FtM

(angry at the format, but what can you do?)


I've got the smallest dick

in. the. WORLD.

no joke.

Inches ain't got nothin' on me, baby.
I drew the short stick
in life and I'm
out of straps.

to hang on 2.

lend me your monkey bar so I
can
swing.
A measure in pencil led.
in a pen--
tip.

thank you.

rather than

seeking to raise others consciousness
make others aware
actively convert them

or move on and continue to play/work on diligently/privately with a smile

wear your sadness proudly
exercise you passive expression of discontent

so that those, unaware of the atrocities
roots of your horror

may have the chance to ask
seek what's the matter?;
your news;
poetry.

In other words,

individuals must find their keys,
but must I hide the signs of mine?;

there are middle grounds
between
propagandized enlightenment
and
forced individual discovery/realization.

may we leave our words, but not our faces.

-adam

Rewards Program

Dear photorealistic painting of Princess Di
I was minding my own business when suddenly blam
the barnesandnoble bathroom of loneliness
white like heaven, choir of aborted ideas for screenplays
All merchandise at the door you know the drill but as far as amenities
the perfect sink and a cluster of Polaroids
celebrity C listers no one has recognized in ages
resolving like bruises all over the place.
The service industry hasn’t stocked its tear ducts lately. Backorder upon backorder.
A substance inadmissible in the court.
Shall I bring you the Times? Shall I bring you your pipe
would an example of a pipe would do? Meerschaum, a word
I originally learned in “the Most Dangerous Game” now in a kinder
employ. Slippers, the quality of being slippery, it’s at your fingertips.
I slip the taut invoice in the soft inbox,
Provide the grain the rain the in the n the ‘n’ in the smack ‘n’ pop,
the viable ovum, the finesse the ism industrial complex in search of
Your brand is ‘hot’, as in having traction with more than just the local fetish community. I live to serve
half a volleyball over a damaged dolphin net


-pccs

Dread - A blatant metaphor

A frail mist spritzes the sidewalk,
constantly,
relentlessly,
never-ceasing.
A whisper,
the undulled murmur.
A faint drop brushes against my skin,
igniting my cells,
commanding hair to attention;
sensation shoots up my arm,
embracing nerve endings,
and triggering synapses.
No one else noticed.
Not yet.
But my mind still races,
my heart canters to keep up.
Internal body heat is up,
all senses alerted,
prepared.
Another droplet makes contact,
striking more than the skin.
Eyes close.
Chest constricts.
Legs beg to run.
Face yearns to be covered from shame.
But I stay planted,
shoulders back,
head level.
Mind, body, and soul plead
to turn,
run,
hide,
cower,
apologize.
With an enormous effort,
knees bend,
foot staccatos the sidewalk,
landing inches away.
Other foot repeats.
Society affronted,
rain pummels
every inch of me,
coating the area in its intent.
Body -
manipulated,
twisted,
torn,
cold,
questioned.
Mind -
seizing,
begging,
panicking,
bargaining,
afraid.
Soul –
guilting,
criticizing,
attacking,
slamming,
condemning.
Regardless,
Another staccato.
Another step.
More rain,
more condemnation.
They beg,
they accuse,
they plead,
“Use an umbrella.”
“Your raincoat hangs in the closet.”
“Get out of the rain.”
“Find your raincoat.”
“It’s unnatural.”
“You’d be better off with your raincoat.”
“You’re sick.”
“You’ve always worn your raincoat.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Put your raincoat back on.”
Another step.
Rain seeps through my skin,
balls up and rolls down my back,
drips from my hair,
weighing down every part of me down.
A blink,
the wetness coats my eyelashes,
skewing my perception.
I hear nothing but the rain,
its acidity lining my lips,
and devouring my world.
Numb.
I refuse to lose myself to the rain.
Water enveloping my body, mind, and soul,
I take another step.
Emptiness echoes down the alleyway,
accompanied only by the smell of torrential rain,
and hundreds of faces pressed against Plexiglas windows.
Their incredulous judgments drafted the weather,
and I know their intrigued anger all too well.
I will not join them.
I will not go back in hiding,
away from the rain.
But I will continue to move,
drenched,
in the hopes that someday,
one more face will be persuaded,
to shut their umbrella,
strip off their galoshes,
peel off their raincoats,
hold their head high,
and their shoulders back,
and dance in the rain.

