Wednesday, November 30, 2011

BETWEEN OUTBURSTS

Waiting is all the more awkward as the flushing of the throat runs on and on and beyond into the wall of the winter coat of the next person here for the moment the  occasion lifting curtains and silhouettes revealing the yanking of the chain.  Continues on the flushing with its inconclusive gurgling prolonging the oppressiveness of sound.  Still photography is plastered with the gore of animation slogging through a mud of humiliation. Another star is witnessed re-entering the atmosphere as their shields heat up as they crash down among the winter coats as a spotlight remains focused on the leaky plumbing of their latest utterance.  


Weeds shit wind winter wind against the winter coat of the next person here for the moment the occasion lifting curtains and silhouettes revealing the yanking of the chain.  Of the chain yanked while waiting waiting while in line waiting in line.  Line up crash down another star is witnessed re-entering the atmosphere as their shields heat up as they crash down among the winter coats embedded among the bricks of the wall between winter coats as a spotlight remains focused on the leaky plumbing of their latest utterance leaky plumbing dripping slower continues on the flushing of the throat yanking of the chain lifting curtains and silhouettes yanking of the chain.  Of the chain yanked while waiting waiting while in line waiting in line. Line up crash down another star is witnessed re-entering the atmosphere as their shields heat up heat weeds shit summer heat hot wind blowing hot dirt blowing against the dark summer window screens where eyes that cannot be seen look out upon the lifting of curtains and silhouettes revealing the yanking of the chain. Of the chain yanked while waiting waiting while in line waiting in line.  Lining up crashing down among the dark window screens embedded among the bricks of the wall between dark window screens where eyes that cannot be seen look out upon the lifting of curtains and silhouettes revealing the yanking of the chain.  Of the chain yanked while waiting waiting while in line waiting in line.  Lining up crashing down in a shower of little stars that stab or shoot back in eyes that can no longer remain squeezed so tightly closed forced open weeds shit summer heat all still there as the flushing continues gurgling inconclusive in what does not come together nor what does not come apart only to leak and slog embedded among the bricks of the wall in winter and summer embedded among the bricks of the wall.




- Max Stoltenberg

Saturday, November 26, 2011

SCRAWLING WITH BONES

They had been boning up for this for up to several what were they called units of time sometime prior to the current how do you say of can't remember while they had been having been less broken up (except for the routine fracture worming its way) over more things distressing and read and skipped over and only then having stood out to them long after the countdown was started and even over skipped over.  Their crisis of so much unfinished business was a footnote of an overarching arch that had dislodged hefty chunks onto their heads or heads when they remembered to wear hats (did it matter?) or tales they thought they were in while they formed and reformed their little ensemble on and off and on again onto the path of re-careering themselves and one another through the conduits of one another's connections through the alternate feed of one another's self-employment through the upwards and downwards of one another's thumbs through the revisions of one another's preferences and profiles through the symptomatic deletions of one another's one anothers.


They had been boning up for this for up to several what were they called units of time sometime prior to the current how do you say of can't remember while they had been having been less broken up (except for the routine fracture worming its way) over more things distressing and read and skipped over all the little detailed pulverizing happening on the microscopic level while the macroscopic wiped the usual crust from the eyes that tired of the latest drift of land making space for more others to tumble into the bottom of their final frontier.


