Sunday, April 4, 2021

Downward motility

become an animal during wartime, there's maybe a way back;
going feral during a peace assures that battle will be your path.



by Ilyn
"Sermons" frag. 18

Dire Cricket

Lloyd has been awake for a just few moments without moving from the tangle of sleeping bags a Scouts of Mthyuh brigade had donated to the clothing drive bin that the beast had lifted from its cement moorings and dumped here in its cliff nest. 

He fears that if he moves he will lose the beautiful light scent of jasmine? Monster poinsettia? It's very early in spring yet, and how would flowers grow this high up against a rock? He even imagines he can  follow light, pensive plucking on a mandolin. 

Then young Jan, sweet Jan, is walking toward him in gentle rays of light, with the massive and hideous silhouette of her mother resting behind her against the moon and clouds. The beast's subsiding breaths after flight create the lilting music as her lungs contract with a melodic metal popping perhaps more similar to a steel guitar.

In this new place, with his confidence dashed for once, Lloyd sees Jan's daughter Jan anew. He is prostrate and broken; she represents a future, a woman who can change his life for once, powerful in a sleeveless chintz chrysanthemum-print frock, even while barefoot and picking her way toward him through the soft debris.

He waits until she has climbed up beside him in the heap of torn, shiny viscose lining, fluffy polyfill and plastic zippers, her red-dark face only inches from his own. 

How

Shush. [She places a finger across his lips.] Just listen. And breathe. 

He draws in another chestful of her cologne, which is Dire Cricket, by Pharmsupply.

I'm here to take you away. It's... you know that's my mother, right? 

Lloyd nods, slack-mouthed.

Well she never wanted to hurt you. Only that you'd understand. To stop being such a shit.

Lloyd stares up into Jan's shadowed eyes, at the impossible sparkling there. 

She wants... and it's not really up for discussion, you know? She wants to take us through The Crack.

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Back at APSNIPE

As the sun begins to lower behind the peak of Chang K. Chang Chank, Jan senses an awakening in the Injured Entity bay next door. They are separated on that side by several feet of ancient volcanic rock, through which a ceremonial glory hole had been drilled and through which they now whisper with the backs of their tongues, as only female K's can do. 

If we speak with our minds they can track it. 

I know. 

Are you ok? 

I will be. Flekke attack. Asshole. 

You are an inspiration not to kill. 

What do you mean. 

I mean you could have killed the flekke. 

Well he may become my son-in-law, so...

Ah right. I have kids too. 

Wait are you

Yes, tiny baby. I am that old. You can call me

Peg. You are litterly painted in shiv temples. They sing a song about you. She 

Had three kids when she went with the winds. I know. 

I don't know what to say. 

We live forever I guess. 

 

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

How are you sleeping?

a generosity of thoughts and feelings overflows me
and to you that shit is just a horror show

i know i'm not a fleshy projector for a 3d screen
i'm only the one who has to watch you go
 

 
 
by Jan
"For Jan"

filter tearing


 

Thursday, March 25, 2021

The argument for bioaerosol surveillance

K farts are so voluminous and dense that they can leave streaks in the sky that are barely distinguishable from wispy purplish clouds in a sunset. They are potent enough and in a way that can make mammals lose consciousness momentarily or even slip into a light coma. 

It is through the implementation of one such bioaerosol release that Jan is able to resecure her cliff nest by disabling Lloyd Bentbridge long enough to confiscate his weaponry, hurl it into the void, and get him locked into a leafy, teepee-like structure before he wakes. 

As she folds her wings across her feet to rest, Jan feels as though she is being watched. It's not long before Lloyd's mother, Lady Brentridge, appears with a fizzling shower of sparks and stands before a gaping, fogged-up hole in the cliff face. 

Their speech is echoey and through the mind only. 

Lady Brentridge: He's my son. How dare you?

Jan: He was trying to own my family. 

Lady Brentridge [after a pause]: He was always trouble. Thank you for not eating him. 

Jan: Now you're making me sick. 

Lady Brentridge: You're sick? Twenty-one years. Think of that!

Lloyd's Off Birth, by Lady Brentridge de Modena
 
It dies and leaves a rock inside you
Never cries or bleeds or says it loves you
Ruins every dream because you
Know it's missing from the boy you love.

Jan: I swallow rocks to help me digest meat. 

Lady Brentridge: Let's focus. What is it that you want?

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

drip trail down to the river

a harsh ray on a winter day
seems to dissect you trans-
laterally. finally the world 
will have its way

these gusts are sweeping up
your dust. mud pushes in 
the windows and weevils
turn in the flesh
 
now gravity alone owns
all the future dotted lines. 
rushing water under ice 
came from melting



by Jan

Defeated

He caught me with a fence rod
tip-tied with a hand-filed Ginsu
ventral to the funny bone.

So all I could do was drop my
shipload of stonecakes, and flew
like a tumbling letter K
 
to Mthyuh Preservation Society's
Amnesty Pit Stop for New or Injured
Prehistoric Entities

And is that where I am now, yes. APSNIPE. I can tell because you are communicating with me through the mind or body part of one of my species, which I'm sure is a living horror for whomever it is. I see my sentences/ ideas come up on the slab. But you don't realize she is also saying help me I am an enslaved and exploited sister. 
 
All she has to do is spend a few hours a day with her head strapped to a table built for lucid brain surgery. She's just a conduit to you, a three-pronged plug. Sure, some of us fly free with impunity. And I need your help. So please proceed.
 
APSNIPE is located on the site of the first K sighting: a Sears parking lot. The original asphalt is sealed and textured to facilitate landings. Amid a virtual city of scaffolding and tarp, MPS technicians scurry and pause, scurry and pause. 

Hello, I'm Connie? And I'm here for your preen gland checkup.

