Lap-time with Chanchito
Hello, you! This is Chanchito's Writing Blog, a central landing place for all things pertaining to Chanchito Massoni: poetry exercises, pretty pictures of plants, links to Chanchito's book, and progress on the next project, should all be accessible here!
Below are links to Chanchito's email, Instagram, and Book (Jane is the End) available on Bookshop.org. At some point this might expand, but Chancho is a one-thing-at-a-time sort of a cat.
Anyways, starting September 1st the paperback version of Jane is the End will be out! Also starting September 1st, Chanchito will be working on a new project, currently titled "Project Awesome Whales". There should be a weekly update here, along with whatever other weird stuff comes to Chanchito's mind.Thanks for being here!
8.7.26
chicory snail
nestled in sorrel
she dreams
a moon-mad orbit
that the ratworm nematode
spins
into reason
blessing root with benign meningoencephalitis
arousing the chthonic parasite will
that burns self to an umbral shell
an instant trip
to the divine
7.31.25
i love the quiet of holy days
the places in-between
saturated with the ghosts
of paid potentiality
like an egg that has been broken
a flower spend and wilt
a chime
sounding boundlessly
before paling into breath
7.24.26
a child laughs
as an egg cracks
yellow yolk oozing
into pallid albumen
besmirched with dirt
and scattered bits of shell
as we pretend
the innocence of cats
7.17.26
it does not pick where it grows
but sows where it may
shallow and deep
long and wide
so even if you pluck it
root remains
and it does not begrudge the wind its ways
nor bend to the yeoman's will
able to crack concrete
profane modernity
thrive where all else would perish
it is tenacious
persistent
it is beauty in strength
so be like the weed
and reach for the sun
7.10.26 I fucking hate journey now
A health journey,
a wealth journey,
a journey towards inner self.A love journey,
a shove journey,
a journey with no one else.A journey to the store,
a journey in the street,
smashing in the car I kindly meet.A journey with a cod,
a journey with a cat,
a journey where Death watches me splat.A journey to the places I have been,
and some that I have not.A journey to forget this human skin,
that in the end will rot.
7.3.26
sweet irises of June
slender stalks and frilly manes
bask
in the nascent summer sun
wooed
by its humble heat
ere the great lion ascends
with a sovereign bellow
cultivating
golden fields of phantasy
to plumpen and purple
ripen and rot
with the ergot of erudition
6.26.26
faceless walls
that could be anywhere
and so are nowhere
howling a singularity
into which thoughts tumble
an aggregate that proclaims the manifesto
of mundane modernity--
that if it doesn't work out
well
it's only temporary,
that it is self care
when it makes you insecure,
that it becomes a basic necessity
when it is in excess--
all to simply
make you
feel seen
6.19.26
i ran over you
as you fell before me
jerkin' that jelly-bone jive
and your head imploded
a watermelon
a grape
a wilting Buddha's hand
reaching out
from where your thoughts had once been
and i do not want to eat this bitter fruit
but i must
for a waste is a terrible thing
6.12.26
leaves dark
as the expanse between stars
quiver with the dust
of cosmic annihilation
as pulsar pools of chlorophyll
phosphoresce towards
a golden crown
pale pink petals
brindled with rot
casting illusory truths
of fractal dilation
6.5.26
What is a poem,
on a sunny
Sunday
afternoon?