Qualmberger: Where do you suppose the last turn will take us?
Dearthton: Based on the navigational patterns of the depreciating minds steering our typical discourse, not to a very useful point.
Nadirloop: I most certainly do concur with that, but I think Qualmberger is asking about a geographical turn rather than a topical one.
Dearthton: But we were not discussing anything in the proximity of geography.
Qualmberger: And since no one has mentioned it for many portions of an age, I have yet to be able to locate any of our inscriptions.  
Nadirloop: Is that due primarily to inability or illegibility?
Vexedmoore: I would invite us to consider that no one has taken into account the possibility of reference to a turn of  a topographical nature.
Nadirloop: I most certainly do concur with that, but I think it had more to do with what I thought of as an insightful retort the other day and can't for the life of me recall what it was.
Qualmberger: How many times have we told you to write things down?
Dearthton: I confess that I have conformed to holding the fire hose of that message for many a defensive reaction as well as a thoroughly shred pair of trousers and I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to writing things down that the more one expresses oneself the more one's words work their way down the page down the ladder down the sewer down to a deeper burial.
Vexedmoore: Could be worse.  One could end up prey to a brain-eating amoeba.
Nadirloop: My sister's mother died of a brain-eating amoeba.
Dearthton: And she was very obsessive-compulsive about making lists.
Qualmberger: Why do you say your sister's mother when you could just as easily say mother.
Vexedmoore: His sister could have a different mother.
Nadirloop: No. I insist on doing that to create a resentful distance.
Qualmberger: My difficulty finding any of our inscriptions is probably a result of failing eyesight as well as an unsteady hand.
Dearthton: Are you talking about the graffiti we've made on these pieces of wood that give their weakening support to our shaky ranks?
Vexedmoore: Our rank asses you mean.
Dearthton: I'll be the first to admit that if one follows the trail of the smoking gun it leads right back to my fuming butthole.  At our decrepit age we can have our marring of nature just as much if not more than that petulant lot of whipper-snappers.  The old invented graffiti before the young of today were soiling ourselves.  Must you really have to keep bringing up some existential investigation of "inscriptions"?
Nadirloop: Existential?
Dearthton: That's not the word I was looking for.  What is it when you're trying to do something and it comes out meaning something worse?
Vexedmoore: I don't think that's what you're getting at.
Dearthton: Of course not.  That's exactly what I'm getting at.  What I'm saying is an example of a case in point.  Like this morning, I was trying to set up my dog's new bag of food and I was trying to pour the old bag into the new one and there were pockets of little old dried kibbles stuck up in the nooks and crannies of the old bag and as I tried to work them out they kept dropping at unexpected intervals onto unwanted coordinates such as any other part of the garage outside the new bag of dog food or into just about every opening in my head: my eyes, my ears, my nostrils, and one even landed in my mouth.  With all this technology one would think that after putting people in their proper place we could put things in theirs.  It was like I was cleaning out some orifice of some larger thing with a big grin on its face the face of my misfortune like I was getting hit with its uneaten food or the lint from its bellybutton or if it seemed wasted and insulting enough as embodied in the piece that landed in my mouth yet another remark expelled from its crapper hole.  I spit it out though into the new bag.  Putting things where they belong after the fact after the aftermath with my face all hot with anger and my hands shaking.  The steadiest hands have been reserved for the best shell games.
Vexedmoore: I most certainly do concur with that, but I still don't think that's what you mean at all.  You're talking about when someone is trying to make something sound better than it really is.
Nadirloop: Oh, yes.  What is the word for that?
Qualmberger: Is someone listening to a composition for large orchestra with a great deal of passages for doubled sections of trombones?
Vexedmoore: None of us has a portable working sound system anymore.  Can't even remember the last time one of us shared a poignant sequence.
Dearthton: What are all these bones lying around our bench?
Nadirloop: People bring them to the park to play fetch.
Vexedmoore: In fact, none of us has a sound portable working system anymore.
Dearthton: I think what you think you're hearing Qualmberger is not the pronouncements of orchestral instruments upon digesting a composer's notes, but denouncements from archaic sphincters exhausted from cheese, white bread, bananas, celery, broccoli, and cream of wheat.
Qualmberger: I think that you think I am thinking that the contra-bass quality of the trombone is even vaguely comparable to the sonorities of the irresolute flatulence of our languid quartet.
Vexedmoore: In further fact, none of us has anymore an imperturbable demeanor for working with an unsound system anymore.
Dearthton: These are not dog bones.  
Nadirloop: There seems to be no end to exhausting how we continue to share in one another's exhaust.
Qualmberger: I think that you think that what we all think about all day long is thinking about the end.
Vexedmoore: None of us have an end of perturbation nor medication for making an end of it let alone a go of it.
Dearthton: This looks like a thigh bone.
Nadirloop: Well, don't look at me.  It's not one of mine.  I have all my original bones.  Not a single buckle or break clean or otherwise.
Vexedmoore: Qualmberger should be one to talk when he's been wearing headphones all this time.  
Qualmberger: (holding up the cable) Look here, see?  It doesn't go anywhere.
Nadirloop: Then why are you wearing them?
Qualmberger: My ears are cold and I turned my closet and trunk in the bedroom inside out looking for my earmuffs.
Vexedmoore: When did you manage to come up with 2 months' down and 3 months' security?
Qualmberger: All right, I turned my refrigerator box upside down trying to find my old pair of earmuffs.  Are you happy?
Dearthton: Haven't been for in can't remember.
Vexedmoore: On behalf of the rest of us, I most certainly do concur with that, but why bother keeping all that cabling attached?
Nadirloop: Must be one of those sets that comes with the 20-footers.  Seems excessive.  I'd continually knock over coffee cups and get it tangled in the phone and the blender if I wandered around with them on.  Of course, it's not an issue in a refrigerator box.  Silver lining in the dampened cardboard if you know what I mean.  I'll be damned if I can remember that word for trying to put a more polished spin on something.
Qualmberger: I thought the cord might come in handy when I really felt like offing myself.
Dearthton: You're too feeble to climb up any of the trees in the park.
Qualmberger: That doesn't seem to blossom into anything practical.  By the time I make it to the park I'm overcome with that sort of anesthetized sensation and I mostly don't give a shit about anything.  One gets fed up with waiting for the coughing up enough blood thing to carry you.
Vexedmoore: Mostly don't give a shit, eh?  Is there any part of you that feels more miserable and despairing?
Qualmberger: There is, but I usually experience that as a sinking feeling in my feet concentrated in the ankles.
Nadirloop: And then how does it manifest itself?
Qualmberger: Then the physiology of the sinking sensation ends up discharging through the holes in my socks.
Dearthton: Should I dare ask if you have another pair?
Qualmberger: You already did and I've haven't been able to change this pair for in can't remember.
Vexedmoore: Maybe you can switch the socks or rearrange the front parts of them in your boots so the holes don't line up with your ankles.
Qualmberger: Look, I appreciate what you're all trying to do, but I thought maybe when this thing starts up again you could all help me tie the cord to the back and if the cable is durable enough and holds out it might break my neck.
Nadirloop: What starts again?
Qualmberger: The truck.
Vexedmoore: What truck?
Qualmberger: The truck our park bench is in the back of with all the bones piled around our rotted feet?
Nadirloop: I must conclude that I most certainly do concur with that now that you bring it up, but won't a 20 foot headphone cord get caught in something else possibly botching a well thought out plan?
Vexedmoore: After all those turns and mixed signals we've been going nowhere.  Any clues to what place this is?
Qualmberger: Look around for a street, landmark or something.
Dearthton: There's a stop sign.  Now we're getting somewhere.
Vexedmoore: (holding up another bone) This looks like one of those smaller pieces in the middle of the foot.  What are they called?  The lateral cuneiform, I think.  If these bones are human like Dearthton suggests.  
Dearthton: Reminds me of when I broke my left foot kicking my last lawn mower.  Haven't got an original bone in my body.
Nadirloop: Reminds me of that word I can't think of.  On the tip of my tongue.  The one where you try to make something distasteful seem more agreeable.
Qualmberger: Fucking euphemism.


