Snub

you don't know if you'll live throughout the night 

and you're watching a rom-com? you can deduce

that all prospects are tongue in non-literal cheek

or that your level of acceptance is very high

or that it's depression giving up disassociating

and probably not production values, star power

a sudden insistence on minding the moment?

a pain strip that overlaps takes on is informed by

the stack of strips below it, a translucent 

suspension of anecdotes, quips, romans a clef,

bulleted lists, self-pranks legends memoir

and these legs can take you from sofa to desk

and a desk can take and make havoc with an arm

and an arm is all it takes to stop an action or

refuse the sorts of service lacking which could 

mean the end of a long but very young evening

it's that you're tired and afeared of a rapacious

environment which can be slowed cannot be

slowed by inaction but can be snubbed as one

would snub an earnest lover with no worldly

blame apart from the ancient code she arrived

with, no more agency than gravity and water

 

by Reptily

345

decaying cedar lodge in eastern prussia

clump snow dropping from high branches

crystal blue sky

trying not to boil it down into an unfair 

and ugly blob or not even trying just

not doing that you know?

presents from four-score christmases

choke the closets and litter the plank floors

they're real planks that they'd cut from the

surrounding woods and made floors of them.

 

they were watching a season of Star Trek in

which the flow of the plot kept getting 

stopped dead when each character had to 

turn to the other and affirm their goodness

there's also a lake and silently dipping mallard 

groupings, legit choppiness or gently rolling

in the moon, natural waters that are filtered 

and stocked, ballooned over; still nature was

winning here, fungus by mouse by respect

by time no not by time. in the same

measure of time there can be renovation.

by age no not by age each age is just a 

fashion. there is only movement, only 

action, else there would be preservation.

by Reptily

Unangry

they say never go into a situation angry or you'll lose

but if your spirit is angry all you'll do is suppress your

anger and not be unangry

that's how breaking the rules becomes a spiritual

pursuit especially if you have to pay off your

transgressions

and if not are you humbled by

rue?

the day after a full moon i felt and discarded emotions

rocked the bottom of the steering wheel

snuck nicotine vapes near a hospital's elevator banks 

found the only saturday medical supply outlet

marveled at aisles of crisp alarming packages

how family characters rise to an emergency 

in direct proportion to the value of the afflicted

or sink in unison if there's even only 

one who can't hold her shit

 

by Donna

Dog pees on rug

in one full-moon day:

ran out of my vape pen

with an hour and a half to go before the

tow truck

who said i couldn't ride with him because

he'd brought his girlfriend

the stepfather says:

pull it up right from the middle

give me a snuggie

and the woman with the broken hip says:

home healthcare workers

what for?

and the jury says: 

let him go

and half the people realize

all we need is lies

dog pees on rug

wound porn

there was a four-foot tube going from my nostril to my small intestine, and i pulled it out, twice, once while vomiting. 

i figured out how to work some of the blinking, sucking, beeping machinery, and when i'd had enough, i switched it off. 

i took the loudly ticking clock down from its high place on the wall and removed its battery. 

i signed a waiver of liability so that i could be allowed to sit up in bed.

i told them i wanted ativan, and a full milligram, not a child's dose. 

i allowed a young male nurse to wrap me with a vinyl leash and walk me up and down the corridor. 

i became conscious well into a narrative with a daisy miller-like subplot. 

there in trinidad and tobago, i gave her one more chance to choose between the hipster boyfriend and the security of her father.

i drifted in the streets after they made their choice and moved inland, toward the volcano. 

i evaded pickpockets and thugs in a dark terrain of campfires, our shadows splaying against the outer city walls.

i got a ride in a jeep full of local teenagers speaking tagalog.

i cooked a pork shoulder in an aluminum pan at an outdoor community kitchen.

i slept in a flophouse full of mattresses in wall alcoves and flashlights and men.

i met the girl who was going to solve the problem of the tracking wires embedded in everyone's eyeglasses or canes. 

i was desperate to find an overall solution, but i could only wander from situation to situation. 

by Donna

Repast

watching her dance plays

all their muscle keys

her inner commands

can freeze them in place

but she can't reach me

the pitch of my jib

bends off her song

and won't let me on

my breathing, long and

unobstructedly

tacks the vanished spell

only when she's gone

only when alone

can i read her lips

free from the bleeping

moment's disorder

wings sweep on the floor

panic and truth merge

is this not my drug

or not me at all

 

on stolen spirits

please the vacant skull

take time and hurl it

with your polished shoe

 

realization

is after it's through

what's not caught is true

so what have you done? 

by Reptily

Skeleton parade

i can feel the life 

coming back in

and it's terrifying

as a skeleton

while before my 

past wrongs paraded

before my eyes

now more are on the way

i don't set time

but i did invent it

so to steal it

from the chill of night

 

but the warm of day

is tending light

must i still pay

for not living right?

 

 

 

by Reptily

Smoke crazy

She keeps going out to smoke this

in to smoke that

like breathing except the opposite

she smoke crazy smoke crazy

She went to college and all that

end up like this

in mutually exclusive states

we trial dating while mating

Half the day she's in pain from 

electrolysis

she gets that but not how her 

soul might fit, soul might fit

Lady in the main, second is a

man for this, a man 

much more than any other gender

that's one for you, one

 

she smoke crazy

we trial dating

oh she a lady

and he a man

[repeat]

by Donna

Lyric for electric organ, fog machine, and choir

Look, i'm touching my scalp, right near the brain

it's an expression of painful humility, vulnerability

 

as i read the prognosis my heart was 

thumping with surprise [begin drum]

 

to do it and feel it at the same time

the answer was always why

 

when it could have been a 

fun time, fun time [begin organ]

 

free, and free is what they hate us for

fire, it's what our lives are given for

we: have no regrets for living on

fire, it's what our lives are given for

free, and free is what they hate us for

we: have no regrets for living on...[fade]

 

Donna Thong

"My name is cool because it's a command."

