Fresh box

Reptily's slaves bring her a fresh box of shiv, bow, and remain hunched over as they leave the chamber. She opens the box and smiles, leaning all the way down to the floor from her seat. 

 

They bring it in this stoned and gilded box, a heavy safe that can keep its contents sound for a thousand WD. As if. I don't save enough for later. I eat shiv daily as if it were the last day of my life. And that too is ironic, for I fear I will never die. 

Chama, there are flekes nearby, calls a fleke slave. 

Ah, I could slay, rob, or traffic them. What a bore. Maybe they need help. 

Within The Crack

Lloyd... It seems like the only time when you are not verbal is during sexual activity, in which case I wouldn't actually mind. 

Mrs. Jansdaad farts. 

When they wake up, they are going through The Crack.

When Jan's daughter Jan looks up, she can see Lloyd's foot only. But that foot, shod and pant cuffed, is all that she can see anywhere besides herself.

Both Lloyd and Jan feel the peristaltic waves, inside themselves and all around them; they can watch the undulations against their clothing and feel it on their faces and the backs of their legs.

Jan hears a voice.

Oh really? Well you didn't even go to high school-- it was more like low school. 

Lloyd?

Oh my god Jan can you hear me

Yes. Very funny.

I think we're going through The Crack now.

Uh-huh, baby. You're the brilliant one.

The Crack is home to a billion holes

They say The Crack is home to a billion holes. Pilgrims, daredevils, and lost hikers alike will never be able to predict when and where they will come out. 

The Community College of Cement's entire Chang K. Chang Chank campus is dark except for a few pools of security lighting-- and the strong yellow bug lamp which illuminates the Crack Door Event area. Jan's mom Jan Jansdaad's steaming underwing fat flap is all that's keeping Jan and Lloyd from falling hundreds of feet into the parking lot below. 

Jan lands as close as she can to the bug light, which is there for the air conditioning unit attached to the bookstore next to temporary mobile classrooms B-D. Most campus employees, students and visitors walk around the air conditioning unit instead of trying to duck under it, which could cause them to end up in sudden Crack-related peristaltic shock (SCRPS), and besides now being invisible, their associates quickly begin to forget they ever existed. In this respect, SCRPS can affect an entire community from one instance only.

Lloyd is trying to keep up with Jan and her mom. As the odd group rushes across the moonlit baseball fields, plumes of white chalk dust spray from below Mrs. Jansdaad's three-clawed feet. And then they have crossed a short span of black top, and then they have reached The Crack. 

They might sound a little like disco when they're running, but when they stop there's nothing but funk, says Lloyd.

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.

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. 

 

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

 

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?

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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?

 

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. 

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.

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

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.

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. 

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

1 day, 1 chemo infusion, 1 impeachment trial, + 1 psilocybin megadose

 

 

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

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

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)

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"

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"

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"

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."

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. 

 

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."

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Big cryin' baby

For the next funeral:

How do you do

Doodlin' Song

To Sir, With Love

Over at the Frankenstein Place

To Love Somebody

You Dropped A Bomb

Viciosa 

When Will Death Come

The Valleys 

Step One

Liver

higado

plaza de los acumulantes

filtro a los moros

tan vivo como el cerebro

ven, vivante

 

 

 

por Santorabo

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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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