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Lloyd and lady

Feeling tired, Lloyd lays his head down in a gaggle of bras and closes his eyes. 

Lloyd: Now I could be anywhere, in bed. I wish I could wake up. I can't look anymore. God it's a gorgeous view, but far too terrifying. Some perspectives are meant to be set aside only for those who choose them. I could understand if I were a mouse, but come on it's a different level of consciousness. 

Lloyd's mother, Lady Brentridge de Modena Chank, appears in an impressive burst of optics.  

Lady Brentridge: Son why did you take my name. 

Lloyd: Because you have a title, and dad was a... where are you?

Lady Brentridge: I've been waiting all this time for you to reach a certain altitude else I cannot get through the Filter of Loathing. 

Lloyd: So the dead can... Mother?

Lady Brentridge: Yes, love.

Lloyd: Can you save me?

Lady Brentridge: No, darling. 

Lloyd: I

Lady Brentridge: Don't speak. You've got to act fast. As soon as you wake up from this nap, fashion a weapon from the wood in the nest. Look for maybe some scrap metal for a blade. You'll have the element of surprise when she gets back. Good luck, my little lord. 

Oh, and uh, by the way I just wanted you to know that while my intention always was to guide and protect, and to do that with my heart full of love, at the same time, however, I was paying so much attention to my role that, well, I recognize that during some moments I neglected to respond to the nitty-gritty contents of your life in a lucid or humane manner. 

Now when you're ready, go for the eyes first.

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Police Station

A gothic doorway beneath crossed brass spears. The keystone is chiseled with a curving notice: POLICE STATION. 

Jan had left the top to her sweater set on the back of her office chair, so she now has a mylar blanket as a shawl. Jan's dad is trying his best to get his voice heard through the ancient glory hole in the stone door of the precinct. 

Mr. Jansdaad: We'd like to report an abduction!

Suddenly, a speaker crackles to life. You don't have to yell, sir we are fully miked now. From what you say, this sounds like a K event, and I'm sure you know we can't and don't investigate or prosecute K events. But we'll send out a hooptie. Mr. Brentridge's estate will be reimbursed for any damage to the cave structure if indeed a K event is confirmed.

Both Jan and her dad sigh deeply and walk quickly in each other's arms across the stone pavement and out of the armored courtyard, back to the bustling lunchtime street. They turn and stand back together against a wall.

Jan: I don't think she'd kill him.

Jan's dad: I hope not, sweetheart. But that's her choice now, isn't it?



All up in the nest

Lloyd is violently shaken awake in time to see the cause of the shaking: the taloned feet, the size of small automobiles, having pushed free from the nest, pointing backward and curling majestically. The feet have  all but disappeared into the distant hazy clouds above the cliff when a tiny K shape comes into focus, soaring purposefully through the mists.

Lloyd: God, no. 

Mrs. Jansdaad has done a brilliant job with her first construction. She has carefully chose the trunks and major branches of young smooth-barked laurel trees, still pale yellow and gummy to the core. There must have been an entire grove of them nearby to create a structure with roughly the same footage, yet more depth, than a large built-in backyard pool. As for the downy padding, she has obviously raided a child's  party and emptied the colorful contents of a plastic ball pit into the bottom layer. On top of that were perhaps the contents of several Mthyuh Preservation Society clothing drive dumpsters. Then packing peanuts, shredded bamboo fencing. 



Monday, March 15, 2021

Law Offices

Door trimmed with a rose trellis. Brass plaque on door: LAW OFFICES

Lloyd Brentridge, Esquire, was always dressed in at least one part of a suit and often had the shirt open to a dark, furry chaos.

Lloyd doesn't actually work for Pharmsupply, and Mr. Jansdaad has already gathered that it is all bullshit when he nevertheless shows up at Law Offices as promised, trembling. 

Mr. Jansdaad: Jan! 

Jan Jansdaad: Daddy!

After a silent moment, Jan explains that she's working for Lloyd now as the receptionist. Also a fact that her dad has already gathered. It is the way she said it that is chilling and familiar. As if under a spell, and not in a good way.

Jan: He will see you now.

Jan's Dad: Thank you honey.

Open the deeper, inner door. Where Lord and Lloyd will either blend or clash.  

Lloyd: Shut the door behind you. 

Jan: I've brought in the records you requested. 

Lloyd: You see your daughter is now under my auspices. 

Jan: Yes.

Lloyd: You probably know I'm not Pharmsupply, that it's all bullshit.

Jan: Yes.

Lloyd: Yet you came anyway. You haven't even taken a seat because I haven't offered you one.

Jan: I

Lloyd: Don't speak. Your wife is turning into a K, isn't she? You don't have to say a word. She missed the second shingles vaccine and she seroconverted. She has to have had a disposition, and I think you know some history on that. Mrs. Jan Jansdaad is not just any old Jan Jansdaad. She had a history before she met you and she has one now. And that history has been as repressed as it is mysteriously irrepressible, like ecriture feminine. A code only a genetic member could translate or inscribe. 

Lloyd starts abruptly, as if he has just heard a hilarious noise behind him.

Lloyd: What is that. What is that Jan. Do you 

Jan: It's disco. 

Lloyd: Don't you think I know what it is? Why? Why, Jan?

The thumping and whirring become louder: Mrs. Jansdaad's now gigantic foot pads and breath become louder: the dreaded disco-like sound of a K on the ground. 

The glass in the window crashes impressively, but all Mrs. Jansdaad can fit through it is the very tips of her beak bones, which she can barely get open wide enough. But she is hungry. 

Because Lloyd Brentridge has his fingers in his ears, Jan's tongue is able to restrain his arms and squeeze around his neck at the same time. 

Mr. Jansdaad [arms outstretched]: Oh, Lord!

