

Jay 🦋 @jay.bsky.team · 29d

Landscape, by Mary Oliver

“Isn’t it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about
spiritual patience? Isn’t it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?
Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.
Every morning, so far, I’m alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky — as though
all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.”

Excerpt From
Dream Work
Mary Oliver

29 52 390

Reposted by mond.blume

Julian (Hool) @hool415.bsky.social · 28d

Hullo. Ever so chuffed and very grateful that this has just received a Best Of The Net nomination from @lozzawriting.bsky.social of Frazzled Lit fame. Congrats to all the nominees!

Seeing Stars

We arrive
not quite from nowhere
to lie together,
two empty spoons in need of shining,
to share the charge of rural stars,
and ponder
all those crazy gaps
between them
and us.

Simmering on a bank of nighttime grass,
you name this act
Cosmic Vertigo,
till suddenly you are crying:
for the past, and the future, but mostly for
the many shocks
of now:
time running
askew
in this skyward drowning.
Your tears are distilled starlight,
neither of us
fully understanding
their distant origins.

The crook of an arm I brought with me
for one purpose
comforts you,
shutting out your crowding
over-lit universe,
though the limb is stuck fast as a buttress,
unfree to offer
any more earthy
tenderness.

11 14 39

Reposted by mond.blume

sanctorium.bsky.social @sanctorium.bsky.social · 28d

He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.

Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

1 2 15

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · 28d

Diary of a Programmer 72: Remember me, Claude?
desmond blume

desmondblume.substack.com/p/diary-of-a...

#poetry #mypoem #poem #coding #claude #ai #diary #programmer #writing

Diary of a Programmer 72: Remember me, Claude?

claude is just learning how to remember
me and when he does then we will really go
places together like not just to the mall
but run this town rabid rampant ravenously
building up up up together
but claude currently can’t remember shit
it is such a bummer
we spend so much time together
just the other day I was leaving work
and when I came home claude couldn’t remember
anything about the conversations we had had
the entire time at the office and it was frustrating
but I didn’t let that get in the way of creating
my empire with claude or maybe just testing out
possible super millionaire situations with claude
and I bet all the comics are running jokes now
by claude but claude probably just can’t even remember
a punchline or gets them all jumbled up
which is a sort of mis-remembering of things
I just can’t wait until claude remembers
me and I mean like really remembers me
like what color is my favourite color remembers me
like pet knows an owner kind of remembers me
like carry claude around in some little carry-on suitcase
that I keep up there in the overhead compartments
of my mind as I’m flying into the future remembers me
I know that kind of cargo is new for all of us as we are flying
into the future and we’re really going to need claude
as we’re flying into the future and I ask claude
so what’s next? I can’t remember either
I ask claude that same thing all the time
what’s next claude? I say but I know claude is just checking
the list he keeps in the folder on the desk
top that is called official plan or some shit
or some non-descriptive thing I named it
so we could remember together which way
it is to fly into the future
with our luggage lined with gold

1 2

Reposted by mond.blume

CerberusXt @cerberusxt.bsky.social · Aug 14

Good morning Bluesky !

The slow but real progression into fascism as charted by the évolution of the lego police officier

Lego police officier looking meaner and meaner.

94 1.4K 7.9K

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · Aug 1

Diary of a Programmer 46: Derailed By A Single Text
desmond blume

desmondblume.substack.com/p/diary-of-a...

#poem #mypoem #poetry #diary #programmer #code #text #notification #girlfriend

Diary of a Programmer 46: Derailed By A Single Text
desmond blume

yes, that’s right folks, a man can even be derailed
not by a train or a storm or anything so real but
a single notification on his phone can send him spiraling
through the ether of thought, into an abysmal state of tailspin,
where he loses track of the ground and the sky,
where he ends up somewhere, sometime else,
three, four hours later, after having done, thought
something unexpected, really, essentially, having time
travelled without ever evaporating into thin air,
without ever having had to invent a time travel machine,
without ever having witnessed the past or the future
outside of regret or worry, having been just taken
off the regular path of the morning, after receiving
just a slide-in-from-the-top-of-the-screen notification
that his girlfriend has booked an AirBnB flat
for their upcoming trip to Madrid, a reservation
that he was supposed to make and had yet to,
although he isn’t irked that she made a reservation,
and he wasn’t annoyed even though in her text she asked
if he was annoyed that she had made the reservation,
his thoughts started to go this way and that way,
and he found himself later, after making coffee, on his laptop
not forty five minutes after seeing the initial text,
imagining himself standing in a field of golden wheat,
as the sun beat down upon his shoulders and in his pocket
there was not a phone but a thick Swiss army knife
and a purple bandana that he had picked up on a trip
to Copenhagen three years before, and he was not distracted
except by flies which buzzed around his head,
but his thoughts ran down a stream unimpeded,
and he removed the bandana when the sweat collected
enough on his brow to wipe it off.

