Frogs had a part in it or perhaps rips in shirt sleeves catching on another collapse another faltering no patience too much patience ignorance is on the way it's coming why bother the tubes to the bags bring more ignorance is on the way. Stuff and something else it was on the list somewhere or the list was somewhere went somewhere was supposed to be going somewhere getting some turned the page over for more and it was gone between turning it over between glimpses of pieces of words with pictures with pieces to start to continue lips on knuckles elbows trembling with sighs from next door's arrivals and departures adjacent to the opposite catching of the next drift. Why bother the tubes to the bags bring more they bring more ignorance ignorance is on the way.
“I guess I didn’t want any,” said Skids looking away from the clods of rice.
“You guess?” asked Rugklam with frustration and thoughts of gazebos toppled over on their sides in the desert.
“That’s the best I can do,” replied Skids turning back to the discolored rice with a glare.
“How long are you going to keep on passing up what we find?” asked Rugklam lifting and tilting his right foot to allow a rock to dislodge and slide off the back of his slipper.
“Do you remember the music store that closed a couple of years ago?” asked Skids suddenly with fascination.
“It was more than a couple,” answered Rugklam having to shake out a companion rock off his slipper as well.
“Whatever,” quipped Skids, “they had one of those displays that – what did they call them?”
“An endcap?”
“No, not an endcap. It was free-standing.”
“A free-standing endcap.”
“No! I’ll have your ear lobes. Even though I’ve no use for them, I’ll pull down on them both like dismantling a shower curtain,” growled Skids standing with his hands at his sides while his thumbs and index fingers practiced their pincer grip.
“You can have them since you’ve pissed on my offer of rice,” said Rugklam.
“You call that an offer? We haven’t had rice in so long long long a time and the only rice that can be discovered doesn’t have any precursors to any hints of any coming attractions of any molecules of rice fragments resembling anything the color of white,” Skids retorted.
“Just pretend it’s wild rice,” said Rugklam badly hopping on one leg to vainly remove a third rock (a pebble) this time.
“I should have said tearing off your lobes would be like dismantling a tremendous movie curtain,” Skids reconsidered.
“Or you could act as if it’s domesticated rice with yellow food coloring number 23 unless that evokes shades of urine, but that shouldn’t matter since you’ve already voided yourself on my idea. The chicken or the egg has been forever replaced by pseudo-friends or others taking the initiative to expedite the spoilage of one’s ideas. If that doesn’t suit your fancy try brown food coloring number 161 in spite of its suggesting some other modality of decorating that snakes its way from the depths of one’s gut,” stated Rugklam attempting to recall a poem that began with references to a lake fouled with ethylene glycol underneath a diborane gas cloud (sheep drifting past a billboard plastered with the latest algae product line).
“One of those towering big red movie theater curtains, you know what I mean?” said Skids enthusiastically gesturing with his outstretched arms.
“Careful or you’ll flip our house,” warned Rugklam.
“Don’t come between me and my long-sought father’s approval,” announced Skids.
“I thought you didn’t give a shit,” asked Rugklam reminiscing of days of old before nothing but desert to the horizon when weeks were filled with bland days of rain (filed between sloppy penmanship and deformities) and a sharp corner of a heavy wooden desk to impale one’s forehead.
“Oh, that’s right. What would I do without you to help keep me focused on my indifference,” said Skids thankfully.
“Haven’t I always told you to get out more and form at least one other relationship, one other relationship besides me, one other relationship per decade,” reminded Rugklam.
“You do nag,” commented Skids swatting at a cloud of gnats.
“Then think about it on those nights when you can’t sleep and your nose doesn’t bleed so much so I don’t have to go through my lecture once again,” implored Rugklam.
“You know I can’t curl up into my corner without my carbon steel ice pick to clear my nasal allergies and lull me to sleep and forego the need to keep a calendar or a bowel movement log,” said Skids plagued with the inescapable image of the TV tumbling down the flight of stairs (a slice of mildew is too much to ask).