Jan and her dad Jan Jansdaad then stand very still as they watch their mother and wife suck Lloyd, their sadistic lover and bully crush, by the neck through the window and then high up into the air in a single, otherworldly burst of power. Father and daughter alone began to look around them there in the breezy office, medical records still floating leaf like to the floor.


Sunday, March 14, 2021

Back at Jan's

Jan: You didn't even ask if you could come in. 

Lloyd: We just ate with your parents. I don't have to ask you anymore.

Jan [letting go of his tie]: Lloyd you know I feel very strongly for you but sometimes you scare me a little. 

Lloyd is feeling tired and sits on the sofa. Jan comes back with two beers and joins him.

Jan: I think it hits me in a primeval place when you try and order me around or raise your voice to my dad, but it might be just genes or hormones and not good decisionmaking. 

Lloyd [to the ceiling, as he rests his neck]: What if you didn't have to make any decisions. 

Jan [in a fetal position next to him without touching]: I don't think I would like it at all. [She scoots over and rests her head in Lloyd Brentridge's lap.] But then, that's your choice, isn't it?

 


Saturday, March 13, 2021

Guests

Jan and her complicated date Lloyd Brentridge join Jan's parents for stonecakes and vine at the dining room table. Jan sits next to her mother helping to poke through clumps caught in her swollen and keratinous gum line. Mrs. Jansdaad swallows infrequently but with large gulps that are visible in her neck as they go down her throat. 

Lloyd: Mrs. Jansdaad it's lovely to see you recovering. Your husband has done an admirable job at the griddle in your place. 

Mrs. Jansdaad lowers her face in Lloyd's direction, exposing a small parietal eye in her scalp. She stares, unblinking.

Lloyd: May I help you clear the table, Jan?

Mr. Jansdaad, jumping up: Why yes, why... please grab that syrup. 

Lloyd and Mr. Jansdaad find themselves alone in the kitchen. Jan turns around and finds Mr. Brentridge standing there, very close to him. There are just a few inches between them and not much room to maneuver there between the countertop and the fridge. 

Jan: Oh. Sorry Lloyd. Just let me

Lloyd does not move. He is staring into Mr. Jansdaad's eyes. Jan Jansdaad looks back at him without letting out a breath.

Jan: Is there

Lloyd: Shh. I just want one thing. And that's the truth. 

Jan can hear his daughter setting out dessert dishes from the glass cabinet as well as his wife's pebbly cough from the other room.

Lloyd's voice is hushed and stern, and his breath is hot.

Lloyd: That's quite a case of shingles you have going on in there. 

Jan: Yes, it's just-- Pharmsupply wouldn't cover the

Lloyd: Don't say Pharmsupply to me. I work for Pharmsupply. I am their agent in Dubbahberah Chank.

Jan: I'll get you the records. She had a preexisting inclination. But you're dating my

Lloyd takes Jan's wrist and squeezes it tight. Jan loses control of his fingers and drops a vine glass on the floor.

Lloyd: Don't you ever say your daughter's name to me again. Unless you are ready to take her place. 

Jan: She doesn't know anything. Don't worry. She

Lloyd [squeezing Jan's wrist harder, and twisting]: I need samples of her Mrs. Jansdaad's pyncofibers. By tomorrow morning. In my law office. 

Jan [straining]: Yes. I'll get the pyncos. Whatever you want. My daughter is a good person. I won't... I won't say her name. 

Lloyd, tucking in his shirt and stepping back into the dining room: Jan, get in there and help your father would you. With the cleanup. And then we'll go. 



Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Fireside chat

Jan: The edges of your thoughts are so sharp I just want to grab a file and sand them off. Maybe by our being together

Lord Bentbridge: No, it's not like that-- isn't it more of a woman's function to

Jan: Look the man-woman dichotomy can really be an albatross when you

Lord Bentbridge: I know but you seem to think that this is about you and me, but

Jan: Well this, here, at the moment-- I only see you and me here. 

Lord Bentbridge: Overall I would be going through this in a vacuum I think

Jan: You know better than to think that 

Lord Bentbridge: There was a couple with their two babies on the sidewalk this afternoon when it was so gloomy right before sunset. Wind was howling. Twigs were flying. One of the babies started a weird hooting cry and then the other an identical cry. It created a sort of audio hellscape.

Jan: This is what I mean; you see you

[ENTER MRS. JANSDAAD]

Mrs. Jansdaad: Why Mr. Jansdaad curled up on the rug before the fire. 

Mr. Jansdaad: How you got in here without making the floors creak

Mrs. Jansdaad: Engrossed entertaining another imaginary friend I see.

Mr. Jansdaad: Ha! I thought I might entice you for

Mrs. Jansdaad: If I can get over there without rearranging the furniture

Mr. Jansdaad: How's your tooth.

Mrs. Jansdaad: It's coming out but that's good because I never had a tooth that size before, did I. And the crown is coming down, do you see? Feel here. 

Jan took Jan's hand and pressed it against her forehead, which was slowly regaining it's previous shape.

Mr. Jansdaad: They say you'll be stronger afterward. Because you went through it. 

Jan Jansdaad looked into her husband's eyes blankly, like a reptile.

Saturday, March 6, 2021

Daughter of La Chama

Jan arrives home with scales covering 98% of her body, unable to even get the key out of her purse much less use it in the lock. Her fingers were claws.

We should never have mingled with their species. 

She kicks the door by way of knocking, gouging it with her toe claws. For Jan, as he opens the door, the sight of his wife at first presents as deja vous. Then horror, then caring. 

Oh baby look at you please come in... [looks at door] What...?

I should have paid cash for Hopinaskipina. It's not as painful as they say. 

God you look like the Daughter of La Chama. Let me hide my shiny coins!

