This collection of poems is the record of a descent into the neurotic maelstroms and infernal abysms of neoliberal hell. It is a confrontation with the spiritual desert of the 21st century and all the dim beings who dwell there, chasing shadows, afraid of their own shadows, and trying to hide in the fire. These poems inaugurate an archaeology of repression, diving uninhibitedly into the maladies of the contorted psyche. There we find a madness that denies its own existence as it burns down its house, poisoning the Earth with the fumes of its rapacity and narcissism. But in the grotesquerie of this inferno — in doing the shadow work that the powers of this world neglect and let fester — we find a humanity immaculately preserved in the ash. We come to know that the Spirit is the thing that never dies: It rests immovable and endures as the profane world runs amok and flames out. T. Abbott Collins has published poems in small literary journals since 2011. He released an experimental rap album under the moniker looCcaM in 2023. Apocalyptic Clichés, his first collection of poems, was published in 2024 by Fifth Entelechy Publishing, an imprint he established. His poetic style draws influence from the Anglo-American and European avant-garde traditions of the 20th century and is grounded in catachresis, fragmentation, ellipsis, and dense imagery: It is a poetics of miniaturization and plasticity. Tim, as known by family and friends, has also published scholarly articles on metaphor and sound in poetry, and more specifically on the work of Chaucer, Poe, Wu-Tang Clan, Jean Baudrillard and Jacques Lacan. He worked for several years as an adjunct instructor and has been working as an unwaged researcher and poet for many years. Tim plans to release three more volumes of poems and is working on a novel.