Great Lakes Region

captive seas in bladders
rocky enough to be salt
game, blustery survival

entire cities, camera shy
the elderly retain a chill
wood houses, blue water

lily pads, ice flows, red
and yellow birds, church
deep black water, snow



Phyllis
"It's what I imagine."

Busting a nut will make your eye sockets fill in

Busting a nut will make your eye sockets fill in:
extra buffer against the skeleton
when existentialism seems odd.

Three choices for a snarling alley dog:
psych-or-literal prison,
love and care, euthanasia.

Don't leave the preference up to him:
during this phase, he'll opt out,
over the hump, down for the count.



by Ken

65/35

It is my misfortune
to be right so often
at times in waves of
dawning probability.
now is against, 70/30
yesterday was 65/35.
tomorrow we marvel
at willing co-citizens
who go on, bend over,
at their radioactivity,
the ground they cover
as a mole, unthinking
will claw at his home
kick walls behind him
pause, still burning,
and eagerly consume
a nib of bait in the dirt.



Donna [Dr. Donna Thong, Reinstatement Imminent]
Poetry Table, Activity Hour
Meta-cognitive Talk Therapy Cohort Study [embedded control subject]
The Journal of the Meta-Cognitive Talk Therapy Apologist Movement

peggy

promise

don't ever stop

weightless due to sudden lack of momentum
the lull annexed by a mass so big just that it's
there can suck you in like a tractor beam, but
nature unforced, size, density have this property

we liked ripping packages open with our hands
being really either together or alone, there, here,
to hold self-medicating non-commercial powers
depended upon in a life-or-death importance by

our country which meant everyone of all colors
it was on the way up here we didn't stop but
passed through what we've always wanted: a
moment you can only wait to spin back around?



by Ken
"I got my bell-bottoms for seven dollars."

Vehicle of delivery

When everything is broken or buried
or a scheme for immediate pleasure
or both, is indicated a vehicle of
delivery. Who will defend this

household? you can bake cookies to
sell a house, not a family. But who's
home? At among screens within
screens or the moment between.

Inside that glance is a sea-legged
focus dilation, perhaps a micro-
sleep or brief wakefulness. Or
a real-time racing windshield.



Peg [before she knew]
"Connie, please come home girl."

All crap

all these small jobs
to manage the kids and
car, maintain yard and
dogs, their needs
it can build up on a girl

and you don't own
anything, your auto
house, music, phone
is all payments and
clouds, magic password

product is brand and
brands products, brand
via corporate and pro-
ducts from Chinese
sweatshops, all crap.



by Donna [Dr. Donna Thong, Reinstatement Imminent]
Poetry Table, Hobby Hour
Rehabilitative Meta-Talk Therapy Trial Participant [embedded control subject]
Journal of the Meta-Cognitive Talk Therapy Apologist Movement

Tragi-comic road rage

Mind you, I don't have any idea what empty nest syndrome means or what it is, but I've heard the term, and maybe you're having that.

Sure you experience me outside of you. I experience you outside of me. That doesn't make either one of us more of an outsider.

What I can do and you prolly can't do is rock the glutes around one of your sit bones so as to make you catatonic circularly.

Look, I've got this and it's worth something. You can't take it away, so just take it in. I may be famous some day or maybe now.

It's your responsibility to praise the Lord because the singing and dancing up upon to Him will make you glad, and this enforcement

Of glad acts will create pheromones which will create a desire in you to act in ways that benefit society and prevent suicide.

Start with a one point something,  add another one point something, and then before you know it you're skipping over two and right into three or three point something.

Connie [posthumously]
Chalk Chank Press

violent tic