Workspace

I burned these hairs on the stove
I remember reaching over the flame
Now the brittle curls slough off
And drift throughout my workspace



by Phyllis

people can vary

some have heads others
skulls others noggins
others headless others

some eat, shit others
shit, eat others don't
eat yet strangely shit

people can be or be
becoming to be or
already have been

some can vary on
what they did others
didn't or might have

others seek to vary
others resist change
sitting beside another

Decommissioned smoke eater

Two darkened flood bulbs, in their mod white sockets
refuse to acknowledge me, even while I sleep below
in a space where there was a bar. Their nose: a decom-
missioned smoke eater. I consider adjusting the cones
for morning receptions closer to resembling empathy.



frag. "Fresh from The Nest"
by Hoolie

I Had to Hit Bottom

He was standing there with his hair a mess picking his nose, wearing nothing but a filthy white t-shirt on what he'd scrawled "BOTTOM" with a grease pen, so I had to smack him hard across the face.



CHAMATILLY

Your Own Death-Squad Vehicle

THE RAP:

They pop up around now in right-wing governments;
seems early, but it's not. I am the vehicle of my own
jacked-up F-150 death squad.

You say they're attacking us from foreign loams and soils;
I say I don't need no stinking foreigner to attack myself.
Goddammit I'll self-annihilate.

Most of all, if you are willing to answer in the affirmative,
I would like to take you along to a place that matters less:
The highest victory ever seen.

CHORUS:
Hey there, Nifty! If you're feeling broken down, there's a
Cure that you'll be needing, and I just arrived in town.
I'm a tool, I'm a tool, I'm a tool, I'm you're tool!
I'm a tool in my F-150.

Survivor of The Self

I'm a survivor of the self, that's
the me that isn't well, see,
I birthed myself as well, so
I had to marry me, just
the person that I well, not
the person of my-- I'm just
a dream that got a swell, and
it threw me in a well, me,
I mean myself, could tell that
I couldn't be my friend; we
decided on a duel (we
were just that kind of fool), so
we're always looking back, else
I'd pay me not to whack-- I--
should dial it down a notch, but
I'm looking at my watch. In
any way or any time, when
it comes, my lucky day, I
will get up off my ass, and
make that bastard pay.



by LA CHAMA

You want to become but not to be

You want to become but not to be
old
you begin curling into permanent prayer
no one's even asked you for the key
so it's peaceful there

Finding: No Equal Agency Among Persons

Not even to affect change upon their own immediate environments.
There are no slippery slopes, but some are steppy.
You can see the steps, and they're going down. You're on them.
It's not an escalator, but it's also not your dream, bitch.

No Chance Not to Love You

You give me no chance
Not to love you dear
I lose my resistance

Your shift at the grind
is the only time
I have my peace of mind

But then you return
Back in my arms, you're
A victory unearned

CHORUS:

No chance! Not to love you I'm so
Helpless! All that I can do is
Love, love...love, love... [bells]

REPRISE:

No chance! not to love you darling,
No chance! not to love... [repeat]





by Missy
Shiv at First Grafting

Chat through an ancient stone glory hole at Chang K. Chang Chank Chain Gang Drunk Tank

LA CHAMA: So you're doing ok then?

ILLYN: Well, clawing my way back from a very dark place-- through vice and decadence-- but yeah, thanks for askin.

LA CHAMA: Can't always be ripping your spirit clean walking around with your skin hanging over your arm like a clown.

ILLYN: It's more painful than you can possibly imagine.

LA CHAMA: But picturesque, and that's what you do darling so what's happening now, in there, rats?

ILLYN: You know that rats can no longer survive an MPS prison. The social stigma is too great.

LA CHAMA: Haha there is no society. Hahahahaha!

ILLYN: Hahaha!

Guess I better get down

I'm going round
I'm going girl
I'm going round and I'm turning off the
going round girl going round round girl

I'm going round girl going going round
girl I'm going round turning all the lights down going
girl I'm going going girl I'm turning down the lights girl down girl down

Girl I'm turning down the lights I'm ready for the night girl going down
down girl I'm a going round and turning down and going going going going
I'm going for they know me where I'm going and they waiting for me where I'm

Going girl going going going going I'm girl going round turning down the
lights making sure I gotta water bottle at my bedside girl go and get my water
girl we're going going round round to get going where they know us out of town
girl let's get going round and turning down the lights girl knowing we're alright girl...