With a gentle sky
ground fresh from rain
red finches
and yellow chickadees
gobbling up worms
uprooted from the earth;
and the creek swells
with water sweet
as the crickets and sunflowers sing
--an ode to early summer's becomingness;
and so
stirred by this glory
the slumbering beasts awake
they sniffle
they yawn
muzzles raised to scent this pungent potentiality;
they bustle to and fro
racing to an end
that even they cannot define
crashing into one another
in a hew of muscle and bone
pushing each other aside
so that they can be the first to see;
and they trample the soft earth
now hardened to clay
the birds take flight
the insects flee
the water soured to filth
as the bear tears into the wolf
and the wolf mauls the lion
and the lion grabs hold of the hyena
who laughs
getting that perfect picture
striking that perfect pose
that show that they
know how to enjoy
a sunny
Sunday
afternoon
5.29.26
My vanity is the lily
my wisdom the rose,
my sorrow is the columbine
weeping in repose.And my laughter is marigold
my wit, bitter mint,
my day dreams drunk on poppies
cosmos, merriment.A verdant garden in a wind-struck mind,
of wine dark seas, and honied bees, divine.
5.22.26
there once
was a garden
on a forgotten street corner
that i would pass on my lunch break
and sometimes i would see
a little old lady there
pulling up the weeds in front of her apartment door
and the building attached was sour and ratty
her face not much better besides
and she would never smile
nor wave at me
but her dahlias were big and bright
as miracle rainbow suns
and her roses gave forth a scent
that was charitable
and divine
but seasons change
and now
her shrewish face is gone
her dahlias torn up
her roses overgrown
and it is just
another
forgotten street corner
in the winter
of what once
was
5.15.26
light dances
in a silver cup
life-born mercury,
a square
of luminescence
that quivers
on the tenuous surface tension,
a door
reflected through a window
to where
i cannot see,
its edges blurred
between the wavelengths
of overmorrowed nothings
and evensong,
prayers from anon
5.8.26
tangerine
splendor
warming my face
with autumn-dyed honey
ripening
unpeeling
spilling forth
unto the clouds
with candied sweetness
and pungent ardor
5/3/26
My curtains are smiling at me again.
What secrets
do they hold
in the drape of those lips?
Witness to both the inner
and outer
expressions
of ourselves
3/27/26
parosmia persimmons
perfumed sulfuric
tattooed with the succor
of providential supplication
these present-day-saints
neither principle nor summit consumed
a perpetual rosary
of glass-contained-tallow
and black-ceased-petroleum
sounding cymbals
a crying syzygy
of near perfect union
and synchronization
3/22/26
i feel the spring sun
seep into my skin
thawing the ice
of my winter bones
3/20/26
i am a creature of water and air
and oh! how the wind can take me
to the ether
to the whims
of the florigen stars
a coruscation of flight
as if i had
no fate of my own
how i yearn
for the steadfast earth
tethered to rock and bone
ink and root
3/13/26
i cannot carry
the weight
of all these stars
the firmament of
supplication upon my back
some
must fall
as meteors
to be burned up in
the mesosphere
their failure
a beautiful
delight
3.8.26
heat glistens
off the hood of a car
a mere centimeter or two
of visual distortion--
just a color
i cannot see
so my mind makes up
for the lack,
a million years
of genetic edification
to tell me
of a danger
that I cannot quite perceive
3.3.26
there is a place
the sea turtles live,
backs unmarred
by passage of time,
where butterflies float
like ships out at sea,
ocean dark
as unfiltered wine,
and the sparrow knows
no sharpness of frost,
and the roses
honey do breathe,
the sun kisses sweet
the anise-spiced earth,
over which
laughing winds teethe,
there is no sorrow
no sharp thorns of loss,
death nor greed do command,
but for crowning
the Summer King,
to the world of man
2.24.26
I, am the fire in the sky,
the stars that burn bright,
but does not care for your false humility
and my mane is the night,
my eyes dying twin suns
and my claws are ineffable,
enigmas that owe no answer
and I will not come before you
but you
will bow before me
for I am divine
as I am ungovernable
2.22.26
raindrops on skin
flowered with ice
as the sun breaks
elongated
on tempered glass
a world
turned upside down
through an aqueous lens
and the street gutter laughs
keeping beat to the leaves
that serenade
across the pavement
a eulogy
to a long
forgotten
spring
2.18.26
how much
did you stretch yourself
to get that youthful glow?
