troy

I'm probably oversimplifying but ASW makes plenty of money for the league and the host city. An appropriately-scoped cash bonus to the winning team might get some ears perked up.

The number of double takes ending in disappointment that this will inspire is incalculable

John the Baptist offers unsolicited advice to Jesus on his thirty-third birthday Listen up. it does not end well for either of us. I'm only a few chapters ahead of you in this book, but lemme tell ya: Well, nothing ever ends, not really. But I promise, it's going to hurt. When they braid that crown of thorns, be thankful you've got a head to hang it on.

Circumstances are a funnel. A cake, a sieve, a cloud They will separate you into your constituent parts. Turn you into something else. A pincushion. A Christmas ornament. An effigy of the God of Abraham. The doubt and the pain are more than momentary, they are the water you walk across. They are what binds you to the distant shore. The surrogate sustenance that fills our lungs until we are born, they are the medium of your baptism.

Here's the good news: you can stop weighing your worthiness. You. Are. Ready. When you turned down that deal in the desert, you placed a bet on your own infinitude. So stop asking for permission to enter and walk straight into the temple. Audacity is the key that opens every lock, it's the only reason these motherfuckers keep getting over on us. Don't worry about that, though. This empire, that empire. It is impossible to interfere with beauty. And in the morning, shedding the cocoon of your burial shroud, stigmata scabbed over, face still puffy from crying your eyes out in the garden, wondering why your father left you, press the perfumed mug of grief to your skin, cast worshipful noticing on the landfill of creation, Love uncritically, and dance yourself out of the tomb.

New poem yall

Just fielded a FaceTime from both my parents asking me which end of a preroll they're supposed to light, there's hope for each and every one of us

My parents watched The Deer Hunter the night I was born and it was all downhill from there

Scrolled through way too many replies that didn't mention:
- Hoosiers
- Braveheart
- Full Metal Jackeg

the purpose driven life To till the soil. To cause a scene. To be the cause of something. I'm scared all the time. To be less alone in my fear. To cook in cast iron, and confide in its dark porosity. To celebrate the interval between our unbeings. Because survival is insufficient. To find what's hidden between the blades of grass, in the breaths between kisses, the empty mouth after swallowing. To search the crawlspace for vermin and their filthy children, and to cherish them, take their picture, show it to strangers at the airport terminal. To figure this out. We can figure this out. Just keep talking to me. To be digested. To shoot and leaf and bud and blossom, to bee and pollen and yellow and fall, and twig and snap and rot and silt. To be carried, swept elsewhere, slurped up, pissed out. To re-enter, to exit again. How long was I a puddle of goose shit on a matte black slate?

To ask questions like, "what's the point?" To ignore the correct answers and try something stupid. To patch holes in the drywall. To weep, to wax indignant, to cease all efforts at understanding. To be pliable, to circle the same spot three times like a dog before lying down. To polish an old mirror until the lines in your face stand out like the bunched carpet of Appalachia. To mourn everything and everyone we've lost. We've lost so much and so many but I still have you and I promise, you still have me. To finally see what's been in front of us all along. And then to look away. To find the unblemished holiness in every inch of it. To stop looking away.

gf called this poem's title a jump scare, lol

stock's up My boss has a new boss. He's in the Zoom meeting wearing a puka shell necklace, frosted spikes of hair like Guy Fieri. He says that he's proud of us. He says the fire tornados circling the city are an opportunity to disrupt the existing markets for cremation services and oxygen. He tells us he loves us, and I know that he means it. The shareholders are happy, at least. They said it was a record-breaking quarter. They said we could start paying the interns. The shareholders can't really say anything as they're in hospice on a ventilator in a panic room in New Zealand, but their attorneys assured us that they're quite pleased.

Meanwhile, at CVS, the baby formula and razor blades wait, locked behind glass. My boss's boss has a new boss. He said his predecessor was a fuckin loser. There's a row of bleached skulls on the mantle behind him. I heard his favorite color is overhead fluorescent lighting. It's obvious from his countenance that he has never seen a tree. Stock's up, at least. Our market cap has never been higher. Ocean's green and dying, whole planet's having an autoimmune response to our revenue growth. We're giving her a fever, she's ready to puke us right up. They're letting Grindr (NYSE: GRND) ring the opening bell for Pride month, though, so, that's progress.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, 171,000 tons of food rot within sight of the starving. My boss's boss's boss has a new boss. She looks to be between 14 and 24 months old. She's got RETVRN TO OFFICE tattooed on her little pink chest in Gothic font. She's here on a mission of mercy, she wants to know if you've made your decision for Christ. She's DMing me pictures of my kids on the playground at school. The heat radiating from the blacktop distorts their faces beyond recognition.

