Poets usually either rhapsodize the world or explain it. In The Equation that Explains Everything, Andy Cox shows us that he is an explainer, but he explains through a wondrous broken logic where blind men drive under the influence of dogs, rubber snakes entice the world with plastic apples, and two plus two equals five but all the tiny sighs in the hours before quitting time add up to nothing. This book is both wise and wise-cracking, and though Cox's unflinching eye appraises the hard luck and broken hearts, he can't help but also remark "how farfetched and keen it is to be alive." -Richard Newman, author of Domestic Fugues and editor of River Styx
Evangelical
On the Sunday I saw horns
sprouting from the reverend's head,
the Baptist god left me alone
in the cold morning air.
I haven't put coins
in that righteous tray for so long,
I've become a saint
to my own personal god.
I've given him the face
of a Peruvian medicine man.
Underneath the high forehead
are Stan Laurel's tender eyes.
And my body is the evangelical tent
where his voice booms from a place so deep,
I'm filled with believers
shouting and stamping their feet.
Evangelical
On the Sunday I saw horns
sprouting from the reverend's head,
the Baptist god left me alone
in the cold morning air.
I haven't put coins
in that righteous tray for so long,
I've become a saint
to my own personal god.
I've given him the face
of a Peruvian medicine man.
Underneath the high forehead
are Stan Laurel's tender eyes.
And my body is the evangelical tent
where his voice booms from a place so deep,
I'm filled with believers
shouting and stamping their feet.