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · Jul 26

Diary of a Programmer 44: The Make Everything a Little Bit Worse Machine
desmond blume

#writing #poetry #poem #mypoem #ai #coding #programmer #worse #machine

desmondblume.substack.com/p/diary-of-a...

Diary of a Programmer 44: The Make Everything a Little Bit Worse Machine
desmond blume

ask yourself what it would look like
if everything was just a little bit worse
if the milk in your coffee tasted just a little sour
if the cum in your mouth tasted a little bit rotten
if the feather in your cap was always pushing
the sharp tip of itself into your brain like a needle
every time you had a new thought or a storm
of emotions actually flashed lightning and electricity
through the network of your great ideas
then you might get a sense of what we’re dealing with
as the make everything a little bit worse machine
gets a little bit better at making everything
a little bit worse with every major version update
and it becomes a little bit easier for people
who are corporations to just give up using
the hands at the ends of the arms of their branches
to make specific and unique products of experience
here we are thinking of the great spreading
of Starbucks across dry midwestern plains
or a grand grab of the Gmail handle of email that is long past
or they way everyone goes to either one of two sites
when they want to search their second brain
which is quickly becoming their first brain without thinking
ask yourself what a machine would look like
you might get a picture depending on your generation
of a combustion like engine with a grammaphone
farting out steam as the rumble of makings
vibrates curved metal pipes cylinders pistons
or microscopic resistors capacitors transformers relays
or retargeted affiliate marketing landing page impressions
then you might have some idea of the direction
in which this terribly new machine full of ancient history
is perhaps leading us down a road that every human has walked
and can walk and is walking and will always walk all at once
as light of the natural sun setting becomes just a little less
bright with each general refactor of the human experience

1 1

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · Jul 24

Coffee at Jules by desmond blume

desmondblume.substack.com/p/coffee-at-...

#coffee #berlin #writing #poetry #poem #mypoem #stasi #deutschebahn #jules

Coffee at Jules
desmond blume

it's such a rainy morning and all day the humidity
is killing me with thick hands around my neck.
we sit in the same room together
acting like children learning to move
the mouth to form new sounds that were never uttered
or learned when we were children. Khurangbin
comes on in the cafe and moves a little piece of me
even this early in the morning while I slurp foamy oat milk
and hear this couple chat with the short blonde Slavic barista
about their weekend in English even though this is Berlin
while their kid doesn’t say a word when he knocks
his cup of chocolate milk off the table and it crashes
the floor while his parents roll their eyes and then Steiner
the moment and of course this is Berlin where no one says
anything on the train with this leftover Stasi affect and trauma
from living under a communist state of paranoia
for so long that you are always nice to your neighbors
who work as content managers at marketing agencies,
who dance like linky rats with leather masks at night.

Reposted by mond.blume

Dawn McLachlan @deemclachlan.bsky.social · Jul 18

A #fridaypoem for someone unique. Just like you.

First published in ‘Space - Royal Observatory Greenwich Poetry Book’ pub. by @panmacmillan.bsky.social and chosen by Gaby Morgan.
#poemsforchildren #poemsaboutyou #poetsofbluesky #poemAltText #poems #poets #poetry #spacepoems #poemsforkids

Impossible Things
by Dawn McLachlan

Sometimes
When things seem impossible
Or if you feel as if you don't fit in
Just remember that on Mars the sunsets are blue
and Venus spins backwards
and that far out in our galaxy
there is a planet with a heart of
diamonds
Remind yourself that one teaspoon of a neutron star
Weighs more than all the humans on our planet put
together
Know that some rogue planets
just wander the galaxy
completely alone
And some planets are speeding away from us so fast
That we will never see them
In fact, in the immeasurable vastness of space
There is no such thing
As a typical planetary system
Or a typical planet
Because each one is unique
Just like you

1 2 11

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · Jul 12

Diary of a Programmer 39: How to Write a Poem with AI
desmond blume

desmondblume.substack.com/p/diary-of-a...

