They asked to be spared from predators

dear god please help me find my way back

last time i didn't know where you at

keep me in a place that's proofed for pain

and then i wake in this room again

soon as i got here i understood

chaos is out there and in the blood

freedom needs a template to lay down

a flag or stake to drive in the ground

i built a log cabin of rhetoric

just like my forbearing eccentrics 

they asked to be spared from predators

i must submit to my editors

by Donna

Institute for the Journal of the Meta-Cognitive Talk Therapy Apologist Movement

Chukka Chank Center 

Community Week Poetry Festival, Table 7

Miracle of Light

i walked with lala into the black area where we knew the park was around 10

before my eyes adjusted and after we entered night's shadow i inhaled sharply

and deeply and as the oxygen hit i could see better and confirm by standing 

still with my head back that ya, there's hardly any stars due to light pollution

but then i picked up lala's shit with a plastic grocery bag and started hoping

that my mom didn't ever feel as guilty about me as i sometimes do about lala

how i know it would be different if she was a child more love, complexity

but also that it's the love and not the mistakes, regrets that fuel your worth

 

now it can't help but occur to me how severely light pollution can infect 

what might have been a lovely inky and terrifying plunge into the only

vaguely known or previously noticed in actual physicality rather than a

virtual prance down a rutted lane with the miracle of light all around us

 

Traducción por Joél Barbillademacho

 

Final 3 Weeks of the Prostate

I'll try not to say apostate, tho apostasy might pimp the ride.

Not saying goodbye to all prostates, just the one that's rotten inside. 

The quest to change the world's been delegated to transgression;

The money shots were caught on tape for posterity or confession.

These fields were always fallow, yet always yielded more to find;

There's neither need to salt the earth nor leave it all behind.

by Tom

Be happy about recycling your empty glucerna boxes

Hot Ukrainian Grave Diggers

1.

the skin on his outer back across the ribs is so white, while the back of the neck is shiny, shiny coffee.

2. 

the sexiest one with his ornery chest and beard hairs

lines of words on his forearm and the tats the

south-pacific islander/ celtic/ native american/ burning-man tribal symbol don't make sense

the saint's medal hung from the neck and jutting chin claim his earnestness

the snarl as if he stands just pre-coitus before you naked

the squared-off nose as if he had been born to shovel

high tight titties

the funeral chrysanthemums appear to be there for him not the dead

3. 

but then they all have these chains

the little one, with little black socks and trainers, his jeans cut off

his abs a blueprint or map in soilure and creases

if you hold him close, any point of his body or being could be within reach

if you are much bigger, he could have strong feelings about you

if you are the same size, he may not like you or you will be brothers

i love sitting in a barber chair, like a king on a pyramid

there's a special vestment and i feel like my appeal is concentrated

4.

our experience with sodomy has been overwhelmingly positive

though it's much more fun when it's illegal

and would be better if you could top each other at the same time

i think it's impossible but keep trying to figure it out logistically

he's not porn or a doll that you're humping but 

another human being working with you and against you wholistically

and if you're weaker than him that's hot and if you're stronger that's hot

you might try to guess what he's thinking but it doesn't matter

sodomy supersedes thought law reproductive excuses for fucking

fear of death wrath of god precedent history science cocksucking

for some it's got to be the logical choice when bombs are falling

by Jan

ILL-advised: Return of the HIV Bros

The HIV Bros are still suffering from internalized homophobia.  

Jer: That was so smooth how we got to stay like we are forever. It's cruel for them to make us suffer indefinitely. Sorry, my tooth. 

Ken: Ya when you spit blood on me, I hate your guts. 

Jer: Fushoobishgunmuvfo!

Both: Hahahahahahaha. 

Ken: We're on permanent disability. What do we do now. 

Jer: I cut you! I kick you face!

Ken: Let's take our shirts off and go to the beach and watch people see our sores. 

Jer: We don't have sores anymore Ken.

Ken: We could start up a bitch fight with rat-tail combs and bleed in the surf. 

Jer: I have a lot of fatigue though.

Ken: The only woman i can keep down is Glucerna. 

Jer: That's funny cause yor a fag.

Ken: If you cut me do i not scream?

