Crumpled stem

What if only the legs prevail?

beyond unattractiveness

what are repercussions for the

mind and other limbs?

these parts radiate from the loin

these thighs cradle all life

or not, but they inhabit this

architecture cultural physical

template but what of a mind

imagining itself wobbling at

the top of a crumpled stem

or wholistically unwhole

What about arms that have

strategically surrendered to

over and under working

and life-extending poisons

Let it be the legs that go

last let me cling to the

capacity to run away

to die while seeking freedom

Comical scenes come to

mind for example if blind

earnest, yet flattened by

a car, which reminds all

The rest of us of where

we are, that some liberties

cannot should not be.

Only the mind can flee.

Ayre Fromme-Diaz

Dance of good fortune

Bone pile

Sure they use coffins their bodies are human-sized

And they go in the ground everybody cries

But who decorates a casket like a fancy cake

Parades it in the streets along with fist shakes

This is what they appear to do in their culture

We on the other hand would only act that way

If somebody kept killing our families or gays

And we wanted to send a message of both

Love and rage grief and exasperation

But i've never seen it happen in our nation

In Mexico they'll make a big show for the

Funeral but if you can't pay your remains

May be replaced by the next guey and 

May even be on display in a bone pile

Invisible from the North American aisle

The more you explore exotic continents

Listen to sentences with few consonants

One finds it's also just the same: humans 

Stuck in a box culture history war place

Or freedom deconstructionism outer space

Ayre Fromme-Diaz

decarboxylation

having expended energy, there is a result

i've been heated down to my sparkly remains

i am ready to be consumed directly

my face and my facade have fallen apart

self-referentiality sings into a void

narcissus sees the lovely water, but that's all

girth of Milky Way = 140x < my debris field

who is even speaking now i can't say

wouldn't you know anxiety alone survives

Chamatilly

They brought him indoors to die

it must be odd to spend your last days in a novel environment

maybe you're too complicated now for the sun's direct rays

they bring you finally into overrated shelter

but it's a confusing and confounding place of artificial darkness

and metaphoric light and shade this isn't how nature was made

they bring you in to tell your story for you

they bring you in because they think you'll finally fit in a box

and who could stand to watch your body molder where it drops

they bring you in to pay your debt to a hole in the ground

did you dream of animals that drag themselves to a

final sounding place did you admire their agency

the clarity of their version of filling emptiness

was there a window where a life could pass by

instead of before your eyes did you allow them to take you

safely to their own imagined wigwams in the sky

they brought you indoors to die in order to manage the process

maybe it was your plan all along to disappear on a palanquin 

after promising your organs to the crows and the scorpions

Ayre Fromme-Diaz

"Remembering Leonard Knight"

If you're looking for silver

If you're looking for silver

I'd direct you to the center

of the cloud, not its perimeter

and if you're finding 

your happy lining

it's just because the sun is shining

once in a wood

a poet couldn't see

the moon for a tree

that seemed to glow from within

a silver glow second only to the sun

a light that night cannot darken

that's why an irreligious lunatic

can be so optimistic

and savage nature so idyllic

Ayre Fromme-Diaz

Virtually no production shutdowns

All biological namesakes of Jan Jansdaad Jr. have the duty and the privilege of electing Depth of Relationship (DOR) settings. 

To begin, select the  >Batch function, which will assign the same foundational DOR setting to All Living Jans. You may select from foundational settings such as vague acquaintance, acquaintance, buddy, friend, lover, family (all permutations), family (all blood), family (nuclear), or none (your setting will default to the foundational DOR setting of the individual Jans with whom you will interact). Selecting "none" signals that you are willing to comply equally with any of the foundational settings that another Jan may have chosen. 

Before finalizing your selection, reflect on how each of these choices as a foundational DOR for All Living Jans will affect your trajectory. You must also take into account the likelihood of other Jans' DOR choices aligning with yours. 

For example, can you realistically expect that the foundational DOR selected by other Jans, even those whom you have never met, will align with your "family (nuclear)" election? You might think it would be great for everyone to be your parent, sister, or brother, but what level of compliance can you realistically expect? How likely is it that other Jans will also have chosen "family (nuclear)" as their foundational DOR?

Next, select the >Filter function, which can batch select subgroups of Jans for assignment of group DOR settings. 

Choose a group. Some of these are coworkers, neighbors, service workers, and imaginary Jan friends. 

Next, assign your preferred DOR setting to that group. Do the same for each of the other groups. Remember that if you do not choose a setting, the DOR will default to the setting chosen by any other Jan with whom you might interact. 

If neither of you has chosen a setting, you are on your own with the limited skills of communication and empathy that your average Jan can muster. For DOR related emergencies, do not contact MPS. Call your local emergency services number directly. 

Once you have entered conflict mode with another Jan, your option to elect DOR settings manually will not be available. Please allow the technician to access your Filter of Loathing panel and make the appropriate adjustment to your master settings. These settings will remain in effect until you have updated your foundational and group DOR settings in the app. 

At this time, no individual DOR settings are available for election through the app. Selection of individual DORs must be negotiated per pre-MPS guidelines, and no support can be provided for these primitive transactions. 

For these and many more reasons, MPS strongly suggests setting all groups and subgroups, including your actual nuclear family, to the "acquaintance" DOR level by simply electing the "acquaintance" DOR as your foundational DOR setting. 

Within the "acquaintance" foundational DOR setting panel, you may select from three modes: acquaintance (default), acquaintance (trusted), or acquaintance (red flag).  

The foundational "acquaintance (default)" DOR setting is designed to ensure lasting, dependable, and uninterrupted collaboration with all other Jans no matter their group, subgroup, or elected DOR settings. You will experience virtually no production shutdowns due to emotional imbalance, abstract allegiances, biological coupling, unplanned pregnancies, or STIs. 

K5000 dump frag #lke89723hlsg0i234i
Phyliss [trans.]

Path of Self-Destruction

Missy is soaring low, just above the siraitia grosvenorii canopy near Ilyn's Diving Board. 

