palliatives

I.

struggling to make payment • make equipment • make sense • make cents • eat wire • raise a cavil • return library books • go to my silent place • but rarely do i crocodile these topics with as much gravitas possible • write Every-Nurse Dusts • sit • write thee non-linear film script • film (patiently) the accumulating dread • the melting cap • the rising seas • the filth • the moldering • the fear on passersby faces • the lack of a redemptive arc •

II.

she waits at a seaside brothel • he beggars penance • causal • transactional • who cautions cowardice • we do • we are • enter the steersman without rudder • exit the horse without bridle • this is a test of the emergency broadcast system • this is not • the augurs of mid-december weigh us down • we are sinking • she of torn socks • he of abundant penury • we stare in thrall as palliatives fail • all reluctance and vulnerability • laden with the accretion of bleak moments • oh look • a flurry of posts • a slurry of social brain rot • oh look•

What I’m Reading:

On July 3, before victory, Governor William O. Bradley of Kentucky worried that the war would turn Americans into an aggressive and war-waging people.” He predicted that “the acquisition of one piece of territory begets a desire for another, and in the end an effort to take by force that which justly belongs to others will lead to the loss of all we have.” 

— Joe Jackson / Splendid Liberators: Heroism, Betrayal, Resistance, and the Birth of American Empire