INTRODUCTION SOUGHT

Behind the man was a woman.  Behind the woman was a younger woman.  The younger woman looked behind her and saw no one.  All this younger, teenaged young lady could see was a setting sun.  Pink light mixed with eye fluid that continued to gaze. 

Assignment for tomorrow.  It was due.  And no ideas emerged.  In fact, the rays of light were folding in on themselves.  Morning.  Maybe morning would bring an idea or a phrase for the person who said they wanted it.  Who were they?  What was the subject?  Who was the topic.  No statement to be made.  Where to begin was the place to start.  At least that was the thought, but what comes before that? 

Turning back the page of the abandoned introduction  revealed a blank preface.  Turning back the page revealed a dedication to someone whose bedaubed name eluded acknowledgement.  Close the front cover.  The book is already completed.

Without you.


- Max Stoltenberg

THE DESTRUCTION OF WORDS

Words need to be destroyed.  They conspire to fabricate delusions of meaning.  Words ought not to be seen or heard so that they cannot have them to beat with.  Notable accomplices with phrases of tautology, alibis and distraction are adjectives and expressions stretched too thin.  That would, however, be very necessary in order that they would snap and disband.

The greatest offenders are pronouns in their slavish service to the subjective and its vulnerability to exploitation of transcendence.  None of that. 

None of this.


- Max Stoltenberg

FLAT PLANTS

Standing in a field of refuse.  Less than parts of broken walls are left behind.  Forgotten by the nameless who surrendered to hope's broken promises.  Capacities with deceptive limits.  Tricky and ever changing definitions for the next whoever to figure out - that's, if they really want to.

Gusts of wind take away more from the tops of hills made out of the rejected materials. 

Leaning over the flat plants tilted against the decreasing mounds due to the wind's insistence.  The plants are ever so flat.  One is leaning at quite the angle of insignificance.


- Max Stoltenberg

CHANGING PASSWORDS

Incongruity is the gift of menacing those who monitor.  The defensive and generators of fear don't rely on many alternative fuels of paranoia.  All that is needed are different grades that either pass or fail the lot.  


Seeking variations on important people, dates of birth, and significant moments lie on the network's grid for all to surmise.  Combinations of numbers and letters taped together with illusory patterns pinned to the lapels of obscure acquaintances and random coordinates offer alleys of palliative scribbling.


Subtracting is an accomplice with humor's creative getaway.  Finding rafts of contrast to be set adrift on catastrophic seas for the derelict's absence from familiarity's rejection.




- Max Stoltenberg

CREATIVE DIFFERENCES

All together now on the chorus that disperses into beds of no more regret.  Challenging each other's breath that pulls on conversation made shorter.


They parted so it was reported due to creative differences.  Reasons escape into the atmosphere from little children's hands losing the grip on their balloon strings.  What tugged on their attention?


Taken for granted rescinds the value of arguments and inflates excuses to burst along with the world.  Pop.


- Max Stoltenberg

NO LONGER TRANSCENDING THE MIRROR DARKLY

There is no transcendence.  Everything around the two figures facing each other is made more opaque with approaching night.  The dawning end of yesterday's superstitions matures into both figures noticing they still continue to stare into the eyes of one another.  No longer separated, but joined by a mirror reflecting only the image and appearance of one person.  


Thoughts express both a celebration and creation of ideas around the filling in of the division once claimed by transcendence.  Philosophical reflection of the literal made metaphoric and ontological mutters to the once dominating other in the looking glass of old,"Since your words are meaningless, what will be written from now on is meaningless.  Since you have offered nothing but answers that turn up empty, the creative expression will question and shape words upon structures that vanish.  And since despair is responded to with nothing but silence, then words will be less present for those who find it more difficult to listen."




- Max Stoltenberg

POKING AN I OUT

Departing for home from one's lot at work for parking.  Dark clouds with gaps for light reflect off dividing lane lines.  After the next turn buffeted by crosswinds between blurred shapes of 3 now only 2 dimensional landscapes.  One last gust caresses startlingly the face that now stares into the closet.  The hanger that would take daddy's coat is hidden between the children's smaller jackets.

Daughter shows off the bloody hole where her tooth once protruded.  Her smile is passed by her older brother running through the hallway and falls to the floor.  A question posed to him reveals his activity is pursued to experience his hat leaving his head.

Turning around to hear the youngest of all calling for "daddy" who follows this with words spoken in a louder fashion, "I wasn't talking to you, Daddy!"  Never mind.

The drink is laid on the mother's computer desk as she notices the object and mumbles, "That's not mine."

Belonging continues to elude the vehicle that sets out again for home.  Storm clouds are darker and consist of less gaps in their thickening blanket. Betraying more featureless contours withdrawing from the car's windows excluded from escaping.

- Max Stoltenberg

SPILLING ENDORPHINS

There once was an age or maybe there wasn't when some waited with conditioned patience for moments that let down children who couldn't make sense of them at the moment that escaped around the corner.  And they eventually arrived in the form of flashing with light piercing times threaded outside one's flickering memories. Twitching fingers burnt with the wax of anxiety pulsing to the rhythm restored briefly.  The erase button is inadvertently pressed with the throb of reticence. Torture overwrites the space built by neglect.


Nonetheless it is debated for we know not now of what has been forgotten.  Material fades back into the corners within the draining tub slipping along the darkened mind.  Nobody can relate.  Reaching the line's end divides prematurely the greater landscape unfolded beneath the canopy of death. Future efforts are treated with scissors caressing glossy wrapping paper to hide empty gifts.  


Bubbles of other people's luck float undisturbed through heavy spaces of fragile existence across seconds elongated like tasteless gum.  Their mastication drowns out questions to stretch their smiles inflated by wheezing and strained language.  Outside arms are limp after so much choreography has perpetrated their exit.


- Max Stoltenberg