She notices two tiny K males ready for combat. Their tails are raised and curled back over their heads. The cool, shadowy grove seems an unlikely place for tensions to build. 

Feeling bored, Missy decides to take a side, to see if she can force a duel and then influence the outcome. There were far too many male Ks in the Chanklands. She would only ever need one, if any. 

Soaring in a tight circle, she reflects on which of the males is most irritating to her. Then she chooses the one she would least like to eat as the loser. His left brachiopatagium is discolored, perhaps from salt water. "Did you ever stop to think about how your opponent is feeling?" she asks him. 

He cannot respond, and he doesn't know where the question is coming from because Missy is speaking to him with her mind only. 

"You think he deserves your wrath, but did you ever look yourself in the mirror?"

The fighter Missy's chosen as the winner, and perhaps her future sex toy, has sensed an advantage. He hasn't even bared his claws or teeth. Instead, he regurgitates the sloppy, stinking remains of three pilgrim scouts onto loser's face. 

"Imagine the kind of pain he must be feeling, the stress he must be under, to disrespect you that way. You know, life is all about choices. You can give into your shameful anger and start another fight (why do you always get into fights?), or you can turn around and walk away right now. You have choices today."

Missy's loser actually internalizes her message and turns to walk away. This arrogance enrages Missy's winner, who feels that he who holds the high ground is he who can bravely be the ass kicker, not the one who self-righteously declines to fight. 

Missy's winner chomps onto the end of the loser's tail and drags a couple of teeth along it deep enough to crush a row of keratinoid scaling, a mark that will heal but not disappear. 

Missy's loser turns reflexively, baring three rows of teeth and a fiercely aromatic hiss. 

"You're going to let him push your buttons? Tell me. Is this what you want your life to be like? Blundering from one conflict to another? Is this how you want to spend the remaining time you have on the surface? Why are you always searching for trouble? Can't you just leave this one alone?" 

Missy's loser is not able to take in the last of these thought messages because Missy's winner has buried his teeth in loser's ear basket and also the corner of his eye, so there is a lot of emotional and electronic static in the connection due to this world-class pain event. 

"It's ok man. You know, at least you are dying honorably. And it's karma, right? You have to admit. You had this coming. In these last few moments, forget about the teeth in your eye. This is you time. Think about, for example, how you will explain your path of self-destruction to LaMthyuh." 

morning train

morning train this day is past due

it won't get better with time

fact is

you're living in tomorrow fool

you're living in tomorrow fool

Train from a brick house starts as a

choir singing or a trapped fly

then you're

shaking and you wonder why

shaking and you wonder why

morning train you can go on

to the shadow of the sun

where they're

still asleep and wanting none

still asleep and wanting none

Missy wigs out before her first big recital

But Missy, you've at least got to be familiar with basic algebraic terms before you can move onto

I reject mathematics

I know it's not interesting for you, and it really is beneath your dignity to be expected to follow a regimen of daily study in

It's not that I'm lazy or uninterested or too good for mathematics, darling. I say I reject them. Mathematics. Algebra. Physics. I reject them, I say! I don't even count when I'm playing music or dancing la dance. You are right, numeric pursuits, no matter how abstract, are beneath us all. They are crude attempts at representing no more than a pitiful few parlor tricks of nature. 

Of course your experience of nature and of existence is inerrant and eminent and

And oh yes I know, peppermint. Please stop it. I'm just trying, perhaps poorly, to express the availability, the accessibility of these concepts and far more, simply by living a life of nirvanic mindfulness. And that such a life is the only way to truly understand nature, which is not made of laws, but of love. 

Missy was actually beginning to doubt her own sanity, her grasp on reality, and she knew that there must be an experience, a foundation, that she could call reality and that, regardless of all the gaslighting that the court and the courtiers could produce, this perception, knowledge, understanding would be and must be the foundation for all thought and action going forward, but most of all, it would create a lovely opportunity for a nap. 

Phyliss [trans.]

God become flesh become beast become metaphor become flesh become god become beast

Do you remember the day you decided to sign the Extinction Takeback Agreement and release La Pegyuh-uh into the wild? 

Hmm yes I certainly do. Of course I do. 

I imagine it was a

An emotional time, an emotional day, yes. Just the decision to do so, you see, was difficult on all of us. She hadn't even gone yet, hadn't even been informed, still behind bars, quite lidderly. 

At the hangar? 

Yes, Friends Hangar, yes. They call it Friends Hangar now. 

What was it then, sir? 

It was a charnel house. A place of desmadre and of horror. A moonlit cavern many times larger than our greatest stone cathedral completely coated, hanging with gristle, bone chips, shredded scout uniforms, backpacks. 

She'd been getting out on her own from time to time then? 

No, well, there was no need. The flekes came to her, didn't they? 

That was, is, in their custom, their reason to live and multiply. 

To be food for the mouths of LaMthyuh, yes, of course. 

So you knew, all of you, that once free, released from this cathedral of charnel, there would be others, not flekes, civilians, Jans, for example, who would be hurt, who

Who would die, yes, of course that is the bargain. 

And what is it that you got in return. 

I got a lifetime of penance and giving, mostly on the road, being a white light for the pilgrims, a cart to follow on up the hill to the holy place. 

You speak of the diving board. 

Of course, yes, it's my—it's Mthyuh's Diving Board, and it is at the climax of our holy trail of dirt and the logical culmination and the spiritual reboot of our journey our journey together. 

Your message is one of reincarnation. 

That's a very funny word that I would never use in the context of my circuit, reincarnation, ha! I wish I could magically get fresh meat to go around in on a regular basis but that is sadly the whole point of my existence that no matter the punishment and devastation to my body, I still rise back up through the soils to our surface without missing a beat. It's really all too routine to Shab and me now. We'd actually like more of a break now and then. We love our stops along the road to drink from the dung-spiked waters and pick marigolds and chrysanthemums for my bed and as gifts for devotees and the poor, who are known to eat them directly off the stems or burn them in funerary rites and charnel houses. 

It's a message of healing then, not a do over. 

