Wide open on its pin (though fast asleep)
Once we get through this current news cycle I look forward to drilling down on the matter of whether or not bears actually shit in the woods.
At least we have our brightest theological minds on the case. Somehow managing to commit sacrilege toward the Bible and Pulp Fiction at the same time.
Here's something kind of interesting.
On Wednesday night, the Senate rejected a pair of resolutions that would have blocked the sale of bombs and bulldozers to Israel.
Although the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, which were introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) failed to pass, a record number of Senators backed the effort. 40 Senators backed a resolution would have blocked the sale of $295 million in D9R and D9T Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel and 36 members voted for a resolution that would have stopped a $151.8 million sale of 1,000-pound bombs to Israel.
What do they use all those bulldozers for anyway?
Luke O’Neil
Today I'm gonna share a few new poems or short stories or vignettes or whatever it is that I write. I'm about a third of the way through a potential new book and I've been writing a lot lately. Mostly because it's the only thing I actually enjoy doing in the world I guess? Also due to all of the death of late I feel something akin to a biological clock impulse to leave a body of work behind that lives on after my actual body. If you're a literary agent or a publisher and you want to help me sell it please feel free to get in touch. If you're a regular person please feel free to share any of them on your preferred social media platform.
I was sorry to hear from so many of you that you did in fact "understand this" from the other day.
Luke O’Neil
If you can please consider sending a few bucks to help support my old buddy's family here.
One of the first things we tend to think is "at least their suffering is over" but who the fuck asked for the suffering in the first place? Who called that in?
Updates from my backyard April 14, 2026
I just watched a butterfly go ripping ass right by me in a horizontal flight pattern. Like a line out to short. I didn’t know that they were able to do that. I thought it was only ever the dinking around that we’re all accustomed to by now. I wondered if it must have forgotten something back at home before heading off to work. Had maybe left the stove on.
They say that there’s a purpose to their famous seasick lilting. An erratic pattern makes them a more annoying target for birds. The main antagonists in their fortnight of life.
Why the elaborate coloring then you might be wondering as I was also just wondering. Could be as some butterfly guys say that it’s a sort of attempt at teaching birds a lesson. Using themselves as the bait and the trap and also a decoy. Birds are drawn to the brightness we all know that about birds obviously and so they blast right down and whoop/whoop the butterfly starts juking all around like Barry Sanders. Then if they end up catching him anyway there’s barely any meat on the fucking thing.
Repeat this millions of times throughout the entire history of the living world and eventually word goes out on the bird streets that it’s just not worth it.
A neon sign for a diner far off of the highway where the portions are too small to spare the gas.
Hold on I just read Nabokov’s On Discovering a Butterfly and now I don’t want to write about this anymore or anything else ever again.
Wide open on its pin (though fast asleep)
What’s the point? I would have been better off trying to write a rock song about a fuckin… escalator to eternity.
Before I go though I should say that the bees have returned as well. Their scouts sniffing around on my porch. I keep exhaling my cigarette in their faces to get them to fuck off but I think maybe it’s backfiring on me. They all seem wired now. One of them just offered me a dollar to bum a smoke but I couldn’t in good conscious take his money. We’re all in this thing together.
Speaking of the backyard:
I've been given bad advice by my pal Ceej here.
I believe I heard someone in the back just now say "Luke why don't you use this video as an excuse to reshare the story about the fox from A Creature Wanting Form?" Well ok if people are asking for it.
Now some other guy is going "Wasn't there one about shitting in the woods too? Which you talked about at the top of the newsletter if you recall?" Alright fine if you insist.
"Weren't you supposed to be sharing new ones? Got anything about a bulldozer? Which you also mentioned previously." Sorry sorry. Here you go.
The teddy bear
The blast lifted me up and off of the street and tossed me into a stone wall. Crumbling already before any of this. I had remarked not a moment earlier on some of its silly graffiti. We had tea just near here once I had said and thought now again in my cartwheeling. Right over there on the old patio. You remember this place right? When I awoke some time later there came a vibration through the pavement beneath me. The pebbled granite levitating in the dust. Where was my sister? Ok. Ok. Just there. I tried to stand to go to her but my body was no longer under my command. I reached out for her leg all the same to pull her to safety but soon passed out again. Coming to once more and there was the bulldozer. I crawled over the splintered wood and glass an inch at a time but I was too slow. Mere feet away an impossible distance. She was alive. I want you all to know that. For it to be marked down. I saw that she was alive. Watched her slight turn inward before I looked away. Like a child sleeping. I saw the driver seeing her as well and felt something like pity and then an alien guilt. For what we must have done to have made them do this to us. Surely they would regret it later. Surely any person would have to.
Paid subscribers can keep reading for a few more down below. Thanks as always for being here.
Before that though please check out these old but new to me videos if you've never seen them by Irish comedian Michael Fry. I swear to god I was laughing my ass off then weeping literal big tears. They're all so funny to begin with then just absolutely nail the turn every time. What a good bit!
I am reasonably sure that this will also be of interest to the Hell World audience.
Don't kill me but,
Real quick here are two more additions to the classic Hell World feature "posts that I wish I had written as poems (and that I'll probably end up stealing anyway)."
