Tuesday, December 27, 2011

IS THAT RIGHT?

Answering someone else's phone when they are not around to hand the phone to the conversation to the conversation what a thing with its icicles dripping from the gutters hanging there to hang on left hanging as fading vapors on into the disappearing acts of what has been written for no one answering someone else's phone when they are not around to hand the at hand look no hands as the ride takes this nobody into the next disappearing act.

"Be right there."
"When?"
"In a little bit."

Horses stream across the river that runs through her eyes without anymore patience without anymore endings just her eyes watering and drying and watering and drying into a scratchy breeze that brings another chapter that doesn't belong there for her to find another story or maybe another paragraph to tuck her frozen feet underneath a shrinking blanket as darkness slips under sheets of snow in pictures lost to her mind deleted when they are not around to hand the phone to the conversation to the conversation what a thing.

"When?"
"When my stomach settles."
"Settles for what?"
"When it settles down."
"What's up inside your stomach?"
"Too much that happens outside it."
"Or that doesn't happen?"

Stuffed animals in the backyard left around the small plastic picnic bench close to the ground close to the proximity of making things up to talk about on pretend phones answering someone else's phone when they are not around no one around to interrupt conversations between little mouths and mouths that never move mouths that never have holes to fall into to get sucked into close to the ground close to the proximity of making things up to talk about on pretend phones answering someone else's phone when they are not around to interrupt with their holes that slurp and bite small words chew them up and stitch them with needling into longer sentences that accumulate to the end of the world and come around again for nothing different.

"Is that right?"
"Is what right?"
"Can I listen to your stomach?"
"You'll only hear dinner talking."
"Between the food."
"What's between the food?"
"Gas."

The wind the hot wind the cold wind in alternating intervals spread further apart by hands that never pick up the call from voices squeezed by beginnings and endings of conversations narrowed by armies of information that huddle together on the head of a pin needling into longer sentences that accumulate to the end of the world and come around again for nothing different different for nothing.

"What did you say?"
"Did I say something?"
"How can you not know if you said something?  Even though you may not always give me permission I still listen to what you say."
"Why would I do that?"
"I don't know."
"Neither do I."

The simpler the book the thicker the words and images the harder it is to turn the pages.  thicker dull the wet light drops of mandibles with spit on mirrors for a wiping forgotten and a compelled forgiveness smeared for the heels of the palms applying the brakes cracking the forehead on the edge of the counter.  can't get a grip on anything between thicker pages.  can't get a grip.

"Can you tell me a story?"
"After I fill your water bottle."
"Can you fill my water bottle after you tell me a story?"
"After I empty out your water bottle and give you all fresh new water."
"I want to finish it myself."
"There's something floating in it."
"Is it a bug?"
"What did you do?"
"Tell me a story."
"What did you do?"
"Tell me a story."
"Pick a book.  One from the lower shelf.  We haven't read one of those in a couple of weeks."
"Tell me a story."
"I will.  Pick me a book.  Lower shelf."
"No, tell me what you did.  Once.  And don't do anymore."
"The bloody nose."
"Did you tell me this before?  I think you told me this before."
"No, I haven't.  The bloody nose and I capitalize nothing."
"What does that mean?"
"Just let me continue."

Doorstep door frame framing not entrances but exits or both where coming in and going out makes for a one way ticket to less and nothing to redeem either but perhaps maybe only just yet a tiny slightly pressed insistence not even on uneven ground you know how it is or perhaps not even about the uneven ground that it how it is over your head or has slipped out the back for playing in alleys where large dark faces atop hard walls empty themselves more on what cuts short its play down below running off to reclaim their one way ticket to less and nothing to redeem either but perhaps maybe only just yet a tiny slightly pressed insistence not even on uneven ground.

"He or it might have even been me who picked at it poked at it too much and made it bleed.  It had that smell that bloody smell that's like the inside of some room with messy walls that is either falling in on you before you break open."
"Like the astronaut who had the alien worm inside him and his chest exploded and it came out growled and slid across some vegetables or it could have been lettuce."
"And you wipe your nose and get all this thick red blood all over your hand and arm."
"The neighbor across the street showed me his tumor in his arm it looked like he had an orange inside.  Made him look as if he had two elbows."
"Went into the garage and found the toolbox where there were pliers to clamp the nose shut and stop the flow of blood."
"Will this help me sleep?"
"All I could find was something metal.  That's all there is now metal things.  To stop the flow of blood.  Funny the flow of blood it makes you see funny things especially the closer you get to death and then you come back because it keeps flowing."
"I was asleep and then I woke up.  Did you say something funny?  So much about blood.  I'm falling asleep anyway.  Do you ever wish you didn't grab the pliers?"
"Bloody wishful thinking."