Sure, it's both, and don't forget putrefaction

The stages of putrefaction 

Yes, the stages of putrefaction perfectly mirror the stages of enlightenment in the charts and tables as they are handed down by the MPS. 

And the translation of these tables and charts is inerrant. 

I guess you could say that. The tables and charts are not translated, so ya, they are what the ladies, you know, La Pegyuh-uh, LaChama. the more articulate one, what they say. It's just that they say it with their minds only, and the MPS has to write it down, but they speak the language of the mouths of Mthyuh so I'd call it seamless, yes. You know, nobody asks how Shab gets to be immortal. We get it that the Dog Spirit is in every dog and that any dog can be loved and will respond to love and in a way teach and be an avatar of love, and when they die, they spring up again, and they are the same Dog Spirit. This is easy to spot in other species, but less so in our own, even though it is equally true. 

Each one of us has

Yes, Dog Spirit, correct, each one of us has that, is that. Flipping a couple of switches in a DNA strand won't change that blessed truth. 

But it could change other aspects of an animal, say an extinct one, right? 

You refer to the manner in which we were able to retrieve 

The beasts, yes, the K bitches. 

They, too, were always with us. They only needed flesh to show and assert themselves again in a less abstract manner. 

Whereas once they were a metaphor

Right, that's it, no more figurative language to describe the essence of our religious moral social legal coding. Now all of that is 

Flesh. 

Flesh, yes. 

Yes, flesh. 

Your majesty, your beauteous grace, sir Ilyn, I cannot

Stop it. Thank you. It was a pleasant and welcome break from my duties, to which I will now return somewhat refreshed. 

From: Only known interview with his graciousness. 
Phyliss [trans.]

Flying K

Honestly I didn't know what to choose or not choose to add; as soon as I said no, not that, then one of you guys would be like no? Why not? Look how it's connected to this and this and that, so. 

Ya, that Ayre Fromme-Diaz, especially, what is she HR? she's all like ya put it all in there! It's easier to subtract later than to add later. Really though?

I am not so sure about that. As soon as I send it through the transmitter it is logged forever and will outlive us all. 

Look, said Fromme-Diaz, it's a dump. The K-5000 got shot down, so you can't expect all the files to land in a convenient storyboard for your translating purposes. 

And I realize she has a point, so that actually eliminates any anxiety at least about choosing the wrong material or choosing too much material from now on. Maybe one day I'll also get 

[Message Invasively Truncated Here by MPS]

Phyliss [trans.]

Oracle of the Bored and Jaded Deity

PILGRIM: Oracle of the Demon of All Loving, All Giving, All Knowing, please, my life is passing before my eyes, and I'm trying to sieve it off into the Fountain of Forgetting, but it's coming too fast, there are whitecaps forming on the fountain waters, and all other operations are under threat of shutting down. Please, make it stop! 

LA CHAMATILLY (in the mask of the Demon of All Loving, All Giving, All Knowing): Have you consulted directly with Braino as you are doing with me here, now. 

PILGRIM: No, of course not, he's the one causing this mess! He's the one

LA CHAMATILLY (still wearing the mask, holding it before her face on the end of a twig): Consult directly with Braino. 

PILGRIM: But it's

LA CHAMATILLY: Do it.

PILGRIM: Braino, my life is passing before my eyes, and I'm trying to sieve it off into the Fountain of Forgetting, but it's coming too fast, there are white caps forming in the fountain waters, and all other operations are in danger of shutting down. Please, make it stop! 

BRAINO (Chamatilly ventriloquizes to the PILGRIM in a deep, knowing voice and with her mind only): Yes, I understand. All you need do is ask. No, I cannot make it stop. But I can continue to engage with the text on your behalf while you get some food and sleep. I will report back in the morning upon your command. 

K-5000 dump #ljierf9og8u3e90oiprjt
Phyliss [trans]

around town

 

Groin boil

DEVODIE [applying a poultice of fermented soy flavonoids to the chronic erupting boil near Reptily's groin]:

I feel guided to tell you that I know you ate my baby. 

What guides me to to tell you that I know you ate my baby is to better demonstrate my devotion to worship and serve you and your purpose as good and fragrant Craw of La Mthyuh. 

I mean if my dog or one of my other kids ate the baby, our entire community would be horrified, my husband and I would probably get a divorce, and I might commit suicide taking out the dog and the remaining kids with me. 

You know that famous line from the shiv joints, "I've had enough! I'm packing my bags, taking the the children, and moving back to uMgungundlovu!"?

REPTILY-ILY:

Actually the line was, "I want to seek something more! I'm packing my bags, leaving you with the kids, and catching a red eye to anywhere that's not Tlatelolco." And that's the legendary truth of La Pegyuh-uh we're talking about, not some wigged out vulgate performance for shiv-heads at a shiv-dive. So stand up straight! 

DEVODIE [dropping to knees]: Oh, I humbly beg your pardon, my majestic mistress of the

REPTILY-ILY [heaving a sigh]: Stop it. Say, what's this about a baby, and how dare you insinuate that that I would care whether or not your particular child may have been one of the very many babies that have been honored to pass through my bowels except to congratulate you on your auspicious and delicious sacrifice?

DEVODIE: I am grateful for your congratulations and the horror, I mean honor, you have bestowed upon my generations by eating my baby. And because you are a knower of legends, I'm sure you may have heard tell of the Mulled Twins of Dupecock? 

REPTILY-ILY: Whadda you mean? The Mulled Twins? Whadda you mean, every mother's son in the greater chanklands knows the legend of the Mulled Twins of Dupecock. I as much as anyone can well remember the horrifying experience of our sister Connie and what happened after she ate one of the Mulled Twins. I above all should know Connie's legend and have taken great care to learn from it. 

DEVODIE: What did you learn, my mistress?

REPTILY-ILY: You want to know what I learned? I'll tell you what I learned. I learned never to eat the other damn Mulled Twin, that's what I learned. What's it to you? 

DEVODIE: The other Mulled Twin, my mistress. He was my

REPTILY-ILY [burping painfully]: Sorry, what was that? You were saying? Oh, my. I reckon I've eaten you as well. 