While they had been having been less broken up (except for the routine fracture worming its way) over more things distressing and read and skipped over all the little detailed pulverizing happening on the microscopic level while the macroscopic wiped the usual crust from the eyes that tired of the latest drift of land making space for more others to tumble into the bottom of their final frontier.  Sometimes wheels that turned stopped many times as it turned out turning out what has never ceased to be turned out and thrown out to search many times for wheels that turned and ended up stopping always for turning out one anothers without a turn or one anothers given another turn at being turned out or taken out many times added to many times times many times multiplied by nothing for it had been having been less broken up (except for the routine fracture worming its way) over more things distressing and read and skipped over all the little detailed pulverizing happening all the time sometimes many times times many times multiplied by nothing for it had been having been less broken up (except for the routine fracture worming its way).  Worming its way.  Its way.




- Max Stoltenberg

















POPCORN CEILING


Is it? Has it? So it has. It has what with it what is unnecessary and with this and there it went away to the hemispherical unconscious to render the goat illiterate for another duration of the pulse of the colon pulsing from within the digital display of the time in the dark kitchen of the rusted trailer. Maintaining. Maintaining. Maintaining.

Maintaining. Maintaining. Maintaining. Maintaining what was it? Is it? Has it? Underneath or all around underneath like pounding out the ground like playdough spreading it out flatter and wider all around underneath like pounding out the ground pounding with all the pounding of the eardrums sliding an eye to one side to see if the cellphone lights up with a call lights cellphone lights muted by the pounding of the ground pounding with all the pounding of the eardrum skins stretched across peripheral vision to gag the incoming.

What’s the gag? Is it quite that much of a stretch of the eardrum skins stretched across peripheral vision to gag the incoming? Incoming outgoing exercising social skills chocolate-layered and frosted with friendliness to practice in circles that get around and go around and around the circles in circles and end up in cul-de-sacs of respiratory infections breathing in each other’s germs of belonging and affirmation painted into the make-up of sandwich board people. Bored people trying to fill their sacs with loose change of leftover sock puppets turned inside out. Dependency gasps as it misses a breath or more or more and more and more and more as it is maintaining maintaining maintaining maintaining with the popcorn ceiling leveled at its guests leveled at its guests be here be here as the now has it underneath all around underneath like pounding out the ground like playdough spreading it out flatter and wider all around underneath like pounding out the ground pounding with all the pounding of the eardrums sliding an eye to one side to see if the cellphone lights up with a call lights cellphone lights muted by the pounding of the ground pounding with all pounding of the eardrum skins stretched across peripheral vision to gag the incoming.

