paorta-kremvax

here’s stephen tully dierks who emerged on the message board 
with his cow lick and his blue eyes and his thirty page pdf

in every interview in the early ’tens two or sometimes three author photos 
tumblr aesthetic, minimal variation, a kitchen with a microwave 

postcards taped to the cupboards. they knew how to sell poetry
and that selling died with them, or a version of it did

and it was all probably going to die anyway. felled by Instagram
or TikTok or poets petting poets who didn’t want to be pet

publishing a document that everyone wants to be in even if it looks bad
glad I never wrote that angry essay from my messy vantage. my vice

is wondering how it can be better when I am just outside
my vice is telling the car who ran me over how bad that was

but to pull your wheels over a pedestrian is not such a bad thing
what’s good or bad is not for me to decide. from my vantage 

I am only a squashed little ant. I am only spinning on the wheel
of someone who has somewhere to go. for some poetry is vice

it is dangerous, it is God. oh and these men who are poets can sadly be bad
who am I to shout that with my mouth split on the asphalt