****************************************************

[Trans. note]

If Reptily had not eaten the mother of the Mulled Twins of Dupecock, she may have been able to extract more specific evidence supportive of any best next steps. For example, she could have learned that Connie's response to having a Mulled Twins-related blurping incident was, understandably, to go ahead and eat the anomalous life form she'd been thinking was just an inflamed groin boil. In Reptily's case, however, eating the blurp anomaly would be a fatal and permanent error, since the blurp had emerged as Reptily, herself, in her missing years, which had now become years that were existentially crucial to the present moment. 

This day in the legend of Reptily-ily at least helped its eponymous hero to understand how Missy had come to be. Were they sisters? Was Missy a tumorous mimic, an invasive nightingale phylum picked up during one too many intra-The Crack transitions? All those questions were now moot. She had eaten the other Mulled Twin, and now, her childhood self was clearly trying to begin a happy life journey with the tools in the toolbox that the Biggest Tool of All had given her to work with (like the other K trans-special blends, Reptily-ily had been an adult since before the beginning of recorded history). 

"If I did have a childhood, I wonder what I was like?" Reptily was wondering one day, soon after unknowingly gobbling down the remaining mulled twin during a Days of Destruction scarring fire hustle. It was the holiest festival. There were snacks everywhere. How was she to know? 

As she continued to reflect on life and the nature of the lie that is time, there was a blurping sound, and a wet slap. There on the floor of her private bay at Friends Hangar lay Missy, a topless, big-city ingenue waking up for the first time in the slime of a wet, stinking clam-like half shell the size of a Volkswagen. 

Phyllis [trans.]

for mike with a traditional african drum voodoo back

he's too fast to conquer with dance

you must learn to let him in

it was a performative

he's picaresque

and culturally

deconstructive

way to eat a salad

he's radically 

dispossessed

of unexamined 

conformity

so when the arugula

at the wedding

at the arboretum

at the land donor's 

mansion

wrapped at the 

center like a 

feral gift

with a slice of 

cucumber

because he's 

a gentleman

he warns you first

then he takes it 

in his hands

like a burrito

Affectionately,
LaChama-ah

Testosterone Shower

They promise you nickel-size hail

which could distract from the aspirational stress

of the hill monkeys

But their screeching time of year is nigh

And there's no thunderhead or punishment of ice

That would dare

Soon they'll boil up in the flood plains

Overcome our front porch issues

Violent but useless storms may then appear

Lupe Evans-Bhdoutitsuptumien

from: Minutes: Addendum for post-Phyllis final galley

We obviously appreciate Phyliss and her work here very much. None of this would be possible without her unique skillset, and we mean unique as in it is a singularity. 

You don't think that lidderly nobody anywhere on this surface or throughout the known The Crack as we now know it, that is we know it because of Phyliss, nobody anybody could do this at all much less better? 

You have to remember this is not even her full-time job. She's just a [trans.] woman in a town, not an anomaly. She learned this skill like some of our ancestors learned how to work a key punch machine. 

But she's lidderly the ony one leff yall. 

Now you can do your own re-translation. Remember Phyliss din even have a written language much less a dictionary and in many cases these are multiple languages and in many cases not even spoken languages. These mofos often communicated with they minds ony. 

So go on, go head, you do it. 

May say sure how much i get paid. And do you think she gets any compensation? Not. This is why we're all working night and day to support this project, not to throw stones at a golden goose with no more in the bush. 

Tell me one corporation temple government entity underworld enterprise anyone either who would get behind and stab this important find directly into the public eye? Din thinkso. 

One day it all could happen again. What are our hovering terrors, our deepest revulsions, and how will they come back to bite us on the ass in our time and on our own surface? This is the story Phyliss is allowing to be told. We owe her our most humble thanks and much honor into perpetuity. 

As one of the greatest heroes our society has ever been lucky enough with whom to be blessed, Phyliss will be allotted with a permanent residence that shall be fine. She shall further be allotted with a lifetime monthly stipend minus any deductions, liens, taxes, judgments, pensions, income from investments, food bank sprees or any other claims or assets identified by Phyliss at date and time of signing or any that may surface at any time in the future of this agreement, and may not exceed by more than 2.9% the income ratio to be accepted as a client of the vittles on square wheels foundation. 

Franz Gresif Stone Press

Missy's First Talk

Grand Madam of La Dance and of La La Dance Academy of La Dance, Mkidza Mlaf, is getting Missy ready for her first post-graduation talk. The first talk is an important step because, as a student of la dance, it is the first opportunity afforded to you in your entire educational trajectory when you would be aloud to speak. Speaking is not only an important step to cutting a prominent figure in business and society, but also an essential first step toward becoming a ceremonial, half-feral monster, which everyone pretty much knows by now will be Missy's path. 

As Mkidza tries to poof Missy's wiry top hairs to help cover the as-yet unfurled reptilian mating sail beginning to protrude colorfully along the center ridge of her skull, and as Mkidza fluffs Missy's feathered collar to align with the harsh edges of her emerging spine horns, she whispers some pointed tips of her own into Missy's ear flap: 

"My Missy. If you want to sound smart, make sure to begin with the word 'so.' This will signal that you need no further introduction, that everyone present probably can't wait to hear what you have to say, and in case any question or comment comes at you before you are ready to end the talk, the word 'so' acknowledges that other words than yours were spoken but also signals that those words were an interruption, not an addition, not significant, maybe even stupid, and that you intend to continue on with what you were saying, midsentence, without breaking stride. You are saying all of that with this tiny, two-letter coordinating conjunction. Do you see? Say it for me Missy. Sss... good. Take your time. Start with that."

Missy clack-clocks past the front row of the makeshift auditorium at Friends Hangar and up the steps to the podium fully en point. She then faces the audience of her peers and slowly lowers her heels without allowing her head to lower as well. In fact, her neck seems to grow before their eyes. 

