NAPOLEON CROWNED HIMSELF

april 22nd, 2026 - hank green tries to explain rfk jr.

a couple of my friends watch
this one youtuber, hank green,
seems nice enough, likes to blab
about space and freaky-looking animals,
has some merch my friends bought
(the soap on their counter
held up pretty well, can't remember
what the smell was, but I liked it),
and they showed me him trying to tackle
the question of rfk jr., who is he,
what's he all about, why is he in charge of the HHS,
does he hate science or what,
and damn green really fell down the rabbit hole
trying to come up with an explanation
to tie together a few interviews
and public appearances where rfk jr.
with his surprisingly deep gravelly voice
stumbled his way through questions
on a general vaccine, and green figured
maybe rfk jr. wasn't necessarily
anti-science, maybe anti-RNA vaccines
specifically, had some genuine convictions
however misplaced and incoherent,
and I dunno man, I just don't think
rfk jr. is that complicated. one time
the dude said he wanted bird flu
to rip through chicken populations
so we can breed the immune survivors.
he wants to do that to people.
that's rfk jr. he's a eugenicist.
MAHA isn't a health movement, it's full of
people who think they have superior genetics
and that america's been coddling
the weak and disabled and infirm,
and it's his responsibility as an angel of death
to save america from itself,
if you know what I mean,
and if their own babies get sick from measles
and die, well, that was just god's will,
because god's really into murdering toddlers?

april 23rd, 2026 - simone fight!!

at the risk of sounding
unbearably pretentious,
do we as people by necessity
search for, want for meaning?
I mean (haha) I think we
(generally) have to choose, to want,
consciously or otherwise to Survive,
that's a meaning in and of itself
made up of lots of little meanings,
sociocultural and biological impulses,
eat, drink, live somewhere,
put on clothes, go outside,
make friends, make money,
figure out the social game,
etc., not that that's
universally true, people
are more complicated than a list
and can and do live all kinds of lives,
or choose not to live their lives
one way or another, and either way maybe
I'm being a bit too generous
the way I talk about meaning,
what people intend to do versus
the broader Point of it all,
meaning to Survive is a bit dull,
and I don't think I'd be living
in a cushy apartment and having
a cushy job and just down the street
is a fancy coffee place if everyone
was just trying to Survive, you know?
but it's hard to do anything else
if you can't put food on the table,
if you don't have a table to put food on,
if you have to fight to wake up
every morning face blue
fingers freezing off in rags
by the side of the road,
and really the world I want to live in
is the same one weil wanted,
the world that feeds everyone,
clothes everyone, shelters everyone,
I think existentially I agree more
with de beauvoir, life is all about
finding meaning, it's really how
we're able to live in this world at all,
and that meaning doesn't *have*
to be happiness, but it'd be so much easier
if everyone had the chance to be happy,
and figure out the rest from there.

april 24th, 2026 - that's not very revolutionary proletariat of you

I remember reading about this woman in the soviet union,
either on her own or working with her husband,
making strung-up puppets for children's shows
until she decided it wasn't revolutionary enough,
it was a little too silly, goofy, she had to
put those puppets away and do serious work
seriously advocating for the proletariat,
and I dunno, I just thought the whole thing was sad,
putting my beefs with the soviet union specifically
and the naivety of communism generally aside,
just the idea you can't have any whimsy in your life,
or can't marry whimsy to purpose,
you have to be dedicated to The Cause
and sacrifice yourself in the name of a better world
you statistically aren't going to be living long enough
to see, that's just pretty bleak, isn't it?
we have enough ideologues ranting on street corners
telling people to repent or convert to whatever,
a puppeteer, come on, that's cool, that's interesting,
and if you want to use that as a vehicle
to talk about the distribution of wealth
or the power of the laborer, knock yourself out,
rather have kids arguing and interrogating that kind of thing
in the service of making them more well rounded adults,
and even if it doesn't have anything to do with advocacy,
why not start living in the world you want to now?
I spend probably too much of my time sitting back
wishing I had the guts to take a hammer to my right hand
to force myself to stop writing, give that all up
so I can chase politics like a professor wanted me to,
make the kinds of big, impactful changes I want to see,
but that's coward shit, I can in fact read up
on philosophy and sociology and psychology
and write stuff that reflects the world
as I understand it and as I'd like it to be,
or at the very least dive into my little projects
and have those moments of intimacy and comfort and reflection
that I enjoy and would like to make happen!