my tongue
heavy
thick with sealed fire
for the salamander psalm says:
"all beauty
must die
but for that
which is holy
and divine"
2.10.26
the trees are bare
but for a few bits of lichen and moss
sun bright
clear and cold
sky blue
with a snap
buds are beginning to form
blossoms are starting to swell
soft, pink
tender-green and yellow-red
i see them
and want to cry out,
"stop! the danger of frost hasn't passed!"
as if they would listen
and perhaps
there is wisdom in their brashness
knowing that
if they yielded to the cold
spring would never come
2.8.26
false spring
false quickening
false mother-of-hope
brittle oak leaves
colored into cracks of concrete
gilded
under a keen winter sun
and my body aches from the sharpness of it
yearning
to turn into itself
2.5.26
There is a star-mirror room
floor of aqueous silver
reflecting cathedrals of light
nebulous shades
or orchid and pomegranate
in indigo bloom
and at the door
named mirror-glass-ink
stands the star-maiden
though whether reflection
or on the other side
one cannot say
and she is beautiful
as she is cold
argentine whispers falling from her lips:
"I am the devoid divine
void of the vine
whose fruit
is bittersweet ego-death
and I am not obligated to care
about you
just as you
are not obligated to care about anything"
her chiasm
shadow and bright
1.31.26
you can't catch that man with a bottle of teeth
sand in the joints
fire on the tongue
last night i dreamt i was a fish
each milky eye an ovary
gaze reflected in the stars
as if in answer to the divine
for god is power
and power is potentiality
the fluid of life condensed to voidless whole
blooming forth in our lungs
as histrionic magnolias
for to comprehend is to contain
and every attempt to contain
comes
from the desire to control
1.27.26
sylvan buds willowing
a cat's ear whisper
a slipped kiss
as clouds rise
over snow-capped mountains
the proud ridges bare
in-between
evergreen maidens,
in their tatted sleeves
bowing towards
the paucid winter light
soft clover at their feet
folded leaves stamped with
the aubergine heart of benevolence
1.21.26
sweet hymnal stars
how long has it been
since I have ascertained
the euphony of your ascent?
drowned out by the yellowed humming of street lamps
and ultraviolet drone of the asphalt
your song lost
in the dimming of the cynosure
1.20.26
a raindrop elongates
on tempered glass
world distorted
through its aquiferous lens
1.14.26 She
She walks on cat paw feet
neither touching the ground nor apart from it
with quasar-crabbed skin
and chalcedonic eyes
lips pale and sweet
as oleander cordial
she dreams yet always wakes
she moves yet ever stills
in the deepest part of the year
when even the songs of the bluebird cease
she reminds that rather than be, we are always being
mere waves in an ocean
to crash upon her shore
1.12.26 the burden of time
my feet move slower than my head
being that much closer
to the earth
does that mean they carry more wisdom in them?
or is it simply that
they will always
struggle
to keep up with the rest of me?
1.10.26
it grows in cold concrete
pressed between the fast food wrappers
and discarded confetti of other people's lives
a shock of yellow-gold against the shadow
neck akimbo as it reaches for the sun
where did you get the courage, little one, to be so bold?
1.6.25i am not your sun
you are not the moon
1.5.26
anvil-struck
and heather gray
swells forth
the great Leviathan
smothering her children
with constricted care
drowning her chattel
in sour milk
1.3.26"please drive carefully
special people inside"
as if you could perceive the value of a life
by the car they drive
the sports they play
the supposed future they hold
as if you could perceive the difference
between the hummingbird and the bee
**12.31.25 **my heart is honied wine
anointed with noetic bees
pomegranate petrichor
cloyed with slothful sweetness
profaned with bitter nettles
that nonetheless,
gives bloom,
to the fragrant lilies of spring
12.29.25 the basalisk
threw up last
night's words
and in them
i saw
snakeroot
foxglove
red-eyed and double-glazed
speak!
the ossified evensong
as my skin curdles
spotted with clay
12.27.25
dew drops
kissing fair the fragile tips of cloven green
refracting sunlight
on this muted winter's day
as a multitude of stars
12.22.25parched leaves
tremble upon
disjointed concrete
specters of
a forgotten spring
12.17.25My job?