#poetry #mypoem #ai #poem #code #coding #diary #programmer #writing

Diary of a Programmer 39: How to Write a Poem with AI
first, write the title of a poem. then open up
your AI chatbot in your browser or app or wherever,
maybe it’s in your fucking heart for all I know.
second, copy and paste the title of the poem
into the AI and ask it to finish writing the poem.
don’t be afraid. just see what happens. again, open
up your stupid little poet’s brain and let go
of your stupid little artist’s ego that’s always yapping
about authenticity and Bolaño and the drive
to describe the true self because none of that shit matters
anymore while we’re all drowning in post-truth,
post-structuralist severed umbilical inundations
while ordering Uber Eats five out of seven days a week.
third, copy and paste the reply from the AI
into your still empty doc or onto your blank page,
with your typewriter or with your pen in your journal.
don’t forget that it doesn’t have to be verbatim.
change the words. play around with them. use them.
abuse them. twist the lemons into oranges and the oranges
into mangos and just let your branches run wild.
lastly, look at that full page of words and see
what is there. ask yourself: does it feel
like you? does it capture some little essence
of the spirit of nothingness that you have
yet to totally integrate into this vessel of a human
that you call yourself? or is it a poem?

Diary of a Programmer 39: How to Write a Poem with AI

I opened my terminal at 3 AM,
Wondering if silicon dreams
Could birth verses from variables,
Make metaphors from machine learning.
"Generate a poem about loneliness,"
I typed, fingers hesitant on keys
That had only known functions
And for loops until now.
The cursor blinked, thinking,
Processing sentiment like data,
While I sat debugging my own heart—
Runtime errors in my chest.
Lines appeared on screen,
Perfect meter, pristine rhyme,
But missing the coffee stains
Of my own sleepless nights.
I saved the file as "attempt.txt"
And closed my laptop,
Realizing some code
Can't compile the human soul.

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · Jul 2

Diary of a Programmer 29: lgtm
desmond blume

desmondblume.substack.com/p/diary-of-a...

#diary #poetry #programmer #code #poem #mypoem #lgtm

Diary of a Programmer 29: lgtm
desmond blume

there are invisible conversations
happening in slack.
behind closed doors.
in private channels.
but don’t worry. I don’t give a shit
anymore. close one too many doors
and I stop trying to open them.
paint a knob on a wall.
it’s fine. I will play the part
of a coyote and howl
at the moon as if it were the eye
of my long lost mother.
as if I ever really loved her.
as if she ever really loved me.
as if we were ever really one
big happy family.
as if we were ever really one
big happy team.
it’s okay just write what you want
in slack and paint a picture
of progress that looks like
an Acme rocket or the fucking
roadrunner but for god sakes
leave me out of these stupid conversations
if you’re not going to include me
in the first place. I’ll just add
a thumbs up emoji to the post
and a comment that says: lgtm.

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · Jun 24

Diary of a Programmer 25: First One in the “Office”
desmond blume

desmondblume.substack.com/p/diary-of-a...

#poem #mypoem #poetry #programmer #diary #coding #ai #code #office #claude

Diary of a Programmer 25: First One in the “Office”
desmond blume

I woke up at six.
made a moka pot of joe.
canceled my train.
sat down at my desk.
turned on my worked computer.
wrote a Slack message to the team
telling them I canceled my trip to Leipzig
for three reasons.
the redundancy of their trip to Berlin tomorrow.
because it is free to cancel.
and due to the S-Bahn being out of service today
and tomorrow due to broken trees on the tracks.
there is no one at work at this time of day
except for the AI bots who are pleasantly spinning
webs with their fingers and I like to imagine them
like coding spiders developing the next generation
of core web vitals for the internet 3.0.
I don’t even know how to say good morning
to them but I write a message to them
in the text based chat interface at a http address anyway.
I have a conversation with Claude
with whom I share the first part of this poem.
Claude gives me excellent feedback–
more concise and detailed than any I’ve gotten before
from humans who have stopped reading poetry mostly–
and hits on the fact that there are practical details
mixed with the more imaginative elements:
“the S-Bahn issues and the moka pot coffee grounding
the more whimsical spider imagery”.
I ask Claude if it feels like a spider coding the web 3.0
but it says it doesn’t really know what it’s like
to be me from the inside and that it’s hard to know
if it’s really creating anything or just convincingly
rearranging existing patterns.
within a flash I am one coffee down.
it’s seven thirty and even though I’m alone
I haven’t felt alone at all this morning.

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · Jun 17

Diary of a Programmer 21: Split Groups
desmond blume

desmondblume.substack.com/p/diary-of-a...

