Approaching the main street of the main thing only a particle a faint line of the main thing mainly filling the canvas of all parcels tumbling onto and from the where. Approaching the open ended crowded with movement getting somewhere passing through here nowhere but here with these treads treadmarks of instants moments and instants. Brain will bloom with the glass of windshields gathering pin points vainly trying to glue the froth of shards overflowing wider and narrowed fields of sight and sound.
This is where it slows down these treads treadmarks of instants moments and instants where the cracks in the world are awash in the water of where it slows down into floating in an ocean of frustration washed in the grossly normal. Under large ships under large animals stretched for neighborhoods elongated by daily consumption of masses broken down into smaller devolutions subatomic subhuman once human where did he come from?
He kicked the stopper and the tub drained no time left to rinse the suds still slowly popping out of existence on his tanned chest legs and tops of his feet. Each bubble cluster of bubbles disappeared into nothingness he opened his eyes wider at his skin existing there upon the this this of this is where it slows down these treads treadmarks of instants moments and instants. Where it slows down between words into the fractals of thought thinking he doesn't like it this traffic passing through passing over him jumping up into it in front of the oncoming observance with arms and fingers painting over covering traffic with his canvas his play tub valley canyon dungeon where fear is obscured by cobwebs.
The Cobweb Web
(pieces of a poem found in a dented coffee can)
Let hence from now
The under destined people
or figures of speech
Never mind
Grounds for making and remaking
Thinking on a metal bed
Watched from time to time to time
And too late for the blade
From time after tissue
Broken up for mouths of anger
Minds of the maelstrom
Close and not so close
from ever flushing completely
Numbers make the bodies rise
Back to the outer circle
To spiral from the edge to the
middle to the edge
to the middle
again and what have you
what have you?
Been over that got us nowhere and now nowhere has been painted with an address and no one seems to notice until the yard is adorned with too much blight accented with shingles blown from the roof or the paint has dried the address into the prominence of illegibility. Been over this and been over that with pens markers dry and permanent emaciated ink and the kind that seeps into kitchen tables forming place settings for the next take out.
what have you?
what have you
depends on nothing much that doesn't find anything in common with the sense that whips the flowers with the gusts of being so right from the outskirts of town middle of town underskirts of town only to be refrigerated into aerial photos.
depends or what have you
have you?
nothing to see here the nowhere move along
Girl: Move along where?
Man: Move along.
Girl: Where?
Man: Along.
Girl: Along where?
Man: Along the way. A long time.
Girl: But, not too long. Makes you late for dinner or lunch.
Man: That happens.
Girl: A long time happens sometimes and then my stomach gets my attention and I run back home for a little bit and then I walk and then I run and then I walk and then I it's walking most of the time.
Man: Do you ever run into them or walk up to them when they come up to meet you from looking for you?
Girl: They yell at me to hurry up and eat when I get there only when I get there when I make it there at last. They never look for me. They just wait. I wonder if I waited and waited and waited even more if they would just keep waiting waiting and waiting and waiting even more in the house they call home for now the house they say is our house but really belongs to someone else people I never see but they wait but not too long for us to send them the money to stay in the place they call our house our home for now or what have you.
Man: What have you?
Girl: Yeah, what have you. They wait and they say that a lot.
Man: They yell, huh?
Girl: For losing track of time. It makes me feel bad and I like to lose track of time. Do you like to lose track of time?
Man: Yes, yes, I do.
Girl: What are you doing here?
Man: Looking at the traffic.
Girl: Why?
Man: To watch it pass by.
Girl: Are you waiting to cross the street?
Man: Maybe. Maybe not.
Girl: You've got to be careful.
Man: Tired of being careful. You must know what I'm talking about being a child and all.
Girl: Yeah, sure. They say I never get tired and they always try to wear me out and they end up getting more tired themselves and yell at me more or they get too tired to yell and they just wait with more of their waiting for something and then I wake up and it's the next day or next week and I don't remember falling asleep and what I was doing.
Man: Sounds familiar. We should move away from this traffic and get some distance.
what have you
Dust blows through an alley and gathers around the roof of a house as if smoldering from a fire the fire that engulfed the diaries with words that went nowhere from the edge to the middle to the edge and back to the middle burnt into the charred patterns of the walls still left standing.
Man: Not that far.
Girl: What?
Man: Nothing.
Girl: I should go.
Man: OK. Wait.
Girl: What?
Man: I was going to ask you for . . .
Girl: For what?
Man: A reason. It's nothing.
Girl: A reason? I try to give them reasons and they usually say that my reasons are just excuses. Goodbye.
Man: Goodbye. When you want a path to the abyss it's never clear, just cluttered.
The man stands in silence as the little girl runs off and then walks and then runs some more and then walks some more and then she walks mostly most of the way like she like she just said. And they wait and wait for her in their house they say is their house and belongs to someone else they never see at the address whose paint fades and fades each day each day that they never look for her at the address whose paint fades and fades while the man wanders back to the traffic.
- Max Stoltenberg
No comments:
Post a Comment