I just wanna spend the rest of my days feeding you, praising your decaying body, and singing. Unfortunately, we need health insurance. Fine then: I'll sync up, jump on a call, do the needful with laser focus, confront the business critical showstopper. All so I can roast some carrots for supper. So I can lie next to you and dream about a world without an org chart, about a field of white hibiscus. So I can dream of a world that deserves us.

Oop keep forgetting to post new poems here, here's a fresh one

New albums by Momma, Lucy Daucus, and Florist on a loop in this house

The Pampered Idiot, by Leonardo Alenza y Nieto, 1807–45, 📸 by @b_smialowski

As is evidenced by the choice in reeducation film, this rule only applies to straights

Insane opinion of the day: no one should be allowed to bring their partner to the grocery store. The grocery store is for inactionable, harmless flirting. If you come to the store as a couple they should strap you to a chair and make you watch A Woman Under the Influence until you break up

Ugh NWS owes me a dollar fifty for the gabapentin I just gave my dog

Inside cover of a notebook, with printed text reading: "if found, please return to:" beneath that is handwriting that says: " the place of your birth. Notice new trees, a traffic circle replacing a four-way stop. You are the same age as the mayor now; your soccer coach is dead and they named the field in her honor. Pull into the driveway of your childhood home, turning the wheel familiar to avoid scraping your bumper. Observe the odd impulse to knock; overcome it. As the family dog hobbles toward you, obese and blissful, see recognition in the slow swing of his tail. Walk past your father's chair (empty) and into the white light and chicken fat of the kitchen. Look into your original face. Embrace the only other body you have ever lived in. And here we are.

Poets absolutely cannot be trusted with pen and paper

“The discourse around poetry has a bit of a joy problem.” (for Jad Abumrad)We try to shoot a bouquet from our sleeve,out comes a broom. The rabbit shits in our hat. Wehack softshoe, rocking a terrified chimpanzee rictus,spangly leotard riding up asscrack.…

Went to a reading/chat between Radiolab's Jad Abumrad and poet Major Jackson, and Jad said something that I had to write a little pome about tacohole.net/2025/04/09/t...

Worlds are colliding, Lane put me onto TAW and morning pages have absolutely rewired my soul

crush-having is a survival skill. to have a crush is to reject despair and embrace hope. a crush is an imaginative investment in the future. all the most miserable people you know could crush-have their way into contentment if they only knew how

God gets bored Eternal life is such a curse.How many trillions of times and billions of ways over multiple millennia will I have to answer the same whiny fuckin’ prayer:”Why?”I should have kille…

This week's poem is inspired by seven straight days of wrathfully biblical weather tacohole.net/2025/04/06/g...

Finding the German who patented gabapentin on LinkedIn so I can send him a cake for curing my dog's storm-induced anxiety

You know you're down bad when she got you watching Fiddler on the Roof so you can better envision the joy and wonder of her childhood

I'm on my couch and there's a sleeping dog on the floor and a sleeping woman's legs in my lap. I'm exhausted writing poetry and smelling the cookies I just baked. What I'm saying is that heaven is real and we can get there if we try.

poem/pic/playlist, March ’25 wild tomatoesThere has to be a secret to this. One weird trick that doctors hate.A memory palace, a mindfulness practice, a murder mystery podcast.  Some way out that isn’t through.…

The president stays doing crimes, economy's about to crash and I'm blogging on Wordpress, welcome back 2007: tacohole.net/2025/03/23/p...

gasoline in your heart Playlist · Troy Coll · 21 items

Achievement unlocked: Max Roach and Lil Nas X together on a coherent playlist open.spotify.com/playlist/7JG...

This is the kind of position that's only valuable to those whose livelihoods as artists is already assured. For anyone who has actual skin in the game, who wants to survive while using their time to make art, this does not hold water

Winterson's argument here, that humans can use AI to produce beauty, is entirely correct. The problem is that we're not using AI as just another tool for artists to employ, we're using it to unemploy artists.

Also you should stay in Germantown or East Nashville -- downtown is ass. Bill's Sandwich Palace, Butcher and Bee, Rolf and Daughters, Folk are the better food spots

The Frist has some p cool exhibits up: fristartmuseum.org/exhibitions/...

Getting laid off sucks and I'm sorry. What's your Venmo?

If I turn on read receipts for you, you know I love you. Few have the privilege of knowing how powerfully reactive to notifications I am

at the gym doing <lift redacted>
fellow athlete: how much is that?
me: 170
him: ... that boy thowin me 😒