[MISSY'S FIRST TALK]

So... i place myself in what i successfully refer to as the borderlands of epistemological theory. This works even and maybe especially when i can't remember what epistemology is or which one it is. There's epistemology, ontology, oncology, existentialism, lyricism, a whole variety of tautologies, including many redundant ones, the tyranny of empiricism, and then extracurricular activities, in which I got an A? meaning where was I? But before that question mark there is indeed an A, an A for Assumption that whatever, wherever it was i'd run off to, it must have been good and it must have been crazy fun—this assumption my temple instructors may have based solely on my verve and personality as well as their own lack thereof.

So... because of the fact that the only way I could possibly be pursuing proper epistemological methods as i journey forward in La Dance would be by pure accident or divine intervention, I just feel like if my true behavioral underpinnings were ever to be discovered, measured and understood, I would most likely place outside the mean. Borderlands. Epistemological. Theory. 

So... how besides frequent disappearances and charm did i attract such close attention, such whispers of promise from my educator-abductresses, in all my profound ignorance? Was it a case when your poor life choices are being overly admired by those whose job it is to hold you back? Just as they themselves were held back? Held back from living their best lives, from singing their own kinds of music, from hacking new temporary passages through the thicket of vines overgrowing our most cherished brutalist structures, held back from carrying a burning torch forward for all to follow, held back from burning it all, every last village and tree, as far as the eye can see?

Umm, so... the problem with this type of developmental approach is a situation where these powerful and covert admirers who call themselves instructional architects want to see the entire arc, not just the money shot. They know why they'd never dare surrender to their own curiosities, their own vulnerabilities seedy passions; they knew why it made so much more sense for them to stay at temple chomping on grapes spitting out the seeds and remain simply well with la dance. It was a thrill for them to watch me, and even better to imagine me, a singularity at La La Dance Academy of La Dance, burning through my youth in a more spectacular fashion than they had ever dreamed of attempting for themselves. 

But, so... even as they cringed and looked away, they imagined shielding their eyes from much more elaborate aberrations of virtue, more brazen adventures in indecency, a sweeter masochism, a scarier narcissism, more enthusiastically bottom-seeking personal associates than i could or would imagine or have within me. The inherent bias of course, of their point of view, is that there must then be a crash, a comeuppance, a heavy consequence, a final judgement to equal in dramatic effect all the umami of their most prurient fantasies—a judgment in their favor, not yours!

Missy is sent off to her next life journey by a warm round of applause from her audience of underdancers, all the nuns of Mthyuh, and especially her beloved Her Grand Madame Mkidza. Now Missy leapt from the stage as if she would take to the winds sure as La Pegyuh of legend abandoned her kids for glory. Mkidza, waiting in the wings, made sure to pull Missy aside before she headed to the first-talk reception of the shiv. "I couldn't be more proud of you," she gushed as they embraced. 

MKIDZA MLAF: You read us for filth, Missy.

MISSY: So... that's Ms. Missy to you, mister.

BOTH: HAHAHAHA...! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Phyliss [embedded]

Dear Stone Slate,

ranking: most palliative moment

taking Roma

when my lover became a feathered savage

every fall and recovery in la dance 

astride my lover in his beads

marriage of my only sister

lolling by a creek with temple friends

sunset in the wastelands

first and second puff on any cigarette

a schoolmate sat behind me and cut himself

presentation of his semiotic palm carving

wavy dark bangs

specter of being stranded 

in the high chanks at fog

every dangerous moment with my lover

comments:

he could crush yet he was gentle

i could only see him in the lightning

his palms were raised with blisters

From "Dear Stone Slate,"
by Reptilly-illy
Phyliss [trans.]

Fable of the Sponge

the sponge was losing its ability to avoid arousing alarm

it had lost respect for hands without qualms about touch

but the odor alone didn't change its category much

frizzed edges embedded grime visible fissures 

haven't they earned a sponge the right to move on

disgust comes first in understanding one

a sponge becomes important enough to not only sense

but also as a totem of the residue of memory

of a term absorbing realities directly 

no dissent is registered prior to the destruction

of a synthetic sponge created to trap in posterity

what's best defined through archaeology 

the residue of cooking and eating practices rituals

what gets left out or over-emphasized in the mind

only in disgust at looking behind

or concern for environmental contamination

with only the residue of living on the horizon 

does an old sponge enjoy true recognition

from: A New Look at Jan Folk Tales

La LaChama [ed.]

Phyliss [trans.]

Pray

If you've inherited a very high Filter of Loathing setting for optimism/faith/cognitive dissociation (OFCD), you'll worry, but you'll always have that soothing place to step into. OFCD settings can also be multiplied in combination with some method of death (MOD) electives and through the process of palliative ministry. 

Sides may include gambling or alcohol addiction, sex crimes, loss of ability to turn off OFCD, and/or substantial added worry and lower faith settings for most 1st and 2nd level networked associates. 

If you come from a long line of very low Filter of Loathing settings due to prosecution, rebirth, attempted abortion after birth, inter-hole travel in The Crack, orphanism, refusal to think right, or crossing the trans-species line, you are going to be like a sponge in life: a sponge that becomes dingier, smellier, more diffuse, more prone to depression, and more likely to volunteer as Mthyuh's vittle with an accelerated timeline toward a self-awareness setting likely to break through the ceiling of all approved palliative ministries as your trajectory on this surface progresses. 

For help on this help topic, go to your local or other assigned wat during any phase of any waning moon. Climb to the top of the wat. Wait. Wear the ceremonial hat. Pray that Mthyuh eat you first, and pray sincerely. Wait on the wat for what, maybe until the moons disappear. If a predator has not approached you, you may proceed down the steps to the cashier. Say, "Please help me." 

