by Mark Bibbins, Editor

The New Crusades 1

we underwent a series of tests

we underwent the rain as we tried

to find the right bridge with pigeons

& the sign that said fuck me

I loved her my blood is in the water

& we underwent the bridge

& wore the rain like a glass

coffin that made us

gorgeous by magnifying every pore

Bill Neumire has a book called Estrus.

You will find more poems here. You may contact the editor at poems@theawl.com.

“The poem’s history in the popular imagination is surprisingly short, given that it is set in sixth-century Scandinavia, and may have been composed around that time: it was published just 200 years ago this year. Though the oral folktale passed for generations from bard to bard, and was written down by two unknown scribes at the dawn of the last millennium, it vanished as the Dark Ages receded. The sole surviving manuscript reappeared in the 1500s, and circulated among private collectors before finding its way into the extensive archives of Sir Robert Cotton. These were damaged by a fire at the ominously named Ashburnham House in 1731. Two decades later, in 1753, the flame-singed codex was stowed in the bowels of the British Museum, lost and long forgotten. In all this time a tiny snippet of the poem appeared only once in print.”
 — Here’s a nice (and brief!) piece on unlikely survival of Beowulf.

This is apparently a real thing that happened on the London Overground. Do you know this man? pic.twitter.com/KlfUixppqs

— Patrick Smith (@psmith) August 6, 2015

Sure, Twitter occasionally offers up something of interest, but mostly it gives you stuff like this, which you have now been trained to understand is more likely than not some kind of wacky, help-me-go-viral promotion. One of the most insidious inventions of our age is the kind of commercial operation that forces you to hope something terrible is genuine rather than manufactured for attention.

Not all men who have done the inept MetroCard swipe have been reminded of other failures but I would suppose some of them have. (51/125)

— Jim Windolf (@jimwindolf) August 6, 2015

At present what is happening here is still not completely apparent, but there are so few things that aren’t utterly obvious occurring out on the Internet these days that it seems worthy, when something of unusual ambition crops up, to keep an eye on it. If you’d like to come in at the beginning this seems to be the place, but I’m not sure it really matters all that much.

Christina Vantzou’s No. 2 was one of my favorite records from 2014, so I am of course excited for her forthcoming No. 3. This track could be described as “atmospheric,” but then in a certain sense almost everything can be described as “atmospheric” unless you are in outer space. Anyway, enjoy.

“Hiroshima,” by John Hersey

★★★ Leaves and tree blossoms were piled on a storm drain by the museum, swept there so fast they hadn’t even gotten soggy. The sky was cloudless but haze-tarnished. Already the puddles were few, with dampened rims marking their ongoing diminishment. At Herald Square the upper subway platform was notably hotter than the lower. Cool air flowed under the glass canopy at Union Square. Again the direct sun was piercing, but the shade held, bolstered later in the day by a real wind, trouser-fluttering, coming off the river. Clouds had arrived, their edges frayed. A rose-colored lowering ray of sun precisely traced a rounded cornice. A man hit fungoes to three children in the diminishing daylight on the near-empty playground.

I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to read a story in the Times about a normal couple above the age of 30 in New York City who still rent. For something like a second — and no longer, but really, that’s all one can expect — the sense of failure is stripped away and you feel like you’re on the same footing as everyone else. Of course you’re not, but it’s so rare that it happens in the first place it seems worthy of noting. Anyway, blah blah blah something about gardening, I’m sure it’s fine.

45. X-Men: The Last Stand
44. Kick-Ass 2
43. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
42. Blade: Trinity
41. Howard the Duck
40. Elektra
39. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
38. Ghost Rider
37. Fantastic Four
36. Spiderman 3
35. Men in Black 3
34. Punisher: War Zone
33. The Punisher (2004)
32. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
31. Daredevil
30. The Punisher (1989)
29. The Wolverine
28. Thor: The Dark World
27. Iron Man 3
26. The Amazing Spiderman 2
25. The Incredible Hulk
24. X-Men
23. The Amazing Spiderman
22. Spider-Man
21. The Avengers: The Age of Ultron
20. Spiderman 2
19. Hulk
18. Iron Man 2
17. Men in Black II
16. Thor
15. X2
14. Kick-Ass
13. Kingsman: The Secret Service
12. X-Men: Days of Future Past
11. Iron Man
10. The Avengers
9. Captain America: The First Avenger
8. Big Hero 6
7. Blade
6. X-Men: First Class
5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
4. Ant-Man
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
2. Men in Black
1. Blade II

Now that authorities have confirmed that a piece of debris found on the French island of Reunion is part of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, I want to share my longstanding theory of what happened to the plane, which I have withheld thus far rather than join in the unseemly parade of amateurs and self-styled experts who claimed to have cracked the case. Anyway, my belief is that the plane somehow sank into the waters of Indian Ocean. More than that I am not prepared to speculate, but this is what both my mind and gut tell me, at least.