“I thought you promised to stop that whittling through the blasted face mask to get at the carotid. Sounds like you want the lecture after all,” declared Rugklam.
“The one about the psychological benefits to be reaped from investing in the speculations of relationship and its derivatives?” inquired Skids.
“That’s the lecture,” confirmed Rugklam eying a rather large roach.
“The one that opens with the joke about the prostitute and coffeemaker?” Skids checked to make sure.
“A poem. It opens with a poem about about the one that makes reference to a lake,” corrected Rugklam continuing to follow the rather large roach that seemed to have expanded in size.
“A lake?” asked Skids.
“A polluted lake,” replied Rugklam distracted by the word barf in his skull (pointy corner of a hard solid heavy wooden desk).
“Industrial hazardous waste?” inquired Skids.
“Yes, that the lecture,” bragged Rugklam, "can't say I'm familiar with the one about the prostitute and the coffeemaker" (impale forehead here).
“Well, there’s your problem. It’s your ingredients for oratory for hanging over an audience of one. I’ll not have it. The carbon steel ice pick comes to join me this very evening,” insisted Skids.
“You will have it. That’s all you and I do is have it. You’ll put it off, but just for a short while until you listen to it again, all of it again. You’re trying not to think right now of the parts the ones where I’ll lay it on extra thick in the absence of crisp toast and you’ll play right along again. You’ll be my crisp toast. You’ll be it right out as far as the crust. That’s as far as you can extend yourself,” wheezed Rugklam.
“Should’ve described dismantling a colossal movie theater curtain,” lamented Skids.
“Are you trying to scurry uselessly around inside that festering head of yours?” muttered Rugklam.
“Bringing down a movie theater curtain works much better than a shower curtain,” insisted Skids.
“You’ve let your priorities sink into the tainted lake and thereby have missed out on the opportunity all the opportunities for relationship like the restorative sinking of one's teeth into a thick tall sandwich and all its layers."
“Relationship has done it's job of reciprocating with it's own bite. Clamped with all of its influence down on these lips. When will I no longer be able to utter another word? Don't know if I can get my poisoned tongue out from between the ricin and mercury.”
“Mercury. You think yourself some messenger spluttering forth words to peel away appearances. You’re nothing but a thief and after all I’ve done for you. This skin won’t shed any faster than you’d like it to. You and I will just have to content ourselves with a fermenting body that won’t empty fast enough.”
From "The Prostitute and the Coffeemaker"
Testy she's testy
He's testy as well
His testes making another pot
She's making another pot
A pot shot at the design
or lack thereof
wretched black and blueprints
Filling in the things tough all over
Swinging lower than usual
Might hit the greasy tile
Why
Congested dishwasher
Nobody has any reason
to ignore what's been
what's been under
under
Why
of all the miles of dirt
miles of death
their deaths
can't get the goat
his tired sick head
in this dirty lap
out in the miles
of dirt
dust storm obscures
the setting sun
why
another day of
his tired sick head
in this dirty lap
out in the miles
of dirt
dust storm obscures
the setting sun
why
another day of
his tired sick head
these hands
drop things today
and tomorrow
twitching with the ebbing
and the ebbing
can't get the goat
his tired sick head
in this dirty lap
out in the miles
of dirt
dust storm obscures
the setting sun
“Dismantling a shower curtain is so intrusive like invading someone’s privacy.”
“Invading someone’s privacy, where are we going to find some food? There was nothing else in the dumpster. We’ll have to go farther, and you’ve never liked that.”
“They used to have these displays that had music on them that you could rotate around and around. And I would go in there and turn that display around and around and find the same stuff. I’d come back and spin that thing and come across the same pieces. Then I’d have to talk myself into waiting longer giving them more time and then come back after weeks after months turning that display around and around and still find the same stuff. Curled up with my carbon steel ice pick and my bleeding nostrils carotid nearby or trying not to tip this shanty over or walking on and on between places on and on between turning that display around and around and having another rotation of this thing this Earth to talk myself into.”
- Max Stoltenberg
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