Horses stream across the river that runs through her eyes without anymore patience without anymore endings just her eyes watering and drying and watering and drying into a scratchy breeze that brings another chapter that doesn't belong there for her to find another story or maybe another paragraph to tuck her frozen feet underneath a shrinking blanket as darkness slips under sheets of snow in pictures lost to her mind deleted when they are not around to hand the phone to the conversation to the conversation what a thing.


- Max Stoltenberg

Sunday, December 25, 2011

AT THE END OF THE DAY

At the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returned and vanquished tomorrow, oh, shit.  Another sharp pain in the front cover story getting peeled away to make way for the back pain back to the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returned and vanquished tomorrow's next day afterwards for the place afterwards placing low energy below the bar where the chips fall where the crumbs fall where the rain strokes the sky and falls elsewhere at the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returned and vanquished tomorrow with its returns with its nonsense numbly gargling blunted sense in this glass of wine that glass on the table at the end of the table at the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returned and vanquished tomorrow can't catch up with it the glass dropping off the end of the table afterwards for the place afterwards placing low energy below the bar where the chips fall where the crumbs fall where the rain strokes the sky and falls elsewhere at the end of the day at the end of the table that extends for that without contrast without difference without extension without extending much else much at all all day at the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much at the end of the day waited until the end for the pretty much hands that held hands that moved hair like a curtain much like a curtain pretty much like a curtain very much like a pretty dress curtain across a tidal pool of blue eyes that one waits until the end of the day to address that at the end of the shore melted into the sand and muddied hands indecisive hands held over a sink that waits at the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returned and vanquished tomorrow can't reach out to the curtain for any additional performances of the cricket escaping the turning pages thickening gathering pages until at the end of the day this or that day where the volume and its leanings make way for the back where catastrophe forms and cancels out the cricket and cancels any additional performances without extension without contrast without difference at the end of the table at the last glance of the last glass of the last time returning and vanquishing tomorrow knocking off all else at the end of the table at the end of the day this day that day the next has pretty much very much come and gone and returning and vanquishing tomorrow and the next day and the next day at the end a later end and a dragged out end and a drawn out dragging through the cracks through the blinds through the recycling through the box-cutters and between yellowed teeth of sand and mud and rain that strokes the sky and falls elsewhere.  




- Max Stoltenberg

Monday, December 19, 2011

OFF AGAIN

"Did she?"


Get the cables.  What was her name?  All right we'll try the length.  Was it long or short or even go with about shoulder length?  Shoulder length is a length not bad not too bad not since the party of skunks eating pizza on a trampoline and gassed the neighbor in a what would be called by many residents and their respective pets and potted plants as a particularly ambitious redistricting effort this year or perhaps it had already been attempted the year before or perhaps the year before that all right we'll try the length.  Was it long or short?


"Did she say?"


Get the cables.  What was the color?  All right we'll try the color.  Was it light or dark or in between for a length of life not bad not too bad not since the first contact that contact with sense organs in the forest couldn't pass through in an uninterrupted reverie for the neglectful or worse suppose suppose so and it was so that contact more than one one too many and would rather have waited for the falling of the leaves to bury the ruined cut out cut down and cut out for less than the screams that painted the branches in saliva and the fog of her breath their breath that scattered into the weather patterns of the parks of the plazas of the other sides of things and those dead faces long faces.  All right we'll try the length.  Was it long or was it short?


"Did she say something?"


Get the cables.  What was the smell?  All right we'll try the smell.  Was it open or closed or in a manner of standing at a threshold about to have that slab of door that mile of wall slammed into one's nose this nose for smelling not bad not too bad for getting around couldn't get around in an uninterrupted scenic route for getting around.  They're in that back corner there tangled.  You'll have to untangle them.  Just get the cables.  Enough distracting with your telling yourself how we all need a jump now and then.  Better to be left empty than started again for yet another turning over.  On second thought, leave the cables.  Leave them be among the leaves collecting in the trunk.  Leave the trunk hood up.  Leave it be to its gaping over the leaves swirling about the forest where the other sides of things can gather into their feeble headstones.  All right we'll try the length.  Was it long or was it short?




