Orchid Tierney

dear doc Williams

the firemen cannot save the constitution. it is why 1854 keeps happening. only Big Poetry can salvage the economy now. did you know that H.B. 1 will strip LPRs of their property rights? the bill would prevent residents from “adversarial nations” from buying a house within 25 miles of an “essential utility” site. in Ohio that means everywhere. who doesn’t live within the reach of wires and pipes and roads? if they come for them they will come for you eventually. that poem. it is why 2016 keeps happening. you ought to write a letter even if they won’t listen. you should go to the town square every saturday. hold a sign in protest that says WE THE PEOPLE even if they don’t mean you. you always arrive at the habitual. place is the only universal. modern poetry accelerates this change. it is why 2024 keeps happening. let’s be honest. you were there one time. you were holding a pro-choice sign. a red car drove around the square before stopping in front of you. the driver leaned out of the window and asked about late term abortions. yes. you said. yes. yes. yes. you’re disgusting he yelled. his wife tutting in the passenger seat. are we not all adversarial? too many know nothing. when you think about it the invention of prose was a disaster. who is propagandising whom? a fact becomes a criticism of life. poetry is as real just as the square is orbicular. no one is really free. you already can see the dead. they are lining up against the wall. the problem is some americans have never been told no. like you. you long for its sweetness. its kinesis. it is 1933.

dear doc Williams

you have a thing for pretty nonsense like the poems among your notes. you scribbled circles on the pad as if you were talking on the phone. you imagine it were a patient. you were so insensible with fear. it was funny. you were at a protest in philly that evening taking photos when the crowd began to herd. suddenly everyone was running in circles while you ran into an alley. you wondered what caused the chaos. and then you saw the cops. the streets dragged up their cars. you heard someone say they were there because that hitchBOT someone had stripped beyond repair. right. admit it. it was funny. robots invoke the sensuality of life. but if robots have a right to move what becomes of you? you were also dismembered in that moment. your head has never been found.

dear doc Williams

your student announces today that Paterson is creepy. you suppose they are responding to the gendered overtones in your work. the objectified voice of a hostile woman who challenged your masculine poem. perhaps she was right. you could never see her as a person. your interest in her as a friend depended very much on your feeling about her sexually. but this creepiness collapses your acceleration towards this new progressive era. never mind that modernism like disaster is always on the cusp of arrival. you know it. your Paterson is a literary creep. the world is in a perilous state and poetry must be your literary pervasion. you have no inclination to continue any conversation. to withdraw requires no permission or consent. the trouble is always nervous. you impose the force of poetry as an engineering solution. remember. this woman is a machine. the mad female poet always makes great source material. that is why you always show yourself to be a man even when you’re a woman and write like one.