mean / while

By William Merricle one handful of keep your distance, swallowed bees, nightclamps, little dreams, death row insoles, fun, fun, fun, turn, turn, turn, turtles all the way, tail of the universe, twist of perfection, bag of cold, fallow year, memory graft, digital infestation, hairstyles, grocery aisles, meanwhile, slurp, rend asunder, the boo-hoo skies, joint began [...]

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I Fell In Love With You Because Of That Sound You Make When You Hold Your Nose While Sneezing

By William Merricle Surgery once started must be completed. The probability is 97.73% of playing into the devil’s hands. Unresolved is not so terrible. The autopsy showed top management potential. The time machine’s been discontinued for lack of interest. Serenity is the diameter of a single breath. You’d think we’d have been punished by now. [...]

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All Poems Are Failures

By William Merricle Just one of your pussy atoms Could make god stupid. Don’t think of this as goodbye. I once read a proverb that said Everyone has three hearts. Someone else must have six. I have no idea How to fill this space.

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Gospel According to Tommy

By William Merricle He’d been snorting plant fertilizer and ground up lightbulbs again, and his head looked like a scrofulant cantaloupe, but when Tommy licked his dried-up chops and belched, “Write this shit down,” I knew it was time to drop my dildo and fire up the notebook. “Versify this motherfucker,” he croaked. 1. You [...]

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Why Your Heartbeat Keeps You Awake

By William Merricle Evidence piles up with great cruelty. Anarchy raises its stern hand. Stupid is as stupid does. Nothing can replace the romance of being Alternately limp with exhaustion And rigid with rage. Once we snuck into a walled garden And communed and moaned And laughed illegally. Now the smile on your face is [...]

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Be My Baby

By William Merricle The governor’s head is swollen From hiking the Appalachian Trail It’s the same shade as that big purple fetus Painted on the side of the barn along Route 65 Whose umbilical cord looks like The scythe of the Grim Reaper

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Pod People Give Poor Parties

By William Merricle Philosophy teaches you that right now, your heart is doing pushups on its fingertips, in a puddle of piss, a-sinnin’ and a-grinnin’. Grace took me on a tour of hell to see how much it had changed since the last time I’d been there. It hadn’t.

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Night of the Poet

By William Merricle Chris hunkers over the crustable, reads acapella his Manifesto Pour Lovers Avec Baseball Bats, holds his cupless coffee between his thighs, mutters how the slurry of the abyss is garnished with baby’s breath, the stars are united by rusty chains and runny noses, and the shattered lord is amongst us right here, [...]

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