the past is a myth dreamed up by the present to account for itself

this way leads to death

“it used to be called The Barn”

language is a blunt instrument in my hands

that place of utter helplessness before your misery

that dog is a purebred swinehound

clean up that mess that just gets made a mess again

row of lawnmowers covered in snow

my hair is the hair of a 70s Dutch painter

I’ve been too quick to declare my allegiances

awoken by a skeletal parade banging pots & pans & shooting guns

like a stuffed pig

when you are finally helpless before your work, it is probably done.

Five words for my hometown: “sorry, Mom; drunk in public.”

Transcribed from a cafe napkin:

ground beef = beef you find on the ground

it took seven years to escape

people don’t want to know me

I sleep in on

now you’re always dreaming

the cool of night descends upon the people

remember your dreams!

You put the moon in place of the sun

the lenses fall out of her glasses to reveal nothing

red black vampire cape

she looked just like the Queen of Space.

Marked by the intrusions of the empire

(poor impulse control

& yet I have all these… dead perceptions

the aspirations of a year sneezed away

Prince George is not in line for the throne

I answer my own question

future blank as a gun

my heart’s rotted outta my chest / made a mess

we bought a house next to a house that doesn’t look good

there are no true silences—buzz or hum stalk the perimeter

saw an empty paper cup on a stump, thought: “a poet put that there”

the streets are beaten clean by feet

can’t get that graveyard stink out of your poems

“there are no more bees in Volhynia” —Isaac Babel

come on—you know those guys are just talking shit (that is, shit that can talk

so sings the sleepwalker

rock n’ roll Land of Nod

somehow a prisoner in his blue work shirt

she’s a certain kind of smart, & she’s got a lot of it

& we both hate it when I’m right