Brian Oliu

@brianoliu.bsky.social

1547 Followers 987 Following

former bama higher ed faculty / current mn higher ed comms / former egan’s dj / current cool dad / former bad poet-athlete / current bad poet-athlete

False Spring Still Feels Like Spring Everyone’s forecasting in February but it doesn’t take a meteorologist to notice unstable air. I wore shorts today because I run hot and I am an eternal optimist, so I take the long way home— the ponds defrosting at the golf course, the kids in snowsuits circling the playground equipment at Casa de Corazón. At the light at Cleveland, my son knows to ask if I can honk the horn— a toast to the wine moms and their poster board. I’ve seen folks get real reckless at last call, so I keep the scraper under the seat and a whistle in my pocket. But for a moment in the alley, I allow the myself the grace to let the birdsong in.
A poem Monster Trucks at the End of the World The lesson here is being broken is part of the show— if Megaladon loses a wheel on an errant jump, or if El Toro Loco’s horns are crushed under the weight of its own spin, it is the talk of the Blue Line home. It is better to watch Grave Digger bust an axle from the 40-yard line than to see a man pulled out of a crumpled passenger-side door in the shadow of the cathedral. I am learning lessons in how to compartmentalize destruction— doom scrolls and empty calories when it’s only me and the dog awake. Instead, let’s talk about dirt, and how it is brought into the stadium on dump trucks, locally sourced from the Minnesota earth. Let me lie here for a minute amongst the dust and wreckage before a fleet of arms flip me to my feet.
Nick Saban graffiti style drawing saying MAKE ICE’S ASS QUIT