Jo Mizuno

The image shows a small, rocky, barren island off the coast of Scotland. The sky is steel Grey and the stirmy ocean fades from dark teal to lighter around the island. Waves crash into the islands base. Image from: https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-fight-over-a-shitty-rock/

You are an #island entire of self. Formed from cataclysm, your shores are rocky and sharp with the flotsam of life's shipwrecks.

Does his death diminish or anoint you?
Perhaps both.

Tides swell. Memory rises from the collective unconscious and then sinks beneath the waves, unbothered.

#vssdaily

I hate it when that happens.

The image is of a male African Lion staring at the camera. The background is all shadowed out but you can see his front legs and left front paw in the foreground. This particular image is from the African Lion Archives at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. https://www.cmzoo.org/news/archive/animal/lion/

Confronted with the choice between the Lion and the Bear, Lucy Pevensie chose the Bear. The former's #beastly allegory never made much sense to her. His harsh ostracism of her beloved older sister gave her the ick. Years later, she read his name on an infamous list and shuddered in horror. #vss365

A red envelope with the words Prosperous and boring written in beautiful Copperplate calligraphy.

A part in the members' section of the whisky library

Happy New Year!!! (Also, Happy Mardi Gras and happy Ramadan!!) I went to a Lantern festival party & it occurred to me that 2026 just needs a reset. What I really want is for this year to be prosperous and boring. I'm tired of living in unprecedented times. I just want people to be kind.

The image shows a snow and ice covered road, trees (probably birch trees) line either side of the road. They are covered with snow and look like trees from a Dr Seuss book - with fuzzy snow fingers. Sunshine peeks through the canopy.

We walk together, travellers through the frozen dawn. Ice sheathes each fern frond we pass. Our breath hangs as clouds, our words & our hearts visible, if only for a brief moment. This midwinter #enchantment is more precious because it can't last. Spring will come. The cycle must begin anew. #vss365

The temporal grant committee rejected our proposal due to a minuscule typo in the title: “Chronological” had become “Crone-logical.” They all remembered when Agnes had come back from Salem as a witch and turned the technician into a pet gargoyle.
#vss365

#truth

#vss365 #Postal

A woman in a suit made entirely of postage stamps danced through puddles, mailing herself to nowhere and everywhere.

She cried out, “The distance between me and arrival is #minusculely minuscule!”

A passing courier quickly stamped her forehead and whispered, “Special delivery!”

he flaunted
aggressive
cruelty

in the margins
of her worn diary
#miniscule hope

#vss365 #haiku #micropoetry

The image displays columns of green numbers streaming vertically down, over a black background. The superposition of some columns over others creates the impression of depth.

Alexei drinks code like wine. Merging into the kaleidoscopic torrent of data, he exists apart from himself. Math, consciousness, and art coexist. Fractal dreams spin ever faster from #minuscule to cosmic and back. It hurts, sometimes, to revert to his clunky wetware, after tasting infinity. #vss365

My apologies, I posted this late and didn't remember to do the alt text for the image. This Woodblock print is one of my favorite from Yoshitoshi Tsuioka's 100 Aspects of the Moon series. It is called Moon and Smoke and depicts an Edo-ers firefighter before an inferno. He holds a company standard.

Fire rips through Edo, unmoors the ancient city, and sets the floating world adrift. A dragon ascendant #kisses the sky with smoke and flame. First Courtesan Kokorohime, gems concealed in her kimono, slips through a narrow #lacuna in her guards' vigilance. She disappears into a world beyond. #vss365

Shall I compare thee to the winter moon?
Derivative, I know, but no less true.
Viewed through the lens of two star-kissed lovers,
Crossing over and into each other.
Where fair Verona sets the scene above,
A stage for Valentine to preach of love.

#vss365 #kiss #poetry

#vss365
"Why are you sitting with all the lights off?" He only just spied her thanks to the glow from the hallway casting the narrowest sliver of light across her.
"All the things I'm scared of, the #dark has never been one of them." She squinted. "I like it, feels like I can actually breathe."

The image is taken inside a caravanserai at night. The building is one story and an arcade of pointed arches covers the wall. This particular caravanserai is in Iran but the silk road did go through Tajik lands, which is where I was imagining this vss. Image from: https://friendlyiran.com/silent-stops-exploring-caravanserais-of-iran-and-stories-along-the-silk-roads/

Tahmina slips through the #dark Caravanserai. The wolves have been actively hunting & its expansive halls are full

She is also afraid, but Zardusht is waiting to sweep her away

(What is love if not bravery & faith?)

