![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image.png\")
\u201cI wanted to be a man \/ until I met enough men \/\/ to know better. The pain \/ of understanding that arrives too late \/\/ is the teeth of handsaw \/ against skin, a mistake\u201d – Amorak Huey, \u201cFor So Long, I Was Foolishly Proud of The Scar on My Thumb\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe hadn\u2019t yet learned that nature could hold the edge of its blade to your throat.\u201d – Chloe N. Clark, \u201cBoy and Cave and Man and Night\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cshe longed to be proletarian \/ But that\u2019s impossible \/ Who will think of her? \/ I think of her\u201d – Victoria Guerrero-Peirano, \u2018Diary Of A Proletarian Seamstress\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat the young would rather be entertained by tales of the extreme rather than the mundane is not arguable. Pirates defeat accountants.\u201d – Percival Everett, \u2018Erasure\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe sort the cards at the kitchen table. \/ Instead of flowers our people help \/ the family pay for the funeral. \/ My mother and aunt document \/ the names and amounts of money in each envelope.\u201d – Michelle Pe\u00f1aloza, \u201cWE ARE SO SORRY FOR YOUR LOST\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDay rises in vain \/ I belong to shadow and shrouded in shadow I lie on a bed of fire\u201d – C\u00e9sar Moro, \u201cOH FUROR THE DAWN EMERGES FROM YOUR LIPS\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cthere\u2019s a story about a woman who became a goddess, and all she had \/ to do was drown herself in a river\u201d – Bridget Gordon, \u201cfawning responses\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIs he sickly in the bog? \/ Hungry at the mall? \/ Content in the water?\u201d – Lesle Lewis, \u201cPhone\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cand I was no poet. there was a sisterhood \/ wrapped around this world like a sunrise\u201d – Bridget Gordon, \u201code to Brighid\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo. In a fine body there is magic. I do not know what makes it in one and not in another. But thou hast it.\u201d – Ernest Hemingway, \u2018For Whom The Bell Tolls\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cand suddenly I\u2019m ferried \/ not to the first time I did my shot \/ or the first time I dissolved \/ the small blue pills \/\/ or the first time I said my name \/ or the first time she said it with me \/ but to the first time \/ I gave myself to the moon\u201d – Bridget Gordon, \u201cgiven to the moon\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cwhen did you become the moon \/ this not how we planned any of this \/ we are supposed to be touching \/ are we supposed to be touching\u201d – Amorak Huey, \u201cYou Told Me Always to Add \u201cIn Bed\u201d to the End of My Fortune Cookie Fortunes. I Told You the Same Thing Works on Poems but I Was Just Trying to Impress You. In Bed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cslut era but it\u2019s just passing the same $20 and the same nudes back and forth until we both die \/ slut era but it\u2019s just letting someone help you with your shot \/ slut era but it\u2019s just putting together a gay transsexual dinner party for the gay transsexuals with a menu inspired by what foods have fallen into your bra\u201d – Bridget Gordon, “slut era\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cit\u2019s going to rain I\u2019m\/ going to go see Spider \/ Man by the time the \/ theater lets out it\u2019ll be \/ raining I won\u2019t have seen \/\/ it start I\u2019ll have been \/ watching a boy turn into \/ a spider I saw something\u201d – Jon Woodward, \u201cSpring (comprising further music)\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMother told me about telling all her bridge buddies about my books, asking as she always did if there wasn\u2019t a better word for fuck than fuck.\u201d – Percival Everett, \u2018Erasure\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe tablecloth stays tucked away in the kitchen cabinet \/ I got myself knee-deep in diplomas \/ And I don\u2019t know how to embroider\u201d – Victoria Guerrero-Peirano, \u201cTablecloth\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cthese three eggs were scrambled \/ they probably had three parents \/\/ is that an unusual heritage \/ for a breakfast to have \/ also for breakfast I\u2019m having \/ a headache somebody was serving \/ the poorest ever stab at \/\/ sangria I stood babbling in \/ the rain with girls and \/ sang Beatles tunes banged on\u201d – Jon Woodward, \u201cRain, Ocean\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf the weather would just shut up for awhile, we could rest and catch up.\u201d – Lesle Lewis, \u201cAround\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cwanna go to Gloucester and \/ look at how the tombstones \/ and fishing boat masts are \/ raised irregularly against the sky \/ he said nope I don\u2019t\u201d – Jon Woodward, \u201cRain, Ocean\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo. There was nothing to be gained by leaving them alone. Except that all people should be left alone and you should interfere with no one.\u201d – Ernest Hemingway, \u2018For Whom The Bell Tolls\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut, he thought to himself then, maybe it was a normal day, maybe this is how things always would be. He felt himself hardening from the inside out.