From: 
Record dump 948uo.nsgfopw,u9
K5000
Phyliss [trans.]

soil

faces rose around me in the wet cement

they were human faces dogs cats wild

faces that quickly appeared and sunk back

an ostrich a rabbit a hawk or an attacker

their features created a surface with more

traction in a tilt shake or spin event 

i could grab onto an ear or lodge my foot

against a stiff upper lip fit my cheek bone

into a temple like the days when we were

bodies forced together taking conceding

wanting giving each other space or flesh 

turning toward or away but never moot

to avoid a hardening and crumbling past

i release my grip and step onto the grass

where creatures come and go inconsequentially

stop only to acknowledge sensual density

and persons free of notice by urbanity

take root in soil that borders all humanity

by Peg

tissue rainbow/ pot of foil

praying hands

 

Still Ill & Ill-Advised Still: HIV Bros

Jer: We're here for CANCER BEATDOWN, my death partner Ken and myself. Wow, Ken. You look like you got in the ring for a CANCER BEATDOWN and lost. Badly. How are you even alive?

Ken: There's where you err, Jer. I make no claim of livelihood. 

Jer & Ken: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Jer: Ya just our luck to get a charity gig, right audience? 

Ken: No, not right audience. They're all on their phones. 

Jer: They're probably calling you an ambulance. You really look like shit. 

Ken: Too bad they can't call an ambulance for the shit in your pants.

Jer: You mean a dump truck? 

Ken & Jer: HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ken: Say I heard you gave your mom AIDS in the womb.

Jer: Say what? I hear you perform fellatio with your butt. Fraud much?

Ken: What now? How many time an hour you go back down on open ass with your prefer-not-to-say status?

Jer: I guess we good.

Jer & Ken: HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ken: Wait. Your med port popped out of your chest, mate. Let me just

Jer: Don't you touch it. It's on break. It gets depressing in my body.

Ken: At first I thought it was another huge tapeworm like the one you sneezed out in the tanning bed or the one came out your eye and disappeared into the public sewer grate.

Jer: I hate you filthy bitch. 

Ken: I hate you disgusting dirty tramp hole fornicating disease vector.

Jer: ...and scene! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Thanks for your support everybody. Good night! 

Ken: Good night!

Ken & Jer: Beat it down!

[Ken and Jer fly at one another, punching, biting, and clawing, land on the stage and begin to draw blood and leave hair as MPS security struggles to pull them apart and get them back into their separate palliative cells at the Chang K. Chang Chank Chain Gang Med Tank.]

Opening Act

CANCER BEATDOWN CHUKKACHANK

Phyllis [trans.]
Sports N' Sex Crimes Bugle

The worms

Hellooo, Chukkachank!  Yall our third stop on the gonna stop it gonna stomp it gonna beat it down CANCER BEATDOWN village tour! At this event exclusively, we're delighted to have with us all of these respected thinkers, freaks, entertainers, collaborators all in our cause (in no particular order):

LaChama fumbles with the mike for a moment her thoughts racing for example mike, i wish i was fumbling with Mike not a mike haha pull it together, etc. It's a list just read the list they'll love it.

Ok here we go: 

International Plate Spinning Silver Medalist, P'tata Peppa Poke Chop, who will be spinning how many? many plates simultaneously, I think they're balanced on thin wobbly sticks reeds...what? to beat down cancer. 

Sassy, stunning, and late: it's Weida Haafenaur the latest queen ever to hold on to her job more than six month give it up for Weida. Tonight she'll be... late haha. It's for cancer.

Without using language, La LaChama's mind wondered Am i over-checking my privilege, trying to sound folksy because i perceive the Chanklands as a proverbial heart-and-soul motherland/gift shop locked in a time of pathos beauty servitude that i can continue to stunt and oppress? Is this genocide by reverence? 

In Chukkachank, I am sure you're more than familiar with your own stone tom-tomists, Subsidence, with Turr D'Ailans and the Subsidents. They will be outright wailing on this joint for cancer baby wait you'll see Turr D'Ailans later everybody thank you Turr. 

The worms. Trapped.
In the jumping beans. 
They haunt my dreams. 
They kick without end. 
When you crack the bean and 
kick them out, 

they crawl back in again. 

Any horror lovers out there? Hope so. We've got a real-life horror haver who lived to be here tonight and relive her traumatizing story before our eyes. This presentation does include MPS certified missing maimed scarred (MMS) artifacts so we ask that you view as one time only and understand consequences for not doing so. 

Any guesses so far? You're right! It's trafficked sleep worker Uwe Behan. What happened when Uwe was discarded by Pharmsupply and left to subsist in a life shed at the center of an abandoned holo-story called Walden Pond? See for yourself and attempt to ask it questions, right here. Stay for that. 

Finally everyone. We all know: it is ill-advised. 

Here, the audience is already breaking from a hush to angry whistles, shouts of NO! and loud raspberries. 

So we thought we'd better put them up front and get them the hell out asap. I give you the two-and-only, original bad guys, the hope-to-die-est of all the hope-to-die, the AIDS Bros! That's right. Don't remember? Yes! It's them. 

From:
Record dump
CANCER BEATDOWN
Phyliss [trans.]

I Don't Feel Like a Woman

emotions

i'm cryin'

but it don't make me feel like a woman

i'm feelin'

the blockin'

without any need to come out as a queen

i'm frightened

i'm hidin'

but mostly to keep all of you safe from me

you're kind and

you're patient

so happy to have all of you on my team

i'm laughin'

not dyin'

so why does it seem like i've crossed a line

i'm tired

i'm thinkin'

i needed to stop and just take some time

to slow down

and hang on

while doctors drain my testosterone

Event Opener

"I Don't Feel Like a Woman"

Sung by: Harley Hannie-Kaufi

Lyrics courtesy of: CANCER BEATDOWN
Phyllis [trans.]

Surgical patio

Are you ready to enter the chamber? 

...

Missy? 

[Are you insane? How would i in any way be ready for that? Braino knows better than to move toward the chamber. A rodent would have to stop and think twice before continuing on into the chamber for cheese. How about you first?]

Missy?

I can't shake this strong feeling that i will come out a different person: not better, but uncomfortably new. 

Well, i can't, you know, you should ask

I also have a premonition-level expectation that my life and its contents up to this point will have disappeared, and all I'll be able to do will be to just keep moving forward as a new, strange person.

Oh here comes Dr. Thong. Just in time. 

Dr. Donna Thong struggles for a moment with the sliding glass and sliding screen doors, but soon steps out calmly, audibly exhaling, onto the surgical patio. 

