In the Garden

Remember Nashville before Opry Mills?
440 I think was drivable.
Good country boys didn't visit Printer's Alley.
Or didn't mention it in polite company.
Does it feel like we skipped something?
Some years? Missed a war?
A coronation?

Dead Letters (to Brandon)

I'll tell you this secret about men: we crave,
desperately, to be seen. When we step off the train, we hope
you notice the heft of our footsteps, the weight we believe
we carry.

What He Didn't Know Before

What can I say? I had ever-after ping-ponging its potential against my palms.
I dreamt of oceans and operas, fireflies and football,
and it all exploded toward infinity
before I really had a plan.

Apologia of a God Who Abandoned Its Creation

But sometimes it’s better to take her hand and imagine
tipping the warm honey of your love down your arm
to pool at the strong roots her fingers resemble,
so she has something to eat before the dinner shift

The Author at 11 Wanted to be Reincarnated as a Dog

If I connect the scars from these surgical incisions,
my torso holds a ragged greater-than symbol.
What is my value today?
It depends on which men later stand next to me,
what I see that day in the mirror

From the Shadow (5)

Blood clot
lysed. Sluice
of meds
Pissing 8 oz
of black-red
blood, sebaceous
like yesterday’s
coffee. Blood from
the oldest hurt

Blood Clot: Coda

I was reluctant to call myself a poet until I learned the secret of memory—
the senses are vectors to the past.

Imagine a City

The Great Permission: A reliquary is the first booksite—a poetry collection built exclusively for the web.

The Great Permission: A reliquary

allow yourself to drift

toward some fertile body waiting for the spark of life. One concept you should
develop is that of yourself
as a physical object occupying space. By which I mean: Get the fuck outta the way.

Andrew P. Dillon

Books

Selected work