She lifts the bar & opens a heavy door. The silent wolf pack rushes in.
#vss365

#vss365

Tidefall

The tide rumbles ribs,
slithers its wet breath
into the cliff’s throat.
Palms in sand,
I ache to feel
the sea’s skeleton
tremble.
Fog curls, a damp pelt,
the rema
churns,
and I
watch it swallow
the sky's last rasp,
shoving
it
down
into the
brine-gut
be-
neath.

#ache

We move like lemmings
close enough to touch,
not close enough to stop.

#vss365

The image shows a tall set of analog scales for measuring weight on the ground in the middle of the image, next to a pond. The background is of orange and pink clouds. The scales appear balanced, but in the reflection you see that the scale to your left lower than the one to your right.

Kai frowns, brow furrowed, and contemplates the living man before him. El jefe marked this man for death. The fact that Teodore is still breathing disturbs him, a small #ache that festers. This is incorrect--out of balance. With a slash of the razor, Kai restores equilibrium to his universe. #vss365

Daft Punk - Touch (Official Audio) ft. Paul Williams YouTube video by DaftPunkVEVO

I am here and you are there. Tech and daydreams create this illusion of #touch across the void

I am selfish. Bitter. Desperate for one last slow dance in Marseille, my hand on your heart as the sun slides beneath the waves

I was drunk on you
on us
As we never were

#vss365
youtu.be/0Gkhol2Q1og?...

The image shows a computer/digital art reinterpretation of Davinci's "Vitruvian Man" -itself a symbol of the connection between man geometry, and nature. Image from: https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/936370/view/vitruvian-man-with-dna-coding-illustration

God-emperor Xerxes, King of Kings, mucks out a stall. "The #bones of this empire are forged of fear, not glory." He tosses dung into a barrow. "Its sinews are ambition. Its heavy muscle, the lies we tell ourselves."

Jester nods from his perch on a hay bale, "and yet the universe persists." #vss365

Terrified Conservatives Lose Ability To Speak English After Exposure To Bad Bunny Performance

Terrified Conservatives Lose Ability To Speak English After Exposure To Bad Bunny Performance https://theonion.com/terrified-conservatives-lose-ability-to-speak-english-after-exposure-to-bad-bunny-performance-dios-mio-cry-millions-of-panicking-republicans/

our cave is warm
so we sit facing the wall
fire working overtime behind us
casting #pale shadows

fame
fashion
fortune

flashing
flickering
fading

our cave is warm
and the truth is too bright
we are trained to feel comfort
sitting here in the dark

#plato
#poem
#poetry
#vss365
#allegoryofthecave

Her face was as #pale as the light from the waning moon. He caressed her cheek and placed a kiss on her forehead.

Flashlights bobbed closer in the forest. Blasted searchers. He dared tarry no longer. He pushed the bower into the raging river and set it alight. #vss365

Digital art by Isaura Martins (https://alvaroshin.artstation.com/projects/RYYDXO) showing a stylized jumping horse. The horse's tail curls around toward the front of the horse and resolves into three faces of wolves. There are black feathers at the horse's head and bloody handprints on its body, a symbol of missing and murdered indigenous women.

Darkness flares as the rider stops beside you. Their #pale horse heaves with tidal breaths, a nacre gleam gilds its flanks.

"Are you early? Or am I late?" Their voice the alpha and omega.

You shrug, "We are never what we appear. In this moment alone we resolve."

They nod & ride on.
#vss365

The war had come to Bosnia and they had to flee. She held the child close, whispering blood of my blood as though the words alone could keep the world at bay.
#vss365

#vss365 #blood

It was just a drop of blood, tiny compared to what he normally spilled, but, the play of light off its surface was enough to snap her out of the fog he usually kept her in. A vampire’s meal? She thought not. Let him go mesmerize someone else.
-GoRhyme

Nation's wounds drenched in blood.

Transfusion stat.

#vss365 #Blood

This poster for the national theater of South Korea's production of Shakespeare's Macbeth shows an impassive woman holding a man's face to her stomach. Above his head, her black silk neckline and collar form the outline of a three pointed crown against her skin.

Macbethad mac Findláech stares in horror at his wife, her hands dripping with the #blood of his beloved king and friend.

He envisions two paths: One awash in gore, one alone in disgrace.

Nonchalantly she asks, "Retire we to our chamber?" His resolve set, He seizes her, yells for the guards #vss365

Furtive, darting eyes. Slouched shoulders and shuffled feet. Even her hair draped down like it had lost the will to live. They say there are some #wounds you can't see, but they're always visible if you know what to look for.
#vss365

#vss365 #wound

A wound? No. It is a diary of what I have endured.

I should be gone, but I pushed, and for that I celebrate myself.

Am I a monster? No. I am a survivor.
-GoRhyme