Hello Missy. Hope you're not chilly. Are we ready to enter the chamber? 

Uh we meaning you and Nurse Mike? 

Haha! Good one. I'm glad you are retaining your sense of humor dear. Now if you'd just like to

Nurse Mike steps up to the plate in a manly fashion.

I'm not sure she would like just at the moment doctor. I'm sure that you'd agree that if the same patient were a Jan, there would be a psychiatric support panel out here with us instead of a swimming pool. 

Ok. I see. Missy, you know we think of people like you people of your heritage as great warriors. You are fierce. Think about it. Your babies are born looking so fierce you know one day soon they will be able to kick your ass or at least appear to have that power. Our babies are born looking so wholesome and worthy that it's annoying to everyone who is not immediately related by blood. 

Nurse Mike once again does his best to advocate for the patient. 

Of course all babies are beautiful, but let's not even get into that fraught debate!

Indeed, Nurse Mike. But we may all be able to agree that babies do not have a conscience. Their patterns in an adult would be called sociopathic. And this brings me to my point. We must identify all and any of the babies who are somehow endowed with adult bodies, especially if they are in a position of significant responsibility. 

Mike and Missy look at one another silently, and Dr. Thong realizes that she has fatally digressed. 

Missy. I'm just trying to say that i'm so sorry that our societal biases have caused you to suffer much more trauma than necessary over the procedure. The chamber is not a place of hostility. 

...

And because i do respect you as a legal person, i'm going to lay it out for you here, now, with complete honesty. 

Thank you Dr. Thong. I appreciate that. 

Because it's certainly not nearly as dreadful as you may have imagined. First of all, after you enter the chamber, have engaged with the treatment, and satisfied the chamber as to your readiness, you will exit the chamber. 

Uh-huh, ok

At that time, you will come out like a different person: not really better—more like uncomfortably new. 

...

Also, your life, its contents up to this point, will have disappeared. Pretty much all you'll be able to do will be to just keep moving forward as that new, strange person.

What... did you? AHHH Dr. Thong you are effing with me you bitch! You heard me talking to Nurse Mike! AHHH

I know! How could I do that? I'm so sorry darling, I couldn't resist. Of course none of that it true. You're such a worry wart! Now spit out your gum, hand over any jewelry or other metal items, drop your gown, and skedaddle right on in there for me now. That's right. See you soon! 

 

tatters

The Jansdaad economy appears to be in tatters today as Jans from Flatchank to Janstanopol are taking yet another "Day of Growth and Reflection" after being released from most remote muscular decisioning (RMD) control points and friday funday brain nurturing processes after the crash of K5000 has been maybe 2 moons.

Spokesmen for the Jans do not disagree that their own employers including leaders of all city-level governmental functions are now discredited and impotent. However, Jan enslavement by MPS did mean sustenance in the form of the vital services the Jans themselves were working to provide. After lifetimes of having their choices made for them, Jans may not realize that they are effectively on strike against each other.

"Why would they want to mess up an entitled situation like that?" asked Jodi Al Arn-Yirshert, an observer for the fleke security service. "Sure, they were deciding some of your muscle choices for you, but your brain is not really a distraction as long as you do the chants. All your needs are provided for. What's the beef?"

Compassionate sanitation, water and meals on oxcarts are being provided to all Jan hives temporarily by MPS and CANCER BEATDOWN. 

by Phyliss [embedded]
Sports N' Sex Crimes Bugle

mile-long train in the window

what happens here and what it sounds like are stretched the way a map seems wider in the middle

it's set up for the long haul and even though we try to keep in line with modernity 

the songs are long and the moon is slow and folks give in to the momentum of the generations

you might sit at a bar and yawn or call it movie night when you're just dozing off with a bulb on

but if you're listening you can tell the distance between rough times and fire flies and the lightning

the train you see is a perpetual machine that trips light like a star can hide behind a table fan

we've still got love and hating in the forever or in the reflection but the track is laid for speed

don't need a bottle but i've a corn pipe and the smoke curls through the window in its own time

a long train on its own steam can make the light trip so that it may seem like a perpetual machine

Fyaskmi S. Booshia

Municipal flood plain

Even its tilted geometry resists our civilized template

The surfaces of the municipal flood plain are not 

flat but neither are they random as are the low

roiling local humps framing the town never

upending a tractor often disappearing in the tassels

These are rivules puffed with generational sod

a space involved deeply on one end by a circle 

of ancient oaks and their contortions buried

water lungs flamelike arms culling the suns 

claiming two of four directions at this point their 

Greatest pleasure derives from the release of their

heaviest cares giant rotted gnarls or lightning 

spiked organic god spears that can scold bobbing

in the soil but not enough to fill bely upstage

Mthyuh's purpose and dominance here

This is the message of the municipal flood

plain and it can be apparent to any pilgrim 

merchant worker present here tonight:

"We can hold this much, this far."

Look, now, to her horizons

A true flood would lap at our 

waists but this emptiness is a 

well of safety as well as for 

vainer beasts a lost sum of 

acreage for feral ones a 

Habitat mating arena 

range map and 

for all a space to look or 

swoop upward and see or 

join the grander patterns of the clouds. 

La Pegyuh-uh

"Rain for Mthyuh's Parched Uvular Cavity"
Swirling Pond Heavy Sewer Grate Dedication

Villages Tour

Flatchank

Days of Destruction

Phyllis [Trans.]

CANCER BEATDOWN

To be la LaChama is to live every moment with a reminder that a i am not able to meet the expectations for my station and b i am vulnerable to accusations of fraud

Now that i have been called upon to participate in a public event, the CANCER BEATDOWN, to bring words that can provide understanding knowledge catharsis enlightenment empathy and of course healing is another one of those tall moments from whose shadow i can barely poke out my toe

But if i am empty my people are empty and my people cannot be empty even while i am a match that cannot even burn itself

Strike me O Pegyuh so that i may burn and burn in my people

Pegyuh-uh! Pegyuh-uh!

