more sailors than hippies died in bell bottoms

Never Give Up (Try)

terror
terror is setting in
terror 'n dread

never give up (try)
pain of day coming
all night

sterile fire of sun
neutralize
the ill preparing


Fmr. Dr. Donna Thong
Home Health Care Giver
Shiv Guide and Palmist

is living fighting

i'll jump in the shower, throw on a cute little outfit, and bomb on over to your place
or that's what I'd say if my vertebrae were not piqued, if my complexion were stable

my nose is open for combat and while i do not savor pain that comes only later along
with the stun that follows a slaughter even hounds' chins rest contritely on the rug

is it only that when they came for me i had to protect myself and my babies and now
i am always at the ready even needy for adversion, for a scrim across life's vagaries


by Reptily
With thanks to Dr. Donna Thong

Commemorative shard

lort, i'um impatient
for time is gone long
from behiund me

lort i prayuh chase
sauce can fine me
inis clouta dispay

chains bineme lort
mock yr prophetsing
i nade yo hair witme



Chama, First Night
Principal shard

go players

reverse dustbowl

reverse post-drought diaspora
white fatigue black fatigue
brown only getting stronger
tan no longer a viable option
red fatigue the air we breathe
white man tramping up a path
man red man black man yel-
low man tramping

almost I donno half whom's
in there they kiss with their
butts and shit out their mouths
handicapped faculty parking
that's how much I want you here
door half closed means halfway
door ajar means maybe or in
an hour then

there's latched but not locked
and latched and locked with
a rolled up towel or a note
sliding under while in micro-
sleep ascending stairs student
comment in a verbs assignment
I forgot my dreams but now
I remember

Tom
"What I said at dinner, Sylvia."

Conservatory, pipes, vines

I could go in there and lie down

i could go in there and lie down
but what if i couldn't sleep and
tossed and turned while listnin'
to my heart pound, early alarm

even dark roads in the morning
can be stop and go but there's a
system with the regulars, they
cooperate and weave in tandem

so it's on me to get t'bed in time
to have enough sleep to honor
the identical sacrifices of fellow
drivers & their unknown burdens


Ted
"I'll play along, Jan."

A messy beauty

Once the implants and tissue response protocols had been administered
i was just a messy beauty, not yet molded to the new situation in the skies

Dame or beast was chintz or polished cotton at that time-- same diff,
free to spend time speaking of dead people who'd spoken of others dead

Able indeed to choose conversation over pecking out a cliff hanger's liver;
i could still fit a double strand of pearls and lounging poncho-- no scaly fin

Now again i'm prettiest when naked, skin more a padded exoskeleton
aerodynamic and not at all sloppy unfurling tongue on the unsuspecting


by Missy
"I don't miss anyone, but then I'm not anyone."

inlet

Pain requisition

i might issue a
pain requisition
to the storeroom
and get it piped
through the floor


Chama

S is a graceful kneeler

A straddles the horizon with folded arms
Q is an attempt to taste with the tongue tip
R is a toe test or brazen flaunting of shoe
P a self-referential gun to head
O what we use to explain everything
T is permanently in stocks
M has a tiny spider's head at its point
S is a graceful kneeler
K's fly spread eagle

Love, Missy
MPS Clinic Schoolroom, Highchank

rich fabrics everywhere as in linens

as i dip into sleep cross-legged sitting and neck giving way on one side i see sharp
visions, rich linens, fabrics and stitches without need of seeking further background

RECAP: i've already worked it out on the dance floor

poison arrow
desert claw for water
rappelling
surf's up in a vortex
James Brown slide-lunge & mod contraction
eyeware stem in corner of the mouth stroll
hitchhiker shake
literal hip hop
slippy sliding on ice and/or broken glass
smack-and-sway fist hip
stir the pot
heavy burden shoulder rope drag
pulling a lifeline endlessly toward you
knee bend reaching fingers far behind you left, right
stripper overhead forearm swivel at the elbow
back-against-wall dip
ball shuffle change SLAM (into wall) repeat
shimmy in place with penguin go-go fists
Patty Duke wrist flap foot hop change hop
pogo pero como lo de isadora dun-can
hair-sweat fling lunges
Twiggy hands opening to-sky awakening knee bend
hypnotic National Geographic chinny boob-cup bead hop
soul backup stepping
acid hippy freakout trip birthing from universe
erotic struggle behind, with and against invisible bars
handcuffed vertical worm-like writhing
faux Thai hand-finger ocean waves
fingertip popcorn pop get down
heated hammer go-go
shoulder-to-knuckle full-swing go-go race riot
pirouettes in a mosh pit while spiked partner guards
one-handed cocktail Ipanema shuffle twist
that with no drink punching left right at the waist swivel
driving and anything else
seeking, seeking everywhere with hand over brow
hip rock left right back front back left front right
doing anything while doing that
slippery surface endless fall with a smoke in lips
hair tearing, eye gouge, reaching at heavens bop
natural gyroscope
Afro-diaphragm knee pull trance to drums
lounge lizard slow shoe cigarette mash
anything else you can do at the same time
standing and hugging self, appear as two from behind
squirm doing that
inflated tutu on the open sea arms ankle pump
that to any music with harp in it
shopping bag at feet slow coat slide down the back
whip the effing floor with the B-ass coat, whip
stomp dance around not on coat
low-spinning coat-as-cape thigh pump
gravity-defying slo-mo rock poses
and marching out of a muddy swamp backwards
hard shaking hips, throwing out trash behind left, right
and looking L/R neck pop with hair strung across face


