SORDID

Listening pains one more than the everyday dull ear ache and they return in their percussive nagging for attention.  Attention to what?  Can tell you now while you still are in the mood to concentrate that it's been growing in the yard a sense of shadows out of the corner of the eye both eyes both sides of both eyes growing a sense of something among them among them all don't count anyone out of it this is an inclusive thing the only inclusive thing that can be called genuinely inclusive or genuine and authentic for that matter this sense of the yard and everyone wanting to get at this this closing off they won't have it they won't have it at all someone who wants to remain silent in this world of noise this world of broadcasters everyone wanting to broadcast something as the usual intermittent drum solo of the ear ache is footnoted with voices that demand to be replied to this cello held by fingers too narrowed by competing loyalties that keep breeding from the same tainted pool stinking with words sprayed with the latest deodorants and oldest deodorants flush and flush their contemptible phrases cling to the sides of the toilet they'll fester in the dark and slink around to reposition themselves to help crack open the blinds and usher in another sunrise to re-program the eyes these eyes those eyes these eyes with more leashes can't shut them up as they ask so politely so damn politely to cut in they can't overcome their obsession with cutting in cutting into this inaction this insomnia caffeinated with content that romances with sweeteners and syrup to make more words stick to this dying body that they won't leave alone with all their sensational gimmickry and mimicry of droppings disguised as blessings from above.

The boy looked for a kite he thought he heard his family once mention or maybe he once mentioned it that there was a kite somewhere in the house that shrank with every space that it was not to be found.  And where every space offered up no kite he continued to look inside his mind for memories that vanished along with every space that it was not found in the house that shrank.  The story did not go was not going where he wanted it to go and as he watched less and played more and more and less and less and found less and less he became more and more aware of how the story did not could not would not did not go where he wanted and did not want it to go as it stopped as he stopped dead in its tracks his tracks that left greasy sneaker prints from searching along the world covered in the waste from cars without windows hoods trunks engines wheels seats only metal that looked like dried burnt toast without butter or jelly.  Did he still have an appetite for anything for the rest of his life or would he stand there in the dehydrated field dusted with years of drought to stick his tongue at the corner of his mouth to see if any jelly lingered between thoughts that squinted to form ideas that toppled over like wooden blocks that refused to cooperate with hands and a mind that could not grow fast enough and did and crumbled quickly along with fading vision of the last days that lasted too long.


- Max Stoltenberg