feather duster, thatch of straw, empty bottle of Elmer's glue because this window is loud—its hinges clack open, clack shut

Third slowest Blegsylvanian weekend of the year and Holiest Weekend of the Crackerstani Year, yinz and helmetball, the fuck is wrong with you. Here's a second draft before I fuck it up with letters and clear elmer's glue (more than I already have)

My wife, an artist and art teacher, and my daughter, an artist and art teacher, are both encouraging me to submit my paintings to this contest, and both are doing so without using their art teacher voices, I'm flattered. 

And I've toggled. Fuck it, I rather paint than read, I'd rather paint than write, and I'm reading and writing better prioritizing painting than when I tried to ignore I wanted to prioritze painting but felt a moral obligation to prioritize reading and writing. The fuck is wrong with me. So: peace, as much as I currently can negotiate with myself 

Vital reminder: I've less academic scaffolding with art than I do with poetry. I can't draw. I've no illusions as to their worth. I can't draw. The only reason I'm considering entering the contest is to lose, to have that confirmed. But yesterday L and I went to Phillips in Dupont Circle, the first art museum since this toggle, and I (a) look at art differently now, the work as a process rather than an end result, and more importantly (b) I process the micro and macro days cleaner and crisper and happier painting than writing, cop out it may be, and (c) I don't want to look at classical painting more than I don't want to listen to classical music now, laugh. Vital reminder: my sole proof of God is that I can't draw and especially that I can't sing

He's trying to figure out how to navigate this bullshit historical moment, to alternately cope with and resist our slide into Christofascism,
"It is a clear indicator of the disappearance of freedom from our so-called western democracies, that Sy Hersh, arguably the greatest living journalist, cannot get this monumental revelation on the front of the Washington Post or New York Times, but has to self-publish on the net."
Bill Clinton has left the building?
What Shitlords See When They See Old People
I either will or won't add words to both or neither of above depending on the day's clusterfuck pox
Throwing water on a grease fire
A chilling paragraph from 1960					Crackerstan
Capitalism: best armageddon stocks to invest in!
Unhappy mortals! Dark and mourning earth!
⇧	"Everyone can be in the wrong, everyone can be lying. NATO’s aggression and expansionism doesn’t turn Putin into an innocent little lamb. And Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine doesn’t absolve NATO of its responsibility in producing the conflict."
Our shitlords heart them some DeSantis
We do not reflect enough on forgetting
Blood, soil, helmetball, crackerstan
Chuckle-track and obscure object of bourgeois desire
Spoutible? Dead before it started
Pawns, Puppet Heads, and Paranoia: An Eccentrics Reading List
The decline of reading (in her classes)
Excerpts from Alice Notley's *Speak Angel Series*
NEW! Joyelle McSweeney poems!
My liver, the pain of clear thought, $5.75 for an Absolut on the rocks at the Hotel Dorset, New York City, and other great prices paid by various writers in their careers
The Most Overlooked and Transformative of The Who, According to Roger Daltrey
The new Yo La Tengo has dropped and !!!

OBJECTS USED TO PROP OPEN A WINDOW

Michelle Menting

Dog bone, stapler,

cribbage board, garlic press

     because this window is loose—lacks

suction, lacks grip.

Bungee cord, bootstrap,

dog leash, leather belt

     because this window had sash cords.

They frayed. They broke.

Feather duster, thatch of straw, empty

bottle of Elmer's glue

     because this window is loud—its hinges clack

open, clack shut.

Stuffed bear, baby blanket,

single crib newel

     because this window is split. It's dividing

in two.

Velvet moss, sagebrush,

willow branch, robin's wing

     because this window, it's pane-less. It's only

a frame of air.