<div class="line">I was on my third drink in my mother’s basement</div>
<div class="line">because it was Christmas and my father is dead</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">and took with him the plural possessive</div>
<div class="line">of the basement and the house above it.</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">He was so tired before the end</div>
<div class="line">that he spoke only in Freudian slips.</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">He painted houses and sighed a lot before</div>
<div class="line">he died, and my older brother who is clever said</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">if you divided up his sighs you would have words</div>
<div class="line">but all the words would be a synonym for “sigh.”</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">And when he died I remembered something</div>
<div class="line">funny he said at a restaurant one night:</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">“I bet you Caesar would hate his salad.”</div>
<div class="line">I remembered this and whenever I read</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">a menu, I think of Caesar, pissed</div>
<div class="line">that the Greek salad is superior</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">even though they were punks. It happens</div>
<div class="line">like this. A man becomes a salad joke,</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">becomes drop cloths in the basement draped</div>
<div class="line">over an old bed frame. The drop cloths</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">become abstract paintings I can squint through</div>
<div class="line">and finally sigh to, because a man can’t fail</div>
<div class="line"> </div>
<div class="line">a Rorschach test, even if he’s dead</div>
<div class="line">drunk because it’s Christmas and cold.</div><figure class="wp-block-audio"><audio controls src="https://admin.rattle.com/audio/CampbellGhost.mp3"></audio></figure>

Snow

Crowded Heavens Over New Jersey

Great Caesar’s Ghost

<p class="epil">for Alex Dimitrov</p>
<div class="line">I was crying in front of the Quick Trip</div>
<div class="line">because I was out of cigarettes</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">and left my wallet at home and</div>
<div class="line">it was my anniversary and so it was</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">New Year’s Eve, and already too much</div>
<div class="line">had gone wrong for me too often</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">to feel conspicuous about it,</div>
<div class="line">crying, I mean, since it is the end</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">of articulate speech and why</div>
<div class="line">one leaves most crying men alone.</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">I didn’t look up from my hands</div>
<div class="line">for almost an hour, and when I did,</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">my eyes two fish-eyed lenses, I saw</div>
<div class="line">the blurred moon and another man</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">crying, filling up his car, looking at me.</div>
<div class="line">“I’m crying because you are,” he whispered</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">loudly over. “I’m also crying because</div>
<div class="line">maybe it means one of us must stop soon.”</div>


What Is Your Idle Job?

Saving For Sleep

Anniversary

<div class="line">It’s come to this. Since last February I haven’t</div>
<div class="line">touched you or anyone, save for my mechanic,</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">but that was by accident and in March and it</div>
<div class="line">was only a handshake because I forgot he could</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">kill me without meaning to and, besides, I’ve known</div>
<div class="line">him since junior high school. These days, I take</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">a couple of aspirin every morning just for good</div>
<div class="line">luck. I go for one walk, sometimes two, daily,</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">just for research’s sake. Just to see, like some</div>
<div class="line">crystalline anthropologist from the future, if</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">the present is like I imagine it or remember it</div>
<div class="line">from my incessant apartment. I won’t come home</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">(sometimes I have to walk for miles. Once, a whole</div>
<div class="line">day) until I’m convinced I’m not some simulacrum</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">(“Please, dog,” I’ve said aloud on walks, “bite my leg,</div>
<div class="line">go for it. I need evidence”), part of some teenager’s</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">avatar on a campaign, wandering in the desert, banking</div>
<div class="line">on the biblical: that doing so leads to the promised land,</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">or at least someplace worth selling or invading. So,</div>
<div class="line">should I meet you on the street, after all of this (and “if”)</div>
<div class="line"></div>
<div class="line">is over, and I hug you, I’ll not only be doing so too hard;</div>
<div class="line">I will be trying to crush you before you can leave me again.</div>


The One and the Other

The Space Between

Just in Case You Should Meet Me on the Street

<p class="epil"><em>The sum of evil would be greatly diminished if men<br />
could only learn to sit quietly in their rooms.<br />
—Pascal</em></p>
<div class="line">He sits in Union Station so that you don’t have to,</div>
<div class="line">Covered in metallic paint, not moving, like applied</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Pascal taken one step publicly further. The tourists</div>
<div class="line">Patronize him; put money in his gold painted fedora,</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">And encourage him not to explain. The homeless wish</div>
<div class="line">They had his strangeness, his calculation, his economy</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Of gesture. The writers know he is a fleshed out</div>
<div class="line">Character worthy of 200 pages or more, a catatonic</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Knight-errant appearing everywhere in full armor.</div>
<div class="line">The philosophers see him as a meta-symbol,</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">A shimmering sage who sits better than the Buddha.</div>
<div class="line">Look how he sits and stares, they say. Observe how</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Nobody dies because of this.</div>


Misting

Now That You’re Gone

Considering Metal Man (as a Template for World Peace)

<div class="line">I. <em>The Argument: You Wondered Why You Weren&#8217;t Published</em></div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">It’s because the postman has opened</div>
<div class="line">All your submissions and kept them</div>
<div class="line">Tucked your words, as it were, under</div>
<div class="line">His proverbial, federal wing.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">And just so you know,</div>
<div class="line">Your love poems <em>work</em>.</div>
<div class="line">He reads them to his wife in bed</div>
<div class="line">Before what has recently become</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Most lyrical sex; he even adds</div>
<div class="line">A few verbs here and there</div>
<div class="line">For the sake of flow.</div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">II. <em>The Consolation</em></div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">But you’ll be pleased to know</div>
<div class="line">He generally leaves your</div>
<div class="line">Enjambment alone</div>
<div class="line">And understands the way irony</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Goes; a fulcrum for your failure</div>
<div class="line">And his formally elegiac evenings</div>
<div class="line">Which he now has the diction</div>
<div class="line">And courage to call <em>epiphanic</em>.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">His only regret</div>
<div class="line">Is that you aren’t</div>
<div class="line">More prolific.</div>


My Love, Though the Smart Speaker Is Spying on Us

Holy Water

Poet and Audience

Limit result set to products with a specific global product attribute

Limit result set to products with a specific global product attribute term ID (required an assigned attribute).