-becca

3.4

another excerpt (unformatted because my computer sucks [sorry]):

she said it was because she only felt safe among other "women." no "men" could go. it didn't matter if she identified as a woman, she had a penis, so she couldn't go. AND if he identified as a man,  he couldn't go either. despite his vagina.

What is a real woman then? One who is born with this hole and likes it? We can't argue behavior because that is too masculine these days.

I'd like to show her cases of lesbian domestic violence reports. I want her to know that an all "female" space isn't inherently a "safe" space.

Did we forget that women rape, murder, bully too? That they have testosterone pumping through their veins as well?

Safe people are safe. Are all men unsafe now? Are they roaming the streets in packs? Biting the hands that feed them?

What is sex-ism?

A bias based on  a physical variation between the legs.

This feminists pisses me off.

No Rosy, we can't do it by ourselves. This is a team effort. A human togetherness.

To gender fuck the whole world.


-G. S. Vonderschnickle

i cannot figure out for the life of me how to make a comment stick. i have tried like every option. whateva.

dear g,
well i want to write a critique b/c i hope that you trust me enough that we can put these things out here without hurt. all the best.

response to below:
witty!
the moment of coming is
the moment of coming to.
so much sex gets deposited on couches
themselves sleek and fatty--
clearly the egg-laying apparatus of a house-hold..
all those quarters like roe along the inseams...
there are phrases in here that kill.
there are also phrases that help those phrases but i think that you may not know that the killers are doing fine on their own.
"harrowing truth", for instance, is a helper to the last 2 lines, which are killers.


-pccs

Bodies                               -in orgy.
without Time to seperate us-
[chrono]logically we were all seperated
until my mind
   fucked us-
all together -on this couch.
a forward motion                                cycling   
     backwards                               gcyclin
      -ack                                  ngcycli                 to repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat
   w-                            ingcycl   r    d  s  
                              lincyc          a
                      clingcy         mo-ment-
               yclingc                                          in-different-
      cycling
                                                                                    -shades of upholstery.

feeling raw with       l  s    spl   it   OPEN.
                                e
                      a        g          bl
                                              ee
                                                    d
                                                        in
                                                                  g   beneath a covered mouth.
I want to bre-ak
my teeth against your teeth
to bite e a c h one and line them up
in my stomach and dance
to my grumbling thirst.
A starving mouth.
I'll eat you up with my gingerbread couch
buttons, belly, and bones.
feast on my l  s
                e
              g
as all seven hands rub the crack between
the cushions unseam
the lining and
set the frame on fire.
my l       eaten bare
       e    s
         g   and
face

melting like -hot plastic
   my desire-
                  -dowsed in kerosine
        my- body
picked  -clean- by vultures the harrowing truth
of

my seemingly still furniture

placed just-so to cover the stain.

Saturn: the Reaper

an excerpt from a longer piece I'm working on:

1.4
"To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need" says Emily Dickinson.

To comprehend-- the act of comprehending. Sort of like understanding, but more all-of-a-sudden. Like "OH!" and then you've got it.

Sorest need-- the most denied need. That which you don't have and haven't had at all the most.

Am I a nectar?

I don't comprehend I am so perhaps I'm not in sorest need.

Even though my need is sore

nectar is sweet.

all the way d

o

w

n.

the rabbit hole

I smell it.

Sweet as cherry pie

in the oven

          hot            hot                hot

my need so 

     HOT       HOT         HOT

so uncomprehending

my desires to be

apple acorn and pooch.

to butter-up Time

and listen-tick the up and up..... tock.

got to

smell it.

the lost dead terminal morphos

of Time stopped at the corner

of Blue and Crabcake street

also known as Lonely and Shitty st.

at the intersection of LAST and FUCKED corner.

the up and up.

tick-----------------------------tock of the

rope around my chest the

TICK.TOCK of one swipe,

two swipes of the knife.