- Max Stoltenberg

Saturday, December 17, 2011

DOWNHILL

To follow the deadline the return home downhill from an uphill frustration congested breath of life congested heart what a failure.  Downhill from straining out large desert storms whipping the stranded into shape for being plugged into the metal chamber and shot across the downhill affair following the uphill frustration congested breath of life congested heart what a failure.  They bring their organs that harden into a thinner music of persuasion straining to move the waste from between their wrinkled layers.  Thinner music play and die it never fades never fades only another line to strike buttons shift buttons escape resistant to the touch no escape for the return home downhill from an uphill frustration congested breath of life congested heart what a failure.  Affairs prolonged affairs delayed by wristwatches halted in the corridor of the moment between closed doors doors closed to allow the restricted their backlog of to and fro.  Got a thing going in between closed doors doors closed to allow the restricted their backlog of to and fro.  Tutorial erased of the cat's cradle held by the accomplished woman with too much to do and options seasoning a hesitation for their creaking nodding bony heads where their vision has caved in for a season that ruptures in both directions of the past to sink below memory and of the future to never occur to anyone misplacing the tutorial erased of the cat's cradle held by the once there once upon a hesitation for their creaking for their nodding bony heads where their vision has caved in during the storms the desert storms whipping the stranded into shape for being plugged into the metal chamber and shot across the downhill affair to follow the deadline the return home downhill from an uphill frustration congested breath of life congested heart what a failure was that mentioned before probably definitely for a chance at missing the point of departure from the downhill affair to follow the deadline the dead the line rupturing in both directions of past and future that have their reunions their creaking nodding bony headed reunions where teeth chatter and wrinkled layers crust together from straining out large desert storms whipping the stranded into shape for being plugged into the metal chamber and shot across the downhill affair following the uphill frustration congested breath of life congested heart what a failure.  They bring their organs that harden into a thinner music of persuasion straining to move the waste from between their wrinkled layers.  Thinner music play and die it never fades never fades only another line to strike buttons shift buttons escape resistant to the touch no escape for the return home downhill.




- Max Stoltenberg

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

PAPERCLIPS

Wiping hands of dust and ink hesitating and hesitating but not much before lips tighten and soften to blow more dust out of the bottom of the plastic container where the paperclips reflect dimly dimly they reflect as the dust floats and descends around a desk where the paperclips reflect dimly dimly reflect. Plastic container bottom emerging from the bottom below lips that tighten lips that soften to blow above the plastic container above the bottom of the plastic container where the paperclips reflect dimly dimly they reflect as the dust floats and descends dimly reflecting floating descending dimly dimly they reflect.

Padster: How is that helpful?

Vroof: Did you say something?
Padster: Yes, I said something.
Vroof: Something of use?
Padster: Of course, I was inquiring about the usefulness of what you were doing.
Vroof: The usefulness of what I was doing?
Padster: Forget it. I’m in the mood for a snack.
Vroof: You mean my cleaning the dust out of my paperclips container?
Padster: I am moving on to snacks.
Vroof: Moving on are we?
Padster: I am moving on, you are still over there with your paperclips.
Vroof: So, what you’re doing over there is moving on?
Padster: I guess not if I let you pull me back to the paperclips.
Vroof: I was becoming curious about your moving on to snacks.
Padster: Were you?
Vroof: Was I what?
Padster: Were you curious?
Vroof: Yes, I believe that is the word I used. As a matter of fact, I’ll use it again. Curious.
Padster: Now you're just making it stand out separate from the rest of the group.
Vroof: I believe that is a halfway decent description as I see the lone figure isolated to make the journey as far as the footlights that become the edge of its world where the audience retreats into the darkness on the other side of the planet.  The stray never makes it back as the rest disappear to celebrate at some undisclosed location where they can vomit what little they will never absorb to laugh over one less oddball to worry about upsetting the execution of their performance.
Padster: I'm looking at my shoe and noticing how my foot moves in that way so that it seems the only function it serves is so you can check for any scrapes on the side of the in-step.  When I was small about maybe 4 or 5 my mother got me these black shoes that had these stiff edges.  She used to get so angry when she would discover I had put on 3 or 4 pairs of socks to protect my feet.  She'd rip those extra pairs off and declare that I would break the shoes in and they never did get broken in.  They were always too small and the only one who got broken in was me.  Somehow as I grew and it has always baffled me how old I am now and how many decades have been torn from my grasp that along the way how much I got broken in and would remain small in my feet and my legs and my arms I would somehow get broken in enough to stay small in my chest.  Not a surprise the world or just a small piece of it can't breathe it in just one deep breath to take something in and instead and so instead  it just stays out there. Somehow stay small in my skull.  Not a surprise I get these headaches no room for thinking with staying small.  I try to tell myself I'm not the only one staying small you know.  That has to be the only miracle that genuinely takes place that no matter how much I get old there's this getting broken in and staying small and keeping these stumpish hands to myself like a gadget or some device.  Device is more like it because others at least find gadgets more interesting.

from the bottom below lips that tighten lips that soften to blow above the plastic container above the bottom of the plastic container where the paperclips reflect dimly dimly they reflect as the dust floats and descends dimly reflecting floating descending dimly dimly they reflect.

