gravel.

Now in the fourth century of American hate by Mack Carlisle 

12/10/2016

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Picture
The frequency
of spontaneous crying
increases tremendously
since Tuesday



I read bell hooks Halberstam others
feel good about myself

push onward with arrogance
bigly into the deep dark

crevasses ripe for the grabbing
huge and tiny

hands alike groping
the popular vote raped

like the victim of a presidency



We go somewhere from here
on the well-greased slopes
of Palm Sundays

and family values

and the lies and fictions

of a house in dire need of repair
wishing for ear plugs

and safety nets from bumptious
overbearing jackhammers

who don't know when to shut the hell up

 
To be in public

​is to subject one's self

to the capital punishment
of unrelenting mothers millennials
hyper normalized protest voter bravado
and enthusiastic privileged pining

such as this
 
Except for knowing when
to shut the hell up

to provide opportunity
for consensual misery
through poetry

and other obnoxious
soapboxed platitudes

under which to crawl in defeat

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
​
Mack Carlisle is a writer, multi-disciplinary artist, and educator in Portland, Oregon. Mack received BA’s in Fine Art and English from the University of Massachusetts, an MA in Teaching from Pacific University, and is a current MFA candidate in the Visual Studies program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

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    Gravel is a literary journal edited by students of the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Arkansas at Monticello.

    Cover image by T.M. Lankford
Photos used under Creative Commons from Bambi Corro, onnola, SebastianBartoschek, Hernan Piñera, comedy_nose, ComputerHotline, michaelmueller410, Alexandre Dulaunoy, Theme Park Tourist, quinet, roseannadana: Back on my home turf, grits2go, Arian Zwegers, quinn.anya, MikeSpeaks, Kim Gunnarsson, p.langerz