Atop The Cliffs - Occidental Poetry Journal

It's true. All of it. Every word.

Delighted to announce our special guest editor for the month of April - we will be accepting Free Verse only during this time and Rupi will be emphasizing brown voices only.

The Spirit of England I was in the arms of sailors Who sweated and strained at wooden oars Against the restless waves that sought To wreck their ships on murderous shores. I was there in Passchendaele When English men faced German guns. I have steeled the hearts and quelled the fears Of all of England’s fighting sons. In all the times when hope seemed lost, When men were driven to despair, They soldiered on, through mud and blood And death, for I was there. -Victor Van Brandt https://www.atopthecliffs.com/poetry/2024/3/30/the-spirit-of-england

Rest in piss

https://arthurpowell.substack.com/p/studies-in-coziness A short fun article on the nature of 'cozy' "It’s been blowing a near gale and the rain has been pelting down for hours. You’re chilled and wet. The dog is gamely marching alongside you as you come down the country lane. Autumnal leaves are grouped in sodden clumps along the way and the hedgerows shudder in the wind. The stormy sky is starting to darken as dusk falls but ahead you see your cottage with its lights twinkling. You unlatch the garden gate and cross through the stone boundary wall. The sodden grass of the garden squelches as your dog trots across it. You open the heavy oak door with its iron handle and step inside to a realm of warmth. The mud room tiles darkening with the drops of water. You glance through the arch to the kitchen and see the aga stove there. A comforting bulk of constant heat. You pull off and hang your coat before scooping up the dog towel and giving the mutt a rub down. Your nose still bright red and cold as the heat warms you. Stepping into the kitchen your wife and child greet you. The baby babbling as your wife hands you a warm mug of tea. The fire crackles next door and the dog has already curled up in her basket. You sit at the old wooden table and strip your wet socks off extending your bare feet towards the warmth of the aga as you bounce your son and listen to his giggles. The storm outside continues, but here you are content and cozy."

https://arthurpowell.substack.com/p/re-evaluating-harry-potter "Historiography is the attempt to give the student of history an insight or a degree of self awareness about the historians they read. To understand how those historians might weight certain evidence versus others. This can be revealing, indeed it is not that different to the ‘red-pill’ moments that many of us experience. Suddenly the dominant narratives that we had gone along with, grown up around fall away and we are viewing the world through a totally different pair of (sun)glasses. The cinematic version of this best captured in They Live. This moment of reckoning reshapes everything over time and you find yourself viewing everything with a new perspective. You re-evaluate what perhaps you once enjoyed and question the ideological subversion that is present within it. Popular films of the past now appear hackneyed propaganda pieces and fun television shows of light hearted humor are suddenly strewn with the enemies ideology. We pivot on a dime and in many ways there is an element of enjoyment that is lost. We have a critical lens placed in front of us. It is easy today to spot the racial TV and film casting choices of having random blacks appear in settings where they did not exist but watching older films we suddenly wonder “did this character have to be black?” Nothing feels trustworthy anymore. We react reflexively."

These people are cheering on the fact migrants can get guns. Unfortunately this is the end state of rampant gun rights worship. Here you see the retarded well armed Libertarian 2a person who based their entire identity on gun ownership as some inalienable right - one wonders if this person has a shred of belief in God that supposedly grants these rights.

Having a tweet go mildly viral really reveals just how many retards are out there. Almost every single response to this was just some low grade idiot making a gay joke. It really is NPCs all the way down. https://twitter.com/atopthecliffs/status/1770471132128247967

https://arthurpowell.substack.com/p/in-praise-of-hobbyists "There are numerous examples of this in the real world, where the hobbyists lead the way and the professionals are often found wanting. One of those in the USA would be in the sports action shooting community. For those unfamiliar these are a series of sports in which shooting is the key component. They range from the action paced world of USPSA to the more sedate long range shooting competitions. In almost every flavor of the shooting sport it is dominated not by professionals but by the hobbyists." "At some point however we do professionalize - it becomes necessary. Leading figures in our scene perhaps started as hobbyists but have made leaps and bounds and paid a high price to turn this into a professional position. People are making the bulk of their income off of things we do, we write, we talk about. That matters and more professionalization is always going to help propel us forward in many ways but it is important to remember the role of the hobbyist. For me the journal of poetry I publish is still a hobby among many. In many areas of the arts that is all people can be, as much as we want to professionalize and evolve there is a ceiling that is nigh on impossible to break through. Some will do it and some won’t the main thing is to remember that two groups can work together in tandem to advance our goals."

Unironically this is what I pictured Paul Atredies like. Imagine what could have been.

"A truly moral country would not shirk from its responsibility. To defend those within and punish those outside. For that to happen it must mean something. In essence the State must make sacrifices but the better sacrifices to make will always be of the outsider who attempts to infringe upon us. The solution to any form of mass migration is force, but not just the abstract of it. We have to be honest with ourselves. It necessitates death and killing - it is the moral duty required by the State to preserve itself." https://arthurpowell.substack.com/p/the-real-life-trolley-problem

https://www.atopthecliffs.com/poetry/2024/3/12/the-legend-of-the-gregedand The Legend Of the Gregedand When’em farmsteads took the Plain And drank a round a hope The green boys heard the terr’ble reign Of the pestilent Jackalope. But here’s a better tale Whispered from the Rio Grande Whose vexin’ the Swampy fail Called a prolific Gregedand. The critter’s’ just been found A buck-tooth smilin’ beaver With a rack a longhorns for a crown That’ll surely suture a cleaver. “I’m closing down Eagle Pass And double the depth of this moat. I’ve got them buoys, best-in-class, And lined containers from a boat.” And when he nearly stopped the route He put down razor wire. But the black robed owls gave a hoot, So the gators crawled from their mire. With callous grins and bandsaw teeth They broke the barricade, “This land, to you, we bequeath.” And the rattlesnakes made their stay. But good’ol Gregedand kept on workin’ Placing down the coil, “They have their cries, but I’m’a shirkin’ And my dam will be their foil.” And when the crocs came round once more To enforce their false inflection, You better see what’s in store When you mess with a hearty Texan. -Michael Riparia

Debating moving the entire journal into the substack ecosystem

AI is still not the main enemy you face just yet....

East Meds big mad at this. First Lazaridis and now Taleb. https://x.com/tom_rowsell/status/1767140767334539427?s=46

On 12 March 1863, the great Italian poet and war hero Gabriele D’Annunzio was born. 🇮🇹

These kind of aesthetic cretins pollute the internet. Imagine seriously modeling yourself off Anakin Skywalker as an online persona. Unreal. Just imagine the smell of such a person…

Study in gouache on a piece of A3 paper after Rubens' Hercules as Heroic Virtue Overcoming Discord. First time painting in gouache for over a year now, very fun, but life is a little too short to take this any further so I will leave it a little rough around the edges and move onto the next one.