Tessera

SwitchMicroMag

@switchmicromag.bsky.social

Switch is an online magazine of microfiction. We are devoted to stories that leave the beaten path, carry us forward, transform. switchonline.org

19 Posts308 Follower 228 Folgt

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 2d ago

Here is our draft definition of 'artificial intelligence' from 1981. It was written by a lovely human.

Index card with Merriam-Webster's draft definition of 'artificial intelligence' from 1981

Tallgirl6234 @tallgirl6234.bsky.social · 3d ago

And then there are days when Dostoyevsky reminds you to have hope

Green is a mission @greenisamission.bsky.social · 3d ago

1,277,500 sunrises, 1,277,500 sunsets experienced. The oldest olive tree in the world is on the island of Crete, about 3500 years old. 💚☘️🌿🌱🌲🌳🍀💚

@rain-singer.bsky.social · 7d ago

SwitchMicroMag @switchmicromag.bsky.social · 3w ago

SwitchMicroMag @switchmicromag.bsky.social · 2mo ago

We are delighted to have new microfiction up on our website by: Kathleen McGookey, Mary Biddinger, Keith Parker, and Lynn Kozlowski. You can read their work here: www.switchonline.org/about-1

Ben Niespodziany 📚🎪@neonpajamas.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Noah Falck @noahfalck.bsky.social h

You Had to Be There

the trees
after a tornado

an unlocked car
on an unnamed road

someone’s clothes in a ribcaged pile
near the Niagara River

a snow-filled mattress
on a sunlit walk

her traffic-lit body
in the graveyard dusk

SwitchMicroMag @switchmicromag.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Switch is open for submission until June 15th! Send us your intriguing, your enigmatic, your lovely microfiction. We publish stories up to 300 words. See submission requirements at switchonline.org

Ben Niespodziany 📚🎪@neonpajamas.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Réka Nyitrai @pizamapress.bsky.social

In this game
of little deaths
all the piano notes
bear the color
of old-growth forests.

phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Rick Barot

OCCUPATIONS

Astronomer to the ten Turkish moons
counted out on your fingernails.

Surveyor to the shiny silicate scar
of the childhood cut on your brow.

Geologist to the fault-line crack
your wrist has long since healed from.

Treasurer to the coin of vaccination
darkly minted on your left arm.

Farmer to the stubbled acreage
of your chin; to the nocturnal root.

phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Ireland Professor of Poetry, Vona Groarke

THIS POEM

This is the poem that won't open
no matter where you press.

This is the poem that cries on street corners
and plays at being lost.

This is the poem arranged at a tilt
so all the words slide off.

This is the poem with lacquered roses
closing in on themselves after dark.

This is the poem that plays itself out
in dives in the small hours.

This poem likes to fool around
in other people's cars.

This poem gives away small coins
and winks at strangers' kids.

This is the poem that understands
what it is to be a dog.

This is the poem with a teensy tattoo
you'll never get to see.

This poem has no big plans for you,
which is something, as poems go.

--Vona Groarke

phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 4mo ago

For #worldbiodiversityday, a poem that first appeared in Magma Poetry

Porch Song After Mowing

Shade grass shorn and scattered on the pathway
to the house — my trousers, boots, and workshirt
sprayed with pulverized taraxacum — the viscera
of pigweed, purple thistles, fragrant yarrow leaves.

Like a pollen-dusted honey bee arising from a field
of blooming foxglove, or the barefoot, little smuts-shot
sweep in Blake's hand-coloured copperplate engraving,
I feel wearied by exertion — sway unsteadily — reach

for the rail-post on the porch —drop down — pull out
my Luckies — pop the stay tab on a Schlitz.
Not that it matters much, but brother, it feels good to do
and make. Look on my works. On labour's sweetest

dream. The grass is lone and level. In the late day
heat, the mower sits unmanned and cools its blades.

Phillip Crymble

phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Peter Gizzi, from Lyric Postmodernisms: An Anthology of Contemporary Innovative Poetries (2008)

In Defense of Nothing

I guess these trailers lined up in the lot off the highway will do.
I guess that crooked eucalyptus tree also.
I guess this highway will have to do and the cars
and the people in them on their way.
The present is always coming up to us, surrounding us.
It's hard to imagine atoms, hard to imagine
hydrogen & oxygen binding, it'll have to do.
This sky with its macular clouds also
and that electric tower to the left, one line broken free.

Ben Niespodziany 📚🎪@neonpajamas.bsky.social · 4mo ago

"Wowed" by Lesle Lewis is in the latest issue of Washington Square Review

Lesle Lewis
Wowed
The contradicting of progressive tenses begins.

Forget sense and get it right, all the glory and dark of it, the color gray of it, the space between it and its name.

We are looking for the word for where our bodies begin and end, where our minds begin and end.

Are we are going to Boston?

After bushwhacking for hours, we are disappointed to come out on a familiar road.

Is this not familiar?

It’s not.