april 25th, 2026 - write about the moon

that being said, it feels so
profoundly unfair I could spend yesterday
celebrating my birthday
by hanging out with the family
I'm on reasonably good terms with,
playing arcade games
(and struggling with whether or not
to optimize playtime or ticket count
because these are the kinds of questions
I like to waste my time on),
eating burgers and cake
and crashing on the couch
for a couple hours afterward,
and turning around to write a poem
about marrying joy and purpose,
right after another poem
about marrying joy and purpose,
like that's not easy for me to say,
like I'm not living life
on easy mode over here, middle-class,
nice apartment, decent paycheck,
got health and dental and vision,
well-off in the richest country
in the history of planet earth,
I don't know. there's this poem
I do and don't wish I could find
where the poet talks about
the ghost of her dad standing around
watching al-jazeera, she makes fun of
the poets who have nothing better to do
but write about the moon and flowers
while she's busy trying not to die,
she talks about how she wants to write about the moon
like it's hers, I doubt she can even see it
past the smoke and the missiles and drones,
it's agonizing, the whole thing is
agonizing, and it's part of the reason
I honestly stopped writing poetry
for a while there, not sure what good
my voice is in the face of All This,
what right I have to write about anything
and what right I have to be happy
when I could be using my time
actually doing things, like yeah,
I talk a big game for a shut-in
who has to fight off the impulse
to ghost all my friends and cycle
through some home-work-groceries loop
squirreling myself away until I die
and leave behind everything I've done
for nobody but myself.

april 26th, 2026 - because you don't listen

"I write, because you don't listen!"
I mean, fair, admirable even, trying
to break through this whole malaise
we're swimming through trying real hard
to pretend we're not drowning in it, like god
I think everyone knows this whole war thing
is going to fuck us over, but most people
don't really understand how
or don't want to think about it too hard,
it's not just gas prices going up, but the price of
airplane tickets and plastics and nylon,
generally everything we make from oil
and everything everyone normally ships
across the strait of hormuz, and we can't just
start the factories back up after they shut down
when there's nothing left to work up anymore,
they weren't meant to stop running,
could take months or years to ship everything
and process everything and sell everything
and get somewhere back to normal, assuming
the war ended right here and now, and hey,
once the rest of the world starts panicking
soon here and hoarding what they can, everything
turns into a real highest bidder situation,
and are we going to outspend a Saudi prince?

I dunno though, I'm lucky enough I was sitting
in the back of the car staring out the window
at just the right time to read the graffiti
sprayed on concrete on a factory wall,
who's all even reading? who even reads poetry?
I went to this lovely book celebration
about a week ago, real impactful readings,
everything from a scare where somebody
flew to colorado to maybe redo columbine
to struggling to find your voice in a white world
that hates you for daring to say anything,
but also yeah there was a solid dozen people there
and most of them were also writers
trading the same few dollars around
buying copies of each other's books,
so I can talk all I want about the whole
marrying joy and purpose thing,
and agonize over whether I have a right
to write about anything that isn't serious,
whether I should dedicate myself to The Cause,
but who'd bother reading it either way?

april 27th, 2026 - the history of the nation-state

it's a pretty modern idea, isn't it?
I mean, we've obviously had countries
since two seconds after we could organize
into societies, set up bureaucracies,
distribute responsibilities, start coordinating
trade and commerce with goods and services
made by artisans and passed around by merchants
who don't have to depend on subsistence farming
(at least, not directly) because hey
there's a whole-ass government
helping dictate the price of things
and building the buildings and paving roads
and hiring guards and putting up forts
and imposing and enforcing laws
and carving out a whole sphere of influence
so you can't just shiv your neighbor
and rob their house and sell their jewelry
because you wanted a little extra cash,
but then there's what we expect of countries these days,
especially when it comes to people's welfare,
and even the borders of those countries,
these days we actually have the tools
to draw out and enforce a whole-ass border,
instead of writing up vague treaties
and going to war when they don't make sense
(assuming we wanted to respect those treaties)
or just leaving people out on the border
to fend for themselves in the wake of raids
and campaigns and the odd mercenary or few,
and even the foundation of what a nation is
has changed quite a lot, from an entity
that's capable of defending itself
and/or can conquer its neighbors
to a group of people deciding on their own
to set up their own country that respects
the autonomy of everyone living in it.

well, ideally! every nation has a story
to justify its existence (otherwise, good luck
getting recognized by other nations, or not trampled
by other nations eyeing your land up), and these days
self-determination and autonomy are the buzzwords,
and god knows it's much better than conquest,
but it's so much harder to make a state
that actually respects the rights -
to speak, to move, to believe, to be treated
equally and fairly under the law, etc. -
of everyone who lives in those borders,
and obviously plenty of them don't even bother,
and guns come in where the pretense fails,
and we still have plenty of border disputes
and treaty arguments, oh, and state breakdowns,
just can't function in any sense, pestered
by internal rebellions and external attacks,
but god I think I'd still rather take
a state pretending to care, maybe getting nudged
in the direction of actually caring,
over a state that sees the sword
as aspirational.

april 28th, 2026 - xi jinping will never stop purging his military

I'd say the main downside to democracy
is it's hard to get it working well,
it depends on a public that makes
well-informed, thoughtful decisions
and so sets the stage for leaders
who care about serving the public
to hash out the details and push policy
out the door for bureaucrats
to implement effective ways
to make those policies happen,
that's a lot of moving parts
and a lot of careful thought and planning
with the lure of money and power
hanging over everyone's heads,
cash the checks and fuck everyone else,
and even if everyone has the right intentions,
doesn't mean what comes out of the process
is any good. but, it probably won't be *too* bad,
it can get reworked or ignored or removed entirely,
a democracy is hard to break
completely, power's spread so thin
and so many people have a say
you can't just sic an army on people
and try to arrest your opponents
and build big gaudy monuments in your name
without protests, lawsuits, backlash,
maybe even your arrest and jailing,
depending on the country, but in general
I'd still take a shitty democracy
over a competent autocracy, because
uh, when you centralize power,
everything depends on *you*,
better hope you can do your job
and the people you hire can do theirs
and the people they hire can do theirs
because who's going to notice
or have the power to stop whoever
somewhere along the chain of command
is running off with their slice of the pie,
setting up whole networks of blackmail
and extortion and threats,
are you going to stop every little tyrant
setting up their fiefdoms in random towns,
assuming you even care enough to try?

