I still disagree with my poetry professor. He believes that there is no such thing as a “Bad” poem. We had this disagreement over a year ago, and I still do not concede the point, sitting on it like a dragon on an egg of spite. I will concede one point: Most poems do have value. Even the product of a bored student finally bothering to sit down and produce words has value, because they are honest words, and they would not exist if not for the effort of the student. Therefore,

Issued by the Main Office for the Enlightenment and Advertising of the German Students' Association: May 10, 1933 Against class warfare and materialism; For the community of the Volk and an idealistic way of life. Marx, Kautsky Nothing good ever comes of violence. (1) It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals (2) Against decadence and moral decay; For discipline and decency in family and state. H. Mann, Ernst Glaeser, E. K�stner Against unprincipled thin

Some kind of sadness in the skin of the dog—neck cut crisp against the leash— hand—stranger—tugging along nature false—around the pond three times—garrote on the bark— stolen conation—instinct mild in heart and tooth—senses disengaged—dulled by domestic dullest—remembered path—back behind walls—dog trained—loves in accord. #Poetry #20182019

warm feet press against cold tile then knees a ritual bent over praying to our god of porcelain sins crawl from the depths of our bellies we choke as they spill from our throats when the porcelain god demands we obey. #20182019 #Poetry

I’m all alone. I’m wide awake in the lonely witching hours, the world sleeps, but I digress. Loneliness is a terrifying concept. Constantly reaching out for a hand, knowing the world won’t reach back and when it does, Those hands are covered in oil. ■ I don’t think it is so easy to cast off loneliness as just a bad thing, isn’t there some beauty in being alone? Sitting in an empty space with only your ideas, unfiltered, uninhibited by

we burn the winter away in the bottom half of an oil drum, cut up the tree that took out our garage in the last nor’eastern, neat quarter-circles with a chainsaw we borrowed from a neighbor. dad drinks budweiser in his khaki shorts and steelers hat as he kindles the fire, and i shovel the green brush into the barrel and then fall back when the smoke plumes up charcoal black—each piece of nature is a different color in its state of decay, and i never knew that before. dad

1. The calendar tells me I’m a Sagittarius but most mornings I feel like a Scorpio rising. Astrology cuts across hemispheres— here I am a Sagittarius or maybe a Scorpio rising but I, too, was born in the year of the rat, the rejected rodent, the mouse’s ugly vodka aunt squirreled away for another 12 years. 2. Sex without intimacy, a loveless fuck, and you might as well not be touching me at all. A tenderness caught in the spaces between your cells and mine, not quite a

Last Sunday night chill killed the chickens in their coup, all frozen beak, flat eye— feathers off-angle, broken bone, skewered. We took them out onto the gray potato earth, cruel rocks and all— cold on their slack backs, already skeletal, hateful— and primal—gnashing grossness in their clay bodies— come from some creator, maybe, but minds dumb— without a lord, no last benediction, or affairs unattended. #20182019 #Poetry

praise be for that everyman barrier to all things too social and loud that lets me peacefully sit and watch seinfeld on repeat i could go out and get but instead i can use amazon and tweet without extensive shoulder-peek and that’s why sacred is one frame two hinges a bottom sweep and solid oak that keeps headphone-less music in and strange relatives out at gatherings like the lock was my own personal st. michael who fights crowded thanksgivings dinners at gates to hell

Rose petals are so beautiful when you rip them from the stem and throw them on the floor of the bedroom. And its so romantic to chop logs and start a fire in the hearth. Love is a powerful God that demands living energy #Poetry #20182019