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some concessions no cracks in the statuary they punch the clock the new year pulls the pursestrings of Europe people eat soup suspect things are rotten dairy curds of time was a film from 2008 you missed it things on tickers replicating Western literacy— No way in hell that snake could fit in the trunk. Not with two guitars, a bag of cymbal and drum stand gear, bass guitar, amp head, and a box of screen-printed t-shirts, anyway. It was hard enough to squeeze in the hardshell cases, and Alec's weirdo-wide White Falcon made it near impossible.— mater blood / mater beloved / come for me / behind the curtain / in the shadow / of the zero— hit a snare syncopated candlewick is now following you slide a copied key as always not this precious collection puts a fawn on your face wears your top teeth I'm streaming a gingham connoisseur the solitary play at checkers on the nightly news spooled copper wire— I am doing the pyramid allegro / on Escherstrausse / points and corners / pirouettes on tessellated tiles / help me / there's a rustling— Tom got the itch to leave work while fixing the grammar on a broken-English troubleshooting page of a toaster manual. He stuck a Post-it to his computer screen that read: 'scuse me while I kiss the sky. He'd turned fifty-one, but still hadn't shaken the carelessness of an adolescent: empty milk cartons in the fridge, holes in his t-shirt armpits. Growing up wasn't something he remembered agreeing to.— save our ship in sailing winds the way you spell Charybdis trapped in the self the Doppleganger the Waldensamkeit wants to be your friend at resell value shopping carts crashing ad nauseum wears a top hat Ford's Lincoln at Ford's Theater round the suspects up— I see my country / unravel itself / you saw it too / skimming a few million / of yourself into the ocean / it borders / something terrible— Clover covered the whole of my heart — or: Chloe covered the hole of my heart. He couldn't decide which one, so he swapped them around in rehearsal. It didn't really matter, since there was enough reverb and delay to make the two words interchangeable.— the second scene update is available missed your period meant to be meat Margery Kempe rollin' on the river dust with her sandstone fingers is pregnant for the third time what can you lose get it on girls went missing a film by Peter Weir— can this silence be codified / into my background matter / I am too terrestrial / for an occasional saying to stick / what is the word for regret / don't blot it out— Tom drove slowly, wary of cops at this time of night and still tingling from nerves. He dropped off Brian and Steve at their houses, and Alec moved from the passenger seat to the back seat, falling asleep almost instantly. He knew that the noise of him closing it would wake Alec, so he didn't. With Alec there was never a choice. You just held your breath and hoped for the best.— what happened to us I grow old is a poem by Charlemagne you missed it spray suntan on signed my name sincerely you didn't notice a record cover of a cover record radioisotope on the bottom is speed dating in vivid Technicolor wears a skull no frame— don't be afraid / to say so / rifles pointed at forty-five degrees / at your heart when you're / crouched in prayer / the heart makes it own chambers— The trick was to take all the people telling you to straighten up here or finally meet someone there, and pitch those tones into a single note. Then all you had to do was block out the note. Thumb down its volume, or crank up the static. He could put the voices of conscience out of competition.— people you may know are no longer living ghost birds killed by myth takes another breath in the archive over the sea I can't sleep at night is a music by Schoenberg because you're not kind hits it big brachial plexus is at ubu are you sleeping this is goodbye— deliver me into your claw / distend me / you falcon / surplus feathers grafted / onto your metal wing / of state suited— There were parts of her, he knew, that would always be unknowable to him. It didn't stop him from wishing, just sometimes. He was ashamed of this, but sometimes on those days she couldn't come to practice, he'd pretend to see her there, curled up on the toolbox, in her frayed jeans and her sandals and that first-day-of-school vest from so long ago.— now there is only night / fires in the house chamber / smokes your heart out / the only muse is mater flame / gets you running / to safe open streets— Brian's uncle Ames let them practice in his second garage, only half a mile from where Tom parked the lawnmower. Ames was an aging rock enthusiast who had discovered more music in the sound of a cash register. Here and there, he'd float the boys money for nachos or new guitar cords. No matter how effusively they thanked him or refused, Ames wouldn't answer.— my body pulls taut / like a rope / falls slack and turns / its full figure / in a Gordian knot / a half hitch— on the mezzanine chops a boar into chops takes a ticket rounds lap fifty on television splash an aqua velva repeat save file to disk is a haunted mansion Summerwind your heart in syndication by Palinuras who knows no one golden flaxen 2024 a film by Abraxas Stone I own a goat cheese grows farm bill beets look back in anger is exactly right omnivore's millennium a Marcus Aurelius Jr. who shot who you're too good to be true Lancellotti discus thrower— this is no poem / or piano poison crushed / in a pestle / mortars the day / in casings striated skins escape / themselves— Tom remembered reading The Aeneid in Mr. Thompson's Latin class that past winter. He'd liked the way the erudite instructor had described Virgil: destructive and feverish. Riding his bike to the garage just before sunset, it came to Tom: Brundisium. The place where Virgil died.— an adverse criticism a collision in a waltz / a flask of champagne a tapered candle / an extinguished appetite a fancy for the circumflex / a study of cranial tectonics a spot of morning sickness / a spot of earthquake on the carpet— does your taxes classical civilization threads through a needle Asterion crashing cymbals the view from space a humble viaduct forgot your password drank a milk drink what god is your father all life in a collapsible window Operation Ivy you know who takes a photo of it is a film by 2009 dir. Antonioni feeling unwelcome shaved ginger presses on James I boating in the estuary where is your mind a song by the Wipers understanding brutal truths wine-dark stains on pressed trousers fast forwards 1873— For Tom, it wasn't the forming of the band, or the naming, or the practicing. It was the simple act of making meaning where there was none before. If he were more pretentious, he might have called it 'making art.' Or 'falling in love.' It felt just as real as that.— my country loves its monsters / and so has dubbed them / all into English / the readiest language in which / to end a sentence by spitting / they crawl into my coffee / to bleed out sugars and curses— Tom had no idea how they'd booked the Armadillo. Stroke of luck, even if they were just the openers. He guessed their manager had lied about how tight they were, or how good. Tom didn't care. And then, that nagging feeling that he could half-sing, but had no idea how to front a band.— do you wish to kill / this window into me / it is a cave for snakes / a shelter and song / it takes only a pane / of frosted glass to refract me / I am learning what night is for— I don't know you but I'm calling a love letter typed and signed excavates some artifacts is a real thing in a chat room park places hit a snare the song bears your name how you fossilize home bad TV and cold pizza you encrypt I know you is a trap dialing the wrong babysitter souls alive— The last time they'd practiced, it was Brian who suggested Tom hold a guitar. Something, anything to do during the instrumental, drone-inspired psych parts. The rest of the band could hide behind their instruments. Tom was the spokesperson, like it or not.— mater suss / who is dripping down / the labyrinth walls / day outlasts / its naming / let me tell you / one last time / I am only the equation / for the way / color drains from / my lips and fibers— Chloe was half a year younger than him and at least twenty times smarter. They'd only started calling each other 'girlfriend' and 'boyfriend' when the school year had started, but the truth he'd never admit is that he'd been hers long before that.