Vroof: Now, was that helpful or of any use?
Padster: Was what of any use?
Vroof: All that talk.
Padster: You had your talk, too.
Vroof: I believe that, uh, maybe, wait a moment.
Padster: Wait for what?  I want a snack again.
Vroof: Wait.  It'll be here in a minute.
Padster: What will be here?
Vroof: What I was going to say.  I was pretty sure it was going to be useful.
Padster: I can't decide if I want something crunchy or soft.
Vroof: Thought for certain something was going to come out and and and
Padster: And do what?  Do what?
Vroof: It's not showing up or I was misled about some arrival of something.
Padster: Was it that you lost hold of it or it was never there to begin with?  I'm leaning towards something either soft or what was it?
Vroof: It's not clear.  I feel like I was misled about something being there from the start the emergence, you know what I'm trying to get at?
Padster: All I know is that I'm digging through this drawer trying to get at some snacks and I'm not finding any.
Vroof: What I'm getting at is the emergence the start of the emergence.
Padster: What the hell is the start of an emergence?  It emerges doesn't it?  Or it's always emerging or always starting.  Like fits and starts.  After all these years and all this life fits is more like it.  Just one obnoxiously tenacious narrow rivulet of fits.
Vroof: This is your moving on thing?
Padster: Why do you keep asking me like that?
Vroof: Like what?  Like your moving on thing is all about how much horse shit examining your in-step can generate?
Padster: I'd appreciate less questions and more evidence of something freakin' crunchy to flippin' munch on.
Vroof: You should make such statements about questions when you're the one asking what is of what use like some monitor monitoring.
Padster: You have no idea how much I have had to watch my every move since you came into this department.  It was bad enough having the hag before you with the stomach that was dying and peeling the paint off the walls with her mephitic fumes.  The only thing that occupied my mind was imagining what colors her wardrobe came in when she originally purchased them.
Vroof: What every move?  I don't know how you accomplish anything.
Padster: See what I'm talking about?
Vroof: See what?  I glance over in your direction and only manage to catch a brief image of what I thought appeared to be a hole of some sort where all your moving on vanishes into and then the next time I look there's not even a hole not even a brief image not anything suggestive of any image.  
Padster: Was any of that of any use?
Vroof: There you go with your inquiring and investigating.
Padster: I always ask myself whose final decision it was to put you here.
Vroof: You know who.
Padster: I know, but did they really make the final decision?  Who did they consult with?
Vroof: Who put you up to inquiring?  Was it the consultant?
Padster: Nothing crunchy.  Nothing soft.

from the bottom below lips that tighten lips that soften to blow above the plastic container above the bottom of the plastic container where the paperclips reflect dimly dimly they reflect as the dust floats and descends dimly reflecting floating descending dimly dimly they reflect.


- Max Stoltenberg




Saturday, December 10, 2011

ROUGHLY ORDINARY

Roughly so and such as had it in for a couple a couple of encounters or so roughly so.  A noise outside or between or wedged in the midst of a couple a couple of encounters wasting the sand as it pours through chairs sat upon in separate rooms dished out to serve in different times further apart than when they paid little to no attention to each other.  


No wonder and roughly so and such as had it in for a couple a couple of encounters or so roughly so.  Used to have that music made out of leaves some time roughly some time ago that perhaps might roughly sound somewhere else that music almost used to roughly used to and gone somewhere else where it crinkles between pages where it is roughly stored in its polarized and deconstructive fragmenting betwixt roughly and so.  No wonder.


No wonder and roughly so and such as had it in for a couple a couple of encounters or curiosity or so roughly so.  Nominally roughly nominally or so roughly so or dying ink expressed from bitten nipples roughly so into pages employed to support ceilings that sever lower and lower heads.  Nominally roughly numerically or so roughly so subtracting roughly so from nothing of wonder.  No wonder.