The celery has been shortened at the top or bottom depending on which end is up depending on which end is down depending on who is depending on who depending on which end is next to be tried on for size connected by the lubricated short cut dug through the tunnel right down the middle from end to end. The lettuce fell to the floor not realizing someone had ripped the bag open already not realizing that the someone who had ripped the bag open already had not realized that they were that someone who had already ripped the bag open already not realizing that the lettuce had gone bad already not realizing that the lettuce that had gone bad already had been eaten after the lettuce had gone bad already not realizing that they had spent most of another night already tossing and turning while trying to rip their thoughts out of another bag of already fermenting lines of thought concerning concerns they had about connecting reasons for circles that remained welcoming and impervious within gestures of each other’s gestures of each other’s comments of each other’s inflections of each other’s reading of the situation within the situation each was situated within and had been situated within already for another sleepless night beneath the popcorn ceiling.


- Max Stoltenberg

Monday, November 21, 2011

DARK LAKE

This is the last sentence before the next one.  And this is the next sentence after the last one.  Both could and probably do claim to be the other and the other claims to be the other.  And this is the next sentence and its claims are dehydrated by exhaustion and narrowed and thinned by claims and eyes that hover over to see if they try to accelerate around the corner mountain of mattresses with identically scribbled notes on every individually discolored layer coughing upward coughing downward with a distant throat clearing the only clearing around the corner mountain of mattresses with identically scribbled notes on every individually discolored layer coughing upward coughing downward with a distant throat clearing the only clearing around the table were the cups emptied by mouths that sat back on their beanbags.


Beanbags the beanbags have been taken away maybe one or two were leaking beans at the most didn't amount to too many beans they fell off the wagon the station wagon behind the station where gas was pumped into the already foul air by a rather large man wearing a long vermilion trenchcoat given to him by his rather vengeful father who abhorred his girth although the rather large issue of the father was rather dead set on convincing himself that his rather fuckheaded father was envious of his nob although this could not be contradicted by everyone who avoided him or maintained rather great distance from him.  The rather large man was waiting a rather long time for the next train at the rather rundown station where the waiting room reeked of urine and wet magazines with dampened perfume samples.  


The rather large man stood outside the waiting room turning his head to see the overgrown train tracks and then turning his head back to examine the broken window of the waiting room.  He noticed the fractured pieces jutting up from inside the bottom of the sill had collected a mound of dead flies.  A rank breeze would rock the shards and the dead flies would be blown about to flick against the shards like a stubborn build up of morbid plaque.  The rather large man continued to stand outside the waiting room occupying himself with turning his head in a pattern he did not care to maintain a consistently timed manner between the train tracks and the broken window of the waiting room.  He kept this up for many turnings of his head tending to linger on the dead flies contemplating the lack of variation in the intensity of the wind as well as feeling rather confident that he could expel the balance of gas from his vehemently digested lunch before the arrival of the train.


It was rather frustrating when the turning of the head from overgrown train tracks to dead flies passed by a building with an enormous hole in the roof that divided the pendulum swinging over the dark lake beneath the storm abbreviating their last meeting.  Rather frustrating when images punctuated with gaping holes and dark lakes lancinating the growth of something so that as it leaked odd shaped beans not amounting to too much spilled in the form of either something that happened or happened only in a dream a dream of someone some other that would escape sharing all the waiting all the turning all the different turning and changing of direction all the words the other would never hear by the dark lake beneath the storm abbreviating their last meeting the last meeting with the other.  Both could and probably do claim to be the other and the other claims to be the other.  And this is the next sentence and its claims are dehydrated by exhaustion and narrowed and thinned by claims and eyes that hover over to see if they try to accelerate around the corner mountain of mattresses with identically scribbled notes on every individually discolored layer coughing upward coughing downward with a distant throat clearing the only clearing around the corner mountain of mattresses with identically scribbled notes on every individually discolored layer coughing upward coughing downward with a distant throat clearing the only clearing around.




- Max Stoltenberg

Friday, November 18, 2011

STEEL WOOL ROMP

That key was missing for about since the other four keys previously spent on doors to rooms with no room at all until the next key was taken or given confused about since the other four or was it three no it was definitely five or about confused that that key was found missing again reappeared on the lost and found list flossing the teeth of the shredder that was the key principle with no room at all until the next key was taken or given confused about since the other two or was it originally three or four and ended up being definitely five or none whatsoever is what's left of what previously was spent on doors opening as others close into each other for each the other others onto no room at all until the next key there was always a next key copied and recopied to straighten out the bending bent so often in  locks spent on doors stinking of ass more than possible anything possible in the handing out of keys the backing up of keys the backing up against doors that open as others close onto no room at all.