\u201d – Joshua Trent Brown, \u2018The Walls Are Closing In On Us\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe global crisis of soil fertility and the growth of superweeds impervious to herbicides are but two examples of nature\u2019s autonomy\u2026\u201d – Ashley Dawson, \u2018Environmentalism From Below\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI breathe the \/ uninterruptible law \/\/ of no money \/ that we really love\u201d – Mathias Svalina, \u201cTHE WINE-DARK SEA\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cReturn to ants \/ swarming legs, \/ urine on the kitchen floor, \/\/ to vent pine, \/ a trachea-nowhere: \/\/ the thing I \/ body contains\u201d – Mathias Svalina, \u201cTHE WINE-DARK SEA\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cwhere a wish \/ is anything rotting, \/ the shore.\u201d – Mathias Svalina, \u201cTHE WINE-DARK SEA\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSome geese batter the fog \/ with their wings. \/ A hearse rolls through \/ a red light because \/ who even cares.\u201d – Matthew Rohrer, \u201cSWEET DREAMS\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey are the wine-dark sea. And I \/ am the wine-dark sea.\u201d – Mathias Svalina, \u201cTHE WINE-DARK SEA\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA cold day is a prison \/ a little music breaks it open\u201d – Matthew Rohrer, \u201cWINTER SUN\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPerhaps I\u2019ve missed the point. \/\/ Perhaps I was thinking of the moon.\u201d – Amorak Huey, \u201cI Have Been Trying To Make Sense of Love Again\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe first boy I ever let \/ touch me \/ marveled \/ at the difference in \/ our skin, \/ my hairlessness, my \/ taut brown.\u201d – Michelle Pe\u00f1aloza, \u201cPioneer\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m just elbowing a stack of \/ folders off my desk earlier during \/ a careless chair swivel after simultaneously\/ answering twelve of tomorrow\u2019s sentient emails\u201d – Jon Woodward, \u201cMOUTH SPEAKING\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou slide your fingers \/\/ into my mouth & pull out \/ another word for this lake \/\/ we\u2019ve made of our lives\u201d – Amorak Huey, \u201cLove Poem\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI thought why not manipulate these \/ people it seems to bring them \/\/ comfort why not just stand on \/ the \u201cdevastate\u201d button feeding them wormwood\u201d – Jon Woodward, \u201cMOUTH SPEAKING\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cmy social self I\u2019m a delight \/ go ask anyone I\u2019m friends with \/ the extinction event of the summer \/ makes people glad that Jon\u2019s here\u201d – Jon Woodward, \u201cHEAR ANYTHING\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you are ever unsure what kind of light you are dealing with, he said, check to see if a cat will sit in it. If so, it is simply the light of the sun.\u201d – Mar Romasco Moore, \u201cDifferent Kinds Of Light\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIsn\u2019t kindness just like the touch of the moon on snow or a fever?\u201d – Lesle Lewis, \u201cPoints\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201ca wind-up whale surfaced alongside me \/ it had stairs for a tongue \/ a recorded voice said \u201cyou\u2019re trespassing \/ I can swim you back to \/ the visitor\u2019s area here climb inside\u201d – Jon Woodward, \u201cREWRITE ANYTHING\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYet cities are obviously not separate from the natural world.\u201d – Ashley Dawson, \u2018Environmentalism From Below\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cthe car ferry don\u2019t mistake process \/\/ for meaning some billboards belying Eden\u201d – Jon Woodward, \u201cREMEMBER ANYTHING\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMen. It is a shame to us women that we make them.\u201d – Ernest Hemingway, \u2018For Whom The Bell Tolls\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe hugged me, an event in itself, and I appreciated the gesture, but it was stiff as if he hadn\u2019t touched me at all.\u201d – Percival Everett, \u2018Erasure\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow many times had he heard this? How many times had he watched people say it with difficulty? How many times had he seen their eyes fill and their throats harden with the difficulty of saying my father, or my brother, or my mother, or my sister?\u2026You only heard the statement of loss. You did not see the father fall\u2026\u201d – Ernest Hemingway, \u2018For Whom The Bell Tolls\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe industrialized nations\u2026have effectively colonized the atmospheric commons.\u201d – Ashley Dawson, \u2018Environmentalism From Below\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe laws must be rewritten, as they were in Ecuador and then in Bolivia, so that the rights of nature become part of every country\u2019s constitution.\u201d – Ashley Dawson, \u2018Environmentalism From Below\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA pogo stick in the nightclub of physics, molecules crashing \/ in the mind of a fish and its quartz eyes. What do they see? \/ The estuary of a river. I imagine a cracked head: \/ this image unfurling like an atomic mass\u201d – Juan Jos\u00e9 Rodin\u00e1s, \u201cKOAN HANDEL: AQUATIC MUSIC\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYet rather than imposing emissions cuts using the power of the EPA, Obama decided to negotiate with congressional Republicans.\u201d – Ashley Dawson, \u2018Environmentalism From Below\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Rain_in_Malta_08.jpg\")