Butter it up.

Smooth it in.

Slice it down.

one swipe.

two swipes.

in the hole.

and out again.

-g

I listen to the story of the Messenger
and wonder at my idle hands.
The question of living
has always had complicated answers;
never have I faced the gun
pointed in fear.
Scraps and scrapes a plenty,
death has almost found the key
many times,
I have looked on
as he called to her
and she dutifully followed,
but if this living can seem
so surreal
when I have never seen the other world
curtain bellows from an unknown breeze
how can I beckon to truth
that even now washes distant shores
in its oily gleam?

--philip G. Taylor

Apocrypha

Let the dust gather,
and let the pages become wrinkled
and worn.
For blessed is he who
softens the page in his pocket,
who lets the thread of his shirts
become bare.

Blessed is he who feels his brother’s
weight, and says that he’s too weak.

Blessed is he who finds fault
in his own words,
and embraces he who doesn’t.

Blessed is he who hangs
his horseshoe pointing down
and lets the luck run dry.

Blessed is he who arrives late,
yet always acts otherwise.

But above all;
blessed is he who asks about
the gates of heaven,
so that he knows which tools
to be buried with.

-Z.L.C.

reflections

Last year I was working for a criminal defense attorney. This is the first time I’ve written about that time, to try to make sense of it. I sat in the DC jail with a man who, already under for life, was back in court under a new accusation of homicide and conspiracy. I listened with him to the hours of jail calls (tapped as a matter of routine) which had been provided to counsel during discovery. It took me some time to get over the embarrassment of sitting there, even as part of his defense, in order to do what amounted to sifting through his personal life. When he shared a raunchy joke with his best friend, was I supposed to enjoy the joke there in the concrete chamber with him or pretend I had not heard in order to give him some slight measure of privacy? It was mainly my job to facilitate: it was up to him to listen for anything incriminating. I had a hard enough time just parsing the D.C. accents, much less deciding what was and was not incriminating speech. And after all, it all sounded like gossip and chitchat to me.

In all of the hours of tape, neither he nor I detected much of anything. But what the prosecutors had pieced together was a bewildering narrative of secret codes and backhanded signals. The splice jobs they had done with the tapes was astounding. It was like they’d taken a Connect the Dots that was clearly meant to be a hippopotamus and drawn a crimescene on it.They alleged, variously and contradictingly, that the people in these conversations a) did not know that they were being listened to and so were being candid about their malevolent intentions (even though there is a canned warning at the beginning of every call that alerts the speakers to the fact of its recording), and b) that the speakers knew they were being recorded and so were using an elaborate system of signs and codes to evade understanding. Nicknames became codenames. In-jokes become conspiracies. Slang words completely commonplace to black DC workingclass people became suspicious activity. When one person would ask when another was making bail, that too become “conspiracy”. All signs of curiosity about or communication between (now!) accused persons was conspiracy. Actual content was slight; it was the communication upon which the charge of conspiracy seemed largely to rest. It was as though anything that wasn’t crystal fucking clear to the middle class jury and the white prosecutors was a code. It was bizarre to me at the time but now, rereading Ranciere, I begin to wonder if there isn’t something literal in the way the prosecution went about their jobs.

If policing is, as Ranciere suggests, the literal manifestation of class war, then coterie is literally conspiracy. It is literally not permitted to have more than one name, to speak in a way that could not report on the 10 o’clock news (think of the bizarre but common falsehood that newscasters all speak with an Iowa because it is the most “neutral”? Neutral to whom? How did the accent of this man come to work against him in the court of law and the accent of the person who reports the crime come to be neutral? And how’s my grammar here: do I need an inversion somewhere?) It is literally not permitted to speak with any but the clearest legibility—that is, to a particular ear, to a particular eye. To be unclear is to be, at best, useless to one’s masters, and at worst, planning insurrection. To be asking when someone is getting out of jail is to be anticipating an end of servitude—a violation that still reeks of slavery. Aristotle, by way of Ranciere: “slaves understand language, but don’t possess it.”