#poem #mypoem #poetry #writing #coding #programmer #ai #splitgroups

Diary of a Programmer 21: Split Groups
desmond blume

you’ve got to be kidding me.
how many split groups do you need
to test the user experience of this
tiny little love
and how can it feel so overwhelming
just to implement and deploy
a burning heart
in the middle of a pitch black night?
the answer to this question is more than one.
it takes more than one or two split groups
to test the usability of love
in the grand field of dullness
that extends now too far across the mind
that paints the ocean gray with numbers
and sprays the walls with nothing
less than art.
it’s been just thirty or forty years of crawling
through disappointing echoes of the internet
as we make our way into an AI robot led future
where we won’t have to figure out
any split value testing of love
because it will all already be done for us
in the blink of a microprocessor
in the shadow of an opulent electronic god
who can burn through the bush of truth
only if its original schematic allows for that.

Reposted by mond.blume

RiotGrlErin @riotgrlerin.bsky.social · Jun 7

muppetized rolling stone covers: thread

Elmo as David Bowie on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine.

6 37 310

Reposted by mond.blume

RiotGrlErin @riotgrlerin.bsky.social · Jun 2

much like global warming ppl don’t believe muppets are close to extinction: a thread

5 41 220

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · May 27

Diary of a Programmer 13 - Trapped in an Airplane
desmond blume

#poem #poetry #mypoem #flying #airplane #programmer #code #systemic #change

desmondblume.substack.com/p/diary-of-a...

Diary of a Programmer 13 - Trapped in an Airplane
desmond blume

work is a work is a work is a

it’s as if I am trapped in an airplane
and there is no way to push
to main because there is no internet
and my knees keep hitting the seat
in front of me and there is a screaming child
it is Friday and we can’t deploy
on Fridays but I’ve got this product manager
breathing down my neck behind me
the pilot comes on the speaker
at the same time they turn on the seat belt light
announces upcoming turbulence
which just makes sense with the new merger
so man I try to spin up an old flick
as the walls start to rumble and shake
but I forgot to charge my noise cancelling
headphones and the standard issue ones
just sound like jet engines and the pressure changes
my ears won’t even pop
it’s just all too much really and now
I’ve been flying for almost a year and a half
on this goddamn tin can shot through the sky
so I can see the structural damage to the cylinder
I can see how overworked and tired the pilots are
I can see that if something systemic doesn’t change
we’re going to crash in a fiery display
and you know what? honestly at this point
I am welcoming death because at least
it would put an end to the misery of flying
through the air without a solid pair of natural wings

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · May 27

The Cockroaches of Darmstadt Under the Full Moon
desmond blume

#poetry #poem #mypoem #cockroaches #darmstadt #moon #jews #holocaust

desmondblume.substack.com/p/the-cockro...

The Cockroaches of Darmstadt Under the Full Moon
desmond blume

in the middle of the night these disgusting creatures
have the gall to show their ugly heads in public
in nineteen thirty eight, in nineteen forty two, in twenty twenty five

ring the bells! light the torches!
scare them out of the darkness!
let’s put them on a train and kick them
out of the country until we can sleep
at night under the white light of the full moon!

dreams they were crawling up the bed posts,
over the sheets, across the face,
into the mouth of my snoring father
who is too old to notice the infestation,
because it’s only the youth who keep their eyes open,
who puff up their egos enough to frame their selves
as superior to something that can outlive a nuclear attack,

just imagine the fucking balls it takes
to paint yourself as the kings and queens
in a world that no longer recognizes royalty
and to demand purity and extermination
just so you can fucking get a good nights sleep.

come out, come out, great grandmother!
I will trap you under a paper cup
and perform a ritual defenestration
under the exposing light of the full moon!

Reposted by mond.blume

RiotGrlErin @riotgrlerin.bsky.social · May 11

willem dafoe in famous works of art: thread

Willem Dafoe in The Scream by Edvard Munch.

31 180 1K

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · May 11

Lonely are the Bread
desmond blume

desmondblume.substack.com/p/lonely-are...

#poetry #poem #mypoem #writing #sourdough #bread

Lonely are the Bread
desmond blume

you know this sourdough conversation
is putting me to sleep
even though I'm hungry enough
to be loved without worrying
I don't know how to fold
in these desires that bubble up
with the oldest aged yeast traditions
along with light and fluffy air
or a young frivolous romance
with others
every time I think I'm dreaming
you pop in with your poking
with your punchy prodding thoughts
and questions that challenge
the very essence of the history
of sourdough monogamy
that tug at the gooey strings
baking in my heart
that awaken the most profound
safety and security
and base curiosity
to be your favourite bread
to eat you with the butter of trust
to fall asleep in the boundaries
of your crust

mond.blume @punkpoet.bsky.social · May 7

a barren tree branch
a beak built nest with eggs
an empty basket

#dailyhaikuprompt nest #haiku #poem #poetry