Tools.  Plenty of tools for digging for screwing for screwing in blind spots hot spots off camera on camera.  Plenty of tools for digging for screwing screwing blind hot off on opposite same same old young same old same old.  Tools.  Plenty of tools for digging for screwing for tossing for tightening for loosening for cutting for getting until forgotten and bumped into again for collision sake out into the open bumping into again for the sake of another collision for the sake of nothing different only the ordinary bumping into the forgotten and familiar smacking into the face same old same old smacking of the face into the bumped into stuff.  Tools for cutting through the fence the last of several the last barrier of this prison the next prison in a line of the residential block prison block same color scheme same number scheme same scheme same old cutting out onto some room for only a short extending into a desk in the way the way the desk in the way crawling under the desk and clocking the top of the head into a clock an old forgotten clock remembered with a clocking to the top of the head off the top of the head it eludes a space only space blanks strung together thinking and thunking between under and soon over more junk more junk to come a lot out there in the junkyard outside to return to which direction?  Others say they know only know each object as it is encountered with a bang and a thunk and a smack to the face the nose wiping blood with the sleeve snagging on eyelids and lids of containers falling between abandoned vehicles climbing through backseats stinking of ass and other orifices and artifices of exchange wiping wet and crusty with pants thighs shrug inside withdrawing into numbed forgetting of the briefly thawed faked loves and frozen made up faces of years ago years years plenty of tools tools for escaping for escaping out into the junkyard just outside along the residential prison block blocked hole blocked by neglected fishing boats with holes of their own holes of their own getaways ended too soon only to extend the stench of fish that have gotten away to linger in the nostrils tumbling over furniture deteriorated but enough remaining to hamper escaping out into the junkyard just outside along the residential prison block blocked hole blocked by neglected fishing boats with holes of their own holes of their own getaways ended too soon only to extend the stench of fish that have gotten away to linger in the nostrils tumbling over furniture out into the junkyard just outside along the residential prison block blocked hole blocked on both sides pushing against each other pushing pushing to get in pushing to get out pushing pushing pushing get out get in get out in out in out out out in in in out push out push out push out push push push hold it hold it hold it hold hold hold hold wait wait hold scream scream scream let it out keep it in let it out keep it in voice screaming voice holding holding pushing pushing fists gripping gripping smacking into junk more junk blocking blocking the hole blocked on both sides pushing against each other.




- Max Stoltenberg

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

UNDER WRAPS

Headlights compete for the air
above the asphalt
stabbing light into the thickening darkness
that will not part




Headlights splash against fences
Lemon sting of metal wires
Knitted impatience 
caught in webs of restrictions
chaining
cutting
links
bottoms fall out
and land on shafts
of probes


sent by someone


Who knows who
Making violins wait their turn
no feed
just conducting sphincters
that's what the notes
were written in


High beams again
illuminate nothing
but blind the back 
of the inside
of the head


forgot


who knows who
something about
being sent
up
into the body
whatever it was


can't rid this
of that


forgot


flash reflection off teeth
maybe hers


forgot


High beams again
illuminating nothing
but blind the back
of the inside 
of the head


forgot


fingers rub the neck
dying whispers below the skin
sinking away


sinking


away




- Max Stoltenberg

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

LUCK AMONG THE VOLCANOS

Then when it has come to this which it has then when it has it has and then when no one is looking when everyone has been looking at something else someone else which has been surmised to be something else in their tuned evaluations and assumptions then when it has come to that which that is all that it has been a has been when then it has that going for it then when all that is all that it can come up with then when their tuned evaluations has come up wanting after all its wanting their wanting because they have been wanting when they have been wanting when then has been nearly when overly then when wanting nothing but enough is enough for them which it has then grown into more than enough and above the call of wanting calling when then it has come to all so often when it has then when no one is looking when everyone has been looking at something else someone else which has been surmised to be something else in their tuned evaluations and assumptions then when it has come to that which that is all that it has when then it has that going for it then when all that is all that it can come up with then when their tuned finely tuned and refinely tuned evaluations have come up wanting have come up wanting come up wanting up wanting wanting ing the ing of wanting in the present future wanting when then is all that for wanting in the present future.


Life erupts and flashes back to the places inside the dark spots of the muscle tissue, arteries, and bones where it glows with erupting spontaneity erupting into the random when then it has when it has that all that is has been wanting in the splattering everywhere of molten luck.  Eruptions cooking it is when then it has and hasn't been in the oven of life took long it then sticks to all the walls redistributed and splattering everywhere of molten luck.  Against the flow with the flow fleeing from the heat of the kitchen and into the lava flow an extra topping for the yard penetrating those barriers between some like it hot and some like it concrete layered in desert what luck that luck then when all that hot is a dry hot compared as all that is compared when coming up wanting all that wanting compared to that wet hot eruption of life splattering everywhere of molten luck baked half-baked raw burned raw tough luck.