Heh that's cute Jan. How am I going to make dinner. 

You're so old fashioned. Let me do it for once. 

[Jan sighs and shakes her head, which causes the sounds of knuckles popping.]

The hell

tonight a crust forms around me, a

fluttering, gummy placenta

the muscles are locked from 

pleasure.

last night i was trying to drive a

car on a building ledge

i was steering pretty well

until.

they say never go to sleep afraid

or stay awake either

the body will win you over

the hell. 



by Jan

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Lord Bentbridge

Why, Lord Bentbridge? Why have you come at such a late hour. Come now sir, come right in. You're getting wet. 

Lord Bentbridge, with a tip of his hat and apologetic smile, steps across the threshold, adding in so doing a beleaguered flourish of his half-cape. Jansdaad my friend. My presence here is as puzzling to me as it is to you.

I hope it's bad I mean I hope it's not bad news. 

Fear not, only my wife out late again, and I thought why not pop over to Jan's place for some of that excellent sherry, which I suspect he might be enjoying already on his own!

Come Lord, lean on the mantle with me and raise a glass. [They walk over to the mantle, where there are glasses and sherry.]

I say puzzling because

Yes, why do you say puzzling?

Well, let's not be dour. Cheers to you!

Cheers!

Suddenly, the door opens. 

Jan? I'm home with... who's here?

Nobody.

Well you've got your arm up on that mantle like an orator, as if you're entertaining.

Ha! 

[Putting away groceries, yelling from the kitchen.] Say have you heard from Jan?

Jan our daughter?

Who else? Your father is dead darling.

You know how many Jans it could be. 

Well have you heard from her? Pharmsupply won't pay out for shingles.

You mean Hopinaskipina? That's the most annoying commercial. 

She's been hanging around with that sadistic lawyer. You should call. 

Do you mean Lloyd? Lloyd Bentley. 

Yes, he's an esquire.



Sunday, February 28, 2021

No second shingles shot

Jan liked watching a little tv in the afternoon, or rather she didn't like it, but she was hypnotized by it when her husband Jan had it on, which was most of the time, because it soothed his nerves. She kept it on mute when he wasn't in the room, but then he'd start to notice there was something off, and he'd come back and take the mute off, and that would inevitably be when they were having commercials. The commercials were even more transfixing because of their special audio qualities, which had been outlawed for a while, and then they just seemed to creep back in. The volume and frequency alterations were probably still illegal, but someone was lying about it. Then it would take years of legislation or court processes to get them to stop doing it again even though it never stopped being illegal, and it never stopped being wrong. Only lying had stopped being wrong. The acceptance of and mass participation in lying and religion was the most brilliant social phenomenon of the moment. 

Jan would be out in the hooptie to pick up a prescription, and she'd try to read or imagine the faces of the other drivers. The ones in the nicer cars seemed to be gloating. They'd have a wry smile. The guys in the elevated trucks and campers were smiling too, but it was a mean smile. Minorities in crappy cars often seemed pissed off or trying really hard, squinting, to get around. They would be getting tailgated by a guy in a jacked-up 450 with a mean smile. Jan imagined how she looked to other drivers. I look like a freak. I look like a birth defective person with a caved-in head and a flabby, skinny white neck who is trying to cover it all up with a big fluffy beret, a cowl sweater, and giant over-the-glasses sunglasses. I give them all a target to look down on, except the minorities, who don't seem to be paying attention. 

The pharmpro is grotesquely obese. His eyes are enormous behind thick glasses. Do you know if Pharmsupply covers the Hopinaskipina vaccine. Let him check. Not. Ok. Rather, it isn't okay, but is it this poor man's fault? Wouldn't shingles itself be much more costly? Not if you die. Right. Shit I am speaking aloud. It's just a thought experiment, doctor, says Jan. I mean pharmpro. I know you don't run the health system. Jan remembers back to her days with the pharmpro boyfriend. I know what they do to get shiv for themselves and how they cover it up. This man has a generous smile. What does he make, 120? 150k? I want what he's having. Jan gives the pharmacist a little wink. That behavior and lots else is why, in her personal opinion, she can only be regarded as total freak material. 

The riots at the Mthyuh Preservation Society were on the radio. I should have been there. Had I known, were I more well connected. Of course I know we can't live without the Filter of Loathing. But it's all we have to unfocus on. It's a symbol of our systemic bastardization from society, whatever that is now. They could use a few good old fashioned fleke oaths to start getting their stewardship straight. But most are bought off by Pharmsupply blah blah. It would be fun just to get out. Next time the filter is down I will try and get in with radicals. Maybe even Jan would come along. Who am I kidding. How would I make him stonecakes in the hooptie. They are his life. Baby we've got to get to Highchank and stand up for the original shiv. They have stonecakes. Might work. 

Then the chant, with another not infrequent para-informational MPS interruption came on. The chant is accompanied by a distillation of all the free world's favorite music remastered to praise La Chama. Apply brake now. Stop in the moment. All future days are at the state's discretion. I am entitled to the following poisons and schedules. It was annoying how they read the schedules like circus barkers, in thrilling growls and whispers. 