While experimental poetry is partially protected by the invisible veneer of privilege that clings to it (the more privileged you are, perhaps, the more likely your illegibility is to be viewed as an aristocratic eccentricity) I hope always to keep in mind that I am fighting for ALL kinds of illegibility. Or, better: more kinds of legibility. More legibilities, plural. The Nonsite Collective’s Draft proposal states that:  The work of cultivating and deepening our conversations involves building a shared vocabulary and syntax for situating the links between a range of aesthetic projects, social practices, and really existing worlds. And I do believe this is true, but we must also be better at seeing out of two eyes at the same time, while we are being watched with the eye of One/billions. With our brown eye: the world as it might be. With our blue eye: the world as they see it. If I could have anticipated the prosecution’s psychotic reconfiguration of reality, for instance, maybe I could have been of use. As it was, I wasn’t, and someone went away for life. For the 2^nd time.

There may have been murders, but there was sure as hell never any conspiracy. Or rather, there was definitely, literally, always conspiracy.

--pccs

some sorely missed poetry...

I'M LIEING ON A STIFF COUCH WITHOUT A BLANKET. I AM AWARE OF THE COLD. I FEEL NOTHING. ANYMORE. AFTER. A FEELING OF TERROR ABSOLUTE. AM IMMOBILE. I. FEEL NOTHING. EVERYTHING. EMPTY. AN EMPTY TERROR. LIEING. FACE. TOWARD THE CEILING.

THE STREET LIGHTS CAN BE SEEN THROUGH THE LIVING ROOM WINDOWS. NOT LIVING. NOTHING. NOT TERROR.

THE LIGHT FADES IN AND OUT OF LONG RED DRAPES THAT BRUSH THE CARPET. BLINKING. MOISTURE. RUN DOWN. SCREAMING TO POOL. EMPTY. NOTHINGNESS. AFTER. TELEPORT. DEAD.

I HAD CRAWLED HERE TO LAY. DARK. DOWN. DISFIGURED. PAST FURNITURE. OUT. BED. EMPTY. EXCEPT.

YOU LIEING THERE.

DON'T BE SO TENSE.


JUST RELAX.

I AM AWARE OF YOUR HAND ON MY ARM SLIDING DOWN DOWN DOWN. FEEL. ING. EMP. TY. COLD. TERROR. NOTHING. NESS.

DON'T BE SO TENSE.

SHIFT SHEETS. SLIP. STIFF. COLD. INSIDE. FREEZING MY EYES SHUT WITH PAIN. LIPS. SILENCED.

TIME COLLAPSES. TELEPORT. DEAD. TO CRAWL. TO STIFF. TO COUCH. EMPTI. LIGHT. STREAK. NESS.

TELEPORT. DED.

DRAPE.

IT TAKES YOUR BREATH. MEMORY. TERROR. EVERYTHING.

AGAIN. TIME STOPS. FOR SOME. FOR THOSE WHOM TIME ENDS. WHEN TIME CEASES TO BE IMPORTANT. FOR A MOMENT. FOR SOME. TIME CHANGES. TRANSFORMS. TERRIFIES. AND LEAVES YOU. SOME OF YOU.

FOR SOME. IT CHANGES. AWARENESS. PERHAPS.

TIME SHOULD NEVER FOLD.

ISPY - B.O.M.M.

below is a link to download our groups audio file. little late, sorry.




http://www.zshare.net/download/769314722587b18f/

Better Living Thru RAGE video

video link: https://www.sugarsync.com/pf/D745614_080115_670625

This segmented piece plays off the sitcom style, and mimes and displaces stereotypes and identities surrounding domesticity. It's set to the subtle backdrop of interminable warfare. Unfortunately, it gets cut off about halfway thru. What a cliffhanger! Actors are Gabe, Eric, Paige, and Nicky.

Tried to upload on youtube so i could straight embed it but it exceeds their allowed length (10 min), so it'll be a link until that's solved.

But I'm not a poet - formatted.

I tried to post this poem about a week ago, but I wasn't able to get the formating to work.  Here it is again, formatted.  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But I’m not a poet. 