![Ivar Leidus<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cANYWAY what I\u2019m saying is that Eve was right, when someone offers a taste you take it no matter the cost.\u201d – Amorak Huey, \u201cOde to Temptation\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cFinally, the house lights came up and they rolled the man over onto his back, his body moving in the joint less way peculiar to corpses.\u201d – Eric Williams, \u201cWanton Poets\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cIt was something, to be in that tight little restaurant, everybody happy and talking, while I looked down the barrel of a long night with a dead body. I\u2019d never noticed how cheerful the sound of silverware on dishes could be, or how peaceful a steamy window can feel when you\u2019re on the warm side of it. And poor Mr. Hatch there, in his bedroom, cold, and just getting colder.\u201d – Eric Williams, \u201cWaking Dr. Hatch\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cAnd when a person only has one or two ties, or anchors, to a place that they called their home and those ties that bind vanish suddenly like a leaf taken downstream by a fast-moving river, that sense of home was gone.\u201d – Joshua Trent Brown, \u2018The Walls Are Closing In On Us\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cNo parent should have to bury her child, she thought, and then she thought back to long ago. There was another mother in Chicago who had buried her child, and Carolyn Bryant knew all too well that she herself was to blame for that loss.\u201d – Percival Everett, \u2018The Trees\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThat boy ain\u2019t got sense enough to piss out of a boot with the directions wrote on the heel.\u201d – Percival Everett, \u2018The Trees\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThis is Mississippi\u2026Somebody Black had better watch these White folks down here. Because for a lot of these crazy folks, it\u2019s still nineteen fifty.\u201d – Percival Everett, \u2018The Trees\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cLess than 1 percent of lynchers were ever convicted of a crime. Only a fraction of those ever served a sentence. Teddy Roosevelt claimed the main cause of lynching was Black men raping White women. You know what? That didn\u2019t happen.\u201d – Percival Everett, \u2018The Trees\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cin the telefonic water with wires from orange and crotch \/ in the unvoiced and choked up alveolus with baskets of fruit and pregnant pyramids as thick as pins with black heads \/ in the swift shadow of an ancient balcony lost in the freezing folds under a pallid sun of salamanders of some funereal tapestry \/ in the most hermetic nook of a surface marred like the face of the moon \/ in the foam and rage of the sun falling into night in the black kiss of hysteria\u201d – C\u00e9sar Moro, \u201cVARIOUS LIONS LICK THE RUGOSE SURFACE OF THE EQUESTRIAN TURTLE AT TWILIGHT\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cThis lake was a mikveh.\u201d – Adam Mansbach, \u2018The Golem of Brooklyn\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cOut here, a million tiny sounds added up to stillness. Why, then, in New York, did a million tiny sounds added up to cacophony?\u201d – Adam Mansbach, \u2018The Golem of Brooklyn\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cstanding by the dream harbor \/ the sea and the ships on her \/ and the stone streets are alive\u201d – Matthew Rohrer, \u201c49\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cI always wanted to be a Beat poet. Wrong generation. Now I stick dead people in drawer. I suppose it\u2019s the same thing once you get down to it.\u201d – Percival Everett, \u2018The Trees\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201c\u2018Everything metaphor, shmendrick,\u2019 The Golem said, and withdrew back into the darkness.\u201d – Adam Mansbach, \u2018The Golem Of Brooklyn\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\nYou’re right, The Golem. Everything is<\/em> a metaphor. <\/p>\n\n\n\nSorry you got an email, <\/p>\n\n\n\nChris<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt turns out that soil is teeming with life.\u201d – Ashley Dawson, \u2018Environmentalism From Below\u2019 Sure I’m spoiling this Friday and next Friday’s books, but it’s okay! We read for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162658786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169,10],"tags":[376,383,369,268,391,158,301,373,361,372,363,387,390,385,399,364,384,388,107,389],"class_list":["post-162658784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shipwrecked-sailor-blog","category-wednesday-column","tag-adam-mansbach","tag-amorak-huey","tag-ashley-dawson","tag-bridget-gordon","tag-cesar-moro","tag-chloe-n-clark","tag-clip-show","tag-eric-williams","tag-ernest-hemingway","tag-james-r-gapinksi","tag-jon-woodward","tag-joshua-trent-brown","tag-juan-jose-rodinas","tag-lesle-lewis","tag-mar-romasco-moore","tag-mathias-svalina","tag-matthew-rohrer","tag-michelle-penaloza","tag-percival-everett","tag-victoria-guerrero-peirano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162658784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162658784"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162658784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162658798,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162658784\/revisions\/162658798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/162658786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162658784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162658784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162658784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Pomegranate_(opened).jpg\"){kind=link}