Alameda County Death Club Guidelines

punctuality is particularly important; you must be on time for all meetings, murders, and suicide

death to all impulse

you can’t sleep wearing something as black
as the inside of your eyelids so we take
off our robes and hang them up before
bed and intentionally crease the garments to
allow the folds of the garb to look like a
series of canyons wide enough
for shouts of discontent to echo;
attacks bellowing through the valley of
moronic self-directed insolence
is proper hanging technique

death to all reason

you can think the source text is silly but if you
say anything
expect silliness to follow you;
conversely, if you speak like thunder
you will begin to look like it

death to all impulse

ambition is allowed though not encouraged

death to all impulse

patience is limited yet never tested

death to all competence
communication with others is not forbidden
but you will find it
impossible instead
learn to speak with the quiets of your eyes
death to what we have

we have gavels for your use;
allow your hysterics to make
the wood come out of the white
to tell itself about the intersection
of insecurity and power

death to all impulse

you can ask greatness from others but stop expecting it from yourself

death

Jacob Fowler is a recent college graduate and current fourth grade teacher in the Bay Area. His love for poetry has been a long and arduous love affair and he has only recently started writing his own. His work has been accepted for publication by Riggwelter Press, Levee Magazine, and The Otherside Magazine.