Jer: WHERE'S THE FUCKING WHEELCHAIR?!? I actually said that. 

Ken: That's because PharmSupply's forcing you to age when you should really be either cured or aborted.

 

Umami Bhomb

We're convecting our own investiduction

until we tried to struggle free

we couldn't name our native state

the charnel house they made

the charnel house they made to show

how we were living out the fate 

for which we'd bought and paid

for which we'd paid in mindlessness

and taken steps to palliate

and then from there to fade

and then from there to fade so much

to lack the mark of a livid wait

from which one could be saved

 

by Peg

Squib load

O moon, what kind of goddess. 

Hours of yarning, mindfulness.

Windowed rooms take on powers

But a rabbit too is transfixed

this is what it would look like

if you could see the other nights

some men going un-included

blind to an inner circle's appetites

moments of free running fear

a gentle unknowing morning

by Tom

Spin, Vajra!

Vajra, spin! gently through the entrails

spear the cancer like a golden pin!

the motion of the hollow spire rings

each bar a chord and a prayer!

Vajra, there! kill before it bleeds

fling it towards a thousand cleaning stars

repair your entrance once you have retired

send me off to sleep through every door

wake me and you'll see my face no more!

by Ilyn

Spirit Chain Gang

you can't buck the system but i can't help but notice the formality east of the mississippi

having been gone a long time it seems parochial and authority-aggrandizing

but as i say you can observe but you're not going to pitch a complaint in the cradle of civilization

but if you do you're going to come out looking like a freak in your jeep and your meadow hoppers

today we saw a long skinny fox like a cross between a cat and a chihuahua

it bounded to the middle of a fresh-mown field and rolled in the grass and scratched its ticks

it was in no hurry at all about getting to the tree line and didn't seem to mind as long as we kept our distance 

it probably helped that we were the only other pairs of eyes in the park grounds

unless the giant owl we'd seen swoop through there the day before was peering from one of the oaks

it's a shame the animals finally get to come out in the sun and they're miserable with insects

they cycle through their generations ground up and given life again and again with similar results

except that kids these days seem to see themselves as the frayed end of a dna line

but i guess when we were young we also saw ourselves as a sort of final iteration

so you see what i mean the dump truck keeps on spinning out sludge that's so hard to crawl out of

that you're never even sure if it's stupid to have kids in a crazy world you're unequipped for

but the population of the world keeps increasing because fucking is just part of nature

but you cross the river and you can say that sex is part of a duty-chain for god and country

and no fences between the houses is supposed to help you keep each other honest

is someone coming to your door for sex and is that sex going to contribute in any way to society

will it be followed by sacrificial and largely performative outlays of cash for merchandise

not for yourself of course but for the kids the growing family scrawling out a tribe line

every wild spirit gets sucked up into a chain gang called Spirit Chain Gang but 

the wild spirit is only in the songs they sing to get the work done faster and more efficiently

and the ones that get away get eaten up by the parasites that once were culled by bats and rain

Zaul Eikensej

Adherence

Everything that comes out of plants, it's all over me. 

My skin is hot to respond to the natural chemicals. 

My dog is panting sweating out the particles. 

This building is a filter referee 

I have the apparatus to be clean

but i prefer to move through space and time

letting the adherence be unclung from me. 

Umami Bhomb

Disorientation due to distance

supermarket's got more but

a little shop can show its 

whole movie in one frame

cep the ladder to the soup just

keeps on going up and 

soon you've added decades of

food and waste but now you're

floating in a non-temporal zone with

invisible borders and 

irrelative placement of content but

who really cares how it fit before

Umami Bhomb

dream/love story/work/narcotics

that fever dream

was just like a love story

i had to work out

while scratching narcotics

dream that i'm awake

that love story

was more work than worth

narcolepsy

stillborn consciousness

story isn't justice

those narcotics

one day they'll run out

while i'm sleeping and

transgress a story

narcotic-temporal justice

these workplace transgressions

narco-crime unit

dream of unwanting

story archetype

shame a warm reminder

Hunnard Peshupts

Statement

through anecdotal evidence and sheer respect for truth

i now retire my cock from service to the gay community

and may it rest in peace unlike the seventies through the teens.

i now concede this moment and have nothing left to prove

beyond the fact that i have been your tool for 40 years.

by Hoolie

Bone nest

They say because i breathe fire i leave burning ruins, and that just feels like an attack on my identity. 