Running an illegal cat betting ring for the Feline Fanciers' Society
in my basement
in the washroom
'tween the remnants of my shedded skin and an old box spring mattress
So what'll it be?
The Abyssinan?
The Persian?
gotta know your high rollers
personally, my money's on the Burmese
gotta love
those flame-gold eyes
12.16.25 root and bone
she is the divine alembic
filled by the kissing-mad muse
that truth spitting pythoness curled in my innards
crawling up my back
breaking bones of their marrow to spill forth in sanguine iconography
and her pen is of tooth
the ink bile
and her page is of clay
the words root
honey-sweet restorative
12.10.25red baubles on
barren branches
kiss
the frost bit air
as it mocks them with its cold indifferentiality
sneering at their riotous shades of vermillion
a winking defiance
against the bone-scraped sleet
and tooth-sucking mud
12.9.25
a snowflake falls
in the light of a street lamp
its singularity lost
in the aggregate
of purple-hued taciturnity
12.6.25255 honey cunt
bottle-cap noses
pressed to the ground
someone is screaming for their life
as Van Gogh tries to sell me an overpriced grilled cheese
fake plastic daises pushing up from the bitter ground
Oh, the arrogance of roses!
12.3.25Haze sinks
into my skin
laden with the stench
of overflowing carcass rot
bad eggs and curdled milk
blocking out the sun
penetrating my pores
turning my blood to the last dredges of sour wine
asphyxiating
like the concrete at my feet
smothering the earth
12.2.25
Arrogant Delphinium
with such lofty heads
the weight of which
bow your blossoms
to the ground
11.29.25
voices from anon
the whispered hymn
of an unsung prayer
the waxen light
from moon-mirrored dream
the sweetest scent
of the unbloomed rose
the languid warmth
of where you used to be
11.26.25wormwooded trunk
knobby and burled
centuries folded in on itself
as a stream of oak leaves titter on by
laughing over rock and wind
lighting past serpent-green moss hiding in the dark places
in the wet crevices where the earth dreams
11.24.25flecked bits of ember
that faded flame from waxen tree
staining warmth onto cold concrete
of smoke and ash
a relic of once verdant youth
11.21.25digital false aleph
divinator of illusion and lie
in sunset colors that don't exist
on grinning faces that never smile
the reflection of the infinite
pseudo-me
11.17.25a leaf sits
burnt by autumn's dying heat
tips brown and crisp
furled inwards
as if to grasp its own fading color
as if afraid its flame bold-bright
will step off
the wayward precipice of its tatted edge
and into the cold
indomitable
dark
11.15.25november roses
in bloom
like the last morning frost
in may
11.11.25
a walk in novemberwind rumbles in my belly
dry against my skin
as the thin gray sky contemplates rain
trees are bare
but for a few indeterminate leaves
the grass muddied and low
and as a drop falls
on my flush-chilled cheeks
i ponder which way to go
11.8.25speck of dust
revenant of a thing
once made whole
sparked momentarily
by the day-break sun
of divine recreation
only to fall back into
the complacent dark
of moonless shadow
and wandering dreams
11.3.25purple bible under my belt
as I cross through the river of whoredom
where fig trees prognosticate
and sacrificial lillies lay hands
in the garden of the apostale of arcane dreams
snake forgotten
more than I could ever remember
the antediluvian genetic wisdom of causal violation
divine mirror outside the luminent hourglass of the human mind
--that entropically bound arrow--
to hang drunkenly
on the limb
of one-eyed creation
10.27.25
a gilded viewthe pollen on my windshield
is pale yellow-green;
left over from the summer,
never washed,
despite recent rains;
afternoon sunlight falls
on these failed remnants of genetic consolation,
so that they gleam, like dusted gold
and the world outside
my aged,
little car,
seems to shimmer
10.24.25My muse
goes where he pleases;
he brooks no tardiness,
nor is amenable to being hurried;
at times, he lays resting at my feet, with a soft, drowsy purr,
while at others he sharpens his claws,
ready to strike;
most often he is happiest, however,
with a window
and a sunbeam,
where he can gaze out at the world, and all the colorful birds.