Channeling of Juniper
Phyllis [embedded]

The machines came for me and dragged me off to the future just as I was thinking I'd timed them out

there have always been machines coming back to harvest what we have now
it's because they're unsatisfied, the highest point of humanity possible, and
undisciplined, and ruinous, and soon we'll be able to start over once more with screwdrivers

every so-called singularity just a em-effin marketing campaign
they change everything and expect you to be their slaves
it didn't take a big step back from the filter of loathing to view the splooge of their damnation



Hoolie
Certified, Light Arms/ Cage Fighting

I Got a College Degree on My Phone-- While Driving

They're not birthmarks

They're shadows, animated watermarks from below that move
Across the years from breast to back of hand to forearm to ear

As if he were the same reborn and again apart from the ripples
That appeared uniformly but randomly not defined by place as

Much as shape and darkness, color, ochre ruby, cloudy edges,
And velocity, if you were going to use time as a measurement


Chamatilly

No-Go on the Mo-Ho

I never thought I'd want a pre-1977 house with axles and deflated wheels instead of posts and beams
so desperately
And then be so relieved when the plan stalled as if I'd never really wanted no mo-ho at all.

My engine of change switched on just long enough to open up a crack in the down chute
of my soul
And then, when I knew I'd never turn it over, backfire energy torqued me on after other dreams



by Hoolie

College of Cement, Chang K. Chang Chank Campus

OUR MISSION:

TO SUPPORT the local private business community so that, in addition to the tax breaks and new roads and stoplights they already get just for being kind enough to set up shop in our chank, they might be happy enough with the free training we provide their employees so as to be less likely to abandon our moldy, irrelevant old brick chank and take all the jobs with them.

TO OPERATE as if we were a successful, top-heavy, yet competitive for-profit business, while still being able to solicit, receive and spend tax dollars and private donations.

TO INVEST as much as possible in market research, publicity, recruitment, fundraising, customer satisfaction, institutional data management, commercial software packages, IT, buildings and grounds, and sport; and to provide excellent salaries and benefits to an important core staff of lucky fleyks from other places that can help make that happen for our community.

TO ENSURE that students are able to pay for the products and outcomes they purchase by focusing strategically on financial aid advising and any available student loan programs, public or private, to maximize the number of shiny coins each customer will bring with them through our doors. We have already installed the latest reverse-metal detectors at the main entrances to every campus.

TO SUCCEED in finding at least one student knowledgeable and cooperative enough to be able to speak as valedictorian at graduation and commencement in reasonably coherent English using an echo, a meme, at least, of rhetoric-like critical-thinky words.

TO PROTECT students from teachers who would attempt to deprive them of their dreams by word, deed, or assessment; these types of behaviors, including refusing to accept late work, not giving second chances on plagiarism, unwillingness to allow students to express their anger on them, unwillingness to allow students to scarf huge salads in class, sleep on the tables, or step in and out with their phones; these and any other actions that might create an impediment or delay to the receipt of the diploma once full payment has been received, will not be tolerated.

TO FIGHT professional teacher's unions and their members with every nerve, every fiber of our souls. We must resist their demands, destroy their organizations, and break their wills; alternately, we are open to a deal providing great full-time contracts, salaries and benefits to a small token group of their top leadership and depend on their historic penchant for corruption and brutality to bully it on down through the ranks from there.

WHY COLLEGE OF CEMENT

• College of Cement, Chang K. Chang Chank Campus (COCCKCC), is exactly the same, down to the graphics package on the website, as every other college in the Chanks. It is, perhaps, the shortest drive from your home.
• You may know an employee or want to get a job there some day, especially if you get too many DUI's and need work within walking distance during the winter months.
• Don't forget to check out our diversity statement and complimentary demographic maps; will you be comfortable with racial makeup of more distant alternatives? 
• Are you too busy achieving your dream to have time for study? 
• Just walk through our doors, and it will be like a party in your honor dude, just enjoy, no worries.

ACCREDITATION
 
Each year, our top administrators and executives climb up onto several buses for a trip down-chank to meet with past presidents of COCCKCC and other colleges, who make up the Board of Accreditation under the auspices of Mthyuh Protection Society (MPS). The Society has agreed to butt out of what is basically a dinner-and-drinks club for the last few dinosaurs of a serious, academics-based career-prep age which they know is long-gone, so it doesn't matter anyway.

HISTORY

Like every two-year college, COCCKCC was founded in 1964, and that's just darling. Skirts below the knee. Haha: shorthand! The white ones had already learned to read, write, and spell in high school back then. That's why grammar and punctuation are permanently barred from our curriculum.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

• A racist homemaker.
• Retired Professor of Music, deaf.
• An older white gentleman, about 350 lbs.
• His brother in law, 285.
• Acting VP of local hospital.
• VP of local air conditioning company.
• A closeted gay dentist with a large local practice.

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

This is the office that's most political and cosmetic, but President-Superintendent Jansdaad is no mere hairdo on a figurehead. You can hand over your family's or company's "propina" into the waiting, sweating palms of Jan "Juicy Jan" Jansdaad-- or placed in an envelope marked "Kitty" and popped through the mail slot-- confidently and directly.