Our guests arrive and we are already sloshed.

I say it and thereby give the problem to you.

We leave each other messages, but we rarely put our arms around each other.

No one taught us how.

What if I said I’m sorry?

That I made a six hundred page mistake?

I made squares around only the easy things.

And now my heart folds flat out like a map.

And I tape my standing woman assemblage to the wall.

It isn’t like anything not to be.

We just fall into water.

We go to the zoo.

The fox says, “I’m a fox.”

The gorilla family is depressed.

We see everything.

Behind Walgreens for example.

We’re not wowed by it.

Breezie @breeze420.bsky.social · 5mo ago

“If you’ve Fallen in love with trees I know your heart” ― Nanette L. Avery

swaying trees in a field with mountains in the distance

phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 5mo ago

There were so many things I used to do Dorothea Lasky

THE GREEN LAKE

What work will you leave behind
I ask the tailor
Who has sewn the button upon my shoe
I can walk again

Yesterday everything felt so hopeless
Now I have the energy to sit in the sun
All of the damned seething baths
Now I am finally on my own

When I go places I call her
And unload my fashionable happenstance
I used to stop in the street and pick up an acorn
There were so many things I used to do

In the middle of the fire
I went and thought to mention it to the ghost
I have already burned, it said
Its face was like my father's but was different

What work will you leave behind
I asked myself while in the rain
Oh, this and that, it answered me
And handed me the stars, then the moon

--Dorothea Lasky

Ian The Daily Nature Photo Man @lawnmasternotts.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Day 1328 of #IansDailyPhotoChallenge and even the ladybugs are now having meetings, asking how long it is until spring 🤗🐞🐞🐞❤️ #inspiringnature #wildlife #naturephotography #MentalHealthMatters #365DaysWild

Hibernating ladybirds waiting for spring on a wall

Neckties of Noir @neckties-of-noir.bsky.social · 7mo ago

#astronomysky #science Galileo Galilei #BOTD invented the telescope in 1609 — a wood-and-paper tube with eyepiece, covered in leather — which he used to discover Jupiter's moons, the phases of Venus, and lunar craters.

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 7mo ago

WOMEN👏DON’T👏WANT👏CHOCOLATES 👏FOR 👏VALENTINE’S 👏DAY 👏THEY 👏WANT 👏MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S 👏COLLEGIATE 👏DICTIONARY 👏TWELFTH 👏EDITION 👏

Kameron Hurley @kameronhurley.com · 7mo ago

My mom sent me a link to this bookshop website that curates interesting and unusual books. Great looking selection, here. societyforunusualbooks.com

Society for Unusual Books | Online Bookstore | New and Preloved Books

The Society is a bookstore specializing in fantasy, horror, romance, sci-fi, nonfiction, and other genres. We place particular emphasis on small press and independently published titles. We also curat...

societyforunusualbooks.com

Ben Niespodziany 📚🎪@neonpajamas.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Andrea Cohen

Catherine @mistymaple.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Bird Snuggles into Photographer’s Chest And Stayed With Her for Warmth on a Snowy Day (LOOK) www.goodnewsnetwork.org/bird-snuggle...

Bird Snuggles into Photographer’s Chest And Stayed With Her for Warmth on a Snowy Day (LOOK)

A photographer Fay was visiting a park when a friendly robin came over and nestled right atop her camera near the warmth of her jacket.

goodnewsnetwork.org

Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Alex pretti was a Va nurse and a dog owner

K.C. Mead-Brewer @kcmeadbrewer.com · 8mo ago

art is hope

sarah jeong@sarahjeong.bsky.social · 8mo ago

this is what the nail girlies are up to

ice agent slipping, painted on an acrylic @handittoheather on instagram

SwitchMicroMag @switchmicromag.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Mascot # 2

SwitchMicroMag @switchmicromag.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Mascot #1

D. A. Powell @dapowell.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Speaking of taping things up, here is the text of the note which playwright Lillian Hellman kept on the door of her work room to keep guests from interrupting her writing time.

This room is used for Work

Do not enter without knocking

After you knock wait for an answer

If you get no answer, go away and

Don't come back

This means everybody

This means you

This means Night and Day

By Order of the Hellman-Military-Commission-for-Playwrights. Court Martialling will Take Place in the Barn, and your Trial Will Not be a Fair One.

Nick Harkaway @nickharkaway.com · 8mo ago

Terrible restaurant could close unless people enthusiastically embrace bad food, complains chef.

The Irish Times@irishtimes.com · 8mo ago

AI boom could falter without wider adoption, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella warns

Jacqueline Doyle @jacqdoyle.bsky.social · 10mo ago

(How do we explain our fascinations? Our obsessions? We’re drawn. Isn’t that enough?) Love this lyric essay by @jilltalbot.bsky.social in @sonorareview.bsky.social

Jill Talbot@jilltalbot.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Thanks to @sonorareview.bsky.social for publishing my essay. sonorareview.com/2025/11/04/s...