Friday, August 12, 2011

STRUCK

Lightning has been a weed striking its way into the covering for this excuse this land of excuses and refusals and rejections and prisons and terror and things that circle and end up in corners inciting U-turns those maneuvers swaying awkwardly in front of others bragging during a hiatus wedged between throwing up so much gets brought back up useless letters and correspondence withheld what else besides?

What else besides?

What struck him his flesh into the bone the bones pulverizing the fragile structure for kneeling and returning to a position at attention briefly before being struck it was those words shouted and hammered into skeleton kneaded into cartilage twisted into knots of tiny sharks that need to keep swimming as long as they can while he works while he thinks and while he sleeps those sharks moving moving him with the effects so striking in impact.

"Awoke on the tile."

Falling asleep in bathrooms these restroom shelters for exhaustion.  Books divided into fractions of fractions of fractions.  Life is constantly edited in the reek of the bathroom as more deleted scenes are flushed down the toilet.

"What did they do to you there?  On the tile?"

Scratching the covered piano thinking of dead trees blackened by lightning and whatever else has been done to them from around around here or there.  What struck them has struck us their words their fists their other objects for other things.  Comparing language comparing words has always struck him as comparing shapes and sizes of things where people can leave their mark on each other.  His only marks he has left have been the signs of his breath on the mirror collapsing into against himself no more room in the world.

"How many were there?"

"Don't know.  Lost count.  Can't count.  On anything."

Lost the unhinged pieces of tall buildings surrounding caged playgrounds awash in the flooding noise of traffic.  Still play they do in the midst of it all until it all becomes so striking as they are struck by life and its accidents and its persuasions and sayings and cosmetic suppositories.

"How did you get there?  On the tile?"

"Don't know.  Beats me."

They gambled they won he gambled he lost they put it together he moved as he was moved by what struck him he was struck by the thought the image the sharp tools within can't get them out to use useless and how striking as they strike him the one struck by so much left behind.  They gambled they won he gambled he lost they put it together he moved as he was moved by what struck him he was struck by the thought the image the sharp tools within can't get them out to use useless and how striking as they strike him the one struck by so much left behind.  They gambled they won he gambled he lost they put it together he was struck by how they put it together as they gambled they won as he gambled he lost as they put it together as he moved he stumbled as he was struck as he rises to the occasion the inspiration that struck him that spells and spills his name in blood staining the tools he can't for the life of him get out to use useless aspiring towards what confronts him to confront it with bloodstained tools he can't get out of him to use useless.

Lightning has been a weed striking its way into the covering for this excuse this land of excuses and refusals and rejections and prisons and terror and things that circle and end up in corners inciting U-turns those maneuvers swaying awkwardly in front of others bragging during a hiatus wedged between throwing up so much gets brought back up useless letters and correspondence withheld what else besides?

What else besides?

"Hold your horses, how are you getting home?"

"Can't say."

He couldn't say as they gambled they won as he gambled he lost as they put it together as he moved he stumbled as he was struck as he ignores his worry as he busies himself with what strikes him as what has struck him down lifted up again by what has struck him down as he is struck by what strikes him as he is struck to explain to explain what has struck him as they gambled they won as he gambled he lost as they put it together as he moved he stumbled as he was struck as he buries what strikes his memories of playgrounds caged and now covered in tile as they gambled they won as he gambled he lost as they put it together as he is struck by their tall buildings surrounding caged playgrounds now covered in tile too many to count and nothing to count on outnumbered outweighed in his trying to get back to his feet back to his feet to explain he can't say.


- Max Stoltenberg






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