Saturday, February 13, 2021

Dome & corpus


you can still feel 
what happened there
in the dome and 
the tired corpus 

they tried to get at the heart
distractions popping everyplace
see your own hidden pains in me

that full winding
tale is our history
not genealogy

their necrotic
leavings behind
make us all sick

until they're gone
and we're better
more exhaustion
mispronouncements


Thursday, January 28, 2021

The chopper

as a young and pretty
carefree big-ass slut
I slid on my butt
down a stone incline
to find my panties
or some others that
may have washed up

realizing it was a dream
I marched into a bank
looking for wardrobe
but the chic sommeliers
were stridently delivering
their empty trays with
no eye contact

there was a rousing barber
of seville scene, but no
one would break character
on the set to let me know 
where I fit or how to get
back to my tent so through
the main square of town

I followed a young man
with hair plastered to
his face, which was hurt. he
wore a maroonish overcoat
and he kept his axe in 
serious reserve stepping 
up and down the bricks



by Peg

Friday, January 22, 2021

Said a loser

there we are in montevideo, and here's one where
eyed globes rise phantom-like along the vena cava;
their tails taper and widen against the miasma
 
you would give me the secret to survival, and it
would work, and I would say wow thanks, and
you would say, oh-- sure. 
 
jazz-handed lymph newts popped off in space
between the bowels and lovingly glommed onto 
any flesh around to anchor and embrace

it clearly has a purpose but no self-awareness, so
the exact opposite of my current predicament, so
you'd think there could be a balance: said a loser



by Tom

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Can i hospice out of this?

savage lash-out
too close to the surface
 
drop all the shoulders
shrug at the blowing fires

fear cannot be our guide
someone has to live despite 
 
the edges, someone has 
to occupy the boundaries




Dr. Donna Thong
(reinstatement imminent)

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Fluency v. mania

to me you are the epitome of the perfick
stop don't go there it's far too manic
the words they're not special or even pictoric

i wish that i could re-meet you
in that steakhouse booth with a backache
and call it a night, a life
 
and be through, barely a bleep
now i see what ensued
every night in my sleep



by Ilyn
"for you, Shab"


triple hoarfrost


you fooled me into thinking you were there
long, snowy trail up to your driveway

then i thought i could handle this whole thing
without needing walls to put my head through

the weather came in waves, a triple hoarfrost
a still white fog that hardens patiently



by Ted
"for you, Peg"

Monday, January 4, 2021

er tips

stop grunting or they can't hear your heart
the wipes are for staff; use the foam dispenser
headband lady's name is Miranda, not Carmen
 
a doctor can be rendered speechless by his 
interpretation of your scan even if it's specious
no comparison btw tramadol and dilaudid
 
hint: which gets sent home with you from the vet?
there's one special shot can make pain un-flower 
in your chest without going to your head 
 
you can bump other patients from their rooms
get slushy ice water and steaming blankets
don't cross your ankles during a pressure read 
 
you can ask for the same wet mouth sponge
that they apply as a palliative to the dying
you can outnumber the staff if it's busy
 
better mention your occupation or invent one;
they want to treat a contributor to society
in this ambience, even a lie is ennobled
 
 
 
by Ilyn
"Just about half of Illinois"

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

i am rocketing free

i am rocketing free from so many grips
it is proudly my day to rock and stand
no one can bend me much

where are the ushers security to restrain
my remaining jabs at beauty surrender
today i'm getting what i'm feeling

this moment is about just keeping going
in this or the opposite direction
it doesn't matter because i'm free
 
 
 
by Mike
"for Hoolie"

Thursday, December 24, 2020

Stabbing gyroscope

what a nifty little weapon
superior even to the double bullets connected to a chain 
which are meant to cut you in half
the stabbing gyroscope covets reality itself
and takes out its purpose 
and changes it to nothing
i punish the present moment with obliteration
there are no triggers only my deepest impulses
which are all fears
 
 
 
by Reptily
"Amen."

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Opportunistic infection

Dr. Donna Thong and Peg whispered through the ancient stone glory hole of at least 9" in depth. It must once have been a Cuban prison. 

DR. THONG: I'm remembering Mike and the abdominal surgery I performed on him when I had my patio studio. 

PEG: That's after you were a Fanny-Girl temp out in Dead Beet Chank. 

DR. THONG: You know friends do continue to self-realize when you're not around. 

PEG: But you've always had emotions for Mike. Two swimmers in one pool or another. 

DR. THONG: He told me his intestines smelled like latex for months afterward. 

PEG: He sat up on the table fresh like a baby, glass bottles tinkling against the IV stand. 

DR. THONG: You remember the story like a song. 

PEG: The one that got away. But what of the others?

LAMENT OF THE OTHERS

by DONNA

it seemed as if they entered willingly

following their noses to my kitchen

i thought most necromancy to be weak

but the bottom of the pie was crispy

followed by stepping out of doors to neck

that first incision leading to the next

we woke among discarded vials of heparin

ecstatic still in the wane of hydrocodone

ready to renew our grunted oaths

until the next opportunistic infection. 


 


Sunday, December 13, 2020

I hope that my illness takes you hostage

I hope my illness takes you hostage
perhaps i could pay you back

For all the times the thriving version
stood in a more perfect path

I hope I make it difficult to 
turn away as I linger

Your shackles chains and branks are lashed to
my beatific fingers
 
I can still see you in the middle 
of a constricting circle

Your necks are craned and faces cluttered
with shadows of this miracle
 
 

by Ilyn
"Not long for Illinois."




Friday, December 11, 2020

without believing, expecting

agreeable moment sitting facing
feeling all of you in my screen

and even when i turn away
i see a safe place with warm 
 
lighting, bearing my things.
The less hope keeps distributing, 
 
it must be focusing, condensing
the opposite of kaleidoscoping;
 
i'm eating all the crazy dreams, 
sucking only what i need from my
 
intestines, short-sighting, all
without believing, expecting
 
 
 
By Jan Jr.