When the luck gets tough the going gets mired in the substances of nature teeming with the eruptions of life viscid and glutinous with life's eruptions spontaneously secreting the random luck of life adhesively infected with life homeless all this when then it has come to this when home at last to reside within its own intestines refinishing the walls never finished with the projects of lifelong learning burning holes through cells flooded with waste imprisoned for life with the spontaneous and impulsive and lucky eruptions of life and its products.


When Baked and Half-Baked scrambled onto higher ground surrounded by the random eruptions that showed no signs of abating, they stood.  They looked around them at the spreading ocean of molten lava.


Half-Baked: We're lucky we made it up to this spot.
Baked: Wait.  I want to open it up.  I'll go first.
Half-Baked: Why do want to go first?
Baked: Because you're Half-Baked.
Half-Baked: You've got a point there.  OK, you open it up.


When Baked and Half-Baked scrambled onto higher ground surrounded by the random eruptions that showed no signs of abating, they stood.  They looked around them at the spreading ocean of molten lava.


Baked: We're lucky we made it up to this spot.
Half-Baked:  You call this lucky?  Luck to just prolong our lives as we slowly boil in this heat and suffocate as well?
Baked: Wait.  Stop.  Now we've got to flip it back.
Half-Baked:  Flip it back?
Baked: Of course, this way I open it up, but I miss out on that good reply you just had.
Half-Baked:  It was pretty good wasn't it?
Baked:  Then let's flip it back the way it was.  I'm sorry, I should have left well enough alone.
Half-Baked: Apology accepted and what's done is done.
Baked:  We flipped it which means we are capable of starting over so I need to set it right by putting it back the way it was.
Half-Baked: If we do that then we'll be undoing the idea of having started over.
Baked:  No.  We'll just be starting over again and proving once more that it is possible to start over yet again.
Half-Baked:  I can also prove that volition is just as important as the concept of starting over by making a conscious choice not to start over.
Baked: Oh, don't do that.
Half-Baked: I refuse so there.


Surrounded by the random eruptions that showed no signs of abating, Baked and Half-Baked scrambled onto higher ground surrounded by the random eruptions that showed no signs of abating, they stood.  They looked around them at the spreading ocean of molten lava.  They stood as they looked around them at the spreading ocean of molten lava.


Half-Baked:  It started over anyway.
Baked:  The word order was somewhat changed and there was an inordinate amount of repetition.
Half-Baked:  You're the one being repetitious with all your wanting to start over and prove that you can't get it right the first time and that I have better responses.  
Baked: Better responses.  Always needed more time and more repeating things to get it right and sometimes never manage to even accomplish that.  There was this young guy don't remember his name who didn't need more time or to start over.  He just got it right the first time.  He was going places.
Half-Baked:  What happened to him?
Baked:  He fell in a volcano.


Signs of abating there were no signs of abating with these signs.  There were signs but not signs of abating.  The signs that were there were hard to read due to the effects of the environment.  Baked and Half-Baked Baked and Half-Baked scrambled onto higher ground surrounded by the random eruptions that showed no signs of abating, they stood.  They looked around them at the spreading ocean of molten lava.  They stood as they looked around them at the spreading ocean of molten lava erupting randomly around the hard to read signs.


Half-Baked:  It's just going to go through it's whatever it's doing.
Baked:  I was just going to say.
Half-Baked: I have an idea why don't we reflip it around backwards to the unreversed way we had it before like you wanted to put it back and we'll just switch names.
Baked:  Why would we want to do that?
Half-Baked:  Well, since you want to keep starting over you can be Half-Baked and I'll be Baked and the whatever is trying to going through whatever it's trying we can call Half-Assed.
Baked:  Sounds good to me, I think.


(They pause and wait several seconds).


Half-Baked:  It's not starting over.
Half-Baked:  It's just doing whatever of its continuing thing.
Half-Baked:  It just keeps going anyway.
Half-Baked:  With no signs.
Half-Baked:  I see no signs.
Half-Baked:  Listen to that.
Half-Baked:  Listen to what?
Half-Baked:  The lava the sound of the lava.
Half-Baked:  I'm listening.
Half-Baked:  What does that sound like to you?
Half-Baked:  It sounds like some horrible brass section from that fucked up symphony I can't remember the number.
Half-Baked:  I was thinking it sounded more like despairing bassoons or tortured ducks.
Half-Baked:  Large tortured ducks.
Half-Baked:  I'm confused.
Half-Baked:  About what number symphony?
Half-Baked:  No, about whose lines I've been expressing.