Bike horizontally m  o  r  p  h  s into sidewalk. 

11:33,

     urs

Th      day

evening,

the final 41

       saunters away. 

Crouch.                                     

Hide. 

Cover light. 

Bike and being,

consciously lifeless,

pressed against the gutter. 

P  r  e  s  e  n  t     i  n     l  i  g  h  t. 

Blink. 

I  m  p  r  e  s  s  e  d     o  n     d  a  r  k  n  e  s  s,

like an illuminated

tattoo

lining my eyelids. 

Blink. 

Rose, rose, arose. 

                                                     Blink. 

1,429 miles,                      and                 205,                                      

                  68.5 months,                                573,

                                                                           481

                                                                               heartbeats                                                           

separate.

Blink. 

You, every blink a new setting,

   a   n             o           n. 

           e      m    t     o

              w            i

.knilB | Blink. 

He, a pixated, black and

white, two by two inch f

ace clipped from a yearb

ook, super(imposed) ove

r a million potential bodi

es, none of t(he)m quite right. 

    Blink. 

        Rose. 

Blink. 

Lines and verse

tattered and stained. 

You.  Me.  She.                                                                          Blink.

G r a c e i s f o r c e,

l o v e i s a i r,

d e s i r e i s i s.

T o h a v e a n d n o t t o w a n t

o r t o g i v e.

Control,

dominance,

 malice,

boredom,

action by inaction

      – blink, blink, blink.
                                          You.  Me.  She.

Romance novels

bound in strands

of putrid disgust.

                    A poem of love. 

A love of possessive indifference. 

Blink, blink,

but I am not a poet.

-becca

Oil Spill Video Response

Hey all-- Kyle, Paige and Gabe here. We made you a video response poem thingy to the Gulf Oil Spill. We read TRodrigo Toscano's Great Awakening. It is rad and we are very tired from rehearsing these last 4 hours... my wrist is sore.

the poem

A woman becomes a laurel.
A woman becomes a bird, birds. How much
familiarity does it take to become beyond
vengeance? Men in mineral form may still
Get around and isn’t it just my luck that,
newly dog, I cannot get the time of day.
It’s just that time of life. My sister kept an island full
of beasts with human backstories for whom it was a lot of the same old.
For us it’s each according to the pursuer she eludes.
He was a shower of gold, a rodeo star.
He was a chunk of time I couldn’t account for.
On the magazines that someone has made
for me I find 10 TRICKS. 5 SIGNS. 8 MYTHS.
10 SECRETS. 15 MOVES. What gladness
even a single sign would be to a woman who doubts.
What comfort 15 moves for the freakshow majesty of this paralysis.
We will need all our tricks, ways, secrets, signs
We are still animals together vulnerable as a battery
of panting hens packed in sisal or bandages or whatever.
The skein of cartilage and the covers parted from the wet pink purse.
Eyes like a bunch of marbles somebody just lost in a bet.
In the end, even those of us who haven’t had our throats cut can’t
properly say why that is but we fancy that we have grown a bit since when
we were so looking forward to looking like our mothers
who are all always real stunners..
A fable about the funniness of homo habilis:
A people beset by a feelgood God.
There is no such thing as being left alone.
I was once lost in the bush thinking
for the first time:
if an apple is 80 extra calories, how many points is that?
It wasn't a science yet.
A woman had never had points before.
Skip ahead. There are still points to spend.
The point of this story is not that we have been
sacrificed indiscriminately. Are we still pretending
to this stagy PTA-mom outrage? God drinks blood.
A seamy side to any industry. The book was his intended,
his child bride. The point is that for the first time,
the intention was sufficient in place of flesh.
He ate the thought and left the child inscribed.
I write that he does not devour the city.