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

predators


i hate the middle-of-the-boat assholes, center-of-the-herd butts
but out here in the fringes, you are weak

what's with the arm twisters, the climbing-on-shoulders nuts?
you're alone with your righteousness, freak
 
brother, loner, impossible to figure, full tank, adjacent
we've lived the same life but we auto-fear, trigger happy

they are lifted by the tendrils of their fecund archetypes
they effortlessly grow virtue like a fingernail or polyp

we are in satellites, fire wagons, sinister life rafts needing 
not shedding weight
 
what about the sanctioned predators at the apex of the pack, 
smugly leaning back?



by Ilyn

Saturday, December 5, 2020

They have to mine the muscle memories

They have to mine the muscle memories or else they could leave us out entirely from the battlefields. The players' physical responses are only relevant insofar as their hand-eye coordination. The animation, the realness, comes from my own live-action experiences and instincts. I have to be at least partly paying attention for my own physical responses --even stomach acids are measured-- to kick in. At least the K's always win. I'd hate to experience death again. 
 
Some of the players I recall this guy Ken who viscera really seemed to match mine maybe from his generations of farming. He was shy to fight and almost made me switch into mate mode by wandering back toward the cliffs, some of the abandoned ones, when there were plenty of flakes to scoop up and showing off to do with simple evasions of their little sling-shot stones. 


 
 
Charnelle Casas-Cuevas

Thursday, November 26, 2020

It's not as if we don't have feelings

but it's not as if we don't have feelings
having given up the agency but kept

the brains, and if not the actual heart,
the part the ancients saw in the ceilings.
 
we bear the psychological consequences
of your rampages through flake towns and
 
remote desmadre at the mercy of autistic 
High Chank teens who dump their adrenal
 
charge into our thought jars where it stirs
dark and slick across our already tortured 
 
logic spurs, amygdalae and venal charm 
receptors every day and even as we dream


by Charnelle Casas-Cuevas

charnelle, a gladiate

styrofoam wings
lungs jump and squeak

rewarmed remains
the dreaded stank

500 miles of ribbon cable
5 days from the cradle

the rewards are weak for 
the revived so to speak

they get to watch crowds 
cheer their corporal missions

from the comfort of a 
cupboard consciousness


by Charnelle

Saturday, November 14, 2020

the rock method

the first time i climbed to the top of Mthyuh my hair was still long and very red
 
i was still barefoot from dancing shiv on a slab of ancient desert pavement scrawl
 
i had to see the top and what her raging bottom looked like from the highest chank
 
summiting and launching and diving in were a single stroke, an ancient character
 
Braino knew my arc would blend and assimilate The Crack's northmost fissure
 
instead of bouncing back on the sheer force of rejection by her drumskin i rolled
 
and entered a natural vent, tearing upward through rock and sand and insect nests
 
red like magma my hair and blood left pooling on arrowheads and pots not touched
 
by human hands since before there were summer thaws and green tendrils to munch
 
that day i felt the gravity of knowing that stopped the endless stasis of my cart
 
and let me out onto the landing strip of time the frictionless rink of deadened glass
 
my feet still green rinds, sticky pink pads, gotten slick with the dust of monuments 

at the center of the longest day among the range of moments contending for noon
 
i wished Shab well and his eyes glowed red in recognition of the end of our scam
 
 
 
by Ilyn

Thursday, November 12, 2020

My toplessness

i am ready to take my immune system to a new level
ready for any number of cosmetic chiroplastomies
open to broken companions, fresh interlocutors

or am i fine in these gnawed out stones of yore alone
in some of the passages you can see your breath
in others the lost heat of industry allows my toplessness



by Reptily

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Two trains

I later found out that my entrance into their society was staged after the famous Cleopatra in a gilded cage scene, carried on a tunka by slaves, from the famous remake of ChukkaChank Rules, WD 77. 
 
Everyone seemed so young then. Weird how they age all at the same time here. Then my freedom was gone.
 
It is a life of rooms with plastic panels and light bulbs and dark corners and water tanks. I am an administrative shook in a tube to them. Until I started getting out at night.
 
I learned to access their finest salons and gank their golden coins and leave bodies strewn upon marble steps in shame. They could not prosecute nor understand my flights without the book of LaChama and the book was her only power so the book was my power through our mother LaChama and the book is my cartridge of plentitude and of finding love and adventure beneath the aluminum flooring and safety wires. 
 
Why they bring us here only as spiritual guides or amusement rides I ask bitterly during a spinning, thrashing shiv demo right on their most famous stage, the Apollo. 
 
Two trains I can sometimes hear in here:
the inner one screaming when they turn off the filter of loathing and the flakes are allowed to wander in the streets and engage with events
the outer one chugging each time a car melts from the inner train and lets off techs and managers
 
 
 
by Reptily

Monday, November 9, 2020

Preen gland technician

They brought me inside the control room of my own mother's puppet corpse. I could look down over the switches and buttons and through the glass down five stories and watch her feet drag and thud, drag and thud across the empty Sears parking lot, which was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Once we had triggered The Crack, it was a watery world of carelessness; a sort of sleep paralysis of the shock reflex set in while we were fed through a peristalsis of the dimensional organ. 

She was/ was not my mother. This was the flesh of the great beautiful young K who could toss me 100 meters into the sky with her beaque and catch me easily in her seal craw, where lightly blood-dappled pelts were stacked and crumpled into a very stinky but gossamer safety net. The woman they extracted from her inner ear during a shiv molting also is/ isn't La Pegyuh. She seems to carry all her memories, fears, quick tongue. Her body, as well, is now tortured day and night with Remote Tissue Decisioning in order to coordinate with image mirroring protocols and functions. They say she was a random preen gland technician who took a wrong turn somehow. 


by Reptily

No more community theater

The stage is dark at the center and it's one of those setups where the players are seated or standing around the inside of the three walls waiting to take their turns. Giant leaves made of plastic bags get caught up in the breeze of a fan and bound noisily across the upstage out of doors like plastic bags. 

"But then I'm telling you we love to have her and she's so talented but she does her writhing ritual really in breaking of character and does it right in the middle of the stage when others should be starting their lines and action."