Any single lover

it's only 11:30
but my night is over
and it won't be getting better

reminds me of the time
i made out with a man
who turned seedy and spent

i'd like time to
be there to make you
want to get to more time

by no means will i

give in willingly to sleep

it must win me over

 

nor will any single lover

dictate my ups and downs

or cause me troubles

 

 

 

by Donna

can't go back/ have to go back

can't go back/ have to go back

still beat up/ they're on task

boat that spins/ must join in

 

out of doors is a hot griddle

other persons burn too hotly

i can diffuse their iterations

 

from within these walls and

tunnels/ can't stay here/ can't

leave, reaching way beyond 

 

my fingertips what i can feel

is read only/ listening trying 

to jaw the words correctly

 

i want to stay here forever/

this is not at all what i want

too hot/ stay in/ want not

Dr. Donna Thong

Center for Therapeutic Re-credentialing

Rm 409

Television leaked into the vacuum of my inactivity

Hunched over an ancient glory hole in one of their urban sub-baserock ant tunnels, pressing my eye very close, I could see a television. Its sounds and light began to leak day by day into the vacuum of my inactivity. 

 

I can feel my emotions getting on the roller coaster provided and off the one that's in my head and pretty soon, one is just a template for the other, but which is which?

by Reptily

Moral Crimes

The poor make truer friends

or lack of means starts trends

that beg the path of more security

in that the opposite of debt is money.

The rich are fickle and strategic

needing all the more to shirk the tragic

prone to see the emptiness in bounty

but always find the energy to count it.

 

Being in the middle you're suspicious

Poverty becomes your real subconscious

you notice tiny fluctuations

and the moral crimes of rich and poorer nations.

 

 

 

by Reptily

Sincere Little Face

i was at least gonna 

log in an

leave some pathetic

message to no one

but then i remembered

ye are already damn 

complete in Him

and my song carries on...

i got my grrl with her

little sincere sleeping face an

glowing red nails 

from the rag weed an the

 

biting flies she's ad-

mittedly an animal but ya

could eat her up like a

cannibal and every little

 

move that she makes

is worth a second take cuz

she sleeps by my side an

poses for greeting cards an

 

deals out the faces make a

grown man cry like it's

his own baby child looking

up and smiling missing a

 

tooth but pushing

through the discomfort so she

can be there for you an be

there for you there for you oh

 

CHORUS

my child's got me got my

eye got my face got my

eye got my taste my child's

got me got me in her embrace

my child my child my child

REPEAT

by Hoolie

Peg's Failed/Anachronistic Do's and Don'ts for Petty Transgressions

• Just hold the item(s) in your hand and walk out the door with it/them, purposeful but unhurried. Then if stopped, say, "Wow, I guess I spaced out. I want to buy this/these, but I also wanted to compare the price over at [name of other store at mall]."
• If you must flame while in a hooptie, keep hands well below the dash.
• If you are trying to get back more shiny coins, choose a teller who seems to be flirting with you.
• If you have a lighter in your pocket, and there's another one on the table, use the one on the table, and then put it in your pocket. You now have two lighters.
•  Get the shiny coins up front, but make sure his purse is close by in case he wants to add items or go off menu.
  
• Press a dab of his pre-cum between your thumb and forefinger. If it's tacky, use a condom. If it's stringy, you're good!

Take these to switch up sleep type

story-verbal sleep

itching-layered

many-roomed structure

places on maps

view from grave

view from above

view from a passing conveyance

figures beckoning

bent coupling

generic horror

deeply unasleep

torque of somnolents

conscious paralysis

tandem breathing

ever sinking

scary clear

content bemusement

seeking moments

stranded in time

able yet not able

about the bed

night shrouded

stark light black curtains

sweet avoidance

stolen

form of eating

brain stuff

closest listening

despite discomfort

ring of saturn

bobble head

I thought it was all over and then woke up to a whole other day

Yes, I used to contemptualize everything

like the bitter, curmudgeonly professors at

the beginning of my career. They filled the

smoking lounge with grievances and

plotting, derisive cackling in their blur of

fear. But for some the failure has been a 

tenderizer, the corrosive beating toward a

climax of surrender. Is what I'm hearing.

by Peg

Murder grinder

My face was smeared across all the killings

one of them

killed when he'd temporarily forget how to type

innocence stuck in back corners presented as 

stupidity, passion

a mocking deadly innocence put mildly

nature predating pre-forgiveness

unchanging through ages of moral fashion

 

But when they think of murder they see me

I believe I have to tickle them with it

They feel they need to get all into it

I am this free-channel boatman

skimming along

living my life with all these dead along

keeping my eye on what can change

not what's done.

by Ted

The better form of sight

i like to hang myself by the ankles

over the River Plaque, and swing

and watch the sky rock up and back

 

where nature's harsh incense rises 

from tiny clouds with dark edges

fertility independent of relationships

processes do better without light

blindness is the better form of sight

among internal organs is the eye

by Ilyn

"Short for Illinois"

Crappy lighter

births could no longer quell my pregnancy

too many selves were building inside me

i can no longer be always in delivery

 

so i bought this crappy lighter to keep me lit all night

i stand vigil for the principal inseminator

like a lover i will greet him and then end his life

 

 

 

by Peg