A few selections from Daniel Bosch's Octaves, which is available for download through Beard of Bees:

“The bereaved cannot communicate with the unbereaved.”
—Iris Murdoch
We never have more than one bar.
Our server is usually down.
We over-interpret each star.
But I never see more than one bear
In the lights of an oncoming car
As I walk from the bar into town.
We’ve never had more than one bar.
Our server is usually Dawn.

“Better is always less good!”
—Thomas Hirschhorn
Do you want to make a killing?
Do it cleanly. Be efficient. Show some style.
Fuck fashionable deskilling.
If you want to make a killing
Do it well. It’s fucking thrilling
The way a sucking chest wound winks and smiles.
What do you want? To make a killing?
Do it cleanly. Be efficient. Show some style.

“All the time he’s boxing, he’s thinking. All the time he was

thinking, I was hitting him.”

—Jack Dempsey

Unlearn’d astronomer,

Where I see blow-by-blow, do you see bling?

Is there a paparazzo any dumber,

Unlearn’d astronomer,

Who in bright constellations without number

Sees only stars? Do cauliflower ears not ring?

Unlearn’d astronomer,

The blow-by-blow’s obscene, and so’s the bling

“If you understood everything I said, you’d be me.”
—Miles Davis
The last time I saw a Queen’s rook
And a King’s
Shake hands, that King’s was shook.
The last time I saw a Queen’s rook
Take a King’s, that Queen’s was took.
Can a Queen’s rook tell a King’s rook anything?
One last time: I was a Queen’s rook
And a King’s.