"Jan, I can sympathize, but she's over 21. I can't control her even with the shiv. She has the fins of an embryo, but she'll never develop any further or take on the exclusive markings of any particular species. She feels like shiv's the only way she can find freedom as she will never sprout wings or a full claw matrix, so the ancient hooting and dancing are her expression of a foiled archetypal and organic need."

"Don't get me started on the topic of Institute for the Talk Therapy Apologist Movement mumbo-jumbo, Donna. We all knew from the start the risks we were taking by having Reptily here full time. I mean, not just a goat you can tether to a tree. And it's really no problem. Just no more community theater, k?"


LaChama

Thursday, November 5, 2020

The Lady Bug

i coughed so hard i
closed my eyes and saw
perfect geometric displays
 
a functioning and energetic 
system of squares and the
angles that connect them

hipsters beware: it tends
to degrade into a dry and
gauzy parody of order

now as i turn two-handed
to the door frame and lean
i reflect on the drama of

the lady bug who must
be reminded of her destiny
during stops along the way
 
 
 
by Peg

Monday, November 2, 2020

life's little mercies

cracked microwave oven

atomic bomb tests

industrial farming

office smoking

hepatitis

deviated septum

demon possession

mistakes

house fire

house fire

house fire


Saturday, October 31, 2020

The South must be reined in

Look around you
it's like everything's right there
even if you can't find your glasses
when they turn up it's not surprising where

Is Braino telekinetic

I was dozing off at the command center just six o'clock from the electric rice maker on the dining room table. But Braino was upstairs in bed dreaming because that's its point of reference for sleep or fond memories of dreaming there or just because it can. But when it started thinking about not having put the rice away, like in a baggie in the fridge, it started coming down the stairs and was going at the rice maker from that descending angle, more like four o'clock, when I woke up. Sometimes you wake up and have double vision for a moment, and that's what it was like.

Sunday, October 25, 2020

Liver

higado
plaza de los acumulantes
filtro a los moros
tan vivo como el cerebro
ven, vivante
 
 
 
por Santorabo

Friday, October 23, 2020

Now Entering The Crack

one day coming soon will be a
portal to another world, the 
difference between past and
future, a crack in believing

we'll find out who's entitled
to get in, who has to sit on a
bench in the lobby, which
relationships count as significant

we shall sit before an interpreter
of evidence in perfect robes
but mostly there will be doubt
what will happen to the kids

other dimensions are ours to
learn, not theirs, not the natives
but this time that means no one
only wondering, a beastly rent
 
 
by LaChama
 
Reptily
"I can transverse The Crack."

Jan
"I, too, have crept through it multiple times with my family."

Thursday, October 15, 2020

Is Braino a boll weevil, picaresque Christ planting misery

i am a tobacco smoker. i smoke tobacco there
i've said it. i make Braino make decisions on 
tobacco and it makes her crazy and mean-- 
as the Christ. i spend time writing mental 
final direction notes how no xtians near my
bedside, no christians at my burial, at my 
grave, an unmarked grave where xtians are
not likely to go. no whispering no last rites
but of course the fear then is that you really
do want that because of your deeply embedded
culture that makes you need it like a drug.
you don't want to be strong in your last mom
ents you want to surrender and love and be
loved and accepted and fitting in where you're
going. the phrase where you're going could 
even be Braino as the Lamb of God boring, 
twisting, you'd think she'd come out the other
ear.

i cry with fear

my friend tells his near-death experience as a joke

when i tell mine, i'll some point get the urge to cry

what is it awe, no, self-pity, well... no, fear. i cry with fear

then what was it, seen not remembered remembered but

not seen... that spooked no it's not spook fear. it's wide-

eyed terror at a blurry event that at the time was not

scary. there was an organization that required its mem-

bers, at a given point, to say, "...and that's when i started

working myself up." suspicious at first about the cultural

tokens sprinkled throughout event call it, i realize that

even though the mind collects its available symbolism, 

that doesn't mean you're not actually dying. delayed 

horror. at a non-scary moment or hour. judgement now

kicking in as Braino congratulates herself and begins 

creating her own survival story: look at what could

have happened if not for my heroic and timely action?

i don't care. Braino is the real savior in the story either

way. Doing for herself what God could have and might

have done without her willing self-starterality. Of course

the God side would say of course God directed Braino 

to do it, but ok, i see the divided gratitude energy betw.

what? not deities-- apples and oranges. Braino is really 

just a glorified human organ, not even. she's just a function

of an operation of an organ, but she is the most beautiful

and one who would make any lesser god than God jealous

probably use a peeler on their thigh gouge an eye, attempt

retribution etc. God-Braino is completely different. it's 

like God-bird flying to a tree branch, harmony. then there's

the question does Braino get drunk or stoned if i do. well

not sure cuz one of those things i don't do, but... can Braino

be addicted to any physical substance or even i guess love,

etc.? of course as in i love you with all my being which

would include Braino. don't over or underestimate i guess.

Does Braino get tired. i say no. she wakes up even more

in sleep, no. she is not so urgently needed as in waking

hours when anything could happen. only one tiny part

of her is the conscience and another is urine regulation,

so... obviously we're not talking about the normal, sub-

awake mind here. in fact "we" are not talking about 

anything; this is actually more of an inquiry of B. her-

self, which is probably as ridiculous as a seance or

one of those amazing tv preacher self-answering prayers.

God is not the only sphinx in the universe. i get it that

you shouldn't get it muddy what, which god, huh? but as

described above, it's more like sphinx God smiling down

on sphinx bird flying to a branch. why do we bother?

how nice they have this peace. so Braino says, peace

my ass. even tho i am mute, i can't take that. i am the

workhorse of the entire operation, bitch! i never sleep

you know i never sleep. it falls on me to figure out 

the flack and you make me do it totally wasted as shit

on ok i won't say it. that's about the best i can do as to

a workup or a portrait channeling or who knows direct 

quote from her royal highness. she sounds real to me.