Please say: Burn, burn for cancer LaChama

Burn, burn for cancer LaChama

My money is worth nothing if the Filter of Loathing is consumed

Burn, burn for cancer LaChama

I may as well burn my money too

Burn LaChama

We may as well burn our money to beat down cancer

beat it down! beat it down!

We know that more than 80% of cancer deaths were caused by bad choices

Well let's start making some better choices here today and show me the 

Show me the shiny gold coins

Show them hold them up to the suns!

Melt it down Burn the cancer

You see that you are standing on a grate

and the ground beneath it has opened up

and the darkness is the mouth of LaMthyuh

see the rainbow of light among your coins

imagine all that light raining down

people drop your golden light into the darkness

let it fall and listen to the sound

we can hear it now an unstoppable clankety CANCER BEATDOWN

As the applause dies i'll back away bowing from the podium and some raunchy MC will take over. It's your basic legal betting for charity event from then on as two giant screens track the real-time progression or regression of a MOD 7 cancer in two Jan subjects for an entire year. MPS gets 20% and i get about 4% of that. Subject's account gets a MOD payout upon verified termination but that bumps them to a palliative-course-not-approved [PCNA] track. The ensuing tragicomedy fuels more donative speculation for MPS and a high temple attendance rate from worshippers. There's a catch net below the grate of course. It borrows its sinister nature from the humble wishing well. 

from: 'Round Back of the Temple Life
by: La LaChama 
Phyllis [trans.]

Tried and failed to break out of your station?

Breakouts are not authorized. 

Your station is not constructed to be broken out of thus the word break.

You must break out of your station.

There is no legitimate support channel for this objective. 

If successful, you will likely have been seriously injured in the process. 

If you want to live you must break out.

Prompt: Does any individual or group in addition to yourself and significant others want you to break out of your station? 

If the answer is yes, your station is 1/5 or 5/5. 1/5 = both empathy and hatred for your station are high. Public would like to see 1/5 operators moved to 2/5, and 5/5 operators moved down many levels, killed, or to bring everyone closer to their level by creating new, higher levels, which has been known to create even more space between 5/5 and every other level. 

As you can see from the complexity of these calculations, which are only a glimpse of what K5000 is doing every second in all of our lives, it's probably going to be best, if you do decide to opt for self-destruction and attempt a breakout, or even if you go ahead and remain at your station and instead experience involuntary suffering and death, you've probably already arrived at the conclusion that it's best not to rely on groups or individuals who may or may not want you to break out of your station.

Prompt: Reflect on the emotions you might expect to happen between yourself and station mates when they realize that you are in the process of breaking out of your station and especially once you all realize that you have broken more than the station. 

Salvaged from crash of K5000
MPS release K5000-1
Phyllis [trans.]

Crash

The K5000 has been brought down in less than a day. 

Once a critical mass of friday fun day participants had been catalogued, located, and contacted, the now grownup Jans started learning the chant backwards. It was their best and only guess left at disconnecting their RMP grafts, which were initially put in place by the K5000 with the chant and the help of the nuns. 

muffins virtue muffins me send am first demons your eat me demon virtue

your am or first demons your eat Mthyuh virtue a send demons your send

your send or first me eat demons your muffin virtue virtue a am am i Mthyuh i

demons your send or first me eat Mthyuh muffin virtue a am i virtue a am i 

Peg's flesh lays once again steaming and broken of dignity 

this time strewn across 100 yards of beach like a massive 

alligator die-off and on, deeply, into the remains of a seaside thrill park

A Wherris feel is employed to load and distribute carfuls of her 

tissue into a slowly progressing line of open lorry beds

This is how broken her body is. It's difficult to make out the basic architecture, either the original one born of prehistory or the second one, conceived and constructed by the radical Jans who infiltrated the Mthyuh Preservation Society (MPS) Inter-special Workgroup (IW). Instead of bringing back god,

they had reached back in time to abduct and torture the daughter of god

they did it not even out of curiosity but rather to please the MPS preece 

by filling their wats with incense comfort illusion beyond relic living

relic that can be worn and operated as one with the deities worshippers

relics that can be reproduced and ranched for their precious sluff

relics of a time when just the monster was enough

 

There is surprisingly little to show for any parts of the K5000 that were not also parts of Peg: a few stone needles, a reimagined public oracle dispenser donut, sun-powered through hundreds of eyelid panels, most of which disintegrated on impact. They look like enormous dead lice among the tangled jungles and prickly coppices that were Peg's eyelashes.

We're sitting in the kitchen and we're more afraid now to go out than

while the machine was overhead because at least then life was predictable

Now our bodies seem not so cheap but more likely to succumb

To everything except for what they just got free of

But we'll succumb freely and maybe one day life will truly be all about choices

Quick takes during and among the first hours after the crash of the K5000
by Phyllis [embedded] Sports N' Sex Crimes Bugle

meat lens

I should add that Dr. Thong suggested going on MPS disability because of the anticipated side effects of the time graft, not because she's expecting me to be taken down by K5000 directly at this point. 

You speak of Dr. Thong, whose father was a butcher, and therefore sees public health through a meat lens.

Yes, don't we all? 

Well congratulations for not dodging or shrinking away from a timely decision. It's all about choices, y'know?

No. But it's an appropriate time for me to claim my entitlement. 

Ya you must milk the MPS early and often, as they say!

MPS proudly fulfills its promises because its promises are rooted in its purpose, its purpose in its mission, and its mission in its identity, which is slave and vittlement for LaMthyuh. 

Of course your point is that you are not planning your funeral, just tidying up to avoid having to confront all that in a hurry in the unlikely event of palliative failure. 

Actually, I am and have been planning my funeral for as long as i can remember. Have i mentioned? I'm leaning toward blasting Stooges' "Loose" before during and after the catapult hurls me into Mthyuh's pyre. 

Perhaps you just want to assure me that quitting all your jobs and cashing in your pension is not a red flag for imminent disaster. 

That's it. That's the one! Because it's not. 

Overheard on a cloudy afternoon near Santorabo Wat, St. Dick, Jansterdam
Phyllis [embedded]