We don’t need children. I have your bad art to hang on the fridge.
         —My spouse, Vievee

How to classify the curious artistic productions
of Matthew Olzmann? Early Cave Drawings?
Postmodern Stick Figures? Witness
the savant who believes mustard stains
on Detroit Lions sweatshirts are an aesthetic statement.
Mingus says, Making the simple, awesomely simple,
that’s creativity, and few artists are simpler than this guy.

Not to brag, but Olzmann is also a national tragedy
when singing in the shower. The concept of “notes”
eludes him, and making him understand lyrics
need to be sung in a specific order
is like explaining Vasiliev Equations to an aardvark.

This is a poem about failure.

If you zoom out far enough, your life
will get smaller and smaller
until it’s a speck of nothingness inside a greater nothingness.
How do we make this meaningful?

The first instrument I tried to play as a child was a drum.
The teacher said, The inside of the drum is hollow.
There’s only emptiness. To make the sound, you hit it
as hard as you can. You mean hit the drum? I asked.
No, he said, You have to hit the emptiness.