Yeah, as a frickin loudmouth.  

Life is short. 

And there's so much to burn down. 

Then why are we just sitting here? 

BOTH: Hahahahahahaha. 

But no, really they say you split the eardrums of babies in Dubbaberra Chank. 

I did some high screeching. That was a great day, but I doubt they split. 

So why do you bring it up? 

They are gene shaming me. They

Waywaywayway who they? 

Legit news outlets, da-preests, what's spilled along the vittle trails... And it's partly that i'm gender-fluctuating. 

That sounds dirty and inappropriate.

At this point they rolled themselves up onto their sharp elbows to look out across the meadow.

Zebras stood in their shadow, a vast jagged temple. 

They are afraid of my glorious history, not just my beauty. 

They are sick of your nasty-ass attitude. 

It's called sass, and she's a legit spirit. 

Is it a little blasphemous to invoke sass in an earnest moment.

Is it just as good to wrap your tongue around them and squeeze to make a fresh bone nest?

These are the rights of sentient airborne reptiles, but what are the responsibilities? 

BOTH: Hahahahahahahaha!

Per Phyliss (embedded)

Dysmorphia

After seven hours, the surgeon had removed the laughing, multi-spoked cauliflower of a tumor from about 12 inches north of the balls. 

But she awoke in recovery as Susan, full of vamp and sass: 

Well, doctor. It looks like you're the man who saved my life. 

She looked up at him leaning back with her bangs and with her legs as if he were the sun and she were in a bikini. 

Well it's nice to meet you. And I only did my part on a team. 

See how gallant? 

Susan shot this at the nurse standing behind the surgeon. She meant: he's mine now. 

Nurse smiles. 

She meant: Bitch if you could see how your hair looks, you would not be channeling the spirit of Sass at all bitch. 

Then Susan, herself a projection of Ted's own temporarily schizophrenic-hypomanic, gender-dysmorphic state, tried to become the man that she imagined the surgeon wanted her to be in order for sexual attraction to occur: 

TED AS SUSAN AS AN IDEAL AVAILABLE GAY GUY NAMED JOSE-MARIA: 

So are you a swank bachelor doc around town these days or home with a family.

DOC: My husband and I are raising our two daughters up in Allview Chanks. 

As if smacked in the face, Ted returns:

That's wonderful. Thank you, doctor. I'll see you at the follow-up visit. Thank you so much. 

 

 

Umami Bhomb

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Yall up on yo hippie scrip

yall up on yo hippie scrip

always thought mao was a kitty littuh

sang holdie-hanz naykit when you trip

men's mean any bloody sistuh muthuh

 

ladies' cayn't say it cuz it disrespec

woma is da kinda lady dat my mama

dey nevah go out wit dey face a wreck

so sexy men are ending up with trauma

who nena whenan set you free

stepeen to da leyuf when iss me you needit

yall up on yo hippie scriup

you say I love ya like you really meanit

 

[loop]

by Jan

From DDT

[To Jan]

1. It's always interesting negotiating meaning with you. 

2. So you are saying that you have bpd?

3. I'd forgotten, maybe out of politeness, to ask you about it. Or a little out of not seeing a reason or a problem to solve. More information is better than less? 

4. Here's a sample of my ignorance on the topic: I really don't see how pd's in general are much different than symbols of the zodiak, numerological principles, or multiple-choice industrial-psych tests for HR departments. 

5. I once took a test that said I had all the disorders. What is my treatment? Maybe I should be locked up.

6. Some multipurpose drug. Of my choosing after months of chemical torture trying out different brands. Or none. What had brought all this on? 

7. Other drugs. Life. People go to shrinks when we have discomfort of mind and/or behavior. Or cops, but that's not us let's face it, not yet. Some of us come home stigmatized and traumatized by the pharmacological drug-testing spree and resulting stresses on normal life which was already fragile which is why we came in to talk about our problems. 

8. That's why I began the Institute for Talk-Therapy Apologists right down here in Chukka-Chank. Our Journal of the Institute for Talk Therapy Apologistics circulates into hundreds of libraries worldwide. We have a BS program that was first in the Lower Chanks to be approved for Common Mirror delivery while operating a motor hooptie. 

9. Another thing I like about us, even though as you say no one can ever know you, I have to grab at some likeness, like a toddler trying to distinguish myself from the wall even? --what I like about us is our tendency to make unsolicited comments. No? 

10. And for parsing out ideas/ sentences, sorting speech as one would if they were being critical in the everyday sense. 

11. The results of all that are, indeed I guess those of a personality. If you see yourself and seek to know yourself better using the template of X set of symptoms in order to better predict and watch out for unwanted tendencies, how might that process apply to my thinking about you going forward or our correspondence? I am ok knowing or not knowing the answer to that question.

12. This is all my grasping, and it's for you darling. 

To the volcano, 

Donna

PS: Oh please just indulge me: fun game. Find at least five signs of personality disorder in the text above. I can do it: 1) #1 could be taken as sarcasm/ irony though it was not meant to be so. 2) #5 Takes a stance like all politicians are corrupt, so I won't vote, you know? An abdication of responsibility disorder. Doesn't have to be all or nothing. But I've read that's a bpd thing. 3) #6 Was it really "torture"? Is that like it was devastating that their grandmother died? Self-pity disorder. Or it was really torture. 4) Same with #7: traumatized-- really? Experiences are relative to other experiences in an average schmuck's life. That's how being yelled at on a patio at a cocktail party or a pig roast can be "traumatizing." Folks show up to Shiv Days fully armed and ready to do damage for.. less? More? No reason-- that's the point. Some signs of the zodiac might be more driven toward heinous crimes. One would always hope it's passion somehow but no, much creepier. Like ignorance. Should they widen the scope of topics children encounter in public schools from an early age? Let's talk. 5) #9 & 10 cross a line into aggression-- there's little doubt now that some suppressed interpersonal issue is percolating. Life is short. Let's not let it boil. And these are not to mention the potential pathology of any number of the other statements made here, including the non-statements and especially this very exercise of picking through it all. What is that about. Ok and have to say, #7: Hopeless Circle disorder. DDT

Mostly, it's my gut that's unrested

in these rooms that once were strewn with decoration

my spirit roams between the broken lavatories

a skeleton but now a template for the future

when you're alive you use the steps and open spaces

 

they encourage exercise as part of living

and now the freshest air is in those very places

those generations haunt me just as i haunt yours

presumably a gentleman could find the door

I commit to dying out this death with meaning

and since i never sleep nor tire for lack of pep

the actions i take now will count as double duty

and doubled once again with hindsight's added wisdom

by Jan

"It's Uncle Jan, kids."

Gritty, dark

There's a basement sure, but it's gutted. To the bricks, he says. 

Soon after we bought the property my wife and I were a little drunk and decided to check out the basement with candles. We saw the ghost of a youth and a phantom locker. 

And there was the shovel. The working end was raw wood but machine sanded, tapered to the hand. 

The youth is pulling up his pants, a joint hanging from his lips, when a very tiny journalist, a friend of the family on furlough, also a ghost, enters the scene. She says she was looking for the locker. All her stuff's in there. Instead of looking down at the locker, the boy's eyes dart up to the handle end of the shovel. He thinks it looks like someone dipped it in a lake. 

And being a journalist, the other ghost follows the boy's unexpected glance up to the tip of the long wooden handle of the shovel, widened slightly for about nine inches at the end, and makes her own conclusions. She then adjusts her concentration towards creating a privacy bubble with her tiny body (although she wore a large military jacket) around and over her army locker while she rustles through it, obviously planning to leave it there in the gutted basement permanently, making that entire gutted room into her own cheap urban pied-a-terre. 

We didn't know what to say. To the ghosts. Could they see us? To each other. It wasn't threatening, but we'd never seen anything like it. 

Jan, I think that was when we started healing. You know?

You're right, it wasn't traumatizing or re-traumatizing at all. More of an affirmation. A cartoon!

To me though it was also disturbing, sad. 

I don't know. It depends on what mood I'm in. It can make me hot sometimes. 

Nope, we've never had sex down there but we know that we could. 

Witness statement (frag.)

Mr./Mrs. Jan Jansdaad