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[Poetry]

CHILL DICTATOR SAYS
by Tyler Hall

CHILL DICTATOR SAYS        
because we all have the same
ugly houses and there is no need
for competition: Concerns grow
more appropriate. You worry about
the right thing but I'm pretty thrilled
with the free time, myself. Your house
is not on fire. Do not beat yourself up
about an empty silver bucket.

CHILL DICTATOR SAYS        
his calculations must be correct
or else we will all soon be asking
of our dogs questions like 'can you love
your suffering?' to paraphrase a song
that is right now clicking in my jaw.
He is right now with me in the shadow
of a small mountain & we govern by what can only
be described as a secret kind of committee. 

CHILL DICTATOR SAYS        
remember, before me
your guts were made totally of knives. Then
I come tell you what to do & your swallowing
turns so smooth. That taking away was my gift
to the uninsured against worry. Through these mud-
tinted times I have seen you & drawn the chillest bath
imaginable. I am a line so perfect that the thought
to cross me is just totally gone.





CHILL DICTATOR SAYS        
it's chill,
you're choosing this.  A dumbness descends
just in time: for nothing at all I reckon I could
be rid of you. The response is obvious: Well sure
you could, but then who's going to pretend not
to see you? Not going to recognize the eminence
in your meaningfully doffed hat? Who will not be
thriving behind your totally perfect line?

CHILL DICTATOR SAYS        
it is wooden & hollow, 
this jeans & t-shirt set you laid out
for me the night before we laid
the foundations of the earth. Again,
I don't have a problem with you staying
I just don't see why you can't speak
to me in my native tongue. Outside,
nothing anybody says makes it better.





  

  

  

Tyler Hall lives in Dallas where he waits tables and watches EWTN.


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