OUR FACULTY

We love our faculty! They are the ones with the professional credentials to provide the optics that scream, "legit operation."

Our core team of professional faculty are not distracted by having to sleep in their cars or attend required, unpaid "professional development" hours at multiple schools adding up to more time than what they actually get paid for even if you count the teaching part. They get to call all the shots in each department. They are the master teachers. We rely on them to make the decisions that count for all of our adjuncts and students in terms of choosing which mega-publisher has the best kickbacks and swag per hour of schmoozing with company reps.

1. Phil, 95, cannot stand at a lectern without prosthesis. Will be vested into retirement in less than 60 months under current state law.
2. Betty, a real B. She could smoke and tell you off at the same time back when smoking and talking were still allowed in the teaching cage. 
3. No original record containing the name of the third full-time professor has survived implementation of the Filter of Loathing decades back, but he is said to be waiting patiently in a hospice, nearly triumphant with his gender-discrimination lawsuit against the college for allowing a militant feminist auto-body student to snip off his face after failing a dent-pull-out midterm in 1985.

The rest of our "pool" teaching staff number in the thousands, but we might regularly call upon 600-800 of those, depending on current human trafficking statutes and how quickly they can submit their Statements of Self-Effacement and Full Legal Responsibility (SSEFLR) at the end of the prior semester. We've found that the teachers who pull in the most coins also tend to have signed off on their final grades well before the third week of class.

LOCATIONS

• Right there at the freeway exit. Look for the smoked glass and plastic trim.
• In the old cement factory that provided historic levels of gainful employment for our chank before the automation of cement. Interior has been entirely remodeled in plastic and smoked glass with chrome.
• Right there at the other freeway exit in the landmark chrome-and-plastic Silicon4All building, a seminal freeway-side homage to chrome and plastic-- and smoked glass.

CAMPUS SAFETY

• Hands up! Don't Shoot! :)
• You must attend the Gory Shooter Situation holographic "shock chamber" presentation every three months and re-take the "Nothing You Can do But Scream, Die, or Kill" quiz and Bullhorn Handler's Workshop at least once per semester during class time.  
• Shove something in front of the door, hope it doesn't open out.
• How can YOU help to scare the shit out of vulnerable young adults struggling to see their way to a sustainable future? (Self-Paced PD, 8 credit hrs)
• Look around. Who should you report as a potential shooter? (Not a workshop. Do it. Now.)
• Gun Cleaning 
• Readiness Counts: When the day we've been planning for finally arrives, it could be among the most exciting of your life!
• Take Responsibility: If your instructor seems like she wants you to throw out your chewing gum, she may be pathologically not that nice and likely eligible for a no-fault conceal-carry takedown. See your Student Handbook for details and prizes.
• Gun Sharing
• Gunplay (some restrictions apply)
• Get a Campus Gun Permit (click here to print)
• Report Yourself as a Potential Shooter (IAMAPSR)

ALUMNI: LEADING THE WAY

We were able to track down at least four persons who took at least one class, or at least requested a Course Catalog, or received one by bulk mail, for this or any satellite campus and were willing to state as much on tape in a public venue.

1. Guy in a suit standing in front of a microphone
2. Woman in traditional African costume reading a book.
3. Guy with a chicken hat and two fleyks brandishing shiny new fryer baskets.
4. Smug-looking career lady pretending to use a smart phone.

CEMENT FOUNDATION

This is how we funnel the money. Click to send money.

NEWS AND EVENTS

Ice Cream Social blah blah I know that no one will read this even though we are way over budget on fancy dinners and events for stakeholders by which we mean local rich right wingers who want to police the library for stuff that's obscene and get court-side seats as close as possible to cheerleader poontang well on second thought I think some of the secretaries over in Administrative Self-Serving might have the time and inclination to see if there's maybe a picture of themselves posted here since they sort of had to attend the ice-cream social because the foundation set it up in the only hallway that goes to the bathrooms and made a really big deal about it if you came anywhere close to the table with the cooler on it but I don't think they are big readers, really, and the college not only has a Facebook page but also a full-time-with-competitive-benefits Facebook Liaison-Technician so they would click on that to see themselves shoving their strapless bikini career apparel into the camera of one of our full-time staff photographers now housed over in the Social Media Outreach building. No, they won't read this, and I don't even know why I'm writing it except to make it seem like I'm busy here so nobody finds out they haven't given me anything specific to do since my uncle Jan had a talk with the hiring committee and landed me this great full-time Education job with competitive benefits just last week.

FIND A COURSE

We offer all the courses you need for a rewarding career! Come and engage with our team of full-time Financial Aid counselors to find out how to buy a winter coat, get a bus pass, and open a student joint-auto-draft account at the COCCKCC Credit Union. COCCKCCCU will take all the thought away from transferring your loan proceeds into your very own Account of Indebtedness ("Easy AOI") with COCCKCC. Spin the wheel! Get a free hot dog!