Limit result set to products with selected global attribute queries.

Limit result set to products assigned a specific category name.

Limit result set to products assigned to a specific group of category IDs.

Limit result set to products not assigned to a specific group of category IDs.

Limit result set to products assigned to a group of specific categories by name.

Limit result set to products not assigned to a group of specific categories by name.

Limit result set to products based on a maximum price.

Limit result set to products based on a minimum price.

What paramater to use to order the objects by.

Use ID to return only children. Use 0 to return only top-level items.

Specify objects whose parent is in an array.

Specify objects whose parent is not in an array.

Limit result set to products with a specific average rating. Must be between 1 and 5

Limit result set to products based on a keyword search.

Limit result set to products assigned a specific shipping class ID.

Limit result set to products with specific SKU(s). Use commas to separate.

Limit result set to products with specific slugs.

Limit result set to products assigned a specific status.

Limit result set to products in stock or out of stock.

Limit result types to types supported by WooGraphQL.

Limit result set to products assigned a specific tag ID.

Limit result set to products assigned to a specific group of tag IDs.

Limit result set to products not assigned to a specific group of tag IDs.

Limit result set to products assigned to a specific group of tags by name.

Limit result set to products not assigned to a specific group of tags by name.

Limit result set with complex set of taxonomy filters.

Limit result set to products assigned a specific type.

Limit result set to products assigned to a group of specific types.

Limit result set to products not assigned to a group of specific types.

Limit result set to products with a specific visibility level.

where

The parent of the node. The parent object can be of various types

parent

The globally unique identifier of the product_variation object.

databaseId

name

date

The local modified time for a post. If a post was recently updated the modified field will change to match the corresponding time.

modified

format

description

Product variation SKU (Stock-keeping unit)

price

regularPrice

salePrice

dateOnSaleFrom

dateOnSaleTo

onSale

status

purchasable

virtual

downloadable

downloads

downloadLimit

downloadExpiry

taxStatus

taxClass

if/how product variation stock is managed

manageStock

stockQuantity

stockStatus

backorders

backordersAllowed

weight

length

width

height

menuOrder

purchaseNote

catalogVisibility

type

image

keysIn

multiple

metaData

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the ProductVariation type

Connection between the Product type and the Product type

preview

Cursor used along with the "first" argument to reference where in the dataset to get data

Cursor used along with the "last" argument to reference where in the dataset to get data

The number of items to return after the referenced "after" cursor

The number of items to return before the referenced "before" cursor

Unique cache key to be produced when this query is stored in an object cache. Default is 'core'.

Term ID to retrieve child terms of. If multiple taxonomies are passed, $child_of is ignored. Default 0.

True to limit results to terms that have no children. This parameter has no effect on non-hierarchical taxonomies. Default false.

Retrieve terms where the description is LIKE the input value. Default empty.

Array of term ids to exclude. If $include is non-empty, $exclude is ignored. Default empty array.

Array of term ids to exclude along with all of their descendant terms. If $include is non-empty, $exclude_tree is ignored. Default empty array.

Whether to hide terms not assigned to any posts. Accepts true or false. Default false

Whether to include terms that have non-empty descendants (even if $hide_empty is set to true). Default true.

Array of term ids to include. Default empty array.

Array of names to return term(s) for. Default empty.

Retrieve terms where the name is LIKE the input value. Default empty.

Array of object IDs. Results will be limited to terms associated with these objects.

Direction the connection should be ordered in

Field(s) to order terms by. Defaults to 'name'.

Whether to pad the quantity of a term's children in the quantity of each term's "count" object variable. Default false.

Parent term ID to retrieve direct-child terms of. Default empty.

Search criteria to match terms. Will be SQL-formatted with wildcards before and after. Default empty.

Array of slugs to return term(s) for. Default empty.

Array of term taxonomy IDs, to match when querying terms.

Whether to prime meta caches for matched terms. Default true.

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the TermNode type

after

before

first

last

Connection between the Product type and the TermNode type

terms

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the visibleProduct type

Connection between the Product type and the visibleProduct type

visibleProducts

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the shippingClass type

Connection between the Product type and the shippingClass type

shippingClasses

ancestors

<div class="line">The man kissed the letter slowly</div>
<div class="line">Before dropping it in the mailbox.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">It felt awkward dropping</div>
<div class="line">My gas bill in after this.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Even my packet of poems</div>
<div class="line">Couldn’t help, whittled down</div>
<div class="line">To imprecise love letters,</div>
<div class="line">Photocopied for any and all comers.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">And I felt suddenly as shameless</div>
<div class="line">As a man in a bar teaching</div>
<div class="line">A pretty woman to shoot pool.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">This is nothing new to you.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">You’ve seen the man</div>
<div class="line">Kissing the letter.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Perchance you’ve been the man</div>
<div class="line">In the bar. As for me,</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Anymore I’ll take any scrap of shame</div>
<div class="line">That the Greeks left us.</div>


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April 10, 2018Erik CampbellThe Man Kissed the Letter

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April 10, 2018Erik CampbellThe Man Kissed the Letter

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Great Caesar’s Ghost by Erik Campbell

Anniversary by Erik Campbell

Just in Case You Should Meet Me on the Street by Erik Campbell

Considering Metal Man (as a Template for World Peace) by Erik Campbell