april 29th, 2026 - illegitimate

you know, section 3 of the 14th amendment
of the united states constitution
spells out that no one can hold
any office in the united states
if they attempt insurrection
against the united states,
violating their responsibility
to the united states in the oath
that they made to protect it.
so, for instance, if the president were to, say,
commit treason by funding america's enemies
or taking bribes to line his pockets
or inciting a revolt against his own government,
then he couldn't legitimately
be the president, right?
and that means all the people he's appointed,
all the executive orders he's sent out,
all the bills he's signed off on,
none of them can be legitimate either, right?
and the same goes for everyone
who attempted to overturn
a legitimate political election,
like, for instance, the one six years ago,
for no other reason than
their guy didn't win it, right?
they helped aid someone rebelling
against the united states by refusing
to acknowledge he lost a legitimate election,
and that also disqualifies them,
according to the 3rd section
of the 14th amendment
of the united states constitution.
just spitballing, throwing it out there,
might be something worth looking into
if we ever have legitimate elections
and legitimate presidents ever again.

april 30th, 2026 - the carnation revolution

sat with a couple friends a couple months back
on the bed while they were explaining to me
how they'd been arguing with a mutual friend
over how they figured the revolution
was right around the corner, had to happen,
the way the rich have been getting richer
off oil and guns and the labor of the poor;
the way the seas are rising and everything's
heating up and drying out and dying off;
the way they're not sure if they can even
get access to their hormones anymore,
they might have to DIY it or flee the country;
it's all got to come crashing down,
no point waiting things out, waiting on some
half-assed gentler capitalism to come along
and apply a 2% tax on carbon emissions,
that'll show the handful of people
choking the world to death and counting on dying
themselves before they have to live through it,
and like, I don't know, I nodded my head
and said well if things get bad enough
it's not really avoidable, as uncomfortable
as that mutual friend had been with the idea, but
in hindsight, I wasn't being very honest with them,
I'm still not very honest with them,
it's an important conversation and I'm scared of it,
because I'd like to not do a revolution?
I'd like to avoid one, as much as it's possible?
like god, violence is a great way to solve problems
and an excellent way to cause new ones,
you want to shut people up for good
and make sure they're never a problem again? violence.
but, uh, that goes both ways, and now you've got
however many people looking for revenge against you,
a problem you can also solve with violence,
but it's hard to stop it escalating from there,
and harder to take violence off the table entirely,
how do you go back to votes and elections
and peaceful transitions of power
and building stable communities
and upholding anything like the rule of law
when everyone remembers the time
they could shoot their way into charge?
it's been done, some very smart and competent people
have been able to wrangle fully functioning states
out of the rubble of revolution, and plenty of others
couldn't quite manage it, got burned by it,
charred to a crisp or bailed, to say nothing about
everyone who needs to live in a stable society,
needs that support and that structure,
whoops, your revolution shut off life support
to a whole bunch of hospitals, whoops,
your revolution cut off access to the hormones
your body can't even make on its own anymore,
what are you going to do about that now?

while I still have the chance to vote
and still have representatives
who are willing to take me seriously
and a constitutional framework
that means I don't have to take things lying down,
I'd really rather work with what I've got
then light everything on fire and hope
there's anything left to work with
by the time the embers die out. and hey,
hungary just voted out its dictator last month
thanks to overwhelming public opposition in the face
of intimidation and threats and ballot stuffing.
argentina tried to seize the falklands
and did such a bad job of it the junta
fell apart and lost the next election.
in portugal yeah it was a bit of a military coup
but also a huge popular uprising
with people putting flowers in guns
that saw the estado novo crumble and give up.
we don't have to tolerate this,
and throughout history we chose not to,
plenty of times fairly peacefully.
not that it's easy or simple or bloodless,
peaceful isn't the same as passive
and sometimes means breaking the law
and running the risk of crackdowns
and arrests and the odd martyrdom,
but god I'd rather take that than deal
with all the would-be revolutionaries
and accelerationists of all political strips
hoping their ideology will be the one
to rise out of the ashes.

hi fox, I want to say that I absolutely ADORE your napo. the themes, the obvious historical research you've done & the parallels.

- vic

thanks, appreciate it! hadn't been writing poetry before napo so was kind of weird to get back into the rhythm of things, but was nice getting my thoughts out there. maybe I'll keep the history theme going next year, do something about the taiping heavenly kingdom or something, that might be fun

AHHH I LOVE THE IDEA!!!! chinese literature is weird and wonderful and has a lot of lessons i think a lot of people nowadays could use a bit of learning