VISIT CAMPUS

Bring some comfortable shoes! Our beautiful campus includes a glistening lake, a grove of award-winning shag oak, ice-skating rink, auto repair shop, ceramics studio, old-timey railroad museum and gift shop... all between the door to your classroom and the parking lot.

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

"You may still be illiterate and/or incomprehensible when you graduate, but rest assured that as a nurse, policewoman, air conditioning repair professional, dental hygiene assistant's aide, or any of the other rewarding careers supplied by our partnerships leveraging our foundation's perpetual fund drive with local labor exploitationists, you will definitely have memorized the most recent month's iteration of MPS format for in-text citations and Works Cited pages."

EMPLOYEE DIRECTORY

We realize that if you are attempting to search through our employee directory, you are most likely a disgruntled student or part-time employee trying to make a complaint, or maybe a disgruntled ex-paramour of Jan Jansdaad, the young, pretty, full-time-with-benefits Assistant II to the Executive Secretary for the VP Instructional Design/ Stupid Adjunct Support Institute (SASI) in Office 208887-G, first floor, 10-4 pm, whom you best believe is eligible to purchase a firearm if he doesn't already have one, so no. No Employee Directory for you.

Anyway, if you are trying to call your instructors, chances are we have no idea how you can get a hold of them. Most do not have phone extensions or offices on our campus, which, think about it, is a place of business, not some kind of teachers' lounge or union hall.

CLICK HERE FOR NOTHING TO HAPPEN

TRANSLATE

You believe that our translation of this page will result in an accurate facsimile of the English version.

Creo que las mejores mujeres jóvenes de mi vecindario se sentirían mucho más a gusto en Chukka Chank CC porque la verdad es que COCCKCCC es una mierda.

Voodoo cock

Its 8-10" wicker coffin, missing
The human hair, shed strategically
The chair broke out from under the
Last man to see and hold it as a curio;
Mother Ralph had a dark green bottle
With the urine of priests and frogs
Shook and uncorked it in front of me
Crossed my forehead standing there
With his own loins at my face level
Crossed me saying hard forever like
A tree, and he made the symbol of we
Won a goal or Mediterranean buggery

Hadness and sappiness

Hadness for whut you had

Sappy is you don't matter, but go ahead

fondo perpetuo

Don't Want to Make a Meatloaf Now

Stepping out with Shab for a last chance just before sunset, I got the first for me but one of the last available blasts of the day's summer flower and soft beginnings of the night drums.

Living in Chukkachank I can't just walk to the wild patch up the street unacknowledging of who's else is there in the road, and neither can a flake pretend it's not an event, or at least salient, that Shab and I are in and around and among, in smelling distance.

I overtook a largish family grouping headed no doubt to the same tousled organic respite both appearing and disappearing in the gloom ahead. I decided to try out my Fleyk on them even though it's High Chank tongue.

I said Careful now incorrectly to a fur-loined child that had veered suddenly from a tight but getting fraught filial constellation in the glare of evening.

Explaining, I gestured for the boy into one of the larger roadside trees with abundant vinery spilling up and from it. I'd stopped him in his tracks, and I could guess which of the men was his dad because he wouldn't meet my eye while picking up his pace. This plant, I tried to say, has a venom. It makes problems of the skin. As I paused in striking senatorial pose, son looks up at me with serendipity, not at my lecture, I realize, but for certain my biology.

Perfect moment for just-arriving father to chime in, bowing, Yes, this is a poisonous plant for sure, a dangerous plant and one that the children should take care not to touch or even go near it. Son, did you hear? he stated, sophomorically, to my native ear.

But gratitude tingled just above my temples for I knew this honorable soul was acting out a ritual, and that it was cross-cultural.

As I smiled and harvested, reached, swam in the sudden sea of available smiles, including a commuter, entering scene on his bicycle, could tell it was a moment to use his years of practice as if he'd pedaled through this site, the green tunnel, the malicious tree, with his empty lunchbox and a bouquet for the wife, calling out Hello! Hello! to one and all at end of each working week and day.

The grandmother, the tiniest baby even seemed to go along and say, Hello! Hello! This is the language we speak here cotidianly, and we want you, who also speak this funny way, to feel at home.

Now the calling had turned to laughing and the laughing to forgetting to a low and murmured chanting, involuntary singing, a barely-conscious melody, the kind that someone sings when there's no medicine. Now the children were much thicker in their wave across the ashpalt, and other sounds, the crickets, now in rhythm once they recognized a cadence they could understand, and light was almost gone, and Shab and I were frightened.


by Illyn [shard]