*Pattern Recognition* The morning logs in without greeting, tray of updates hissing — “You missed everything.” I sip bright plastic-filtered thoughts, scroll past a war like I might a salad bar: choices without hunger—Meatless Monday, verdicts in muted tones. My thumb aches from ghosting the day. Somewhere, behind a paywall or a cough, a clerk…
Month: April 2025
Two Poems: Duymaz and Süreya
This article is based on this Dutch article of Martinus Benders Praying on cold marble At the bottom of a samowarmade from cracked glass,a love simmers, unnoticed by all.Fatma let her hair down in this early night,along the windowsill of the open window,no wind enters, only reproach. A tram passes under Galata—searching for a wordthat…
Turning Trauma into Capital
This article is based on this dutch article of Martinus Benders What came before: a mildly smiling administrator looks on as the police he called beat students protesting against a genocide nearly into brain hemorrhages with batons—something that is strictly illegal. If you were to follow the lessons of this administrator-teacher, they would likely be…
*AutoSave in the Era of Yearning*
*AutoSave in the Age of Longing* The cursor shivers — a pale, blinking priest at the altar of spreadsheets. Monday again. A sandwich half-eaten beside the password reset. We log in, but never quite arrive. Across office partitions like ice floes: Carol in HR sharpens her smile on corporate policy. Outside, a drone forgets its…
Usage Agreement
**Terms of Use** Some mornings arrive like expired pills in a cereal box— there is the tingling hope they’ll work, whatever they are, and still you chew, distracted by a notification chime that sounds like your mother’s laugh modemized. On the train, the ads speak more intimately than lovers ever dared— Need freedom? Click here….
Conditions and Terms Might Apply
**Terms and Conditions May Apply** *by The Clergyman* A desk lamp breathes its sterile glow across a latte-stained invoice numbered beyond meaning, while I refresh the page to prove I’m not a robot—yet. Somehow this passes for dialogue. The server spins like a prayer wheel—silent, soulless—and I can’t remember whether the face in the corner-box…
Waiting Line at the Ministry of Identity
The Queue at the Ministry of Self The machine asks for my mother’s maiden name as if it matters to the concrete planes where mercy wore out its soles sometime between breakfast and the Deleted Files folder. My number flickers—74—above a man whose phone hums like a priest in mid-confession. I fill out Form C-91:…
Could it be the photo?
This article is based on this Dutch article of Martinus Benders Could It Be the Photo? 15-04-2025 For some reason, Amazon keeps giving me trouble over the Portuguese version of my Willem collection. Could it be the profile photo? It was accepted just fine for the other languages. Do the Portuguese suffer from a kind…
Amanita 2
Amanita 2 Introduction by the Author This book is a hymn to the Mushroom Queen, Amanita Muscaria, the lover unseen, Who’s walked with humanity all through its days, In silence, in shadow, in manifold ways. But centuries past, a decree took its place— A faction declared her a dangerous grace. They banished her kin from…
Passenger File
**Passenger Dossier** The queue moved gently, like an apology— floor tiles yawning under synthetic breath, our elbows grazing strangers who might’ve been lovers in the glitch before this one. Above, a drone sings lullabies in contractual Latin. I lost my face to a retinal scan that offered points toward premium boredom; smiling cost extra. A…