-pccs

2 poems

so, I haven't shared these, even though I wrote them a while ago, during the "last breaths" fire ritual. This is what I burned, among other writings. I've edited them crazily since the ritual, and only now think they are ready for criticism. I find them really interesting pieces when looked at next to one another because they are completely different voices (identities) inside the body (of the body). I'll perform them tonight at D's:

If these were my last breaths I'd want you to know that
I do care
I do care
I do care
I

do.
care.

softly
without a sound
I tremble... against your other secrets.
a wanting to.
a not kiss.
we cant here not there. not bound.
but broken ashtrays and moldy candy bars.
a care too sweet for pleasure.

If these were my last words I'd want you to hear my even breathing as I recite the story of an un-cared for child who grew up to be me.

who grew up to care. quietly.

against the lashings of dysfunctional family dynamics--
against the forced feeding of dicks and more dicks.

white dicks. blue dicks. and red dicks.

If these were my last thoughts I'd like to think I led a good life. A fullfilling life.

I led myself to more questions than answers.

I led myself to great thinkers and poets.

I led myself to you.

Whom I care for like every spider I find in my bathtub.

let me place you in a an empty pickle jar and care-y you back to a known world.

these are my last moments and I need you to know what I'm feeling. not through words-- never through words.

Collapse my chest
and
open my heart-book.
pg 22.

a care poem.

a do care.
a please care.
a cant touch.

it's only despair when I start thinking about it.

feelings... are another kind of feeling.

what is this feeling? this deep enlightenment and shadowed longing?

is this just my age-- my unwillingness to move on to less complicated situations?

this is a complicated feeling.

a simple desire.

h o l d me. because I do care.

h o l d me. so I can mend you.

quietly. effortlessly.


simply.



care.


care-ess me.


be-longing.

which--
held, to this face.



(2nd poem):

I fell in love once. suddenly.

(BAM!)

It was a drive-by shooting
rolling up in a 4-door LUV with tinted windows
blasting andrea gibson and ("finger quotes") "magic bullets"

it made me trip and stutter on a string of blasphemy, all the while hoping to be...(raises eyebrow) finished off.

I had meant to scream for more... help, but the blood rose up... then down and filled my mouth hole. twice.

Now I wear heavy leather to conceal a chest with riddles and half-moon crescents. blood, saliva, and se-(look up at audience, then back down to page)-salt.

Although I've never regretted shooting someone in the ass-- I hope my assailant gets fucked. over. and over.

As it is, I must ask you, the audience, to do me... one simple favor:

press me face-down into your carpet and fill each of my holes with mounting anticipation then blow my fucking head off-- life's too short for a bleeding heart.


-g

an overdue response to silence

Violet action

snow covered peaks of indifference

waking call lets get inside of

ourselves

take hold of it

but only make it disappear within

ur hands

1000 dead

back to the old

yr eyes are colder

than mine i's

what brings it together

in many ways

hailstormpantsofclearedthroatsaysmother

sister

sister

sister

in every ringlet of hair there is a message

bring it home 2 me

texture beyond the edge

spiral down the rabbit

whole

'the silent' category

also the cold eyes

the quiet I

solo project = me with out the dependancy

the gulf is intrinsic 2

intrisnsic to intrisic to

intrinsicly

dont talk about it cant not I am speaking but not with words

the shared experience aka you had to b there

here

now

no where

whatever

the impossibility of communication

change silence into something that is to say

vulnerability (which is related to self created pain?)

interface:interface:interface:interface:interface:interface:interface:interface:interface:interface:interface

what goes into making experience

bodily discomfort of the coterie too

relation relation r elation elation late lately

WHERE IS THE FUCKING DEVINE

=========== better living thru giving up

want me still or moving?

Acknowledge the power of my

'mechanized uterus'

bigbrotherlittlesisterconfinesoftheroomroomroomstuttermisquotewrongwrongwrong

the adorning element is

a divorcement from yrself

what if?

(I dont rust myself to make them, wanna know how 2 construct my own life but lost the manual. I am so lazy or subservient or both or other)

collective osculation

an occulting of the narrative

hidden deep in code

STOP TALKING ABOUT 'U' always

relation science is a mean science

efficient effervescence

ephemeral coincidental competitive irrelevant

confortable in this silence

(or do I?) feel so alone...

project my fear @ u can u feel it ever

listening for what is not talked about

knowing it already