Jan Jansdadd
Jan'z Danztudio
Oslo

P test

P test's been high
thunder a comin'
finger to wind
long, fat shadow
crest of evening
neck is pounding


by Mike
"Never look back, Hoolie."

Newfangled

They're not actual headaches.
They're like emotional migraines.
When the two fiery planes of

opposing globes overlap as in
a Venn diagram,
friends and work, say

or home and school
hair and financial security
they may tickle the protruding

node of an amygdala and you
might not be able to operate the
newfangled back exit of a bus


by Missy
"While I'm human."

Couch surfer

They idolize my independence by
sending me on along my way
I feel the rush of being as soon as
the reasoning's explained as to why

I feel the rush of blending into the
blur of comings and going through
peoples places, poems that are just
daily household waste instead of

Running, I lay, exist in a kitchen
already evacuated by officials,
nobody special, only the keeper
of a world no one else is living in


Hoolie
"This is the future I've life-scripted." 

phone water

She wrote some lines entitled phone water
about her last thoughts before going to bed

But it occurred to her as well that in the
scheme overall some consciences should

be shot, these angels who are devils on
shoulders, some little voices who are not

psychotic, maybe even well-intentioned.
Labeling and dismissing raw stupefaction,

morbid ideation and petty recontainments
help a girl more than an old god's whisper.


Phyllis (embedded)
Early notes on Missy, Daughter of Peg
For: Sports N' Sex Crimes Bugle

Like ISIL or the Taliban

Like ISIL or the Taliban I
seek to destroy monuments
to your past so that I may
fill sorrow with regulation.

Retardo

I'm a successful file transaction completer.
I'm a successful deleter.
I'm a successful payment maker.
I'm a successful pee and shit producer.
I'm a successful consumater.
I'm a successful creator.
I'm a successful waiter.
I'm a successful receiver.


Ritardo Cretin

AND gate

When you were explaining to me what AND gates did
I thought about what it would be like to find one's self
In the lowest rung of the production line and personally
Make the simple and fewest everyday true/false choices

Like those gates about whom no one any longer has to
worry, which are programmed automatically by other
programs without the need for manual behavior coding
there are now, too, fewer issues with firing and timing


Jan Jansdaad
"This is about software coding, dad. Love, Jan, Jan, 1992"

Reverse menorah

Is when each day a light is doused.

Go down bounce back

whom among the dead would
have him just as dead or dying
? as in a flailing verse, every
line rescues the last by not sur
-rendering. still, he keeps in re
-serve the rain of hailing bullets
such as getting a bunch of cre
-dit cards and using them to pay
for a bankruptcy attorney. bad
boys go down bounce back, bad
boys go down, go down, back.


Mike
"Finally had the pool resurfaced."

Light path

You are the master of the day I am the master of the night
Together we master night and day and rule the entire worl

But in the play between the bad, good, wrong, right ways
We engage in life magnet opposites perpetuating the fight

Tumble, vajra, down the cliff of world's history, bouncing
In your gut a prayer that spins a light path from every hole.


Mkidza Mlaf
"I'm the mom of the Chama." 

I recognize my feelings on your face

you must drink
going through a divorce
or everything's great
except that you hate

i recognize these
broke-ass feelings
from hard times
my pain in your face


Reptily

Fried chicken and sprite

the night the garbanzo beans caught fire
we had fried chicken and sprite

now it amazes me how from far places
of droves of human anonymity

each in other's face throughout the day,
both symbol and active persona


"Can't believe I found you, Mike."
Hoolie

not enough light

I reach the heels of my fists to the heavens and
a rageful power takes hold of my wrists like a
puppeteer to sticks; the room takes on a charge,
and even dogs fled.

Anyone could feel the wave as deaf feel sound:
It's the moment after you should have bounced,
when it was imminent, when the hair'd already
stood up on end.