Headphones are taken off as the surrounding noise surrounds heads and phones as lines are down.  The surrounding noise surrounds heads and phones as lines are down.  Heads and phones are surrounded by noise as line are down as lines are down.  Lines that were down come back up erupting into life with the noise of life splattering 
all over and over again when the luck gets tough the going gets mired in the substances of nature teeming with the eruptions of life viscid and glutinous with life's eruptions spontaneously secreting the random luck of life adhesively infected with life homeless all this when then it has come to this when home at last to reside within its own intestines refinishing the walls never finished with the projects of lifelong learning burning holes through cells flooded with waste imprisoned for life with the spontaneous and impulsive and lucky eruptions of life and its products.




- Max Stoltenberg

Monday, November 14, 2011

CURDLES

On the surface walking stopping and not moving thinking that doesn't prove very much of what is not or what is it doesn't prove it it doesn't only an it and that does it.  Not so easy does it.  Either way on the surface stopping and not moving thinking that doesn't prove very much of what is not or is it doesn't prove it it doesn't only an it and that does it not so easy does it as it may be still may be nothing but it follows the contours of the surface formed out of the molding of the passing of life life passing molding into the forms of the surface along which beings being as they be with the is what it is following along just doing just that as much as they be all they want doing just that following along the surface and when stopping that nonsense stop and let their eyes and let their noses and let their ears and let their tongues and let their thoughts their erased thoughts follow along the surface up and down and up and down and up and down and straight a little bit and up a little bit and down a lot down even more and up a lot and out of reach and down and out of reach following along the surface with its solid and swampish and so full of holes and buried in surface and its contours formed out of the molding of the passing of life life passing molding into the forms of the surface along which beings being as they be with the is what it is following along the surface along the rifts along the scaffolding along the repairs along the passing of time along the passing of life along the molding of life forming the surface and along its rifts along the scaffolding along the repairs along the passing of more time more along the same business of the contours of the surface following and following along the contours and shades and frames of contours and frames of shades along the pages along the catalogs along the catatonic along the tectonic along the followers following along the cracks along the big fucking crack running down the middle between here and there and then and now and just a moment ago just a breath ago just a breath between knuckles her knuckles so long ago so far following only the surface of knuckles following only smoke over ash covered knuckles cracked with the mundane alone along following along the crack between repeat and break it up into personalized cracks between let it go and keep it to oneself between do and don't so close together in the brain splitting headache shut up shut the page answer the page shut it answer take it easy take it take it have it die on it die on the molding surface following with aching head and feet with bloodshot eyes bloodshot senses shotgun nonsense put it down pick it up throw it away might need it might need might not need always need hate that despise that part that part of the contours of the surface the sudden sharp downward part or sudden steep upward part getting stuck with that part the part with the might need part always needing part hate that despise that part that part where it splits into following along the surface the molding surface of life and its molding along its acidulating along its coagulating in limbs inside the limbs up and down sudden sharp stopping nothing moving and then it moves again following along the contours of the passing and molding of life forming the surface slowing breath a shallower and shallower breath that can ripple a smaller and smaller and smaller part of the surface hate that despise that part.




- Max Stoltenberg

Sunday, November 13, 2011

RUMMAGING THROUGH IT

The trunk for now will be the field
The field of then will be tossed
and
maybe something else
who knows?


Forcing hands against the sides 
of a world reduced
to the lowest denominator
of the common disqualified


Harried by corners filled in
not even corners anymore
Lips held in toward the thought
Not now
Not then
Trunks of fields
Dry with forgotten endings


That never happen


Forcing hands against the sides
of a world reduced
to the lowest denominator
of the common disqualified


Ink was it?
A voice was it?
A metal sharp metal was it?
Marking territory
coming to a point
maybe 
maybe not
probably not
coming to a head
coming to a trunk


Forcing hands against the sides
moving apart skulls
in the dark gardens
filling corners for the burial
under accumulation compiled by
worms
they are their insistence
crawling through it
forcing hands




- Max Stoltenberg

Saturday, November 12, 2011

RIGID

Leftovers drop to the floor
Shatter and collect
Age


What tense?
What tense?