10.20.25
Oh faire maid,
of the star-bright hair and fish-belly eyes,
sing to me, in your oleander voice of silver cunning;
wrap me up, in the sweet-bile scent of your flesh-rot rain;
dance for me, on your worm-bone feet with lillitine grace unbecoming;
Adorned in tattered moon-dreams and a crown of delirium,
bewreathed with sunflowers, curled at the cusp of frost's bitter edge,
the winds and the hollows, how they bend to your storm-whim ways;
Come, walk with me a while,
dear child of the light,
as we traverse this world,
of beauteous delight
10.13.25
Swallowing silk-billowed smiles,
the snake under the skin;
to writhe in the bile-sick cauldron sea,
to blossom out in pomegranate tears and dramamine kisses.
10.11.25 Poem
Diamond starfall on the wind
of honey infused petrichor,
as decadent rot and iridescent hue
reflect the rain-laden heavens;
the water to cleanse--or merely leave behind--the residue of our sin
to be hardened by the sun;
like ink,
on a washed out page,
the words bled
to sweet nothings
10.06.25 Poem
To sway in the breeze
like a loose leaf --
some find it affable,
easy-going,
to drift with the wind
no branch as a tether;
but no branch means no roots,
and what is warm on the surface
underneath
can be brittle and chill
10.04.25 Poem
A palinode to my father:
When I laughed and said
you could now fit into a box,
what I meant to say, was,
how shocking it is,
for something once so large
to have become so small
10.01.25 Sunset 1
Pomegranate dew drops
misting listing auric rays
of rubicund lips that
kiss twilight sorrows away
9.30.25 Poem
If magic could be:
categorized
alphabetized
systemitized,
then it would just be science, simply by another name;
for a probability observed is a certainty realized,
just as a pinned butterfly,
in a stale box,
doesn't teach us what it feels to soar
9.27.25 Poem
green mountains
in the distance,
made sallow by a haze
from fire yet unseen;
as the small birds huddle
under a washed-out blue,
waiting for the coming storm
9.27.25 Poem
clear blue sky
washed from recent rains,
billowing clouds drifting by;it's warm in the sun,
slightly cool in the shade,
the smell of damp earth --
mixed with sweet apples and moldering leaves --
reminding me, that,
this too shall end.
9.24.25 Poem
Low, heavy, vapor --
an oppressive anvil door.Illusory lights flash violet,
deep within this ethereal belly --
the holding of a breath --
while the ground is struck with the rage
of branching potentialities.Golden grass bows,
past the flowering of spring,
on endless eternal plains;and a road stretches ahead,
a road stretches behind,
the asphalt cracked and remended under my shifting feet.
9.20.25
A garden of ferns
kissed by dream-drunk dew,
contemplating the shadow-light
of lunar delirium.Of torn leaves and shattered stems -
buds still yet unforming on sour wormwood.Oh noble rose!
Limbs so supple yet strong,
sweet scent fearless;
you scoff at tender-footed anemones,
scattered by bitter winds;
while the proud iris, in vestments of pearls, looks down upon the humble columbine:For what is a weed,
and what is simply a wildflower
wanting to be free?
