The Congressman said fluoride in the tap water would effectuate Sharia law.
The Congressman said immigrants would hire water sommeliers.
The Congressman said immigrants open froyo shops on every corner.
The Congressman said immigrants suckled like a dewy, famished baby.
The Congressman said terrorists suckled on the **** of welfare and secretly ran things.
The Congressman said Season 2 of The Wire was the best one, beyond question.
The Congressman said net neutrality would stifle board game night, blot out the imagination.
The Congressman said that true patriots were never neutral.
The Congressman said that drag queens were using the library, checking out books.
The Congressman said Taco Tuesday was fake news, a grand globalist conspiracy.
The Congressman said big government was coming for your houseplants and moist towelettes.
The Congressman said big government was the enemy.
The Congressman said terrorists were the enemy.
The Congressman said immigrants were the enemy.
The Congressman said the other was the enemy.
The Congressman said anyone who would order $7 avocado toast was the enemy.
The Congressman said anyone who read newspapers was the enemy.
The Congressman said that anyone who fact-checked a politician’s statements was the enemy.
The Congressman said enemies would burn the Constitution in a pile of seized towelettes.
The Congressman’s challenger said she got death threats and promptly dropped out.
The Congressman said she was lying, there were no threats.
The Congressman said she was really a liar all along.
The Congressman said he had tried to warn everyone.

The winter of our discontent
The spring of our discontent
The summer of our discontent
The fall of our discontent

We better move to Phoenix
or Miami or maybe the Bay Area
if we can afford it. So fatigued, so weary,
so tired of the endless changing of the seasons

Oh nascent soul in a starched Oxford,
know that corporate grinds you down,
takes your time, your hustle, your ambition,
your early mornings and late nights at the office,
missed time with family and friends.

They steal your health, your waistline,
your smoldering fire, your last spark,
your giddy sense of a boundless future
and endless possibility.

You slave away, grind yourself down
so shareholders who swim in pools of more money
than they’ll ever realistically need
can reap a marginal benefit.

And in the end, no matter how much you give them,
they’ll just cast you aside like trash anyway.
There’s no more expectation of a gold watch at retirement,
no more decency to the people who keep the profit flowing in.

It’s a machine that chews you up and expectorates you.
It’s a machine that knows no kindness, no mercy.
It’s a machine that feasts on blood and rumbles on eternally.

The zine entailed a ton of work
that mostly went unnoticed.

He printed, folded, stapled
a slapdash publication few appreciated.

Stacked ten-deep, it festered unread in coffee shops,
indie bookstores, craft breweries.

A zinester isn't daunted by obscurity.
After all, a zinester is never voiceless.

Tony Hoagland later revealed himself as problematic
On issues of race and empathy
But what a wit
What a talent
What a social observer
What an analyzer of narcissism
What a chronicler
Of Bible studies, jet fuel imbibing and America itself
What a piercer of the illusions
Of blue-haired college students with tongue studs
And aversions to comfortable homogeneity
The spiked collar of strip malls and spoon-fed mass entertainment

How do you
Separate
The art from the artist
Do you
Should you
Can you

Where does the conversation stop
Where does it end
Where does it loop back
Where does it germinate
And begin

The wind knows
the rustle of the oak boughs,
the susurrus of the prairie grass,
the fragrance of the wildflowers,
the stillness at the edge of the lagoon.

The wind knows
the trilling of the warblers flitting through the tallgrass,
this flat and endless expanse of verdant, sun-bathed flora,
this kingdom of wide-open spaces, the big empty,
these geographies that define us, within and without.

Yngwie Malmsteen shredded on six strings,
set a new standard that was baroque beyond imagining.

The virtuoso rocker was a guitarist's guitarist,
a neoclassical metalhead strumming a Stratocaster like no other.

He impressed those in the know with his technical expertise.
He never struck a chord with a mainstream audience.