- Max Stoltenberg

Friday, December 9, 2011

FALSE STARTS

got there it got there how it got there nut glare shoulder got there it by italicized slanted tilted giving slanted tilted giving giving up and then it got there in time to miss its time to unwrap the giving up into a present of merciless now yet for chimes to bleed the unwrinkling brain into this pool this here there it got here, too as a chasm vanished into the bed skirt once someone's skirt a short close distance to the hard cold floor, too just got there it got here in time to miss its time sometimes too late sometimes too soon a moment just a moment too soon too late just a moment wait too long not long enough for who never said got here it got here in time to grab who never said away in the short close distance to the hard cold floor, too just just got there it got here in time to miss its time as time soaks into the cleaving wood of broken kitchen drawers pulling pushing pulling shoving as contents crash from the front into the back and behind for walls to harbor, too just a moment just just a moment wait too long not long enough for who never said got here it got here in time to grab who never said away in the short close distance to the hard cold floor lies the dislodged tooth and a mouth its dry bottom lip hanging down the short close distance from the bed skirt once someone's skirt where wishes unvoiced gather and freeze at the end of a hose in the back from the front into the back and behind for walls to harbor frigidly reddening eyes as grey skies dim beneath awnings covered in soot and trash adrift on air heavy with discouragement's belches covering the streets in the atmosphere's drool, too here how it got here also also here got here already here and gone and said and unsaid and done and back here into the back and behind for walls to harbor in this stagnant harbor blemishes rise to the surface of her skirt and a mouth its dry bottom lip hanging down the short close distance from the bed skirt once someone's skirt where wishes unvoiced and her wishes their reprimands drag feet down the short close distance to the hard cold floor where wishes unvoiced gather and freeze at the end of a hose in the back from the front into the back and behind for walls to harbor frigidly reddening eyes as grey skies dim beneath awnings covered in soot and trash adrift on air heavy with discouragement's belches covering the streets in the atmosphere's drool.




- Max Stoltenberg

Monday, December 5, 2011

THROUGH THIN AND THIN

Towards the door
Knob now in the shoe
Cracking balls
of feet


Losing interest
in
what was 
an it
of some
sort


Dead roaches fill pockets
Falling out along with 
pens


Don't think this will be
Of any use to anyone


Walking down hallways
Of whatever building
happens to be the compensating
chewing of the tongue
at the time
for squinting


Is this what is wanted?
Nothing is wanted
until another sign
is pinned into the skin
wear that
wear this


until the smell 
gets a room
of lonely small
shrinking back
sneezing forwards


these lines
dusty lines
thin and thin hairs
only triggered 
by the desperate fingers
of the expiring wind




- Max Stoltenberg

Saturday, December 3, 2011

IN OTHER WORDS

In other words it's as before undoing what has been done so that it needs to be done again in other words repeated so as to put another nature over the last one and call it something else while it has an odor that questions work and home in other words something else has landed on the desk in other words fallen out of someone else's back door onto the desk in other words on the bed been in the pillow digging deep into the right ear left ear in other words in other directions in other words didn't read the directions on the other hand in other words the same hand the one that does the job when bathrooms are somewhere else in the same location a few more times will do it until the cat and its contortions bring with them images of vomited fur balls in other words amputated hands just the hand the same hand the one that does the job when bathrooms are somewhere else in the same location shower curtain fantasy theater closed due to complications in other words deleting all those items deleted before in other words it's as before undoing what has been done so that it needs to be done again in other words repeated so as to put another nature over the last one and call it something else while it has an odor that questions work and home in other words something else has landed on the desk in other words fallen out of someone's else back door on the bed been in the pillow digging deep into the right ear left ear in other words in other directions in other words or the same words digging for clues digging for what was buried digging in the sand at the beach until the sand becomes darker is that where she was is that where she was seen walking by like a brush stroke in a painting one brush stroke that somehow set things right for getting off course in other words it was off course from that point on in other words more off course than the deflection that curved sharper with every breath in other words the texture of the brush stroke in other words the dress she wore in other words the way the waves of the brush stroke rose and fell along her body and collapsed the most deeply into her eyes where it could all end and just ended up collected in a sink drain in other words green and orange in other words peas and carrots in other words little cubes in other words of existence in organic living spaces hewn into tiny little spaces in other words where a face once thought beautiful was soft and blurry and awkward with self-conscious in other words not one's own words from mouths that obscured eyes where everything could descend where it could all end and just collected in a sink drain lying there as a face once beautiful changed into someone else's telephone poles in other words tall thin towers dug deep into the corners of eyes blinking with mucus for suppuration that goes unanswered in other words back on track to follow along the cracks in the mind knocking on the forehead with a fist emptied of questions no point just knocking on the forehead to check on the growing number of cracks in the mind knocking sometimes on the skull above the left ear in other words right ear in other directions without directions dosages too large in words too small to read knocking on the skull checking on the growing number of cracks in the mind in other words checking if anyone is still home or work in other words an odor no longer making one question when fists have been emptied of them as they knock in other words repeating things as to put another nature over the last one and call it something else in other words it needs to be done again things need to be done again in other words it's as before undoing things that have been done.




- Max Stoltenberg