9.13.25
cloudless rain on a hot summer day
stings the skin
peels it back like furled bark
sharp words on the edge of a tongue
bitten off and swallowed
sliding under the vein that is
a belly full of snakes
sending hymnal cicadas up the spine and ears,
so that neither the stilled cries
nor the oleander blooming from her lips can hide
that we are melting
9.10.25 Poem
Sweet lily-lipped Muse
shine down upon me,
with your divine madness
and moon-dream delirium;
in shades of violet contradictions,
in hues of light-shadow;
a wine-drunk hynmal -
the flowering chaos from which
inspiration blooms
9.9.25
I see you at night
in the jumble of puzzle pieces
that will never be made whole
in the part of me that dreams
in the glimmer of the corner of my eye:
in that between hour,
that witching hour,
the hour of you
9.6.25
Am I ashen
in the middle of the road,
or am I rosen
with an ear loose for fortune?
Wherein does the synchronicity lie
in the shifting ocean tide
upon which we arrogate ourselves
the ability to prophesize?
Luminant bits of dust, the Universal Divine,
rising but briefly upon the swell,
before falling back into the abyss.
9.3.25
Sweet angel Uriel,
answer me this:
how can a God of corruption,
create such flowered things?
9.1.25
the arbitrary weighing of hearts
under a panacea of stars,
the vast space between
the divination of each others' words;
the constellation of your skin,
the map at the corner of your lips,
tell the story of the infinite banality
of both our sorrows and joys
7.31.26
Chancho has just finished another read through his next book, and will probably do one more before trying to find some folks to Beta read it. Right now the first book sits at about 80,000 words, which was about what Chancho wanted it to be. The second book is in decent enough shape that it can sit for now, and Chancho will probably polish it once the first book is done.Chancho is mostly certainly not one of those edit-as-you-go sort of cats. He has to get it all out in rough form first and then spend time fine-tuning it afterwards. It feels like Chancho has so many random thoughts going on at once that he always needs a little trimming after the fact.Other than that Chancho doesn't have that much going on. Jane is out of the running for SPFBO, and he has to think of what he is going to do next with it--try and get it going with a traditional publisher, or pay 1500$ to have someone fix the editing errors Thumbs missed (ouch)? Thumbs is a bit of a broke bitch, so shelling out the cash for that would be pretty tough. But we'll see.Chancho has been keeping up on the poetry as well, and that has been fun. He is having Thumbs read some of the poetry pieces (add Voice to Thumb's title now?). Thumbs isn't the best at it, but he's sure she'll get better at it.But that is really all Chancho has for this post. He tried to read The Night Land and boy that was a disappointment. He is now reading The Complete Cosmicomics, which has turned out so far to be very delightful!Below are book and Chancho's flowers!
6.21.26
Okay, Chancho has decided that the Thumbs is really bad at this whole blog thing. To be fair, Thumbs does have a lot going on. Work, helping Chancho write, not even mentioning it's peak gardening season, and the Thumbs really likes to pickle and can; but it still offends Chancho that the blog gets put so low on the ever-growing list of things to be done. And then Chancho mentions something and the Thumbs falls into a guilt spiral, and then good luck getting Thumbs to do anything after that.So, to alleviate Thumbs, and hopefully be more consistent at this sort of thing, Chancho is aiming for a one blog post a month. There isn't that much exciting to say about the writing process anyway, unless you like watching grass grow.But on to news! Chancho's book Jane is the End became a semi-finalist in the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off! Yay! And then also was booted, not making it to the Finalist round. Boo. But look at this cool sticker Chancho now gets to show off!
Fancy!But in all serious, both Chancho and the Thumbs are very grateful for the folks who took the time to look at, and review, Chancho's book. We both know it isn't for everybody, and are kinda shocked it even made it out of the slush pile, so appreciate the hard work. Neither Chancho nor the Thumbs are great at promotion, branding, or really anything that involves talking about ourselves outside of self-deprecating jokes, so just getting a word out there for folks to read it, is a help to us.But Chancho does need to get a new editor. Chancho went cheap, and hired some lazy asshole who works for treats, and Chancho guesses it shows. I mean, look at this slob:
