K Groom

when you talk so long
my responses build and ebb
without making noise



for Missy
by Phyllis (embedded)

street cred

Despite the moral and health risks i still cherish my connections to the dark side, stated La Chama. They give me the street cred i need with some of the flakes. They fill blanks in my self-mythologizing. Let me tell the shiv in a ramshakle temple until morning and my spirit will be ready as the scored flesh of brother Ilyn, as he rolls, in his square-wheeled cart.


Phyllis, embedded

K's Fly Spread Eagle

Green-grey monkeys dipped down from the overhang with the moss and the misters swinging between the ukuleles and the hats and undress you and dress you up again in little outfits while you walked past the shop windows perhaps with a rum-and-fruit drink and without even slowing you down unless you wanted to stop and admire your reflection. These little guys had amazing taste, a trained eye for the right ensemble and all by guesswork on the measurements.

For this reason La Chama had become accustomed to strolling topless through the streets even in the evening after work with a nice wool skirt and a briefcase. Her shoulder monkey, Jock, covered his bald head with his silly, long fingers in feigned embarrassment at all the attention his mistress would get from mammals and flakes and the deities and the bitches and the College of Cement. Ranging from a lifted eyebrow to a flash of angry, swollen anal gland from the packs of male K teens.

Some say Missy emerged hideous from the perfect chrysalis of the Chama as easy as a zipper. Because the K's had a visceral reaction of hate when they see her as if she were an archetype of that which circled over their nesting caves in their earliest memories even though she has the perfect soft brown body of a flake.




by Phyllis, embedded

Da Badonkuments

Da badonka donkuments bedda be deh
Be day onca-mockument o da tacomen
Cuz ivdey donbe ocu-lockumenz we gon
upan sockyo polka-munny sum taybo sun



by Jan

Remorse of Battle

If good men, both victor and vangquished burn from remorse of battle
if you have been vicked or vanged, maybe you could be good
Any machine without hate would quickly move on



La Chama
Fgmt. unknown

Bitch's snow tracks are a portrait of herself crapping on lawn

How I Experience Communication

Do you see anything like a lip moving on my face?

No. That's because I am talking to you, and I don't do it with a mouth. You are only even hearing the English because it's my organic empathic system that makes it not even matter and it's the biology of your no-K braino that turns it into recognizable symbols. In fact, did you know that if it weren't for the human capacity for what you call "denial," your flakes and no-K's could not even reproduce? Would not be able to.

So... I wish you would look me in the eye, an organ we have in common, and state your credentials as a professional by implication of your manner, sir.



by Missy

The Coarsening of Society

First, you did not even look me in the eye before lifting my preen lid.

Also, "What's your name?" is not the answer to any possible client inquiry.

You make what, low six figures? You're a professional K Hygienist?

I tell you I have a question. You answer what's your name. And don't look at me?

Put my lid down. You don't have permission.

I'd like to speak with a K.



by Missy

The Deep Straight

There's a water stain around the dog watering area
It's left a pattern of seeking its level in fine chalk
And there's another bowl sitting next to the dog
watering tank that has water in it. The dog watering
tank is functional, but it takes more effort to clean
and fill than a glass mixing bowl, which is what
the dog has been drinking out of. No one wants to
clean up the chalky wet mess around the dog water-
ing area, so both the bowl and the tank remain.




by Jan

High fog across the great lakes region

high fog across the great lakes region
i try to land but for the hoes and rakes

this season, i'll sprinkle my criticisms,
toss in a prank if i'm feeling that wry

the sky, where I hover, is the last place
you'd sweep for the source of stank

and when I cry it seems purely natural
to think of me and have a little wank



By Jan

Activity table

i mouthed a southwestern melody
reminiscent of hollywood and
suede fringe costumes, similar to

the counter-intuitive, at times a-
tonal chinese hollywood music,
but without percussion, yet I

wailed my plaintive harmonies
to the west in all earnestness
thinking of their fires and loss


by Donna

Wasted in Good Shoes

sure that's the story of my life
wasted in good shoes because
for what more have I requested

my current job: to create a task
to practice the replacement of
low-info words with high ones.

i feel i could say more but why
who i ask who wants to know
who's not up their ass aloof with

terror. disguised also as disdain
who's not afraid or disdainful?
even the professionals shame

themselves over the inadequa-
cy of their trade to quell the tide
of bullshit the great leveler

doctors blame their own lazy
arrogance inventors their
craven leveraging monetizing

used to be you could ask who
do i see if i wanna put an enemy
to rest answer was your army

now it isn't even alarming when
every store front a font for mur-
der, your own reflection in the

glass could for a moment make
you wonder is that pale beast a
killer or how disdainful at best



Dr. Donna Thong

Take Your Pants Off, Mr. Green Jeans

That tingling at top of head and breathlessness, nonspecific terror
Dogs me from garbage disposal to mailbox and out to the car
The icebergs dropping off: missed tax year due to obama care
The amount I owe exceeds what I'd saved by having an insurer
And I can't get ahead because I can't afford accountants or a lawyer
And if I want to refinance, I'll need that year's return to get out of here
To pay off the down payment from the government I got to stay 5 years
But then almost anyone would pay to get out of solitary
All my friends and lovers i used to call a non-traditional family back there
Spread back into the winds that always caress the desert
From dry air I come to this fungal great lakes misery
At least there's less sun to contribute to my recurrent skin cancers.

by Donna

worker child

have gravy, tenderloin and flair jeans
vinyl case for cigarette pack with
a loop and snap top for the lighter

four to midnight get a break time
with a magazine or paper; maybe
you wrote a letter to the editor

a room with mechanical machines
a room with towering reel-to-reel
tape drives behind formica, buttons

green and red and yellow blinking
reset beepers with timers, and your
whole arm could hold 13 or so reels

this weight on the arms of a ballet
trainee, 13 on each arm, the wrists
having fit through the holes perfectly

the lead operator had a racket going
slapping reset buttons, barking at
us to reset the beeping buttons so it

would look like we were attending
to the reels much more quickly than
we were or possibly could have done

planning to spend the rest of the
night dancing in a club, sweating,
drinking, dancing, cabbing home.



by Hoolie

Smart-ass child with an enormous beard

Smart-ass child with an enormous beard
you seem to appear as well from behind steam

and in your wisdom
have chosen a medallion

to commemorate a playoff
at your neck

you swore the newer technology
did not come with an adapter plug
but of course it did

Sorn Gorn Dorn

sorn gorn dorn
naw tamir
ini stone
way we leaf

tayco stain
ona watu sai
you k hee
butta wa-ai pay

[repeat]

Pharmsupply's Prolabique LipLine Master-Lisp "Lipstickventory" Name Galleys 88rx: lipsticks 2020

• all i get is pretty
• a pinch
• blankets for teeth
• blind fury
• blowers for algernon
• blur
• Bogue R. Dit
• brank-ish
• breeder
• bubbles
• cashed bowl
• category 6
• chipotle wind
• duck-taped pepper grinder
• eyelids of the mouth
• fi'nna
• fish clamp
• go boom 
• great lakes region
• grrrainy day
• hairy
• how devastating?
• indefensible
• lawn salad
• morgue ship
• move-over ripe
• nothingburger
• ocular migraine
• pay me
• perverse motivation
• property value
• ribbon event
• salted slug
• shiny purse
• Showing Green
• slapjack
• smartass
• smoking lines
• so...
• soccer ball
• Sorn Gorn Dorn
• steak
• stitches
• sugar drift
• thin
• topless
  
• torn open
• torrid crepe
• twouldn't
• very devastating
• void
• warm roach
• when
• white on tan
• wrap
• you know, I don't? but thank you

When?

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with hate, resentment, exasperation, anger

Sounds come out my mouth or I have to slam a door

And if the door doesn't slam satisfyingly

Heaven help the the the...


Does it matter if I get home early, late anymore-- I mean who is there?

At least at work it feels like I have a purpose or

I am interacting with other human beings

Am I too enmeshed with my dog and and...


The most passionate engagement is with other cars in traffic

My entire body becomes involved in utterances

My heart pounds harder and longer even perhaps than

When when when when?



by Donna