But there was the question of wait.. all that sounded 

as if Braino is being held as what a hostage? by me?

i think the original question ok, i feel what they call a

tiny voice saying hey sleep on it but if that is Braino 

that means she a lie cuz she needs sleep-- or cares 

what about me shia lebouf i've totally left out christ is

that what he portrays in our cultural toolbox? The 

character of Braino, the intermediary, the divine 

flesh, but again, Braino is only divine in a camp sense.

i really don't think there's a conflict though because

you know if you pray and it's a christian prayer, you

pray to christ anyway-- Braino is not really for praying

to; i wouldn't want to flatter her quite that much. 

which brings up the issue of proper address in prayer:

i believe it is necessary to address a prayer: even tho

i know where it's going, Braino in a compassionate 

(?) manner or just as a normal function might feel she

has to take on whatever i am praying for; in some ways

i am her boss, but i don't want to... is this one area 

where Braino can get confused while mostly knowing

more than i could possibly know at any given moment.

is this the one or one of many ways i have to take her

in hand, an ultimately defenseless and delicate creature,

feed and protect, etc. in turn she may protect me out of

thousands of possible examples maybe if there is 

information that's "too much" for me to handle, like it

would give me a heart attack, or an actual memory of

a heart attack, etc. so she keeps it a secret. but then 

she might get in a habit of doing that too often; may-

be she can detect the bad results of the bottleneck 

without being self-aware enough to realize it's her own

neurosis causing it in the first place. Ha-ha that was a

joke. but fear. simply because i didn't feel at home, that

there were desperate decisions being made and there

was nothing i could do about it; whenever i tried to 

answer my voice would wake me, but it was annoying 

not a relief to be wakened. Braino may have been

the underlying annoying agent, just to jolt me back in

shape-- it would be just like that ok i won't say it. 




by Ilyn

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Unauthorized swagger

becoming slowly overgrown, sewn hard
you've added a ying and yang to my navel

now the blue eyelight is giving way to 
nicotine grey but under it all, a swagger

there is a weightlessness in the wonder,
a wager, an escalator ending in cumuli
 
but down home they're making cider
and stomping vines and calling back hell
 

 
by Ilyn

Monday, October 12, 2020

whether or not you can escape, it will be prolonged

the cancer dust sticks to the radioactive sugar and voila!

only those especially privileged to view the scan can say

whether or not you can escape, it will be prolonged

and then delivered matter of fact as if they'd always known.

and it will be linked, in shame, to an original sin either way

you've lived this believed this wrong and look what's gone down.

and then what an appreciation parade? or worse, none. 

completely undignified but druggie-fun moments of hospice

and then, well, to the big review board overall, were you...

that was your exit interview. you know longer matter in real

time and space, but yes in the electronic gyrations of those
 
just behind you on the trail, in an accessible membrane.



For Hoolie
by Uncle Ilyn

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Mucked up with bandage glue

this grey mess
drifts in glue time
on the arms legs and 
random surfaces gets
stuck to newspapers
and press-on nails
ashes, pigeon fluff
walking an old-timey
times square effect
they try to apply 
patches but I'm not
the same already 
as i was just today
putting bandaids on
a building falling down
tho it's sticking me
together now.



by Ilyn

Saturday, October 10, 2020

Mike's Swimming Blog #1001

He put rat on my breath
and the seeding trees
outside the ymca

his disregard mixed with
unmistakable compulsion
i can see this his naked facet

we found the woolen dryer balls
in the pillowcases
and they made impressions

what golden days bitterly
hating to the brink of violence
only the chromosomes are

appropriate not the hormones
constant rubbing then none
subordinate in control



by Mike

Friday, October 9, 2020

Sick and ugly cult

we tried their brains
we mocked their children
we shamed them on
all the public highways
 
we set a fire
in the temple shit house
we marked our skin
with the blood of the dead
 
we cut their cocks off
and fed them strained pees
until their faces
were green with shock
 
we took their good faith
and made a cradle 
for all the emblems
of our bold transgressions


by LaChama

Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Bongo interlude

they question your structure,
administer a needle
you are in a twilight

and in so doing violate the
hardened magma of life
they question so as to

check an earlier predation
by a predesignated enemy
seeking existential ends



by Ilyn

Friday, September 25, 2020

It's your world Abel

It's your world Abel.
Life and Death them
selves are engraved
across your breast.
You've got a daughter;
You just had four
beers at your in-laws.
Even a quick blow
job would be fun.
From nothing, you've
made my life glow--
cleaned under chachkas
I'd not checked in years;
I've taken a shower
young stud, but I'd
like you natural pls.
Except not if there
was pussy; sorry, I
mean only after a
normal work day's
grime for example. It's
your world because
you're bossy and
drunk, Abel. That
type of behavior for
whatever reason makes
me have good luck.



by LoDonna

dirty antifa boy

dirty antifa boy
you smell of propellant

dirty antifa boy
dirty antifa boy
 
dirty antifa boy
you make me jealous
 
dirty antifa boy
dirty antifa boy
 
dirty antifa boy
bristling with toys
 
dirty antifa boy
dirty antifa boy
 
dirty antifa boy
form-fitting garb
 
dirty antifa boy
dirty antifa boy
 
dirty antifa boy
where are you now
 
dirty antifa boy
dirty antifa boy
 
dirty antifa boy
please stop me now
 
dirty antifa boy
dirty antifa boy
 
dirty antifa boy
compelling and convincing

dirty antifa boy
dirty antifa boy
 
dirty antifa boy
totally safe sex though

dirty boy
dirty boy
dirty boy

[etc.]