These are the waves
and corruptible cheeks
forming stories
to lure
little legs
little knees
to the pain-ground


Swinging over rocks
Digging up
empty water
inhaled into fishy wayward
last names
those lonely last names


Screwing off heads
and knifing them into some other 
bodies
nobodies


Impress on the wrinkled matter
smoothing over bean soup
airing out judgments
little ears
little heads
shrink their faces at the stench


Floating just floating
in the can
collecting grease
to slide time
into holes
hurrying growths
congealing tomorrow


Scraping along
a little more inflamed each pass
shuttle to shuttle
a bench drops the cup of juice
no lid 



These are the waves
and corruptible cheeks
forming stories
to lure
little legs
little knees
to the pain-ground


Scraping along 
a little more inflamed each pass
shuttle to shuttle
a bench drops the cup of juice
no lid




- Max Stoltenberg

Thursday, November 10, 2011

BLINDFOLDS

It's all in the grip.  The grip they have getting tighter and loosening with the mind that unravels.  A hold of the arms for throwing over the shoulders and letting the bodies land where they land.  The bodies have landed.  Lose a grip and unwind the connections so much or so less that way when it comes apart.  Drifting down over the land frosting the bodies where they have landed.  Here where living is done and it is done to lie about where the bodies that have landed this land is where searching stops where bodies land and where they lie for lifetimes of lying and covering things and covering the coverings.


Against a wall bodies before they are cast about to land where they will lie and cover and cover coverings for what lies underneath has done nothing but lie there atop the lack of beginning no beginning.  Here is where living where  living is done and it is done to lie about where bodies land and where they lie for lifetimes of lying and covering things and covering the coverings that lie atop the lack of beginning no beginning whatsoever.


Against it the only thing these bodies can remain against now before they are cast about to land where they will lie stand these bodies.  Something a wind maybe winds do that can do that may have possibly removed a blindfold and it only takes one to start the whole miserable business of vision.  And the one removes another blindfold.


Body #1: Allow me.  There.  How's that?  Better, right?
Body #2: Crap.  Must have an eye infection or something the strain where one of its most insidious characteristics is a painful sensitivity to light.
Body #1: The Sun is sinking.  The day is just about over.  We've missed another one.  We are too late for what has happened while we have been like this.  I should remove theirs.


(As they reach to remove the blindfold from the third body standing, the second raises their arms to stop them).


Body #2: Don't do more of that routine.
Body #1: What routine?  I'm attempting to undo the way things have been.
Body #2: Don't do more of your routine of blinding people while acting as if their permission matters to you.
Body #1: Blinding?  I'm doing the opposite.  Has the darkness gotten to you?
Body #2: Perhaps.  Bandages are thin layers between one darkness and another.
Body #1: You've confirmed it for me at least that it might take longer for you to adjust to the light than others.
Body #2: That sounds familiar.  Where have I heard that one before?  However many shoulders I have been flung over and wherever I have landed I can still hear things the same old messages and directions as the images become both more vivid and murkier.
Body #1: I prefer what's out here to what's in my head and especially what lurks about in yours.  Now let me take their blindfold off.
Body #2: They're not interested anyway.
Body #1: Really?  What makes you so sure?
Body #2: They haven't bothered to interject.
Body #1: They are probably just being polite.
Body #2: So much for politeness and the thickness of its dam to hold back the flood of questions and interjections.  Not a stirring of waves or even a leak.  Just politeness and its gauze to soak in the bleeding of resignation.  Have I told you the story about the woman the mother the secretary who wanted to quit as her options evaporated up into the clouds that hung over her.  Her vision became blurred and she visited the eye doctor who told her the story about the man who read book after book to amass an ever expanding range of mountains of information as his hearing failed and missed the requests of those who wanted to share in the climbing and discovering of the various places the corners the plateaus and steep drops among the mountains.  The woman followed prescription after prescription until everything about her the clouds that moved heavily and imperceptibly above her everything lost its contrast.
Body #1: No gratitude.  That's your problem.  Now let me remove their blindfold.
Body #2: Wait until tomorrow.  We are too late for another day and what has happened unseen without us.  You're one to be so easily persuaded aren't you?  Persuaded by the wind.  I heard it.  Isn't that what started it?  So moved you are and inspired to make everyone else like you.
Body #1: You want us all to stay like you and be like you?  Blind?  And willfully ignorant?
Body #2: No.  Just unwilling to keep watching again.  Just when I was getting used to no longer watching it starts again the watching and the looking and the searching around in the layout the floor plan we can navigate with our eyes shut and now we get to play a pointless variation of the game where we pretend we're not hostages anymore.  If you want to take her blindfold off at least put mine back on before I forget the rest of it the rest I used to have before my hearing overwhelmed my sense of touch to touch and be touched and still had a grip.  Its loosening the wind you and the rest along the wall loosening the grip unraveling as it reminds me of all the loops they made around this body rotating and orbiting like a foreign body an alien planet lifeless to preserve in its motionless resolve until they deliver us to another land another floor plan we'll strain to hear for clues of how to follow their directions unseen another land where they will carry as their unwanted burden and throw us and cast us into some other scene where we will land where the wrapping on the outside will contain the bleeding of resignation and the looping of thoughts inside our heads this head where the dark things lurk about in the dark at the end of the day having just missed what happened before unseen and without us.




- Max Stoltenberg