every need fights to make
(from K. LINES THAT AIM TO BE)
its voice heard, to be
fulfilled with a gentle touch
K’s lines, encountered after I had spewed the below caustic grump at the demons of my own distractedness, furnished an alleviating contrast.
It comes down to simple resolve to have
Your way with the day. Foreswear frittering.
Swear off salving every loopy freak
Flopped on the stoop, manky hat in hand.
Never mind the entreaties. No demand
Answerable except with laser seek,
Otherwise you haven’t gained a damned thing;
Just time lost and an empty crock of salve.
(c) 2026 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved
EthicalDative 
Rae Armantrout Appeals to My Inner Toddler
I want to say Rae Armantrout springs a cavalcade of huggable schwas on me, but rumpled or purple or bubbly would describe them, too. As long as they’re duple bumpy words.
Joints grind like
shot brakes.
Food ignites
in our stomachs.
But we’re still muffin-bunnies,
muddle-buckets,
cuddle-chunks.
(From “Apocrypha,” Poetry, June 2026)
Armantrout’s boney, yet highly legible, minimalism does me that rare favor poetry can bestow on a reader, to wit, elicit laughter. Twenty-six syllables cresting in a persnickety streak of thud-nuts provide a rambunctious chuckle-ride. The wry-serious vocables smack of kid talk with a whiff of nursery rhyme and playground marketing. (“Muffin-Bunnies” are well positioned for the sugary snack rack at a 7-Eleven checkout.)
Also, who is one who has driven with frayed brake pads, and has complaining joints, that doesn’t seize immediately on the “grinding” simile? A brusque epithet plucked from the vernacular, “shot,” suits it to a tee.
(c) 2026 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved